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Thread: [M] Galactic Empires II

  1. #81
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    Davrry knelt to examine the marks on the tree's that Miranda had pointed out.

    "Good spot. These were deliberately cut. These more recent ones, with a laser." Davrry frowned, and looked up at the canopy.

    "We should keep moving. In respect to the tin can, we can't just abandon it on this rock with no guaranteed way of. So lets be quick, and careful."

    The march up the slope was uneventful. Davrry allowed a few short pauses to collect samples and data at Sayori's insistence, but increasingly chaffed at each one. When asked why he was agitated, in a jungle that seemed empty of any animals larger than them, he would look back at the canopy again, and insist they kept moving.

    The jungle began to thin out as they climbed, and the air did as well, imperceptibly, with jungle giving way to mats of clinging vines that shared a heritage with high density power cable and clumps of gorse that looked like barbed wire.

    "Halt!" Someone yelled. From the mouth of the cave ahead, a pair of humanoid figures emerged in heavy armour, rifles levelled. "Identify yourselves!"

    "We're the only bloody people who haven't been minced and turned into murder cyborgs in this whole shitty galaxy!" Davrry yelled back.

    There was a flap of wings, and Davrry flinched and pulled his rifle up. A heavy black shape dropped on him from above, slamming him to the ground and sending his heavy weapon skidding away.

    Crouched on the Lyrans gasping form was a Dragonoid. It wrenched its helmet clear, and took a huge lungful of the toxic air into its lungs.

    "They are clean." The young Dragonoid nodded at each of them, before his eyes alighted on Vezarres.

    "Elder."

    Vezarres started. The young warriors eyes were silvery flints, and it was difficult to tell where the warriors scales ended and his flight armour began.

    +++++

    The party continued up the path, and into the mouth of the cave. The two guards, both charabidian females, let the group past, and then led them deeper into the cave. Vezarres and the young warrior stayed outside.

    The cave wasn't a cave at all. It had a regular, hexagonal shape, and was finished in a metal coloured much like copper, or perhaps worn brass. It sloped downwards, and branched often. Eventually it opened into a large chamber, easily the size of the shuttle bay of the Elcano. It had clearly been designed for people that could fly, or climb well. Tunnels opened at seemingly random heights and distances, and odd echoed sounds carried from the openings like a mournful wind instrument.

    Set up in the middle of the chamber was a command post, clearly built from pre-fabbed components and salvaged together parts stripped from errant mechs and military drop ships. Other chambers linked nearby echoed with work and the sounds of talking people, and even a few loud snorers. There was clearly about twenty to thirty people here, Terrans, Lyrans, Charabidians and Kel'Cyre, all members of the security detachment and command staff.

    Standing at a holographic command table, was Captain Severt and Security Chief Ella Salk. Both women looked tired, but both looked up and smiled as the rag-tag group approached.

    "So." Captain Severt smiled. "There are survivors after all. Welcome to Base Camp."

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    The party was ignoring her warning, proceeding further into potential contamination, following the trail that someone or something had left.

    From what she could see, most of the forms they viewed were all symbionts, a meld of organic life and inorganic machine.

    Symbiotes were everywhere. If the organics in the party became contaminated, the defenses the survivors on board the ship might repel them as well.

    And then contact - a challenge. A dragonoid, one of the missing crew.

    Assimilation.

    Organic blended with machine; symbiosis without surgery, merging with its own armor.

    How, Iona wondered, did it keep from merging with its own helmet?

    Control.


    The cave proved to be carved. Constructed. Finished. Not, certainly, with anything that the castaways may have brought with them. Which meant other high-structured organics, 'natives'. Were they symbionts too?

    As they came into the larger central area, she examined Severt and Salk for traces of symbiotes like the Dragonoid.

    "We brought a shuttle from the ship," Iona said, stating the obvious. "We left it in the burn area. Should we be concerned?"
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  3. #83
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    “Hey Sayori.” Davrry warned, tilting his head up to sweep the canopy and following suit with his rifle muzzle. “We don’t have time for this.”

    Sayori straightened, still holding the solar-panel leaf she had just pulled from a climbing vine, and pushed it into a velcro pocket of her suit.

    “I’m not just doing this for a science project.” she snapped back. “If Iona’s right and something’s integrating all the life here, we need to know what it could do to our people.”

