NationStates Jolt Archive

The tropical world of K'Pec had forever floated through space. Aimless, harmless, peaceful, it innocently continued on its never-ending course around the star, pausing for no-one. People had come and gone, lifeforms had risen to dominance and become extinct, tectonic plates had shifted the very appearance of the world, but it continued valiantly on through space unfazed. One half of the world suffered from perpetual darkness, whilst the other suffered from perpetual heat. Vast rainforests had grown in the humid conditions, reaching high into the sky. Many lifeforms existed on the world in peace, possibly even sentient colonists.

A new lifeform was now destined to call this world home. And they would be far from peaceful.

Above the warm, humid atmosphere of K'Pec, in the dark, cold emptiness of space, a ship allowed itself to be seen. It started off transparent, but slowly changed to opaque, and then, finally it was solid. The vessel was quite large, brown in colour and very strange shaped, not symmetrical and apparently very ceremonial in design. It was certainly sleek, possibly capable of atmospheric flight. It looked to be capable of combat, that much was certain.

From the sides of the peculiar vessel, numerous pods suddenly blasted away, hurtling towards the planet. These pods bore the seeds of both life and death at the same time; living death, in a sense. Eggs. Hard Meat eggs. They burned through the atmosphere as streaking red fireballs, all aimed for a specific area – the border between the light world, and the dark world. The only part of the planet that was cool enough to be habited by most sentient life forms.

Once the pods were away, the alien space ship once again vanished from view completely. It was as though nothing was there.

The pods plunged into the surface, and allowed their payloads to escape.

The Hunt was drawing near.

OCC: Is this open?

OCC: Is this open?

OOC: Provided you don't come in all guns blazing, magically find the ship and destroy it right before bombarding the entire planet until the surface is little more than molten slag, sure :p. I was thinking the best way would be to either already have a colony on the planet, or be looking to put one there. Maybe some kind of multi-nation peace attempt akin to the one at the beginning of ST5 or something. But, whatever you think will work.

Oh, BTW, I'm off now, so I'll reply tomorrow. Give the babies some time to grow, at least :D.

OCC: All right, how's this?

Captain Volshner was unimpressed with his ship's situation: life support was online on the bridge only, the only people left alive were Volshner, Ensign Yuganev, General Holland (the only OPM officer left aside from the captain) and a handful of civilians that made it to the bridge through the air ducts. The Moriethian terrorists hit them hard, with bombs planted everywhere on the ship. And now they were drifting toward an unexplored planet...

Yes, things were not looking good at all.

OOC: Yeah, that's pretty ideal. I'll post an IC post tomorrow!

Renegades' Retreat, K'Pec

Renegades' Retreat was a small, unassuming base on the light side of K'Pec. It consisted of a few heat-resistant domes, tucked away neatly under the leafy canopy. Away to one end was a small landing pad, scarred by the fiery comings and goings of skiffs and freighters. It was small, but it served its duty as a depot for the Blue Storm admirably. It was manned by a skeleton crew, plus any space pirates who had moored their ships there. The landing pad was currently half full, the boxy shape of a medium freighter dominating the flattened space, with a pair of skiffs sitting next to it. Unlike many pirate bases, Renegades' Retreat was fairly safe. The sheer heat of the jungle afforded them a lot of protection: without a good hazard suit, a human would be dead very quickly. Of course, it also meant that a rescue would be difficult if anything went wrong...


Ricard cracked open another drink with his teeth and sat down at the table.

"Jeez, I thought you said that this place was heat-shielded. It feels like a ****ing plasma furnace in here! "
He had just flown in from God-Knows-Where, another, larger depot a few systems away. The man sitting opposite him chuckled.
"Don't worry, you'll get used to it. You'll have to: that power conduit is completely fried. You're going to be at the Retreat for about a week."
"A week? You aren't serious, are you?"
"Damn right. And don't drink all our ****ing alchohol, we've got to wait another month for the next supply freighter."
"But its so hot out here..."
"Well, you'll just have to find some way to distract yourself."

There were footsteps behind them, and then a scrape as another man pulled up a chair.
"Hey, Jim. Busy scaring the flyboy?"
They all laughed at that.
"But hey, did you see those burning things coming down last night? Trails of fire."
"Probably just space wreckage."

And with that, they finished their drinks and walked away to their posts.

The small pods were half-buried in the soggy soil, sheltered under the cooling shadows of the tree canopies. Smoke poured from their discharged thruster ports, steam billowed from the heated soil, and strange squeaking noises could be heard from inside them. The aft sections of all of the pods had blown clear, apparently designed to blast clear once an impact was registered. What kind of metal these pods were made of would not be easy to tell, but it appeared to have sustained no damage from the impact.

Though, a casual observer would be thinking less about the construction of the pods, and more about what was scrambling out of them. Small, light brown, spindly-legged creatures with very long tails used the tips of their finger-like legs to pull themselves up out of the pods and flop down to the ground. Like a cross between a snake, a spider and a human hand, and very fast. The creatures scurried off into the forest, in search of hosts. They left behind dozens of eggs, all empty save one. One egg remained closed, its occupant apparently dead or seriously ill.



Yeyinde watched with pride as the seven Young Bloods honourably fought Jehdin/Jehdin against each other. Each bore the clan mark on their forehead, burned in with the blood of the Hard Meat, and each fought with the same skill that had made their clan legendary. A few Unblooded Yautja were under the instruction of Bakuub across the other side of the large hall, fighting with less skill but just as much spirit. There weren't many Unblooded left of this latest generation; most had already proven themselves in training hunts on other worlds.

They would not be coming, though. They had been held back from the other training hunts because they were not yet ready, and this still held true. As much as it drove them to anger, they simply were not yet skilled enough to even think of posing a challenge to just one of the Kainde Amedha, let alone an entire hive of them.

This would be a hunt of pure sport, no training. More Hard Meat eggs than usual had been sent down to the world below, and they would be giving them ample time to 'exploit' the local ecosystem. Of course, Hard Meat were known to completely destroy an entire planet's ecosystem over time, so they could not be left there for long. They would need to be cleansed.

Yeyinde roared across the Kehrite; "PREPARE FOR THE HUNT! Collect your Awu'asa!"

The Young Bloods looked over at Yeyinde and clicked in anticipation. They cut their fights short and jogged off into one of many corridors, towards the central equipment room. There, they would collect their shift suits, their masks, and their burners, as they prepared for the hunt. Two of the Warrior caste followed them, as they would be joining Yeyinde and the Young Bloods in the hunt. They had heard of a vicious type of native carnivore which they wanted to hunt 'on the side'. The creatures were rumoured to be similar to the largest carnivorous dinosaurs of Earth, which their honoured ancestors used to take such pride in stalking all those generations ago.

Yeyinde passed by the Unblooded Yautja, who immediately stopped their training and bowed their heads in submission as he approached. He made approving clicks and continued on down the corridor, joining his eager clan mates in the equipment room.

Yeyinde wore his awu'asa; the full body kit. His mask was battered and scratched, scarred with damage from a century and a half of hunts. It still glistened though, and his mark was still etched clearly into it. The shoulder cannon sat idle, slooped back into a stand-by position to prevent malfunctions from killing people. Another weapon, a hand-held burner, sat in a holster of sorts on the side of his upper leg. It looked like a pistol, though its size would make it more of a rifle to a smaller creature such as an ooman.

He was tired of waiting. The ship had to make sure, with her sensors, that the hunt was ready to begin before they could depart. Hunting the embryo carriers, or even the young kiande amedha, was neither entertaining nor honourable. In fact, it was against the rules of the hunt to kill either, unless directly threatened by them. They were little more than a minor annoyance, after all, but what they grew into was mighty prey indeed.

Not so mighty as the magnificent beast which Yeyinde gazed upon now, though. In all his travels, across all the galaxy and beyond, he had never encountered as formidable a prey as the Queen of all the Hard Meat. Her massive head, her huge, lethal jaws, her claws that put his wrist blades to shame. To look upon her was to look upon something as wondrous as the Black Warrior himself. A Hard Meat Queen was, indisputably, the ultimate killing machine.

This Queen especially. She had been located on a devastated world, apparently placed there as a weapon by some long-extinct civilisation. How old she was, no-one could say, but her size was abnormally large even for a Queen. It had taken no less than fourteen of the clan's best warriors, as well as a further ten Young Bloods, to capture her, and another twenty Yautja of assorted skill levels to actually bring her to the ship. All the while, of course, millions of her children rallied to protect her. It had been the most dangerous hunt Yiyende had ever been on, but oh how rewarding it was. For almost sixty warriors, though, it was their Final Hunt.

She was not nearly so formidable at the moment, though. Her arms were shackled firmly to the walls with acid-resistant metal alloys only the Yautja knew how to forge. Her legs were similarly restricted to the rear wall, and to top it all off, she was in what was possibly the most secure room of the ship. The walls were several feet thick, solid metal, and wholly self-contained.

The only entrance to the large, dark room was the door Yeyinde stood before as he peered at her shadowy form through a small window. She snarled and hissed at him. She struggled in her restraints and flicked her tail angrily. She snapped her jaws out as far as she could. But she could not destroy him as she so desired.
Yeyende clicked in amusement, flaring his mandibles calmly. Even so, the fact that he could sense her overwhelming desire to tear him limb-from-limb was disturbing to him, which was never usually the case. He was just paranoid that she was going to escape. Again.

He hissed at her and squared his shoulders, turning to leave. As he walked away, he got what an ooman may have described as 'the shivers'. He had a bad feeling. He shook his head in dismissal and started to walk a little faster.

They had waited long enough. The sensors showed that the embryo carriers had impregnated many of the indigenous lifeforms of the world, with many more embryo carriers coming close to potential hosts. A few drones would already be close to maturation, if not a young Queen. By the time they had landed and prepared, the time for the hunt would be near.

Yeyinde becked to the Young Bloods, urging them to get into their landers. He bowed his head in respect as the two Warriors passed him. They too bowed their heads in respect of Yeyinde. They were all roughly equal in skill and experience, and had a mutual respect for one another.

Once the two Warriors were on their landers, and all the Young Bloods were ready, Yeyinde moved to jump into his own lander. He hesitated for a second. The same bad feeling came over him. He had been on dozens of hunts, some more brutal than others, but none of them had caused him to get this... feeling, before. He rumbled disapprovingly of himself and slid into his lander, sealing the door behind him.



The large vessel reappeared partially as ten large, cylindrical pods blasted away, one after the other in quick succession from the side of the vast ship. They streaked towards the planet, targeting a few miles north of any suspected Hard Meat activity. Once again the ship vanished from view once they were clear.

The ten pods thumped into the soft earth after ploughing through the leafy coverings of the rainforest. The doors were kicked away by the Yautja inside, who immediately jumped out, their blades at the ready.

Yeyinde clicked curiously at how quiet the rainforest had become. Possibly a result of their pods scaring away the local creatures. More likely, though, that Hard Meat had been near here and simply killed anything that moved. Or didn't move.

He looked around curiously. They were, literally, on the edge of the light half of the world. A mere few feet away, there was nothing but darkness. Dead trees suggested there had once been light there, but it was a long time ago. That side was eerie, but Yeyinde was hoping that the Hard Meat would stick to the light side of the planet, where it was warm and humid.

This jungle was a little to warm for Yeyinde's tastes. He turned down the thermal regulator on his suit to try and keep a little cooler, but the humidity was still there. He was just glad he had his mask to breathe with; he imagined this humidity would make breathing most uncomfortable.

He span around as he smelled something. A musk he had not smelt in nearly twenty years. Soft Meat. Soft Meat they may be, but rarely did they travel without powerful burners, and they were smarter than the average Hard Meat. Young Bloods were skilled, but not yet ready to take on more than a handful of Soft Meats. He scanned quickly through various light spectrums, but he saw nothing. Not even a bug. Hard Meat had definitely been here.

"Shift suits!" Yeyinde shouted. The Young Bloods looked at each other curiously whilst the two Warriors were already cloaking themselves.

"Can you not smell the Soft Meat?" Yeyinde asked. They shook their heads. Youth of today, they would lose their heads if they weren't careful. "Then you still have much to learn. We are downwind of them, but you should still cloak yourselves."

The Young Bloods shrugged, but complied. Light appeared to bend around them as electricity sparked across their suits, and then they were partially invisible. There was a slight rippling effect around the edge of their bodies, which became more pronounced as they moved, but in this dense jungle it would be more than sufficient to hide them from spying eyes.

They spread out, and started looking for traces of Hard Meat. They needed to find the nest before it became too powerful.

The Doombringer slowly exited hyperspace, bringing its engines to a minimal. It approached the small planet of K'Pec, and drew its engines to full slow.

Captain Velco observed the planet from his bridge window in orbit, fiddling with the small, wafer-thin info card he had been reading. As soon as the transmition from satelitte Delta has been sent, his swordclass enforcment ship had been dispatched. The mission had had little if no breifing and he had serious doubts of this mission. He inspected the info card again. The reading definetally showed small pinpricks of fire belting towards K'Pec. But, although probably the remains of some destroyed frigate, he would have to investigate. He pushed the green button infront of him and the drop down sequence began.

"Jerry get in your drop pod you worthless maggot!" Sergeant Damrov bellowed.
"Remember men, we are rekon and search. I SAID NOW JERRY! right, were dropping in 20 men - That means 10 to each rekon group. LCplThore will take first squad while im leading second. Now fasten your impact masks - YES JERRY, OVER YOUR HEAD! Right, Got it? Good. Now fasten your life belts lads, its drop time!"

2, small pods shrieked away from the cruiser, plumeting to the planet side. They were swalled easily by the shadows, and all that could be seen we 2 tiny lights, which finally vanished in the huge dark of the planet.

A matter of light years away, the Dominion War Cruiser Nova's Wrath detected the occurrence, but lost the ship...

Sensors: Sir, we just picked up a ship jettison what appears to be escape pods and then disappeared after. Should we investigate?

Captain: It's out of our jurisdiction and to far from our patrol route. We continue on.

Tactical: We DO have a listening station posing as a research facility to try and equalize both halves of the planet. It might be in our best interests to at least see what is happening and send an undercover contingent of Dark Troopers to assess the situation at the station.

Captain: Noted, and I'm sure Central Command won't mind as long as we act in the best interests of the Dominion. Helm, alter course to 719 mark 213, warp 3. Engage.

The ship turned hard to port and shot off toward the planet.

