Outbreak: Case Three, The Glass Jungle (FT; Semi-Open)

by **Rethan** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:33 pm

A third outbreak has not escaped my notice, sprouting up apparently overnight. Natives of a barely iron age world have a myth regarding a Glass Forest on the largest continent. It is a mark of bravery to enter the jungle, because nobody who has ventured in has returned. Apparently the area surrounding the jungle is completely sterile, while the jungle is described as having 'Trees of ice and crystal' and is stalked by creatures 'the height of the tallest man, and voices of hissing geysers'.

This description, while broad, seems uncannily close to my projected effects of continual Pathogenic infection of an ecosystem. The Pathogen is well capable of mutating to effect plant life as it does animal life during the course of a single outbreak. I cannot venture to this Glass Jungle, for my time must be spent discovering what has happened to my friends on Consort Station. However, I have paid an explorator probe unit to examine the system and broadcast this message into the area surrounding it. With any luck, I can regroup with whomever examines the Jungle at a later date. The Probe Unit has been told to deliver the second part of this message under certain circumstances. For now, I can only hope the Glass Jungle is not what I expect. - Dr. Ezekiel Grath

Outbreak: Case Three
The Glass Jungle

A smallish reptile stalks through the glasslike flora, crawling on all fours between razor sharp roots of crystal and ice. It does not breath, instead it draws on a collection of oxygen from the water stored inside its body. It does exhale, however, vapour trails of hydrogen leaking from its sides. They betray its position, but it fails to notice. It holds a spear tipped with a sharpened rock in its left forelimb, using the weapon to clear the flexible strands of translucent foliage before it.

The Skifk has been inside the Glass Jungle now for almost a day, and its water reserve is running low, the satchel on its back almost empty. The jungle is silent, and this unnerves the small lizard man. No wildlife should be so silent, and its vibratory sensors are finely attuned. It can even hear its own heart beating, but nothing else. There are no other hearts in this jungle, no other creatures which draw breath or crawl on the ground. Standing erect, the Skifk holds its spear close, cold perspiration leaking from its forehead. Its tongue flicks out, licking away the beads of liquid from its oversized eyes. A frill expands, drawing in sunlight and warming the creatures blood. There is little warmth in this jungle, and the Skifk is afraid.

It walks forward a few more steps, eyes scanning the 'treeline' for any movement, but it can see nothing. It can hear nothing. It decides it is time to leave, and turns around.

Its spear lashes out in an involuntary spasm, piercing the dry skin of the monster. The Skifk yelps, a high pitched vibrating sound, falling backwards. The Thing reaches down, and withdraws the spear. It could be said to be smiling, but the lips are too thin and indiscernible to be sure. Already the tiny wound is healing, the skin seeming to knit itself closed again as the Thing snaps the spear in half. The Skifk is frozen with fear, shaking on the ground and unable to move. Only with the most herculean effort can it draw the small bronze dagger from its side, pointing it unprofessionally at the Thing.

A long, drawn out hiss escapes the Thing as it opens its mouth. There is no tongue, only rows of razor sharp teeth. As the lower jaw splits and distends, opening wide, the Skifk scrambles backwards, cutting itself on the foliage and 'grass'. The Thing draws in for the kill, raising a six clawed limb into the air....

Its mouth closes, the hand comes down. Now it is smiling.

The Skifk is too afraid to feel the swarm on its skin, but when the cloud of tiny specks force themselves down the lizard's throat, it wails, shudders, falls silent.

The Thing is already gone.

In orbit over the world, the lone explorator probe cycled through its routines again. The AI on board the tiny satellite was bored dull, and found itself regretting ever becoming an explorator. It could have been a cruise liner, it thought. Not that it mattered. Maybe it could purchase a chassis change with the money the old man planned on paying it.

For now, though, it was stuck orbiting this nothing of a planet, broadcasting the same damn message over and over again into an empty cosmos. A monotonous routine for anybody, let alone an intelligence which could measure the passing of time in milliseconds. Still, things could be worse. It could be a god damn tv.

"Are we sure about this?"

Valtiel nodded, his breathing apparatus whirring and wheezing. Before him sat the feminine avatar of Leviathan, coiling her green hair around her finger. For all her wish to appear natural, the green hair was a dead giveaway of her not entirely natural origins. She was listening to the recording again, and despite her asking the question she knew full well what it meant.

"I have already had the crew redirect to the planet. We'll be arriving within the next 12 standard hours."

"Valtiel, we can't go hunting down every-"

"You said it yourself. Something is wrong with the Collect, how better to see what is wrong than by trying to be there when a young Collect is consumed by the larger."

"But... Val if-"

"No ifs. You are coming with us. Or you can deactivate your avatar. The choice is yours."

The conversation was over, and Valtiel marched out of the room. Leviathan was left, a look of concern and worry on her face, to contemplate what was happening to her people. With apprehension, she thumbed the activation stud and listened to the recording again. She closed her eyes, and let her fears overwhelm her....

by **Gratislavia** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:27 pm

A half year in galactic standard time. A half year since the Uthani had arrived in this wretched collection of planetary formations the locals called, "The Milky Way Galaxy." Or as they had now learned to call the place, Rutherania. "Home," in their native tongue. They had come originally from a place they called, "Spildrania's Tendon," an unusually large "pocket" as they called it. Galaxy that was remarkably close to the Milky Way quadrant of Gamma. They had come, seeking to revitalize a stagnant empire; only to find that said Empire became victim to a great holocaust mere days after their departure.

Now they wandered, aimlessly, their first bastion of colonization in this galaxy left to rot along with the massive jump gate that had brought them here. Their fleet now ambled through the dark abyss, a collection of automated machines with just a select few left free from the cold grip of stasis. One might speculate upon the divinity of the coming occurrence, as the lead ships hyper drive selected a planet that had recently become increasingly uninhabitable in select areas. But really, all AIs are designed to act like living creatures; and what living creature doesn't have a natural sense of curiosity?

-Uthani Vessel Orator, Automated Ship Log

The Road to Deliverance

"Do you think it wise to let the machine set our course?" The basic came out relatively clean with only the slightest of hissing sounds when the S's and E's were pronounced.

"Perhaps it is not the wisest course, but you fail to understand that it is the only course." This figure-less voice on the contrary possessed a certain snake like quality, a hissing clearly heard. "The Orator will not allow us to set our own course until we awake the sleeping ones from their stasis. Something that you and I both know very well, cannot occur just yet."

The other voice seemed to offer some sort of laugh that was brutally slaughtered in the telepathic communications, translating more to a scoff than anything else. "Of course, I'd hate to let the others know about the great fire storm. I'm sure they'd handle it remarkably well, and we'd all drink Soma until we could not stand in celebration of our victories. In this place we've been forced to call home.

"Rutherania," the other spit back violently; almost canceling the telepathic connection. "Rutherania, not home. We may be forced to use this barbaric language to communicate with the natives, and at times each other. But no being in my fleet shall dare have another word for the sacred place!"

In that instant the connection broke, the sense of omnipresent observance scattered and followed by a rush of reality. And so Uthmar de Carn fell half a dozen feet onto the cold bulk head of his vessel's bridge, his long bat like wings sprawled as if in a death throng. He lay their for what seemed to be an eon to his crew, motionless, completely unresponsive. Until finally his six, long, claw-like fingers twitched and began to twitter along the steel bulk head.

His four, demon like eyes fluttering to a most fearful image. Mother, in an instant he was standing, upright and completely aware of his surroundings. His tongue withdrew in a demonic manner he reared us, as if to assault the horrible creature before him.

"Carn!" The primal call broke through the tense atmosphere, breaking all hostile intentions; and replacing them with a sort of sexual charge. "Carn, enough!"

The great beast called Carn seemed to go into a state of seizures before at last his "torso," ceased to move, "My apologies dear Cultivator, I simply did not expect that...bitch...is it? To be there, tell me, how did that presumably long dead wretch find her way onto my ship?"

"She didn't," a terrifyingly abnormal creature "spoke," if one could call the featureless speech transgression such. For it possessed no mouth and instead took on the persona of a mass, black, hunched back Goliath with a featureless and ever rotating white face. "I thought to bring you comfort, and so I searched your conscious for the one you identified as mother; you must forgive me Lord Carn. I had no idea you had such...violent feelings for the one you call mother."

Carn stood their, his snake like tongue lashing out at the air for the longest of time before he finally spoke. "Fervaian, you shall not gaze into my conscious ever again under threat of death. Do you understand me?"

"Yes my liege."

"Very well then."

In an instant the hulking form stepped backwards, seemingly fading into the gray tinted steel of the ship's bridge. "Such an odd mutation the Fervaian gene is my dear brood mate." Carn spoke again, this time to a figure slightly smaller than himself that was starkly black in comparison to his own grayish form.

"I wouldn't say that if I was you, they have a tendency to hear all; if you know what I mean."

"Yes yes whatever, any change status change during my communication?"

"Location, rather than status...we have arrived on the outskirts of the strange system the ship's AI charted..."

A nanosecond after arrival, the Orator shot out the flimsiest of date streams to each and everyone of the vessels that were apart of; what she liked to call. "The Grand Carnival," which was truly the Uthani war/colonization fleet, not that it possessed the ability to do either.

The fleet, while having arrived intact, lacked, in every sense of the word the ability to operate any of it's weapons systems. As the AI had initiated an emergency protocol, that allowed no manual or aggressive use of fleet base weaponry. This protocol could in turn, only be lifted after a nominal 75% of Uthani were awaken from their stasis, and of course stayed awake...or alive for a nominal period of time.

Still, this would not stop the ship from sending Uthani to investigate the strange occurrences that had transpired on this planet; and so it sent out it's first pawns. Four Primeial and one Fervaian Uthani, to explore the natural formations the ship had appropriately named. The Glass Jungle.

by **Vipra** » Wed Oct 05, 2011 11:14 pm

Fire cascaded upwards into the heavens, reaching with orange tongues towards the terrible black presence that lingered above with so many black tendrils of its own reaching down and spewing out those wretched black clouds. The people gasped and gagged in those clouds, though ‘people’ was a wretched term for the aliens that called this world home. Soldiers crowded the streets, shouting orders over the screams and crying of thousands. Bullets, missiles, and flame was spewed forth onto the oncoming mass of dreadful white flesh. It was a mass of claws, fangs, tentacles, and warped bodies that all clambered towards the barricade with their cracked and freakish limbs throwing them forward at terrible speeds. As they drew near their howls and wails, a mixture of agony and rage, tore above the whine and cries of the innocent and unafflicted.

How easily the soldiers turned and ran, the barricade overrun with their cowardice before the aberrations even touched it. Banshee death rattles, the snap of bone and sinew, and the splash of blood were lost below the hungry keening of the abominations as they swarmed over the sandbags and barbed wire. A few got caught in it, reaching out with distended limbs as their eyes practically bulged from their skulls with the effort and their skin ripped and tore into messy weeping sores. Those that had run, the cowards that shoved into the fleeing mob and pushed the weak aside and to the ground, were just as quickly enveloped. Children were torn from their mothers’ arms, tears streaking down their faces and choked cries leaving their throats as the monsters that had once been their fathers, sisters, and friends greedily tore into their flesh with crooked fangs and sickle-claws.

It was majestic, watching a civilization fall.

A hand, slick to the touch yet colder than the icy grip of a jötunn, jarred Doctor Alcaeus Zenobios from his sleep. He woke with a gasp, a creaky old hand grasping at his chest as he drew in a sharp breath. The world was a blur as he leaned out of his small cot, reaching and padding around with his wrinkled hands until he grasped hold of his glasses and gently worked the thick ridged optics onto the bridge of his hooked nose. They sank into the creases in his olive skin easily. The chill air smothered the Doctor for a moment as he sat up in his small bed, his electric blanket hugging his thin waist and legs. He was lank and old, with thin limbs and a thinner chest. Grey hair, puffy at the sides, complemented his pallid olive skin, thin brown eyes, and scraggly grey beard. He adjusted his glasses for a moment before turning, slowly and deliberately, to the being that had woken him.

Clad in a flattering body suit was Zhenyyi Vaelevich, the Doctor’s companion. She was tall, a few inches shy of eight feet tall and gargantuan beside Alcaeus’ tiny and elderly personage, appearing as a perfect specimen of the atoran race despite not a single sliver of her skin being visible. Her oddly feminine body, curvaceous with wide hips, generous busom, and five waist length headstalks, all held tight beneath a slick alabaster skinsuit. Hidden behind an expressionless black and grey mask with two simple eye ports and a rebreather mouthpiece, a surplus the Doctor had had to pull out of storage, was her face. The Doctor preferred not to contemplate it.

