OSaBC : The Bird of Hermes
Chapter Fourteen: Unpossible Possibility
A/N: MUCH credit to EnigmaticOne, who spent hours and hours gathering the RP notes up, typing them in, and cleaning up the grammar. Any mistakes are mine, not his.
"It strikes me that we still don't know why this happened. It's clear someone was feeding intel to Aloxius, and to Vandefar, and probably to Ashland-Eldfell. Someone wanted this found. The disturbing thing is who has that kind of access?"
"More to the point, we're finding indications that many of the people making hard calls that lead to this mess now have no idea of memory of why they thought it would be a good idea. The Omega Response people seem to think we - be that High Command, the HLOS, or humanity in toto - have been compromised."
"They may be right. But given what was at stake here, whoever was behind this wasn't interested in what happened among mere humans. We were an afterthought. That worries me more than anything."
-Admiral Branson personal remarks, Reports on the Magog Incident'
The 'supply base' appeared to be several large buildings next to a strip landing area. Four small in-system shuttles were sitting placidly – and not covered in blood or black spatter, for once – on the landing pad, with three huge sealed crates next to them. The crates bore the stamps "HERMES base supply" and "QUICKEN generator."
Another shuttle presented looked like it crashed, the nose crumpled. A mech of some kind, maybe a badly damaged LOKI, was visible through the cockpit, as well as a huge hole melted through the the cockpit and part of the side armor.
Two smaller buildings to the fallen shuttle's right had the labels "Warehouse A - Supplies" and "Warehouse B - JOTUN Storage." The larger building was marked "SECURE AREA: Supply Backup Operations Beta."
The pinnacle circled the area, and Matthew performed a very detailed scan, both visually and with sensors available without VI. No radiation, no weird black wool, no odd bloodstains...
...and no life signs.
"Looks safe enough, but on this fucking shit planet who knows?" Bright said, "There's some kind of scanner or something near the door to the main building. Not sure what the fuck that is."
"Looks are always deceiving on this planet. Can we detect anything in the buildings?" Kinnix asked.
"I can try, milord." Bright moved over to the co-pilot seat and once again hooked an omni-lead from his backpack to the console.
The sensor readings were unclear.
There were three offline power sources in the building labeled JOTUN, identifiable by ion emissions, probably batteries of some kind. There was something radioactive but probably shielded in the crates on the shuttle pad. The crashed shuttle showed data corruption; its VI probably was hacked. The damage was severe; the ground blackened around because someone torched it with a flamer or plasma grenade. It had no power signature or activity.
The main building was shielded from scans. The upper warehouse building returned not much of anything except metallic resonance. Crates, probably. As before, no signs of corruption or nanoinfection.
Sensors displayed no motion or activity for at least six miles. The only other thing of note happened to be the giant fuckass pit north of the base, but the ground itself seemed to be disrupting scans of what could be in - or below - that hole. It was more than a kilometer away, however.
Varian noticed something as they circled: absolutely no comm antennas or equipment. Georg saw that there were no power connections or weapons emplacements like at the other two bases. Matthew himself pointed out the other bases all had a radio beacon of some kind, while this one did not.
The AIS agent's expression was wry. "So, totally not going to turn into a replay of DOOM, if we get out here."
The general snorted, one hand on his axe. "Let's land to the west. But I don't trust their power supply. Take it slow and check your corners." Kinnix's voice was calm and collected, and the rest of the team nodded.
Matthew set the shuttle down to the west. The ground was rocky basalt, the forest in the distance looking more twisted than from above. The engine cut out smoothly as he opened the hatch.
Someone had used a burner to fuse walking paths around the shuttle pad. Stacked at the end were a knapsack and a pile of tools, along with several open and more empty bags of quickset plastcrete and armaplast powder. A padd leaned against the knapsack too, along with footprints made in the dust from a stock SA marine boot.
Kinnix looked this scene for several seconds, frowning and feeling as if he was being watched. He didn't like it, and turned to Bright.
"I don't trust any of that. Bright. Can you remotely access that padd with something that won't kill us or get hacked? Or did we not bring anything like that?" Kinnix asked.
"Not remotely." Bright replied. "Dangerous. I can check it out, though." He unslung his Sabre and walked forward, glancing around. A wind kicked up some thin plascrete dust, then fell back to stillness. He pulled out his contact rod and extended it, gingerly prodding the knapsack, pulling it open and down.
"...Field rations. A burner tool, probably to smooth the land, since this basalt shit is rough. Some spare O2 bottles." He lifted the rucksack. "...Two utility batteries and what looks like an omnitool, still sealed."
He bent down and tapped the padd. "...it's a checklist. Someone named Steve put this base together then staffed it. He left a note."
"It says: 'Captain Kinnix - base is set up per instructions. Had a bot coming in hot in a shuttle without clearance. The JOTUNS took it out, and I plasma'd the damn thing to be sure. Spare power gens are on the landing pad, and the rest of the stuff is stocked. I bricked the I/O on all three JOTUNS and slaved 'em to verbal command for you and not Ciana. I'm heading to the dig site to set up the turrets and motion sensors.'"
Bright frowned.
"Note continues: 'I don't like this, Captain. We've lost all contact with the other teams, and all the VI is fucking going crazy. I pulled down all the comms aerials, so if you send messages, well… now you know why I am not responding. I left some spare armaplast if you wanted to throw up defenses. But with the VI not trustworthy, I just left the rest of the turrets in the warehouse - dunno how to slave them to manual control, sorry.'
'The big data dump you got from the xenotech computer is in isolation in the main building on the quarantine reader; it should be safe, I used every lockdown protocol, and it's not like that shit is live code. Still. Be careful.'
'Bugging out to the dig site now. If I finish up there, I'll update this note. If this is the last thing I write, well, see you in hell, sir.' That's all that's on the padd, sir."
"...So we're likely going to need to thaw out the good captain to get anywhere here," Daniel grumbled. "Wonderful. What's the play, General?"
"...So we probably need to do a sweep and clear on the buildings before we thaw anybody out, flyboy." Georg corrected his junior. "In case of, y'know, creepy fuckass suits full of whatever the fuck that was at the last base, or if anything is on security lockdown."
"Since when do I fly shit?" Daniel protested.
"The two asari girls at Corast last week?"
"...Fair."
Varian chuckled. Bright looked a bit surprised. "...You and your knights are very, uh, informal. Sir. But yes, orders?"
"Levity is the lifeblood of the Defiant Axe, Bright." Daniel told him.
"Yeah. Someone build up some defenses around the shuttle. And then let's - as much as I hate this - split up. I'm gonna see if we can set up the JOTUNs." Kinnix ordered.
Georg and Daniel both possessed ordinary and combat engineering skills and enough material - just the stuff laying out - to fortify the entire freaking base. For good measure, they used the burner to create rubble and added omni-gel to for abatis.
The two metal crates appeared to be power generators - each one sufficient to power several turrets or the stasis capsules.
The command center door was code locked and buzzed angrily at an attempt to access it. "Access denied. AUTHORIZATION, KINNIX, MARCUS T."
The other two buildings are not locked. The south one was a repair station cradle, with several crates labeled "JOTUN: MK VI (replacement parts manifest D)," and three shutdown JOTUN mechs. The three were type C heavy assault JOTUNS, trading the omni-pod weapons arm for two rapid-fire hi-ex saturation launchers, and each one has its minigun replaced with a mounted asari plasma cannon of some kind.
