Whiskey Tango… - Edit 11-9-2018

As you can imagine, exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep. I did manage to shower and clean off my armor. Food from the commissary was also a nice touch. I ended up sitting in Medical by Janssens pod, apologizing to him. Their Doctor finally ordered me to my rack after, under the guise of a post action checkup, he injected me with a time-release sleep aid. I would end up being forced to sleep for at least four hours.

My dreams were not pleasant. Janssens was there, although he was now a combat robot. There was, of course, a massacre. He and I completely and without pause, slaughtered Ark-5, Our boot camp instructors, the kids at the orphanage I was raised in, everyone. The entire time we were held up by strings controlling our every movement, moved like puppets. The Puppet Master a human shape in the sky.

It was the first dream in I don’t even know how long, that I could remember part of let alone its entirety. When I woke, covered in a cold sweat, I sat straight up, hitting my head on the bunk above me. I forgot that I was a guest. Checking my clock, it was just over six hours after racking out. Docs meds worked well.

I headed back up to medical.

“Doc, any word on Sergeant Janssens?” I cut to the chase.

“Ahh, Commander.” He greeted me. “It looks like his body will fail once we take him out of the pod, so we are keeping him in there for now. There is a very high probability that he won’t survive for long in the pod as well. I understand he has been a friend of yours for some time. I’m sorry.”

Numbness. I didn’t have much hope, but in those few seconds what I had was taken away from me. I left Medical.

“Merlin, can the Captain or XO see me?” It took about three minutes before the reply came in.

“Please meet in the Captains Quarters.” That simple message popping up on my visor. I started the walk.

“Commander Jax, welcome. Please have a seat.” The captain replied to my salute by just waving me to a chair. “We’re a lot less formal here. Your assault teams helped us quite a bit. The numbers are in. We managed to escape with fewer than a hundred casualties. Most due to decompression as hull plating was breached between getting peeled off and shrapnel from the Escort. What can I do for you?”

“That is great news, sir.” I paused while I thought about how to phrase my request. “Captain Ayers, I was hoping that you could get a few pilots and convince the Marine CO to donate a few troops. I want to clear and recover the remaining Escort ship, as well as get some biological samples.”

Captain Ayers looked at me for a few minutes, sipping some tea. It appeared he was mulling over the idea I laid in front of him. After three or four minutes, the door to his cabin opened, and a mostly cybernetic Marine entered.

“This her?” The voice was processed through her artificial voice box.

“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Commander Jax, Ark-5.” I stood, extending my hand.

“Major Cross. It’s a pleasure. Not to be rude, but you seem a bit young to be a Lieutenant Commander.” She held up a hand before I could respond. “The Captain told me you had an off the book's request?”

“Doesn’t need to be off the books. What I would like is to capture and secure that Escort, then connect it up to our assault craft and take it through a wormhole. You come in because I am hopeful for a few dozen Marines that will help with a suppress, purge, and cleanse mission. Recommended loadout is AP and DU rounds, Taishi Ci or better Battle Rifles, with a zero-G barrel Mod, which I can supply the schematics for.”

“I suppose most of the ship's resources are going to go towards fixing the Ark, so barrel mods may be out of the question. Magnetic seals on boots don’t work over there for zero-G. If there is gravity, it is at 1.3 G’s. I would recommend a loadout that will supply us with 8+ hours of air as well if you agree. The explosion of the other Escort should have opened her up nice and neat for depressurization. I don’t know how long the Bugs can operate without air, but if they are still alive, some armor plating is recommended. They launch quills that will pierce through the MK-1 duty suits and standard field armor. Then there are the Behemoths. Tripodal creatures with four arms. Between five and recorded up to ten meters. They are slow, but they have great aim and throwing accuracy.”

Five hours later I found myself giving a similar briefing to two hundred fifty marines. I explained the loadout recommendations to everyone. We were able to fit a dozen total Marines into each of the assault craft. We also took the standard drop ships and were able to fit everyone else into them.

The dropships docked anywhere they could after the assault craft ensured the sides were clear of turrets. We then started the slow purge of everything left alive on the ship.

