The soldiers froze when they saw Kallenger slice the phone in two.
-Oh **** ! TAKE COVER !
The soldiers immediately ducked, even if three of them fell to the ground, isntantly incapacitated by Kallenger's unexpected shots, the rest got into cover just in time as the contained black hole powering the device detonated, releasing a tremendeous shock wave, not enough to kill somone well armored, but enough to send everything standing into the air.
[There you go Iril, that way, you won't even have to propel youreself.]
-Oh **** ! TAKE COVER !
The soldiers immediately ducked, even if three of them fell to the ground, isntantly incapacitated by Kallenger's unexpected shots, the rest got into cover just in time as the contained black hole powering the device detonated, releasing a tremendeous shock wave, not enough to kill somone well armored, but enough to send everything standing into the air.
[There you go Iril, that way, you won't even have to propel youreself.]
The sudden explosions and gunfire startled Iril just slightly, but as Papyus landed on top of her, she saw that the soldiers holding rockets had been expertly taken care of. The chaotic situation was escalating, but now that the rockets were down, Iril had a little less pressure on her position.
She heard everything Papyus said to Kallenger, and as soon as Papyus had tapped on Iril's head, she had Iril's immediate attention. She couldn't see who was giving her orders, but the way the Colonel referred to Iril as "Old Girl" gave her enough reason to trust what she was saying.
Escape? Fair enough. She wasn't about to let some crazed madman get a hold of her.
Take the others? Okay, she was willing to do that, even against their will.
Plow through the soldiers?
Iril had a much better idea.
As the miniature black hole emitted it's shockwave, everything seemed to jolt into the air. Soldiers, dirt, and even Iril herself were momentarily suspended.
"Orders received. Modifying." She said from force of habit. Still a few strings of code she had failed to erase from her testing-years. Iril's arms reached out, grabbing Kallenger, Toffi, Cox, and Colonel Papyus, placing them onto her head and shoulders whether they liked it or not.
Iril managed to land on her feet, sending dirt and debris up in the air around her. From the temporary cover, her arms lashed out to either side, grabbing the nearest soldiers, forcefully bringing them face first into each other, and then throwing their bodies at other downed soldiers with tremendous force. Whoever stood in her way would be thrown aside, or worse, thrown into something else. Hoping that Kallenger and the others would use her as high-ground for the moment, Iril began to move towards the Jungle as fast as she could.
Not fast enough. Ahead of her, Iril could see soldiers reaching for the anti-tank rockets. Other soldiers who had been thrown in the air by the blast regained their footing and their guns. To simply run through them would be an extreme risk to her and her "passengers"
"Hold on tight, everyone!"Iril said aloud. She felt gunfire start to pelt across her. No time to lose.
[EXECUTE CODE 509]
Iril's body crouched down lower to the ground, her arms retracted significantly, while her hands still managed to lay flat across the dirt. A surge of power to her arms, and they stretched out with great force.
Enough force to push Iril upward.
Sending up debris behind her, Iril's arms had acted as springs to send her flying above the ground. Her arms retracted back to normal length shortly after she became airborne. Hundreds of lines of code streamed through her system as 509 finished.
[EXECUTE CODE 276]. Iril's right arm sprung outward towards the jungle canopy, her single hand getting ready to grab onto anything it could.
Success, Iril had grabbed onto a strong tree limb. Her arm now acted like a grappling hook, quickly pulling Her, Kallenger, Toffi, Cox, as well as the Colonel into the deep jungle.
As soon as Iril hit the ground, she once again made sure that everyone was holding on tight.
"That went quite well" Iril said before continuing their escape.
She was running as fast as her legs could take her, machinery groaning and arms on the ready to move obstacles or occasionally swing above them on tree branches.
Iril only hoped she was going fast enough.
She heard everything Papyus said to Kallenger, and as soon as Papyus had tapped on Iril's head, she had Iril's immediate attention. She couldn't see who was giving her orders, but the way the Colonel referred to Iril as "Old Girl" gave her enough reason to trust what she was saying.
Escape? Fair enough. She wasn't about to let some crazed madman get a hold of her.
Take the others? Okay, she was willing to do that, even against their will.
Plow through the soldiers?
Iril had a much better idea.
As the miniature black hole emitted it's shockwave, everything seemed to jolt into the air. Soldiers, dirt, and even Iril herself were momentarily suspended.
"Orders received. Modifying." She said from force of habit. Still a few strings of code she had failed to erase from her testing-years. Iril's arms reached out, grabbing Kallenger, Toffi, Cox, and Colonel Papyus, placing them onto her head and shoulders whether they liked it or not.
Iril managed to land on her feet, sending dirt and debris up in the air around her. From the temporary cover, her arms lashed out to either side, grabbing the nearest soldiers, forcefully bringing them face first into each other, and then throwing their bodies at other downed soldiers with tremendous force. Whoever stood in her way would be thrown aside, or worse, thrown into something else. Hoping that Kallenger and the others would use her as high-ground for the moment, Iril began to move towards the Jungle as fast as she could.
Not fast enough. Ahead of her, Iril could see soldiers reaching for the anti-tank rockets. Other soldiers who had been thrown in the air by the blast regained their footing and their guns. To simply run through them would be an extreme risk to her and her "passengers"
"Hold on tight, everyone!"Iril said aloud. She felt gunfire start to pelt across her. No time to lose.
[EXECUTE CODE 509]
Iril's body crouched down lower to the ground, her arms retracted significantly, while her hands still managed to lay flat across the dirt. A surge of power to her arms, and they stretched out with great force.
Enough force to push Iril upward.
Sending up debris behind her, Iril's arms had acted as springs to send her flying above the ground. Her arms retracted back to normal length shortly after she became airborne. Hundreds of lines of code streamed through her system as 509 finished.
[EXECUTE CODE 276]. Iril's right arm sprung outward towards the jungle canopy, her single hand getting ready to grab onto anything it could.
Success, Iril had grabbed onto a strong tree limb. Her arm now acted like a grappling hook, quickly pulling Her, Kallenger, Toffi, Cox, as well as the Colonel into the deep jungle.
As soon as Iril hit the ground, she once again made sure that everyone was holding on tight.
"That went quite well" Iril said before continuing their escape.
She was running as fast as her legs could take her, machinery groaning and arms on the ready to move obstacles or occasionally swing above them on tree branches.
Iril only hoped she was going fast enough.
Too fast, everything happened much too fast. Helen's day had went from surveying old Empire ruins, to nuclear plants going critical and all that would bring, to being roped under the command of a S-class agent...now they had been ambushed, with that ambush being ambushed and then to a sudden firefight, smoke bombs going off all around the soldiers of the second ambush.
Helen had brought her weapon around to fire upon the rocket wielding soldiers, only to see them going down from some other means. After firing on the soldiers closest to her original, she hears Kallenger's orders to fall on her. Turning to follow Kallenger, whatever had powered the phone that had been destroyed detonated and Helen was airborne. Considering how little she had moved from where the phone had landed, Helen is sent flying for a considerable distance she had been moving, enough to place her outside of the ambush circle in the clearing anyways.
It wasn't the first time she had even been thrown by an explosion and it wouldn't be the last, but it was the first time she had been standing within five feet of said throwing explosion. It honestly did not hurt nearly as bad as she had imagined, at least until her face found something solid again with darkness following after it. Helen's face had roughly found part of Iril's chassis as she was plucked out of mid-fall.
Helen had brought her weapon around to fire upon the rocket wielding soldiers, only to see them going down from some other means. After firing on the soldiers closest to her original, she hears Kallenger's orders to fall on her. Turning to follow Kallenger, whatever had powered the phone that had been destroyed detonated and Helen was airborne. Considering how little she had moved from where the phone had landed, Helen is sent flying for a considerable distance she had been moving, enough to place her outside of the ambush circle in the clearing anyways.
It wasn't the first time she had even been thrown by an explosion and it wouldn't be the last, but it was the first time she had been standing within five feet of said throwing explosion. It honestly did not hurt nearly as bad as she had imagined, at least until her face found something solid again with darkness following after it. Helen's face had roughly found part of Iril's chassis as she was plucked out of mid-fall.
Gagged partly at the surprising grip from behind hid back, not having enough time after his ears had flicked, hearing and recognizing some movement happening behind his back. He'd only have a small movement done towards the incoming movement so that he'd have seen who it was and what was coming, but his eyes were a bit too trained onto the soldiers for him to notice Kallenger. And onto the ground he went, head first even. A nice hard hit.
The knee pressing on his neck was felt alright, pressing the last of the air he had still inside of him after having hit the ground. Quite a sum of rough handling. He could hardly feel Kallenger pulling him up or shoving him forward, his head feeling clouded and his legs growing numb, somehow he'd stumple forward with the strength and motion given by the shove and afterwards the shockwave - most likely causing him to be splatted against Iril, as getting to that scary thing was supposedly their goal at the moment.
Things were happening far too quickly though, again. From spaceships to nuclear explosions to this in a span of only a few hours. Yeah, not nearly enough time for him to really recover from it all.
The canid likely passed out halfway during their escape attempt. What a great way to add to his usefulness. Unless someone was keeping an eye on him, it was possible the German would be dropped off during the ride.
The knee pressing on his neck was felt alright, pressing the last of the air he had still inside of him after having hit the ground. Quite a sum of rough handling. He could hardly feel Kallenger pulling him up or shoving him forward, his head feeling clouded and his legs growing numb, somehow he'd stumple forward with the strength and motion given by the shove and afterwards the shockwave - most likely causing him to be splatted against Iril, as getting to that scary thing was supposedly their goal at the moment.
Things were happening far too quickly though, again. From spaceships to nuclear explosions to this in a span of only a few hours. Yeah, not nearly enough time for him to really recover from it all.
The canid likely passed out halfway during their escape attempt. What a great way to add to his usefulness. Unless someone was keeping an eye on him, it was possible the German would be dropped off during the ride.
The EXIs froze.
They were monitoring the star photosphere, having spoted some anomalies, and weren't paying attention to the battlefield until Harry was hit, the second that happened, all of their attention was focused on the enemies.
Epsilon's hologram detonated as she took control of one of the soldiers, immediately opening fire on the flying robot, she grabbed the handle of her host gauss riffle before pulling it out, she aimed and with perfect accuracy, shot the robot in the shoulder with a round capable of blasting a tank into pieces, taking out the robot's right arm, two rockets came into view, one hitting the tree's trunk right next to the robot and the other crashing into the vegetation ahead of them, setting the forest on fire.
As she did that, two other possessed soldiers opened fire with their sniper riffles, piercing the robot's armor but dealing only minor damage, and the two last possessed soldier used their normal riffles, aiming for the passenger, successfully hiting Kallenger in the right leg and riddling Papyus' coat with bullets.
Epsilon threw her gauss riffle before unholstering her host's revolver and unloading it in the already distant form of the crippled robot, which had successfully landed in the forest, unfortunately, she wasn't sure if she managed to land a hit.
The four other EXIs continued firing as a soldier began reloading Epsilon's gauss riffle, all around her irised lights started to appear as the soldiers activated their personal shields, she then turned around and saw Harry, suprisingly intact.
Unlike the other soldiers, Harry and Andrew had such reflexes that they dodged the bullets, managing to avoid being hit by anything, but the same couldn't be said for their men, who were clearly not expecting such a ripost.
They had loose 14 mens, 14 mens ! 6 incapacitated by Kallenger, 5 with her revolver (Andrew avoiding the last bullet in-extremis) and one with her sword, 1 soldiers wielding a rocket launcher, taken down by Papyus' knife (the second one was hit in the leg as he tried to dodge), 6 by this god damn robot (3 by the crush and throw, Harry avoiding the soldier that was thrown at him, and 3 others being simply thrown out of the way as they were uselessly riddling the robot's armor with bullets) and one final soldier was taken down by a lucky shot from the GE soldier.
Who were left were : Harry, Andrew, Eleana, Anedia, Santos, Boborantos and Samantha (or Sam, for short), only Harry and Andrew weren't possessed.
As all of them began running after their targets, Harry opened a channel to Helen's transmitter.
-S-Class Special Agent R. Kallenger this S-Class Special Agent Commander H. C. Rosenfield from Extraction Team Gamma, stand down, I repeat, stand down ! You just attacked your allies ! We are here to retrieve you to Command ! Why the hell did you attacked us ? Are you with them ? With the Dimensional Lords ? How could you ? You betrayed us all !
In the meantime...
Sygma-Class Battleship Armstrong, Ardella's atmosphere.
Lavender hit the red ALARM button on the board with all of his strenght when he received the surface squad's info in his APEX system.
-MEN ! BATTLESTATIONS ! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK !
Crew members began running through the ship as Lanyan activated his ship's interphone.
-To all ground units ! To your assigned assault vehicle ! Prepare for imminent ground assault ! All air units ! Get ready for takeoff ! Aerlia 1 and 2 ! Immediate take-off for air strike and air support !
-Roger that ! Moving out !
Two Aerlia (TMR2-22-45-25-75 Super-fighter) got out from the hangars, the Aerlia were the most perfectionnated fighters ever made, they were artifacts from an unknown civilization, they were completely undestructible, had enough firepower to destroy everything in their way and so many systems and weapons that the C.E.L.L. hadn't even found how to use most of them, they were silents and detectable only by visual contact, for scanners and radar, they didn't existed, they were also the only known object that could past lightspeed and not be obliterated.
Whoever were those idiots, they were dead.
The screen let out a blip as he displayed this :
ETA : 2 mins
Air Force Group 1 ETA : 30 seconds
Orders : Eliminate All Targets, No Survivors.
[Solaria and Malcom's part later]
They were monitoring the star photosphere, having spoted some anomalies, and weren't paying attention to the battlefield until Harry was hit, the second that happened, all of their attention was focused on the enemies.
Epsilon's hologram detonated as she took control of one of the soldiers, immediately opening fire on the flying robot, she grabbed the handle of her host gauss riffle before pulling it out, she aimed and with perfect accuracy, shot the robot in the shoulder with a round capable of blasting a tank into pieces, taking out the robot's right arm, two rockets came into view, one hitting the tree's trunk right next to the robot and the other crashing into the vegetation ahead of them, setting the forest on fire.
As she did that, two other possessed soldiers opened fire with their sniper riffles, piercing the robot's armor but dealing only minor damage, and the two last possessed soldier used their normal riffles, aiming for the passenger, successfully hiting Kallenger in the right leg and riddling Papyus' coat with bullets.
Epsilon threw her gauss riffle before unholstering her host's revolver and unloading it in the already distant form of the crippled robot, which had successfully landed in the forest, unfortunately, she wasn't sure if she managed to land a hit.
The four other EXIs continued firing as a soldier began reloading Epsilon's gauss riffle, all around her irised lights started to appear as the soldiers activated their personal shields, she then turned around and saw Harry, suprisingly intact.
Unlike the other soldiers, Harry and Andrew had such reflexes that they dodged the bullets, managing to avoid being hit by anything, but the same couldn't be said for their men, who were clearly not expecting such a ripost.
They had loose 14 mens, 14 mens ! 6 incapacitated by Kallenger, 5 with her revolver (Andrew avoiding the last bullet in-extremis) and one with her sword, 1 soldiers wielding a rocket launcher, taken down by Papyus' knife (the second one was hit in the leg as he tried to dodge), 6 by this god damn robot (3 by the crush and throw, Harry avoiding the soldier that was thrown at him, and 3 others being simply thrown out of the way as they were uselessly riddling the robot's armor with bullets) and one final soldier was taken down by a lucky shot from the GE soldier.
Who were left were : Harry, Andrew, Eleana, Anedia, Santos, Boborantos and Samantha (or Sam, for short), only Harry and Andrew weren't possessed.
As all of them began running after their targets, Harry opened a channel to Helen's transmitter.
-S-Class Special Agent R. Kallenger this S-Class Special Agent Commander H. C. Rosenfield from Extraction Team Gamma, stand down, I repeat, stand down ! You just attacked your allies ! We are here to retrieve you to Command ! Why the hell did you attacked us ? Are you with them ? With the Dimensional Lords ? How could you ? You betrayed us all !
In the meantime...
Sygma-Class Battleship Armstrong, Ardella's atmosphere.
Lavender hit the red ALARM button on the board with all of his strenght when he received the surface squad's info in his APEX system.
-MEN ! BATTLESTATIONS ! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK !
Crew members began running through the ship as Lanyan activated his ship's interphone.
-To all ground units ! To your assigned assault vehicle ! Prepare for imminent ground assault ! All air units ! Get ready for takeoff ! Aerlia 1 and 2 ! Immediate take-off for air strike and air support !
-Roger that ! Moving out !
Two Aerlia (TMR2-22-45-25-75 Super-fighter) got out from the hangars, the Aerlia were the most perfectionnated fighters ever made, they were artifacts from an unknown civilization, they were completely undestructible, had enough firepower to destroy everything in their way and so many systems and weapons that the C.E.L.L. hadn't even found how to use most of them, they were silents and detectable only by visual contact, for scanners and radar, they didn't existed, they were also the only known object that could past lightspeed and not be obliterated.
Whoever were those idiots, they were dead.
The screen let out a blip as he displayed this :
ETA : 2 mins
Air Force Group 1 ETA : 30 seconds
Orders : Eliminate All Targets, No Survivors.
[Solaria and Malcom's part later]
On the ship, the little device already fallen as Kampfer see's Ketin going crazy. He stared at him coldly, proving to anyone looking at him that this kind of thing when a test subject goes crazy like this isn't something new for the Dimensional Lord of Technology. For the white haired doc, he saw it way too often than a normal mad scientist would see. He slowly approaches Ketin and places his normal hand on his head and merely petted his head, knowing if he spoke, it wouldn't do anything to him, but hopefully the petting of his head would calm the halfling down. As the old saying goes "Actions speak louder than words" as Kampfer pet Ketin's head in silence as he continue to panic.
