NationStates Jolt Archive

Five years.

Five years had passed since the Eotu Incident.

News that the legendary Ventrius had successfully penetrated the great barrier which surrounded their star system and discovered a universe beyond it had shaken Vescopan society to its core. Huge swathes of people found themselves questioning their religions, the government, and the very nature of the universe. In some quarters of the capital riots had occurred as people believed the government was lying to them as part of some anti-theological agenda. Even now, five years later, violence occasionally sprung up in localised areas as radical movements showed their discontent.

Religious faiths found their numbers decimated by the news. Millions of Vescopans began questioning their faiths and even rejecting them outright, either switching to alternative faiths which were more compatible with the news or simply becoming atheist. Most religions were hit hard, but it was the largest religion of them all which was hit the worst. Eotans based their entire belief system on the premise that the Eotu was the end of the universe, home to Divinities and Demons, and the place you went to in the afterlife. After being informed that this was all nonsense, and that there was plenty to see on the other side, it was met with a theological crisis. Some simply refused to believe the news, and continued with their worship of the Eotu-dwelling Divinities. Others rejected the church and became angry at the lies they had been told for so long. A small minority of Eotans claimed that the Ventrius had simply gone deep enough into the barrier to see the afterlife and altered their beliefs accordingly. The official position of the Eotan Church was surprisingly predictable - "the Divinities move in mysterious ways".

Even in non-religious circles there was strife. Most simply accepted the news and continued with their normal lives - after all, it didn't significantly affect them. Some believed it was part of some dramatic government conspiracy to bolster military and space spending, which wasn't helped by the fact that the government did actually increase such spending afterwards. However, small conspiracy groups sprang up almost overnight claiming that although the government had told the truth, they hadn't told the whole truth - and subsequently began demanding the release of classified files into the public domain. Violently, in some cases.

It was the latter that was more accurate than most would expect. Prime Leader Jessaá Cataldo and her cabinet had made an executive decision to keep certain parts of the mission reports heavily classified, despite their distaste for withholding the truth from the people. Commander Viscross, the commander of the Maelrosica who had witnessed some of the events first-hand, agreed with their decision. Having seen the chaos that resulted from people simply learning that the Eotu wasn't the end of the universe after all, he couldn't even begin to imagine what would happen if they learned of the existence of aliens.

One alien vessel even managed to penetrate the great barrier and enter Vescopan space, although heavily damaged in the process, and the Maelrosica had been tasked with the 'rescue' attempt. It had been hoped that as well as making first contact with an alien race, the Maelrosica could have recovered some alien technology or scientific knowledge, but it was not to be. The team sent aboard the alien vessel barely escaped with their lives when the ship was scuttled by its crew and vanished without a trace, and the Maelrosica returned with empty cargo holds and a few tall tales. Viscross, like everybody else involved, had been issued with a gagging order upon their return as part of the government's attempts to keep the events under wraps.

On the other side of the barrier things were event stranger. The Vescopa had been destroyed shortly after penetrating the other side of the Eotu, for no other reason than the damage it had sustained during transit. The Caspetona had followed her through in a rescue attempt and confirmed as much. However, Commander Halasia was adamant that some of the Ventrius crew had survived, as they confirmed that escape pods had been launched. None of them were ever recovered, and the Caspetona was too badly damaged to search for any great distance. Maelrosica had to be diverted to tow the damaged ship back home, where she remained undergoing a refit to this very day.

Now, it seemed, that just as the fallout was beginning to settle that something conspired to bring it all back to the surface.

Maelrosica was the only operational ship in range, and they had been tasked with visiting Vescopa III. Although home to nothing more than intolerable heat, a large mining operation had been underway for several decades now, and six hundred people could be found there at any given moment of time. However, the government had received word from the colony that some kind of ruins had been found during their mining excavations and the miners wanted an archaeological team to visit the world and assess whether they could continue drilling in that area. That was almost a whole period ago. Since then, no transmissions had been received from Vescopa III.

Concerned, the government instructed a Naval vessel to visit the world, assess their situation, assist as necessary and then report their findings back to the homeworld. Perhaps it was as simple as an equipment malfunction - the mining colony was renowned for its lack of modern hardware and its poor living conditions. However, the mention of 'ruins' within the last transmission was troubling. Vescopans had only ever established a single colony on the unforgiving world, and that mining colony was it. With the events of five years ago still fresh in the minds of everybody who knew of them, only one thought entered their heads.

Aliens.

It had long been theorised by scientists that the Eotu was far too uniform, too perfect, to be a natural phenomenon. It acted like a defence mechanism for the system, annihilating virtually anything that tried to get through it. The theory was largely dismissed due to the sheer level of technology that would be required to create such a colossal field of gas, black holes, inter-dimensional tears and other assorted phenomenon, not to mention the religious prejudices that were rife, and was considered to be pseudo-science at best. But the theory still occupied the fringes of science and had become more prominent since the discoveries made in the Eotu Incident. Those few scientists who were convinced of its accuracy believed that an advanced race of alien beings, hundreds of thousands of years ago, occupied this region of space and constructed the Eotu to defend them from enemy attacks. However, in order to do such a thing these ancient aliens must have possessed a means of safely traversing the Eotu themselves - otherwise they would leave themselves trapped.

And when the mention of ruins was made on Vescopa III, the controversial theory immediately entered the minds of everybody who knew about the transmission, Viscross included. So far as they were concerned, there simply wasn't another explanation, despite knowing next to nothing about the nature of these ruins. For all they knew, it could just be a bizarre cave formation that the miners had mistaken for ruins - had they not gone silent so soon after their message, perhaps there would be no random assumptions.

And so it was that the Maelrosica came to the end of a twenty-nine day journey to Vescopa III to carry out its mission. Viscross remained distracted by his thoughts of past events and what might lie ahead for them, but his musings were promptly disrupted when his arm was touched gently by the Lieutenant who operated the console he presently leaned upon. Lieutenant Bessina, an attractive young woman who had risen quickly through the ranks of the rather sparsely-populated Navy, had replaced Lieutenant Danig at the helm after his rather abrupt departure from the organisation mere weeks after the Eotu event. Already she had proved good company for the normally isolated Commander, although he didn't choose to indulge himself in recreation like the other members of the crew.

"Commander," she said softly, trying not to startle the distracted officer. "We are approaching the minimum deceleration point now."

Viscross shook his head and blinked himself back into the real world, leaving his memories and critiques of the past behind as the future came back to the forefront of his thoughts. Those twenty-nine days had gone by like slugs crawling across a gravel path, and the realisation that the journey was over and they were about to face the real challenge was something of a shock to the system. Nevertheless, it was time for him to get his brain back into gear.

"Good Lieutenant, good," Viscross nodded. He pushed himself away from the console and returned to his own chair, fastening the safety belts. "Molus, put out the usual shipwide 'brace yourself' message would you? Bessina, begin deceleration protocols in one cent - get us close to our orbital path."

As the tannoy chimed and Second Lieutenant Molus' voice echoed through the corridors, recommending the crew begin to strap themselves in for the Gs, Viscross placed his fingertips together against his pursed lips and watched the orange planet in the distance through the viewports. The planet had been a distant speck of light, barely even visible against the backdrop of the bright orange Eotu, for the last few days now. Only in the past dozen fractions or so had it grown to look anything like a planet, and now, in the final few cents of their journey, it had begun to grow rapidly. Ominously, so far as Viscross was concerned. He had hoped that it would remain a speck, but despite whatever difficulties he expected he couldn't help but be curious to see what they might find there.

As he sank into yet more musings he barely even registered the G-forces that pressed his chest firmly against the safety harness, and was quite surprised when Bessina announced that the deceleration was complete to a fairly decent margin of error. He promptly unclipped his harness and rose to his feet.

"Good, Lieutenant," Viscross nodded. "Take us to orbital velocity, geosynch us above the mining colony."

As the planet slowly began to move off to the left and out of view he wandered over to the tactical awareness console and gave Lieutenant Darés a courteous nod. She was already at work, giving the location of the mining colony a thorough sweep with every sensor system at her disposal. On her monitors a variety of images appeared detailing the area; one simply a high-resolution orbital photograph, another an infra-red image. Her eyes squinted a little as she focussed on each of them, looking for anything out of the ordinary, but neither she nor Viscross could spot anything unusual. The Commander didn't even bother to ask her for her report, as he could see it in her eyes and on the monitors - nothing was happening down there.

"Molus," Viscross spoke up, glancing towards the communications station. "Are we picking up any radio traffic from down there?"

"Nothing sir," the Second Lieutenant shook his head. "Not even their damned automated satellite uplink signal is transmitting."

"Try a standard hail, see if anybody wakes up down there," Viscross ordered.

"Aye sir," Molus sighed, replacing his headset. "Jeric Incorporated Mining Colony, Vescopa III, this is the Naval Vessel Maelrosica requesting status update and security code verification, over. Repeat..."

While the communications officer futilely attempted to garner some kind of response from the miners or their administrators, Viscross walked over to the wall-mounted intercom and made contact with the marine barracks, specifically Brigadier Heskindo. While he had followed protocol, he didn't expect the miners to respond, and knew for a fact that somebody was going to have to go down there. And it sure as heck wasn't going to be him.

***

The call was rather unexpected. While they'd felt the deceleration and knew that meant they had arrived, the marines were hoping for a little more notice before being deployed. In fact, most were hoping they wouldn't need to be deployed, that the miners had simply broken their radios and just needed some techs sending down to help them get working again. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, as Captain Jensica discovered for herself when the Brigadier grabbed her bunk and shook it violently from side to side. So much for her nap.

"Wake up sleepy-heads! We're going for some shore-leave!" Heskindo bellowed at the top of his voice as he walked through the barracks and shook each bunk in turn.

"Ugh, Vescopa III is hardly a popular holiday destination," Trooper Gringes moaned. Jensica looked over at him with her tired eyes just in time to see him topple over the side of his bunk as he struggled to get out. That amusing scene alone was enough to stir her to her senses, and she promptly swung her legs over the side of her bunk and dropped to the floor.

"If you're lucky Trooper you might get a tan," she said with a grin as she pulled off her clothes and quickly replaced them with her urban camouflage jump suit.

"More like get all my skin burned off," Gringes sighed.

"Alright you lazy marines, we aren't going on a pleasure cruise here!" Heskindo snapped. "Jensica, Gringes, Bresin and Pintos - get suited and booted and down to the main hangar in twenty cents. The rest of you, stay alert in case we need your asses to pull our asses out of the fire! And leave your Divinities-damned blanket behind, Gringes!"

With a sullen expression the Trooper took the blanket he'd wrapped around his neck and tossed it back onto his bunk, scowling at the Brigadier as soon as his back was turned.

"I saw that Trooper!" Heskindo called back as he paced hurriedly out of the dorm.

"Eyes in the back of his head, Gringes," Jensica remarked as she finished hooking her black belt around her waist and grabbed her backpack from beneath her bunk. "See you all down there. Try not to fall over again on the way Trooper!"

Less than twenty cents later, the five marines, a Navy medic and a Navy tech were assembled in the enormous hangar bay, fully adorned with their combat armour, assault rifles and small backpacks. All around them was activity as NCOs rushed around the hangar bay carrying bags of EVA suits and supplies, while an enormous crane lifted one of the dropships off of a mount on the wall and deposited it on one of the elevators. While the marines seemed positively happy to be going plant-side, engaging in the usual back-slapping and assorted other features of bravado, the Naval personnel were not accustomed to leaving the safe belly of the Maelrosica and seemed positively pale. Even the golden, scale-like mottling on their cheeks seemed to have turn silvery blue as anxiety consumed their minds.

Once the dropship was placed correctly on the elevator platform, and all of the EVA suits and supplies were loaded up, Heskindo gave the word - rather loudly - and the squadron hurriedly filed aboard. As soon as the dropship loading bay was closed and secured the elevator gave out an almightly clunking sound and began the process of pushing the ship up into the hangar bay airlock and into space.

A few cents later the dropship swooped down through the harsh atmosphere of Vescopa III and its thrusters rotated to bring it to a low hovering position just ahead of the main exterior entrance to the mining colony, kicking up a veritable dust storm below. From the belly of the dark green craft seven long ropes dropped down to the ground and the marines and their Naval assistances rappelled down to the ground, immediately fanning out once they were unhooked from the ropes. They were now all wearing clean white EVA suits to protect them from the intolerable atmosphere and the harsh heat, although fortunately their assault rifles could operate in this atmosphere with only minor modifications.

"Dropship Alpha One this is entry team," Heskindo spoke into his helmet radio. "We are clear - thanks for the ride, over."

"Entry team, dropship Alpha One, our pleasure," came the response. "Take care, and please use us again for all of your interplanetary travel needs. Over and out."

With that, the channel was cut and the powerful engines of the dropship overhead roared as they thrusted upwards and vectored to bring the dropship to a horizontal course. It disappeared from view as it entered the thick yellow clouds above, and within a few millis they could no longer hear it at all.

"Conn, this is entry team," Heskindo announced into his radio.

"Entry team, conn; we hear you loud and clear," Commander Viscross' voice came back to them.

"We have touched down and are moving to gain entry to the mining facility now," Heskindo told him. "We'll keep you appraised. Entry team out."

"I was just starting to enjoy the weather," Pintos joked through the radio.

"Let's see how much you enjoy it when you've run out of air, Major," Heskindo responded. "There's the entrance. Let's move."

[OOC: This thread is not open anymore!]

The main entrance to the mining facility which, by their blueprints, lead to a reception area and an assortment of turbovators to take people to other areas of the facility, was something of a haphazard thing. Carved into a rock face, the small façade wouldn't have looked too much out of place in Vescopa City, until your glance moved across the smooth metal and saw where it met the rock. Aside from this façade, only twenty or thirty metres across, there was no other sign of civilisation. Presumably the miners never used this particular entrance, and it was reserved for people to use when the landing port was offline -which it was. With only a metal door, a control pad, and a Jeric Incorporated logo above it, the filthy main entrance to this sprawling facility wasn't going to win any design awards.

"Stack up!" Heskindo said as they moved closer to the doorway in their cumbersome suits. Obediently his team complied, splitting up into two groups which each took a covering position on either side of the door. "We ain't gonna get an optic in there," Heskindo commented as he took a closer look at the air-tight door. "Trooper, up front. Try the lock!"

"Moving up front sir!" Somewhat naively, Trooper Gringes swapped places with the Brigadier and tentatively reached out to touch the control pad with his thickly gloved fingers. There still seemed to be power, as the panel lit up and bleeped when his hand approached, but as he touched the green 'open' button, nothing happened save for a declining buzz from the door.

"It's locked, sir," Gringes said quietly. "Breach, bang and clear?"

"Trooper, that door leads into an airlock," Heskindo said with an audible sigh over the radio. "We blow it, anybody left on the other side will die a pretty gruesome death when the inner doors open. Use the head the Divinities gave you for crying out loud. Ensign Freen!"

The Navy tech, somewhat shocked by the request of his assistance so soon into the mission, immediately switched with another marine to stand next to the Brigadier. "Sir?"

"Think you can open this quietly?" Heskindo asked him.

"I can try sir," Freen nodded eagerly. Despite his anxiety at being off the ship, he was certainly excited by the prospect of aiding a mission. Presumably in the hopes of earning himself a promotion.

"Switch with me," the Brigadier nodded. "We'll cover you."

