Futuristic Unlit IC

[Solar Daddy]

As the drones traveled forward through the complex, and through the supposedly motion sensor door. It hissed with a puff of smoke as it rotated then slid apart, revealing a small chamber inside. This was no doubt a depressurization room, and once the door shut behind the drone, it cycled in a violent manner. Through the drone's feed, Silas and his crew could see the next door open in the same manner as the previous, opening up into a replica of the same hallway they just left. This room didn't contain the same dark, murky substance that permeated the past few rooms. It had many similar aspects to the previous hallway - the same odd setup, with a large open walkway in the center, and off to the side was a smaller, sectioned off hallway that was separated by pipes. As the drone traveled forward, noises in the distance were faint but noticeable. Seemingly in an instant, the drone abruptly lost its video feed, reporting back that the chassis of the drone had been destroyed.

 

[Epiphany]

Kestrel came to a stop before that motion-sensor door. She frowned a bit, studying the drone's footage. Then she shook her head.

"Well, I imagine most of you saw what I just saw. Looks like the rest of the base is pressured...but something's in there and my drone took the heat for it." She glanced back at the group behind and shouldered her rifle while looking at Adira. "Your call, Captain. We could make a play for the interior as a group, I could send another drone ahead to see if I can pick up what got the first or maybe even draw its fire so I can pinpoint where the attack came from. Alternatively, one of us could scout ahead and if it's one of us, it's probably me and if it's me I can't say I much like the idea without knowing more of what's ahead or what I can do about it."

"Another alternative is to cut our losses now and get the hell out of here. Personally, I feel the first option has the greatest possibility of reward but it's a risk too. I'm willing to roll the dice if you are, but I'd rather do it with a group that's all in on it and has my back."

The blonde soldier looked back at everyone else assembled, studying their faces as best as she could to see where they were at.

 

[Viper Actual]

Before Adira could speak up in response to Kestrel someone cleared their throat loudly. Stratton took a step forward. "Captain, if I may interject; if there are survivors on the other side of that airlock Kestrel and I could go in. Making connections with people in bad situations comes with the job and in case I can't defuse a possible situation verbally..." He tilted his head towards the blonde.

 

[Dragongal]

Adira looked down at Jane as she spoke. It annoyed her that Jane was saying exactly what Adira had been thinking. She had to sigh and take a moment to think. Since that drone had been crushed by something, the situation changed. The likelihood of danger jumped even higher than it already was. Yet the rest of the tean was still willing to go in. But if she approved and they died, that would be on her. On one hand, there was already plenty of fault on her for lots of things, what was one more? On the other, this was her crew. And then there were the researchers in the depths of this place - their deaths would weigh much less heavily on her than the deaths of her crew.

Yet they all seemed willing. Odd. Of course it was Kestrel and Stratton, the two former military ones. But Adira had to hand it to Stratton that he was being much less heartless than she had expected from a WS official.

"Ah, Fuck," she sighed, then shook her head a bit. "All of you are lucky I tend to make my decisions democratically."

Of course Adira wanted to save the researchers. That was ideal. To return them to their families, if they had them. But life wasn't ideal, and the lives of her crew was more important than these researchers...

But what about her life?

"Okay," she said slowly, "I'll allow you two to scout ahead, however, I'm going to offer, wholeheartedly, that I take the place of one of you - both of you have much heavier armor and wouldn't stand a chance at sneaking past anything if it came to it. I'd just go with you two, but somebody besides Kepler needs to protect the doctor and the escape route."

 

[Epiphany]

"Fair enough, Captain," Kestrel said, inclining her head in the other woman's direction.

She adjusted the strap on her rifle, ran a diagnostic to verify it was in top shape and then mentally signaled the other three drones she had out and active to pull in a little as reconnissance except ahead of them was less important than just noticing any changes in the facility, incoming hostiles, and so on. With a sigh, she looked towards the airlock leading on to certain risk before turning back to the group.

