The Bane of Aldmeris was many things - pride, blindness, and a hunger for more. But above all, it is nonexistence - the antithesis to NIR itself.
- Solvar Iceborn, Pocket Guide to the Empire: Kadria, Seat of Sundered Kings
Alpha Quadrant, Somewhere in Deepspace...
Site Alpha
Arkasian Date: 08.02.124 ASY
Alexzonya wrote:These pocket universes are designed to fail safely… what the hell happened?
As the lockdown goes into effect, the doors of the command center open to reveal a seven-foot-tall power-armored behemoth wielding a staff - Magister Ranek Stormcrow of the Varden. As the alarms blared, the Varden peered down at one of the screens before hissing at what he found. "What did you damn Arkasians do now?" The geneforged Battlemage's voice boomed out as his eyes focused on the back of the Admiral's head.
"I'm trying to figure that out," growls Shaw, in return. "Catastrophic failure of the stasis field test ripped up the test universe, but it's failing...
wrong." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "They're supposed to fail by folding into a neat little nothing, and this one is going out like a maelstrom."
"Sir! There's something else in there," repeats one of the watchstanders, her face scowling as the black-bereted intelligence officer tapped with inhuman swiftness at her control panels, both hands fully in motion. "I don't know what the hell it is or where it came from, but it's warping the local space inside, and not in a harmless way."
"...Sometimes I forget that your people are not naturally tuned to the Arena." Ranek moved over to one of the control panels linked to the sensors and working it, bringing into focus an entirely different set of frequencies - the ones Kadrian Battlemages used as the basis of their magic. And at this moment, it was showing a very distinct signature. "It is not an
it you are attempting to fend off. It is
him. The Bane of Aldmeris, and self-proclaimed Prince of the Void."
The watchstander looked perplexed, though she didn't stop tuning the view. "Who?"
"Fuck," replies Shaw, succinctly. "How the hell'd we get his attention?!" He glances to another watchstander. "Status on the emergency breakaway? Why the hell is it still connected?"
"No idea, sir. We fired the disconnector, but it's like the site is glomped onto us. I've got another shot or two in the capacitors, but we're not recharging; all available power is going to the reality anchors on our side."
Shaw nods tersely. "Very well. Alert me if the situation changes, and we have a chance to take another shot."
"There." The first watchstander, a Commander by her insignia, smiles triumphantly as she isolates a pattern. "Right there." The resulting ripples in space-time appear on the view, highlighted. "That's your outsider." The ripples whipped and swirled, flinging the collapsing universe about in a fit of rage and terror, battering it pointedly against the walls of NS-01.
Ranek’s eyes focused on the ripples as plans ran through his mind. “It is not your fault, strictly speaking. Both of our peoples escaped from dying universes - I suspect that is what he sensed after the death of the pocket universe drew his attention here.” He then looked at the second watchstander. “How many anchors do we have operational?”
"There are about 2,000 emergency probes operating on their local plants, and then the 12 primary projectors connected to our primary reactor systems," he replies. "The primaries are built to safeguard against a catastrophic failure of a test site, but..."
"But they didn't account for an infovore turning a site failure into a bludgeon," finishes Admiral Shaw curtly. "We're well outside of the design parameters here. Those probes can stop a starship, but they aren't going to do much against a threat of this scale."
"We have 18,000 more of them," notes the watchstander. "Launching as fast as we can, but the storage racks can only fire so quickly. We're looking at about 10 minutes to get the full constellation out." If the sensors are anything to go by, they didn't have 10 minutes before the event was resolved, one way or another.
"Magister, any ideas?" Shaw furrows his brow.
A few seconds later, Levana Ferri, the station's Domain liaison, jogs through the doors, concern visible on her face, "What the hells is going on? Is this related to the stasis test today?" Her eyes quickly swept the command center, taking in all the data she could see from her position. There were several screens she couldn't see, but what she could see was enough to confirm her fears, "Feth! You have a plan, right?" she asked of Admiral Shaw.
