Post by cadavericdivinity on Oct 6, 2019 22:17:13 GMT
The third ship had broken from the fleet. It had swung away hard and sharp, branching off from the lumbering the descent of the old cargo haulers and luxury transports on their final trip to the planetside breaking yards. Hails and calls fell upon the deaf ears of a navigation AI, its primitive consciousness directing it over a continent away from the intended landing spot.
Martin Solvokroyer was angry, angrier than anyone else watching from arid plateau's command centre they had spent an entire week setting up for the ship-breaking operation. It had been one thing to hide the old derelicts in debris fields and behind the veil of sensor jammers and another to get the proper paperwork done for the contract in advance, even with the help of local planetary government, but this pushed the head of Gatekeeper Asset Recovery Services over the edge. The buzz and ambience of hurried, disciplined voices in the room was interrupted by the sound of a coffee cup smashing against the ground. For a long few seconds, all heads and eyes turned away from monitor screens and holographic trajectory models and the chatter with planetary ship-breaker teams stopped. A few confused voices questioned the silence over the line before quickly resuming. The greying, withered figure with the dense brows and blocky, heavy-set features barked and shouted to a quickening frenzy of activity. "Mobilize Security and Drone divisions, full loads!" He shouted, porcelain cracking under his pacing feet as he moved to the central holo-display, glaring at the orange model descending over to an entire other continent. "Tell the governor our deal stands; he'll just have to be patient with the first rounds of salvage." His snarl hid the paranoia lurking beneath the anger, lurking beneath everyone's frustration and shock. He had only seen them through the corner of his eye but it confirmed his deepest fear. Drones didn't go dark because of the solar radiation of a distant star everyone knew to be safe, the derelict's hull was too thick, or misfiring electronics had jammed it. Those were standard risks and they hadn't stumbled upon this iron husk; they'd chosen it for a damn good reason. They'd armed the spider-drones they'd sent inside for even better ones, equipping them with ordnance requisitioned from both the planetary defence service and their own personal stores. That wasn't enough to stop whatever or rather, whomever decided this derelict and the fruits of their cover labours meant nothing. He took another cup, the coffee black and bitter. "To the drone team, I want stunners on. Capture if possible. Kill otherwise. These bastards will speak or they will scream. I'm not picky on whichever comes first." -------- Hidden beneath a veil of otherworldly mater, rendering the Lurker-class reconnaissance vessel as little more than a transparent blur, shapes humanoid and inhuman worked into a scurrying hive of activity. Criss-crossing maws of metallic mandibles attached to synthetic tissue pulled apart and large earwig like cultured drone-organisms crept into the vessel, many bearing plasma burns and carapace fractures, a few having had their integrated gun mounts blown clean off. Even in vacuum conditions, the heat and radiation hadn't left and additional screening had to be placed on the surfaces and corridors they walked through. Jairec looked upon it apprehensively. It was clear that these human inventions; the bits of intercepted communications and the general design of the enemy drones were distantly reminiscent of the ones he'd seen used by humanity back on Czewrolgrad. Their design was more arthropod, roughly akin to oversized mites or crabs but he doubted they were aware of the syzrexul. Said shape was simply useful for navigating these cramped corridors and bulking up armour but it did little to protect them from an ambush of slimmer predators not guided by human controllers by grotesque brains as much metal as they were flesh. Cold rationality and predatory instinct brought a swift end to those drones but not without casualties. One of them had been caught out of cover or rather, the bulkhead it had been firing over had been blown apart by a barrage of micro-missiles. Heavy machine gun rounds had punctured multiple limbs, ripping them open before blowing apart a few of its auxiliary brains. Even as reinforcements ambushed the aggressors with their spike-launching autocannons, the damage had been done and the timed force-takeover program they'd installed into the ship's bridge had activated. There had been no time to dispose of or recover the unit, not with their gap in the enemy sensor net closing fast. Yet they went away with a general idea