"And I appreciate the offer, Captain. While discretion can be the better part of valor, honesty impels me to tell you that this sort of situation is literally have I've spent my life training for. Where I come from, my family line all serve as police and soldiers filling a variety of niches. My niche was infancy was scouting hostile planetary environments and scouting unknown vessels for defenses and salvageable technology. I have no problem protecting the rest of the crew but you'd be wasting a lifetime of training using me as a guard."

 

[Viper Actual]

After Kestrel had spoken Stratton nodded. He understood Adira's point of view but then again Kestrel had a valid point. So did he. Reaching out to all manner of people hailing from across the galaxy had been his job for the past decade. If anyone knew how to talk down a bunch of lost and scared scientists it'd be him.

On top of that he was also very interested in hearing what the potential survivors had seen.

"Captain I appreciate your concern but I'm with Kestrel on this one. Using us as guard dogs would be a waste of time and resources."

Stratton raised his chin and nodded. "Send us in. No matter how it goes you'll be right behind us."

 

[Vudukudu]

Kepler listens to the discussion of how to proceed with evident boredom, poking and prodding very carefully at the nearest computer interface before using a tool to pry open its hardware housing to inspect it.

“Master-Cavanaugh will be fine, this unit is certain.” He says, poking one finger into the computer housing experimentally. “Cursory examination of this specimen vault did not reveal a high number of unaccounted for specimens. My suspicion is that the drone was dispatched by the missing scientists.” He said quickly, still looking at the inside of the computer. “Besides, this unit is well suited to last stand scenarios. I will remain here, where the Spark is strongest.”

With that said, he drew away from the cracked computer housing and stood back up and retrieved his shotgun. “Machine-God preserve you, Master Cavanaugh. All is as it wills.”

 

[Spazzycat101]

Lydia Camden​

Lydia was silent and contemplative after seeing the drone’s feed cut out. Her first thought was that another creature was loose. Her second thought was, a moment later, voiced by Kepler.

She also didn’t comment while the rest of them talked over who should be the first to continue. Lydia knew she would be by the back of the group. Instead she watched nervously as Kepler picked apart one of the computers, hoping he wouldn’t accidentally open one of the pods.

However, Jane again questioned their reasons for continuing.

‘Look, now we know there are people in this place, alive, injured, and needing help. Of course we’re hell-bent of going further,’ Lydia snapped. ‘Suppose we’d turned around earlier? You would have been left for dead at the mercy of the giant monster clone. There’s a chance at least some people might have survived. I didn’t think so before because, y’know, giant monster clone. But we know, so we’re obligated to help.’ If a look could kill, unseen though it was behind Lydia’s helmet, Jane would be dead on the floor. That’s also where the survivors would be if they didn’t hurry up.

‘If Kestrel is sure she wants to go, she should. Training aside, she’s tougher than all the rest of us.’

 

[Dragongal]

Adira sighed. Everyone made pretty good arguments. And Adira did want to try to save the scientists if any were still alive. She shook her head and said, "Kestrel, Stratton, go on ahead. We've got your backs."

 

[Epiphany]

"You got it."

Kestrel promptly proceeded down the same corridor her mini-drone followed. Rifle out, her attention was totally focused on her environment. She left a pair of thumbnail-sized drones behind to provide surveillance for those holding position, and her TacNet band still offered free-flowing telemetry for them to tap into if they had the means and the interest.

A fraction of her brain tracked those tiny cameras hovering on nigh-invisible contragrav jets. Another fraction focused on the remaining drone she had with her, sent just a bit forward now and deliberately high against the ceiling to hopefully avoid getting picked off again. Yet another fraction kept an eye on the passive and active sensors in her environmental suit, which were hooked into the same TacNet and thus piped virtually into a projection separate from the visual cortex of her occipital lobe yet still processed by it. A thousand years ago, the humans who'd boarded the Crusader-class generation arks hadn't been capable of multi-tasking to that degree. Yet natural selection, good science and a millennia of patience had produced the Cavanaugh line. 'Watching' multiple sensory feeds while listening to the environment while advancing on an unknown danger was something she was bred to do.