"Please be aware the removal of your assets is intended to be helpful," a slightly apologetic woman's voice said, with the diction of the C'tani's unambiguous language and eastern accent, a necrontyr woman with dark hair pulled high behind her head and grey-blue skin appearing in holographic form. "Apparently, our shipmind is not in the business of asking for things." Shaw turns his head in her direction and nods.
“Well, he’s trying to get a snack, right?” The corner of Ranek’s mouth lifted in an example of the Varden’s penchant for dry humor. “We take one of the anchors and destabilize it before throwing it through. I doubt our friend here expects a firecracker as part of his next meal.” He then looked up at the C’Tani’s voice. “I get it, don’t worry. Not all of our raiding was out of greed.
After thinking for a second, the Varden looked back at Shaw. “If we do throw an anchor through, I will note that there is a chance Shor could get some of his Taken back through the boundary, even if we time it perfectly. But dealing with Taken is a much easier prospect than the alternative.”
"We're working on it," Shaw tells the Domain's representative, in exactly so many words. The station's alarms sound again, briefly, and damage reports spring up; specifically, the C'tan had eaten Logistics and Fabrication Bay 2 for reaction mass. Under the circumstances, he didn't have an objection; they could replace it later.
“Probes are… fully deployed?” notes a watchstander, blinking as her display suddenly refreshes immediately after the damage reports. “Oh! The C’tan ship. Yes, I understand. The boundary is holding… for now. Anchor constellation is at full power. Thank the Stars.”
“That buys us time. Thank you.” He inclines his head toward the C’tan representative and then uses a bit of that time, taking a second to think. "Reality bomb. That could work." He nods. "Taken we can handle, in reasonable quantities. QRF from Zephyr should be en-route already..."
"The 228th Patrol is 6 minutes out," clarifies a watch-stander. "And elements of the 56th General will be 5 minutes behind them."
"... and they should be able to clean out any lingering infestation," Shaw finishes. "Prepping a bomb is easy enough. Injecting it into the target is harder, on short notice..." He thinks. "We can probably jerry-rig the disconnector to do it, but the resulting boundary isn't going to be pretty... or particularly small. If anyone has a more elegant solution to delivering the firecracker onsite, I'm all ears."
“It doesn’t need to be too elegant - we can clean up afterwards,” Ranek added. “We just need to make sure there
is an afterwards.”
The Hypatian representative quietly and calmly sat down at the table and sipped from a mug of what could only be assumed was coffee. He said nothing as he looked at the others.
"Inelegant it is," agrees Shaw, after a moment of silence. He turns back to the watchstander who had previously discussed the disconnector system. "Recalibrate it to punch a hole through to the target. Minimize the diameter, and standby to fire." He taps another panel. "Control to Lab 3, status?"
"We're fine, thanks for asking. What the hell happened?"
"Unexpected destabilization. We're working on it, but we need you yesterday. Prep an anti-reality warhead, maximum yield, and report back as soon as it's ready." He pauses and turns to the Domain representative. "Levana, could I trouble you to make use of your displacers to actually deliver this thing? We do have an experimental carrier chassis for the warhead, but I don't know if now is the right time for a field trial."
Levana nodded and moved over to stand behind one of the crew, "I need real-time feeds of the warhead and wherever the aperture will be outside." While the tech pulled that up, she contacted the Domain cruiser on standby near the facility, briefing the commander of what she needed, then patching her eyes through to the ship's tactical software. "We're ready. Tell us when."
Ranek was speaking into his communicator as this was happening. After a bit, he nodded and gripped his staff. “My men and I are ready to reinforce the boundary when you are.”
Shaw nods to both, and a moment passed. Then a full minute. Reality began to ripple on the monitor as the Void battered at the walls. "Control to Lab 3, what's the holdup?"
"We're working on it, Admiral. The arming circuitry isn't installed, so we're getting it connected now."
"What's the ETA? And the answer better be less than two minutes."
"... less than two minutes. Sir."
It's an agonizing 106 seconds before the communicator comes to life again. Shaw forces himself to avoid pacing. "Anti-reality munition armed and marked." It lights up on the display.
"There," he says to Levana. He nods to Ranek and then the watchstanders. "Alright, here we go. Engage the target on my mark. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... MARK!"
