Array Class Monitoring System – Coverage zone IV // Group III //

Surviving Members [Full]: Convicted 578043 → 578060 //[Multiple Casualties- Entered Forbidden Zone]

[Two Unknown located- Documentation Unclear: /Group III]

[ -- Class XII Prison World: Attica – ]

Sentence: [Death] / [Twenty Rotation Commitment]

[Rotation II]

...

The enemy of your enemy was your friend.

Rukkali wasn't entirely certain that the Siren Shipmaster had been an enemy in the first place, but even if they were: anyone insane enough to launch an entire Union ship's reservoir of escape pods onto a prison world was clearly running from something. So, if the Shipmaster was willing to take their chances down on the planet, rather than up above, he felt quite confident there had been a good chance for negotiation.

Rukkali had assumed he and the others would start with a more peaceful approach. By no means did that equate to simply let the Siren and their ship-beast to escape without answering some questions, but he had expected diplomacy would be their first step.

Then, the gunfire started, and Rukkali realized the soldiers had clearly come to a different conclusion.

It was possible, that they had recognized the Siren was wearing a combat suit that would prevent the landing hits from being fatal. Giving them benefits of the doubt, they were trained soldiers, and Oxot had good vision. Considering that the combat suits had been retrieved from all the escape pods previously recovered, it wasn't completely unrealistic.

But considering how quickly they opened fire, barely giving anyone else time to react, he knew it was also possible they had simply wanted the Siren dead.

Rukkali hadn't been awake during his retrieval from the 33rd lines, but he had been filled in to some degree of what transpired on the surface. There had been significant violence that lead to many soldiers being injured or killed, and it wasn't out of question to suspect a grudge.

He would have tried to get the matter clarified, of course, but it didn't seem there was anyone left who could answer him.

Which was rather unfortunate.

Instead, he was simply trying to escape with his life, as the city came to life. As if the entire area was turning into a massive, predatory, trap.

One by one, in a manner of disturbing efficiency, the others who had come with him were disappearing. The Soldiers, the Engineers: it didn't matter one bit. Vines would sprout from the shadows, reaching out in hunger to rip and tear down whoever they could reach, and Rukkali was hard pressed to do much of anything but meticulously plan his route as the others scattered, abandoning any sense of comradery in the hope of escape.

Which left him, alone, trying to drag the wounded Hico to safety. Which, might have saved him.

Instead of trying to out run the enemy, Rukkali was forced to move slowly, and it was becoming very apparent that that his lack of speed made little difference to his continued survival.

The predator operated on a set of restrictions.

Rukkali didn't know what the thing was, truly. If it was specially designed, or naturally evolved, but as it writhed and contorted into shapes, wriggling and twisted along the shadows to either side of him, he knew was becoming more dangerous with every wasted moment.

The sunlight was its enemy, and the sunlight was fading quick.

In over-zealous attempts to reach from him, or for the wounded engineer, the vines would stray into the light. In these gestures of hunger, and rage, these same vines would crumble, and die. Always reaching out to him, searching for the border between shadows and safety.

As he continued his trek, in what he hoped was the path out of the city, he kept very conscious of the sun's reach. He needed to find a road that wasn't yet covered in darkness. But the engineer on his back was in bad shape. Rukkali had seen a shot go wide from one of the soldiers, and Hico had taken a hit to the skull. Or, in the case of her species, to the shell.

It was one hell of a crack.

He paused, to set Hico down and catch his breath, stopping to inspect the injury once more. Trying his best to ignore the ever present rustles of hungry vines to either side of the road, he could see Hico's wound oozed fluid.

Rukkali was not intimately familiar with all species, but Mintrok were fairly common in military service, and he had seen several during his career along the lines. So he knew enough to be aware of the danger such and injury presented. This was a case that would require both medical gel and a nanite dose, and in the near future, too. If not, there was a good chance the engineer would suffer permanent damage.

Unfortunately, Rukkali had neither of these things. They'd salvaged some off of the escape pods, but the weight of bringing such things on a venture away from the strider hadn't seemed reasonable when they entered the city.

With effort, he lifted the Mintrok back off of the ground, positioning the engineer onto his back again. Up ahead, the light was beginning to fade.

His pace would need to pick up a bit, if they were going to get out of the city alive.

