NationStates Jolt Archive

Three years ago…
“Citizens, halt immediately or we will use force! Hold your hands above your heads and lie down on the ground with your hands behind yours heads to show you are willing to comply!”
It's no use, thought Officer David Hall of the St. Brooks police force. They weren’t stopping! He tensed, coming upright from his position leaned against the wooden barricade, pistol held pointed at the sky as he watched the crowd slowly approach at a distance of about forty feet by his best guess.
This is all the government’s fault.

Mere weeks ago in one of the less populated sections of the world of Vooka, an epidemic had broken out. Little attention had been paid to it at the time, but soon enough the Unified Commonwealth of Vooka (UCV) had lost contact with one of it’s outposts on the rim of the Scillian tundra wastes. Teams sent to investigate reported signs of a struggle, much blood and spent shell casings as well as bullet holes and forced entries, but the base personnel were now missing. Locals reported no knowledge of the event and the men and women of the station were never found.

What scientists determined was a virus spread at an alarming rate, engulfing all of Scillia, infecting thousands in the tiny, poor, tightly-packed villages in days. The infected had been reported as feral, insane and bloodthirsty, and all local police and militias were quickly overrun by these hordes. The general military, under authorization from the Prime Minister, initiated an orbital strike from a platform in orbit on the region, obliterating the land and killing millions. However, unknown to the public and event most of the government, a team had infiltrated the lands of Scillia and brought back a captive infected, alive. As politicians began to turn on each other for the strike seeking someone to blame, military forces grew uneasy and bristled with all their horrible weapons of war and the public screamed outrage, men in hidden laboratories got to work.

While it was not studied in-depth, the disease, named “Solanum”, was determined to be 100% percent communicable and fatal in 100% of cases. However, it was what occurred after death that held the morbid fascination of the men and women in their Hazmat suits. Though infection rates depended largely on the individual, around the twenty-second to twenty-sixth hour after initial contamination and preceding death the victim would reanimate. Scans showed no higher brain function, and indeed there seemed to be only a single desire in these reanimated bodies: The need to feed. Specifically, the need to consume flesh.

Tests showed that what kind of flesh didn’t matter: Human or animal, a reanimated corpse would devour as much flesh as they could. Strangely, this flesh is not digested: Nearly all bodily functions shut down after death, and do not restart once reanimated. An afflicted victim will consume flesh until either it is forced though the anus, or, in some cases, the stomach lining ruptures and the belly literally explodes. Even this does not deter the monsters from their tasks. The infection rate remained constant in all species, regardless of shape, size, intelligence level or molecular make-up.

Soon after the tainted were brought into the facility catastrophic struck: A hole was ripped onto a poorly-maintained hazardous materials suit by an infected, and in a panic the victim opened the door separating the containment room and the rest of the facility, seeking to escape. Test subjects poured though, setting upon and devouring and infecting the staff, a multitude of the walking dead unleashed. They spilled from the secret lab, pursuing a fleeing soldier across hilly land to a nearby city, that of St. Brooks. The result was disaster, civilians running for their lives, fighting and dying, killing each other to escape. Looting was rampant, mobs torched and fought each other, and the undead grew in numbers.

The group had ignored the officer shouting though the speakerphone, shuffling forward. Hall could now here a low and eerie groan coming from them, no cries for help, no angry shouting or screams, just the same unrelenting moan. Many of them seemed wounded and even mutilated, missing limbs with large patches of skin torn away, shuffling awkwardly with broken bones. Hall shot a look at his commander, who shook his head, pointing to the approaching horde.
“Non-lethals, tear gas grenades, low power stunners and if they get close sick sticks and truncheons only. On my command….fire!”

There were simultaneous twin thunk noises as two grenades spun into the civilians from their launchers, bouncing around their dragging feet before busting into whitish smoke. The line of police, a dozen strong, fired their pistols directly into the mass, green bolts impacting hard on stomachs, torsos and limbs. To their amazement the civilians just kept coming, apparently unimpeded by the gas, the stunners not so much as giving them pause. The commander, shocked, ordered another volley, but this worked no better than the first. Panicking, the officers switched to their lethal settings, firing bullets as the first of the advancing undead reached the barricades.

From them Hall just turned and ran, shutting out the screams and desperate fire from behind him, but most of all the awful, unending moan. Clutching his pistol he vaulted over a parked patrol car, not possessing the keys and knowing he wouldn’t be able to start it before they set upon him. Racing away he blindly took turns, corners and alleys, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the slaughter. He backed into a nearby building, eyes wide as his head swiveled with paranoid movements before turning to face the darkness inside.
No one was there.

Sighing his relief Hall searched the interior, eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom. It appeared to be a clothing apartment store, racks of clothes hanging everywhere, no one around, all the lights off. He lowered the pistol, relaxing, thinking himself safe.
In an instant the pistol was back up again, the barest hint of a noise on the edge of his hearing, maybe the slightest suggestion of movement. A hoarse, ragged wail pierced terror into his brain, freezing his heart and filling his nostrils with the stench of rotting flesh. He fired at an indistinct shape, missing as his hand shook, swiveling all around him as the zombies came in from all sides, groaning, encircling him and trapping the man.
“Nooo, no, please oh God no, I’ll do anything, please no don’t ahhhhhgggghh-“

Present Day…
Vooka is little more than a vast, barren wasteland now. The living humans fought amongst themselves, blamed others and jammed their roadways and waters in an attempt to escape while the undead ranks grew and grew. Some escaped by plane, but they soon ran out of fuel and were forced to land or crash. A precious few, world leaders, important politicians, the rich and the fertile were sent up to the orbital station, but untrained and understaffed the personnel were shaken by the events below and increasingly depressed and despairing. Eventually one man declared that Vooka’s future was dead, just like most of its population, and caused the station to self-destruct, killing all aboard.

In a system on the rim of the galaxy in a quadrant made up of only so many stars and gas with little resources and no habitable worlds to hold the interests of space-faring nations, Vooka was left alone, unknown and never discovered. It would hold interest only to treasure hunters, criminals looking to make a hide-out of the planet and those pesky explorers that seem to be everywhere from so many nations. For now space is as empty and lifeless as the planet below, but that may change. While most supernatural and paranormal forces emit a signal that is loud, insistent and instant, what came out from Vooka was slow and melodious, sensed only be psychics as an immense amount of power. Exactly what, or who, was on or beneath the surface of this dead world remained a mystery to all except those who would come and seek it.

OOC: Zombie RPG. I want NO huge fleets, NO armies. This is predominantly a character RPG, although be sure to bring along a lot of extras and redshirts for undead chow. I also ask for RPers to restrain from attempting to destroy the planet or system. I’ve got this figured out, so I wouldn’t advise you to attempt standard FT tactics to destroy the undead: If you can name it, I’ve thought of it and have a defense against it. You can and will be eaten alive. :) If you have any problems, questions or comments, feel free to TG me.
OOC: Many thanks to Max Brooks and his wonderful Zombie Survival Guide for inspiring me to this RPG, and if you’ve read it you will note my zombies and his are highly similar, as well as, well, pretty much everything else. :tongue:

A Greywatch explorer vessel pulled out of PSR ever so slowly. Like any other vessel of its class, it was meant to find something interesting, however for the past few months it had no such luck. Now where was it? In some backwater, barren system not worth anyone's time. The captain groaned on the bridge, "I swear, everyone else has had more luck than me on this. Is the Stargazer working properly?" The tactical officer looked up from his console, "Yes, captain. The Stargazer isn't a machine, so I doubt it could be 'not working.' The captain looked back, "I suppose Cryption only goes so far. Scan the area thoroughly in case something worth our time actually happens to be hidden here." The tactical officer nodded, "Aye captain." After a moment the ship began moving out in hopes of finding something of interest.

The Explorer would find little of interest: Just an empty system, a medium star with a collection of tiny, rocky planets that barely deserved the name, lacking atmospheres and life. A huge orange gas giant was far in the distance, but before this the world that was Vooka spun on it's orbital path. If the Greywatchers elected to look closer they would find the planet in ruins, cities crumbling, surface stripped of vegetation, skies dark and no concentrated signatures that would indicate groups of higher life forms. However, if any on board were sensitive to the more arcane energies they would be able to feel the call, not so much as a plea for help as a summoning, a deep-throated hum beckoning with the siren's song of power. This desolate system on the edge of space, dead and cold, had something in, on or around it that was spreading an enticing message. To others, the world would seem an ideal place to scavenge technology or perhaps hide away for a while. The scanners would pick up a crackling ion storm encompassing the planet, covering it with a bluish glow as lightening zapped and hissed soundlessly though the void.

"Sir," said the tactical officer, "Found something. Some planet over yonder has some intresting activity going on. I'm detecting a fierce ion storm that seems to be encompassing the entire planet, not sure why, though." The captain sighed, "Better than nothing, bring us closer to the planet." With that the ship quickly moved to a position that was closer to this barren and inhospitable world. Obviously some kind of apocolyptic event had happened here, scans showed the no life signs of any kind. Old structures were detected but had obviously been neglected by whatever race left this place behind. Drones aboard the ship felt something, almost like an extra voice that was not apart of the hive mind. None of them, however, acted on this, they gave no indication of this feeling. Meanwhile, the captain thought about whether the planet was really going to be worht the effort. There was nothing here, nothing alive at least, and the planet didn't look like something safe for colonization. He sat in his chair deciding whether to stay and check things out, or leave and mark this area as another place with nothing of interest it in.

In the area around Vooka was dark and empty. Since the fall of the people, there had been no signs of interaction and no evidence of the horrible battle that had taken place during the native’s struggled for survival. There was peace in the area. The stars were undisturbed and the planets dormant.

Not for long however. Above Vooka, just outside her atmosphere, the black space began to twist and distort in the traditional fashion that indicated a vessel was approaching in a Slipstream, a long tunnel of energy where physics and material problems no longer applied to the speed of a vessel. The twisting and distortion was a light bluish hue and it was not long before a vessel stretched into view. It was a strange vessel, a foreigner to this world. It slowed down gradually and twisted majestically towards the cursed planet, unaware of the horrors that awaited her below.

The vessel was narrow and deep, with long wings that stretched down below the vessel at a 60 degree angle to the hull. Two engines were embedded in each engine and a pair of turrets stood watch over the space behind the vessel’s tail. It was a Philosopher Class Merchant Vessel and it belonged to the Alversian Democratic Republic.

Or it used to. The vessel, instead of the red and blue decorations of the Alversian Merchant Fleet, was painted in a combination of gold and silver, it’s identification number was gone and it’s name gone. Through the paint it was possible to see the old name of the vessel while above it was a new name that had been chosen for the vessel. It was no longer the AMS Aristippus but the Private Cruising Ship Daphne. It was an impressive vessel, with a vast bulk and a powerful defensive armament. Despite this, someone had bought it from the Alversian Merchant Navy and repainted it.

They had done even more inside, for the vessel was completely renovated. Instead of a set of comfortable crew quarters, there were a hundred private apartments and sixty people taking up the room where 500 people had lived at one stage. The other decks were an even greater example of luxury and indulgence, for the vast cargo holds of the ship had been turned into restaurants, a giant pool, gyms, Jacuzzis, bars, cinemas and even a lounge area where people could gather and converse. It was a true example of private wealth, where the running cost alone of the ship would run into the billions, including the crew and maintenance. Despite this, the vessel was run all by one man.

In the lounge area, a place filled with leather, silk and the most expensive materials a man could buy, a room where luxury and wealth were the key statement, one man stood uncomfortable and watched as people many, many times richer than he moved from sofa to sofa and conversed politely about things of relatively little importance. He was tall, over six foot five, a standard height for an Alversian. He had short black hair, polished and cleaned to the same shine as a mirror. He had skin darkened by a thousand suns, meticulously scrubbed and scrubbed again to be as pale as it could possibly be. His short eyes were an intense blue while his other features were also distinguishing. He had a short, almost cute nose and a rounded chin. He was intensely unhappy as he watched his social piers move in front of him with the confidence that came only from wealth.

The Alversian leant over to his partner, standing a full foot shorter than him and dressed in a long and elegant robe that betrayed her perfect figure and graceful stance. She was a Kitsune, a humanoid with the body of a woman but the ears, eyes of a fox. Her long bushy fox’s tail swished happily beside her, for she was much more at ease with these surroundings, having been born of Nobility. Her katana hung easily from her belt and offered even more grace to her presence.

“What am I doing here?” Nathaniel T. Barnes asked her for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour.

“Earning a fortune of course,” Chloe replied patiently, smiling politely at a guest who was admiring her dress, revealing her sharp canine teeth, “More than enough to retire on”

“But why do I have to dress up like this? Vexoscan’s finest may need to dress up like a waiter but I don’t see why I should as well”

“It’s all about appearances,” The younger Kitsune explained, “You look good, they assume you are good”

“That’s what my shotgun’s for”

“Ah, but we can’t blow up Mister Sheen’s nice and expensive furniture up can we?”

“Believe me, I’m resisting the urge already.”

“What about the Guests?”

“Them too”

“No, you idiot, I meant have you met any of them yet?”

“Should I have?”

“You may want to.”

“I bloody won’t”

“Trust me, you will”

“Trust me, I won’t”

“You will and I think…hello Mister Sheen”

A man had arrived at the pair, wearing only the finest clothes and with looks that only a fortune’s worth of pampering could bring out the full potential of. The man was incredibly wealthy, for this entire ship was his and the Guests were here on his invitation. Nathan Barnes and Chloe were also here, because, save for a certain pair of Kitsune, they were rated amongst the best of the Mercenaries available.

“Good evening Chloe. My, my, you are looking delightful tonight,” The Kitsune blushed as Mister Sheen kissed her hand then turned to Nathan, who had plastered a fake smile across his face, “Have you heard of this planet we are touring?”

“No, Mister Sheen,” Nathan had never called a man ‘Sir’ in his life but if anyone deserved it, this man with more money than sense certainly did, “Although I did gather a few moments ago that there is another ship here, from Greywatch”

“Pah,” Mister Sheen seemed displeased by this news, “As long as they don’t get in the way then I don’t care. Can we beam down to the surface soon?”

“There’s too much interference Sir,” Nathan had spent over an hour talking with the Captain of the private vessel about the conditions on the surface as well as the planet itself. It seemed strange that were was no life in the area, not even a mining ship, but he dismissed his concerns.
His job was to get two dozen people to the surface for tea and a tour then protect them while they took holo-images for their friends before returning to the ship and heading off to the next unseen dump. It was not the most exciting tour in the world but was very lucrative for Nathan who had set his price ridiculously high for a joke and had choked when he had accepted it without argument. Now he was here.

“Damn, means we’ll have to leave the ice sculptures behind,” Mister Sheen turned to see if anyone had noticed this outrage but they had not, Nathan stared at Chloe in disbelief behind his back.

“Anyways, got to see how the Girls are coping so I’ll leave you two to it. Barnes, Ma’am” He bowed to Chloe then departed.

Nathan sighed at Sheen’s retreating back,
“Toff,”

“They all are” Chloe defended him.

“You’re only saying that because he kissed your hand”

“Of course,”

“If I had tried that, you’d have broken my neck”

“Yup, you’re not worth a few trillion are you?” She grinned and he grinned back.

Two hours later, Nathan and Chloe were out of their ball dresses and back into combat gear as they headed down in a shuttle loaded with men and women, young and old, super rich and hyper rich. They were on the top floor were a series of lounges and bars attended to the guests. The second floor was filled with tables, a kitchen for cooking their meal and a series of expensive props for the dinner of locals. Chloe and Nathan were to be joined by three dozen crewmen armed with rifles and pistols.