There's a flash in the middle of the ripples, and a tiny hole, only a few meters in width, is punched from NS-01 to the maelstrom of the collapsing universe.
It only takes half a second after the word Mark. On the monitor showing the lab, the warhead seems to collapse in on itself, the space it occupied being pulled to another place. Hopefully, the scientists and technicians were holding onto something as the sudden vacuum caused by the displacement was filled in by the surrounding air.
On the other monitor showing the newly formed aperture, there is a momentary flash of light as the warhead appears and is propelled into the hole in space by the cruiser's gravitics. Levana sighs, then catches herself before she gets her hopes too high, "Warhead deployed."
And the Prince of the Void rushed the opening, tearing at the worldwalls. The Battlemages at Site Alpha held the boundary together against the onslaught as an ear-splitting howling sounded from all around them. The ripples reached their greatest intensity as black misty figures began to coalesce around balls of sterile white light on a few of the cameras.
“Taken!” Ranek tensed, “Here they come!”
The warhead passes through the aperture and long 3 seconds later, detonates. A visible bulge appears in the adjacent reality of NS-01, distorting light along it. At the same time, the shockwave is visible as it carries outward, blowing the fragments of the failed universe and all it contains away from NS-01.
"Direct hit! Test site is disconnected and moved away from us. Aperture is closing..."
Before they got a chance to be relieved, though, a soft whine and a series of cracks erupts outside the doors. Then more, staccato five-round sets of cracks. And then a loud gurgle and a thump. The Taken were here.
Levana watches the monitors intently, not well enough versed in the mathematics to fully understand the various other displays and readouts, instead focusing on the camera monitoring the aperture itself. Her head jerks around at Ranek, then at the doors, "I'm glad we insisted on posting a security detail here." She reaches across the networks and takes direct command of the local combat servitors, directing them to the nearest enemies.
Ranek drew a pistol and strode to the doors as more banging came from the other side. The second misty claws tried to pry the door open, the Varden slammed his staff on the ground, blowing the Taken on the other side away… along with the doors.
Levana's focus is momentarily broken as she watches the Kadrian Battlemage, "Can you hold them?"
Ranek looked back and nodded. “I am one of the Varden. I can do this.”
The 228th Exploration and Patrol Group flashes into view on the sensor displays. Shaw puts through a communication immediately. "Captain Bohuslava, welcome back to Site Alpha. I need your expeditionary forces to sweep the station ASAP. Set up a perimeter around the primary control station and blast any of these bastards..." There's a boom in the background as the Varden does his thing. "... bastards that are dumb enough to sit around in open space." It didn't need clarifying, from the sensor readings, who the bastards were.
He punctuated his statement with a couple rounds from his pistol, banishing Taken with each shot.
"Got it. I'll have the servitors round up station crew and get em somewhere secure." Her eyes unfocus to do just that. Elsewhere on the station, the mechanical soldiers joined forces with Arkasian security, directing defenseless personnel to labs or bays which could be more easily defended.
There was more unearthly screeching from the hallway as Ranek blew away another wave of Taken before firing off a few shots. “Be advised - there’s a Taken Acolyte with a shield and pistol. I saw him pass by down the hallway - I think he’s leading the pack.”
"Do you require any assistance?” inquires Riantha. “And should you be considering the long-term tenability of the station and operation here?"
Shaw nods to the hologram. "If you have expeditionary capabilities aboard, we'd appreciate assistance in clearing the station and corralling these... Taken." The sensors now indicated nearly 30,000 probes in the local volume. "And yes, if you need to eat any more of our infrastructure to make it so, please feel free. I suspect it will just mean less for the Engineers to dismantle after this... resolves. One way or another."
There was a sudden screech as one of the Taken leapt past Ranek and into the control center. The orb of sterile white light that served as its eye twitched a little as it looked around for a second, gathering its bearings. The Taken had just bared its black mist-framed claws and was preparing to attack when Ranek seized it and pulled the orb of light out of its body, crushing it in his hand, leaving it to die with a screech. "My apologies for letting that one get past - I didn't expect him to jump."
