DR: This is it people, the Alliance is about to start getting it's butt kicked. You zoid fan's will love this bit...
Chapter 28: Storm of Revenge…
The lonely world of Meridina was listed in all Alliance charts and texts as an uninhabitable world, a black rock where the terraforming didn't hold. Formerly a dead husk lacking any kind of atmosphere, the failed terraforming attempt had left the small world with a thick cloud layer, under which life could not exist. Anyone even partly familiar with Earth's solar system would recognise the similarity with the planet known as Venus, despite Meridina having only half the mass of Earth or its inferno surfaced twin.
As with many things the Alliance controlled, the truth about Meridina was quite different.
The thick clouds were real, but under them was not an inferno from hell. Instead, there was a dry, dusty world, little life and few large bodies of water, but large amounts of resources.
It was not too surprising then that the Alliance would choose Meridina as the place to build a secret manufacturing concern and research centre. Additives had been seeded into the clouds at various levels to mess up the scanners of any ship in Alliance territory, reinforcing the story of a hostile world.
So confident in the ruse, the base beneath the clouds had no sensor systems to monitor the local area. Such systems also ran the risk of being picked up, prompting questions best left unasked.
This policy had worked. Until now.
Chief Scientist Tyrel smiled out over the open air construction bays outside the window. There were six large bays, and in each one rested a partly built Nightbringer. The latest was still little more than the metal skeleton, while the nearest was almost finished, the bio-armour half grown.
Scurrying around the ships, workers looked like ants next to the perfect ships. Tyrel chuckled to himself at the analogy. The workers looked even more like ants than normal humans would, since they had an extra set of bio-mechanical arms grafted to their backs. Created from the vats of harvested genetic material, the workers were ideal labourers. Silent, uncomplaining and tireless, obeying every instruction. It was all guaranteed, since the centres of their brains that acted as focuses for pride, competition and aggression had been removed by surgery, to make room for some select computer systems.
Resuming his walk to the farm on the 'east' side of the complex, he mentally ran through the experiments he had to do today. As he did, he barely noted a fresh batch of theta pattern units' march from the farm to the training facilities to the 'west'. The surgical cuts on their bodies were barely healed enough to prevent blood loss.
Not that Tyrel cared. To him and his colleagues, the beings they had created with their experiments were not worthy of concern. If one died in training, so what? A dozen more could be created inside of a week, and they would be ready to be trained up as instruments of the Alliance within a month after that.
Of more concern to him was that the subjects continued to attempt to struggle and resist. It caused much time and effort to be wasted, plus they had lost several promising foetuses through self inflicted injuries. They had taken to strapping the subjects down until the experimental being was born.
Tyrel wished they could have used artificial wombs, but the early stages of the cells' developments were incredibly delicate. They had managed, through genetic adaptation, to cut the vulnerable period down to ten weeks, but the foetuses were still delicate. They currently left them in the subjects for fifteen, after which they were stable enough to be transferred to precisely controlled nurture chambers where they could grow in a faster, more directed manner than if they had been left in the subjects.
Thinking about the subjects, Tyrel hoped that a fresh batch would be brought in soon by the active Nightbringers. The last batch had only been a couple weeks ago, but it was small, mostly either too young to fully use, or too old to handle the numbers needed. The wider selection of genetic material was a bonus, but they were getting quantity, not quality.
He looked down at his remote, scrolling through a number of records. He grimaced when he noted that the supply of Subject Tam-01's genetic code was low. Tam-01 had been one of the first subjects, over a year ago. In those early days, the scientists had worked on the subjects themselves, turning them into super-soldier assassins. The idea of harvesting their genetic material had come later, after that one had been broken out and escaped. They had taken samples, but not enough in Tyrel's opinion. Subject Tam-01's genetic code was the most precious they had. Though Carter-03's had promise, and...
He froze, turning around sharply. There was nobody behind him, and yet he had sudden had the feeling he was being watched. Shaking his head in frustration, he continued down the corridor.
Behind him, the air shimmered for a second, before an Organoid with a slight, black clad female perched on top appeared. The young woman gracefully stepped off the mecha-organic creatures back, her brown eyes hardened to stones as she glared after the scientist.
A faint growl, barely audible even to someone stood next to him, emerged from the Organoid's throat. However the girl wore an earpiece that picked up an inaudible section of the growl, and turned it into words. "What upset you?"