    As they had proceeded, her sense of wonder at the planet - at the musical buzz of its organic radio traffic, at the sheer elegant genius of all its biomechanical life forms - had begun to fade. It began to nag at her. The life forms down here were small, unaggressive towards them. What separated these creatures from the Berserkers in orbit, who melded flesh and metal in a far more ugly and lethal manner?

    There was a connection, she was sure of it, and it made her shiver beneath her thin pressure suit.

    It was everything she had ever dreamed of creating: true mechanical symbiosis, creatures talking to machines and to each other via thought and via radio and via fibre-optic. Next to all this, Gaea’s painful integration with her Elemental suit seemed little better than the butcher’s horror of the Berserkers.

    It’s about time someone started on the human brain. Aren’t you embarrassed by how limited we are?

    It had all been realised, on this alien planet, in a galaxy three million light years from her own.

    And it had spawned the Berserkers.

    Watch out for your decisions. she remembered Gaea warning her, back on the ship. Make them, by all means. But...you’re gonna carry that weight. Sayori wasn’t sure how to feel.

    Assimilation. Iona’s words ran quietly through her head, like an icy stream winding through her thoughts and eroding away her ease. All life here has been compromised - integrated, down to the bacteria level.

    She remembered the little mirror-skinned gecko, tasering the helicopter bug with its biomechanical tongue. These creatures still fed like any other, building and replenishing themselves from other life. Biological imperatives; cybernetic means. Were the Berserkers what happened when the machines were bonded to something predatory, something intelligent?

    Assimilation.

    No way do I want to die a baseline human.

    A Collector’s inhuman shriek ghosted across her memory, accompanied by the flash of silver claws and her own scream as she smashed it to pieces with her drone’s symbiotic fists. The Hunter, tilting its head, as if looking through the drone’s remote eyes at the human behind before slashing her vision into static.

    Assimilation.

    How did it work, and how fast? What might it have done to any crewmen stranded down here for all this time? She needed to know. They all needed to know.

    + + + + +

    "So." captain Severt smiled. "There are survivors after all. Welcome to Base Camp."

    It was like laying eyes on Garrick for the first time after his self-administered rejuvenation experiment. It was captain Severt and it was not captain Severt, changed by more than the simple passage of time. Kalyn Severt had been polite but brisk when the Phayder science contingent had first boarded; a feline woman with a clipped accent, the right side of her head shaved back to accommodate a distinctively Lyran comms implant: blocky and functional. The hair had since grown in and was now almost hiding the implant, but it was the captain’s eyes that had changed. Sayori remembered them being hard and shrewd and amber-brown - now they were glossy and red, like two reflective pools of blood.

    The woman at her side was - or had been - the Elcano’s security chief, who Sayori knew by sight if not by name. She too had eyes like murder-red targeting sensors, and lines of silver traced the veins of her hands beneath her rolled-up sleeves. She was manning a holograph of what was clearly the Elcano, still half-entangled with the spined shape of the Berserker super cap.

    How did they get a feed? Sayori wondered. She looked up, hunting for wires or cables that might trace up to a surface sensor dish, but all she saw was the hexagonal shaft of the cave, irregularly studded with branching tunnels like some kind of colossal termite mound. The air moaning through them rose and fell, sounding like a ghostly echo of the planet’s radio song.

    "We brought a shuttle from the ship," Iona said, stating the obvious. "We left it in the burn area. Should we be concerned?"

    “Wait.” Sayori cautioned, raising a hand across Iona’s chest as she took a step forward. She wanted to blurt out everything - that there were other survivors up there, Garrick and Kolvar and Cicero and the rest; that they were on borrowed time now the Berserkers had begun to overheat the power generators; that they had managed to recover a static print of the ship’s AI that might allow them to seize back control long enough to get to the Gate. But first they needed to know.

    They were infiltrators you see… Garrick had said, solemnly. The Sentinax...many of them turned on us after Hekatonkles was taken, corrupted…

    “Are you all still...you?” Sayori asked, as calmly as she could. “You’re not…?”
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 03-03-2019 at 11:47 PM.
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  4. #84
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    "We brought a shuttle from the ship," Iona said, stating the obvious. "We left it in the burn area. Should we be concerned?"