It didn’t take long for my squad to come across the first unlabeled room on my schematics. Observer didn’t answer when asking what was inside. The answer was vats. A lot of vats. Not dissimilar to our meat growing operation, but inside there was movement. Bugs. I connected to the terminals and started to go through the menus. Growth options, genetic diversity, mutation strains, recessive traits. Then it clicked. This was a cloning facility. I pressed the “purge” command and then shut everything down. I recorded the steps to do so and what the menu options looked like, then sent it to all the squads on the ship.

We came across two other facilities that were similar as well as hundreds of corpses. That was just my team. Engineering was holed, same with all the engine rooms, sleeping quarters and more. When the other Escort blew, it really did a number on this one. I was glad that the Ark was so much further away, though there was still plenty of damage to the hull on it.

The hangars had a few craft, and there was a compartment full of zero-G fabs as well. Then all hell broke loose.

Observer what the hell are those!

A writhing mass of what appeared to be liquid metal and the black ink that was Observers people was blocking the corridor in front of my squad. If anyone approached it, it would lance out a spike as a warning, stopping just short trying to ward off anyone from approaching

Let me try and communicate; it does not appear aware.

I caught brief snippets of Observer trying to communicate with it a few times before giving up.

It is not one of my people. I don’t know what it is.

Good enough for me.

“Weapons free!” I called out; I anchored into a bulkhead with my tether through a hole I made with my fake arm and opened fire into the…thing.

It flashed with black splotches as the metallic coating was torn apart from weapons fire. We had no idea where to shoot, so we shot everywhere. I was fortunate that I anchored myself down. A long spike came towards me, coated in the metal. I raised the ballistics shield on my arm just in time. The spike shredded the protection as well as my forearm, but that took all the momentum so it couldn’t pierce my MK-II armor.

I sent the command to retract my shield which caused the spike to be severed. The downside, it also caused my arm to short out as the spike tore through an additional bit of the limb. Well shit. After a few more minutes of fire the metallic, black membrane thing sloughed off the bulkheads, deck, and ceiling, turning into a floating mass of the sludge-like substance.

“Keep clear,” I told the squad. I extended my ballistics shield again. With the hole punched into it, as well as the damage to my arm, it was only able to reach a third of the way. It would have to do. I unhooked the tether, and we continued on our way.

During our third hour, we finally reached the area listed as the “Bridge” according to my diagrams. Another team had already cleared the CIC and Tertiary control centers. I had stopped us outside the hatch so we could await reinforcements. I had a bad feeling about what we were going to find inside.

The interior still has pressure.

Observer drew my attention to what appeared to be an “occupancy” light showing that it was populated. That was an exciting feature to have. The teams that had hit the tertiary control center and the CIC found them unsealed and empty save for a few corpses. This was the last major area to sweep. No one had come across another of the membrane barriers that we had earlier as well. Thanks to this little light, we knew to be on our guard.

Be warned; there has been no sign of their rulers yet.

Great a third alien type that I had no idea about.

Details?

Four meters height, you would describe them as “avian,” possibly “reptilian.” They are… difficult to classify. They have basic flight.

Okay, so winged. How many wings? Arms? Legs? Tentacles? Other?

Yes. Point noted. Four to six wings, fully usable as you use your hands. Covered in flesh. The “head” area where its neural pathways are, is in its main body. The appendage you call a “head” is only used for eating and will appear to be a tube.

Disturbing.

Yes. Depending on how old the being is it will have different strengths, including telepathy.

I froze in place. This thing was possibly the cause of the ships being taken over. I had my puppet master.

Unlikely. It is possible you have a “Puppet Master,” as you call them. Much like your AI, they operate as a hive mind. The more of them there are together, the more powerful they are.

Shit, how many are usually on a ship?

We have recorded as many as ten at once.

That did not make me more comfortable.

And why am I just learning about this now?

Most likely because Rasputin did not think it necessary, and Hera doubted it possible.

Okay, but why am I just hearing about this from YOU? I tried to put the inflection into my thought without it coming across as a yell.

It seemed unimportant if your AI didn’t take notice.

I wanted to scream at that. Instead, I decided to be productive.

“Listen up! It is likely there is one or more of an as to now unseen alien in there. If the intel I have is correct, they have some form of telepathy or psionics, so be prepared for visions, images, and voices. No clue if it is even still alive, but I would prefer we all returned safely. An extra bit of caution may not matter, but if it does, I am glad to make that call.” The second platoon had arrived. “Seal off the passageways. We need a seal to get this to open cleanly.”