of where the surveillance satellite was stowed and it wasn't too far from where the drone had gone down. That was where the Noumenon operative came in. Sending the drones planetside was too risky as there was insufficient time to repair them and prep them for a hard stealth operation. And given the kind of ships they saw moving fast to the landing point they had created, scrambling their own force-takeover program to shift away was also out of the question. The derelict was landing right now and atmosphere was tearing it apart as it did so, scattering debris and causing its electronics to over-react and detonate, clogging airwaves with interference and static. That was the cover he needed and given the Lurker's proximity to the landing site as it hovered far above the planet, the spore-pod he was inside would be the fastest way to send him in without getting noticed. Exfil would be the tricky part and there was a chance he'd need to conceal himself there for a while until the enemy force left. Filling with gel to help him with the rattling force of his descent, lights on the pod lit up and he felt the package attached to his back cling to him a little harder. It was an anti-grav chute, an organic one, meant to destroy itself after the second part of his jump when he'd drop out of the pod and onto the ship. An electric signal in his mind's eyes; a warning spoken directly into his ears from his coms. 10 seconds left. His mission so far was uneventful. He'd wondered what had happened to the rest of mankind and so far, he was apprehensive. Perhaps they had reason to be angry at them but they needed that data. They needed it more than whatever these conniving deceivers did. His eyes closed, the pod lurched, from his small vision slits in the pod, he saw only a starry infinity above and a vast desert landscape below obscured by clouds. He prepared for his steps on a human controlled world in this distant corner of space. ------- "Visual of the vessel, moving drones through designated breaches. Feed is still a little blurry but we have signal strengtheners in place." "All weapons primed. Spears 1 to 8, take point, spread out onto walls and ceiling." "Severe weaknesses in structural integrity detected; watch your steps." "Fires and active electrical currents in some rooms, be on the lookout for surges or volatile areas." "Do not immediately engage if enemy presence is confirmed. Move into position and wait for command's mark." Jairec listened in on a few conversations; it seems English still existed here as it did back home. Hidden beneath a pile of collapsed vents and a door, he waited for the spidery machines to scuttle past him before he crept out from beneath the junk. His steps were quiet, quick in their pacing, and his nerves tense. He had landed on top of the ship, not as close to the centre as he hoped. All the reason to move faster as he began to jog down the hallways, hopping over a few large gaps on the floor. It looked stable but based on the pained groans that echoed through the ship and distant sounds of bursting tanks and taunting electric crackles, it wasn't going to be getting any safer with time. The faster he found his two objectives, the better.
last edited Jan 13, 2020 17:45:27 GMT by fairchild.txt
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Post by Reya Starlyght on Oct 8, 2019 21:56:05 GMT
He awoke to a buzz in his head, or so Leo thought until he glanced down at the counter, sparsed between the plenitude of empty bottles a black screen lit. With a resigned sigh did he reach over and answer the phone, a tired "Yes?" echoing from his lips as he didn't even bother checking who was on the other end.
"You don't happen to be anywhere near the West Fioran colonies, do you?" the voice answered with no introduction, although even so early in the morning Leo certainly didn't need one. He looked out the window far across the wide room of their home, a clear view of Trillium's capital below, cascaded in the light of dawn and the cliffs that buffeted it, unlike Sunfall itself. Of particular note his golden eyes held a skyscraper that towered above most others, though it had a few peers in its height. From it did the sun glint, the initials of the building unrecognizable but present all the same, an easy picture in Leo's mind.
"I could be," he answered, a grin playing out on his visage even though its recipient would have no way of knowing.
There was a short sigh from the man, though it didn't last long. "Guess that'll have to do. Intelligence has pick up some strange interference coming from the area."
He pursed his lips slightly, though the confusion was far less evident in his voice. "That is most certainly not our specialty," Leo remarked.
