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Post by Rock114 on Oct 26, 2014 3:57:26 GMT
AN: Yup, me again. Branching out from zombies and whatnot. Anyways, I present to you folks here this little project of mine that I've been working on, off and on, for a few months. It's sci-fi, one of my favorite genres, and it requires a little backstory. It takes place in the year 2438, and humanity has expanded beyond Earth and begun colonizing planets. A massive civil war engulfed humanity, and raged for several years before ending a little over a year before the events of this story. The main characters are all members of the military. Your standard fare, really, but it's one that I enjoy.
This story is very much a "Whenever I feel like it," thing, so don't expect regular updates. More than half of it is still unwritten. This first part could very well be the last. That's not to say I dislike it in anyway, I'm simply lazy, and this is more something to do when I get bored than a project I've devoted myself to completing come Hell or high water.
“No! Why? Help me, somebody help me!”
“Listen! Listen listen listen! I told you to listen!”
Axel reeled back, his hand meekly covering the stab wound in his abdomen. Altan advanced with the shiv poised to strike and stabbed a second time. It caught Axel in the side. The larger man shoved the blade in deeper until it pierced a lung, sending a spray of ruby colored liquid jetting out of Axel’s wound. Outside the door of the holding area the guards, frantic, punched in the door code. Altan kicked out, connecting with Axel’s ribs with a shattering force.
Axel fell, blood still leaking from his wounds. Ashen faced and trembling, he put up a hand to stave Altan off. The gesture proved ineffectual when Altan, towering above him, leaned in with the stained, shining blade and brought his one good eye into line with Axel's quickly fading vision. “You didn’t see!” Altan screamed. “He was there!” His rant drowned out the hustling guards and the whirring of the door as it slid open, punctuating each word with another downward stab into Axel. “You! Didn’t! See! It! Why. Won’t. You. Believe. Me?!”
The other three captives, each dressed in a white uniform identical to the ones Axel and Altan were wearing, clung to the walls on the opposite side of the room as the guards stormed into the darkened holding area. Five guards in total, each encased in sleek black and white armor from head to toe, leveled their weapons at Altan.
One of them, presumably the leader, stepped forward and set his hand on Altan’s shoulder. “Put it down! Relinquish your weapon!” Altan tore the shiv from Axel’s chest. Maddened, disturbed, he spun with an unnatural speed and thrust the shiv cleanly through the squad leader’s neck.
The man lurched backward, futilely grasping at the blade lodged in his throat. Altan tackled a second guard, grabbing his helmet in his hands and wrenching it off the man’s head. The suit seals broke and the helmet came free, causing the glow of the visor to fade as it was separated from the suits power supply. The madman discarded it, wrapping his hands around the guard’s throat. In the background the squad leader was gurgling out his last. The three other prisoners continued huddling against the wall in an attempt to distance themselves from the carnage as much as possible.
One of the guards fired his rifle. The beam of plasma sliced into Altan’s side, stunning him into releasing his grip on the downed man. Rising, he was met with another bolt, then another. Swaying in pain, he made a final, desperate grab toward the man who had shot him before the guard fired a final time with a blue bolt that took Altan directly in the face.
The gore-coated killer toppled to the steel plating of the station’s floor. Energy danced over his body, shutting him off like a light. The interior of the deceased squad leader’s helmet crackled. The bloodied communication system was still functioning without its owner. An older, nearly aristocratic voice emanated calmly from the other end of the dead man’s frequency. “Sergeant? Sergeant, are the VIPs alright? Report in, Sergeant.”
One of the guard’s tapped the side of his helmet with two fingers, and a break in the signal represented the changing of frequencies to his own helmet communicator. “Sergeant Bates is dead, sir,” he reported, bitterly scowling at the prone form of Altan lying on the formerly sterile white floor plating. One of the guards heaved his lunch onto the floor at the sight of the corpses. Axel’s body was mutilated nearly beyond recognition.
A long sigh could be heard from the other end of the line. “And the subjects?” the other voice inquired wearily.
The de facto leader of the squad turned behind him. “That maniac alive?”
“Your first two shots were lethal,” one of the soldier’s said with two of his fingers pressed against Altan’s neck in search of a pulse. “The rest were set to stun though. So yeah, he’s alive but he’ll be feeling this for a while.”
“I hope he does.” The guard tapped the side of his helmet again, unmuting it. “We’ve got two dead. One of the prisoners went mad. He killed the pilot, then Bates when we responded. He’s wounded, but alive and down.”
“Private, was the perpetrator Sergeant Gregory Altan?”
The Private turned, receiving a nod from the man checking Altan’s prone form. “Yes sir. Why?” For several long seconds the other end of the line was silent, devoid even of radio static. The blood smeared over the floor was shining in the starlight, the only sources of illumination in the otherwise pitch black room aside from the faintly glowing teal emanating from the guards’ helmet visors. “Sir?”
“Private, we’re sending a medical team to your position, as well as another security squad. Keep the subjects apart from each other, and keep them safe. We’ll have new, separate, holding cells for them within the hour. Talon 1 out.” Then, as an afterthought, he spoke just before terminating the signal. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Ramirez.”
“Right. Congratulations Sergeant Ramirez, you’ve been promoted. See your commanding officer tomorrow morning, the details will be ironed out by then. Talon 1 out.”
Even behind the helmet covering his face, the others in the room could tell that the newly promoted guard was fuming. “Get those people away from each other,” he commanded. “And keep a gun on that psycho on the floor. If he makes a move, take him down hard.”
“Yes sir!” the remaining guards saluted as they carried out their orders, shouting and waving their plasma rifles at the subjects.
“This better be fucking worth it,” Ramirez sighed.
The room was pristine. The walls were white, reminding Hannah of a hospital. The rational part of her brain told her that the stench of medical waste, blood, and sterilizer wasn’t present but she could swear she caught a whiff of it every time she let her herself begin to drift away from her present situation. The smell of death was something that had stayed with her in the months after victory was declared, and she knew that it would stay with her for the rest of her life. The war had ended over a year ago, but she hadn’t fully been able to leave it. Some in her squad hadn't been able to, either. The galaxy itself was still reeling from the conflict, as the reconstruction of many devastated worlds had ground onward slowly, some halting entirely in more isolated sectors of space while riots raged on Earth and other worlds at the center of Earth's outward expansion into the stars. Some of the more cynical and pessimistic denizens had lately been venturing the thought that humanity could never recover from the war.
Hannah hadn’t been one of those people until last month.
The door slid upward, letting her glimpse the darkened hallway lying beyond. She instinctually cringed at the absence of light as two men walked in, each wearing identical gray suits. Both of them held an air of authority about themselves. The guards at the door unconsciously stiffened when the two walked by them, apprehensively curious about what was about to happen.
These men were ghost stories among soldiers. Slicked hair, suits, a dispassionate serenity driving their every action, the description was enough to chill even veteran soldiers. Once you saw one of these phantoms you were likely never heard from again.
They took their positions in the room without a sound. Even the soles of their fine black shoes hitting the steel tiling that made the floor was uncomfortably quiet, so much so that the sound of the automatic door sliding closed again resembled an earthquake. One took a seat at the square table directly across from Hannah. The other stood next to the door with his hands clasped behind him and looking straight ahead into the wall above Hannah as if she weren’t even there.
The man sitting at her table was older and sported a head of short grey hair. Hannah estimated him to be somewhere around her own age of 52, but people like these thrived on secrecy and so nothing could be certain. His shaven face was marred by a few wrinkles, but like everything else she had seen since being detained on this space station he was unnaturally clean and orderly. His eyes, bright and blue, were as cold as space itself. He rested his arms on the table, intertwining his fingers when he began to speak.
“Ms. Graves,” he greeted her politely. His voice was even and sophisticated, as professional and mysterious as everything else about him. “May I say that it is an honor to meet you? Very rarely in my line of work am I able to come face to face with a lauded hero.”
She averted her gaze away from him, electing not to speak.
“Very well,” the interrogator relented. “I can understand. The last month or so has been especially difficult on you and your men, so why don’t we just cut to the heart of the matter. You know the reason you and your men are here, I assume?”
She slowly nodded, staring into the center of the table with a heavy dread.
“Now, Ms. Graves, you seem troubled. What could have happened to intimidate a hero such as yourself in such a way? If it weren’t for you, well, the Terran Alliance may not have defeated the secessionists in the war and kept them from splitting away from Earth and her colonies. You kept them from taking Earth, didn’t you? Before that nastiness later on, at least. Before your demotion.”