Consciously tapping into the HUD comm channels, he felt around for those who had remained outside of the city- with the ship. A select few of them were wearing recovered combat suits taken from the pods, and there was a possibility that the sounds of combat had reached the perimeter. Perhaps, they could bring the Strider closer to his position and provide a rescue.

“Engineers, this is Rukkali. I repeat, this is Rukkali- casting on all Channels, can anyone hear me.”

He shifted his steps to the right as the sun's rays began to cut off, casting a long angle of shadow which shortened the road's traversable width. He began to jog, and found he could. Even with the added weight of the wounded on his back, he seemed to be just fine. As his pulse picked up, he felt the buzz of nanites in his system return. Swarming back up as his muscles fought to continue forward.

It was amazing there were still any left. Normally, even in case of an overdose, they'd have run out of fuel and deactivated long ago.

“Can anyone hear this at all? Is there anyone left?” He shouted into the communication line as he picked up the pace more, trying to outrun the shrinking line of safety as he skidded into an open court yard between the structures. The structures were utterly massive now, easily four to five times the height of the buildings he had first encountered when entering the city, and it dawned on him.

With all that had happened, he'd taken a wrong turn.

He had been running in the wrong direction.

Slowly, he pivoted a full three hundred and sixty degrees, looking for another exit. The road he had come from was already covered in shadow. Up above, the setting sun greeted him with an angry stare as it continued its slow slip beyond the horizon.

It was useless.

In each direction, a road branched out into the distance- to where Rukkali could make out long stretching dunes of sand. Each was thousands upon thousands of units long. Directly in front of him, he could see the next sunlit road was more than half covered in shadows, cast by the massive structures around him. Even if he abandoned Hico, and began sprinting, he would never make it.

They were already trapped.

This was where it ended.

The realization was as powerful as any physical blow could ever hope to be.

Rukkali cleared his thoughts, letting out a long, deep, breath of air.

Then, he reached for the comms one last time.

“This is First Commander Rukkali, of the 33rd lines of the Containment. I am casting on all available channels, to anyone who is willing to listen.” The sand crunched softly as he set the Mintrok down. He sat and listened, as he stared and the tendril-like masses which were beginning to form along the edges of shadowed earth around them, creeping forward with visible speed.

Those seemed to hiss, as it budded and bubbled along the darker patches.

“I am advising that all survivors regroup away from the city, and stay near the strider until the evac arrives. Do not enter the city. I repeat: do not, under any circumstance, enter this city. Remain with the strider until evacuation.”

Only static returned, as Rukkali waited awhile longer.

Was there anyone left?

Static buzzed in a quiet return as Rukkali listened. Someone had to be listening, someone had to of heard.

“Rukkali.” The voice cracked through the static like a whip, an unfamiliar song that cut the ambient noise. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes!" Rukkali almost gasped, as another voice greeted over the comms. "I can hear you. Who is this?"

“This is Shipmaster Yitale, I read you loud and clear.”

A slight pause held as a shuffling could be heard over the channels before the voice reached through again- clearer this time. “Care to elaborate on that part where you mentioned an evacuation?”

As the shadows crept in closer, Rukkali felt it grow, deep in his belly. As the vines reached with impatience, wilting and crumbling in the fading glow of the sun, he felt a heaving sensation of emotion. Of irony, of defiance, of pure and humorous disbelief.

...

Yitale and the human sat in uncomfortable silence as the laughter rang through the helmet's speakers. Set on the dirt in front of them, they stared at it, as the noise continued.

Then, their eyes shifted back on the city, which stretched out along the distance. The ancient buildings almost looked like the rib cage of some massive being that had died long ago, and been weathered away to the bones. The larger structures reached out into the sky along an angle, some with sharp and jagged points. And behind them, the sunset cast a deep red hue on the sky, falling away to black and starlight.

As the laughter died down, they listened as the voice on the comm turned into slow calm breathes- audible, but not prominent.

“My duty is to hold the line. I will hold the line until the line is no more.”

The breathing began to quicken, as the sounds of impacts and gunfire reached through from some close source.

“I will defend those behind me.”

The static buzzed and crackled, as a familiar click of a reloading light-pistol broke the calm, before returning to gunfire. Snapping sounds, of physical impact, like a wet rag hitting the floor. A strange hiss of predatory rage rattled out in broken fragments, raging towards the very back of the audio.

“I will destroy those before me.”