The two switched places, placing the Ensign next to the door panel. Cautiously he unhooked a toolbox from his belt and popped it open, pulling out a tool that looked suspiciously like a screwdriver. He jammed the sharp end of the instrument beneath the panel casing, piercing the protective rubber that prevented dust from entering its circuitry and levered it to remove the outer panel. With the inner circuitry revealed he pulled out another instrument and began manipulating the circuitry for a few cents. After a very short while, and apparently to the surprise of the tech, the door announced that the airlock was cycling and, sure enough, the door whirred open moments later.

"I think I did it!" Freen announced excitedly, receiving several bemused glances for his trouble.

At that moment, the marines took over. Cautiously they covered each other as they ensured that no-one was hiding inside the airlock (despite the fact that such an act would lead to their demise), and slowly filed inside, taking the Navy personnel in last. Once everybody was inside, the Brigadier hit the cycle button and the outer doors closed and the airlock began pumping the noxious air out and pumping in cooler, fresh air. Meanwhile the marines took up positions around the inner doors, waiting for any potential hostile action. They knew they were in a tough spot - if there was any hostile force waiting for them on the other side, they would be in for a world of hurt. Judging by the blueprints as soon as the inner doors opened, they would be completely exposed to enemy fire.

But nothing happened. The airlock's inner doors whirred open and they were presented with an empty room and complete silence. Cautiously they filed out, one at a time, taking cover from the marines who waited behind them as they half-expected some band of mercenaries or terrorists to be hiding behind tables. No-one revealed themselves though, and if this was an ambush it was a fairly pointless one for the marines managed to find cover without incident.

After a precursory glance it looked as though some kind of fight had taken place here. Chairs were overturned, tables were dented and scratched, and the metal walls beside the airlock had received numerous dents from bullets. There was only a small defensive contingent here, mostly for policing their own internal population, but judging from the way tables had been placed for cover and the bullet holes were mostly focused around the airlock, whatever they had been fighting had come in from the outside. Considering the blood stains left behind by the defenders, it looked as though the attacker was successful, too.

"I've got blood over here!" Jensica called, looking up from a particularly large pool of congealed blood. The only action she had ever seen was aboard the alien vessel that breached the Eotu five years ago, and no shots had been exchanged. She found it a little difficult to deal with the pool of Vescopan blood that she was presented with, but she maintained her cool nevertheless.

"Blood here too!" another voice called out, probably Gringes.

"Quiet down!" Heskindo snapped in a harsh, but hushed, whisper. "Is the area secure?"

"No hostiles detected," Jensica said. The other marines nodded in agreement. They had scoped the room and nothing had revealed itself, unless it was small or invisible. Just blood and cartridge casings.

"Looks like these guys put up a fight," Gringes said. "Casings everywhere. No bullet holes on the opposite side of the room though..."

"Must have been aliens," Pintos announced assuredly.

"Shut up Pintos!"

"Quiet!" Heskindo snapped again, before activating his ground-to-ship radio. "Conn, this is entry team. We have breached the mining facility's airlock. Signs of a fire-fight and signs of injury, but no bodies, over."

"Entry team, conn," Viscross replied. "Acknowledged. Continue on. Locate any survivors. Failing that, try to locate logs or some other form of evidence pertaining to what happened down there. Maelrosica out."

Heskindo sighed. "Jensica - atmospheric readings please?"

The Captain pulled a small PDA from a pouch in her EVA suit and held it up - a particle scanner, designed to read the contents of the air and the ambient temperature. It read perfect living conditions, both in terms of atmosphere and temperature, with no sign of bacterial or viral contaminant. "It's clean, sir."

"Good," Heskindo said. "De-suit and prepare to move. Optic and clear."

They removed their suits slowly, ensuring they weren't damaged lest they have no way to return to the ship afterwards. Dumping them by the airlock along with an EM flare to help them find their way back, the marines stacked up against the only other way out of the reception area - a long, dark corridor whose lights seemed to have been damaged judging by the flickering. Cautiously they made their way down the corridor, using the optics on each adjoining door as they went with a sophisticated flexible fibre optic camera on a stick to ensure that no enemies lay in wait.

As they moved, they found nothing. Empty offices, some with signs of battle but none with signs of victims or survivors, and overturned tables and chairs were the only things to greet them. Some of them looked as though they had only just been used, with computer monitors still active and apparently in the middle of writing some documents. It was as though the people within them had simply got up and left, and nothing had returned in a period. Jensica found this particularly unnerving, thinking that they would at least have turned off their work station if they had received some kind of notice of whatever was happening. Simply walking away from their desks - or being carried away - was a sign that something sudden and nefarious had occurred here. Of course, the pools of blood and bullet holes in the walls didn't exactly help any.

Finally they came to the end of the corridor, which was sealed with a large metal door. It wasn't a blast door or anything of the sort, but simply a big metal door with a lock on it. Jensica couldn't see any signs of a control panel for the door, leading her to believe it had either been closed remotely or there was a control panel on the other side for emergency containment.

"Stack up," Heskindo whispered, and the marines obliged. "No signs of an opening mechanism. Let's breach bang and clear - go when ready."

Like a well-oiled machine, the marines switched places to take up the necessary positions to carry out the procedue. Gringes planted small explosive charges on every weak point he could find, whilst Jensica pulled out a spherical flashbang grenade and stood ready to toss it through the door. The rest of the marines remained stacked up behind them, providing cover for when the door was blown and standing in front of the Navy personnel to protect them from harm. Without words, Gringes blew the charges and the door was blasted backwards, flying into the room beyond in a flurry of fire, sparks and smoke.

Simultaneously Jensica twisted the two spherical halves of her flashbang and called out, "flasher in the dark!" as a warning to her squadmates to look away. All of them turned their heads away from the doorway as a bright flash illuminated everything brighter than the sun itself for a moment, and a deafening bang echoed right down the corridor.

With the flashbang detonated and the door opened, the marines filed in one after the other, locating cover and ensuring that no-one was left exposed. But before they could complete their manoeuvred they were met with a horrifying sight, and a disgusting stench that overwhelmed their senses.

"Holy mother of Arctus!" Gringes exclaimed, almost dropping his assault rifle in utter shock.

"I've got bodies over here!" Major Pintos shouted, receiving some glares for his trouble.

"Thanks for stating the obvious, Major," Jensica called back. "We've all got bodies!"

Brigadier Heskindo remained silent though, not even issuing one of his barbed retorts to his soldiers who were, for all intents and purposes, giving away their position to anybody who happened to be left in the base. He simply gazed up, his face agog, at the sight that lay before him. An enormous pile of bodies, virtually a mountain of corpses that reached almost to the ceiling of the large room. Blood dripped from the fresh cadavers into oceans of congealed red, glistening in the illumination of the harsh white ceiling lights above.

"By the Divinities, there must be dozens... hundreds of them," Jensica gasped, glancing over at Gringes who began gagging and looked as though he was about to be sick. Jensica had to admit to herself that it took a great deal of willpower not to follow suit, and she was forced to look away. The only one who seemed to remain relatively professional in spite of the gory scene presented to them was Major Pintos, who slowly walked around part of the fleshy mountain trying to assess their injuries. How he did it, Jensica couldn't fathom.

"I don't see any bullet wounds," Pintos announced with a note of concern. "Looks like... some kind of animal bites. Big bugger too."

"I didn't think the miners had any animals here," Jensica said after swallowing the urge to gag as she looked back to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, when she tried to remain impartial and study the bodies more closely, she couldn't see any signs of bullet wounds, nor even knife wounds. They all looked as though they had been shredded apart, which only made the blood flow from the grisly waterfall even worse. At that, she was forced to look away again as she gagged and a tear formed in her eye.

"They don't..." Pintos said thoughtfully. "And there certainly aren't any living outside, not that we know of. Judging by the damage in the reception area though, it looked as though they were fighting something that was trying to get in from the outside. Should we make a headcount and check for survivors, sir?"

"I... erm... no," the Brigadier stammered, in an unusual display of uncertainty. Quickly he shook himself back to soldier mode and raised his head. "No. We don't have time." He reached up and clicked on his radio. "Conn, this is entry team. We have a large number of casualties... stacked up in the northern turbovator hub, repeat, a large number of civilian casualties. Requesting a second team to come planetside and perform a headcount, over."

"Entry team, conn, that is... acknowledged," Viscross' disturbed voice responded. "Sorry to hear that. Can you give an estimate, over?"

"Negative conn," the Brigadier shook his head, as though anybody in the ship above could see him doing it. "Sir we've got a veritable mountain of bodies here. Could be hundreds. But we need to keep moving sir, over."

"Understood entry team," Viscross said understandingly. "Any sign of the responsible party?"

"Major Pintos has theorised that the casualties were caused by... some kind of animal, and I have to concur for the moment," Heskindo said. "On initial assessment I can see no trace of ballistic wounds of any kind, over."

"Acknowledged," Viscross said, obviously confused. "We'll have a medical team with marine escort prepped and dropped to the designated location, over."

"Roger that," Heskindo nodded. "We'll leave an EM flare in this area to aid the second team in locating the casualties. We are now going to attempt to move deeper into the facility. Over and out."

"Sir... there could be survivors trapped in there," Jensica protested. "We have to try and help them!"

"Captain, look at that," Heskindo snapped, pointing at the hill of corpses. "If anybody somehow survived that, they probably drowned in blood soon afterwards! If there are any survivors, they'll just have to wait for the second team. Damn it, if it were up to me I'd put a bullet in every one of those poor souls, 'cause I sure as Eotu wouldn't want to wake up in there alive."

"I... understood sir," Jensica sighed. She knew he was right. They lost contact with the colony a whole period ago - who knew how long ago this happened? The chances of surviving it were pretty slim. But you always needed hope, and she hoped that the second team might get lucky and find one.

"Right, first stop - main computer core," Heskindo announced. "Ensign! Which way?"

For obvious reasons, the tech had remained somewhat silent. He was having more trouble dealing with the scene than any of the marines, being as he was only a junior officer without their extensive training nor experience. When it became clear that he wasn't going to speak until they had left this room, and possibly a good while afterwards, the Navy medic moved to comfort him while Major Pintos pulled out a PDA.

"Looks like... that turbovator, sir," Pintos said after a brief moment of study. "Should take us to the mainframe. From there it's pretty easy access to the mines proper as well."

"Good," Heskindo said. "Let's move."

OOC:

I've been having many of the problems you've been talking aout as well, and my post may also seem a little bit disjointed in some areas.

Basically, this mission is mainly to find out what happened to the first mission inside Vescopan space.

IC:

Fort Armstrong, Valencia System, USL Space

It had been years since Captain Lyle Busch and the Lamoni had disappeared into the void known as Bollinger’s Barrier, and nothing had been heard from him since that hour, when his ship and all aboard went forward into the great unknown sphere. Some people thought he and his could still be alive, but, given the circumstances, the more pragmatic discarded ideas such as that and accepted the fact that the Lamoni was lost.

Luslyvanians are not, however, a people who give up easily. To say “They are lost” could have satisfied some people, but not them. The specifics had to be discovered if possible, a level of closure had to be provided, for friends and relatives.

It was for this reason that Captain Rhoda Powell found herself aboard the same place that her good friend Lyle had once visited, shortly before his disappearance. She had not been informed why she was here yet, but, she could guess, given the information that had been let out recently by the USL’s authorities. Also, she had noticed on the shuttle in that there had been unusually tight security on one of the berthing stations. It was fully sealed; even hatches normally left open for maintenance access and so forth were all shut.

“Captain Powell?” Rear-Admiral Kleinschmidt’s voice stirred Powell back to the present. Her eyes focused and fixed on him.

“Yes, sir?” she replied.

“Ah, good,” said Kleinschmidt. “I was getting worried you’d gone prematurely senile and I’d have to call somebody else for this mission.”

“I’m ready sir,” Powell hastened to reassure him, perhaps too quickly.

“As I was saying,” Kleinschmidt continued. “We do not know what fate befell the captain inside the Barrier’s walls. Based on what we’ve seen from probes, it is safe to assume and let it be done with that. Captain Busch and his crew are almost certainly lost.”

“Sir,” Powell responded, more from reflex than anything else.

“However,” Kleinschmidt went on again. “There are some in the government who are not happy with that, and who have demanded we investigate just to be sure. I would be happy letting them shout normally, but some of them are quite powerful, and so High Command has been persuaded to organize a new Barrier Expedition.”

“To find Captain Busch, sir?” Powell ventured.

“His remains, more likely,” was the reply. “You have the gist of it though, Captain. There is little hope of finding any survivors, but we can at least make an attempt at recovering a little information about the First Expedition’s fate. For this purpose we have designed and kept hidden a new ship, and spent the last two years assembling a first-rate crew which, it is hope, will be able to get inside the Barrier, accomplish this mission, and get back out to report what it finds, much like Busch was originally sent to do.”

“A new ship, Admiral?” Powell was curious now, thinking about the sealed berthing, and its concealed occupant.

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

USLSS Valencia

“New ship, indeed,” she said, standing aboard the bridge of the USLSS Valencia. While a look out of hand would show a Des Moines class, there were some big differences. First a longer, more bulked up central spine which held two more phased arrays on each side and had more armor plating. Second, the front section seemed to bulge out more; apparently a hangar enlargement plan had been included in this new modification scheme.

Last, and perhaps strangest of all, was the orange ‘safety plates’ which she had apparently had been assigned because somebody had the brilliant idea that it might be a good idea, at least while a ship was passing through Bollinger's Barrier, for certain key areas to have protection in addition to what was normal.

Laid out on the phased array covers, as well as the torpedo tubes, and various areas which had been deemed critical enough, were covered in large, form-fitting orange plates. These had been designed to simply add more physical protection. Once the Barrier was passed a load of explosive bolts were meant to remove the heavy plates from the hull.

Powell had to wonder, exactly what was she supposed to do when she was returning, glue it all back on? A momentary thought made the captain shake. Maybe, on some level, they had already decided she wasn’t coming back so why waste the effort? She pushed notions like that aside, and continued preparing her ship.

Her ship left Fort Armstrong that same day. They passed through the Barrier’s skin with a large flash of light, but otherwise no fanfare.

The turbovator ride was a long way down, through hundreds of metres of solid rock with only the occasional metal support strut or concrete filling breaking the otherwise uninspiring view. Within the cabin was sparser still, with a textured metal floor, and no walls to speak of aside from metal girders and some chicken wire to prevent people from falling out of the side. It was a little chilly, too, but in their combat suits this was less of a concern than the utter tedium they endured - Jensica would have happily killed for some annoying elevator music.

Twenty cents turned into twenty fractions as the journey through the rock, rapid though the thing was, became drawn out. As the turbovator began to slow its descent and announced to its passengers that it was nearing its destination, the marines shook themselves back to life as Heskindo whispered, "get ready." They had no idea what they might find when they reached the bottom; perhaps the culprits of the massacre upstairs, armed and ready to kill again. Or maybe they'd just find some surviving miners, holed-up in the computer office, nervous, and maybe wielding guns with their twitchy fingers. Jensica was hoping for some survivors, or nothing at all, as she really didn't feel like a fight on this planet. Dying in this enormous tomb wasn't how she'd envisaged going out.

The turbovator chimed and came to a halt, its big mesh doors rumbling open to reveal what lay beyond. All of the marines pushed their two navy assistants to the back of the elevator and raised their rifles, ready for whatever might be waiting for them on the other side - good or bad. But as the first two marines cautiously stepped out into the open, rifles up and flashlights cutting through the dusty air, they were met with silence and darkness.

