Revelation [FT, Open]

[Nova Atlantis]

Oh, thank the gods. Answers. Ria sighed with relief that he finally seemed to be getting somewhere. And without Horror of Horrors so far. Their response had been somewhat muffled, but Ria was able to pick up on their worried tone. Expected, but it did mean trust was going to be an issue. Then it hit Ria—they had barricaded the doors shut to keep anything from outside from getting *in*.

Shit.

More to the point, how to reply? Screaming ‘I’m Atlantean!’ to some poor fool in the Alpha Quadrant would have elicited a blank stare, never mind the wild hinterlands of Gamma. Amazing how quickly one could be forgotten in just a matter of decades. “My name is Ria, House of Aia. I’m from the Imperial Federation of Atlantis, in the Alpha Quadrant. I’m humanoid, if that means anything. My ship was passing through and detected your station going offline. We came to investigate”

Ria inwardly chuckled to himself. ‘Just passing through’ reminded him that this was essentially nothing more than an elaborate twist on ‘Sid’s Law’, which stated that no matter how remote your location, if you put out a distress signal or something otherwise goes wrong, there will be at least three ships on your flank within eight hours. Originally stated by an Admiral as an off-handed joke and mathematically improbable, the science council decided to study the phenomenon just for ‘shits and giggles’, and found that the law was in fact a thing. The only explanation was that probability and chance didn’t work quite the way one envisioned they did.

Ria glanced around behind him, just to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him before resuming, keeping his voice up and loud, “May I come in? I’d like to know what exactly is going on around here. Maybe I can help"

[Sertian]

More sounds could be heard hushed on the other side of the door, several voices worriedly whispering - barely noticeable through the door and even with advanced audio equipment, badly mumbled by whatever they had used to barricade the doorway against some unknown threat. Eventually, however, the same voice as before - a female human if he had to put a species and gender to it, replied, "Are you alone..? Is he out there with you?"

---

Outside there was the briefest force of escaping atmosphere pushing against her side, the sound of whooshing air likely filling her imagination... But both passed quite swiftly, leaving her with the barely opened, and now entirely vacuumed air lock. The airlock had apparently only been partially emptied during its last cycle, causing the brief expulsion of remaining gases, but now it proved quite safe and secure if she continued to slowly turn the manual controls to open the door fully.

Apologies for the inattentiveness, real life got in the way.

[Nova Atlantis]

He. A gender-specific pronoun, indicating that it was a personal entity, and not some sort of animal…or worse. …Maybe someone did go crazy. Or maybe it was some sort of pet project gone mad. Considering the various…oddities Ria had encountered thus far, that wasn’t out of the question.

“…I’m the only one out here” the Knight said, glancing around just to make sure he wasn’t making a liar out himself, “Who is after you? What happened here?”

[Weyr]

Alice paused, until the pressure of atmospheric release ceased, then resumed the protracted process of opening the airlock hatch to the point where she could slip inside. She was glad that the airflow had been brief from the now-vented airlock; from what little she had seen of the station's operations so far, she did not entirely trust the competence of its designers.

[Sertian]

There were more hushed whispers from behind the door, although they had changed in tone ever so slightly - switching more from startled curiosity, to instead have a bit more hope in their words. Eventually a second voice, more masculine than the first, called out. "Hold on, we're going to unbarricade the door. Please make sure that no one comes up behind you as we do so."

Shortly afterwards the muffled sounds of scuffling and hefty objects being moved from the opposite side of the clinic's doorway. It took quite a few moments for their work to be done, but when it finished the knight was greeted to the sight of the sliding door's metal frame being pried open, revealing a man who seemed in rather bad need of a shower after being cooped within the clinic for who knew how long - although his shirt seemed like it was a fresh replacement from the clinic's stores with its firm, minimalist appearance. He showed a brief glance of surprise, followed by relief to the Knight's heavily armed and armored appearance, although that relief was once again changed as the realization that a heavily armed alien now stood in front of him. Still, beggers couldn't be choosers, and he quickly motioned the Atlantian within the clinic's door, where upon he and several others of the station's facility would begin to close and bar the door once again.