“We’re not here to talk about me, or Altan, or the rest of my men,” she declared, still focused downward. “This is about that fucking ship.”
The interrogator nodded in confirmation. “Yes. The encounter took place out on the Rim, correct? Just beyond the charted sectors of space, in an unknown area that hadn’t yet been mapped?”
“Yes,” she answered softly. “It was smugglers. We thought it was just another routine boarding,” she told him, punctuating the thought with a mild wince.
“This would have been on October the 23rd, correct?”
“Yes,” she whispered, eyes jumping about like those of cornered prey in search of a hidden predator.
“So tell me then, Ms. Graves,” he demanded, leaning forward and narrowing his icy eyes. “In your own words, of course. What happened that day?” Why is this Altan guy such a psychopath? Who is this strange interrogator? What's so special about this ship that Hannah mentioned? Hell if you guys know. This is only Part 1, after all.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2014 4:07:41 GMT
AN: Yup, me again. Branching out from zombies and whatnot. Anyways, I present to you folks here this little project of mine that I've been working on, off and on, for a few months. It's sci-fi, one of my favorite genres, and it requires a little backstory. It takes place in the year 2438, and humanity has expanded beyond Earth and begun colonizing planets. A massive civil war engulfed humanity, and raged for several years before ending a little over a year before the events of this story. The main characters are all members of the military. Your standard fare, really, but it's one that I enjoy.
This story is very much a "Whenever I feel like it," thing, so don't expect regular updates. More than half of it is still unwritten. This first part could very well be the last. That's not to say I dislike it in anyway, I'm simply lazy, and this is more something to do when I get bored than a project I've devoted myself to completing come Hell or high water. “No! Why? Help me, somebody help me!”
“Listen! Listen listen listen! I told you to listen!”
Axel reeled back, his hand meekly covering the stab wound in his abdomen. Altan advanced with the shiv poised to strike and stabbed a second time. It caught Axel in the side. The larger man shoved the blade in deeper until it pierced a lung, sending a spray of ruby colored liquid jetting out of Axel’s wound. Outside the door of the holding area the guards, frantic, punched in the door code. Altan kicked out, connecting with Axel’s ribs with a shattering force.
Axel fell, blood still leaking from his wounds. Ashen faced and trembling, he put up a hand to stave Altan off. The gesture proved ineffectual when Altan, towering above him, leaned in with the stained, shining blade and brought his one good eye into line with Axel's quickly fading vision. “You didn’t see!” Altan screamed. “He was there!” His rant drowned out the hustling guards and the whirring of the door as it slid open, punctuating each word with another downward stab into Axel. “You! Didn’t! See! It! Why. Won’t. You. Believe. Me?!”
The other three captives, each dressed in a white uniform identical to the ones Axel and Altan were wearing, clung to the walls on the opposite side of the room as the guards stormed into the darkened holding area. Five guards in total, each encased in sleek black and white armor from head to toe, leveled their weapons at Altan.
One of them, presumably the leader, stepped forward and set his hand on Altan’s shoulder. “Put it down! Relinquish your weapon!” Altan tore the shiv from Axel’s chest. Maddened, disturbed, he spun with an unnatural speed and thrust the shiv cleanly through the squad leader’s neck.
The man lurched backward, futilely grasping at the blade lodged in his throat. Altan tackled a second guard, grabbing his helmet in his hands and wrenching it off the man’s head. The suit seals broke and the helmet came free, causing the glow of the visor to fade as it was separated from the suits power supply. The madman discarded it, wrapping his hands around the guard’s throat. In the background the squad leader was gurgling out his last. The three other prisoners continued huddling against the wall in an attempt to distance themselves from the carnage as much as possible.
One of the guards fired his rifle. The beam of plasma sliced into Altan’s side, stunning him into releasing his grip on the downed man. Rising, he was met with another bolt, then another. Swaying in pain, he made a final, desperate grab toward the man who had shot him before the guard fired a final time with a blue bolt that took Altan directly in the face.
The gore-coated killer toppled to the steel plating of the station’s floor. Energy danced over his body, shutting him off like a light. The interior of the deceased squad leader’s helmet crackled. The bloodied communication system was still functioning without its owner. An older, nearly aristocratic voice emanated calmly from the other end of the dead man’s frequency. “Sergeant? Sergeant, are the VIPs alright? Report in, Sergeant.”
One of the guard’s tapped the side of his helmet with two fingers, and a break in the signal represented the changing of frequencies to his own helmet communicator. “Sergeant Bates is dead, sir,” he reported, bitterly scowling at the prone form of Altan lying on the formerly sterile white floor plating. One of the guards heaved his lunch onto the floor at the sight of the corpses. Axel’s body was mutilated nearly beyond recognition.
A long sigh could be heard from the other end of the line. “And the subjects?” the other voice inquired wearily.
The de facto leader of the squad turned behind him. “That maniac alive?”
“Your first two shots were lethal,” one of the soldier’s said with two of his fingers pressed against Altan’s neck in search of a pulse. “The rest were set to stun though. So yeah, he’s alive but he’ll be feeling this for a while.”
“I hope he does.” The guard tapped the side of his helmet again, unmuting it. “We’ve got two dead. One of the prisoners went mad. He killed the pilot, then Bates when we responded. He’s wounded, but alive and down.”
“Private, was the perpetrator Sergeant Gregory Altan?”
The Private turned, receiving a nod from the man checking Altan’s prone form. “Yes sir. Why?” For several long seconds the other end of the line was silent, devoid even of radio static. The blood smeared over the floor was shining in the starlight, the only sources of illumination in the otherwise pitch black room aside from the faintly glowing teal emanating from the guards’ helmet visors. “Sir?”
“Private, we’re sending a medical team to your position, as well as another security squad. Keep the subjects apart from each other, and keep them safe. We’ll have new, separate, holding cells for them within the hour. Talon 1 out.” Then, as an afterthought, he spoke just before terminating the signal. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Ramirez.”
“Right. Congratulations Sergeant Ramirez, you’ve been promoted. See your commanding officer tomorrow morning, the details will be ironed out by then. Talon 1 out.”
Even behind the helmet covering his face, the others in the room could tell that the newly promoted guard was fuming. “Get those people away from each other,” he commanded. “And keep a gun on that psycho on the floor. If he makes a move, take him down hard.”
“Yes sir!” the remaining guards saluted as they carried out their orders, shouting and waving their plasma rifles at the subjects.
“This better be fucking worth it,” Ramirez sighed.
The room was pristine. The walls were white, reminding Hannah of a hospital. The rational part of her brain told her that the stench of medical waste, blood, and sterilizer wasn’t present but she could swear she caught a whiff of it every time she let her herself begin to drift away from her present situation. The smell of death was something that had stayed with her in the months after victory was declared, and she knew that it would stay with her for the rest of her life. The war had ended over a year ago, but she hadn’t fully been able to leave it. Some in her squad hadn't been able to, either. The galaxy itself was still reeling from the conflict, as the reconstruction of many devastated worlds had ground onward slowly, some halting entirely in more isolated sectors of space while riots raged on Earth and other worlds at the center of Earth's outward expansion into the stars. Some of the more cynical and pessimistic denizens had lately been venturing the thought that humanity could never recover from the war.
Hannah hadn’t been one of those people until last month.
The door slid upward, letting her glimpse the darkened hallway lying beyond. She instinctually cringed at the absence of light as two men walked in, each wearing identical gray suits. Both of them held an air of authority about themselves. The guards at the door unconsciously stiffened when the two walked by them, apprehensively curious about what was about to happen.
These men were ghost stories among soldiers. Slicked hair, suits, a dispassionate serenity driving their every action, the description was enough to chill even veteran soldiers. Once you saw one of these phantoms you were likely never heard from again.
They took their positions in the room without a sound. Even the soles of their fine black shoes hitting the steel tiling that made the floor was uncomfortably quiet, so much so that the sound of the automatic door sliding closed again resembled an earthquake. One took a seat at the square table directly across from Hannah. The other stood next to the door with his hands clasped behind him and looking straight ahead into the wall above Hannah as if she weren’t even there.
The man sitting at her table was older and sported a head of short grey hair. Hannah estimated him to be somewhere around her own age of 52, but people like these thrived on secrecy and so nothing could be certain. His shaven face was marred by a few wrinkles, but like everything else she had seen since being detained on this space station he was unnaturally clean and orderly. His eyes, bright and blue, were as cold as space itself. He rested his arms on the table, intertwining his fingers when he began to speak.
