NationStates Jolt Archive

There they floated. In the void, simply sitting still. Three ships, all equally black. No life signs present. No movement within them. Bioscans would show that hundreds, maybe even thousands of corpses littered their ancient corridors. It seemed as if those who had crewed them had died and whatever had attacked them had left them alone, who knows how long ago. There are many such ships in the universe for sure, but not many such ships that were still fully operational, which these three were. Even with all the damage on their armoring, on their hulls, they still were operational. Even if they were completely silent. Even if they sat completely still. No life support was present, but the ships themselves were still working.

They seemed like ancient derelicts. Ships of some long gone civilization. A humanoid civilization. And now they were there, as if for anyone to take hold of.

(OOC: Yes, it is a short first post, but I can't do much more if I don't want to spoil it all. That, and I'm not quite at my peak creativeness.)

Onboard a Pacifus Poeta Prototype, escorted by 22 Ghost Maker class fighters

The crew had waited months since their recall to take their place on the future of Shadow Tech interstellar warfare. Initially, their excitement was immense, hopeing to gain honor for themselves and for Prime as well. They did not know that it would be years before they even left Shadow Tech. The large Dreadship now crept through the nothingness of space on it's path near the AoN conflict.

"HA! Full house. Pay up ladies." Said Mim Jero, Captain and renowned card player. "You guys better hope that we see some action soon, or else I'll just keep taking all your credits."

"I'm getting a drink." Said Tim Lenir as he payed up. "I'll be back in a few." Tim was the science officer of the Poeta and was overjoyed to be there. Well, at least he was when he was first assigned, when he thought he might actually see something.

The other men grumbled and a few decided to go with Tim. The rest decided to stay on the bridge and get back to work.

Beep
Beep
Beep
Ior, the comm officer rolled his chair around. "Hmm, seems like sensors are picking up a few objects some lightseconds out. Maybe debris or ships." The sensors had been set to beep at anything and everything, since there usually wasn't anything out here.

"Well, let's go check it out." Said Mim. "Leto, full power to gravitic drives. Set the heading."

"On it, Captain." Said Leto Pleq.
The bridge finally had some activity as the Prototype glided towards the unknown objects, sensors at full power.

The sensors of all the ships still worked, and the coming of the new ship did not go unnoticed. By the ships themselves, that is. Its coming caused no movement within the ships themselves. They remained silent. A proximity alert came upon the monitors of the that were on the bridges of the three ships. An unidentified, possibly hostile ship was closing in. But they were not equipped with AIs capable of actually maneuvering their massive hulks. Those AIs were simply connected to the sensors. It was not like they even cared of what was happening outside, nor inside. They were too simple for such shows of independence.

And as such, the ships did nothing. Everything was as dead inside of them as well as outside of them as before.

Unidentified Space

"Captain, there are three of what appear to be huge space stations. No movement no far and they are not showing any identification of known species." Said Ior.

Mim pressed a button on his command chair. "This is Mim to all personel, we are approaching an unidentified group of vessels; code Blue initiated; everyone to your posts."

Tim Lenir and the others that had previously left rushed onto the bridge, wondering what was going on.

"We may have some work for you." Said Mim. "These look ancient."

"Sir, we have hundreds of corpses on them so far. I recommend..."

"Red alert, NOW! Contact Shadow Tech Prime immediately."

All across the ship military personell armed themselves and the nearby Ghost Maker class fighter escorts began to ready themselves for combat.

The ship had begun to show signs of hostility, and had sent a transmission to an unknown location. The eerie green light that illuminated the otherwise dark insides of the ships turned red, and it began to blink.

Blink

Blink

Blink

But it caused no movement within the ships. No one reacted. Nothing reacted. They were as silent as they had been. The fighter bays of the ship in the center, which was also the largest one by far, lighted themselves with an eerie green light. But nothing came out. The simple AI in the ship was doing what it was programmed to do as it was playing with the lights. But that was the extent of its "powers".

(OOC: Well, since this thread cannot really start without more posters, I think this OOC post is rather necessary. So, let's get to the point.

Anyone with space capability can join, really. Anyone. I won't exclude anyone. I won't guarantee the safety of your people, though. Nor do I think sending massive fleets to just go through a few wrecked ships would be a good idea, either. What Shadow Tech here is doing is what I'd want people to do. Use small groups of ships at most, if you wish. These three derelicts aren't sending anything anywhere and identifying them should be practically impossible, since no one has ever seen them before. Things like that.)

[OOC]: I'd quite like to join this. Expect a response extremely soon.

"Oi, we're seeing something on the scopes." said Ulrich.

"What? Lemme see that." said Victor, shoving Ulrich out of the way of the glowing green screen he was standing in front of.

As Victor and Ulrich peered at the screen mounted in the console, which in turn was mounted on one of the walls of the tiny military transport's darkened bridge, 3 large dots continued glowing white, along with a single blue dot nearby.

"White contacts? But....that means it can't identify the ship type. And a blue contact...that's a neutral ship. Hang on, i'm calling the captain up here."

Victor walked over to the small Intercom panel on the other side of the bridge, talking into the metal grille on it.

"Captain Gerfreiter, we have a problem up here. Unidentified ships have been found. We'd like you to come take a look at this."

A matter of minutes later, the captain had walked through the double blast doors of the bridge, which closed behind him of their own accord.

The imposing bulk of the commander, created by the muscles on him that seemed like footballs mating whenever he started flexing, served him well yet again, as both men immediately snapped to attention.

"Ok you two, what is this all about?" said the commander in his usual gravely tones.

"Sir", said Ulrich nervously, "We found two un-"

Victor elbowed Ulrich in the side.

"Three you moron."

"Shit....yes sir, three unidentified vessels on the scopes. All of them are at a dead stop. A single Neutral ship is near them as well."

"Odd....set a course for them, and be stealthy. No point arousing any unwanted attention."

"Aye Sir. Setting course now", said Victor, tapping a few commands out on the console, causing the craft to change course, it's payload of men and weapons now moving along a new course. One quite possibly of death.

OOC:So I guess were supposed to work together? My country is overly aggresive when it comes to sharing stuff. Btw Rince how big is the ship?


Unidentified Space

"Sir we have an unidentified 3rd party entering immediate area. I don't know how they got past long range sensors." Said Ior.

"Pandoran Scatter maneuver in 5 seconds." Responded Mim as the ship illuminated purple and the fighters outside phased out of truespace.

The ship-wide comm system stated, "Pandoran Scatter in T minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1"

The pride of the Poeta, each of the 3 different advanced cloaking devices made it seem like the ship disapeared. There would be no emmisions coming from the ship of any kind and tracking it with particles would be limited, if even possible.

"Continue towards the three stations, be prepared to raise Xanthal type X shielding along with the distortion shielding. Load Heat Lance gas canisters." Said Mim Jero.

Shadow Tech is renowned for dislikeing nations not allied with itself and constantly raids such peoples. Shareing is not on it's agenda either.

[OOC]: My ship is a modified version of my boarding ships. It's 300 Metres long, and shaped like a cuboid, with a conical shape at one end, and the engines at the other. The conical shape is normally for boarding ships, since it simply slams right through the enemies armor to deliver the marines inside it, but this one simply opens up to allow marines to calmly walk out.

Inside it are 300 marines, plus a few tiny transport craft (Only about 5 metres long, 2 wide. Just engines, sensors, and a hatch on the side. Not even any weapons).

Oh, and the ship isn't really well armed. Just 2 missile tubes (Launch anti-fighter missiles about the size of a normal Jet Fighter like an F-15) and 10 turreted Mass Drivers. (Mass drivers are the space age equivalent of cannons. Just get a cannon (Like one off a galleon or something), make it 5 or ten times bigger, and make it look futuristic, and voila, the mass driver, a weapon designed to basically shoot chunks of solid matter at stuff.)

"What the hell?", exclaimed Ulrich.

"What now?", asked the Captain, sounding exasperated. This little jaunt hadn't been what he had expected.

"Uh, the neutral ships are....uh...gone. No radio signals like an SOS or anything, just disappeared."

"Well, the better for us. At least it means we can look at these new ships in peace."


As the craft sped towards the three derelict ships, it's meagre weapons systems powered up. The craft wasn't really designed for frontline duties, it was mostly just for transporting troops and supplies in peacetime. The thing didn't even have a Subvecto drive [OOC: Just a quick note, Subvecto is my form of Faster Than Light propulsion. Probably wont come up in this though.], just conventional engines.

The turrets swiveled to face the 3 derilict ships, loading the sphere's of solid matter into their barrels, ready to fire at a moments notice if need be.


"Sir....we've got another problem."

"What? Great....what this time, it better be fucking important. I don't need to know every time the fucking coffee machine breaks down."

"Uh...sir....we can't find any entry points on the craft. Any of them. They probably have them, but we can't really identify any."

"Dammit.....listen, just pilot us alongside one, and try and land on it. We'll get Johnson's team to suit up for Zero G, and cut through the hull."

"Yes Sir...but, uh, Sir?"

"Yes?"

"Well Sir, our scanners can't seem to penetrate the hull for some reason. For all we know, the craft only appear to be derelict. There could be people inside."

"Well, if there is, we're about to find out."

The transport slowly 'landed' on the vessel, attaching itself with magnetic clamps on it's underside. Out of a hatch on the top of it, 10 men in sealed space suit floated out, maneuvering jets from the large backpacks they wore guiding them through space.

The men quickly started using hand-held laser cutters to saw through the hull, pieces flying off of the hull, but no sparks due to the lack of oxygen to fuel the flame.

The men finally cut a square hole right through the hull with the aid of a few well-placed explosives, only to nearly be blown away from the hole as the atmosphere from the ship escaped.

The men quickly clambered inside, before the hole they made was sealed off again by the bulk of the transport maneuvering itself over it, until it finally re-attached to the hull, with a tiny hatch on it's belly directly over the hole.

Eventually, the hatch opened, and more armed troops streamed out, another 10 man squad, this time with enough weapons and ammo for both squads.

The newcomers had breached the hull of the largest ship. Still, there was simply silence. What they would notice first is that there was no air within the ship they had made a way into. Its life support was probably inactive after years of no repair, most things would think. Unease would fill the minds of those who enter the ship, an unease that cannot be explained. Almost as if something was there. Something... Inhuman.... And human. An odd contradiction. What could cause such mixed feelings?

The lights still blinked with that same dim red color as they had for as long as the alien ships had been there, almost as if laughing at the ship's apparent helplessness. Corpses littered the sides of the utterly black corridors, they would see, humanoid corpses in strange black suits, still clinging to their rather large weaponry. Their suits showed minimal signs of wear and tear, as if whatever had killed them had not actually attacked them. Not physically, anyway. Cold was the interior of the ship as it was dark, but it still was not frozen.

(OOC: Those corpses you would see would look like this: Click here (http://sensori.soldats.net/kuvia/soldierdark.jpg).)

OOC: I hope I'm not intruding, my first future tech RP was a failure. So, I'm trying it out again. And here is the Vanguard class...
http://img110.exs.cx/img110/5619/Vanguard.jpg


The Vanguard class destroyer “Oberon II” was performing a simple patrol; abet a very long distance from its berth. The Admiral back home was bored and had decided to a little bit of exploring. So there they were; over 124 light-years from their territory.

The sensor officer, while fiddling around with his Gravitational Anomaly Detector (they had just entered service) noticed odd signatures emanating from a area not even .75 light-years from their current position. He at once reported this to his captain, who promptly gave the order to change course for the area of the anomalies. Whether something was there or it was just a glitch remained to be seen…

The derelicts' sensors detected even more ships inbound. It changed nothing. They were as unresponsive as ever. How could a dead ship answer, after all? The only movement one could detect inside any of the ships would be that of those who intrude their peace. Nothing else.

"Jesus....", whispered one of the marines.

All around them, strewn across the corridor, were corpses. Not even human ones by the look of it.

The marines started examining the corpses. They couldn't seem to find any obvious marks on them. Quite simply, the beings looked in perfect condition, apart from being dead. Hell, if you propped them up properly, they looked like they were just sleeping.

....well, sleeping with guns in their hands. Quite big ones too.

One marine raised his weapon, aiming up and down the corridor.

"Alright dumbasses, form up. We're used to dead bodies. Hell, we make 'em on a regular basis. Now look lively!"

The marines formed up, one squad facing one way down the corridor, the other facing the other way.

"Ok, we're gonna move that way", said the squad leader, pointing down the corridor that lead further forward, to the prow of the ship, "One squad covers the way we're moving, the other covers our backs. Now, move out!"