As the Taken leaps into the room, Shaw surges forward and grabs Levana, pulling her behind him. He growls... and then Ranek dispatches the thing just before it pounces. "If it had killed me, I'd be more upset," he retorts, only a bit shakily.
He moves up to where the doors had been. Two Arkasian Marines (or, more precisely, whatever was left of them) laid outside. Shaw bites his lip and tries not to look too closely at the remains as he collects their carbines. He tosses one back onto the floor and awkwardly checks the status of the one he keeps in his hands. One of the watchstanders moves as well, picking up the spare and pointing it more adeptly down the corridor. Shaw eyes her and nods to himself, and then returns to the command panels with a note to mention that in his after-action report.
"While I appreciate the gesture, Admiral, it was unnecessary," Levana smirks at the Arkasian as she draws her sidearm and checks the loaded anti-personnel magazine. "I might not be a soldier, but I'm hardly defenseless. I have control of twenty-five combat servitors. Fifteen are currently holding secure areas where they're guarding station crew; the other ten are hunting. Should I peel a few for reinforcements here?"
At that moment, Ranek (who had returned to the doorway) ducked as a ball of voidlight flew through the doorway and slammed into the ceiling behind him before returning fire as he got up. "Wouldn't hurt - they aren't sending their cannon fodder anymore. I suspect we'll see the Taken with the shield soon."
Admiral Shaw smiles and shakes his head at himself. "My apologies, Levana. Instinct. I'll leave you all to it." He turns his attention back to coordinating those who were actually useful in a firefight, elsewhere on the station, and vectoring in the expeditionary shuttles and gunships that had just been launched from their Starfleet reinforcements. The convenient new C'tan-provided hole in their station would, at least, make a massed landing somewhat easier.
There's a burst of cracks, and the offending Taken goes down; the Arkasian Lieutenant had actually learned to shoot at some point in her career, better than most Arkasian fleet personnel anyway. For her part, she kneels down dispassionately near the dead Marines and retrieves two more carbine magazines, a pair of 40mm shells, and a huge pistol with a suspiciously large bore. She breaks it open and loads the first. "Flechette shells," she reports before snapping it closed with a familiar motion. "I was hoping for frags, but close enough."
Levana nods to the Kadrian, "Got it. I can have two of 'em here in a minute." She let the Arkasian lieutenant cover the door for the time being while she pulled up the link to the two servitors. Roughly humanoid, the machines were capable of moving upright or on all fours, even capable of clinging to walls and ceilings, which they did as they both shot forward through the corridors.
"Friendlies incoming… Now!" Levana called to the Arkasian woman just as the servitors rounded a corner out in the corridor like a pair of some kind of sprinting predator. The pair smoothly rose to two legs and readied the pair of anti-personnel guns on their forearms before taking up position just outside the empty doorway, each covering the opposing ends of the corridor.
Riantha's hologram seemed to be a little disconnected from reality; perhaps she had done something to herself to increase her response times. The capture field didn't show a weapon, but she had moved from where she had been and was now walking. "We can spare a few thousand of our own security units if you wish; I hope no one's arachnophobic. I hear foreigners have that."
"... I've got to get some of those," notes the Lieutenant, relaxing a bit now that there were a pair of hulking battlebots between her and the Taken horde.
"That would be much appreciated," says Admiral Shaw, with a nod. "There's a convenient hole in the station if you want to ingress there... or else the other docking areas should still be functional. I'm sure someone will end up needing therapy from the mecha-spider invasion, but it's still better than being eaten by a Taken."
"On the way," she said; the hole wasn't really used, though, as transmat worked perfectly well - Well enough that it seemed that the very-old shipmind of the Single-Event Upset might have been planning how to board the station for fun at some point.
Lowering his weapon for the moment, Ranek took the chance to look at both Admiral Shaw and Levana. "Any word on the other parts of the station?"
"Suddenly full of spiders," reports Shaw, with an appreciative nod to Riantha. "But otherwise... it's a mess. It doesn't look like any secure or mission-critical areas have been overrun, and the spiders have eliminated the possibility, but there are a few sections in logistics and storage that we'll have to retake. As much as I'd rather just vent them, it's possible there are survivors in those sections."