“Ms. Graves,” he greeted her politely. His voice was even and sophisticated, as professional and mysterious as everything else about him. “May I say that it is an honor to meet you? Very rarely in my line of work am I able to come face to face with a lauded hero.”
She averted her gaze away from him, electing not to speak.
“Very well,” the interrogator relented. “I can understand. The last month or so has been especially difficult on you and your men, so why don’t we just cut to the heart of the matter. You know the reason you and your men are here, I assume?”
She slowly nodded, staring into the center of the table with a heavy dread.
“Now, Ms. Graves, you seem troubled. What could have happened to intimidate a hero such as yourself in such a way? If it weren’t for you, well, the Terran Alliance may not have defeated the secessionists in the war and kept them from splitting away from Earth and her colonies. You kept them from taking Earth, didn’t you? Before that nastiness later on, at least. Before your demotion.”
“We’re not here to talk about me, or Altan, or the rest of my men,” she declared, still focused downward. “This is about that fucking ship.”
The interrogator nodded in confirmation. “Yes. The encounter took place out on the Rim, correct? Just beyond the charted sectors of space, in an unknown area that hadn’t yet been mapped?”
“Yes,” she answered softly. “It was smugglers. We thought it was just another routine boarding,” she told him, punctuating the thought with a mild wince.
“This would have been on October the 23rd, correct?”
“Yes,” she whispered, eyes jumping about like those of cornered prey in search of a hidden predator.
“So tell me then, Ms. Graves,” he demanded, leaning forward and narrowing his icy eyes. “In your own words, of course. What happened that day?” Why is this Altan guy such a psychopath? Who is this strange interrogator? What's so special about this ship that Hannah mentioned? Hell if you guys know. This is only Part 1, after all. Damn,I didn't know you could write such good SciFi.
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Post by Rock114 on Oct 26, 2014 4:09:29 GMT
Damn,I didn't know you could write such good SciFi. Thanks, man.
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Post by Rock114 on Oct 28, 2014 20:25:24 GMT
AN: Luckily(?) I have nothing to do at the moment, so here's this. ONE MONTH EARLIER, OCTOBER 23, 2438
The holographic screen flashed to life, coating the dimly lit cockpit of the Terran Alliance Vessel "Huxley" in a pale blue glow. The grainy log showed a small enclosed room, barely larger than a closet. Staring at the screen was a disheveled man, with dark hair coming down to his shoulders and stubble dotting his chin. His face was haggard and worn, with his eyes sunk back into his head giving off the illusion that he was dead. A few feet behind him was a door, the control panel torn out and sparking wires giving off tiny flashes and jolts as the man sat there, head in his hands with only the sound of his breathing coming through clearly. The man was slumped over a desk pushed against the wall that extended around the room, essentially turning it into one big workspace with the desk only stopping once it reached the door frame on either side, allowing for a way in and out. Various types of papers and datapads were scattered messily over the surface, and a miniature lamp was lying on its side, shattered.
After nearly a minute of sitting, the man in the image looked up and spoke. “My name is…” he trailed off, wincing as he did so. “It’s Adrian.” His voice carried a sad resignation with it. “I used to be the navigator on this ship, the Nocturnal, before everything happened. ‘Just another routine job,’ the Captain told us, but there’s no such thing as ‘routine’ in space. Stuff happens out here. Weird stuff that you’ll never understand, that never gets explained, and your mind is left to fill in the gaps. Especially out here on the rim.”
Adrian spun toward the door. The recording’s audio wave picked up a faint scratching sound, presumably coming from the door of the room, but Adrian turned back and continued talking, drowning it out. “The only light in here is the light from the screen as I record this. I’ve locked myself in the log room but I don’t think I have much time. Everything went wrong. If you’re picking this up, just stay away. I might be the only one left.”
Adrian’s eyes drifted over to the side as he rotated his head slightly to see the door out of the corner of his vision. The noise was louder, but still subtle and barely registering on the audio. “Fuck, man, I told Mathis it wouldn’t work. But he wanted to try anyway instead of making for the escape pods after we knew. Just stay away if you’re getting this. It’s dark, so dark…”
Adrian reached toward the screen. “I’m sorry. If anyone finds this, I’m so sorry.” Then with the flick of a switch the image turned to static and Adrian was gone.
Lieutenant Hannah Graves kept her frown after the video screen vanished. “That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” the small ship's pilot, Flight Officer Axel Newman, affirmed. “Pretty vague and spooky. Maybe Adrian likes the dramatic stuff?”
“Space is spooky, Newman,” Graves said, “And being vague is the job description for smugglers like him.”
“So you’re still going aboard?”
Graves reached out to the panel next to her and held down a blue button. Placing her face near a small speaker nearby, she spoke, her voice echoing through the patrol vessel's intercom. “Squad, gather your gear and meet me near the airlock. We’ve encountered the smuggler vessel Nocturnal, and will board within minutes. We sweep the ship, detain the crew and confiscate the cargo. Standard procedure.” An abrupt crackling signaled the end of the announcement as Graves released the button and strode out of the Huxley’s cockpit.
Newman was left alone at the controls. “I suppose that’s a ‘yes,’" he sighed to himself as he turned back to look out into space at the Nocturnal. "Why couldn't I still be flying fighters?" A dull pang of jagged heat erupted in his knee, reminding him of the wartime crash that had taken his future away.
He was glad he wasn’t going aboard. More so than usual. Something was off, but what it was escaped him, elusive as a shadow.
“So what’s the plan, LT?” Gregory Altan ventured as he casually slid a power cell into the receiver of his pulse rifle. He sighted down the barrel and adjusted the targeting information that the weapon’s sights fed to his cybernetic eye as Lt. Graves answered.
“We’ll split into three groups upon reaching the ship. Sergeant, you and Yuri will look for a way to restore power. Newman’s limited readings report that all nonessential systems are down, like lighting and sensors.” The squad leader bent over and hefted a pack of explosives up, attaching it to Yuri’s armored back. “After that, you two head to the engine room and set charges. We’re scuttling the ship once we’re done.”
Yuri jogged over to Altan as the Sergeant finished his inspection of his weapon. “Any life signs?” the stocky man asked.
“Like I said, the readings are limited.” Graves said looking to the side and letting out a choice swear. “Can’t keep this damn ship in one piece. For once I’d like us to have all of our systems actually working. We can’t pick up life signs, unfortunately.”
Yuri shrugged. The marine checked the flashlight fixed to his rifle as Graves continued to give out assignments. “Cash,” she said, pointing at the small woman, “You and me get the bridge. We’ll make our way there, check their systems for any useful intel, then confiscate what we can take with us. The rest stays onboard when we blow it.”
Cash placed two fingers against her forehead in a playful salute. “Aye aye, ma’am.”
“Last but not least,” Graves said, interrupted by Altan snorting a short, annoying laugh, “Bryant and Mackin will head for the log room to detain this “Adrian” character. Since he’s the navigator, he could have valuable intel on where to find the crew’s associates. Bring him in alive, okay?”
“Yes ma’am,” Sarah Bryant saluted.
The air around them filled with a hissing sound, rushing past the squad and into the dim interior of the Nocturnal beyond their airlock. As silent as a feather falling to earth, a chill settled over the marines, cutting through their armor and latching directly to their skin as they crossed the threshold into the darkened of the smuggling vessel.
“Keep the lights on for us, Newman,” Graves whispered into her comm unit. Newman answered with two short clicks and killed the line as the airlock doors eased closed behind them, meeting with a metallic chunk and the humming of the pressure seals coming back online. “You’ve got your orders, marines,” Graves barked, “Get to it.” Each team went its separate way into the murky blackness of the Nocturnal, wordlessly carrying out their duties and pushing aside the creeping dread that always appeared with the absence of light. We get to meet the soldiers in Hannah's squad, and learn a little more about Altan and Axel.
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Post by Rock114 on Oct 31, 2014 21:21:29 GMT
AN: In honor of Halloween, here's another part.
2100 HOURS
“Hey LT, Altan reporting in. Yuri and I just found the main power room, but it’s pretty trashed. I don’t think we can get the lights on from here.”
Silence.
“LT?”
Altan’s comm blared into existence. “Roger that Sergeant, Cash and I are stuck. Someone went and sealed all the doors to the bridge and Cash has to override their lockdown protocols one at a time. It’s slow going.”