With Stratton presumably at her back, the tall blonde soldier advanced to the airlock and cycled her way through it. Ready to advance on whatever lay beyond.

 

[Viper Actual]

Stratton nodded confidently and looked towards Kestrel only to discover that the blonde was already on the move. I like a woman with initiative.
With his rifle at the ready Stratton jogged a brief distance to catch up. As the TacNet lit up with new information from the drones Stratton followed Kestrel without a word. Every now and then he'd glance to the left and right. Threats could be lurking anywhere, especially in a place such as this.

Despite the possibility of imminent death at the hands of either another alien abomination or paranoid scientists Stratton enjoyed the entire situation in a sort of odd way only a soldier could do. Hugging Kestrel's shoulder while clearing the hallway reminded him of the old days before he left the boots and dress uniform behind. A part of him wanted to relive the camaraderie that had been, in fact it yearned for it. Few bonds were as strong as those shared between brothers and sisters in arms.

Still, another part of him wanted to forget that it ever existed. It reminded him of all the bad stuff. The people that had passed.

Stratton sighed. At least he wasn't alone.

When the duo cycled through the airlock Stratton was quick to clear the right side, hoping to side-step into the room and gain the upper hand over any possible contacts inside.

 

[Solar Daddy]

The room was eerily quiet, with not much visible in the many corners of the hallway. No black mist permeated the hall though, so that was at least a comforting sign. However, despite the almost dead silence, there were still small pings of metal on metal coming from down the hall. It wasn't clear where the exact point of this irregular beat came from, but it was ahead about 15 meters - near the end of the hallway. This remained the state of the room for a brief time, with the airlock shutting behind them and cutting off the duo from the rest of the team - seemingly automated, in case of a puncture in the fuselage. The trail of blood that had lead into this hallway continued in a thin, barely noticeable trail that lead to the other end of the room.

However, near the center of the room, with a dense pool of blood surrounding it, was a severed arm with a death grip on some thin, cylindrical item.

After only hearing the sounds of their own breathing for moments, there was a sharp, quick pace of rushed footsteps at the end of the hall, but no movement was detectable... Until a small ambient light was briefly blocked by something passing in front of it. Then, it was finally visible - definitely not another Being, as this was a small, hooded figure only about knee high at the other end of the room, standing still and facing away after surging to the side of the door. It was undoubtedly the same thing that passed by Stratton earlier - then it was clear, after rapid hand movements, it was attempting to open the door with some difficulty.

 

[Vudukudu]

Once the soldiers had moved forward, Kepler took to pacing the large room. Kestrel’s TacNet feed was distracting, and given Kepler’s desire for single-minded focus, he disabled it on his HUD. He had no reason to believe he would see anything Kestrel didn’t, making further observation a waste of his time.

Wandering somewhat aimlessly waiting for something to catch his eye, Kepler pondered the rising issue of the.. bug, in his software. Thus far it had attempted to sway him towards self-preservation, which wasn’t too worrying except for the fact that it tended to obscure his vision. The suggestion it had made to dispatch Stratton as a traitor was simultaneously unwelcome and something Kepler had been about to consider anyway, but it was that behavior he was more concerned about.

Something had to be done. He switched his comms over to a private channel, then paused. Who to talk to? Kestrel was busy, Silas was, by his estimation, too compassionate to do what must be done, and most of the others wouldn’t be quick enough if the time came. Adira, perhaps? Her risk aversion towards loss of crew member lives played both ways - she’d pull the trigger if he became a threat, but not until then, in which case it may be too late. All these things played out in his mind for sometime before it occurred to him he’d left line of sight of the rest of the crew, and he began making his way back.

Instead of distracting anyone now, Kepler sent a message to both Silas and Kestrel’s private terminals aboard the ship.

