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

Surviving Members [Uncertain]: 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 IV]

...

The human had been acting strange. Strange, even for his own particular standards.

Perhaps it was the influence of the bond, but Yitale wasn't quite sure. Yet, he had been acting odd ever since the Commander had made contact and the city had blown skyward. Nothing ever seemed to shake the human, and she had seen him take on impossible odds while in the service on her ship, without so much as batting an eye.

Bat an eye... she wondered where that expression had come from.

From him, obviously. She knew its source... but the concept of batting someone's eye...No, it was none of her business how a long-dead culture had operated, but this certainly wasn't the only example she was aware of, now. His thoughts were creeping in like background scenery, and hers were getting yanked- dragged right from her mind as if by a force of suction, or gravity.

The human's brain was strange.

His mind had the influence of some massive mental sponge: it was learning quickly. The things he just happened to know, such as piloting the strider. The vehicle was not a simple machine, and without her military background, Yitale would have been unable to even get it started and moving. If fact, the human hadn't even been watching her when she enabled the craft for the first time. No, he had simply been standing behind her with his back turned to watch the other passengers.

And yet, that didn't seem to matter in the slightest when he had taken a seat behind the controls. He piloted with ease.

That worried her.

He knew things he shouldn't. Plucking whatever he needed from her mind. But what worried her more was that he knew it did- He fracking knew!

She couldn't even be certain of what he didn't grasp at this point. What he hadn't casually plundered from her mind...

As the strider lifted and jostled the ragtag group, Yitale took her focus back to the scanners projected on the dash. The old vehicle was obsolete in the conventional sense. It possessed long range scanning capacity, but this was limited, and barely above a second dimension of analysis. Blind to anything above the surface, and much more worrisome to all of the current survivors, anything below it.

It also ran on a finite fuel source, even if it was extremely efficient at it. There was no core drive to propel it onward, but a burning and dwindling liquid.

One that would run out soon,

They had stumbled upon the vehicle and its hosts early the morning after the event. After the "planet cracking" as it were. Yitale was confident when she believed they would continue to cooperate. Logically, this was for numerous reasons, the first being the lack of alternatives, and the second being a threat of lethal force.

The human's sword was more than intimidating. The weapon alone screamed danger to anyone that so much as glanced at it, but once they had witnessed it in action? It had quickly been established that the weapon wasn't for show. That bladewas a constant, oppressive, threat, as was the human himself.

Ir had been a rocky start, though.

After the city seemed to blow itself apart from the inside out, in what Yitale could only conclude was a freak tectonic event, the opposing group that had gone in the depths of that horrid place had been all but lost. While Yitale and the human had escaped, only one soldier had made it back out of the city alive, and that was out of whatever number had gone in.

Yitale hadn't pried on that topic, but she knew it had been more than a handful.

The lone survivor was an Oxot- a rather large one, in truth. That species had a standard normality of being compact and slender, with shoulders and hips that lined in such a way that they could fall on all fours with ease. So, it stood out as unusual that the soldier that stumbled from the city was not fitting in this norm, lying somewhere far along the uppermost reaches of the bell curve.

Half a head taller than Yitale, she could tell its personal armor was bulging with muscle, and its movements were swift despite an enlarged torso that almost seemed to resemble that of a Rullah buck. It held itself tall, too. Intentionally resisting the natural instinct of falling to all fours, to remain alert to potential danger on the sands around it.

There had been a very good reason this creature had survived, where the others hadn't.

By basic proximity, likely just following the route it had taken into the ruins, it had arrived at the desert strider quicker than Yitale and her guardian, and it had not hesitated upon spotting them- attacking immediately.

Perhaps it was panic, or a futile attempt to finish what had been started in the twisting alleys. Perhaps it had simply been a personal and intentional vendetta towards Yitale: an association with her, and their apparent desertion on the sandy planet. It didn't really matter why the Oxot had opened fire on them when they crested the hill, because it learned several important lessons that kept it from repeating the act in the future.

The first, which was most apparent from his shout of rage and foreign curses, was that the human didn't appreciate being shot: at all. Yitale still wasn't able to tell how badly the weapon fire actually injured him, but she felt the pain through her link, just as he did when a round took him by surprise.

It wasn't pleasant, but then neither was his profanity on the subject.