"Sir, we're getting a sensor hit. Ship of some kind, fairly big. It released two pods, but we don't know what they contain."
"You got a confirmation on that?"
"Yes Sir. Transmission from an outbound skiff, Stiletto. It confirms what we saw."

The Base Leader barked into his communicator.

"We've got planetfallers. They spotted an outbound skiff, so they know there's something down here. Soldiers should put on hazard armour and fetch weapons: we can't be too careful. Watchmen, to your posts. I want the turrets online. We can't afford having the base overrun."


Across the base, soldiers donned hazard armour, bulky yellow armoured suits that covered the entire body. Pulse rifles were collected and primed. From the tops of the domes slid sensor arrays. Small lights came on as turrets swivelled. And they waited. Would they be attacked? The only way to find out was to wait.

Nova's Wrath came out of warp and immediately hailed the administration for the planet.

Com: Channel open sir.

Capt.: This is Captain Jim Sanders of the Dominion warship Nova's Wrath responding to a reported illegal jettison of pods onto the surface. We are here to send down a few *coughs* scientists to investigate. We have a science station we will beam them to. We were going to do it anyway, but thought we should be in the good graces of local authorities first.

The ten hunters followed various tracks, leading them all over the jungle. They finally found something which looked promising. A cave. A hot, humid cave, that led deep into darkness. Hard Meat slime, the Te'dqi, was rampant. There were definitely some of them here.

"Ready yourselves for the kainde amedha chiva," Yeyinde said quietly to the Young Bloods, who eagerly stood outside the entrance to the cave. He stood in the traditional 'ready position', the hiju, using his mask's various vision modes to scan for any sides of the Hard Meat. He was quite surprised when he saw one suddenly blast out of the cave entrance. Hissing and flicking its tail, it slammed into one of the surprised Young Bloods, knocking him to the ground. This Hard Meat was black, but it seemed to have elongated arms that it used along with its legs for walking. It had probably gestated in a four-legged creature. If they saw any traditional, bipedal drones, they would know that Soft Meat had been here.

The Young Blood reacted well to the surprise attack. He started rolling, disorientating the squirming black creature, while at the same time clutching the creature's neck with such force that quiet cracking sounds could be heard. One Young Blood had drawn his combi-stick and was about to help, but Yeyinde took his arm and held him back. This was a fight for that Young Blood alone.

The Yautja stopped rolling, so that he was lying on his back with the Hard Meat on top of him. Just as the creature's jaws snapped out to grab at his face, he used his legs to send the creature flying into the air, roaring in victory as he pushed it away. The Hard Meat screamed in protest as it span through the air before landing on a stalagmite inside the cave. There were cracking and hissing sounds as the sharp rock impaled the creature. After some twitching and violent thrashing, the Hard Meat was dead.


The Young Blood who had been attacked jumped to his feet. The laser sights on his mask came alive as he looked at the creature, and his shoulder cannon exploded and blasted the dead alien to pieces. The creature's acidic thwei sprayed across the cave, immediately eating into the rock and billowing smoke out into the clearing they stood in. The Young Blood threw back his head and bellowed a victory roar. That was his fifth ever kill.

"I believe the creature was already dead..." Yeyinde said, looking at the alien chunks that lay at the centre of the cloud of smoke. He clicked in low admiration at the Young Blood's performance. Perhaps they were not so beyond help after all.

Guan-thwei, one of the two Warriors that had accompanied them, approached Yeyinde just as they were about to enter the cave.

"Me and Jachnok are going on our separate hunt," Guan-thwei said quietly. "I believe one of the giant lizards to be near here."

"Very well," Yeyinde said. "Good hunting. Try not to meet with the Black Warrior too soon."

"We will return with a skull the size of which has never been seen before," Guan-thwei said, clenching his fist. He bowed his head in respect and turned to face Jachnok, the other Warrior. He nodded too, and they both sprinted off into the forest, disappearing.

Yeyinde envied them, in a way. Hard Meat hunts were always challenging, but even more so when the c'jit creatures had found a cave to nest in. This cave could extend for tens, even hundreds of miles, and who knows how many other exits there were. The sounds of distant, angry roars suggested they were fairly close, though.

Yeyinde led the way inside.



On board the Ripping Claw, this clan's ship, the Hard Meat Queen could sense her children. One of them had been killed, its calls of love and loyalty no longer reaching her, no longer comforting her. She roared in pure, unbridled rage, and managed to snap one of her shackles free in a sudden burst of immense strength.

Sergeant Damrov took the tech glasses from his eyes. From the branch he was sitting on, he had definately seen the structures of a base, and had seen yellow suited troops patrolling it. These were scum, and he knew it. Space pirates, mercineries and maybe even mutants were habiting the structures. It was time to deal out some law enforcment.

"Ok men, get your jettison cannons ready, were gonna do some "rekon" of our own."

The 10 men in his patrol all pulled down thier Mark II visor helmets over, all initiating the motion trackers. They tested each others armour and loaded the cartriges of their cannons with AP rounds.

"Make ready your jump packs aswell men, they may come in handy. LCpl Thore are you in position?"

"Roger roger sergeant. were ready to jump in on your command - were South side as you ordered, sir"

"Good, were on the northern side. The attack will commence @ 3:30am planet time. make sure you and your men engage active camo, or those turrets will rip you to shreds"

"roger roger"

Damrov sat there a while longer, content with his battle plan. He was also memorising what the captain had told him in orbit.

"There maybe some.....unnatural things down there seargent. Your job is simple, rekon and report. I dont want any engaments, and I want you down and out - I dont like this planet, and our navigators did pick up readings of energy about this area. Keep your men close Damrov, and keep your eyes open"

Damrov slowly watched the sun set, and knew he would be breaking the Captains orders in hours. Pity he didnt have bigger guns......

It was clear this was a backwater dump, as there was no response from any administration. Now no longer fearing an intergalactic incident, stealth was not a necessity.

As the Dark Troopers were now gearing up in their body armor, the team leader was going over the plan to his nine comrades...
DT1: Alright grunts, we're the best the Dominion's got. This means NO MESSING UP. We're being inserted 20 meters away from the crash of the first pod. From there we split into two squads and reconnoiter both crash sites. Afterwards, we head to the science station and go over our findings. We're taking no chances. Armor is to be airtight. Just let the internal air recycler do the work. Am I clear?

He was met with a resounding "SIR YES SIR!" and with that the 10 elite commandos sealed their armor, grabbed their E-33 rifles and headed to the hangar bay. Within minutes, a large transport shot towards the planet's surface.

It was dark this far inside the caves. One would almost think they were in space if it weren't for the heat and humidity, a problem even this far underground. Chances are that the core of the planet itself was unusually warm, only adding to the problem.

All around them were the vile secretions of the Hard Meat. It cracked and crunched beneath their feet, easily giving away their position if it weren't for the fact that the Hard Meat already knew they were there.

How could he know that they knew? There were none around, the Yautja were moving freely into the Hard Meat nest. Yeyinde knew simply because there were none around. Hard Meat were smarter than most gave them credit for; rarely did they attack with a frontal charge. First, they would try to pick them off, one by one. Once their enemies were weak enough, then the full frontal assault would come. Hundreds, maybe even thousands if they were allowed to thrive, would swarm all around them.

Fortunately, Yeyinde doubted that the Hard Meat had enough time to produce an unbeatable number of brethren. It was even possible that a Queen had not even risen to dominance yet, but he doubted that. They were quick to adapt, the Hard Meat, even quicker than the Soft Meat. It is why they were the most challenging prey.

As if they were listening to his thoughts, Yeyinde span around as a careless Young Blood was yanked up into a hole in the roof of the cave. Out of view, he could be heard roaring in defiance, his blades audibly deploying from his gauntlet. But the glowing blood that trickled to the ground proved that his defiance was unsuccessful. One down, seven to go.

"He was careless," Yeyinde told the startled Young Bloods, who now stood back to back, panning the area. "If you are careless, this will be your final hunt. Learn to be observant of your surroundings. Cycle through your vision modes regularly."

The Young Bloods nodded and fell back into their hunting formation, a little more cautious now. Yeyinde found himself laughing inwardly. The hunt always seperated the weak from the strong; it was the only form of evolution that worked at a rapid pace.

He continued his musings even as he casually swung his arm into the wall beside him without even looking, so hard that rocks fell to the ground in a cloud of dust. He pulled his arm away again and continued walking, clicking in quiet approval of himself. A Hard Meat slowly toppled to the ground, spilling acidic thwei from its crushed skull. It had been hiding behind a small outcropping of rocks, which had now fallen away. It appeared that there were much smaller, more cramped tunnels running all over this place.

"Observe your surroundings," Yeyinde repeated to the following Yautja.

***

Leaves in the trees swayed violently, and the swaying seemed to be moving from one treetop to another. It was as though some invisible force was jumping from one tree to another, swinging from the branches like a very strong chimp. Once in a while, there was a loud sound of eerie clicking, as though something were very enthusiastic.



Guan-thwei persued the trail of the 'Huge Meat', as he was dubbing them. The ultimate prey, in his mind. He could smell it, even through his mask, and he could see the massive footprints weaving through the forest. Invisible and silent he tracked his prey.

His tech-vision allowed him to see Jachnok almost a kilometre away, also tracking the beast from a different vector. There would be no dishonour in two Yautja hunting one beast; its size more than made up for any disadvantage it suffered in numbers. That said, Guan-thwei would be taking a crack at it if he found it first. Jachnok would surely do the same.

He could hear the sound of thudding footsteps in the distance, but so far he had not seen anything. This thick foliage was too dense to see very far in any direction, though, mask or no.

***

The Queen roared once again. Another of her children had been killed by the foreign invaders. She screamed and roared, so loudly that she had attracted the attention of several Yautja, who now peered in at her through the tiny window. She bellowed another, massively loud roar, and summoned the strength to tear her second arm free. She snapped her jaws in the direction of her audience, and began scratching at her leg restraints.

Hammer colony K'Pec

All communications are cut off. We are trapped. We cannot return home. We have limited tech and power. In recent weeks mysterious losses have been reported among foraging parties, yesterday Captain Pahner failed to return and is MIA presumed dead. All remaining members of bronze battalion are to mobilize for SAR and SAD operations. Base Command Roger MacClintoc out.

There was a ping as the Bioelectric Sweep Scanner came to life. The BSS was one of the few scanner types that would be effective in this jungle, tracking living creatures by the tiny electrical pulses in their nervous system. While it was far from perfect, if there were living things close enough to the base, it would spot them.

"Sir, BSS reports a group of contacts to the South. They aren't ours."
"You sure? Confirm it."

The BSS glowed slightly as it switched from passive to active for a second. The enhanced pulse would draw attention from anything within range, but judging by their movements the contacts already knew of the base. The blips on the holographic display grew stronger.

"Yup. Group of 'em."

Wasting no time, the officer gave his orders.


On the roof, the turrets swivelled hungrily towards their targets. They rested for a second, and then a volley of high-energy blasts zipped away into the foliage. Plants were scorched by the passing, and anyone watching would have seen bolts rip clear through anything in their path.
Back at the base, the yellow-armoured soldiers rushed to the perimeter to open fire once the contacts came within range, leaving a few of them on watch. Hopefully the targets would have been slaughtered by the fire, but they had probably not been.

"All remaining operational Abrams ready to roll out Commander." "Good job Kosutic, lets go." The garrisons 5 remaining abrams MBT's rolled out of their laagers and through the gates. Alpha and Bravo companies of the bronze Battalion move out on foot in echelons for mutual fire support. 2 hours later they find the first of Pahners men... or at least whats left of him. Gunny Jin has been eviscerated and dismembered, with facial mutilation so pervasive only his dog-tags provide any identification. 1 hour after they found the Gunny they are found by his killer. The beast moves so quickly that no one in second squad has time to react, in seconds they are all dead. The members of third open fire on the space that used to be occupied by the beast, but it's already gone. One round seems to have made contact and the trail of what can only be called blood is burning holes in the vegetation. As Charlie company regroups, they are hit again from the north losing another 5 men to this unknown beast. Commander MacClintoc gives orders to activate motion sensors and watch them carefully. The next beast to find them is killed before causing any casualties but, its corpse explodes as it is riddled with bullets, killing 2 and wounding 3 more. A company of 100 nominal is down to 80 effectives in just three contacts with these beasts. They set up camp and activate automated manjacks before setting night watches.

LCpl Thore had ordered his men forward, as a distraction attack so the armoured pirates would be drawn from thier patrol, hence sergeant Damrov could pass through the northern part without immediate ground fire. His men had moved in a 5K formation, and the fire coming from the base was a little more then the odd bolt. These guys were organised, and the turrets had turned on them when they even edged near the compound. Lukily for him, his men had been equipped with jump packs, so hoping to trees far in the air from thier curretn location had been easy enough. More of thier troops had come to engage them, thinnning the patrol as planned. Although, he had lost Hendrickson and Garrond to those blasted turrets. This wasnt law enforcment, this was going to be life or death. Thinking of this with a grin, him and the rest of second squad dis engaged thier active camo, and pumped round after round into the oncoming pirates.

He bellowed into his vox "We are enforcers men, so lets deal out some justice!"

Damrov and first squad had easily dispatched the guards manning the outer walls, and made haste to the center HQ base, hopefully to catch some pirate scum.....

There were no attacks during the night, however, as the first colum of troops prepared to move out they were hit by 3 animals at once. 2 were killed almost immediately doing little damage but the third managed to escape after slaughtering another squad. The Abrams had been sent to the west in search of any other forces on this mud ball. They were attacked 5 times with no casualties. During the days first refeuling stop another attack came and the beast killed 2 of the support personel and 1 APC driver. The beast escaped and the rest of the stop went without incident. The tank commanders ordered the gunners to load canister and prepare for action. As the tanks crested the next hill they met a group of no less than ten of the things. The beasts all charged one tank. The first volley killed all but one of them. The surviving beast managed to rip open the commanders hatch and kill the crew before the other tanks destroyed it. The Abrams rumbled on to their first objective, the Ruthless Slaughter research station.

The large transport touched down, lowering a large ramp in the rear of the craft. The ten elite troopers carefully exited and split off into groups of five, each going to investigate one of the two crash sites as the lander was sealed up and turned into a command post on the surface, in constant contact with the Nova's Wrath. Team One had arrived at the crater, the pod in the center apparently empty...