General Kinnix brought the first JOTUN online. It powered up reluctantly.
"...Loading data manifest."
"...Loading completed."
"WARNING. This unit is set to restricted operations mode. Provide keyword override, or this unit will shut down in thirty seconds."
"Fuck." Kinnix rattled off his Lord of Sol override code, hoping it would work.
"...Processing."
"...WARNING. Unit has been set to isolated, restricted operations. Targeting parameters have been hard-coded to avoid targeting human profiles and to destroy anything else. All communications manifests are disabled. All programmed operation changes are disabled. Lord of Sol override accepted, but hard-coding prevents alteration of operational guidelines."
"Please provide operational stance: patrol, search and destroy, reactive targeting."
"Understood. Patrol the base." Kinnix ordered the mech.
"...Huh. That actually worked." Daniel marveled as the JOTUN trooped off. The other two bots went through the same process, the patrol route they took following the pathway cleared by the burner.
The north building, shockingly, was a warehouse. Two big crates chock full of supplies (O2, water, nitrogen, life-support equipment, rations, medical supplies, blood packs, medigel, and at least a dozen suits of Onyx armor). Of six smaller crates, the first held armaplast powder, four contained heavy minigun and light ATM turrets, respectively.
The last contained what appeared to be tablets, made of the same black basalt as the ground, four in total. All the items appeared to be safe without signs of weirdness, though.
...Except for the four packages of SA coffee that Georg threw into the trash.
"Kinnix, mind if I steal one of your stompers to check some of this stuff?" Varian requested. "It is probably inert, but I would rather not take risks."
General Kinnix shook his head. "The command center is code locked, and the JOTUNs are locked to certain options. Let's slot the pods into the place where the JOTUNs were. We'll pop the second pod to see if the occupant is okay. If she is, then we can open up my son's."
The pods moved quickly. But as it turned out, however, the warehouse wasn't connected to the power supply. It took a good fifteen minutes to uncrate and set up the two power supply systems from the shuttle pad after checking them.
Once done, they connected the second pod. The pod hummed, and the status panel blinked.
"LOADING DEREZ COMMAND LIST. LIFE SIGNS: NOMINAL. DETAILED ANOMALY SCAN: CLEAR. NANOSCAN: CLEAR. DISEASE SCAN: CLEAR."
"...Derez complete. Stasis module spindown commencing."
"...Nominal. Beginning resuscitation process."
Eventually…
"...Process complete. Powering down."
The pod darkened. The door slid out, then up, revealing a handsome looking woman in her late 30s, wearing the HERMES modified black SA fatigues with a lieutenant's tabs and carrying a cutdown Evisorator shotgun in a harness next to her.
"...Oh God. My head." She groaned, slowly sitting up, coughing a bit, then sliding out of the pod to stand shakily.
Kinnix caught her arm to steady her, and she jerked in his massive grasp. His voice was cool but friendly. "Lass. Take it easy." Kinnix cautioned her. "And don't grab your gun. Let's not shoot each other to death before my son wakes."
She blinked and glanced around, and then up - and up and up - to the towering figure of Lord General Kinnix, flanked by knights and an AIS agent, and went as pale as a sheet.
"Uh..." She stiffened, visibly digging deep for some kind of grit or stability, and came to attention with a salute. "Lieutenant Mira Jackson, HERMES security officer, Lord General, sir. Could I ask what in the fuck is going on… milord, sir?"
"Can the milord bullshit," Kinnix told her. "This hellhole doesn't warrant it. You went into stasis. I broke, oh, a dozen rules and regulations to bullshit a way to get here and save my son. And well, picked you up too."
Mira blinked in a fashion that indicated she wasn't even slightly aware of what the fuck was going on.
Agent Varian spoke to Kinnix over a closed band. "Have you ever heard of tact, sir?"
Mira exhaled. "...Like father, like son… I think. Sir, the last thing I remember is Ma... Captain Kinnix apologizing to me before someone knocked me in the back of the head."
"...Remind me to apologize to Aurelius for calling him uncultured, milord." Georg stated, turning to the girl.
"Ah, ma'am. We're operating in a bit of an information vacuum here. This planet is omni-fucked; there are balls of wool and corpse monsters and planets with eyes and whatever the fucking else wrong going on, your entire unit except for you, Marcus - whatever the hell he's calling himself now - is dead, and the High Lords are sending an expedition to wipe this place flat. Not to be rude, Lieutenant, but we need some hard data as to what in the unholy fucking fuck is going on here."
"To be honest? I don't even know." Mira told him. "We came down hot when we got a transmission from one of the team leads from the first team. Said there was Yrthongi on the planet. At that point, the captain wanted to scrub the mission and call in some other group, but Doctor Vandefar overrode him."
"We came down at Alpha Base and deployed and... things overran the base. Big meaty things made of corpses. You could shoot them and didn't do shit. You had to blow them up, cut them up, or use flechette rounds. We lost the master chief and the LtC, and then Bobby - the top kick after the master chief - hotwired the JOTUNS and got them fighting."
"We pulled back in the GRIZLIs to Fallback Alpha, and Vandefar and the Captain talked to the people there. Vandefar took off with Squad Alpha. Squad Beta went to secure the forward post, and then the captain started talking with someone on the radio."
She sighed. "...And then we moved to our landing site and started prepping for evac, but the shuttles got shot down, and things came out of the ground, big worm things miles long, and FLEW up and ate our goddamned ship."
"...That sounds disturbingly like that thing we saw on the flight in, General." Daniel whispered to his lord.
"All I know is when Vandefar came back, she said she'd found the primary dig, and we needed to secure it, but squad alpha was mostly dead. Two she sent on down to the fallback Alpha Base." Mira went on. "In stasis."
She paused. "Then they started doing this shit with the data, and all of a sudden Vandefar says she gets it." Mira looked up. "Look, this is going to sound... crazy. But she started singing, and I fell unconscious and so did, I guess, everyone else. Gunny Morrison woke us up, but then those things with black fur attacked, and he got hurt. The captain was trying to communicate with someone, but I don't know who - and Doctor Yang was hurt too - and turning into a vomit zombie."
"Then they discussed something else with whoever was at the south base, some chief, and then... well, somebody hit me in the back of the head. Not the best SITREP, but I wasn't told anything." Mira finished bitterly. "The captain has been... distant."
"Well. Let's see if we can fix that." Kinnix announced. "You combat effective, soldier?"
"... I don't know, sir," Mira told him. "My armor is gone. I don't know where it is. I got a shotgun, but that didn't do fucking jack shit against those things. And I used up all my grenades earlier."
"Okay. Once we wake my son up - depending on him - you and he are going to our ship after he lets me unlock the door. There are spare suits of armor and life support in the warehouse here. And you'll act as rear guard for my pilot. Okay?"
"Yes, sir." Mira muttered something sarcastic under her breath regarding Marcus, though, as Georg steered her to the armor.
Kinnix turned back to Marcus' pod. "Now, let's pop my son outa the freezer."
The process went identically, as Mira armored with help from Georg.
His son was dressed nearly identically to Mira, except clutching a canister similar to Doctor Yang's.
"Morning, son. Sleep well?"
Thomas Marcus Kinnix sat up slowly, blinking, and then stared at his father's face. "...I thought you weren't supposed to have dreams in Stasis." Then he glanced at the canister. "Meh. I don't even want to know why the fuck you're here, dad. Didn't you get my message that the haft was rotten?"
