[M] Galactic Empires II

[Enigma]

Iona retreated back to the door where the four mules waited.

Plan:

A. Devour suit and form an exoskeleton around the biologic form in order to extract them from this location - Canceled.
B. Infiltrate suit to form a new framework for the exoskeleton in order to extract the biologic form from this location - Canceled.
C. Reduce the burden on the robotic mules and let the biologics make their own repairs - as requested.

Moving swiftly, Iona identified what seemed to be the highest priority items, and took 20% onto herself while redistributing the weight and remaining items among the four mules. She also collected some of the wreckage to tuck away into her internal frame where nanites began the process of turning raw material into more nanites, which it then sent out to reinforce its nanite frame against the additional load.

By the time Iona was done, the Elemental was back on her feet, its VI replaced by retasked Omegas.

"Ready to proceed," Iona intoned.

[Imperial1917]

His first impulse upon waking was to gag, hat seemed like years of moisture deprivation driving what little remaining biological fluids up in a direction they were never meant to go. In the same time and space a deep-seated sense of self-preservation stamped on the reflex as his mind probed his senses with an intensity only surpassed by their own probing of his surroundings, instinct driving him to avoid drawing attention to himself.

Sound was the first to reach him beneath the murk draining away like so much draining swamp as the nausea of rebirth cleared from his system. Voices, many babbling, many confused, all driven to a mere murmur as another rose over them. Under the haze he felt a stab of annoyance, bright and hot, as any distinct words were lost. That could be a death sentence.

With a will he pushed himself from where he lay in the... cryopod. Yes, he was in a cryopod. He knew this before he finally opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. How did he know that?

Pods lay strewn all around as some of their occupants groggily climbed out and were met with... Elementals. Armed soldiers. A confused babble was rising again, anger mixing with the dysfunction. Again above it all, that commanding voice laced with concern. "Take a mouthful, pass it around. And Garrick says we have access to the Phayder labs. As soon as we get you to HQ, we can get you set up."

Garrick... the name was familiar, like a distant cord of a forgotten song. Who... was he? He looked down at his hands, names swirling in his memory. Garrick? No, that couldn't be right. Amirk? No, another cord in the forgotten song. Ysthmir? No, that couldn't... or could it? Something about it sounded right. Something struck his memory. Ysthmir. Yes, a good strong name. That was him.

Blinking, Ysthmir looked up from his hand and took in his surroundings once more, more memories flooding his mind. They were not knowing, he knew, but rather some instinct. Instinct now, knowing would come later.

Emergency lights - something was wrong. Smashed pods - why did that seem so fitting? Armed soldiers and a conflict brewing, greater than the small tussle between the women nearby. He watched that through his haze as the Elemental waded in between them. He glanced around and saw the eyes of the spectators trained on the confrontation, their gazes sliding over him as if he wasn't there. That was how it was meant to be too, he felt. For now.

On instinct, he reached down under his pod and pulled out an equipment bag. He didn't know why he knew to do that, but he did. As he slung it over his back, the sound of scuttling filled the air.

[MidKnight]

Winter wanted to throw in several punches to the gut to make her feel the pain. To show how strong Winter was, but instead of throwing more blows. She felt a sudden jerk and soon her face met with her superior. Knowing this feeling from before, seeing most of the drill instructors getting into her face, including several of the fights she got involved in. Luckily for her, she had no choice to remain with the military despite her actions of trying to get tossed out. Though she managed to cope with what she had to deal with, the Marine Corps became her family.

After Gaea had tossed her to the ground like a rock, Winter's face hit the ground first. Breaking her fall, she growled softly and tried to stand back up. Only to get pulled again by something fierce and into Gaea's waiting hand. Winter grabbed her hand, trying to get out of her hold to attack the Lyre woman once more. Instead she met with overwhelming force and a lecture. Winter stopped struggling for a moment until Gaea released a sudden scream.

Stepping back a few feet, hearing her soft words about dampening fields. "Sergeant?" Winter called out to her softly while keeping her hands up from the unexpected accident. She watched her superior lay on the ground and then a Charabidian kneels down quickly by her, shaking her unconscious body, begging her to wake up. Then a fellow Terran kneels next to the young Charabidian, trying to get him to stay together through this situation.