"Clear," Jensica whispered back to her commander as she took a few more tentative steps forwards into the artificial cavern.

"All clear," Pintos agreed with her, speaking up a little louder now that he was confident that there was nobody around.

They were presented with a large, artificial cavern, with no apparent entrances or exits aside from the turbovator they had just arrived in. It was partially because of this fact that they'd wondered if anybody might have been taking refuge in this easily defensible location, friend or foe, but for the moment it seemed empty. In the centre of the cavern was a simple concrete building, through the open door of which came the only source of light in the entire area. It had no windows, no decorations - it was simply a cube-shaped building with a single door on the side.

"That's the computer room," Heskindo said, stepping out of the elevator. "We go in, let the Ensign do his thing, and then we go back upstairs and explore the rest of the facility. Let's move."

Walking across the wide open space towards the computer office, Jensica couldn't help but feel exposed. She had an unusual feeling, as though unseen eyes watched her every move. Stepping cautiously on the loose rocks and pepples as they made their way to the small concrete cube, she aimed the flashlight attached to her rifle all around the cavern, looking up at the high walls and the ceiling as though she was certain there was something there with them. But as her flashlight cut through the dust, it was met with more dust and even steam higher up, and she could barely make out a thing.

"Ensign Freen!" Heskindo hissed over his shoulder. "Get in there, download their records onto an OSD. Take the last few periods of data - as much as you can fit on there. Captain, Major - go in with him and watch his back. The rest of us will secure this entrance."

Less eager than previously, the Ensign nodded to the Brigadier and stepped through the doorway, squinting as his violet eyes adjusted to the sudden change in light. Jensica and Pintos hurriedly followed him inside, immediately stooping down as they moved around the large, open room and checked every corner and alcove for potential threats. Clean, sterile and empty aside from the wall-mounted computer controls, this room was unnervingly free from the carnage that had ravaged the upper levels of the mining facility. White walls and harsh white lights presented a distinct contrast from the dirty rock outside. The only feature of note in the room, aside from the doorway and the computer panels, was a set of simple concrete stairs that led down towards the main computer core itself - an enormous device, which would be buried horizontally beneath this building and equipped with all manners of liquid cooling systems. While Vescopan technology in other areas was notably inferior to the universe at large, there were few who could compete with the raw power and data capacity of their quantum computing systems.

"Here we go," Freen said, pulling open a pop-button and digging into his chest pocket. He pulled out a simple, translucent square, only a few millimetres thick and a few centimetres wide, and slipped it into a slot on the wall. "Oh."

"What's 'oh'?" Jensica asked with concern.

"This might take a while," Freen sighed. "The computer has been set to run on a continuous diagnostic cycle, it's eating up most of its processing power. And all of their logs are videos or audio recordings - big ones. This might take a while..."

"You'd better get started then, Ensign," Jensica said sternly.

"Aye," Freen nodded, before muttering beneath his breath, "why can't the lazy sods just type their logs up like everybody else..."

"Brigadier," Jensica called through the door. "We're going to have to sit tight - the Ensign says the files will take some time to download."

"Great," Heskindo called back from outside. "Tell him to get as much as he can as quickly as he can!"

Outside the room, something was wrong. Trooper Gringes was convinced that he'd heard movement from somewhere above them, and now both he and Bresin were nervously swooping their wide-beam flashlights all over the place like a pair of search lights, hoping to spot the source of whatever the Trooper had heard. Heskindo hurriedly urged the Medic to fall back to the computer room out of harm's way, just in case. Though he hadn't heard anything himself, and he seemed to be somewhat disbelieving of the Trooper's hearing abilities.

"How much longer, Ensign?" Jensica said, stepping beside the navy officer as he stood waiting.

"The computer keeps changing its mind," Freen sighed. "First it said five cents, now it's saying fifteen. We're talking about a few gigaqubits of data here ma'am."

Jensica sighed and dropped her head. Being stuck in a small room in a grotty cavern almost a kilometre underground wasn't exactly what she'd signed up for. Then again, she was never really sure why she'd signed up in the first place. At least if she'd joined the Army instead, she'd get to stay...

"Contacts!" someone, possibly Gringes, yelled from outside. His subsequent burst of automatic fire drowned out whatever thoughts she had left in her head and she rushed back outside with her rifle ready to see what was going on.

Gringes had hit... something. That much was certain. Jensica arrived just in time to see it crash to the floor in a heap, kicking up a cloud of dust which settled after a few moments.

"What the heck is that?" the Captain asked curiously, glancing down at the creature. It looked like a mammal. Kind of. It reminded her a little of the photographs of pre-historic Vescopans she'd seen back in school, but there was something odd about it. The thing had a head pretty much the same shape and size as any Vescopan's, though it's body was a little more rounded. It had four awkward legs, with one coming from each 'corner' of its body, spread out in a way that was reminiscent of a spider's legs. Each of its feet were more like hands, with long, sharp claws poking out of each finger. She could just imagine it scuttling around like that, keeping its body low to the ground.

Most peculiar was the thin layer of fuzzy black fur that completely obscured its body, making it jet-black and difficult to see even with several flashlights aimed at it. Its mouth was small, though it seemed capable of opening quite wide, and several large, sharp, white teeth jutted out. Vicious-looking teeth, which had no doubt been responsible for the wounds on the dead mine workers they found on the floor above. But Gringes had easily slain the beast, so Jensica couldn't imagine this thing taking down so many people single-handedly.

Jensica tentatively stepped forwards and reached down to touch it. As her fingers grew closer she could feel the heat still radiating off the dead body, and received a sharp surprise when she finally made contact with it - the fur was sharp like spines, and easily pierced her gloves and drew blood. Immediately she jumped back and pulled her glove off, sucking her wounded finger.

"I told you it was aliens," Pintos offered after a long silence.

"Will you shut up!" Heskindo snapped, never once taking his eyes of the creature in front of him. "Major, go and check on the Ensign. The rest of you, keep your eyes open."

His stark warning was answered almost immediately - by the walls.

"Sir, look!" Gringes called. He had his flashlight aimed up at the walls and the ceiling again, and something unnerving was definitely happening. Pairs of eyes were opening, reflecting the light of his flashlight right back at him.

"Light up a flare!" Heskindo called. Jensica immediately obeyed, pulling a flare from a pouch on her suit and lighting it before tossing it high into the air. As the brilliant hot burning stick flew upwards its red light illuminated the entire cavern. The walls seemed to be alive with movement, as hundreds of furry beasts like the one Gringes had just taken down swarmed all over each other like enormous, furry locusts.

"Sir..."

"We're moving out," Heskindo called. "Major! Grab the Ensign and get your backside over to the turbovator, NOW!"

A few moments later, Pintos emerged with the perturbed Ensign, who seemed positively outraged that he hadn't been allowed to finish his work. Until he looked at the carcass on the ground and then allowed his glance to switch to the walls. Without words the small squad began to run at a fast pace across the cavern towards the turbovator, which was thankfully still at ground level. Unfortunately, the creatures on the walls reacted to their swift movement with some speed of their own. One after the other, dozens of them leapt from the walls and disappeared into the darkness on the ground, scurrying towards them with their four, spider-like legs. Hissing and snarling they leapt up into the air as they approached, eager to take down some of the Vescopans as though they were hungry for revenge over their dead comrade.

"Open fire!" Heskindo yelled. All five of the marines let rip with their assault rifles, taking down every creature that came too close with concentrated bursts of bullets. It was utter chaos, as dozens of the creatures made an effort to take them down and received hot tungsten to the face for their trouble, flying back into the darkness. The marines left a trail of spent cartridge casings and clouds of smoke as they ran, determined not to let any of the creatures get too close. Their efforts were in vain - out of the darkness, one of the creatures leapt through the air, slamming into the Navy medic and dragging her off into the darkness. Several of the other creatures immediately dived on top of the helpless woman, and her muffled screams were soon replaced with hungry growling and gruesome cracking sounds.

"Holy Divinity!" Gringes screamed, stopping in his tracks and firing a stream of bullets into the crowd, in a futile attempt to save the dead medic. Heskindo said nothing and simply slammed into him, dragging the Trooper with him towards the turbovator.

Relieved, the six-strong squad dove into the cabin and Jensica slammed her bloodied hand on the 'up' button. For a few tense millis they fired continuously into the morass of creatures who were scrambling on top of each other to get at the Vescopans before the bulky turbovator doors stopped. After what seemed like an eternity the doors clamped shut and the maglocks engaged, and the turbovator began its ascent. The marines lowered their rifles and sighed in relief as their upward journey began, with Gringes wiping his brow and panting.

"Trooper, I don't know if I should recommend you for a commendation or a court martial," Heskindo said to Gringes. "There was nothing you could have done to save the doctor."

"I know sir," Gringes said between breaths. "I'm sorry sir."

"Erm... Brigadier?" Pintos called from the other side of the elevator. He had the side of his face pressed firmly against the chicken wire that encased them within the lift so that he could catch a glimpse of what was going on below them.

"What is it Major?"

"Those... things... they're climbing up the shaft walls," Pintos said nervously. "They're following us up!"

"Great," Heskindo sighed, symbolically raising his rifle as he touched a button on his radio. "Rescue team, this is entry team. We're falling back to your present position. We're coming in hot, I repeat, we're coming in hot, over."

Meanwhile, on the very fringes of the Vescopan frontier, a series of monitoring satellites sprang to life. Ever since the Eotu Incident, the government and the military were keen to keep a closer eye on the great barrier that surrounded them, using something more accurate than simple radio telescopes on the homeworld. So a series of advanced sensor satellites were laid at equidistant points along the edge of the Eotu, the volatile orange gases swirling and snapping dangerously close to their fragile frames.

Now, some of them were picking up some kind of disturbance deep within the Eotu, something out-of-the-ordinary. They aligned their dishes towards it in an effort to gain more data, and forwarded their findings back to the homeworld. It would take some time for the radio signals to clear the distance, but it would certainly pique someone's interest when they finally arrived...

The rescue team, under the field command of Brigadier Guatan, had been busy with the gruesome task of cataloguing some of bodies that were easily accessible to them; their plan being to slowly dismantle the mountain of cadavers piecemeal. For such a daunting task it was the best plan they could think of, and probably the only one, and no matter how distressing the task somebody had to do it. Grown men, trained marines, found themselves holding back the urge to vomit as they held breathing masks to their faces and tentatively set about pulling the mutilated corpses free of their fleshy prison and trying to identify how they had been killed. Their only consolation was that each one of these bodies might have family back home who would very much want to know what happened to their loved ones.

But when Brigadier Heskindo's alarmed radio message reached their ears they immediately stopped what they were doing, took up arms, and positioned themselves around the elevator door while keeping the medics out of harm's way. Whatever it was that Heskindo had got himself into had to be better than what Guatan's team was tasked with, and even the prospect of danger was a welcome relief. They weren't exactly sure what the problem was, as the Brigadier wasn't especially clear about the nature of their predicament; all they knew was that Heskindo wasn't a man who was easily alarmed, so they prepared for the worst.

It was a tense moment when the turbovator came to a clanging halt and the doors started to slowly whirr open. Guatan's team held their fingers ready on their triggers, and it was a great temptation for them all to pull back just enough to send hot tungsten into the dark alcove for they couldn't quite see what was in there. But they breathed a collective sigh of relief as the light finally breached the turbovator doors and they saw Heskindo and his men standing there. They all looked panicked and exhausted, their faces drained of blood and their gold scales dull in colour, as they hurriedly piled out of the turbovator as quickly as they could and Heskindo immediately hit the door close button.

"Seal it!" Heskindo yelled at the top of his voice, as Pintos immediately pulled out a small plasma torch from his equipment pack and set about welding the door shut with his noticeably unsteady hands. "Brigadier Guatan, is this area secure?"

"Yeah Brigadier, it's secure," Guatan nodded towards Heskindo. "What in the Eotu is going on? What happened down there? Where's your medic?"

"There were aliens down there!" Gringes shouted, in a manner that verged on being hysterical. "Little fuzzy black... demons! Everywhere! They killed the doc!"

Guatan glared at the young marine for a moment, wondering if he was serious, delirious or just hooked up on stimulants. Aliens? Here? Perhaps he'd been watching too many science fiction flicks. Seemingly everybody involved in the Eotu Incident had suddenly become obsessed with the idea of extra-Vescopans visiting them all the time, and Guatan had to be skeptical even though he was on the ship when it encountered the supposedly 'alien' ship.

"There were some kind of creatures, hundreds of them," Heskindo confirmed, much to his surprise. "Swarmed us they did - it was all we could do to get outta there, but some of them were following us up the shaft. Nobody's going down there, and nothing's coming back up. Pintos, how's that door coming?"

"Al- almost done," Pintos stammered.

Jensica stood to one side, both her head and her rifle lowered morbidly. They had barely been in the mining facility for five fractions and she was already more stressed than she had ever been before. This place had gone to hell, as though the Demons from the Eotu had all come out and taken up residence here at the same time. If the creatures that attacked them weren't aliens, she didn't even want to think about what else they could be.

"Door secure, sir!" Pintos shouted, jumping back away from it and aiming his rifle at it almost immediate as a loud 'clang' emitted from the other side. Apparently the creatures had reached the top of the shaft and were trying to get through the door. "They can't get through this, can they?"

"I doubt it, not for a while at least," Heskindo said as he turned on his radio. "Conn, this is entry team."

"Entry team this is conn, go ahead," Viscross' voice responded.

"Requesting permission for urgent withdrawal, over," Heskindo said.

"Withdrawal?" Viscross sounded confused.

"Yes sir, withdrawal," Heskindo repeated. "Entry team encountered hostile... creature in the main computer room several fractions ago. One member of my team is down sir, we are severely outnumbered. We have the creatures contained at present but there's no guarantee it'll stay that way, over."

"What kind of creatures Brigadier?"

"I... don't know, sir," Heskindo admitted. "Small, quadrupedal mammals would be my best guess. Fast, able to walk on vertical surfaces, and extremely hostile and numerous, over."

There was a long pause in the conversation, the Commander of the Maelrosica presumably assessing the risk in his head and whether or not a continued exploration of the facility would be worth it. The marines around Heskindo looked at him hopefully as they anticipated a positive response, but the Commander shot down their wishes in a single sentence.

"Withdrawal request denied," Viscross told him at long last. "Continue your survey. Secure the facility, keep the creatures contained. We need to know what is going on down there. Over and out."

Heskindo snapped the radio off in annoyance, and paced around in silence for a few moments, the only noise coming from the creatures desperately scratching and banging against the other side of the turbovator doors. He seemed to be seething, and Jensica could only assume that he was annoyed by the Commander's disregard for the danger they were in down here. Eventually he stopped pacing, and looked up.

"Alright, if we have to do this let's do it quick," Heskindo said with renewed confidence. "Guatan, disregard the headcount for now. Take beta team down that far door and have a quick look around. Alpha team has more weapons, so we'll take that far turbovator down to the main mines and snoop around them. I doubt radios will work through all that rock and metal but try to maintain constant con..."

He paused his orders for a fraction, as though he saw something from the corner of his eye. He lifted his rifle a few inches higher and turned towards the body mountain, his previous disgust with the thing now replaced by intent curiosity as he glared into it. After a few moments he jumped back and raised his rifle a little higher.