DT1: This is Team One, pod is intact and empty. We're detecting no organic life of any kind onboard on biosensors. What about you, command?

Lander: Nope, aside from known indigenous lifeforms and occasional blips (these are important *hint* *hint*) you're the only ones there. About those sensor ghosts, we're sure they're nothing, but keep your guard up all the same.

DT1: Roger, send the harvester to collect the pod and bring it back for examination. Whatever you do, don't let inside the lander, just set a perimeter-

Lander: We're all aware of standard operating procedure, we send a harvester to haul the pod back, set up a perimeter, and study it outside the ship.

DT1: Call in Team Two to help secure the crash site and we'll escort the harvester back to the perimeter.
-------------------------------------------------
A few minutes later an automated robot walked off the ramp and went to the crash site to retrieve the pod. The Dark Troopers followed it back and secured a perimeter around the area near the ramp (which has been opened only when the team was deployed and when the harvester left). A science team began taking readings of the pod as wellas scans. The craft was treated with as much suspicion as the surrounding jungle.

OOC: Things are a little too quiet, so I think it's time to shake the team up. They're elite units, but that can lead to overconifence and that can lead to casulties if you know what I mean. BTW, I like how you're basing this off AVP, it took me a while to figure out what was happening.

The Abrams finally reached the research station late in the afternoon. When they arrived they were greeted with the horrifying sight of at least thirty of the monsters tearing at the walls of the buildings. The 4 remaining tanks opened fire with the TC's machine guns and the Co-Ax chain guns to avoid damage to the buildings and quickly killed the first 20... the survivors managed to destroy another tank before being eliminated. *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* "Is anybody in there!?" shouted the last officer in the group, lieutenant Daniel Leary as he pounded on the door to what appeared to be the main building.

OOC: I figured it out around post 2 and just watched for awhile til I decided to get involved today. I love the thought of an army VS the aliens.

OOC: I figured it out around post 2 and just watched for awhile til I decided to get involved today. I love the thought of an army VS the aliens.
OOC; Yeah, but the aliens usually win...

IC:
Com: Sir, it's been a day and there's still no reply from our listening station.

Sensors: No lifesigns either sir. Not human, anyway.

Captain: Very well, it shall be considered compromised. Fire a salvo of quantum torpedoes and make sure that there is nothing left to be discovered.

Tactical: Torpedoes armed and loaded.

Captain: Fire.

The torpedoes streaked toward their target and detonated, leaving nothing but scorched ruin and unidentifiable debris in the area that once housed their inteligence listening outpost. Had they searched it, they would have found all of their inteligence officers dead with their rib cages cracked outward a number of creatures (Aliens) infesting the building.

OOC: no lifesigns? what about the tank crews and apcs outside of the post

The Doombringer drifted above the planet in orbit, monitoring the planet and its "rekon" ground enforcers.

"Yes sir, a salvo sent at the planet"

The ensign sat at the front screen of the bridge, the Captain behind.

"Were from?"
The other planet side from a collisian class size ship, sir"
"Imperialist?"
"None of our known ships, sir"
"we've got men down there - I want that ship checked out, were her for law enforcment services, and thats what we shall continue doing"
"What about the engagment of the Rekon squads with the pirates sir?"
"Im sure Damrov can handle it, but there are more pressing matters at hand. Send down x2 AA buggies, and 20 enforcers. I want to know what that "ghost" ship deposited before we got here, and if anything survived the drop"
"aye aye sir"
"Direct 1 buggy to Damrovs position, and the 20 enforcers and the remaining buggy to scan the jungle of the 10 pod drops jettisoned before our arrival"
"yes sir"

Yeyinde held up his hand and clenched his fist. The Young Bloods stopped silently, waiting for his signal to move on. Like some kind of grotesque freeway, Hard Meat drones swarmed around a particularly wide tunnel, clambering over each other to get to where they were going. There were hundreds of them, mostly four-legged 'runners', but some were bipedal drones suggesting the presence of Soft Meat on this world, and their writhing mass stretched out as far as Yeyinde's vision modes could detect.

One of the taller bipedal drones stopped, apparently sniffing the air. It clambered away from the main 'flow' of drones and hopped up onto a rock.

Yeyinde jerked his head back behind the corner, not wanting to be seen yet. This was not the right place to initiate a fight. There were too many of them.
Unfortunately, the lone drone poked its head around the corner, looking at them. Its head cocked to one side curiously, almost like a bird, and it hissed.

Yeyinde skilfully pulled his combistick away from his belt and twirled it as it extended to its full length, nearly five metres long. He jammed it through the drone's head, causing it to squeal in pain as the acid-resistant metal rammed through its sensitive cranium. It twitched and slashed for a few seconds before falling limp. Yeyinde jerked the staff away, letting the creature collapse to the floor.

He cautiously looked around the corner. The flow of drones had stopped. Every last Hard Meat was looking in his direction. They pulled their lips back and hissed when they saw him. Yeyinde sighed inwardly, and then bellowed out a roar of action. The Young Bloods were spurred into motion, each withdrawing their combisticks or extending their wrist blades. The seven of them joined Yeyinde.

Three of the Young Bloods went down almost instantly, as the Hard Meat drones elegantly leapt from one side of the tunnel to the other, impaling them through their chests with their lethal tails as they landed. Yeyinde immediately swooped his staff across the Yautja corpses, removing all three drone heads at the same time. He quickly brought the other end up as a Hard Meat flew through the air towards him. The drone impaled itself. As Yeyinde tipped the staff sideways to let the corpse slide away, he was forced to extend his wristblades to slash across the face of another drone, which had designs on his legs.

"This is not the right time to begin the battle!" Yeyinde roared to the remaining Young Bloods. Another of them had been ripped to shreds while he had been dealing with his attackers. They knew as well as he; a brave and honourable warrior fights against improbable odds expecting to win, but only a stupid fool fights against impossible odds expecting to win. And a stupid fool earns no honour.

"Return to stealth mode!" he roared.

Yeyinde was going to give them a good chance to escape. He braced his foot against a boulder and pushed himself into the air. As he somersaulted across the horde of gleaming black creatures, he swished the tip of his combistick across them, removing various extremities and even cutting a few of them completely in half lengthways. He landed in a squat in the centre of the morass, and immediately began his elegant, skilful manoeuvres. He wasn't a well-respected warrior for nothing, after all.

In such a blur of action it was hard not to hit anything. His sweeping actions relieved his targets of their lives whilst killing several other drones he hadn't even noticed at the same time. They died by the dozen every second, falling easily under his unstoppable onslaught. He held the staff by one of its ends and began to swing it around, killing the creatures even faster in a vicious circle of death. Their blood spilled in a circle around him, obscuring him from view in a cloud of noxious fumes. His wristblades dealt death to any drones that got through his circle, while his shoulder cannon blasted any that tried to clamber up the wall and leap on him from above. By now all the drones were converging on this new threat, scrambling over each other as they desperately tried to get close enough to destroy Yeyinde.

Yeyinde knew that all successes came at a cost. So he was not entirely surprised when a drone flew with incredible force over its siblings. Even though his shoulder cannon blasted its guts from its midsection as it flew, it was going with too much momentum to be stopped. The corpse flew into him and knocked him to the ground. He felt claws grasping at his muscular body, trying to get a good grip on him. He tried to shake them off, but they were too determined. He couldn't shoot them, because the blast would spray acid all over him at this range. Yeyinde roared with rage as he felt a set of mandibles delve deep into his shoulder, splashing his glowing blood onto his mask. He summoned the strength to push all of the drones up and away with a sweeping motion with both of his powerful arms. A domino effect knocked them all down, as well as their neighbours, and they stayed down long enough for him to hob to his feet and leap high into the air. He rained down fire from his plasmacaster as he flew over them, blasting whole clusters of them to pieces. He landed back where he started.

Yeyinde took a brief look around as he pinned another drone to the floor with his foot and jammed the tip of his combistaff through its skull. All the Young Bloods were gone. All but one. His name was Uloth, one of the best of all the Young Bloods of this generation. His mask had been torn off; his body was ripped to shreds, spilling organs and vital fluids. This was certainly his final hunt.

Uloth looked up at Yeyinde, but it was Yeyinde who bowed his head in respect. The Young Blood nodded, and popped open his left gauntlet. He typed in some characters in their distinctive written language, which started what appeared to be a countdown, before he succumbed to his wounds in one final, defiant roar. Yeyinde's eyes widened; he would mourn the passing of his favourite student later. He had little time. He fired his shoulder cannon at the ground rapidly, creating a temporary ring of plasma fire. The drones jumped back for a second, long enough for Yeyinde to flick his combistick through their heads and sprint in the opposite direction.

He could hear the ominous bleeping of Uloth's gauntlet as though it were the only noise in these caverns, even above the angry screaming of the drones. He knew they were hot on his tail; he could feel their hot breath at his heels as they scratched at him. But to die at the hands of another Yautja could implicate Uloth in dishonour, something he truly did not deserve.

His heavy body weight may have looked bulky and lumbering, but his powerful muscles allowed him just as much movement as any other creature, and a lot more speed thanks to his longer legs. His feet clomped against the combination of rock and alien secretions rapidly, echoing through the tunnels. He continued running, for what seemed to be an eternity.

He nearly stumbled when he heard a concussive boom from behind him. The explosion had gone off. Several of his pursuers turned around to look at what had caused the noise, giving him enough time to safely take cover. He dived to take cover behind a large rock in an alcove in the wall as a brilliant blue fireball blasted its way through the tunnel. A drone that was just about to slash his face off suddenly vanished as the explosion vaporised it and, thankfully, its acidic blood. Just as Yeyinde thought this rock was going to melt under the onslaught of the miniature nuclear blast, the fireball subsided.

He got to his feet and looked around. Dark though the cavern was visible light wasn't his concern with his mask. He scanned various vision modes, but there was no sign of any Hard Meat. He was alone. For now. But there would be more. He retracted the blades of his combistick and hooked it upon his belt, rubbing his sore, glowing shoulder as he went to move on.

Unfortunately, the cave in the direction he had come from had collapsed. It was a cave-in too massive for him to shift alone. He would have to go the other way to find a way out. Deeper into the hive.



Chechin awoke, clicking wearily. He looked from side to side. His mask was gone, removed from his face by force, apparently; the severed air tubes that dangled beside his face suggested that much. It was too dark for him to see anything with his natural eyes. He struggled to move his arms, to try to find his mask. But his arms would not move.

A sudden burst of immense pain, a burst so immense that he was forced to roar like a coward, suggested to him that one of his arms had been removed from the elbow down. He struggled to turn his head, and saw a glowing stump. He had definitely lost one of his arms. Unfortunately, it was the arm with his self-destruct controls on it. He clicked in weary sadness

The other arm was encased in... something. It was a thick, slimy substance, which was holding him to the wall. Quite high up too, considering he couldn't feel the ground with his similarly restrained legs. He thrashed around violently, growling in protest at his dishonourable capture. Yautja should never be captured in such a fashion. You are either to be victorious in the hunt, or die at your own hands, or even better, at the hands of your prey. But he was neither; he was trapped.

He felt something stir. Inside him. Inside his chest. Something foreign to his body was moving in his chest. He could feel it. It moved faster, harder, with more vigour and strength, and it...

The Yautja roared with pain as a horrific cracking sound filled the caverns. He nearly tore himself from the wall as a second cracking sound apparently broke through. A small line of glowing green appeared down his chest and he coughed up some of his own glowing blood. A final crack sprayed glowing blood across the cavern, illuminating it somewhat.

There were eggs all around him. Lots of eggs. What appeared to be oomans and an assortment of native creatures lined the walls next to Chechin, all with holes in their chests and terrified expressions on their faces. One egg sat right in front of Chechin, and it was open. Beside it lay one of the spindly creatures, like the ones that had crawed from the pods. This one was dead.

Something inside Chechin's glowing chest moved, poking its head out. Some kind of tiny drone, only... different. Its extending mandibles were surrounded by a set of four, inter-dependent mandibles on each corner of its mouth, similar to those on a Yautja. The creature hissed and clicked at the same time, and yanked itself free of the dead hunter. It flopped down to the floor. Curious black drones moved into the dim light cast by the dead Yautja's blood, inspecting their new brown-green sibling. They didn't seem to disapprove, as they let it scurry off into the darkness in search of food.

Ulan was slammed backwards by a shot to the face. His visor cracked and partly came away, and his face underneath was burnt. A flap of flesh had been blasted clear, and the blackened bone protruded through. He fell to the ground, dead.

The enemy had taken them by surprise, swooping down from above. The turrets had killed a few, but now they were in vicious close-quarter combat with the pirates. The pirates had reacted admirably, rushing to the defences to repel the new threat. They had been tricked, but they recovered and now they were going to slaughter the attackers.

Hall stood behind a crate, half concealed. His grenade launcher fired, sending an unstable plasma bottle arcing towards a pair of the enemy. It shattered, burning them to unrecognisable masses of melted flesh and bone. A fireteam had taken up position on one of the roofs, blazing away at any jump-packer who came near. Meanwhile, there was the ever-present rattle as the turrets blazed away at the attackers. One of them was torn in half by a spray of shots, lifted off his feet. He flew backwards to land heavily in a ruined heap, blood pooling around him.

On the landing pad the pilot of one of the freighters stood on the personnel ramp, firing pistol shot after pistol shot. One of his crew was manning the dorsal gun, vast energy pulses slamming into the ground all around the attackers.

Inside, the non-combatant staff waited. They were the accountants of the base, the cooks. Of course, they still knew how to fight. Barricades had been constructed at every entrance, and behind them were armed men anbd women.

Thore jumped just behind a perimeter wall as Hudson and Gerould were melted into a mess or gore. As he looked left, he saw Thompson take it hard, falling to the floor, his broken body in a grotesque pose. they were half strength down, and these pirates were blasting the hell into them. He rolled a grenade around the corner, blowing 2 pirates from there hiding place. As he turned to see how the rest of his squad were doing, he saw Bellek pulverised by turret fire. As he was going to call the fallback, he heard the unmistakable rumble of an AA buggy. It smash through the jungle foliage, running over 2 pirates and gunning down another wretch. They were too fast for the turrets, and Thore order what was left of his men forward to finish the remaining ground pirates hand to hand, as the turrets were preoccupied by the AA buggy. He wondered how Damrov was doing, and weather he had made it into the compound....

