Post by Gigachad on Jan 1, 2022 17:50:17 GMT
Invilis Corridor-Near Garren's Clarity
"I fucking told you we shouldn't have taken so much" Constatino exclaimed,hands clasped around his head.
"Are you kidding me? Every drop of ancerium is worth a fortune now! I'll be damned if I don't fill this ship to the brim" Dylan replied,arms crossed and a stern expression on his visage.
"Well now we're out of fuel you fucking moron! We're over capacity and can barely move at a snail's pace!"
"Relax,fusion fuel's easy to come by. I got some of the boys to man craft and go looking for comets" He pointed to their scanners,which indeed showed small vessels toiling some five AUs from their current position.
"Once they find a good catch,we'll plop that ice in the reactor and turn the torch back on."
"That's not the problem. You just had us come out of ftl in the middle of bumfuck nowhere,with no fuel to our engine. You know there's pirates everywhere these days,and they're especially interested in what we got"
"Stop being paranoid,what're the odds of us specifically being targeted? It'll be an easy gig,sell this stuff,pay off the crew and go live in mansions for the rest of our days"
The captain would no doubt come to regret his words,as no sooner than he uttered them,a series of ftl signatures appeared on their scanners. Ten vessels,most ramshackle,tough one looked like an old triarch model. Still,they were armed and closing in fast,activating interdiction as soon as they arrived.
"Shit! We gotta eject the ancerium!" Constantino shouted,running to the controls and slamming a fist onto the release mechanism. Their hull rumbled for a moment,but the computers showed they were still filled to the brim.
"What the fuck?! Work you piece of shit!" He shouted,pressing the button repeatedly to no avail.
The pirates meanwhile,already launched a volley of missiles at their unfortunate quarry. Laser nodes came online,but they were of questionable quality and meant to vaporize micro debris,not hit unpredictable projectiles. Only one or two of the nukes were actually stopped while the rest hit their main engines full stop,reducing the back of their ship to slag and leaving them unable to move;they were stranded.
As if the universe was out to spit in their faces on this day,the craft they had sent looking for fuel fled for their lives shortly after,being well outside of the interdiction bubble and being equipped with drives meant for emergencies.
………..
Michael was busy fixing a series of faulty lights in a storage room when the impact knocked him off his ladder,followed shortly by the light panel just barely missing his face and shattering on the floor.
He ran out into the corridor,seeing other people making their way towards the cantine.
"What the fuck's going on?!" He tapped another man on the shoulder,revealing a terrified expression on his face.
"Reavers just took out our engines! Everyone's gathering in the cantine for when they board" He replied before another impact knocked them both off their feet,followed by another,then another….
Boarding pods,and from the looks of it they were rather close to their location. The two men broke into a sprint,making it to the chamber where hundreds had already gathered. He was surprised with just how armed everyone was,as a good portion of people has either some sort of assault rifle or handgun,these were tragic times indeed. The rest had to equip themselves with whatever they could and helped to build barricades facing the bulkheads.
Things were not right. Soon after they had finished their preparations,they began hearing heavy footsteps across the halls,much too heavy to belong to a man,they wagered. Gunshots soon erupted,followed by screaming,yet that only proved to be another sign of concern. They sounded nothing like anything that fired bullets,which is what the vast majority of raiders used,being cheap and reliable.
The last thing that alarmed them was the sparks of plasma torches at their doors,working to weaken them loose. They had expected their assailants to simply blow them open with explosives,but they were awfully careful. Still,this worked in their favour,letting them like up in firing positions at each entrance,preparing for the gunfight to come.
When those doors were pried loose,it wasn't screaming lunatics that came for them. The crewmen opened fire on hulking figures wreathed in power armour. They walked right through the barrage of cheap shells and just powered through the piled tables and obstacles,bringing up their own strange weapons before letting loose bolts of plasma that turned crewmen to red mist.
Suffice to say,their organised resistance soon turned into them scrambling like rats in a cage. Michael fixed his eyes on a maintenance vent,perhaps his best option at escape. While bolting for it,one of the figures rammed into him hard enough to make him lose balance. Looking up,he saw them holding him at gunpoint,before another crewman hit the figures back with a fire axe. Suffice to say,aside from creating a few sparks on impact,the strike just bounced off. It did however grab the assailant's attention,who promptly grabbed the man by the neck and crushed his throat like a soda can. Predictably,when it turned around Dylan had vanished among the chaos of the ongoing slaughter.