"No. I didn't." Jason told his boy. "I forced Vandifar to give me intel. Told Ahern some bullshit. And probably broke every rule in the SA. And the month isn't over yet."
"...Well, that's just fucking great." Marcus glanced around. "Where's Mira?"
"...I'm here. Captain." The ice in her voice made him wince.
"...Alright." The younger Kinnix stood slowly and unsteadily. "There had better be some spare armor and life support paks, or I'm gonna strangle Steve."
"And before anyone asks, no. There is no beer." Daniel chipped in.
"There is scotch back in the shuttle, though. I might even share some." Varian mentioned.
Marcus stared. "AIS guy, there's not enough scotch in the galaxy to fix this shit." He exhaled. "Dad, we gotta talk. This is bad."
"There is. Steve, not so much." Jason explained. "He said he was headed to the dig site. You're getting armor on, grabbing life support, and going back with Mira into our ship while we grab the rest of what we need from this shithole and leave. You give me the code, and then you and Mira will be alone with my pilot. Who probably won't say much. Prime time for you two to work out whatever fucking issues you two have because you might need to save each others' asses, and right now, I can't trust either of you to operate."
"...Sorry, can't do that." Marcus stared back defiantly.
"I'm sorry. Did you just tell me no? Who is rescuing who?" Jason frowned.
"If Steve didn't make it back, I have to do this on my own. And..." Marcus smiled sadly. "You should take Mira and get the fuck outta here, dad. This is way bigger than a dig gone wrong or some shady R&D fuckup.
He glanced around and frowned. "There should be four, um, rock tablets somewhere in here. Please, god, say you found them."
"Not a chance I'm letting you run off by yourself." Jason refused his son's attempt at martyrdom. "I'll lure the other fuckups showing up after that the others are sending after us. They can handle it. And we found those, didn't touch them."
"Good. I need those. I'll put on some armor, and then we'll go into the building across from here where I have the data dump, I hope. And dad? Anyone being sent after us literally doesn't fucking matter. What is down here? The shit we're seeing is just it beginning to wake the fuck up. I don't give a shit if they sent goddamned everyone from Ahern to the Master Chief from HALO, nothing we have in our entire arsenal is even going to dent this shit."
He turned away as Georg handed him the next set of Onyx armor pieces.
Fifteen minutes later, everyone stood in the main building. There was a stock Eldfell/Ngubane quantum mainframe, several beds, two racks of extremely illegal smuggled asari plasma rifles and a half dozen lance cannons, a box of plasma grenades, and a haptic map table.
Mira followed Georg listlessly as Marcus moved to the computer and inserted his omnitool.
"The fuck?! where'd you guys pull asari guns from?" Daniel exclaimed.
Marcus smiled. "You'd be surprised what R&D can get its hands on. "After the first time a dig site went to shit at Avara, I invested in a bugout kit. Computer: engage decrypt, authorization Kinnix, Marcus M, code 49482-Delta-Sierra."
"Oh, god, Avara. Half the fucking unit died. Fucking Inusannon bullshit." Mira muttered.
Varian helped himself to a few belts of grenades and the sniper rifle, which gave him an excellent excuse to be behind Marcus while he checked them over. Just in case, some common sense needed to be enforced. Despite her expression, Varian observed that Mira subtly put herself at Marcus's back so that he had no unobstructed angle.
Marcus picked up one of the tablets, put it on a scanning tray, then turned to face his father. "Alright, dad. so that I don't waste time - what do you already know?"
The general explained everything that happened since they left for the Jeremiah system.
"Well, fuck." Marcus remarked. "You came in hot and blind, great. Alright. Short version."
The general helped himself to extra grenades and a lance cannon as he listened to his son. Daniel picked up a Spear of Athame rifle and strapped it to his back after racking it and checking the sights.
"We found an Ashland mining base here - on the ground, instead of around the gas giant. Records indicated that somebody in Alliance mapping sent them here, but we couldn't backtrack it. We landed the first team under Yang. He lost contact, send a distress beacon. We show up, do a hot drop with the other research team. We basically lose our fucking ass off, but Yang and Vandefar finish the dig at the first anomaly site."
"Skipping a bunch of bullshit that doesn't matter..." Marcus' gaze tightened. "This entire system is a trap, dad. It was built, we think, by some unimaginably powerful and ancient race, to imprison a species of criminals and monsters."
"And it was also set to, we think, see what happens when those things get interacted with - to make some kind of hybrids or some shit they could use and mass produce. Keep in mind this is all guesswork."
"So there are prisoners and prison guards - the black things. But someone tried to do a jailbreak, and it went bad. From there, we aren't sure WHAT happened, but the place was shut down until someone turned it back on and lured the Ashland teams here. We found what we think are the remains of a Prothean tech team in our first site, and they'd managed to figure out what was happening."
The computer's chimes interrupted him.
"Computer, display map graphic projection alpha."
The haptic table lit up and glowed, showing the Jeremiah system. Rho-19 itself and the gas giant were colored blue. The other planets were red and labeled 'anomalous.'
"Prothean? Here?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah. The system's already been triggered. not sure how or who, but it has. The Protheans were here looking for some kind of superweapon, something to fight what they called 'Harvest-masters,' as best we could translate. They woke up the prisoners and died, but the leader recorded a bunch of stuff they found."
"...We found what was called a 'Key,' a method to communicate with the prisoners. The notes we had seemed to indicate that the prisoners could be communicated with. The team leads wanted to pursue this, to try to talk to them. I disagreed. I tried to get Admiral Vandefar to scrub the mission, but instead, she gave her niece, Doctor Ciana, override authorization."
"Of course she did... greedy bitch." Jason figured.
"And shortly after she came back and then left in a hurry, we got attacked. And lost most of our unit. Ciana... did something to the damned kill switches. She shut them off and then cut out or ripped out some of them. She blew up our main pinnace, scrambled the VI on our other shuttles, and did a big burst transmit in the open to our orbiting ship. That set off the defense systems of this place, which took out our ship."
Marcus sighed deeply.
"At this point, our sensors started reporting Ciana was... infected. So were Yang and most of the few survivors. I sent back two men who were only barely infected to the south base when Chief Altis said she had reinforcements on the comm."
"I... I figured things were fucked, dad. So I did what I could. I had Altis transmit orders authorizing them to sterilize the planet with kyle torpedoes, then had Steve set this up. He put me and Mira and our last soldier in stasis and dumped all the information we found here, including the translations of whatever Ciana had."
"Then he was going to seal the place up with M/AM charges while the Decca blew the shit out of the surface. We'd have them send a shuttle down and use the shuttles here to cover our escape. Then the commander of the Decca wanted us to transmit the data to them. I refused."
"I was using a radio repeater beacon since the black things home in on radio, but the Decca didn't know that. When I said I wasn't at the same location as the data… they launched a M/AM torp at my beacon and sent four shuttles of troopers down."
"Um... what?" Daniel flatly goggled.
"Steve was putting Mira and me under when that happened - he said a big worm with mouths ate the shuttles, then the planet started firing at the Decca. I told him to blow the M/AM charges, and if not, well, I'd rather not be around to die slowly. I was expecting Steve, if he made it back, to wake us up."
"I couldn't go myself or send Mira because we still have our killswitches, and Ciana has the codes to turn them back on... but Steve wasn't fitted for one since he wasn't supposed to go planetside. In stasis, a kill signal wouldn't trigger the devices. And well, I figured she would."