"Any sign of the shield?"
The Hypatian pulled out a newspaper, seemingly from nowhere, and leaned back while sipping coffee. He was the only liaison from the Commonwealth on this entire station, and his existence had largely been a forgettable one. A small alarm on a wristband he wore sounded, and it was the first time he'd taken his eyes off anything other than his paper or the others. He rolled up his paper and tucked it under his arm. Stepping over bodies and spent casings, the man stopped short of a console and tapped out a few things. A hologram appeared -- "Admiral Lucca, pleasure seeing you," the man greeted. The hologram admiral looked down at the liaison, "The First Fleet is already on its way. Amsterdam has engaged the Apophis Protocol; there should be a guardian en route as well." -- "Understood." And with that, the man walked back over to his table, sat down, and began to sip more coffee.
"Yeah, I just saw him on a monitor. Let me figure out..." The rest of the liaisons and staff weren’t paying particular attention to the Hypatian, who for all intents and purposes had done nothing whatsoever as the crisis played out, a humanoid silhouette in the background and nothing more.
There's a flash of light, and one of the servitors collapses. The second pivots and opens fire... the barrage flashing off of a shield. A pistol shot snakes around the corner, flying over the groups' heads and into the control room before fizzling into the ceiling.
"... found him."
Then the screeching started up again, along with something else.
“Y̢̧͝o̶͡u͏ ͘͞f̶à̢c̶҉e͡ ̨È͏͟r͟r͡҉ų͡k͠ ͞҉̧t͝h̴e ͘B̀͢et͡r̶̀a̴̧y͝͝e̛͞r̵,͡ ͘͡H̕er̸a̴͏l̵̕d̶́͘ ͢o̧͡f̸̡͡ ̕͡Ş͞h̕ơr͞!̧ ̧̀͟NÒW͟ ͜B̀͏E̵ Ć̵͜Ǫ̨Ǹ̶͘S͘͞UM̶E͠D҉!̢̧͡” With that, the so-called Herald turned the corner, flanked by more of the rifle-wielding Taken the Lieutenant had taken out earlier, and followed by a horde of the clawed Taken they've been fighting off the whole time.
Ranek cast a shield in the doorway, just in time to stop the incoming volley of Voidlight projectiles from entering the control room.
Levana was watching through the senses of the two servitors and caught sight of the Herald just before the initial attack vaporized a chunk of the torso of one of the Domain machines. The second was already initiating a counterattack while Levana recoiled from the sensory shock of the first servitor's demise. During the several real-time seconds it took for her to recover, the remaining machine used its guns to try and keep the Herald behind his shield.
There was a better than even probability that her last servitor on-site would be taken out before she could take the Herald out, and that would leave everyone in the control center to deal with all the remaining Taken. She needed to thin the herd and buy time for reinforcements to arrive from elsewhere on the station. Her servitor suddenly dropped to all fours, moving faster than any organic could hope, and sprinted at the wall next to the Herald. The momentum carried the machine up along the wall, across the ceiling, and down into the horde of less formidable Taken beyond. Mechanical limbs lashed out in a blur, armored claws extended as the servitor crashed into the mob, severing limbs and crushing light orbs.
Satisfied that the servitor could handle itself without direct control, Levana disconnected and readied her sidearm while taking cover behind a nearby console. It would only be a matter of time before the Taken caused enough damage to render the servitor inoperable, but in that time, it would have eliminated many more of the enemy.
Levana’s move was wise because after blocking another round of fire from the Taken, Ranek’s shield flickered. “I’m going to drop it in a few seconds! Prepare to take cover!” The Varden shouted back. The Lieutenant ducks behind the doorframe. She changes the magazine on her carbine and then pulls the grenade launcher and waits for the shield to come down.
For his part, Shaw scrambles, moving personnel down into cover. He turns and barks an order into the command console, though it can't be heard by the others over the weapon fire before he turns towards cover... just as the shield falls. He doesn't have a chance to fire or duck before the Herald sights in on him and fires... fortunately for him, someone else came better prepared. Rather than taking the shot in his chest, he finds himself suddenly yanked down to the floor. The homing bolt follows and explodes with a flash on his upper right arm and a spray of blood and flesh.