A rumble shook the ground beneath them, rolling the helmet away, down the sandy bank of the dune. Yitale jumped up, only to be thrown flat, by another, and then another still. The human tripped and fell to the ground beside her, muttering curses only he could understand, as the helmet continued.

“I am the First Commander, and my word is Law.”

The city in the distance seemed to tremble, before a single building in its center heaved upward: ripped into the sky by a colossal blasting force that would not be stopped by simple stone and earth. The air cracked with the force of sound traveling too quickly- as the center of the ancient structures blew apart. Parted by a single projectile, which continued onward, crushing through the atmosphere and beyond it to bleed a streak through the air, and a dark trail of vapor and cloud in its wake.

...

[Wichita]

When the first shot hadn't been enough, they primed a second- amping the power flow to a higher setting. When the second still hadn't given Zen a clear reading to communication arrays outside the facility, they fired a third. And when even that hadn't worked, they set the damn thing to full power, took shelter in the testing room, and remote-activating the final shot.

Which finally did the trick.

The pressure difference brought on by the blast destroyed everything in the room, in addition to sending heavy cracks through the thick observatory safety-glass. The environmental shielding units within the glass and walls popped with sparks and the scent of burning metal, and the remaining force shattered all manner of delicate equipment.

Zen's vision spun, and his body ached.

The weapon might have been based on an antiqued concept which was practically obsolete when compared to the technology within the Union, but it was powerful. Not all tasks required a delicate and specific touch, some needed a hammer.

This was a bonafide planet-cracker. The likes of which, the Union might never have seen before.

Falling to all four paws, then rolling back onto his hind legs, Zen tried to stand as he stared through the cracked safety glass.

The ceiling in the firing room had been all but removed, with a gaping hole that spanned several units wide at its center, and rubble along its sides. The heavy framework, and metal coatings that had once acted as containment were bent, twisted, and utterly compromised. All of them had been crumpled like thin foil beneath the brute force of directed energy that had just smashed through them.

As Zen slowly brought his head up farther, he flinched as more debris crashed to the floor of the adjacent room.

If that hadn't worked, he decided that nothing ever would.

Phesol spewed digestive fluid in a heave as she lifted from the floor, limbs shaking. "Please tell me that last one fracking did it. I think I blew a gas bladder from the shock-waves."

Zen ignored her complaints, as he rapdily toggled the communication settings on the transponder. Despite the damage to many of the other instruments within the room, the device had miraculously, survived. Constructed of spare parts, they had been testing the machine for weeks, but there was no way to tell its range when they were trapped in the facility. Some components he had been able to create from scratch, but it was the best they could do, so it had to work.

They had bet everything on it, after all. Together, they had breached a facility, of which contained things that should never get out- Ever. If they had done it all for nothing... Zen wasn't exactly certain what he would do, but he wouldn't just accept it.

They could lock him away- put him to death, but he wasn't just going to sit here and starve quietly. The Union could burn in the empty void before he let them do something so humiliating to him. Cycles of his life dedicated to study, improve, and discover, all in the name of service to the Union, and they would leave him to die without a word?

He slammed the transponder in anger as its broadcast relayed the message.

"No connection established."

This was what he got for gambling. He knew better than most how fickle statistics could choose who they favored, but it still angered him. With effort, he pulled himself to stand, and turned to help Phesol.

"Come on, if we're lucky it's still daylight, we can climb out and try from the surface." Zen propped up Phesol against the wall before heading back to the transponder and shoving it into the ration bag. "We're going to have to move quick."

"I'm not sure I ca- Huuerg" Blood dripped onto the floor, in a sickening puddle. A deep purple, with a strange tinge of red that reflected in the artificial lighting, it stained the metal with dark blotches.

"Phesol?" Zen turned, staring at the floor in disbelief. More blood was following, streaming down the mass of tangling limbs, and he saw what could have been a grimace, beneath those.

"Shock-waves hit pretty hard... even behind the barriers... I guess my anatomy doesn't sit well with them." Phesol said, holding back another heave. "My kind has always been... a rather fragile species...."

Zen shifted his gaze to the few functional monitors left in the small room. Most flickered incoherently, but several still held their feeds from the outer halls. No movement was present, just still frames.

Another gamble, then.

"I'll get you to the medical bay, its only two quarters over. We can force the main gates open and get you in a pod. You'll be fine" Zen unlocked the safety door, opening to the now ruined bay, before running back with an empty tool cart.