"Very strange," the man emphasized, in which he had an epiphany, delayed by the events of the night previous. At last did Leo rise from the stool he had been perched upon for, well, he supposed for a while, glancing around at the mess although his memory was cloudy, probably the last thing to be remembered was carrying Eris to bed before passing out about five minutes later. Oh well, fun times were over now, or at least of that assortment.
Leo cleared his throat, recalling that he was still in a conversation. "I see, well we'll be there as soon as possible. Send the coordinates, will you?"
"Of course."
With that did the line fall silent, though the room did not as he began to collect the discarded assortments of glass scattered around the bar, most of the containers intact although a few were shattered, blood of two different hues splashed across them though he found no evidence of injury upon his own hands, didn't even bother to look. It was halfway through the task that he looked up, seeing Eris tapping her fingers in the door frame of their bedroom, her hair tousled and sweater hanging over her shoulder in a way that clearly suggested she had woken up as a result of the call, although he noticed less her tired expression and more how adorable she looked, walking toward him now with a small yawn. "Who was that?"
He paused, a bottle of whiskey with only the dregs left in it about to be discard. "Lancey," Leo answered shortly, before upon her lack of response elaborating. "He wants us to check out some strange radio signals, or something."
"So aliens," she extrapolated, in which he shrugged.
"Probably."
She scoffed for a second, shaking her head with a chuckle. "We'd be a terrible choice if the subject of interest was actually a radio signal," Eris replied, in which he couldn't argue. "Anyway, I look like a mess."
"A very cute mess!" Leo exclaimed cheerfully, not before cutting his skin on a piece of glass he hadn't seen.
"And you look like an alcoholic."
Dropping the last remnant of trash into the bin that seemed to lead on into the void, he grinned. "I am!" He caught the rolling of her eyes and leaned over, planting a peck on her forehead. She rested her weight against his shoulder, muttering as her eyes flickered, exhaustion now sinking back in now that the pressing matter had been covered.
"Leo, I think I caught your disease," she complained, in which he patted her back.
"I'll make coffee."
A few hours later they faced an arid planet, one he would think barely suitable for a colony in the first place, although perhaps it was the more industrial sense of the term. Even before they landed he could picture the dry dust, its taste on his tongue reminiscent only of unpleasant times although heat itself had never bothered either of them. It was a ruin on the world that seemed to have attracted the attention of galactic visitors, yet their ships seemed entirely human in nature, even familiar although he certainly had no eye for those sorts of things. The sensor Leo had turned on detected nothing at first, other than the nearby ships and the distant hum of settlement on the surface, however with an additional scan taking into account some information Lancelot had provided did Blackjack point vaguely toward the nose buried in sand. Good, a mission on land was always far easier than those out in the void of space, being pinned up in a steel vessel surrounded by nothingness never seemed to do much for his mental health, even when shooting at whoever or whatever decided to cross their path.
Giving the ships seemingly already invested in the exploration of the crash site a wide berth did Eris give them as she directed Blackjack down to the surface, the relatively small vessel having never attracted much attention in the first place, and on such an occasion it was no different. Armed with their typical weapons and dressed in hues of gray did the two set out, ship neatly parked in a large alcove of the ruins although one teetering away from the gap. Narrow, groaning passages seemed to be the only way farther into the structure, and that was indeed where they needed to go, the bridge as a matter of fact. However, staring into the very first hall did Leo balk, sunlight catching onto the dust in narrow strips, blinding the darkness that would have at least given him some comfort. Wordlessly did Eris take the lead, and thus did they proceed into the metal monstrosity before them, expecting everything and nothing all the same.
"You don't happen to be anywhere near the West Fioran colonies, do you?" the voice answered with no introduction, although even so early in the morning Leo certainly didn't need one. He looked out the window far across the wide room of their home, a clear view of Trillium's capital below, cascaded in the light of dawn and the cliffs that buffeted it, unlike Sunfall itself. Of particular note his golden eyes held a skyscraper that towered above most others, though it had a few peers in its height. From it did the sun glint, the initials of the building unrecognizable but present all the same, an easy picture in Leo's mind.