A tiny click signaled another soldier’s entrance into their conversation. “For the record,” Cash was quick to remind them, “It’s not difficult. Just time consuming. This security is a joke for-”
“Yeah yeah, for pros like you,” Altan interrupted. “We know, for the love of God, we know already.”
Graves sighed. The leader seemed to be losing the last of her patience with the band of children the military called her squad. “Like I said,” she repeated tiredly, “It’s going to take a while.”
“I think I know someone who can solve your problems, ma’am,” Altan chuckled, nudging the kneeling Yuri with his armored boot.
“No explosions,” she squawked. “Not yet. Those charges are for the engines.”
“Fine,” Altan grunted, switching his radio off. “You’re no fun,” the man lamented as Yuri stood, attempting in vain once more to power up his weapon’s flashlight.
The main generator was a pile of slag, with scorch marks ringing the area it occupied. The consoles in the room had been torn open, and loose wires dangled haphazardly from over a dozen terminals. Video screens were cracked and spiderwebbed, but not smashed in, and holographic projectors were shorted out and unpowered.
With a curse, Yuri braced his hand against the wall above the conduit he had been inspecting before his light died. The panel covering it had been torn off and cast across the room, now embedded halfway through the main power distribution terminal on the other side. The conduit’s innards were splayed out for both men to see, as well as they could in the dark anyhow, shredded into small pieces and twisted into unrecognizable forms. “This isn’t good,” the titan said.
“Maybe not for you,” Altan replied, “But not all of us are quite so… limited in our illumination alternatives.” The Sergeant closed his eyes for a second, muttered a codephrase, then opened his eyes again. This time a small red glow emanated from his right eye, a demonic bloodshot orb giving its owner a rare, but appreciated, advantage over his comrades in the inky blackness. Having neglected to bring his helmet, Altan's eye was shining all the brighter without being encased in the protective headwear.
“Can’t even tell the lights are off,” he said, nudging Yuri again. “I bet you’d kill for an awesome eye like this.”
“Believe me, the urge grows stronger with each passing minute.”
“Whatever.” Altan brushed the comment aside. “Should we just head for the engine room now?”
Yuri knelt back down and began to run his hand over the metal plating next to the ruined lighting controls with his demolition expert’s caution. “Sarge, take a look at this.”
“Weird, but sure, whatever,” Altan agreed, focusing his eye on Yuri’s hand. “Huh. It looks like writing. Hang on, move your hand.” The faint humming of Altan’s eye boomed in the silence, the sergeant mouthing the words to whatever message had been scrawled. “Huh.”
Yuri was unable to stop himself from rolling his eyes as Altan paused, likely in order to annoy the explosive’s expert further.
“Calm down,” Altan chastised. “All it says is ‘In the Dark.’ Real valuable intel, right?”
Yuri voiced his opinion thoughtfully. “But isn’t it a bit… creepy?”
“No, it’s obvious,” Altan hissed without bothering to disguise his contempt. “We’re going to the engine room. Now.”
Yuri stretched out as he rose, following Altan’s footsteps out of the power room and continuing down the narrow metal corridors of the smuggling vessel as something unsettling gnawed at the back of his mind. He’d learned to take note of that tiny sensation. It had saved his life in the war more than once.
But the war was over. What could possibly be more terrifying than the mad firestorm the galaxy had just come out of?
His heart skipped a beat at the thought and he clutched his rifle just a little tighter.
2115 HOURS
The hydraulic doors groaned open, parting in the middle and drawing themselves into the frame as Sarah and Curtis slipped through the threshold. The familiar sound of metal grating on metal was given a new unsettling life in the stillness of the Nocturnal, with the two friends having nothing but the lights on their rifles to light their way.
“Sarah, can you check my suit seals?” Curtis stopped and turned his back to her, displaying the faint readouts on the panel that they all had on the back of their armor.
“Curtis,” Sarah sighed, “For the last time your armor seals are fine. There is nothing to worry about.”
“How do you know?” he said turning back to her and continuing down the hallway. “Can’t you feel it? Something isn’t right here.”
The duo reached another door and Sarah keyed the controls. The door hissed and wrenched itself open with an uncanny echo. “You’re worrying too much,” Sarah reminded him. “You always do this. It was the same back on the Chekov during the war. Every time something went wrong you started worrying.”
“Sarah, we were the only ones who survived the Chekov!” Mild panic seeped into his voice, a panic that couldn’t be disguised by the filter on his helmet. “You have to feel it too. Don’t tell me this doesn’t remind you of the Chekov’s breakdown. Of Pearce?”
The door began to shut. Sarah stepped through with her arm around Curtis’s rifle, pulling the marine along with her before the two halves of the door met and closed with a metallic chunk. She had to admit that he had a point.
Her memories of the Chekov had long since been filed away into the places of her mind that she chose not to visit. During the war she and Curtis had been stationed on the TAV Chekov, a small patrol vessel of the same make as their current assignment, the Huxley. Out of the Chekov’s crew, only Sarah, Curtis, and their commanding officer, Lt. Pearce, had survive to see the end of the war. Sarah and Curtis themselves had been the only ones to survive to bring their ship into port afterward.
“That’s not important. Just stop worrying and we’ll be done in an hour or so. We just need to get to this Adrian guy and take him back to the Huxley, simple as that.”
“Simple?!” He cried. The audial dampeners inside his armor canceled out the excess noise, but none of the frightened tone. “We’ve been on this ship for half an hour already and I feel like we’re not alone. Like someone else is here.”
“Curtis, please, just focus for me, okay?” The man shook off Sarah’s tired arm before she could lead him further into the vessel. “We’re not alone because our squad is here,” she cooed reassuringly.
"But what happened to the crew?" he persisted. We haven't seen a single crewmember yet. That Adrian guy on the log? He's it. This ship looks deserted, which is already weird, but it doesn't feel like it is, which is even worse."
“Nothing is going to happen if we just keep our heads and keep to the mission.”
“Fine,” Curtis squeaked. “But as soon as we find this guy, we’re leaving. Promise?”
“Promise.”
2120 HOURS, BRIDGE
For the third time since arriving at the final door, the last obstacle between the two of them and the bridge, Lt. Graves checked her watch. Her squad had made much less progress by this point than she had hoped for. The worst part was that she couldn’t do anything about it. She had to rely on Cash and her technical expertise to get to her objective, and if there was one thing Hannah Graves hated more than anything it was having to be dependant on others. She preferred to be in charge of her own fate.
Her ache for her days as a Colonel grew. The inescapable thought that she had already passed her peak reared its visage in her mind, and as always she shrunk away from facing it.
“Got it,” Cash chirped merrily. “After you, ma’am.” Graves pushed the halves of the door aside, opening the way into the bridge and hopefully some answers.
The bridge, however, was empty. No ship's Captain, no first mate, communications specialist, maintenance technician or even cook. It was barren. A few of the monitors flickered against a scene of almost utter darkness in one corner, and the squad leader stoically pointed Cash in their direction as she brought her gaze out the main veiwports to rest on the stars.
The small pinheads of light were spread randomly throughout space, insignificant against the murky depths of the nothingness that lay outside, but Graves noticed something amiss. The stars were… darker. Noticeable, but barely so.
“Newman, come in,” she keyed over her comm. “You there?”
“Where else would I be?” he asked.
“Stow it,” she ordered. “Now look outside. Do the stars seem… weird, to you at all?”
“Um… ma’am?”
“Just tell me,” she barked. Cash glanced up from her work momentarily before tucking her head back down to stare at the console before her. Newman went quiet as he inspected the stars, leaving Graves alone with her thoughts and an uneasiness that had settled beneath her skin and made itself at home.
The crackling of the communications channel nearly caused her to jump out of her armor. “The stars look fine to me, boss. Bright, shiny, and lots of’em.”
“Roger, keep the line open.” Graves turned to Cash and motioned for the woman to join her by the viewports. “Cash, is it just me or is something wrong out there?”
The hacker absently scratched her cheek like she did when cracking a system open. It was a sign that her mind was working, analyzing the information before her and piecing it together to come up with a solution. Her investigative gaze scanned from one side of the scene before them to the other, then back again as she scratched all the while.
“The stars,” she finally said, reaching a hand out to touch the glass. “They’re not right. It’s almost like they’re… dim. I can hardly see them.”