Damrov and his men formed down the corridor, spying more armed pirates at the end. He had recieved coms orders from the Captain as he entered the base:

"Sergeant Damrov, we want the leader of the pirates, a one Kalgan Hemrof. There are too many of them for you to win, so get him and get to the rendevous point displayed on your HUD. There will be a small carrier ship ready to take you back to the Dameclass. Good luck sergeant."

He had his orders, and it was a jump in and get out. His men readied thier weapons as the first of the Pirates spotted them...

They were in underground tunnels, spanning yhundreds of miles in the ground. Major Werd marched futher and further in with his 25 strong squad. There had been 20 in his squad and a buggy, but the buggy crew had joined them on foot as they entered the tunnels, the buggy being to much hassle to take in. They had seen shapes in the darkness, and he felt that they were getting closer to something much more tedious. They were all in single file, and had also deserted thier jump packs at the entrance, them being no good in these confined places. he had been wondering wheather to turn back when a huge rumble was sent up the tunnel, and as soon as it had began it had stopped. He inspected the gloom straight ahead, only to see thier way blocked by rock.

"Men, activate your Jettison cannons, Golan, Freedo get me some explosives on that gap, were blowing through it"

The 2 troopers did as they were ordered, and the major was going to see what was on the other side of that ruble, and advance into the depths of the tunnels.

Bronze Battalion trudged on through the jungle towards the cliffs in the distance, the attacks were becoming more frequent and strangely, less deadly. The men of Alpha company, left behind at the compound had been overrun the day before, managing to get out one last transmission to anyone in near space. The remainder of Bravo and Charlie amounted to a single reinforced company and they were all set for ammo and food for a month of continuos combat ops. The last attack had been nearly an hour ago and they were due for another one any time now. This attack was led by a beast they had never seen before, but it died just the same. Unfortunately while their attention was on one side of the column, the other 20 hit them from behind, destroying an APC before before being cut down by the remaining mobile units of the battalion.

The next 2 days passed without incident, causing the soldiers to worry even more as they reached the cliffs and found the caves at their base. Charlies heavy weapons plattoon was put into full combat armor and set on point. They struck 20 feet into the cave, shredding one of the reapers before being blasted by the remaining suits. The caves were too small for the APC's to fit but their heavy chain guns had been invaluable throughout the march, so they were unloaded from their vehicles and dispensed to the Bravo reapers, to cover the rear.

Just wondering - Are we gonna have more preds haging about? Only my meagre forces so far deployed are not to bolstered up - do you want me to stick with the rekon squads I already have on the planet, or do you need me to supply more comandoes?

ooc: very good rp

Ell-osde' pauk!

Hey guys come on we gotta keep the replys comin, this is just getting good =]

Yeyinde stopped in his tracks. He was leaving a trail of glowing blood, and he was running on empty. He had to do something about his wound. He sat down on a rock, continually cycling through his vision modes as he looked around.

Still alone. The Hard Meat must have recognised the threat he posed to them and their Queen, and were playing it safe. For now. All the better for him. This hunt wasn't over until their Queen lay dead at his feet, or until he came face to face with the Dark Warrior. To run from a hunt was dishonourable enough to be outcast from the clan. He didn't intend to become one of the Bad Bloods.

He made a peculiar, loud, warbling growl as he jammed an unusual instrument into his gaping wound. Having pulled the wound shut, he had to cauterise the flesh to seal it. Infections were of little concern to him; a Yautja's immune system was one of the most formidable in the galaxy, second only, ironically, to that of a Hard Meat. But the incredible heat would make sure.
He pulled some kind of pointed device from his medical pack and jammed the end right up against his wound. As it started hissing and smoking, he roared again, louder this time. The searing pain spread across his entire shoulder, but it was necessary. He finally tore the burning device away, wiped it clean and put it back into the pack. He snapped the lid shut and slid it back into his gauntlet. His wound was sealed, sterilised, and already healing.

He sat still for a few moments, resting and recuperating. Operating on oneself with no painkillers wasn't the most pleasurable task even for the most durable warriors.

He finally stood to his colossal full height, threw back his head and let out a ferocious roar, the loudest and most angry roar he had ever forced from his lungs. He wanted those black demons to know he was coming. They needed to fear him, and that roar would surely do the trick.

He pounded the floor once again, sprinting ever-deeper into the cave network. More determined than ever.

***

Jachnok had given the honour of the hunt of the Huge Meat to Guan-thwei; he had seem something interesting. Under cloak, he tracked the Soft Meat that wandered through the dense jungle of this alien world. They were looking for something, that much was certain. After nearly being knocked from his tree by the force of an explosion earlier, he was keeping his distance. Thanks to his mask, he could see and hear them from a long distance, more than enough to keep them from suspecting.

They were not designated prey, after all. This hunt had two clear, distinct prey; the Huge Meat and the Hard Meat. It would be dishonourable to track anything else. But Soft Meat were not honourable. They could turn and attack them at any time, for no reason, and that was why Jachnok tracked them. To make sure the hunting party knew what the Soft Meat were up to. It was also why he could technically kill them without being outcast.

They had some heavy equipment. If they knew the Hard Meat were down here, that would be understandable. Soft Meat stood no chance whatsoever in battle against the Hard Meat without heavy equipment -- hence why they were the Soft Meat. But the Hard Meat had only been introduced to this ecosystem very recently, they could not have known. So they must have been looking for something else.

He clicked curiously, coming to rest in a nearby tree. The Soft Meat appeared to be entering the Hard Meat nest. Perhaps without even realising it. It would be their own deaths if they did, but Jachnok had to follow to see what they were up to. He waited until they were deep enough in the caves to be on the edge of his visual range, and then quietly followed them in. He constantly cycled his vision modes, looking for Hard Meat. This was their hive, and they could be anywhere. He also noticed some unusually large amounts of low-level neutron radiation, similar to that discharged by their self-destruct systems. Not a good sign.

***

The Queen had felt the deaths of thousands of her children simultaneously. It was all the reason she needed. The eyes of the watching Yautja widened as she tore her legs away from the restraints and slammed down to the metal deck. She roared, a bellowing roar that echoed across the vast ship, and then charged head-first at the only door into this room.

"Get 'em, men!"

A squad of the airborne attackers had entered the compound somehow, and the pirates were mounting a stiuff resistance. A firefight was underway, but due to the bountiful cover no-one from either side had been hurt. A pirate spun around the corner, hoping to change that. In his hands was clutched a lethal-looking hand-held rocket launcher, the belt-feed giving away its rapid burst capability. He fired. The kick sent him off balance, but the rockets flew straight towards the enemy. There was a rumbling boom as they went off, the smoke and fire obscuring the probable carnage. The pirates continued to fire into the smoke.


Back on the landing pad, the dorsal turret of the ship locked onto the speeding buggy, tracking its every move. Suddenly the muzzles erupted, blowing huge gouges out of the earth around the vehicle. It careened to one side to avoid the shooting, and was met by a second burst of fire from a turret. With fire from two weapons erupting around it, it could only be a matter of time before the driver's luck ran out.


An explosion. A plume of dust, mud, and fire. Screams. The battle still raged around the domes, shots rippling across the worn ground, grenades arcing in deadly curves. The battle showed no sign of stopping yet. The pirates would defend to the last.

The point squad was hit five times in just under an hour suffering only two more losses. They had reached the first intersection in what was turning out to be a rather large cave system and were not sure which way to go. Their sensors were getting some anomolous readings similar to those of an officers distress beacon, but that path also led to the most non-human bio-signs and was contraindicated. The rearguard had gotten glimpses of... something three times before this stop and had gotten even more motion and chemical traces. The closest was no more than one hundred yards behind them and stopped whenever they did, they came to the only possible conclusion: they were being stalked. By what they weren't sure, but they were being followed and it was probably hostile. The commander finally decided to head towards the sensor ghosts and try to figure out what it was, since the most enemies were in that direction he had the rearguard come up and bolster the point teams and upgraded the last team to M-60's and Mag-L7's and hoped it would be enough.

Major Werd beconed his troopers back.

"Get clear men!"

At that he detonated the explosives, a huge wave of dust and heat passing round the immediate surroundings. He was not worried about this, as thier MkII armour could withstand anything under a nuclear blast. The rumble exploded with a resounding boom and left a large hole, big enough for them to clamber through. He was the first to do so, as he was eager to get to the other side. Through the dense rock, he had heard the distict sound or roaring, and had eargerly wanted to investigate. But, to his misfortune, there was nothing here. It looked as if, by the heat signatures, that they were getting closer to the largest amount of activity, which meant more stuff for them to kill. he looked round as he saw Hendrix and Delan stumble through the hole, with there bulky Jettison 12's. Those babies would rip through whatever came at them, and he was grateful of there presence. They marched on, oblivious to the fact that they were walking straight into the Hive.....

Thore got hazy, static messages from the sergeant.

"Thore fall back, there is something else down here, and its not pirate. They as quick, and ill give them that. One suckered on to the helmet of Jones, but when we tried to take it off under the fire from the pirates, its acid melted through his armour and killed him outright. JERRY GET INTO COVER! Anyway, were falling pack, so meet at the co ordinates im feeding to your HUD. Damrov out"

Thore wasted no time calling back his men.

"OK lads, engage active camo and jump to the fall back point on your HUDs'. HIs men did as they were told (reluctantly) and blended with the background. Then, as one, they hoped to the trees and vanished into the undergrowth. The buggy, however, was not so fortunate. When it drove into the undergrowth, it detonated an enemy mine and blasted into tiny fragments, showering the pirates with shards of metal.

The Soft Meat were now backtracking. Well, if they didn't know about the hive before, they surely knew now. The Soft Meat engaged shift devices, to Jachnok's surprise, but he could still see them skulking off into the underbrush.

He hopped silently down to the ground, clicking curiously as he stepped towards the cave. He wondered what they had been doing down there. He’d heard at least one explosion. He started to move deeper into the cave. Before he was completely swallowed by the darkness, something jumped in front of him, completely illuminated in his electro-magnetic vision modes. A Hard Meat, but... different. Its head was not so long, and it was much, much bigger than a standard drone. And its teeth had flaring mandibles like that of a Yautja.

Jachnok knew what this abomination was. He had only seen one once in his lifetime. The Hard Meat were known to borrow genetic traits from the hosts they had grown in; if they gestated in the oomans, they walked upright a lot more and were slightly smarter than drones which spawned from lesser animals. When the z'skvy-de happened to a Yautja, however, it spawned a different beast. Powerful and adaptable like a Hard Meat Queen. Determined, smart and durable, like a Yautja. And as angry as the two species combined.

The Predalien roared its distinctive hiss-clicking roar right in Jacknok's face. Jachnok threw his head back and roared his own bellowing battle cry. His wristblades shot out of his right gauntlet as the Predalien started to circle him, ready to strike.

Jachnok swiped at the creature, but it ducked. As it did so, it slashed at Jachnok's right leg, knocking him down to one knee. He struggled back to his feet and hissed angrily at his worthy foe. The Predalien leapt at him, but he managed to dodge. The creature's tail slammed into his back, just as the creature dazed itself against the cavern wall. Jachnok steadied himself and turned, quickly jamming his wristblades into the hide of the creature. He jammed them in as high as he could, rumbling with pleasure as he felt them slash at the creature’s flesh. He pulled them back slightly, allowing the serrated blades to do as much damage as possible

The Predalien roared in pain and in anger, and slammed one of its arms into Jachnok. Jachnok's arm broke as he flew backwards, smashing into the wall hard enough to wind him, which was no small feat. He fell to his hands and knees, dazed. His wristblades had been snapped off with the sheer force of the blow, and the Predalien yanked them from its body and tossed them to the ground, spilling some acidic blood onto the floor.

Jachnok struggled to his feet, but the creature didn't want that. Its claws slashed across his back, knocking him sideways. His glowing blood sprayed across the mouth of the cave. The Predalien grabbed the mighty warrior around the neck and lifted him from his feet. It hissed at him, clawed his mask away, and then shot its inner jaws through his forehead. His blood spilled from his head as his body twitched.

The Predalien roared in victory, tossing the dead Yautja out of the cave into the clearing. Jachnok's body landed with a heavy thud out in the sunlight, disturbing the footprints of the Soft Meat that had walked by just moments earlier. The creature hissed, and jumped back up into a hole in the cave, disappearing into the network of smaller tunnels.

***

Cetanu looked at the torn metal in disbelief. He had known this Queen to be larger and stronger than most, but this was more than he had ever expected her to be capable of. He would not underestimate her again, though.

The metal of the Queen's chamber was at least three foot thick, and made of a super-strong metal alloy unique to the Yautja. It was nearly indestructible without heavy, heavy weaponry, so how she had managed to smash through it in her first charge was beyond Cetanu's imagination. All he knew was that several experienced warriors now littered the floor around the holding chamber. Dead, ripped to shreds. It would take a month to clean up this mess.

"Where did our prey go?" Cetanu asked calmly.

"She chased a cowardly Eta," one of the warriors said. The Eta was a Yautja caste consisting entirely of cripples, elderly Yautja who had little honour from past hunts, or just cowards who did not wish to join the hunts. They served a vital purpose -- the maintenance of all Yautja technologies, scientific advancements and suchlike -- but they were still ridiculed and bullied by the other hunters. "The foolish Eta thought it would be smart to try and get away from her in a Hunter-class attack ship. She outsmarted him. The ship crash-landed on the planet below several minutes ago, with her on it."

"Then Yeyinde's hunt will be more challenging than he may have thought," Cetanu said, nodding. He clicked with enthusiasm. "It will be interesting to see if he survives."

***

Guan-thwei had been tracking the Huge Meat for nearly two days now. So when he finally found it, he had been quite pleased. Not so pleased when he saw it crash to the ground, half of its body torn to shreds by the Hard Meat that were attacking it. A massive carnivorous reptile such as this could not even stop the Hard Meat. Perhaps there was no prey as challenging as them, then.

He had dealt death to the Hard Meat shortly afterwards. He didn't bother keeping their skulls, as he had plenty, but he did set fire to the corpse of the massive dinosaur. Better to go out in flames than rot away like a common creature. Such a magnificent creature deserved no less.

He'd been heading back to the caves to hook up with Yeyinde and the Young Bloods when he saw something interesting. Soft Meat, fighting over some sort of make-shift base. It was a long way away, on the edge of his mask's visual range, but he could just about make them out. He decided to swing closer to investigate.