    Ella shook her head. “We burn that back periodically, you should. . .”

    “Wait.” Sayori cautioned, raising a hand across Iona’s chest as she took a step forward. She wanted to blurt out everything - that there were other survivors up there, Garrick and Kolvar and Cicero and the rest; that they were on borrowed time now the Berserkers had begun to overheat the power generators; that they had managed to recover a static print of the ship’s AI that might allow them to seize back control long enough to get to the Gate. But first they needed to know.

    They were infiltrators you see… Garrick had said, solemnly. The Sentinax...many of them turned on us after Hekatonkles was taken, corrupted…

    “Are you all still...you?” Sayori asked, as calmly as she could. “You’re not…?”

    Ella raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. The Captain looked the party over, before her shoulders slumped into a sigh. She shook her head and chuckled darkly.

    “Well, Doctor. . .Warrick, right? I suppose that depends on the limits of your philosophy. There's a charming little pre-space flight myth, that over seven years or so, every cell in our bodies is replaced, one for one. A biological Ship of Theseus. And while its not true, the only cells in our bodies that aren't being constantly renewed are the neurons of the brain. Lets take that wooden ship in the museum, replaced piece by piece. But instead of assembling the replaced planks and building a second ship, you tossed them onto a fire and scattered the ashes. Is the ship you have at the end, the same ship, or did it burn in the fire, and you are left with an imposter in its place?”

    Severt stepped around the holo tank, and peeled off her right hand glove, holding up the hand.

    “During the war, shrapnel took three fingers from this hand, and damaged my nerves and tendons. Most of that was replaced, charabidian tech while I was a POW. And now. . .”

    Under the light, the hand glinted. Metal traceries spread under the skin. Nails had hardened and had the colour of brushed steel.

    “The nanites here, in the water, the air, the dirt, fuse and replace technology and biology like nothing I've ever heard of. If you had pre-existing cybernetics, that's how they find their way in, and they get to work, replacing cell by cell damaged and failing systems. Everyone in this compliment had radiation sickness after a month, when our anti-rad medicines ran out. A few days later, the nanomachines had started to synthesise those medications in our livers and kidneys, or equivalents. Then they started to soak up the rads, like the local fauna and flora, and turn it directly into energy for our cells and the wetware they began to implant. Others have begun to fuse with their technology. Powered armour becoming like biological exosekletons.”

    She smiled, and brushed aside the hair around her scalp. Around the implant, rather than a thin fuzz of hair, was growing short, translucent fiberoptic cable.

    “Am I the same woman who landed on this world almost two years ago? Honestly, I don't know any more. But if you are wondering if there is another version of me, rotting somewhere or fused into a screaming biomech horror, then, the answer is definitely no.”

  5. #85
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    “Is the ship you have at the end, the same ship, or did it burn in the fire, and you are left with an imposter in its place?”

    Sayori knew the answer to that one. It’s not the boards of the ship that matter. The body changes, the mind is continuous. It was the main reason she had never been squeamish about cybernetics.

    The captain stood there smiling, seemingly just as at peace with the mechanical dysmorphia of her new body. Even to Sayori it had begun to seem like something wonderful - nanomachines that were not just regenerative but adaptive, upgrading their hosts. (If Garrick could see this...) What did the captain and the security chief see with those glinting scarlet eyes? What did they hear in the waves of radio signals washing through the air?

    Oh yes, what did they hear.

    The mind is continuous. Or was it? She imagined the alien nanites, spinning their silver webs through the jelly of her crewmates’ brains. The Berserkers whispered to each other too. Davrry had talked of threat displays. Gaea and Garrick had told of how they had invaded the Elcano’s systems and turned the sentient programs of the Sentinax into their puppets.

    “Am I the same woman who landed on this world almost two years ago?” Severt looked resigned. “Honestly, I don't know any more.”

    Sayori’s cheek twitched as she thought again of Gaea. (“I couldn’t tell you where the suit ends and I begin…sometimes I look at the monsters out there and wonder if I’m all that different...”) She remembered her own words as well.

    Different in all the ways that count.

    She wanted to believe (“As long as you’re not going to go all destroy all humans on us…”), she really did. But now they had climbed the mountain of ifs and seemed to have a real chance of pooling their resources to get home, that hope almost felt like a trap.