“Thanks,” Graves said as she opened the channel to Newman again. “Newman, I want you to break the Huxley off from the Nocturnal for a few minutes. The airlock’s sealed up tight, so just detach. Bring her around toward the cockpit of the Nocturnal and tell me what you see, okay?”
Grumbling an affirmative, Newman and the Huxley’s sudden detachment sent minor shudders throughout the derelict smuggling ship.
“Okay,” Newman radioed a minute later, “I’m coming up in front of the cockpit… now.”
Graves didn’t see anything. “Cash, do you see him?”
Putting down her tools again, the tech looked out the window with narrowed eyes. “No… wait, I think. There, you see that part that’s totally black? Not even any stars?”
The negative space caught Graves’s attention. A subtle void, lacking even the barely visible light of the dim stars was crawling across the viewport. “Okay, Newman, we can barely see you.”
“Wait, you’re on the bridge of that thing?” His question chilled Graves.
“Yes. You can’t see us?”
The void stopped moving as Newman hovered the Huxley before the bridge. “No ma’am, I can’t. It’s completely black in there. Not even the starlight helps.”
“And you’re sure,” Graves radioed again, “That you can see the stars just fine on your end? They’re not dull or not shining as brightly as they normally do?”
“No ma’am. Everything’s okay out here. I just can’t see in.”
“Alright,” Graves choked out as her throat tightened. “Get back to the airlock and hook up again.”
Newman’s joking tone was gone, replaced by a solemn and almost terrifyingly sober persona that was so unlike the normally jovial pilot. “Aye aye, ma’am.” The unease of her voice must have finally made its way to him through the comm.
“Almost done, Cash?” Graves asked, pulling the confident and no-nonsense mask back over herself like a shroud.
Cash didn’t take her eyes away from the glowing screen. “Just about, ma’am.”
The sooner the better, the former hero thought. Things get strange on the smuggling ship. What could be going on?
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Post by Rock114 on Nov 7, 2014 22:27:24 GMT
PRESENT DAY, INTERROGATION ROOM
The interrogator leaned back in his seat with a content smile. Hannah flinched at it. “Thank you, Ms. Graves,” the sharply dressed man said with seemingly genuine gratitude. “That will be all.”
“But I haven’t even-”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Please, Ms. Graves, don’t feel the need to continue. If you would be so kind as to allow Sergeant Ramirez here to escort you back to your cell, I promise you that I won’t be calling you back here for any more ‘sessions,’ as they were.”
Hannah became tense as she felt an armored gauntlet rest itself on her shoulder. “Don’t bullshit me like that,” she commanded, standing up. “I know what’s about to happen.”
The interrogator chuckled. “Do you now?” he asked, amused. “And what would that be?”
“You know. Nobody can ever see me again, can they? I need to be ‘Taken out of the picture.’”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “You are right, Ms. Graves,” he admitted. “We cannot allow you to let word of this get out. The galaxy is in a bit of a delicate state at the moment. More than most know.”
“I figured. A coverup.”
“Call it what you will,” he told her casually. “But the truth is a terrifying thing. In the wrong hands it could very well send our civilization over the edge. If humanity ever knew the Truth behind what has been happening in the past few decades alone… well, individuals such as myself are employed to ensure that that never comes to pass. Through whatever means we deem necessary.
“What is this, some kind of conspiracy or something? Who the Hell are you?”
He pushed the question aside as Ramirez led her to the room’s exit. “Don’t worry Ms. Graves, we’ll take good care of you and your men.”
The door slammed shut as she was escorted out of the room with her head held high as if in a final act of stoic defiance. It was impressive, really. There weren’t many in the universe who could stand up so tall in the face of what they believed to be their demise. He hid the little admiration that tickled the back of his thoughts as he thought he finally glimpsed the Hannah Graves who had been lauded as the savior of Earth before her disgrace. It was a shame that such a remarkable woman needed to vanish. A galactic tragedy that no one would care for. Likely one that few would even notice.
The interrogator’s partner, who had been standing statue-like by the door throughout the entire interrogation, uncrossed his arms. “Which of them do we bring in next?”
The interrogator showed apprehension for the first time. “Altan,” he stated. “If we don’t bring him in now, we might never get the chance.”
His partner began whispering into the microscopic communicator clipped to the collar of his shirt. He himself leaned back and drew in a deep, anxious breath.
Altan was still a bloody mess. Ramirez and another guard wrestled the man into the seat across from the interrogator. The shell-shocked expression he wore was complimented by the shining, new blood dripping down his arms.
“Bastard was scratching the skin off his arms when we found him in cell,” Ramirez reported. “The floor was slick with it when we walked in. Had to tranq him to get him to come with us.”
“You did well, Sergeant. Wait for us outside, will you?”
“Sir, is that-”
“Wait. For us.”
Ramirez surrendered, taking his comrade with him and sealing the door behind them leaving only Talon and his partner in the room with Altan. Altan’s white uniform, newly issued after the incident with Axel and Ramirez’s team, was again soaked through with ruby. The sleeves had been torn off altogether, giving Talon a full view of the deep, ragged furrows in both of the man’s arms. Altan himself barely acknowledged the wounds as his head whipped from side to side as if searching for an invisible threat with his single remaining eye. A patch of bloody gauze was affixed over where he had previously had his cybernetic eye. Now it was nothing more than an empty, useless socket. The dirty, old bandage had been there since the Huxley and its five remaining crew members had docked with the station almost a month ago. Attempts to change the bandages had met with violence until the medical staff deemed him too dangerous to treat and left him as he was.
Altan slammed his hands on the table, eyes maddened and confused. “I know what’s happening!” he declared. “But Axel just wouldn’t listen! It’s not my fault!”
“Nobody in here is judging you, Sergeant,” Talon comforted. “In fact, listening is what I’m here to do.”
“No,” he shouted in denial. “Everyone says that, everyone lies to me, lies, but I know when I see it! They all say it but none of them mean it."
“All I want to know is what happened. Why did you kill Mr. Newman?”
“I already told you,” Altan cried, “He wouldn’t listen. I tried to tell him but he wasn’t there with us when it happened. He never believed.”
“Believed what, Sergeant?”
“That it followed us. I know, I can feel it.”
He kept his composure. “You were followed from the ship?”
“It’s waiting, watching,” Altan whispered. He dug his fingers into the wounds on his arm again and began to scratch the skin away. The interrogator let him as his frantic rant grew in speed but kept its hushed volume. “It’s always been there, in the corners of our sight, at the edge of our awareness. The peripheries of… I’m not even sure. From places man has never looked upon. It lurks there until it’s ready, and then it… it…”
“It what, Sergeant?” he asked, leaning in.
Altan’s face was buried in pain, but none of it was from his arm. The distress was in his head, a mental anguish that he couldn’t escape. “Curtis!” he yelled, looking upward. “Curtis told me! Curtis, we talk, and he listens to me, he knows what I mean. We’ve been talking about it ever since we got back. He told me… what it would do.”
“Step back a moment,” the man commanded. “You are talking about Curtis Mackin, correct? Your squadmate?”
“Of course!” Altan shouted. “He’s the only one who really knows, the only one who really listens! The others know, but they won’t talk about it. Not with me. They think… think that I’m…”
“No, it’s alright Sergeant,” he said, easing the distressed man’s agitation as he made a note of what Altan had just said. “You can speak with me. Curtis isn’t here, but I am, and I’m all ears. So now, in your own words, what happened back on that ship?”
Altan wrenched his eyes shut and clenched the fist of his wounded arm, scratching all the while. “Yuri and me… we were on our way to the Engine Room when we found it…” AN: Graves is gone now. What could have happened to her? And Altan has apparently been speaking with Curtis lately.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 9, 2014 3:04:05 GMT
Pretty good.
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Post by Rock114 on Nov 12, 2014 23:45:40 GMT
ONE MONTH EARLIER, OCTOBER 23, 2438: 2145 HOURS
Yuri held his hand up, balling it into a fist to signal Altan behind him to stop.
“What is it?” the sergeant murmured, holding his rifle aloft and scanning the pitch black hallways behind them with his infrared cybernetic eye. Every so often Yuri had seen the man twitch as his gaze lingered longer behind the two. It was almost like there was something in the recycled air, something that the ship’s oxygen filters couldn’t scrub out.
Yuri pointed ahead. “A light.”
“You’re shitting me,” Altan buzzed in disbelief.
“No,” Yuri responded, equally surprised.