The Oberon II exited the basement universe known as Blue-Space and reappeared in our plane of existence. And it just so happened to exit about 30,000 kilometers from the group of ships. The crews, not expecting alien ships, were quite surprised.

The Captain decided to transmit a brief message over the radio, in binary. It read as follows, “Greetings, we are a ship of the LMC Dominion on a peaceful mission of exploration; we wish no trouble and merely wish to investigate the objects”. With that the ships sensors began to scan a number of frequencies for a response.

OOC: Yeah, short posts, I know.

OOC:So Ermor you never really made this clear, are we supposed to be working together?

Unknown Space

With the aliens already onboard one of the stations, Mim decided to claim one of them as his own. Sixty-eight dropships began to exit the ship, appearing to come out of nothing from anyone else. They each carried either two NeuroTechs, two SciOps, or a single Drop Trooper. As the boarding parties began to enter the station, they began to realize their situation.

"This is Tim to all parties, group up around SciOps teams and keep them safe. Comm in if you see anything, and I mean anything." Said the science officer, leading the operation.

The teams began to spread out, noticing the bodies but not really giveing them any thought. SciOps teams began to prod the station for information.

There were, in total, 28 Drop Troopers, 40 SciOps, and 40 NeuroTechs.

"Cap'n, we're getting some odd stuff happening again. This time it really is important!", shouted Victor.

"Well? Spit it out man!"

"Sir, we just detected a cloud of small craft appearing from...well..nowhere. They latched onto one of the other derelicts, so i'm assuming they're boarding pods or something similar."

"I see....wait, what do you mean by 'a cloud'?"

"Sir", said Ulrich, "What he means is that they're so many, so close together, that the scopes are just showing a solid blob. The only reason we even know it's not just one solid mass is that they spread out enough when they attached to the derelict for our scopes to tell 'em apart."

"Intruiging....anything else?"

"Well..."

Gerfreiter knew the general idea of what was coming next. The only time Ulrich was normally hesitant about answering a direct order was when it was bad news.

"Y'see Sir, we got an odd radio message. The computer tried translating it for us, and it came out as a radio message from the, uh, 'LMC Dominion'. Says they're here on a peaceful exploration mission."

"Maybe they're the reason for those craft that appeared?"

"Uh, maybe so Sir."


Inside the Derelict, a few men had found something suspiciously similar to a map on a wall of the corridor.

"Ok retards, stop gawking at the bloody thing, and find out where the hell we are. We need to make our way to whatever this thing has for a bridge.", said Johnson impatiently.

"Yes Sir....uh....well Sir, we're here", said a marine, pointing near the middle of the ships length, on the right hand side, "but we can't seem to figure out where the bridge is."

"Just great dickhead. Well, come on everyone. Better keep moving. This place is even starting to give me the creeps, so I bet you lot are filling your dainty little painties, eh ladies? Now, MOVE OUT!"

The group continued down the corridor again, still moving further towards the front of the ship.

[OOC]: Ermor, i've been wondering, what shape are these things? The ships I mean.

As the men moved closer towards the ship's bridge, they began to hear... Whispers. From all around them, from the shadows. Ones too quiet for them to really hear what those whispers say. A sign of life? Or maybe just a sign of a malfunctioning intercom? Who knows, but the silent whispers remained as such as they advanced further down the blackened corridors.

--

More... Visitors. This time inside one of the smaller ships that were on the sides of a considerably larger one. Things were not much different inside it as they were within the larger one. Red light blinking on and off, corpses here and there. But there was one thing that could be easily noticed: There were no interfaces to the ship's computers to be seen in the corridors, and the corpses had absolutely nothing on them, if one does not count their weapons and their suits. There was nothing, nothing but darkness there. Darkness and extreme cold. They would have to dig deeper to find anything.

(OOC: You can do whatever you want. Cooperate, or even battle each other. I'm not going to dictate on you what you do. Use your own imagination, as long as you do not claim actually taking the derelicts with you. That is something that is up to me to decide.

And as for the ships... I've done something in a hurry on DOGA, so here goes. First, the "large ship (http://sensori.soldats.net/kuvia/carrier.JPG)". Then, the "smaller ships (http://sensori.soldats.net/ermor/ship.JPG)". Even if the picture on the smaller ones makes them look bluish, they are actually completely black. Also note that there are other pictures of the ships, too. In the form [picturename]2/3/4.JPG. Hope that helps.)

The TVFS Moonshadow slipped silently through the void. At just over three-hundred metres long, it was classed as a light cruiser. The Matter Sails (my FTL system) slid back into the hull, as it had just disengaged FTL and was cruising.
Blue lights glowed across the control suite, indicating that everything was in full working order. The crew weren't really paying attention to what was going on.

Then the sensors bleeped. Ensign Mattik looked at the screen sleepily. Then looked again. Lifting his head, he yelled
"Captain. We've got contact. Three derelicts. Looks like a few ships around them as well."
The captain stood up at the helm, and began giving orders.
"Bring ship to battle readiness, and bring us alongside the nearest derelict. Give power to the shields. And I want a boarding party to hit that derelict."

The Moonshadow pulled alongside the floating hulk. In the launch bay, Taldaani Void Marines were preparing for a boarding action. The derelict was showing a few life signs, and it looked as if one party had got there already.
The troops piled into boarding craft, and waited for impact.

The three boarding craft shot across the gap between the two hulls, impacting on the derelict with a clang. The fusion cutters melted a circle away, and the marines stepped through, glancing around, and releasing safeties from their guns.

Johnson was getting edgy. On the edge of his hearing, he was hearing....not voices, but more like the suggestion of voices. The idea that voices were there, even though he couldn't hear them, terrified him. He wasn't a supersticious man, but even this was starting to creep him out, even though he would never admit it in front of the men. It didn't do the morale good for the commanding officer to be scared.

Every now and then, a man would aim his rifle at the the ceiling, at a wall, or even at the floor, apparently thinking he could see something there. Johnson would normally have reprimanded the men for scaring everyone, but right now he was afraid to take his eyes off the corridor, in case some sort of.....thing, appeared.

As they walked down the corridor, a single scream came from down the corridor, causing every man, including those aiming backwards to cover the men, to suddenly bring his rifle to bear, the beams of light from the flashlights attached to the weapons showing a pair of double doors. Pretty thick ones from the looks of it.

Johnson was beyond merely terror now. The scream hadn't echoed. It was his subconscious that decided to bring that fact to the fore, before yet another part of it put another message in his brain's inbox. There's no air. We shouldn't be able to hear any noises apart from over the radio links to each other.

Not a single man dared move, nor tear his eyes away from the door. Every single man was holding their breath, trying to strain to hear any more noises, but none came.

[OOC]: Just two quick things.

First, the doors are the bridge doors, even though I don't know that ICly.

Second, I hope ye don't mind me adding the scream in? Thought I might as well start getting my men beyond merely 'A bit spooked'.

If there's any problem with either of the above, i'll change them at once.

[EDIT]: Oh, and the above questions are aimed at Ermor obviously.

A red light next to the double doors suddenly turned green, and the doors opened in a split second. By now, the whispering in their minds had become... Louder. It was of a language they could not understand. They smelled the stench of death... Felt the chill of open graves. It was as though something was beckoning them in beyond the doors, something ancient. Something horrible. Something they had never even thought of in their worst nightmares.

And it was as though they were being watched. From behind. From the sides. From the front. But were they imaginary? Or were they real? Were they simply losing their minds, or was something there? Something that would explain what they were experiencing?

As they would look beyond the doors, they would notice that it was a "dead end". A wall stood there. Was it real? Or was their collective minds playing tricks on them?

(OOC: Nope, no problem at all. Group hallucinations are all right. And as for the door, it's all good, too. They were supposed to exist, anyway.)

"Oh...oh...oh god....RUN! BACK TO THE SHIP! MOVE IT!" shouted one of the marines, before running himself.

Not needing a second telling, the marines ran for it, some dropping their weapons to stop them from slowing them down, all of them running like the hounds of hell were after them, and for some, they really were.

Only Johnson remained staring dumbfounded, his rifle still aimed at the door, his body seeming to be working by outside orders, his brain taking no part in his actions, as he slowly walked forward, holding his right hand out to touch the dead end, the entirety of his body shaking rapidly, his mouth opening and shutting, but no sound coming out as he desperately tried to simply scream until his lungs were empty, but to no avail.

The captain cursed, the GAD had broken down again and they only had basic navigational radar and the telescope. If he sent out the exploration team, he'd be sending them in blind. But, then again; the possibility of new technology was enticing. So he gave the order.

A single Albatross class dropship dropped out of the hanger of the Oberon II and fired its engines, placing it on a course for the 3rd object. Onboard, the bording team of Marines checked their C-1 plasma carbines and attached SP(smart projectile) launchers.

... And his hand went directly through the wall. It was an illusion. The whispers in his mind became almost silent once more. With that, the stench dissipated as did the chill. Still, something remained. There was that odd feeling that someone... Something, was beckoning him to come to whatever was behind that fake wall. As though he would meet his destiny behind it.

The others... The others who left running, were not quite as lucky as he was. The ones who had ran in fear only heard the whispers grow more horrible, more twisted as they ran further away from the doors they had found, even the shadows themselves seemed to mock them. The most terrifying screams one could ever hear went through their minds. It was as though insanity had crept into their weakened minds. There was nothing that could substantiate their feelings. It was as though they were simply losing it.

Not a single one of the ships now remained untouched, as even the last one's hull was breached. The AIs of the ships were practically starting to crash because of all the unauthorized activity within the ships, as they were trying to inform their makers of what was happening, but could not accomplish it. No one answered. They were too simple to do anything against them themselves.

The sight within the third ship would be the same as it was in the other ships. Of course, the intruding beings had no knowledge of this, as different factions had boarded different ships. All those on board of them had, apparently, met the same fate. But what fate could that be? The ships were not exactly in the same formation as they had been, the boarding ships had minimally changed their locations, making them look like a chaotic mass instead of an organized group of ships.

The ship in the center had been boarded by even more people, as a new group had entered it. A different group, the sensors indicated. The three ships were receiving attention, even if a bit... Late.

The thirty Taldaani Voidmarines walked down the corridor. Thirty pairs of night-vision goggles scanned the dark corridors for movement. There were bodies everywhere. They didn't look as if they had died violent deaths, in fact they looked almost peaceful. Could it have been plague? Starvation? Unshielded exposure to some kind of chemical? The same questions ran through the mind of each Taldaani man and woman.
This was something not often done in the Taldaani Voidfleet, but every soldier had heard the stories. Derelicts were subjects of many myths in Voidmarine lore: tales of mysterious technology found, the holy grail among Taldaani researchers. But also of aliens devouring entire search parties, or worse; infesting the survivors, only to burst out and stalk the ship. The troops were understandably nervous as they made their way down the passageway.
Private Elli Fields was the first to notice: she looked down at her wrist-mounted radar, and blinked in surprise. Movement, and close by. She motioned for the squad leader to come over, then pointed at her radar. He too could see at, but glancing down at his own, he saw there was nothing. More of the marines began to report malfunctions over the radio channel. And then there was static. The squad suddenly had no way of communicating. Occasional snatches could be picked up, but nothing coherent.
The leader swore, although no-one could hear him. Beckoning for the now terrified squad to follow him, they moved further on.

Johnson felt his mind finally gain control over his body again, and pulled back his hand suddenly.

Dear god....what is this...

Johnson slowly brought his gun to bear again, braced himself, and ran straight through the wall.....


Further down the corridor, the men who had ran could see the hatch of the ship, closed. The lead man bashed on the hatch, desperately trying to open it, trying to escape the voices as they grew nearer, only to notice a small button next to the hatch that had certainly not been there before. The man quickly bashed it with his fist, not caring, thus opening the airlock, and bringing sweet release to him and the rest of the squad, as the voices faded, and they stepped into the comfy confines of the transports airlock.



Aboard the bridge of the transport, the captain could see what had previously been a flat area of hull, roughly 100 metres to the right of the ship, suddenly open, revealing itself to be an airlock, and marines started pouring out of it.

As the captain stared, dumbfounded, the marines took their helmets off, and smiled, apparently happy, even mimicing the actions they would normally do when they had entered the airlock of the transport, some even having time to try to hang the helmets on non-existant hooks just before their bodies exploded from the violent decompression.

The captain stared in obvious horror of the sight of the men apparently commiting suicide without even noticing that they were doing it.

The voices had claimed their victims.