In feeling some emotion, he felt bad for Ketin, relying on the eye for so long, even though being part of him, but seemingly becoming inseparable. The old Doc as seen when people become blind, they first panic asking some many questions until they are overloaded with thought, and then soon they calm down and accept there new life without sight...the one most memorable was one of a priestess in long past who believed in a dead god. The only one following the religion in which she believed in her sun god so much, she became blind...but she accepted her fate in being blind, not scared of it all at the fact she lost her sight, but she saw it as a new light within darkness, because for her the light will never fade even within total darkness((A little nod to one of my other character))
He continue to pet his head in silence or at least until the eye turned back on...
In an undisclosed location in a dark room, Emperor Arthur sat at a computer screen, curious in how Colonel Papyrus was doing since she been very silent for a very long time and feared the worst has happen and once he got her location from a mundane satellite that still worked...barely. As he observes the conflict, he the bot then looks up her mission and sees she needs to do, but seeing that Kellenger is almost a broken woman in a broken organization, he decided to manipulate the orders and put down instead of Assassination of Malbec...but negotiated with him about Ketin's future. Through a few analysis, Arthur came to the conclusion that were Kellenger and Malbec a significant threat and he came to the answer with "not really" or "not current moment". Once he sent the message, he also found a way the group can take shelter, an abandon bunker complex, which was awfully close to one of many Kampferian bases all around Ardella(Sorry forgot to the name) since it was the Galactic Empire's capital planet. Lucky the bases are so well hid not even Malcom can find there location. And so he sent a message to the colonel about them
Down on the ground the Colonel has seen the destruction that the APEX soilder shave down to the old robot, her digital eyes on her gas mask turned into Skull and crossbones, expressing her anger at them, but she then get the message from Emperor Arthur and without a moment to lose, she goes to the wounded bot and says "Alright old girl, I need you to run, there should be a hidden bunker entrance we can use to get inside" and she gets up to the rest and looks at Helen and says "Shut your comms off, they are just trying to trick you! Come on we need to get to shelter follow me!" as she gestures all of them to follow her to the bunker, her digital eyes now turned to eyes on fire. Being the one with least amount of damage, she goes and tries to help Kellenger onto her feet, by going to have her arm wrapped around her shoulder. Either way, Papyrus is determine to make it to the bunker with or without the group.
In feeling some emotion, he felt bad for Ketin, relying on the eye for so long, even though being part of him, but seemingly becoming inseparable. The old Doc as seen when people become blind, they first panic asking some many questions until they are overloaded with thought, and then soon they calm down and accept there new life without sight...the one most memorable was one of a priestess in long past who believed in a dead god. The only one following the religion in which she believed in her sun god so much, she became blind...but she accepted her fate in being blind, not scared of it all at the fact she lost her sight, but she saw it as a new light within darkness, because for her the light will never fade even within total darkness((A little nod to one of my other character))
He continue to pet his head in silence or at least until the eye turned back on...
In an undisclosed location in a dark room, Emperor Arthur sat at a computer screen, curious in how Colonel Papyrus was doing since she been very silent for a very long time and feared the worst has happen and once he got her location from a mundane satellite that still worked...barely. As he observes the conflict, he the bot then looks up her mission and sees she needs to do, but seeing that Kellenger is almost a broken woman in a broken organization, he decided to manipulate the orders and put down instead of Assassination of Malbec...but negotiated with him about Ketin's future. Through a few analysis, Arthur came to the conclusion that were Kellenger and Malbec a significant threat and he came to the answer with "not really" or "not current moment". Once he sent the message, he also found a way the group can take shelter, an abandon bunker complex, which was awfully close to one of many Kampferian bases all around Ardella(Sorry forgot to the name) since it was the Galactic Empire's capital planet. Lucky the bases are so well hid not even Malcom can find there location. And so he sent a message to the colonel about them
Down on the ground the Colonel has seen the destruction that the APEX soilder shave down to the old robot, her digital eyes on her gas mask turned into Skull and crossbones, expressing her anger at them, but she then get the message from Emperor Arthur and without a moment to lose, she goes to the wounded bot and says "Alright old girl, I need you to run, there should be a hidden bunker entrance we can use to get inside" and she gets up to the rest and looks at Helen and says "Shut your comms off, they are just trying to trick you! Come on we need to get to shelter follow me!" as she gestures all of them to follow her to the bunker, her digital eyes now turned to eyes on fire. Being the one with least amount of damage, she goes and tries to help Kellenger onto her feet, by going to have her arm wrapped around her shoulder. Either way, Papyrus is determine to make it to the bunker with or without the group.
This, Royanna Kallenger decided, would be the moment that, many years from now, she would look back upon and say "That, that is the precise moment in which I lost my mind completely, and that is why I live alone on an asteroid and take potshots at passing tradeships."
This was ridiculous. Things had gone from weird to outright bizarre. Here she was, crashing through an evergreen-jungle in the wake of planetary chaos and nuclear explosions, riding on the blocky head of a giant robot, clinging to a dog-boy, accompanied by a soldier who was virtually unaffected by all of it and a member of the forces of a Dimensional Lord, fleeing from Space only knew what. But really, out of all of it, the 'riding on the head of a giant robot as it crashed through the jungle' part was probably the bit that pushed it over the edge. She had made some pretty daring escapes before, partaken in some pretty cool moments - but this by far surpassed them all.
Presently though, Royanna was very angry. She was keeping low, one hand gripped desperately on to the edge of the robot's head while the other clung to Christofer's general shoulder-area, trying to keep him from flopping off to a thorny doom. This would not have been so infuriating, if not for the fact that the Spacebedamned kid had passed out again. Who in the Great Galaxy Wide had been daft enough to let that kid into military forces? He was like Billy Pilgrim - which would make her, she supposed, the Tralfamadorians.
Or maybe Montana Wildhack? Ha!
What the @#$% Kallenger, this was no time to be letting your thoughts wander.
But then, it was only that little sliver in the back of the brain which was dedicated to stupid thoughts at important moments which was occupied by the musings. The vast majority of her mind was set on keeping that kid alive. Presently, Royanna was shaking him rather violently, not quite hitting his head on the rusty surface of the robot, but still jarring him as much as she could - and maybe once or twice he'd get a bonk, but whatever. She growled rhythmically as she jarred him. "Wake - the - @#$% - up - you - @#$%ing - brat! This is no - time to be - passing out - dammit!"
Some miserable branch or something smacked her in the face and left a nice little scrape along her temple. She cursed.
By this time, she was too damned frustrated not to reply. Still fighting against the momentum of Iril's bounding, Royanna managed to get Christofer into a position where he wouldn't need to be constantly clung to, then attempted to snatch Cox's communicator before she could turn it off.
"Look here mother@#$%er, anyone who aims a weapon at one of my people is a @#$%ing enemy! I'm on nobody's side but mine and the Empire's and I'll be damned if some two-bit with a big gun and a fancy phone is gonna' convince me that there's been a 'change in my superiors'. Keep @#$%ing with us and next time you won't be so lucky!" A mostly empty threat, admittedly - but it felt good to say.
Fumbling to switch off the comms and hand it back to Helen - it seemed the Kampfer agent had practically read her mind - but, maybe she personally still had something to contribute. She had, after all, done a great deal of study on the Old Empire and knew things that only the most advanced in the subject would have any reason to know. Any structures built by Kampfer's people would have been put there either long before, or long after the Empire had occupied the area - they would also have to be much deeper - but this meant that there might still be a few fundamental tricks that the Dimensional agents had missed.
"Old Imperial bunkers had dummy entrances to confuse attackers. Don't go in the front door." She said urgently, rapidly, and loud enough for the robot to hear. It was true - there would most likely be a concrete structure embedded in the earth with a thick looking steel door. It would be well hidden in itself, hidden enough to be considered a hidden entrance - but using it would result an immediate dead-end or concrete wall, and at worst an explosive demise.
Papyrus was leading them to the nearest such bunker now – but Royanna still felt it would be a good idea to consult the member of their little party who would probably be the most familiar with the immediate area. ”Cox, you said you were scouting out the Old Imperial structures around here right?” There was little need to elaborate on what she wanted - and it wasn't long one way or another before the thing was in sight...Mostly. It definitely looked like a hidden entrance, half-buried and overgrown - it was at this point that Kallenger let herself slip off the robot's head, misjudging the distance and falling, to be helped back to her feet by the Colonel. If this bunker was anything like their usual design - most were the same, since they were so well planned and there had never actually been a retaliating force in those days - she was relatively confident that she knew where the real entrance to the bunker might be.
It was only in hindsight that Royanna realized Cox might very well have been out cold. When she handed back the comms earlier, it might have just gone sliding uselessly to the ground, to be half-buried in some jungle peat.
She was glad that it was her arm now, and not her leg - at least she could still sprint. Right?
Nope.
She hadn't misjudged the distance between Iril's head and the ground. Rather, her leg had given out - that would also explain why she'd had to half-pry herself from Papyrus - she hadn't only been helping her up, she'd been supporting her.
Kallenger realized that she could not, in fact, sprint, because the second she pried herself from the grip of her impromptu ally, she managed precisely one step before falling into the brush. Habitually, she turned slightly to avoid landing on her face - she did so, but instead landed on her right shoulder. She cursed. Then she sat up and cursed again, taking a quick look at the leg - and she cursed a third time. The woman gauged that she had about a minute or two of real adrenaline energy in her before she would seriously need to recuperate.
The way Papyrus had been talking implied that something big and bad was going to be happening, and that they were going to want shelter from it. An air raid, presumably - or maybe some other kind of great bomb?
She did manage to stand, but only by desperately clinging to a tree that was wiry and none too pleased with the added weight, making it sag depressingly.
Royanna drew the blade, and held it out at arms' length, hilt-first, offering it to whoever might be the first person to take it.
"Look for a clearing. It'll be mostly overgrown...There, try over there." She pointed loosely with her other hand. It was a clearing only in that the trees there were thinner and more sparse - but it had been quite some time since the bunker was in operation. "There should be a big metal door just under the surface but it'll be rusted over. Somebody take this and cut out a hole big enough for the robot to jump through." Her voice was strained, and she was only hardly clinging to something like a commanding tone. "That clearing's just the right size for a hangar door. I think there's an Old subterranean air base under us, in which case we-rrhg-we're in luck." Voice faltered finally as a strike of pain lashed out from the wound. Two bullet wounds in just a few days. But Royanna Kallenger was determined not to make a useless fool of herself. This was exactly the kind of thinking she had been trained for and by Space she was going to keep these people alive! Even if it had been Papyrus who got them out of their sticky situation in the first place.
Assuming that someone took the sword from Kallenger's tense, subtly shaking hand, the monomolecular blade would slice through earth and iron like nothing - quite literally, since it did not cut through things so much as it separated atomic bonds. She had no way of knowing that any of the EXI soldiers she incapacitated with the blade would be the most easily 'repaired', due to the cleanliness of the slice.
With the circle completed by whoever had taken Kallenger's blade, the earth simply fell in upon itself. A great, circular slab of metal and turf slammed in the hollow emptiness of the gigantic chamber inside. There was naught but blackness down there, for what light could penetrate the evergreen-jungle canopy was not bright enough to even hope at penetrating such a shadow. A breath of chilled, stale air wafted up to meet them and hint at just how unpleasantly cold it was going to be down there.
It would be a drop of some two or three stories down through that inky blackness, and for that reason the party would want to be atop - or in the grip of - the robot if they wanted to survive the fall. It was going to be a rough landing to be sure - but if Papyrus' urgency was as warranted as Royanna's gut was agreeing, it was just another necessary risk.
As she was being assisted in mounting the robot again, another idea hit her. Glancing about, she picked out a tree that might suit her half-baked plan. It was of an average size, but thick and fat with supple, pale green needles. Vines had been doing battle over it for some time now, and there were papery forest leaves mixed in. It was more like a big bush than a tree. "As you're jumping in, grab that tree and try to pull it over the opening" She said, gesturing gingerly toward the vegitation in question.
If all went according to plan, that rough landing would put them in utter darkness. Cold, stale, dusty air - a feeling of great expanse, juxtaposed with the inability to see so much as a foot in front of ones' face. The only light - until someone produced a light, obviously - would be the barely visible twinkling between the foliage that had - presumably - covered their tracks.
This was ridiculous. Things had gone from weird to outright bizarre. Here she was, crashing through an evergreen-jungle in the wake of planetary chaos and nuclear explosions, riding on the blocky head of a giant robot, clinging to a dog-boy, accompanied by a soldier who was virtually unaffected by all of it and a member of the forces of a Dimensional Lord, fleeing from Space only knew what. But really, out of all of it, the 'riding on the head of a giant robot as it crashed through the jungle' part was probably the bit that pushed it over the edge. She had made some pretty daring escapes before, partaken in some pretty cool moments - but this by far surpassed them all.
Presently though, Royanna was very angry. She was keeping low, one hand gripped desperately on to the edge of the robot's head while the other clung to Christofer's general shoulder-area, trying to keep him from flopping off to a thorny doom. This would not have been so infuriating, if not for the fact that the Spacebedamned kid had passed out again. Who in the Great Galaxy Wide had been daft enough to let that kid into military forces? He was like Billy Pilgrim - which would make her, she supposed, the Tralfamadorians.
Or maybe Montana Wildhack? Ha!
What the @#$% Kallenger, this was no time to be letting your thoughts wander.
But then, it was only that little sliver in the back of the brain which was dedicated to stupid thoughts at important moments which was occupied by the musings. The vast majority of her mind was set on keeping that kid alive. Presently, Royanna was shaking him rather violently, not quite hitting his head on the rusty surface of the robot, but still jarring him as much as she could - and maybe once or twice he'd get a bonk, but whatever. She growled rhythmically as she jarred him. "Wake - the - @#$% - up - you - @#$%ing - brat! This is no - time to be - passing out - dammit!"
Some miserable branch or something smacked her in the face and left a nice little scrape along her temple. She cursed.
By this time, she was too damned frustrated not to reply. Still fighting against the momentum of Iril's bounding, Royanna managed to get Christofer into a position where he wouldn't need to be constantly clung to, then attempted to snatch Cox's communicator before she could turn it off.
"Look here mother@#$%er, anyone who aims a weapon at one of my people is a @#$%ing enemy! I'm on nobody's side but mine and the Empire's and I'll be damned if some two-bit with a big gun and a fancy phone is gonna' convince me that there's been a 'change in my superiors'. Keep @#$%ing with us and next time you won't be so lucky!" A mostly empty threat, admittedly - but it felt good to say.
Fumbling to switch off the comms and hand it back to Helen - it seemed the Kampfer agent had practically read her mind - but, maybe she personally still had something to contribute. She had, after all, done a great deal of study on the Old Empire and knew things that only the most advanced in the subject would have any reason to know. Any structures built by Kampfer's people would have been put there either long before, or long after the Empire had occupied the area - they would also have to be much deeper - but this meant that there might still be a few fundamental tricks that the Dimensional agents had missed.
"Old Imperial bunkers had dummy entrances to confuse attackers. Don't go in the front door." She said urgently, rapidly, and loud enough for the robot to hear. It was true - there would most likely be a concrete structure embedded in the earth with a thick looking steel door. It would be well hidden in itself, hidden enough to be considered a hidden entrance - but using it would result an immediate dead-end or concrete wall, and at worst an explosive demise.
Papyrus was leading them to the nearest such bunker now – but Royanna still felt it would be a good idea to consult the member of their little party who would probably be the most familiar with the immediate area. ”Cox, you said you were scouting out the Old Imperial structures around here right?” There was little need to elaborate on what she wanted - and it wasn't long one way or another before the thing was in sight...Mostly. It definitely looked like a hidden entrance, half-buried and overgrown - it was at this point that Kallenger let herself slip off the robot's head, misjudging the distance and falling, to be helped back to her feet by the Colonel. If this bunker was anything like their usual design - most were the same, since they were so well planned and there had never actually been a retaliating force in those days - she was relatively confident that she knew where the real entrance to the bunker might be.
It was only in hindsight that Royanna realized Cox might very well have been out cold. When she handed back the comms earlier, it might have just gone sliding uselessly to the ground, to be half-buried in some jungle peat.
She was glad that it was her arm now, and not her leg - at least she could still sprint. Right?
Nope.
She hadn't misjudged the distance between Iril's head and the ground. Rather, her leg had given out - that would also explain why she'd had to half-pry herself from Papyrus - she hadn't only been helping her up, she'd been supporting her.
Kallenger realized that she could not, in fact, sprint, because the second she pried herself from the grip of her impromptu ally, she managed precisely one step before falling into the brush. Habitually, she turned slightly to avoid landing on her face - she did so, but instead landed on her right shoulder. She cursed. Then she sat up and cursed again, taking a quick look at the leg - and she cursed a third time. The woman gauged that she had about a minute or two of real adrenaline energy in her before she would seriously need to recuperate.
The way Papyrus had been talking implied that something big and bad was going to be happening, and that they were going to want shelter from it. An air raid, presumably - or maybe some other kind of great bomb?
She did manage to stand, but only by desperately clinging to a tree that was wiry and none too pleased with the added weight, making it sag depressingly.
Royanna drew the blade, and held it out at arms' length, hilt-first, offering it to whoever might be the first person to take it.
"Look for a clearing. It'll be mostly overgrown...There, try over there." She pointed loosely with her other hand. It was a clearing only in that the trees there were thinner and more sparse - but it had been quite some time since the bunker was in operation. "There should be a big metal door just under the surface but it'll be rusted over. Somebody take this and cut out a hole big enough for the robot to jump through." Her voice was strained, and she was only hardly clinging to something like a commanding tone. "That clearing's just the right size for a hangar door. I think there's an Old subterranean air base under us, in which case we-rrhg-we're in luck." Voice faltered finally as a strike of pain lashed out from the wound. Two bullet wounds in just a few days. But Royanna Kallenger was determined not to make a useless fool of herself. This was exactly the kind of thinking she had been trained for and by Space she was going to keep these people alive! Even if it had been Papyrus who got them out of their sticky situation in the first place.