“Master Burns/Cavanaugh,
Please remind this unit to speak with you privately when time permits.

Spark’s Blessing,
Formal Designation Unit Kepler-34-B”

 

[Epiphany]

Passing through the airlock meant cutting off easy escape. So Kestrel spent less time thinking about how she might be locked in with a monster and more time thinking the monster was locked in with her.

Her suit's audio intakes piped in the ambient noise of the environment. She listened, even as she confirmed the blood trail and cautiously followed it. The sight of the severed hand drew a frown on Kestrel's face. Beyond the horror of the immediate scene, it suggested an adversary who didn't mind leaving 'messages' on how it handled intruders. Perhaps a mind that thought in feints and misdirection rather than direct confrontation. It wasn't consistent with that Being they'd encountered but it was hard to believe that creature had deliberately torn off someone's limb, taken the body somewhere but left behind a pool of blood with a limb just in case someone stumbled across it. Space was big. Humans had left warning signs in the past but only for known enemies and only in places where they'd see them. Inside a compound like this, though? It just didn't make much sense.

Thankfully, the movement at the end of the hall meant the opportunity to ask some questions. Kestrel 'glanced' at Stratton via one of her mobile drones, noting his positioning relative to hers and pleased to see he was indeed a military man. Using handsign as ancient as the Crusader-class generation ship she'd been born on, she signaled him to take the other side of the corridor and watch their back while she advanced on the indigenous.

"We're not here for trouble," Kestrel said, deliberately toggling the speech circuits in her environmental suit as she advanced on the small being's position. "If you can understand me, we mean you no harm. We're here for our scientists, that's all. Do you understand me?"

Despite her calm words, the blonde soldier kept her rifle at point. The barrel drooped, deceptively lazy. Thanks to the integrated feed between the rifle's onboard computer and her own telemetry, Kestrel could snap it into position and open fire in the time it'd take a human being to reach for a gun.

...Here's hoping this creature wasn't faster than a human.

 

[Viper Actual]

Stratton maintained a good tactical distance with Kestrel as the two of them advanced further. The blood trail itself weren't all that disturbing though the severed hand clasping to who knows what was. "Watch out. Possible dead man's switch," said Stratton over the squad comms. When Kestrel signaled for Stratton to fan out he simple sidestepped over to the other wall, hugging it while observing their surroundings.

He glanced briefly at the hooded creature and then at Kestrel. Let's hope she knows what she's doing.

 

[Spazzycat101]

Lydia Camden​

While Kepler and James explored, there was not much more to do than watch the drone feeds and be nervous. Lydia had to resist the urge to start preparing things from the first-aid kit, because ultimately she would likely have to make her way to the patients when they were found, rather than the other way around. Speaking of which,

’Hey, cap, can you promise me that when we find the scientists, you won’t… nah, that might be asking a little too much. You’ll, uh... try to not kill them if you can help it? It’d be nice if their brains weren’t on the floor before I finish patching them up. Less of a mess. I know you’ve got that whole protect-the-crew,-don’t-give-a-shit-what-it-takes thing going,’

About then, one of Kestrel’s drones glanced over an alarmingly large pool of blood, and then, also concerning, a severed limb in the middle of it.

’But that. That’s not good. I don’t like that. Whoever that arm belongs to, if they make it, they are definitely going to need to replace it. There’s no salvaging that mess. Eeeeeeh… Still might wanna stick it in a plastic bag and a cooler, though. For paperwork, I guess. Or a memento.’

 

[Dragongal]

Adira had positioned herself with her back to a wall so that she could focus on the video sent from Kestrel's drone. A severed limb wasn't a good sign at all. And who knew what it was holding.

As for that tiny little creature, that was a problem. It was good to see that Kestrel wasn't immediately engaging it for battle, but Adira also was willing to bet that it couldn't understand Kestrel. Over comms, Adira said, "Make sure audio is transmitted and I can translate if it says anything." Thank god for that implant. It had served as one of her best takeaways from her time in WS. If they could talk to this thing, they could maybe find out more.