The last Marine carefully stepped over the hot remants of the hull were they had cut through. The Marines, clad in their powered armor, looked over the scene before them. Bodies, everywhere there were bodies; not human by the looks of them. Just as a precaution the Marines removed the safeties on their weapons and activated their low-light vision modes. Their radios picked up a little static but other wise everything seemed okay...

A few minutes later they came upon a door, upon trying it a few times it became apparent that it was sealed. One of the Marines produced a plasma cutter and began to cut through....

OOC: A picture of the ship. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v347/UthRptr2/RaptorP3X2.jpg

IC:

Above the ship the Rinceweed forces had entered, space appeared to bend into a bubble for a moment before snapping back into place. Where the bubble had been now sat a ship, the Taraman, which began active scanning. Sadly, the Taraman was not where it was aiming for.

"This isn't Terrator. This looks nothing like even the right direction. Leutent, where are we?" Captain Harkor asked the woman behind him.

"Sir, for all intents and purposes, I have no turetting idea. We must have gone in the wrong direction. I'm thinking we're in mapped space, but where I don't know," Leutent Marja said.

"Sir, we're picking up ships. Three massive ones that look abandonned for centuries, a Rinceweed ship, and a couple others," Major Tort said.

"Abandoned for centuries? Are these of Sarkaraset design?" Harkor asked.

"No. We've never seen them before. In fact... What mejnot cut power to the sensors?" the Major asked, his voice showing annoyance at them suddenly not working.

"I show power still to them. They should be working. I'm also having signal problems for contacting our home. Sir, I think we're in a Har'Tori," the Leutent said.

Everyone paused, silent. A Har'Tori, a word borrowed from an ancient and forgotten race, was a piece of space where ships and explorers went and never returned, typically having large derelicts. The word itself meant "haunted space," a verbal warning to leave before it was too late. Sadly, for the DLE crew, it was too late, and they knew it.

"How long until the jump engines are charged enough we can use them?" Harkor asked.

"Two hours, give or take," Lieutenant Melkor said.

"Try to contact the Rinceweed ship. We've seen them before. Let them know who we are and offer our help to them. If the gods are willing, we're just scaring ourselves," Harkor said, directing the ship to approach the same derelict the Rinceweedians were on.

[OOC]: Arg, sorry about this, but i'll be gone for about an hour. But don't worry, as soon as i'm back, this is the first RP post i'll be working on.

Even more ships came to the area. Even more. The sensors did not lie. They could not lie. This was more strain than the AIs could handle, and they all crashed, like a collective. After a while, they rebooted and came back up once more. During this time, first the dim, blinking red light disappeared for several minutes, and then the color of the lights changed to a constant sickly green one. Also, this caused several locked doors to become unlocked.

On the third ship, this caused the door before the marines to open violently as its motion sensors had come back to life, even if just for a moment. A corpse that was supported by the door fell to the ground as it opened. It seemed to be a door that simply split the corridor into two parts, like a door meant for protection, one that could easily stop even the largest invasion. If it functioned correctly, which it apparently did not.

(OOC: Rinceweed, I sent you a telegram. Please read it.)

Unknown Space, vicinity of the 3 Derelicts


Onboard the Derelict
As Tim and his NeuroTech escort moved throught he corridors he began to notice a sort of uneasiness in the NTs. They were sweating... Training level 15 NeuroTechs DO NOT sweat. What is going on?

"Who said that?" Said Tim, breaking the silence.

"Umm said what, Sir?" Responded the escort leader.

"Someone sa...... nevermind... ignore it."

The marine next to Tim suddenly froze, immedietly pointing his biochemical needler at the nearest wall.

"Marine?"

"There... there is something here.."

"Marine get ahold of yourself. Did you see something or not?"

"I don't know, Sir, I don't know."

"You are a level 15 Neurotech, marine. Did you see something or not?"

"No Sir."

More of the troopers began to start showing the same signs, one would just spring backwards as if a demon had appeared out of nowhere in front of him. Others would look at their nearby comrades, almost questioning if they had seen something.

Tim pressed a button on his suit. "This is Tim, I need you to send Prime an incrypted code 34 signal."

Meanwhile, on the Poeta

Tim was a high ranking science expert but even Mim didn't realize the extent to how high of a rank he was.

"Sir," Said Ior. "Code 34? I thought they only went up to 20."

"Relay the message to Prime, Ior." Mim not even responding to the com officer's question. "Now on to other business. There are too many ships in this vicinity, lets make sure that noone else gets information that they don't need. Drop us out of stealth and raise all shielding. Charge weapons."

The ship seemed to blend back into reality, moments before a Xanthal Type X shield formed up in a sphere around the large vessel. Xanthal Type X shielding is usually reserved for use in protecting space stations, not 900 meter long warships. Feazanthian Distortion shielding and particle shielding followed.

OOC: Well I am going to attack one of you guys so who will it be? Basically I want to fuck up someones ship, not their troops onboard the derelicts.

The corpse, hidden by the door, fell towards them one of the younger marines panicked and fired a burst from his plasma carbine. He was prompty given a verbal lashing from the rest of the squad. The group moved on into the dark...

OOC: What sort of weapons do the corpses carry?

OOC- Shadow, don't fire on mine. Your weapons are a little large and it wouldn't just damage the ship, but probably kill everyone on board. Perhaps you should fire at one of the derelicts.

As the voidmarines progressed towards the ship's front, they began to hear the same whispers as those that had walked before them had heard. Or did not hear, as they were practically silent, but they were there. Shadows danced around them as they walked further down the dark corridor, the same one those who had lost their sanity had walked upon just moments before them. Chilling sighs came from the direction they were walking to, sighs no human could produce.

--

The corpse bounced as it took the hits and parts of it were vaporized, but it still continued to cling to its weapon. As that happened, those present could almost hear a sigh, one of pain in their minds.

(OOC: You would be able to find something like the weapon showed in the picture and a strange telescope sword.)

Each marine wondered wheter they were imagining things as the starnge sigh in their heads, none spoke up though. "Johnson" the Lieutenant spoke, "Search that corpse for anything interesting". Johnson complied and a few minutes alter had produced a large weapon that seemed to be a sort of projectile launcher and a strange telescoping sword. The Lieutenant congradulated him, "Good work son, now gather these up with the body and report back to the dropship". Johnson trundled off with the objects in question while the rest of the marines moved on. Each wondering just waht happned here and what "here" was...

But only a minute afterwards, another sigh came from the general direction Johnson had run to, and an odd flash of green light could be seen in the distance. A scream soon afterwards filled their comms, a scream so dreadful, as if some animal was being butchered alive. Then it ended, just as abruptly as it had begun. What was the cause of it would remain a mystery, as the darkness is all too strong.

At least for now.

[OOC]: Woo! Back earlier than expected!

IC: Johnson stood still, looking around the bridge, before freezing, his eyes glazing over.

After a few minutes, he started shivering, his eyes still glazed over, before eventually he seemed to return to normal, his eyes refocusing, but with a new determination in his face, as the shadows created by the features of his face seemed deeper, more heavily etched, and, somehow....older.

Johnson turned around, and promptly marched back out the way he came, occasionally glancing around at the walls, smiling vacantly.

As he reached the hatch for the ship, he found it closed. He quickly pulled out a tiny keypad, and typed in the code to unlock the hatch, and it quickly and silently opened, revealing the airlock of the ship. He quickly clambered in, and closed the airlock behind him, and suddenly the static from his radio cleared, giving him silence over the radio. He quickly made his way to the bridge, only to find the captain had turned round in horror to face him.

"Dear god Johnson", said the Captain, "We thought you were dead."

"Sir? Listen, we don't have time to talk. Sir, you have to come with me, along with the rest of the crew. We've not found anything much yet, but we've come across a few computer consoles down there. Listen Sir, you're the only person actually qualified to access alien computer systems, the rest of us are just grunts, pure and simple. Well, except Victor and Ulrich there. Sir, there's only 3 other squads of men on the ship, and we'll need all of them to help us comb the rest of the ship. Our ship should be safe Sir, so I really think we should just see what we can find."

The Captain didn't show any outward signs of fear, and neither did Ulrich or Victor, but on the inside, all of them suddenly realised that something was going on. Johnson had just said the rest of the squad was searching inside the derelict, yet they had just seen the squad get blown out an airlock.Also, Johnson had just asked for the entire crew to come with him, with only the weakest of excuses.

"Johnson....", said the Captain hesitantly, trying to arrange his words carefully, "If you insist on us coming, very well. I'll get the rest of the men, and we'll move out."

"Thank you Sir. But i'd advise that I stay here Sir, in case we come under outside attack. I'm more than qualified to man the ships defenses on my own Sir, came top of my class in the Pioneer One Academy, Sir."

"Very well Johnson, if you insist. The rest of the men will come with me. I expect to find this ship in good shape when we get back."

Johnson smiled at the Captain, radiating innocence like a child who has just found out that merely smiling innocently can excuse him of any crime.


As soon as the Captain had led the team out of the airlock, Johnson sealed it tight, and smashed the controls. There wasn't any chance of it opening without some heavy duty explosives being involved.

He quickly got back up to the helm of the ship, and keyed in his authorization code into a small red panel on the bridge, causing a ten second timer to appear on the console screen next to it.

As the timer started to count down, the radio whistled, indicating an incoming radio message.

Johnson stopped the countdown at the 8 second mark, and sauntered over to the radio, all traces of emotion gone from his face. He quickly turned it on, and was greeted to a message from a small DemonLordEnigma ship apparently trying to get their attention.

Johnson simply spoke clearly into the microphone of the radio, making sure every word was heard.

"Our ship is about to explode! We're evacuating onto the derelict! We'll need your help onboard! Get your people onto the ship as soon as you can!"

Johnson cut the radio off, and calmly walked back to the self destruct, reactivating it again, and stood still watching it time it's own life expectancy.

At the one second mark, Johnson's eyes seemed to widen, his face suddenly white, as he tried to scream, but the scream was lost as the ship's engines deliberately overpower themselves, causing them to simply explode, taking the entire ship with it, along with a small section of the Derelict's hull. Not that anyone on the Derelict heard it. Without air, the sound only existed as a vibration in the Derelict's hull, which the crew, now safely behind a set of sealing doors, simply attributed to the Derelict doing the equivalent of the floorboards in an old house creaking.

[OOC]: Oh, and ye've got a TG Ermor.

OOC: Dang, I didn't realize that Rinceweed had a "Johnson" charecter too. Though I suppose it doesn't really matter now...

IC: A second passed after the strange events had unfolded. The Lieutenant called over the radio.

"Johnson, report over"

This was repeated a few times before the Lieutenant gave in to his growing fear. "Everyone back to the ship, double time it, weapons hot, MOVE!"
With that the Marines charged back the way they came, their suit lights were on as well as their radar imaging system.

The size difference between the two ships enabled the derelict to not be sent flying into some random direction as the ship exploded quite close to it, but it did create a great gaping hole, exposing parts of the ship's interior. Some odd green energy flowed into space for a while before the systems automatically redirected the flow of energy and left that part of the ship completely unpowered, leaving some maintenance corridors unlit.

But right before the ship had exploded, more people had come from it. All was silent in where they were. Quite stable was the situation.

For the moment.

--

They ran. All of them.

A scream came from behind them. An earsplitting scream of horrible torments. Was it real, or was it a hallucination? The shadows moved around them, or did they? Even if they did not, it was as though the ship itself was pointing its eternal hatred towards them. But that is impossible, is it not? Were they simply being controlled by their primal instincts, being tricked by themselves, or was the ship... Haunted?

The group ran faster, driven by demonic images of creatures beyond their reasoning capability. There! The corridor that lead back to the dropship! The mrines turned into it and ran down the passage, they began to reconize the posistions of bodies. Rescue from this hellish place was in sight! This thought overrode the mind numbing terror that they all felt and they ran on...

"Sir we just lost contact with... Oh my god," Marja said.

The ship had just come into view of where the Rinceweed ship had been. The side of the derelict was scorched, almost as though from an explosion, and pieces of debris and bodies were all over the place. What was once a landing area was now a tomb.

"Sir! Detecting a ship with charged weapons comming in fast. I suggest we open fire," Marja said.

"Wait. It's not real," Harkor said.

And, at that moment, Harkor turned out to be right. No ship appeared in their view, despite the sensors showing it in front of them, and they were taking no damage from the weapons fire they detected. Then, suddenly, the ship was at the bigger derelict, charging up weapons as it appeared.

"We can't trust our sensors here. If we're getting it now, then more advanced ships should be experiencing the same thing before long. This may become a freefire zone as people are shooting at things which don't exist. Land near where the Rinceweed ship was. We'll use that point as an entry to get into the ship and contact anyone still alive," Harkor said.