He avoids screaming, mostly due to the shock of the impact and the pain. He stares at the ceiling as Levana curses and scrambles; she had been just fast enough to keep him alive, but not quite fast enough to keep him in one piece. She tears a strip of cloth from her clothing and wraps it around whatever remains of his arm; it tightens on command into a makeshift tourniquet. That would be enough to keep him from bleeding out in the interim, anyway.
At the same time, the Lieutenant pulls the trigger: the recoil of the pistol elevates her arms to nearly a right angle towards the ceiling after firing, but the flechettes strike home, spraying down the corridor and striking numerous grunt and rifle Taken. A few collapse; others are merely wounded. She ducks back behind cover to load the second shell.
As the shield dropped, Ranek had leapt for cover to the other side of the door frame and followed up the Lieutenant’s shots with his own, bolter rounds slamming into more Taken and the Herald’s shield. As the battle lulled for a few moments, the Varden took his medical kit off his utility belt and slid it over to Levana. “Take whatever you need.”
Shaw does his best to avoid moaning or anything else undignified as Levana applies the tourniquet. "Thanks," he growls, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily. "I wasn't quite ready to give up on this body," he quips. The other Arkasian winces back as darts flit past her position, the Taken leader still advancing and almost to the doorframe (and her position). She ducks out briefly and fires the grenade launcher; most of the flechettes strike the shield, but a few outliers from the spread hit the Shieldbearer, who roars his displeasure and then shoots her center-mass with a homing dart. She drops, minus most of her upper torso: the Taken keeps coming.
At that moment, Ranek puts away his rifle and draws a pistol, his free hand moving to draw his force-axe. As the Herald crossed the threshold, it found itself the target of several hundred pounds of angry Varden as Ranek crashed into it, firing his pistol as he used his axe to wrench away its shield.
Levana treats Shaw's wounds quickly and efficiently, sealing the stump with synth-skin spray and giving the officer a dose of painkillers. "Lot of folks get attached to their natural body, even among Phoenixi." She curses under her breath as the other Arkasian officer gets taken out and pushes Shaw further behind cover, "Chit-chat will have to wait."
She manages to snag the Arkasian weapon and drag it to her, quickly checking the magazine and clearing the chamber before rising to get the barrel over her cover and sight in on the shieldbearer as Ranek clashes with it. For Levana, time seems to slow down as she overclocks her reaction speed, information flashing across her vision and vanishing just as quickly. She was no soldier, but in this state, she may as well be a veteran sniper, popping shots off at the Taken in the doorway and any chance she can send a round into the Herald, missing Ranek's own body and limbs by millimeters half the time.
An alarm sounds and noises of metal twisting and wrenching filled the corridor. The Hypatian liaison jumps up from the table, spilling whatever remained of his drink and a single Taken eyeball that had fallen into his cup earlier out onto the floor, twitching. "The Guardian has arrived," the man noted, as he pulled up his pants leg. A compartment snapped open, revealing a sidearm, an MX-45. He drew the gun and joined the others, preparing to take shots at the approaching Taken. "Now, all we need to do is buy ourselves some time," the man said.
They wouldn't have to hold long. Already, the cracks of kinetic rifle fire can be heard echoing through the station; Arkasian Marines were on the same deck, and even if they were delayed, reinforcements from the other parties were converging on the station. It wasn't a question of if they would be saved, but by whom: Arkasian Marines, C'tan mecha-spiders, or whatever the Hypatians had just dumped into the local space.
Several corridors away, the Arkasian charge is led by a tall woman, blonde-haired and pale-skinned. Her eyes are a piercing blue, the marked opposite of her flickering red lightsaber. She spots two Taken and grasps them, pulling them violently into the air with just a flick of her hand, several feet away. She splatters them on the walls before frying a third with a vicious bolt of lightning. Guardian-Commander Vaughn, the Arkasian military liaison to the Martian Forum mission, had done an excellent job giving the international community a picture of the guardians. Guardian-Commander Xena Lipovsky.... did not, exactly, paint the same pleasant picture. She advances, leaping forward and flattening herself out as two bursts of Taken rifle fire pass over her before lashing out with her crimson blade and cleanly killing the remaining two in the corridor with one swift stroke. She rushes forward, leading a mixed group of Arkasian Marines and finally arriving to lift the siege of the command deck.