    Severt dropped her hand and let her mix of natural and fibre-optic hair fall back into place. “But if you are wondering if there is another version of me, rotting somewhere or fused into a screaming biomech horror, then the answer is definitely no.”

    “What I was actually wondering,” Sayori confessed honestly. She seldom had success being anything else, and was equally bad at sugercoating things. “Was if your nanites had connected themselves to the rest of this…”

    She spread her arms and half-turned to encompass the world beyond the hexagonal termite mound, and the jungle whose static song was still twittering across her helmet radio.

    “...or to those things in orbit.” She let her arms fall and gestured towards the holograph command terminal. “Like how do you have eyes on the Elcano without bringing the Berserkers down on you? Captain.”

    She added the last word almost apologetically.
    Last edited by Azazeal849; 03-03-2019 at 11:39 PM.
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  6. #86
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    As they hiked Miranda kept her rifle in her hands and her head on a swivel. Each time they stopped to let Sayori collect samples Miranda's grumbling got louder and she was almost sure that by the last stop Davrry was about to agree with her in leaving the stupid scientist to fend for herself. When they reached the cave and the figure charged at Davrry, Miranda managed to get a shot off but missed the fast moving creature. Before she could take aim again a furry arm wrapped around her neck and a couple claws pressed to her throat. The mechanical squirrel jumped from her shoulder to a tree above them and hissed. She was disarmed as those claws pressed into her but they let up when the Dragonoid called them clean. However she felt one of them be dragged across her tattoo cutting it. Reaching up she pressed her hand to the shallow cut then turned to see a Charabidian standing behind her and another to the side holding her rifle and pistol. “Great damn cats probably going to get infected.” She said, then held her hand out to get her weapons back but the Charabidian shook his head and gestured for her to walk with the others. The mechanical squirrel jumped down now that Miranda was free, it seemed curious about the blood coming from her neck but only looked at it.

    "So." Captain Severt smiled. "There are survivors after all. Welcome to Base Camp."

    Those words circled in Miranda's head as Sayori and the Captain seemed to debate philosophies. Everything else they said she just seemed to tune out. Enraged at her attitude of ease, as if they had just come from a luxury resort and not a death trap. “Survivors? Yeah, no thanks to you fucking lot leaving us up there to die on that slaughter house!” Miranda said, knowing her tone wasn't anywhere near mildly irritable but rather out right insubordinate. Captain Severt wasn't just a superior officer but her commanding officer, to speak to her in this manor wasn't just rude it was against military law. Right now Miranda didn't care, everything she had been through since waking up was in the front of her mind. From her shoulder the mechanical squirrel let out a series of chortles that echoed Miranda and it even waved it's paws at Captain Severt in a manor that looked strangely like an obscene gesture. If Miranda wasn't so pissed off it would have been comical.

    “Two god damn years! In the last two fucking years did you even think about coming back for those left up there or was it every man for themselves?” Miranda continued her voice raising, “All the awhile letting yourselves slowly turn into gods know what creatures? While you played house down here on the planet.”

    She looked over to the doctor catching her last question about having eyes on the Elcano, then scanned the room noticing the holographic command table. Sayori was skirting around the real question she wanted to ask. “Perhaps because they are working with the berserkers. So tell us Captain, are you gonna assimilate us too? Because frankly you can just kill me now, I'm not becoming a cybernetic freak.”


    Another round of bullets hits my skin. Well, fire away
    Cause today, I won't let the shame sink in. We are bursting through
    the barricades and reaching for the sun.

    We Are Warriors


  7. #87
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    "Your words imply choice," Iona said, looking up at Miranda. "Choice is not a right, it is a gift."

    "So you keep the area where we landed burned clear?" Iona turned towards Ella, giving her a brusk nod. "That is helpful to know. Are you able to leave this world? Is it safe if you leave this world?"

    Were the natives of this world the beserkers they fought up there? Was that their normal appearance, or did leaving this world cause a change? Something they needed to survive? Was that why these things tried to assimilate the crew and the ship?
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  8. #88
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    Soon as the ship has landed, Winters and Vez took it upon themselves to wonder around. Winters wore a rather tight suit with a specialized helmet like most of her infantry had used. Vez was wearing a large suit and a helmet that was able to fit his head. Then they heard the voices of somebody ordering them to stop and identify themselves. Vez chuckled when Davvry had replied back. "They can try." He said but his attention immediately looked up as he heard a sudden wind howl. He back away from the black winged creature and realized it was a Dragonoid. He growled softly but the Dragonoid had seem to recognized him. And finally realized it was the young warrior who spoke to him before the deep sleep.