Assuming that someone took the sword from Kallenger's tense, subtly shaking hand, the monomolecular blade would slice through earth and iron like nothing - quite literally, since it did not cut through things so much as it separated atomic bonds. She had no way of knowing that any of the EXI soldiers she incapacitated with the blade would be the most easily 'repaired', due to the cleanliness of the slice.
With the circle completed by whoever had taken Kallenger's blade, the earth simply fell in upon itself. A great, circular slab of metal and turf slammed in the hollow emptiness of the gigantic chamber inside. There was naught but blackness down there, for what light could penetrate the evergreen-jungle canopy was not bright enough to even hope at penetrating such a shadow. A breath of chilled, stale air wafted up to meet them and hint at just how unpleasantly cold it was going to be down there.
It would be a drop of some two or three stories down through that inky blackness, and for that reason the party would want to be atop - or in the grip of - the robot if they wanted to survive the fall. It was going to be a rough landing to be sure - but if Papyrus' urgency was as warranted as Royanna's gut was agreeing, it was just another necessary risk.
As she was being assisted in mounting the robot again, another idea hit her. Glancing about, she picked out a tree that might suit her half-baked plan. It was of an average size, but thick and fat with supple, pale green needles. Vines had been doing battle over it for some time now, and there were papery forest leaves mixed in. It was more like a big bush than a tree. "As you're jumping in, grab that tree and try to pull it over the opening" She said, gesturing gingerly toward the vegitation in question.
If all went according to plan, that rough landing would put them in utter darkness. Cold, stale, dusty air - a feeling of great expanse, juxtaposed with the inability to see so much as a foot in front of ones' face. The only light - until someone produced a light, obviously - would be the barely visible twinkling between the foliage that had - presumably - covered their tracks.
[SELF ANALYSIS COMPLETE: Damage detected]
Iril hadn't even noticed her right arm was gone until it failed to sweep some foliage out of her way, resulting in a branch smacking Kallenger across the face. Whoops.
As the group stopped in the overgrown clearing, Iril glanced over at her broken shoulder-box. Barely anything was left to suggest that an arm was there. There was an audible groan from the joint that had once been located there, trying to work an arm that no longer existed. It was bound to happen, she guessed. Shame it had to happen to something she could only assume would be difficult to replace.
She watched intently as Kallenger cut through the earth with her blade. Iril shuddered. Clearly, she was now involved in a battle where her sturdy armor wasn't as sturdy as she would have liked. Rifles, rockets, the blade... Was she really that out of date? Guess tech had advanced onwards without her. Startling.
Kallenger waved her towards the hole, but quickly stopped her. A quick slice to a nearby tree and an order to pull it over the hole. Will do.
Having only one arm though meant she was limited to doing one thing at a time. She would have loved to have gathered everybody up and jumped in a single, fluid motion... but currently, she just had to go as fast as she could.
She scooped up her friends, making sure that once again, they were holding on tight. Her left arm lashed out, latching onto the tree.
She jumped into the opening. The combined weight and force of her and her passengers managed to pull the tree from it's resting place and over the hole. As soon as she felt confirmation that the tree was secure, her left hand released it's death-hold on the tree. She plummeted downward. Not what she had expected.
"Quite the long fall..."
Iril could see why everybody else had needed to latch onto her for this part. She had just assumed the floor would have been maybe ten or so feet below them... not the length of her average fall into a canyon. At least unlike most canyons she'd slipped into, there wouldn't be jarring rocks and crevices at the bottom.
She hit the ground inside the bunker, feeling the floor give in just slightly as she impacted. Perfect landing. She could hear heavy breathing, a few groans, maybe the sound of a dog whimpering? Iril was just glad that her passengers had all made it. That was the second time she had been airborne that day.
Dark. It was REALLY dark. Specks of light hit the ground from above, but it wasn't good enough for Iril. She re-routed the energy that would have been going to her right arm into her eye. Maybe she'd be able to see better.
Click! Iril's eye suddenly became an oversized flashlight. That was a new one. She had never bothered to try such a thing out. She thought over all the times where this ability would have came in handy, and wondered why she hadn't figured it out earlier. Guess it was never something which could be manually activated through codes.
Having no idea what to do now, Iril simply waited for her passengers to get stable footing and give her a direction to go in. Ready when they were.
Iril hadn't even noticed her right arm was gone until it failed to sweep some foliage out of her way, resulting in a branch smacking Kallenger across the face. Whoops.
As the group stopped in the overgrown clearing, Iril glanced over at her broken shoulder-box. Barely anything was left to suggest that an arm was there. There was an audible groan from the joint that had once been located there, trying to work an arm that no longer existed. It was bound to happen, she guessed. Shame it had to happen to something she could only assume would be difficult to replace.
She watched intently as Kallenger cut through the earth with her blade. Iril shuddered. Clearly, she was now involved in a battle where her sturdy armor wasn't as sturdy as she would have liked. Rifles, rockets, the blade... Was she really that out of date? Guess tech had advanced onwards without her. Startling.
Kallenger waved her towards the hole, but quickly stopped her. A quick slice to a nearby tree and an order to pull it over the hole. Will do.
Having only one arm though meant she was limited to doing one thing at a time. She would have loved to have gathered everybody up and jumped in a single, fluid motion... but currently, she just had to go as fast as she could.
She scooped up her friends, making sure that once again, they were holding on tight. Her left arm lashed out, latching onto the tree.
She jumped into the opening. The combined weight and force of her and her passengers managed to pull the tree from it's resting place and over the hole. As soon as she felt confirmation that the tree was secure, her left hand released it's death-hold on the tree. She plummeted downward. Not what she had expected.
"Quite the long fall..."
Iril could see why everybody else had needed to latch onto her for this part. She had just assumed the floor would have been maybe ten or so feet below them... not the length of her average fall into a canyon. At least unlike most canyons she'd slipped into, there wouldn't be jarring rocks and crevices at the bottom.
She hit the ground inside the bunker, feeling the floor give in just slightly as she impacted. Perfect landing. She could hear heavy breathing, a few groans, maybe the sound of a dog whimpering? Iril was just glad that her passengers had all made it. That was the second time she had been airborne that day.
Dark. It was REALLY dark. Specks of light hit the ground from above, but it wasn't good enough for Iril. She re-routed the energy that would have been going to her right arm into her eye. Maybe she'd be able to see better.
Click! Iril's eye suddenly became an oversized flashlight. That was a new one. She had never bothered to try such a thing out. She thought over all the times where this ability would have came in handy, and wondered why she hadn't figured it out earlier. Guess it was never something which could be manually activated through codes.
Having no idea what to do now, Iril simply waited for her passengers to get stable footing and give her a direction to go in. Ready when they were.
Nirix swirled the whiskey in her glass, listening to the chinking of the ice cubes, breathing in a fragrance that only years in an oak barrel can achieve. Already the worries and anxieties of the day were beginning to fade, even before the first taste. Just watching its gentle vortex was hypnotizing enough for the Eoclu. When had been the last time she had even consumed alcohol? Thirty, no forty years ago?
For once, everything could be forgotten. Just Nirix and her two centuries worth of memories. Her mind surfed on different ideas, different thoughts and emotions. She would be on a new mission now, a new person in need of her expertise. Briefly her thoughts skirted on who would meet the end of her blade, or one of her bullets from her gun, before she stilled her thoughts with a swallow of her drink.
The subtle twitching of her ear told her more than she would've liked.
The unmistakable whimpering, stumbling to make words and form sentences. His voice was raw and fraught with levels of fear that Nirix had only experienced once or twice before. The Da'len was in distress, that much was obvious. And the fact that Kampfer had sprung into action had left the Eoclu frowning. Just what had happened now?
With little effort, Nirix removed herself from her place of relaxation before making the short trip over to where Ketin and Kampfer sat. With one look at their situation, her lavender eyes softened and without little hesitation, she did what she thought was best.
"Ketin, drink this," She shoved her glass of whiskey in his hands, and was ready to pour it down his throat if he did not comply. Normally, Nirix wouldn't have condoned in Ketin drinking but she had told him he needed a drink and if now wasn't a good time, then she didn't know what was.
Hopefully it would help him relax.
For once, everything could be forgotten. Just Nirix and her two centuries worth of memories. Her mind surfed on different ideas, different thoughts and emotions. She would be on a new mission now, a new person in need of her expertise. Briefly her thoughts skirted on who would meet the end of her blade, or one of her bullets from her gun, before she stilled her thoughts with a swallow of her drink.
The subtle twitching of her ear told her more than she would've liked.
The unmistakable whimpering, stumbling to make words and form sentences. His voice was raw and fraught with levels of fear that Nirix had only experienced once or twice before. The Da'len was in distress, that much was obvious. And the fact that Kampfer had sprung into action had left the Eoclu frowning. Just what had happened now?
With little effort, Nirix removed herself from her place of relaxation before making the short trip over to where Ketin and Kampfer sat. With one look at their situation, her lavender eyes softened and without little hesitation, she did what she thought was best.
"Ketin, drink this," She shoved her glass of whiskey in his hands, and was ready to pour it down his throat if he did not comply. Normally, Nirix wouldn't have condoned in Ketin drinking but she had told him he needed a drink and if now wasn't a good time, then she didn't know what was.
Hopefully it would help him relax.
Kete was only growing more tense, squirming about where he sat against the wall, continuing to claw at his left eye as if there was something blocking it. There must be something there! There had to be! And if he could just get it off...
He let out a rather loud yelp the second his head was touched, and lurched violently away. Continued attempts would result in further lurching and struggling - it was so horrifying being unable to form a sentence. The aspect of the eye which linked to the speech centers of his brain were designed so that the mind could comprehend speech and language as processed by the eye - it also made for more coherent, fluid communication with computers. But with that connection down, the thorough integration meant a near complete shutdown of that particular area of the brain.
And his senses - he wasn't merely accustomed to having his nervous system spread out among all the people and electronics in his vicinity - he was dependent on it. It was a massive crippling and with everything now being shoved into one head with nowhere to go, his senses were all going wild. Paranoia was quick to settle in - every touch, every contact from anyone else must be considered hostile by default. It was a primal reaction - the sort of reaction someone strapped to a table for an impending conscious neural amputation might have. The kind of paranoia and aversion to contact one might expect out of someone when the only contact they had during their developing years was clinical and surgical.
Granted, the original shock was starting to settle down, but that meant nothing. It was being buried alive - it didn't get any better even once you accepted it, because you could already feel yourself starting to suffocate. It is impossible for the human body not to convulse and panic when in the midst of suffocation, and Kete's brain was doing just that.
He would have to be heavily restrained and held down in order to get something down his throat, and that would only lead to more wild, frantic thrashing and a loud, terrified cry as if they were holding him down to cut his limbs off and make him watch. Anything that did make it far enough would only get him choking and coughing and gasping for air.
Any hand that tried to touch him after a few seconds would be sharply shoved away. He pulled his knees up and covered his head with his arms, hoping that might make the spiders stop crawling atop his head. And there were humanoid shapes, foggy black against bright light, so bright, and he was looking up at them and there was nothing he could do and they were holding things and he couldn't stop them and they were on him and doing things and he just wanted things to go back to the way they were and he couldn't move why wouldn't they let him move what were they going to do and his whole life was going to be white walls and bright lights and he just wanted to go back to his cell and why did they always have to hold him down like that and he couldn't see everything just white and flashes and his eyes were gone and nobody was coming to help him and why couldn't he see anything and they were cutting him open alive andhiseyesweregonewherewerehiseyeshecouldn'tseeandhiseyesweregoneandhecouldn'tmoveandflashesandwhiteandhewasblindandmutecouldn'tevenscreamheneededtoscreamandtheywouldn'tlethimanditwasallhisfaultandand and, and, and, and -
And then, in a brief, chance moment of relative clarity, he managed to get some words out. They sounded furious - but more with panic and desperation than actual anger.
"J-JUS'@#$%INGTURNITBACKON!!" He roared, sobbed, in a similar, but not identical tone to that which he had slipped into when Kampfer had threatened Nirix back on the station. It was different in that it was more panic than anything else. It was pleading, begging, while also under the 'stress' that comes with having ones' spine severed while conscious. Communication was key, and part of what closed him in so tightly was the complete inability to communicate. They had no way of knowing exactly what he was going through, but it had suddenly become glaringly obvious that it was much, much worse than it looked. The outcry was followed by a pathetic, whimpering "P-please!" through teeth gritted due to the sheer stress he was experiencing - half word and half sob, breaking down into tears at last. For a moment, he might have been trying to say 'please' again, but no words would come out.
Empathy did have a way of isolating people.
He let out a rather loud yelp the second his head was touched, and lurched violently away. Continued attempts would result in further lurching and struggling - it was so horrifying being unable to form a sentence. The aspect of the eye which linked to the speech centers of his brain were designed so that the mind could comprehend speech and language as processed by the eye - it also made for more coherent, fluid communication with computers. But with that connection down, the thorough integration meant a near complete shutdown of that particular area of the brain.
And his senses - he wasn't merely accustomed to having his nervous system spread out among all the people and electronics in his vicinity - he was dependent on it. It was a massive crippling and with everything now being shoved into one head with nowhere to go, his senses were all going wild. Paranoia was quick to settle in - every touch, every contact from anyone else must be considered hostile by default. It was a primal reaction - the sort of reaction someone strapped to a table for an impending conscious neural amputation might have. The kind of paranoia and aversion to contact one might expect out of someone when the only contact they had during their developing years was clinical and surgical.
Granted, the original shock was starting to settle down, but that meant nothing. It was being buried alive - it didn't get any better even once you accepted it, because you could already feel yourself starting to suffocate. It is impossible for the human body not to convulse and panic when in the midst of suffocation, and Kete's brain was doing just that.
He would have to be heavily restrained and held down in order to get something down his throat, and that would only lead to more wild, frantic thrashing and a loud, terrified cry as if they were holding him down to cut his limbs off and make him watch. Anything that did make it far enough would only get him choking and coughing and gasping for air.
Any hand that tried to touch him after a few seconds would be sharply shoved away. He pulled his knees up and covered his head with his arms, hoping that might make the spiders stop crawling atop his head. And there were humanoid shapes, foggy black against bright light, so bright, and he was looking up at them and there was nothing he could do and they were holding things and he couldn't stop them and they were on him and doing things and he just wanted things to go back to the way they were and he couldn't move why wouldn't they let him move what were they going to do and his whole life was going to be white walls and bright lights and he just wanted to go back to his cell and why did they always have to hold him down like that and he couldn't see everything just white and flashes and his eyes were gone and nobody was coming to help him and why couldn't he see anything and they were cutting him open alive andhiseyesweregonewherewerehiseyeshecouldn'tseeandhiseyesweregoneandhecouldn'tmoveandflashesandwhiteandhewasblindandmutecouldn'tevenscreamheneededtoscreamandtheywouldn'tlethimanditwasallhisfaultandand and, and, and, and -
And then, in a brief, chance moment of relative clarity, he managed to get some words out. They sounded furious - but more with panic and desperation than actual anger.
"J-JUS'@#$%INGTURNITBACKON!!" He roared, sobbed, in a similar, but not identical tone to that which he had slipped into when Kampfer had threatened Nirix back on the station. It was different in that it was more panic than anything else. It was pleading, begging, while also under the 'stress' that comes with having ones' spine severed while conscious. Communication was key, and part of what closed him in so tightly was the complete inability to communicate. They had no way of knowing exactly what he was going through, but it had suddenly become glaringly obvious that it was much, much worse than it looked. The outcry was followed by a pathetic, whimpering "P-please!" through teeth gritted due to the sheer stress he was experiencing - half word and half sob, breaking down into tears at last. For a moment, he might have been trying to say 'please' again, but no words would come out.
Empathy did have a way of isolating people.
Armstrong
-Sir this is Aerlia 1, do you copy, over.
-I read you Aerlia 1, go ahead.
-Sir it seems that they have taken refuge in the Maerisa base, I repeat, they have taken refuge in the Maerisa base !
The commander stared at his screen for a few seconds, completely stunned.
Maerisa base was an old GE airbase, her only particularity being that a research center was hidden in the lower levels, but 216 years ago this research center began on experimenting on alien technology, they started implanting a strange semi-sentient substance known as the EMI-38, it was a billions years old product, which was discovered in some sort of alien bunker, they injected it in artificially bred human bodies to test it's properties, convinced that it would enhanced their soldiers, and it did ! It was the main inspiration for Project Oméga and the APEX many years later, but, as it seems to happen for each and every GE research, a test subject broke out and got haywire, killing everybody inside of the lab.
Why not kill it would you say ? Well it's very simple : the EMI-45 (the human version) was capable of absorbing insane quantities of energy to improve itself, using it as a weapon as well as a shield, the organism itself consumed a lot of power to be kept online as it regenerated itself at an incredible rate, so fast in fact that it was completely invincible to conventional weapons.
To stay online, the subject began pumping the energy of the lab fusion reactor, but in it's rage, it forgot to stockpile some in case of emergency, instead it simply used all of it to kill everyone inside the lab, the GE scientists found only one solution : starve it to death by shutting down the base and sealing it.
Over the years, many have suggested to open the bunker to recover the equipement, but have faced extreme opposition from the scientists who believed that if any kind of power source was brought too close to it, it might be brung back online.
Before the commander could say anything, a soldier started yelling from the other side of the bridge.
-Alert ! Alert ! We are picking up an energy spike inside of the bunker !
And then Lavender remembered one of the most important detail : the GE didn't have the time to deactivate the security system before sealing the base, and all fusion reactors had a fission capsule in order to be brought back online ASAP in case of emergency.
In the bunker, all the light went back on as the security system kicked in.
