GALAXY IORA | INUI VANNA | DIANA TRIAGE | INFARED DIVISOR
Our backs are against the wall.
Even with millions of tons of ordinance, thousands of ships flare their engines across the stars towards their many times more numerous fleets. They do not respond to any attempt at communications; the highest form of contact we have had with them is either exchange of weapons fire or lack there-of. After each fight, they seem to sieve the living from the dead for prisoners of war, and show mercy to those that surrender as they move to the next engagement.
Their tide of warships pushes us further and further to the precipice of no return, with projections indicating no real change from the toll in blood and ships we have lost.
All strategic level computational engines point towards one conclusion, and we are running out of time to put change into action.
Just what have we gotten ourselves into?
a dull klaxon droned a shrill cry, the smell of acrid carbon pungent even through filters. Operator Andy Torres squinted at the dimly lit terminal, wiping blood away from his nose as text streamed out the data log.
Things were not looking good as casualties began running through Torres's mind, a handy dotted list coming from the cold part of his head
*KIA Data Shell Commander Anna Regio, located in the pod behind him, associated with ONELASTPLEA.txt[458kb] Cause of death appears to be oxygen deprivation or wide spread organ failure from full body heat exposure.
*KIA Reactor Engineer Dan Hall, located in corridor outside primary reactor. Cause of death is whole body radiation exposure, estimated equivalent of 668.44Gy.
*KIA fellow Operator Wang Wei, located in primary maintenance space, Cause of death is exposure to vacuum & traumatic blunt force to lower back, torso, left arm.
*KIA —
The feed cut out of focus as Torres eyes looked past the list, and at the computer terminal, a set of four command inputs from Regio, one of the last few commands before their biomonitoring locked them out.
`[NUCLEAR AUTH_USER_FAULT `[NUCLEAR FLIP
`[NUCLEAR AUTHENTIC INP ?????????????? ?????? `[NUCLEAR AUTHENTICATION ACTIVE
Torres's Blood quickened, and he shook his head as he typed a half dozen commands into the interface. The Klaxon's blare silenced, leaving the muted silence of struggling air filters. A rotor whirred to life, a red tube ascended from the console. A age old security method, the offering of blood for the bioscan as one final check. Through the hypodermic induction port on his wrist, the machine took his blood and hummed softly as it compared and contrasted blood to data as a scale between nuclear annihilation and a few more moments.
images flashed through his mind as commands executed. (Was he too late?) Comrades that went through academy with him(The smell of his own blood.) his mother's hair as she embraced him on graduation day (words and words and words and words begging for help out of the neural chamber as the cognizant parts of her brain wrote into a plea while watching the rest of her body die.); a sort of foggy picture Hall's lover Molly based on a description, and the fact that the void wont spit anything out, no radio signals, no ragged courier drone from the depths of space with Hall's last words for her to hear, Hall's last plea was plasma out of the thruster bell as he walked into that hot reactor .
a message flashed on his screen.
NUCLEAR FAIL SAFE DISABLED
The failsafe was gonna get in the way. Now he had time. a little bit more time.
The HSD Silencer of Wrong Doers was crippled the defense of the high orbit of Alda's Landing. As Fleet Element Wolf 6 fell back, Sensors recorded digital transmissions reminiscent of active targeting systems from the Destroyer, followed by scattered ultraviolet radiation, indicating the successful firing and subsequence impact of the ships spinally mounted laser weapon on enemy contact Apollyon 2, which promptly emitted a sensor profile indicating a mission kill. the Silencer of Wrong Doers sustained several more impacts before spectral imaging indicates that the ship had shattered into pieces.
The helmet stops the iconophage!
Always keep your helmet on, charged and it's computational engine duty-cycled!
Do not observe them without an issued helmet or viewer!