Nathan checked his auto-shotgun again to make sure that all was in working order while Chloe checked her dual pistols and Alversian rifle. She smiled at him in a reassuring manner while the shuttle penetrated the atmosphere and headed down towards the barren surface. Within moments they had landed and Nathan had a problem.

“What do you mean we have no radio contact with the Daphne?” Sheen asked Nathan accusingly as though it was his fault. There were only half of the guests here for the others had omitted to land on the surface, choosing to remain in the comfort of the large cruiser.

The shuttle itself was twice the size of Nathan’s own vessel and they were now settling down for a meal in what looked like a flat and empty wasteland. Servants were setting up the meal as it was cooked by the Chiefs in the shuttle kitchens. The Guests sat according to rank, the finest of Vexoscan Society, for the Alversian Nobility had scoffed such a pointless waste of money. Sheen was not one to take dismissals to heart and so had pressed on regardless of what they had said. Now he was here and they were there. He was happy, they were happy and his Guests were happy.

“The atmosphere is dispelling any signals and we can’t pick them up, Sir” Nathan reported. Chloe was out of the way, scanning the surroundings for signs of any hostiles as well as dispersing the Servants in a loose cordon around the Guests. Once dinner was over, they would have to take a short walk around the planet before being picked up and brought to some other planet to do the same thing.

“Well, make sure nothing else goes wrong!” Sheen snapped and headed for the top of the table while Nathan made a grim expression behind Sheen and moved off to check on Chloe and the Servants who were acting as Security.

This was going to be the easiest pay package of his life.

"New contact sir," said the tactical officer, "Alversian. Looks like it used to be a warship. They're deploying a shuttle to the surface, sir!" The captain looked at the officer and turned backa holoscreen that came up. "What the hell? Who are these people? We don't even have any knowledge of what could be on the surface. Are these people idiots?" The tactical officer shook his head, "We haven't picked up much on the surface, captain. I may just be an exploration vessel like our own." The captain frowned, "I doubt it. But for now don't do anything, we'll watch for now." The comms officer looked up, "Captain?" The captain smiled, "It may go against protocol but they decided to go down there. If something happens, we'll know a little more about this place." The officers on the bridge seemed confused as the captain silently watched the holoscreen.

I had a dream.

It always sounds so much more ominous when I say it, than when it first came into use by a long dead ethnic leader. But then again it's supposed to. My dreams are never wrong and do me even better than they did Cassandra. Fortunately I have enough other Gifts, Donas, that I don't have to put up with what Cassandra did. I get bothered, I take care of it. Mostly permanently. But then again I am one mean old broad.

But the current one as I waited for my ride to arrive was far different that the one that caused me to send for said ride…

Millions of Light Years away...

Shalamar slept, she would need to now, for there would not necessarily be time later, her precognition – always the most unreliable of a psionics arsenal- advised her. Her sleep was deep and dreamless…or was until the first notes played (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zt09A-Xd7o). And after thirty five years she knew instantly what was happening. And knew she could not prevent it, could not wake...

She tossed restlessly now in her sleep, reliving what the music heralded…

Shalamar, Lady of Cats Keep, sighed and shifted irritably on the hard seat of the throne. ‘I think it’s time for new cushions’ she grumped to herself. ‘Why can’t I have a nice comfortable EZ -Boy instead of this monstrosity?’ She answered herself ‘Because your people made this to honour you and what you represent, a gift that you had not the hardness of heart to refuse, you big marshmallow’. Sighing inwardly once more, she gritted her teeth and firmly turned her attention to the petitioners before her. Their case was easy enough to see the answers to, and with thoughtful discussion she mediated a settlement that all three parties were content with. This was the last but one as the pseudo sun of the Shadow Realm began to settle behind the Storm Wall that marked the boundary of Cats Keep’s domains. Soon the first of the three moons would be rising, tiny green hued Lyriel to speed across the heavens, to be followed more sedately by rosy Fionne, and battered Ti’ain.

As the trio now chatting amiably among themselves in low voices departed, she turned to her herald, Corwin. Her look signaling him that it was time to call the last group forth. He returned her smile and looked at his notes. It was just habit, for he had perfect memory and had never, in the over eleven thousand years that Shalamar had known him, made a mistake when speaking before the court. ‘That I' aware of...thank the Divine I’ve not had to endure the boredom of court for most of that time. I can remember when Jo left - as if it were yesterday, ‘stead of near twelve hundred…it doesn’t seem to have been that long. Goddess I miss her. She’d give me one of her patented looks and we’d both be fighting not to giggle and ruin the ‘solemnity of the occasion’…damn it boss I never wanted your job! I’ve got to stop wool gathering, but something, something is niggling at me and…Pay attention, these youngsters are here to be officially noticed by you so DO SO!' Shalamar chastised herself as Corwin’s rich baritone, unchanged by the years, sounded through out the vast, high ceilinged hall, carrying to every nitch and corner clearly.

“Will Evard, Lord Bjornsburg, present himself before the…” Corwin’s voice was drowned out by the reverberating bass peal of hard struck metal filling the Hall like thunder and making the very foundations quake. The unexpected echoes that followed silenced the sudden flurry of gasps and half formed questions. The Great Hall of Cats Keep had been specifically designed to damp echoes and conversations but now the gaily clad throng were darting stunned looks at one another, their peaceful afternoon visitations abruptly ended, flirtations and conversations stilled.

The Bell of Challenge had been rung. The silence that followed was deafening.

A day later…

The warShip (http://www.atddm.com/warshop.jpg) had swum through the weirding vortices of light that were the otherSpace that the Ships used to traverse the vast depths of space at many times the speed of light. A million Light Years in but ten decands -a passage of time equaling ten minutes as recognized by the Interstellar Atomic Time Commission - was cruising speed to the living beings born and bred deep in the hidden stellar congeries.

It had been easier for the warShips, awoken after several hundred of millennia of dreamless oblivion to take up the current standard of speech and thought rather than try and force their new partner races into the ancient, no longer living ways. Even the Xa had changed. But change was to be expected and the beings that were the warShips accepted it, with outward good grace. Then it was at its destination and it eeled forth from otherSpace with an agility no vessel constructed of inert metals or advanced composites could emulate.

I stood on the bridge, cinnamon amber eyes locked on the forward holovue, my eyes wide as I took in the glory of a stellar system laid out before her. “Simply magnificent” I breathed. I, Shalamar, Lady of Cats Keep (http://www.atddm.com/Shal1a,jpg) am over twelve thousand years old and have seen and done much. but this is still a new and unique experience for my tart tongued self. Tall with dark auburn hair and fair skin I certainly did not look my age. But then I didn't look - and more to the point 'feel' wholly human. There was a barely perceptible, but constantly shifting, almost a mirage of an image overlaying...But then again I’d left 'human' behind a long time ago.

The warShip’s Av’self and it’s Bonded smiled in unison at her marvelment.. For them it was commonplace, but they could well remember their own ages long ago wonderment that had mirrored hers now. The warShip Noh’ Vinh of the Fleet of the Claw, had been seconded to the Phoenix Empire of Tanara, and now put at the permanent disposal of one of the Phoenix Empires least known allies. Cats Keep, in the person of the Lady of Cats Keep, Shalamar Thorskald, Tenerista.

“It is the M class that is of interest to you Lady?." The warShip's Bond (http://www.atddm.com/wsbond.jpg) said in her unnaturally calm voice, as a holograph of the tattered remains of the planet sprang into existence. “I must also advise that our sensors detect a Greywatch explorer vessel in system and a private flagged Alversian Merchant vessel in orbit.. Do you want us to contact them.”

Or maybe I'm just hearing it as such. I thought few things gave me the willies any more but the Bond sure does. I know she used to be human, and I'm well used to people who aren’t human any longer, but she raises every hackle I have I thought deep in the most heavily shielded part of my mind, while I nodded with a pleasant expression on my face. "Excellent. Yes contact both advise as to whom we are and that we are responding to …unusual emanations from the planet Advise them as to take care as well..” I chose her words carefully. I knew little of either nation, their races habits, abilities and more importantly - tendency to overreact....

"And, please, if you would, prepare a shuttle. I have to admit no knowledge of piloting one though."

"That will be no obstacle. It is a part of me, and I will direct it." The warShip’s Av’self spoke for the ship.

"Then I will go at once, have the Security team meet me there." I turned to follow the guide light as Noh’ Vinh began implimenting my requests.

And in exactly three minutes a smaller replica of the warShip was darting agilely away from its parent to loop toward the planet. “Land near that Alversian landing party I would like to know why they have come, if they sense the same as I do” Soon it was settling to the planets surface, some thousand feet from the Daphne’s shuttle Away from the group dining though. I stood, and once the ramp had been lowered strode down it, the deep crimson of my silk robe and veils – warning and protection both – swirling around me.

The security team moved quick - some to get out ahead of her and set up a defensive perimeter and others to play rear guard. There were fully two dozen of the roughest and toughest (http://www.atddm.com/shalteam.jpg) of the Phoenix Empires non Cadre finest, all of them veterans from the Hell War, and armed and armored to the teeth.

We will send you squad A.M.S. to help you out and find a cure .

We have reached land no sign of any surrvivors. We were attacked by some of the infected today.All 5 men are okay.We need to find surrvivors.This is Jhon Wilson going Out

Captain to the bridge.

"Oh go hump yourself", a growling voice muttered from the darkness. "It ain't time yet..."

Captain Ahokas to the bridge.

Darkness turned to light with the flare of an electric lamp, the hand that had flipped the switch dropping back to the blankets in the bunk. "Goddammit, Luk, can't you even give me the six hours of shut-eye I asked for?" the voice muttered again, its owner appearing from under the blanket. A tall, rugged-looking man with shoulder-length brown hair. He dragged himself up from the bed and tied his hair in a ponytail.

Captain Ahokas to the bridge, the ship's central AI's calm voice called out again just as the man in question - Levi Ahokas - pulled on his trousers.

"Jaysus bloody Christ, keep your pants on, will ya?" he muttered as he punched the panel by the door, opening the door to the corridor.

As he walked along the corridor, captain Ahokas cursed his situation. A former street rat and an ex-Jaeger in the Principality forces, he had fallen on hard times. After the Vuhifellian campaign, he and a few other like-minded had gone AWOL and hidden themselves among the battle wreckage that still floated in relatively stable orbits around various planets. There they had found their current ride; an incapacitated Magellan-class light cruiser, the Hopeful. Apparently in the heat of the battle her damages had been over-estimated, and she had been evacuated and left dead in space. Ahokas and his compatriots had managed to jury-rig the ship into operation status again, and had commandeered it as their own vessel, sailing under a new name: Fool's Hope.

And it was on the bridge of the Fool's Hope that Ahokas now appeared, looking at his crew. His XO, one commander Samuel "Luk" Lukander, was looking anxiously at him as he walked to the sensor table.

"So, what is it?"

"We've got company, boss", Luk said, shaking his head as he pointed to the radar screen. The Fool's Hope was flying low above the innermost planet in the system, masking her sensor echo with the orange star's solar activity while they were fixing their systems. Yet again.

"Who is it?" Ahokas asked, frowning. "The Principality? The ITF? Who?"

"None of them, boss", Luk said, tapping the malfunctioning screen. "But we read a Greywatch and an Alversian signature... Plus one that seems Tanaran, but we can't be sure because of the sun's..."

"Wait wait wait", Ahokas interrupted, frowning. "Three ships in-system? At once? This fast? And why aren't you preparing for an emergency jump before they locate us and come shoot us down?"

"Because, boss... they're not military. They's civilian. Well, the Alversian's passive sensor reading says it's got the bearing of a military vessel. But it don't sail like a military vessel. Plus, there ain't no escort vessels."

Ahokas frowned. This was strange... and perhaps profitable. If one of the ship's seemed under-armed, the Fool's Hope and her mercs could overtake them and scour them clean of any usable parts - or crew.

With one ship it could be done, no problem.

With two, it would be a hassle but it was still possible.

With three... well, Ahokas didn't trust his luck that much.

"But they seem to be converging. At this planet... Vooka. The one with the ion storm raging", Luk woke him up from his revery.

"Hmm... That's strange. You said that the planet used to be inhabited?"

"Yup. But the telemetry reads no life-signs. The planet's all but glassed, boss", Luk said. "Maybe they're lookin' for something valuable there."

"Maybe", Ahokas nodded. "I think we need to take a closer look. Did you get that Peregrine cloaked already?"

"Wash says it was a bitch to rig, but he thinks the cloak will work", Luk said, frowning.

"Well, no time like the present to test it. Tell Katri she's got a job."

"Aye aye, sir."

*****

And so, about an hour later one of the fighter bays of Fool's Hope opened and belched out a Peregrine-class one-man fighter plane. The vessel shook a little as her engines erupted to push her forward, and pulling out of the gravitic pull of the planet, she headed towards Vooka.

Inside the small plane, a gloved hand flipped a switch, activating the stolen cloaking device. The vessel's surface crackled with electricity before becoming unseen, to both naked eye and sensor. She pushed it, going at 0.3 lightspeed towards Vooka.

Somewhere on the barren wasteland which had once been the homeworld of the Vookan Commonwealth, a group of five beings had suddenly appeared. They were as dead as the lands which surrounded them. The group consisted of a spectral mage and four humanoids in full power armor of which one had a tattered red cape on its back. They were in the relative proximity of ruins of some long lost city. They saw that the ground below them, surrounding them, was charred. All had been burnt to ashes, and the sky was as black as night.

But it was not the ruins which interested this group, even if, for now, they were looking directly at the ruined city. They had no desire to uncover the secrets of those who once had lived on the planet. No. It was Death that interested them.

"As you can see, Lord Censor," whispered the spectre, "This demands... An Investigation."

"Indeed, Dusk Elder," was the response of the red caped one, "Indeed it does. I can feel Death lurking on this planet. But we did not bring it here. It is somehow... Different. Almost... Alien. But still... Similar."

The ethereal spectre nodded its head.

"Correct," it replied with its whispering voice, "Those who dwelled upon this planet initiated their own Fall."

For a few moments, the Censor did not answer as it watched the ruins.

"We shall investigate this," the Censor uttered, as he begun walking towards the ruined city, his red cape fluttering slightly in the weak wind.

Indeed, the dead would know what now dwelled on the planet.

From the guests at the table, there was initially silence for no one had noticed the shuttle coming down steadily. Then one or two of the Elite looked up and saw the vessel coming in from above like their own shuttle had done so. This one was not as big as their shuttle but then few military or civil vessels were. They had the shuttle of a hyper-trillionaire on their side and so this vessel was no comparison to theirs. Even so, it was a different prospect and many of the guests looked up as they were eating and pointed, impressed by the sight of another ship other than one of their own.

However, the coos of admiration turned to mutterings when none of the Guests nor the servants could indentify the ship. Indecision and ignorance breeds panic and so the rich and powerful Guests became anxious about the sight of an unknown vessel. A pirate vessel? Or a hostile enemy? They didn’t know and the Guests with their Servant guards were hardly finest force to repel any attackers. They were rich and more than a little vain. They knew their own value, even if slightly inflated and they had no intention of allowing themselves to become Prisoners or even worse, casualties.

So Nathan returned to find the Guests in the middle of packing to return to the shuttle, in preparation to return to their own Cruiser. The Servants not engaged on gun duty were gathering up the tables, plates and the statues that had been laid along the dinner whole time. Now it was being squirreled away desperately, some of it being carefully laid in, some it being thrown inside the ship by a panicking group of servants. The tables, large and inlaid with marble were being transported by small droids. The rest of the crockery was being thrown into shuttle’s hold by those same servants who were as desperate to get away from the Pirates as the rest of the Guests. They too valued their lives well beyond their worth.