-ALERT ! ALERT ! INTRUDERS INSIDE THE PERIMETER ! INTRUDER INSIDE THE PERIMETER !
Maerisa's laboratory
The reactor control room was filled with skeletons in armor or lab coats, but one of the corpses was surprisingly intact, it was the one of a 16 year old girl in a reinforced suit with anenergy assault riffle and an energy pistol, but as the reactor reactivated, the corpse started to shiver, then it sat up, it's electric blue eyes wide open.
Experiment 80-9-01-06-09-76-05-04 Delta, Codename : Eerie online.
Jungle
Harry and what was left of his squad froze when the message was displayed on their HUD, as it was emited on all short-range frequencies, both oral and written.
-Oh no....
-Sir this is Aerlia 1, do you copy, over.
-I read you Aerlia 1, go ahead.
-Sir it seems that they have taken refuge in the Maerisa base, I repeat, they have taken refuge in the Maerisa base !
The commander stared at his screen for a few seconds, completely stunned.
Maerisa base was an old GE airbase, her only particularity being that a research center was hidden in the lower levels, but 216 years ago this research center began on experimenting on alien technology, they started implanting a strange semi-sentient substance known as the EMI-38, it was a billions years old product, which was discovered in some sort of alien bunker, they injected it in artificially bred human bodies to test it's properties, convinced that it would enhanced their soldiers, and it did ! It was the main inspiration for Project Oméga and the APEX many years later, but, as it seems to happen for each and every GE research, a test subject broke out and got haywire, killing everybody inside of the lab.
Why not kill it would you say ? Well it's very simple : the EMI-45 (the human version) was capable of absorbing insane quantities of energy to improve itself, using it as a weapon as well as a shield, the organism itself consumed a lot of power to be kept online as it regenerated itself at an incredible rate, so fast in fact that it was completely invincible to conventional weapons.
To stay online, the subject began pumping the energy of the lab fusion reactor, but in it's rage, it forgot to stockpile some in case of emergency, instead it simply used all of it to kill everyone inside the lab, the GE scientists found only one solution : starve it to death by shutting down the base and sealing it.
Over the years, many have suggested to open the bunker to recover the equipement, but have faced extreme opposition from the scientists who believed that if any kind of power source was brought too close to it, it might be brung back online.
Before the commander could say anything, a soldier started yelling from the other side of the bridge.
-Alert ! Alert ! We are picking up an energy spike inside of the bunker !
And then Lavender remembered one of the most important detail : the GE didn't have the time to deactivate the security system before sealing the base, and all fusion reactors had a fission capsule in order to be brought back online ASAP in case of emergency.
In the bunker, all the light went back on as the security system kicked in.
-ALERT ! ALERT ! INTRUDERS INSIDE THE PERIMETER ! INTRUDER INSIDE THE PERIMETER !
Maerisa's laboratory
The reactor control room was filled with skeletons in armor or lab coats, but one of the corpses was surprisingly intact, it was the one of a 16 year old girl in a reinforced suit with anenergy assault riffle and an energy pistol, but as the reactor reactivated, the corpse started to shiver, then it sat up, it's electric blue eyes wide open.
Experiment 80-9-01-06-09-76-05-04 Delta, Codename : Eerie online.
Jungle
Harry and what was left of his squad froze when the message was displayed on their HUD, as it was emited on all short-range frequencies, both oral and written.
-Oh no....
In sector J84, moon #456- "Jeez doug don't you know the first rule of drug dealing? Never get high on your own supply" a man said to another man as he was snorting some black substance up his noise. "Ah man, this s*** good though, man I feel like I'm surrounded by beautiful women, you should try Jason" Doug says as he fondles some soft materials, obviously used to make clothes. "By great space Doug, your fondling Arthenian linen, I know they feel like breasts, but they aren't" said another man as he sat on top of a box that said "Fragile" in an alien language. "Alright Taylor with you being all polite about a woman's body" Jason sneakered at Taylor as he shakes his head at Doug.
The room where the brigands where just like any other cave, full of many caravans and entrances, leading to various places. The place the three men bickered was a large storage facility for all the hard earn loot, they got from raiding vessels that came through. "Doug you really need to cool off on the pixey dust, its going to rot your brain, save it for the actual paying customers" Jason said as he pushes Doug to the ground up against the Linens. Doug just moved in the group of Linen not even bothered by the other mans push. "Ahh thanks Jason, these woman are just holding me in place! I'm in heaven!" the high man yells out as he enjoys the feel of the cloth surrounding him. Taylor just laughs at Doug's nonsense as Jason was getting visibly mad.
But everything ended as a shot rang out and Doug went limp as a hole appears on his forehead and blood splatter all over the white linen clothes. From the other side a rather tall woman stand wearing a large duster's hat and a giant blood stain brown cloak, her metal jaw shone in the dim lighting. "Well boys, there's gonna be plenty of women where you're going" she states as she looks at there shocked faces as she chucks a dead older man to the ground, covered in blood. "Old man Captain Jenkins! You b***!" one of them declared as both went for there guns. As if in slow motion, Maria saw her opponents go to there guns and she yells out "ITS HIGH NOON!" in a very quick motion she raises her hand canon and fans the hammer twice killing both men in quick session.
Once both men lay dead, she chuckles and says "I maybe good, I ain't bad, but sure as hell ain't ugly though" as she then starts to hear some rumbling coming from a caravan entrance. She raises her hand canon once more as she analysis on whats coming. As soon as it came out, she finished analysis of it. It was pretty large bulky robot, with light blue and red tint on it, a good 10ft really. Its is small but with triangle style white eyes. It shoulders are rised above the head and its right hand seems to be its weapon.
She fires a couple rounds at it with her revolver style hand gun, but the blaster shots impact harmlessly off its hull. It was slow as hit moved closer to her as it fired off a couple of blue plasma balls at her. She rolls out of the way as she fires a couple more shots at it, which continue to impact it harmlessly. She was quiet impressed by its armor and so she pulls out her lever action shotgun. She fires a couple shots at it as she flip cocks it with every shot, bullets bouncing harmlessly off. Now the bots turn was that both of its shoulders opened and revealing two rocket pods to fire and so it fires two shots from its shoulders at her. She uses the hand canon revolver on her other hand to shot the missile which exploded as she rolls into cover, noticing the rockets have a slight tracking to them as they impact against some other boxes behind her.
She knew her pistol or shotgun wouldn't do any damage, but some of her grenades could though, but she carried only a limited number. Her she looks up at the robot as it approached, it wasn't made by humans, but neither was it Kampfer's though, she made sure to keep the info she has on the bot so that she can send to the eggheads in Kampfer's forces and see if they consider deploying something like this in the field. Either way, it was going to die and so her left arm transformed into a semi auto energy cannon and so she comes over the boxes and blasted it with a couple of shots. IT flinched as it took the hits, but it still stands as it continues to fire at her. Seeing it damaged made her happy and so she began to strafe around firing more and more shots at it as it takes more and more damage. Soon once in front of it, she fires one more shot and it then explodes into a giant heap of metal and scarp.
As pieces fly she rises her hand to cover her face as her cloak, blew in the wind exposing her body to the light. Once everything died down. Her arm turned to normal and she does a little gun play as she holsters her gun into her thigh. She then picks up dead Old man Captain Jenkins...in tending to get her bounty for him and his gang.
The room where the brigands where just like any other cave, full of many caravans and entrances, leading to various places. The place the three men bickered was a large storage facility for all the hard earn loot, they got from raiding vessels that came through. "Doug you really need to cool off on the pixey dust, its going to rot your brain, save it for the actual paying customers" Jason said as he pushes Doug to the ground up against the Linens. Doug just moved in the group of Linen not even bothered by the other mans push. "Ahh thanks Jason, these woman are just holding me in place! I'm in heaven!" the high man yells out as he enjoys the feel of the cloth surrounding him. Taylor just laughs at Doug's nonsense as Jason was getting visibly mad.
But everything ended as a shot rang out and Doug went limp as a hole appears on his forehead and blood splatter all over the white linen clothes. From the other side a rather tall woman stand wearing a large duster's hat and a giant blood stain brown cloak, her metal jaw shone in the dim lighting. "Well boys, there's gonna be plenty of women where you're going" she states as she looks at there shocked faces as she chucks a dead older man to the ground, covered in blood. "Old man Captain Jenkins! You b***!" one of them declared as both went for there guns. As if in slow motion, Maria saw her opponents go to there guns and she yells out "ITS HIGH NOON!" in a very quick motion she raises her hand canon and fans the hammer twice killing both men in quick session.
Once both men lay dead, she chuckles and says "I maybe good, I ain't bad, but sure as hell ain't ugly though" as she then starts to hear some rumbling coming from a caravan entrance. She raises her hand canon once more as she analysis on whats coming. As soon as it came out, she finished analysis of it. It was pretty large bulky robot, with light blue and red tint on it, a good 10ft really. Its is small but with triangle style white eyes. It shoulders are rised above the head and its right hand seems to be its weapon.
She fires a couple rounds at it with her revolver style hand gun, but the blaster shots impact harmlessly off its hull. It was slow as hit moved closer to her as it fired off a couple of blue plasma balls at her. She rolls out of the way as she fires a couple more shots at it, which continue to impact it harmlessly. She was quiet impressed by its armor and so she pulls out her lever action shotgun. She fires a couple shots at it as she flip cocks it with every shot, bullets bouncing harmlessly off. Now the bots turn was that both of its shoulders opened and revealing two rocket pods to fire and so it fires two shots from its shoulders at her. She uses the hand canon revolver on her other hand to shot the missile which exploded as she rolls into cover, noticing the rockets have a slight tracking to them as they impact against some other boxes behind her.
She knew her pistol or shotgun wouldn't do any damage, but some of her grenades could though, but she carried only a limited number. Her she looks up at the robot as it approached, it wasn't made by humans, but neither was it Kampfer's though, she made sure to keep the info she has on the bot so that she can send to the eggheads in Kampfer's forces and see if they consider deploying something like this in the field. Either way, it was going to die and so her left arm transformed into a semi auto energy cannon and so she comes over the boxes and blasted it with a couple of shots. IT flinched as it took the hits, but it still stands as it continues to fire at her. Seeing it damaged made her happy and so she began to strafe around firing more and more shots at it as it takes more and more damage. Soon once in front of it, she fires one more shot and it then explodes into a giant heap of metal and scarp.
As pieces fly she rises her hand to cover her face as her cloak, blew in the wind exposing her body to the light. Once everything died down. Her arm turned to normal and she does a little gun play as she holsters her gun into her thigh. She then picks up dead Old man Captain Jenkins...in tending to get her bounty for him and his gang.
Kampfer with his continuing petting on Ketin's head, sees the clear damage that use of an experimental eye without a filter running for 200 years can have. The doc sighed and said "Ketin, ze eye vill turn itself on in couple minutes or a few hours, you just gonna have to vait" as he looks at helpless man, even though Ketin is more of a boy than an man especially in this state. Seeing that nothing either Nirix nor he can do to calm Ketin down, Kampfer merely sighed as he stood up. He then turn towards Nirix and says "I zink you already know, but I'll tell you anyway as a friendly advice. Zis is vhat happens vhen you use an unfiltered tech, you forget how to live...ve have to wait till it turns on" as he begins to walk back to his some small lab set up. "If you want to sedate him to calm him down, there is a syringe in that cabinet you can use to put it right into his neck or arm if his constant screams is too much for you...I'm quiet used to hearing it" he says as he points to the cabinet for Nirix to go to if she wants to. As for Kampfer, he just put his head down on the table, not only annoyed with Ketin's eye but also his anxiety for his operation has caught up to him as well.
Down in the bunker, Papyrus looks around still with Kellenger's rapier in hand. Her vision inside her gas mask, started to attune for the darkness showing everything with a red outline from the walls and ceiling and everyone around her, giving her some kind of visibility in the darkness, which wasn't new to her. She then goes ahead and passes the rapier to Kellenger and says "We can't stay here, no doubt they know about this place, we need to get out of here via a different exit" she didn't want to mention the nearby the base since it seems the base is operating on a communication silence or she would have gotten a message from them. She knew if she sent a message they would act upon it, but for the safety for the base operators, she would send it out if they were in grave consequences or as a last decision.
Down in the bunker, Papyrus looks around still with Kellenger's rapier in hand. Her vision inside her gas mask, started to attune for the darkness showing everything with a red outline from the walls and ceiling and everyone around her, giving her some kind of visibility in the darkness, which wasn't new to her. She then goes ahead and passes the rapier to Kellenger and says "We can't stay here, no doubt they know about this place, we need to get out of here via a different exit" she didn't want to mention the nearby the base since it seems the base is operating on a communication silence or she would have gotten a message from them. She knew if she sent a message they would act upon it, but for the safety for the base operators, she would send it out if they were in grave consequences or as a last decision.
"Answer me this, is this Universe in an age of fire and light, or is it in the age of Darkness? Good or evil? Or is it, that lines between good and evil, light and Dark blurred into grey, creating the age of grey?" Jack asks as he sits on the captain's chair staring off into the emptiness of space. Zentra responds "I do not know an answer to your question, but in my opinion at least with human beings, are capable to do good and evil things, either for selfless or selfish desire" Jack chuckled and replied "Even though you told me you didn't have an answer yet you gave me one, either way I like what you told me" he then typed something on the arm chair and a holograph of the milky way galaxy appeared in front of him, glitching out occasionally. "We have enough power to do one jump and that will cause ship to rip apart if we do it" Zentra warned as Jacked looked on the Galaxy map. "I will have my Kingdom I so desire, no matter how hard those damn Lords deny me of it, even in death they can not stop me" he says as he stands and yells out "For I, General Jack Gywn, harbinger of the Abyss shall spread throughout this Galaxy having everyone bow to me as I bring in the age of Darkness" his voice full of death and coldness.
"MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NOW LETS GET AMBITIOUS ZENTRA!" he yells out has selects his destination. Once punched in, he took Zentra's chip out of the command module of the ship and put inside of his suit's own head. "Are you sure about this?" she asks. Jack sits back down on the chair and its the button to activate the warp and merely says "Yes" as the ship blasts off to its destination....Ardella, the capital planet of the Galactic Empire.
"MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NOW LETS GET AMBITIOUS ZENTRA!" he yells out has selects his destination. Once punched in, he took Zentra's chip out of the command module of the ship and put inside of his suit's own head. "Are you sure about this?" she asks. Jack sits back down on the chair and its the button to activate the warp and merely says "Yes" as the ship blasts off to its destination....Ardella, the capital planet of the Galactic Empire.
Nirix had enough of this.
Seeing Ketin in this state, crying and anxious, a complete mess really, had been enough the first few times she had bore witness to this. Yet now, it was unbearable. Seeing him like this, it really did something to her. It wasn't right and didn't feel right.
It made the whiskey loose it's intended effect...
Why was Kampfer refusing to help him? What was so bad about turning his eye back on? Obviously Ketin was depended on his "All seeing" eye, it was all he knew and from what Nirix had observed it had become a part of him, as simple as any of his other appendages. It wasn't right to refuse him of it, like staring at a dying man begging to put out of his misery. It was sick to leave him there, whimpering and begging.
Nirix felt sick.
"Why can't you do something?" She hardly recognized her own voice, it was so cold and unforgiving. She didn't think she could listen to his excuse, listen to his reasoning as to why to let him go without.
"If you will not help him, then tell me how to turn his eye back on, damnit!" Her hands balled into fists; Nirix wanting nothing more than to shove Kampfer against the wall and strangle him until he learned compassion.
What was wrong with him? What made him think that allowing Ketin to suffer would help him learn? It was wrong, what Kampfer was doing was wrong.
Seeing Ketin in this state, crying and anxious, a complete mess really, had been enough the first few times she had bore witness to this. Yet now, it was unbearable. Seeing him like this, it really did something to her. It wasn't right and didn't feel right.
It made the whiskey loose it's intended effect...
Why was Kampfer refusing to help him? What was so bad about turning his eye back on? Obviously Ketin was depended on his "All seeing" eye, it was all he knew and from what Nirix had observed it had become a part of him, as simple as any of his other appendages. It wasn't right to refuse him of it, like staring at a dying man begging to put out of his misery. It was sick to leave him there, whimpering and begging.
Nirix felt sick.
"Why can't you do something?" She hardly recognized her own voice, it was so cold and unforgiving. She didn't think she could listen to his excuse, listen to his reasoning as to why to let him go without.
"If you will not help him, then tell me how to turn his eye back on, damnit!" Her hands balled into fists; Nirix wanting nothing more than to shove Kampfer against the wall and strangle him until he learned compassion.
What was wrong with him? What made him think that allowing Ketin to suffer would help him learn? It was wrong, what Kampfer was doing was wrong.
Kampfer rose his head from the table where he sat and looks at Nirix, his bloodshot, as tears ran down, not for Ketin, but for his own problems. His cocktail combination of anxiety, paranoia and What-ifs has taken its toll on him for his own health as he sees a trickle of blood coming from his mouth reminding he was due for the operation. He looks at her and says "If I could help him I vould, but device I used on the eye vas to cut a foreign signal entering Ketin's mind zat was doing something to his head, something bad. Ze eye like I said to him vill turn on either a couple of minutes or a few hours" his voice started sound getting agitated as he dealt with the in his mind a "backward savage", but he made sure not to voice it though.
"If his crying and vhaling is too much for you zen, ze syringe is in ze cabinet for you to use!" he yells at her as he stands up as his claw balls up in a fist. "For vhat I do, his screams and pleas are something I hear everyday and I understand if you don't understand since your used to swift and clean deaths" he adds as he takes a step back away from her, visibly angry but then comes himself though, seeing his anger towards her is unjustified.
"Knight Odin! The planet buster bombs are ready to go!" the gunnery officer says to the Ascendent Knight. Odin nod and says "Be ready to fire on my mark" "Sir we have a transmission from...Lord Erica, she wishes to speak with you" one of the officers says as he looks at his console then at the Knight. "But her on the screen" he states as he focus his attention at the screen coming up in front of him.