"But now Steve is probably dead. The data core is here, along with the stuff on how to use it. I'm tempted just to wipe the data and leave, but we have to seal that dig, or whoever the fuck else is coming will go down there."
"There's… one more thing." Marcus glanced guiltily at Mira. "Haven't told you this either. Sorry. Without the full translation, I couldn't parse most of the data. I don't know how Ciana did or what it did to her. But if I understood the part I could translate correctly, the weird system shit - the orbits, all of that - is part of a lock."
"It's unlocking. We need to get to the control station and stop it, and we can't wipe the data until we're sure we've stopped it… or the shit on this planet will get out. If it gets out, Dad, you know what that means. There are no serious military units in this part of the galaxy; they'll hit the main trade lanes in days. That's why the Protheans died, I think."
"Goddamnit... this was a simple pickup mission." General Kinnix uttered frustratedly. "What's the strength of the enemies at the dig site?"
"I don't know for sure. Ciana is working with them, though." Marcus added with more certainty. "If the data we have is accurate, there are tens of thousands of those things."
"God. Fucking. Damnit. We need to get the fuck out of here. As much as I dislike it, we can't stand against ten thousand of those things." The general announced.
Marcus looked at his father incredulously. "Just leave and not try to stop it? Dad. Vandefar is gonna send in more of her own people. She's going to want this tech, you of all people, know her well enough to know that. And Ache Lamao is not careful. The more people that get exposed to this, the more likely it is to go tits up - or worse, bring in the Council. I'm already familiar with what happened...and it's partially my fault, for not being cautious. You take Mira and get the data and get the hell out of here."
"Don't even start, Junior. We don't have the firepower, and then she'll get this shit anyway." Daniel warned him.
"I can't just leave. Have you seen these fucking things, what they do to people?" Marcus protested.
"Yes, I have, Captain," Bright answered grimly. "I found the Decca, and it was bad. I guess I better send up one last beacon then."
"...Not to interrupt the testosterone party here, but," Mira interjected, "I saw those things walk-off hits by a fucking plasma mortar. How in the hell do we fight them?"
"We don't fight them! We sneak in and do it. There should be charges. The boy has one." Jason told her.
"General, shut up." Varian retorted. "With this 'we' nonsense. You are not stealthy, and you will not be sneaking."
Bright fiddled with something in his backpack. "...General, we have another problem. I left up a telemetry drone, up in orbit, from the Decca. It's detecting an incoming FTL wake. Dreadnaught sized. Don't have a good ETA yet, but it can't be far out."
"...Well. That's not exactly reassuring. General, I have a suggestion to make." Georg turned to Marcus. "So, why do we need to keep this data intact again? So we can figure out what to do?"
"Yeah," Marcus replied. "I need to translate the rest to locate this command center and the commands to turn things off. After that, wipe the shit for all I care."
"We have another part of the data," Jason mentioned. "Would that help?"
"You do? That would help a lot." Marcus looked more relieved.
After continued arguing, the group settled on Plan Ignorant as Fuck: decrypt the data, go in, shut down the command center. Then blow up the entrance, delete all data and smash the tablets. Finally, flee and hope the SA didn't catch them.
The team finished equipping. Georg checked the edge of his power axe while Bright swapped ammo blocks on his Sabre. Daniel ran his SDI Impactor through battle configuration, then shipped it, repeating the process with his new Spear rifle, followed by his omni-shield and Talons. Varian geared up with a silly amount of grenades.
Mira stared bitterly at Marcus, working on the mainframe.
"Alright." Marcus typed out a few more commands. "I've got a copy of the data, and 3D images from all angles of the tablets burned to read-only OSDs." He ejected three of them from the console. Marcus kept one, handed to his father, and after a moment, gave the last to Agent Varian.
"If I am getting all of this correctly, the security at where we're headed should be fairly light. But we won't have much time before alarms get going. Whatever happens, the data is probably important to have. If we all go down in a pile of fuck… we might need to make sure someone gets away with a copy."
"At the same time, I don't trust the SA with this shit, or at least not Admiral Vandefar. She sent her own goddamned niece here to die, for fuck's sake. But all the other few contacts I have out of here are, um. Suspect. There's an asari researcher on Noveria, though, that I trust."
Mira scoffed. "...Really? HER?" Then she repeated in mimicry of Marcus' voice, "Mira, for the last goddamned time, nothing happened. Mira, I'm not sleeping with her. Mira, I'm not involved, but hey, here's another excuse to bring her up."
Marcus dismissed her tirade with a "...Whatever," focusing on his father. "I still wish you'd just take the copy and skedaddle, dad."
"I've got a contact. Admiral Ahern told me about him. If he trusts him... I guess I do too. So I've got sort of a half-ass plan on how we pull this off – assuming we survive going wherever we're about to go. I'm not leaving you, kid." General Jason Kinnix doggedly informed his son.
"Christ, you're even dumber than Mom." Marcus sighed. "Georg, can't you knock him out and drag him off for his own safety?"
"No brain, milord. Won't do nothing." The knight glared. "That applies to both of you, by the way." Georg slotted an ammo block and slammed the catch shut. "We're ready when you are, General. Let's go axe some questions."
Marcus sighed more deeply and held out his hand. "Spare axe, please. Mine got eaten killing one of those things." He grinned as Georg handed him a heavy axe from his back, the haft extending out and the omni-edge blade snapping into place.
"...Okay." Bright rejoined them. "Beacon is off. I'm comming Sara now. I'd really prefer it if we could pick her up on our way out if we survive. She's a loose end, and you can just guess how Admiral Vandefar is likely to deal with those. And her ship is fucked up."
"No offense, Bright, but we may have to burn our way out damn quick." Daniel said.
"I get that. I also get that she didn't ask for any of this shit and is only here because she's trying to make sure I have a way off the planet, and now because of that, her FTL is out." Bright retorted.
"But we can make an exception." Jason intervened. "Her father, he has some power. Wouldn't be bad to have him owe us a favor."
"You know Alec? Figures." Bright rolled his neck. "Anyway… what is left?"
"I'm setting this power generator to overload once we leave," Marcus said. "Unless you think we will need to fall back here?"
Moments later, Matthew reported massive energy discharges on the sensors, towards the east, where all the weird shit was happening. A second later, the building trembled, dust drifting down and making most of the team stumble a bit.
Matthew's voice came across the short-rang comm, "General, sensors are picking up something massive erupting from the ground and more energy discharges. Doesn't look good."
"We are doing this and bailing. No way I'm staying with something like that trying to kill us." Kinnix put his foot down.
"Got it. I can't wipe the mainframe, so we have to blow it. The generator overload should do it, but anyone got a det charge too?" Marcus pondered.
"No. But, the explosion from this place will probably distract 'em for a bit. Maybe long enough to finish up and GTFO." Daniel figured.
"That sounds like we would be lucky, and I haven't had any luck on this planet since I got here." Marcus replied.
Mira snorted. Marcus winced. "...I'll just shut up now."
"Yes, you really should." Varian and Daniel told him in unison.
Outside, the sky to the east glowed lurid purple as heavy storm clouds rotated slowly over whatever lit up the horizon. Blinding flashes of green energy erupted upwards while torrents of glowing triangular plasma-trails smashed into the ground. For the first time, a stiff wind blew in the direction of the mess.
As the clouds parted, the group stopped in their tracks in stunned horror.
A monster burst free from the earth. Though dozens or even a hundred kilometers away, it moved upwards, its bulk so vast as to defy clear understanding. Five spars of bonelike material with the girth of a starscraper tore furrows of earth skyward, supporting a vast bulk the size of a space station.