The few Servants who were armed with blaster rifles and a few pistols were nervously checking them and loading them, using the rudimentary training they had received to make sure that they fired in the right direction. Other than this, there was no sign of either Nathan or Chloe, nor the servants they had laid out as Sentries. All that was about to change.

“What the hell is going on here?” Nathan asked in bewilderment as he saw the pandemonium that was the Dinner. When he had left, the Guests had been sitting politely and talking while the dinner was being served. Now it looked as though a wrecking ball had arrived and torn through it. There was food laying everywhere as well as smashed plates, each worth a small fortune on their own.

“Bloody hell, you all hate me that much?” He chuckled at the sight as Chloe came alongside him and one of the Servants ran forward brandishing his gun in excitement, “What’s going on here?”

“Pirates Sir! Where have you been Sir?” The Servant asked in excitement, “Mister Sheen has been screaming for you and Miss Chloe for ages!”

“Chloe yes, but me?” Nathan seemed more amused than anything else, “I didn’t know he felt that way. And what Pirates are you talking about?”

“There Sir!” The Servant pointed with his gun at the landing shuttle now close to the ground, “They’re going to try and capture the Guests! We need to repel them!” Now he pointed the rifle at Nathan to indicate his point.

“First thing’s first,” Nathan grabbed the barrel and jabbed it out of the way, “Never point that thing at me. I don’t want to lose my head yet.” The Servant nodded and pointed the rifle at the ground.

“Next thing, let’s take a look at that vessel proper” He put a pair of binoculars to his eyes and peered down at the landing vessel not too far away. After a few moments, he laughed at the idiocy of the crew, “That’s not a Pirate shuttle, that’s Tanaran! They’ve obviously spotted us at some point and come down to say hello”

“Oh,” The Servant seemed disappointed, “Right. Now what?”

“I suggest you skip the dinner and go straight to the drinks” Nathan smiled and pushed past the Servant, heading straight to the heart of the trouble, where Mister Sheen was marshalling his supplies back onto his shuttle oblivious to the panic around him. He only looked when he saw Nathan and Chloe approaching.

“Barnes!” He announced in fury “Damn you and all your offspring into the pits of fiery hell Where the hell have you been!”

“Hello to you too Sir,” Nathan grinned while Chloe smiled as well and it was her petite grin was enough to settle the angry Trillionaire, at least for a moment, "I was setting up the Sentries for your Gala Dinner although," He stopped and looked around, "I seemed to have wasted my time"

"Damn you, Barnes, there are Pirates over there! Pirates! I want you to set up a line and charge them!"

"Certainly Sir, now, do you have an Alversian Battalion I can borrow for the goal? I'll charge immediately"

"Good man! Now..." Sheen stopped as he picked up the insolence, "...damn you Barnes, just attack them!"

"Why? They're Tanaran, our allies. Well..." He shrugged, "...probably, I don't know yet. I'll go over and say hello"

"You will not leave this Camp, Barnes, neither will you ma'am" Sheen was red with rage and looking at the two of them in disbelief, "I pay your wages and I demand you to stay here and organise a defence!"

"Well then, if I refuse then I guess I can go up to your beautiful Cruiser and waste my days in the pool"

"Or I can leave you here, there are are only two of you and a lot more of my men"

"And if I chose to fight my way aboard? I believe you have about thirty Servants with Rifles whereas I have a big shotgun and a rather bad temper. My Collegue here..." Nathan indicated to Chloe who smiled and fingered the hilt of her katana, "...Have you ever seen what damage a Kitsune can do with her katana, especially if properly trained?"

Sheen, who had been staring at the blade, shook his head in wonder,
"Well," Nathan looked as though he was enjoying himself, "The blade is made of cortosis and can cut through gristle and muscle with ease. Then it reaches the bone and, if properly trained, she'll go straight through between two gaps in the bone or possibly even through one of the joints. I believe a kitsune can easily cut a man's head off, am I right Chloe?"

"You are," Chloe smiled at the sight of Sheen, who was going green with the description. This time when Nathan moved off he did not protest. He had gotten the message.

"So Sir," Nathan smiled as he moved off, "You can enjoy your dinner after all. What is it?" He turned to one of Servants to ask the question. The Servant throught for a moment before answering,

"Pig's Head Sir"

"Ah well then," Nathan clapped Sheen on the back, "Enjoy your head" he watched as Sheen groaned and turned away

“Now, if you excuse me,” Nathan looked over at the troops disembarking from the Shuttle. The rest of the Guests had been infected with Nathan and Chloe’s calm and now they were moving back to the tables.

“I think we need to wait and see if our Tanaran friends want to say hello” He smiled again at Chloe and she smiled back, knowing that grin. The grin Nathan gave when he knew not everything was going to go to plan.

"Hello!" Nathan yelled over, "Welcome to the party! Care for a drink!?"

The spot chosen by the Alversians was close to what used to be a city center that could have, at one time, been a marketplace. But it was empty and cleared, buildings dark and empty, no life at all investigating them, not so much as a fly. As the second shuttle came in from overhead two shapes ducked down again from a partially destroyed, crumbling higher floor of what used to be an office building, taking cover behind a overturned desk, papers three years out of date littering the floor. If anyone could have seen them they would have laid eyes on two humans, both male. They looked close in age, but they could have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty five years, dressed in faded, dirty tight shirts and ripped jeans, both putting their hands on what appeared to be ancient bolt-action rifles on the floor, machetes hooked into their belts. Out of sight they leaned together, conversing with the practiced quiet of those who know too much noise could spell death.

"...the hell?" said the first, named Jeeko, his hair dirty blonde and close-cut, or possibly merely blonde and dirty, apparently the younger one, toting a backpack.
"Ta hell if I know," growled the second, called Avum, deep brown hair shaved almost entirely off, a well-stocked utility belt around his waist.
"Do they think this is a fucking dinner party or what? Buncha pansys, let's raid 'em for their stuff!"
"Easy now, kid. First of all, they just dropped out of the bloody sky, in case you didn't notice. I don't fancy messing with 'em. Secondly there's an alien over there."
Jeeko's head came back up, peeking though the buildings out into the distance as his counterpart handed him a pair of field glasses. He stared though them for a while then handed them back and dropped back down. "Shit, who knew aliens were gonna be so hot..."
"Can it, I don't wanna hear about your bestiality fantasies. Thirdly they're bein' nice and noisy. The ghouls 'll be all over 'em in a second, and once dey leave we get pickings of their stuff. If we're lucky we might be able to strip that ship down for spare parts, we need 'em."
"Yeah...but," Jeeko risked another glance. "Damn, they've got armored things now. Too bad about that, but their weapons might make good pickings. Still...c'mon...they're aliens and all, but-"
"No, kid. They're intruders, that's all you need to know. You know that out here you gotta be smart to survive, and they ain't bein' smart. And I know what you're thinkin' about their ships, but you couldn't even dream of getting on board them, never mind piloting."
Jeeko looked crestfallen. "But-"
"Kid," said Avum firmly, "don't. Remember what happened last time? This ain't gonna be any different, trust me. They're screwed. We'll hang around for a while, but if you reveal our position I'll have your hide for ghoul food.”

"More contacts sir, all of which seem to be deploying forces to the surface. Orders?" Asked the tactical officer. The captain gave ann annoyed look, "Dammit, whatever. Now we stay here, they are our bait at this point. If something happens, at least it won't be our people. Keep me updated. Also, make sure shields are up and weapons are at 50%." The tactical officer nodded, "Aye sir."

OOC: Sorry if my post seems a little lacklustre. I just can't seem to think of much else to write for my appearance, given everyone else has already started to get interested, I need to play catch up:)

In the vastness of intergalactic civilisation, there are doubtlessly cultures who retain their own religious creeds and interpretations of the universe. Some are dogmatic fundamentals, denying even the most rudimentary of scientific truths, while others are more relaxed philosophers. Most would agree that the unvierse, as they see it, is a predestined machine, fated and regulated from beginning to end.

Some would attribute the prodigious attention around this world as an example of fate, some would blame the barely heard psychic signal. Myenyan's preferred to look on events as a happy, productive, coincidence.

The DEV Not Lost, Just Wandering had popped into realspace near the edge of the system, advanced sensors taking in the view. Nothing, nothing, nothing....Hm....Lot of interest over there. It had forsaken mirror fields, preferring to simply glide into the gather, its arrowhead shaped body gleaming in the distant sunlight, a dark blue sheen to its hull.

This is the DEV Not Lost, Just Wandering. We come in peace, and all the relevant niceties. We were just wondering what exactly was going on here, and what we can do to help?

The ship had already began preparing a variety of tiny nanotech machines for deployment to the world below, to give them a nice awareness of the globe. The humans onboard had expressed an interest, more in the other powers here, than in what necessarily drew them there. A world, after all, was a world, was it not? A ruined and culturally devoid one, at that. It looked as though some basic level 3 civilisation had offed themselves, likely through war.

How wrong they would find they had been. How they would come to be fascinated as events unfolded...

The captain frowned as yet another contact was detected, this one actually having a message to boot. Greywatch wasn't new to this, when there was something interesting, everyone jumped on is. This usually led to a cluster of different peoples all in the same area, most of the time they not had any previous contact with each other, so that always made things interesting. For all its incomprehensible size, space seemed very crowded at times. But no matter, the captain didn't really have much else to do and so a channel was opened. A private one at that, no reason for anyone to listen in.

Nothing is really 'going on,' at least not from our standpoint. It just happens to be a more-or-less dead planet which has apparently become of major interest to all the parties you see before you. I'm not going to bother speaking for the others because, to be honest, you're the first one here who's bothered to actually send a message out upon arrival.

The captain waited for a response. Meanwhile, several Drones aboard the ship felt something on the planet wasn't right. There was an aura of sorts to this place, and not a normal one.

This is the DEV Not Lost, Just Wandering. We come in peace, and all the relevant niceties. We were just wondering what exactly was going on here, and what we can do to help?

*We are the warShip Noh’ Vinh of the Fleet of the Claw, and have been seconded to the Phoenix Empire of Tanara, for the use of the Tenerista of Cats Keep. The Lady Shalamar advises all that there is reason to be cautious. She is a Psionic Adept of great skill and sensitivity and detected unusual emanations from the planet below. The Lady has gone planet side to investigate, and, once again advises all others to proceeded with extreme caution.* This was broadcast on all channels by the warShip. It was busy searching the planet with its own unique and very sensitive, sensors.

It was one of the older warShips and had seen and encountered much, and could feel the nearly subliminal psychic melody through it's bond. It was intently curious in it's own right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to the party! Care for a drink!?"

The closest troopers shook his head at the unpreparedness of the Alversians - but it never hurt to be polite and he doffed his helmet. He was a lanterned jawed man of no particular handsomeness, was Private Jorgson but he had a nice tenor."Thanks but the Lady would have my head. What in the heck are you doing with civvies and addlepates" He shot the servants with weapons a more than half amused look, half scornful look " Setting out a dinner?" He looked over at the creme de la creme and shook his head again.

"Setting out a dinner?"

The Guests had now calmed down, for it seemed like this new arrivals posed to threat to them or their money. With that sorted out, the Servants began to sheepishly bring the tables back out along with the unsmashed crockery. The Guests resumed their seats and the polite conversation that had reigned prior to the arrival of the shuttle was supreme again. Only now, though, it was the arrival of the Tanarans who dominated the conversation. They were still protected by the Servant cordon around the dinner, all within visual range of the main table. Mister Sheen was standing nearby but he was looking rather annoyed that a jumped up Mercenary had proven him wrong. Mister Sheen always liked to be in control of a situation, regardless of what situation it was.

Nathan smiled at the Tanaran and looked around at the regrouping Guests,
"Yup, courtesy of Sheen Enterprises" He laughed, "I'm Nathaniel T. Barnes and this is Chloe, private security to a Mister Sheen and his nearest and dearest...friends" Chloe, who was standing just behind Nathan, gave a small bow and courtesy.
"Anyway, We' only out here because we think...thought...there was no one else here to spoil our dinner" He looked over at the party of Tanarans as they exited from the shuttle and deployed in a standard defensive formation,

"Attracted some attention have we?" he raised his eyebrows, "I didn't know we were that important."
Behind him, Chloe shook her head.

To Kichande and his kindred, two things attracted his attentions. Well, three things if one counted females, but it wasn't mating season at present so he didn't ponder it any further. No, two things were likely to draw him to a place - heat, and violence. It was such a beautiful combination that he almost wept in awe when he found new hunting grounds, and the distant orange orb he now gazed at intently promised the ideal location for his next challenge. The planet was a barren wasteland to be sure, but several years ago a passing yautja hunting probe detected lifeforms engaged in brutal conflict there, and as the planet was known to be free of intergalactic border disputes, it was marked as a potential future battleground. They had no idea what was really going on down there, however - it was pure coincidence that the asymmetrical, sleek, brown gunship approached the planet at high speed at this moment.

Before he had left the Cetanu Clan Ship Ripping Claw in his Hunter-class gunship - a remarkable vessel, automated to the point of being controllable by a single person - many of his peers had suggested taking along some kainde amedha eggs to seed the world. While Kichande had always enjoyed hunting the Hard Meat in his century-long career, he found it tiresome to the point where he had stopped even collecting trophies of his kills. He wanted a different challenge, and found himself wondering if Soft Meat akin to the oomans resided on the world in front of him. Soft though their meat may be, they always carried powerful burners and were far more intelligent than the Hard Meat. Still, his cargo hold carried some of their eggs in stasis just in case the hunt was a disappointment.

Kichande was an experienced hunter. His unmasked forehead was marked with the symbol of his clan, etched into his flesh with the acidic thwei of his first kill so many decades ago. Though the kainde amedha had been the dominant form of prey in his hunts over the last few years, he had still faced challenging prey in the past - dinosaurs, beasts known as 'rancors', oomans, and a little-known race of isolationist reptiles called Ghargonians were some of the prey he had slain. But never before, at the beginning of a hunt, had he ever felt a sense of apprehension, not even on his first hunt. It was true that he always anticipated the thrills and spills of the event, he had never worried about it, never feared it. To meet with the Black Warrior would be an honour, and he had no regrets, so he could not understand the sensation that tingled in the back of his skull.

He shook it off for the time being, and grabbed the controls to pilot his gunship at high speed straight towards the planet's atmosphere, noticing several alien vessels in the area as he went. According to the probe that had passed near this system several years ago, there was no sign of advanced interstellar intelligence in the area, though Kichande knew that things could change over such a period of time. He thought nothing of it and ignored them; if they wanted to fire on his ship, they could do so once he had abandoned it for all he cared. Another could come to collect him afterwards. For the time being, all that mattered was the hunt.

Setting the ship on an automatic course to swoop down into the atmosphere and back up again, he quickly donned his gear and piled himself into the claustrophobic lander that would be his first-class ticket to the surface. Even for a yautja it was uncomfortable, but there was no more expedient or exciting way to travel. As his gunship swooped down low through the planet's atmosphere, leaving a trail of smoke and flames as the friction heated its hull, he closed his eyes and punched the launch button.