Adira tensed up and turned to look at Lydia when she said her name. Looking past the video feed on her HUD, she quirked an eyebrow at the doctor. "Doc. I ain't gonna kill the people we were sent to find - I don't kill people just for being inconveniences. And even if I did, they know too much, and they aren't threats. Give me some credit."

When Lydia mentioned the hand, she said, "You will not touch it. If that is a trigger of some kind, we can't even risk it."

 

[Solar Daddy]

The smaller being kept trying furiously to open the door despite Kestrel's attempt at communication. However, when it seemed to realize it no longer would have time to get the door open and escape, it instantly turned to face her. It's face under the hood was masked by some kind of breathing apparatus. It began speaking fast and unintelligible. It wasn't speaking any language Human's had encountered before, since the auto translators in their helmets weren't converting the language into Human. It was similar to the noises the Being had been making though it didn't sound quite the same. However it spoke in a tongue similar to that of a Humanoid race, though muffled behind the breathing mask. Finally, there was a pause in its speech, seemingly waiting for some kind of response from Kestrel.

When there was none, at least, none that it could understand in its own language, it repeated the last few noises it made, before abruptly reaching for - presumably - a hidden weapon at its side, just slow enough for Kestrel to react on her fastest instinct.

 

[Epiphany]

Kestrel shook her head in credulous confusion, while not taking her eyes off the alien or allowing her rifle to move an inch. "I don't understand you," she said, for all the good it did. "Do you have a-"

And he went for his gun so she put three bullets fired by her rifle's micro-scaled mass accelerators right through center of mass.

If the little guy went down, Kestrel would simply sigh, glance Stratton's way...and shrug helplessly as if to say 'what could I do'?

 

[Viper Actual]

Stratton narrowed his eyes as the being spoke. Shit, unknown language.

He was about to glance in Kestrel's direction to come up with a plan B when his eyes caught. Movement. The kind of movement you never want to see. It all went so fast. Stratton fired two shots center and a third one for the head. What was the term his instructors had used? Oh yes, neurological effect. The kind of shot that just shuts everything down. It was only afterwards that Stratton noticed Kestrel's own shots.

At least the brass will have a field day with this helmet feed.

 

[Solar Daddy]

The alien recoiled back against the door, riddled with holes from Kestrel and Stratton's bullets. It slumped to the floor unceremoniously and didn't move once it finally hit the ground. The mask hissed out a pressurized gas from where Stratton put a round through its head. After sufficient time, it was clear the alien wasn't alive as the gas slowly dissipated from its mask. The equipment it wore, now visible up close without all of the commotion, was clearly a space suit and not armor of any kind, as their weapons punched right through it. It wore flowing robes over this suit, making it difficult to distinguish anything else. The console that apparently opened the door it was trying to get through was visibly tempered with, possibly the reason why it couldn't get through the door. However, it was slightly ajar by about an inch. Nothing of importance could be seen through the partially open airlock however. "Report," Silas said over the team's comms. "First contact didn't seem to go too well. Is everyone alright?"

 

[Viper Actual]

Stratton sighed. "Contact down. We're in one piece, stand by."
With a nod towards Kestrel he motioned for them to advance. Stratton's rifle was trained at the alien as he slowly creeped up.

Once he was next to the corpse he secured his rifle, pulled out his sidearm and kneeled down. Gently he tried to move the robes aside to get a better look of the being, hoping to discern features, symbols and equipment.

He glanced over his shoulder. "Check the hand."

 

[Epiphany]

Stratton had good reflexes.

Kestrel gave him an approving nod once the target was down and plainly not moving. And even then, she spared him the nod because, via her integrated HUD/implant chipset, a drone had sight of the body so she'd see it so much as twitch even when her eyes were off of it. Since it didn't, the blonde soldier advanced on the corpse and shook her head.