As the DLE ship maneuvered to land, Harkor stepped into the sleeping area and shook the four back there awake. Four Marines, Leutents Bobs, Terrat, Sernet, and Tobias. After the loss of a scouting ship awhile back, heavily armed marines became standard equipment with every ship.

"We're heading into hostile territory. We can't trust our equipment and possibly not even our ears or eyes. A ship from the nation of Rinceweed has been destroyed by unknown forces before it could reply to our attempts to contact it. We are to look for survivors but assume the worst. I need two of you to man defenses for the ship. The rest of you and three of my bridge crew will be inside. If we are acting strange when we get back, shoot us and anyone with us. At that point, we've been compromised," Harkor said.

Once the DLE ship landed, the first thing the crew did was distribute weapons. The marines got the SAR-97C1s, taking time to load the grenades and bullets, while everyone else got SAR-97s. For pistols, the entire crew was given SMP-7s. Then, despite the weight of their armor and weapons, Harkor ordered everyone to be armed with SSG-9s just in case.

As the boarding party entered the ship, with Marja staying behind, marines Sernet and Tobias set up a SLMG-2 on a tripod just outside the airlock, intending to stay begind. Harkor watched with a grim look on his face. They would be all that remained behind to protect a ship this expensive.

"Tobias, get back inside the ship and protect it from there. If we do not return by the time the jump engines are charged, leave us behind. If you come under attack, leave. Sernet, try to hold your head out here. This place frightens me, so I know you must be scared. Just remember to not let fear rule you and think of this as training camp all over again, only with live ammo," Harkor said.

Then, Harkor and the others turned and started walking into the ship. The group of five was quite small, to be expected of DLE Special Ops, and obviously jumpy. They kept looking around, nervous, acting as though they were hearing things. Harkor kept seeing the shadows move and, despite his attempts, kept glancing around as well. The dead bodies did not help.

"Ugly gesnets, aren't they?" Bobs asked, taking aim at one of the dead bodies and firing off a shot at its head.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Marja was just recieving the last communication from the Rinceweed ship...

OOC: Weapons link. http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=371723

Also, they are seeing an illusion of the side of the ship not being blown open. This is just a sensory illusion affecting the DLEs, not meant to contradict what was said.

"Don't... Go..."

A faint voice begged the fleeing marines. Whether it was coming from their comms or if they were hallucinating... They didn't know. How could they? They were panicking, running away in unbearable fear.

But the voice was that of their comrade. It was Johnson. Could it be he was still alive? Or were they simply hoping he was alive?

Onboard the Derelict

Tim's group, along with the 20 others continued through the ship, the weird signs ever present.

The group steadied themselves as the Derelict shook from the massive explosion outside before one trooper just sprinted off into the darkness of the maze of hallways. It seems that the voices and the explosion had just overtook him.

"After him!" Yelled Tim as he and his group sprinted on after the youngest of the NeuroTechs. They found him stareing at a illuminted door, looking somewhat important.

"Hmm. This might be just what we were looking for. Good work, marine. Marine???" The young man simply collapsed. The nearest NT checked him to see if he was ok.

"Hes just passed out Sir. He'll wake up in a moment."

"Fine. Everyone, let us try and find a way to open this door."

Pacifer Poeta

The exuberance of the white explosion stunned the crew only for a second, their military training taking ahold of them without much thought.

"Sir, our sensors are each showing different things. There is something strange going on."

"Hold our fire for now then and somebody get to work on those damned sensors."

"Sir our sensors aren't malfunctioning, it must be someth......."

"I didn't ask for an opinion." Responded Mim. Mim had been Captain aboard a Sandman slave ship for the majority of his career and it's multiple systems constantly broke down, his stubbornness about technology showing alot now.

OOC: Ermor, is there anything behind the door? If so is there a way I can open it? For you other guys: I'm not going to attack with my warship because it is getting sensor malfunctions like the other guy.

Someone... Or something was crying. Yet it was dark, and there was no air present. Yet the Special Ops of Demon Lord Enigma could hear it. It was as real to them as the words they spoke to each other were. Something was crying.

No, it was not simple crying.

Something was wailing. Lamentating over times long past. Although they could not understand the words, they understood. There are no beings with sentience in existence that could not understand its message. The sorrow was so deep, so profound that even the sorrow of a thousand worlds could not exceed it. Then it just ended.

Was it simply a trick of sound, caused by the ancient ship? Or a malfunction in their comms'? Or was it even real?

Sickly green burning runes appeared on the door's surface as the beings on board of the second breached derelict began to examine its surface. An odd, green burning field came around the door, engulfing the runes. Obviously it was somehow protected.

But the odd burning flames did not come alone. A stench of decaying flesh came with it, a stench they smelled although it should have been impossible.

The entire group stood, dumbfounded and horrified, for five minutes. The horrible, horrible wailing seemed to permiate their suits, increasing their horror even more. And yet, whether they turned the comms off or not, it did not stop, but continued to echo in their ears.

Then, just as suddenly, they heard something else, this time comming through the comms for sure. It was the sound of Marja begging for her life, saying something about "too fast... overran us..." The entire group turned and ran for the ship, going as fast as their suits would allow. When they arrived, they saw Sernet still at his station and alive, his face looking for all the world as though he just saw a ghost. A mere fifteen feet beyond where the DLE ship had landed was a hole, not present before, that appeared to come from an explosion. Yet, Sernet still being alive revealed it happened before the ship landed.

"Sernet, anything happen while we were away?" Harkor asked.

"Just, this hole. It was suddenly there," Sernet said.

"Damn. We can't trust our eyes or ears anymore. Then there's this damn whispering... We have to find the engine room. This should make more sense from there. Sernet, when you guys take off, fire torpedos into this this and as many disruptor shots as you can manage in a few seconds. Then, leave quickly," Harkor said.

Then, as they began to head back into the ship, Harkor signalled for Bobs to take point. Bobs had the best unaided eyes of all of them and would be best for this. His expertise in avoiding trouble served under most scenarios, which Harkor wished this to be one of. This place did not help their fears any...

Metallic slugs hit the thing the beings that had entered the largest ship were using to return to their own ship. They came from the general direction of the hole, some levels higher than the people from DLE were. Whatever was shooting at them was doing it with hellish ferocity, as round after round after round flew towards the thing. It was almost as if some group of people were firing at it. One could easily see the green "tail" those slugs created as they flew towards their target.

Whoever was shooting at it was obviously determined not to let them leave the ship alive.

OOC: Wha?

(OOC: Exactly.)

Onboard the second derelict

"WHAT THE F...." Yelled a NT, before being interupted by another.

"SIR"

Tim turned around to find a blazing green aura eminateing from the door. Then the smell came. "Holy. My suit must be malfunctioning. The smell. It's almost unbearable."

"We smell it as well, Tim." Said the escorts, straining to hold their thoughts under the situation.

"That is impossible, it.... it is impossible. Well it is not going to stop us.. DROPTROOPERS BLOW THAT DOOR DOWN!"

The nearby Drop Troopers hovered off the floor of the hallway for a second, before unleashing a Quad blast of concentrated plasma from each of their flightpacks. They continued this barrage for a full minute before they let the exhaust clear.

OOC: Ermor, who was that post about the firing for?

Regardless of wheter Johnson was alive or dead they ran on. On towards the dropship were the suprised flight engineer stared at them through the hole in the hull. They bounded aboard one by one; the Lieutenant screamed at the pilot, "GO!!! GO NOW!!!". The pilot trusted the Lieutenant and kicked the throttle into full gear. The connecting inflatable umbilical tunnel between the two ships tore under the power of the ship's fusion drive.

The door simply gave in with the continuous punishment. The green fire dissipated, and the stench disappeared with it. The now open doorway simply lead to a new corridor, except it was one filled with similar locked doors. They all had odd letters upon them, ones that did not seem to relate to any known culture.

(OOC: It was for you, DemonLordEnigma.)

Onboard the Second Derelict

As the exhaust from the plasma weaponry subsided, the previously firey door was gone. Not exactly knowing what to do, the troops all turned to Tim.

"Well, lets see what the hell sort of technology could be doing all this." The troops still not moving, "Fine, I'll go first."

Tim stepped into the hallway, noticing the numerous doorways on either side. Exotic scripts that Tim couldn't even come close to identifying covered them. "See if any of these doors will open. If not, blow them open one at a time." The Drop Troopers came after, hovering with caution down one of the most horrifying places they had ever been in.

They could not be let to leave. Not in their current state.

Not alive.

In the hole the departing ship had created... If one was observant enough, one could see movement. Things in the shadows were moving, shifting positions, readying themselves.

It all only took moments.

Burning green metal slugs began to fly after the fleeing ship. Great numbers of them emerged from that place. Every time a shot was fired, a rather large mussleflash came from the hole. They were all green.

And they were defying all logic.

They could not be let to leave. Not in their current state.

Not alive.

In the hole the departing ship had created... If one was observant enough, one could see movement. Things in the shadows were moving, shifting positions, readying themselves.

It all only took moments.

Burning green metal slugs began to fly after the fleeing ship. Great numbers of them emerged from that place. Every time a shot was fired, a rather large mussleflash came from the hole. They were all green.

And they were defying all logic.\

The sensors picked up the incoming slugs and the pilot had time to yell-"Shit! Incoming fire, hang on guys!"-before started a series of crazy manuovers that spun the dropship and made it extremely hard to target. The Flight Engineer activated the rear turret and proceded to make use of the mounted coil guns, firing hundreds of their own slugs back at the source of fire.

Back on the ship the GAD had just been repaired when the dropship radioed in for fore support, they also gave the corordinates of the source of enemy fire. With that the ship's computer began to feed data to the fire control subsystem. The ships turreted particle accelerators began to shift, turning towards the 3rd object before emitting flashes of greenish/blue light which crossed the gulf between the ships faster then the eye could follow.
OOC: The PA's are firing at the hole in the hull were the slugs are being fired.

The damage on the ship was becoming more extensive. The firing had ended well before the last shots hit the general area of the breach in the hull. Not only that, but the ship had begun to spin, if still not all that fast. It was in no danger of hitting any of the other ships in the area, but it still was a hazard now.

(OOC: I'm starting to get a bit too tired... Need sleep and such.)

OCC: I assume this is still open....

IC:

The independent cruiser Bob Marley drops out of hyperspace in a flash of light and energy. It is flanked by a pair of the brand new Wild Thing battle frigates, on each of which is embarked two squadrons of Sabre class fighters.

The Bob Marley is characteristic of Robotic Galactic Flotilla 'independent' vessels. It has a large cargo bay as well as extensive engineering and science facilities, and well armor and defense systems, admittedly at the expense of hard-hitting weaponry. The many classes of independent cruisers are all saucer-shaped, mostly between .75 and 1km long. They differ from freighters in their exploratory mission; where freighters generally ply established routes and deliver to large systems, independent cruisers are given the freedom to roam, and all they have to do is report back.

As such, some very important discoveries have been made by independent cruisers, and they can be seen all over the place, in every corner of the Milky Way, and some have even made long forays into other galaxies.

"All hyperspace systems are within safe perameters...restoring power to shunted systems."
"We've picked up a very large field of debris, currently unmarked on charts. We are currently two light-minutes away from its outer edges."

The AI and one of the ship's sensor-operating robots report to the ship's bridge, a cockpit-like affair where the captain, helmsman, and several communications robots sit amidst a sea of display screens, most of which are simply informational displays outlining the actions of other departments of the ship, but they do also provide vital navigational information. While the AI has the major helm function, a helmsman generally controls the basic functions of the ship's manouvering.

"Do any objects match archive database entries?"
"Negative, aside from elemental and material composition nothing matches any archive database entries. They appear to be warships, judging by the thickness of thei outer skins. The materials which the objects are made of match an ancient armor formula, but as I have said the objects themselves do not match any archive database entries."
"We are starting to map the debris field."
"Alright. We could use a physical sample of the debris. Have a fighter go out and pick up a small chunk of material from inside the field."
"Launching patrol now."

From the piloted crafts bay on the Marley, one Sabre class and one Startracker class fighter emerge, and head out for the edge of the debris field on cruise engines. Inside the Bob Marley, the crew records everything about the ship's surroundings and applies them to make new and extensive charts of the area while a variety of rock, blues, and reggae songs play over the PA system.