The second lesson soldier also learned, was that the human could also run extremely quickly, and that Light-rounds (even a full magazine of them) did nothing but anger her contracted guardian to move faster.

When combined with the fact that Yitale was a very good shot herself, the bulky Oxot was given the humbling experience of encountering her Ship-beast, unarmed.

If the engineers hadn't peacefully intervened on the soldier's behalf, there would have been more than a broken weapon left on the sand.

From that point, an uneasy treaty had been reached. Although it was a tense peace, there had very little choice in the matter. As gaps of knowledge had been filled, and discussions made, on the topics of who, what, and how. The story was made clear.

Her own understanding of the events had been rushed, and jumbled- focused primarily on survival. Their time on the ship had been spent staring down Union soldiers, and hiding in a cramped escape pod after different another ship had boarded the vessel, leading to yet another armed conflict. The results of which one had been even less pleasant than the previous, and Yitale had been hard pressed to keep the human from breaking past her to murder every Sikki he could find.

Despite the fact that they had been on a Union ship, in the middle of a Union fleet- all of which were in communication with one another, his rage had almost leaked through the bond enough to convince her it was worth it. And his hatred for that particular species had reminded her of nothing but the essence of murder itself.It was a sickeningly pulling and compelling emotion: one which made her want act upon it, and then vomit.

Half a rotation passed before that had simmered, taking with it, the residue of rage. Yitale knew it was moments like those, where the human really did terrify her. Extremes such as those weren't even possible for most intelligent life without some sort of drug induced state. Yet, it dived into them as if it were a natural act.

As they waited, there had been no information to gather beyond what the escape pod scanner could pick up on their surroundings through the network- which wasn't much without powering it up. Running only the passive checks, keeping the pod dormant gave them a general view of planetary bodies, and other ships.

So, their plan had been simple: to launch every pod upon entry of an atmosphere, and fly down under the cover of several decoys. Once on the surface, there was a high chance they would be able make contact with a local branch of the Trader's Guild, and track down the Red Scar.

She supposed that they should be grateful the first half had worked, given her recent luck.

The planet they had landed on, though... not so much.

Yitale was surprised to find that beyond the lone Oxot to have made it out of the city. Not one of them were soldiers. She was more surprised to find that they were all Union Engineers, which had survived the breach along the 33rd lines, and there hadn't been a single team sent down after them- though there were theories a plenty as to why.

Most of those shared were based around the fact that this was a prison sentence. Though it couldn't be entirely certain which, one Engineer in particular had apparenly taken an interest in such things, and supplied the information that such sentences were known to hold a survival rate of 0.04 percent. From that, the general opinion held that there was no point to chasing after anyone crazy enough to run towards something that dangerous. Yitale and the human had been allowed to escape, simply because whatever crime they might have commited: this world was more than an apt punishment for it.

As time stretched on, talk began to orbit around how they had ended up here of all places, and how they were lucky to be alive at all. There was a clear conflict amongst the Union, perhaps even a civil war. The conversations were interesting, and on her off-shift from keeping watch, or piloting the strider, Yitale would listen.

There was much to learn.

“We had been on the surface base for awhile- watching those pods fly down in the surrounding jungle.” A thin Alalozun spoke, with rapid clicks of its beak, as it sorted through its handful of edible pellets. “We had lost a portion of the ground base during the night, and the creatures there were getting bolder. We hadn't known that the defensive grid along the perimeter wasn't fully operational- we were still busy trying to figure out what had happened along the lines. Being plant-side, we weren't in direct contact with them.”

“Twenty three pods landed on the planet- and out of them, only ten turned on an emergency signal. Out of those ten- only one survived a single night. We had assumed the worst, you see, and we couldn't leave the base- not after the creatures realized they could breach the walls- so whoever was out there, was left out there on their own.”

A wiry creature, Yitale recognized as a Vekkik, cut in to speak. “When he made it through, he was wearing some low class combat armor, and his only weapon was a broken piece of metal, but he looked like a hero to us when he broke through the foliage.” The Vekkik paused, snout crunching up into itself- a sign of respect. “I thought to myself then: here was a Union soldier to the core. Someone who survived without walls, or anyone to watch for danger. All he had was a spear, and he had made it to us.”

“The Commander?” Yitale asked.