"There's movement in there!" Heskindo exclaimed unexpectedly. Jensica gazed towards the mountain, summoning all her willpower to stop herself looking away from the horrific sight, but she couldn't see anything moving. Until one of the arms on the outer layer of bodies seemed to twitch.

"I saw something too, sir, up there!" she said. Heskindo followed the direction in which she pointed her finger, but before his gaze reached that far another limb twitched. And then another. Until, to their horror, nearly all of the bodies in their view had started twitching, and then writhing around.

"I don't like this!" Pintos shouted. "Anyone see them horror movies with the living dead in them?! THIS IS LIKE THAT!"

While they watched anxiously as the pile of corpses came to life before their eyes, they were even more startled when one of the corpses suddenly split open, pouring blood everywhere, and another of the furry creatures clambered out as though it had been incubated and grown inside the dead Vescopan.

"Well that explains the pile," Gringes said with remarkable calmness.

"What the...?!"

"OK, that's just wrong," Heskindo said. "Move, people! Down the second turbovator! MOVE!"

As more and more of the creatures 'hatched', the marines opened fire while falling back to the turbovator. The doors opened and they filed inside, firing right up until the last minute as the sheets of steel shut behind them. The turbovator began its long descent down underground, while more of the creatures emerged from their visceral cocoons and set about trying to force open the doors.

The journey down the shaft was one of silence aside from the hum of motors as the marines stood in quiet contemplation, on edge as they waited for the doors to open again. When the turbovator finally came to a halt, all of the marines dropped to their knees and shouldered their rifles, expecting yet another onslaught of those 'things' to pour through the doors like water through flood gates - but after several moments of anxious waiting, nothing came.

"Clear!" Jensica called as she edged closer to the doors to peer around the corner tentatively. Before them was another cavern, not quite as high as the first but much longer - it seemed to go on forever, with numerous alcoves leading off down into more caverns. It was clearly not natural, and had been cut out roughly by the miners over the decades they had been based here, and some of the alcoves were obviously newly-cut. The ground was not flat, but rather had several metal gangplanks laid down on the uneven surface for miners and their machines to travel across, while lighting was provided by a few sparse bulbs hanging from cables along the walls. In the distance they could see an abandoned rock crusher, a massive, tracked machine used to quickly gouge great swathes of rock away from the planet, along with dozens of smaller robotic mining machines dotted all over the place in a state of dormancy.

The squadron cautiously and quietly filed out, taking cover behind rocky outcrops and checking every nook and cranny for more of those creatures. Heskindo's own squad seemed more anxious about aiming upwards, towards the craggy ceiling, having learned from past experiences. But it seemed to be empty aside from the abandoned mining equipment.

"Look over there," Jensica broke the silence and pointed towards one of the alcoves with her assault rifle. One of the newly cut caverns had been sealed off with tape, cones and warning signs, ominously warning the miners that their jobs were at risk if they passed beyond the makeshift barrier. To the ignorant eye it was unclear why such a restriction had been placed there, as it looked reasonably insignificant, but the marines had a better idea of why it may have been sealed - the ruins must have been in there. They weren't sure what exactly these 'ruins' entailed as the miners were unspecific and subsequently unresponsive, but they must have been striking for the mine to have closed down so completely and for the tunnel to have been sealed off. All of a sudden, fuzzy black killing machines seemed to become a secondary concern.

"Conn, this is entry team," Heskindo spoke into his radio, his deep voice startling some of the marines as it echoed through the cavern. The only reply he received was static, however. "Conn, this is entry team, are you receiving us, over?"

"It's no good sir, we're too deep," Ensign Freen said after fiddling with his own radio. "Too many heavy elements 'tween us and the surface. Like trying to shine a torch through a rock."

"So much for constant radio contact," Guatan said. "Brigadier, we should wait for Maelrosica to send support before we press on."

Heskindo, though wary of the situation facing them, shook his head without a moment of consideration. "Negative. Those creatures could break through at any moment, and there could be more down here. We have an objective to complete, and there's no sense waiting for another team to clean up our mess - besides, we need a more defensible location to hold up in."

He shone his flashlight down the narrow, uneven tunnel, trying to get a look at what was down the passageway, but it curved away and precluded him any kind of significant visibility. For all he knew there could be a whole horde of the things down there - that might even have been where they'd come from in the first place. But as things presently stood, it didn't look like a lot of choice.

"Alright, Brigadier Guatan, set your team up as a rear guard, we'll take point," Heskindo said. "Plant remote charges every few metres or so. Navy boys, get in the middle but keep your sidearms ready. Let's move - carefully."

With that, Heskindo's marines tentatively pushed the makeshift barriers aside and stepped over the cones and rubble to enter the rough-cut passageway. They paused momentarily when their movements caused some dust and pebbles to fall from the roof of the narrow corridor in fear of a cave-in, but the disturbance soon subsided and they pressed on. Walking in pairs, side-by-side, with the Navy support walking in the middle between the two squads, they carefully but steadily made their way down, though it wasn't a pleasant jaunt. The width and height of the hastily-cut passageway varied wildly, often forcing them into single file and requiring them to crouch or even crawl often, which wouldn't have been a problem if not for the sharp rocks jutting out from the walls. Gringes repeatedly complained as he scraped himself against them, while all of the marines had difficulty breathing through the thick dust that lingered in the cavern.

It was with no small amount of relief that they finally emerged into another large cavern, coughing, spluttering, and shedding clouds of dust around them. They quickly recovered and lifted their rifles, however what they saw before them was quite shocking.

This cavern was large, much larger than the one they had come from, but it was radically different - it was perfect. Beneath their feet they saw pale marble tiling, which continued up the flat walls and onto the ceiling. This cavern was illuminated as well but not by simple bulbs strung across the walls, but rather by sophisticated lighting fitted into the ceiling. With the exception of a cave-in on the far side of the room it was all but perfect. But the design wasn't what had struck their senses and left them so surprised.

The walls were lined with what appeared to be computer terminals, although they were radically different from anything they had ever seen before. Far from the industrial terminals they were familiar with, these took on a sculpted appearances with rounded, marble white shells encasing some kind of holographic, three-dimensional displays. They had no apparent form of input mechanisms either, but however they functioned they clearly weren't a Vescopan design. Interspersing the connected terminals were a series of tables and workstations, apparently covered in dusty scientific equipment the purposes of which they couldn't ascertain. The entire room was artificially divided by thin, temporary walls to split different work areas apart. But most curiously of all, near to where the cavern had reclaimed some of the room with rocks and rubble, a series of tubes stood empty and dormant, and the floor all around them was stained with the residue of some kind of yellow liquid. Unlike virtually everything else in the room, the tubes weren't dusty at all, and indeed appeared to have been recently used for something.

"Holy Divinities," Gringes was the first to break the silence with his typical redundant style. "These aren't ruins, it's some kinda ancient, sciency hotel!"

"Quiet Trooper!" Heskindo hissed, as Guatan's team finally emerged from the passageway as well. "Fan out - secure this room. Ensign Freen!"

"Sir!" a dusty Freen stepped forwards eagerly, almost knocking down Jensica in the process.

"What am I looking at here Ensign," Heskindo asked as his team began to cautiously wander around the large room, avoiding the temptation of touching anything.

"No idea sir, I'm an engineer not an archaeologist," Freen shook his head. "Best guess those look like computer terminals, nothing like I've ever seen before though."

"Think you can access them?"

"They don't look Vescopan to me sir," Freen said tentatively. "Could be in a whole 'nother language for all I know. 'Sides I can't see any keyboards or anything."

"Well just take a look and see what you can figure out," Heskindo said.

"Looks secure sir," Jensica said.

"Are there any other entrances into this room?" Heskindo called over to her.

"None that I can see sir," Jensica shook her head negatively. "I think there used to be one under that pile of rocks, but I doubt anybody's going down there now. What is this place?"

"That's what we're trying to determine, Captain," Heskindo said. "Alright people, set up a defensive perimeter around that passageway - if it ain't Vescopan, shoot it dead. Place tripwires across its width and be ready to detonate those remote charges if necessary."

"Sir, that's likely to bring down the cavern, we'd be trapped," Guatan said with concern.

"I know, Brigadier," Heskindo nodded remorsefully. "It's something we might have to consider doing if the worst happens. We have rations for a few days; once Maelrosica sends support down they could dig us out."

Guatan nodded silently, and set about arranging a continous watch rotation whilst Pintos and one of Guatan's men set about placing several trip wires across the span of the tunnel. If anything tried coming down there while those trip wires were active, they'd be met with fire and rubble.

Meanwhile Ensign Freen had approached one of the nearest computers, if that's what they even were, and stood motionless while he studied it. After a few moments he could see no apparent way of using the thing, so he simply placed his hand against it and tried to read what was on the display. As soon as his hands touched the computer, he found himself overcome with a painful stabbing sensation in his head however, and memories and thoughts flashed rapidly before his eyes. Jensica ran over to him and tried to pull him away from the machine but his hands appeared to be glued to the smooth surface.

"Ensign Freen!" Jensica yelled at the Naval officer, attracting the attention of the other marines. He was unresponsive, but as soon as Heskindo and Pintos ran over to assist he suddenly calmed down and his head dropped. For a few moments he remained motionless, panting heavily with his eyes closed. Jensica put her arm around his shoulders and tried to shake him gently but he ignored her, but it lasted only for a few cents. With a deep breath he lifted his head and opened his eyes, looking around wildly.

"Freen, are you OK?" Jensica asked softly.

"I... I think so," the Ensign nodded weakly. "Man that hurt. I touched this and... it got into my head or something."

"Look at that," Pintos said, pointing towards the holographic display. It had changed without them even noticing during the panic, and now displayed all sorts of three dimensional bar charts, but the curious thing was that they could read everything... the numbers, the words, everything. "How'd you do that?"

"I dunno," Freen nodded, genuinely confused. "It must have pulled Vescopan straight outta my head. I can... feel it somehow. Like I'm plugged into it."

"Must have connected to your nervous system somehow," Pintos said, thinking out loud rather than offering a useful suggestion. "Can you use it? Does it do anything? Who put it here?"

"Hold on," Jensica said. "Let's get him off of there and learn more about it before we start fiddling. It could be doing anything to his body!"

"No, it's alright," Freen said. "I'm kinda getting the hang of it. It's fascinating! And old - I'm amazed it still works."

"How old is old?" Pintos asked.

"Well... its chronometer suffered some kind of error that wiped its previous records, but it's racked up over... three hundred thousand years since," Freen said, dumbstruck. "As for who built it, I..."

As soon as he said that, the monitor changed again and the bar charts were replaced by some kind of creature. Rotating on a pedastal it was the most bizarre thing they had ever seen - four legs, four arms, tentacles flowing from his 'chin' and more eyes than they could count. Its pale red skin appeared to be wet, as though it was constantly excreting something, and a thin fuzz of brown fur covered part of its back like a well-worn rug.

"Hey, I just thought about it and it happened!" Freen exclaimed with glee.

"That's just ugly," Gringes said as he came up behind them and looked at the screen.

"Hold on... this facility was huge," Freen said. "It's got some kind of communications system, buried now but it looks like it still works."

"Can you contact the Maelrosica?" Heskindo interjected.

"I'm not sure... it's not like normal radio systems, more like some kind of FTL... ah, yeah there's a radio emitter too," Freen said after a moment of deep thought. "I think I've activated it, they should be able to hear you."

"Conn, this is entry team, do you read over?" Heskindo spoke up, feeling somewhat silly as he spoke into thin air.

"Entry team this is Conn, we read you loud and clear, over," Viscross' ethereal voice responded, echoing through the cavern. Heskindo never thought he'd be so happy to hear him talk, but he felt some measure of joy at being in contact with his base ship again.

"Conn, entry team has gained access to the 'ruins' the miners reported," Heskindo explained. "It's quite a sight - we need to secure the planet and get some scientists here, over."

"What do you mean Brigadier, over?"

"It's like a treasure trove down here Commander," Heskindo told him. "We've managed to access one of the old computers here, that's how we are talking to you now. Looks pretty sophisticated, over."

"We've got a whole database of stuff here, I can't even understand the stuff I've found," Freen said in awe.

"That's great work Brigadier, we'll..."

Viscross was cut off, his voice replaced by a brief milli of static and then deathly silence.

"Uh oh," Freen said after a moment.

"Uh oh? What do you mean, 'uh oh'? What did you do?" Heskindo said angrily.

"Hey this is new to me, I don't know what I'm doing here!" Freen protested. "This thing has a massive database, I was just browsing to see what was in there and... and..."

"And what?"

"I found a file about a 'passageway' or something," Freen said, his voice somehow getting higher pitched and the golden scales on his cheeks turning blue with panic. "I thought it might be another way out of here or something! Next thing I knew the screen changed and it targeted Maelrosica!"

"Targeted it with what? We're miles underground!" Jensica asked.

"I dunno... all I know is, Maelrosica disappeared off the monitor a couple of millis later..."

***

In space, Maelrosica simply seemed to flash from existence in an instant - there was no fanfare, no high-budget special effect to accompany the disappearance, simply put one minute it was there, the next it was not. For the crew it was far more disorientating - for one moment they could see the comforting orange glow of the Eotu all around them as always, and then a split milli later, the orange was replaced with an endless expanse of black nothingness, with only a few white dots of light breaking up the void, as though the Eotu had suddenly disappeared...

OOC:

Hey there, Vescopa. Good to see you back. Luslyvania, my friend, is pretty well done with NS. Not interested in it anymore, I suppose. Would you mind if I became involved in this RP? Provided there's an opening, of course.

OOC:

Hey there, Vescopa. Good to see you back. Luslyvania, my friend, is pretty well done with NS. Not interested in it anymore, I suppose. Would you mind if I became involved in this RP? Provided there's an opening, of course.

OOC: Hey sure! I'm here sporadically right now, mostly until I can finally get the buggers out and about in the universe at large. The Maelrosica was just transported from Vescopa III to a small solar system several lightyears away from the Eotu, though I'll go into greater detail next post.

OOC: Hey sure! I'm here sporadically right now, mostly until I can finally get the buggers out and about in the universe at large. The Maelrosica was just transported from Vescopa III to a small solar system several lightyears away from the Eotu, though I'll go into greater detail next post.

OOC:

Excellent! I suppose a starship of mine could run into you. If you wish, I will hold back until you have posted again.

By the way, I have read the Vescopan Factbook you posted, and let me say it is fascinating to see what you have created. I mean that. Good work.

OOC: Thanks for the compliments, appreciated, glad at least one person read it! As for jumping in, you're free to do so as and when, though it would make more sense in my eyes if a ship didn't arrive instantaneously...

IC:

"That's great work Brigadier, we'll contact VNC and get some experts over here," Viscross said with a smile. "Hold your location and we'll get you some reinforcements, over."

Static.

"Brigadier, are you reading, over?"

"Erm, Commander, the signal has been lost," Molus said. Viscross looked up at the Second Lieutenant and was about to ask him what had happened, but as he did he caught a glance out of one of the forward windows.

"What the..."

The comforting orange glow of the Eotu was gone, its spiralling wisps of gas and pulsating inner lights replaced by an endless void of black, punctuated by white points of light. For people who had grown up never seeing the stars or deep space before it was quite a disturbing and disorientating sight, and yet at the same time it was remarkably beautiful. The entire bridge sat in dumbstruck silence, simply gazing out of the windows at nothingness.