Altan looked ahead, and Yuri wordlessly shifted his eyes back to the hall they had come from, covering their rear. He had never liked leaving a flank exposed, but now more than ever it felt as if they all needed to be alert.
Why was that? What was it about this ship that was doing this to him?
For a few moments Altan bit his lower lip before tapping his comrade on the shoulder. “It’s only about ten meters ahead, but I can barely make it out.” Yuri grunted a confirmation. It had been the same for him. “Let’s check it out,” Altan ordered. “Maybe we can restore power.”
Something deep inside Yuri screamed at him to stop the man. Each step the two took toward the light, an animal fear grew stronger in his chest. It was eerily reminiscent of his first firefight. The trembling, the sweat, the crying, all while beams of plasma lit up the night around him. Sometimes he would still wake up in the waning hours of the night with his hands clutching a rifle to his chest that wasn’t there. The nightmares had been a constant occurrence and had persisted throughout the war and beyond.
Strangely enough he would have given anything to be back in that trench. At least there was light.
The two finally reached their destination. It was a room. The automatic door was fused shut, but a window around half a meter wide and the same height as the door and situated immediately to its side allowed them to see into the compartment. A corpse was lying next to the door, dressed up in ratty fatigues similar to the ones Adrian wore in his log, and slumped against the wall. The crewmember’s head was nearly gone, and the cause was obvious as the two men spied the sidearm clutched in his limp hand that had fallen to the side. A name tag on the left breast read “K. Mathis.”
The room containing the light was as run down as the rest of the ship. The metal walls were rusting, showing signs of wear and age that were amplified by the intense illumination. Around the room the two men could see industrial floodlights arrayed in a circular pattern. Each one was wired to a generator at the foot of the window on the inside, drawing the power required to shine their overbearing, fluorescent blaze. The generator itself possessed a series of wires leading directly into the ship's walls, presumably powering some other system elsewhere on the vessel. It seemed that no single part of the room had been left unlit, except for one.
Curiously enough, the one unlit part of the room was the target of the spotlights. The epicenter of the beams was the far corner of the compartment, and in that corner there was…
Yuri wasn’t sure what what it was. Only that it was… wrong.
“You see that?” Altan queried. “In the corner.”
Yuri felt a rising urge to flee build up within him. “Yes,” he croaked, keeping his voice to a whisper even though his helmet stopped any sound from escaping it.
Altan, similarly, was showing signs of anxiety. “What is it?”
Yuri kept silent. The far corner of the room, the dark portion, almost appeared to be shimmering with darkness. It wasn’t just dark, though. It was…
Solid. A solid, unnatural black shadow, withering against the onslaught of the lights. The longer he stared at it the more sick he grew. The shadow radiated a pure, ruthless hatred so sharp he could almost feel the icy steel of a blade puncture his chest and begin to twist. The sensation robbed him of breath.
The click of his helmet radio nearly stopped his heart. “Lieutenant Graves,” Altan muttered in a rushed, low, panic, “Come in.”
Silence.
“Ma’am?”
Nothing.
Yuri tried to pull his eyes away from the foreboding thing in the corner of the locked room, but for some reason every time he tried his eyes migrated back to it as if of their own accord, like something invisible was pulling his strings like a living puppet and subtly bringing him back to stare at the furious dark corner.
Altan was shouting in a whisper now. “Please, God, Hannah just pick up the fucking line already!” He was answered with static.
Then the generator sputtered. The connection with the floodlight cables sparked, then belched smoke. The two could see the object’s running lights go dark one by one from their side of the window until it died. A second later the lights followed, plunging the two into a pitch black cauldron of primal fear.
The darkness was oppressive. It seemed to be more than a simple absence of light. The darkness seemed to be almost alive, reaching into every corner of this section of the ship and making it its own. The longer they sat in the dark, weapons pointing into oblivion, the air became saturated with a heavy malice.
“Shit,” Altan undertoned. His hand gripped Yuri’s shoulder with vice-like force. “Tell me I’m not losing it. You hear that too?”
Yuri’s “No” was cut off halfway by a small, almost invisible scratching. At least it sounded like scratching. The sound was so insignificant that at first he thought it was imaginary. The pitch blackness all around them was already playing tricks on his mind, so why not his ears? This was the first time he truly envied Altan. The man’s cybernetic eye afforded him sight when Yuri earned for nothing else.
The dread in the air grew thick. Blinded and lost, all Yuri could do was try and stay close to Altan. His weapon’s flashlight was useless. He kept checking it by touch and confirmed that it was activated and powered up, but the beam was nearly invisible as if a black filter had been placed over the lens. He couldn't see anything. The ship around him had turned into a void.
The sound of a plasma cell charging in a rifle momentarily drowned out the scratching. “What is it?” Yuri asked.
He guessed that Altan was aiming his rifle, but everything stopped once the sergeant spoke.
“Yuri,” Altan said, at the edge of panic, “It’s coming from the room.”
AN: What the Hell is happening? I don't think something like this ever appeared in the recruitment ads.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 12, 2014 23:53:26 GMT
Yeah dude good job. You should actually try getting it published...through ebooks and shit...for a dollar. Make mo money.
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Post by Rock114 on Nov 14, 2014 20:29:21 GMT
AN: Long ass chapter here. Brace yourselves. 2200 HOURS
Another door squealed open, and presented yet another shadowy hallway. Sarah concealed her annoyance as Curtis continued walking backward with his rifle pointing back the way they had come. “How much longer?”
Sarah kept back a sigh. “Just a few more of these doors and we should be at the log room. Then maybe this Adrian guy can tell us what’s wrong with this ship.”
Agitated and a little afraid, he turned from the hallway for the first time in what seemed like hours. Prepared to remind her of her promise, a sharp, static click from inside their helmets startled the thought away from him. “What the fuck was that?”
“It sounded like…” Musing, she tapped her fingers to the side of her helmet and activated the radio. “Anyone there?”
“Cash here,” their hacker answered. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Sarah remarked as the click sounded a second time, “Just checking the line. We thought we heard something. How are things on your end?”
“Graves is losing her shit,” Cash chuckled. “She’s been trying to contact Greg and Yuri for 15 minutes, but she can’t get through. We’re on our way to the engine room to try and meet up with them.”
Click. “Let us know when you find them, or anyone else, okay?” Cash gave her an affirmative before Sarah switched frequencies again in search of the rogue signal. Each time she switched frequencies, Curtis jumped at the sharp click that signaled the change.
After switching four times she found it.
“Hello? I said can you hear me?” The voice was instantly recognizable.
“Adrian?”
“Who is this?”
Something was finally going right. “Corporal Sarah Bryant, Terran Marines. We received your video log, and we’re making our way to you as we speak.”
Something crashed on the other end, presumably something that had fallen off the log room’s desk. “I said to stay away!” he shouted, the radio distorting his voice. “Do you know what you’ve done?!”
“Hey pal,” she reminded him, “We’re here to save you from this derelict. We’ve almost reached the log room, so try and relax. Now, what exactly happened to this ship? Where are the crew?”
“Where are they? They were here, but now they’re not. Christ, you don’t-”
Click.
“Adrian?” Sarah was met with silence. The line was dead. She and Curtis exchanged concerned glances just as the sound of shattering glass echoed through the dim corridors from far off.
“Sarah,” Curtis stated, “This is bad.”
Before she could agree the sound of plasma fire reached out from the dismal, darkened corners of the ship. Their radios clicked again.
It was Graves, business-like as always, but the line was breaking up when it had been more or less clear when she had talked to Cash a minute earlier. “Bryant, Mackin, tell me that’s you.”
“Sorry ma’am,” Sarah apologized, mouth drying. “I can’t.”
Graves curse was drowned out by the growing interference. “Camorev and Altan, they’re in trouble.” The line was being mangled with interference the longer it was kept open. She heard Graves give her an unintelligible order before her voice was lost in the static completely. Seconds later the line went dead, just like Adrian’s. Not even static remained. The line was just gone.
Thunderous and foreboding, the door at the end of the hall groaned as it slid upward of its own volition, free of the ship’s automated lockdown cycle. Whatever power source it had been drawing its energy from must have shorted out, unsealing the doors. Within seconds it ground to a halt, but the mechanical screeching continued to bound from wall to wall through the corridors until it finally slipped far enough into the darkness that was deep enough to swallow the noise.
Curtis yanked Sarah back the way they had come, shaking uncontrollably. “Sarah, we need to leave.” His voice held a note of fear she hadn’t heard since their previous vessel had broken down. “Please,” he begged. “There’s nothing good at the end of this hallway.”