"Are we all here?" Damrov asked his weary men. He looked around and counted. 7 from his squad left, Thore and 2 of his squad left. The pirates had fought valiantly, but Damrov new a fate far worse then any ordinary death awaited them. He turned to Thore. " We will combine the 2 squads which makes 11, including me. Thore turned his head.

"dont you mean 12?"

"Nope 11 here LCpl"

"But there were 3 with....were Breman?"

***

He had been seperated from Thore and the rest when they had fallen back. He was now wondering the undergrowth, making his way to the flashing blip on his motion traker, which he knew was the fall back point. He had just stood still to dis engage his active camo when it loomed out of the bushes. It was tall, bigger then anything he'd seen yet. Its mask gleamed and it clicked at him from under it. It pounced forward, bringing wrist blades sweeping his way.

"Holy Sh...."

Were the last words he muttered before his head was decapitated from his body, his body falling and firing a few bursts befoe slamming into the floor. The thing nodded its head slightly, as if this thing was not worhty of its attention, and stalked off into the trees towards the pirates base....

***

They were deep into the tunnels now, and Werd looked in amazment. there were hundreds of them, on the walls, the ceiling and everywere else. He thanked God for the invention of active camo as they stalked through the tunnels, invisible to the eye.

"Right then men, on the count of 3, dis engage active camo and blast the living sh*t into them"

Words of egnoligment came from his team

"3...2...1"

Then all hell broke loose.

The remainder of the battalion had been hit hard five times in the last day and were down to a reinforced company. The point teams heard shooting ahead and double timed towards the firing. When they got their they were greeted by a scene out of a nightmare, at least 200 aliens were being taken under fire by a few soldiers, who were obviously under active camoflague at some point judging by their positions, but now the Charlie reapers added the heavy firepower of their 20 mm. chainguns. The first volley took down at least 20 of the aliens but the first wave killed half the plattoon and the dying aliens killed the other half. Then the rest of the company opened fire.

OOC: come on guys lets keep this goin.

The remainder of the battalion had been hit hard five times in the last day and were down to a reinforced company. The point teams heard shooting ahead and double timed towards the firing. When they got their they were greeted by a scene out of a nightmare, at least 200 aliens were being taken under fire by a few soldiers, who were obviously under active camoflague at some point judging by their positions, but now the Charlie reapers added the heavy firepower of their 20 mm. chainguns. The first volley took down at least 20 of the aliens but the first wave killed half the plattoon and the dying aliens killed the other half. Then the rest of the company opened fire.

Hammers, your troops die to easily and to quickly! How about a few, choicy deaths instead of 100 men dieing at one stroke? It may make it more interesting. I think this RP is pretty good, but I'm waiting for Yautja Homeworld or Taldaan to make thier moves. :)

OO the reason they die so easily is because they have little remaining armor, that and they started out as a battalion, it only seemed fair for the light armored high numbers group to die more than the rest. as this goes along the best will survive and casualties will decrease, until we start facing 500+ aliens at once, then they'll die fast again. most of the armor was put out of commission about a month after the colonies arrival on K'pec due to faulty capacitors in the controls for the weapon systems. the battalion would usually have approximately a company in ACS at any one time, right now I have about one and a half plattoons. in fact the casualties should drop pretty fast since most of the rookies who're gonna die have, the rest are veterans and survivor rookies, which means they should survive mostly intact from here on. on a side note I never lost more than ten at once to a kill ratio of at least 4 to 1

OO the reason they die so easily is because they have little remaining armor, that and they started out as a battalion, it only seemed fair for the light armored high numbers group to die more than the rest. as this goes along the best will survive and casualties will decrease, until we start facing 500+ aliens at once, then they'll die fast again. most of the armor was put out of commission about a month after the colonies arrival on K'pec due to faulty capacitors in the controls for the weapon systems. the battalion would usually have approximately a company in ACS at any one time, right now I have about one and a half plattoons. in fact the casualties should drop pretty fast since most of the rookies who're gonna die have, the rest are veterans and survivor rookies, which means they should survive mostly intact from here on. on a side note I never lost more than ten at once to a kill ratio of at least 4 to 1

Fair enough. I think the others have given up on this RP, so Ill have a glance at it in a couple of days. =]

Fair enough. I think the others have given up on this RP, so Ill have a glance at it in a couple of days. =]

OOC:

Easter. Busy. FAmily.
Me. Am. Grammar. No.
Back. Tomorrow. With. IC. Post. Me. Be. Will.

Or something to that effect.

Hurrah! Gizmop to that - time to travel in my time machine and kill doctor who! have a good easter folks :D

OOC: Happy Easter? With your family? You use drugs for that don't you? My family couldn't do a happy easter without drugs, so we don't have happy easters.

bump, cant have this getting lost.

Yeyinde was getting close. He could smell her. The Queen. Not as large as the one they had captured, but she was definitely there. This would probably be his Final Hunt. With the Young Bloods he would have had a good chance against the Queen and her hive, but not on his own. He would die, but he would die well. That was important.

He was just rounding a corner when something suddenly blasted into him. He flew backwards, right the way back down the cave he had just come from, and slammed hard into the wall. He fell down to the ground and looked up. Something had ploughed through the cavern roof. A Yautja ship! It was the nose of a Hunter cruiser, but why it had simply crashed into these caverns he had no idea. It must have crashed with a lot of force too, as these caverns were at least half a kilometre underground, if not more.

The emergency hatch blasted clear and a Yautja jumped out. An Eta -- nothing more than a slave -- was panicked, running away from the ship. The Eta were markedly different from warriors; they were probably no bigger than humans, with no visible muscles and wearing none of the advanced technologies which made them such devastatingly powerful hunters. This one just wore a jumpsuit.

His mandibles flared as a large tail suddenly burst through his chest, lifting him from the ground in a rain of green blood. The Eta squealed in pathetic fear as a huge Queen stepped out of the ship, and relieved him of his head. She flicked her tail, sending the body flying off out of view, and slowly turned her head. She looked straight at him. And she looked angry.

Yeyinde knew who this Queen was. She was the one they had captured. The one he had tormented so many times back up on the clan ship. The mother of all the creatures down here now. She was enormous, even for a Queen. If he stood little chance against the other Queen, he stood no chance against this one. He needed to time his attack, and this was not the time. Using every ounce of strength in his legs, he pushed against the ground and flew up into the air. He disappeared into one of the smaller tunnels in the roof and immediately spread his arms and legs out to get a good grip. Just in time too, as the enormous Queen suddenly blurred past below, apparently charging him.

He listened to her hiss and growl angrily for some time, watching her try to scrape the rock away with her claws to get at him. After some time, she quit and left. He started to climb further up the tunnel. He just hoped there was nothing lurking in these tunnels. It wasn't the best place to have a fight.

OOC: no lifesigns? what about the tank crews and apcs outside of the post
OOC:It was only a two torp spread. Barely enough to destroy the station. Most of it is underground so that would have contained it. Scans weren't concentrated on what was beyond the perimeter.

IC:
Scientist: Analysis complete on the pod. Looks like it could only be used once for the landing.

DT1: Alright, pack up. We'll leave it here and proceed to waht's left of the station.

The team broke camp and the lander raced toward the compound.
-----------------------------------------------------------
It arrived and the Dark Troopers piled out, only to be confronted by APCs and tanks from another force.

DT1 walked up to the command vehicle and addressed the leader.

DT1: My apologies if the bombardment caused any casulties, but there were some volatile experiments in the lab that we couldn't afford to let escape. I am the team leader for the Dominion incursion force sent to investigate what happened to our science station. Seeing as you didn't shoot at us, I assume you're not to blame. If so, I suggest combining forces to comabat whatever IS running loose on the planet. We originally landed at the site of the tow pods and determined that they can only be used once. Who or whatever is here, is here to stay. What have you found?

Slaughter research station:

Lieutenant Gronnigen: Our casualties were minimal but inconvenient nonetheless. I'm afraid, however, that I'm unable to ally myself to you without the base commanders authorization. If you were to accompany me to our outpost here then we might be able to contact Colonel Roger, but as it is right now our radios don't have the range to get anything from the Colonel.


The cave complex:

The first squad began to fall back under the continued assault of the alien horde, but losses were minimal and they continued to kill the advancing beasts. Whenever things began to look bleak you could see the colonels suit in the thick of it, killing aliens, dragging out wounded, or even carrying ammo to the Reapers, he was there to loosen the men up and get them out of harms way.

DT1: Not a problem, you can use the holocom system in the lander. It's the next best thing to talking to him personally. Perhaps you could give us an update on what we're up against? Like I said we only the pods and it's clear that they're no where near there anymore.

As far as we can tell the beasts are an alien species thus far unknown to man. We would certainly appreciate the use of your communicator, and I'll fill you in when we get confirmation from the colonel. (approximately ten minutes later) Our situation is more desperate than we thought, Alpha has been overrun and our base has been infested by these things, Bravo and Charlie are down to a consolidated company, we're low on armor and heavy weapons, and, just to top it all off, something big just crashed into the cave complex where the rest of the battalion is fighting these things. Our Colonel has directed me to return to base and affect repairs on the heavy Metalstorms stored in the laagers, he believes their firepower could be useful against these things and whatever just landed. I'm gonna need help clearing out our base camp, three tanks and a few APCs can't do it alone so I'd appreciate your support in this attack.

Thats all on the operational side but I believe you also asked about the enemy we're fighting. Sir they are aliens of an unknown type that are demonstrably hostile. They bleed some sort of highly acidic substance that does massive damage to any of our equipmen except our powered armor, and thats not invicible, just highly resistant to all forms of damage. We've identified at least two distinct strains of the beast and believe there are more that we haven't seen yet. The first has long arms and legs, it almost walks like a dog or large predatory reptile, but can walk upright and attack extremely efficiently with its tail and claws. The second has shorter arms and longer legs, along with a longer tail to compensate. The second also seem to be smarter than the semi-quadrapedal versions and may represent some form of management caste in what seems to be a hive-like environment, other than that we don't know much more than you do. We know the who and some of the what and how but we don't know why they are here, which I believe may be more important than the rest of it put together in the end.

Thanks for the info. If you need them, we can send down some of our armor on loan from our ship in orbit. I don't think they'll be much of a match for our rifles. We can set out immediately if you're ready.

OOC: gotta go for now.

The Renegade's Retreat was a mess. Bodies, both friend and foe, were scattered across the ground. One of the buildings had a huge gouge taken out of it from an explosive. One of the turrets was wrecked, far beyond repair. Its gun drooped sadly and wires stuck out in a bizarre sparking halo. The remaining pirates gathered the dead for incineration and wondered what would happen now.

"We have to pack up and move. They know where we are, and we're weakened. We either have to move the base or be extracted."
"You know the policy on extractions. We can't signal while those ships are up in orbit. We could compromise other bases."
"Well, in that case, we should pack and move. There's a good position a few kilometres South of here. Caves for protection and storage, and canopy for invisibility. Its perfect."
"Well then, we start packing now."

It was around half an hour before the base had been disassembled and loaded onto the crawlers. The mood in the convoy was watchful, armed pirates scanning the foliage for any sign of danger. After being surprised once that day, they didn't want it to happen again. Many good men had died back there, and they didn't want to lose more.

And so they continued towards the caves, wary but vulnerable.

The Caves

Colonel Macclintok's force had been forced to break contact an hour ago, but were still being chased by a few aliens. The rearguards Mag-L7 machineguns were making short work of any of the aliens that showed their heads, or anything else, but there were still occasional losses, the company was down another squad in third plattoon and second had lost half a squad as they pulled out. The aliens seemed to swarm to the sound of the fighting, and they would have been overrun isf they hadn't fallen back.

Base Camp, K'pec, Hammers Slammers

The base was trashed, only one 30 cm cannon was left, and the lighter chain guns were all destroyed, the wall was down in places and the remains of Alpha company could be seen, scattered about the compound and the surrounding area. The tank laagers were unbreached, but the tanks within hadn't been operable for some time now, and would need parts from the working tanks to be repaired, the repairs would take at least a day and they didn't have that long. They had eight hours to repair what they could, then they would take the surviving tanks and APCs and set the base destruct system, an hour after they left the base would be an expanding 3 kilometer fireball. The first of the metalstorms was repaired easily enough, its only problem was a bad capacitor in the firing system control, the rest weren't so easy, they did manage to get four more of the metalstorms in order before the time limit was up however, all the metalstorm packs they could get were loaded on the companies 2 ton trucks and the base destruct was set for an hour, then they rolled out as fast as they could, nobody wanted to get caught in that blast!

DT1: To make things easier, you could give us the coordinates of your forces and we can beam troops there with our transporter.

Guan-thwei followed the ooman forces (OOC: Taldaan) as they headed for the caves. Foolish Soft Meat had no idea what was inside those caves. Assuming Yeyinde and the Young Bloods hadn't finished off the hive by now, of course. It was a pretty standard affair, Guan-thwei doubted that it would take them long.

He knew they had some sort of sensor devices, so he made sure he was hidden by several trees, listening to their strange mumbling with the audio enhancements built-in to his mask. He couldn't make any sense of it, but he stored it all for later reference.

He stopped swinging through the trees as he heard something. Behind him. It sounded like another Yautja, only... different. It was almost like a Yautja and a Hard Meat growling at the same time. He span around, his eyes wide, just in time to see it. The Predalien leapt at him, smashing into him with such force that he flew backwards off the tree, right over the heads of the pirates. He slammed down onto his back into the ground with a powerful thud, the Predalien on top of him to add to the force of the impact. Glowing blood splashed from his mouth, hitting the inside of his mask. First, everything he could see was a strange hue of yellow-green. But then everything started to go black, until he couldn't see anything anymore. And then he stopped thinking about it.

The Predalien was just about to take a bite out of the unconscious hunter's head when it detected the Soft Meat, still walking towards them. It hissed and clicked at them loudly, and disappeared into the foliage, leaving its incapacitated victim behind on the ground. It had the instincts of a hunter. It wouldn't try a futile frontal assault like the normal Hard Meat.

"Holy shit, Dekke! What was that thing?"
"I don't know, but I don't think it ws friendly. Did you see what it did to that guy?"
(ooc: they only saw a blur, and they think that the normal predator was a human.)
"You think we should check it out? He could be useful. And did you see that armour? That looked like fancy armour to me. Worth relieving him of."

They wandered into the undergrowth, having motioned the rest of the patrol to move on. A few of the others followed to see what was going on, but the majority continued towards the caves. They pushed through the undergrowth, looking for the fallen warrior. Then they saw it...
"What is it?"
"It isn't human..."