“Yes. Yes it was him, but we didn't know it yet. He was just a soldier to us, and with is suit, we couldn't see his tattoos.” The engineers in the back of the vehicle grew quiet, as the Vekkik continued. “He came out that night- right when things were getting the worst. We didn't expect it, and the Oxots almost killed him before it really dawned on us that he was down there: they threw two heavies in his general direction on Hico's orders. She's gone too you see- a Mintrok, went into the city with the others.”

A murmur of regrets voiced through the engineers. “I thought we were done for that night, when Hico fell off the wall. She was the only one capable of using the bolt-rifle for cleaning up the breaches, but that fell too- long way down. Still, the Commander just kept on fighting, shouting his pledge- over and over.” Another respectful sniff. “Like a Rullah in the dance, he was.”

“We had accepted we were done for, wasn't much for it but to try and kill as many of them as we could. Didn't have much to look forward too- even with Rukkali down there goring everything that got to him.”

“That is, until the base was hit by your freighter, Shipmaster.”

The human broke into a grin then- from the controls where he sat, Yitale didn't see it, but she felt it. Utter comic amusement leaked past his blockade between her mind and his. When she “smiled” this time, it wasn't forced- as associated images flew by, in a wildfire of recognition.

“The last thing I remember is watching the ground rippled like water. All of the trees, and the terrain just gave way to it, until it smashed through the base's far wall.” The Vekkik raised its arms in a descriptive show, that Yitale found she couldn't quite follow. “It was like an act of some angry deity, that red scarred ship of yours. Its hull was probably caked in blood!”

Her smile turned to a grimace.

Her ship... where ever it currently was, she was not. The crew, her spawn, the contracts; her whole life was likely on the other side of the Galaxy. Her reply was soft, as she focused on the handful of rations and background conversations.

“Yes, I suppose it was.” She replied at last.

The talk grew less after that, as the group settled back to silence, and murmured conversation related to the alteration on several ruined pieces of gear and weaponry pulled from the escape pods. Their device was a secret to anyone but them- though not intentionally. Yitale knew they were hiding nothing, as they calmly discussed their options in quiet tones, but she couldn't interpret their actions. Neither could the human.

As night came, and the red sun fell, along the blurred horizon, he drifted to sleep. Yitale halted the vehicle in the moments afterwards, leaning back against the inner wall.

They had been told the condition was set for twenty rotations. Whatever sentence was carried out from there, was likely automated, without direct contact from anyone in the Union. Assuming there still was a Union.

A civil war... that was something to ponder.

The Trade Guild would be rallying Shipmasters if it really was the case. They had probably already started. Who were the sides? Was was the goal? What had triggered it to happen? Politics? Necessity?

Yitale was versed in politics from an outsiders perspective. She had her own business, her own trade, but she had remembered the training- the brainwashing methods. The “Service to the cause” and all that came with it. Fringe species never took well to that, unless it was for the lines of the Quarantine.

The frustration of questions that couldn't be answered gnawed at her. She needed to get in contact with the Guild, find her ship, get back into the void and off of this damned desert strider... she needed to...

Something was different.

Images were fleeting through her mind- nonsensical images, mixing with... sound?

Vertigo shifted her sense of balance as she leaned back into the seat- forcing her eyes shut as her tail curled in her lap, running its scars through her thin hands. It was like a current, a tide, rushing out towards the depths of some unfamiliar ocean.

It was sleep, but it wasn't hers.

…

Music. It must be music- because it overwhelmed everything. A language that wasn't- even when she thought she understood it, it slipped past, over, and under. It didn't matter what it was, because there was so much to hear. Layers stacked onto layers, and more layers- but there was no voice, as if the instruments themselves were speaking- each encouraging the others to play a part.

Jazz... that was what this was, or at least, that was the genre, the title of it all.

Those sounds, unlike anything she had ever heard, creaked from the front of the... truck...

That was the word, but what it was, eluded her. It was a vessel, wheeled like the strider, but not in motion, not as large.

It was blue, dirt covered, rusting, it just sat, occasionally shuddering as something beneath the hood rattled. It was a relic. Compared to the vehicles she knew, it was beyond ancient, but it had an endearing quality to it. Another noise, brought her to turn, noticing the figure outside.

Leaning against the side was a human, but one wearing clothing much different from what Yitale had seen before.