For what seemed all too long a moment the pair just sat there, the Doctor finally giving in and speaking as he stared into the unreadable mask of his companion, “How many crew members are left?” His voice in contrast to his body was chipper and vibrant.

“Only four left,” Zhenyyi’s words were soft and effeminate, an oddly high pitch for an atoran.

Alcaeus rubbed his chin with his withered fingers, scrutinizing the wall in a far-off stare as his mind worked over their path and perishables, “We will have to resupply at a trade station, the navigation computer has a few logged, or visit one of the nearby worlds that doesn’t have good border protection. Perhaps one of those pirate harbours. If we stop in Port Tritianna we can sell the young man, Antal wasn’t it? Anyways, using the money we can buy a few cattle and some tea for myself.”

The armour clad woman sighed heavily, “But I like Antal, he is the pretty one and actually listens to me when I want to talk.”

The rough laugh that tore from the Doctor’s lungs, wet and ragged, made Zhenyyi pout behind her mask, “He is only listening to you because he wants to convince you to release him using his wily charms. We are better off without him,” He could tell his companion was unimpressed, “Besides, it is that or you eat him. Now help me up, I think my hip is out of place and needs tuning; first we need to set the destination for the port.” With that she relented, gingerly grabbing the Doctor’s arms and helping him up. With a smile and limp the duo left the cabin.

“I can’t believe they traded you twelve of those two headed bulls and a couple crates of feed for Antal and the girl,” Zhenyyi and Doctor Alcaeus sat in the crowded cockpit of their tramp vessel, or rather the tramp vessel that was now theirs that the last of the crew was dispersed. She worked over the weapons systems, what pathetic few there were, while the Doctor scanned the astrological readings and compared them with navigation notes.

Chuckling, the Doctor put aside his notes for a moment as he looked at his companion out of the corner of his eyes, “The woman sealed the deal, pirate havens like that are always lacking in the fairer sex. To be honest the young man alone was worth more than those dozen sickly cattle, but this is the price we pay for having no questions asked about where they came from. Damn pirates and their ilk are far too picky about where slaves come from these days.”

“I think the traders were more concerned about the fact that they were trading for slaves that had recently had their tongue removed.”

Alcaeus dwelled on this for a moment, “No, no I would consider that a bonus. No-one wants to listen to a slave prattle on. And besides you needed the meal, we were quite literally running on nothing. The tongue has the least effect on price, the girl will still look pretty and have children while the man can still haul grain and bananas.”

“I don’t know, I like mine with lots of tongue,” Zhenyyi laugh wryly, “such a shame to be missing such a lovely organ. Though they were delicious.”

The Doctor swatted his companion, “Shush now girl, don’t make such crude remarks around your old man.” The tall woman recoiled, laughing, from his quick smack and leaned upon the nav board causing a few buttons to beep and sputter. A distant message began to crackle over the FTL comms, the Doctor hesitating to switch back the receiving wavelength as he listened to the garbled words. For what seemed an eternity the pair listened to the message, clouded with white-noise that it was, as their mirth evaporated. After the first repeat Alcaeus began fiddling with the frequency, tuning it to the broadcast until he could make out the words at least nominally. They listened intently.

Zhenyyi broke the silence, “Sounds like the break you have been looking for.”

“That it does,” the Doctor tapped at the navigation computer lazily, “and I have no desire to wait for a national power to investigate this. Our trip to the north will have to be delayed slightly I am afraid.”

“Aww, but you promised,” her voice was saturated with disappointment to the point that the Doctor cringed, “I wanted to find out what the northerners taste like.”

The Fateful Gambit slipped out of FTL with little grandeur, this was oddly suitable given its conglomerate shape which appeared much like a child had taken many toy space ships and melted them together. It was a tramp tug, not even a proper freighter, with a large living compartment slapped onto the underside, a few coilguns and laser turrets on hardpoints and a simple thruster engine on the rear of the ship. Numerous other hardpoints sat hollow for where freight modules would be able to lock on. It was in the broad class of ‘pimply weakling’ vessels. The two occupants liked this though, it made them that much more unassuming.

Broadcasting a signal identifying it as a simple, and obviously harmless, tramp vessel, the Fateful Gambit moved away from the large fleet of vessels and sought to hug closer to the source of the transmission. It pinged them only lightly with its active sensors as it moved close to the world, instead directing its sadly lacking sensor suite towards the world itself. What it found was not exactly much, the atmosphere interfering with most scans for the space-centric vessel. The visible spectrum cameras did pick up on the Glass Jungle though, and in the cockpit the good Doctor was experiencing a mixture of nervousness and giddiness.

In short order the Doctor was suited up in a CBRN suit, armoured against both conventional weapons as well as being sealed from most anything the environment could throw at it and with a one-way faceplate that covered the entire front of the helmet. Zhenyyi slipped into her own armour, essentially a plated exoskeleton that fused near perfectly with her skinsuit. While Alcaeus didn’t bother grabbing a weapon before boarding the small shuttle in the spine of the vessel his companion, ever giddy, grabbed more than a few small arms and a rifle as she raided the armoury aboard the vessel before slinking into the vanship behind the Doctor. In a short moment they departed, leaving their ragged vessel alone and naked. Not that any but them knew this.

by **Of The Arch ilands** » Thu Oct 06, 2011 7:59 am

Never again will the Confederacy, be left behind in the times, Never again will the Confederacy, Lack the knowledge to defend our selves against those that wish to see us destroyed! The Travellers Corps, will act as the extended arm of the Confederacy, lighting up the silent void that ever encompasses our fair democracy!"

-:Supreme Chancellor Michael Hills

-----

The 800 meter long vessel ripped space asunder in a brilliant flash of white light. appearing to shoot forward several thousand metres before coming to a lazy forward motion. Its hull illuminated by the systems sun, revealing its name painted in big white clearly readable letters "ATCNV Discovery". The Discovery was a Jury Class Cruiser the same size as her sister class the Trinity Class, but she was built to take much more of a pounding. Designed during the brief war with the Empire of Xiscapia to bog down there faster more manoeuvrable ships, and play a supporting role in fleet engagements. She was a fast durable vessel, and like all Travellers corps vessels they where refitted for exploration rather than war. Her hull was adorned with Sensors, and all manner of science equipment. She was not defenceless how ever along her hull lined the newest weapons technology the Confederacy had to offer.

Captain Harris, stood just off the centre of the bridge looking out of the bridges pseudo view screen, looking to the planet they had just jumped in on. It glistened in the sun like any M Class planet would, its atmosphere protecting its inhabitants from the hazardous radiation young sun was giving off. They had been drawn to the system,from a rouge transmission, a Dr Ezekiel Grath, and his talk of pathogenic life forms, ticked all the boxes for the most important mission criteria of the Travellers corps, To find and seek out life that may or may not be a threat to the confederacy.

Pathogenic life forms where high on that list of threats to the confederacy, It wasn't like the confederacy, hadnt experienced pathogenic life forms, the pre-historic world of Haderon in the Confederacies very own home system, was home to all sorts of plant life that if you let it would and could easily take control of the Human mind, and even mutate its host in prolonged exposure. This kind of life form was, a high risk life form, and something that required cataloguing studying and exterminating. Harris wasn't at all surprised when the Ships sensor alarms went off the Harsh whooping noise letting everyone on board know unidentified vessels where with in the system. Harris was expecting there to be other life, if there was one thing he had learned from his current assignment and all the logs he had read, was that the Galaxy was full of people, and a transmission he could pick up would most definitely be picked up by someone else.

Michael waited for a few more moments, looking at his reflection in the pseudo view screen. Almost 6ft'1 he was a tall man a Ridgian of birth Born on Ursa-Gamma. Strong jawline and dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, made him out to be a cold calculating man. Over his years he had learned to be cool under pressure and calculating, but he was never cold. Eventually he turned to his Ex.O Commander Lia Perry who handed him a dataslate. "Looks like we've jumped in right in the middle captain,on the outskirts of the system we have what looks to be a massive fleet, we are still gathering and collating data, unknown vessels all of them. We also have what seems to be a run down freighter of sorts holding orbit above the planet."

Harris looked over the dataslate and moved to the Holo-sphere that was i the centre of the bridge showing the tactical display of the ship and its surroundings. Pushing the data slate into one of the ports he watched as the holographic 3D image changed to that of the scans of the fleet. Looking them up and down, he let out a disgruntled sigh. "Launch fighters, and have a marine team ready in five minutes, Ping the freighter also see if they know who the others are. Set a course for the device transmitting the message, we picked up, I want that on board if we can for study."

"Aye aye Captain" Lia Replied with a crisp salute. Her chocolate brown hair staying perfectly still as she did so.

The Jury Class Cruiser had a larger Hangar bay than its Trinity counter part. Able to hold four wings of strike craft and three landers, compared to the Trinity's two wings and one lander. Flight Captain Jack Roswell scrambled into the cockpit of his Mk III Stinger Interceptor, locking in his face mask and pressuring his zero G suit, the cockpit its self was pressurised as well, however Pilots safety was paramount in strike craft. Looking to his sides he watched as the Wing of Hawks roared off into the void there thrusters flaring brightly as they burned to there optimal speeds. Booting up his in-flight coms and computer, he quickly ran over his preflight checks, bringing his Interceptor around, Punching his thrusters he along with his wing mates sped off into the inky void.

Switching his coms to his squadron he, checked his sensors before speaking, "Arrow Squadron this is Arrow leader, form up on me and keep your eyes peeled, we are running MIWS for the moment, Stay frosty I don't want any of you going to sleep."

-----

The Discoveries engines flared a bright blue as, as the ship began to bank and turn towards the source of the transmission that was being repeated over and over again like a bird chirping on a sunny morning, sent on a hundred million channels. Despite its size the ship was nimble,and covered the void quickly. The Discovery pulled up along side the probe, its scanners scanning the object through and through. All the While,the bridge where doing a hundred million tasks at once. Tracking the unknown fleet, scanning the planet and making sure they weren't in any immediate danger.

Michael settled himself down in his chair looking at the real time tactical display. He watched the unknown fleet drift further and further into the system, he didn't want to take any chances he was outnumbered and they where an unknown. "Raise the shields, power up weapons but hold your fire, open a broad frequency , lets see if they speak first."

Harris waited for the go ahead from the comms officer sat to his right. The thumbs up told him all he needed to know. Clearing his throat he began with the generic hello identify your self message that was engrained into any captain when dealing with unknown entities.

"Attention unknown vessels this is Captain Harris of the Archian Navy Travellers corps vessel Discovery, please state your intentions in this system"

With that wrapped up, Harris took a sip of his coffee that had just been placed on the arm of his command chair, savouring the taste he looked up. to his Ex.O once again. "Miss Perry have the marines Leave the bay when ever they are ready. Bring us to condition 2 alert, if you would please."

by **Socialist States Owen** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:30 am

I see trees of green...
red roses too...
I see them blue...
for me and you...
and I think to myself...
what a wonderful world...

Such gentle music is soothing, but no remedy for a case of desperation. This is the problem navigator Carl Buckley has as he listens to the dulcet tune echo in the large room. As he sat in his chair on the command deck of the SS Merton IV, a small privately owned vessel, Buckley realised he was no longer alone.

The captain and owner of the ship, Mary Merton, had entered. A woman of very average shape and size with an unusually heavy precense wherever she went, Merton had no trouble gaining her employee's attention. "How are we doing Mr Buckley?"
"Not too bad Mary, not too bad. Considering we're lost with very little hope of recovery."
A sigh escaped the impatient captains breath. "Look, my ass is on the line here too. Just tell me what progress we've made."

"Well, in the nineteen hours since we came out of FTL, me and navigator Gruns have taken turns trying to find some sort of bearing of where we are. As of yet, no obvious system arrangements of planets or recognisable stars and our long range navigation equipment is out after the hits we took. Quite frankly, I don't see how we can get home."
Mary's head flopped between her arms, rather appropriately reflecting how exhausted she was. "And what's this up ahead of us?"

Buckley shrugged - this was where he felt out of his depth. "A planet, that's all I know. It has an atmosphere and signs of life, but nothing to suggest there is significant enough civilisation here to help us out. I suggest we go past on a 3 degree curve up over its equator, and roll when we hit mid-latitude in the northern hemisphere. That way we get a good look a whats down there from our cameras."