"That's... the stupidest... idea... I've ever heard."

"Shut up and get on Phesol. I didn't get stuck in here with you for an entire cycle, just to let you die on me before we made it out."

...

As the dust settled, Rukkali stumbled and fell, blindly grasping for handholds. It had been a long way down the tunnel, especially carrying the weight of two, but he had made it- even if he couldn't clearly remember how. All he really knew, was that everything hurt.

Everything. Hurt.

The buzz of nanites was overwhelming as he lay face down on the debris covered floor. He had no idea where they were, or what this place was, but for now it was safe.

The predator that had been hunting them had withdrawn, likely in shock from the tremendous impact. Considering how widespread it had been, Rukkali guessed whatever was out there was still alive. Even if a large portion of the city was blown away, he doubted the shadow-lurking entity would die easily.

Thankfully, it seemed he wouldn't either.

The combat suit he wore was now ruined. The shields were completely shredded, and the fabric was ruined to the point that pieces were actually coming off of it. Not to mention the power source was now failing to generate enough charge to activate his communication line.

His ears were dripping with blood, as both had been blown out by the pressure difference, and one of his eyes almost purred with activity. He could practically see a blood vessel reforming in a blurred pseudo-image as he rolled on his back and stared at the tunnel above.

Everything fracking hurt.

It didn't take much muddled consideration to decide he shouldn't be alive.

Perhaps, it was just because the nanites were still with him. Repairing the damage before it turned completely fatal, so he could cling onto life for a little bit longer. All he really knew, was that luck was with him again.

Rukkali lay there for a long time, as his breath settled, and his pain faded. The Engineer he had been carrying also seemed to be alive, though they were in far worse shape. Rukkali might have taken the brunt of the impact, but Hico's shell was still bubbling from where it had cracked, and her limbs were... limp.

If he couldn't hear the inhalation of her air sacks, he would have assumed her dead.

Though, anyone looking at him would probably think the same thing.

Curling his abdomen, Rukkali rolled to his feet. Pain, and pain ignored. There were priorities, a mission to focus on. Gather the details, he had to ignore the... ignore... he had to gather...

Details, what was he seeing right now?

Where was he?

It was an underground assembly bay of some kind. Tools hung along the walls, covered the floor, and some even lay on benches. What was the remains of a massive holoscreen array framed the domed ceiling in an arc of broken glass that angled to the center of the room. That was where "it" lay.

"It" was a huge cannon, with hundreds of magnetic coils, thick metal rungs, and a barrel that stretched only a few units shorter than the room would allow. Near it's base was a loading siphon, a sturdy automated bolt, and a gigantic clip of large metal spheres.

He wasn't exactly sure why there was a rail-gun pointed at the massive, collapsed, hole in the ceiling, or who had been responsible for constructing something so irrationally powerful- but Rukkali was certain that it was perfectly capable of firing again if provided power. The machine was unscathed beyond the wisping smoke that still lifted off its barrel.

If it had been fired again, while he had stumbled his way down...

Rukkali shivered.

No amount of shielding could have saved him. Such a blast would have ripped through the most powerful of Union warships: a infantry soldier would have simply been completely annihilated.

Bringing his mind back to the issues at hand, Rukkali searched for a medical kit, anything he could use to help the engineer. Unlike him, most individuals didn't seem to have a permanent swarm of nanites floating in their systems- causing void knew what sort of side effects, the most obvious and pronounced being a rapid healing factor and a disturbing appetite.

That reminded him how hungry he was. How long had it been since he had something to eat?

"Focus Rukkali."

The voice, his own voice, echoed off the quiet walls of his strange tomb.

"This is a facility, obviously Union origin- possibly Ancient Union. This means they follow the Union's code and regulations. There will be a medical bay- you need to find it."

His head swam a bit as he spoke aloud to himself. His eye was still difficult to see through, and the blood vessels were ever-prominent in the peripherals.

A large gate was open in the distant side, beyond the massive cannon. The space inside its grasp was dark, with a slight flickering of artificial lighting along long and narrow halls. Rukkali seemed to drift towards it, flinging forward in time without his awareness realizing it. He came to clarity with the engineer once again across his back. Find the medical bay.

Everything hurt, and his mind dulled with the pulsing of his blood. That wasn't... that wasn't normal.

The medical bay.

Find it.

Find it soon.