A brown, worn jacket, some dark, beat up jeans. He was patiently waiting, not anxious, or worn- simply observing. A cup of coffee, its steam lifting up into the cool fall air, to mingle in with the colors around him. There were oranges, reds, yellows... all leaves, which fell from the trees along the side of the blacktop, as the sun beat down through a clear blue sky. Only the tiniest of cloud formations creeping over in the distance.

It was a dream. His, and not hers.

She was intruding, but as she looked around, felt for a way out- there was no clear way back, she wasn't in control here, so Yitale sat back in the seat, behind the man, as he sipped his coffee- and waited. For a dream that came from the most dangerous individual she'd ever met, it was starting as a peaceful one.

This was not a recent event, or a slow mental review of the previous day set for analysis. This was something different- an old memory, perhaps spliced together with something more. She didn't know.

Across the way, a large building sat, its walls brick and stone, a flag flying high in the front as the slight breeze picked it off its rest. The fabric fluttered above the rest, taking in the warm light, making soft flaps in the air ring out. There weren't many cars in the lot, but there were a few, especially closer to the building. They were all different, in color and size, and shape; none fit as a match.

A long fence held along the side, leading to an open field- as another street further away held further buildings. The more she focused, the more they faded, elusively avoiding her attempts. So she brought her attention to the human. It made little sense to her, as she saw, recognized, and promptly lost any frame of reference on the things around her- he was the same.

It was him, but different. Younger perhaps. The fur- beard, on his face was cleaner, shorter, and his eyes had a look that seemed to be content.

He was waiting for someone.

“Human, can you hear me?”

As she asked the question, she felt her song pull into something different- another language. It wasn't terribly different, or even dissonant, as it held a small melody of its own. Her voice felt as much as her presence though- despite that, it was an intrusion. Her very existence in the place was an intrusion.

She waited, not willing to speak again, as ripples of her influence caused the vehicle to waver. The leaves falling seemed to twist, and hang about- far too long held airborne; the man's drink grew cold- its steam ceasing all at once.

“I can hear you, Yitale.”

Unlike her words, his held a weight- a deeper meaning. It was similar to the emotions that carried with her own language, on the waves of song, but different at the same time. His didn't simply hold emotion, they held intention of circumstances, understanding of pretense, added meaning entirely. He had said that he heard her, but it was more than that- and she found herself lacking in the depth of knowledge required to interpret.

The coffee seemed to spring back to life as he sipped it, steam once again lifted from it, before he spoke again.

“I've been here before. I think its Earth, in the fall season.” His eyes tracked the falling leaves, as they too returned to normal, crisscrossing paths on their descent. “I remember this much, but I can't ever seem to get farther. This frame is all I can manage.”

“What do you mean?”

More ripples cast out around them, disorienting the reality as they quietly observed. Her influence on this reality were very real.

“She's here. In that building, behind that veil. She's here- but I can't... I can't...”

A far off bell rang as the doors began to open, people leaving to go about their lives, or simply milling about and speaking to one another in foreign tongues, and languages. Instead of detail, they were gray, featureless shapes- humanoid, but not. Still, he waited, content to simply lean back and sip at his coffee, while more and more people came outside to form great congregations, and large vehicles rumbled closer.

“You can't what?”

The noises were getting louder, as the vehicles approached. She saw them traveling in a row, down the streets in the distance. Large, with many windows, a bizarre coloration. Yellow.. or orange?

“I don't know Yitale.”

The dream seemed to fray, and the ground lifted in thin patterns, billions of rotating fractals, cracking under the strain. The buildings in the distance seemed to blur as the truck door opened, letting Yitale out- to fall on the shifting ground. Rough, stone, compressed- blacktop greeted her as she picked herself off, and back into her feet.

The vehicles grew louder, and louder still as they began to pull into the lot. Their engines rumbling with the sounds of heavy impacts and noise, loud noise, LOUD-

“I still can't remember.”

Yitale awoke on the floor to screams of panic, and the frantic scramble of bodies. Her hands grasped at the holds along the vehicle's interior, her tail flinging out instinctively towards anything it could possibly grab. Crashes of blows ramming along its side as they lifted.

She found it reassuring that there was no terror in her, no feelings of surprise. Safety didn't exist anymore; that illusion had been dead and gone. The reality of comfort, the absence of danger, was nothing but a myth.