"Where's the Eotu, what happened?" Viscross said after regaining his senses. "Lieutenant Bessina, report!"

"Navigational systems record no movement sir, but they are now unable to pinpoint our location," said the soft-voiced woman, her tone now somewhat shrill with anxiety.

Viscross stepped forward, briefly glancing at the helm monitors to confirm her report. Sure enough the computer was under the impression that the ship had not left orbit of Vescopa III, but it was no longer able to triangulate their present location in relation to the planets of their solar system nor its distance from the Eotu. He looked up out of the windows again, trying to make sense of the sudden change in their surroundings. Although no survivors had ever been recovered from the Ventrius, reports from Commander Halasia of the Caspetona had described similar sights from their own short-lived excursion through the Eotu - or rather, in her own rather poetic words, "an endless black blanket with pinpricks of light peeking through".

His only theory, then, was that they had somehow moved outside of the Eotu itself. How such a thing was possible, and where exactly they were now, was beyond his imagination. But it was either that, or the Eotu and the entire solar system had simply disappeared from around them, and that was too much for anybody to swallow. However it had happened, though, Viscross wanted to know how to get back. He glanced over at the TAC, where Lieutenant Darés sat in her cluster of computer terminals agape.

"Lieutenant, I want a full tactical and awareness analysis, now," Viscross called. "Every sensor pallet at your disposal - I want to know everything."

"Err... aye sir," Darés nodded, shaking herself out of her shock. She hesitated for a few moments before shrugging her shoulders and getting to work.

Meanwhile, Viscross wandered over to a communicator on the nearest wall and picked up the receiver. "Engineering, Conn - damage report?"

"Conn, engineering," a crackling voice came to his ears. "Everything's in order as far as I'm aware. Why, have you broken something sir?"

"No... no... just update me if you find anything," Viscross said, confused even more as he hung up the receiver. He paced around the bridge for a few moments, deep in thought though unable to take his eyes of the window. It was most disconcerting to be unable to see the Eotu anymore, as though they had just emerged from the womb and opened their eyes for the first time, and the fact that they didn't know how they even got here made matters worse. After a few cents he became impatient. "Darés, have you found anything yet?"

"Erm, not a great deal sir," the Lieutenant shook her head and shrugged. "Background radiation levels are low, ambient temperature is less than two degrees above absolute zero, density of local space is significantly reduced to the point where I'm having trouble spotting atoms... we are near a planet, though."

"Vescopa III?"

"Negative sir, it's a terrestrial planet but it's too large and dense to be Vescopa III," Darés shook her head. "The computer is unable to correlate its composition against any planet in the system."

"Can you locate the Eotu anywhere?" Viscross asked. While it was fascinating to be wandering around outside of the universe, they lacked the supplies to maintain a particularly lengthy jaunt and they still had marines planetside who needed their help. He wanted to get them back."

"I've sent out LADAR pings on every angle, no returns aside from that planet," Darés shrugged. "Usually they bounce off the Eotu - it's been a few cents, so if a signal travelling the speed of light hasn't reached it yet it's got to be a long way away."

"Switch to external cameras, see if you can eyeball it Lieutenant," Viscross said. "In the meantime, Bessina, calculate an orbital trajectory for that planet."

"I'll try sir," Bessina nodded.

Viscross sat down in his chair and leaned forwards, pressing his leg against the arm of the chair as the ship began to turn to stop himself from sliding off. No matter how long he stared out at the nothingness that surrounded them he couldn't shake off the feeling of shock and awe - not only at the sight itself, but simply the fact that they had somehow managed to get here. It had been literally instant, which would have been impressive if they could have found an easy way back too, for the implications for extra-Eotan exploration were huge. Imagine what they could achieve if ships exiting the Eotu weren't so badly damaged that they couldn't function properly anymore, if they could exit the barrier that surrounded them at will and with ease. He didn't know if there was anything out here worth actually exploring but there was only one way to find out.

"Commander, I think I've found the Eotu," Darés announced, disturbing his thoughts abruptly. He immediately jumped up and walked over to the TAC to see what she had found.

"Give me some good news, Lieutenant," he said hopefully.

"I... wish that I could sir," she shook her head. She reached up and switched on one of the flat panel monitors that surrounded her station. It brought up an image, being filmed by their external cameras, which displayed the same endless void which they could see through the window. After she hit a key on her controls a few times it zoomed in to maximum magnification and showed an orange, somewhat blurry, almost spherical ball of gas - the Eotu.

"There it is," Viscross said. "How far away?"

"Commander, our LADAR ping still hasn't been returned," Darés said. "I doubt it will be any time soon, and I had to find this manually. But I've calculated the external size of the Eotu based on its internal volume and what we know of its supposed depth. Using that figure, I've been able to figure out roughly how far away we are given its apparent size in relation to us."

"And?"

"If I'm right sir, it's over sixty trillion kilometres away..."

Once again silence descended over the bridge. Given that their previous knowledge of the universe was limited to the confines of the Eotu, such a distance was unimagined, and it was doubtful if the navigation system was even designed to compute courses for such a distance.

"Commander, assuming for a moment that we could maintain our engines at maximum rated speed indefinitely, according to my calculations it would take us over 14,000 cycles to get back," Darés said, with a note of calm finality.

"We're screwed!" Molus called out immediately. "Our rations will go stale before then!"

"Stow it Lieutenant," Viscross snapped. Panic was the last thing the bridge needed right now. He leaned against the TAC for several cents, trying to think a way out of their predicament. Obviously travelling back to the Eotu was a foolhardy idea - even if they were immortal their food and fuel supplies would run out in less than a cycle if they rationed them extensively. Somehow they had travelled a greater distance than many people believed even existed in the entire universe, and his instincts continually nagged at him that it couldn't have been a coincidence. One moment, Brigadier Heskindo's squad stumbles upon some kind of technology cache, and then the next moment the Maelrosica ended up here, floating by a planet well outside the Eotu. He could only imagine that given the vast distances that seemed to exist out here, appearing right next to this one planet wasn't an accident.

"Bessina, alter our orbital parameters please," he called out finally, looking up towards the helm. "We need to make several passes around the planet, across multiple planes. Darés, explore that planet detail once we enter orbit - probe every crevice if you have to, and use whatever manned or unmanned vehicles you require to get the job done. I want to know the name of every single molecule on that entire rock."

"Yes sir," Darés nodded. "You think it has something to do with how we ended up here?"

"I hope so, otherwise we're stuck here," Viscross nodded solemnly.

With memories of the first encounter with the Vescopian people still fresh within the confines of his mind, Capt. Valius ( was LT. Valius during the first meeting ) was looking over some rather unimportant 'paperwork' that had been piling up on his desk for sometime. Valius was put in command ever since the Reaver incident which pretty much eradicated the explorationary forces with the area of space.

After about 3 earth hours of looking over the mounteds of work placed before him, he stood up and walked over to his bed where he wanted to take a well needed nap. However fate would see that his nap would never come. For as he laid his hea upon the comfortable pellow a mental communique chimmed in on an emergency signal.

" Capt. Valius we have just recived a message from our probes left within and around the Barrier Phenomenon called the Eotu by the Vescopian people. A ship just passed by about 3 days ago. Particle trales indicate a proper course heading."

The Captian sighed a long and arngy sigh and came from his bed with a terrible harted for long distance probes.

" Verywell, alert command and set our course for last know locations. I want all hands to be placed on alert code 'omega" and prepare for futhure orders."

" Aye, Captain"

"Are they destroyed?"

"I don't think so."

"Then bring them back!" Heskindo yelled at the already-anxious Ensign.

"I can't!"

"Aren't you meant to be the computer whizz around here?" Pintos asked, somewhat sarcastically.

"Yeah, because my degree covered bizarre ancient computers buried underground in a whole lot of detail!" Freen responded defensively. "I did my thesis on it after all! How about you try this if you're so smart?!"

"Ensign, if you made them disappear, you can make them come back," Heskindo said. Logical enough, at least for somebody whose hands weren't attached to a mind-reading alien computer. Freen wasn't so confident.

"I didn't make them do anything, I was looking around at files and it just did it by itself!" Freen said.

"Even my ten-cycle nephew knows better than to randomly access computer files when he doesn't know what they're for," Gringes whined. "And now we're stuck here! With those... those... those things!"

"Enough!" Heskindo said. "If the Maelrosica wasn't destroyed then it has to be somewhere. You're going to stay at this terminal until you figure something out. I might just consider letting you take a break for food if you do. Is that understood Ensign?"

"That's not fair!" Freen spluttered. "You were the one who told me to mess around with this damn thing in the first place!"

"I didn't tell you to make our mothership disappear!" Heskindo snapped.

"Sir, in fairness it might have been better to wait for a team of experts to study this place before we started fiddling with this stuff," Jensica said calmly. "It's not Ensign Freen's fault."

"Captain, you..." Heskindo went to yell at his subordinate, but clenched his fists and calmed himself. "Alright. Ensign, do what you can, then take a break in twenty cents or so. Regardless of blame we need to find out what happened to the Maelrosica, and quickly."

Freen sighed, but his stress levels seemed to drop somewhat. "Aye sir, I'll see what I can find."

Heskindo nodded, his fists still clenched, and walked a few metres away, motioning for Captain Jensica to follow him. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and obliged, standing next to him.

"Captain, arrange for a scouting party to head back through the tunnel," Heskindo said in a hushed voice. "Tell them to set up a couple of remote cameras there so we can keep an eye on the entrance to the mines. If we're down here for the long haul, I want to make sure I know in advance if those creatures manage to gain access."

"Yes sir," Jensica nodded. "And... if the creatures have already got in?"

Heskindo glanced up at her for a moment, and shook his head uncertainly. "If that's the case, Captain, tell them to run back here as fast as they can. 'Cause if they come in greater numbers than we can practically fend off, I'm going to have to order that tunnel sealed."

"Understood sir," Jensica nodded, performing a subtle salute. She stepped away and called over Pintos and Gringes to give them their orders. Meanwhile, Heskindo returned to the terminal that the navy engineer was glued to.

"Ensign, any luck?"

"Give me longer than two millis and I might," Freen said, and then let out a deep sigh. "All this stuff is beyond me. Near as I can tell, this 'Passageway' thing is some kind of transportation system. As for where it transports and how I don't know, but it looks like a one-way trip."

"One way?!" Heskindo exclaimed. "So it could take them months to get back!"

"Yeah... but I figure there's probably some kind of return mechanism on the other side," Freen said apologetically. "If they figure out what's happened and can find it, they might appear back in orbit at any second!"

"Ensign, can that radio transmitter reach as far as Vescopa II?" Heskindo asked.

"I dunno," Freen said simply.

"Well, try it anyway - just tell them that we can't find the Maelrosica but we don't believe that it has been destroyed," Heskindo said. "Assuming that you're sure of that."

"Me sir?" Freen panicked. "Why me?"

"You're the highest ranking naval officer here and you're the one who made them disappear in the first place!" Heskindo snapped. "Ask them to send another ship, 'cause we still need reinforcements and we may need picking up. You've got more than two thousand lives on your shoulders Ensign, I hope you're right."

The Hobbeebian fleet was readied for the jump when the Captain interjected and gave new orders.

" All ships stand down. My vessel will go and investigate... no need in risking more vessels when only one is needed to to the job."

And in unison frojm across all the ships commanders came back..." Aye Captain!"

The Captain stepped forward and formed a holoconsol and typed in the password for a dime-jump. Much of the crew was tense as this would be their first or second dime-jump in their carreers. As the ships generators came to life the dime-engine burts into a frenzy and soon the ship vanished.

----- Last known location of the vessel that passed through the Eotu....

The Hobbeebian vessel reappeared just as fast as it dissapeared just around the barrier. As the vessel fully materialized back into its own reality the Captain looked over the diagnosics of the after jump report. Becasue you never know if something happened along the way.

" All systems normal, hull integity at 100%." said the Captain with a sign of relief.

As the ship returned to normal the crew quickly began tracking the ships particle trail...

" Helms... report." called out the Captain as he walked over to the Helms officers station...

" Sir. We have a confirmed particle trail probable courses have been uploaded to the ship neuro-link network."

" Good work, all hand to stations and prepare to jump to next location...

(OOC: Just a note, no ships have actually 'flown' through the Eotu - rather, some kind of ancient technology transported one to the other side, at a planet several lightyears away.)

Sorry... that how I read it....I will try and change it as best as possible.

Dr. Terry J. Wyatt was one of the founding settlers in the colonies on the planet known to Imperial Mapping Authorities as 9779-V, and to the local colonists as Columbia. As such he was one of the primary leaders of the colonies, serving in the local House of Burgesses in the Governor’s Council, a group of six chosen at the Governor’s discretion, as advisors in various, local matters throughout all the colonies. He was also Columbia’s big scientist in residence, having more degrees and years of experience than any three of his peers and holding an honorary posting at the Columbia Central University.

He was seventy three years old, but even at his advanced age, he still liked to drive out on lonely weekends to visit the CCU Observatory. There, sometimes alone, sometimes in the hospitable company of friends and colleagues he would watch the stars swirling overhead in the cosmos, and see if he could spot anything new, or just interesting. He could usually look up at the stars for hours before leaving, but usually nothing eventful occurred.

Being so huge a place however, the galaxy was bound to produce the occasional surprise.

“Now, what have we here?” Dr. Wyatt mused aloud as he watched the computer’s screen.

“What is it, Grandpa?” Dr. Naomi Wyatt, his 30 year-old granddaughter, turned around at his voice. She was the Observatory’s present administrator, which had made Terry’s jaunt less difficult. Her predecessors had often been so annoyed by his visits.

“Naomi, sweetheart, come take a look at these images from the orbital scope.”

Naomi came as she was bid and looked at the imagery. She was silent for a moment, then looked at Dr. Wyatt.

“It looks like a deep-space body,” she said.

“I’ll pull up a zoomed picture,” Dr. Wyatt said, as he entered some more commands on to his keyboard.

“It’s a ship,” said Naomi following a second observation.

“Yeah, and look at this,” said Dr. Wyatt. “Before this point, nothing, and then, she comes into view, just like that. I don’t know whose she is right now.”

“I can’t say either, at this range,” said Naomi. “The monitoring satellites will scan, and an inquiry will be sent by the satellite’s AI brain. She’ll probably turn out to be a transport, a merchantman of some kind.”

“Yeah, probably,” Dr. Wyatt conceded. “I’m going to keep watching her, though.”

“Be my guest,” said Naomi, and she turned back to the charts she had been examining.

Dr. Wyatt turned back to his screen with a smile. Naomi was likely spot on but something kept bugging him. For a merchantman, she wasn’t moving very fast…

OOC:

Before you ask, the orbital telescope and Navy monitors are satellites.

I figured as opposed to a warship, meeting a civilian colony might be a refreshing change. Columbia holds little more than 35,000 people in all, spread throughout a clustering of semi-independant communities.

OOC: Interesting idea. Could even complicate things in the future which is cool and random.

IC:

Over the hours that passed, the Maelrosica managed to reach the nearby planet and slowed her momentum to little less than 30,000kph and began circling the world beneath. After each complete orbit the clumsy behemoth would fire thrusters and adjust her orientation to a different plane and proceed to circle around the planet again; each time her various instruments would send and receive radiation from the surface of the world as it scoured each nook and cranny invasively. Meanwhile numerous probes emerged from her canopied hangar deck and propelled themselves into the atmosphere, analysing its composition and taking further readings from the globe. After about eleven hours she had completed more than seven complete rotations across several bands of the sphere, and had built up a remarkably detailed map of the world's atmosphere, surface, and further down into the crust.