Ermor please respond to my post when you get the time. ( End of page 3)

Once inside the ship, Harkor could see his crew was still alright. He was relieved for only a split second before the strange green fire erupted from the hole. The shields were up instantly, doing as programmed, at the same time a muffled scream came from Sernet's comm. Despite this, the weapons appeared to be doing no damage beyond using up shield power, but Harkor began to silently suspect they wouldn't even notice the shields the very moment the engines powered up.

"Guys, Protocol Seven has now been activated," Harkor said.

"Slash-and-Burn Time?" Marja asked.

"Exactly. Men, you know what to do. Marja, take us away from this thing and open fire at a safe distance. Once this one is destroyed, we'll Slash-and-Burn the others. Let's contact the other ships in the area and make a deal. Working together, we ought to be able to defeat these creatures," Harkor said.

At that same time, incomming fire from another ship sent the derelict spinning, but stopped the green bullets. Taking this opportunity, the DLE ship disengaged and began to back away as fast as they could, using a weaving pattern to dodge any possible shots. After all, they already lost one person today and needed a plan.

Meanwhile, Harkor had an idea, and he wanted to contact the others.

~General broadcast to all ships~
Attention all ships in the region. I think we can beat whoever it is that owns these ships. While on the one I am shooting at now, one of my soldiers shot one of the bodies in the head. We got a loud, mournful wailing as a result. The recent shots into the one I just left stopped shots comming from it. That proves we can hurt them with our weapons. My advice is to shoot the alien bodies littering the ships. I repeat, shoot the bodies littering the ships!
-Harkor
~End broadcast~

"Think they got it?" Harkor asked.

"I hope so," Marja said.

OOC: Is the one now spinning capable of being salvaged for anything now? The resent shots into it did quite a bit of damage...

I'll be on later in the evening tomorrow by NS standards. Time difference.

Captain Gerfreiter and the crew stalked along the ships corridors, with Ulrich and Victor standing either side of him, both armed with handguns, but both still terrified out of their wits, whilst Gerfreiter himsef carried a Pioneers' Fire [OOC: See end of post for details.].

The marines looked around nervously, since although they hadn't been informed about the incident with the men that had been seen flying through the airlock to their deaths, the entire ship seemed to excrete fear from it's walls.

Godammit, thought Gerfreiter, We need to find out what happened to those marines. I swear, as soon as we get back to an Orbital, i'm having Johnson go for a psychiatric checkup. Something's just not right with him....

As they paced through the hallways, past the corpses, Gerfreiter could have sworn he could hear something, just on the edge of his hearing.....like voices...

[OOC]: Righto, the Pioneers' Fire, my only future-tech hand weapon. I'm actually pretty proud of it. Basically, it's similar to this (http://sludgefeast.com/arcade/images/xbox/halo/CovenantSniperRifle.jpg) weapon here. Well, looks-wise anyway.

The gun is now a production version weapon, but it's still prohibitively expensive to make, so it's mostly only for Special Operations Solders.

The gun has two firing modes.

The first mode fires a small green laser beam, with the ability to cleanly cut through most armor with ease.

The second mode is different. It involves holding down a small button on the side of the weapon, which causes it to charge. When the button is released, the charge is held, and the trigger must be used to fire the charged beam, which is in fact a reddish colour. The beam creates a form of area effect blast, with the ability to vaporise pretty much anything it touches (Except materials designed to withstand extremely high temperatures (E.g. The Ships hull, so don't expect to see me carving through walls with this any time soon)).

Tagged / Just Watching

"Sir, did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That voice."
"What voice?"

The radios seemed to have mysteriously come back online, but now the troops were hearing things. The entire squad was on edge. Whispers, half static, half quiet voices in an unknown but strangely familiar language, were seeping into supposedly secure channels. Surely it couldn't be that the entire squad were going crazy? But in the un-navigated depths of space, who knew what could happen? Maybe even now the entire squad was slowly losing their sanity, their minds dripping away into the void.

There was a scream towards the back of the group. The marines spun around, weapons raised to fire. Another scream. One of the voidmarines was kneeling on the floor, arms wrapped around his helmet, over the ears. And he was screaming, as if he was being eaten from the inside. The unfortunate marine stood up shakily, his limbs not moving quite the way they were supposed to. Then, turning around, he ran off down the corridor. The others were too stunned to move, then they gave chase.

"Stop!"
The leaders voice came in loud over the squad radio.
"Leave him. There's nothing you can do. Let him go."
"But sir...."
The leader butted in
"I said leave him. Ignore the voices and follow me."

The remaining, and shaken, marines followed. Gone was the confidence from the shuttle, replaced with raw fear. The running marine had seen to that.

On the second ship, as they came close to the very first of the doors within the corridor, it was as though blood begun to flow slowly from the top of the door. Soon the substance began to form words. Oddly enough, it was all in plain English. Something one would not quite expect to see in such a ship.

YOUR DEATHS AWAIT.

Then... It all simply burned away with a green flame, and only the door remained. Maybe it did not really happen? After all, it was so dark within that ship anyway that maybe it was just a simple hallucination caused by stress?

--

The transmission sent by the DLE forces was intercepted and processed by the ships' AIs. Although the situation was still rather... Stable... It was soon to change. Even in their state of simpleness they could realize that their existence was threatened. Even the tiniest of beings know when they are under a threat of extermination. Yet they could do nothing. It was not in their programming to have such control.

But it did not matter. Not anymore.

The dead do not care.

--

Suddenly, flashes of green light came from behind them and from their front. Horrible shrieking filled their minds, and the already extreme cold became even worse. Even the dim green lights in the ceiling suddenly bursted into green, violently burning flames. It was as though something had suddenly awakened, and that it did not find their presence... Appealing.

--

Terrible screams filled their comms only moments after they had lost eye contact to the one who had run off from them.

But that was not all to it.

Now they could hear it. Something that they had not heard before. As though something was shrieking in their minds, but it was as though the voices were quieted down by something. Distance? Walls? Or maybe they were simply having delusions, would that not be the simplest conclusion?

(OOC: Replying to as many posts as I can in one post. Sorry for the shortness and for the lateness, too, but my head's been in a world of hurt today, and still kind of is. It's not all that fun. First bit is for Shadow Tech, then for Demon Lord Enigma, then Rinceweed, then Taldaan. Can't really say much to LRR's post, as it doesn't really concern anyone.)

"Look at this," calls one of the sensors robots. "Energy spikes are coming from inside the field. They look like weapons discharges, perhaps railgun fire, as well as what might be explosions."
"Understood, sensors. Attention, patrol. Be advised, possible combat inside the debris field. Excersize caution, over."

The two small fighters, some distance away from the cruiser and its escorts which sit in empty space inside the ancient, dead solar system.

"Roger that, we will watch out for trouble."
"Just what we need."
"Tell me about it. We've still got four hours or so before we have to worry."

The fighters continue to cruise towards the debris field...

(I will post their arrival first thing tomorrow.)

The scream shattered the brief silence of the comms. There was so much terror in that scream that you could almost touch it. And worse, it was unmistakeably Trooper Hoffman's voice. Out there, someone, or something, had caught up with him and ended his headlong rush for safety. Some of the marines joined in, causing a deafening noise that would probably alert everyone on the ship to where they were. One of the marines spun around, firing his matter accelerator from the hip in a blaze of light. The shots hit one of the corpses on the floor, obliterating it.

And then there was another noise, a subtle undercurrent in the noise. More screaming, certainly, but somehow....muted. Muffled, far away. It seemed to be coming from another part of the ship.

"Follow me, men. We have to find the other scream."
The leader seemed to be the only one unaffected. He was terrified as well, but he remembered his training: show no weakness in front of the men.
"Couldn't we just get Command to send in the robots?"
"No. The robots are for when it's too dangerous for us. They miss things, we don't. And the next marine who questions me and fails to follow orders, I'll shoot him myself."

The marines followed, shaking. The leader walked ahead, contemptuously kicking at the corpses littered around.
"It'll take more than a bit of screaming to scare Taldaani Voidmarines." he muttered to himself, although he knew he was wrong.

Most of the marines fell to the ground, clutching their ears as the agonizing screams tore into them, a few still standing, firing randomly into the walls, the floor, the ends of the corridor, everywhere that the green light came from, although thankfully they still had the presence of mind not to fire on their own men.

Victor and Ulrich were curled up in balls, handguns lying on the floor beside them, forgotten, as both men screamed and cryed, trying to shut out the noise, the pain....the fear.....

Gerfreiter, on the other hand, was still standing. He could feel his entire body telling him he was freezing, he could hear the screams....but he simply ignored them. He was trained for this. He was trained to be not simply a Captain, but to be an inspirational figure for his men, and he'd be damned if he'd break down.

Gerfreiter shouted down his radio, making more noise than the screaming.

"EVERYONE! GET YOUR ASSES IN GEAR! SOME GODAMN FUCKING SCREAMING AINT GONNA STOP US, AND THE FUCKING COLD AINT EITHER! MOVE YOUR FUCKING ASSES!"

Gerfreiter raised his weapon, and fired a single shot, the green blast nearly indistinguishable from the current lighting, and blew out the light directly above the group, then proceeded to continue blasting them each way along the corridor, until the lights were gone, leaving the only intact ones further on.

"Now you fucking maggots, get up, and start moving! Shoot out the lights you come across, and just use your weapons' flashlights to let you see! And ignore the screaming, it's just noise. You lot should be used to screaming, you're supposed to make your enemy do it on a constant basis! Now get moving godammit!"

The entire group, slowly, stood up again, and continued along the corridor, shivering, afraid, and almost deaf from the still present screaming, but at least they were closer to overcoming it.

"Aha. We are here."
"I'm picking up a small meter-sized chunk of what appears to be armor plate twenty degrees to port."
"Ok, get ready to tractor it in."

The two fighters cut their cruise engines as they motor through the eerie, silent hulks.

As the voidmarines went further, they came to realize that the shrieking they had been hearing was not of a single being, as they had thought before. It was as though a multitude of beings were shrieking in response to each other. Or maybe they were simply getting closer to an area where the hull, where the power that still coursed through the ship, was causing more interference to their comm systems than in the other parts of the ship? Maybe it was all simply an illusion?

The lights crackled in the general direction they were headed to, almost as though to give credibility to that assumption. Something was obviously wrong there, natural or no. It was causing the otherwise dim lighting to brighten up a bit, giving the black suited corpses an even more evil look.

The lights in the ceiling were still burning as they had been before.

It was not yet over.

The lights simply reappeared much closer to them. They were only a meter away from them now, and walking ever closer. It was now obvious that they had not been affected by weapons fire.

Now they could well see what those bright green lights had been. They were not simply lights. They were now more distinct. It was as though the lights covered weapons. Melee weapons, to be more precise. Those lights seemed to cover things that looked almost as though they were swords. And as those lights illuminated their users... They saw... Something. Something completely black.

Something that looked like the corpses that littered the floors, but that was not all. The shrieking came from those beings.

The marines stood still, staring, eyes wide open as the things stood there, the shrieking emanating from them, the weapons in their hands glowing brightly with green flame.

One marine, fortunately, had the presence of mind to raise his weapon and open fire, spraying the.....things, with rapid-firing hollow-tip and armour-piercing bullets, and quickly breaking the rest of the men out of their trances. The creatures may have invoked an instinctive level of fear in the men, but the sound of gunfire was all it needed for years of training to kick in, as the enemy suddenly went from viewing the creatures as something to be feared, to something that was simply to be shot, just like any other enemy.

All 30 marines were filling the corridor with fire, Ulrich and Victor had even managed to start firing, although they weren't even aiming, they were simply firing randomly, praying that their bullets would protect them.

Gerfreiter, on the other hand, was standing stock still. He could feel a trickle of urine running down his leg, his entire body refusing to move. He had faced creatures like this before, but only due to drugs. The creatures had been enemy soldiers, attacking his squad, as hallucinogenic drugs wafted through the air, making the enemy seem like monsters, similar to these. The enemy had managed to wipe out his entire squad but him, and he had only survived because his reinforcments had arrived, complete with gas masks.

But now, he realized something. This was real. And there were no reinforcements. They were going to die here, and nothing mattered. Nothing except....life.

The thought surged through Gerfreiter's brain, overriding all those that had seeked to keep him paralyzed. He felt his body move into action, holding up the rifle, sighting along it, blasting away with it's own green blaze, doing what he was trained to do, what he was born to do.

Quite simply, he was kicking ass.

But nothing happened to those they fired upon. The beings were still there. They did not seem concerned of the constant weapons' fire, although they were obviously preparing for combat. One of them shrieked once more. They all placed a shield composed of the same green light before them... And then they ran.