On the screen, Lord Erica Codsworth, Dimesnional Lord of Time and Space, responisble with this entire problem with people converging upon this universe. She may look only like a teen age girl, but she way older and her armor that she wears, makes sure she was battle harden as the leader/God of the Dendril race. Her face was red in anger and she says to Odin "Ascendent Odin, do not, I repeat do not fire your guns into the sun, you will cause a diplomatic situation with beings that I wish not to tangle with at the moment" Odin was taken by surprised and asks "Who are these beings?" she sighs and replies "These beings are the Etherial, they live within these suns, fire into them and we are going to have a really big problem" Odin grumbles and says "Are you telling me I can't shoot into the sun?! What I'm I suppose to do now?! Aelyn is here! Within our grasp and your telling me to abandon that?!" he exclaims in disbelief.
Erica sighed and said "Sadly yes, but to make up your missed target, I sent in codes, with a little tweaking with the jump drives you'll be able to hunt down the Stella in there own ground" she says as Odin gets the codes to use to adjust the jump drives to travel into the Not space. Odin lets out a sigh and says "Thank Lord Erica" she merely nodded at him and then disconnect. "Your orders sir" one of the officers says and for a few moments Odin gave his orders "We are retreating, make sure when Kampfer is done, make sure he knows about the codes to get to the Stella"
Once the orders were given the ships hyper jumped out of the system, living the Kingsbane and Aylen alone
"If his crying and vhaling is too much for you zen, ze syringe is in ze cabinet for you to use!" he yells at her as he stands up as his claw balls up in a fist. "For vhat I do, his screams and pleas are something I hear everyday and I understand if you don't understand since your used to swift and clean deaths" he adds as he takes a step back away from her, visibly angry but then comes himself though, seeing his anger towards her is unjustified.
"Knight Odin! The planet buster bombs are ready to go!" the gunnery officer says to the Ascendent Knight. Odin nod and says "Be ready to fire on my mark" "Sir we have a transmission from...Lord Erica, she wishes to speak with you" one of the officers says as he looks at his console then at the Knight. "But her on the screen" he states as he focus his attention at the screen coming up in front of him.
On the screen, Lord Erica Codsworth, Dimesnional Lord of Time and Space, responisble with this entire problem with people converging upon this universe. She may look only like a teen age girl, but she way older and her armor that she wears, makes sure she was battle harden as the leader/God of the Dendril race. Her face was red in anger and she says to Odin "Ascendent Odin, do not, I repeat do not fire your guns into the sun, you will cause a diplomatic situation with beings that I wish not to tangle with at the moment" Odin was taken by surprised and asks "Who are these beings?" she sighs and replies "These beings are the Etherial, they live within these suns, fire into them and we are going to have a really big problem" Odin grumbles and says "Are you telling me I can't shoot into the sun?! What I'm I suppose to do now?! Aelyn is here! Within our grasp and your telling me to abandon that?!" he exclaims in disbelief.
Erica sighed and said "Sadly yes, but to make up your missed target, I sent in codes, with a little tweaking with the jump drives you'll be able to hunt down the Stella in there own ground" she says as Odin gets the codes to use to adjust the jump drives to travel into the Not space. Odin lets out a sigh and says "Thank Lord Erica" she merely nodded at him and then disconnect. "Your orders sir" one of the officers says and for a few moments Odin gave his orders "We are retreating, make sure when Kampfer is done, make sure he knows about the codes to get to the Stella"
Once the orders were given the ships hyper jumped out of the system, living the Kingsbane and Aylen alone
Unkown
-Miss, Odin's ships are retreating.
-Good, fall back immediately.
-Yes miss !
-Miss, Odin's ships are retreating.
-Good, fall back immediately.
-Yes miss !
Unnamed Solar System - Isandrill's High Orbit
The Kingsbane & The Stella Viventium
Right after Odin's promises of a deadlier come back had echoed through the Kingsbane's Bridge, Severin took utmost hurry towards the computer consoles right beside Wan Nabes wheel for the ship. It was lucky for the Doctor that the officials under Kampfer's command like to boast so much about their 'evil' intentions, as so far, sometimes revealing information that would be vital for their victories. Severin, now, was exactly aware of what he would do.
Director Severin speaking, Research, come in... - The Doctor would abruptly shove the one Captain Wanheed aside, once both curious and irate about Odin's lack of compliance, now utterly mad to be just pushed aside by his own First Mate.
"What the <****> you think you doing, you <*******> excuse of a scientist?! You're overthro--"
"Silence, Captain Nemo." - Severin would put up a wide smile, not even looking at 'Nemo'. He couldn't help but take a slight nod from Aelyn's compliment to the Captain of the Kingsbane. The such, meanwhile, would twist his face and puff out thick smogs of his cigar, much like an angry dragon, barin his teeth at the grinning Research Director. Soon, however, it didn't take too long for Severin to be answered by his comrades and his face soon turned to a cold, blank, eyeless stare...
"... Knight Ascendant's Odin just backed away with FTL. Please, attempt to do the usual procedure."
With the same technology used to track down the Stella Viventium in the chase that lead into Isandril's low-orbit, the Kingsbane's Research Team was able to aptly catch the residual radiation of a tear in the universe, typically left by wormholes and FTL travel, left by Odin's Fleet. A local radiation background immediately appeared on the screen that Severin had his focus on. The 'ripplings', while nigh invisible to a naive third party - like Wan Nabes was now doing beside the Doctor - was the result of entryway and exit of the location for an object that just entered any form of instant, high-distance, space travel. However, Odin's location were rather puzzling.
Usually, one would declare startling thoughts, surprising opinions or just... Enigmatic questions right away. Severin remained silent. He would not dare to word it loudly, specially nearby Wan Nabes, but... For what purpose Odin had jumped dangerously close to a G-Class Star? There was literally nothing on Severin's wide set of thoughts. It was impossible. There was just not enough hull, thick enough, to protect Odin himself and the crew under his command against direct exposition do a lethally close proximity to a star. A dozen of seconds would be the time necessary for them to be immediately doused in stellar radiation and to melt such ships from the inside out.
Whatever kind of technology the Forces under Kampfer's command boasted to permit such a feat, the Kingsbane Research Department were surely dissecting every bit of data acquired by the drones sent to spy his fleet back at Earth IV. Soon, their superior tech would just be, hypothetically shattered apart to be played with by Severin, when more peaceful times arrives.
For now, however, every scrap of surface information about Kampfer's bellic technology would have to suffice.
However, it was like all of these thoughts were simply invalidated when another background radiation ripple signal appeared on Severin's console, and now, it became comical. Apparently, Odin ended into Isandril's Sun for no reason at all, judging by the fact that not much time after their jump, they literally jumped again. Now, The Doctor could safely assume that either:
(a.) Kampfer's Army chain of command is very erratic to waste resources on FTL like that, or...
(b.) The fleet's jump drives would be so obsolete that a mere star had trifled with it's functions.
Whatever was the apparently right option, the Astrophysicist were a lot more calmer by now, and he was more than eager to share the news of the complete retreat of the enemy for his new allied force:
"Stella Viventium, this Benedict Severin speaking on behalf of the Kingsbane. I'm forwarding a brief report that Knight Ascendant's Odin has used their jump drives to retreat somewhere far outside this solar system, over."
"Why in the actual <****> you always put that 'Oh~! I'm speaking on behalf of the Kingsbane~!!' <********> every time you speak with that Aelyn?" - The Doctor's discrete smile would turn back along with chuckle, out of relief from Odin's retreat rather than anything else, really.
"Because Petrovalyc deserves far more of my education rather than you, Captain Nemo." - The Doctor then would leave Wan Nabes behind, taking himself to a water cooler in the far edges of the bridge while Wan Nabes consumed himself in a cloud of thick, gray smoke, shouting as many creative ways to insult Severin's mother and many things akin to a drunken bar fighter.
Needless to say, however, that no matter how far the genial minds of the Astrophysicist and the Fleet Tactician could go, none of them had a vague idea of what was going on down on Isandril...
'Earth' Solar System - Earth Four, Surroundings of Jungle City
The Masked Bounty Hunter & The Escaped Rebels
"<*******> it! 'Bout time already!" - The Ranger would shout when Dmitri would rush into the run, but as he clinged unto Sergei's frame, 'CL' immediately reached the holster of his Lucian Defender, taking a tight grasp on it with his damaged arm. He would just let out another roar-like, mock warcry towards the canid, possibly just to, well... Mock him. "Yahhh, yahhh! '<**********>! Come 'n 'getta piece of 'ma '<******> gut!" - Even though Sergei had ordered his ally partner to stop, the Ranger would just provoke him further, until finally coming to a halt.
Being with the Ranger and Dmitri together in cramped places would prove to be a challenge for Sergei... And he would better get used to it, by the looks of how things were starting to turn out and judging by all that had happened around The Mad Ranger, it could be said that the trio would hang together for a few more hours before getting somewhere calmer.
Again, out of mockery, the Masked Man cleared his throat very loudly while looking at the Pale Canid before he would speak normally to Sergei again.
"'Yah, 'yah... As I was 'sayin... 'Dere's that big <****> 'lookin town midst that thick grass. 'Whenna crash landed in this hellhole, I could swear 'fer my guns I saw a 'hanger shock full with what looked like '<*****> hybrid jets. That retarded lunatic, 'sunava <*****>, <******>, half-<*****> excuse 'ova military leader, that Kampfer jerk, might've been useful 'fo us, 'fter all."
There was just no absolute end about the curses that The Ranger had in hold for Kampfer. Worsened by the fact that he sounded more like a Mad Redneck than Ranger, he could become quite an annoying, crigeworthy presence for Sergei to tag along. "But I can grant any '<******> wish 'yo pull 'outta 'yo butt when we get 'outta he--"
That's when the voice from before shouted again in open two-way radio transmitters, which The Ranger happened to have installed into his helmet. Immediately, he would take his finger up to the bulky-looking gadget on the right side of his metal cap and adjust the radio frequency to better match who he thought that was signalling him.
"This is Canary! This is Canary! Come on, Ghost! We can see your beacon and get your heartbeats! Where the 'blode hell are you?!"
"'Whatta <****>?!" - 'CL' would raise his voice tone, immediately leaving towards the ladders that lead out of the bunker, signalling Sergei - and possibly Dmitri - to follow him.
"'Come on, 'yo bunch! Cavalry's here!"
The transmission method that the 'Canary', used, coming from the combat-fit civilian ship floating through the Jungle, use a free way method, meaning that anyone with open radio receivers could easily pick up her message, those definitely not limited to any transmitters Dim and Sergei happened to have with them and the more sophisticated communications equipment installed in the bunker as well.
Still, the way that the Mad Ranger spoke much complete with the 'codes' used by the 'Canary' hinted certain level of... Amateurism. Of course, The Mad Ranger was far from one but in the eyes of someone aware that he's a clear dangerous presence, this felt much like a trap... Or was it not?
Sector J84 - Moon 456
Meanwhile...
The wind would come to assist another one of Lockheart's glorious victories. A bounty hunter left with the mere carcass of what was once a man, now just a limp bag of flesh exchangeable for a huge sum of money on the spot. Bigger guns, bigger ships and bigger gallons of booze would come with such victory, that's not to mention the destruction of the unknown combat automaton the Bounty Hunter just took out with her own hands.
And the wind kept howling. Persistent. Unceasing. Until it reached the point where it was louder than Maria felt on the cold her skin. It was not wind.
For someone such as Lockheart, now that the noise was getting louder, it was easy to figure it out that it sounded a lot like a the loud, thundering roar of engines, however, due to the mountainous and rocky surroundings of her environs, there was no possible way for her to detect the source of the noise. There was the winding roar... And there was the rocky landscape.
Then, there was a blast.
"Ah, fizzles, I missed!"
By mere inches, Maria were not struck by whatever made the explosion akin to one exact kilogram of plastic explosive. The blast coming from right above her top, however, was just enough to take a huge chunk of massive rocks to be on their way towards the Bounty Hunter.
"... Now, you're mine~!"
Maria got company.
Signum Spei - Ardella's Low-Orbit
Somewhere else...
Scanning and analysis of Background Cosmic Radiation were used since the dawn of humanity as a reliable mean to spot the infinite variety of phenomena that took place at The Galaxy Wide and, soon, universally. Both technologies for scan and analysis of data collected advanced hand along with medicine, nanotechnology, cybernetics, space ships, future warfare and the many areas of human, and non-human, knowledge. Possibly, there was a laboratory at the colonies orbiting Ardella built solely for the collection and analysis of BCR data, objects entering wormholes or similar environment akin to FTL travel tends to leave a small, temporary 'rip' in the fabric of space-time, producing a brief 'rippling' effect on a BCR, indicating the entry point of a object and, depending on how much energy spent, even the trajectory of such object.
It happened, though, that a thick cloud of smog popped into existence nearby Ardella's orbit, safely far away from any military personnel eager to destroy any invader they can lay their eyes upon. Such smog resembled pretty much the left over smoke produced by The Mad Ranger's primitive space ship, for those who witnessed the events at Earth IV, and it didn't leave a single trace on any BCR scanning equipment of any kind...
Soon, this thick, amorphous mass of smog, with incredible speeds, started to descend into the Ardela's atmosphere, getting increasingly faster the more it descent. Far down at the rocky portion of the planet's surface, the incoming anomaly could be saw as a pitch black spot in the sky, slowly smearing the scenery that the swirling clouds of Ardella made with pitch black. Picture a painting being splattered with tar.
The next thing that happened, was the worst. Erratic radio chatter, bearing the distorted voices of men and women in a robotic demeanor and, some, soundly psychotic, echoed far and wide through all open reachable channels.
"WE̢ ͠HA̸V͏E ͜FO͜ÚND T̸HE ̢S̛UBJEÇT͘.͟"
"͘Ke̕h͞eh,͞ ͢heh,̢ hèh,̸ ͡he̕h͝!! ̷T͞h͘i͢s̡ <*****̢>̷'̧s͞ ͜g͏ettin͜g ̛wh́a͟t ̴she͘ ͝d̕es͏ervȩs!͏ H̷ąh̨, ha̷h,͟ hah, h̷àh̶!̕"҉
"P͏l̵e̡ase̕,̡ ̶s͏i͏l͢e̢nc̸e͟.̸ W̴e ̡a̡re͜ ͜ap̡p͞r̕ǫa̷chi̕ng̛ ̴K̰̗ͫ̓̌̈ͬ̓̑à̵͋l̮̰̬̹̜͈͂̋̌͐ͣ̔ͧl̰͚̎ͤ̏̿ĕ̗̠͔͋̽̉ng̥͇̉̿ͯ͌e͐̃̋̑ͮ͆̊r̜͓͋͌ͥ̃̓ͩ̍'̀͋͗͒͒s̼̲͎ͣͭͯ̕ loc̢a͡t͢i͘o̶n̸.͠ Th̵e̷r̢e̷ àppear̛s͝ t̡o be ̢m̛u̢lti̡p̵le fle͜shb͟ags͝ ̸wi̴th͏ ̀her. ͢I wąn͢t̡ ҉t̀hem a҉ssįmil͜a͢te͟d. I͠'͘m̛ I c̨l̢èar?͡"
"Y͝e͝ah, w̧h҉a̵te̶v͞er͠.͟"
̀
"AF̷FI͝RMATIVE.͞ ͡ M̕ISS̡.̸ P̨L̷UT͢ONIA̵.̨"
The Kingsbane & The Stella Viventium
Right after Odin's promises of a deadlier come back had echoed through the Kingsbane's Bridge, Severin took utmost hurry towards the computer consoles right beside Wan Nabes wheel for the ship. It was lucky for the Doctor that the officials under Kampfer's command like to boast so much about their 'evil' intentions, as so far, sometimes revealing information that would be vital for their victories. Severin, now, was exactly aware of what he would do.
Director Severin speaking, Research, come in... - The Doctor would abruptly shove the one Captain Wanheed aside, once both curious and irate about Odin's lack of compliance, now utterly mad to be just pushed aside by his own First Mate.
"What the <****> you think you doing, you <*******> excuse of a scientist?! You're overthro--"
"Silence, Captain Nemo." - Severin would put up a wide smile, not even looking at 'Nemo'. He couldn't help but take a slight nod from Aelyn's compliment to the Captain of the Kingsbane. The such, meanwhile, would twist his face and puff out thick smogs of his cigar, much like an angry dragon, barin his teeth at the grinning Research Director. Soon, however, it didn't take too long for Severin to be answered by his comrades and his face soon turned to a cold, blank, eyeless stare...
"... Knight Ascendant's Odin just backed away with FTL. Please, attempt to do the usual procedure."
With the same technology used to track down the Stella Viventium in the chase that lead into Isandril's low-orbit, the Kingsbane's Research Team was able to aptly catch the residual radiation of a tear in the universe, typically left by wormholes and FTL travel, left by Odin's Fleet. A local radiation background immediately appeared on the screen that Severin had his focus on. The 'ripplings', while nigh invisible to a naive third party - like Wan Nabes was now doing beside the Doctor - was the result of entryway and exit of the location for an object that just entered any form of instant, high-distance, space travel. However, Odin's location were rather puzzling.
Usually, one would declare startling thoughts, surprising opinions or just... Enigmatic questions right away. Severin remained silent. He would not dare to word it loudly, specially nearby Wan Nabes, but... For what purpose Odin had jumped dangerously close to a G-Class Star? There was literally nothing on Severin's wide set of thoughts. It was impossible. There was just not enough hull, thick enough, to protect Odin himself and the crew under his command against direct exposition do a lethally close proximity to a star. A dozen of seconds would be the time necessary for them to be immediately doused in stellar radiation and to melt such ships from the inside out.
