NationStates Jolt Archive

David Murphy sighed. He loathed Earth. He hated the filthy Belters. And, most of all, he couldn't stand Mars. He wished they were dead, and then were alive once more, so that he could kill them. KILL THEM! Again, again, again, he'd stab out their eyes, rip our their entrails.. the idea made him grin.

Of course, he wasn't in any position to do any of that. Still, the idea was one he'd carry out. After all, just a few weeks ago, Belters had been going to kill him. Then they had sent him to Earth for trial. Mars had extradited him, and got him out of the Earth prison. Then they had been going to execute him for treason and murder.

Naturally, he didn't want to let any of that happen. Thus, he had a better idea. He had broken out of prison, took one of the guard's keycards and simply left, leaving a trail of broken dead behind him. His clothes were still splashed with blood, in fact.

He stood now, behind the Immaterial Gate operator, with a Tagline plasma pistol. It was powerful enough to punch through heavy armour, but, at the low level he was using it, it could still easily scour through a skull.

He hit the man impatiently, and yelled in frustration as the man fell down. He looked at the unconcious operator, and fired two bolts of plasma into his head. Fall asleep on my escape, will you?!, he thought. He looked at the computer. "Hm", he spoke. And then acted. He simply mashed the keys, pressed buttons, and got out the man's card, which conviniently had the activation code written on it. He typed it in, and then started running. The Immaterial Gate would only remain open for a few minutes, as that would drain all the rift fuel Mars had stored in it. A fortune to be sure, but a fortune that would aid his escape.

He ran up a hallway, kicking a dead guard's burnt, blackened hand out of his way, and quickly got into the cylindrical elevator. "Floor X-V-Go", he spoke.". The elevator shifted off downwards at an immense speed, only the cleverly designed inertial dampener allowing him to move at such speeds.

A few second later, he was on the floor where he wanted to go. He opened up the elevator door, no hiss emanating from it. He saw what he wanted. A new shuttle, near the Immaterial Gate. Two men were standing nearby it. He pulled out his pistol, and looked at it. Six bolts. He fired. And fired again. "Damnit", he whispered. One shot had missed. One damned shot! The other man turned around, as his comrade fell to the ground, and three shots suddenly burst through his body.

"Bingo", said David. He started running, and noticed that the shuttle was open. And it appeared to have a full load of rift fuel. He smiled, and hopped in. One bolt left. As he jumped in, two men stared at him. Not even thinking, he blasted one straight through the skull.

As that man died, the other screamed, and leapt at him. David simply brought his fist up, with the blocky pistol coming out between his two fingers, and crushed the man's windpipe. That was that.

He smiled, and started working the controls. He had been a miner before he had killed his unfaithful bitch of a wife, and her friends, and he knew how to work a spaceship. It roared into life, and David began working it towards the Immaterial Gate..

As he touched it, he disappeared.. and pain wracked his body.. PAIN! THE PAIN! He could barely feel himself! It hurt, though! Oh, it hurt! The immense pain! He felt as if he was being torn apart..

He looked up, and the pain stopped. He was... somewhere else. He didn't know where. The Immaterial Gate must've thrown him through to another star system! He collapsed on the floor, not thinking of possibilities, but exhausted by the immense pain that had wracked his body..

The Imperial Jewel was going through it's final systems check before it's maiden voyage, a young ensign prepared to activate the massive ship's sensor grid upon the captains order. "Engines?" The captain called out. "All systems nominal." Came the inevitable reply. Down the checklist the orders came, until finally. "Sensors?" Almost without thinking the ensign began. "Nomi... wait, this can't be right..." "Ensign Chambers? Are the sensors working or not?" Came the captain's impatient growl.

"Sir, we're detecting an unidentified ship at the edge of the system, it appears to have a single occupant. A male human." The rather petite ensign responded, brushing her amber hair from her forehead. She hoped to hell it wasn't a sensor ghost, it was a miracle the Intellectual/warrior hybrid even got this position, if there was anything they could pin on her... "Mining station beta confirms, a single man craft, incapable of hyperspace." The communications officer called out. Ensign Chambers resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of relief, such a sign of doubt would reflect badly on her.