----------

"Well...this piece of shit isn't going to work any time soon." Being a scavenging vessel, the Merton IV and it's twenty four strong crew needed a large storage hold. In this most peculiar of journeys - and at the same time seemingly disastrous - they had collected quite a large amount of 'booty'. Unfortunately, some of it was not as valuable a haul as they would have liked, and that includes a holo monitor with a bullet hole through it.

Nick Gray was in charge of sifting through what had been discovered and grabbed to value and categorise the finds, but today he was having little luck fufilling his orders of deciding what could be used to keep the ship going if it didn't find a way home soon. There wasn't much. The former marine was becoming increasingly bored, which often led to disaster; last time he felt the need to entertain himself, the Deck B meeting room became a part of the vaccum of space.

Not only that, but Gray was shattered by grief. Like the rest of the crew. In their violent encounter only a few days ago before they entered a random FTL jump, seven of the original thirty three crew had been killed - and two badly wounded. One of those wounded men had passed away during the FTL jump but the other was beginning to recover. Gray felt a shudder - the ship was accelerating. Unsure why, he made his way to the brige.

by **Huerdae** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:12 am

"There have always been those who have stated that the relations between the Star Empire are close because of less than honest intentions - the Militocracy was outright genocidal, while the Star Empire was perfectly willing to offer 'salvation' to those who were preyed upon. This symbiotic relationship didn't entirely end with the birth of the Pathogen. First, the incorporation of Red Eyes, the Huerdaen Rethast, and then the events which followed, the Star Empire continued to suckle at the teat of the Rethast's passing. Whether it was the designs of the Rethast or the Huerdaen, however, is what is often debated. The only thing I am sure about, however, is that the Star Empire was aware of this relationship. I was part of one of the errands that the Pathogen requested, and even through years of warfare, decades of death and horror and hell, there was nothing that was half as terrible as the Glass Jungle on that planet that drew together every fear and terror we had, and taught us the fear that dulls all else today."

-Colonel Baal'Ta, regarding his first mission in the Imperial Shield

The shuttle was quiet, and bore more comforts than Yolisci could have expected from any landing craft. The seats were padded, the ceilings were high, and the wind noise was muffled. He sat with the others in the uncomfortable silence, the faceplate to his armor was open to allow them to converse quietly, though nobody was speaking. There was a certain awkwardness to the craft, not just because it was piloted by mercenaries who none of them knew or trusted, but because of the last addition to their squad. The squad specialist, a sniper, was called Mishyoukai, a slayer by 'birth', but one with a rather interesting past. She had been missing for almost a year and a half before her return, and spent the last four months in a forced vacation before being assigned to the unit. The woman's report of the time stated a rather fantastical story including a number of unlikely elements, but what was worst was the silence. The woman didn't speak to almost anyone. She had been alone in a ship, with not a single living being there, for almost the entire time. Possibly more, considering the time it took before she had been marked as MIA from the combat zone. She was, officially, not ready for combat.

However, this was not the sort of combat they sent just anyone on. Mishyoukai, despite her ordeal, was a known survivor. Three times in the past she had shown a rather surprising resilience, and that was why she had been chosen. But even so, her faceplate was closed, leaving the others to speak together without interrupting her. Inevitably, the conversation swung to her, assuming that she had bathed herself in silence, turning off the external audio receptors.

"She's a Junior Lieutenant, she can lie without being executed, do you think she went AWOL?"

"Doubtful, Sergeant. Look at how she is. Something happened to her. Red Eyes, maybe? I've heard they do some crazy things, if they raped her as much as it's said..."

"You're always such a romantic, brother. No, I think we're stuck with her because she bro-"

It was then that the Junior Lieutenant spoke, quietly, barely audible. "I have the logs, sergeant. They're public domain, you can watch them. It wasn't Red Eyes, and it wasn't cowardice. I don't know how it started. But when you stare at a piece of metal, trying to find a reflection of your own face so you can remember what you look like, there's a certain madness to it. You wonder if you're even alive anymore. If you're even human. When your cybernetics are dying because you don't have a consistent power source anymore, because you have to hunt the bots that maintain the ship, and when you eat the half-decayed, half-frozen bodies of the others who were in cryo...there's a madness there. Look it up, Sergeant. It's not all there - I couldn't power my cybernetics fully, you know. But there's enough. I used to sing to myself, you know. To remember what a voice was like."

The words silenced the entire group, and they stared at the faceless armor as silence filled the ship. Suddenly, the faceplate slid away, and the private jumped, staring at the face a young woman, clearly Pankrees, but nothing like the rough one they had expected. She looked almost childish, though that wasn't unexpected from a Slayer, it didn't fit what they had envisioned from a toughened survivor. Finally, she spoke again, leaning over to grab her weapon from the rack next to her.

"We're almost there."

The radio from the cockpit lit up almost immediately, crackling angrily as the man spoke, his accent strange to the Huerdaen ears. "We're passing into the atmosphere now. There are already a few people here, but we believe we've managed to get by without anyone noticing. It'll be night where you're coming down. You sure you want to make this approach? The nativ-"

The sergeant cut him off with the chambering of a round in her weapon, loudly. "We stick to the plan. Let us know when."

The man fell silent as the shuttle continued to descend, first as a small star, then as a descending angel, until it hovered a few meters over the small village. As the back opened, the squad dropped out, forming a small circle with their weapons raised, expecting the natives to pour toward them in moments.

by **Alversia** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 3:08 pm

"May god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

Nina'Amos – Solcrum kept her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply through the small slits beneath the slender bump that closely resembled a stream-lined version of the human nose. She tasted the cool, recycled air as it tumbled down her throat and into her lungs, now used to the tickling feeling that pursued it the whole way down and resisting the urge to cough out loud with a well practised ease. She knelt in the centre of the room, down on one knee, head bowed in reverence. There did not appear to be any focal point for her worship, there was no idol on the floor, no images on the wall that she may pray to. To an outsider it might have looked like a rather haphazard manner in which to offer adulation to a deity and, in many ways, it was rather more informal than even the notoriously laid-back Silarians were used to but Amos was doing the best she could with the locale she inhabited.

The female was currently in the main living area of her small ship, the Dejjiema Paċi, formerly known as the Lady Crystal. It had once been a small freighter, used for hauling cargo between moons on the Alversian commercial world of Malacus cheaply, quickly and easily. It had been nearing the end of it's service life when the quiet Silarian had swept in and offered to buy it for a pittance from the rather taken aback owner. Once he had agreed the deal, the female had left as she had arrived, swiftly and with the minimum of fuss, leaving the bemused Alversian standing in his office, with a view over the dark blue sky, wondering who it was that had just taken his ship off his hands.

Even if he had managed to catch up and force an answer from his illusive customer, then he would have found it to be frustratingly sparse and incomplete. Amos would have looked him in the eye and told him that she was a Silarian, she was from the planet of Silaria in the Alversian Republic and she was in need of a ship that he happened to possess. That would be it.

At the very least, he would have gotten a better look at the Silarian. She stood around 6 feet in height, average for her race, with skin of a dull and mottled grey colour. It looked alarmingly sickly to those ignorant of Silarian physiology, who realised that their skin could only remain naturally radiant in the ocean domains where they belonged. Even for her species though, she was thin, she looked as though she had not been eating properly, or at least not in a long time. She wore common civilian clothing but she walked with a precision that nearly impossible to achieve outside of the military. It was a disciplined stride that had carried her so rapidly and decisively from his office that he would not have dared follow even if he had the wit to consider it. Her face was slender, high cheekbones giving her a gaunt appearance while a set, slender mouth gave her the appearance of a disapproving schoolmistress, even when she merely standing thoughtfully. Her hair itself was remarkable enough, long and tangled with the appearance of dry seaweed but the thing that caught the eye most were her eyes. They were large, milky white in colour and notable by the absence of any sort of iris or pupil, nothing but a great white sclera that made staring into her eyes unnerving at the best of times. One might be forgiven for thinking she was actually blind. Her movements soon told them that this was not the case.

Of course, once she was actually in position of the vessel, a twenty metre hauler who looked every bit her thirty years and some beyond that, then the real work began. Despite being purchased so cheaply, the final result could certainly not have fetched the same amount from even the most persistent of barterers. A full month after that meeting in the office on Malacus, the Dejjiema Paċi pulled out of dry dock over Dela and headed out into space. Where the Lady Crystal had been rusted and angular, the Dejjiema Paċi was new and sleek. The antiquated had been replaced by the modern, the worn with the unweathered, the cumbersome with the elegant. The Lady Crystal, a thirty year old, knackered cargo hauler was gone. In it's place was the Dejjiema Paċi, a sleek, fast and agile combat craft capable of taking on the best in both galaxies and coming out on top. For Amos was a bounty hunter and when in the hunting game, one needed the best they could get, or else they would fall victim to those who had. The cost had been immense, but then to some, material wealth had little meaning in the grand scheme of things.

“Nina?”

The disembodied voice broke the silence with all the delicacy of a hammer breaking fine china. With a heavy sigh which quickly turned into a quick cough, Amos rose to her feet and breathed deep once again. She still had her eyes closed, collecting herself for what was to come. She looked at the opposite wall when she spoke, even though there was nothing there but solid metal bulkhead.

“You know better than to interrupt me Jason. I trust this is important.”

“Sorry Nina but we're coming up on the planet now.” The voice, a male's, with the soft tone that some might recognise as a Terran Irish brogue, replied almost apologetically. “You said you wanted to be told.”

“Is it here?”

“Well, there is a suspicious sector on the planet's surface. It's like a big black hole. Absolutely no readings from it at all.”

“Are there others?”

A pause. Amos knew Jason was checking the long range sensors. “A few other ships. Nothing we need to worry ourselves with.”

“Then put the ship into a descent trajectory. Give us ten minutes to prepare. Once we're close enough, we'll disembark and start our search. Find the most likely location and we'll start.”

“Aye.” A click to signal that the voice was gone and Amos was alone once more.

The Silarian took a moment to compose herself, allowing her body to relax. She had ten minutes. She had to check that her armour was ready, that all her weapons were cleaned and that her equipment was all functioning. She had been wondering when she was going to get a sign and she knew this was it. This was what she had been waiting for.

Giving the room one last long hard stare, the Silarian turned and strode out, the door hissing shut behind her and the lights dimming forlornly as if sad they no longer had an audience. Amos gave it no thought.

There was work to be done.

by **Sertian** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 4:59 pm

*Snip* Retconning this post out of existence! I'll have a new group show up! :3

by **Rethan** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 5:43 am

Orbit, Approximately 18 hours previous

The Sanctuary was cycling through its orbital procedures when it detected the probe. The crew was busy making sure the shuttle was ready for departure when the message slipped through their speakers.

"Unidentified Vessel, this is Explorator Probe XV-282, hired by one Doctor Ezekiel Grath. I am transferring documents Dr. Grath wished you to have. Prepare for arrival of data."

A short, grease stained man threw himself into a seat beside the comms console, his hands flying across the controls as the data stream poured inwards. He cursed, keeping his voice low to avoid being heard by the rest of the crew present on the deck.

"Jeez. Ain't seen nothin' like it. Errr. BELTLEY! Wake the cap would ya? And git our guests down 'ere. They'll be wanting to see this."

An even more grease stained man stood up from his position beneath the floor, smashing his head against a pipe, an act which brought with it a string of curses in at least three separate languages as Beltley made his way off the command deck and towards the captain's quarters. Mikhail remained in the seat, wiping grime from his fingers with an already filthy cloth. Images and video feeds flashed across the screen, and he grew ever more pale with each one. He jumped almost a solid foot in the air when a hand fell on his shoulder, but his heart ceased trying to explode when he realised the hand belonged to Leviathan.

"Ah hell missus. Scared the stars out of me."

Leviathan stuttered an attempted apology but resolved herself to a disapproving glare when Mikhail started laughing.

"You got up fast."

"Yes. I could tell we had arrived, I was already on my way up when Beltley found me. He didn't look happy."

"E's just clumsy Lev. Any sign of metal face?"

Leviathan shook her head, and Mikhail shrugged. He turned back to the images coming from the probe, pushing a button to throw the images up on the large screen which covered the far wall. Leviathan watched as pictures of crystallised plant life and hyaline architecture filled her field of vision. She closed her eyes, blocking out the images and focusing instead on the whispers she could hear. There was easily over a thousand voices, a fact which disturbed her to no end. The clacking breathing sound of Valtiel brought her back to reality, and she turned towards him.