It took almost twenty minutes to set up the two airlocks on opposite ends of the passageway. I was grateful for them once we popped the hatch for the bridge. Air that registered on my sensors as highly toxic flooded the chamber we had created. I immediately tossed in an EMP grenade.

“Grenade out!” I called. Then my vision turned black. Not the black of no lights. I couldn’t even see my HUD.

“No one panic!” I shouted across comms. I could feel myself say the words at least, but I couldn’t hear the words.

I think it’s an old one!

Quickly! Raise your shield!

I felt a solid hit on my shield which sent me flying back into the bulkhead on the other side of the passageway.

It is interrupting your physical senses. Raise your weapon! More! To the left, FIRE!

I followed the commands out of necessity. Suddenly all my senses came back to me with an added bonus of overwhelming pain. Then the EMP grenade detonated and I heard a loud shrieking in my head. At the same time, everyone else was coming out of what they were hit with. It was so quick none of them had the chance to do anything stupid, though there were quite a few raised weapons.

Our weapons nearly simultaneously then erupted with weapons fire taking out the creatures. Observers description did this thing no justice. One animal (maybe being, or… thing?) which had shot out of the bridge, the one that knocked me against the bulkhead I think, was five meters tall by my estimate, with six wings, four were positioned like a dragonfly, though shaped like a bat with excessive membranes between the “fingers.” The last two wings were where you would image the rattler on a snake. The mottled red skin was erupting with a diseased green-yellow fluid that reminded me of a ruptured cyst. It didn’t appear to have any bones apart from the wings and a spine.

It was unfortunate that we concentrated our fire on this one. After another five or six seconds, all senses went out again. Shit, there was another one. I felt pain all over my body. I couldn’t tell what was happening to it other than pain. Observer managed to walk me step by step through throwing out another EMP grenade. When this one blew, I realized how bad the timing on that attack had been.

Half of my original platoon was down. Two-thirds of the second platoon was down as well. Friendly fire. I pushed my way into the bridge while shouting for a medic; then I unleashed two full magazines into everything I could see in the compartment before losing consciousness.

Whiskey Tango… - Original

As you can imagine, exhausted as I was, I couldn’t sleep. I did manage to shower and clean off my armor. Food from the commissary was also a nice touch. I ended up sitting in Medical by Janssens pod, apologizing to him. Their Doctor finally ordered me to my rack after, under the guise of a post action checkup, he injected me with a time release sleep aid. I would end up being forced to sleep for at least four hours.

My dreams were not pleasant. Janssens was there, although he was now a combat robot. There was of course a massacre. He and I completely and without pause, slaughtered Ark-5, Our boot camp instructors, the kids at the orphanage I was raised in, everyone. The entire time we were held up by strings controlling our every movement, moved like puppets. The Puppet Master a human shape in the sky.

It was the first dream in I don’t even know how long, that I could remember part of let alone its entirety. Needless to say, when I woke, covered in a cold sweat, I sat straight up, hitting my hear on the bunk above me. I forgot that I was a guest. Checking my clock, it was just over six hours after racking out. Docs meds worked well.

I headed back up to medical.

“Doc, any word on Sergeant Janssens?” I cut to the chase.

“Ahh, Commander.” He greeted me. “It looks like his body will fail once we take him out of the pod, so we are keeping him in there for now. There is a very high probability that he won’t survive for long in the pod as well. I understand he has been a friend of yours for some time. I’m sorry.”

Numbness. I didn’t have much hope, but in those few seconds what I had was taken away from me. I left Medical.

“Merlin, can the Captain or XO see me?” It took about three minutes before the reply came in.

“Please meet in the Captains Quarters.” That simple message popping up on my visor. I started the walk.

“Commander Jax, welcome. Please have a seat.” The captain replied to my salute by just waving me to a chair. “We’re a lot less formal here. Your assault teams helped out quite a bit. The numbers are in. We managed to escape with fewer than a hundred casualties. Most due to decompression as hull plating was breached between getting peeled off and shrapnel from the Escort. What can I do for you?”