    He stopped and looked to the young Dragonoid as though he had gone a great deal to change into something far more dangerous than he was. "I had feared you had perished with the rest." He said as he took a few steps closer to examine him. He hummed to himself as he circled around the young Dragonoid. "This world has changed you." He said softly and followed the others.

    Winters was caught off guard when the Dragonoid had ambushed them. Her shotgun was aimed at the beast but when Vez had recognized him she lowered her guard. After being escorted and her attention was once more caught off guard. "I thought you died?" She asked. But when Miranda started her out burst. Winters took action by stepping in front of her and positioned herself between the Captain and Miranda.

    "Hey calm down!" She said through her helmet. The helmet only revealed her eyes. "Slow steady breathes now, your gonna burn through your tank with that heat so...calm...your...breathing...down." She kept her body facing towards Miranda. "If you die here ain't no way in hell I'm gonna pilot that shuttle because I got a hell of record of destroyed shuttles okay?" She looked at her shoulders and sighs softly. "Where's your squirrel?" She asked curiously.

  9. #89
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    “What I was actually wondering,” Sayori confessed honestly. She seldom had success being anything else, and was equally bad at sugercoating things. “Was if your nanites had connected themselves to the rest of this…”

    "No, they haven't." Ella broke in. "We can hear the lifeforms outside, how they communicate via radio. I think some of us, can transmit on the same frequencies." She shrugged. "But you'd have as much luck talking to a tree on earth and expecting it to talk back. Its not a network, its an eco-system. As for our orbital tap. . ."

    “Perhaps because they are working with the berserkers. So tell us Captain, are you gonna assimilate us too? Because frankly you can just kill me now, I'm not becoming a cybernetic freak.”

    "Stand down, pilot." Severt barked. Ella bristled next to her, a hand hovering over a holstered handgun. "We don't appreciate that kind of talk." Around the chamber, other survivors moved from watchful curiosity to wary alertness.

    "Your words imply choice," Iona said, looking up at Miranda. "Choice is not a right, it is a gift."

    "So you keep the area where we landed burned clear?" Iona turned towards Ella, giving her a brusk nod. "That is helpful to know. Are you able to leave this world? Is it safe if you leave this world?"


    "Hey calm down!" She said through her helmet. The helmet only revealed her eyes. "Slow steady breathes now, your gonna burn through your tank with that heat so...calm...your...breathing...down." She kept her body facing towards Miranda. "If you die here ain't no way in hell I'm gonna pilot that shuttle because I got a hell of record of destroyed shuttles okay?"

    "Iona has hit the nail on the head." Ella said. "If we could have chosen to return, we would have tried by now. When we left the Elcano, we thought we were the last survivors. We staged a fighting retreat to the surface, and only survived because as soon as we hit atmosphere, the berserkers own ships broke off pursuit. We can't approach the ship with our current equipment, we'd be spotted and shot down."

    "And we've hardly been playing house, either." Severt responded, a little Lyran arrogant lilt creeping into her voice. "We've been picking over the surface looking for any intel or materiel we can use against the berserkers. This base camp isn't randomly placed. Its how we get our orbital tap."

    The two women looked at each other, some unspoken understanding moving between them.

    "Ella" Severt finally said, returning her attention to the holotank. "Why don't you introduce our fellows to the prisoner downstairs. And give them a briefing on what we've found."

    +++++

    'Downstairs' proved to be a winding corridor, sloping sharply down and descending into near abyssal darkness. Davrry had chosen to stay behind and brief Severt on occurrences aboard the Elcano, and what the science team survivors had discovered so far, leaving the others to follow Ella down into the darkness.

    "A very long time ago, this planet was inhabited by a race of insect-like sentients. Not a hive mind, but highly social and cooperative, and very inquisitive and peaceful. We called them the Collectors, from the ship that crash landed on Kel'cyre. This world, and their biology, was shaped by the large amounts of free metals and heavy radiation in the atmosphere."