The rest of the convoy was blissfully unaware of what was going on. They were almost at the caves now. The crawlers moved on around a hundred metres, and then parked outside the entrance. There were tracks, and other signs that they were not alone.

"Come on, men. We'll be safer in the caves."

They drove in, the tunnel just about wide enough, at least at first. It was dark, so they flicked down night-vision visors and continued their march towards probable death.

Guan-thwei could smell the Soft Meat approach. He struggled to lift his arm and activate his self-destruct system, but the Predalien had already knocked too much energy out of him. His arms fell back down to the floor. Thankfully, the oomans wouldn't be able to get his gauntlets off before he could wake up and activate them. He pondered that thought as he awoke in a dream; his first hunt...

***

Two Queens, was it? Yeyinde could live with that. Well he probably couldn't, actually. He was, however, betting on the larger Queen finding her offspring Queen and challenging her for dominance over the Hive. Hard Meat were the most intelligent non-sentient creatures Yeyinde knew of, even verging on actual sentience, but they were very predictable. Land on planet. Fight to become Queen. Destroy planet. Die. It all contributed to Yeyinde's belief that they were not naturally occurring species, and that they had been created as a weapon by some long-dead species. Probably dead because they failed to anticipate how formidable their weapon was.

Yeyinde stopped crawling. He could hear her. The Queen. The smaller one, anyway. She was directly below. Carefully and quietly, he extended one of the tips of his combistick and set to work, digging a small hole in the rock below him. He braced his wide body up against the sides of the tiny tunnel just in case it couldn't hold his weight. He sure didn't want to fall into the middle of the nest without being prepared.

Below, the Queen could sense that he was there. He knew that much. Even if they couldn't sense pheromones and didn't have superb hearing, she would have felt the chunks of rock falling from the roof of her cavern and landing on her head. It wouldn't be long before she sent drones to find a way to get to him. Long enough for him to see what was going on, though.

His staff finally broke through the rock, and he almost let go of it when it happened. He peered through the small hole and nearly died from a heart attack when some jaws snapped shut right in front of it. A Hard Meat had leapt up to try and get to him, but fell short and fell into a crowd of drones. They all looked up at him, drooling hungrily. He shook his head and put his face back up against the hole, peering down.

It was definitely the smaller Queen. She sat snug in her nest, pumping off eggs like a production line. Drones loyally picked them up and scurried off with them, taking them to impregnate their various victims. She looked up at him calmly, hissing once in a while, but did nothing else.

He glanced around, ignoring the Hard Meat for now. The large cavern had only three entrances, all directly in front of the Queen herself. The Hard Meat would have no trouble defending the room against him. He would have to find a different entrance. Perhaps a less conventional entrance. But he would need a distraction...

As if reading his thoughts, all the drones in the room suddenly looked away from him. The Queen roared. Yeyinde had heard theories that the Hard Meat could communicate with ultrasonic sound. However they managed it, the drones looked at the Queen for a few seconds, and then roared. They scurried off, swarming out of the three 'doorways' and out of sight. Only a handful of drones remained.

Yeyinde waited. This was his perfect opportunity. But sometimes, things were just too good to be true. He made sure the drones were not coming back; trying to trick him. They had been known to fool less cautious hunters in the past, and he didn't intend to explain to the Black Warrior how a bunch of half-witted aliens managed to kill him by outsmarting him. But it appeared that they were gone. Perhaps one of the large carnivorous reptiles of this world was threatening their hive? Well, whatever it was, they had grossly underestimated the current threat to their Queen.

He pressed against the low roof of the tunnel and slammed his foot into the thin floor. The Queen looked up again as debris rained down from above. He repeatedly kicked the weak rocky floor until the hole was big enough for him to jump through. And when it was, he did.

He dropped down. It was a large drop. It would have killed a lesser species, but not Yeyinde. As he fell, his shoulder cannon erupted, blasting the remaining drones into smoking piles of slime. He hit the floor with a huge thud, dropping to his knees. Without even looking, he downed a drone that flew at him from behind. He stood up and looked around, admiring his work. He'd killed all the remaining drones before he even hit the ground. He looked up at the Queen and clicked in glee.

She struggled to detach herself from her egg-laying 'tail', roaring and hissing for her drones to come and save her. But they had already run too far to come back in time. She was frightened. Yeyinde liked it.
But killing her while she was unable to defend herself would not be right. He waited. She struggled frantically as he stood calmly in front of her, growling in anticipation. The second she was free, Yeyinde leapt into the air, twirling skilfully. As he passed her by he used his full body weight and spinning momentum to ram his combistick straight through the middle of her skull. It burst out of the back of her neck in a spurt of acidic blood. She fell to the ground, silent.

Technically, he had just finished the hunt. With the Queen dead, all he had to do was kill off the remaining drones, destroy her eggs and that would be the end of it. But it wasn't. There was still another Queen to go, and she would be much more challenging than this runt. If he wanted some serious honour from all this, he would find a way to capture her alive and return her to the clan ship. He couldn't see himself surviving such an attempt, though. He still remembered what it was like to capture her originally. Many died, some more skilled than he. It would be nearly impossible to capture her alive on his own. It would be nearly impossible to kill her on his own. He'd only been able to kill the last one because of a stroke of good luck.

The many drones that were still alive would no doubt become loyal to the larger Queen now that she was alive. He just wondered what it was that had caused them to scurry off like that, leaving their Queen so vulnerable. Had the larger Queen won their loyalty without even challenging their Queen, or... was there someone else in the Hive? Guan-thwei, perhaps?

He wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever it was, he hoped it didn't die before he was in a safer place. He reached down and ripped the combistick from the Queen's skull, splashing her acid blood across the rocky floor. He wiped the dangerous liquid off onto the corpse, retracted the blades, and jogged away, exiting the nesting chamber. The Hive was alive with the sound of angry roars.

Com: DT team, heads up. We've got a ton of lifesigns in a cave complex. Say bye to your friends, you've got work to do.

DT1: Understood. *now to Hammer Slammers forces* We've got coordinates and are beaming in. See you on the other side.

Their molecules were then swept away in a flash and rematerialized in a large cave underground. Lefeform readings were off the chart, so the team cautiously zeroed in on the human lifesigns and proceeded on, their datafeeds implanted in the armored helmets showing a virtual map.

DT2: So, we find the other guys...and?

DT1: Hope their not dead. Or worse. I'm not liking those shapes moving around outside the light range. They're not registering as any known organic lifeform.

DT6: So we fry 'em?

DT1: No, we let them make the first move.

They proceeded onward. Human lifesigns were 20 yards away. 10 5 The Dark Troopers were now facing the other human force.

DT1: Greetings, the cavalry's here. We're an elite Dominion strike team sent to investigate what happened to our science station. Apparently there's more going on in this dump than we assumed.

Yeyinde decided that he was going to try and find a way out of the cave network. He would link up with Guan-thwei and Jachnok; they must have finished their own hunt by now, and would be waiting for Yeyinde to finish his so that they could all go back up to the clan ship. He needed to tell them that the conditions of the hunt had been changed. Together, with some unconventional tactics, they might stand a chance at taking down the abnormally large Queen, perhaps even capturing her. Smiling in the face of death often unnerved even the Black Warrior himself, after all. Of course, unnerved or not, they would probably end up meeting him shortly afterwards, but that was beside the point... to die with honour was just as victorious as victory itself.

Deciding to leave the cave network, and actually managing to leave the cave network, were two different things, however. Yeyinde could still hear the angry hissing of the Hive, looking for whoever killed their Queen. He looked around. All the tunnels looked the same to him, and he hadn't exactly kept track of his movements since entering. Even if he had, the way he had come was blocked up now anyway.

After hearing a particularly loud and near roar, which sounded like the other Queen, he decided the best course of action would be to simply head in the direction which led away from the roars, and hope the Black Warrior favoured him...

He chose the middle tunnel and kept running. It seemed to slope upwards, so it was promising.

"What the hell are we supposed to do with this thing?"

The five men stared down at the unconcious Predator. They were wary. Any moment now it could wake up and attack, although they had no idea of its capabilities. They had heard rumours of deadly masked hunters that killed without mercy, but they had hardly believed them.

"Well, we make sure it stays unconcious. Tom, blast it."

Tom pointed a stunner at one of the few portions of exposed flesh. He squeezed the trigger. Light erupted from the end, blanketing the creature before fading away as fast as it had appeared. As long as it worked on Predators, it should have temporarily disabled much of its nervous system. It lay where it was, but none of the pirates was sure if it was due to the stunner of its battle with the other monster. They closed in around it, guns pointed at its head and chest.

"You sure it isn't dead?"
"Of course it isn't dead. Its breathing."
"Well, what do we do with it? We can't leave unconcious killers lying around."
"Tie it up and drag it back to the convoy. Maybe someone will know what it is."
"Great. Anyone got ropes or chains?"
"Monofilament good enough?"
"No. Monofilament will slice it to pieces. We need something that won't kill it."

They rummaged through equipment packs, searching for something that would restrain it.

"Hey! I got some spare power cable. That would work. We can join the ends with a plasma welder."
"Great! Lets get this thing tied up. Dekke, take its legs. Tom, take its arms."

The two pirates advanced on it, cable in one hand, small plasma welders in the other. They began to restrain it, tying its legs and its arms, and then tying its legs and arms together. Then they pushed a think branch between the loops and began to carry it away like some great hunted beast.

The Cave

Colonel MacClintoc was stunned at the flash of light, He was even more stunned by what walked out of it: people, in powered armor. Can you say Garryowen? The cavalry had arrived, but after a second look he realized they weren't Slammers, he was pretty sure they were Dominion, but his assumption was proved correct as the leader introduced himself as the commander of DT1, a commando strike force. "Well I don't know your rank so I'll just say thank God someone else on this rock ball is still alive and fighting, other than my troops. From the fact that you found us I assume you guys are the team that was with my armored company at the research station and the base. My troops have been fighting these things for almost five days now and we're about burned out so..." At this point the troops are hit by another pack of the beasts, then another, then a third, and finally a fourth group, all at once, the groups don't number more than five each, but that's twenty aliens and they had the advantage of surprise on his wiped out troops. The slaughter was horrible, not a single alien made it within five feet of attack range for those tails of theirs, they were cut down almost as they appeared, one minute charging his men, the next leaking piles of chitin on the stone floor of these caves, these damn caves that had eaten half of his command and prevented armored support. "As I was saying, my troops are burned out, they're not even running on autopilot at this point, they're running on just training and instinct and I'm worried something bad's gonna happen if we meet a large group of these things again."


En Route to The Caves

The remaining three Abrams tanks and the Metalstorms had reached the jungle and were halfway to the caves when they met their first resistance, not one of those aliens, but instead a lizard the size of Old Terra's dinosaurs, it towered over the tanks and the accompanying APCs by at least twenty feet, then it moved, and when it moved it really moved, nothing that big should be so fast it blurs to the human eye, but this was, and it moved towards them, for about a second... before the first Sabot round tracked up and through its chest cavity, killing it instantly, the corpse was still a hazard however, and the crew of the tank it landed on was even more unhappy, the Abrams could take as much as twice again its own weight on the torsion bars, but the crotch of an animal that big is gonna make any man feel insecure about his apparatus, looking at it wasn't much fun either. They finally got it out from under the beasts corpse, and got on their merry way, with much cursing and obscenities in at least five languages, two of them dead languages and the other three coming from the tank commander, who managed to cuss for a whole pair of minutes without repeating himself once, in any language. They finally reached the caves late on the second day and found out why the boss wanted the 'storms loaded with HEAT rounds, the entrance was about a full foot too small for an Abrams chasis and they would have to blast away the narrow opening for about twenty feet before it widened out to admit two tanks abreast, the 280mm cannons on the Crucifier would have done a better job, but none had been sent to this Godforsaken mud ball. An hour later they were finally in, and back in contact with higher, their orders were to follow a path being downloaded to their nav systems and meet up with the remaining infantry company about twenty miles into the cave, where they would be put on point because they were the heaviest armor available under the circumstances, some Avatars would be nice, but if wishes were fishes...

Guan-thwei opened his eyes. He wasn't in his best frame of mind. He could feel movement, but he was sure he wasn't walking around. He tried to stop, but couldn't. Then he realised his legs seemed to be restrained by something.
He hoped he wasn't just crippled. He would hate to go from being a respected hunter to a lowly Eta.

He could smell the Soft Meat still, more strongly than ever. They were very near. His mask cycled through to heat vision, perfect for spotting Soft Meat, but he couldn't see anything.

No, Laichek, not that cave! he thought, watching his friend wander into the path of a Queen...

He coughed up some more blood inside his mask, and lost consciousness again.

***

Yeyinde was still looking for an exit. A few small groups of Hard Meat had found him, but he had dealt with them easily. The Hive seemed to have changed its tactics, not at all surprising seeing as it had just suffered a shift of power. They didn't seem quite so focussed on reproduction now, instead they were actively hunting down intruders. Yeyinde didn't like being the hunted. But he would accomplish nothing without Guan-thwei. He pressed on.

ooc: And now for something evil...

The pirates carrying the semi-concious Predator had reached the cave entrance, where their friends waited. The crawlers had advanced a little way in, but had stopped to wait after around fifty metres. Now the convoy advanced again, headlights at full power. The crawlers moved slowly and deliberately, wary of every slight narrowing of the tunnel. A small party of pirates stalked ahead, watching for obstacles and threats. Nothing so far, but who could tell what lay around the next corner? The safety catch was off on each and every rifle, and the muzzles pointed into the darkness ahead. It was oppressive down there, the walls seemed to be closing in around them.

Juri stared into the darkness ahead, his night vision visor revealing the rocky walls in somewhat blurry detail. His gun was held out towards the unknown like a talisman. He glanced from side to side to check that his fellow fighters were still there. They were. It was hard to tell because of the armour, but they seemed as nervous as he was. They had fought boarding actions against small warships and brought down the giant reptiles that periodically attacked with headshots, but there was something about this place...

A deep bellow cut through the drip of moisture from the rocks above. The pirates looked at each other and raised their weapons, then radioed back to the crawlers.

"There's something up ahead. It isn't human, and it sounds big."
"Well, kill it. What are you, merchants?"
"No, Sir."

He cut the channel and turned to the others.