The bombers of GUSTO were flying back, freed from their terrible burdens. The fighting in the sky was over long ago, a brief engagement for air supremacy to make way for the bombers. With forest surrounding both sides of the dirt road, Yakov walked.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Audible over the whine of the mana engine that drove his exoskeleton of steel, a sort of colorful, warbling bird had stalked up Yakovs noisy battlesuit and made sure to let Yakov witness its hate, even to the extent of pursuing the marching machine for kilometers. It just wouldn't give up. Maybe that was why he liked it so much, in the sort of admiration-of-the-enemy way. He could be patient, wait until it just got bored and walk away. The road stretched out in front of him, gently curving as it went into the distance for perhaps a few kilometers more before some town on the edge of a lake would flash into existence, and Yakov walked.
Yakov marched along, careful to keep the electromagnetic motors inside his arms and legs from hurting the white-hot enraged being next to him.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The village had soldiers, armed with bolt action rifles and manning some sort of palisade. No great pillars of smoke rose from the city, so it was safe to assume that it wasn't hit by the bombs. Perhaps one of the most surreal experiences that they ever had, witnessing a machine they had never seen before walk up, waving at them while keeping the gun-with-a-box-attached cradled around it's neck with a strap away from the angry looking bird. The gun was disarmed: the belt to the box of ammo was put away to prevent it from being damaged a couple kilometers back, but the soldiers didn't know that, and were wary. Stopping at a distance where conversation was sort of possible over the tonal warbling of the suits engine. Yakov was in a bit of a predicament. the tank phone attached to his side would get damaged by the bird, so he opted to risk getting pecked in the face by a bird as big as the battlesuit he rode, and opened his face plate, conveniently opening such that the bird didn't immediately get a chance to see his face from the angle it opened.
Leaning down a bit to angle himself, Yakov spoke. "I'm gonna walk through town."
Shaking his head, "What the fuck man, no. That's crazy," said the guard, pointing his rifle at the flightless bird attempting to maul Yakov.
"What's the issue?"
The guard pointed. "That! That big bird, it will hurt somebody."
The bird looked up at Yakov, noticing the open face plate and went for it. Yakov narrowly avoids getting gauged in the face by its beak, and seals the face plate. Opting to walk off, taking the long way around town, Yakov walks. The bird was intent on pecking his armored visor now that it had seen the weakness in the warriors armor.
half way through the walk around town to the way he was meant to go, Yakov spots a farm, with a barn. What a marvelous idea Yakov thought, he could get something to feed this angry, hungry being and perhaps become friends with it. Yakov walked into the farm, went over to the barn, and ripped the lock off of the sliding doors. opening the door, he was witness to three large beasts of burden— also birds. Mottled brown feathers slammed into Yakov as he quickly reversed his decision on the whole affair, and promptly kicked the suits engine up to produce more power. Electric motors whined as Yakov fended off the large birds while he pushed, lifting one of the doors up and to the right off the slide. Hearing some shouting to his left, he turned his body and switched to his right hand to keep the birds away from escaping. Yakov's sightlines focused, and he saw a farmer with a double barrel shotgun.
With his mood ruined by the whole affair, Yakov gave it up as a lost cause, and turned to leave the whole issue to the farmer. The farm animals got out, pursuing Yakov's new friend. Rushing forward, Yakov attempted to keep the two factions of hate and feathers separate, and was witness to horrible gauges on one of the farm-beasts.
The farmer took aim. Yakov turned, extending a sword out of his suit's wrist at the man in an attempt to really intimidate the guy into not shooting at the bird. The man glanced over at a machine-man whose visage was straight out of far-flung military posters or mythos for a split second, and back at the gauge on one of his animals. He then finished sighting in his shotgun and put a blast into the center of the warbler.
It slumped over. Yakov readied his disarmed machinegun, pointing it at the farmer, and the seriousness of the situation kind of set in to the man. He went pale, and fainted. Yakovs gun fell back to his chest, held up by the strap. As Yakov approached, the birds went to defend their master. Yakov ignored them, wrenching the unconscious mans shoes off, taking the shotgun away and turned, looking towards the crumpled form of his short-time friend.
Yakov walked over, and knelt next to the dying creature. with an already extended blade, Yakov put the poor thing down, took one last glance at the grouping of farm-birds and it's unconscious owner. A cold sort of anguish passed over Yakov as he walked down the road, over a bridge, and he hucked the farmers shoes into the river below, and began his march.
Alone.