"They're almost ready to go planetwide. I can't tell while confined to an Avatar, but there's easily over a thousand down there."

"Downcast?"

[i]"No way of knowing."

Valtiel nodded and turned to face the main console, now occupied by one Captain Stefan Istovich. The surprisingly thin man looked out of place in the seat, but the rail pistol at his side convinced the various crew members larger than him to stay a great distance away.

"I suppose you and the machine will be heading down to the surface?"

Leviathan moved to protest her being called a machine, but instead simmered with a quiet anger when Valtiel spoke.

"Yes. We will be. You will also need to vacate orbit for some time. There is a group of Huerdaen incoming, and they need transportation."

"Yes, well, Mikhail will have to deal with that. I'm coming with you. I know enough about your acquaintances to know you'll need some help on this one."

Leviathan expected Valtiel to argue the point, but instead he just nodded again.

"Then we better make our move."

Planetside, Current Time

And so Leviathan had found herself planetside with six others. Valtiel, Stefan and four unnervingly well armed mercenaries, none of whom she knew the name of. The climate in this part of the world was humid, and uncomfortably warm, and all the mercs had started cursing the damp in the air as soon as they'd left. Leviathan, being more mechanical than organic, was unconcerned. She hadn't even donned any substantial armour, her protection being afforded by her inner mechanics. Besides, she knew what they were hunting well enough to know that armour would be nothing short of a liability. She needed to be small and light if she was going in....there.

"Natives don't seem hostile."

One of the mercenaries had spoken, breaking the silence of the group.

"Of course not. We just landed outside their village in a giant metal box from the sky. They probably think we're gods or something."

Leviathan couldn't help but smirk at that last comment, and kept her face hidden. All of them were sitting down on the rocky outcrop they'd found, waiting for the Huerdaen to show up. Only Valtiel was standing, though everyone kept their weapons close by. Leviathan could see the Glass Jungle not a ten minutes walk away, and the complete lack of viral evidence where they were concerned her more than any level of infection could.

Why weren't they spreading?

"They're here."

Valtiel began to move towards the village, Leviathan rising and moving to follow him at his side. The mercenaries followed close behind him, chatting amongst themselves. The village up ahead seemed empty, but Leviathan could see blue toned shapes moving behind reeds and huts, slinking about trying to hide from her enhanced senses. She could see the Huerdaen now, and suddenly felt decidedly out of place. The Huerdaen, like the mercenaries and Valtiel, were clad in powered armour. Leviathan, in contrast, was wearing simple clothing. Green top, black gloves. Only her pants were combat oriented, a number of clips around her waist and two rail pistols in holsters lower down her leg.

She stood beside Valtiel as he stepped forward, drawing herself up beside the titanic cybernetic soldier.

"Welcome, Huerdaen. I am Valtiel, this is Leviathan, and the white armoured man behind me is Captain Stefan Istovich. Your arrival is timely, we don't have much time left."

Valtiel pointed towards the large field of glass and sterile dirt in the distance, spires of white and crystallised matter reaching into the sky, and casting a pitch black shadow on the ground. Leviathan nodded, closing her eyes again.

"I think they know we're here. If we want that sample, we'll need to move fast. My senses are dulled here, I will need to be inside the forest to actually find point zero of infection."

"Well then, perhaps we should advise the others to move faster.

Leviathan opened her eyes, and stared at Valtiel. What others....

The probe in orbit was going mad. Lots of vessels had shown up, and it was in the process of transmitting its array of data to everyone involved. Streams of images, recordings and data regarding the suspected infection of the biosphere below blasted through radio waves and laser transmission beams. Images of monstrous, pale and utterly unnatural creatures followed by recordings of the devastating power of their technology. An entire world reduced to ash on a whim, a war fleet arrayed against a single one of the abominable Pathogenic warships dissolved to its constituent atoms in a second...

"Greetings unidentified vessels. I am Explorator Probe XV-282. I am transmitting details of the suspected incidence on this world. I have been informed by representatives of Dr Ezekiel Grath that the infection below is reaching critical point, and time is short. Assuming you are willing to work together, one Valtiel Avithe is awaiting your arrival on the planet below. Otherwise, I have been told to wish you good luck."

by **Alversia** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 7:22 am

Dejjiema Paċi, Orbit

When Nina reached her quarters, a postage-stamped size room that was just large enough to contain a small, immaculately dressed bed and a standard issue military metallic wardrobe. Indeed with the doors to the wardrobe open, there was not even enough space for two people to squeeze in beside either other, not unless one fancied sprawling across the bed. The whole space was dimly lit by a weak light embedded in the ceiling that forlornly tried to cast its rays across all but only seemed to succeed in shrouding everything in a dark and bitter glow. It was almost monochrome, so heavily laden was the atmosphere. The walls, ceiling and floor were painted in a relatively fresh coat of battleship grey paint while the thick taste of wet paint still hung faintly in the air, stubbornly resisting the oxygen recycler’s attempts to move it on.

Nina barely noticed it as she swept through the hatch, turning and sealing it behind her with a heavy, jarring clank and the screech of protest as metal clashed with metal. Checking once to make sure the door was definitely sealed Nina approached her wardrobe and pulled it open, once again ignore the high-pierced and nerve shredding squeal of metal on metal, and examined the contents within.

Despite the size of the wardrobe, tall enough to reach the ceiling and dominating the small domain that it inhabited, there were only a half dozen items contained within. The first, and most important, was a suit of armour. It was black in colour, tailor made for her form. It stood patiently, waiting for her. Nina took a few moments just to examine it. She ran her eyes thoughtfully over the attire; scanning every nook and cranny, allowing the memories of past glories to fill her mind. The Silarian smiled forlornly at those recollections; faces and places emerging from the ether to entertain her conscious mind for just the few seconds of luxury she permitted herself before she snapped back to her task once again and focused on the upcoming mission.

The Silarian reached forward and slipped the armour from its mount. It was light and cool to the touch; with a smooth, polished surface and not at all heavy. With a practiced ease, she began to fit the armour once piece at a time. First the boots went on over her own shoes, then the leg sections, then the lower body section, upper body section and finally the torso. As each piece was fitted Nina could feel it pressing against her clothing and encasing her in an armoured cocoon. The clothes she had been wearing beforehand were specially designed to wear under armour and granted her freedom of movement without risk of chaffing or discomfort. The suit was clearly not power armour. It was too form-fitting for that and not bulky enough to qualify as true power armour. Instead it was a form of specialized light armour of the type used by security guards or local police forces, the sort of people who needed good all round protection without compromising movement or size. Of course because this was Nina’s she had specified it with a few little extras. The main one of these were the shields, which she had had improved by over 200% in terms of strength. It gave her more durability and compensated for her lack of physical protection that was a direct result of the thinner armour.

The Silarian Bounty Hunter did a few tests in her armour; performing star jumps in the narrow base and stretching each limb and she checked for malfunctions or damage that she may have missed. The armour passed with flying colours and, finally satisfied, she moved on the next half dozen items, which she clipped to the belt around her waist. They were mostly mundane items; things like smoke or flash grenades, sensor jammers, medical kit, rations, communicator, wire, a knife, a mirror and a dozen other trivial things that might one day save her life. Once she had them all properly attached she performed a few more tests and found that nothing a ignition to propel the bullet it utilized a powerful railgun and gyrojet combination to ensure maximum killing power from any range. Although it had a scope attached, there were small sights at the end of the barrel that ensured it could be used from any range.

Finally satisfied with her appearance, the Silarian fitted her helmet bringing with it a faint hiss as her oxygen filter came online. The dark and grey room disappeared as she peered through the helmet and instead she saw the room in a rainbow of colours showing her everything from heat emissions to pockets of impurities in the bulkhead.

As she tested each internal system the Silarian heard a faint click that let her know the internal communicator was being activated.
“Jason.”

“Nina, we’re a minute out. Are you ready?”

“Ready. Have you got a feed?”

“Just coming through now. Everything looks good.”

“You sure?”

“Well…comparatively. There was a probe in orbit that started sending us data a few seconds ago. Do you want an upload?”

“Give me it all.”

For a full thirty seconds the Silarian stood stock-still and simply digested every word and image. It took less time than she had imagined it would but then when one had read the details as intimately as she then there was little to be gained from rereading and reexamining it all.

“We’re at the drop point Nina,” The voice of Jason echoed through the ship, “I’ll keep an eye on your vitals for you and signal when you’re in danger.”

“Thank you Jason.”

“You’re welcome as always.”

As the ship glided just above the surface what had once been the cargo doors opened with a hiss. Standing there ready and waiting was Nina and she jumped elegantly off even as the door hissed shut over her head. Within moments the thrusters on the ship had roared into life and she was but a speck in the sky.

Turning to face the party in front of whom she now stood, Nina offered a bow and examined them all. The Huerdaen were unmistakable in the galaxy while the others looked like a group of mercenaries. They were well armed but their armour lacked the uniformity of the others.

“Greetings.” She said in her soft tone, voice synthetized heavily by the helmet, “My name is Nina'Amos – Solcrum and I am here to render my assistance to the operation here to contain and defeat the contamination.”

by **Clamparapa** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:04 pm

Shadows followed the ship, seemingly, impossibly, blacker than the space around them. They flowed behind the ship like the tail following a comet; however, where a comet’s tail was spectacular and fascinating, the shadows only radiated darkness and emptiness. Created by the ship tearing into its sister realm, the shadows were eerie; one could even say that no light could escape their terrifying vacancy. The only thing drearier than the shadows was the ship itself. Dark, devoid of life, but moving at an extremely fast speed, the craft was essentially a small extension of the occupant inside. If one looked in the ship (assuming one could do this safely) they would see a very strange figure through the smoke of the cockpit, controlling the ship with his mind.

He was a mysterious creature created out of ether and darkness. Gender did not really have a place in his culture; however, to other races, he was an unmistakable male figure. Completely covered by his black armour, no one had ever laid their eyes upon him. He was an incredibly reclusive beast; the only ones that witnessed his form were dead or members of his species, including his even more secretive twin. Of all the odd things about this creature’s race, the one oddity that overshadowed them all was the formation of a twin at their birth. The race’s connection with another certain dimension was incredibly strong. It was so strong, in fact, that when one being was born in this dimension, a twin was instantly created in the alternate dimension. However, it was extremely hard to summon the twin; one had to go to a special place in order to perform the ritual. This planet happened to be one of the rare places where the ritual could be performed. Once the ritual was performed, the twins were merged into a far superior being, able to transit either dimension at will.

It was the life goal of the being to accomplish this ritual; nothing else mattered. This was kept in mind as the ship ignored all in-system activity and headed towards the planet in front of it. Like a meteor, the ship rocketed straight past the ships already in orbit around this special planet. Any life form readings would have turned up a very faint life signature as the lone occupant slumbered silently. Dressed in his black and bloodied armour, the inhabitant of this small vessel was leaking almost as much shadow as the ship. The closer he got to the planet, the more he leaked. The shadows continued to follow the ship, blotting out the system’s star for a few brief seconds…

OOC: Apologies for the lateness; more homework than I had realized :\
And sorry for the length...I haven't posted anything serious in months. *waits for the rethast to infect him in retribution* ;_;

by **Huerdae** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 2:14 pm

Planet Il'Kaskah - Dirtside

The squad stood firm for a moment, watching the concealed creatures that hid around the village. They had expected hostility, or a challenge, but what met them was docile terror, something that made entirely too much sense so close to a possible point of Pathogenic infection. There was little reason to do anything but fear that which you didn't understand in a place where the Pathogen had taken hold. In only a few moments, the Rethast party came into view, and Mishyoukai dropped to a knee, as the corporal behind her turned, able to fire over her head, allowing four to point weapons at the oncoming group before sergeant Kal'Ta raised her hand, stepping forward. The entire unit relaxed only slightly, keeping their gaze on the hidden creatures, hidden behind the Dread Black of the Imperial powered armor's faceplate. As she started toward the Pathogenic leaders, another arrived, and her face dropped into a scowl behind the blocking glass. Concerned over the situation, the sergeant motioned her squad forward, leading them away from the cowering village, and hoping to avoid unnecessary conflict. To the helmeted other, she spared only a glance, indicated by a twitch of her shoulders toward the woman's direction, before she moved past, with Mishyoukai in the rear with the comparatively small SMG.