Whatever kind of technology the Forces under Kampfer's command boasted to permit such a feat, the Kingsbane Research Department were surely dissecting every bit of data acquired by the drones sent to spy his fleet back at Earth IV. Soon, their superior tech would just be, hypothetically shattered apart to be played with by Severin, when more peaceful times arrives.
For now, however, every scrap of surface information about Kampfer's bellic technology would have to suffice.
However, it was like all of these thoughts were simply invalidated when another background radiation ripple signal appeared on Severin's console, and now, it became comical. Apparently, Odin ended into Isandril's Sun for no reason at all, judging by the fact that not much time after their jump, they literally jumped again. Now, The Doctor could safely assume that either:
(a.) Kampfer's Army chain of command is very erratic to waste resources on FTL like that, or...
(b.) The fleet's jump drives would be so obsolete that a mere star had trifled with it's functions.
Whatever was the apparently right option, the Astrophysicist were a lot more calmer by now, and he was more than eager to share the news of the complete retreat of the enemy for his new allied force:
"Stella Viventium, this Benedict Severin speaking on behalf of the Kingsbane. I'm forwarding a brief report that Knight Ascendant's Odin has used their jump drives to retreat somewhere far outside this solar system, over."
"Why in the actual <****> you always put that 'Oh~! I'm speaking on behalf of the Kingsbane~!!' <********> every time you speak with that Aelyn?" - The Doctor's discrete smile would turn back along with chuckle, out of relief from Odin's retreat rather than anything else, really.
"Because Petrovalyc deserves far more of my education rather than you, Captain Nemo." - The Doctor then would leave Wan Nabes behind, taking himself to a water cooler in the far edges of the bridge while Wan Nabes consumed himself in a cloud of thick, gray smoke, shouting as many creative ways to insult Severin's mother and many things akin to a drunken bar fighter.
Needless to say, however, that no matter how far the genial minds of the Astrophysicist and the Fleet Tactician could go, none of them had a vague idea of what was going on down on Isandril...
'Earth' Solar System - Earth Four, Surroundings of Jungle City
The Masked Bounty Hunter & The Escaped Rebels
"<*******> it! 'Bout time already!" - The Ranger would shout when Dmitri would rush into the run, but as he clinged unto Sergei's frame, 'CL' immediately reached the holster of his Lucian Defender, taking a tight grasp on it with his damaged arm. He would just let out another roar-like, mock warcry towards the canid, possibly just to, well... Mock him. "Yahhh, yahhh! '<**********>! Come 'n 'getta piece of 'ma '<******> gut!" - Even though Sergei had ordered his ally partner to stop, the Ranger would just provoke him further, until finally coming to a halt.
Being with the Ranger and Dmitri together in cramped places would prove to be a challenge for Sergei... And he would better get used to it, by the looks of how things were starting to turn out and judging by all that had happened around The Mad Ranger, it could be said that the trio would hang together for a few more hours before getting somewhere calmer.
Again, out of mockery, the Masked Man cleared his throat very loudly while looking at the Pale Canid before he would speak normally to Sergei again.
"'Yah, 'yah... As I was 'sayin... 'Dere's that big <****> 'lookin town midst that thick grass. 'Whenna crash landed in this hellhole, I could swear 'fer my guns I saw a 'hanger shock full with what looked like '<*****> hybrid jets. That retarded lunatic, 'sunava <*****>, <******>, half-<*****> excuse 'ova military leader, that Kampfer jerk, might've been useful 'fo us, 'fter all."
There was just no absolute end about the curses that The Ranger had in hold for Kampfer. Worsened by the fact that he sounded more like a Mad Redneck than Ranger, he could become quite an annoying, crigeworthy presence for Sergei to tag along. "But I can grant any '<******> wish 'yo pull 'outta 'yo butt when we get 'outta he--"
That's when the voice from before shouted again in open two-way radio transmitters, which The Ranger happened to have installed into his helmet. Immediately, he would take his finger up to the bulky-looking gadget on the right side of his metal cap and adjust the radio frequency to better match who he thought that was signalling him.
"This is Canary! This is Canary! Come on, Ghost! We can see your beacon and get your heartbeats! Where the 'blode hell are you?!"
"'Whatta <****>?!" - 'CL' would raise his voice tone, immediately leaving towards the ladders that lead out of the bunker, signalling Sergei - and possibly Dmitri - to follow him.
"'Come on, 'yo bunch! Cavalry's here!"
The transmission method that the 'Canary', used, coming from the combat-fit civilian ship floating through the Jungle, use a free way method, meaning that anyone with open radio receivers could easily pick up her message, those definitely not limited to any transmitters Dim and Sergei happened to have with them and the more sophisticated communications equipment installed in the bunker as well.
Still, the way that the Mad Ranger spoke much complete with the 'codes' used by the 'Canary' hinted certain level of... Amateurism. Of course, The Mad Ranger was far from one but in the eyes of someone aware that he's a clear dangerous presence, this felt much like a trap... Or was it not?
Sector J84 - Moon 456
Meanwhile...
The wind would come to assist another one of Lockheart's glorious victories. A bounty hunter left with the mere carcass of what was once a man, now just a limp bag of flesh exchangeable for a huge sum of money on the spot. Bigger guns, bigger ships and bigger gallons of booze would come with such victory, that's not to mention the destruction of the unknown combat automaton the Bounty Hunter just took out with her own hands.
And the wind kept howling. Persistent. Unceasing. Until it reached the point where it was louder than Maria felt on the cold her skin. It was not wind.
For someone such as Lockheart, now that the noise was getting louder, it was easy to figure it out that it sounded a lot like a the loud, thundering roar of engines, however, due to the mountainous and rocky surroundings of her environs, there was no possible way for her to detect the source of the noise. There was the winding roar... And there was the rocky landscape.
Then, there was a blast.
"Ah, fizzles, I missed!"
By mere inches, Maria were not struck by whatever made the explosion akin to one exact kilogram of plastic explosive. The blast coming from right above her top, however, was just enough to take a huge chunk of massive rocks to be on their way towards the Bounty Hunter.
"... Now, you're mine~!"
Maria got company.
Signum Spei - Ardella's Low-Orbit
Somewhere else...
Scanning and analysis of Background Cosmic Radiation were used since the dawn of humanity as a reliable mean to spot the infinite variety of phenomena that took place at The Galaxy Wide and, soon, universally. Both technologies for scan and analysis of data collected advanced hand along with medicine, nanotechnology, cybernetics, space ships, future warfare and the many areas of human, and non-human, knowledge. Possibly, there was a laboratory at the colonies orbiting Ardella built solely for the collection and analysis of BCR data, objects entering wormholes or similar environment akin to FTL travel tends to leave a small, temporary 'rip' in the fabric of space-time, producing a brief 'rippling' effect on a BCR, indicating the entry point of a object and, depending on how much energy spent, even the trajectory of such object.
It happened, though, that a thick cloud of smog popped into existence nearby Ardella's orbit, safely far away from any military personnel eager to destroy any invader they can lay their eyes upon. Such smog resembled pretty much the left over smoke produced by The Mad Ranger's primitive space ship, for those who witnessed the events at Earth IV, and it didn't leave a single trace on any BCR scanning equipment of any kind...
Soon, this thick, amorphous mass of smog, with incredible speeds, started to descend into the Ardela's atmosphere, getting increasingly faster the more it descent. Far down at the rocky portion of the planet's surface, the incoming anomaly could be saw as a pitch black spot in the sky, slowly smearing the scenery that the swirling clouds of Ardella made with pitch black. Picture a painting being splattered with tar.
The next thing that happened, was the worst. Erratic radio chatter, bearing the distorted voices of men and women in a robotic demeanor and, some, soundly psychotic, echoed far and wide through all open reachable channels.
"WE̢ ͠HA̸V͏E ͜FO͜ÚND T̸HE ̢S̛UBJEÇT͘.͟"
"͘Ke̕h͞eh,͞ ͢heh,̢ hèh,̸ ͡he̕h͝!! ̷T͞h͘i͢s̡ <*****̢>̷'̧s͞ ͜g͏ettin͜g ̛wh́a͟t ̴she͘ ͝d̕es͏ervȩs!͏ H̷ąh̨, ha̷h,͟ hah, h̷àh̶!̕"҉
"P͏l̵e̡ase̕,̡ ̶s͏i͏l͢e̢nc̸e͟.̸ W̴e ̡a̡re͜ ͜ap̡p͞r̕ǫa̷chi̕ng̛ ̴K̰̗ͫ̓̌̈ͬ̓̑à̵͋l̮̰̬̹̜͈͂̋̌͐ͣ̔ͧl̰͚̎ͤ̏̿ĕ̗̠͔͋̽̉ng̥͇̉̿ͯ͌e͐̃̋̑ͮ͆̊r̜͓͋͌ͥ̃̓ͩ̍'̀͋͗͒͒s̼̲͎ͣͭͯ̕ loc̢a͡t͢i͘o̶n̸.͠ Th̵e̷r̢e̷ àppear̛s͝ t̡o be ̢m̛u̢lti̡p̵le fle͜shb͟ags͝ ̸wi̴th͏ ̀her. ͢I wąn͢t̡ ҉t̀hem a҉ssįmil͜a͢te͟d. I͠'͘m̛ I c̨l̢èar?͡"
"Y͝e͝ah, w̧h҉a̵te̶v͞er͠.͟"
̀
"AF̷FI͝RMATIVE.͞ ͡ M̕ISS̡.̸ P̨L̷UT͢ONIA̵.̨"
Post Deleted.
A long-abandoned Old Imperial air reserve was the perfect place to hide a top-secret laboratory. They hadn't built it in haste, either - they had built a good quality, super-secure subterranean lair just perfect for experimenting on dangerous things, and then they had found something dangerous to experiment on. Imperial researchers actually signed waivers over that sort of thing - no reimbursement in the case of death or dismemberment - and they had long since learned to keep backups of the lockdown protocols in case something went wrong.
Actually, the lockdown protocols were too well constructed. On numerous occasions, the system had detected a spilled coffee or an analyst shagging his assistant in a robo-broom closet, and assumed that some horrible catastrophe had occurred. Alarms blared, thick hydraulic doors slammed shut - in one instance, a physicist lost a hand. The administrator had sent multiple requests in to Imperial Command for a revision of the system, but they were plainly ignored for more pressing matters.
In the end, however, the oversensitive lockdown system saved the planet - entirely by accident. EMI-45 had gone about slaughtering some fifteen percent of the total staff before anyone had noticed. Naturally, when a security technician on the uppermost level noticed this, he hastily activated the lab's security systems - which were separate from the lockdown procedures. After all, if the automated turrets and laser grids and atomic containment fields and so on could take care of the problem without trapping everyone inside, all the better since people would then be able to escape.
And it would have gone wonderfully, if not for one of the younger computer technicians on one of the uppermost levels who had been privately researching some unconventional methods of achieving sexual gratification utilizing a teleprompter and a butter knife. When the door was flung open by a fellow technician who had recently discovered questionable content on the communal recreation terminal, a small sum of chaos followed and resulted in some objects crashing off a desk. One of these objects was the glass tank in which resided the technician's pet gerbil-dragonfly hybrid. The creature promptly skittered into the hallway, triggering the lockdown.
And so it came to pass that the entire population of the facility was trapped within the facility, systematically and painfully reduced to zero - not counting the escaped monster who proceeded to drink the place dry of power and then pass out for a few hundred years.
In a brilliant feat of insight, however, the engineers that designed the place had thought it best to include several incredibly thick vault-like doors, and a distance of half a kilometer between the research facility and the old air reserve base that they were building it under. As such, there was a half-kilometer deep elevator shaft and six, thirteen-inch-thick hydraulic vault doors between the contents of the facility and the air reserve base above. The seventh door was located in the reactor level of the reserve base, where it stood tall and intimidating in the dim, greenish glow of the three-century-old, inactive fusion reactors.
The security system for the reserve base had long since ceased to function even when they first arrived to build the place below - the entire place was totally dead and there had been no need to try and drag the old reactors to life. Similarly, the research facility's security system - which had been activated just before the lockdown - had gone largely dormant after a few decades without movement.
But all the chaos around the planet had been creating a whole lot of vibrations which spread deep into the world. The sensors, operating on only their most primitive functions to conserve the minuscule sum of power in the special reserve, had been detecting these vibrations and considering - in the way that automated, nonsentient computers do - putting itself back into action.
The unliving security system did not know that this most recent vibration - virtually imperceptible through the vast distance of rock between it and the source - was the crashing of a circular iron slab into the floor of the hangar. All it knew was that it was time to do something, because someone was somewhere. So it triggered the fission capsules and before long the whole research facility was once again powered at near-full capacity. The skeletons glared bleached white in the unyielding fluorescent from the six-foot heavens above.
Of course, the lockdown had not been recalled - that was the point of a lockdown, after all.
The air reserve base had also failed completely to benefit from this, considering that it was, except for that deep shaft, a separate place entirely.
-
Royanna Kallenger had been clinging to Christofer Markov much more tightly than she realized. The great robot crashed to the hangar floor, leaving a shallow, uneven crater in the sturdy metal. She, along with the individual she was clinging to, proceeded after a few seconds of stillness to slip limply off their desperate perch and thump roughly to the floor – not unlike an unfortunate bird gradually sliding down glass. She groaned, face-down and one arm draped over the canid, then heaved herself into a sitting position.
The air was stale, musty and bitterly cold. The place had the sense of age, of things gone undone in the distant past. Of a place that was once important, perhaps even bustling with activity, in a time where everything was different and alien – though familiar and comprehensible. Infinitesimal particles of dust or debris floated serenely in the beam of Iril's light. The gentle, twinkling illumination from above did nothing except emphasize the height of the chamber.
Think, think. Royanna was in a daze, numbed by the pain from her leg, her shoulder, the pain of having her innards shaken around with all the force of a giant robot falling from an incredible height. A crashing elevator.
When she did speak, it was half blurted insistence. "No, no we should be safe here, at least for a couple of hours. The Old Imperial places...were huge on keeping themselves hidden. They-" she took a sharp breath as a needle of agony shot through one of her tendons, but persisted. "They won't know where we are until they find that hole." She was unaware of the energy spike that had come from the facility beneath the reserve base. To her, there was no energy here - only stagnation and the ghosts of a place long abandoned. Their watchers above might infer their presence due to the energy spike, but they themselves would be quite invisible until someone poked their head through that hole.
She shivered. Without realizing it, she drew in the canine in an unconscious, though feeble attempt at rousing him while focusing on more important things. A hand brushed almost affectionately at his hair.
Or was it ‘top-of-the-head-fur’? It felt like hair. Mostly.
"C...Cox, you alright" She said, also wearily - but damned if her first concern wasn't for her people. She was nothing without people. The Kampfer agent was fine, she could see the lights of the gas mask moving about in the stifling blackness of their open surroundings. It did not occur to her to compliment the robot on a job well done because, well, it was a robot.
An impressive robot, even with one arm - but still.
Mind all a mess, Royanna seemed to be addressing things rather helter-skelter. "Robot." If Iril had formerly introduced herself, Royanna had forgotten. "Do you have any autorepair programs? One of the Old Empire's staples back then was synthesized metallics, so there'll be a cache of raw materials nearby." Another gritting of teeth, momentary tightening of eyes. The Old Empire had nothing so advanced as self-repairing technology, at least not at the time this particular base was built, some two hundred and ninety years prior. They had, however, learned via necessity to extract raw ores from the barren land, manipulating it to be easier to work with. Granted, that Iril might have some program to rebuild her arm nearly from scratch was more than a long shot, but Kallenger figured there was no harm in the suggestion.
"We also need to find a Spacebedamned medbay or I'm going to start having to consider amputation. There might also...be some...some engineer lights around. Check the workstations along th...the wall."
Sure enough, there would be a few not far from their position. Simple things, they could hold power for a few thousand years in theory. Rectangular flashlights with one lens atop for directed light, and one large face of the side serving as a more broad field. The things were omnimagnetic and would stick comfortably to almost any surface, resisting only mildly when removed. There would be enough for each of them - except Iril, obviously - to have one. They were going to need it - even if the unknown scientists of the unknown sub-sub facility had failed to deactivate their things, the Old Empire before them was rarely so sloppy. Sure, this base looked to be one which had fallen from use gradually, so there would still be plenty of things lying about - but the last man always turned out the lights. Conservation of power was crucial on an isolated exile world, even to the point of totally disconnecting generators.
So there would be no power restored to the reserve air base. It would be dark and oppressive, and within the shadows that enclosed around their very sanity some terrible evil might lie in waiting or stalk them to their doom – and they would be powerless to stop it.
Or, at least, that would be the feeling any sane person would experience in an underground, long-forgotten military base.
Someone would doubtless hand Royanna one of the worklights, and she would shine the beam about the great hangar to get a cursory glimpse at what air vessels might lay in waiting. Initially, the realization that they had found a reserve base was encouraging – and it was true that most of these vehicles looked like they could still fly – the problem was the ceiling, the complete inability to open the great doors.
In fact, they were more or less trapped down here now – the only way in would be a rail system connecting it to a bunker some miles away. The Old Empire had taken their security very seriously in matters such as dominance in the sky, and no enemy agent could be allowed access to their weapons.
That reminded Roya – there would be weapons here, too. Ammunition for her revolver surely. Maybe something with a high fire rate and low recoil so that the useless Christofer might spray’n’pray his way into combat value.
No, on second thought, probably too dangerous.
Whether it was by sheer coincidence, some vague science of luck, or the manipulation from some impossible and otherworldly force, things seemed to always happen more or less 'on cue' for Ketin Clarke. Nirix had turned to face Kampfer in icy rage. It had been lights and fear and incomprehensible madness layered under the suffocation of live burial in solid granite - thoughts beyond incoherent, hardly even at the level of what one might consider 'sentience'.