All the while, her other spare sensor suites continued their examinations of surrounding space, including the rest of the solar system and the central star. All in all, they had as complete a profile of the area as their instruments would allow, giving the crew much food for thought. At its most basic, they had learned that they now orbited a largely arid world that was larger than Vescopa III in terms of both mass and diameter, but smaller than Vescopa II. It orbited a star which, by all the indications of their various infra-red and ultra-violet sensors, was approaching the end of its main sequence life so far as Vescopans understood it. Given that Maelrosica was a military vessel by trade her crew had no astrophysicists among them, but certain things could be cross-referenced with the computer datacore in order to draw conclusions from their readings.

But as fascinating as it was to be the first Vescopans in history to have the opportunity not only to gaze upon wholly new stars and planets, but to study them as best they could with their inappropriate sensor suites, they were soldiers at the end of the day and there were more curious sensor results to discuss.

"They look to be recent constructs," Darés said with a short, curt nod. She, Commander Viscross, head of engineering Lieutenant Commander Feron, and Lieutenant Bessina had taken refuge in a conference room on the lower decks. Like many spaces on the ship it was a dark, somewhat claustrophobic place with minimal lighting, bare metal walls, a low ceiling and a shortcoming of room for movement. At its centre was a large, white-surfaced table with small computer monitors integrated at each seat, illuminated by a large, harsh white light overhead. The walls were covered in computer monitors - some integrated into the metal, along with flat-panel monitors poking out around them. Though it was still a dull, dark room with no windows, it certainly had more light than most of the cabins on the ship.

Most of the monitors around them were now busy with information drawn from the analyses that Darés had compiled; including various three-dimensional wireframe drawings of the planet's landscape, infra-red readings of numerous points of interest, charts displaying numerous atmospheric and geological traits of the world, and even one monitor which continually cycled between the current weather conditions of various locales. Darés was the only officer standing, and she had taken a place beside the main monitor in the room, an enormous, 52" widescreen display on the wall opposite the main entrance. It was displaying one of the wireframe graphics of a particular part of the planet, and she pointed at what appeared to be a settlement of some kind.

"If it's recent, it's probably not what we're looking for," Viscross said. "How do you know it's recent?"

"Because if it wasn't, it would have been buried or destroyed by sandstorms," Darés explained. "Our probes on the far side of the planet are relaying data on what appears to be a very old, rather large long-term weather pattern which causes sand storms, hurricanes, even tornadoes. It appears to move around the planet on a regular basis, and this... settlement, or whatever it is, lies in its path. It's got another three or four periods before it gets hit again."

"Nice place to live," Bessina commented.

"I assume the settlement has some kind of protection against the elements to neutralise the effects of that weather pattern," Darés said in a matter-of-fact manner. "And they're located near a mountain range, which may limit its impact. Else it'd be wiped out once a cycle."

"That's all very fascinating Lieutenant but is it inhabited?" Viscross raised the question which had been at the forefront of everybody's mind, but none were brave enough to ask.

"That's the question, isn't it sir?" Darés smiled, knowing how ridiculous it may have sounded only five cycles ago. "And the answer is inconclusive. RADAR has picked up some kind of artificial satellites, and although they look powered we can't intercept any transmissions from them. On the IRUVAS that settlement lights up brighter than the Eotu at night time; infra-red radiation pourin' outta the place like water from Melindo Falls. But that could be anything; thermal energy from old power systems, underground sources, heck the place could be on fire. I can't resolve any positive contacts right now. We've got a probe headed for the place in very low orbit in the next couple of fractions, so we might get better readings then."

"What about visuals, Lieutenant?"

"Well they're definitely buildings sir," Darés said, tapping her finger against the panel to change it from LADAR-generated wireframes to a birds-eye photographic image. Instead of black and blue it changed to brownish orange, with numerous objects visible on the ground. As the photograph zoomed in and resolved, they could all clearly see the roofs of various buildings, including the shadows they cast across the ground, along with what looked to be roads and even some vehicles. "As you can tell for yourselves I can't see anything alive outside, but for all we know it could have been dinner time and they were all secluded inside when we made a pass over them. Worryingly, it all shows sign of recent use; the structures are all in good repair, those vehicles - whatever they are - are all clean, the paths are well-trodden. If there's nobody, or nothing, there now then there has been recently. I'm guessing... a colony, an outpost, something like that."

"So, not the ancient ruins we were hoping for," Viscross sighed.

"Well... no, but IRUVSAS did pick up something else a few kilometres away from that settlement," Darés said, flashing a cheeky smile as she tapped the screen another time. The photograph turned into video for a few seconds, simulating their pass over the landscape, until it came to a pause over a nearby mountain. It was nothing remarkable, perhaps even bland compared to some of the rolling green hills and white-tipped mountains back home, but then it switched to infra-red. A whole host of contacts became visible, seemingly underneath the craggy rocks, larger even than the settlement they had just looked at.

"What the heck is that...?" Feron asked. "Looks like... subterranean passageways or something."

"That's my guess as well sir," Darés nodded.

"How do we know they aren't related to that colony further west?" Viscross asked. "We didn't get any readings like that from Vescopa III."

"True sir, but the ruins on Vescopa III are beneath the mining complex, which is also partly subterranean," Darés explained with the shrug. "The mining facility gives off its own IR radiation, which would have obscured anything lying beneath it. And I don't think these readings are related to that settlement either - there are no roads, no surface structures, no underground passageways linking the two, nothing to connect them together at all."

"Whoever built that settlement probably doesn't even know it's there," Bessina offered.

"We need to keep it that way," Viscross said, standing up. "If that underground signal has anything to do with getting home, we need to secure and hold it with a Vescopan presence."

"How do you suggest we do that sir?" Feron asked in his usual confrontational, impatient tone of voice. "This is a warship not a mining trawler, and that signal is from underground. We've no drilling equipment of any kind."

Viscross nodded solemnly, and placed his hands on the desk to lean up against it while he thought. After a while his expression changed and his face lit up like a lightbulb had just appeared over his head. "Railguns."

"Railguns aren't drills sir," Feron said dismissively.

"Not by trade," Viscross nodded. "If we were to scale down the power output of one of our railguns and fire on that mountain from orbit with a hollowpoint round, it would create a small crater, yes?"

"They were designed with planetary bombardment in mind, yeah," Feron nodded. He didn't sound convinced though. "We're talking about a lot of kinetic energy though, you're liable to collapse whatever's buried in that mountain. And piss off any locals nearby as well, no doubt."

"All we need to do is open up one of the passageways to allow marines to gain entry," Viscross said enthusiastically. "If we fire adjacent to the edge of that infra-red signal, create a cavity in the mountain just deep enough to come close to one of those passageways, marines could use explosives to clear the rest of the rock away."

"That's a pretty precise operation sir, with all due respect," Darés interjected. "We'd need to find out the exact composition and density of the area we'd be firing at, the exact velocity of the projectile, take into account any turbulence that might affect its trajectory, and hit the target point within a few metres of accuracy and from a precise angle to get the desired effect. We'd be more likely to destroy the mountain than open up a small crater."

"I didn't say it would be easy," Viscross said. "But if those readings are right then the passages are too far underground for marines to blast through, and we need to gain entry and secure that facility somehow."

"Once Lieutenant Darés has all of the information necessary, I can configure a railgun to the appropriate specifications," Feron said. "That's the easy part though."

"In that case, I want a firing solution prepared in three fractions," Viscross said. "Bessina, get over to the barracks on your way to the bridge and tell them to get a team prepared, about three-tier size."

"Aye sir," Bessina nodded.

***

An hour or so later, Maelrosica began to pass over the mountains near the settlement. On her starboard, dorsal bow a small, thickly-armoured compartment opened up and from within one of her railgun turrets emerged, charged up. It calibrated its targeting systems for a few moments, appearing to outside observers to spasm from left to right, before rapidly spinning around to take aim at the planet beneath. Without sound or any visible results it spat out a single projectile towards its target, which rapidly entered the planetary atmosphere and glowed with heat.

From the ground it would look like a shooting star, speeding down towards the ground before impacting on the side of a mountain with a deep, concussive thud that could be heard for miles around. The sudden impact of a large projectile hitting the rock sent up a thick cloud of dust and rubble that completely obscured one of the mountain sides from view. After the cloud had poured down the side and off into the plains, it left behind a crater in the rock.

***

"Stow it marine!" Lieutenant Barand yelled across the enormous hangar as he caught sight of two marines arm wrestling atop a crate of ammunition. The two marines almost jumped from their skins and immediately stood up, pretending nothing happened, as Barand returned his attentions to Commander Viscross.

"Also, Lieutenant Commander Feron and his chief computer operator will be accompanying you," Viscross finished his sentence. "If you do find anything down there, I want professionals at hand to prevent further mishaps."

"Understood Commander," Barand nodded. With Heskindo off the ship, Barand was taking direct control of the landing group. Given that this was their only foreseeable shot at returning home, he felt that all their resources were necessary to complete their vital mission. "We'll take care of him, don't worry about that."

Viscross nodded, patting the marine officer on the shoulder warmly. Though part of different military departments with entirely different rank structures, the two were roughly of equal rank, and despite Viscross having command of everybody on the ship they disregarded such formalities and remained close comrades.

"Take care of everybody Lieutenant," Viscross said. "You know as well as I what happened on Vescopa III with Heskindo's team."

"All the more reason to get back there and extract them," Barand said with a glint in his eye. "Take no prisoners, accomplish the mission, be back in time for dinner."

"Good luck, Divine guidance to you all," Viscross said, as an Ensign tapped him on the back and informed him that the shot at the planet was successful. "Lieutenant, you have a go."

"Aye Commander," Barand said, giving a salute before turning around and marching towards the two dozen marines that had gathered around a dropship. "Alright you lazy grots, suit up and cram into that plane - we're outta here!"

***

Little under ten minutes after the projectile had made its mark on the mountainside, did a small vessel plough into the atmosphere and dive towards it, escorted by two fighter craft as they grew wary of possibly advanced habitation nearby. The dropship disappeared into the crater as it dropped off its compliment, only this time it effected a landing and shut down its engines. If the Maelrosica decided to vanish from this planet as well, at least this team would have the means to escape their location should the need arise. The two fighter escorts swept overhead and disappeared back into the clouds as they returned to base.

The marnies disembarked with professional order, covering each other as they filed down the ramp. Unsurprisingly there were no hostiles nearby, though they all quickly donned breathing masks as they struggled to breathe through the dust that still lingered at the base of the crater.

"Private Garlo, up front!" Barand yelled behind him as he looked up at the wall of the crater.

"Sir!" said a young Private, jumping to his superior's side.

"Navy officer Darés informs me that we need to plant charges... there," Barand said, pointing at a spot near the bottom of the crater's small, sloped walls. "Apparently there's some manner of passageway inside. Plant the charge and get back - we'll cover you."

"Sir yes sir!" Garlo saluted, quickly leaping over to the spot identified by Barand and dropping to his knees. He pulled out a satchel from one of his pockets, roughly twenty centimetres high and ten centimetres long, and pulled off some strips from the back. Opening a fabric cover at the top he operated some small buttons, and after a few moments the sound of bleeping could be heard. Hurriedly he affixed the satchel to the spot on the wall and ran back to join his marine comrades who had taken cover behind the dropship ramp.

Moments later a large explosion deafened them, obscuring their vision with smoke and dust. The sound of rocks tumbling onto each other was encouraging, and when they peered around the side of the ramp to check if the dust was cleared, they were surprised to see a source of light coming from the resulting hole. Though the hole was short and narrow, it seemed wide enough to traverse.

"Conn, this is entry team," Barand said into his microphone smugly. "We're going in."

At that, he ordered two of his marines to remain behind with the dropship and its two pilots, whilst the rest cautiously began clambering down into the narrow hole towards whatever lay inside.

For several hours now, the upper levels of Jeric Incorporated's mining facility had remained silent. Many of the bizarre creatures, seemingly infinite in number, had spread out from the macabre turbovator hub room-cum-morgue in search of more prey. Some of the furry black monsters had managed to pry open the turbovator shaft Brigadier Heskindo's team had escaped through and gone down to pursue them, but the rest seemed intent on finding easier snacks.

In the main reception room, Heskindo's previous entry point, the air was stirred as the inner airlock door swept open. Two bulky figures stepped out, their heavy boots clanging on the floor with each laboured step. Whoever they were, they were covered from head to toe in chunky metal body armour, which appeared to incorporate powered exoskeletons to help the wearers support the weight. Even their heads were covered by large, angled helmets designed to deflect projectiles. They weren't part of the Navy, that much was obvious - the logo of the Army, with its two assault rifles silhouetted against the Vescopan flag, was emblazoned on their chest plates, and thanks to the motorised nature of the suits they were able to carry large weapons, which looked similar to miniguns in function, along with large ammunition packs on their backs.

With every movement they whirred quietly and shook the ground, and it didn't take long for some of the creatures further down the corridor to notice them and begin running towards them - fast.

The entire upper level of the facility was filled with booming thunder as the armoured figures span up their miniguns and began laying waste to swarms of the beasts.

"Guardian, this is fireteam!" one of the suited men shouted into their headset radios. "We have engaged the enemy! I repeat, we have engaged the enemy! They are contained for now; we'll keep the rest of you covered as you enter, over!"

"Acknowledged!" a tinny voice responded. "Hold on, we'll be there in a few cents!"

The two power armoured men began to take tentative steps forward as the rotating barrels of their weapons spewed out a constant stream of hot projectiles. By now the creatures had started to pile up a short distance down the corridor, but their surviving comrades were clambering over the corpses and slowly gaining ground. Whenever a creature came too close to one of them, their increased strength and weight allowed them to simply swing a fist into it to send it flying, before finishing it off properly.

Unfortunately, the stream of creatures seemed almost limitless. More soldiers began entering, removing their environmental suits as quickly as they could and joining thei fight. They wore only conventional armour and wielded less extravagant weapons, but once they offered their own firepower to the foray, the power armoured soldiers were able to begin taking it in turns to allow the barrels of their miniguns to cool while the other maintained the punishment.

***

"Sir!" Ensign Freen called out. His hands remained firmly planted on the ancient computer terminal, as he tried his best to gain an understanding on how it worked and what it contained. It was also their only means of contact with the outside world, and the Ensign was far too timid to release his grasp on that. "I think... I think we've received a response! There are close-range radio signals being received by this thing!"

"Already?" Heskindo muttered curiously. "Care to let the rest of us hear them?"

"I... I think... yes sir, here we go!"

There was a short crackling noise emanating from an unknown source in the vast room, causing Heskindo's ears to buzz for a moment, before he heard a strangely comforting voice. It was clear as crystal, as though its speaker was standing beside him, and it was as loud as the music in a recreation bar back home. He had never felt so relieved to hear a Navy officer as he did right now.

"Brigadier Heskindo," the comforting, husky female voice said. "This is Commander Tela of the Naval Vessel Tunis. Are you receiving me, over?"

"Commander!" Heskindo said, letting out a little more boyish enthusiasm than he would have liked. "Loud and clear! I'm very glad to hear your voice, over."