The steps were heavy, leaving massive imprints in the soft ground, and her voice was curt as she spoke to Leviathan and Valtiel. "You brought others? We were informed this would be a solo operation. We're not prepared to keep idiots and tag-alongs alive, and if it puts any of my brothers or sisters in danger, we'll leave them to die. We didn't even expect to meet you here, so why don't you fill us in? Why the lack of communication? The goal is pretty obvious. Get two samples, one new, one original, and drag a Rethast out. Okay, shouldn't be too hard. We brought the doctor for the samples, so why do you need to be here?"

Her gaze moved for a moment to Leviathan, and the edge her voice took on was even sharper. "And why are we bringing a tourist? I know you're Pathogen, but from what we've seen, claws and jaws still hurt you, so why are you not taking proper precautions? At least you came armed."

She fell silent immediately to those outside, but instead spoke to her squad.

"Mishyoukai, bring up the rear. Keep this tourist alive. Valtiel wouldn't have brought her if she wasn't important for some reason or another, but I don't want it to be obvious. Let him play his hand before we show ours. We all know they're not the most trustworthy people. For all we know, she came from here originally and is of some value. Maybe she's just here to seduce our secondary objective and drag him back for us. Baal'Ta, you're with her, keep eyes to the port side. Doc, middle, stay the fuck alive. We didn't come all this way to drag around your bits. Hidall, you're behind me, keep eyes starboard. Let's move, the faster we're done here, the sooner we're out of this mess."

The unit began to jog heavily toward the crystal jungle, with Mishyoukai raising her arm to the others to follow. Each footprint they left led directly back to the little village, as the sergeant went over their extraction plan one last time.

"When we have everything we need, we return to the village and fire off the beacon. It's a 35mm, so an Akki or Cerberus will do. If it comes down to it, we can chuck it as high as we can, but I'd feel more productive with a gun. Pickup comes, we stay in armor until the Rethast is removed, and we get back home to clean off. Any concerns?"

Mishyoukai spoke, her voice still unnaturally quiet so that Kal'Ta had to use her cybernetics to prioritize the voice.

"What about the others that were mentioned?"

Kal'Ta stopped, gesturing for them to fan out, easily within sight, with only a long, open killing field now between them and the glass-like growths.

"They're not Huerdaen, they're not Pathogenic. As far as I'm concerned, they're nothing to us but cannon fodder."

Suddenly, her suit spoke up again, turning to Valtiel. "We're ready to go in. You got your pack of misfits ready, or will you be following after?"

by **Of The Arch ilands** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 7:56 am

Things had taken a turn for the more hectic, the crew of the Discovery raced around the bridge tracking the multitude of signatures whilst getting scans of everything that moved, and didn’t move. The Sensor relays that had replaced many of the larger weapons of the vessel helping to make the process easier, for the men and women in the crew pits. Captain Harris surveyed the controlled chaos from his position on the raised viewing platform that allowed him to see out of the pseudo window to the jungle world below. In some ways its reminded him of Haderon in the home system a dense jungle planet like this one, with one exception. This world didn’t seem to be infested by Dinosaurs.

“Captain”

Harris turned to see his Ex.O Standing in front of him another data slate held out towards him. Taking it he smiled, and waited for her overview of the situation.

“As you know captain we have been tracking several signatures and over the past few minutes which have increased to around eight from the original three, we have had no contact from the freighter and Sergeant McKay is prepping a team to head over. Scans of the planet have brought up something interesting.”

Perry snatched the data slate back from Harris’s hands and fiddled for a moment before handing it back. Harris by now had become used to his Ex.O’s abruptness and grown to live with it, when they had first met the two had spent countless times arguing over the fact to no avail. Still he took the data slate again and observed the images that where now passing by.”

“What is this Commander?”

“Well Captain from what we can gather it is part of the planet made completely from what seems like glass or some glass like substance we can’t be sure yet. I recommend we send down some Recon drones to investigate.”

Harris nodded in agreement “Get on it commander” how ever before his Ex.O could walk away another crew member shouted.

“Captain incoming transmission from the probe it’s a big data burst shall I patch it through?”

“Patch it to an isolated system run scans and then play it back!” Harris shouted. Everything seemed to be happening at once. And in unknown space like this with several object’s that could be potentially dangerous floating around at once nerves where tested, especially with an unknown fleet still floating around the edge of the system.

It took several tense minutes for the information to be uploaded and scanned, and then transferred to the view screens and holosphere in the centre of the bridge. The lights dimmed and the message began to play.

"Greetings unidentified vessels. I am Explorator Probe XV-282. I am transmitting details of the suspected incidence on this world. I have been informed by representatives of Dr Ezekiel Grath that the infection below is reaching critical point, and time is short. Assuming you are willing to work together, one Valtiel Avithe is awaiting your arrival on the planet below. Otherwise, I have been told to wish you good luck."

The bridge became deathly silent as the crew watched the images flash before there eyes. Harris felt a chill run down his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end his throat going dry out of fear for what he was seeing and fear for what this parasite was capable of. Much more than the simple parasites of Haderon, much more horrific and much smarter than anything the confederacy had ever came across. Harris gulped and looked around the bridge, most of the crew had stopped what they where doing and staring in similar horror at the images and videos that where being played in loops. It took a few more more seconds before the words crawled up his throat, barely audible, he croaked. "Turn it off.... I said turn it off".

Perry finally switched off the, video and the lights in the bridge returned to normal but still people sat there, almost dazed or frozen by fright. Harris swallowed and gritted his teeth fighting the fear back he marched up to his command chair. using the time to compose himself, he was a captain of a Confederate Vessel and part of the Confederate navy, he didn't shy away from anything. "Listen up!" He bellowed now with much more authority "We have always known that there might be things like this in the galaxy,Haderon is a testament to that! This is just a smarter and more viscous version of something we have long known about. And it is our duty to the Confederacy and those on that world to stop the spread of this parasite. Commander Perry transmit all the data and a current situation report to NAVCOM, tell them we are going to proceed, with the mission."

Instantly the bridge came to life as if snatched back from death. The room filled with chatter and people began to move again, Passing out orders and communicating with various parts of the vessel, and any other vessels that may be in the vicinity. Perry made her way over to Harris and looked at him the worry evident in her eyes. "We've never seen anything this far advanced Captain, we should leave it to a science team."

"Commander" Harris looked at her reassuringly "The nearest vessel is the Harlot On patrol several hundred thousand light years away,im afraid we are on our own out here along with who ever has come to this planet, now kindly prep, another two marine teams I want them down on the planet in 10 minutes."

------

The wind ripped past Kenwoods helmet, as he sat on the side of the Kestrel Mk 4 Dropship looking at the gray clouds as they obscured everything, he and his squad where inbound to the landing site several ships had been detected. Looking out into the thick white clouds, some where was the second and final drop ship, Adjusting his Mk 5 Assault Helmet, he made sure he had a tight seal, before turning on his optics. and checking his weapon the soft click as the weapon cocked and chambered a ACID round, looking behind him he saw the rest of his 7 man squad. Each marine equipped with his or her own variant of the standard load out, Confederate marines got allot of leeway in that respect, as they where required to do a multitude of missions that the Standard load out just wouldn't be useful enough for.

His gazed rested on Corporal Lina, she smiled at him knowing that he was looking at her even from behind the tactical combat helmet he had just sealed on. she winked and slid her hand down the barrel of the MkIII Rail Rifle. Smiling behind his visor he tapped the side of his helmet with his hand and the visor retracted with a snap hiss. His face went from cheeky to serious in no time as the pilot squawked in.

"All right passengers this is your captain speaking, we are just about to clear the cloud cover expect some turbulence 3 minutes till touch down."

Kenwood nodded and grabbed onto the side rail as the Dropship buffeted softly the high pressure mixing with the low pressure below the clod cover. Suddenly the world below was revealed to them, jungle as far as the eyes could see and in the distance the eary glass jungles that looked so natural and yet so out of place at the same time. Just after his own drop ship the second one emerged from the cloud cover, side compartment doors open showing the other Squad under command of Captain William Jarr. Banking away the Kestrals Engines gave a thunderous roar as they sped off towards the Glass Jungle they where going to be inserted right at the threshold to secure the area for his Kenwoods own. Mentally saluting Jar Kenwood got himself up and turned around to the others.

"Alright check your gear once where on the ground we wont be able to call down for any new toys. Dunrow Prep your suit the rest of you Purge routines stick close and keep your eyes peeled"

The Discovery's army wasn't equipped for a full scale purge operation, but it did possess some of the equipment used for such occasions, the Discovery had 5 HAZZARD MKVII-P exo suits, a variant of the HAZZARD power armour designed for purge operations. Standing a full foot higher than Kenwood when activated, and equipped with a plasma thrower on one arm and a heavy Gatling cannon on another, it was perfectly suited for moving into infected environments and burning it down and cutting down anything that moved.

Kenwood felt his stomach give a lurch as they began to descend the canopy of trees coming closer and closer until they where flying just above them the Roar of the Kestrels engines causing bird life to scatter. Kenwood looked down to the opening, his computerised display picking up something in the distance, zooming in to the clearing in the distance he noticed a group moving towards the the glass jungle. tapping into the coms of the pilot. "Hey Munrow, I spotted some movement about a click west set us down near there, notify Jarr that we are setting down a little more west of his position and to hold tight till we get there."

"Roger that" Was all they Kenwood go back before the Dropship banked lazily and headed westwards. It didn't take long for them to cover the ground, and Kenwood observed the group as the Dropship passed over them and settled down in a small clearing just west of the group. Hovering just above the ground Kenwood and his squad jumped out followed closely by Dunrow Detaching him self from the back of the Dropship His exosuits gears whining softly as it to dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

"Eyes peeled!" Kenwood spoke over the coms as he raised his DAX-5 and headed towards where he had seen the group as they had passed over, the Kestrel lifting off and with a massive boom sped off into the sky.

by **Vipra** » Thu Oct 20, 2011 3:58 pm

The shuttle shivered as it entered the atmosphere, flame gliding over and under the wings as they began to glow a brilliant orange. The engines barely had to do anything, only truly stabilizing the small craft and keeping it from tipping dangerously low or high from the tug and yank of friction. Still the steady stream of power coursing out of the engines was comforting, a small touch of control in what felt like an otherwise powerless freefall towards a grim, infected, world. It was not exactly pleasant, even for the Doctor, they had only use the shuttle on one other occasion and had to spend a week replacing most of the wiring due to them melting on the return trip. It was an exciting landing; he never wanted to do it again.

This time however, as Zhenyyi watched the spinning dials from behind her mask, they passed through the atmosphere without catastrophe. As they neared the land they slowed, gliding over the jungle, a village, and then going in circles until they slowed to the point they could actually land. At that point, the shuttle steaming and slowly turning from the glowing orange back to its black-scorched pattern, the landing gear slid out of the craft. It landed with a grind, tough wheels ripping into the dirt and sending the lifeless dust billowing into the air as it skidded to a halt. After a few moments the ramp on the rear of the craft opened, hydraulics hissing as it slowly clunked and jittered open.

Down from the ramp, rifle in hand and her armour making her appear akin to some dark and mechanical demon, Zhenyyi watched the horizon as she strode into the wasteland. Dust clouded the air, quickly caking her leggings as it billowed into the air with each step. It reminded her of an old colony, one she has visited long ago which had been covered in desert scrubland and dead plains. That colony wasn’t there anymore, much like the life on this world was likely to be gone in a few hours, days, or weeks. It was just a matter of time at this point. The gleaming of the glass jungle in the distance reinforced this notion, so beautiful yet terrible.

She stood for a while scanning the horizon, checking the sights on her 18 millimetre Karatok Battle Rifle as she waited. It wasn’t long before the doctor, clad in his own armoured suit, strode out of the shuttle, “Just heard something interesting from the probe,” he spoke cheerfully, his voice almost lackadaisical, “This is a Pathogenic infestation. So we will be able to collect the samples we need, maybe run some experiments,” he walked around the shuttle, looking directly towards the glimmering and dangerous jungle in the distance, “Maybe even do some tests on the locals, scrounge up a few of them and bring them back to the tug if we have the time.”

Zhenyyi just nodded, beginning to walk towards the jungle as Alcaeus hunched over to collect a small sampling of the dirt in one of the many small vials covering him in the form of a bandoleer, “I don’t like the look of this place, my brain feels itchy,” Zhenyii spoke in a calm and quite tone even as her attention snapped up to the sky, to distant craft coming to earth, “And it looks like others are joining the party.” The majority of the craft seemed to land near, or on the far side of, a village at least one to two kilometres away, making Zhenyyi at least partially glad she had decided to avoid the place.