    She paused and directed a stablight beam into a side chamber. Midden piles of glittering carapace plates reflected the light back, seemingly stretching for forever.

    "Organic iron alloys laced into their exoskeletons. From the start, their technological advancement diverged from what the races of the milky way would consider standard. For them, there was no clear line between augmentation, tool use and medicine right from the start."

    They kept walking on. The stablight swept over glyphs, pictograms, etched into the once smooth walls. They were reminiscent of the ancient cave paintings from Earths pre-history, showing strange, bipedal insects worshipping the sun and hunting great beasts.

    "Eventually, they mastered space travel and met their neighbours. We have records of two, another insect race that was an aggressive, expansionist hive mind, and something more humanoid and mammalian. While they formed an alliance with the mammals to hold of the enemy hive, they realised that, eventually they would be overwhelmed."

    The pictograms had become stylised scenes of space combat. Vast fleets battled across the chamber walls. Cities burned under stylised orbital strikes. The collectors wept and prostrated themselves, only to be slaughtered.

    "So, distasteful of warfare, they decided to build a weapon that could operate itself. A construction platform, designed to design, build and coordinate fleets of ships, then prosecute the necessary wars. Something designed to learn, evolve and grow. And it won. It slaughtered the enemy hive. But then, it didn't stop. It turned on their allies. Then it turned on them."

    Finally, the group came to a sealed door, a metallic iris. Ella moved to a jury rigged keypad and punched in a code, before looking back to the group.

    "That first thinking machine made six more, six generals. Those generals turned on it as they turned on their primogenitors. They slaughtered the Collectors even as their first creation sacrificed itself to keep them away from the gates to our galaxy, so that the berserker's couldn't wipe out thousands of primitive species. And it succeeded. And for that crime. . .well."

    The door hissed open , and Ella stepped through.

    "For that crime, they tore it from the heavens, and buried it here."

    At the centre of the chamber, sprawled across the metal floor, was a vast, scarab beetle like automata, easily the size of a small space ship. A forest of cables sprouted from its back, punching through armour plates and vanishing across the floor and into inky black vaults of the ceiling. The creature was clearly broken, eye lenses shattered, mandibles cracked, armour rent. Six spears of a silvery metal had punched into its hide, pinning it to the floor like a monstrous specimen.

    And somehow, it was still alive.

    Its vast head, the size of a battleship turret, turned to regard the small party.

    +.
    .
    +Ě̸͉̝̺͎̜̼̲̙̈́̐̈̌̓͘L̙̤̣̜̣̜̊̀͐̀͆̕͜͞L̶̖̻̮̮̆͗̏̈̈́̎͐͢A͑̔ ̶̡̧̟̗̹̉̉͒͒̉̚ S̝̝̹̻̹̘̩̘̼̅̅̐͒̆̓͠A̖̠̱̥̓̏̊͌̎́͘ͅĻ̸̟͚̻̼͎̘̼̖̳̊̄̿́̆̑K̈ ̣͇̠̱̙̅̑̀̾̅,̴̡̛͇̼̥̼̱̿̎͑̎̚͢ Ţ̴̬̬̞͎̣̀̌̎̄͠E̷̢̛̲̠̼̣͓͙͇̿̈̄̂̐͜͠͡Ṙ̸̡̛͕̠͎̞̮̣̃̓̿̉̇͢ͅ R̹̻̺̪̗̝̙̓̀͑͘͘͡Ä̡̛͕͙̱̤̭͖̭́͒͌͋N̸̢̛̬͈̣͈͚̞̖͂͆͌͠ O̷̬͖̳͉̤̲̹͓͗͂͊͌͡ͅF̧̝̹͇͕͕͔̝͕͛́̆̋̆ T̵̛͎̖͎̗̩̮̳̣̓͐̑̽̌̎͟͠͠Ḣ̸̛͕̠̹͛̂͆̑̄͊͊̐ͅͅE̢̢̮̜͇̳͆̓́̉͘͢ ̭̝̪ Ç̵̙̼̗̤͍͔̼͈̄͆͌͑̉͌̚̚͢O̧̜̣̥̗̙͔͛̂̒̌͜͞Ņ͉͓̲̼̺͍̓̑̿̅̉̈̚͜ ̴̨̨C͙̭͙̣̹̦͍̰͚̋͑͗͋̔̕͢͡E͉̹͎̙̐̔̃̊̄̍̉̎̽͟͜R̴̨̨̼͕͎͎̂̊͐͌̒ Ṱ̵̢̢̧͙̱̹͎͕̰̏̓̓͒̓͒̕.̭̦̮͈̺͓͉͈̙͚́̿̔̃̕̕̕͞͝+
    .
    .+

    The voice was broadcast across every imaginable band, a whisper of server fans, the screech of code, the unmistakable voices of those killed by the berserkers, blended and dopplering and echoing.