"I can imagine, Brigadier," Tela said. "We have been apprised of your situation; you are to hold your present location at all costs. Army personnel are securing the facility as we speak, over."

"Army, ma'am?"

"Yes Brigadier," Tela said. "We were scheduled to deliver a replacement garrison of soldiers to the Vescopa VI gas mining station when we received a rather bizarre radio signal. Both of our bosses are extremely keen to hold on to that mine for some reason. You're lucky we were passing by, over."

"Commander, I must warn you that we have encountered hostile animals on this planet," Heskindo said sternly. "It will take a large, heavily-armed team to neutralise the numbers we have encountered, over."

"I know, Brigadier," Tela said, almost teasing him. "How does a pair of Powered Armour Units and fifty soldiers sound?"

Heskindo smiled and nodded. Thank god for the pirates attacking the station near Vescopa VI, otherwise they would never have started placing such heavy security there. "That sounds like a Divine gift to me, Commander. We are in the beta mines, down the 'restricted' shaft on the right; we will hold our position, don't worry about that."

"Acknowledged, Brigadier," Tela said abruptly. "And try not to make our ship vanish too, would you?"

"We'll try, Commander," Heskindo grinned.

"Good," Tela said. "I'll see you top-side. Tunis out."

Heskindo sighed. He wasn't sure whether it was a sigh of relief, or a sigh at the prospect of holding this room without collapsing the passageway. As they all span their heads around to listen to the sound of snarling and growling emanating from down the passageway, they knew it was going to be a tough fight.

"Alright, we've survived this long people," Heskindo said. "We just need to hold on a little longer. The entire crew of the Maelrosica, our home, are depending on us to find a way to bring them back. This room... cannot and will not fall to those... things. Shoulder your weapons, take your positions, and make havoc like I know you can. For Maelrosica!"

"For Maelrosica!" both marine squads roared in response, cheering. Quickly they took up positions around the passageway, renewed with a new sense of confidence.

***

"Get these damn things off me!" one of the power armour soldiers cried out through his tinny speaker. The creatures had finally closed the gap, and the power armour units had placed themselves as an immovable barrier between the creatures, and the less heavily armoured troops behind them. While the armour proved impervious to both teeth and claws, it didn't stop the creatures from trying their hardest, and by now one of the two units had found his operations hampered as a result. Even with the enhanced strength of the suit, it had become difficult to move as creatures virtually covered him from head to toe, biting and scratching at the armour plates of his suit. He couldn't see, and thus couldn't safely fire his weapon.

"Hold still Corporal!" a soldier shouted from behind him, noticing his predicament. "Turn around, about ninety degrees!"

The obscured power armour unit somehow heard his comrade and slowly managed to turn his metal shell around. The soldier behind him lifted his assault rifle and carefully picked off each of the creatures with short, controlled bursts. When the last creature latched onto him flew off and landed in a dead heap, the power armoured Corporal nodded thankfully and turned back to the fight, his minigun erupting yet again.

"Their numbers are thinning!" Guardian Botin yelled over the noise after several more minutes of intense fighting. Sure enough, fewer creatures seemed to be piling over their fallen kin, and it suddenly became a lot easier to start pushing them back significantly. The power armoured soldiers resumed their indomitable march forwards, crushing the skulls of the fallen creatures as they continued the slaughter.

After what seemed like an age, the gunfire stopped. A haze of smoke clouded the entire corridor, and soldiers coughed as they tried to catch their breathe. As the two power armoured soldiers continued moving forwards, their smoking, red-hot miniguns silent at last, the soldiers trailing behind them cautiously checked each of the adjacent rooms to ensure they were secure. After carefully navigating the entire length of the corridor, shifting though corpses and the jingling morass of spent cartridges that littered the ground, they reached the vile turbovator hub, where the pile of bodies had by now been reduced to a heaving morass of torn flesh and congealed blood since the creatures had all 'emerged'.

It was empty. Quiet. Unoccupied. Were it not for the horrific sight before them, which caused even some of the 'tougher' soldiers in the contingent to baulk, they could take a well-earned rest. But the fight wasn't over yet.

"Tunis, this is Guardian Botin," the commanding officer of the soldiers spoke into his radio. "We have secured the upper section of the facility. Requesting further orders.

"Guardian, well done," Commander Tela congratulated him. "Brigadier Heskindo's two squadrons are bunkered down in the beta mines - Heskindo says to look for the 'restricted' passageway. You need to secure the room they're in without damaging anything. Do you copy that?"

"Understood Tunis," Botin said. "Over and out."

He turned and looked at his soldiers, who were keeping their distance from the grotesqueness in the centre of the room and continually looking around for more of the creatures. The power armour units stood vigil, conserving energy.

"Alright, the marines we're rescuing are in beta mine," Botin shouted, pulling out a small PDA with a map on the screen. "They are holding position in beta mines; the room they are in must not be damaged. We gotta pull them out safely without breaking anything. Alpha Team; you're with me and Corporal Tin Can here."

He gestured and snapped his fingers at a group of two dozen soldiers and one of the power armoured units, whom had apparently been nicknamed Tin Can due to his specialisation with the hardware. The group was all that would fit in the lift, and with the power armour it would be a tight squeeze.

"They might be marines, but they're Vescopans," Botin called out as they filed into the turbovator. "No more are to die here today!"

The soldiers all cheered enthusiastically, as one of the two power armour suits stepped precariously into the turbovator that led to Heskindo's men, along with a dozen regular soldiers.

Extravagant. It was the only word Barand could summon to describe the nature of the environment he presently explored. The corridors they presently navigated were brilliant white marble, with tall arches looming overhead every few metres as the tall, wide corridor grew narrower at the top. Soft white lights, the source of which none amongst the party could determine, caused the perfectly smooth stone walls and floors to glow faintly, crafting an almost magical appearance. If it weren't for the cold, stale air this would make for an ideal tourist attraction.

But the marines were more concerned with the possibility of encountering hostile organisms in the ancient network of rooms and passageways. It was quite easy to scout around, as the passages seemed to have been designed with more than beauty in mind - the networks were highly strategic in nature, though one wouldn't notice such a thing if one weren't a military man. With numerous decorative extrusions from the walls serving as intermediate cover points, the passages fed anybody navigating them into numerous 'hub' rooms, each one easily defensible by any sizeable security team. While nobody could discern what any of the multitude of rooms in there were for, as any equipment which once resided within them had long since been stripped out, leaving them bare and easy to secure.

So far, as they moved from cover to cover, using optics at every corner, none had caught sight of anything nefarious. By all accounts the entire, daunting network of passageways was entirely empty aside from themselves. Barand didn't know whether the total silence was comforting or concerning, but he'd take peace over a lethal confrontation with hordes of ravenous creatures any day of the week.

"...rotating bolt, six point one by fifty-two millimetre calibre..." the mutterings of Corporal Jelano occasionally broke the deathly silence as he repeatedly recited the technical specifications of the various pieces of equipment on his person.

"I think the Corporal is having nerve troubles," quipped Lance-Corporal Kingi in a hushed voice.

"You realise this was probably built by aliens, billions of cycles ago?!" Jelano spurted. "I doubt even the Divinities know what secrets are buried in this... this tomb!"

"Pfft, scientists say the Eotu itself is only a couple of million years old..." Kingi said dismissively.

"Whatever... we're still the first 'people' to walk around in here," Jelano snorted. "Unless... they're still here?"

"I wonder what they look like," Kingi pondered. "Like... with tentacle and stuff, like in the vidders?"

"Probably more like us than you might think, Corporal," Feron stated, the chief engineer retaining his unique tone of voice that left people wondering if he was being derogatory or simply arrogant. "Heskindo's team was able to access a computer terminal quite easily on Vescopa III, the atmosphere here is quite breathable, and you don't need corridors like this if you don't have legs... so they can't be all that different."

"Well you can still type with tentacles," Kingi muttered. "Maybe those creatures on Vescopa III were the aliens that built this place, only they've turned savage and mindless..."

"...bullpup configuration... one thousand, one hundred and fifty metres per..."

"Will you all stow it?!" Barand snapped harshly, spinning around to glare at the noisy marines. "Everybody on this damned planet will know we're here at this rate!"

"With all respect Lieutenant, the massive railgun impact and that enormous crater probably alerted more than a few people too," Feron said sarcastically. "Probably woke the dead too."

"Be that as it may Commander, I'd rather not have any vicious animals know we are here now," Barand derided. "Keep it quiet and keep moving, for the love of the Divinities. Looks like the corridor tapers off into a room further ahead."

Silenced by authority, with the exception of Jurano who dulled his voice to a virtually inaudible whisper, as his description of the inner workings of his assault rifle apparent gave him comfort - a reminder of the firepower he carried perhaps empowering him somewhat. Cautiously the team kept moving forwards, maintaining their alternating cover and continuing to use optics on every bend.

Eventually the corridor seemed to grow wider as they proceeded, until finally they rounded a corner and encountered a sealed blast door. Ornately designed, the door was painted with a white marble-effect, with embossed gold lines creating spiral patterns within the shimmering gold borders around the edges. A simple panel on the side lay dormant, dim, and apparently inoperable. Slowly the marines stacked up on either side of the door, with the two naval officers holding back, as though they planned to blast through.

"Well that was a worthwhile trip," Feron sneered, stepping out of formation. He leaned forwards and rapped his knuckles against the thick metal barrier. "Anybody in?"

"My performance report is going to take a turn for the worse when I come to your participation Commander," Barand informed him. "Stack the heck back up! Garlo, up front!"

Private Garlo, apparently lumbered with all of the team's explosives, switched position with two other marines and snapped to attention.

"Private, get a charge on this door," Barand ordered. "Set for a..."

"I wouldn't bother, Lieutenant," Feron said as he stepped out of formation once again to place a device against the door for a few moments. "Nothing you're carrying is going to penetrate that door."

"How do you suggest we proceed then Commander?" Barand said in an irritable tone.

"Well, whilst the typical marine will try to blow up anything that stands in his way," Feron said, his own tone taking a notably disrespectful turn. "An engineer will typically use his brain. We've tried knocking and it didn't work, so I propose..."

He leaned over to his right and gently placed his fingers against the seemingly inactive panel. Almost as soon as his skin touched the smooth, black surface did it light up with numerous green lights and let out a soft bleep. The bulky door responded by making a number of deep, echoing clunking sounds as various locks inside disengaged and it slowly whirred open. Dust and air rushed out, ruffling their hair, as the door opened for the first time in a long time.

"...we try the handle instead."

Before them was an enormous room, decorated in the same manner as the maze of corridors and empty rooms, but unlike everything else they had seen so far this particular room was still full of equipment - computer terminals lined several walls, and a row of staircases led down to a recessed area full of offline displays and what looked to be holographic 'tables'. A huge window dominated the wall on the left, thought whatever was on the other side had long since been covered by the mountain and was too dark to see through. Most concerning were the numerous canisters of yellow-green liquid that filled a small alcove on the opposite side from the entrance, each large enough to hold an adult Vescopan.

"Remind me never to underestimate the obvious again, Commander," Barand said, offering the compliment much to his own chagrin. "Alright, secure the room - touch nothing. Commander, you and Second-Lieutenant Umbran hold position here until we give the all-clear."

"Gotcha," Feron nodded, glancing at his chief computer operator. The Lieutenant Commander seemed almost amused by the rigid military protocols the marines were sticking to in this most unusual situation, though he respected their abilities and left them to it.

Slowly, the marines filed into the room one at a time, covering each other and glancing around the room with dumbstuck expressions. Kingi and Garlo stepped down into the recessed area and took a quick precursory glance behind the tables and terminals, shaking their heads at the lack of anything dangerous. Barand, meanwhile, was more interested in the canisters on the far side of the room, and led Jelano over to examine them. Placing his face against the glass, he peered inside and took a few steps backwards in surprise at what he saw.

"What is it Lieutenant?" Jelano asked nervously.

"Some kind of... black-furred animal," Barand said, looking curiously into the viscous liquid. "Looks dead, or asleep. Commander, get over here!"

Feron sighed and nodded towards Umbran to follow him. Together they walked casually across the large room and took up a position beside Barand. He looked at the series of canisters for a short while before ultimately shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, what is it?" Barand asked demandingly.

"I saw something like this in a genetics lab back home once," Umbran chimed in. "They kept specimens inside for analysis. Some alive, some dead."

"The things in there could be alive, Lieutenant?" Barand asked.

"I don't know," Umbran said. "Could be... don't knock them around or break them and if they are alive, they should stay in stasis."

"Those could be the things that attacked Heskindo's team on Vescopa III," Jelano said. "Better not wake them up!"

"Agreed," Barand nodded. "Everybody keep clear of them. Right... Commander, the room is secure. I think it's your turn to dazzle us - we're looking for anything that could get us home."

"Just like that," Feron said. "Lieutenant Umbran, come on."

While the two engineers began inspecting the various pieces of equipment, cautious not to touch anything, the marines took up loose defensive positions around the door.

"Conn, this is entry team," Barand said into his radio.

"Ent... team, t...s is Conn...arely re...ding you, ov..." a crackling response came back, littered with static.

"We must be too far from the entry point," Barand sighed. "Garlo! Get your radio over to our entry point! Inform Maelrosica of our progress and leave a radio behind when you come back - see if we can't carry a signal from in here a bit better."

"Aye sir," Private Garlo said, nervous at the prospect of dipping back into the network of corridors on his own. Nevertheless he sprang from his crouched position and began the jog back to the hole they had made.

Jensica couldn't really decide whether it was the prospect of dying several kilometres underground that was the worst part of their present circumstances, or the deadly silence that preceded it. They all knew the creatures were coming for them, and everybody save for Ensign Freen, who couldn't be pried from the ancient computer terminal, was in position ready to hold them back. But whatever the Divinities-damned things were doing, they were doing it quietly for now. Nothing stirred the air, there were no sounds of snarling, or claws scrambling against rocks. Just... silence.

While she was considering which was the worst of two bad situations, one of them gave way to loud bleeping and alarms as the cameras they had set up earlier detected movement at the far end of the passageway.

"Movement!" shouted Gringes as he hurriedly grabbed the small monitor that displayed the camera feed. "It's them! The things! Lots of them!"

"Alright people, hold your positions," Jensica said soothingly to her subordinates, while Heskindo tended to Freen. "They can't shoot back, and that passageway is a choke point - all we need to do is hold them back until the ground pounders get here."

Gringes nodded and dropped to one knee, his rifle shouldered. There was some logic in her reassurances; so long as the creatures didn't get near them, they wouldn't suffer any casualties. Jensica just wished she believed her own words; she doubted if they had enough ammunition left to last that long, and collapsing the passageway with explosives was no longer an option. Reluctantly, she moved to her own position next to the passageway entrance and aimed her rifle down the rocky corridor as the sounds of growling and scrambling finally reached their ears.

"Brigadier! We are preparing to engage the enemy!" Jensica called over to her commanding officer, as he still stood next to Freen while they debated the finer points of alien operating systems.

"OK!" Heskindo nodded, grabbing Freen by the shoulder. "Ensign, you've had firearms training, so get your sidearm out and join us."

"My... hands are still stuck to this thing," Freen protested. "Give me a second to figure out how to disconnect from it..."

"Be quick about it Ensign," Heskindo snapped. He then turned and joined the two marine squadrons in position near the passageway.