"I could be," he answered, a grin playing out on his visage even though its recipient would have no way of knowing.
There was a short sigh from the man, though it didn't last long. "Guess that'll have to do. Intelligence has pick up some strange interference coming from the area."
He pursed his lips slightly, though the confusion was far less evident in his voice. "That is most certainly not our specialty," Leo remarked.
"Very strange," the man emphasized, in which he had an epiphany, delayed by the events of the night previous. At last did Leo rise from the stool he had been perched upon for, well, he supposed for a while, glancing around at the mess although his memory was cloudy, probably the last thing to be remembered was carrying Eris to bed before passing out about five minutes later. Oh well, fun times were over now, or at least of that assortment.
Leo cleared his throat, recalling that he was still in a conversation. "I see, well we'll be there as soon as possible. Send the coordinates, will you?"
"Of course."
With that did the line fall silent, though the room did not as he began to collect the discarded assortments of glass scattered around the bar, most of the containers intact although a few were shattered, blood of two different hues splashed across them though he found no evidence of injury upon his own hands, didn't even bother to look. It was halfway through the task that he looked up, seeing Eris tapping her fingers in the door frame of their bedroom, her hair tousled and sweater hanging over her shoulder in a way that clearly suggested she had woken up as a result of the call, although he noticed less her tired expression and more how adorable she looked, walking toward him now with a small yawn. "Who was that?"
He paused, a bottle of whiskey with only the dregs left in it about to be discard. "Lancey," Leo answered shortly, before upon her lack of response elaborating. "He wants us to check out some strange radio signals, or something."
"So aliens," she extrapolated, in which he shrugged.
"Probably."
She scoffed for a second, shaking her head with a chuckle. "We'd be a terrible choice if the subject of interest was actually a radio signal," Eris replied, in which he couldn't argue. "Anyway, I look like a mess."
"A very cute mess!" Leo exclaimed cheerfully, not before cutting his skin on a piece of glass he hadn't seen.
"And you look like an alcoholic."
Dropping the last remnant of trash into the bin that seemed to lead on into the void, he grinned. "I am!" He caught the rolling of her eyes and leaned over, planting a peck on her forehead. She rested her weight against his shoulder, muttering as her eyes flickered, exhaustion now sinking back in now that the pressing matter had been covered.
"Leo, I think I caught your disease," she complained, in which he patted her back.
"I'll make coffee."
A few hours later they faced an arid planet, one he would think barely suitable for a colony in the first place, although perhaps it was the more industrial sense of the term. Even before they landed he could picture the dry dust, its taste on his tongue reminiscent only of unpleasant times although heat itself had never bothered either of them. It was a ruin on the world that seemed to have attracted the attention of galactic visitors, yet their ships seemed entirely human in nature, even familiar although he certainly had no eye for those sorts of things. The sensor Leo had turned on detected nothing at first, other than the nearby ships and the distant hum of settlement on the surface, however with an additional scan taking into account some information Lancelot had provided did Blackjack point vaguely toward the nose buried in sand. Good, a mission on land was always far easier than those out in the void of space, being pinned up in a steel vessel surrounded by nothingness never seemed to do much for his mental health, even when shooting at whoever or whatever decided to cross their path.
Giving the ships seemingly already invested in the exploration of the crash site a wide berth did Eris give them as she directed Blackjack down to the surface, the relatively small vessel having never attracted much attention in the first place, and on such an occasion it was no different. Armed with their typical weapons and dressed in hues of gray did the two set out, ship neatly parked in a large alcove of the ruins although one teetering away from the gap. Narrow, groaning passages seemed to be the only way farther into the structure, and that was indeed where they needed to go, the bridge as a matter of fact. However, staring into the very first hall did Leo balk, sunlight catching onto the dust in narrow strips, blinding the darkness that would have at least given him some comfort. Wordlessly did Eris take the lead, and thus did they proceed into the metal monstrosity before them, expecting everything and nothing all the same.