Keeping her distance from the fallen comrade, she gazed now and then at the Lyre woman standing on the opposite side. Her breathing was heavily paced, but Winter kept breathing through her nose, her chest moved rapidly for a few short seconds until she finally calmed down. But kept her gaze on the Lyre woman. Her attention turned when she heard a slight gasp from the Elemental Sergeant, her nerves felt at ease knowing the Sergeant was alive. But she still had Sinclair in her gaze, "This ain't over...bitch." She said roughly before walking away to pick up her rifle laying on the ground nearby.

+++++

The old Dragonoid looked down on the one who talked to him, a young Charabidian. Mentioning about his height and muscles, Vezarres chuckled. "I'm sure you could handle yourself." He remarked. "Still...you should have woken up the Dragonoid security task force instead. They could have prevented of what happened here." He looked around, "Scavenge runs? Nah...what you need is what the humans call..'Improvise.' on some of these tech equipment you got laying around." He chuckled again, "If you were on my home world, you would not last the day if you don't know how to work with what you got laying around here." Then he heard someone screamed, and looked to the two women.

Vezarres watched as the two had scuffled, he couldn't help it but laugh as they fought briefly before the Elemental pulled them apart. "Let them fight, it gets a lot of stress out of their minds." Then he watched the Elemental scream in pain and barely said three words. 'Dampening field?' He thought. He walked over to see how the two were doing by giving Gaea a stim pack.

Seeing how the Terran tried to bypass the capacitor and mentioned something about VI. Vezarres sighs heavily. "Terrans and their so called VI's." He walked away from the three as they continued to work on the Elemental, though some of the things Sayori did made him flinch and felt awkward as she did what she needed to do. It was like watching a young warrior first time killing another Dragonoid.

After what seemed like an urgent rush, Vezarres hears the Elemental back in operation once more. He walked over to see the results. "Eh." He muttered. Though he could see several things that needed to be replace, coil wires, a new external hardware, and possibly power generator. The VI was out of his league. He checked his weapon once more and looked down the hallway where the young Charabidian was looking. He sniffed the air several times, he could smell death coming towards their way.

"Something's coming." He growled as he watched the hallway. "We need to move...NOW!!!" He walked over to the Elemental and reached for her arm, picking up her and carried half of her body with him. "I got her! No worries!!" He said once more before carrying Gaea like a over size dufflebag and moved his wings so they would not be in the way. "Stupid Terrans and their suits." He muttered to himself.

[AngelDellaNotte]

Miranda hit the wall with a thump jarring her, that combined with the punch to the stomach was enough for her to throw up the remaining slurry. God it tasted even worse coming up then it did going down. She coughed a few times and then spit the remaining out of her mouth. Unable to get that after taste to go away. She pushed herself from the ground and noticed the bottle of water the doctor had tried to offer her sitting on the remains of a cyropod. She took it and drank down half of it trying to get the taste out of her mouth. While the others clamored around the fallen elemental Miranda walked over to the weapons the Charabidian was handing out and took a rifle. She would much rather prefer having one of her own but it would do for now. Then she looked over seeing Winter moving in her direction and calling her a bitch, she tensed thinking at first the Terran was going to come at her again but then noticed the rifle on the ground. She took a couple steps toward it then just as Winter was about to pick it up she kicked it across the room before leaning in close to Winter and whispering, “Stay out of my way soldier girl. Wouldn't want anyone getting fragged around here.” Miranda pulled back and away from Winter walking over to the others getting ready to move. She raised her voice back to a normal level, “Better go take care of your nanny.” Miranda said, watching as the dragoniod picked up the elemental. “Nevermind the over grown Iguana has her.”

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Kromlyn was roused from his sleep though it felt like he had just laid down. Someone was violently shaking him awake while saying something about their elemental. He knew she had just gone out on a mission to bring back more survivors but hadn't expected them to be back just yet. That was why he was going to get a couple hours of sleep. He had been going nonstop from when they woke him from the cyropod checking on the others. The effects of the deep sleep were taking their toll on everyone not to mention the scale one event they had on their hands. He barely had more than a moment or two to rest since waking up. Thankfully his own symptoms were relatively mild. A slight headache and upset stomach. Eating some rations had helped with the stomach ache and he pushed through the headache reserving the medication for those with the worse symptoms. He finally woke up enough to understand what was being said to him. Something had happened to Gaea on the mission. Pushing himself out of the cot he glanced at his watch seeing that he had only been asleep about forty minutes.