"How the hell are we supposed to kill it? We can't attack something that big."
"Easy. We lure it out. You've got a plasma grenade launcher. That thing would blast holes in the side of a tank, let alone a monster."
"Great. Got any bait?"
"Dinner on a stick. Lets make it bleed a little first."

Dekke laid the Predator on the floor and raised his combat blade. Starting up the power, he sliced roughly through the armour and into the flesh beneath. Blood welled up in small rivulets. He blasted it with the stunner again, just in case. Then they took up position in the darkness and waited to open fire on whatever took the bait...

The opening strains of Led Zepplins Immigrant Song fill the cave complex with an inhuman scream that is almost a physical thing for a moment, then the terrible scream is replaced by the pounding of the drums and the flail of the guitar as the beast ahead of them in the tunnel moves towards the point squads, the roar of the beast is enough to compete with the caterwauling of the music, but it does not last long, the beast ahead of them is finally revealed as it rounds the corner, it bears a resemblance to the aliens they have been fighting and it bears even more of a resemblance to the giant predators of this planet, at its size they are surprised it fits in a cave that barely accomadates an MBT, but it does and it bearing down on them as the first metalstorm opens up with its 100 barrels, the beast is shredded by the 120mm sabot rounds but the acid of its blood eats through the commanders hatch on one of the tanks, wounding the commander and damaging the tanks environmental integrity, with the TC's hatch open the tank is easy game to these aliens, and thats a very bad thing.

OOC: sorry my brothers nation was logged on before mine and I thought he logged off, so I'm gonna fix this and change SN's, back in five

bump damn you

OOC: I hope that wasn't the Predalien that I was controlling that you just gunned down, my friend, because that was busy tracking the other Predators...

IC: Yeyinde could detect the musk of another Yautja, and as he ran, it grew stronger. It was Guan-thwei. But the scent was not a good one; it suggested he was in pain, and angry beyond all recognition.

Yeyinde stopped running. He zoomed in to the mouth of the tunnel, at the edge of his mask's range, flicking between vision modes. One lifeform showed up in his tech vision; a Yautja. Restrained on the ground. Yeyinde saw no others. For Guan-Thwei to be restrained and injured on the floor, though, there must be others nearby. He clicked curiously, pondering the intricacies of the trap. It was worthy of a Yautja. He wondered if he could recruit whoever had laid it into helping him with the other queen...

He looked back as he heard distant screams. Hard Meat were actively roaming across the caves now, looking for threats. Their sense of smell was better than his, so it was no wonder they had tracked him this far. He pressed a button on his gauntlet, and part of it raised up, revealing an opening. He fired blade-like devices around the tunnel -- proximity explosives. Not an honourable tactic, but these were not conventional circumstances. He could not get to Guan-Thwei, at least not this way. But he had no desire for Hard Meat to tear him to pieces in such a dishonourable way. The proximity explosives would hopefully take out some of the Hard Meat, maybe even discourage them from proceeding, though he doubted that.

With the explosives embedded into the rocks, he just saw the Hard Meat on the edge of his vision. They were heading straight for him, and there were lots of them. He growled, ready to take them on, when he noticed something. The wall at the side was weak. He flicked through some vision modes and sure enough, there was a very narrow passageway leading back around into the caves. He could always come back this way.
His shoulder cannon whirred to life and aimed down at the weak spot. An explosive burst of plasma ripped through the weak rocky wall, blasting rocks into his face, opening up the passageway, and sending an echo across the local cave network. He dived in just as the wave of Hard Meat reached the explosives. Acidic thwei sprayed everywhere as some of them were blown to pieces. After hesitating for some time, the remaining drones split up, some of them pouring into the tunnel like rats, in pursuit of Yeyinde. The rest continued on towards the exit.

Dekke gasped as he finally saw what could have been making the roars. A mass of chitinous bodies swarmed up the tunnel towards them, what meagre light there was reflecting off insectile bodies, wickedly sharp claws, and vicious fangs. The vile creatures scrambled over each other in their hellish haste to reach the bait, scuttling towards the wounded alien, jaws wide.

"Fire! We have to keep the bait alive for as long as possible!"

The weapons roared into life, filling the tunnel with the rattle of flechette clips emptying, the staccato noise of the pulse rifles, and the occasional deadly roar as a plasma bottle went off. The carpet of monsters slowed down to claw their way across piles of dead. Flechettes shattered carapaces, splitting the aliens in two and splashing acidic blood across the corridor. Heads and limbs were blasted away from segmented bodies, and slack yet monstrous jaws plucked from the skulls of the creatures. One of the larger ones dropped to the floor, half of its hideous xenomorph face blasted away, blood fountaining from the open wound. Many of the smaller creatures simply scuttled over, but a few of the pirates recoiled as one enterprsing alien burrowed through, bursting from its fallen comrade's chest, trailing ropes of gore. An energy pulse met it on the way out, incinerating it.

The mass had not yet reached the now wide awake and thrashing Predator, but it was only a matter of time. An unstable plasma bottle arced over its head, crackling as it went. It flew towards the oncoming horde and detonated, flinging various portions of alien anatomy back into the mass. The pirates held their ground, blazing away.

The Hive

The Colonel finally realized how geivously he had erred in coming to this place, this was not a cave complex, but a hive for these aliens, and now it was too late to save his command, the beasts were tearing down the tunnel at an insane speed and all of his men weren't putting out enough fire pressure to keep them back. First one tell-tale on his HUD went dark, then another, a third, and then men were dropping left and right, he was down another squad already with more men injured, his only choice was plan "Fell Deeds", contingency "Sherman: Georgia", all who were dead were lost, those who lived might continue to do so. "Fell Deeds" called for pulling back to the nearest fortified area, the contingency was much worse, in "Fell Deeds; Sherman: Georgia" they would fall back to the nearest fortified are as usual, but they would also destroy anything their enemies might find useful, including, in this case, themselves, none would be taken alive, none would be allowed to lag behind, wounded were to be shot and their power plants set for proximity detonation, that way they would get to kill a few more enemies before being lost for all time. The way is set, now we must walk the path lain before us by fate, our only hope is that the resupply ship is on time for once, or more specifically, the escorts of the supply ship, the cruisers and their marine detatchments would be a great boon to our survival, but they weren't due for three more days, and they are rarely on time, we must likely wait at least five days, I doubt we will last that long.

Guan-Thwei was awake. He was bound, and injured. He could hear the sound of burners firing at a frantic rate quite close to him, and the screams and hisses of the Hard Meat, getting ever-nearer. He knew these sounds; these were the sounds of battle! He started to thrash around in his restraints. If he could not escape completely, he needed to at least activate his self-destruct. No Yautja technology was ever to fall into the hands of the prey. If he failed to ensure this, another hunter would have to go, and he would die with dishonour.

He stifled a roar as some of the acidic thwei of the Hard Meat splashed upon his skin, burning through and mixing with his own blood. He clenched his teeth as the stinging sensation subsided; his blood neutralised it. He looked down as he heard some hissing that he couldn’t feel. Some of the thwei had gotten on his restraints, and was slowly burning into them…

He managed to get his wrist blades to jut out, and contorted his arm in such a way that he could press their razor-sharp edges against his restraints. Working alongside the Hard Meat thwei, he should be able to…

*Twang!*
*Twangtwangtwang!*

His arms and legs burst apart as he freed himself. The pain from his wounds, both internal and external, was great. But he knew; wounds could heal, but death was irreversible. He flipped up to his feet and swung around, roaring at his captors in rage. Before he had any chance to do anything, though, a brave drone slammed into his back and shoved him down into the dirt. He just managed to jerk his head to one side as the inner mandibles of the creature jutted out, pounding harmlessly into the ground. He put his foot up against the creature’s midsection, and shoved with all his strength, at the same time flipping himself back to his feet. The drone flew over the heads of his captors.

Guan-Thwei clicked eagerly. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. He looked to one side. His shoulder cannon was still operative. His laser sights jutted out and locked on to the flying Hard Meat, and the cannon launched a bolt of plasma straight over the heads of his captors. Just as the drone slammed into a tree with enough force to crack its spine, a blue blast slammed into it, splattering it everywhere and knocking the top of the tree off.

Guan-Thwei roared in delight, and turned around. He swung his wristblades around as he did, slicing the heads off several more drones. He began to offer his own firepower into the morass of drones, blasting groups of them to pieces with the relentless fire from his shoulder cannon. He pulled his secondary burner from his thigh pouch, raised his arm, and began firing that too. His other gauntlet opened up at the top and started firing proximity explosives into the crowds of drones. As soon as the blade-like objects dug into the ground they instantly detected movement, and erupted, sending drones flying into the air.

The scene was quite extraordinary. It was like they were all beating back a horde of insects, swarming from the cave in droves. Each shot blasted a ‘crater’ in the crowd, which was only filled a second later by several more drones. But with Guan-Thwei’s firepower added alongside the already-substantial firepower of the Taldaan forces, they began to beat them back…

Yeyinde planted his foot against one Hard Meat skull, pinning it to the wall, while he swept his wristblades across the guts of another. He twisted his foot and crushed the other Hard Meat's head, and through their bodies backwards to act as a barrier in the narrow tunnel. He managed to crawl away from them quite quickly now that they were trying to slice their way through their dead brethren.

Yeyinde turned around and fired his plasmacaster from a safe distance. The weapon on his shoulder lit the tunnel up in blue as the balls streaked down to the morass of drones. Two plasma shots impacted with the wall of the tunnel right next to where the drones were scrambling. Rocks tumbled in from the roof, landing on top of the creatures and sealing it off from any others.

Yeyinde clicked, slightly disappointed. He would have to keep going now, and find another exit; he had hoped to turn back, but too many drones had followed him. He looked up ahead, able to see in the dark with his mask, and started to crawl on.

The Cave

Colonel MacClintoc was stunned at the flash of light, He was even more stunned by what walked out of it: people, in powered armor. Can you say Garryowen? The cavalry had arrived, but after a second look he realized they weren't Slammers, he was pretty sure they were Dominion, but his assumption was proved correct as the leader introduced himself as the commander of DT1, a commando strike force. "Well I don't know your rank so I'll just say thank God someone else on this rock ball is still alive and fighting, other than my troops. From the fact that you found us I assume you guys are the team that was with my armored company at the research station and the base. My troops have been fighting these things for almost five days now and we're about burned out so..." At this point the troops are hit by another pack of the beasts, then another, then a third, and finally a fourth group, all at once, the groups don't number more than five each, but that's twenty aliens and they had the advantage of surprise on his wiped out troops. The slaughter was horrible, not a single alien made it within five feet of attack range for those tails of theirs, they were cut down almost as they appeared, one minute charging his men, the next leaking piles of chitin on the stone floor of these caves, these damn caves that had eaten half of his command and prevented armored support. "As I was saying, my troops are burned out, they're not even running on autopilot at this point, they're running on just training and instinct and I'm worried something bad's gonna happen if we meet a large group of these things again."


En Route to The Caves

The remaining three Abrams tanks and the Metalstorms had reached the jungle and were halfway to the caves when they met their first resistance, not one of those aliens, but instead a lizard the size of Old Terra's dinosaurs, it towered over the tanks and the accompanying APCs by at least twenty feet, then it moved, and when it moved it really moved, nothing that big should be so fast it blurs to the human eye, but this was, and it moved towards them, for about a second... before the first Sabot round tracked up and through its chest cavity, killing it instantly, the corpse was still a hazard however, and the crew of the tank it landed on was even more unhappy, the Abrams could take as much as twice again its own weight on the torsion bars, but the crotch of an animal that big is gonna make any man feel insecure about his apparatus, looking at it wasn't much fun either. They finally got it out from under the beasts corpse, and got on their merry way, with much cursing and obscenities in at least five languages, two of them dead languages and the other three coming from the tank commander, who managed to cuss for a whole pair of minutes without repeating himself once, in any language. They finally reached the caves late on the second day and found out why the boss wanted the 'storms loaded with HEAT rounds, the entrance was about a full foot too small for an Abrams chasis and they would have to blast away the narrow opening for about twenty feet before it widened out to admit two tanks abreast, the 280mm cannons on the Crucifier would have done a better job, but none had been sent to this Godforsaken mud ball. An hour later they were finally in, and back in contact with higher, their orders were to follow a path being downloaded to their nav systems and meet up with the remaining infantry company about twenty miles into the cave, where they would be put on point because they were the heaviest armor available under the circumstances, some Avatars would be nice, but if wishes were fishes...

DT1: Trust me, we're all the backup you need. We've got bio sensors which is how we found you, but whatever these other things are we haven't seen yet or, for that matter, have even showed up as more than a shadow on scans. Just point us toward the hostiles, and consider them dead.

OOC: Just getting up to speed, and now for the current post!!!!111

IC: DT1: Holy shi-

he didn't have time to finish as the creatures were tearing up the Slammer soldiers. The team opened up with concussion grenades and high powered blaster bolts, but DTs 2 and 7 were already down, their armor burned through by the blood of the fallen aliens adn their flrsh being ripped apart by others.

DT5: FALL BACK!

DT1: YOU HEARD HIM! LET'S MOVE! *over com* DT's 3 and 8 do a run and gun to help cover us *flips a switch* DT1 to lander 8 to beam up!

Lander: Negative, too much activity.

DT1: Activating field boosters.

Lander: No go, you'll have to get clear of the action.

DT1: Roger.

The solemn resignation in his voice was apparent: There was little chance he and his team would escape alive.

DT1: Trust me, we're all the backup you need. We've got bio sensors which is how we found you, but whatever these other things are we haven't seen yet or, for that matter, have even showed up as more than a shadow on scans. Just point us toward the hostiles, and consider them dead.

OOC: Just getting up to speed, and now for the current post!!!!111

IC: DT1: Holy shi-

he didn't have time to finish as the creatures were tearing up the Slammer soldiers. The team opened up with concussion grenades and high powered blaster bolts, but DTs 2 and 7 were already down, their armor burned through by the blood of the fallen aliens adn their flrsh being ripped apart by others.

DT5: FALL BACK!

DT1: YOU HEARD HIM! LET'S MOVE! *over com* DT's 3 and 8 do a run and gun to help cover us *flips a switch* DT1 to lander 8 to beam up!

Lander: Negative, too much activity.

DT1: Activating field boosters.

Lander: No go, you'll have to get clear of the action.

DT1: Roger.

The solemn resignation in his voice was apparent: There was little chance he and his team would escape alive.