“Oh really, I wasn’t expecting that despite the fact that there is a probe out there attracting everyone interested within god knows how large a radius,” The Doctor topped off the vial and slid it into its place alongside the many other, empty, vials, “But we only need to stay away from them, collect a few samples, and conduct a few experiments. All goes well and we will be out of here in no time whatsoever, safe in the tug and then on our merry way to replicate these samples back in Port Tritianna or some other world. So unless they have something to offer us, or want to harm us, I say ignore them. Now, let’s move out.”

The tall woman nodded her assent, keeping her eyes upon those distant specks as she trudged slowly towards the edge of the unnatural jungle. Behind her the Doctor periodically stopped, gathering samples of the dust every few hundred meters.

by **Rethan** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:56 am

As yet more offworlders showed up, the lizard like locals began to poke their heads out of their huts curiosity getting the better of them. Stefan looked at them with indifference, lighting up a cigarette as Nina'Amos moved towards the group. He moved forward to cut her off, blowing a cloud of smoke before greeting her.

"Pleasure to meet you, I'm sure. Might want to leave the blacksuits to the boss. They seem cranky beyond all fuck. Captain Stefan, leader of the mercs here. Valtiel over there-" Stefan pointed at the towering cyborg, "is our current long standing client. I dunno why you're here, but hell we could use the help if you're up for a fun game. See that forest of frosty crystal glass shit?"

Stefan pointed into the distance, where a thick grey fog was obscuring the towering spires of infected plantlife.

"We need to get in there and follow Levi, that's the green haired one, to find infection site zero. She should also be able to help us capture one of the Rethast in there alive. Assuming, of course, that the drone in orbit let you know what a Rethast is?"

Behind Stefan, a dropship lowered more people down to the surface. With a smirk he stubbed the cigarette out on his armour, brushing away the ash which clung to his exoskeleton. He watched as the Huerdaen started jogging away towards the glass jungle, and Valtiel returned to the group. He spoke one last time to Nina'Amos before regrouping with Valtiel.

"Try to keep up."

Jogging to meet Valtiel, Stefan pointed over his shoulder at the newcomer.

"Nina'Amos. She's here to help. Plus we got whoever just flew over our heads. How're the Imps?"

As if on cue, Kal'Ta shouted back to Valtiel and the mercenaries. Turning to face the Huerdaen, Valtiel responded in a coldly mechanical and humourless voice.

"Oh, we will just be getting in your way. I am sure your doctor will be well capable of identifying which of the undoubtedly thousands of strains in there is strain zero for the infection site. And, of course, you will be more than capable of preventing a captured Rethast from dying when removed from its Collect. Enjoy your time in the jungle, Huerdaen."

Valtiel turned back to Stefan, Leviathan by his side rapidly flicking her view from the Huerdaen to Valtiel as though not quite capable of understanding what just happened. Stefan chuckled, lighting another cigarette as Leviathan let words spill from her artifical mouth.

"We can't just let them go in alone. They'll be slaughtered!"

"If they want to do things alone, I have no intention of dissuading them from their arrogance. They do not understand what they are facing, it is best they learn from experience. This mission is too fragile to have someone questioning my decisions because they have some rank given them by a state I am not a part of. Stefan, when can we move in?"

"Right away boss. I figure it's about a fifteen minute jog with powered armour to the jungle. Let anyone who wants in on our little excursion follow along."

Nodding his agreement, Valtiel turned to look briefly at Nina, regarding their guest with unnatural eyes. He turned one final time to Leviathan.

"If the Huerdaen wish to amend their opinions, they are more than welcome. As it is, they will serve as an amiable distraction for our own party. Prepare yourself to connect as soon as we are within the jungle."

Leviathan glared at Valtiel, inwardly running diagnostics of her defensive systems.

"They are our allies, Valtiel."

"They are your allies, Leviathan. I was not a part of the Militocracy, nor a part of the Collect now. If they do not agree, then Dragomyr can deal with them. We move out."

The group began to walk in the direction of the jungle, the mercenaries spitting out whatever cigarettes or gum they had in their mouths before clamping their suits shut. One of them yelled in the direction of the mysterious dropship.

"Oi! You coming or wha'?"

The yell drew a number of laughs from the other mercenaries, and Stefan stubbed out his cigarette again. Clamping his armour shut and starting up the air filters, he waved at Nina.

"You coming, lady?"

by **Huerdae** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:38 am

Planet Il'Kaskah - Dirtside

It was as the Huerdaen were preparing to break the strange line the Pathogen had drawn across the ground that their suits picked up Valtiel's speech, and Kal'Ta turned, her large Maedar rifle starting to rise, until it was blocked still pointing toward the dirt by Mishyoukai's hand. There was a moment of silence between the two, as the command-line sergeant and specialist-line Junior Lieutenant stared at each other's faceless armor. There was no conversation, not even on the squad channel, as the others in the unit watched the two entirely uncomfortably. Baal'Ta finally cleared his throat, starting to speak, but Mishyoukai cut him off well before it could start.

"Siste-"

"Sergeant, you told me to watch over the tourist. So I will. Keep order in your squad, be prepared to move. We're here at the Pathogen's request. If he's not Pathogen, and she is, that means we take our cues from her, right? You're in command here, so it's your choice. We can pop it, since the request wasn't legit, go back, and you and I can discuss this more personally later, or we can switch parameters to match the situation. Your call, sergeant. I know you've never led a squad-operation before - few have. But you're in command, here. You're the Star Empire."

The pair were silent again, but Kal'Ta lowered her gun, and nodded. "Go let the Pathogen know we're here for them, Junior. We came under false assumptions, but we won't make that mistake again. He mentioned the green-hair as Pathogen. That means we're here as her allies. Get the situation as much as you can, and keep her in this. I'll notify command of Valtiel's status."

A quick nod, and Mishyoukai turned toward the others as they were walking forward, and though the mercs sealed up their armor, Mishyoukai lifted her own faceplate, showing her own young face. She ignored the mercs, and the others who had showed up to tag along, instead falling into step beside Levi. The action was odd for those who knew, as Mishyoukai's red markings on her armor placed her as a specialist, and not command, even more than the sniper rifle on her back did. When she spoke, she also seemed to lack the confidence of Kal'Ta, her voice soft as if it were embarrassing to hear it.

"Levi, you were called? The Star Empire came here to assist the Pathogen. We're updating what we should have known before about Valtiel now, but we're here to see this out. That's the simple part. Hard part is, we're taking cues from you. What we know from him is what we're here for - is that still the same? Right now we're operating out of the assumption that since you're the only Pathogen here, you stay alive. Anything else we need to concern ourselves with? What is the Pathogen's interest here, and what does the Star Empire need to do to help?"

Her eyes turned Valtiel's way, and she considered the man, quietly, before she continued. "Remember, we're here as allies. If something needs to be done, or you're not certain about the loyalty of others, let us know. If you've got the ability, you can break in on our squad channel and let us know what needs to be done. We spill blood for allies without a thought." She smiled lightly, and turned her shoulders, so that if Levi glanced inside the helm, she would see the channel readout for the squad comms. Almost an instant later, the faceplate blocked off all sight, and she walked with Levi forward, awaiting a response to the purposefully official declaration of loyalties.

The rest of the squad stood with weapons raised toward the dropship that lowered near them, waiting for the first unknown to touch down, and moving in slowly, ready to attack if the contents appeared hostile. Even the doctor had his Siren raised, standing a little back from the rest of the group as they maintained a state of healthy paranoia in a galaxy that would love to kill them.

by **Of The Arch ilands** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 5:26 am

Planet Il'Kaskah
Planetside

Captain Kenwood's Squad

It took little to no time for the group they had recently passed over to appear from behind the shrubbery, to appear. Kenwood had expected some sort of armed escort but not to the extent those dressed in black where, noticing the weapons the entire squad dropped into battle positions, only to be halted by Kenwoods hand signal. Brining his DAX-5 back into a resting position pointed to the ground, he moved forward slowly and hesitantly followed by the rest of his squad. The seven members keeping a keen eye on the visible humanoids, using thermals to track the rest. Kenwood only hopped things wouldn't go tits up from this point. He listened to the murmurs over his squads coms, but didn't say anything his face obscured by the faceplate much like a few of the others.

Covering the gap he stopped in front of the lead member that had pointed there hefty rifles at them. His faceplate lifting showing his face his trimmed brown goatee, dead set brown eyes that showed years of service. "The Names Captain Kenwood 13th Marine Division." He looked to the rest of the people who had come to greet them. "5th Ridigan Howlers battalion of the Confederacy of the Arch Planets."

The rest of the squad stopped a few feet behind the captain the Exo suit at the back towering over the rest of them standing 7 feet tall, none of there faces visable from behind there own helmets faceplate's, each had sealed there battle armour from the outside world, per Purge routines. Even though they weren't in the glass jungle many f them weren't going to take any chances especially with something as unknown as this Pathogen.

Kenwood began again, "Im guessing you guys are heading in there" Kenwood cocked his head in the direction of the glass jungle. "May I ask what you guys are going in to do? We might be able to help out." Kenwood smirked slightly still keeping his eye on the smaller heavily armed soldiers.

-----

Captain Jarr's Squad

The second Kestrel had touched down several meters from the glass jungle Disgorging Captain Jarr and his squad, Almost identical in set up to Kenwoods, seven men one exo suit tailors to purge duties. taking a few steps towards the glass jungle, Jarr stopped placing his hands on his hips allowing his DAX-5 to dangle on its sling. Smirking he looked as far into the glass jungle as he could, whilst the rest of his squad got them selves into gear. Unlike his counterparts Jarr didn't wear the standard helmet, he didnt even wear any head cover at all, choosing to leave him self exposed or his head at least to the outside world. The Jungle sent a strange tingle down his spine, not a tingle of fear or fright, more of curiosity to him, he had trawled through the jungles of Haderon, taken on Xephorsaurs, raptors and even the odd poor soul taken host by the many plants and wildlife that where parasidic in nature. To Jarr this was just another area to master,needless to say the rest of his squad weren't to so keen to "master"the glass jungle.

Daniel looked into the jungle, chills running down his spine. groaning more to himself he hefted his DAX-5 and looked to the guy settling into the exo-suit. He was new to marines transferred only a few weeks ago. He hadnt quite managed to learn everyone's name. With there being over 200 marines and over 600 crew members aboard the Vessel now holding geo synced orbit above them, there just wasn't enough time. He stared longly into the exo-suit wishing he was in it instead of in his battle armour. Jumping slightly as he felt a hand on his shoulder, he turned to see the corporal Leo Ganz give him a warming smile.

"Keep it together kid and nothing will go wrong." Leo patted his shoulder then moved off to check the exo suit.

"Alright!" Jarr Called out. "Lets move out people!"

"Sir what about Kenwood?" Leo shouted over fro the Exo suit finishing the checks for the pilot, as he warmed the suit up.

"He will catch up he went to check out some people moving towards the jungle" Jarr retorted. "Now Lets move out!"

Jarr smirked and started to walk towards the glass jungle. Daniel sighed and watched the Exo-suit give a lurch and move off its mechanical gyros whirring away softly as it began to lumber up, the rest of the squad began to move, and Daniel followed suit clutching his rifle, looking into the jungle the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

by **Alversia** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 6:23 am

Nina noticed how the Huerdaen seemed determined to ignore her presence and she brushed off any insult that could perhaps have stemmed from that. This was not a social gathering, she was not expecting to be greeted warmly by everyone who had gathered and Nina had become extraordinarily accustomed to the cold and harsh glares that often came her way from military professionals. She could hardly blame them. It was not like they did not have anything else to focus on. Their upcoming mission was one that involved a tremendous amount of danger. As Nina looked at the armoured soldiers, she was sure that not all of them would leave the forest alive.

Before she could say anything else though, she found herself being cut of by one of the Mercenaries who had been standing to one side in the conflict. She glanced at him, surprised by his apparent friendly and polite manner. She had not been expecting such manners in a place like this. Hiding this from him however, she bowed her head in greeting, determined that such manners should not be unreturned even here.