At that exact moment, Ranek's axe sank into the Herald's neck as the Varden pulled it forward. The Magister's hand darted out, closing around the light that served as its eye and crushing the sterile-white orb in his fist. The herald's body drops to the floor, melting into a puddle of shadowy ethereal liquid that seemed to fade from this reality. "Big guy's down!"
With that, Ranek lifted his pistol, shooting several Taken in the orbs; that was the last of them in the vicinity of the command center. The assault was thinning out now - most of Shor's servants and his Herald had been banished. All that was needed was a bit of clean-up.
Finally entering the room, Xena slashes two twitching corpses with her lightsaber, for completeness, before deactivating it. She passes by Levana and Ranek, with only a brief, curious glance at the Varden, as well as Riantha’s hologram, before she kneels beside Admiral Shaw.
“Sir. This level is secure.” The side of her mouth quirks just a little.
Shaw glances over at her, visibly gritting his teeth. “Thank you, Guardian-Commander. Please coordinate with Magister Stormcrow and the C’tan to ensure that the rest of the facility is secure.”
She nods and stands. “Of course, sir. Consider it done.” Identifying the Magister is not hard, and she approaches him.
The seven-foot-tall Varden in question inclined his head with a slight smile. “Guardian-Commander - a pleasure to meet you, even in these circumstances. I must say, you turn fighting into an artform. Also, call me Ranek if you prefer.”
The much-shorter Guardian bows slightly. “Thank you… Ranek. Please, call me Xena.” The side of her mouth quirks again. “That is high praise, coming from one such as you.” She fixes her gaze on his. “Perhaps, after circumstances have… calmed… we will be able to compare our respective artforms more thoroughly.”
Ranek grinned. “If there are any foes left in this facility, then I would be glad to give you a taste. Shall we?”
She smiles. “My pleasure.”
The aftermath wasn’t pretty. Most of the civilians were alright… most of them. There had still been casualties. The Arkasian Marines on Site Alpha had been at Action Stations when the Taken arrived… but many had been overwhelmed in the first moments, before the 228th EPG’s expeditionary forces or the C’tani spiders could arrive, or had died in desperate defenses of civilian shelter areas. It was only because of their sacrifices that the death toll among the non-combatants was as modest as it was.
The opening of the aperture into a collapsing universe had other consequences beyond the angry questions from members of the Martian Forum. The thrashing of the worldwalls had generated tremendous amounts of radiation and high-energy particles, which had come pouring out in the short time the aperture was open. Those on the station were (mostly) protected by its shielding… but only mostly. Those outside it, or those near the damaged sections that had been used for reaction mass, fared far worse, with the GRA resorting to rapid-exocortex procedures to save a number of individuals whose exposures were otherwise lethal beyond the ability of even Arkasian and Phoenixi medical technology to repair.
The Alpha Site’s location had never been a true secret, not the kind one could keep from nations such as Menelmacar, Macisikan, or Sunset. However, it was still… inconvenient… for operational security that the Site now swarmed with warships foreign and domestic: C’tan harvest ships, Benignity cubes, Noldori battleplates, Nimatojin frigates, a Hypatian Guardian surrounded by Eridani longships in a gritted-teeth show of cooperation (or perhaps intelligence gathering), and several Groups of Arkasian Starfleet cruisers that lingered awkwardly within the inner perimeter and hoped that the others didn’t change their minds and decide to blast the facility into rubble.
And the political fallout. The Arkasians could feel the glares of the Phoenixi attempting to disintegrate them with every new report and development as news of the incident made its way through the national governments. Indeed, once the Site returned to operation, there would never again be an experiment conducted without a Phoenixi observer’s eyes trained on the Arkasians’ work critically. The project had been AMJRI, of course, but Alpha Site, the
only active test site among the AMJRI nations, was an Arkasian facility, and it had been an Arkasian team’s test that had precipitated the near-disaster.