"Send a few fighters out to meet it, we'll have to put off the weapons test for now. For all we know this could be the beginning of an invasion fleet." The captain called out. The ensign's eyes locked onto the extreme reaches of sensor range, scanning for any sign of danger.

A feminine voice came over the comm. "This is alpha flight, we have reached minimum safe distance for FTL, are spinning up drives." The transmission broke up as the fighters entered hyperspace, then re-appeared a few hundred clicks from the shuttle. "Attention unidentified vessel, you have violated Imperial Shepmagan territory. State your purpose here immediately or we will be forced to disable your ship and bring you in for questioning."

((OOC: I'll remove this if you had other plans, just ask me.))

"Hurt...head..". David spoke, as he heard a voice ringing through the old transmitter. Het tried to get up, but his arms and legs were unresponsive. He could barely move. He didn't know where he was, but he hurt.

Oh. Now he remembered. He's just left, planning to go to another system. He wasn't really sure why. Not really sure at all. He spoke up, his voice far away from the transmitter, speaking softly, as it hurt him to raise his voice.'

"Here.. Earth.. hurt... gone".. He managed to say, until spasms wracked his body. He collapsed onto the floor of the ship, and, as he did so, noticed his power light flicker red. That meant he didn't have enough rift fuel to maintain inertial systems, or at least, he'd run out soon. He cursed, and flinched as the curse hurt his throat, and reached out his arm.. slowly... slowly.. he pressed it. A series of mechanical arms came out, found him, using the in-ship sensors, and strapped him to the wall, padding filling up much of the space. As they did so, the gravity drive whined off, the sound waves only echoing through the air of the ship.

Luckily, he was well strapped in enough as to not be hurt. He fell into sweet unconsciousness, hoping that, when he next awoke, the pain, at least, or even just the muscle spasms, would be gone...

A rather confusing reply came from the ownerless craft. "Here.. Earth.. hurt... gone" Before the power output fell considerably. Several thought raced madly through the commander's mind. It hadn't sounded like static... perhaps the person was injured? Or even worse the last survivor of a plague on Earth? Yes, that made the most sense. Even so they couldn't just leave the poor sap out here.

"We're bringing the ship back." She said rather matter-of-factly over the comm. "Command, dispatch one of the off-duty mining ships to our location, we'll need the use of it's grappler. While your at it, set up an A1 level scan to verify the absence of pathogens." "Affirmative, ETA on the 49er 2 minutes." Came the reply.

The mining ship arrived to find the fighter covering the apparently Terran ship with their weapons, if there was any indication this was a rouse they were prepared to blow the shuttle to kingdom come. Within moments the shuttle was firmly in the mining ship's grasp and the six craft FTLed back to the Imperial Jewel.

Ensign Chambers marveled for a moment at the sensor readouts, nothing out of the ordinary presented itself but the sheer amount of information the ship's sensors could spit out was staggering. "He appears to be un-conscious sir, but other then a severely increased rate of neuron firings nothing appears to be wrong with him." She replied, still scouring the wealth of information. "Very good, tell them they're cleared to land." The communications officer nodded and quickly transmitted the information. "You're cleared to land alpha flight."

The hanger bay opened, allowing the ships to phase through the force field holding the atmosphere in. A group of soldiers and medics rushed to the earth vessel's hatch and looked for a way to open it.

((OOC: With that, I'm off to bed sadly. :( I don't know about the door design to the shuttle, is there a way for them to get inside without cutting? Also I wasn't sure if the two dead bodies were still inside. You can RP them opening it if you like.))

OOC: Tag for now. Will use this post as a RP answer in a while.....

OOC: Yup, the seared bodies are still inside.

IC: "Where..where am I?", was the first question David asked after he awoke. Of course, he didn't really care. All he knew was that he was away from the Sol system, and, after that, his level of caring dropped to zero.