From beneath the gunship, a small, cylindrical object blasted through the hull, streaking down at high velocity towards the surface. While the gunship arced upwards back into space, the cylinder plummeted down to the ground before smashing into the dirt, digging itself several feet into the earth and sending up a cloud of dust and debris. Kichande unlocked the hatch on his pod and vigorously kicked it away, sending it into the air until it hit the floor with a loud clang. He jumped out and adopted the hiju, a traditional ready position, while he scanned through the various electromagnetic spectrums with his mask. Infra-red, ultra-violet, gamma, x-ray, radio waves... he clicked in disappointment, as he could see nothing alive nearby. At all. He did notice some kind of large settlement in the distance, apparently in disrepair, and zoomed in on it. Though he couldn't see anything alive there either, at such a range his mask was not always accurate and there was every chance they were shielded or hiding for some reason. His ship had definitely detected lifesigns somewhere in the area.

Kichande threw back his head, his dreadlocks swinging wildly, and allowed a bellowing, bloodthirsty roar to escape from his mandibles. As it echoed across the empty plain, his shift suit sparked with energy and he disappeared from view, and clouds of dust appeared on the ground as an invisible force began the long, pounding run towards the large settlement in the distance.

Meanwhile, Kichande's gunship had returned to space, and automatically adopted a geosynchronous orbit above him.

(OOC: I hope this is OK for you, Xiscapia. If not, I will remove it. I don't intend to mess-up your RP at all, in fact Kichande is unlikely to survive his hunt alone - though he should fare better than a gang of red shirts for a while. I just thought it'd be interesting for a Predator to bump into some zombies inadvertently. FT zombie threads are just too few and far between these days! Oh, and if anybody alive bumps into him, he can speak some English/Basic/whatever you call it. Unlike the films, Predators in the books actually have some manner of personality.

Anybody in space still, do whatever you like to his ship. It's about a hundred and fifty metres long, pretty tough for its size, and it won't respond to any hails because there's nobody there, though if you board it just be careful of the cargo hold, which has a couple of xenomorph eggs in stasis there. They won't hatch as that would be a thread hijack, though you can always pinch them for study in another thread...)

OOC: I'm gonna take you up on that offer
IC:

"Sir, another contact... and this one just sent something, or someone to the surface. We're scanning it right now, it's decent in size. How should we procede?" The captain looked to the tactical officer and gave a slight smile, "Well.... move to its position and hail." The comms officer looked up, we're not getting anything, sir." The Greywatch Explorer kept moving to the ship until it was sitting above it, external cameras looked over it closely. The captain looked at the vessel, confused. "Could it be a drone ship?" He asked tactical, the officer shook his head, "I don't really know. Scans should tell us in a moment." The captain nodded, "Keep it under us. I'm not going to outright and say it's ours... but we'll keep and eye on it for now. Someone else here may want to steal it or something." The tactical officer gave a small smile, "If there's nothing in it and the owner doesn't come back?" The captain shrugged, "Dunno, we'll make it up as we go along."

It was an ordinary FTL jump for the Tacgnollulzian exploration ship 'Harvester'. It has spent the last 8 months randomly jumping from system to system, searching for planets that could be claimed, populated or stripped of its resources. This jump was no different.

Captain Connor Reese looked on as his crew studied this new system with the endless noise of the computers. In the last 8 months they'd found little more than a few barely edible mosses and little water, just enough to restock his ship. Not nearly enough to bother his superiors with.

"Anything?" he asked, barely able to contain his apathy. "Anything at all?"

"Short range scans are negative, Sir, but we've only just entered the system" replied the science officer "less than 2% of the system has been scanned"

"Very well, keep scanning. Keep me informed lest I die of anticipation" the Captain groaned.

The ship dutifully scanned the system vector by vector, and before long 3 days had passed and nothing of worth had been found. Barely an ice cube. Then a sole light sprung to life...

"Sir, we've got....something...."

"Can you be more specific?" asked Connor.

"I'm reading an increase in ion dispersal, it's tracking away from the star"

"Solar wind!" A junior officer piped up "If we trace the solar wind backwards we'll find the origin"

"Ok, set a course. Maybe something of use will turn up" Connor said with a sarcastic smile.

The ship changed course and made it's way through the system, following the ion breadcrumbs until they reached the orbit of one of the planets.

"The planet. There's an ion storm around the planet that lies in this orbit." Said the junior.

"I've located the planet , Sir." Replied, Jon Marc, the Chief Science advisor on the ship "Nothing of note to report, however there are vessels around the planet itself."

"Who?"

"Unknown. We're not exacty knowledgable about others are we?"

"For good reason. Outsiders would pollute our way of life. Our nations very sould would be tainted by their lies" Shouted Edmund Green, Head of security and The Overseer's personal spy.

"Anyway..." Jon continued "...unless we break Directive #3 and hail the ships we wont have a clue, and of course that would be unthinkable....."

Acknowledging Jons wry look the Captain agreed "Of course, polluting our lives and all that. Take us into hight orbit, maintain radio silence and send a probe down to the planet. I'd rather play it safe for now...."

OOC: Don't worry, TYH, your post is cool with me. On a related note, this thread is now CLOSED to prevent it from getting too crowded and confusing. If you want entry and have not already posted please TG me to this end.
Now let the games begin...
IC:
"'oly shit, what the 'ell is dat?!"
"What, what? Gimme the glasses, damnit!"
Avum grabbed the field glasses away from Jeeko and peered though them as he heard the chilling roar echo across the wasteland, the very sound vibrating down his spine and making his hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Swiveling he saw clouds of dirt and dust being thrown up by something, as though a man was running across the plains, but there was nothing there. He risked a glance back at the landing party, wondering if they'd heard it too, then shook his head, throwing the glasses back to Jeeko. "That's it, we're fucking legging it, this place is going to be crawling with undead in a minute. Whatever you do, don't let them see you, don't stop, and don't look behind you!"

City outskirts...
Unfortunately, their luck had just run out.
From a hirohito unremarked upon sewage tunnel near the dinner party some rubble shifted and feel aside, attracting the attention of everyone. Standing amid the collected filth and debris from years of disrepair and no maintenance, was a man. You had to assume it was human because it had the same shape and wore clothes, admittedly little more than torn rags, but there the similarities ended. The skin was gray, corpse gray, what little hair remained matted and covered with dirt, one eye staring fixedly at the people, the other nothing more than an empty socket covered in dried blood. A low moan came from damaged vocal cords, the kind of sound that no one hearing it would ever forget, and the thing slowly began to shamble forward, walking as though it was unused to normal movement.

Barren Plains...
As Kichande tore across the ground he would see a shape ahead of him, apparently human, emerging from behind a rusting, totaled vehicle. It was missing an arm, and seemed lopsided as it turned to face him, the same groan the others heard piercing into his ears like a scream in the night. The form moved directly into his path, hands reaching out, moving at a lumbering, awkward pace...

"Another contact, sir." Said the tactical officer, "This one is silent as well. Seems like they were here for a little while but were opperating on low power. Orders?" The captain shrugged, "Leave them. They're of no importance right now. This ship here looks like it could be of more interest."

Nathan had been waiting for an answer from the Tanarans when one of the Guests behind him screamed. The scream was followed by at least a dozen others as more and more people saw the Undead thing moving towards them. For the second time, the dinner was abandoned, this time with good reason as the great and good of Vexoscan Society scrambled over the tables to escape this monster. It was unlike anything they had ever seen or desired to see. A horrendus cross between a corpse and a human, something no one had thought possible. Their panic was understandable.

Sheen ran towards Nathan, Chloe and Jorgson, yelling their names aloud as though they could bring retribution down on this thing that had so ruined his perfect dinner party and his publicity stunt. The terror in his eyes was evident. The Servants, those who were armed anyway, were backing off furiously, firing madly into the creature without it even pausing. The rest of the Servants, seeing the futility of their efforts, turned and fled for their lives. The amassed people were starting to gather around Nathan and Chloe, who seemed like a rallying point for the people.

"Barnes! Barnes!" Sheen yelled in panic, "Do something!"

"Alright, alright" Nathan sighed and looked at the shuffling creature. He had seen worse, that was true, but he had never seen anything like this. It looked like a four week old corpse and, by the face that Chloe was making, it smelt like one too,
"All creatures have the same weakness, Chloe" Nathan turned, very much in charge, "Take it down"

But his partner already had her rifle out, a beautifully crafted rifle with a set of expensive scopes and some after market replacements, such as a small but powerful energy discharger strapped to the bottom, the equivelent of the Alversian Rifle's Setting Three. She dropped to one knee, peered through the scope for a second and pulled the trigger.

Chloe's aim was as true as ever and the bolt hit the corpse between the eyes, throwing it's head back. But not stopping it. Chloe looked back at Nathan with a puzzled expression on her face and took aim again, this time she hit it in it's open mouth but the same thing happened. The creature kept lumbering forward. She hit it four more times, each in vital areas of the body and each supposedly enough to kill a human dead. Yet this one kept coming on.

The Guests crowded nearer and nearer to Nathan, who had watched proceedings with a raised eyebrow,
"Strange," He muttered to himself, but still smiling. Where was the fun in life? Four inches from death. That was his motto. He looked back over at the pleading face of Chloe and, with a sigh, nodded.

"Okay then. You can use it"

Chloe seemed pleased and flicked a switched on her rifle. She again peered down the scope and took careful aim, this time for the belly. The monster was getting closer and closer but was still well out of spitting range when Chloe fired.

There were more screams as the crowd seemed to dissappear into smoke. A bolt no bigger than that of the average rifle flew from Chloe's discharger and hit the Zombie square in the chest. The crowd waited anxiously to see what was left in the smoke and sand kicked up from the discharge. Nathan subconciously unslung his shotgun. Just as a precaution, of course.

"Lady Shalamar, Vinh reports that there’s a Yautja ship, one who's markings we aren't familiar with now insystem, and it's dropped a pod." One of her security team reported to the crimson veiled figure.

"So we have a Predator to add to this unbelievable mix mess? Oh just wonderful"

"I didn't know we were that important."

Private Jorgson shook his head "Sorry Mr. Barnes, Ms Chloe, we didn't even know you were hear until well saw your ship in orbit. Let me introduce you to the Lady" With that he turned and bounded over to a tall figure anonymous in crimson robes and veils, beckoning the pair to follow him.

When they were standing before her he made the introductions. “Lady Shalamar, This is Mr. Barnes and Ms. Chloe who are heading security for that…gathering over there.”

Cinnamon gold eyes studied the pair over her veil. She didn’t mean to be rude, but on the edge of rudeness bruskness was her normal operating manner. “You need to get those victims looking for a place to happen out of here. I can’t put hard and fast words on it but this is a killing ground.”

The chilling sound of a Yautja Hunting cry silenced her for a moment, then she gave the pair a look that said 'nuff said'.

The group came to a halt at the outskirts of the ruined city as the Censor stopped marching forwards. So far they had not seen anyone - they had, however, heard a distant roaring sound. It wasn't because of that why they had stopped, however.

"... I do not think we are alone."

"Yes," was the reply of the Dusk Elder, "You are correct. Others have arrived on this planet. The living. I think whatever dwells on this planet has drawn them here."

"Hmph," the Censor murmured, "That means if we find something here we cannot simply overrun it. Pity."

The Dusk Elder remained silent.

"But," the Censor said, turning towards the ethereal form of the Dusk Elder, whom was almost invisible due to the darkness which surrounded them, "That is not what I meant."

"What did you mean, then, Lord Censor Darzatu?"

"Never speak my name again, Trakhtor," said the Censor angrily, pointing its bolter-like weapon at the Dusk Elder. The Dusk Elder nodded. Shortly after the Censor calmed down and lowered its weapon.

"I thought so," muttered the Censor, grinning strainedly beneath its helmet which covered its entire head, "As for your question. There are some of those other dead here," it continued as it turned back towards the ruins, "In this city."

"I am fully aware of this. That is why I chose this location. I had no time to look for even larger concentrations of them."

The Censor just shook its head slightly as it continued its march into the city, and the others followed it.

((OOC: The Ermorian group is moving to the city from a different direction. Otherwise they'd draw in attention. They're undead as well (and lack blood and all organs), so I wonder how the locals will react to them, if they will react at all.))

There was an explosion of dust and a spray of blood as the bolt tore the thing in half, the kicked-up dust concealing it from view. As they peered forward they became aware of a scraping sound, and they saw the ghoul dragging itself out of the dust. It had been cut in two, and now pulled itself forward with its hands, internal organs and a trail of blood spilling out behind it, the groan still coming, relentless approaching the dinner guests.

But this was the least of their problems. More wails could be heard and a horde of zombies approached from the same direction, shuffling slowly, heads lolling, over three dozen of the monsters. Mouths gaped in anticipation as they came, shrugging off energy bolts like they were nothing, unstoppably approaching.
City...
Avum stuck to the shadows, it wouldn't hide him from any living dead but it might conceal him from some of the sentients. Jeeko was behind him and nearly knocked him over as Avum stopped suddenly, sighting down his rifle. Ahead of them, outside of the alleyway, they could barely see a group of shapes.
More of the bastards.
Jeeko strained his vision. Armor...and a cape? What the hell?
The two cautiously began to try to move into a seperate alley and make their way out of the city, away from these strange intruders and the trouble they were sure to cause.

After the cloud of dust had disappeared, the people breathed a sign of relief to see that the strange killer had gone. Chloe had been knocked to the ground by the unexpected recoil and Nathan stooped down to help her up. He laughed as he did so, at the sight of the Kitsune brushing down her bushy tail, ignoring the other parts of her clogged in the stuff now. She was about to say something when the screaming began again.
The thing was still moving forward, crawling desperately to reach it's victims, it's feast. Nathan just stared down at it, always staying just out of lunging range. He looked over at his partner and raised his eyesbrows,
"Care to do the honours?" he asked her.

She nodded and in two clean moves, had drawn her katana. With two clean and elegant strokes, she had seperated both arms from the Zombie's body. It did not stop the moaning but it did remove any threat from the creature as it no longer had anyway to move towards them. It just rolled on it's chest ineffectively, moaning.
Sheen came up to the two Mercenaries, white and shaking. He nodded to both of them to signify a job well done. He began speaking to Chloe while Nathan moved up onto one of the nearby pieces of debris to get a better look at the surrounding area, something he was kicking himself for not doing earlier,
"I think..." Sheen began, groaning and clutching his stomach as he did so, "...that I would be best if we mov..."

Before he could finish though, the screams began again, this time louder and more intense, but they could not hide the constant, deep throated moaning that betrayed the presence of an unspeakable horror that was moving towards them. Nathan stood on his debris, his mouth opened slightly in shock t what was coming towards them. Beneath him, the Servants were firing round after round from their rifles in a desperate attempt to stop the creatures but none of it was working.

It was Chloe who took command,
"Mister Sheen," She said urgently, "Take the Guests and get back on the shuttle, take as many as possible. Go now! Get anyone who knows who to work a firearm down here now!" Sheen took a few seconds to both deal with his own horror and to digest the instructions that Chloe had given him. He looked at the Kitsune Mercenary, a island of confidence in a sea of panic and nodded grimly.

"I can do that" He said disbelievingly, then turned and shuffled towards the Guests who were already stampeding towards the shuttle itself.

Chloe turned and, with a kitsune gracefulness, leap up to Nathan's side and looked at the advancing Zombies, her own mouth opened slightly at the sight. The servants beneath them were already backing away desperately no longer looking and firing but staring at their guns as if they offered a salvation.
As Chloe made sure she had a fresh clip in her rifle and that her katana was safe by her side, she heard her Partner utter a phrase that summed their situation up perfectly,

"Oh...bollocks" Nathan said after a few moments, taking aim and firing with his shotgun, firing miniture shells at the attackers.