"He was thinking about me, about my value to his sick projects!"
The organoid noted how her slight hands were curled into claws, the tension in her limbs. "Remember the mission. Did you get what we needed?"
The Organoid's cold reasoning reached her own, and with a deep breath she released some of the tension. "Yea, I got it."
"Then let's relay the data. Then we move to our positions." Before he moved off though, the organoid looked straight at her. "Afterwards, if you wish to bring justice to him and his colleagues, I will help. But NOT before."
River Tam nodded. "Dong ma."
X-X-X-X-X-X
Tyrel sighed as he sank down behind his desk. "Are you sure about this?" He asked, holding a report in his hands.
"Yes, unfortunately." His colleague said. "The subjects are just not healing up as quickly as they have done in the past. If we pump any more drugs into them..." he trailed off.
Tyrel sighed again, in unspoken agreement. He looked at the report again. "What about the younger subjects? Could we not start using some of them instead?"
The technician frowned. "Maybe... some of them are more developed than others. Shall I set up a series of examinations to..."
His last words were drowned out however when several explosions resounded from outside. Both men dashed to the expansive windows in Tyrel's office that looked out over the entire complex. Smoke was rising from the southern sector... where the new ships were built.
"An accident?"
"Impossible. Workers don't make accidents." Tyrel refuted.
"Then what..." The answer came from the heavens, in the form of sharp red bolts that stabbed down from the clouds and slammed into the shipyard. Wherever the bolts hit, there were large explosions. In the four-tenths gravity outside the areas of the complex that the scientists used, debris from those explosions was thrown high into the air to fall back down ever so slowly. Tyrel's eyes widened when he saw lumps of dark material, some still with warped metal attached, sailing through the air.
"No! They're destroying the Nightbringers!" Tyrel wailed.
"Not just them..." The technician replied, pointing a little to the right of the besieged shipyards. Dark columns of smoke rose from the western sector, the training centre, too. Even as they watched, another brace of bolts blasted down from above, ripping apart another structure.
Tyrel felt like he was being stabbed. The troopers who were trained there were like his own children, and were dependent on a high oxygen level in the air before Tyrel's team could switch the weak original organs in their bodies with the far more effective vat grown ones. In the thin, wispy air of the world itself, they'd be gasping like fish out of water.
"No... this is what it feels like to be stabbed."
The sudden female voice was Tyrel's only warning before blinding pain erupted from his right shoulder. Crying out in agony, he looked down at the sharp metal point that had emerged from within him, slick red with his blood.
With a lurch it was yanked back, and he screamed again as it was pulled out of him. Falling forwards, he barely heard the yell as the technician jumped towards the attacker and found the sword that had just been in his boss was now pointed at him.
Tyrel made a grab for his radio. "Security! We have an intruder! We need help!"
The radio was silent for a moment, then the voice of the garrison commander came on. "We've got bigger problems Doctor! We've got ground forces engaging from the north-east!"
X-X-X-X-X-X
The Alliance troops who were posted to the perimeter of the complex were picked from the unimaginative lot. They needed to be, as they had boring duties guarding a base that they knew nothing about, least of all what happened within. The Alliance didn't like people asking questions.
However, the orders for these men were clear; no-body in or out without the proper codes. The men were there as much to keep the scientists and subjects in the base as much as to keep intruders out.
Given the rugged, difficult terrain that the base was built in, the likelihood of armour assault was deemed negligible. When it was factored in that only the Alliance had armoured units these days, those chances dropped almost to the realm of impossible. As such, the weaponry the men had was mostly anti-infantry, with some anti-air packs in case of a low level air attack.
But right now they faced their nightmares, as tearing across the land were armoured ground units.
A dozen were simplistic boxes mounted on tracks that appeared to absorb every rut and bump the land had and kept on going. From their boxy construction and the number of hatches along the sides, it was easy to guess they were some kind of APC.
But these were armed better than battle tanks, as their small twin turrets hurled red bolts out at a rapid pace, blasting apart the fortifications that stood in their way.
Leading the charge however were four monsters made of metal, denying any convention. The smaller three were lean, predatory shapes, sleek and agile. The forth however was a real monster, glaring red lights on its 'head' as it advanced, the massive dual turret on it's back lashing out and gutting the few heavier structures they had built.