The person who woke him lead him to the make shift control room where he noticed a Sentinax and could hear Davrry on the radio. They were giving instructions on how to get out of there and make minor repairs to the elemental's suit. Coming behind them her heard a woman's voice on the radio and the person who woke him explained it was Dr. Sayori trying to rewire the VI on the suit. He didn't really know what that meant his area of expertise being in organics not mechanics. “Dr. Sayori, this is Dr. Kovar, are you able to access the suits vital monitor and get a status on Gaea's vitals?” Kromlyn said, talking into the radio.

[Azazeal849]

"Dr Sayori?"

"It's for you, doc." Nevarn said tersely, pressing his comm-stalk back into Sayori's hands and shrugging his shotgun off his shoulder.

Sayori pressed the device to her ear without bothering to hook it in place. "Warrick here."

"Dr Sayori," a voice with a lilting Kel'Cyre accent replied, "This is Dr Kovar."

It took a moment for Sayori to put a face to the name - a silver-haired alien with a smile that never quite warmed his eyes. He had performed the medical screening for Sayori and the other Phayder Corp staff prior to the mission launch, but she knew little else about him except that he had apparently been honoured for bravery during the Concert War.

"Are you able to access the suit's vital monitor and get a status on Gaea's vitals?"

Sayori glanced over at the Dragonoid, who had looped Gaea's arm around his neck and hoisted her back onto her feet as if the weight of her powered armour was inconsequential.

"She's on her feet at least." she offered, hugging Nevarn's shadow as their newly-formed group hurried for the exit. "We gave her a double shot of stimms..."

As they dodged around the scattered cryo-pods and their decaying occupants, the hissing, skittering sound from beyond the bulkheads grew ominously louder. Sayori's mind conjured up a swarm of scorpions (It's hostile, invasive), racing and scuttling along the Elcano's half-lit corridors. (It kills us to learn about us.)

Scale One, Scale One, Scale One.

[dakkagor]

+++elementalBIOSv1.5+++
+++Combat restart? Y/N+++
+++ERRORBADBIOSDETECTED+++
+++ERRORBADBIOSDETECTED+++
+++ERRORBADBIOSDETECTED+++
+++INITIATING SUIT DENIAL PROCEDURE+++
+++3 . . .+++
+++2 . . .+++
+++DENIALPROCEDUREABORTEDUSEROVERRIDEDETECTED #28761Gaea, GS#+++
+++WELCOME BACK SERGEANT+++

"She's on her feet at least." she offered, hugging Nevarn's shadow as their newly-formed group hurried for the exit. "We gave her a double shot of stimms..."

Gaea snapped awake to a green world of scrolling code and miserable, aching pain. Someone was hauling her along the floor like she was a stumbling drunk, and her legs seemed to confirm that idea as they were clearly working on their own, the armours automated systems tripped.

+++YOU HAVE CONTACTS+++

She was wide awake as her screen cleared. The Dragonoid was carrying her. She could feel multiple, strange things slivering through her plugs and her nerves, like slugs made of melting ice.

She unlimbered her gun, and fired into the inky darkness.

She had seen it before the Dragonoid. It had fallen from the ceiling silently. Her SMG was not an ideal weapon for it. She watched rounds punch through its monstrous, insectoid carapace, missing vitals that intelligently reconfigured as she shot it. It was a collector, a millipede like assemblage of limbs, armour plates, piercing claws, and red lense eyes.

It shrieked like a human. It sobbed, begging, in the thick Ural accented voice of Corporal Olenko from G Company, begging her not to shoot him.

Its already got my RFID. Her brain was sluggish. Stims, exhaustion, damage. . . she fired another burst that sent it scuttling back. The thing screamed again, and she could see the skulls, grinning, red, flensed of skin, that the fucking monster had incorporated into its underside. Some of those skulls still had brains. Some of them were still concious. The collector started to reconfigure, bladed limbs unfolding even as her collection of rescued crew pumped it full of useless, useless stun rounds. The Dragonoid was going to charge it, she could feel his muscle groups tense.

Nevarn was by her side in the next second. He slid under the thing as it reared up to strike and fired two point blank shots. His shotgun was a specialised, custom piece of equipment, more a two shot blunderbuss firing a thick, explosive wad of monowire, plastic explosive, and charged particles. The Collector didn't die so much as come apart in chunks, flopping to the floor and weeping like a gutshot soldier. Nevarn got himself to his feet, and calmly reloaded his weapon.

“Nevarn . ..help me Nevarn. . .its got me. . .please, please beloved, don't let me die.”

Nevarn brought his boot down, hard, on its remaining CPU stack. The voice of his husband died, echoing into the dark corridor.