He couldn't move, his limbs still painful to even try to move, and his body responding to a bare few of the signals he sent it. He fell back, and sighed. There'd be time enough for questions later.. he could hear something on the hatch.. well, the hatch was barely holding as it was, as he could see on the viewscreen, so a good kick would probably throw it off its hinges. The Immaterial Gate had really wrought bloody hell on his newly-acquired ship..

His eyes closed again, for the third time, but this time, he did not have the will to awake for some time.. he would remain unconscious, his body in near-critical condition, nothing particulary wrong with him, but almost every part of his body damaged by the Immaterial Gate's strange workings, and soon, within a few hours, it would be enough to kill him..

(OOC: He crossed through the Immaterium?)

(Not the WH40K one, no. It's named such because the standard laws of matter/energy don't apply there, so moving around is a lot, lot faster. No evil demons of clawy death)

(Not the WH40K one, no. It's named such because the standard laws of matter/energy don't apply there, so moving around is a lot, lot faster. No evil demons of clawy death)

(Oh ok, just wanted to clear that up. Aw...the Warp Spawn will be sooo disapointed!)

((OOC: Sorry for the wait, I just kinda spaced out.))

Within moments two soldiers picked up a toolbox to use as a battering ram, expecting strong resistance, they heaved it forward with all their might, almost falling over when the hatch popped open with one hit. The strong smell of blood and a fait tinge of singed flesh overwhelmed them, and one of the medics pushed them aside.

The medic ignored the man with the head wound, Shepmagan medical science could do nothing for injuries that severe, and felt for a pulse on the second man. "Nothing" He mumbled under his breath before squinting into the darkness, it took a moment before he could see the outline of a man strapped to the wall. He quickly found an erratic, but strong pulse and pulled out the portable scanning unit. "Dammit" He cursed under his breath. "Arina, get a gurney in here, we need to get this man to the medbay. You, private." The man saluted. "Call ahead, tell them I've got a single male, high levels of cell death and low level hemorrhaging."

As the private hurried off to do his job Arina returned with the gurney. "Here Sgt. Aaronson." She replied. "Good, good, help me haul him on there." The sergeant deftly cut the bonds holding the man to the spacecraft and placed the man on the wheeled bed before wheeling him into the hall and to one of the elevator-like lifts. As soon as they were inside the graying man punched the buttons marked "EMERGENCY" and "Infirmary" in quick succession. The lift's inertial compensators whirred as it exceeded the speeds normally safe for humans to travel. In moments the doors opened and they were in the large hospital-like complex.

As they exited, they quickly moved to the gray, cylindrical, human sized tank that held the only thing capable of healing damage at the cellular level. Medical class nanites. They efficiently sliced the man's clothes off to prevent unnecessary contamination and placed him in the container filled halfway with saline. The machine scanned his injures before letting loose a grey cloud of machines that would slowly repair him from the inside out.

((OOC: You can have him wake up as he exits or while it's still working, whichever. You could even have him think he's being gassed for his crimes...))

...Where am I...?

Liquid.. no.. not liquid. Grey.. something..

I don't know.. where I am..

Or.. who I am..?

The man awoke, and tried to look. He couldn't. He couldn't see. Well, he could, but it was a sea of endless grey, and he didn't know what was happening.. he could barely feel a thing. Wait. His earlier thought had been incorrect. He was in liquid. Grey.. liquid?

He wasn't entirely sure. He couldn't see, nor could he hear. It was if he was completely closeted from the outside world, to the point where it didn't exist. He moved one of his arms, slowly, painstakingly, and rapped on the side of the strange tank he was in. He didn't know where he was, and nor was his memory about himself coming back.

He moved his hands up and down, up his sides, slowly running them up to his head. He didn't know what was happening, although there was a ... buzzing. A slight, annoying noise at the bottom of his head, like a tiny voice, screaming out words at him, which he could not comprehend, let alone understand...

He looked out, and, for a moment, thought he saw a slightly darker shape among the midst of grey move.. perhaps something beyond the tank's walls?