"Shit, he might have been a civilian." Sighing, Kestrel noticed Stratton kneeling and she slipped around to the side so she'd have a clear field of fire. No telling what kind of anatomy it had and she didn't care to have it revive suddenly and shoot them both at point blank range.

"Sorry boss," she finally said, acknowledging Silas' inquiry while Stratton inspected the body. "We're fine so far. Him, not so much. Didn't leave me much of a choice, though. I-"

Stratton said something but she didn't quite catch it. Because just then, the proximity transceiver in her chipset pinged. Every citizen of the Mutter's Spiral was implanted with an integrated chipset implant at birth. It tied them into SudnoNet, the Crusader Class vessel's mainframe, as well as the vessel's passive presence sensors so services could respond in the event of an accident. The proximity transceiver in the Cavanaugh line had additional functionality, constantly 'listening' for the unique frequency of a Spiral chipset. It'd been an effective way to track criminals without relying on SudnoNet which they might be monitoring.

Now it told her there was another Spiral chipset here. How many years had it been since she'd had a ping? Her throat closed up despite her swallowing hard and it took Kestrel a moment to even register that Stratton had given her an instruction.

"Hold on," she told him, visibly distracted as her attention bent towards the ping. Once, the specific visualization pattern needed to query her proximity transceiver had been effortless, instinctive after years of training. Now, it took her a full five seconds to toggle investigative protocols, causing the tiny transmitter embedded in the transceiver to send out an active reoccurring query. Even as a Cavanaugh, Kestrel had mostly used it for assisting search and rescue efforts during drills to find missing crew.

And there was. Missing crew. Here. Someone from the Mutter's Spiral. Someone almost certainly dead, given her century of stasis sleep. But someone she had an obligation to that transcended any other duty.

Weak as it was, Kestrel began walking a circular spiral, widening out to triangulate the position of that other transceiver. Once she got a fix, she toggled her crew radio and said "Boss, I don't mean to go AWOL on you but I'm picking up someone from my ship here. They're pretty close. I'm checking it out."

And then she started advancing towards the signal's position.

 

[Solar Daddy]

On closer inspection of the body, the small being seemed to be uniform with most races - bipedal, with two arms having a few digits. None of its skin or body was exposed. Only the metallic outside of its suit and the flowing robes around its chest and head were worn. By its side, was a small object of sorts - its shape clearly defined it as some kind of weapon, though. Whatever it was reaching for seemed to have malicious intent. Its face was still obscured by the mask, though pulling it off probably wouldn't grant any surprising news.

Silas radioed back. "All that matters to me is that you're all okay. I could care less about first contact rules right now. We're grabbing those scientists and heading out. This seems more like a small base than a major colony to me anyway. Hopefully we can get an orbital bombardment from Waning Stars to turn this place into dust." After hearing Kestrel's abrupt change and seeing her leave her position, he asked, "Kestrel, what's going on? How can someone from your ship be here?"

 

[Epiphany]

"Both excellent questions, boss," Kestrel said as she advanced down a hallway.

Determination hadn't erased her intrinsic caution, though, and she threw out another pair of drones (leaving the pair behind with the main team and two with Stratton's position). Floating them forward, she moved cautiously and with her rifle up. Not for the first time, she found herself ambivalently grateful for the Implant, for whatever those aliens a century ago had done to her. Her arms did tire but it took them a lot longer than it used to. She'd have found the Mutter's Spiral chipset by then, or justification for keeping her gun up.

"Everyone born aboard my Crusader-Class generation ark has a special integrated chipset implanted at birth. There's no mistake and no way to fake the signal, not without a lot of resources and a whole lot of motive utterly lacking in a place like this." Grimacing, Kestrel then said "Goddamn aliens. I want to look past what happened to me but here I am, in another alien facility, and I get a ping on a chipset. Why can't they just leave us alone?"

She listened for further questions from Silas, or comments from anyone else, but never stopped her cautious, thorough search of her environment for where that signal came from.