“Don't let me die. . . don't let me die. . .don't let me die.”

The ship screamed back.

+++++

Davrry Milner was not having a good day. In his customised hunters rig, he was light, strong and fast. And while he was protected against the elements, he was not armoured to even the level of Nevarn. His camocloak rippled about him as he ran silently through the crushspace of 763B/C. With Gaea down. . .

+Thats why we need to run+

“Gaea, you awake?”

+Affirmative.+ Davrry winced at the laboured breathing he heard. +We got the sniffing collector.+

Davrry slid to a stop and crammed himself into a rent in a wall. He paused his breathing, letting his cybernetic lung take over oxygenating his blood. It had been a neat trick as a big game hunter. Aboard the Elcano, it was a fucking lifesafer.

+Davrry?+

He tapped his comms twice.

+Understood. See you soon+

+++++

They where running. It was good that they where running.

Corridor 763B had passed in a blur, Gaea getting up-to-the-second updates from both of the doctors and Cicero. Kromlyn was remotely managing her suits medical systems while Cicero worked on on the fly programming for the Omegas patched in and keeping her field systems alive. She could feel the heat from the fusion stacks and capacitors as she kept the sound dampening field up and around them.

Corridor 763C waited. And it they where expected.

Three hunters, clawing and scratching at something on the floor, looked up with their blank mask faces. They started to lope towards the group.

“Back up!” She waved the group back, trying to get a bead on the leader. “BACK UP!”

She fired, a short burst, then another. The Hunters were different from the Collectors, all densly packed fibre muscles, actuators and armour plate designed to rend and tear at point blank range. Advanced motion predictor software feeding from sensors studding their bodies allowed them to almost dodge bullets.

Gaea missed twice.

Then the pack leaders head exploded. The whip crack roared through the air bubble, white fire tracing a line back to a busted open ceiling panel dangling wires and a single figure, hanging upside down with a massive custom anti-material rifle.

The left one turned on a dime, throwing itself at Davrrys concealed position, where a half powered shot smashed it to the deck, and a second decapitated it.

The final one scuttled towards her. With a feral yell, she punched it out. Her fist, swathed in a powerfield, tore through its head, neck and body, scattering it into metal confetti.

Davrry dropped down into the swinging torch light of the survivors. He was clad in an advanced hunting suit, with exposed actuators and artifical muscle bundles, a single armour plate on his left shoulder notched with kill markings.

“Two more for me” He chuckled as he pulled his helmet clear, revealing dark skin, tangled dreadlocks and a mean smile.

“Fucker.” Gaea smiled under her helmet. “Is this corridor rigged?”

“You better believe it. I've set up the elevator for a fast rope descent. We're almost home free.”

+++++

Gaea had kept up the pace until they reached a blank bulkhead section. They packed the survivors up against the wall, and the three swept the corridor.

“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”

+Understood+ Garricks voice, previously choppy and static laced, was crystal clear.

The wall swung upwards, and Gaea ushered them all into a decontamination chamber. Davrry and Nevarn stepped in after them. And the door slid back into position, seamless. Gaea slumped, supported by Davrry and Nevarn.

+Seal confirmed. Give me a second with decon, and you can join us in the galley+

There was a blast of heat, white light and stunning noise.

+All clean, no bugs detected. Welcome to the Science Decks, ladies and gentlemen+

+++++

Gaea, Davrry and Nevarn disappeared into a side room without another word. Waiting for them was Doctor Garrick. From the last time Sayori had seen him. . . to say he ahd changed was an understatement. Rather than being sickly, frail and paper skinned, he was younger, healthier, strong and athletic.

“I can't tell you how glad we are to see you all.” He gestured for them to follow and he lead them through the science labs, a hub of activity. Other survivors worked on nearby benches, mainly science team, but a few engineers and support staff. Most looked up and barely seemed to register the new group, a few giving desulotry waves or respectful nods of the heads, but the rest were clearly engrossed in their work.

“Its not been an easy two years for us. There have been losses, disasters. . . I'm not even sure where to begin.”

They stepped into a galley appended to the science deck, one that Sayori recognised as where she had drunk her nanofood before the big sleep. It was now a more multi-purpose communal area. A table had been laid with food, but bunk beds clearly salvaged from elsewhere where stacked up against the far wall. It was a simple stew, with flasks of water and trays of pills next to them. Standing nearby was Cicero and Doctor Kromlyn.