He had made it to the vent,quickly unscrewing the panel with one of his tools before scrambling inside. The battle behind him grew distant as he quickly crawled through the claustrophobic space,noticing more of the figures running around through a pane below,accompanied by less bulky but still well equipped soldiers.
"Jesus,just who the fuck are these guys?" He mumbled to himself,continuing until he saw another man below in what seemed to be a storage room,tinkering with the wires at an open panel.
"Hey,up here" He whispered,though his call seemed to not deter his fellow crewman.
"Look up,you idiot!" He raised his voice slightly,finally making the person looked up. Dylan was somewhat unsettled by what he saw,the guy's expression was blank,with eyes that may as well have belonged to a corpse given their stillness.
"What are you doing in there?! You gotta hide before they come looking"
The man merely returned to his work,once again ignoring him. His heart stopped when the bulkhead behind the crewman opened,placing his hands up to his mouth in order to steady his breathing.
Sure enough,one of the nimbler soldiers came through,placing a more familiar looking rifle against his back.
"On your knees,chump. Hands behind your back." The man obliged,being promptly followed by the soldier grabbing him and dragging him with one hand,Dylan noticing some kind of powered exoskeleton over his armour that no doubt allowed him to do this.
He continued crawling,coming upon another grate that showed two of the power armored goons standing about.
"Where do you think the captain's gonna sell these guys? Eclipso or Halora?"
"We got alot of 'em this time,so I'd say both."
Suddenly,the ship rumbled,beginning to move again shortly afterwards.
"Looks like we got this thing towed. Alright,let's make sure none of them stowed away"
Lithorian outpost-Eatov System
Ka'nod chuckled as he watched the feeds of the probes,the harvester was fully within the grasp of the Dark Hegemony,being hauled away as if it were a twisted trophy. Soon enough,it disappeared behind the veil of a collective warp bubble,off to whatever fate the organization had in store for them.
"Good news,I presume?" Naz'kid inquired,sliding her way into the chamber.
"Better than good. The fools took the bait,most of our infiltrators were taken alive and I can feel their psionic presence without issue. All that is left is to follow them,learn what we need and finally crush unlawful activity in this sector."
"Understood. I will muster the others and prepare the fleet"
"I fucking told you we shouldn't have taken so much" Constatino exclaimed,hands clasped around his head.
"Are you kidding me? Every drop of ancerium is worth a fortune now! I'll be damned if I don't fill this ship to the brim" Dylan replied,arms crossed and a stern expression on his visage.
"Well now we're out of fuel you fucking moron! We're over capacity and can barely move at a snail's pace!"
"Relax,fusion fuel's easy to come by. I got some of the boys to man craft and go looking for comets" He pointed to their scanners,which indeed showed small vessels toiling some five AUs from their current position.
"Once they find a good catch,we'll plop that ice in the reactor and turn the torch back on."
"That's not the problem. You just had us come out of ftl in the middle of bumfuck nowhere,with no fuel to our engine. You know there's pirates everywhere these days,and they're especially interested in what we got"
"Stop being paranoid,what're the odds of us specifically being targeted? It'll be an easy gig,sell this stuff,pay off the crew and go live in mansions for the rest of our days"
The captain would no doubt come to regret his words,as no sooner than he uttered them,a series of ftl signatures appeared on their scanners. Ten vessels,most ramshackle,tough one looked like an old triarch model. Still,they were armed and closing in fast,activating interdiction as soon as they arrived.
"Shit! We gotta eject the ancerium!" Constantino shouted,running to the controls and slamming a fist onto the release mechanism. Their hull rumbled for a moment,but the computers showed they were still filled to the brim.
"What the fuck?! Work you piece of shit!" He shouted,pressing the button repeatedly to no avail.
The pirates meanwhile,already launched a volley of missiles at their unfortunate quarry. Laser nodes came online,but they were of questionable quality and meant to vaporize micro debris,not hit unpredictable projectiles. Only one or two of the nukes were actually stopped while the rest hit their main engines full stop,reducing the back of their ship to slag and leaving them unable to move;they were stranded.
As if the universe was out to spit in their faces on this day,the craft they had sent looking for fuel fled for their lives shortly after,being well outside of the interdiction bubble and being equipped with drives meant for emergencies.
………..
Michael was busy fixing a series of faulty lights in a storage room when the impact knocked him off his ladder,followed shortly by the light panel just barely missing his face and shattering on the floor.