“That is great news, sir.” I paused while I thought about how to phrase my request. “Captain Ayers, I was hoping that you could get a few pilots and convince the Marine CO to donate a few troops. I want to clear and recover the remaining Escort ship, as well as get some biological samples.”

Captain Ayers looked at me for a few minutes, sipping some tea. It appeared he was mulling over the idea I laid in front of him. After three or four minutes, the door to his cabin opened, and a mostly cybernetic Marine entered.

“This her?” The voice was obviously processed through her artificial voice box.

“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Commander Jax, Ark-5.” I stood, extending my hand.

“Major Cross. It’s a pleasure. Not to be rude, but you seem a bit young to be a Lieutenant Commander.” She held up a hand before I could respond. “The Captain told me you had an off the books request?”

“Doesn’t need to be off the books. What I would like is to capture and secure that Escort, then connect it up to our assault craft and take it through a porthole. You come in because I am hopeful for a few dozen Marines that will help with a suppress, purge, and cleanse mission. Recommended loadout is AP and DU rounds, Taishi Ci or better Battle Rifles, with a zero-G barrel Mod, which I can supply the schematics for.”

“I suppose most of the ships resources are going to go towards fixing the Ark, so barrel mods may be out of the question. Magnetic seals on boots don’t work over there for zero-G. If there is gravity it is at 1.3 G’s. I would recommend a loadout that will supply us with 8+ hours of air as well, if you agree. The explosion of the other Escort should have opened her up nice and neat for depressurization. I don’t know how long the Bugs can operate without air, but if they are still alive, some armor plating is recommended. They launch quills that will pierce through the MK-1 duty suits and standard field armor. Then there are the Behemoths. Tripodal creatures with four arms. Between five and recorded up to ten meters. They are slow, but they have great aim and throwing accuracy.”

Five hours later I found myself giving a similar briefing to two hundred fifty marines. I explained the loadout recommendations to everyone. We were able to fit a dozen total Marines into each of the assault craft. We also took the standard drop ships and were able to fit everyone else into them.

The drop ships docked anywhere they could after the assault craft ensured the sides were clear of turrets. We then started the slow purge of everything left alive on the ship.

It didn’t take long for my squad to come across the first unlabeled room on my schematics. Observer didn’t answer when asking what was inside. The answer was vats. Lots of vats. Not dissimilar to our meat growing operation, but inside there was movement. Bugs. I connected to the terminals and started to go through the menus. Growth options, genetic diversity, mutation strains, recessive traits… Then it clicked. This was a cloning facility. I pressed the “purge” command and then shut everything down. I recorded the steps to do so and what the menu options looked like, then sent it to all the squads on the ship.

We came across two other facilities that were similar as well as hundreds of corpses. That was just my team. Engineering was holed, same with all the engine rooms, sleeping quarters and more. When the other Escort blew it really did a number on this one. I was glad that the Ark was so much further away, though there was still plenty of damage to the hull on it.

The hangars had a few craft, and there was a compartment full of zero-G fabs as well. Then all hell broke loose.

Observer what the hell are those!

A writhing mass of what appeared to be liquid metal and the black ink that was Observers people was blocking the corridor in front of my squad. If anyone approached it, it would lance out a spike, stopping just short trying to ward off anyone from approaching

Let me try and communicate, it does not appear aware.

I caught brief snippets of Observer trying to communicate with it a few times before giving up.

It is not one of my people. I don’t know what it is.

Good enough for me.

“Weapons free!” I called out, I anchored into a bulkhead with my tether through a hole I made with my fake arm and opened fire into the…thing.

It flashed with black splotches as the metallic coating were torn apart from weapons fire. We had no idea where to shoot, so we shot everywhere. I was fortunate that I anchored myself down. A long spike came towards me, coated in the metal. I raised the ballistics shield on my arm just in time. The spike shredded the shield as well as my fore arm, but that took all the momentum, so it couldn’t pierce my MK-II armor.

I sent the command to retract my shield which caused the spike to be severed. Down side, it also caused my arm to short out as the spike tore through an additional bit of arm. Well shit. After a few more minutes of fire the metallic, black membrane thing sloughed off the bulkheads, deck, and ceiling, turning into a floating mass of sludge-like substance.

“Keep clear.” I told the squad. I extended my ballistics shield again. With the hole punched into it, as well as the damage to my arm, it was only able to extend a third of the way. It would have to do. I unhooked the tether and we continued on our way.