“I'm sure you have questions. But much should be obvious to you.” The doctor pulled up a chair, and flopped into it. “As soon as we left the gate, we found a marvel of the galaxy. A wreck graveyard stretching from the outer reaches of a cold gas giant to the edge of the system. Millions of advanced ships. But we also found what killed those ships. Some kind of automated defense system, we thought at first. The military crews were woken up first, and then engineering, with science last, but it was chaotic, we were taking fire almost immediately. For 3 days the Elcano and its frigates kept them at bay, but then. . .” He shuddered.

“The fighting went bulkhead to bulkhead, room to room. They were relentless. Slowly they killed everyone who fought back, though it took weeks. In that time, the science team were able to boston the plans for the Elcano, they were infilitrators you see. . .the Sentinax, many of them turned on us when Hekatonkles was taken, corrupted. . .and Julian. . .poor Julian. Trapped in the core, alone, under constant assault. Its a miracle he is still holding out.”

For a second Doctor Garrick fell silent, staring into space.

“From a certain point, it stopped being about fighting back, it became about surviving. We've held on for as long as we can. The enemy, we call them 'berserkers', are in control of many ship systems. We've hidden this place behind fields, made it look like a compacted deck layer. . . but we can't last here forever. Either they'll figure out where we are and come for us, or we'll screw up somehow and lead them here.”

[Enigma]

"Where should this unit put the supplies that this unit was tasked to carry?" Iona asked as they exited the decontamination chamber, ready to surrender the webbing, bandoleers, and assorted supplies it had taken from the robotic mules.


Hearing the news about Hekatonkles corrupted, like those biologics they had encountered in their run... Unimaginable.

"How long since the ship arrived in this system?" Iona asked, still in its form of a Gamma class maintenance unit. "How long before another ship arrives?"

There was sure to be another ship once they were overdue. They could even be prepared for an attack - but not of this nature.

Cicero made no attempt to contact her. Disappointing. Was it because she was a Gamma? Was it because she appeared to be a maintenance unit? Why would a maintenance unit be a Speaker?

[Azazeal849]

Sayori’s hands were cold, constricted by adrenaline.

The corridor ahead of them was dark, and smelled like red metal. Near the door to the cryo-bay, a sickly panel light strobed. The one beyond that had failed, leaving a pool of black washing the hallway. Further ahead, a circulator fan rumbled thwuk thwuk thwuk, casting rotating shadows across a bulkhead door etched with the letters 754-b.

Sayori saw something, the merest suggestion of black against black, drop silently from the shadowed section of ceiling towards the floor. Without warning, Gaea unlimbered her gun and fired into the inky darkness. The nail-gun rattle of the SMG was deafening in the confined space, forcing Sayori to flinch away from the Elemental marine.

In the darkness, something was hit. It shrieked like a human. It sobbed, begging, in a thick Ural-accented voice, begging Gaea not to shoot him.

“Wait!” Sayori cried out, her voice drowned by the full auto bursts of Gaea’s SMG. But then the shot creature skittered back into the light below the whickering fan, and she saw what it really was.

The swarm of scorpions she had imagined earlier would have been preferable.

It was metallic but not Sentinax; a myriapod of overlapping shells and skittering legs, twice the length of a grown man. It shifted before Sayori’s eyes, intact plates sliding to cover bullet-holed ones, or perhaps it was just an illusion of the creature’s undulating movement. The end closest to them unfurled and a cluster of red eye-lenses blinked into life, glinting above an array of scissoring manipulators. Needle thin lasers stabbed out and fumbled their way up the corridor, locking onto the eight survivors.

The thing dived forward and thrashed up the corridor, sidewinder-swift, covering the distance between them in a few short heartbeats. All the while Gaea was firing and the creature was screaming - in that same desperate voice; impossibly, grotesquely human. The thing reared up, hissing with a sound of metal sliding over metal as huge bladed limbs unfolded from its flanks. Sayori barely even registered the spreading claws because the creature’s underside had

Faces.

Skulls; grinning, red, flensed of skin, that the fucking monster had somehow incorporated into its underside. They were fused there like batteries into sockets, silver wires worming their way into the skinned faces. For a demented moment, Sayori thought it was the skulls that were screaming.

She didn’t think to reach for her stun gun. She didn’t even think to scream. Her throat seemed to have constricted, and her diaphragm was frozen.

Nevarn was by Gaea’s side in the next second. He slid under the thing as it reared up to strike and fired two point blank shots. What was left of the thing’s top half collapsed against the floor, metal appendages twitching. It mewled in a different voice, this one sobbing in a Charabidian language that Sayori didn’t know.