The nurse moved lazily along the corridor that lead from the "east" wing. Her shoes clacking quietly against the cold, sterile-looking white floor. She took a quick look at the chart in her hand, one patient left before she was off for the night. A man who was in the nanite tank.

She had heard a few rumors from the more talkative among the staff in the 3 hours since he'd been brought in, but didn't think much of them. There was a saying that had evolved in the centuries it had taken to construct this ship, 'Tall ships breed taller tales'. And the 30-something blonde had been around long enough to know it was true. "Plague victims" turned out to be engineers with radiation exposure, "Rebel fighters" turned out to be miners, and even "The mob boss" turned out to be some two bit cat burglar.

She shook her head as she neared the tank's readout panel. Pausing for a moment as she saw that the man had no caste reading. That was defiantly strange, though not un-heard of. She shook off the slight chill in the air and went back to studying the readouts when she was startled by a tapping sound from inside the machine, literally jumping back from shock. How could he be awake this soon? The nanites hadn't even finished for god's sake! Even a warrior castesman had a recovery time after such a treatment!

She hurriedly paged the on-call doctor and checked the readouts again, the last thing they wanted was this guy panicking and hurting himself.

((More tomorrow, sorry for the mid-postness))

He remembered something.. a face. It was spattered with blood, half of it twisted, as if in pain. It was something he knew. He didn't know who to belonged to; it could have even been his own.

He moved his hand, it appeared he no longer felt pain. Whether this was a result of the grey mist, or simply damage to his mind, he didn't care. Pain was.. an obstacle. He knew that. It was a way of reality telling you that an obstacle had cropped up, and needed to be removed..

A thin, curved smile cropped up on his face as he floated back into the tank, his awareness remaining, as his eyes gently closed. It was an effort to keep them open, and, wherever he was, he doubted that being kept in a tank was something that was done to honoured guests..

Doctor Cecil Carlton practically flew down the hall, his stark white labcoat flowing rather like a cape behind him. He stopped abruptly when he reached the area his page had originated from, looking somewhat worse for wear as he adjusted his glasses. "What happened?" He barked to the nurse who was still checking the readouts. "He woke up sir. I can't explain it, but the neural outputs clearly show him as conscious." The doctor pushed her aside to confirm it for himself, scowling slightly as he took in the readouts. "Alright, deactivate it. Then get a security force in here just in case." The blonde woman nodded and followed orders, pressing the required key sequence to shut down the nanites allowing the to fall back into the saline and return to storage. Cecil waited until the nanites had deactivated before sliding back the top layer of the tank, revealing a man who appeared to be sleeping.

((OOC: *Cough cough* Hello? HT? I posted aeons ago... did you just not see it or are you busy?))

Oh, right, right.. For some reason my profile didn't show this, dunno why..

IC: He couldn't attack. He didn't have the strength. He wanted to, but as light flooded over his face, he felt that the effort simply wasn't worth it. He wasn't sure entirely where he was, and his name was something that constantly eluded his mental grasp.

His lips shuddered open, and he spoke, slowly, and lingeringly. "He-hello? Where.. who...?". He left the question unfinished, his eyelids sliding open as he did so, the exhaustion he had suffered almost gone. He knew something about a gene.. something to do with him, but he couldn't remember what it was.

He looked expectantly up at the strange white labcoated man.. was he a test subject? If he could've summoned the strength, he would've tried to strangle the man.. his fists closed in mute resolve, but even that resolve did not give his body the strength to move from its floating position...

"Hello indeed." The balding doctor replied with a small, yet warm smile. "To answer your first question, I'm a doctor. As for your second, your ship landed at the edges of The Shepmagan empires home system. Though I doubt that means anything to you. You had a lot of cellular damage when we pried you out of your... erm... ship. Anyway you could probably use something to were." He looked up at the nurse who had just finished phoning the security team. "Julia could you fetch the man some scrubs?" The blonde nodded and retrieved a pair of red scrubs from the closet, returning and setting them on top of the control panel. "I assume you'll want some privacy?" She asked, moving outside of the curtain.

((OOC:Sorry for the clipped responce, but I need bed.))