He was right. The atmosphere seemed somehow even darker now than it had when they first boarded. A deep feeling of unease slithered into her from the inky, deserted surroundings. The plasma rifle fire had died off and now only an almost supernaturally disturbing silence reigned in its wake.
But they were soldiers, and they had their orders. Find Adrian, figure out what was going on.
“Sorry Curtis,” she let him know, resigned, “But we have to do this. He shouldn’t be much further. We’ll find out what’s going on when we get to him, and then we can leave.”
“Sarah,” Curtis stammered. She could sense him tearing up under his helmet. “Don’t.”
She couldn’t muster the will to respond. Instead she turned back toward the log room and Adrian and started to walk. Curtis blinked away his tears and followed behind her as closely as he could. PRESENT DAY, INTERROGATION ROOM
“No!” Altan gripped at the bandage over his eye with both hands, flinging blood from the wounds on his arm across the room with the motion. “It’s here!”
“What is it, Sergeant?” the interrogator droned calmly, wiping several tiny flecks of blood from his face.
“You didn’t see it?! It was in the goddamn hallway!”
“Calm, Sergeant, calm, there is nothing there. Sergeant Ramirez-”
“You lied! You’re just like them! You don’t believe, you don’t LISTEN! I can see it! It’s right there!”
The interrogator looked out into the hallway through the glass windows on either side of the door. The hallway, like much of the station, wasn’t completely lit but he detected no anomalies in his visual search. Ramirez and the other guard were standing calmly outside, unperturbed by anything that Altan claimed to be lurking in the dark. “Altan, please-”
“Stop it!” he screeched. “Make it stop! I don’t want to look at it anymore, it’s… so…” Altan finished the sentence by ripping off the gauze patch over his empty eye socket and plunging his fingers in. “FUCK! Get out of my head! Get out get out get out GET OUT! PLEASE!” His fingers dug into the barren socket. “NO MORE! I DIDN’T DO IT! IT WASN’T ME, I WASN’T EVEN THERE!”
The interrogator’s partner whispered into his collar radio as his hand dropped to his waist and rested it on the sidearm holstered there. The door screeched open and Ramirez burst in with his rifle centered on Altan’s chest.
“You’ll let it in!” the man wailed. “Close the door! It’s behind you!”
The space behind Ramirez was empty.
“Fuck you,” Ramirez cursed with contempt. Like a lightning strike he brought the stock of his plasma rifle across Altan’s face, sending the maniac to his knees. His screaming stopped and was replaced by a childlike whimpering as he freely let his tears run.
Altan covered his head in his arms, sobbing and pointing down the hallway, without even noticing Ramirez give a vicious kick into his back. “Sir,” Ramirez asked, furious, “Are you done with this psycho yet?”
The interrogator sat back in the chair and put a hand to his forehead, disappointed. “I suppose so, Sergeant,” he admitted in defeat. “Take him.”
“Where to?”
“Deck 32, Hallway 5-B, along the hull.”
Ramirez let himself smile for the first time since he’d been assigned to this space station. “Yes sir.”
“And feel free to take care of it yourself,” the interrogator informed him.
Satisfied, Ramirez lifted Altan with the assistance of his fellow guard and dragged the crying man out of the room and to the nearest lift. The interrogator sighed dejectedly as his partner spoke.
“What now, One?”
“We bring in the next,” he reminded him. “We do our job. Two, and I intend to see it through.” Strangely enough, Hallway 5-B was extremely well lit. After being exposed to the light Altan had calmed down enough for the two soldiers to feel comfortable with letting him walk with no assistance, save for them holding his hands behind his back.
Altan didn’t notice the airlock on the right. “Are we going someplace safe?” he begged hoarsely. “Some place with light?”
The guards stopped him in front of the airlock. Ramirez’s companion looked Altan in the eyes as Ramirez slipped around behind him. “You won’t have to worry about any of this soon.”
“What?”
“Yeah, you heard right,” Ramirez assured him from behind. “It’s all over now. But can you do me one last favor?”
“Anything,” their captive begged. “Just don’t leave me in the dark again.”
“Say hi to Sergeant Bates for me, you sick, murdering prick.” Ramirez pressed the barrel of his sidearm against the back of Altan’s head and squeezed the trigger. The man had a split second to feel the fear before the beam of plasma shot through his skull and he collapsed to the floor in an inert heap.
“Thanks for the distraction, Jessup,” Ramirez said with gratitude. “I almost thought those spooks in the interrogation room would let this fucker get away with it.”
“Sarge was a decent guy,” Jessup agreed as the two dragged Altan’s corpse into the airlock and sealed the inner doors. “He deserved better.”
“A-fuckin’-men to that, my brother.” Ramirez pressed the button on the panel next to the large circular doors of the airlock, and the two watched the decompression rip Altan’s corpse from the airlock and through the identical thick, circular doors that led into space. "He joins up on day one of the war, fights through five years of Hell, and some psychopath shanks him while he's on guard duty. How does that make any sense?" The doors slammed shut after several seconds and the three bolts locked into place, securing it against the vacuum of the void just outside the station’s hull.
“So, how much money did you put in the pool?” Jessup asked.
“Put my entire paycheck in,” Ramriez informed him as the two strode down the deserted hallway in a melancholy triumph. “Bates’s wife needs it more than I do this month. Besides, I’m stuck here for another four months. It’s not like I can spend any of this money until I get off this pisshole station…”
The two entered the lift and returned to the level the agents had cordoned off for the interrogations of Altan and his crew, discussing and mourning their former squad leader all the while. Neither of the two gave a second thought to Altan’s frozen corpse, floating in the darkness of the infinite void of space. AN: So Altan and Axel are dead. Graves is missing. And since only four other people were with Altan in the first chapter (One of which he murdered, leaving only four of them) these guys are dropping like flies. There are only two survivors left to interview. Who could they be?
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Post by Rock114 on Nov 30, 2014 20:07:13 GMT
The interrogator took a long look at the man sitting across from him.
He possessed strong features and wore a head of short, shaved hair, but his appearance was almost sickly. Unnaturally pale skin glowed in the light of the interrogation room, and the once strong man now seemed to be a shadow of his former self as he rested in the chair.
“I am glad you could join us, Mr. Camorev,” the interrogator greeted him.
“Where’s Altan.” It wasn’t a question.
“He has already had his interview,” the interrogator said, pausing as Yuri snorted out a short laugh at the word “Interview.” “Now I’m talking to you.”
“He never came back to the cell block,” Yuri continued, accusatory. “Neither did Lieutenant Graves.”
“I can see that you will persist on this point for longer than we have time,” the sharply dressed man conceded, “So let us make a deal. I will answer your question -truthfully- and you will answer mine.” He stretched his hand over the table and held it halfway to Yuri, expectant. “Do we have an agreement?”
Yuri shot the open hand a suspicious gaze, before gingerly taking it and giving it a weak shake.
“Thank you for seeing sense. Now, as to the matter of your comrade.”
“Is he alright?”
“He is dead,” the interrogator stated bluntly and cool. “I ordered his termination at the conclusion of his interview. He was too dangerous for us to be able to ensure the safety of you and your two fellow subjects.”
“Yeah,” Yuri grunted. “I expected as much. Can’t say I blame you. And Hannah?”
“We made a deal about Altan,” the interrogator reminded him curtly. “If you fulfill your end of the bargain, then I will reveal to you the fate of your commanding officer.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice, do I?”
“I am afraid not.” Yuri shrugged, a sad, laborious motion that betrayed his inner despair. “Now that I have told you about Sergeant Altan, I would like you to tell me about Specialist Vasquez.”
“W-what?”
“Carlita Vasquez? Your squad’s hacker and cyber security specialist?”
“You mean Cash,” Yuri corrected him, his mind going to a faraway place. “We called her ‘Cash.’”
The interrogator looked down, and a holographic screen about a foot wide and tall sprang to life in front of him. Yuri recognized his face, as well as the faces of his six squad members, spaced evenly along the screen. The interrogator tapped the picture of Cash and her service record appeared. Unfortunately for Yuri, the text appeared backwards to him. He wasn’t on the right side of the display.
“Yes,” his host mumbled after several seconds of interested reading. “I see now. You called her that because of the money she stole from the government during the war.”
“She was great with computers,” Yuri reminisced, momentarily slipping out of his inner darkness. “She had over two million before she got caught.”