Glinting dots of red and swarms of spinning circles surrounded it, while nineteen wings made of fire erupted out, each one a mile or longer. A maw that they could see even at that great distance opened, and the thing roared, the shout powerful enough to push back the storms overhead in a wide circle.
The noise it made caused everyone's knees to weaken, and stomachs clench, an old, atavistic fear at the back of human minds - some holdover from primitive lizards - urged them to flee.
But Kinnix's aura of authority kept everyone together. "Why does it always have to be spider things... why can't it be a snake for once?"
Varian scowled at his friend. "Kinnix, don't say things like that. They listen."
As the team turned to get in the ship, they heard another sound, one even worse. It was the scream of a million damned souls on fire, the sound of a mountain of bones, and the crackle of forgotten, rotted sinews snapping in a dire rhythm.
A vast worm of wriggling, shifting surfaces burst from the ground, encircled the huge black nightmare thing on the horizon. Those with cybernetic eyes realized a second later, thanks to magnification, that the second monster was nothing but moving, writhing corpses.
"Oh yay. A snake. Just what I wanted." Jason's deadpan remark went unnoticed, as strange glyphs lit up on the corpse-snake's flanks, forcing everyone to look away, with sick green afterimages in their vision.
"Fuck! Don't look at those, Dad. Goddamned cognitohazards!" Marcus' voice had a rising edge of panic in it.
Matthew screamed for them to get on board. "Move your lazy asses over here before I start shooting at your feet, for Pete's sake!"
The team stumbled on board, the shuttle lifting off, as the black thing extended something like arms, and flaming sword-like bursts of pure energy appeared in each 'hand.'
From above, Team Kinnix could see the entire planet had gone mad. To the south, the mountains were now moving slowly. The piles of corpses in the west rose, like sluggish tides, with millions of figures tearing out of the mass and running east. The magnetosphere of the planet had collapsed, lightning lashing the sky in a crazed cascade, as aurora borealis shimmered into view across the entire span of the visible sky.
After a moment, Mira lifted a shaking hand to the upper part of the cockpit windows. In the vault of heaven above, three of the other planets in the system now had exposed vast eyes, dozens of them.
Georg retained the calm of a veteran. "Keep it together, people. We're in shithell central, but so far, it hasn't noticed us. Okay, kid. This dig site we're going into. How is the terrain around it?"
"...Mostly mud and fucked up trees. There's a... a place where we ran into those things. Lobbed a lot of plasma. Mostly flat, near the entrance, would be good to land there, I think." Marcus answered.
The trip to the dig site only took five minutes, but the events on the planet made it a teeth-grinding experience. Several times the planet's crust cracked, foul grey-green blasts of light erupting from something below, and swarms of black-furred monsters erupted into view from sickly-looking watery … portals, leaping en masse into the cracks. The lightning blazing across the sky had gone a deep purplish-white, and was bright enough to be blinding, lashing the ship with winds that buffetted it from side to side.
It was with a shaky sigh of relief that gte shuttle arrived at the dig site five minutes later, in front of the vast open pit, itself surrounded by the detritus of what appeared to be Ashland asteroid terrain was blackened just south of it, with the broken forms of nearly a dozen bodies scattered across it.
Marcus closed his eyes while Mira angrily stared and gripped her rifle.
The trees on the ridgeline were twisted, with gray bark split here and there with glowing ropy tentacles of blue, the 'leaves' all looking like bulbous pods filled with something deeply unhealthy looking blue-purple, like a bruise. Small bushes with branches like grasping spider-legs twitched in an unseen wind, moving erratically.
As the pinnace touched down neatly, they saw four splotches of black bubbling mess near the bodies, as well as a single long, faintly glowing rod or stick of some crystalline material.
The younger Kinnix sighed. "Fuck me."
Mira gave him a withering look. "Those were our people down there, and that's all you have to say?"
Matthew's voice was dry as he finished landing. "Does it really surprise you the Kinnix family uses that phrase for a wide variety of reactions and sins?"
Marcus scowled at the pilot. "And you're as pure as the driven snow, Matt?"
"Marcus, as much as I'm relieved to see you alive when this is all over, you will be properly admonished about your bloodline's tendencies." Matthew told him.
"Wait, didn't you go on a tear with the asari back when I was a kid?" Marcus asked with the air of the young calling out an elder's hypocrisies.
"Don't you sass me now, young man."
Mira slowly turned to Varian. "...Are they all like this?"
"Sometimes. You really don't want to be around when they are serious. On a related note..." Varian gestured around.
The terrain around the shuttle exit was muddy, smeared with blood and viscera here and there. They counted nine dead Marines and most likely two researchers or techs. Seven of the marines were torn to pieces, and all of them still clutched weapons, most with blank ammo blocks.
Though almost untouched, the techs showed black carbon-scales and eruptions of black bonelike spikes.
Bright kneeled some distance from the bodies. "Fuck, these guys went out hard. Looks like they used plasma and explosives. Conventional weapons didn't do shit, I think." He tapped one body with his remote stick and shook his head. "The marines aren't corrupted, unlike the techs. Marcus, Mira, what went down here?"
"What we know is what Ciana was telling us. We weren't here." Mira repeated. "But that was Major Dasan..."
She pointed at the most torn up of the marines, half-entangled with two blotches of bubbling mess, missing an arm, half his face, and with at least five or six-inch-wide holes blasted cleanly through him. The man must have been even taller than Bright.
"...General. You should look at this." Bright was now standing by a boulder. An SA-pattern scout motorbike (lightweight and used by forward scout-snipers and RIU teams) was half-hidden behind it. On the ground next to him was a human body, dressed in an enviro suit, and an SA-pattern combat knife stuck in his back.
"There are footprints from some kind of heavy boot imprint here. Like an EXCURSION or ENCOUNTER suit. The prints lead into the dig site."
"...Oh God, Steve." Marcus gasped.
Mira glared at Marcus. "Steve wasn't a combatant. You could have sent me instead of the goddamned civilian engineer, you know. Then he might be alive."
"...You don't know enough infowar to do what was needed," Marcus replied before looking up at her. "And I wouldn't have sent you anyway."
"No one would have done better," Jason told the two. "If it's what I think it is, it survived an antimatter charge and is still moving. We can still put her down. Just. We might need some luck."
"...Maybe not." Bright examined the corpse. "Lividity on this guy, from what I can see, is hours old." He used the small stick to open the backpack on the bike and frowned.
"And there are six M/AM charges in here. I don't think your guy ever got inside, and she took him out before we even hit the planet. Guessing she didn't know where you hid those tablet things and didn't or couldn't make Yang let you out, so she was waiting at that base."
"Well. Now we have our charges." General Kinnix tried to look at the silver lining.
Jeff Bright stood. "No offense, General, but I'd better take point. My reaction times are better, and I have... advantages."
Jason agreed. "You're better suited for it."
"Marcus, should we take care of the remains of your colleagues?" Matthew asked. "This planet doesn't seem to understand the concept of staying dead."
"Only if it's safe," Marcus replied. "I can handle that." Daniel promised, incinerating all the corpses with Warp safely.
Bright took charge now. "AIS guy, rear guard, cover us. General, front behind me, everyone else in a loose firing line behind him. Don't wait; if something moves, kill it."
"Pilot should probably stay in the shuttle, but it's his call."