They were much like the man, hygine had suffered in the time since the station had gone offline, and the no doubt grueling work they had undergone. For the most part most of the half dozen or so men and women there were in good shape - although perhaps a bit parched and hungry. The exceptions, however, were a man who sported what looked to be a rather nasty arm wound which had been bound and treated, and another, still sporting a uniform that identified him as the station's doctor, lay on the bed with a heavy wound patched upon his gut. The slow rise and fall of his chest revealed that he was still alive, but most likely resting after his wound. The rest of the clinic, however, seemed a bit worse off. To one corner of the facility, in a section none of the people seemed to draw close to, was a bed that sported the familiar vile and blood residue smeared within the nearby sink and on its now unclean features, the culmination of the trail he had followed to get there.

---

As Ria slowly made his own progress, the air lock outside was quickly starting to give way to her actions. A few minutes of grinding that wheel overcame the door's inertia enough to leave a comfortable enough space for her to safely slip inside. Within she could see no other nasty surprises, although unlike the first the manual controls had yet to opened from their panel. Fortunately the section was at least well marked, and easy to pop free from its protecting metal panel, allowing her to close the door behind her at her leisure. A glance through the inner door's window revealed darkness, not even the emergency light that had painted the facility in that pale red light for her Atlantean companion.

If she went to work fast enough on the air lock, she would be able to fill the corridor with atmosphere and slip inside just as the Knight had been hurried into the the clinic room.

[Weyr]

Alice slipped into the airlock, not bothering to open it fully, and swept her head around, to light up every crevice with her headlamp, just in case. She glanced through the little window in the inner hatch, shining the light through, hoping to provoke a response from behind the safety of a metal door, and fearing what she would find. But the light from the lamp did not show much besides the vague outlines of a passageway, and the reflection from the glass was too high for low-light filters.

She scanned the panels inside the airlock, the writings translated in popups on her faceplate.

"I'm in. Still looks like no-one's home," Alice said to Viaggio. "Please cast off and move, as planned."

"Moving," Viaggio replied. "You come back safe, ne?"

"Safe and sound, no worries. But who wants to live forever anyways?"

The outer airlock hatch closed in seemingly no time at all. She peered through the inner hatch window again, then got to work opening it, efficiently and cautiously, just in case there were surprises on the other side.

[Nova Atlantis]

Ria made one final sweep of the area behind him as he was let in, taking care to make sure he was the only being present. Considering the state the rest of the station was in, he wasn’t surprised that the surviving crew were…less than presentable. Between the wounds and the lack of hygene…

Wait. Lack of hygene? But the station hadn’t gone dark that long ago, just a matter of hours, not days. Hadn’t it? Ria’s mind flashed back to the ‘projects’ he had seen coming in. That much fervent work would have required some amount of time—probably before the station went dark. But no one had reported anything had gone south before the power failed…why? The Atlantean didn’t know where he was going with this, but he didn’t like it. Something screwy was going on, and though he was here to rescue these people, he wasn’t inclined to trust them completely. Not yet. The fact that the trail of blood had apparently begun here and assumed ended with the corpse floating outside did nothing to help matters. The knight gave the room a good visual sweep as the doors were closed behind him, before turning to the man who had let him in. His helmet would have obscured his face, meaning that while alien, he was still an unidentifiable humanoid form, albeit armored. He pondered taking off his helmet now, but still decided against it.

“My name is Ria” he began, “I’m a special operative of sorts of the Atlantean Federation. If you’ve never heard of us, don’t worry. We try to keep a low profile…and I’m sort of a long way from home” Ria glanced around the room, “Look, I know you’ve had a rough time, but I really need to know what’s been going on here and what I’m up against outside. You mentioned a ‘He’. Are you referring to the man tethered outside?”

[Steel Confessors]

Legio VI Apparatus Iram Dei
Assault Detachment: Ferrum Pugnus (5 Templar Frigates, 3 Crusader Cruisers, 1 Errant Battleship)
Flagship Errant Battleship Emundatrix
Command Hydra: Hydra-Rex Ulirc

Gas Giant D97-G927's Orbit
Upper Geosyncronus Orbit
3 Light-Seconds from surface
Maintaining Position
Co-ordinates: 915:155:891:1577

In the deep vastness of space, the Detachment drifted through the inky black void. They trudged onwards like long slow structures without any real sort direction or power. The vessels themselves were massive structures, monolithic structures resembling those of giant rectangular blocks forced up into the void of space by a giant of some massive kind. They were all gargantuan in size with the differences between them in gargantuan measures.

The smallest, Templars, were a kilometer and a half long, nearly three quarters of a kilometer width and one hundred fifty meters in height. The step-up, Crusaders, were two and a half kilometers in length, the same in width, but two hundred meters tall. The largest was by far a monstrosity. It was roughly equivalent to two Crusaders in height and length but again maintaining the same width.