Out of anyone, Yitale knew this best.

[Wichita]

Medical Bay

A tingling of tiny buzzing movements echoed around her frame as Hico came to awareness. As her thin membrane layers lifted from her many eyes, she found them unfocused- surrounded by light. Overpoweringly bright, painfully warm, light. Perhaps she was dead, and this was what her people's culture referred to as the afterlife.

It was as if she was being heat-cooked. If this was life after death, it wasn't starting out as a very pleasant existence.

Her first attempts at movement did her little good, as if her body was made of stone. Her second attempt did little better. Hico tried to fall back on anything to keep the rising force of panic from forming into something tangible.

Paralysis was uncommon for Mintrok- who had numerous nerve pathways traveling from multiple nerve clusters. Head injuries rarely resulted in any permanent damage, but there was always the rare statistical anomaly. Those unlucky few who had been hit in such a way, that communication with their body was all but impossible.

Perhaps the rest of her cycles were to be spent in physical rehabilitation, trapped planet side until the end of her days. The horror of that thought lit the fire of motivation, as she tried again. This time, she focused on a single limb- a single motion; to lift her upper right arm and bring shade to her low-depth eyes.

Relief and terror mixed together in an unfortunate manner akin to nausea as Hico recognized the sensation of a restraining field layered on her body. A very heavy field. She wasn't paralyzed, she was held captive. For what- she could only imagine, but she had been concerned with thoughts of the afterlife, they were all but erased by several squeaking curses.

“Void damn you- stop struggling! Do you want to crack open like unhardened glass in a vacuum, or do you want to live?”

Hico froze immediately. She still couldn't see, even after framing her high-depth eyes with both outer membranes in an attempt to block the light- but the speaker had been somewhere to her left. She listened, as the scrambled sounds of shuffling and... clinking, rushed over towards her.

“I am a Union Engineer- 33rd line division. I demand my immediate release, and that my captor identify themselves.” She tried not to flinch, as her voice bubbled from her mandibles. Hico sounded horrendous, her words were frothy and quiet, which was a clear sign of dehydration, or worse.

“You're being cared for Engineer, I don't intend you any harm- but if you move anymore you're going to risk breaking your shell open again, and I'm not certain that would be beneficial for any of us.” The squeaking voice was next to her now, but low- as if it was underneath whatever she was resting on.

A rolling, metal on metal- softly sounded from another direction, grew closer.

“Ah, Phesol!” Hico could make out more scampering, and the clacking of claws “Excellent idea, although I'm not certain you should be moving either.”

The lights dimmed dramatically as Hico frantically blinked her membranes- the world coming into focus.

“You must not move, you were egregiously wounded Engineer. You shell is still resealing through the efforts of a nanite solution.” The speaker paused, quietly mumbling in a tone which was far too hushed for Hico's mental mappings to arrange in any sensible fashion.

As the conversation continued without her, silent as it was, Hico finally made out more than blinding light. Heat lamps were above her, in several places. As she again tried to move, she felt the pressure of pain dart down her skull- along the sensation of a crack. She had been hit by something... friendly fire if her memory hadn't been jumbled.

“I remember the... fungus...” She mumbled, as only a Mintrok could, in a quiet and guttural sounding voice. “It was after us, like a shadow- always reaching... killing with its touch.”

The small rodent that had been carefully fretting over her wounds grew still, his movements stiffened as he moved back away from Hico once again, out of her full view.

“Predatory Fungus... shadows...” More scuffling, as equipment was pulled from the cart. “Phesol, I think we need to leave, soon.”

“Zen, you don't suppose that what she just described was-”

A loud clank of equipment pieces falling to the floor replied before he did. “Yes, I do. Right now, Phesol, we're leaving right now.”

“They're not ready- Zen, her shell is barely reformed. If we move her...” the voice grew quieter. “We can't, even if it is inside, we're safe in here, the light will hold it off.”

“No it won't. You've seen those simulations- we all did when they let us in. That system is deviously effective.”

Hico shifted her head to see. “Zen” as he appeared to be named, was attaching things to a belt- now bandoleer, to his tiny frame.

“This light isn't strong enough- II'm certain it will make it through, and then... through us. We'll need to go deeper into the facility, seal the doors behind us as we go.”