    "Cronus."

    .
    .
    +̢̰͙̻͍͉̃̍͆̄̔̕Y̸̨̧̺̙̻̝̳̯̜̽͊͌̀̑͢Ó̶̡̨̼̤̫̩̬͋̾̎̕͟ͅÛ̀̄ ̷̢̨̳͔̗͓̹̓͌͟ H̛̘͉̤̥̫̖̓̐͋̎͆͡A̶̡̪̯̲͍̼͇̳͗͊̈́̀͜͝͡V͈̪͍̬̲̬͗̐̓͛̌̂È͋̂͊͆ ̬͎̝̥̳̲͟ B͇̜̳̦͈̩̤̤̹́͐̀͐̃̚͡͡R̤͉͔̩͔̲͙̽̐̃̾̒͊Ö̷̦̞̥͖̫̈̍̌̆͡Û̆̂̅ ̡͇̙̹̲͕͔̤̪̾̑̍͛Ģ̜̹̲͗̋͐̑͐͂͊̕͟͜H̶̛̤̲̼͍̮̫̗̿̾͒̾̾͛̆T̏̀͗̏ ̴̹̹̲͖̻̲̹̄̍ T̵͈̪̹̫̞̤̗̆̈́̚͟͟͝͞H͓͉͍̝̙̜̥̀͛͐̏̿E̵̪̰͓̖̝̥͛̾̑́̽̈́̈͟͞͞ Ò̷̧̢͔̜̲̣͕̩̜̇͂̌̑͒̽̕͞͞T̹̜͍̘̤̮̈́̓͋̓̃̌̅̚H̢̲̜̱̫̋͊̐̋̓E̓̈́ ̶̹̞͎̥͇̯͉͒̓̀͢R͚̖̤̟̪̱͕̱̾̑͊͊͗̿͌̓͘S̨̘̠̪̖̖͔̺̅̇̉̅̚.́̃̌͡͡ ̛̠̫͉͈̺͙̖̍͌́ͅ G̨̰̖͖̮̓̆̌͑̐͐̌͞O̷̧̫͈̳͕̝̞͎̻̬̍̎͛͌͒́̄͘͝O̳̳̱͔͑̏́́͗͑̀͆͘͠ ̶͖͎̩͎D̷̰͖̬͈̳̰̤̯̻͚̾̒̉̃́̄̅͞.̸̧̠̪̥͎̱̪̠̊̀͑̐̒͝ W̨̠̳̩̦͈͒̌͂̄̎̚͜Ę̛͍̮̥̙̓͐̄͐͡ Ḫ̜̠̗̩̑̊̀̿͋̊͗A̶̡̫̣̞̼̙̗̥̔̓̽̄̈́̀̅͛̊̊͜V͉͎̺̺̜͎̝̝̟̉̌̐̏̂͡ ̷E̢͇̲̟̗̪̭̘͐̍̾̃̑̊͗͂̃̑ M̪̭̦̰̟̹̠̪̀͑́̒̒̆̂͠͞U̴̡̨̫͙̰̿̐̾͗͘͜͠C̶̢̪̮̺̭͉̉͊̾̀͑̕H̊̐̎ ̶̛̦̤̱̤̘̖̮̲̄́͌̏͟ Ṯ̷̡̰̤̥̯͚͑̀̌̏͜͠͝͠ͅƠ͎̦̺͚̬̟̙͍̓̔̆̎͠ͅ D̴̨̟̼̹̲͍̟̳͆̑̚͝͠I̸̢̛̖͖̫̙̐͒̐̀̔͋̑͠͡S̵͙̣̞̯͓̜̭͓͑͊̏̎̕͞ͅC ̷̧̭̠̹̮̳̤͛̓̅͊̑͒̀̏Ų̷̭͕̘͍̗͉͖͇̍̄͗͌͜͡S̸̝̰͈̦̥̿̃͒̆͆̏̐̀͂S ̶͓̹͕̗͎̣̯͒̂̅͋̿͝ͅ,̣̗͔͈̤̜̖̌͐̒͐͆́͒͂͐͜͜͞ T̬̟̼̫̞̫̼͑̉͒̓͑̓̒͢͠H̵̡̫͉͔̽̿͛̋̉̑̅̍͘͜Ĕ̴̪͓͍̱̑̍̌̕͢ S̶̬̲̜̱̳̯̅͆̅̈́̃̌̽͝Ư̸̧̯͉̫̟̮̐̒͛̓̆͗͌͑̃ͅR̛̬̪͙̯̺̀̄̿̅͛̅̑͟ ̴V̶̗̝̟͈͇͔̣̗̦̑̈̽̚͘I̵̡̦͖͍̙̠͚͎͍̘͋̈́͒̊͗̆̚̚V̻͊̓̃̂̈́̀̒̾͌̇͟ ̷̹̫͔̥O̳̞̼̫͎̬͑́̊̐͘͜͢͞͝Ŗ̷̦̭̺̰̯̬̉̇̓͐̈̍͜͜͡ͅS͈̭̪̯̐̉̓̒̅ ̠͖̩̬͎ Ą̢͚͍͇̼̂̾́͒̋͆Ň̵̛̛̙͔̙̱̗̺͗̀͊͆͡D̘̠̱̂̆̎͛̒͋̄̄͋͢͢͠ M̨̻̼̥̬̀̈͐͋̅̑̾̅̀͞E̡̹̙͖̲̹̓̒͑͘͜͞.̶̡̝̖̼̦̟̦̩̩̆̄͂͐͒̕͡ͅ+̕ ̵̟̞͚̻͕͎̀̃̽̊̀̚͜͞͡
    .
    .