"If you are all dying, me staying in the shuttle won't do us any good. I'm also the one with the most first-aid training here, so no arguing there. I have babysat Kinnix here for more years than I care to count, and I won't stop with it now." Matthew dug in his heels.
Bright shrugged and didn't argue further. The path leading to the dig site was mostly mud, but about eighty feet from the entrance, they found a metal path laid in the ground.
Further on, an armaplast bunker sank, shattered to one side, the security door torn from its hinges and liberally splattered with blood. In Bright's judgment, something tore it out and used it to beat someone to death, the corpse inside the bunker so defiled and torn he couldn't even be sure it was human.
A few feet further on, a pile of twisted limbs and flesh and mouths littered the wayside, all gray hued, neatly cut into chunks by some kind of plasma blade. None of the parts looked human, the hands three-fingered, ending in what looked like lamprey mouths, and lined with needle-like teeth. Bright knelt and used another extensible probe to sample the ruined things, then shook his head as he stood and actually tossed the probe away.
"...General, I don't know what these things are, but they have some kind of fucked up chemical basis, more like silicon than carbon. Unlike the black things, I'm not picking up any nano crap." Bright said after a scan. "But they are... well, they're dead. Sort of. I don't think we should get too close to them either."
"Maybe they were the last guys to come here." Jason suggested.
Mira tilted her head. "They got their shit pushed in pretty hard, milord. Then someone went to the trouble of putting the shit in a neat pile. That's a bent fucking mind right there, you ask me."
The tunnel mouth soon reached overhead, blocking out the increasingly deranged looking sky. Eezo-glow lights now accompanied the metal path. The tunnel walls suddenly shifted from the rough-hewn texture of asteroid drills to utterly mirror-polished smooth and fused rock, and the path changed to a metal grate walkway with more lights set into it.
They saw a hyperweave banner in black and gold with the HERMES symbol on it - set to one side upon the walkway. And three more Marine bodies.
Two were just bisected, one slice, top to bottom. Both had looks of horror and shock on their faces, wearing heavy armor with Silaris inserts, and carried Sabre rifles. All of which were cut in half with the same blow.
The third body was another twisted thing of gray flesh, with three misshapen legs (and mouths on the kneecaps), a split torso that merged to form a trio of mouths with eyestalks, and four lanky arms with the same three-fingered mouth hands.
Something had beaten it to death before cutting all the heads off, leaving a bonelike sword or blade stuck into the body.
The blade extended about four feet long, the handle another foot long, and curved. What looked like an eyeball was set into the pommel, but a closer look revealed it to be decorative.
Bright's scans showed him the blade has a mono-atomic edge, somehow. ".Anything carrying a blade like that, kill it quickly. Our armor wouldn't even slow that shit down."
Seeing something, he bent down and pulled out a pair of forceps with an extender, using it to lift a fragment of dark, bloodstained cloth. "Human blood, but fucked up. It's got two different kinds of nanoshit in it. One is that crap the wool things have, the other is like little white diamonds, and they're emitting very weak sonic harmonics. This fabric is from an ENCOUNTER suit, milord.
Bright stood, paused to load a plasma grenade into his UB launcher, then smiled weakly behind his mask's faceplate. Daniel loaded a BLACKBLAST grenade into his Spear's launcher as well.
Two more minutes of walking led to an area lit by floodlights, hooked to a still-running generator. Pallets of supplies, some opened, flanked a portable refresher installation. A part of the tunnel was burned clear with six sleeping bags and a space heater in their place.
The tunnel suddenly ended in a vast wall of greenish-black metal, the middle pierced by a hexagonal doorway framed in intricate hammered silver glyphs resembling the ones on the tablets.
Slumped against the wall next to the door was another Marine, his helmet shattered, dried blood and bits of flesh spilled down his chest, torn open, broken ribs and clawed-up lungs just flung carelessly to the ground next to him.
Shreds of bloody yellow fabric scattered about the body, a filthy mass of human skin and bits of an ENCOUNTER suit and blood speckled with black dots just a few feet away, along with another of those bone blades, this one with bloody handprints on the handle.
Marcus knelt – at a safe distance – and looked closely. "Fuck, this is the Major of Marines, Danny Polos. He was supposed to be on the goddamned Decca. The fuck is he doing HERE?"
"Fuck." Jason agreed. "Looks like he went down hard..."
Marcus glanced around. "...Not hard enough."
"No. But he gave his life for a reason. Let's not have that reason be in vain."
"I hesitate to give him the benefit of the doubt, General. From what we've seen so far, I'm not convinced anyone on the Decca was on the side of the angels." Daniel demurred.
Bright knelt and poked around with his stick. "Huh. Yeah, the area is too messed up. Footprints smeared everywhere. But that bone has cuts on it, I think. Also, homes here is definitely infected."
A ginger poke caused a piece of the armor to fall away, revealing black-carbon scales inside the body. "Best guess? Our friend here tried to stop Vandefar and got his shit rekt, but… mm. Time of death - assuming that this infection doesn't mess up lividity - seems to be BEFORE Steve and the marines up early bought it."
Marcus examined the door, then his paper copy of the tablets. "...Oohhh. Smart." He stood up and then carefully touched four spots on the door frame.
With a shuddering sound and a sort of groan from the metal, it evaporated, the door falling apart into a scrambling mass of tiny green things washing over the door frame and covering the glyphs. A moment later, the doorway was clear, revealing the inside of the corridor beyond.
Matthew produced a mine out of his Bulwark system. "Tell me when I can place the next mine."
"Okay, Marcus, what the fuck was that?!" Daniel demanded.
"This place is full of traps," Marcus explained. "The markers give you the things to bypass them. If you try anything else, the door turns into a security system and attacks you. I think."
"You think?" Mira echoed.
"...And you were gonna mention that, when?!" Daniel scowled.
"Meh. Be glad I didn't use an axe." Marcus smirked.
Daniel facepalmed.
Bright gently shouldered past Marcus and flicked on his rifle's IR light.
The corridor was made of the same greenish-black metal. It had an almost slippery feel under the team's boots like it was greasy. The floors were done in hexagonal tiles with irregular edges and lengths that made eyes blur if stared at for too long. Countersunk reliefs were deeply etched into two bands in the smooth walls, at about eye height - for a fucking Thermopylae mech. The ceiling measured fifteen meters up.
The reliefs were highly stylized and hard to follow—first leaf-shaped things with beams of... something and then a mass of crystals. Further down, the reliefs showed the crystals and the leaf-things tearing apart galaxies, accompanied by strange images looking like chemical formulas.
Mira, Matthew, and Varian received slight headaches from looking at this, the rest seemed unaffected.
The corridor ran for almost a half kilometer, the story on the reliefs getting more and more incoherent.
Galaxies used as weapons, entire races bred as weapons, and finally, at the end, what looked like a bunch of non-Euclidean shapes and fire seeming to engulf - they were looking at this correctly- tens of thousands of galaxies.
The corridor came to a halt with another door frame, with four glyphs in hammered silver. A pair of statues made of the same metal flanked it.
They looked similar to the black wool things, only neater. The limbs were straight and smooth, the mouths symmetrical, the eyes in an inverted V, the fur neatly slicked down, and the horns looked more like arches orbiting at precise angles.
The three with headaches found theirs suddenly vanishing in proximity to the statues. Marcus began examining the door closely, actually sitting down on the floor to pull out notes on his omnitool.