All of them were black as the void, with the only distinguishing colors on the bow of the ship and to the aft as dull blue energy coursed from the giant engines pumping away. They were all formed out of jointed composites and alloys, forming seamless shells that gracefully caressed the void. The distinguishing marks were planted on the bow of the ship, differentiating them from one another save for one identical mark.

Among the colored banners describing the campaigns and genocides a ship had participated in, joining the pennants inscribed with enemy ship's detailing the victims of the monolith, and residing beside the skull portraits of previous Command-Hydras was a single identical icon. Emblazoned was a massive skull. It was human in origin but misshapen and deformed as well as edited in a more mechanical way. A bulbous section of ocular equipment, looking like someone welded together several hundred cameras into a single box was bolted to the left eye socket. What could be identified as behind the camera-abomination were a set of antenna that melded to the back of the previous monstrosity. In place of a nasal cavity and mouth was a massive rebreather like apparition, bolted to the bleached surface of the skull. tubes from it ran back along the curve of the jaw before suddenly dipping down and off field. Behind the skull and its various augmentations was a field of white and red set in party per saltire.

All of them declared the mortality of all, the persistence of humanity and the flesh, but fused with the means of constant preservation, determination, and the way a species could truly leave it's mark upon all who ever reside within the galaxy.

---

Ulirc shifted within his casket interred within the mausoleum of the navigator's chamber. The man's body was crippled and withered, a husk of its former self, resembling something closer to a dead body of a starvation victim than the commander of a megalithic vessel. Cables and wires were strung from his body, pulling form the depths of his flesh, forming their own little ridges underneath his skin as they brushed along the thin layer.

Numbering among the cables were massive collections of life support systems, from thing such as nutrient tubes to supply continuous supply of nutrient and protein rich paste to fuel the man's body, respirators, and waste removal systems. With the cables supplying the commanding navigator were also neural cables linking his neural system with the ship itself and the automated systems within. The Hydra drifted within the amniotic filled the container, the cables holding him to the floor and walls as he lingered within.

Attached so much to the ship itself he felt the very caress of the void against his skin, the gentle brush of micro-particles upon the surface of the hull and with his neural link, upon the surface of his skin. The tender little bits of the sun's warmth rubbing against the hull, causing minor little reflections on the flatly painted hull. Even the sensor relays attached to his ship reflected as his eyes and ears, tingling with information as they fed data to his mind and consciousness, fused within the cables of ship pulsing with power and energy.

He lightly glanced around at the various ships and planets within the system, looking them over with a careful eye. The various details of the vessels came back to him, visual representations upon his vision. Small little things such as the detected hull thickness, composition, weapons, protection systems, heading, speed, and bearing of the objects. He minorly noted them, filing away their information for further use when needed but for the most part they weren't predominating his purpose or goal, so they weren't quite the focus of his attentions.

The main focus would in fact be the research station detailed to him by the Triumvirate. A station otherwise unknown to the Confessors had suddenly come to their attention as it suddenly stopped transmitting any sort of signal. Especially being in the distant Gamma Sector, an otherwise untamed and underpopulated region. Either way, the humans that occupied the systems, hardy settlers that looked to the vast expanse as a potential source of fame and glory, even more so as a chance at riches. However, the Confessors did task the VI Legio to maintain protection of the human resources nearby. As such, the Triumvirate believed the current possibility of the station might be the start of a new enemy to man.

Ulirc brought his attention back to his ship, turning to focus on his own vessel and crew. He mentally took stock of his ship and its crew, approaching each of the automated systems and inspecting their conditions. Each so far appeared in the finest of order, registering green lights on their overall system and even the individual components that made up the entire system.

As he disjointedly wandered the halls of his ship, he felt a conscious approaching him. Much like in the manner in which a standard human being can notice someone coming up from behind them, 'sensing' the presence of another person, he could as well. It almost felt like someone coming up from behind him in the casket in which he was permanently interred, but still just a bit different as he wandered in the halls of his ship, his mind shifting about at the speed of light.

"Coming to check up on me Adala?" He chuckled, turning to face her. The Neural Net was rigged up in such a manner that the minds of those hooked to it could wander about in a visible form, walking around the halls. Ulirc was in a form he mentally created, a middle-aged man of about forty with a small dusting of hair to his jawline, the black hair making it just a shade darker than his skin.