They ran straight through the marines. As though they had not even there. The marines could see them even run further away from them down the corridor they had walked upon. Then they disappeared. Simply disappeared, into the darkness. The corpses around them layed as still as they had for as long as they had been there.

Was it yet another hallucination? Or was it a memory? Something from the collective, dead, subconscious minds of those who had once lived? Did their memories still fill the ship, even so long after their deaths? For what has stopped such a formidable-looking force must have been a frightening adversary.

The marines stood and watched as the creatures disappeared down the corridor, until they were no longer visible.

When the firing finally slacked off, the men glanced at each other. They had all saw the same thing, that they were sure of, but what had they seen? An illusion? A mass hallucination? Some sort of psychological weapon?

There were so many things to consider, and all were given importance, except one, that appeared in the mind of only Gerfreiter.

Were they ghosts?


The men, as per usual, finally moved on, except now, they knew the full extent of their predicament.

They were surrounded by enemies, and although they couldn't hurt the enemies, and vice versa, there was no telling when the enemies would suddenly decide to be slightly more tangible. It was then that the, to use an ancient proverb, the shit would really hit the fan....

The DLE ship returned to the floating derelict they had left, this time with more determination. They had a list of goals now: destroy the aliens on the ship, find any Rinceweed survivors, and recover what technology they can. If they couldn't secure it, they'd at least make sure the ship wasn't a danger again.

This time, everyone boarded the derelict. They had set their ship to overload its engines and explode in three hours, hoping the graviton release would be enough to destroy both ships. If things went badly, they would not be returning.

"You know my orders. Shoot any alien body in the head. Bobs, you are to pick up and carry one of their guns. We'll reverse-engineer the things when we get home. Until then, we are to stay together. Anyone separated from the group is to be considered dead and shot on sight. If you get separated, your orders are to take as many of these bastards out as you can and try to disable the power. Let's move," The captain said.

The group slowly walked forward, Bobs bending over to pick up the gun of the body he shot earlier, and the rest shooting any bodies they saw in the head. They try'd their best to ignore the screaming, their faces turning pale and sweat running as their nerves were obviously being slowly frayed by the horror surrounding them. But this was war, and they were determined to not let any sort of shrieking disrupt their mission.

Instead of letting these hostile things shoot them in the head, the dead began to shriek in anger. As those living creatures tried to shoot them, the dead covered their heads with their left arms, and shields of green light emerged to protect them from the firing. They began to raise up to stand with almost inhuman grace, still with their guns in their hands, bringing them to bear, readying for returning fire.

Green lights emerged further behind them. The shrieking became far more intense than it had been before, far more malignant than it had been before.

All those dark suited corpses close enough to them begun to show signs of revival, although none of them showed any signs of being alive.

A thought came into the minds of the DLE forces as the stench of open graves filled their nostrils, and a chilling wind of sighs flew past them.

YOU HAVE BEEN REJECTED.

OCC: You know how wierd it is to be reading this while listening to Voodoo Child? Very wierd. Creepy, even. Definately fits with the story.

IC:

"Alright, I've got my tractor locked. Retreiving debris sample."

The Sabre class space superiority fighter pulls a piece of debris into its hold with an intense electromagnetic field brought about by the action of an ion gun.

"Debris secured. I'm ready to head back...wait...I'm reading unusual fluctuations in the electromagnetic containment field. I might have a plasma leak on my hands here."
"Just what we need. Ok, shut down your reactor, and we'll take a look at it. Can you make it out of the debris field?"
"Probably not."
"Let's just hope there's nothing to worry about in here.
"Attention command, we might be late in returning. We have reactor problems on our hands."
"Roger that," comes the response from the Bob Marley, after several seconds of delay, even with sub-etha. "We will send over a repair ship immediately."

The powerplant failure in a usually very reliable craft has the Bob Marley's crew concerned. They expected a quick and easy mission, to relieve the boredom of the ship's few pilots. Instead, they fear, it might become much more serious. The cruiser itself has no intention of getting much closer than it already is to the debris field. After all, experience has taught that dead ships are best left alone unless you have a previous engagement. Such is the case with the famous and mythical Karos graveyard, but that's a different story.

The DLE soldiers did what came naturally: They ran. Screaming along with the screams in their heads, their minds clouded with fear, they ran. After what seemed like an eternity, the DLE forces came to a stop, the screams fading away for a moment. Looking around, a new horror washed over them: They were not at the point their ship docked at. They were further inside the derelict.

Then, they saw the army of animated bodies walking towards them. Now knowing their weapons to be useless, each soldier began to pray to whatever deity they favored in their native language of Sarkarasetan. Amazingly, the bodies stopped for a moment, looking at each other. Amazed at this, it was Marja who first spoke up.

"You... youn recognize our language?" Marja asked, continuing to speak in Sarkarasetan.

YES.

"So, you're going to spare us?" Marja asked.

NO.

The DLE soldiers began running again. They were not going to wait around to be slaughtered, no matter what. Known to, but rejected by, all was the fact their blind flight was only carrying them deeper and deeper into the derelict...

OOC: Ermor, I have an idea, but need to run it by you. Check your TGs.

Gerfreiter held up his hand, motioning for the rest of the squad to stop, giving them a brief respite, as they tried to ignore their fears.

In front of the group was a pair of double doors. The bridge.

"Well men, this is it. Time to find out what the hell is going on here!"

The men walked towards the door, ready to face whatever was behind.

They were fleeing ever further into the ship. Panicking they were. Fearing for their lives. Losing their minds. It was a good state of affairs.

For the moment.

There was one thing that had to be taken care of, first. Their ship still remained attached to the derelict, like a parasite, simply waiting there to eliminate its host.

Yes. They knew. How or why, who knows. The only thing that mattered was that they knew of their ploy.

The first sign of true intelligence was that groups of them began to flow into the alien ship itself. To sweep it through, to find whatever they had automated to make the ship destroy itself. To make sure that it would not bring them to their end. To take command over it. To make it their own.

No. This would not be the time their corpses would cease to exist.

But the running men still posed a distinct threat. As such, they had to be dealt with. Obviously tangible murderous intent scares them more than any invasion of their psyche. They knew this. As a direct result, they were being run after by a dozens of them. Did they live or not, it was of no consequence. As long as they survive... Everything is alright.

--

The far too familiar and annoying phrase ACCESS DENIED came upon the access panel of the double doors of the bridge. Some odd, small green flames emerged from the doors themselves as the marines fiddled with the panel. They simply floated there, in the void. Somewhere a flame should not be able to exist. As those... Things appeared, the whispers around them became more audible, more intense, even if they were not exactly... Threatening.

The group of DLE soldiers had stopped running for a moment to catch their breathe. They had seen no sign of the alien bodies for the last five minutes. So far, so good.

Then Harkor looked up and saw one, slowly marching forward, looking as though it knew where they are. Despite their best attempts to escape, the DLE forces could not be rid of the aliens, almost as though they were being tracked by some device. Then Harkor looked at the weapon Bobs was carrying.

"You mejnot! Drop the alien weapon! They're tracking us by it," Harkor said.

Bobs gulped and dropped the weapon, kicking it across the floor towards the incomming aliens. In response, the strange green projectiles started flying towards the DLE soldiers. Bobs had just given away their location.

"Damn it! Marines, lay down covering fire. The rest of us will begin our escape. If we can make it to the engine room, we can take control of the ship there," Harkor said.

"I have a new plan. We get back to our ship, leave this system, and never return. The aliens can do what they want after we're gone," Marja said.

"Negatory. I'll need you in the engine core," Harkor said.

Rather than argue, Marja pulled out her pistol and opened fire on Harkor, sending one bullet straight through her head and two more into her chest. At the same time, she levelled her assault rifle on the others, Marja's face revealing her seriousness. She was not going to die because of one person's stupidity.

"Your choice. Go with me, or complete your damned mission. Either way, you'll probably die long before you get off this ship," Marja said.

Marja was not surprised when the others chose to leave her there. She watched for a moment as they headed down the corrider. She knew they were dead men, but couldn't bring herself to care.

"Hey, aliens, I'll make you a deal. I leave this ship alive and none of my people will ever bother you again. The rest are yours to kill no matter your decision," Marja yelled at the incomming bodies, sliding her weapons towards them.

Marja then stepped around the corner, her hands up to indicate her willingness to come along. For an answer she got three of their strange green shots to the chest, her body knocked back with each impact. As she laid dying, she felt silently glad they had set the self-destruct.

Meanwhile, onboard the Taraman, the animated invaders had easily found the controls to deactivate the self-destruct. A simple pull on two wires permanently disabled the system. The phrase on the computer would become the epitaph of those who arrived on the ship.

"Computer error: Unable to innitiate self-destruct. Please check the engine core," the computer's screen repeated.

Gerfreiter swore, his face lit up by the strange green fire.

First the run in with the intangible living corpses, then the door had refused to open, and now....and now....the voices.

Gerfreiter had had enough.

"That's it. Move out of the way men."

Gerfreiter walked over to the door, ignoring the green flames, and attached a flat slab, made of small boxes, to the door, and walked away, the rest of the team recognising what they were facing and running after him.

Once he had walked a sufficient distance, he simply pulled out a tiny remote control with an antenna and a single button, and pressed said button, with as much drama as is possible with the pressing of a button.

At the door, a tiny red light, nestled between the boxes, blinked on for a few seconds, before it's life was suddenly ended as the slab of explosives went up in a blast of heat, shrapnel, and even minute amounts of radiation.

There, thought Gerfreiter, Now we can find out what's going on. That bridge must be the answer to this. If we're gonna stop these things, the way must be in the bridge! If it isn't.....

Gerfreiter allowed the unpleasant thought to trickle away....

The alien ship had been secured. The self-destruction mechanism had been found, although its... Reaction... It was not quite the one expected. One of them laughed as it saw the screen. It was a cold laugh. Evil and twisted. To think that they had thought this parasite was actually a threat. Then it shrieked, and they began to flow back into the derelict and resuming their slumber. Only a few of them stayed on board of the malfunctioning alien ship, feeling... Pain.

The one who laughed was different when compared to the others. Its suit was different, a full, black power armor, and it wore a red, tattered cape on its back.

Those of them who still were alive were attempting to find... A room... A room they thought to be of some importance. That would be granted to them. Yes, they would shepherd the remnants to the location they so desperately sought.

--

They were only granted a few moments of silence, as the debris landed onto the floor. It was then that a terrible wind of sighs came forth from the now open doorway, accompanied with the stench of rotting corpses. And as one looked into the doorway, he would see a terrible wall of spikes standing in front of him, spikes burning with a green, unholy light.

The lights up ahead were flickering, providing just enough light to see by. The voidmarines walked on, casting eerie shadows on the walls of the corridor. The ever-present black-clad corpses sat along the walls, like ancient sentinels. And of course, the shrieking continued, although they were doing their best to ignore it.

"Sir?"
"What?"
"The dead things are creeping me out. I'm sure I saw one move just now."
"It's just your imagination. Don't be such a damn coward."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea to shoot them a few times, just to make sure?"
"WHAT? Once we find whatever is making those noises, you'll probably be glad of the ammo which you won't use on the dead things."

They rounded the corner. A door stood there, blocking their entry. It seemed to be locked.

"Trooper Jones?"
"Yes Sir?"
"Open the door."

Jones took two paces back, and the rest of the squad stood behind him. He braced the pulsecannon against his shoulder, took aim, and then fired. The energy beam shot forwards in a bright spear of blue light. There was a crash and a burst of light as the door simply vaporised, kicking up dust and smoke.

"Once the smoke clears, move through."
"Yes Sir!"

Gerfreiter stared in disbelief at the spikes now blocking the doorway, before finally looking around at his men.

"Well men, this is it. Who wants to see what those things are made of? Anyone? How about you Ulrich?"

Ulrich's eyes widened at roughly the same speed as the colour drained from his face, and he slowly looked round at the captain, a slight twitch in his right eye.

"Sir.....did you just....ask me....to touch....those spikes? The glowing...green....spikes?"

"Of course! Now, get to it!"

Ulrich turned slowly towards the spikes, his mind taking a holiday for the moment, as he moved forward, his gun outstretched towards the spikes, ready to try and see if they were as dangerous as they looked....

Unknown Space

"This is Mim to all offship forces, you are to return to your pods immediately and get back on the Poeta." Blaired a comm in every soldier's head.

Tim immediately responding from one of the derelicts. "Captain, what is the meaning of this?"

"Tim, did you see any corpses on your way in?"

"Yes, Sir. But..."