"What news from the probe?" Asked the Captain

"Stationary section is in conclusive, Airbourne section indicates movement but no life signs within scaning range other than the parties fromthe other ships."

"So what about the other ships? What's their deal?" Replied Jon.

"There's some com chatter, but what they're saying is beyond me." The junior retorted.

There was a silence. No one had a clue what to do in this situation. No one had had contact with outsiders for over 100 years, a strictly enforced insolation. This was new to everyone. The Junior once again spoke up:

"Sir I'm not sure but I think I'm registering weapons fire"

"Weapon? What kind?"

"Unknown, possible projectile? Small high presure changes."

"Great, first contact with outsde life in a century and someones firing shots. Move the Airprobe to the area, see if we can get a closer look." The Captain then walked over to Jon and whispered out of earshot of Chief Edmund "Oh, and break radio silence....just because we can't talk to them doesn't mean they don't want to hear us.....see if they can shed some light. Indirectly of course."

The group came to a halt again. Now they were standing on a street inside the ruined city. So far they had not seen much of anything.

Except...

"Hmmh."

The Dusk Elder turned towards the Censor.

"What is it, Lord Censor?"

"... I think there are living beings inside the city. Not those from the outside."

"Natives, you mean?"

"Yes. For a fleeting moment, I heard them. Felt them. Tasted their anger, intertwined with strange, controlled terror, which turned into confused horror as we moved closer to their position. But... It has passed. They are gone. All I feel now is Death, ever-present, ever-watching."

"Interesting."

"Indeed," mumbled the Censor in response, "But they are not why we are here. They are inconsequential. We can deal with them later."

"You speak the truth, Lord Censor. Let us continue."

And so, without another word, the Censor began walking again, and the others followed. They did not care if others had heard them speak, as their language was one only spoken by their kind - the long-dead language of the Empire.

The proximity monitors of the small Peregrine-class fighter began to bleep, and with a steady hand the pilot slowed down from 0.3 light speed to a steady impulse drive. The pilot also checked that the fighter's jury-rigged cloaking device had held, despite the rather abrupt deceleration.

Slowly the Peregrine slid closer to the ships orbiting Vooka, her pilot's brow turning into a frown inside the blast-shielded helmets. The number of the ships had increased, and few unscrambled bits of communication the ship's on-board computer could intercept also showed signs that there was some surface activity as well. The helmeted head shook from side to side as the pilot engaged the ship's surveillance equipment, sliding closer to the planet and the ships.

Those fools... Goin' to that arse-hole of a planet. Must be either complete idiots or there's something mighty valuable down there.

The pilot's musings, however, were caught short when the cloaking device began to beep frantically. Goddammit, not here, the pilot cursed and attempted to fix the failing device. And while a firm punch to the dashboard brought the systems back online, the damage had been done: the Peregrine had dropped her cloak completely for 5.6 seconds.

The pilot's gaze turned to the sensor screen: had the Peregrine been spotted? And if so, were the other vessels attempting to intercept, pursue or destroy her?

"A ship just decloaked then cloaked again 400 miles to starboard" Announced the pilot after a flurry of noise and lights. "It was visible for 5.6 seconds before it went dark again."

The bridge went silent as everyone checked their stations. The Captain stood up and went over to the window on the bridge and look out. "What is going on here?" is softly asked himself. He then turned round and spoke to the whole bridge: "Possible weapons fire. Large orbital presence. Ships cloaking and decloaking. For what? An unimpressive planet. Something strange is going on here, and it's not im my job description to deal with 'strange'".

"Captian, the probe has picked up something new" Said the Cheif science officer "It's dectecting humanoid movement, definate humanoid presence, but no life signs other than those of the other ships away crews."

Connor thought to himself for a moment.

"Anything new from the other ships?"

"If there is then I still can't make head nor tail of it. Translation software is trying to work out the basics but it'll ake a while"

"Ok, this is what is happening" Captain said "Move the ship into a lower orbit. Vent some gas around, any cloaked ship that passes through will disperse it, we'll get a fix. Edmund, get a shuttle ready. The only way we'll find out what's going on down there is if we go ourselves."

The Not Lost, Just Wandering had sent grateful messages to the Tanaran vessel, humbly accepting their advice, and had decided to ignore the rather brusque response from the Greywatchers, who almost seemed indignant at their own lack of involvment. Lots of mixed signals were drifting back from below, which made the shipbrain a tad anxious. It seemed as though most life was ended, dead, decrepit and yet some semblence yet remained.

Furthermore, other ships seemed to have arrived. It had decided then, that it would attempt to communicate with them, and had buzzed further messages to those who hadn't replied the first time around. Perhaps someone else had a better clue as to what was going on.

Sorry to bother everyone, this is the shipbrain of the DEV Not Lost, Just Wandering, asking for any relevant information about this world and whats going on, and identification from those here gathered, just to see who we know and who we could potentially get to know.

Some weird stuff going on down there, lots of conflicting signals. I'm sure together we can figure something out, that is, if anyones interested in a sort of cooperative venture?

Barren Plains...
As Kichande tore across the ground he would see a shape ahead of him, apparently human, emerging from behind a rusting, totaled vehicle. It was missing an arm, and seemed lopsided as it turned to face him, the same groan the others heard piercing into his ears like a scream in the night. The form moved directly into his path, hands reaching out, moving at a lumbering, awkward pace...

Kichande skidded to a halt suddenly, his shift-suit disengaging and making him visible again. With a curious clicking sound he panned his head from left to right, cautiously looking around the landscape for the source of the noise he had just heard. Not to mention the smell. Yautja had an excellent sense of smell, but one didn't need a particularly powerful nose to detect the overwhelming scent of rotting, decaying flesh that saturated the air - he had smelled it so often in the past that it was distinctive to him, but never before had it been so strong. It was as though something, or someone, had been left dead in the sun for weeks, allowed to decompose and roast in the beating heat. Even Kichande found it disgusting.

As he panned around in infra-red vision he clicked in frustration, tapping his outer mandibles against the inside of his mask repeated. Something had made a deep, agonising groaning sound directly ahead of him, and he could hear the crunching sound of footsteps in the sandy dirt that coated this plain, but there was nothing there so far as he could see. Or so he thought - for a moment, he saw something moving, something with virtually no body temperature aside from a faint, light-blue glow emanating from the front of its skull. If it hadn't been moving so near to him, he would never have spotted it. Scolding himself for not anticipating cold-blooded species, he flicked through his vision modes until he came upon X-Ray mode, and he took a startled step back as he saw how close the... thing was. At least it had a skeleton, which showed up fine on his mask. It looked like an ooman, missing an arm and lumbering suicidally towards him, though for some reason it emitted no body heat. By all rights, it should be dead...

So Kichande decided to right the universe and make it so. With an angered growl, the distinctive tri-dot laser sight activated on the side of his mask, clambering up the thing's body until it settled upon a nice spot on its chest. His shoulder-mounted plasmacaster sprang to life and pointed at the three dots, and it erupted with a clapping, explosive 'bang' that echoed across the wasteland, sending a bolt of bright blue hard plasma straight for the zombie's chest. It exploded on contact a split-second later, knocking the creature backwards into the air until it came to rest on its back in a cloud of dust and smoke. Kichande let out a victorious roar as the smoke cleared, revealing a huge, smoking hole that had been blasted straight through the soft meat's chest.

This hunt was going to be too easy.

***

Meanwhile, Kichande's ship remained in geostatic orbit directly above the site where his lander had crash-landed into the dirt. It showed no apparent reaction when the Greywatch ship approached it, and there were no changes in its minimal power output, though a large amount of power was being shunted to its cargo hold at the stern. Indeed, the only activity at all was the occasional firing of stationkeeping thrusters as it made adjustments to maintain its orbital path.

"Sir, the ship is running on minimal power... except for the stern. Something back there is taking a lot of juice." The captain thought to himse;f fr a moment. Something very important had to be on that ship, most likely something in a cargo hold. It would make the most sense, but Greywatch did have policies about captains not sneaking around in the ship's of others while the owners were away. The tactical officaer spoke again, "The ship also seems to be adjusting its course on its own." The captain nodded, "The owner of that ship is on the planet, at least that's what I think. Keep us close to it, keep our shields up and weapons at 25%, just in case. Also, prepare a team. If something interesting appears on the surface, I want someone on it ASAP."

OOC: Ruthless Slaughter, please refer to the OOC part of post #22.
IC:
The use of lasers against the undead proved to be useless, burning the skin and hair and blackening wherever a bolt hit, but ultimately not even slowing the horde down. The "Setting Three" level on Chloe's rifle had the same effect on the others as it did with the first, but the cool-down time meant that her shots with this type were sporadic at best. Nathan's shotgun proved to have the same effect, ripping the advancing foes apart in sprays of blood and fluids, and some did not get up again for reasons that no one could say. The forward presence of the two mercenaries acted as a beacon of sorts, drawing the mob towards them instead of past to attack the dinner guests and servants. But disaster struck: The moans, screams and weapons fire had drawn more of the creatures, and now they lurched from the opposite side of the perimeter, close to the shuttle, intent on scaling the ramp to get at those inside.
City Suberbs...
Avum and Jeeko were nearing the outskirts now, wearily scanning the area for any movement. The living dead didn't always make noise: Sometimes their vocal cords had been destroyed, or their throats ripped out, and their approach was silent and unnoticed until you felt the cold, rotting hands on your back as broken, dirty teeth sunk into your flesh...
"They didn't see us," the blond one breathed, rifle at his side, looking over his shoulder into the depths of the dead metropolis where somewhere those dark figures prowled.
"I wanna know what the hell is going on," growled Avum. "There's never been this many before, not all at once. Why now, why so much concentration?"
Jeeko shook his head. "I just want ta get back ta base, maybe we can ride this out until they leave."
Avum shook his head. "You weren't old enough to remember it last time. They don't leave, they stay until they die."
Barren Plains...
The thing writhed on the ground, a hole the size of a dinner plate blown in it's chest to expose shredded organs and shattered bones drenched in blood, the whole front and the ground around it saturated with gore. The sound it had been emitting had ceased upon contact with the plasma, but shaking, it clambered up, staggering against a piece of debris propping it up, now even further away then it had been previously. With an unthinking determination it shuffled forward again, apparently undeterred by the smoking hole in its body or the bits spilling out as it came.

They stopped once again after reaching the clearing of the city center. They stayed away from the center itself, however, as it was obvious that something was there. Before that all they had actually seen was a few of the ghouls, or Soulless as the group considered them, which all seemed to be slowly moving towards the same direction.

To the place where the living were.

"It seems," said the Censor, pausing momentarily as it looked around and ended up turning to face the Dusk Elder again, "It seems that the dead of this planet do not care of us."

"As expected. I did not think that the Soulless would care of anything but the living. All they do is follow the primal instincts which is present in all of us. The need to kill those who still live."

"Hmph. I still expected more."

"Do I detect disappointment in your voice, Lord Censor? You should know that the Soulless cannot formulate plans or assess threats."

"Why did you ask for my presence here, then?"

"We have only scratched the surface, Lord Censor. We are here to investigate what is behind these Soulless. It is difficult to believe that they could have done this to a planet on their own."

"... True," murmured the Censor as it turned back to watch the surroundings, "Do whatever it is you want to do."

"And that I shall," uttered the Dusk Elder.

The spectral mage let out a chilling, inhuman shriek which echoed throughout the streets of the city. Soon after it seemed as though the shadows which surrounded the group had come to life and intensified, whirling around them. As though muffled whispers came from them.

In a few moments, the shadows turned back to normal and the whispers ended.

The Dusk Elder turned its head towards the Censor.

"Soon we shall see all that goes on in this city. Soon."

Nathan and Chloe were still firing along with the Servants, perched in top of a small mound of rubble, firing down into the heads of the attacking Zombies. The Servant's Rifles seemed to be doing the minimal of damage and they were only firing now in their terror, to be doing something to stop their approaching death. The Guests were long gone, scrambling back for the ship, plates and statues abandoned to the elements.

Nathan carefully fired up and down the Zombie formation, cutting down a row at a time before clicking out one magazine and slipping a new one it. Nathan's shotgun fired from a drum magazine shaped energy battery, the battery permitted exception rates of fire but without losing any of the punch from the projectile. Nathan hesitated to call it an auto-shotgun, for he thought of it as more of a machine gun that fired small tank shells. It had the recoil of a mule but Nathan used all of his weathered skill to keep it down and hitting the attackers. Chloe's custom made rifle could support the same ammunition as Nathan's gun in the same mags but for now, she was happy to use the Setting three attached to the bottom of her gun.

It was as Nathan was clipping another round into his gun, slipping the spent one into his belt to allow it to charge for reuse, when he saw the disaster and groaned. The Shuttle was about to be overwhelmed and the Pilot's nerve had broken. With a third of the Guests and most of the defending Servants still on the ground, the ramp was closing the vessel rising into the air. The Guests, men and women, screamed and pleaded desperately for him to land again but there was no chance. With a series of blood-curdling yells, the Servants in front of the shuttle were overwhelmed and the Guests scrambled back towards the small and thinning line of Servants around Chloe and Nathan. The Guests were slowly being trapped and not enough Zombies were being killed.

Chloe decided it was time to switch over to Nathan's shotgun round so she turned and yelled to him over the recoiled thudding of his own weapon,
"Nate! Nate!" She yelled, it was always 'Nate' in an emergency, not Nathan or Nathaniel, "Mag!" was all she shouted.
Nathan complied by unclipping four of his ten and throwing them over. That way, Chloe could keep her own gun firing the whole time they were in combat.
Chloe grabbed each magazine as it was thrown to her and clipped three into her own belt. The Kitsune then grabbed the breech of her gun and twisted it sideways, ejecting the sniper magazine and allowing her to fit the bigger drum. Now both guns were spitting the same, devastating ammunition and the Servants were still struggling.

"North!" Nathan called to the Guests as he kept firing. Chloe had now fought through the remaining Guests was was sweeping the line of Zombies advancing from the East and stopping them from keeping too close, "Head North!" Even as he shouted it, the remaining Servants beneath him were overwhelmed and died beneath the crush of Dead bodies. What they were doing, he had no idea and he dreaded to think. Instead, he threw a grenade into the centre of them and ran north with the rest of the Guests,

"Did we get them all?" He yelled to Chloe as they ran.

Chloe shook her head, "Lord Miggans is dead."

"Damn, damn, damn!"

"I know, I liked him"

"I didn't, the Bastard owed me a hundred quid"

Chloe actually stopped and looked at him,
"How can you say that?"

"Quite easily actually, you want me to say it again?"

"Just run you heartless Bastard," she sighed as they tore north, at the back of the group running for their lives into the more open ground.

OOC: This battlcruizer basically crashes and through luck most of the security, weapons, communication (however its only short range, the long range gets destroyed in the crash) and life support systems remain functional. Also for those who don't know my space force has both starcraft terran units and lizasaurian units that I've made up.

A small SLSC battlecruizer (http://www.starcraft-overmind.ic.cz/TerranInfoLink/Download/battlecruiser.jpg) was sent by the South Lizasaurian Space Corps to scout uncharted space, a small asteroid hit their navigation systems, while the crew can still use on board sensors to tell what the surrounding environment is like for a few miles the damaged cruizer has lost it's mapping and plotting data meaning the crew must either plot manually. Repairs were underway when another larger asteroid hit the ship knocking it towards Vooka. The Ship crash landed and many died however many useful systems remained.

Short range S.O.S from the SLFS Sharkbait:
Mayday Mayday, this is captain Lanchester of the SLSF Sharkbait. Please respond! We have crashed landed in foreign territory and our navigational equiptment is damaged. We know that we are on a planet that has been bombarded with WMDs. Mayday mayday.