Nevarn brought his boot down, hard, on its remaining CPU stack.

“Don’t listen to anything they say.” The young engineer’s face was grim as he limped back to the group. Reversing their roles from earlier, he gently slapped Sayori’s shoulder to tear her attention away from the slain monster. Sayori looked into the blue, slit-pupiled eyes behind his visor, and tried to blink away the image of black, empty ones, hung with rags of glistening flesh. She could feel cold sweat on the back of her neck, and her jaw didn’t seem to want to stop quivering. Her mouth was as dry as grave-dust.

“Listen to me. Anyone integrated into those things is dead already. And if you hear someone who you know shouldn’t be there, run like hell.”

Nevarn plucked the stun pistol from the holster at Sayori’s hip and pressed it into her hand. Looking down, Sayori saw Nevarn’s comm-stalk lying on the tiled deck. She couldn’t remember dropping it.

She scooped it up and ran.

+ + + + +

Gaea, Davrry and Nevarn disappeared into a side room without another word. Waiting for them was Doctor Garrick. From the last time Sayori had seen him. . . to say he had changed was an understatement. Rather than being sickly, frail and paper-skinned, he was younger, healthier; strong and athletic.

“Nikos?” Sayori asked, pulling up short. “What the h-...is that you?”

Garrick smirked like a Cheshire cat, very much like another grin he had worn in a conversation that, from Sayori’s perspective, they had had just a few short hours ago. “Of course, some of us are looking forward to the long sleep more than others.”

“Yes, about that.” Garrick replied wryly. “I slipped my complement of nano-machines a new instructions set before the long sleep. Replace my cells rather than simply maintain them, strip out a few corrupted DNA fragments from each…”

The chief scientist spread his arms and looked himself up and down. Sayori blinked at him.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve just achieved?”

“I won’t be recommending it for mass production yet. There was a non-trivial chance that it would have been impossible to revive me, and since it burned through all of the reserve nano-food in the pod, that chance would have gone up dramatically if I hadn’t been woken up in the first wave.”

Sayori felt an incongruous laugh creeping up her throat. It burst out explosively, dragging all the horrors of the last hour with it and, for a moment, dissipating them into the air.

“You zurui bastard.” she choked. “You’re a genius. You’re a fucking moron, but you’re a genius.”

Garrick chuckled along with her. “A distressing amount of science is poking things with sticks to see how they react. Our sticks have improved but the principle remains. How are you feeling?”

“Hungover.” Sayori evaded, attempting a joke rather than try to condense and express all of the real anxieties twisting and gnawing around in her brain.

“I can't tell you how glad we are to see you all.” The chief scientist gestured for them to follow and he lead them through the science labs, a hub of activity. Other survivors worked on nearby benches, mainly science team, but also a few engineers and support staff. Most looked up and barely seemed to register the new group, a few giving desultory waves or respectful nods of the heads, but the rest were clearly engrossed in their work. Sayori hunted among the drawn, distracted faces for people she recognised. She found one or two, but had almost as much trouble reconciling them with her memory as she had had with Garrick. Everyone looked haggard.

“It’s not been an easy two years for us.” Garrick said. “There have been losses, disasters. . . I'm not even sure where to begin.”

“Two years?” Sayori repeated, her earlier levity evaporating. She fished her PDA out of its zipper pocket. Fortunately, the extended time idling in the cryo-bay didn’t seem to have affected it. After a few moments of Phayder Corp logos, a familiar series of program tiles scrolled down onto the screen, with the time and date blinking a calm, damning white at the top.

00:26 15 April 2612

The Elcano had left their home galaxy on the 3rd of November 2609. She had been scheduled to be resurrected from her cryo-pod on 1st December 2610. The pods carried their own redundant supply of nano-food, but even then her revival system must have been stretched to its absolute limit.

A circling data connection icon began to blink at the top right of the screen as the PDA continued to boot up. Saying nothing, Sayori tapped the Controls icon and swiped to deactivate the wireless before it could attempt a connection to whatever was left of the Elcano’s mainframe. (They got a lot of our equipment that way.)

“I'm sure you have questions. But much should be obvious to you.” The doctor pulled up a chair, and flopped into it.