Yeyinde reached a dead end. He growled angrily. Most definitely not the best hunt he'd ever been on. He didn't recall ever being sealed in a tunnel this small before. He pressed against the wall and slammed a foot into the opposite wall, regretting it shortly afterwards as his entire body appeared to vibrate. He roared and his shoulder cannon moved to a ready position, and blasted a low-level bolt into the rocks. Pebbles blasted clear and left a crater. His mask was picking up some degree of structural weakness...

He fired again. And again, and again. He fired repeated shots until one broke through. He crawled along the irregular tunnel and reached the end, where he could hear violence. Burners. Battle. He glanced over the edge and clicked curiously.

Oomans, or at least what appeared as oomans on his mask, fighting Hard Meat in the cavern below. Lots of Hard Meat. Perhaps too much Hard Meat? Foolish question; any Hard Meat was too much Hard Meat. Disgusting, slimy creatures, they were. The oomans didn't seem to be doing too well, so there may have been too many of them from a tactical point of view also. Yeyinde wondered what the Soft Meat were doing so deep in the hive, but shook his head and focussed on more important things.

One of the species was designated prey, the other was not, so he knew which one he should be killing. Besides, he did not want for non-hunters to have all the glory.

He roared, attracting the attention of a couple of Hard Meat drones, grabbed the edge of the hole he'd just blasted from the roof of the cavern, and dropped down. He hung from the roof and fired several shots from his shoulder cannon, clearing a place for him to land in the midst of the battle. He let go and dropped down to the ground and sent up a cloud of dust as he hit the floor.

He immediately took to firing at drones and slashing them with his combistick and wristblades at the same time, occasionally roaring in glee as he made several kills at once.

***

The Predalien looked down from the hole in the roof at his prey. One like that which spawned him. The ultimate kill. It clicked quietly, hissing at the Yautja. It stood in the centre of a drove of his lesser brethren. The tall creature span around, and blue bolts of light streaked out and blasted other drones to pieces. The Predalien hissed in disapproval. Drones were too eager to kill; running straight at their prey. They were always gunned down in their hundreds before they won. Predalien knew better though. It had an instinctive drive to hunt, rather than confront.

It clicked once again, and disappeared back into the tunnel. Now was not the time...

(referring to the predator)
DT5: What the hell?

DT1: Who cares what is, it's helping us! TEAM ABOUT FACE AND FIRE! LET'S SEND THAT DEVIL SPAWN BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM!

The team spun around, taking tactical positions and finding cover where they could. They laid spreads of blasterfire and concussion grenades, covering a possible ally who seemed to appear from out of nowhere.

DT3: Keep him covered! I don't know who he is, or where he came from, but he needs our help.

DT8 came close to getting ripped apart, but a pinpoint blaster bolt to the head ended the pitiful drone's life. The fire continued as the team watched in wonder at the mysterious armored being that had come to their aid.

OOC:
I'll be RPing the Hammer relief\supply group, waiting for a few days, at least until they're out of the caves. We'll fall back and regroup under the safety ofthe fleets guns, then we'll return to the caves and kick some alien ass. There will be no troops to reinforce the last company, only weapons, ammo, and three AVATAR MK2 MBTs, heavy support platforms with close combat capability.

OOC: I've got a minor case of writers block, so I'm gonna wait till someone else posts before I make any moves.

Yeyinde roared with glee as he jammed the end of his combistick through the torso of a drone, span around and let it fly. It flew off the end of his staff and down a small tunnel, and crashed through a crowd of drones like a bowling ball. He began to focus his fire in that direction, blasting all the drones that were scrambling to their feet. After some degree of focused plasma blasts, he had apparently stopped the flow of drones from that particular tunnel. They still poured in through all the other entrances though.

He jumped up in the air, firing some bolts downwards as he went, and landed in the space he had just cleared.

His shoulder cannon kept firing at drones as he reached down and pulled up a bulky, oval-shaped blade, with finger holes and what seemed to be a control panel. He tapped some buttons, pulled his arm back, and let it fly. The self-guided spinning disc began to tear through dozens of drones, popping their heads off like corks from bottles, the squirts of blood from the remaining stumps only adding to the effect. It arced right through the crowd of drones, calving right through their front lines.
As the disc flew and temporarily held them back, he fired some proximity explosives, which embedded into the rock in their path. As he caught the retreating disc, he tapped a button on his arm.

The explosives erupted all at once, creating a miniature wall of fire in front of the army of drones. Any drones nearby were blasted to pieces or severely injured. The rest of the drones stopped in their tracks, skidding to a halt. The constant flow seemed to pile up behind the temporary orange barricade.

Yeyinde roared again, gesturing down the tunnel at the Soft Meat. He had secured a small path out, and the drones had been held back for a few seconds. They would not hesitate for very long, though.

Resupply Group

The task force was in sorry shape, they'd been attacked by pirates three times on the trip and both cruisers were damaged, but the convoy was intact and the supplies would be making planetfall in two days, a whole day ahead of schedule, which was not a common occurence.

OOC: Miehm and Hammers Slammers have been deleted, as such I will temporarily be controlling my other nations forces as Mini Miehm, if they stay deleted, I'll be controlling them like this semi-permanently, until I can incorporate them into my forces as Mini Miehm, they got deleted because I posted a link to ebaums world without knowing it was against the rules, since I'd already been forumbanned before they deleted me, I might be back, I might not, so we'll see.

OOC: Lets get it on!!!.

IC:

The Abrams main battle tanks of the Hammer expiditionary force were in exactly the wrong place, since they were leaving the caves they were at the front of the column and the fighting was at the back, but it didn't matter. As the predator smashed through the wall and started tearing up aliens the Charlie reapers were shocked intro immobility for a second, after the second of immobility they opened fire with their gatlings and flechette cannons, the aliens started to come apart under the hammer of the guns, unfortunately the reapers had been in almost constant combat for the last few days and they could run through onboard stores of ammo in under five minutes, the gatlings were fed by immense battle boxes that held 25000 rounds each and each reaper had two ganged together on his back so that was plenty for days of combat, but the flechette cannons on the other hand had only the suits internal storage to supply them, the internal supply had as much volume as one battlebox, but the flechette shells took up more space and fired at a higher rate, so the flechette reapers were quickly reduced to using their mono-molecular boma blades and that wasn't very survivable in this environment. The five reapers with flechette cannons fell first, victims of their own kills they had killed quite a few aliens befdore the blood ate through their highly refractable plasteel armor, and their boma blades were eaten through even faster, they were reduced to using their fists before they were overrun and bled on to death. The gatling armed reapers were so far managing to keep the aliens off of the predator and the DT troopers, but it couldn't last foorever, without the heavy firepower of the Abrams and Metalstorm tracks it was only a matter of time before they ran out of power and were overrun.

Yeyinde roared with glee as he jammed the end of his combistick through the torso of a drone, span around and let it fly. It flew off the end of his staff and down a small tunnel, and crashed through a crowd of drones like a bowling ball. He began to focus his fire in that direction, blasting all the drones that were scrambling to their feet. After some degree of focused plasma blasts, he had apparently stopped the flow of drones from that particular tunnel. They still poured in through all the other entrances though.

He jumped up in the air, firing some bolts downwards as he went, and landed in the space he had just cleared.

His shoulder cannon kept firing at drones as he reached down and pulled up a bulky, oval-shaped blade, with finger holes and what seemed to be a control panel. He tapped some buttons, pulled his arm back, and let it fly. The self-guided spinning disc began to tear through dozens of drones, popping their heads off like corks from bottles, the squirts of blood from the remaining stumps only adding to the effect. It arced right through the crowd of drones, calving right through their front lines.
As the disc flew and temporarily held them back, he fired some proximity explosives, which embedded into the rock in their path. As he caught the retreating disc, he tapped a button on his arm.

The explosives erupted all at once, creating a miniature wall of fire in front of the army of drones. Any drones nearby were blasted to pieces or severely injured. The rest of the drones stopped in their tracks, skidding to a halt. The constant flow seemed to pile up behind the temporary orange barricade.

Yeyinde roared again, gesturing down the tunnel at the Soft Meat. He had secured a small path out, and the drones had been held back for a few seconds. They would not hesitate for very long, though.

DT1: Say no more, friend! Team move out!

As the Dark Troopers moved out, Dt1 stopped alongside Yeyinde for but a moment.

DT1: I don't know weho you are, but thanks. We owe you. If you or any of your kind ever travel to the Dominion Galaxy, you are always welcome.

With that, he caught up to his team and they made their escape from the caves, firing blaster bolts and launching grenades to hold the drones back from the entrance. At once the team was swept up in a transporter beam, their molecules being whisked away to the Nova's Wrath.

The lander was recalled shortly after.

OOC: I'll wait for someone else to post before continuing.

DT1: Say no more, friend! Team move out!

As the Dark Troopers moved out, Dt1 stopped alongside Yeyinde for but a moment.

DT1: I don't know weho you are, but thanks. We owe you. If you or any of your kind ever travel to the Dominion Galaxy, you are always welcome.

With that, he caught up to his team and they made their escape from the caves, firing blaster bolts and launching grenades to hold the drones back from the entrance. At once the team was swept up in a transporter beam, their molecules being whisked away to the Nova's Wrath.

The lander was recalled shortly after.

OOC: I'll wait for someone else to post before continuing.

OOC: Alright, looks like I'm all alone now, oh well, it is a good day to die.

IC:

The remaining reapers were about to be overrun, once they were down it would be up to the regular ACS and unarmored infantry, the EF was pretty much doomed, then the Colone jumped int the fray, his armor was an interesting and highly personalized suit of armor, with all of his personaliations that weren't included in the released model, like his AM power pac, the arm mount flamers, switchblade bomas, and heavier armor, his suit was a walking killing machine. The colonel opened fire with the wrist mounted flamers on his suit to kill the enemy and prevent the blood from hurting his troops. The aliens were falling in droves now and his troops were still pulling back in reasonable order, but the predator seemed to be cut off, The colonel solved that isue by the simple expedien of just killing everything between him and it, maybe with luck they'd escape this hell.

bump

OOC: I'm only gonna bump this for the next three days, after that if there hasn't been another post I'm just gonna give up, don't make me do that yautja, slaughter.

Yeyinde was about to follow the oomans out of the cave when there was a crashing sound. He jumped backwards just in time to avoid the pile of boulders that collapsed in his path, blocking off the only safe exit. Something came out of the dust, from the hole in the roof of the narrow passage...

The world seemed to slow down. The metal his mask was made from was unbelievably strong, almost indestructible, but this creature's claws dug right in and ripped through it, sparking the complicated electrical circuitry within. It was ripped from his face as the claws slashed across it, slicing it open, and he flew backwards. He seemed to float through the air until he slammed down. He rolled rapidly along the floor until he crashed into the wall.

The other drones were now free from the effects of his weapons and were eager for some lunch. Yeyinde's attacker roared, though. A bellowing roar, and the other drones immediately backed away in fear. Yeyinde took the opportunity to flip to his feet and look at his attacker. He flared his mandibles in rage when he saw it. A Predalien.

The Predalien flared its own mandibles in retaliation and slashed its claws in Yeyinde's direction. Yeyinde dodged. He dropped and rolled to the floor when the other hand went for a swipe. As he rolled he took a swipe of his own at the creature's leg, slicing a nice gash in it with his wrist blades. Glowing, acidic blood spilled out and the creature roared in pain. Unfortunately it wasn't incapacitated yet, and it kicked him square in the stomach. He lifted off the ground and flew backwards. Drones parted like the Red Sea as he landed in the middle of them, and swarmed to surround him when he thudded to the ground on his back. They didn't attack though.

Instead, they backed away, just enough for Yeyinde to see the Predalien hovering in the air. It slammed down into the rocky ground beside him with such force that the rocks cracked open. Its tail went straight down, cutting into his midsection and embedding in him, and as it flicked out again it caused a sharp, growl-inducing pain. The creature's claws wrapped around Yeyinde's neck and it lifted him up roughly, and tossed him over the crowd of drones. He flew clumsily through the air and hit a wall, falling down to the ground. This Predalien was savouring in the kill. Yeyinde wasn't going to let it.

He was about to set his self-destruct system off, but he saw a better opportunity. The Predalien threw drones out of the way as it forced itself out of the morass of black demons. When it was clear, it started running at Yeyinde, roaring and hissing angrily. It was going to finish him off.

Or at least, it would have done. As it neared him, Yeyinde's combistick extended. One end slammed into the rock and embedded itself firmly in the wall. The other skewered the Predalien as it impaled itself on the sharp blade. There was a nasty cracking sound as it burst out of the creature's back, spraying its blood outwards.

The Predalien wasn't going to give up that easily, though. It was close. Dangerously close. Its inner jaws burst out, headed straight for Yeyinde's skull... but they stopped a centimetre short. Yeyinde shot his hand up and grabbed them. He yanked them down, so that they creature was face-to-face with him, and he growled provokingly.

The Predalien struggled, but Yeyinde was sick of it. He yanked hard on the inner-jaws, and they came away surprisingly easily in his hands. He ducked away and ripped his combistick away, avoiding a stream of acid just in time. The Predalien dropped to its knees, clawing at its mouth desperately. Yeyinde swiped his wristblades past it, and started to walk away. The Predalien's head fell away, and the body collapsed on the ground.

He stood before the drones, who seemed somewhat confused at the death of the Predalien. They glanced at each other, hissing quietly, as though trying to figure out what to do next. Yeyinde flared his mandibles and bellowed a roar at them aggressively. The drones, surprisingly, started to back away. When Yeyinde's shoulder cannon whirred to life and aimed at them, they turned tail and scampered away down some corridors.

Yeyinde grunted. He didn't expect them all to run away, but he wasn't going to complain. They'd probably be back. But for now, he wanted to find the Queen, kill her, and get out of here.

He bent down and picked up his mask, which was nearly split in half. Occasionally, the ruined circuitry inside sparked at him. He shook his head and put it back down on the floor. He reached into his medical kit and pulled out a tube full of some sort of liquid, which he poured a drop or two of onto his ruined mask. The stuff acted like acid, burning through the super-dense metal as though it was made from paper. The mask dissolved right in front of his eyes, filling the cavern with noxious fumes. There was nothing left but a puddle of molten metal on the cavern floor after a few minutes, which quickly either poured through some of the cracks or hardened.

He stood up, put a respirator in his mouth, and jogged away down a corridor.