"The ships sensors detected particle activity, particularly ion activity. There was evidence that advance weapons of all sorts were desperately used in an attempt to destroy something horrible. So far the best guess is that the weaponry killed off both the monster and the natives." said the luitenant whilst he handed a report to the captain.

Captain: Let's take proper precautions, make sure all personnel that leave this ship either have a protective suit or combat suit on.
http://ccrux.corsarius.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/StarCraft2CinematicTrailer_EnglishUS_0002.jpg

A few space marines scouted the area surrounding the crashed battlecruizer, their visors stayed down to keep any pathogens or hazardous contaminants out. The combat suits they wore were designed to allow soldiers to go in some of the most inhospitable environments ranging from the vacuum of space to a nuclear wasteland filled with toxic waste and biohazards.

Kichande was preparing to leave. The settlement in the distance was not so distant anymore, and it would be just a short run to reach its outer limits. He had intended to leave the mangled corpse behind him, as it was such an easy kill that required so little skill that it simply wasn’t worth taking a trophy. He could only hope that the prey in the settlement offered a more formidable challenge, otherwise this hunt would have been a waste of his time. As he began to tap the distinctive red glyphs on his gauntlet to reactivate his shift suit, however, the corpse apparently disagreed with his assessment of the outcome. Kichande paused in his tracks and looked over his shoulder, astounded by what he saw. That mangled corpse, which had posed no threat, was somehow standing up.

“C’jit...” he muttered, reciting some yautja profanity as he watched the creature rise to its feet. He zoomed in on it, as though trying to make sure it was definitely the same corpse – sure enough, a huge cavity now occupied the space where its chest had been. Its ribcage had been shattered, leaving stumps of bone where its ribs had been, and its spine was missing several vertebrae. He was no xenobiologist, but he knew how to kill, and all his anatomical knowledge told him that there was no way this creature could still be alive. Not even the kainde amedha could have walked away from such injuries. Even a yautja couldn’t have lived though that. Surprise wasn’t a sensation he had experienced often in his life, if at all, but if he had to give a name to what he felt at that particular moment, Kichande would have called it surprise.

Perhaps this hunt will not be as easy as I thought, Kichande thought to himself.

Good.

The creature seemed to think nothing of its injuries, and had now begun its forlorn shuffle towards him once again. Kichande had thought it to be a suicidal march previously, but not anymore. With its lungs gone, the creature did not seem able or willing to grace his ears with that ear-piercing moan anymore, but it seemed the plasmacaster had not dissuaded it from walking towards him. But its surprising resurrection had not deterred Kichande either – this creature was going to die.

His plasmacaster shut down and tucked itself back out of the way. At the same time, his ki'cti-pa, two particularly vicious serrated blades attached to his wrist, shot out of his right gauntlet and glistened into the sun. His trusty wrist blades had gutted many Hard Meat over the years, their acid-resistant blades capable of slicing brutally through virtually any material imaginable, and as he always said – technology fails, blades last a lifetime.

He flared his lower mandibles and let out his loudest roar yet, though he wasn’t sure why he had bothered. His battle cry was designed to intimidate his prey, but this shuffling abomination didn’t seem to care. Perhaps it just made him feel better. Regardless, without hesitation he took a run-up to the creature, his massive weight pounding hard against the ground, and then pushed off with his muscular legs. His seven-and-a-half foot frame lifted away from the floor and he glided with surprising elegance towards his stubborn prey. Before the dim-witted, durable creature even had chance to turn around, his wrist blades passed straight through its neck. A nice, clean slice, straight through the middle, just the way he liked it. As soon as his blades had completed their gory pass through flesh and bone, one of his legs shot out behind him and firmly kicked the creature in the stomach. While the creature fell backwards yet again from the force of the blow, Kichande landed into a roll and sprang back up to his feet, turning around to see if his decapitating blow had done the trick.

The pilot of the small cloaked vessel breathed in relief.

Good, no one saw me. Or at least paid attention to me. This place is such a hornets' nest they probably just took me for a passing asteroid or a sensor echo.

However, the pilot's optimism was undeserved as the Peregrine slid closer to the planet, hoping to catch some more readouts of the unidentified vessels' communications traffic. As the fighter slid closer, an unidentified vessel descending into lower orbit began to spew out gas from its aft sections.

What the hell? could probably be used to describe the pilot's first reaction, wondering why on earth would a ship be dumping gas into space. Perhaps it was ballast or some sort of highly-specialized garbage dumping method.

It was too late that the pilot realized that the Peregrine was leaving a tell-tale wave as it passed through the expanding gas field.

Now the pilot's thoughts could best be described as a plethora of expletives.

The fighter plane's engines roared as the pilot turned the vessel, hoping to get out of the gas field before the other ships would catch the Peregrine's trajectory and come to check out the anomaly - or intercept it.

"Ye wankers 'll stop if ya know what's good for ya!"
It would appear that, while the dead paid the strange spector's no mind, the living had other plans.
From a nearby rooftop three stories up a man appeared, leaning over the side, a rifle fixed on the group. From blown-out shop windows, out from behind rubble and emerging out of alleyways stepped more men, all armed with some kind of slugthrower weapon or another, mostly single-shot or bolt-action rifles with some assault rifle and pistols. There was a full dozen of them, and their hesitant, calculating movements betrayed their caution even if their voices did not. What they wore seemed to be a mismatched myriad of battle armor, outdoors clothing, rags and weapons strapped to them. Long knives, crossbows and bolts and ammunition were hung, affixed or strapped to the garments, dirtied and apparently soiled intentionally to kill any shine or glitter that might have given them away prematurely. All five had been surrounded and outnumbered by a gang of raiders who, while they didn't know what to make of the new arrivals, did know that foreigners and offworlders always had something of value to take.

City Outskirts...
They could hear, now, the cries of those they had seen happily feasting earlier as others came for their own meal. Weapons fire was the loudest, but the entire exchange was punctuated by the deep, paralyzing groans of the undead. Avum could tell Jeeko was getting increasingly anxious, but by the time he decided to act it was too late.
"Kid, I-"
"Sorry, there's some things that just have to be done!" Jeeko exclaimed, and took off, sprinting towards the noise.
"Kid! Get back here! Damnit!" Avum swore loudly, ripping a radio off his belt, jamming the "talk" button and yelling into it. "Sam! Yeah, we're on the outer part of Saint Brooks, near the treatment plant. Look, Jeeko's just done a damn stupid thing, he's gone to rescue some outlanders and the kid ain't dyin' on my watch. I need you to get the tank out here, fast." There was a blip and some muttering came back, to which Avum stared at the piece of equipment. "What? Yes, the tank, now that he's there and know he'll never forgive me if I leave the bastards to die. Just do it, damnit, I'll take responsibility with the Boss if I have to!"

City Outskirts...
Those who fell beneath the wave of undead were slowly mutilated, rotting hands and limbs holding the victims in place while cracked, broken teeth tore away flesh and devoured it. Once they gained a hold nothing would stop the horde short of destroying the thing itself or slicing off the grasping hand. Though many fell to the mercenaries roughly half managed to keep going and most of those survived even immobilized. Even the grenade did little, serving only to further tear the flesh of the zombies as they turned to shamble after their prey. As the remnants ran for the barren plains they cut though a choke point, two high walls of rubble that could have once been buildings on either side.

To the horror of the party they found their brief, small exit blocked by yet another mob of the walking dead. It seemed the loud dining, combined with the moans of their fellows, the screams of the guests and the weapons fire, had drawn every one of the ghouls in or around the city. Walls on either side, lurching monsters to the front and back, they were trapped.
Crack.
In an instant one of the zombies coming from the landing point dropped in a spray of blood, a neat hole drilled between the eyes.
Crack.
Another one went down, tripping up those behind it and creating a small pile-up in the bottleneck.
Those with presence of mind to look would see Jeeko on the top of the right pile of rubble, framed against the iron sky, furiously reloading and firing his bolt-action rifle repeatedly. For such an outdated, incredibly primitive weapon he did amazingly well with it, racking up kills far faster than either of the mercenaries had. The ghouls who tried to scale the rubble to get to him ultimately failed, too uncoordinated to climb it and quickly picked off by a bullet.

However, it wasn't enough. The things still poured in front the front, held at bay only by the fire from Nathan and Chloe. There was the distinctive sound of tires screeching and from around the left side of the wall what appeared to be a school bus tore around and into the living dead at the front, smashing them under the wheels and throwing others far, bones broken and skeletons crushed. It maneuvered so that the back was facing the party, door open, and Avum gestured wildly to the foreigners. "Come on, get on, get on!" he yelled, and now it was noticed there was a fifty caliber machine gun fixed to the roof of the bus. A man was standing behind it and he let loose, rounds spraying into the advancing horde behind the guests, servants and mercenaries, tearing apart ghouls, spinning them wildly, missing half their heads, and blowing away legs to incapacitate the monsters.

Barren Plains...
The decapitated body fell to the ground without so much as a twitch, blood and various congealed fluids leaking from the stump. The head, however, landed in the dirt near him and continued to snap furiously, almost as if irritated it's intended prey was so resourceful but even so still trying to get a taste of its flesh. Unless Kichande was so foolish as to allow himself to be bit by the teeth, he had effectively destroyed the ghoul and it now posed no threat to him.

Wasteland...
Sadly for the SLSC battlecruizer there was a response, but certainly not the one they had been hoping for. A dozen undead lurched out of nowhere, making for the suited space marines ahead. Their mouths gaped in anticipation and the signature animal sound was heard as they came, stumbling and staggering, to the crashed ship.

Chloe managed to move to the front of the group, trying to clear a path ahead for the Guests as they tripped over each other to get away. Nathan was grinning as he followed. Now this was his kind of party!
Chloe reached the front of the group as it was finally sealed off by the dead. She did not even hesitate but dropped and began to sweep across the line of advancing Zombies, if not killing them then slowing them down. Nathan had opened up on those pursueing them and the air was filled with the steady thumping of the two guns as they threw shot after shot into the enemy. They were gonners, that was certain, for not even Nathaniel T. Barnes and Chloe could fight all day and all night without rest. They would die eventually.

Then the rifle opened up. Nathan could only just see someone operating a bolt action rifle on top of a pile of rubble, cutting down all around him with ease. That, combined with Nathan's fire, was steadily opening up a gap in the Zombie line. A gap that was then filled with a raging bus, armed with weapons Nathan had only seen in a museum. Most would have felt delight at this point at their saviours and, indeed, the Guests displayed this by piling onto the Bus like there was was no tomorrow. Nathan, on the other hand, was disappointed. He was enjoying himself, seemingly not able to understand that his life was on the line in the battle. Nathan had never seemed to have any sense. Anyone who knew the pair knew that Chloe was the voice of reason in their partnership.

Chloe and Nathan slowly came back to back as the crowd of Guests they were protecting grew smaller. The crowd of Zombies also grew smaller, a combination of the rifle, machine guns and two auto-shotguns quickly took their toll and soon, both Mercenaries were in the bus. As it sped off, both breathed a sigh of relief.
Nathan looked at Chloe and grinned,
"Easiest pay of my life eh? Nice relaxing trip?"

"Well," Chloe stopped for a moment to collect her breath, her normally prestine tail and chocolate brown hair was full of dust and she was trying to brush it out, without much effect, "I didn't read Zombies in the briefing did you?"

"I didn't even read the briefing."

"Now there's a surprise?"

"What?"

"You never read the briefing."

"Does it matter?"

"Normally? Yes. Today? No" She stopped again for a breather, "Thanks for the Mags, by the way"

"Think nothing of it," he was grinning, unlike his shellshocked Guests, "What's mine is yours. Strange buggers weren't they?"

"I've never seen anything like that?"

"I know. Those lifeless eyes, the never ending moaning and the fact nothing seemed to get rid of them. They reminded me of Alversian Customs"

Chloe shook her head and rolled her eyes, a small smile on her lips, "I think it's time we said thank you to our rescuer"

"Ah, don't mention it," Nathan puffed his chest up importantly, then stopped when Chloe punched his shoulder, "Ow"

"Stop being a smartarse and come on" She moved to the front of the bus to find her rescuers. She bowed to them all, "Thank you for rescueing us," She said, "My name is Chloe, the Brute at the front is Nathan. What were those things?" Her tail flickered again, subconciously trying to rid itself of dust.

The Censor grinned wryly beneath its helmet as he listened to the yell. He had been perfectly willing to leave the living alone until their work was finished, but it seemed that the living themselves had other plans. The suit's eyes flashed with with sickly green fire for a few moments and then returned back to their regular form, which still was quite green.

In a time frame of mere moments, the Censor threw down its hand weapon and picked up a machine gun-like contraption too large for any normal human to carry in such a manner which had been hanging from its back, hidden by its red cape. It turned its weapon towards the man on top of the building and began firing one slug after another with unheard of rapidity. Strange green flames surrounded the projectiles as they flew through the air.

That was the mark for the three others who were equipped similarily as the Censor to begin firing as well, which they did. They changed the direction they were shooting at to cover as many of the humans who surrounded them as possible as rapidly as possible.

No mercy.

((OOC: To get an idea what they'd look like, think of the armor used in Jin-Roh, just a bunch heavier. Of course there are other differences as well (for instance on the weapon-side), but the basic look would be sort of like that.))

The sky above the bus lit up as bolts from the ion storm racked a small two person vessel. The ship, missing one wing, crashed into the ground about 50 yards away from the path of the bus. Two figures in Altairan standard armor (http://www.bungie.net/Stats/Halo3/PlayerModel.ashx?p1=0&p2=2&p3=2&p4=1&p5=2&p6=2&p7=3&p8=0) walked out. "Is the atmosphere safe to breath?" A male voice asked. "Yeah, but I wouldn't, there is some nasty stuff in here." A female responded. "Hey look, a...bus." the male said. Both started waving like maniacs and let a few rounds loos from their plasma rifles.

"Sir, cloaked vessel. It appeared for a brief moment some minutes ago and now we're picking it up again." Said the tactical officer, the captain sighed, "Who cares? If it was a threat it would have done something by now. And I don't think it's going to risk anything with all these ships here." He was quiet for a moment, "Prepare a team, something small... and with a few Drones. Something is on the surface and it may be interesting..."

The Belkan cruiser jumped into the system, en route to bigger and better things, using the star's gravity well as a beacon. When the ship stopped to recalibrate for the next jump, activity was noted, and the ship's commander alerted.

Lights flashed through the blue ooze encasing the Centurion, waking it from its slumber. It's restoration tank drained, and it stepped into its chamber. Metallic implants and tentacles glistened in the dim light as the naked beast checked the report:

JUMP-SUCCESS
SYSTEM-MODERATE ALIEN ACTIVITY
SUB-REF-93988669478678243-GW
SUB-REF-823487636536-XS
SUB-REF-N/A
QUERY- RESPONSE_??

The Centurion donned its uniform and headed to the bridge, where it would attempt to get a handle on the situation at hand.

A message from The Leo
Salutations assembled xenomorphs. Commander Omnicron of the Imperium of Belkaros. This ship is passing through but recognises friendly and neutral races. Is assistance required?

No idea, I honestly wish that someone would tell me. Sent out a message and all I got was a vague grumble from the Greywatch. Everyone else seems wonderously self absorbed, oh and the Tanarans had a warning. Could get sticky, they reckon.

In the meantime, how are you? I am the Shipbrain of the DEV Not Lost, Just Wandering, I've heard brief things about your sort. I'd love to learn a bit more while I investigate this planet. Lots of movement, precious little life. We feared a Hegemonising Swarm of some sort, but it's not. Strictly, improbably biologic.