But as Nirix was looking away, something clicked. It was not like the sudden powering of a lightbulb - in fact, the eye would remain vaguely off in shade for some time as it regained the finer points of electromagnetic momentum. It was a head rush - the kind where sound becomes far off, sight becomes hyper-focused, where standing stark still and waiting for it to pass is the only plausible solution. The trouble was that it lasted quite a bit longer for Ketin Clarke.
Initially, there was little perceptible change in him - he was still half curled up and pressed into the wall, still clutching at his left eye as if there was something he needed to get off of his face. His breathing was shallow and erratic, ears flat, hands and form trembling noticeably.
It wasn't even a telling sign when he went quiet, since the sobbing had, for the majority of the unpleasant incident, been the sort of intense, inward, silent force rather than wracking cries that shuddered the shoulders and really let the endorphin flow.
It was like waking up with his head in a pressurized glass jar. Things were close, but distorted - but gradually it occurred to him that he could see again. There were no more blinding strobes or choking shadows to curl about his face and force themselves down his throat. He was seeing...floor. Depth perception was off, not that he really noticed.
And eventually Nirix would turn around - and that would be the first real, rather sudden sign of change. She turned, looked at him, and no matter how graceful her everyday motions were, she would have moved too fast for him - not that she would even have reason to know. Still unconsciously gripping with both hands the now roughly scratched area about his left eye, Kete let out a moderately kiddish yelp and instinctively kicked himself further into the wall. Hair damp and obscuring the blue of his remaining organic eye, it was still beyond obvious that he was staring at her in utter, abject, soul-dampening horror. He was positively terrified of her. Frozen, paralyzed in fear, unable to utter even the meekest sound following that initial yelp.
Slowly, slowly the microscopic tendrils extending from the eye came back to life. Shoveling thick, wet snow from a narrow path, looking back on it with satisfaction and feeling all the better off for it. Though Kete was not feeling better. Not exactly.
The only mercy for him was that the eye had already been installed - so reactivation would not prove nearly as traumatic as the initial conscious implantation. Still, it was invasive and frightening in itself - that which had been so intrinsically a part of him for so long had suddenly, for the briefest moment, become alien - if only subconsciously. It wasn't doing anything to ease the utter, raw terror in his expression looking up at the Eoclu woman.
After some seconds - the kid was blinking at random intervals, harder than usual as if he had been dazzled by light, though it also convincingly resembled something of a tick - he perceived at length a warm and placidly unpleasant sensation about his fingers. Hesitantly, as if simultaneously not wanting to tear his gaze from the now apparently terrifying presence in front him and also not wanting to acknowledge whatever that viscous warmth was - Kete lowered the two hands clutching at his left eye. Inwardly, he was astounded at how much better he could suddenly use his face-eyes. Consciously, he was looking at fingertips dabbed in crimson, blood seeping up under the fingernails along with the occasional scrap of - what was it, flesh? He turned his hands slowly, shakily about, just a little, looking them over.
Then his gaze returned to the woman - and there was no less fear. There was, however, an added minutia of questioning - as if this person whom he so deathly feared might be able to shed some light on...something. The area surrounding the left eye looked just as one might have expected it to. The wounds were shallow but wide and gruesome, gouging inward toward the ridge of the sinuses, accumulating about the cheekbones. It looked very much as though someone had welded a metal eye patch over it, and he had scraped and clawed and mutilated it off again. The only problem was that there had been no such object obscuring his vision. One particularly deep laceration about his forehead - passing the ridge of his brow and actually ending in a petering waiver downward of the eyelid - allowed for a little bead of red to trickle down, hanging for a second at the ridge of his eyebrow, and at last making the jump to land on cheekbone where it only melded into a similar wound. All the scratches came together to form one radial mess, it seemed.
It was, for the moment, the last thing on Kete's mind - but there was a distinct possibility that the sudden reactivation of the eye might have had something to do with what he had been engaging in beforehand. Speculation upon speculation, was it possible that the weak, broadcast-signal which he tried to allow conduit and passage through the eye - could that signal have had, even in some small way, contributed to the hastened recovery? Or maybe not. There was nobody actually thinking about that possibility at that particular moment in that particular location, and the exposition only really served to allow someone else to squeeze a post in if they so chose.
That eye did look worse than it was. Much worse. Would he actually have succeeded in doing serious, permanent damage to himself if it had continued? Possibly. And he was confused, and desperately, maddeningly frightened in utter silence of the woman before him, trembling like the last, infinitesimal frond of a dying juniper.
It was hot.
It was very hot.
It was very, very hot.
It was so hot that it didn't even feel hot anymore, because 'hot' could not exist in an environment where the temperature had already reached its' theoretical maximum.
But she knew, realistically, that the dunes were not hotter than, say, the sun - and whenever the heat did start to get to her again she could always look up and be thankful that she wasn't up there.
Of course, this did nothing for the black, enveloping, bone-chilling, icy wind that dominated the dunes when the sky turned inky black and the sand turned to ash. Sometimes she wondered if she was being picky. She wanted it to be cold when it was hot, wanted to be hot when it was cold.
Vaguely, ever so vaguely, she could recall the world looking very different. Vague, nebulous images of pale greens and seafoam blues, of tall trees with crystalline bark that erupted into great, cascading fronds of violet and cyan. Visions of places where other people lived. It was, of course, all entirely absurd and she was well aware of that. After all, the gilded towers had stood there for as long as memory had existed, even back into the foggy place where things seemed to be different, but could not have been. It was an illusion, she knew - the mind could only retain so much in the form of memory, and eventually the oldest of visions would fade into blurry, soupy vagueness. The fact that imagining things any other way than they were was at best laughable only strengthened this theory.
Sometimes, she couldn't help but worry. After all, it was hard to tell just how long ago the memories could stay clear before dissipating into vagueness and fantasy. Sure, time was irrelevant, and she barely paid any attention to the concept. The sun went around and around, and everything was, and would be, and she was content with that. It did not really matter whether she had a very long memory, or an average memory or even a very short memory. In fact, the lattermost seemed the most likely - after all, when everything was as it would be forever, there would be little need for long-term memory. She wasn't entirely certain where these ideas had come from, in all honesty - but she didn't mind, either.
She knew every square inch of the world. It always was, so naturally she would. She could navigate impeccably - but there was no need to navigate, for there were only dunes. Dunes and the gilded towers that shimmered gloriously in the white-hot relentlessness of the sun above.
Sometimes she wondered if the towers had a purpose. But these wonderings were very short lived, because they were stupid. Why did they need a purpose? What even was a 'purpose'. There was hardly any concept of cause and effect in the world. There was hardly even entropy - the sands shifted forever and ever, the towers stood, and the russet gold sky enclosed it all.
Well, not all. Obviously the sun was outside of the sky. That much was obvious.
But why was it obvious?
A lot of things were obvious, and she recognized indirectly that she failed to comprehend even the most obvious of truths more often than she would have liked. Not that it mattered, and not that there was any reason to criticize herself for it. Not that there was a reason for any of the thoughts that writhed along within her mind, mingling and creating and destroying, and just being. Just like everything else that was, and would be. Just being.
And then, in one second - less than one second - an imperceptible instant singled out in eternity - in one second, her entire universe fell into shambles.
Given the grandeur of the gilded towers looming over them and the general excitement to get started, nobody in the expedition team bothered to look anywhere but at their equipment, sometimes at each other, and at the utter majesty of Isandril. Nobody paid much attention to the dunes - they were just dunes - and the view from space confirmed that, even though it was an incredibly unlikely configuration for a planet, the world of ancient Isandril literally did not have a single feature. Dunes, and the city. Nothing else. There was nothing out there, nothing but sand that they had already seen from orbit. So they did not look, and they did not notice the tiny, insignificant, utterly unimportant and thoroughly dwarfed speck of white as it peered over the horizon some immeasurable distance away, then again descended.
The Captain and permanently attached wife had not bothered to stick around for the 'mundane'. There would surely be much to study here, much to learn, and they had the equipment and manpower to make good use of their time here - but Aelyn-Paeryc had made it very clear that his and Alexia's mission must remain separate. Though it was mostly speculation, he believed that his and Alexia's unique 'condition' would be the only thing standing between their relative presence in the Universe and their utter dissipation into paradoxical existing non-existence. Neither knew what to expect, but they knew where to go. Neither knew how they knew where to go, but they did. It seemed so obvious. They walked on ahead, treading the smooth, solid floor of the city as if they had been there a thousand times before. As if past lives guided them, the experiences of their elder spirits giving them the wisdom to persevere.
The Chief Scientific Administrator of the Stella Viventium was not too perturbed by this. Sure, they would be experiencing something that a physicist - or any person of science for that matter - would commit questionable acts against their fellow people to be in on.
And, in a way, it really was a damn shame that he wouldn't be able to accompany the Captain into that...wherever he was going. He was, after all, the leading expert on Notspace. It should have been Aelyn-Paeryc and Alexia, since they were actually part of the paradoxical pseudo-presence. Yet the Not was enigmatic, and proved nigh impossible to study if one inched too close. A.P. and Alexia were stunted in their ability to study themselves - but, it was that very handicap that gave Dorin Harkahn the advantage.
Some day. Someday he would do something great. He was sure of that. Even when he had been a computer technician for BrainPal™ on the more insignificant levels of their corporate headquarters within the Stella. Even before then, when he had mustered through an apprenticeship with a particular old man who had been particularly deft with his computers.
And it would have all gone nowhere at all, if Aelyn-Paeryc Petrovalyc - the man who, unbeknownst to the entire population, owned and commanded the entire vessel on his own - hadn't had some sudden insight, seen something in the rusty-haired nerd that beckoned him to greatness. It had been a whole new world back then - the whole secret universe of the Command Module, of the inner workings of the more inner workings of the innermost workings of a place which he had considered to be all the world for all his life. Suddenly he had access to so much more information. And now, here he was - leading what might just be one of the most vital scientific expeditions in the history of Mankind.
The first big discovery was that the skyscrapers of the city of Isandril were not skyscrapers at all. No physical being could hope to dwell within the hypercomplex innards of the protrusions - the purpose of which, the method of which, went still beyond their comprehension.
The towers were machines - or part of a larger machine - yet all the inner workings were entirely inert. There was the question of whether or not the parts had ever been intended to move - but the closest they would be able to get to whatever ancient technology lie behind those petrostanium walls would be what hints they could gather from different sensors fired in from the outside, from open air where people lived and floundered in the footsteps of their elders. It was infuriating, but Harkahn had expected as such. They were going to run into hurdle after hurdle here - but they would overcome, and they would learn, he would be sure of it.
A small, tightly packed, temporary base of operations was erected some half mile from the grand, arching, wide-open gate. There was a distinct mixture of claustrophobia from encroaching towers and wuthering heights, and of open freedom, of wonder at this most ancient of places, at the very energy that seemed to radiate from the city floor. It was also much cooler in the shade of the towers than the naked sun, and that everyone was grateful for.
They would have been more grateful for a door or a window, some way to get into the impenetrable, coppery surface that looked like hardened fondant or smooth, melted, seamless candle wax. Okay, so maybe progress would be slow - but radio chatter had revealed to the group - some time after the Captain and wife had departed for the city center - that the Kampfer fleet was retreating, and that left them virtually...safe. It was actually an unfamiliar feeling, Harkahn realized. So progress would be slow. So what? He was facing the opportunity of a lifetime - of a billion lifetimes - and he was going to make the most of it.
Analysts pored over the walls with devices that probed with unfeeling rays or particles or waves - trying to garner what scant inferences they could from the severely limited sum of research material. Or, rather, the utter inability to access it.
Harkahn caught himself daydreaming, gazing wistfully through a part in the hexagonal towers to the lip of the great, curved wall. Had it once protected the city from some foreign invader? Had the First People even had conflicts among themselves? Was he forgetting something very, very important about the city of Isandril?
If only they could find a door, a window - anything to allow them access into the skyscrapers. Surely there would be plenty to study in there. The First People were always believed to be very similar to Mankind, physically - sure, maybe they could phase through walls, but it just seemed more likely that somewhere there would be a door.
The team got creative, began probing the city floor for possible seams in the unyielding petrostanium, the telltale signs of some trap door, perhaps. They would find something, he was sure of it...
Impossible.
Impossible.
Utterly impossible.
She was witnessing before her eyes the end of the universe. The end of everything she knew. It changed everything. It was horrifying only in its alien nature. Not just alien - practically impossible to comprehend at all. Everything was and would be. Things did not change in the world. Things did not just appear. There were dunes, the towers, and her, and nothing, nothing, nothing else. It didn't make sense. The mind rejected the very absurdity of it. Yet did her eyes lie? They had never lied before, so far as she knew. Could eyes lie?
It was small - she wasn't sure quite how small, but certainly it was beyond dwarfed by the mighty wall of the towers, and moreso by the towers themselves. Initially she thought it a trick of the shadow cast by the towers - but no, it was there. It had to be, yet it could not be.
It could not be!
What was she supposed to do. What was she supposed to do! She had to do something, she was sure of it. But what?
Had to act. Had to...to...had to do something. Supposed to do something. Someone had to tell her what to do.
No! Stupid, hopelessly stupid. Someone else to tell her what to do? And while she was at it, she could tear herself in two and carry on a conversation between the halves. Stupid. Someone else.
Okay, it was weird that it was such a persistent thought. Usually stupid thoughts didn't seem so right. Now she was being faced with the impossible, witnessing with her own eyes the presence of something that was not before, was not now, could not be, was never, could be, was.
Her mind rejected it, rejected it, rejected it. Impossible. Utterly impossible. Impossible and positively terrifying due to that very impossibility. The ultimate unknown, the ultimate anomaly.
She had ducked back down beneath the crest of a particularly mountainous wave of sand dune. She sat in the sand, half-leaning back, the sand forming what would usually feel like a safe, comfortable cress and now felt like nothing. Felt like nothing because nothing made sense any more. What was she going to do? She had to do something.
She had to do something.
Someone needed to.
Needed to.
She had to do something.
Actually, the lockdown protocols were too well constructed. On numerous occasions, the system had detected a spilled coffee or an analyst shagging his assistant in a robo-broom closet, and assumed that some horrible catastrophe had occurred. Alarms blared, thick hydraulic doors slammed shut - in one instance, a physicist lost a hand. The administrator had sent multiple requests in to Imperial Command for a revision of the system, but they were plainly ignored for more pressing matters.
In the end, however, the oversensitive lockdown system saved the planet - entirely by accident. EMI-45 had gone about slaughtering some fifteen percent of the total staff before anyone had noticed. Naturally, when a security technician on the uppermost level noticed this, he hastily activated the lab's security systems - which were separate from the lockdown procedures. After all, if the automated turrets and laser grids and atomic containment fields and so on could take care of the problem without trapping everyone inside, all the better since people would then be able to escape.
And it would have gone wonderfully, if not for one of the younger computer technicians on one of the uppermost levels who had been privately researching some unconventional methods of achieving sexual gratification utilizing a teleprompter and a butter knife. When the door was flung open by a fellow technician who had recently discovered questionable content on the communal recreation terminal, a small sum of chaos followed and resulted in some objects crashing off a desk. One of these objects was the glass tank in which resided the technician's pet gerbil-dragonfly hybrid. The creature promptly skittered into the hallway, triggering the lockdown.
And so it came to pass that the entire population of the facility was trapped within the facility, systematically and painfully reduced to zero - not counting the escaped monster who proceeded to drink the place dry of power and then pass out for a few hundred years.
In a brilliant feat of insight, however, the engineers that designed the place had thought it best to include several incredibly thick vault-like doors, and a distance of half a kilometer between the research facility and the old air reserve base that they were building it under. As such, there was a half-kilometer deep elevator shaft and six, thirteen-inch-thick hydraulic vault doors between the contents of the facility and the air reserve base above. The seventh door was located in the reactor level of the reserve base, where it stood tall and intimidating in the dim, greenish glow of the three-century-old, inactive fusion reactors.
The security system for the reserve base had long since ceased to function even when they first arrived to build the place below - the entire place was totally dead and there had been no need to try and drag the old reactors to life. Similarly, the research facility's security system - which had been activated just before the lockdown - had gone largely dormant after a few decades without movement.
But all the chaos around the planet had been creating a whole lot of vibrations which spread deep into the world. The sensors, operating on only their most primitive functions to conserve the minuscule sum of power in the special reserve, had been detecting these vibrations and considering - in the way that automated, nonsentient computers do - putting itself back into action.
The unliving security system did not know that this most recent vibration - virtually imperceptible through the vast distance of rock between it and the source - was the crashing of a circular iron slab into the floor of the hangar. All it knew was that it was time to do something, because someone was somewhere. So it triggered the fission capsules and before long the whole research facility was once again powered at near-full capacity. The skeletons glared bleached white in the unyielding fluorescent from the six-foot heavens above.
Of course, the lockdown had not been recalled - that was the point of a lockdown, after all.
The air reserve base had also failed completely to benefit from this, considering that it was, except for that deep shaft, a separate place entirely.
-
Royanna Kallenger had been clinging to Christofer Markov much more tightly than she realized. The great robot crashed to the hangar floor, leaving a shallow, uneven crater in the sturdy metal. She, along with the individual she was clinging to, proceeded after a few seconds of stillness to slip limply off their desperate perch and thump roughly to the floor – not unlike an unfortunate bird gradually sliding down glass. She groaned, face-down and one arm draped over the canid, then heaved herself into a sitting position.
The air was stale, musty and bitterly cold. The place had the sense of age, of things gone undone in the distant past. Of a place that was once important, perhaps even bustling with activity, in a time where everything was different and alien – though familiar and comprehensible. Infinitesimal particles of dust or debris floated serenely in the beam of Iril's light. The gentle, twinkling illumination from above did nothing except emphasize the height of the chamber.
Think, think. Royanna was in a daze, numbed by the pain from her leg, her shoulder, the pain of having her innards shaken around with all the force of a giant robot falling from an incredible height. A crashing elevator.