As he spoke, Sayori could almost feel herself wilting down into the deck. And to think that when Gaea had first mentioned hostiles aboard (hostile; invasive; it recycles us) she had thought that a few bulletproof EVA drones from the Phayder lab deck were going to help. She thought again of the red-raw skulls implanted into the shrieking millipede-thing, and felt almost instantly queasy.

“Is this all that’s left?” she ventured, looking around at the grim-faced workers.

“All that we know of.” Garrick answered, resting his chin on his laced hands. “But it is a big ship. The command deck and main engineering seem like likely places for other crew to be holed up, but there’s been too much Berserker activity for us to get there and investigate.”

Sayori massaged her temple. “And how many of those...Berserker things?”

Garrick smiled a gallows smile. “Be careful what you wish for, Dr Warrick. Nevarn was seeding next-gen sensors around the deck on the way to the cryo bay. Since you got back we’ve been reading dozens of hostiles...just on the cryo level. I’ll let you extrapolate for the rest of the ship.”

“Saitae.” Sayori mumbled, and lapsed into silence for a moment.

“From a certain point, it stopped being about fighting back, it became about surviving. We've held on for as long as we can. The enemy are in control of many ship systems. We've hidden this place behind fields, made it look like a compacted deck layer. . . but we can't last here forever. Either they'll figure out where we are and come for us, or we'll screw up somehow and lead them here.”

Sayori looked up, frowning now. The chief scientist had always been a cynic, and this time she could empathise. But she couldn’t simply accept.

“Gaea said she needed us to help retake the ship.” she pointed out firmly. “You must have a plan. If these Berserker things have hacked into the systems, then couldn’t we rewire them for manual control?”

As a robotics engineer, Sayori had spent the better part of her adult life taking electrical systems apart, reprogramming them and putting them back together.

Garrick looked up, and a measure of his wry humour returned. “That’s doable. In fact, we’ve already subverted several key systems back to our control. But there’s several thousand more individual systems that we need to run repairs or shunts on before we can call the ship ours again. And time is becoming a factor. Key supplies are starting to run low.”

The chief scientist folded his hands on the table.

“What we really need is to get to a system where we can syphon a copy of Julian out of the core. He has all the necessary command codes to reactivate the primary systems and make a run for the Gate. That might be where you newcomers can help us.” He looked down at Sayori’s hand, which was tracing figure-eights on the table as she processed her thoughts. “But first, you should get Kromlyn to take that out.”

He twitched his head in the direction of two figures standing off to the side of the repurposed mess hall.

“Huh?” Sayori followed his gaze, and was reminded of the IV needle still embedded in the back of her hand, held on by a fraying, dog-eared piece of surgical tape. The last half hour’s exertions had wrenched it around enough to cause a drop of blood to well up under the gauze, but it was still only third or fourth in the list of aches plaguing her body.

“Fair point.” Sayori admitted, and excused herself from the small group towards the two figures Garrick had indicated. One was an angular Sentinax beta unit in a blue and grey humanoid chassis, the other a tall, tan-skinned Kel’Cyre with greying hair and beard. He was the only person who looked more or less exactly as Sayori remembered him.

“Heya doc.” she greeted him tiredly, “Thanks for the help with Gaea.”

Behind her, the maintenance bot was speaking up. That was odd. Sayori had thought that those things weren’t usually self-aware enough to think beyond their immediate tasks.

“And you must be Cicero.” she said to the android accompanying Dr Kolvar. One Sentinax beta unit looked almost identical to any other, but he was the only body-mobile Sentinax in the room. “Sorry in advance for the hack job I did on your Elemental suit.”

[MidKnight]

The sounds of a horror shriek had Winter panicked. She lifted her rifle up and aimed at the creature that moved like a shadow on the ceiling, walls and floor. Though the weapon they were using were considered to be used for non-violent situations. But still, she had to try to at least stop it in it's tracks for a few seconds for the Gunnery Sergeant to unload her entire magazine into the monster.

She stopped when she started hearing a voice coming from within the dead. She examined the body as it remained still before the Charabidian engineer walked over and smashed it's electronic parts on it's back. Her eyes widen realizing part of the monster was machine, something like the Sentinax units that walked around. She had seen a few, but never thought there would be something that was similar.

Popping a thermal from overheat, she waited for a few seconds until the rifle made a sound. Stun was effective in close combats, but over kill was not one of them. Her eyes diverted to the group, moving onward and away from the scene. She couldn't believe the Gunnery Sergeant had enough strength to fight off whatever that came after them. Though it was worse when they arrived at one of the corridors only to be ambushed by three targets. Which spotted them and started hauling in their direction.