“And do what Zen? Partner up with that fracking Gemynd? Share some rations and sing songs around the holoscreen?” Phesol seemed to shake, like a small piece of underbrush- her limbs unweaving in what Hico could only interpret as anger. “The plan was to get out! Not to go farther in!”

“I know.” His tiny voice seemed to grow a minute bit in depth as Zen spoke. “But if we go into that mess we'll die. If we go farther in, we might come out of this alive. There might be more help they can send, or perhaps they can deactive that system... It's worth the risk, even if we do have to hide next to the Consumption and its madman-caretaker.”

Hico turned again, as a loud groan echoed through the room “Huaaaaaaaaaarrrg!”

“Void-fracking ion-thrusters! Phesol- it's still alive!”

Zen seemed to scurry, in a jumping step away, back towards the other end of the room. “Soldier- Stay down, you've been-”

A loud snap rebounded and clatter about the room as the gravity field above the other figure, broke from a massive shove- wedging the device into the ceiling- and showering sparks.

“Please stay calm! I can explain everyth-”

“YOU WILL EXPLAIN NOTHING.” The voice overpowered everything, hushing the room into stillness, as the sparks shot out in tiny flurries above.

“YOU SAID THE CONSUMPTION IS HERE? YOU TELL ME THAT AFTER ALL WE HAVE SPENT ALONG THE LINES- THE BLOOD AND LIVES THAT HAVE BOILED AND BURNT AWAY TO NOTHING- THAT THE CONSUMPTION IS HERE?”

His voice held anger that made Hico tremble in her shell, while Zen could barely manage to even squeak a reply.

“Y-yes.”

“Then that is where we'll go. The consumption must burn. The lines must be held."

“Y-yes... I suppose it is.”

Glass shattered in the far end of the room, and Zen drew a light-pistol. It had been one of theirs, Hico could see the insignia that held on its barrel and casing. It wavered wildly, as the Zen's small hands fumbled around the grip and weight of it- trying to keep it angled towards something she, herself, couldn't quite see.

"It is good that you did not kill me little rodent.”

The gravity field dropped away, allowing her to sit up slowly, with the Birsingidarian assisting- limbs reforming in weaves of flesh. Another crash, as more glass hit the floor- it was the windows to the medical bay- shattering inwards as snaking tendrils of black fungus sizzled in the light on their approach.

Undeterred, the First commander stood- taller than ever before, muscles etched into his very frame as he ripped a light from the ceiling to throw into the darkness outside of the room- causing a massive flash on its impact- its after glow burning in a bright glow illuminating the facility.

The screams of a dying predator greeted him in a quiet chorus of rage.

"YOU ARE BUT A PALE IMITATION OF A FAR GREATER EVIL. YOU ARE NOTHING TO ME PREDATOR. I DO NOT FEAR YOU."

Rukkali's eyes shown with a wild glimmer- of madness; of strength.

“If nothing has killed me yet- than I strongly doubt this will. Not until my job is done.” The Commander turned, facing them- ignoring their astonishment, as he grabbed a plasma saw from the bench. “And my job will not be done until the last rusted piece of Consumption is burnt to ash."

His footsteps seemed to tremble the very floor as he walked towards to doors, before firing the torch above his head- casting a blue halo of fire.

"Hurry up and lead the way little one- you were correct in your words. There is no time to waste.”

...

Planetary Target - III - Operation Rust

...

As the ship warped into atmosphere, Captain Samson relished in the sheer force of the vessel he was piloting.

A thin triangular frame wrapped around to the more rounded body piece, to bring it into a tight necked, and flat point. It was said that it had been remodeled from one surviving relic, based off of an ancient home-world ship. Its coloration even held to those standards, as it was normally dark black, holding in the almost total absence of light reflection.

Presently, though, it was the exact colors of everything above and below it. The obscure field was running at full capacity.

"Adrienne" as he liked to call the vessel, wasn't a large ship. It had been built for stealth, and secrecy; built to smash, grab, and burn. That was the plan for today, and they weren't the only ones. All over the galaxy, working in total synchronization, they were on a mission of epic proportions. This was the mission that couldn't fail- that had been sent from the very top.

They were here to destroy the dead-man's switch of a Galactic empire. Before anything else could happen, they had to pull those pins themselves- take the neutral danger out of the control of enemy hands.