"Contact!" Pintos was the first to yell out as his assault rifle opened up with a hail of bullets. Sure enough a black creature was galloping on its four, spindly legs straight towards them, though it soon tumbled over itself as the bullets took away its life. Then a second creature emerged, then a third... soon every assault rifle in the room had let rip at the sudden surge of animals. The sound was deafening, as the percussive eruptions from the weapons reverberated around the large ruins, bouncing from every surface and amplifying the sound to the point where they couldn't even hear the angered roars of their attackers.

Jensica decided there and then that she preferred the silence after all.

***

The turbovator finally reached the bottom of the shaft, and even from there the soldiers could immediately hear the sounds of battle as soon as the doors whirred open. Corporal 'Tin Can' was the first to step out, his massive metal boots clomping down on the rock, and he quickly picked up speed as he headed for the tunnel on the right adorned with warning signs and tape, the source of the gunfire.

"Power armour on point; the rest of you fall in!" Guardian Botin yelled as they their walks turned into a brisk jog to keep up with their bulky point man.

"I can't believe they survived this long without the superior firepower of the Army!" yelled out one of the soldiers as they ran. As the power armour unit ducked into the narrow passageway, scraping the metal plates against the rocks and sending some rubble tumbling down as he went, they were met with almost immediate resistance. Several of the creatures dropped down from the ceiling in the main cavern, almost instantly grabbing three of the read soldiers and tearing into their flesh with sharp teeth.

"Hostiles!" Botin shouted, spinning around to fire at their new aggressors. Meanwhile, Tin Can was stuck in the passageway as dozens of the creatures turned around to launch themselves at him. His bulky minigun was almost impossible to aim in such a tight area, particularly when the creatures impacted with his chest. After downing several of the furry animals at range, he instead took to using the immense strength afforded to him by the suit to violently beat the creatures off himself, crushing some against the rocks and even stamping on another. Once he managed to break away some of the rubble and get moving again, he raised his minigun and began slowly walking down the passageway again, followed by soldiers who were still fighting off creatures from behind.

***

"I'm not dying down here!" Gringes shouted over the gunfire. "This ain't gonna be one of them final last stands you read about! I didn't sign up for being killed and impregnated by a space alien damn it!"

"Shut up!" Heskindo yelled back as he dropped to cover to replace his magazine. After a quick search through his pockets he slapped his rifle in frustration. "I'm out!"

"I'm on my last magazine!" Pintos yelled.

"Damn it all to the Divinities..." Heskindo growled to himself, yanking out his sidearm and standing up to continue shooting - albeit at a slower rate this time.

Freen stood helpless against the alien computer, still unable to disconnect himself, and had taken to cowering behind the terminal to avoid gunshots that weren't even aimed at him. The marines, all nervous as they hadn't expected so much action in their careers, continue firing, but now the aliens seemed to be thinning out a little. Not enough, though, as their ammunition was almost expended.

"Look!" Jensica shouted, pausing her gunfire for a second and pointing into the passageway. One of the creatures flew forwards dead, as though it had been shot from behind by a high-calibre weapon. Another one flew out of the passageway, narrowly missing Jensica's position, and was also dead. And then the gunfire stopped.

"Hold your fire!" yelled a radio-distorted voice from somewhere in the smoke-filled tunnel. "Friendlies coming out!"

"Hold your fire, you heard him," Heskindo yelled, and the remaining marines quickly released their triggers and lifted up their rifles. A few moments later, emerging from the smoke and dust was a large, mechanical figure, carrying a glowing minigun that poured smoke out from its barrels. To the embattled marines it was like a vision from the Divinities as he kicked over piles of creature corpses and entered the cavernous room that had caused them so much trouble. His metal arm released its grip on the minigun and flew up to his chest to perform a traditional army salute.

"Corporal Telano of the Third at your service, Brigadier," 'Tin Can' said, before looking back and calling to his comrades, "it's all clear in here!"

Several soldiers pushed their way out of the passageway, which had been considerably widened by the power armour's forceful traversal, and one of them was obviously of seniority. His combat armour was adorned with the rank of Guardian, and his angry face was showing signs of age, with the mottling on his cheeks being particularly dull compared to younger Vescopans, and his hair greying.

"Guardian Botin, you must be Brigadier Heskindo," Botin said, saluting in a similar way. "Congratulations on holding this room Brigadier, as soon as the rest of my detachment confirms that the facility is secure you shall be relieved; this is the Army's problem now. Tunis is in orbit and will take you in."

"Guardian, Ensign Freen here has been using the alien computers for a while now, if nothing else he should remain here as the closest thing to an expert we presently have," Heskindo said.

"A fine job he did too," Botin sneered. "You've lost your base ship and unleashed undocumented biohazards throughout a civilian facility."

"The creatures were here before we were!" Gringes protested.

"Even so, Trooper, we are under orders to secure and hold this facility until a team of civilian scientists is dispatched to examine these ruins," Botin said.

"What of the Maelrosica?" Heskindo asked.

"Brigadier, Maelrosica was lost in the first place because of careless tampering, I really doubt that more of the same will help find her again," Botin said. "This time we're doing it right. It's the best chance of finding Maelrosica, if she can even be found at all."

"We need to act now!" Heskindo snapped. "It'll take over a period for a ship to get here from home and Maelrosica might not last that long!"

"Brigadier, if that Ensign continues fiddling with something he doesn't really understand, Tunis could end up joining them," Botin said. "Where do you suppose we get rations from for the next period if that happens? We have our orders, and they've come from high up - and they make sense."

Heskindo simply sighed and nodded. He was fighting from a position of emotion, not logic, and knew that the Guardian was right. Even if the idea of agreeing with an Army Guardian was unpleasant, he knew that Freen could end up doing Divinities-know what with that terminal for as long as he was hooked up to it - they had no idea what it was capable of, and it was disturbing that it seemed to respond to even his most casual thoughts.

"Freen!" the Brigadier shouted as he turned away from the Guardian and paced over to the terminal, Botin hot on his heels. "Get yourself disconnected."

"I really can't!" the Ensign protested. "The computer needs to cut me off, you can't just yank me free! I could die!"

"This is your expert hmm, Brigadier?" Botin commented sarcastically. "Ensign, you could have killed two thousand people already, and you could still send another two thousand with them if you stay in - ahem - 'control' of that thing. If you don't disconnect, I'll do it for you."

"Hold up Guardian," Heskindo said. "Freen - this thing seems to respond to what you're thinking. Just think about disconnecting and you should be cut loose."

"What do you think I've been doing?!" Freen shouted.

"Brigadier, why not contact Tunis and have them send down some more experienced engineers?" Jensica suggested as she stepped up behind them.

"Yeah - yeah!" Freen nodded enthusiastically. "I'm just a low-level engineer, they've got to have a better idea of how this works than me!"

"Fine," Heskindo sighed. He glanced at Botin who simply shrugged and nodded in reluctant agreement. "Ensign, you're the one with the radio, make the call."

Feron and his assistant had been looking over the various terminals for quite some time now. The Chief of Engineering in particular had studied it closely with various sensory and magnification devices, and despite their thorough examinations they could find no apparent method of controlling the devices. Until Feron took one last look at the flat piece of metal beneath the screen and realised that it wasn't quite flat.

"Neural inputs!" the Commander exclaimed suddenly, startling Umbran. "Ingenious!"

"Excuse me?" Barand called across, walking over to the terminal the two engineers were presently studying.

"You're excused. These computers don't appear to have any input devices because we, or at least their creators, are the input devices," Feron said. "This entire surface is covered with sensory receptors that can interface with the nervous system. If I'm right, essentially touching this thing will allow you to control it with your very thoughts."

"That sounds pretty dangerous..." Barand said. "One stray thought could overload whatever this place uses for energy."

"That's probably what happened on Vescopa III," Feron pondered aloud. "One of the members of the landing party may have attempted to use a terminal like this and inadvertently activated a system of some kind."

"If that's the case, it doesn't strike me as wise to do the same thing again," Barand said sternly. "Maelrosica could end up anywhere."

"Fortunately my mind is a little more focused than that of a marine," Feron snorted. "Interfacing with one of these terminals could prove to be our only plausible chance of returning home. And fortunately for you, the best engineering officer in the fleet is here to render assistance."

"Umbran?" Barand asked.

Feron responded to the sarcastic enquiry with a deathly glare. "Hardly."

At that, the Vescopan officer reached out and placed both of his hands on the seemingly smooth metallic surface of the terminal. Within nanoseconds his face was contorted in agonised wincing as he experienced sharp pain in his head, as though he had become trapped in a spiked vice that continually applied pressure to every part of his skull. As soon as it had begun, however, the pain dulled, and he suddenly felt a presence that had not been there before.

Looking down he saw that holographic display on the terminal had activated, displaying numerous bar charts and status readings. As with Ensign Freen and Brigadier Heskindo's squadron, they could read all of the text as though the machine had torn the Vescopan language straight from Feron's brain.

"Are you alright, sir?" Umbran asked his superior officer with a note of concern. The chief engineer, though slightly out of breath, nodded in response.

"I think so," he said. "The initial connection was a little jarring... this system must have had difficulty with my nervous system."

"I know that feeling," Barand sneered. "Can you get anything useful out of that system or not?"

"Give me a minute Lieutenant," Feron said. "This is much trickier than the button-mashing you're used to. Every thought seems to trigger a response..."

"So much for your 'focused' brain," Barand said.

"I... think that this facility was established as some kind of port," Feron said. The holographic display changed to reams of text which appeared to describe the facility and its functions. "It connects directly to a similar construct within the... the 'defence perimeter'. I presume that means the Eotu."

"Connects how?"

"I'm unsure," Feron shook his head. "The files describe technology far in excess of anything we can understand. It does have the capability of communicating with the Vescopa III facility however, despite interference from the Eotu, using something called a 'tunnelling array'."

"You mean we can send Heskindo's team a message?" Barand asked enthusiastically. "How long will it take to get there?"

"We can do more than send them a message Lieutenant," Feron said, closing his eyes in deep concentration. "Assuming the systems on both sides are functional, it looks like we are able to have a real-time conversation with anybody who is listening on the other side."

"How will we know if the systems are functional?" Umbran asked, glancing around the room. "I've not seen anything like a radio transceiver either here or on the surface."

"It should be functional," Feron said. "The facility uses some kind of automatic repair systems to maintain itself. Despite being buried, it looks as though this place is virtually as good as new."

"So try it," Barand said. "We need to radio home to alert them of our status."

"I'll try, though I have no idea whether I will be doing it right," Feron said. "I'll attempt to activate the relevant files now."

He closed his eyes again and frowned as his brain attempted to navigate the remarkably intuitive, if somewhat confusing, computer system. After several minutes of silence he opened his eyes and looked up.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Feron of the Maelrosica calling anybody on Vescopa III, are you receiving us?" he spoke up.

******

"What the...?" Guardian Botin exclaimed as an ethereal voice resonated around the room. "Was Feron part of the entry team?"

"Not to my knowledge," Heskindo shook his head, looking up. "Commander Feron... where are you?"

"Thank the Divinities for that!" Feron's voice exclaimed. "Heskindo, is that you?"

"Yes it's me," Heskindo said with a nod. He wasn't entirely sure why he nodded when Feron couldn't see him. "I repeat, where are you?"

There was a long pause as Feron seemingly tried to think of an explanation. "We believe that we are on the other side of the Eotu! One minute, Maelrosica was in orbit around Vescopa III - the next, we appeared in a region of blackness. Lieutenant Darés managed to spot the Eotu, and estimates that we are presently several trillion kilometers away from its outermost border."

"How is that possible?" Botin muttered.

"Who is that?" Feron's incorporeal voice asked commandingly.

"I am Guardian Botin, Army," Botin said. "How can you be trillions of kilometers outside of the Eotu? That is not possible. Neither is a real-time conversation at such a range for that matter, either."

"Ugh, first marines, now army," Feron muttered, and a second incomprehensibly quiet voice apparently derided him for doing so on the other end. "It has to do with the ruins on Vescopa III, Guardian. We appeared within range of a planet on this end which has a similar facility. I believe that some inept marine accessed an alien computer terminal which moved the ship here with means beyond our understanding."

Freen looked up nervously. "Erm... sir, I think that was me."

"Ensign Freen, is that you?" Feron's voice asked angrily. "Your permanent record will explode when I've finished with it! What did you do?"

"I'm not entirely sure sir," Freen said nervously. "I accidentally accessed something called a 'passageway'... that was when Maelrosica vanished. I believe it's one-way, but if you've found more ruins on that side... it could have a way back."

"At least you remember what you did," Feron snorted. "Right. I'm going to search for something like that here. Stay in that room until I contact you again. Feron out."

******

"So, we need to activate a 'passageway'," Barand said with a short nod. "How do you do that?"

"I'd rather learn what it is before switching it on," Feron snapped, closing his eyes again. "OK, I've found something. Apparently this Passageway thing is the entire region for this facility to exist. It... allowed ships to cross the Eotu safely, and there's a similar system on either end. This facility represented the only means of ships getting inside, and the Vescopa III facility was the only way of getting out."

"So... if you activate it..."

"...and target Maelrosica then she should be transported back to Vescopa III," Feron finished Umbran's sentence. "Freen was right; it's one-way and one-direction. She can't be sent anywhere but Vescopa III."

"So do it then!" Barand snapped.

"It's worth a try..." Feron acquiesced. "I'm telling the system to target Maelrosica with this Passageway device now. Now, if I activate it..."

******

In space, Maelrosica appeared to simply vanish into vacuum. There was no special effect or flash of light, but simply one minute she was there, and the next minute she was gone. Aboard, the crew were almost as disorientated as before, but when they saw the familiar orange glow of the Eotu surrounding them again, they all felt a sense of relief overwhelming them. Tunis and her crew were equally surprised to see the ship reappear in the exact same spot it had vanished from, but they quickly moved to render aid to the ship.

******

"Vescopa III, do you have Maelrosica?" Feron asked after re-establishing the FTL communications channel. A brief pause followed, presumably while the ground team checked the alien scanning devices for confirmation.

"Maelrosica is back on our sensors![/i]" an excited Freen responded, allowing Feron to finally exhale. "You've done it!"

"Now we just have the problem of getting back ourselves," Feron sighed. "Somebody needs to remain to operate these controls at all times for a ship to travel through this Passageway."

"We'll figure that out shortly Commander Feron," Botin's voice came onto the speakers again. "In the meantime we'll attempt to use this Passageway of yours to send a dropship laden with supplies over to you. I'm sure the government is going to be particularly interested in these ruins - on both ends."

"Let us know when you've figured something out then Guardian," Feron said. "We'll hang tight on this side until then. Feron out."

******

One solar cycle later, the ruins on either side of the Eotu were crawling with civilian scientists and engineers. Every inch of each facility was examined and scrutinised, while scientists made attempts to download the databanks of the alien computers into Vescopan-designed quantum computer cores so that they could take the wealth of information home for study - unsuccessfully thus far.

After several periods of procrastinating, the government decided to release information regarding these astonishing events to the general public. How they would respond to the cataclysmic news that Vescopa was not the only place in the universe, and Vescopans not the only peoples in the universe, remained to be seen.

(OOC: Apologies for the abrupt and rather shoddily-written conclusion to this thread but I've literally spent years having them attempt to leave the Eotu and wanted to get it over with now! The next thread will deal with the resultant technological singularity that this alien technology poses to the Vescopan people, and will allow for some more official outside involvement.