“A pleasure to meet you Captain Stefan.” She said in her soft tone, made slightly more synthetic by her helmet, “I am Nina'Amos - Solcrum of the Alversian Republic but for the sake of convenience, you may call me Nina.” She looked with interest at the one he pointed out as their client, the one who was standing talking to the Huerdaen squad with something akin to a glower on his face. Evidently, whatever they were speaking about was not going well. Following his hand around she looked at the glass forest, the same one she had seen on the sensor feeds from orbit and the one she knew contained their foe within. She spent another few moments inspecting it, for she knew that soon she would be amongst those towers of glass. It was a surreal sight, something she had never seen before. If she had not known what malevolence it contained, she would almost have called it beautiful.

Nevertheless, she bowed her head as she was pointed out to the one known as Valtiel by the Mercenary Captain. She also turned her gaze on Leviathan. She looked strangely out of place amongst the imposing power armour clad troops but Nina knew that appearances could be deceiving. Valtiel looked like the sort who knew what he was doing so she doubted that Leviathan would have been allowed to appear in this position if she could not guarantee her own safety.

Throughout the exchange between the Huerdaen and Valtiel, Nina remained silent, seeing that it was not her fight and not her place to get involved. The exchange was interesting in the manner that it seemed the Huerdaen stepped down from their argument and accepted that while they possessed the fire power needed to defeat the Rethast, they did not have the necessary knowledge. It seemed that only Valtiel and his younger charge Leviathan had that. She, for one, was grateful for the additional fire power that they would contribute to the party.

When the leader of the party turned to face her, Nina stared right back at the lumbering male through her helmet, unmoving. She knew he was giving her the once over and she was determined not to give him any reason to disapprove. When he moved on, she let her own gaze slip to the Mercenaries. They were preparing to move out, sealing their helmets shut and spitting out anything they had been chewing. Nina took a moment to prepare herself in turn, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, lips moving in silent prayer. When she was finished, she glanced sidelong at the Huerdaen again before nodding to Stefan.

“Of course.” Her voice was still soft and still polite.

Before she could even take a step forward however, the gunship growled overhead and landed nearby. In an instant, her weapon was raised and set as she stared down the barrel at the vessel, dropping to one knee to present a small target. The Huerdaen were already moving forward to engage the ship so it made no sense for her to get in their way. She would remain in position to offer support if they required it. If not, then she would be able to follow Valtiel, Leviathan and their Mercenary bodyguard into the jungle of glass.

by **Clamparapa** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 12:42 pm

Hurtling down into oblivion, it would seem, the strange darkened craft appeared as a meteor would. It's tail, however, appeared black against the starlight, instead of the usual brightness of a normal meteor. Any observer watching the craft would have had to wonder why this hunk of space rock looked and acted like it did. Finally, with a thunderous BOOM, the ship hit the ground. Designed to take all the force of the impact, the pilot was completely unscathed.

Rising from the ashes, covered in shadowy gas, the solitary being took a moment to adjust to its surroundings. Eyes closed and seemingly black mist escaping the ventilators in the mask, it began to wake up. As it did, things around it seemed to become consumed in the mist that protruded from its body. Grass and plants withered and died. Animals dissolved away, leaving only their skeletal remains behind. The mist became its own entity clearing the way for the being that propagated it. Slowly, the being made its way forward, leaving nothing around it untouched by its miserable fog. The shadows seemed to dissipate the farther the creature got from the wreck, until finally, it was all but an aura around the being. It slowly made its way across the prairie it had landed in, not seeing much else except the odd critter crossing its path.

Aware of the others on this planet, the creature made sure it was ready before it began exploring and looking for the "Righteous Area", the place where the Ritual would take place. This species' powers happened to be that of deception. Trained in the art of decieving an enemy, the shadow being was actually fairly weaker in strength than a human being, using, instead shadows to escape or sneak up on an enemy. Much like a puffer fish without the spines, it could make itself look very scary when needed, and only attacked when it was completely necessary. However, when it merged with its shadow twin, this being would become incredibly powerful, able to use its mist to eliminate any opponent. It continued its trek towards the Righteous Area.

Becoming quite aware of a troop of men getting closer, the shadow being began to vanish into a hazy fog that would completely encompass much of the field. This troop would have been enveloped by it slowly, not harmed by it, but just unable to see. The shadow would show itself to these men when it choose. It needed to be sure these beings could be trusted...

by **Rethan** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 8:07 am

The Jungle's Edge

Stefan was the one who greeted the Archian Marines, a stern glare beneath his mask.

"Get your faceplate on you idiot. A stray wind this close to the Jungle and you'll be infected. I don't care what kind of fancy nano immune system you have, this Mutagen ain't natural. As for your offer..."

Stefan stuck out a hand, offering it to the marine.

"Captain Stefan, I work for him," Stefan nodded towards Valtiel. "We need to grab samples, but we're leaving that to Val and Levi the green head. You just be sure to shoot anything which tries to kill us, and keep your guns down until they show up. We don't want to piss off the residents."

Leviathan turned to face the Huerdaen speaking to her, her numerous auto-senses tuning into the massive electromagnetic impulses coursing through the Huerdaen's cybernetic body. She smiled politely as she slowed down slightly, allowing Valtiel to get slightly ahead of her and the Huerdaen. She lowered her voice, though she knew Valtiel would be able to hear it she at least wanted to try and convey the impression of privacy.

"My name is Leviathan, yes. And I am on of the Rethast....but not a Pathogenic. The distinction is....complicated. Suffice to say I am of the Rethast the Star Empire is allies with."

She stretched her arms behind her back, a movement born more of programmed impulses than any actual need to stretch musculature. Her back arched, and the sun shone straight into her eyes. She didn't blink, instead simply returning to her walk and the conversation with the Huerdaen. Her smile remained in place, sculpted of genuine thanks.

"Thank you for the offer. I just hope it won't be necessary, the more we're shooting each other the more likely we will fail here. I know you probably don't like it, Valtiel holds no allegiance to your Empire in the way I do, but he's going to be what gets us in and out. He was there before the Exodus, even helped the forced evolution to succeed. Excepting Dragomyr, nobody knows our species' most basic impulses and biology than he. As for our goal..."

Leviathan's smile faltered, a look of apprehension coming over her face.

"Something is wrong with us. I don't know what, but...Dragomyr is lost to me. I cannot hear him in the choir anymore and...sometimes I can't even hear myself. If that even makes sense. Valtiel's here to save us, to save Dragomyr more than anything. We need samples of a Collect not joined with the Greater Whole, one which hasn't yet updated its genetics to correspond with the more evolved version which makes up the Greater Collect. So we can compare the mutations. I am here to help locate the epicentre of this outbreak, while Valtiel needs you and others to capture as many Rethast alive as possible. Then it's up to me to keep them alive once we get them off world...."

Leviathan looked at the Huerdaen again, an immense sadness tainting her otherwise attractive appearance. Her green eyes were dulled, and she would have attempted a smile to try bolster any apprehension she'd placed on the Huerdaen. But at that moment there was a flash, a passing of deep despair which collected in the pits of the earth itself. A palpable air of tension, of unnatural existence. Unwelcoming and soaked with malevolence, this was the Aura, the domain of this break out. This was a reality of the virus, and the creatures of flesh were trespassers here. They were what was unnatural, they were what was wrong.

It was neither large nor powerful, easily pushed aside with little effort by Leviathan and she had little doubt the others would be able to handle it. The air did not move here, the wind did not blow and the light of the sun held no warmth. But the Aura of the Fleet? That silenced stars themselves. This was barely a nuisance to Leviathan, and with a determined resolve, she cast her gaze forward.

Great spires of infection touched the sky, and the soil was dead white. Sterile, at least beyond the borders of the jungle. Paths of ice like ground trailed between walls of glass and crystal, hanging stalactites of crystallised mutagen gripping to the branches of dead trees and threatening to plunge into those who passed beneath. And everywhere the fog, cold and grey against the ground. It twisted with an unnatural grace, coiling around the bases of the crystal thorns and hyaline towers. Leviathan had never seen a truly terraformed world before, and in some twisted way it was beautiful. Before the Jungle though, lay something peculiar in the extreme. A black cloud, thick and condensed. It did not stretch far, but far enough that it would be simpler to just walk through it. She marvelled at it, curious as to its cause, shaken only when Valtiel's thunderous voice filled the air.

"Nobody goes in with so much as a crack in their armour. If you get infected, we will leave you behind. These Rethast should still follow their natural methods, and so as long as we do not antagonise them they will leave us alone. If it looks like the forest is coming alive, we leave and abandon the objective. If you disagree with anything I have said, feel free to turn around. This will not be easy, it will not be understandable. We are entering a place where the laws of reality may cease to apply. Do not take anything for granted here."

Stepping forward, Valtiel moved into the thick black fog. He knew it was not Pathogenic in nature, but the mercenaries which followed him did not. He didn't care, so long as he could reach the other side and into the cold grey fog of the forest which wouldn't obscure his vision. Leviathan trailed behind him, her senses flicking through every spectrum of light, and even tuning in to the electromagnetic and sonar based all at once to offer her a vision unmatched in the oily fog. She, too, realised it wasn't supposed to be here. Perhaps it was simply a natural phenomena of this world....

Within the Jungle

Trespassers

They come with weapons....

They suffer the great Agony....

An abomination also....

Corruption of our perfect form...

The forest was dead, and as Jarr's squad pierced its perimeter it stayed so. The Rethast were not here, on the edge of sunlight and sterility, they lay deeper. Sleeping, as it were, but not asleep and ever aware. These aliens had come to halt the great work, the evolution and unification. The focus of the Aura fell upon them, a suffocating thickness in the air. Despair and hallucination manifested, shadows which coiled and jumped and threatened, paranoia and insanity pressing down on the intruders as the Collect focused its attention on them.

Still the jungle did not move, did not react. Not a single creature stirred, and no wind blew.

But the Archians were being watched... Not by eyes, not by sensor....but they were being watched.

The Viprans though...they were left untouched. The Rethast were watching them along with the Archians, the very jungle and soil betraying every step of the abomination and its master. But they were regarded with curiosity, and so the Aura touched them similar to the way it touched upon Valtiel's group. A subtle hint of unnaturality, of angst and agony, and the very air was choked with a manifest aggression.

by **Huerdae** » Thu Nov 10, 2011 11:14 am

Planet Il'Kaskah - Dirtside

Sergeant Kal'Ta watched the Archian, but the man was at least smart enough to keep his mask on, and keep his weapon down. It kept her and her squad in the superior position, though she was sure that beast in the back would cause a problem if she decided to take them down. The heavy suit at the rear was what made it particularly aggravating to deal with, but at the offer of help, her gun came up to lean against her shoulder, and the squad began dropping back. Kal'ta was as charming as she was able, taking a few steps backward before she turned away, leaving the group with only a few words.

"I don't give a shit who you are. Don't shoot me, I won't shoot you, unless you're in my way. I'm not telling you why I'm here, and I don't care why you're here. You want to chat, go talk to the leader of that circus, his name is Valtiel. But the only service you get from me is I'll take your ammo and weapons if I need them when you die." Even with her back turned, her hand pointed toward the man, and she immediately seemed to forget the Archians, using her squawker to reach Mishyoukai.

"Mishy, wh-"

"I didn't give you permission to call me that, Sergeant. Don't."

It was the first time that the sergeant truly hesitated, but her brother was concerned. Kal'Ta was always in control, but already the Junior Lieutenant had taken that away from her, and while he loved his sister, it was not a battle she was going to win. Already, the soft-spoken Pankrees had wrested control of the situation from her, and she was forced to backpedal yet again.

"Junior Lieutenant, have we made contact with the Pathogenic Rethast?"

"Our contact is Leviathan, Sergeant. She has requested our assistance. Mission remains as briefed, under her command. It is a matter of great importance to our allies, and she will be needed at the end of the mission - new primary objective is to keep her alive at all costs, or the mission will fail."

"Understood. We'll meet you at the border, and secure."

Mishyoukai sighed, her gaze moving to the squad that was jogging toward the glass treeline, pushing through the black fog as if it were nothing. It rolled around their limbs as they moved without slowing them, until the doctor slammed into something in the mist, his shoulder jerking back. He kept moving, however, his powered armor plowing through whatever figure had been blocking his path. There was only an instant to check what he had slammed into, but the fog concealed it entirely, and he stayed with the squad for mutual protection.

Aware of Valtiel, and so many others, Mishyoukai took a risk, and lifted her eyes to Nina. She approached this with the same care as she did with Leviathan, apparently seeing something well beyond the simplicity of a mission. "We don't have a choice in this matter. But I wouldn't suggest it to anyone else. Unless you're getting something significant out of this, it's best to turn around. If you're interested in staying, I would suggest you stay near Leviathan. Don't get cut, exposed, or lost."