Setting the S-AI to full control, The Captain turned to view his squad. Even in the dim lighting of the stealth ship- he could see they were ready. The team of eight stared back at him, steel eyed, weapons primed, gear assessed. They had run the simulations hundreds of times- they had watched the footage of demo-team's mission success, even at the result of full team casualties. There were no illusions to the danger, but they were ready.

"Ral, You're on point for this one. Sim, Orin, Nurse- you're all on exit." Sharp nods met his words. The flexing of joints, in anticipation. "It looks like someone in there got a little impatient when we cut off their support lines.”

A holographic display scanned into being before them, showing the real-time survey of the terrain below. It had been a city at one point, probably an old one. Now it was a ruined one, ancient structures tossed like toy blocks in the wake of some colossal weapon from below the surface.

“We're dropping on that crater, from what the scan is picking up- we'll cut our entry time in half, and reroute into the original position. Set time- two minutes to actual.”

The squad quickly hit their forearms, and timed through a small display as their Captain turned back to the S.A unit's controls. “Adrienne, play us off will you? Give us one of the classics- something from way back.”

A thin metallic voice responded- a faint aura of humor entwined. “Certainly Captain.”

Heavy music began to ring through the ship's speakers, filling the cabin with sound as the squad exchanged grins. The infamous routine was underway- the Captain's tried and true method.

“Alright! You don't need me to tell you what to do- but I'm going to do it anyways!” Swanson broke into a wide and toothy smile as he walked down the aisle towards the back of the craft.

“You hear this shit? This is the shit people died for- this is the shit they took away!” He gestures grew in ferocity, as he slammed his boot into the hull floor- pausing to take in a massive breath of air, as the music grew louder.

“Now I wouldn't make anyone here do something I wouldn't- but you're in for one hell of a misunderstanding if you think I'm not going to be the first one out the shit-end of this lovely bird!”

A thin chuckle of laughter broke out as they stood, forming up for the jump as the music picked up- stead beats rushing with vocals. The craft slowed as it approached its fly-over, hatches opening behind the squad members as they gripped one another to stabilize against the whipping currents of foreign wind.

“Ral- fire the scout.”

The Captain's hands threw the signal towards the bulky framed figure farthest away, who leaned out of the craft. Held by one arm on his massive shoulder was a large tube- which burst a gush of billowing smoke out of its barrel- launching a massive flare. The flash from the side port- illuminating the intricate details of the ground below, brought a red glow to the inside of the cabin, casting strange a twisted features on those inside it- which matched the abyss directly below.

A gargantuan crater stared back up at them, like the gaping maw of hell itself. The Captain turned to spit out the back of the ship, apparently not bothered in the slightest.

“I hope you boys like spelunking in something other than each other assholes- because that's one fucking hell of a cave! Get those lights up and ready for the drop!” His orders were barely above the sound of the air currents, which blasted them- side buffets of alien jet-streams.

The music cranked louder to compensate, crashing on through their headsets with his final count.

“Five!”

They steeped low, ship plummeting towards the city, and its giant gaping wound.

“Four!”

A moment of zero gravity was experienced as the ship thrust back up directly above the point, redirecting its angle for the programmed drop altitude.

“Three-Two-One- Lets move! GO, GO, GO"

They jumped.

...

If anyone had been there to watch, they might have noticed as five figures, followed by another three, launched into the air- seemingly from nowhere at all, to free-fall towards the ruined city surface with tremendous speed.

Even if the onlooker hadn't been looking closely- they would have been able to spot the bright orbs of light that burst to life next to the eight falling shadows as they neared the ground- causing the cityscape to flicker in contrasting shapes and shade of an artificial sunlight before they disappeared into the depths of the massive crater.

If the hypothetical onlooker had somehow been capable of hearing the sounds emitting from the ultra stealth vessel at that very moment- then just maybe they would have been able to catch a tiny lick of an instrument not heard in the galaxy for over 1,000 cycles, and the unmistakable voice, by which it was accompanied.

...

♫ I'm coming back I will return

And I'll possess your body and I'll make you burn

I have the fire I have the force

I have the power to make my evil take it's course ♫

...

// Operation Rust - Team Seven - Start://>> 00:01 >>//

...