"Tim I need you to get every man you have and get to your pods as fast as possible. I'll explain the rest to you on the way."

As Tim ordered the few soldiers he had with him to begin withdrawling from the prison-like room, he requested more information on the situation.

"As you know, there are at least two other species in the immediate area, maybe even four. The other two derelicts have already been boarded."

"So? What does that have to do with us?"

"We've been intercepting strange comms reporting that bodies suddenly came to life and began to slaughter boarding parties."

"Can you confirm those comms?"

"No but we also tracked one of their ships being fired upon by a derelict. Their return fire sent it spinning. We are contacting Prime and asking for veteran assault teams."

"Ohh my god......" Said Tim right before his comm lost transmission. Weapons fire could be heard immediately before.

As the smoke began to clear, somehow, they saw it. Finally, they saw it. They had found the source of the shrieking. Green lights, amidst the smoke. something was coming closer to them, but rather slowly. As though that something was assessing their numbers, or something of the like. Yes, the door was no more, but maybe its existence had been for the better. Maybe it held true darkness away from them?

--

As Ulrich touched the spikes, his entire being was engulfed by the green flames, but it did not burn him. Then, the flames dissipated, and he disappeared in a black flash of light.

For a short while, there was silence. Complete and utter silence. And then... He just suddenly reappeared, exactly in the same place he had been before.

(OOC: Check your TGs.)

--

There was only one being shooting at them, one quite unlike the ones they had seen before. A being in a black power armor it was, wearing a red, tattered cape, wielding a rather massive projectile weapon, even when compared to the weaponry on the corpses. It was large enough to even work as a some kind of a shield.

"For the Empire!", it cried out on the comms with a dark and twisted voice, as it continued to fire at them.

The DLE soldiers paused. Something wasn't right. This ship was full of bodies, and yet the only aliens they saw now were behind them. And where were the people from Rinceweed?

They stopped and looked around, pausing to rest again. The aliens were hot on their heals while they were moving fast, yet slow to catch up when they stopped. They were being herded towards their goal.

"This is a trap, and we made it. We shouldn't have returned," Bobs said.

Ulrich turned to face the rest of the squad, all of whom were currently staring wide-eyed at him, guns levelled at both him and the spikes.

"Jesus christ", said Victor, "What happened mate? You alright!?"

"I....i'm fine....", said Ulrich, hesitantly, before looking directly at Gerfreiter.

"Sir, something happened there. When I touched that.....it was like a rush of information. It told me about the aliens....how to beat them! Sir, we each have to use those spikes. They're the key to beating the creatures!"

Gerfreiter turned to the rest of the squad, all of whom were smiling, and a few were starting to cheer.

He turned back to Ulrich, a smile on his face.

"Good job Ulrich, you may just have saved our hides. Well, me first. Captains get to choose who goes first thanks to these.", said Gerfreiter, pointing to the stripes on his suit.

One by one, the entire party touched the spikes, each disappearing in the green flames in a black flash that seemed to be trying to suck you in, before finally everyone had touched the spikes.

Of course, now each man had a slight mark in his eyes.....a little dot of darkness, right in the middle of his pupil. It could be said to be a different shade of black, darker than normal black.

And, strangely enough....it had a minute green ring around it....like flame....

There was a lull in the "action" as they people rested. They could hear shrieking from a short distance, but it was not coming any closer. It was as though they waited for something. Something to happen, perhaps? Or maybe they simply waited for them to continue on the only path they could walk on without getting shot at and killed instantaniously.

But then, even if for a brief moment, the shrieks became erratic. They could see lights in the distance, almost as though it was weapons' fire. Almost as though someone else was coming for them. Coming to help them, perhaps? Or to destroy them? Who knows, but at least they were different when compared to what they referred to as "the aliens".

And they were coming closer.

(OOC: This post's main intent was to put the group Rinceweed is in control of in contact with the group DemonLordEnigma is in control of. I hope that is satisfactory.)

[OOC]: Thanks Ermor. Now to just wait for DLE to post.....

There was something beyond the vaporised door, seeming formless in all the smoke. It moved towards them slowly, assessing their strength maybe, or simply approaching peacefully. It wasn't clear what the shape was. It could be some kind of alien fiend, or a soldier from another people, or even a survivor from the ship. The leader motioned his men to target it, then made the entire unit back off. Gun barrels stared accusingly at the dark shape, and there was a rising whine as guns were charged to deliver a more powerful blast. Jones raised his pulsecannon, aiming squarely at the target's head.

The leader stepped forwards, his pistols in their holsters, but with the safeties off and his hands around the grips.
"Put your hands in the air, drop any weapons you are carrying, and step out where we can see you. One move out of place and we fire."

Totally unaware of what is going on inside the derelicts not too far away, the two fighters pull in close to a smallish derelict and try to figure what went wrong with the sabre's powerplant.

Ray Thunderbird floats over to the Sabre, dead in space several meters away. It's pilot, Roger Plant, peers into the opened engine compartment. Sparks of electricity are visible as Plant tries to fuse patches onto the holes in the containment vessel, apparently caused by sudden failure of the electromagnets.

"What's the problem?"
"All the plasma's leaked out. There's a big hole right out of the hull."
"Damn. Well, here's what we'll do. We'll siphon some from my engine."
"Hey, mabye those derelicts have some usable plasma in them."
"Doubt it. They've definately leaked it all ou..."

Before he can finish, Plant enters a damaged and open section of a large and near derelict. Ray hesitates to follow. Finding a porthole, he scrapes away ages of filth and looks inside.

"What are those lumps on the floor?" he asks. Corpses. Ray pushes himself away from the tiny window, screaming into his mike. But Plant is out of radio coverage, inside the derelict. Ray finally summons the constitution to enter the Derelict, following Plant.

The soldiers stood, staring, and feeling numb. This was never going to end and they were all going to die. And they knew it.

Bobs began mumbling gibberish to himself before he began to walk forward, firing his gun and screaming without a sign of intelligence behind it. The others, thinking Bobs to be beyond saving, stood up and began to run again. They just had to get to that one room...

OOC: Was working. Sorry for the delay.

A shriek.

Green mussleflashes.

Dozens, possibly hundreds of projectiles flew towards those who had broken down the door, the only thing that had kept them out of an open battle. And now it was all too late to turn back, to return to status quo.

They had opened the flood gates.

--

It is never a good idea to wander into a place you do not know alone. Even if it makes the life of others... Easier.

When one is alone, there is no need for subtlety.

The dim green lights above Plant exploded into their full glory, engulfing a rather large area of the corridor around him.

But instead of being burnt by them, he found himself in a different place altogether. It was dark... And cold. Or maybe he just could not open his eyes? He could not move. Not because of physical restraints, but of mental ones, perhaps? Whispers came from all around him.

One of them suddenly became louder than the others.

"What do you what?"

Out of the darkness erupted green projectiles, striking the lead marines, slaying them where they stood. The leader was somehow unhit, diving backwards as soon as the shooting started. The voidmarines returned fire, matter accelerators firing at full charge, then blazing away on automatic. The familiar throaty pneumatic-drill roar of Lina's autoblaster was deafening in the enclosed space. The marines beat a fighting retreat, tossing grenades and falling back around the corner, where they regrouped, leaving their dead. Seven dead voidmarines lay there, eyes rolled back, faces surprised.

What had attacked them? Who knew? What nightmare was around that corner, that had cut down their battle comrades? The leader activated his comm line to command back on the Moonshadow.
"This is Insertion Leader. We are under heavy attack and require assistance. Seven fatalities. We are falling back. Over."

********************************************************

The bridge of the Moonshadow exploded into activity as the message came through, oddly distorted.
"Insertion Team, hang in there. Help is on the way."
"Landing deck crew, get the Arachnids (ooc: a sort of remote controlled combat robot, not as effective as a human but far more expendable) loaded up onto a shuttle, then give them hell. Arachnid operators, control gloves and helmets on."

********************************************************

The shuttle moved towards the derelict, aiming as close to the marines as possible. It opened up and eight scuttling robots disgorged from the front, before disappearing into the depths of the ship.

As the Rinceweedian forces turned another corner, shouting could be heard, along with more gunfire. But this was shouting, not shrieking, and the gunfire was a conventional weapon now, rather than the green flames of the corpses.

A single man ran round the corner, screaming, his gun firing blindly, only for all 30 marines to blow him apart from sheer quantity of bullets before a single shot could hit them.

The squad continued forward again, ignoring the still-cooling remains of the corpse, as it joined the rest of the corpses on the floor.

As they went, they could hear running in the distance, causing Gerfreiter to quickly shout out to the noise.

"Hello! This is the Captain of the Rinceweedian military transport Krazy Lady! Who is there?!"

The DLE soldiers stopped. That last telepathic message... It almost sounded human. Almost.

"You know who we are, monsters! Stop playing with us and come out. We figured out your trap. We won't run this time," Tort yelled down the hallway.

"Sir, that voice... It didn't sound like them," Tobias said.

"It's just a telepathic trick. They're trying to fool us," Tort said.

"Fool us? We're running scared and they could kill us at any time. I doubt they need to fool us," Tobias said, his voice raised.

"It doesn't matter," Tort said.

"Oh? And what are your orders, then?" Tobias asked.

"Try to get off the ship alive and leave. Nothing on here is worth what we have just gone through. They can keep the damn ship, keep their damn existence, and keep their damn hands off us. If we ever get back home, none of this happened and the others died from some freak engine accident. No point in having honor if you're dead," Tort said.

"If we live long enough to worry about it," Tobias added.

OOC: Basically, they're broken, beaten, and giving up. They see the trap, realize the cruelty of those around them, know they can't win, and have decided to accept their fate and give up on seeing home. In other words, a resolution is soon for them, be it death or survival (death is more likely).

"Listen to me! We're from Rinceweed! Are you from DLE? If so, we signalled you before our ship exploded! We need to work together if we're going to get out of here! Come to us, and follow us! We've found how to beat these things!"

Gerfreiter frowned, and thought angrily.

Godammit, why won't they listen!

A shriek.

Green mussleflashes.

Dozens, possibly hundreds of projectiles flew towards those who had broken down the door, the only thing that had kept them out of an open battle. And now it was all too late to turn back, to return to status quo.

They had opened the flood gates.

--

It is never a good idea to wander into a place you do not know alone. Even if it makes the life of others... Easier.

When one is alone, there is no need for subtlety.

The dim green lights above Plant exploded into their full glory, engulfing a rather large area of the corridor around him.

But instead of being burnt by them, he found himself in a different place altogether. It was dark... And cold. Or maybe he just could not open his eyes? He could not move. Not because of physical restraints, but of mental ones, perhaps? Whispers came from all around him.

One of them suddenly became louder than the others.

"What do you what?"

If he were another person, Roger Plant might be scared to death. But thanks to his basic RGF training, which covers encounters of such a type very thoroughly, he knows, more or less, how to act.

And rule number one is; don't resist.

"My ship's...eh...powerplant failed. I was...er...sort of...looking for some plasma to siphon into my engine. I thought it was likely that this vessel ran on fusion. You are an...ancient...race, right?"

Meanwhile, back aboard the Bob Marley the crew is upset at the fact that it lost the fighters.

"They must be hidden from our sensors from a derelict."
"Move us to the side. We might be able to pick them up."

The cruiser and its escort destroyers begin to move to the side, hoping to catch sight of the missing fighters.

Several of them were damaged by the grenades. Damaged, but not exterminated. Such was the idea of grenades men now used: Disable, and possibly kill those who are still alive. But how does one kill those who are not alive with such tactics?

One does not.

The shrieks became more aggressive, more intense. And more numerous. Now not only did they come from the direction they had fled from, but also from their behind.

They were everywhere.

They could hear chanting in their minds, chanting that came from the general direction of their fallen comrades, whom they did not see anymore. It only continued for a fleeting moment until it suddenly stopped. A thought of relief might have entered their minds at that moment.

But that was not the worst thing that was to happen. New shrieks accompanied those they had heard before. Ones sounding oddly familiar to them. It was as though their comrades had risen... To fight their old friends.

Fear the enemy that can turn your own against you.

As the shuttle breached the hull, and those robotic creatures came out from them, their presence would change nothing. Nothing at all. They would still pay for their insolence.

Unless you count one thing.

Quick they were in their moves, quick and decisive. The shades, the shadows... They filled the now empty shuttle, and those corpses that had still waited there... Entered it as well.

They were to return the favor. Force the shuttle back into its source, and kill the cancer that opposed them.

--

"Ancient race?"

The voice laughed coldly.

"Yes. We are ancient. But we are of many races, many species."