Alliance infantry crouched behind their low wall, firing bursts from their guns, hoping for some heavy support to arrive. One plucky trooper fired an anti-air missile at the large demon, but it simply shrugged off the small blast and kept advancing. The ground was beginning to tremble from its heavy footsteps.
As the monsters and APCs got closer, the Alliance troops began to fall back. They were dull-witted, not stupid.
The titan stepped over the rampart like it wasn't there. Two of the smaller hurdled it without falter, hesitation or trouble. The third perched on the top of one of the reinforced bunkers built into the wall. It had been a strong point in the line. Now it was useless. A concentrated volley from the APC's had punched through the thick concrete shell and set off the ammunition within. Smoke billowed out from the front were their infernal weapons had struck, while thin streams escaped through vision slits on the sides.
Perched on the flat roof, the smaller, almost bird like machine demon looked about, then snarled toward a cluster of Alliance troops as the first of the APC's crested the ramparts; something they should not have been able to do, as the outer face of the wall was five feet high, sloped back by thirty degrees and smoothed down to a glass like finish.
A sharp report marked the arrival of one of the few tanks that were assigned to the base. A second shot took a chuck of concrete out from the lip of the bunker, just a few feet from the smaller machine-creatures foot.
A deep, anger filled snarled split the air as the large one charged the tank. The commander must have finally noticed it, as the barrel swung around to bear. But the demon was too fast, its foot crashing down onto the tank. The turret jammed in place, the barrel bent. The track wheels were crushed into each other, and the whole frame buckled a bit. That didn't satisfy the beast though, as it leaned down and opened its jaw wide. Metal teeth the size of a man's forearm bit into the heavy armour of the tank. The tanks frame bent the other way now under the crushing grip as it was lifted clean off the ground.
Alliance troops watched in fear and awe as the tank was slowly crushed in the vice like mouth of the monster. The groans and squeals of the metalwork yielding were loud enough to be heard even over the crash of explosions and the chatter of guns. The demon paused when the tank had been halved in width, before tossing it with a great shake of its head. It went whirling away to destruction.
A trio of tanks attempted to avenge their ruined consort, but the APC's guns cut through their heavy armour like it was cardboard. Each one blew apart, flames roaring from within the shattered hulls.
Darting black shapes came running from the base, where turbolaser bolts continued to rain down from the skies above. The colonials manning the Landrams' turrets took no chances, and laid down a pattern of fire that not even the enhanced soldiers of the Alliance could ignore. Both Blade Raptor pilots assigned to the marines also added their fire, their zoids forearm mounted repeating blasters spiting long lines of bolts, intended for lightly armoured vehicles or zoids, across the lines.
A few of the enhanced troopers made it through, but they could not stop the assault. Three tried to attack a Blade Raptor, only to be batted out of the air by the zoid's claws. Chucks of meat thudded into the ground.
Two more tanks advanced, firing wildly. When one shot hit the one smaller creature, the big one froze, then unleashed a deafening roar. It beat down on the ears of the Alliance troops, who were now mainly cowering in the dirt. It was a roar of anger and rage, and promised lethal intentions.
The titan sidestepped, facing the tanks head on. The head lowered and tail straightened. Then a barrel emerged from within the mouth, pointed at the lead tank.
The driver started to turn, but it was too late. A beam of yellow red erupted from the monsters mouth, slamming into the tanks' sloped front armour. There was a bright glare as each one was in turn turned to fire and molten metal.
The soldiers could only watch as the beam lashed across the training centre, the oxygen rich air within igniting at the touch of this savage, unearthly heat ray. The weapon cut off, but the roaring continued, as steam vented from under the raised plates that made up the monster's tail. It covered the sounds of movement near them.
The Colonial sergeant waited until the Fury had ceased dumping its waste heat before addressing the cowering Alliance troops. "Drop your weapons and surrender, now!" He barked.
The Alliance troopers looked around. Armoured men covered them with deadly looking weapons. Even if the fight had not already been chased out of them, it looked like these men would be immune to their weapons. Slowly, the survivors stood up, arms raised above their heads and weapons left in the dirt.
They weren't stupid, after all.
DR: Hope you all enjoyed that! I'll post the second half tomorrow, I think. Depends on the number of reviews I get... I should warn you all though, it will be very bloody...