Varian noticed belatedly that the statues had one part not made of green metal - each held another red crystal rod - longer than the ones outside tipped at the end with a glistening black spike.
"Oh god, I hope I don't fuck this up." Marcus gingerly touched two glyphs in order, then a third. All three glowed gold for a second, and then the statues moved, causing the general to lift his lance cannon at one of the statues.
"...Thrakth ghas?" The leftmost statue almost sluggishly moved to the door and tapped it once with the rod. The door fell to pieces, the green material moving up the rod and merging with the statue. The statue then returned to its original position.
"...Morthis glah direha Lethath, kaana saigk."
"I assume you can't tell them to help us. Can you?" Jason inquired of his son.
"...Maybe?" Marcus sheepishly tried. "Uh… g-g... Gralth vas dieka? Dirik?"
Somehow, everyone could tell the statue was just giving him a look, with a tone of amusement decipherable, despite being alien and monstrous. "...Valak urus."
It gave an abortive gesture back the way they came, then the statue's mouths opened, and a soft hissing sound came in series.
"Yaht akdka Ythrongi-ka, ile-ka Kidun."
The thing mimed a gesture of rippling and flaring its horns.
"...Bu... mmm. Kalak? Valak Kalak?" Marcus asked, pointing in the direction ahead, causing the statue to shudder.
"...Aka ihnor. Kalak de-gkaaha, kaana SAIGK." The last it shouted, then the statue shuddered again and went utterly inert, as before.
Marcus swallowed, then calmly walks over to the wall and exhales in shuddery breaths. "...Dad."
He sounded young, Jason realized. Like he was when he was a teen and survived that air-car accident. None of his children were weak or scared, but Marcus sounded both. "Yeah, son?"
"...So this is a ... guard, sort of. I didn't catch everything but-"
"What's it keeping out? Us?" Jason interjected, trying to keep his son focused.
"No, we can go on. But the facility is already on alert because something smashed its way through before us. Using a different entrance."
"Are they going to help us?" The general asked, evaluating the possible options.
"They aren't going to help us; these are just like LOKI mechs, I guess to them. But the thing said that the highest priority was to ensure the prisoners did not escape. Their boss - something or someone called Lethath - is not aware of what is going on because someone named Kidun sabotaged all the sensors and whatnot."
Scratch that one, Jason decided. "Can we alert him?"
"No. Someone has... done something I couldn't understand. It made no sense. The best translation I got was 'wove an Unmaking,' whatever the fuck that means."
Marcus pushed off the wall. "If they can't re-contain the prisoners - and something is trying to break them out - they'll have to do something called... 'saigk.' Saigk is 'purification of fire'... and it said the radius was enormous. Something about gravitic anchoring being used to tear a hole in... something. And I don't know. We need to get to the command center. I don't know where that is, and it just says it has no information. Anyway, the doors ahead should all be unlocked now."
"Marcus, are you okay?" Despite her earlier words, Mira sounded concerned and upset.
"...I'm not," Marcus answered, eyes downward. "If I got the translation right, dad..." He looked up, with terror in his eyes. "...The 'purification radius' is the galactic Local Group."
No one said anything for almost twenty seconds, the sheer scale of what was being described too massive to understand. Kinnix finally broke the silence. "Okay. I'm with you no matter what son." Jason said reassuringly.
The group made double-time, Mira and Marcus shaken by the revelation, but Bright only appeared to become even more focused. The corridor continued onward, widening as it did so. Other passages began meeting up with it, but Marcus read the signs on the walls above the reliefs and said the Command Center was ahead.
"Let's do this." Kinnix motivated everyone. "Guns up and heads in the game. For humanity."
They came to another large door, this one shut with no glyphs on the surface, which slid slowly open as the team approached.
The room beyond was big - fifty meters around - circular with low barricades in the middle, and two doors to the side, a much bigger one in the back.
A pair of black-wooled things with ruby rods stood to one side and another to the left. The ones on the right looked like the shit topside, but the left one was smaller, resembling the statues' neat and orderly appearance. They appeared to be arguing, as both had their rods pointed at the smaller one and then turned to face the humans.
Bright was the first to act, firing a grenade from his SABRE. His grenade flew into the open maw of the first of the larger creatures. It gave an agonized scream as plasma fire erupted from its mouth, eyes staggering back, it dropped its weapon. Bright placed himself in front of the group, acting as ad hoc heavy cover.
Matthew jumped to the closest barricade and shot a full burst from his Nightmare at Bright's target. The 3-round bursts stitched across the target. The first two shots simply sank in, but the third, explosive round proved more effective.
The thing staggered back again, fur now burning with a sullen dark gray smoke, and one of its horn-floaty-things shattered.
Varian carefully lined up a shot on the more collected one and fired. The second Horni made an awful sound as plasma ate into its bulk but still kept its weapon trained on the tech.
General Kinnix leveled his lance cannon at Varian's target. The lance cannon thundered out, a white-hot plasma blast striking the Horni with a sickening sounding splash-thud. It detonated violently, splashing black ichor and bone fragments in all directions. Bits of bone the length of Kinnix's arm flew past. One smashed into Varian, sending him to the ground, but didn't breach his armor.
The rest splashed into a smoking mess. The second soldier Horni got caught by the explosion, slamming against the far wall in a gruesome splatter of burning black fluids, bits of shattered bone, and deformed brass plating. Varian rolled out from under the chunk of Horni, spitting some truly horrific profanity, then moved very, very far away from the lump.
The more civilized thing to the left very slowly kneeled and raised its bone spikes to point at the ground.
"I think it surrendered. You think it can understand English?" Jason wondered.
"...I speak your wind-tongue, interlopers. This one ceases resistance." The small Horni answered.
"Then we shall not harm you. We only wish to prevent the escape of the prisoners. Then we shall leave." Jason promised it.
"...I find this uncertain and unlikely, given your compatriots' violation of this complex has already resulted in a breach. However, I also seem to have little choice aside from forced discorporation." The Horni thing decided, many reddish eyes examining the group.
"They don't belong to our group," Jason told it. "We seek to stop them. Before they ruin this all."
The Horni thing nudged what was left of the closest soldier-thing. "These things have been corrupted. "The entirety of the Host is corrupted, and ones of the Marker have already begun their assault. The prisoners are in contact with one of your kind. That one has destroyed the resurrections creche-lakes, and the Master of the Host is now under heavy attack. The purge is the only possible solution."
"We will stop them." Jason insisted. "We brought charges that can deny the enemy this facility. And we can shut down the process. We have some uh, tablets that tell us how to."
"...Very well." It conceded. "Follow. I warn you now that the facility has been overrun both by the slaves of the Marker and corrupted Ysangi who have lost their sanity."
"...Ysangi?" Daniel asked.
"We are the Ysangi. The Chosen Guard, honored by the High One himself, Lethath." The creature went to the large door and extended six bone spikes, slotting neatly into barely visible slots. The door opened smoothly, and the Horni turned its bulk to face the group; it withdrew the bones.
"Then the 'slaves of the Marker' must be the walking corpses." Daniel realized.
"Yes." The Ysangi confirmed. "They are ancient. The makers sent them here to free the Accursed Ythrongi, but their own ally, in turn, betrayed them. They have tried this before and failed, but they have corrupted other races and created those... 'planets' you must have seen."
"That's a lot easier." Jason reasoned. "Do you know where the corrupted ones are? If we can avoid being surprised by them. We could finish the fights a lot simpler."