When she did speak, it was half blurted insistence. "No, no we should be safe here, at least for a couple of hours. The Old Imperial places...were huge on keeping themselves hidden. They-" she took a sharp breath as a needle of agony shot through one of her tendons, but persisted. "They won't know where we are until they find that hole." She was unaware of the energy spike that had come from the facility beneath the reserve base. To her, there was no energy here - only stagnation and the ghosts of a place long abandoned. Their watchers above might infer their presence due to the energy spike, but they themselves would be quite invisible until someone poked their head through that hole.
She shivered. Without realizing it, she drew in the canine in an unconscious, though feeble attempt at rousing him while focusing on more important things. A hand brushed almost affectionately at his hair.
Or was it ‘top-of-the-head-fur’? It felt like hair. Mostly.
"C...Cox, you alright" She said, also wearily - but damned if her first concern wasn't for her people. She was nothing without people. The Kampfer agent was fine, she could see the lights of the gas mask moving about in the stifling blackness of their open surroundings. It did not occur to her to compliment the robot on a job well done because, well, it was a robot.
An impressive robot, even with one arm - but still.
Mind all a mess, Royanna seemed to be addressing things rather helter-skelter. "Robot." If Iril had formerly introduced herself, Royanna had forgotten. "Do you have any autorepair programs? One of the Old Empire's staples back then was synthesized metallics, so there'll be a cache of raw materials nearby." Another gritting of teeth, momentary tightening of eyes. The Old Empire had nothing so advanced as self-repairing technology, at least not at the time this particular base was built, some two hundred and ninety years prior. They had, however, learned via necessity to extract raw ores from the barren land, manipulating it to be easier to work with. Granted, that Iril might have some program to rebuild her arm nearly from scratch was more than a long shot, but Kallenger figured there was no harm in the suggestion.
"We also need to find a Spacebedamned medbay or I'm going to start having to consider amputation. There might also...be some...some engineer lights around. Check the workstations along th...the wall."
Sure enough, there would be a few not far from their position. Simple things, they could hold power for a few thousand years in theory. Rectangular flashlights with one lens atop for directed light, and one large face of the side serving as a more broad field. The things were omnimagnetic and would stick comfortably to almost any surface, resisting only mildly when removed. There would be enough for each of them - except Iril, obviously - to have one. They were going to need it - even if the unknown scientists of the unknown sub-sub facility had failed to deactivate their things, the Old Empire before them was rarely so sloppy. Sure, this base looked to be one which had fallen from use gradually, so there would still be plenty of things lying about - but the last man always turned out the lights. Conservation of power was crucial on an isolated exile world, even to the point of totally disconnecting generators.
So there would be no power restored to the reserve air base. It would be dark and oppressive, and within the shadows that enclosed around their very sanity some terrible evil might lie in waiting or stalk them to their doom – and they would be powerless to stop it.
Or, at least, that would be the feeling any sane person would experience in an underground, long-forgotten military base.
Someone would doubtless hand Royanna one of the worklights, and she would shine the beam about the great hangar to get a cursory glimpse at what air vessels might lay in waiting. Initially, the realization that they had found a reserve base was encouraging – and it was true that most of these vehicles looked like they could still fly – the problem was the ceiling, the complete inability to open the great doors.
In fact, they were more or less trapped down here now – the only way in would be a rail system connecting it to a bunker some miles away. The Old Empire had taken their security very seriously in matters such as dominance in the sky, and no enemy agent could be allowed access to their weapons.
That reminded Roya – there would be weapons here, too. Ammunition for her revolver surely. Maybe something with a high fire rate and low recoil so that the useless Christofer might spray’n’pray his way into combat value.
No, on second thought, probably too dangerous.
Whether it was by sheer coincidence, some vague science of luck, or the manipulation from some impossible and otherworldly force, things seemed to always happen more or less 'on cue' for Ketin Clarke. Nirix had turned to face Kampfer in icy rage. It had been lights and fear and incomprehensible madness layered under the suffocation of live burial in solid granite - thoughts beyond incoherent, hardly even at the level of what one might consider 'sentience'.
But as Nirix was looking away, something clicked. It was not like the sudden powering of a lightbulb - in fact, the eye would remain vaguely off in shade for some time as it regained the finer points of electromagnetic momentum. It was a head rush - the kind where sound becomes far off, sight becomes hyper-focused, where standing stark still and waiting for it to pass is the only plausible solution. The trouble was that it lasted quite a bit longer for Ketin Clarke.
Initially, there was little perceptible change in him - he was still half curled up and pressed into the wall, still clutching at his left eye as if there was something he needed to get off of his face. His breathing was shallow and erratic, ears flat, hands and form trembling noticeably.
It wasn't even a telling sign when he went quiet, since the sobbing had, for the majority of the unpleasant incident, been the sort of intense, inward, silent force rather than wracking cries that shuddered the shoulders and really let the endorphin flow.
It was like waking up with his head in a pressurized glass jar. Things were close, but distorted - but gradually it occurred to him that he could see again. There were no more blinding strobes or choking shadows to curl about his face and force themselves down his throat. He was seeing...floor. Depth perception was off, not that he really noticed.
And eventually Nirix would turn around - and that would be the first real, rather sudden sign of change. She turned, looked at him, and no matter how graceful her everyday motions were, she would have moved too fast for him - not that she would even have reason to know. Still unconsciously gripping with both hands the now roughly scratched area about his left eye, Kete let out a moderately kiddish yelp and instinctively kicked himself further into the wall. Hair damp and obscuring the blue of his remaining organic eye, it was still beyond obvious that he was staring at her in utter, abject, soul-dampening horror. He was positively terrified of her. Frozen, paralyzed in fear, unable to utter even the meekest sound following that initial yelp.
Slowly, slowly the microscopic tendrils extending from the eye came back to life. Shoveling thick, wet snow from a narrow path, looking back on it with satisfaction and feeling all the better off for it. Though Kete was not feeling better. Not exactly.
The only mercy for him was that the eye had already been installed - so reactivation would not prove nearly as traumatic as the initial conscious implantation. Still, it was invasive and frightening in itself - that which had been so intrinsically a part of him for so long had suddenly, for the briefest moment, become alien - if only subconsciously. It wasn't doing anything to ease the utter, raw terror in his expression looking up at the Eoclu woman.
After some seconds - the kid was blinking at random intervals, harder than usual as if he had been dazzled by light, though it also convincingly resembled something of a tick - he perceived at length a warm and placidly unpleasant sensation about his fingers. Hesitantly, as if simultaneously not wanting to tear his gaze from the now apparently terrifying presence in front him and also not wanting to acknowledge whatever that viscous warmth was - Kete lowered the two hands clutching at his left eye. Inwardly, he was astounded at how much better he could suddenly use his face-eyes. Consciously, he was looking at fingertips dabbed in crimson, blood seeping up under the fingernails along with the occasional scrap of - what was it, flesh? He turned his hands slowly, shakily about, just a little, looking them over.
Then his gaze returned to the woman - and there was no less fear. There was, however, an added minutia of questioning - as if this person whom he so deathly feared might be able to shed some light on...something. The area surrounding the left eye looked just as one might have expected it to. The wounds were shallow but wide and gruesome, gouging inward toward the ridge of the sinuses, accumulating about the cheekbones. It looked very much as though someone had welded a metal eye patch over it, and he had scraped and clawed and mutilated it off again. The only problem was that there had been no such object obscuring his vision. One particularly deep laceration about his forehead - passing the ridge of his brow and actually ending in a petering waiver downward of the eyelid - allowed for a little bead of red to trickle down, hanging for a second at the ridge of his eyebrow, and at last making the jump to land on cheekbone where it only melded into a similar wound. All the scratches came together to form one radial mess, it seemed.
It was, for the moment, the last thing on Kete's mind - but there was a distinct possibility that the sudden reactivation of the eye might have had something to do with what he had been engaging in beforehand. Speculation upon speculation, was it possible that the weak, broadcast-signal which he tried to allow conduit and passage through the eye - could that signal have had, even in some small way, contributed to the hastened recovery? Or maybe not. There was nobody actually thinking about that possibility at that particular moment in that particular location, and the exposition only really served to allow someone else to squeeze a post in if they so chose.
That eye did look worse than it was. Much worse. Would he actually have succeeded in doing serious, permanent damage to himself if it had continued? Possibly. And he was confused, and desperately, maddeningly frightened in utter silence of the woman before him, trembling like the last, infinitesimal frond of a dying juniper.
It was hot.
It was very hot.
It was very, very hot.
It was so hot that it didn't even feel hot anymore, because 'hot' could not exist in an environment where the temperature had already reached its' theoretical maximum.
But she knew, realistically, that the dunes were not hotter than, say, the sun - and whenever the heat did start to get to her again she could always look up and be thankful that she wasn't up there.
Of course, this did nothing for the black, enveloping, bone-chilling, icy wind that dominated the dunes when the sky turned inky black and the sand turned to ash. Sometimes she wondered if she was being picky. She wanted it to be cold when it was hot, wanted to be hot when it was cold.
Vaguely, ever so vaguely, she could recall the world looking very different. Vague, nebulous images of pale greens and seafoam blues, of tall trees with crystalline bark that erupted into great, cascading fronds of violet and cyan. Visions of places where other people lived. It was, of course, all entirely absurd and she was well aware of that. After all, the gilded towers had stood there for as long as memory had existed, even back into the foggy place where things seemed to be different, but could not have been. It was an illusion, she knew - the mind could only retain so much in the form of memory, and eventually the oldest of visions would fade into blurry, soupy vagueness. The fact that imagining things any other way than they were was at best laughable only strengthened this theory.
Sometimes, she couldn't help but worry. After all, it was hard to tell just how long ago the memories could stay clear before dissipating into vagueness and fantasy. Sure, time was irrelevant, and she barely paid any attention to the concept. The sun went around and around, and everything was, and would be, and she was content with that. It did not really matter whether she had a very long memory, or an average memory or even a very short memory. In fact, the lattermost seemed the most likely - after all, when everything was as it would be forever, there would be little need for long-term memory. She wasn't entirely certain where these ideas had come from, in all honesty - but she didn't mind, either.
She knew every square inch of the world. It always was, so naturally she would. She could navigate impeccably - but there was no need to navigate, for there were only dunes. Dunes and the gilded towers that shimmered gloriously in the white-hot relentlessness of the sun above.
Sometimes she wondered if the towers had a purpose. But these wonderings were very short lived, because they were stupid. Why did they need a purpose? What even was a 'purpose'. There was hardly any concept of cause and effect in the world. There was hardly even entropy - the sands shifted forever and ever, the towers stood, and the russet gold sky enclosed it all.
Well, not all. Obviously the sun was outside of the sky. That much was obvious.
But why was it obvious?
A lot of things were obvious, and she recognized indirectly that she failed to comprehend even the most obvious of truths more often than she would have liked. Not that it mattered, and not that there was any reason to criticize herself for it. Not that there was a reason for any of the thoughts that writhed along within her mind, mingling and creating and destroying, and just being. Just like everything else that was, and would be. Just being.
And then, in one second - less than one second - an imperceptible instant singled out in eternity - in one second, her entire universe fell into shambles.
Given the grandeur of the gilded towers looming over them and the general excitement to get started, nobody in the expedition team bothered to look anywhere but at their equipment, sometimes at each other, and at the utter majesty of Isandril. Nobody paid much attention to the dunes - they were just dunes - and the view from space confirmed that, even though it was an incredibly unlikely configuration for a planet, the world of ancient Isandril literally did not have a single feature. Dunes, and the city. Nothing else. There was nothing out there, nothing but sand that they had already seen from orbit. So they did not look, and they did not notice the tiny, insignificant, utterly unimportant and thoroughly dwarfed speck of white as it peered over the horizon some immeasurable distance away, then again descended.
The Captain and permanently attached wife had not bothered to stick around for the 'mundane'. There would surely be much to study here, much to learn, and they had the equipment and manpower to make good use of their time here - but Aelyn-Paeryc had made it very clear that his and Alexia's mission must remain separate. Though it was mostly speculation, he believed that his and Alexia's unique 'condition' would be the only thing standing between their relative presence in the Universe and their utter dissipation into paradoxical existing non-existence. Neither knew what to expect, but they knew where to go. Neither knew how they knew where to go, but they did. It seemed so obvious. They walked on ahead, treading the smooth, solid floor of the city as if they had been there a thousand times before. As if past lives guided them, the experiences of their elder spirits giving them the wisdom to persevere.
The Chief Scientific Administrator of the Stella Viventium was not too perturbed by this. Sure, they would be experiencing something that a physicist - or any person of science for that matter - would commit questionable acts against their fellow people to be in on.
And, in a way, it really was a damn shame that he wouldn't be able to accompany the Captain into that...wherever he was going. He was, after all, the leading expert on Notspace. It should have been Aelyn-Paeryc and Alexia, since they were actually part of the paradoxical pseudo-presence. Yet the Not was enigmatic, and proved nigh impossible to study if one inched too close. A.P. and Alexia were stunted in their ability to study themselves - but, it was that very handicap that gave Dorin Harkahn the advantage.
Some day. Someday he would do something great. He was sure of that. Even when he had been a computer technician for BrainPal™ on the more insignificant levels of their corporate headquarters within the Stella. Even before then, when he had mustered through an apprenticeship with a particular old man who had been particularly deft with his computers.
And it would have all gone nowhere at all, if Aelyn-Paeryc Petrovalyc - the man who, unbeknownst to the entire population, owned and commanded the entire vessel on his own - hadn't had some sudden insight, seen something in the rusty-haired nerd that beckoned him to greatness. It had been a whole new world back then - the whole secret universe of the Command Module, of the inner workings of the more inner workings of the innermost workings of a place which he had considered to be all the world for all his life. Suddenly he had access to so much more information. And now, here he was - leading what might just be one of the most vital scientific expeditions in the history of Mankind.
The first big discovery was that the skyscrapers of the city of Isandril were not skyscrapers at all. No physical being could hope to dwell within the hypercomplex innards of the protrusions - the purpose of which, the method of which, went still beyond their comprehension.
The towers were machines - or part of a larger machine - yet all the inner workings were entirely inert. There was the question of whether or not the parts had ever been intended to move - but the closest they would be able to get to whatever ancient technology lie behind those petrostanium walls would be what hints they could gather from different sensors fired in from the outside, from open air where people lived and floundered in the footsteps of their elders. It was infuriating, but Harkahn had expected as such. They were going to run into hurdle after hurdle here - but they would overcome, and they would learn, he would be sure of it.
A small, tightly packed, temporary base of operations was erected some half mile from the grand, arching, wide-open gate. There was a distinct mixture of claustrophobia from encroaching towers and wuthering heights, and of open freedom, of wonder at this most ancient of places, at the very energy that seemed to radiate from the city floor. It was also much cooler in the shade of the towers than the naked sun, and that everyone was grateful for.
They would have been more grateful for a door or a window, some way to get into the impenetrable, coppery surface that looked like hardened fondant or smooth, melted, seamless candle wax. Okay, so maybe progress would be slow - but radio chatter had revealed to the group - some time after the Captain and wife had departed for the city center - that the Kampfer fleet was retreating, and that left them virtually...safe. It was actually an unfamiliar feeling, Harkahn realized. So progress would be slow. So what? He was facing the opportunity of a lifetime - of a billion lifetimes - and he was going to make the most of it.
Analysts pored over the walls with devices that probed with unfeeling rays or particles or waves - trying to garner what scant inferences they could from the severely limited sum of research material. Or, rather, the utter inability to access it.
Harkahn caught himself daydreaming, gazing wistfully through a part in the hexagonal towers to the lip of the great, curved wall. Had it once protected the city from some foreign invader? Had the First People even had conflicts among themselves? Was he forgetting something very, very important about the city of Isandril?
If only they could find a door, a window - anything to allow them access into the skyscrapers. Surely there would be plenty to study in there. The First People were always believed to be very similar to Mankind, physically - sure, maybe they could phase through walls, but it just seemed more likely that somewhere there would be a door.
The team got creative, began probing the city floor for possible seams in the unyielding petrostanium, the telltale signs of some trap door, perhaps. They would find something, he was sure of it...
Impossible.
Impossible.
Utterly impossible.
She was witnessing before her eyes the end of the universe. The end of everything she knew. It changed everything. It was horrifying only in its alien nature. Not just alien - practically impossible to comprehend at all. Everything was and would be. Things did not change in the world. Things did not just appear. There were dunes, the towers, and her, and nothing, nothing, nothing else. It didn't make sense. The mind rejected the very absurdity of it. Yet did her eyes lie? They had never lied before, so far as she knew. Could eyes lie?
It was small - she wasn't sure quite how small, but certainly it was beyond dwarfed by the mighty wall of the towers, and moreso by the towers themselves. Initially she thought it a trick of the shadow cast by the towers - but no, it was there. It had to be, yet it could not be.
It could not be!
What was she supposed to do. What was she supposed to do! She had to do something, she was sure of it. But what?
Had to act. Had to...to...had to do something. Supposed to do something. Someone had to tell her what to do.
No! Stupid, hopelessly stupid. Someone else to tell her what to do? And while she was at it, she could tear herself in two and carry on a conversation between the halves. Stupid. Someone else.
Okay, it was weird that it was such a persistent thought. Usually stupid thoughts didn't seem so right. Now she was being faced with the impossible, witnessing with her own eyes the presence of something that was not before, was not now, could not be, was never, could be, was.
Her mind rejected it, rejected it, rejected it. Impossible. Utterly impossible. Impossible and positively terrifying due to that very impossibility. The ultimate unknown, the ultimate anomaly.
She had ducked back down beneath the crest of a particularly mountainous wave of sand dune. She sat in the sand, half-leaning back, the sand forming what would usually feel like a safe, comfortable cress and now felt like nothing. Felt like nothing because nothing made sense any more. What was she going to do? She had to do something.
She had to do something.
Someone needed to.
Needed to.
She had to do something.
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