Not that the Arkasians were inclined towards laxity in any case. They had thought their protections on the Alpha Site were best-in-class; irritated Phoenixi, perhaps channeling the Macisikani or others, quickly explained otherwise and handed the Arkasians a laundry list of necessary safety improvements on the extraversal test sites. Implementing those would be the highest priority once the Site returned to operation.
Despite it all, the nations of the Advanced Material Joint Research Initiative had survived. The galaxy would continue to spin. The dawn and dusk would continue to chase each other across Zephyr and Mars and Kadria and Meridian and the other worlds of the Milky Way and this universe.
I̴n̢̛ ̶̕f̀i̡̨r̨̕st͜͜͏ ͝ļ̛į́̕g͘h͞t͞͝, ̸́n҉a̶u͏g̡̀ḩ́t͠͠ bu̢͝t ̕͟n̵̢i̛͞g͏̶̕ḩ̸t͜ ́a҉n̕d ͢à͢b̶̕͜yş͟s̷̕͞a̕l̕҉ ̵̧͡l̛u̸͢͟ll̸
̡͘͝À̧͞ ͏w̷͡o̴͟rl͜͞d͏̶ leá͡d̶ ̸́͡t͘͜ó̸ ̕͏r̶e̶͞d̨̢ ̀d̡ŕe҉̶͜a͏m̸t̷ ͘͟t̛h͢͞͝e̴ ̷c͘a̡ư̶͘s̴̨à̡ĺ͢ ̀͏n̴u̸̧͝l̴̷͟l̵͢
͘S̢̕w͘҉į͡͡f̴̶̢t̡l͞y̵ ̛m̛y̨͝͝ ͘͟s͜͠wa̧͜ý s̕p͜͝r̀̕͜e͢͠ad̸͢,̷̨͞ ̢̨c̢͞u̵ll̷͜i͞ǹ̸̶g̵͟ ̷a҉͘l̡͞l̡͘ q͡u͡ą͏l͠m̛s̷̕,̶
̶a͞n̸̛d ͜͟s͠͞ơ̧oǹ ̶͏t̛h̷͜ę̶̛ ̸͏̀ḑ̴͟i͏s̶s̛͟o̴ń̡à̸̴n͡t ̧҉a̵er̷̨i̸̢͜é̴s҉ ͘b̀͝l̴͞é͝d̵͘
̸̧͞
̵̀O̷͏n͏e ́b҉͠y̛ ̧on͏͞e͞ ͘͜I̛͜͡ ͘á́͝ṕ͏p̴r̛o̕ac̛hed̶̛ t̀͝͏h̨͢͏en͝ ̷҉r̨͘͜e͘͞p̢̨͠ro̶̢͘à͟c͏̸h̨e̸̡d̡,
͞w̧i͜͢͠t͏̕h ̀͡f̛̀o͏̴̀rke͘͟d҉ ̨s͠p̸͢͞ȩ̷̶e͏̕c̨҉h̶ ̷͝a͠n͏d ͜s҉̨h̵̀͜a̢҉́l̡̀l̷̨ow͝ ̷͜͝p͞͝r̨é̴a̵c̴̨͞h̛͘
̨S͘͡pi̵̷̕ņ͠nin͟g̢̢ ͠s͝l̢̨̕iģ̴h̢t̀s͢͢ ̛o͘f ͡ḿ͢͡o̡̧s͜͏t̶͘ ̵̀i̵n̨ţ͡͡į̕ma̢̕t̢̧e͟͜ s̢͘͡iǵ͞͠h̵t̨͟s͡
̀̀F͟͢͞or ͜m̛͡͞y͡ ̕͏r͟ei̡͜g̛̕͝ń̛̀ ͟͠had͝͠ ̀n̴̡ȩ̧͜v̧͟͠e͘r̨̧̕ w̢͏̨a͡n̕ed́,̸ ͘͟a͡͠҉s̡̧ ̕w̶̛hò̵l̸̷e͟͝ ò̴͠r̕ h̴̢o̵ĺlow̛.̨̧҉