"The corrupted ones? They are everywhere. There should be six more in the center-of-nexus-motions. But the lakes are infested with the Filth. There could be thousands of my brethren awakened at any moment, their minds shattered."
"Then we shall kill six more. Maybe more before we are done here. Are you able to defend yourself? Or should you hang back?"
"... I am... mm." The Ysangi searched for words. "Your langauge is garbage."
"The debased one who alerted us did not live long enough to convey your entire language. But I think the term is 'civilian.' I am skilled in using the Fields and the Echo, but we are denied the ability to touch the Sainted Power. We volunteered for this task, and our Gods are now silent and missing."
"You do not know how to fight. I understand. We shall go first." Jason Kinnix said.
"Be aware. Those two were..." the Ysangi swayed, making an odd noise that rippled its fur, "...Trainees. The Host fought your 'Marr-enns' outnumbered ten to one, and we only lost a spireful."
"They weren't us." The general boasted.
The Ysangi paused at another door, then gave a disturbing sort of wailing sound. "Flesh ones. Be wary. The Filth is in the systems-of-dancing light. The mind-of-order is itself corrupted!"
It pulled out a short gray rod with a hexagonal profile, then lashed out with bones at the walls, tearing off greenish metal which slid over its body, armoring it.
"You mean how it corrupts machines unless they're stripped of intelligence?" Varian asked.
"...That is merely the Blood-Saint acting to neutralize dangers. Machine intelligence is an abomination." The Ysangi told them. "This is the Filth. It… there are no words in wind-tongues, or for your minds. It is Wrong. It is Other. It is Am-Not. That it is here is the sign of something dreadful."
With another motion, it opened the door... then stopped.
The room beyond was a large hall, maybe 200 meters long and 50 wide. Many other doorways were linked to it. Dozens of the black-furred things on the ground were torn in half, melted, or blasted into bubbling pools. At the far end of the corridor, the greenish metal door and its door frame had been ripped out of the wall. Six shattered greenish metal statues were broken around it, some still steaming or glowing.
The general and Bright took the lead, weapons up and scanning.
A broken bone blade stained with black fluids stuck into the center mass of the Ysangi near the closest door, this one looking 'civilized' like the group's escort, and its sides fluttered weakly as the Ysangi gave a cry of alarm and rushed forward. "Kidaha varuis! Akal!"
The being listened as the other one managed to speak something, then pointed shakily in the group's direction. "Vanak so. Pielas venda, Akhal!"
Their companion looked agitated, but the other one simply shuddered and said a single word: "Vhannn-divaarr."
It collapsed into a slowly deforming mass. The team's companion stood up, then triggered its gray rod. The air warped around the mess, collapsed to a point, and vanished.
The Ysangi faced the humans. "...We have already failed. The wind-speaker you call Vhaan-divar has reached the Nexus-of-Energies. That is being used to siphon the Blood-Saint-power from the Overseeing One. Vhaan-divar-thing has destroyed the Purge system and is using it to power the Songs of the accursed ones. We have failed."
"Oh no, we can't blow up the entire fucking galaxy." Marcus muttered.
"I can go to the Cathedrex-of-Agonies, to try and awaken the Eldest." The Ysangi ignored him. It paused for a long second. "You must ensure that Vhaan-divar cannot escape. I will ensure the Complex becomes its tomb. The Nexus-of-Choices is to your right. There is a Crystal of the Images. You must shut the energy siphons down, then find a way to seal the exit behind you. I will awaken the Eldest and deal with Vhann-divar-thing myself."
"How can we seal the doorway? We brought degenerate matter bombs with us. Would those work?" General Kinnix asked.
The Ysangi paused, then absently tore off a chunk of the wall with bone spars. It etched deep marks into the metal with a touch of the fur, then tossed it on the ground.
"Yes. False-matter-twisted will trigger reinforcement-system, collapse the tunnel and seal all exits. Take that. Bypass Nexus-Sentinels. Likely more corrupted Ysangi inside. Redeem them in the sight of Great Lethath with star-fire, then use that code-sequence to shut down the filters. Place charges inside the main way-of-access that you came in from."
The Ysangi glanced around at the mess, then, with a frown, picked up another of the bone blades, one laying on the floor. It ran the blade against its fur, then spat something black on it that rushed down the blade then dripped off.
"Wrong-rules weapons of the Marked ones. This one is purified. Run with flames over surface to remove Blood-Saints, then use on Ysangi." It gave an almost sad sounding sort of noise. "Ends our pattern."
"Thank you. Your sacrifices will not be in vain, my friend." Jason told it appreciatively as he took the sword and emitted a flame from his omnitool to scorch the blade.
"...Go. The Overseeing One has fallen." The Ysangi told them. "It will not be long before that trash the Markers have summoned comes to this place to snuff the Eldest."
It turned to the doors on the left, opening one.
"Meat things. Once done, depart swiftly. The Nexus is lost, but there are other systems. They will attempt to send the Wyrding Wurms to cleanse any interlopers and trigger a sun-flare. Do not delay. Your forbearance is appreciated."
With that, it left, the door shutting behind it, green bands overlapping the door securely.
"...Well, that happened. What now?" Daniel pondered.
Marcus examined the piece of metal closely. "...I think this is like... a keycard, basically. The instructions on it are very blunt and literal. 'All-obey-do-not-obstruct-blessed-interloper-not-filth,' basically."
"Well. We do as it asked. And book it out of this system before whatever the fuck it said would come does come. And hope its boss doesn't kill us or some shit." His father summed up the game plan.
"That way, I think." Marcus pointed to the only door on the right. "Certainly not whatever is down there." He pointed to the door ripped off its hinges.
On their way, Marcus and Mira's omnitools both pinged.
"...You have to be shitting me." Mira uttered, holding up her omnitool. It had received a single text message in burst push mode.
"HERMES Member Alert"
"From Adm. Vandefar"
"Burst text only."
"Rho-19 mission declared failure."
"Any survivors link with Col. Bright and proceed to grid coords 503X, 302Y, GPS marker to follow."
"R&D will be deploying recovery team and then execute Sherman Protocol from orbital probes launching Kyle weapons."
"If you are not cleared, no recovery efforts will be made."
"ETA until arrival 2 hours, forty-four minutes."
"Message end, no reply."
Varian just gave a sharp, nasty laugh. "Let's not be there when that happens."
"Make your last prayers, friends. This might be our last moment of peace." Matthew suggested.
X-BoH-X
In the passage leading away from Team Kinnix, the Ysangi walked ahead unsteadily before coming to a stop. It began to sing, a low note that then echoed unnaturally, the shape rippling, then collapsing into Ciana Vandefar.
"Ugh. "God, that always feels so fucking freaky." She glanced down.
"And buck-ass naked again, great." She sighed and sang again, swiping her hands through the black mess on the floor and walls, then over herself. The metal and black gunk liquified and flowed over her body, covering it.
Ciana bent down, picked up an omnitool from the goop, then put it on her arm. "And so they don't dawdle..." She tapped a few keys. "This is what you get for giving me override codes, auntie. Mmm. Thirty minutes to get Big Ugly here all fucked up… thirty minutes to get to the shuttle. Eh, fuck it. Two hours forty minutes sounds good."
She tapped commands rapidly, then shut the tool off. Ciana headed down the hallway, absently pulling the doors blocking her way apart. She entered into a vast hexagonal room, centered around a giant glistening black metal tube and swirling energy.
"Hello there." Ciana smiled wickedly and pushed her hair back as she began to sing.