He ran out into the corridor,seeing other people making their way towards the cantine.
"What the fuck's going on?!" He tapped another man on the shoulder,revealing a terrified expression on his face.
"Reavers just took out our engines! Everyone's gathering in the cantine for when they board" He replied before another impact knocked them both off their feet,followed by another,then another….
Boarding pods,and from the looks of it they were rather close to their location. The two men broke into a sprint,making it to the chamber where hundreds had already gathered. He was surprised with just how armed everyone was,as a good portion of people has either some sort of assault rifle or handgun,these were tragic times indeed. The rest had to equip themselves with whatever they could and helped to build barricades facing the bulkheads.
Things were not right. Soon after they had finished their preparations,they began hearing heavy footsteps across the halls,much too heavy to belong to a man,they wagered. Gunshots soon erupted,followed by screaming,yet that only proved to be another sign of concern. They sounded nothing like anything that fired bullets,which is what the vast majority of raiders used,being cheap and reliable.
The last thing that alarmed them was the sparks of plasma torches at their doors,working to weaken them loose. They had expected their assailants to simply blow them open with explosives,but they were awfully careful. Still,this worked in their favour,letting them like up in firing positions at each entrance,preparing for the gunfight to come.
When those doors were pried loose,it wasn't screaming lunatics that came for them. The crewmen opened fire on hulking figures wreathed in power armour. They walked right through the barrage of cheap shells and just powered through the piled tables and obstacles,bringing up their own strange weapons before letting loose bolts of plasma that turned crewmen to red mist.
Suffice to say,their organised resistance soon turned into them scrambling like rats in a cage. Michael fixed his eyes on a maintenance vent,perhaps his best option at escape. While bolting for it,one of the figures rammed into him hard enough to make him lose balance. Looking up,he saw them holding him at gunpoint,before another crewman hit the figures back with a fire axe. Suffice to say,aside from creating a few sparks on impact,the strike just bounced off. It did however grab the assailant's attention,who promptly grabbed the man by the neck and crushed his throat like a soda can. Predictably,when it turned around Dylan had vanished among the chaos of the ongoing slaughter.
He had made it to the vent,quickly unscrewing the panel with one of his tools before scrambling inside. The battle behind him grew distant as he quickly crawled through the claustrophobic space,noticing more of the figures running around through a pane below,accompanied by less bulky but still well equipped soldiers.
"Jesus,just who the fuck are these guys?" He mumbled to himself,continuing until he saw another man below in what seemed to be a storage room,tinkering with the wires at an open panel.
"Hey,up here" He whispered,though his call seemed to not deter his fellow crewman.
"Look up,you idiot!" He raised his voice slightly,finally making the person looked up. Dylan was somewhat unsettled by what he saw,the guy's expression was blank,with eyes that may as well have belonged to a corpse given their stillness.
"What are you doing in there?! You gotta hide before they come looking"
The man merely returned to his work,once again ignoring him. His heart stopped when the bulkhead behind the crewman opened,placing his hands up to his mouth in order to steady his breathing.
Sure enough,one of the nimbler soldiers came through,placing a more familiar looking rifle against his back.
"On your knees,chump. Hands behind your back." The man obliged,being promptly followed by the soldier grabbing him and dragging him with one hand,Dylan noticing some kind of powered exoskeleton over his armour that no doubt allowed him to do this.
He continued crawling,coming upon another grate that showed two of the power armored goons standing about.
"Where do you think the captain's gonna sell these guys? Eclipso or Halora?"
"We got alot of 'em this time,so I'd say both."
Suddenly,the ship rumbled,beginning to move again shortly afterwards.
"Looks like we got this thing towed. Alright,let's make sure none of them stowed away"
Lithorian outpost-Eatov System
Ka'nod chuckled as he watched the feeds of the probes,the harvester was fully within the grasp of the Dark Hegemony,being hauled away as if it were a twisted trophy. Soon enough,it disappeared behind the veil of a collective warp bubble,off to whatever fate the organization had in store for them.
"Good news,I presume?" Naz'kid inquired,sliding her way into the chamber.
"Better than good. The fools took the bait,most of our infiltrators were taken alive and I can feel their psionic presence without issue. All that is left is to follow them,learn what we need and finally crush unlawful activity in this sector."
"Understood. I will muster the others and prepare the fleet"