"Of course. Only part of my duty for my Hydra." The AI responded, her voice a melodic rhythm that was soothing to the ear. She had crafted herself to resemble something akin to a mulatto woman in her late twenties.

"Well, you don't quite have to. If anything you don't have to expect me to suddenly become the ship. I have a pretty firm grip on my own borders. Even if I'm permanently bonded to the ship." He chuckled lightly, fully turning to face her.

"Aye, but really. I don't see the harm in coming to see how my Hydra is doing." She nodded, walking along the hallways until she was abreast from him. The two seemed to contrast starkly with the hallways. The bulkheads were spartan creations with cables snaking along the floor. They were darkly lit, no real lighting to speak of, no form to speak of other than the flat slate walls. Generally halls were considered inefficient and would've been removed form the ship to only be replaced with simple steel bulkheads to supplement framework of the ship. However, occasionally they were needed to transport munitions, supplies and troops especially if enemy marines boarded the vessel. So, they were put in.

"I'm still myself. Be quite sure, although if I try to suddenly assimilate you into, I'm sure you'll notice." He nodded to her, walking along the hall further along, almost to his navigation chamber. "Just doing some final inspections before I pulled the formation to the planet in question. In fact," There was a slight pause as he secreted away a portion of his consciousness to head to the helm.

//Helm Station//
/Servitor 93D043 on station/
/Encryption Key: P88Q65++/

/Securing Connection. . ./

/Connection Secured/

/Welcome Hydra Ulirc. Input Commands/

+Order Change. Course Correction. Follow heading 074 x 093 x 048. Engine pulse of Three Quarters Full. Sustain pulse of fifteen seconds.+

+Additional Order. Execute At conclusion of initial command. Follow heading of 129 x 030 x 143. Engine pulse of All Ahead Full. Sustain pulse of 30 Seconds.+

+Additional Order. Execute at conclusion of secondary command. Bring Full Stop of all engines. Hold pulse until additional orders.+

/Understood Hydra-Rex/

/Commands Under Way/

//Closing Connection//

The entire ship shuddered and jarred as the engines thrummed and pulsed and Ulirc felt a bit of a warmth stir within his abdomen as the reactors kicked up, and even more so as the engines pulsed underneath him. Adala shivered somewhat as well, the AI infused with the ship as well, just as much as the Hydra was. In fact even some in other ships the AI was the direct CO. Generally though stayed as the XO, working as an entrusted secondary aide.

The formation of ships around him stirred as well, adjusting their course to go along with the flagship. Additionally there were acknowledgement messages sent to the Emundatrix showing their own messages of understanding. The AI turned to face Ulirc, "And the Cohorts? Are they shall to mustered?"

"Of course. Form a squad of soldiers from the Nemean Alitar, Myrmidon-Erus Hela, Manticore Velia, and Cerberus Leotar. Oh, and Gorgon Peristis." He nodded as he concluded, "Good, hard working soldiers who've shown themselves in the field. Good reports from all of them."

Adala nodded and promptly sent out the orders.

---

Soon enough a Caestus Assault Boat was launched with all five of the soldiers readied within.

[Sertian]

“Man tethered..? Oh... You mean Dave,” the man replied, his voice growing somber as he spoke, eyes casting dejectedly down to the floor. A brief glance across the rest of the crew would reveal similar, pained expressions at the recollection of their lost friend and associate.

“We... We don't know quite frankly what's going on,” he eventually continued, his gaze turning away from the power armored man and instead glancing towards the slumbering doctor across the room. “Roughly... I have no clue, a day ago? Its hard to tell how much time passes on a space station without power, everything just... Stopped working all at once. We thought it might have been a massive failure in the reactor, but even emergency power and things running on batteries went out – everything electronic was just... stopped working.”

At this point, the women's who voice Ria had heard earlier spoke up. “Whatever happened, it fried practically every electronic circuit on the station all at once, as far as we could figure. Dave... And John were outside the station at the time it happened. We didn't hear them at the time because the radios went dead, but whatever happened... They screamed. It took us a while to pry them out from space since they flailed out into the vacuum and by the time we got them back to the clinic...”