Whispers filled his mind again, as the voice went silent for a while.

"You seek plasma...? From this ship?"

It was as though the whole room laughed at him.

"There is no such thing here. You do not even know what this ship... Runs on, as you said it. "

Once more, the whispers became stronger, just to subside as the voice spoke again.

"And you do not want to know what this ship runs on. This information would be... Far too damaging for your psyche."

"They're all around us, Sir. We're screwed!"

The derelict was their nightmares manifested, and now it would be their tomb. Sealed away, drifting, joining the black-clad corpses on the floor. The grenades hadn't killed the relentless beasts, but now the dead marines were rising again to slay their living comrades.

"Use more grenades."
"What? They don't work."
"Use them to blow a hole in the wall and open up this ship to the vacuum. We're suited up, so we'll survive. I don't think they are, so they'll die."

Grenades went off in the tunnel, blowing a hole in the side of the derelict. The marines were sucked out of the side, using their thrusters to manoeuvre towards the Moonshadow.

********************************************************
TVFS Moonshadow-Bridge

"Captain. The robot shuttle is coming back."
"What? The robots got off. There's no-one on board."
"Well, obviously someone is. Should we let it dock?"
"No. The marines would have called if they were coming back. Call them to make sure they aren't"
"We don't need to. They're out there. They blasted their way out."
"What? They must have been in real trouble out there."
"What about the shuttle?"
"Kill it."

********************************************************
The pulsecannon turret swung around, bringing the heavy weapon to bear on the shuttle. The gunner gritted his teeth, and pulled the trigger. Flashes erupted from the muzzle, and energy pulses shot out, obliterating the shuttle.

Had they forgotten? Something seemed to laugh in their minds, something that was onboard the ship. Yes, they had lost some of their own, but it did not matter, it was acceptable. Some had lost limbs, but it did not matter either. Theywere still... Operable.

Now they had no place to hide. Nothing was in the way of the projectiles. Nothing. They were easier targets now than they had been inside the ship itself. Quickly, they simply walked up to the hole and began firing through it. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of rounds were shot after them. If they could survive now... It would be a miracle.

The robots were of no help. They had been swarmed completely. There were so many of them that with such small numbers not even the most reinforced robot could survive the onslaught.

Although the shuttle that had acted like a cocoon for the several black suited ones and for the shadowy creatures was utterly destroyed, some of them still had survived the explosion, and were still on a course to the ship.

The remaining marines were slaughtered, struck again and again by the green projectiles. They had known by then that they didn't stand a chance, they just wanted to take some with them. The leader floated in space, a look of fear and determination across his face, and his suit and flesh punctured in so many places.

The robots were being overwhelmed, but they were giving a good fight. Energybolts filled the corridor, and rockets shot from their launchers. The lead Arachnid ignited its flamethrower, attempting to immolate the assailants.

On the bridge of the Moonshadow, the crew looked on in horror as the enemies slew the remaining marines.
"Gunnery section, I want light weapons to fire on where the marines came out. Butcher whatever is attacking them."
"Yes Sir."
"Sir, we are picking up something where the shuttle was, heading our way."
"Shoot that as well."

The Taldaani guns opened up in a dazzling display of high-energy pyrotechnics. Beams of energy criss-croosed the hull around the marines' exit point. Hopefully, whatever was there would be killed at last.

They did not care. They sliced into the robots, to destroy them, to remove them from this plane of existence. How many of them fell? They did not care. The only thing they noticed was that their enemy ceased to resist. They had been disabled.

It became obvious that the hostile living were about to fire at the breach in the hull, created by their own, now dead, comrades. Too many were packed into the corridor. Losing some in battle was acceptable. Losing many for no reason was not. But there always were ways to avoid such losses.

Yes. There were ways.

The ship's engines came to life. Partially, anyway. The ship simply turned to the side a little bit. The beams, as a result, did not hit the hole itself, but the armor around it. Whilst this was happening, they had begun to move away from the hole itself, to make sure that, if they attempted to fire upon it again, it would not destroy too many of them.

The ones in space were not quite as lucky. They were simply vaporized.

"Rinceweed? Oh thank the gods! We thought you were these creatures!" Tobias yelled back.

"Are you nuts? It might be those creatures!" Tort said.

"So what? We're dead anyway," Tobias said, clicking the safety on for his weapon.

The men walked forward again, stopping as they reached the DLE group.

Gerfreiter stood forward from the rest of the men, his face emotionless, merely acknowledging the presence of the DLE men.

"Listen up. You need to follow us. We've found a way of beating these things. Follow us, and we'll take you to what we've found. Basically, we're turning their own stuff against them."

The DLE soldiers followed, quietly, their weapons held at a nonthreatening angle. They were quite surprised at the lack of bodies they saw on the way, almost as though the aliens accepted this. Or, almost as though they were crazy.

"I don't like this," Tort said.

"Neither do I, but what choice do we have?" Tobias asked.

They arrived at the spikes and paused, almost unsure, before walking up and touching them. They did not know what would happen, and at this point didn't care. As long as it ended.

Gerfreiter watched as the DLE men were engulfed in green flame, disappeared, then reappeared again, still intact.

"Excellent. Now we may continue our duties."

Gerfreiter smiled a smile that was certainly lacking kindness.....instead, it had.....emptiness....

[OOC]: DLE, check yet Telegrams.

Several of them were damaged by the grenades. Damaged, but not exterminated. Such was the idea of grenades men now used: Disable, and possibly kill those who are still alive. But how does one kill those who are not alive with such tactics?

One does not.

The shrieks became more aggressive, more intense. And more numerous. Now not only did they come from the direction they had fled from, but also from their behind.

They were everywhere.

They could hear chanting in their minds, chanting that came from the general direction of their fallen comrades, whom they did not see anymore. It only continued for a fleeting moment until it suddenly stopped. A thought of relief might have entered their minds at that moment.

But that was not the worst thing that was to happen. New shrieks accompanied those they had heard before. Ones sounding oddly familiar to them. It was as though their comrades had risen... To fight their old friends.

Fear the enemy that can turn your own against you.

As the shuttle breached the hull, and those robotic creatures came out from them, their presence would change nothing. Nothing at all. They would still pay for their insolence.

Unless you count one thing.

Quick they were in their moves, quick and decisive. The shades, the shadows... They filled the now empty shuttle, and those corpses that had still waited there... Entered it as well.

They were to return the favor. Force the shuttle back into its source, and kill the cancer that opposed them.

--

"Ancient race?"

The voice laughed coldly.

"Yes. We are ancient. But we are of many races, many species."

Whispers filled his mind again, as the voice went silent for a while.

"You seek plasma...? From this ship?"

It was as though the whole room laughed at him.

"There is no such thing here. You do not even know what this ship... Runs on, as you said it. "

Once more, the whispers became stronger, just to subside as the voice spoke again.

"And you do not want to know what this ship runs on. This information would be... Far too damaging for your psyche."

Now Plant is worried. What could the ship use that was deemed too damaging to his brain? Babies? Billy Joel?

"Er...so...eh...who are you? Could you...perhaps...eh...tell me about yourselves?"

Meanwhile, on the Marley, the crew is quite upset over the fact that the fighters cannot be located.

"Where could they be?"
"Still detecting anomalous energy signatures inside the field. Perhaps there are other ships inside."
"We can't go in...its far too risky. We don't know what could possibly be in there!"
"We haven't picked up distress beacons yet. It must mean they're still alive."
"Wait...when I bring the sensors to full spectral scan, the field appears to be active. Don't know what with, that's the funny part."
"This might be a major discovery."

The Bob Marley eagerly measures and records all sources of data from its surroundings, especially the graveyard, in hopes of figuring out a solution and discovering more about the galaxy in general. The information is transmitted via the sub-etha net to the LRR archives on the LRR homeworlds, big moon-sized stations hidden away on the galactic rim.

"Hmmh. It seems your friends are becoming overly inquisitive. Let us feed false data to them..."

The whispers were all that remained. For Plant, it might have seemed like an eternity. In truth, it simply took several minutes.

Then the voice returned.

"Done. Now they will think that there's nothing ... Wrong there. That it is, as you seem to think, a normal ship."

It seemed as though the voice then whispered to someone else in the room.

"So, you wish to know... More, of us? Your life is already forfeit. You will find out... Soon enough. Choose your questions more wisely. Or do you want to lose your mind?"

The last of the robots exploded violently. The cntroller disconnected, shaking his head.
"We lost the last one, Sir."
"Damn. Contact the other ships, this place is way too dangerous."

********************************************************

A message was sent to the other ships.

This is the TVFS Moonshadow. The derelicts are incredibly dangerous. We recommend immediate evacuation of all forces from the derelicts, and consequent destruction of them.

The DLE forces, smiling and seeming to glow for a moment with energy, turned towards the Rinceweed people. They paused for a moment, adjusting to their new existance, and then smiled. They had a job to do.

"If we do this right, we can easily capture any remaining hostiles," Tobias said.

"I advise using illusions. Convince them the ship is about to explode and the explosion will wipe out too big of a space for their ship to escape. We can use the same on any hostile ships. Then, we find the hostiles and convince them this controls the self-destruct mechanism. They will have to touch it to make the computer and 'aliens' recognize them and stop the explosion. Tell them the 'aliens' are willing to trade technology to people they think are peaceful," Tort said.

"It sounds like a good plan. Do you agree?" Tobias asked of the Rinceweed members and other entities.

Gerfreiter smiled, the fire in his eyes flaring for a fraction of a second.

"Excellent. We shall do it at once. Now, for our masters!"

Gerfreiter ran down the hallway, his men in tow, the sounds of their feet echoing throughout the ship.

"Hmmh. It seems your friends are becoming overly inquisitive. Let us feed false data to them..."

The whispers were all that remained. For Plant, it might have seemed like an eternity. In truth, it simply took several minutes.

Then the voice returned.

"Done. Now they will think that there's nothing ... Wrong there. That it is, as you seem to think, a normal ship."

It seemed as though the voice then whispered to someone else in the room.

"So, you wish to know... More, of us? Your life is already forfeit. You will find out... Soon enough. Choose your questions more wisely. Or do you want to lose your mind?"

"Eh, I'd rather not. So...do you have anything you wish to know about me?"

Plant begins to get more scared. After all, a brain is not something to lose and think little of it.

"There is nothing we need to learn of you we do not already know. We know where you are from. We know your past. We know your present. We know your future. But let me ask this of you: Is there something you wish to do before you die? You have a rare opportunity now. Choose wisely. I will leave you to think in peace."

Then... The voice seemed to be engulfed by the continuing whispers, as though they were all there was in the first place.

"Mabye...could you tell me who you are?"

Just then, Ray floats into the derelict, looking for Plant.

"Oh. So you wish to know who I am? An odd request, but it shall be granted."

The whispers ended, and he could see now. An eerie, dim green glow filled the room.

He could see something... Hanging in the air. Something that was there... But was not there. It looked almost like a human... A dead human, clad in a tattered robe. Purple one, if he could see it.

"Yes... This is what I am, now. But in times past... I was a man, not much unlike yourself. I wielded great power... Magical power... Which I still do, but a thousand fold. I do not remember much of those times... All I remember is that I was alive, once. Those times were... How long ago were they? ... Several millennia ago. Before the times of the Fall. Ever since I have served the Empire. As you will, soon enough. The others call me a 'Dusk Elder'."

The light died out once more, and the whispers continued.

"It seems your friend has entered the ship now... It is too bad for him that he will never find you... Not in a state he would want to find you, anyway."

"Ah...eh...any particular reason why you are going to do what you are going to do to me?" asks Plant as he watches the hazy figure several meters away.

"Rob! Rob! Are you in here?" calls Ray.

"Yes. We cannot co-exist. That is one of the simplest facts of life... And unlife. It is an impossibility. The dead cannot rest as long as the living... Live on. On the same plane of existence. A plane of existence can only be for the dead or for the living. There is nothing in between. And... There are always more dead than living..."

The whispers suddenly ended, and the room became ever so colder. Even through his suit he would feel the cold.

"It is time..."

Plant would now feel...

The effects of rapid aging.

"You shall soon perish... And become one of us."

(OOC: So, art thee people going to continue here, or shall I just finish this now? Which ever happens does not matter to me, ultimately.)

(OOC: So, art thee people going to continue here, or shall I just finish this now? Which ever happens does not matter to me, ultimately.)

OOC: Sorry. This keeps falling too far behind.

(OOC: Well, I'd still want to wrap this one up as opposed to letting it die. So, what's it gonna be?)