“Yes, and because of her little cyber heist, the Alliance took a long look at its virtual security protocols to ensure a similar incident never occurred again. It was this little adventure that resulted in her being assigned to your squad, correct?”
“Yeah,” Yuri admitted. “We were washouts. We never pretended otherwise.”
"And speaking of punitive assignments, let us go into why you were given-”
“Fuck you!” Yuri growled, banging a curled fist on the table. “I know what you’re implying, and you can blow it out your ass.”
The interrogator never flinched. “But Mr. Camorev, something happened to Ms. Vasquez on that vessel.” Yuri, teeth clenched and grinding, grabbed the edge of the table and squeezed, taking in heavy breaths. “Are you sure you had nothing to do with it?”
“Out of all the explosives I’ve planted,” Yuri whimpered, “I’ve never placed one badly…”
“Except once, you mean?”
Paralyzed and dripping with sweat, he couldn’t even move enough to nod. “Yes. My first.”
“Four men died because of that, Mr. Camorev. It was why you were assigned to a low importance, out of the way post once the war ended and the need for troops vanished.”
“I swear,” he insisted. “I always made sure after that. I triple checked each and every one after, and I know that what happened wasn’t my fault.” He shivered violently, threatening to unintentionally rip the table off of the bolts that affixed it to the station’s deck.
“Then what happened,” the interrogator asked. “Tell me as you remember it, how did she die?”
AN: And so we have our third survivor, and learned that something happened to Cash on the ship.
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Post by Rock114 on Dec 14, 2014 18:59:56 GMT
2225 HOURS, ENGINE ROOM
Altan let loose with another burst of plasma fire. The hallways were illuminated by the blazing fury of the energy beams for a few split seconds before the blackness closed in around them again. Even his cybernetic eye couldn’t penetrate the veil, but it afforded him enough sight to see where he was going.
“Sarge! In!”
He leaped backward, the force of his lunge putting him facedown into the metal plating of the deck. But he was facedown on the correct side of the door. Yuri grabbed the edge of the metal slab, useless now without power, and heaved with all his gargantuan strength. The door screeched a protest as it slid along the metal, but backed by adrenaline Yuri couldn’t be stopped. Altan fired two final shots through the crack in the door just as Yuri hauled it closed completely, wheezing with the effort. Usually it took a team of men to move unpowered doors on these old smuggling ships, but Yuri refused to be defeated.
“What the hell is going on?” A sharp, professional voice struck from behind. The two men spun, ready to salute, to find Graves standing behind them side by side with Cash.
Altan ejected the nearly spent cell from his rifle and jammed a fresh one in with unsteady hands. “Ma’am, we have a hostile on board.”
"A member of the crew? What are they armed with?”
Altan’s mouth opened but words refused to come forth.
“Well?”
“Well…”
“Sergeant,” Graves bellowed, turning her voice into a blade, “Report. Now.”
“We don’t know,” Yuri jumped in with honesty. “But Lieutenant, there-”
“Stop,” she sighed, bringing her hand up to her face in frustration. “What do you mean ‘We don’t know?’”
“Whatever this thing is,” Altan said, finding his voice, “It is bad news. It isn’t natural. It’s something we’ve never seen before.”
Graves sighed again. Cash backed away from the conversation, more at ease with her technology than with people. “Are you saying that we’re dealing with ‘Aliens,’ Sergeant?”
Altan stumbled over his words in a fruitless search for a less bizarre explanation, but Graves’ temper was reaching its limits. “Sergeant,” she coldly murmured, “Aliens do not exist.”
“But ma’am-”
“No,” she snapped. “Humanity has been among the stars for over a century and the biggest discovery our race has made is that we are alone. Completely. There is nothing out here.”
“We saw-”
“Nothing. You saw nothing, you shot at nothing, and you are screwing up this mission over nothing. You’ve always been insubordinate, but this is the last straw.”
His next plea was cut off before he could even give thought to it. Graves pushed him aside and shot Yuri through with a hard, disappointed glare. “The charges, Private Camorev.”
Unbuckling the pack of explosives from his armor he thrust them toward Graves’ waiting arms. “Ma’am,” he attempted. “We did see something.”
Graves was temporarily taken aback by the stoic man’s sudden voice. He never spoke, except for missions. It was common for him to go weeks at a time without speaking to any of them, and for him to voice his support of Altan, of all people in this galaxy, was an entirely different matter. It gave her pause enough to entertain the idea that the two men might not be full of it.
“What was it?” Cash piped in.
Graves lugged the pack of charges over to the engine pod on the left side of the room and waved Yuri over, letting him explain.
“A… shadow?” He knelt next to the pack and extracted the first explosive. “There was a room, all lit up except for one spot in the middle. The generator power the lights shorted out and everything went darker than usual.” The explosive, a small rectangular box about a foot tall and two inches wide plastered with a deep scarlet paint, attached to the side of the engine with its humming magnetic clamps built into the back of the charge. Yuri entered a series of numbers into the black keypad adorned with blue keys until an electronic tone sounded in his helmet, informing him that it was armed. “We sat there for I don’t know how long, and then the window next to the door shattered.” Altan had taken a position in the middle of the room with his eyes, and his rifle, locked onto the door they had raced through minutes before. Yuri pulled the detonator out of his belt, an unremarkable gray cylinder with a red button at one end, and pressed a button on the side of it marked “LINK.” “There was this wind rushing past us,” he continued, planting another charge on the engine on the opposite end of the room, “And I felt like it was sucking the air out of my lungs. I couldn’t breathe and my insides felt like they were on fire.”
“That’s when I saw it,” Altan added. “Part of it. I caught a glimpse with my fake eye and it was gone around a corner. So I opened fire.”
“We hauled ass to the engine room as fast as we could,” Yuri informed them. “But I can’t shake the feeling that it followed us.”
With an air of exasperation Hannah looked back at Cash. The younger woman shrugged. “Well,” the leader sighed, “We’ll put in a report when we get back to port.,” she relented, reluctantly dropping the matter in favor of continuing the mission. “Camorev, are the charges ready at least?” He nodded.
“Then we head back to the airlock and wait for Bryant and Mackin,” she stated, masking her uncertainty by concentrating on the mission at hand. “Once they retrieve the navigator we’ll disembark to the Huxley and detonate from a safe distance. The engines should overload and turn this entire crate into dust. Now let’s-”
“Hold,” Yuri cautioned. “Something’s wrong with the detonator signal.”
Cash took detonator in her hand as Altan launched into a flurry of panicked swearing behind them. “You put the arming codes in correctly, right?”
“Yes,” Yuri insisted. “Both should be linked to this detonator, too, but the connection reset. I tried establishing it again but it wouldn’t work.”
She hummed briefly to herself as she looked the cylinder over several times. “Maybe there’s interference. Our communications have been sporadic since we boarded, so it’s conceivable that the detonator signal could be affected as well. I think I can boost the output, but I’ll have to reestablish the connection first.” She leaned toward the explosive that was magnetically fastened to the left engine and brought the detonator in close, opening it up to examine its innards. A savant with all technology, the other three stood back and let her work.
None of them saw the shadow inching its way toward the engine from the edges of the room.
Her work continued for several minutes. All four felt an unnatural tension grip their chests. An attempt was made to contact Sarah and Curtis that resulted, predictably, in failure.
“I think I’ve got it,” Cash remarked. Yuri strode over and took up a position behind her, glancing over her shoulder at the explosive.
“Wait,” she warned. “Something is… what?”
She saw the glowing blue buttons of the keypad go black. The bomb was still powered, but now it looked… infected.
Yuri’s helmet beeped twice. The universal signal for “Fire in the hole.” But he hadn't set the bomb off.
Altan froze as he glimpsed a dark figure, a shadow, dart away from the engine and Cash before the explosive erupted in a blast of flame and heat in her hands, filling the entire room with molten hot shrapnel and a concussive force that tossed the marines about like playthings.
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Post by wakemeup on Dec 15, 2014 18:15:49 GMT
I haven't noticed this thread before. I might get around to reading it soon, since I liked your other stories.
You know what you should do? A story taking place in wild west.
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Post by Rock114 on Dec 15, 2014 18:42:46 GMT
I haven't noticed this thread before. I might get around to reading it soon, since I liked your other stories. You know what you should do? A story taking place in wild west.You have no idea how many times I've considered this. It's probably only a matter of time until I get around to it.
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