The man returned to speaking, giving the women a comforting squeeze of her shoulder. “Doctor Gueshva, the one on the bed with the stomach wound... He recognized the symptoms they were already displaying. Whatever caused this... It involved a huge radiation burst of unknown origin. The two of them were outside when it happened, and only had the meager shielding of their suits. They were suffering from acute radiation sickness rather shortly. Dave... Decided to push past it and try to get to work raising some help – he and a few others of us started to pry what circuits were less damaged than the others and try to cobble something together. He almost managed to finish the Morse code buoy we tossed out the air lock before... Well, before his sickness progressed too much and we had to drag him from his work bench back here and hope to stabilize him until help arrive... Except, well..." He suddenly fell silent, looking down at the floor as his face visibly struggled with whatever guilt he carried.

---

The slow grind and creak of gears slowly made itself known to Alice as she worked, at first through the subtle vibrations that ran along her arms and legs, transmitting their vibrations without the aide of air. But, as the inner door slowly opened, and the flow of atmosphere briefly filled into her surroundings, more and more of the gruesome noise came to light as gears stored and transformed her power, putting it to work against the significant weight of the inner door. The door slowly giving way, but unfortunately refusing to lock into place if she stopped turning, making it a constant fight against the reactionary forces of the station's rotation to pry it open. And for that time, her gaze would be filled with the larger and larger openings of the door, allowing what light she carried on her to peer into the shadowed halls within.

Eventually the air lock door would click as its gears met their assigned notches, sinking in and locking the weight of the inner door into place until they were released. The lonesome darkness of the station's interior awaiting her approach, while the creaks and groans of the dead facility met her ears amidst the otherwise empty silence.

---

What sensors the Marines utilized would peer and discover a rather modest station, composed of two central hubs rotating around each other and connected by a thick cord of cables and wires, while dispersed over a few light seconds in an array pointed to the nearest foreign star sat the cadre of satellites designed to listen in on the burgeoning civilization - all lay as dead as the station they were slaved too. Around the larger of the two modules, the one designed to hold the scientists and crew, and to which was currently the location of much investigation, were two ships, each hovering nearby the only two air locks - arrayed at either end of the facility.

[Nova Atlantis]

And like that, it was as if all the puzzle pieces fell into place. Well, most of them anyway. The radiation burst had yet to be explained, but at least now Ria had a decent timeline of events to work with. And yet, he still felt unsettled. As if it was too perfect of a story. An unexplained interstellar phenomena that just conveniently bitchslapped the station---and yet there had been no recordings of any sort of phenomena or solar storm or whatever. And the people onboard seemed convinced something else was on the station. It could easily be chocked up to fear, but Ria was still suspicious. Not that he was going to press the situation or ask why Dave suddenly decided to take a walk outside instead of dying in sickbay; he wasn’t really sure how smart it would be to intellectually corner a frightened crew who greatly outnumbered him. Especially if he were wrong and they really were just grieving innocently.

Man, he’d be kind of a dick then.

Instead, Ria decided to take a more diplomatic course of action. He reactivated his communication link with Alice. “I’ve made contact with the crew. They seem shaken up and they’ve taken some casualties, but the rest seem intact. Best guess is some sort of event happened and showered the station with radiation. If you’re not already onboard, feel free to come aboard, we’ve likely got some work to do. We’re in the sickbay area”

Ria shut the link and turned back to the man, “Don’t worry, Alice is here to help, like I am” he glanced around at the room again, quickly changing the subject, “Do you have any idea how intact your systems are? I could try to hook my power supply up to yours, if there’s anything worth repairing. We might get something worthwhile out of the sensor logs, or you could signal home”

[Weyr]

"On my way," Alice replied, and bit back on all the new questions she wanted to ask, chief among them who and what he had found, and what sort of 'event' was involved. Distracting him with questions that would be answered in person soon enough, while he was dealing with what might be a messy situation, did not seem like a particularly good course of action.

She stepped into the station proper, cautiously sweeping her head-mounted lamp just in case someone was hiding in the dark passageway beyond. She was being stupid, Alice told herself; the airlock mechanism had been loud enough to wake the dead, and undoubtedly there was nothing more deadly aboard than a few frightened stationers. She took a few more steps, slightly unsteady on the up-curving deck, looking for some sort of sign as to the sickbay's direction. Something clanged behind her; Alice spun around, grabbing the first thing she touched on her belt, and found only an empty airlock.

Stupid, Alice thought furiously, clipping the wrench back to her belt. It was the damn airlock gears settling into place, or something else completely non-threatening. All perfectly normal sounds for a badly-built station. Besides, what would she have done had something dangerous turned up, besides throw a wrench at it and run?