Hearing the Gunnery Sergeant screaming 'Back up!' Winter moved herself in front of the Doctor that was shocked from earlier. She aimed her rifle at the targets as they were picked off one by one. But suddenly were saved by someone in a odd suit. She sighs softly and looked at the Doctor, nodding slightly and watched what happened next.

Following the group again, she noticed an Elven Doctor had greeted them and lead them to a more suitable spot. Looking around, she could not believe the crew had survived for nearly two years. "Two years?" She muttered to herself. Then she heard about a creature that affected the machinery like the Sentinax's and Hekatonkles. "Great, there goes our major defense in this hell hole." She sputtered out. "Without them, consider us a fish in a barrel."

+++++

He watched as the monster on the ground came closer to their position. His muscles tensed and his tail at the ready, there was nothing he could do at this point other than holding on the Elemental for balance. He could tear that thing apart from limb to limb, but the young Charabidian had managed to destroy what seemed like begging. He chuckled softly, "Begging is considered a weak moment." Then he spat on the ground. "Consider that mercy." Then he chuckled.

Helping the Elemental to their next destination. His nose sensed something near, something a little more dangerous. But his eyes were too late to see what was happening. He held onto the Elemental and prepared his fist for a close fight. There was a growl under his teeth, but when he sees the other two enemies taken out by a different ally. He snorted at the grand entry he made. He continued helping the Elemental walk to the safety point until she could walk on her own.

He looked around as he followed the others only to listen to a story told by a doctor. He growled softly as he spoke about the new enemy and how they entered a grave site. "So we were not the first ones to try and explore here." He looked around and noticed several others trying to repair some of the damage. But the way things had looked around here, he would say they had been at it for quite some time.

Then his attention turned to the doctor. "Where are the other Dragonoids!" He said walking up close to the doctor. "Did they manage to escape or fight back?!" He asked once more, almost starting to appear desperate for an answer.

[AngelDellaNotte]

When the creatures attacked them Miranda fell into the muscle memory of her training. She may have been a pilot aboard a large ship but the Lyran Navy ensured that all their forces were combat rated. They had reoccurring training all the time. She didn't freak out at being under attack. Instead she just moved when instructed and returned fire whenever she could. It wasn't until she was in the galley that she let down her guard. Looking around those that had survived were a sorry state. No one knew what was on the other side of the gate but they hadn't imagined anything like this. Quentin couldn't have known about this. Miranda paused thinking about how Quentin had sent her on the mission to get rid of her. “Son of a bitch.” Miranda said aloud punching a crate sitting next to her.

“I would advise against hurting yourself, supplies are dwindling.” Kromlyn said, stepping beside Miranda and looking at the dent in the crate. “If you broke your hand I could set it but pain medication and nano probes aren't available. Depending on how bad the break it could six to eight weeks before it heals. All quite painful. Not to mention surviving is going to be hard enough with both hands. So Miss Clarke I would advise against punching metal crates.”

“Excuse me?” Miranda said, turning quickly to the man who addressed her.

“Yes, Miss Clarke I know who you are. As one of the mission physicians I've helped reviewed the files of every member of the crew. Now if you are done punching things perhaps I could remove that IV?” Kromlyn said. Miranda nodded and sat down with Kromlyn as he opened his medical bag pulling out a couple of bandages. “You know I've met your sister and her wife.” Kromlyn said, meaning to make small talk as he recalled being honored by Queen Emylyna for his actions during and after the war. The queen had awarded him at a ceremony and then he had been asked to lunch. Both the Queen and President Sinclair were very nice and he had enjoyed himself. He hadn't of thought he would still having some hesitation about Quentin Sinclair knowing she was Lyran and had been involved in the attack on his planet. They barely were into the meal when he realized he had been wrong about Quentin. The lunch was one of the rare moments since he lost everything that he had a moment of happiness.

At hearing this Kel'cyre mention her sister, Miranda was reminded of why she had punched the crate in the first place. She glared at Kromlyn then reached down grabbing the IV and ripping it out. She then grabbed the bandage from him pressing it to her hand. “I can take care of myself.” Miranda said, holding the bandage to her hand as she walked away.

Kromlyn sat there a moment longer wondering what that was all about. Watching as Miranda stormed off. He was drawn out of his musings when he heard someone call out to him. “Ah Doctor Sayori good to see you. I am glad to see you have made it here safely. Can I help you with that IV?” He asked, readying another bandage.