    Shattered lenses focused on small party.
    .
    .
    +͉̲̤͖̺͆̑͐̂̕͢Ą̷̡̢͕̫͎̪̤͓̝͒̐̋͒̀̕̚S̢̤̰̻̙̃̿̎̉͋̕͟͝K͛̑͘͠ ̵̻̯͖̜̫̏̒̈̀̇ Ÿ̜̳͍̟̦͈̙̹̠́̀͒͆͆͢Ò̵̮̣̩͇̺͇̲͚̂͒̒̑͜͠U̱̟̲͕̱̠̩̠͖̎́̔͂̍͞͠ R̷̡̛̲̻͕͚͎̮̱͗̽̽̆́̈́͡͞ Q͓̲̹̙̦̈́̂̋̀̃̑͛̎͆̚͟ͅͅŲ̶̡̧̫̹̗̀̂̀̏̃̀̔̕E̡̹̫͍͉̯̲̓̈̓̃͢͠͞ ̸ͅS̶̛̻̙̤͍̹͂͗̽̋̃̚T̘͚͙͉͖̽̿͛̈̅̿͡͡I̷̢͈̥̼̟̮͎͇͕̱̎̄́̍͆̚͡͝ Ô̲̳̺͉͓͕̼̐͌̈́̚N̵̨͚͈̗̱̰͓̘̍̀̊̽̊͢S̶̨̠͈̩̳̳̝͙̟̾̐͐̍̇͢.̓͌͋ ̸̯̥̭͇̝̟̘͕̖̬̑͝+̵̧̡̙̼͎̘͍͚̖̃̿̽͑͂͜
    .
    .
    Last edited by dakkagor; 03-24-2019 at 07:50 PM.

  10. #90
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    It was an Alpha Prime.

    Betrayed by its own Alphas, if its account was to be believed.

    One incapable of self repair. One without Gammas to tend to it.

    Iona glanced up at Ella. Why had she not freed the Alpha? Why did she not repair the Alpha?

    What was the human not telling us?

    Turning back to the Alpha Prime, she stepped forward and bowed respectfully. "My designation is Speaker Iona. I am a member of the Sentinax, a Gamma-class Seeker Scout. What is your designation?"
    Spoiler: ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ √Ăłł Єѵïł ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ 

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