Tightband communique to Not Lost, Just Wandering

Greetings. I am Centurion 1737626223999, Designate Omnicron, Commander of this ship. I am well, thank you for the concern. I am a roaming ambassador and military consultant for the Imperium of Belkaros, a rare position among my race. Do you have specific questions about the Imperium?

My that certainly sounds fancy. Specific questions? Oh perish the thought, I'll likely just get some transcripts from back home. Pressing business and all that, at the moment. Wouldn't want to just sit and gab away while all this is going on, it might be rude!

Wouldn't want that, the Greywatchers are already uppity because no one was talking to them. Course I don't think they were talking to anyone either, so it is rather circular logic. Last I heard that was something to expect from them.

OOC- Remember how much fun FEAR was? Just took a trip down memory lane to come up with Omnicron's serial number. Back to business...

<Belkan vessel, I checked the databases and found your nation were nuetral/friendly towards us. I'm afraid I can provide no insight as to the situation on the world below, however, I am preparing a team. The others here have sent parties to the surface, I assume they move on their own agenda. No words have actually been exchanged between the members of this misfit party. I do believe you and the Myenyan vessel have been the first to break the silence of this area.>

OOC: lol, yes I remember

Tightband communique to Greywatch ship
Understood. I will organize and lead a team to the surface to investigate. Would your forces care to join us?

Tightband communique to Not Lost, Just Wandering

Our Greywatch friends know little more than we do about the situation at hand. I am preparing a task force to explore the planet. Would you like to send forces to join us?

Encrypted Response to Belkan Ship
<That sounds fair. We will send forth some Drones, humans, and a commander unit. Be advised that it seems machines will not function properly due to the ion storms around the planet.>

Tight band communique to Grey watch ship
Understood. Much of our equipment is shielded, but we will not risk mobile suits or advanced gear. This ship will move into geosynchronous orbit and launch, prepare to do the same.

Onboard the ship, Omnicron donned his battle gear, some of the most advanced personal armor and augmentation the Imperium of Belkaros had to offer. He chose two other Centurions and twelve marines to accompany him on the trip, and the team headed for the shuttle bay.

Encrypted Response to Belkan Ship
<Done and done.>

Onboard the ship, five Drones began preparing to explore the surface. This wasn't a normal mission for them, something here was wrong and the Drones felt it. Thus, they brought some of the larger weapons in the ship's armory. A few humans would be attending along with a Leanorian commander. The team was suited up and ready to go in ten minutes and a transport was prepared.

Encrypted Response to Belkan Ship
<We have a team of nine prepared to go to the surface. When you are ready we will move out.>

Bus...
There were three people in the bus: The driver, a man wearing what seemed to be a motorcycle helmet, Avum and Jeeko. The two men were walking down the length of the vehicle towards the guests and mercenaries crowded at the back, putting them all under intense scrutiny. "Do any of you have any wounds at all, any fluid splatters, and injuries? We need to know now, treatment has to be fast if any of you have been harmed." Avum asked, drawing their attention to him. Jeeko, meanwhile, couldn't keep his eyes off Chole, standing slightly behind and to the right of the older man. Both seemed to have ignored her words.
Bus roof...
The man on the fifty cal. slowly swiveled the large machine gun turret towards the crashed ship and the two people, calling down to the driver for a halt. He kept them locked in his sights, hoping that if they turned out to be hostile he could waste them before they did destroyed his emplacement, killed him or, worst of all, crippled the bus and made them all stranded out here in the wastes.
City Center...
The man tumbled from the rooftop as he was riddled with the shots, falling head over heels to the ground with a wet slap and numerous cracking noises. Others dropped, killed by the rounds, and in a few moments the street was clear and quiet. Five of the men had been killed and their fellows quickly abandoned their endeavor, fleeing into the city.

"Uh...no...I think," Nathan frowned as he looked at each of the passengers in turn. None of them had any cuts or wounds from their escapade and, apart from all of them being severely shaken, there was nothing physically wrong with them. In fact, they were fine. So where Nathan and Chloe. Both were already reloading their weapons, checking them to make sure that they would fire the next time those...things rolled up on them.

"All fine here" Nathan reported happily after Mister Sheen had been checked out. Unlike the others, he seemed to be in a good mood, "So, what were those things?" He asked again as Chloe shifted uncomfortably, aware of the man's gaze. She was content to check her katana and gun for now to keep her gaze from his staring eyes.
She knew she was different from these people and she stuck out on this planet like an Alumina in a Toddler's playhouse. They were all human and the Vexoscans were a branch of humanity. Even Nathan looked like a human and she didn't. The large red fox ears, which were flat on her head in a semi-concious attempt to make herself seem smaller and less noticable along with the long bushy tail, which flickered to betray her nervousness, made sure that she was going to be the centre of attention whereever they were going. It didn't help that she was wearing a tight top with a ripped bottom to reveal a strip of tanned skin above her combat trousers. Again, she subconciously tried to hide it with her rifle, dismissing it as pointless even as she persisted. She wondered if the boy knew what discomfort he was causing her with a simple stare.

The Censor was amused by the scene. It never grew tired of breaking the will of men as you slaughter their friends. As the would-be-raiders fled, it halted firing, placing the weapon back beneath its cape and kneeled down to reach the hand gun it had dropped shortly before. The three others had stood down as well, although they kept their weapons at hand.

As the Censor stood back up, it noticed the ethereal form of the Dusk Elder now floating above one of the corpses. It was whispering something... It was too low for the Censor to hear what it was saying.

"Dusk Elder..."

No answer.

The Censor managed to only take two steps towards the spectral mage before it spread its ethereal arms to its sides and let out a shriek so inhuman that it could even fill a strong willed man with fear. Eerie purple light came forth from the few strange gems in the translucent hands of the mage - the Censor could instantly tell what the Dusk Elder was carrying. It stopped walking towards the Dusk Elder and observed in silence.

Once the shrieking had ended, the Dusk Elder turned towards the Censor.

"Yes, Lord Censor?", it whispered. A rustling sound could be heard around them, followed by groans.

The Censor remained silent. It just watched the corpse beneath the Dusk Elder.

At that point it became obvious what was the source of the groaning: The five corpses had begun to move. Two of them were too badly mangled to do much else than writhe on the ground. One of them could only crawl on the ground as its legs were riddled with holes, making them useless. The two left slowly stood up with the weapons they had used in life in hand. They were not a pretty sight - one of the two standing had been killed by shots in the head. Exposed brain tissue was dangling from the left side of its head, and its left cheek with parts of its mouth were gone, leaving a ripped tongue hanging from the bloodied hole. The other had its innards exposed, bits and pieces dropping as it shuffled along with its weapon in hand.

"These will do," said the Dusk Elder, glancing at the two Soulless as they crept closer to it, as though commanded by it.

"Indeed," replied the Censor, "But we must not waste any more time. Let us continue our march."

"... Very well," uttered the mage, now glancing at the writhing corpse beneath itself. "My servants have told me that the living not from this place have defeated the local Soulless with the assistance of the living who inhabit this planet. We must proceed with caution lest we draw unwanted attention."

"Hmph," grumbled the Censor, "They could try to fight us. But they would not win."

"Perhaps. But there is no point taking such chances before our investigation is complete. Do not worry. My servants shall do their duty. We will know what to do soon enough."

The Censor shook its head and turned away from the Dusk Elder. It looked around, and after a minute or so it pointed in the direction of one of the streets leading away from their current position.

"We shall move that way."

And so they did, with two Soulless following them.

The cloaked Peregrine fighter began to falter again. The pilot cursed, not understanding what was going on. Had the fighter been damaged more than the techs had figured? Or was there something... corrosive in the gas where the fighter had ran into.

The cloak began to falter, engines flatlined, and the pull of the planet below began to take its effect. The Peregrine blistered into view, arcs of electricity running across her hull, as the one-man fighter plane began to descend towards the planet below. Her engines flared and died, flared and died. The pilot was in a tight spot: if the plane was spotted, one of these unknown vessels would take her in. And that would bring questions - questions that could lead these bastards after the Fool's Hope. Or the Peregrine could be taken to the atmosphere. It was a risky move, one that could bake the plane in controlled freefall - or crush the plane like a piece of porcelain on the surface.

Or - and this was the pilot figured - buy the survivor some time until the Hope could send someone for pick-up duty.

The pilot punched the emergency button, discharging the two beacons. The techs had managed to subdue the signal so that it was hard for any ship without the exact frequency to pick up the signal.

And with that, the pilot pulled at the controllers, the Peregrine half falling, half gliding into the ion storm that was the Vookan atmosphere.

"Sir, a cloaked ship just came back into view." Said the tactical officer, a holoscreen came up showing the craft falling to the planet below. The captain waited for a moment, "Deploy the transport, we're going hunting for some answers." With that, the hanger doors opened and a transport craft began its decent to the planet below. Aboard was the Greywatch team, it was time to find what was so interesting about this place.

The fighter continued its fall towards the planet, the pilot doing all that was possible to keep the plane from being destroyed upon re-entry.

Peregrines, of course, weren't meant to fly in atmosphere, but the good people in R&D had nonetheless included back-up systems for such an eventuality.

The surface of the ship began to heat up as it entered the atmosphere, the ion storm fragging the little that was left of its combat systems and sensors, making the pilot fly blind. The energy cells for lasers caught fire and were cut loose, four blistering balls of burning plasma falling along with the fighter. More sensitive systems caught fire, making the plane smoke black, oily smoke as it kept careening towards the surface below.

The pilot was frantically looking for a place to crash. And the operative word here was indeed 'crash'. 'Landing' had gone out of the picture along with the storm-fried systems.

The pilot of the transport looked on at the small, flaming craft below the group. "Well, that won't be too hard to follow. Everyone, get ready, we're going to make a landing in about three minutes." The group in the back noddedd and prepared their weapons, something had the Drones on edge, and that meant that somnething bad was on this planet. The transport's shields lit up as energy flowed past, the ion storm gave the transport no trouble, it was suited for bad conditions.

Shalamar and her team had fallen back into the shuttle as the onslaught of the zombies, for one sweep had been enough to tell her that their attackers were not alive.

"Lock us up, wait untill the greater mass has left then we're going to stasis a sample. This is not a version of the θάνατος plague I am familiar with"

At her command the ramp and the shileds were raised, and they settled into a waiting game.

The small fighter plane was definitely shot, the pilot having apparently lost control - or passed out from the rapid fall. Smoke and fire engulfed the vessel, spinning out of control as it kept falling. One of her small engines suddenly broke off with a large explosion, obscuring the visual contact and scattering the air with debris.

The doomed vessel had turned into a ball of flame, crashing with meteoric speed into the side of a rolling hill, burning wreckage dispersing everywhere.

The pilot, on the other hand, was still among the living.

When the engine had broken off, a black-gloved fist had smashed the energy eject, jettisoning the cockpit into the air. The cockpit kept falling and falling, until the temporary anti-gravs started, buffering the fall. The cockpit landed about five miles away from the burning ball of metal that had been a Principality Peregrine.

The pilot kicked the ceiling off, pulling out the survival kit hidden under the seat, and made a run for it. Best to hide and see before any curious eyes would find the place where the cockpit had landed.

The transport didn't actually land but instead made a quick, low sweep over the ground allowing the team to jump out. They immediately moved to the small, crashed craft, sifting around in the wreckage. "Nothing here," said a Drone, "Dead? Doubt it." Another Drone looked around, "We need to sweep the area, but that'll take too much time I figure." The commander looked to them and then to the humans, "Scan it. Find something useful." A human technician looked to the commander before moving forward to the ship, "Got nothing, doens't look like anything biological was here. Might have ejected." The commander put a message through, there was some static but nothing all that bad, "Captain, if you have one, get a cleaning crew down here. Something interesting might be collected from this wreckage..."

Breathing deeply, the pilot watched with a pair of binoculars how the drones were shifting through the smoldering pile of twisted metal that had been the Peregrine. If the drones knew their business, they might recognize the class of the fighter: a Peregrine-class one-man fighter plane, a craft used almost exclusively by a young, space-faring civilization that clung to its old Terran name, the Principality of Northern Rangeria. The curious thing, however, was that the ship had been employing a cloaking device... Principality vessels hardly ever used those, and a fighter plane with a cloaking device was definitely unheard of. Something about the Peregrine's ability to maintain cloak integrity...

Cursing, the pilot opened the helmet with a pressurized hiss, lifting the blast shield up. From under it peered a female face, her mouth opening as she drew a deep breath. She was in one hell of a mess, alright. Stranded on an unknown world that was apparently under siege by this conglomeration of vessels, her plane down, the ion storm making pinpointing her difficult... and her only equipment was the survival kit and her service gun, a laser pistol.

The pilot looked around her, trying to get her bearings... and perhaps find a high point where she could plant a homing beacon for the Fool's Hope... if they would come looking for her.

The technicians looked over the wreckage carefully, "I think we might be able to get a cloak generator, but it's more than doubtful. All we can really do is analzye the craft type and maybe get the name of its owner." The Commander nodded, "Drones, begin scouting the immediate area, look around and come back." Two Drones nodded, they were in white armor that covered their gothic features. Without word they bolted off in different directions, no visible weapons on their bodies. It looked like the typical barren wasteland, absolutely nothing on it and not worth anyone's time. The transport that had carried them to the planet began to lift off for its journey back to the ship, but not before two more craft were sent from the Greywatch ship to the surface. One of them being a small fighter, the other began a salvage ship.

Bus...
Avum fell onto a seat, leaning casually against it. "Those things go by many names: Ghouls, undead, walking dead, living dead, monsters, horrors, hellspawn, infected, shamblers and whiners, to name a few. But what you might know them as is zombies. These things," he shook his head, "eat human flesh, hell, any flesh they can get their rotting hands on. They were humans, once, infected by a disease and turned into," he waved a hand to indicated the general landscape, "that. Don't ask me any specifics, I slept though all my history classes and science has never been my strong point, one of the eggheads back at the station might be able to explain it better. Avum's the name, by the way, and that kid is Jeeko," he nodded his head to the side, where one who could be identified as a youth of around seventeen tore his gaze away from Chloe long enough to give a friendly wave to everyone else.

"Anyway, once the disease became widespread, people began looting, killing each other to escape, for vengeance, because the insanity of the world allowed them to, or simply because they enjoyed it. Huge wars broke out, here on Vooka, and some of it, guns and bombs, turned cities and forests into what you see outside. Most of it, though, was caused by the infected. They'll attack and eat anything that's alive in any form, man or alien, I've seen them force their way though solid oak doors to get to the people inside. Their flesh is highly toxic, and the combination of the wars, the poison from the infected and the disease, shattered this world. From what we can tell, from those of our scouts who return, the entire world is like this, and there are no organized governments surviving any longer.

But I'm not here to teach you about our past," he stood, "I'm here to ensure your future. Finery, dresses, coats," he thrust a hand towards the guests, "loose straps, baggy clothes, long hair," he used the other to point to the mercenaries, "have got to go. Strong perfumes, colognes, deodorants, gone too. Plasma or laser weapons are useless, they don't do a damned thing, toss 'em. Any shiny or reflective metals, tarnish them or get rid of 'em. Any of you who know how to shoot a gun with any skill, we'll give you a gun once we reach the compound."

Fighter crash sight...
Not so distantly a person watched, clad and dirtied like every other native being or ghoul on this world, hidden behind a small gray hill. He, or it could have been she, was lying prone, looking down the scope of a long-barreled rifle. Waiting to see what these newcomers would do, and watching them to see how long they'd survive.