During our third hour we finally reached the area listed as the “Bridge” according to my diagrams. Another team had already cleared the CIC and Tertiary control centers. I had stopped us outside the hatch so we could await reinforcements. I had a bad feeling about what we were going to find inside.

The interior still has pressure.

Observer drew my attention to what appeared to be an “occupancy” light showing that it was populated. That was an interesting feature to have. The teams that had hit the tertiary control center and the CIC found them unsealed and empty save for a few corpses. This was the last major area to sweep. No one had come across another of the membrane barriers that we had earlier as well.

Be warned, there has been no sign of their rulers yet.

Great a third alien type that I had no idea about.

Details?

Four meters height, you would describe them as “avian”, possibly “reptilian”.

Okay, so winged. How many wings? Arms? Legs? Tentacles? Other?

Yes. Point noted. Four to six wings, fully usable as you use your hands. Covered in flesh. The “head” area where its neural pathways are, is in its main body. The appendage you call a “head” is only used for eating and will appear to be a tube.

Disturbing.

Yes. Depending on how old the being is it will have different strengths, including telepathy.

I came froze in place. This thing was possibly the cause of the ships being taken over. I had my puppet master.

Unlikely. It is possible you have a “Puppet Master”, as you call them. Much like your AI, they operate as a hive mind. The more of them there are together, the more powerful they are.

Shit, how many are usually on a ship?

We would keep up to ten.

That did not make me more comfortable.

And why am I just learning about this now?

Most likely because Rasputin did not think it necessary, and Hera doubted it possible.

Okay, but why am I just hearing about this from YOU? I tried to put the inflection into my thought without it coming across as a yell.

It seemed unimportant if your AI didn’t take notice.

I wanted to scream at that. Instead I was going to be productive.

“Listen up! It is likely there is one or more of an as to now unseen alien in there. If the intel I have is correct, they have some form of telepathy, so be prepared for visions, images and voices. No clue if it is even still alive, but I would prefer we all returned safely. An extra bit of caution may not matter, but if it does, I am glad to make that call.” The second platoon had arrived. “Seal off the passageways. We need a seal to get this to open cleanly.”

It took almost twenty minutes to set up the two airlocks on opposite ends of the passageway. I was grateful for them once we popped the hatch for the bridge. Air that registered on my sensors as highly toxic flooded the chamber we had created. I immediately tossed in an EMP grenade.

“Grenade out!” I called. Then my vision turned black. Not the black of no lights. I couldn’t even see my HUD.

“No one panic!” I shouted across comms. I could feel myself say the words at least, but I couldn’t hear the words.

I think it’s an old one!

I noticed. Quickly raise your shield!

I felt a solid hit on my shield which sent me flying back into the bulkhead on the other side of the passageway.

It is interrupting your physical senses. Raise your weapon! More! To the left, FIRE!

I followed the commands out of necessity. Suddenly all sensation came back to me with an additional sense of overwhelming pain. Then the EMP grenade detonated and I heard a loud shrieking in my head. At the same time everyone else was coming out of what they were hit with. It was so quick none of them had the chance to do anything stupid, though there were quite a few raised weapons.

Our weapons nearly simultaneously then erupted with weapons fire taking out the creatures. Observers description did this thing no justice. One creature, which had shot out of the bridge, the one that knocked me against the bulkhead I think, was five meters tall by my estimate, with six wings, four were positioned like a dragonfly, though shaped like a bat with excessive membranes between the “fingers”. The last two wings were where you would image the rattler on a snake. The mottled red skin was erupting with a diseased green-yellow fluid that reminded me of a ruptured cyst. It didn’t appear to have any bones apart from the wings and a spine.

It was unfortunate that we concentrated our fire on this one. After another five or six seconds all senses went out again. Shit, there was another one. I felt pain all over my body. I couldn’t tell what was happening to it other than pain. Observer managed to walk me step by step through throwing out another EMP grenade. When this one blew I realized how bad the timing on that attack had been.

Half of my original platoon was down. Two thirds of the other platoon were down as well. Friendly fire. I pushed my way into the bridge while shouting for a medic, then I unleashed two full magazines into everything I could see in the compartment before losing consciousness.