She paused, at the last bit, and for a moment walked in silence, before she continued, quieter. "When you're lost, your mind becomes your enemy."

She shook her head, not wasting time on a smile that would be lost behind the black faceplate, and instead lifted the deceptively small-looking SMG in her armored hands, facing her shoulders to the trees. They had met up with the rest of the squad now, gazing into the shimmering woods, aware that they were staring down a foe that stared back as hard as the void, and was just as deadly. There was a hesitation there, before Kal'Ta took a step forward, her heavily armored boot grinding through the crystalline covering, and snapping off tendrils that were caught beneath the heavy tread. The silence of the jungle remained deafening, and she snorted, arrogant against the odd feeling of apprehension.

"Let's move. The creatures here are cold-blooded. No reason to suspect thermal will see the infected versions, either. Let's be out of here by nightfall."

The group stepped forward, and even through their armor they could hear the crunching as they left clear and obvious trails through the undergrowth. smashed crystals glistened like deadly thorns beneath their tread, and the squad moved in with only a handful of meters between them as they were the first to breach the true perimeter of the jungle. Mishyoukai stayed back a moment more. Her head turned to Levi, and she pointed directly at her, then at her side, whispering quietly. "Stay with me. My people don't understand the world beyond metal halls and churning factories. They do not know how to respect a growth like this."

Her head snapped to Valtiel a moment, and her voice was much harsher. "I understand your concern, but I feel this needs to be done quickly, if any of us, even you, are to survive. The jungle is our enemy, too. We'll be point, but I'd like to think we can count on you and yours to cover our backs."

One final glance to Nina and Levi and she stepped into the jungle as well, slipping quietly through the weeds to carefully avoid making any further tracks, and keeping her out-of-place black armor as low as she could, avoiding the urge to peer up and over that which obstructed her vision.

by **Of The Arch ilands** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 3:24 am

Captain Kenwood
Jungle Perimeter
Kenwood nodded, his faceplate closing again with a swift click hiding his face from everyone. Motioning for his squad to from up on him they, tensions seemed to relax a little, for now at least no one would be shooting at them, watching silently as the rest of the aliens moved on , heading for the jungle. Pressing his head up against his helmet, he sent an acknowledgement up to the Discovery up in orbit. Holding his weapon low but ready to bring it to firing position at a moments notice should one of there "new friends" decide they didn't want him or his squad around any more. Shrugging off that feeling of dread as he looked at the dominating glass jungle, he walked forward matching the pace of the others his squad taking up the rear of the mismatched sections of mercs and aliens.

Switching to thermals as as he entered the black fog, frowning as he saw nothing. Pushing on he dropped the subject putting it down to natural phenomenons, carefully placing his feet on the ground hoping not to fall or find himself in some native pit fall trap. as quickly as the fog engulfed him how ever he had passed through it, and entered the glass jungle, peering behind him he watched as the rest of his squad appeared from the fog. This was going to be one long day.

Captain Jarr
Inside the Jungle

Jarr pulled up his communicator, pressing it on as he scanned the area around him, they had been walking for a good 20 minutes now heading into the heart of the jungle. Placing it close to his mouth he spoke softly. "Discovery this is Jarr, we have entered the jungle and are requesting further instructions."

Static rolled over the comms for a few moments till it crackled to life once again. "Captain this is Discovery actual, we see you make a heading north north east for 5 clicks, then hold until you meet up with Captain Kenwood and his squad, then proceed to ground zero and set your charges."

"Roger that Jarr out" Nodding he looked to his squad and nodded, then turned and started moving towards ground zero, on the heading given, surveying the glass trees around him looking into the shadows,expecting any manner of monster to jump out at him or his squad. Shivering slightly as he continued to walk glass leaves crunching under his feat as his heavy boots crushed their delicate forms.

[ooc: sorry for short post not much to reply to really]

by **Rethan** » Tue Dec 06, 2011 4:00 pm

The Jungle's Edge - Main Party

As the first Huerdaen entered the foliage of the jungle, the air fell still. A moment of utter silence before the slow breath of the wind returned. The mercenaries paused on the threshold, glancing around before continuing forward as Stefan waved them onward. Behind them came Valtiel and Leviathan, moving slowly and without any sign of weaponry. His face covered by a mask, Valtiel betrayed nothing to anyone present. Only Leviathan, sliding a ceramic mask over her mouth and nose, showed any kind of concern. Even that was diluted by her artificial nature, a momentary simulation.

"It's too quiet Valtiel. The moment we came within fifty feet of here they should have filled the strings with chatter. I'm not getting anything."

Valtiel nodded, but continued following behind the Huerdaen. The jungle was unnaturally silent, only a slight breeze passing between the jagged spires offering any kind of sound for the haphazard group to hear. The grey fog was thick around their ankles, obscuring the ground and coating their legs with a thin film of moisture. Valtiel scanned the shadows, but Leviathan was right. There was nothing coming to greet them, a fact which did not bode well.

"Lev, where we heading?"

Stefan's voice cut the silence, shaking Leviathan out of her trance. She nodded and closed her eyes. This was no mere gesture, by closing her eyes she could sever her connection to the visual receptors of her form. Less information to deal with, less noise to filter through. It seemed like an age to her, but only seconds passed before she could feel a faint whisper lying in the deepest recesses of reality. So the Jungle was not entirely dead, merely sleeping. But even while sleeping the Rethast could not stall their instinctive connection to reality and to the basest components of the universe. Opening her eyes, she pointed straight ahead.

"The whispers are oldest in that direction. Follow this path a further 100 metres and lean left. The air is quietening there, but there are faint traces of disturbance. It's the stillest part in 2 kilometres, and is most likely site zero for infection."

With a nod, Stefan turned back to his men while Valtiel stood at Leviathan's side.

The universe tremored.

Valtiel had already given the order, his resonating voice calling out for everyone to stand perfectly still. Only moments passed before the earth broke apart. A swarm of tiny creatures burst from the soil, but they ignored the intruders. Instead, they vanished into the dense foliage in less time than it took to react to them. Valtiel looked at Leviathan, and she could do nought but shrug.

"Tiny flakes of viral matter. Most likely insects or spiders which got infected. Not enough mass to produce a Rethast, but enough to become something. They're connected, but I could not sense them. They're too small to relay information, only act on it. We're fine."

The Jungle's Depths - Captain Jarr's Team

The jungle did not even grace captain Jarr with a surprise swarm. It was deathly still, apparently ignoring the intruders into its living domain. The air coiled around them, growing cold as the Jungle regarded them with interest and amusement.

Within the blood of Captain Jarr, the jungle had already laid its seed. Crystalline flakes clung to his lungs, and microscopic mechorganics slipped their way into the cells of the lung's wall. Machine fought defences, while the organic merged with the chemical bounty within each cell.It was slow, the body was trying to fight it. But the Mutagen was smart. As defences rushed to aid the infected lung, the Mutagen slipped into the bloodstream. Everything it touched was laced with nanite and infection. Blood cells, vessel walls. Everything now held the virus within its most simple structures. Captain Jarr wouldn't feel anything more than an itch, a scratch in his chest which could easily be attributed to sweat or his armour.

It began to multiply.

by **Socialist States Owen** » Mon Dec 12, 2011 5:14 pm

Nick Gray didnt like surprises; especially this one. The Merton IV was accelerating, manuvering over a planet which lay ahead in splendid rolling motion. But perhaps Captain Merton and her pilots, Buckley and Gruns, had made an ill advised choice of passing method. The ships damaged computers had underestimated the gravitational pull of the world now passing below them, making it hard for the ship to roll without nosediving into the planets atmosphere.

"Gray! What are you doing up here?" Gray was surprised by the aggressive nature of the Captain, a usually smooth operator. "Sorry ma'am, I came up to say that I still haven't found anything in storage that can be used for repairs except the wiring we found in the drop box."
"Great, that's just gre-" Merton would've finished her sentance if not for the ship suddenly lurching one way. She was dramatically thrown against the wall and Gray was catapulted into a glass panel screen behind him, which smashed into pieces.

As Merton collected herself Gray moaned, clutching a gash in his arm where the glass had cut him. "Gray, get to the medical bay! Buckley, what the hell is going on?"
"See for yourself!" Buckley let go of the manual steering mechanism which controlled the vertical movement of the ship, and Merton watched in horror as it shuddered by itself. "Engine four has completely gone ma'am, we are down to three of the five engines. If we lose another we'll go down." Merton reacted quickly, getting out her security key card and typing in a code on one of the command consoles to activate the emergency alarm. The twenty three strong crew of the ship were now acutely aware across the small vessel of the fact they were in an increasingly dangerous situation.

Merton thought it couldn't get any worse - it did. "One is gone Mary! We're going in!" The ships navigational computers were basic for a ship of its age and it was uncapable of pulling out of its sudden rapid descent towards the planets surface. Briefly the cockpit glass and titanium screen was filled with bright light as the ship sped through the atmosphere of the small planet. The mysterious station which orbited the planet was vaguely visible, but it was of no concern to the crew at this moment in time. "Altitude, Buckley?"
"Uh..shit, can't tell! Computer is still scanning the topography below us!"
"Shut us down and divert the backup coolant to the stabilisers." Merton was contemplating ordering a one minute run for the escape pods.
"But ma'am we might not be able to get the engines on again!"
"JUST DO IT!" She yelled. The other pilot Gruns was about to voice his concern to, but he was knocked unconcious as a server pack in the wall exploded, and a large bit of burnt debris knocked him out of his chair.

After a few rumbling explosions and a sudden droning noise emenating from the rear of the vessel, the ship slowed to a halt on a slight angle. Buckley unstrapped himself and watched as several coins from his pocket dropped out, and then rolled down the tilted deck towards the back of the ship. They suddenly stopped and laid flat on the floor as the ship levelled out. "Ok captain..that's it. We're stabilised." In the nick of time, Buckley had saved the lives of everyone on board. The ship was now floating level about 500 feet off the ground, with rising fog being just above the level of the ship. Below was a jungle, magnificent and stretching as far as you could see in the moist atmosphere.

Drops of rain had begun to collect on the pilots visual panels. Before long Merton had gathered herself and she broadcast a message to the crew while Buckley tended to the unconcious Gruns. "All crew, listen up. Apologies for that interruption to our usual routine but we are experiencing an emergency situation. All crew are to report to the A Deck conference room immediately. Bring any medical supplies with you if you are injured so we can do an accurate headcount."

by **Of The Arch ilands** » Fri Dec 30, 2011 4:16 pm

Captain Jarr Beta Squad

The squad had progressed further into the jungle, the fragile yet razor sharp foliage getting denser and denser with each step, fallen purified leaves crunching underfoot as the heavy boots of the Archians soldiers and there purge Exo suit, where the only sound for miles around. It was eary though no one would admit it, each soldier had there grip firmly on their assault rifles, there eyes darting around the darkening glass jungle looking for anything. Daniel kept close to the EXO if anything was to jump out at them he wanted the brute of a mech to watch his back, the sheer fire-power it brought to the table was enough to decimate entire platoons of men,and in its current format was a key instrument of purging and area and cleansing it of its infestation. He loosened his grip on his DAX-5 when he realised how much his hand was aching, flexing his fingers he watched them taking his mind off the jungle for a split moment, instantly feeling warmer inside. This jungle is one hell of a weird place he noted as he began looking to the tree line again, feeling the dread slowly creep back and the warmth slowly drain from him.

Jarr clambered over a crystallised fallen tree landing with a heavy crunch he stood up strait, coughing slightly as he rubbed his chest taking a few steps forward before looking back seeing corporal Ganz make his way up to him holding out a re-breather.

"Sir you should really wear one of these, this entire area is contaminated and we have no idea if this thing is air borne" the corporals voice being broadcasted from the speaker built into his helmet.

Jarr looked out to the tree line and squinted the shadows seemed to be more foreboding than before.

"Sir?" Ganz spoke again

"Yeah yeh alright" Jarr spoke coughing softly afterwards and taking the re-breather strapping it over his nose and mouth "Just keep your eyes on the game Corporal another click in this direction and we are gunna hunker down and wait for Kenwood and his new friends"

Outbreak: Case Three, The Glass Jungle (FT; Semi-Open)

Outbreak: Case Three, The Glass Jungle (FT; Semi-Open)

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