Ejection Pod crash site...
The pilot would hear a scraping sound behind her, followed by a haunting ululation, like the wind howling though a crack in the rocks of a cave. Turning she would see a form not six feet away, terrifying close, the stench of decay filling her nostrils as the wind shifted. The being appeared to be female, or at least once was, the disgusting deterioration had warped the features and skin horribly. It lurched towards her, moving at a walking pace, arms out as if to hug her, coming closer...

Nathan looked surprised but nodded,
"Never met a Zombie before today, that'll go down in my photojournal for sure," He laughed, "And I can't remember the last time I receieved an inspection like that," He smiled, "Not since I was in the Navy I think" He took a few of the items from his person and threw them on the ground,
"Consider them gone," he announced, "It's nothing I can't nick back anyway"

Chloe rolled her eyes but obediently removed some of the items from her person that would make her a target. She also wrapped her chocolate hair into a ponytail and tucked it into the back of her shirt. She also slung her rifle over her back, as did Nathan. The Alversian then turned to his scared Guests and gave a small nod,
"You heard the man, put all valuables in this bag," He held up a sack, "They'll be returned when we get out of here. All of you who can fire weapon step forward" A dozen did so.

"Hold on!" A furious Sheen refused to surrender his numerable jewels, more than valuable enough to pay a whole army for a year, "I refuse to handle my wealth over to a bunch of criminals and thugs. I demand to be released from this and beamed back to my shuttle!"

The marines were confused. They saw these people lurching toward them however o life signs were picked up other than the virus within them. A few of the marines were rescued from one of the cave outbreaks so they knew what they were dealing with.

Sqad leader: OPEN FIRE!

Coproral: CONTACT! *fires*

The marines pelted the undead with bullets and grenades however only lethal shots to the brain seemed to do the trick. Those that have had zombie experience or read up on them during their youth knew to hit the brain. Those soldiers knew to set their weapons to semi-automatic to increase accuracy.

Sgt Sqaler: Men! Set your weapons to semi-auto and aim for the heads! Repeat! Aim for the heads and set your weapons to semi-auto.

Squad leader: This is Alpha sqad to Sharkbait! We're under attack!

Captain: Acknowledged! Make sure none pass through, we'll need to keep the doors open for you however we have closed off all areas near the doors to prevent any of them from getting in. Good hunting, over and out. Luitenant! Get this ships defenses online.

The Drones radioed their commander afte rlooking arond the area, "Nothing so far, ma'am. Shall we procede to move further?" The commander shook her head, "No, return to the group." She paused for a moment, "Drones, what weapons do you have with you?" The Drones didn't answer until they joined the rest of the group, "Heavy weapons... chainguns, grenades, heavy energy weapons..." The commander sighed, "Something here's realy got you guys spooked, eh?" The Drones took a while to respond, finally one of them did, "I don't know if spooked is the right word... but we detect something of great power. I suppose this is what humans call, unnerving." The others in the group were silent, anything that could make a Drone feel unnevered was something worth being worried about.
It was then that the salvage vessel arrived, it was a large craft that float a good twenty feet off the ground, just above the wreckage. A blue light came down from its underside and two men appeared, both wearing a white biosuits. They examined the wreckage for a few moments before both opening communications with the ship above them. Promptly the wreckage disapeared into the light, followed by the two technicians men. The fighter, meanwhile, had remained at high altitude doing a few circles above the units on the ground and the salvage vessel. "Commander, we have the vessel in storage and are moving out." The comander nodded to the ship, "Understood." WIth that the salvage craft took off followed by its accompanying fighter.
Back on the Explorer the captain smiled, "Finally, we're getting something out of this. I wonder who this ship belongs to... we'll find out soon enough I imagine..."

"Saint Gid protect", the pilot breathed out, the smell of rotting overwhelming to her senses. She pulled out her pistol, cranking the setting up to 'Burn', which was intended for medium-armor targets - or in this case, to make sure that a low-armor target once shot would go down and stay down.

"Stay back, I'm armed", he called out to the ululating creature that still kept coming. "I'm warning you, don't make me shoot!"

Christ, that thing ain't even listening, she thought to herself and pressed the trigger.

Two in the chest, one in the head, a perfect text book shot. Two searing bolts of condensed light pierced the creature's rib cage, leaving holes the size of an old silver markha, and a third cracked the creature's head open. It staggered, not understanding what had happened, before it finally fell.

"Christ", the pilot muttered aloud, lowering her piece. "This ain't how this was supposed to go down", she muttered and looked to the east where her ship had crashed. She could see the vessel hovering above, and she reached for her emergency comm unit, trying to find any kind of a signal. If the planet was under quarantine for some infection, she needed to get out there, pronto.

Meanwhile, aboard Fool's Hope,
orbiting the innermost planet in the system

"Cap'n, we're getting a distress call from Katri", one of the radar personnel spoke up. "We're getting some data from her flight recorder. Technical difficulties, it seems..."

"I told the techs that cloaking device wouldn't hold", Luk muttered to himself while Ahokas walked up to the sensor table.

"What do we have?"

"A distress signal from the buoys... and a trajectory to the planet surface. The ion storm must be disrupting the signal, since we're getting nothing from the ejection pod", the former ensign answered, shaking his head.

"Tactical evaluation?"

"Crap", Luk said with his usual level of decorum. "At least one of those ships is carrying some serious heat, and I wouldn't bet my money if someone said those other ships aren't armed as well."

"So what do you suggest?" Ahokas frowned.

"I think we need to hustle them. Make them think we're legit, and allow us to send an evac team", Luk said, looking up at his captain. "Think you can fit into the captain's jumpsuit?"

"Do I have a choice on the matter?"

Luk laughed. "No, sir. Not really. Unless you want to go down in a blaze of glory."

"Figured as much..."

The commander froze and looked around, "Did anyone else hear something? Like shots being fired?" None of her team seemed to know what was going on and she dismissed the thought. "Alright, let's move. There was a city somewhere around here, let's check it out. Everyone, make sure that armor your wearing is sealed, something about this place just screams bioweapon." With that the team began to move out, the wreckage site behind them.

Back on the Explorer, the two craft that had been sent to the surface came in and docked. The salvage vessel didn't bother beaming the vessel into the hanger, that could be further looked at back at Greywatch Prime. The captain looked to comms, "Send a message to the surface team, let them know that they're to try and avoid anyone else on the planet surface. We only want to take a peek and leave." The comms officer shook his head, "We can't get any messages through sir... the ion storm is blocking the locators too..." The captain was silent, "You mean we can't track or contact them?" The officer shook his head, "We're blind sir. And so are they..."

Bus...
In one swift motion Avum sat up, stepped forward, put his foot behind Sheen's legs and pushed the man. He fell onto his back and Avum shoved the back door open, the growl of the engines, crackling of the tires over rocks and dirt and whistling of the wind clearly evident. He planted one huge booted foot on Sheen's chest and leaned close, speaking loud enough for all to hear. "Listen up you asshole," he growled as Jeeko rose, ancient rifle trained on the group, and the gunner came down from the hatch with a similar weapon, "I don't care who or what you were before you came here, out here it dosen't matter how much money you have or how famous you are. There's only one thing you should be concerned with, and that's survival. You want out, I'll throw you off out the back and you'll be ghoul food within a day. I didn't ask for this, I'm doing all of you a goddamn favor. So put the fucking jewels in the fucking bag before I fucking toss you out of the bus!"
Fighter crash site...
The form detatched itself from the rubble and shadowed the group as they moved out, careful to keep just beyond the range of vision and barely out of earshot. The figure moved from cover to cover like a soldier would during a firefight, movements quick and furvitive, always with one eye on the empty surrondings.
Pod crash site...
As others had discovered, laser weapons, except for the most powerful ones, were nearly useless against the undead. While the zombie was felled it did not stop coming, crawling on all fours, leaking fluids and gore behind it, trying to get to the pilot. It was even closer now, with the element of surprise, and though her flight suit the woman would be able to feel two hands grasp her ankle as the chilling moan sounded once more...
Lizasaurian crash site...
Undettered by the weapons excepting those with enough power to down them with a headshot or blow them apart, the things kept coming, and more moved in to join them. The crashed ship, with all the noise and the huge presence, was attracting undead like none of the others had, by the hundreds. They gained ground steadily, the grenades would do nothing but tear them up and even as one of the lurching monsters dropped two more would take its place. The marines would slowly be backed up against their ship by the groaning, moaning, animalistic mob of the infected.

The team pushed on until it was very close to the city, the commander never shook the feeling that something else was there but she stayed silent. The technicians were sure to stay close while the Drones took the more lax position, hanging a few meters away and carefully looking around them. Each Drone was either holding a chaingun or some kind of heavy energy weapon. The commander gave a disgusted look as she realized her comms very limited and her nav systems weren't working at 100% capacity, often flickering and showing false readings.

"Holy shit!" the pilot screamed when she felt the bastard grab her leg. She kicked her leg violently, getting the... thing off her leg.

It took a las shot in the head and it still keeps coming. What the hell is going on? the pilot cursed as she increased the juice on her piece, firing repeatedly into the thing's head, wanting to melt that thing into a pile of pus and liquid fat.

The group had deemed the city to be highly uninteresting after marching through it. The servants had not returned with any useful information, and once they had seen the bus leave the Alversian drop site, they had chosen to follow it to see where, exactly, the living of this planet would take those outsiders. They weren't able to exactly match the speed of the bus, but that did not matter - they had no trouble following the trail left by the fleeing vehicle.

They still did not try to hide their presence. There was no need to. Indeed, the living were lurking in the shadows, whilst the dead walked in the open.

Delicious irony.

Nathan watched with a small smile and raised eyerows as Sheen, red faced from the man's scorn, meekly handed his millions and placed them into Chloe's bag. When the last jewels were away, Chloe tied the bag off and placed it on her belt. Her hair was already tucked down the back of her top so as to prevent anyone from grabbing it. She gave a small sigh and looked back at Nathan. Nathan nodded,
"Well, we're all up to Anti-Zombie standards now. Care to tell me where we're going?"

Bus...
"Our base, the Fortress," answered Avum, sitting back down, apparently entirely calm. Jeeko also sat again, flipping the safety on his weapon, turning around in his seat to rest his arms on the back and continuing to watch the group, though his attention was no longer exclusive to Chloe. The gunner had moved up towards the front of the bus and was speaking quietly with the driver.
"Aside from the various gangs and marauders that roam these wastes, we are the last bastion of humanity left. If the Boss accepts your presence, you will be the first outsiders to ever enter our stronghold. I must warn you, though: The reason we are still alive is because we keep hidden, so that neither the hordes nor the bandits can find us. If anyone of your party were to alert anyone to our location, either accidentally or deliberatly, we would have to kill them and cast the rest of you out. We cannot afford to attract a mob of living dead or a gang of raiders to our doors."

Pod crash site...
The monster held on, grasp unyielding as the pilot shook her leg, but as it leaned to take the fatal bite the increasing power of the pistol slowly cooked and melted its flesh, collapsing the skull and killing the brain. It died, or to be percise, was destroyed, but its hands still clung on in a death grip, so to speak.

Western outskirts of the City...
As the strangers moved though the blasted landscape they would notice many their native ghoulish brethern moving, all alone but yet in the same direction. The zombies ignored the risen bandits and the armored beings entirely, shambling at a slow, yet unstoppable pace, cries and wails sounding, towards some destination only they knew.

Northeastern outskirts of the City...
By this time the Greywatch group had gained another four eyes watching it, as they would move though the city they would be walking directly into the ambush zone of any of half a dozen competing human raiders, not to mention the odd undead or two. The buildings seemed empty, windows devoid of glass, roads and walls cracked and dusty with lack of use and mantience and the affects of Time.

"Sounds delightfully positive" Nathan rubbed his hands together and looked at Chloe,
"You gonna reveal anything?" he asked the Kitsune patiently. Chloe did not answer, merely shook her head. Nathan looked around at the other Guests, white faced and shivering. They had no intention of running into any more of those Zombie things,
"In that case," He grinned, "Take us to your leader. Sorry, couldn't resist"
Chloe rolled her eyes.

"These tracks are easy to follow," uttered the Censor as they marched after the vehicle, "Almost deceptively so. It is as though they do not think anyone would bother following them."

"They probably do not think so, Lord Censor," responded the Dusk Elder with its whispering voice, "Remember, their opposition here is not very... Organized. The locals are not like us. All they have to think of are these local dead... And brigands, the kind we already met and dealt with."

"True," said the Censor, "But they still would have to hide somewhere. Otherwise they would have been struck down by a relentless wave already."

"Yes. And that is what makes this excursion... Interesting, in its own right."

The Censor nodded silently.

There was no need to continue the conversation as they marched forward, following the tracks. They did not need to follow the local undeas, as one of the shadowy servants of the Dusk Elder was following the ghouls, to see where they were headed and to inform the Dusk Elder of its findings.

Due to the failure of the radar in the suits, and thus any early warning systems, the Greywatchers at this point were blind. Prepared for whatever shit may come at them, but still pretty much blind. If anything, the Drones were the only ones in the group that had trigger fingers itchy enough to turn any foolish persuer into swiss cheese, making them an advantage to the rest of the team.

The marines fell back, upon reentering the craft the security and defense systems were activated. Plasma cannons (which were of South Lizasaurian designed and added to the terran battlecruizer), side batteries and all the other operational batteries on the ship were fired into the undead horde. As the last marine made it in the security gun traps and hidden turrets were programmed to shoot at anything biological that only had viral life signs. The ship sealed off all outer levels and compartments that were open to the outside as well as the compartments adjacent to those blocked off from the outside and the compartments adjacent to those. The ship had been ordered to quarantine outside layers to prevent infection. All personnel within the outer layers were cut off. This included the marines, God knows what they could have brought back, though the suits would protect them there's no telling whether or not being near the marines would have a zombifying effect. The crew was lucky that many of the officers were nerdy enough to have a zombie plan forumulated during their teens or else the ship would be most likely overrun.

Lieutenant: Captain! If these creatures are what I think they are it is imperative that we make as little noise as possible, it is also imperative that on top of sealing the ship off we turn it into an impenetrable fortress until help arrives.

Captain: And what exactly do you think they are luitenant???

Lieutenant: Sir, this may sound crazy but I beleive that they are what the marines reported, that they were once people like us but some sort of transgenic virus has made them rabid and has mutated them terribly.

The XO tried his best to make his opinion sound scientific, if he said they were the walking dead he would have gotten pulled a rank.

Captain: What makes you so sure lieutenant?

Lieutenant: Many such viruses exist such as rabies for example, the behavior described by the marines can suggest such a plague. The rotting can be attributed to the fact that they are so sussed about spreading the plague that they are like lepers in the sense that they ignore all damage, in doing so they decay while alive. This was also reported by the marines.

Captain: So what are you suggesting?

Lieutenant: That we inform our troops about the infection and how to ovoid infection and that the fastest way to eliminate these creatures is a lethal hit to the brain. Blood loss could kill these creatures but I doubt it. We must also set up barricades throughout the ship as well as close the blast doors. We are dealing with hundreds after all.

The lieutenant barely believed some of the stuff he said, he said it to ovoid sounding crazy, he knew that they were the walking dead and that if he didn't act as an officer his fellow crew members would be joining them for dinner, and later on their quest of flesh. The ship stopped firing, the ship became silent...the siege had begun.

"Shit shit shit shit", the pilot muttered under her breath, her heart pumping overtime as she pried the dead fingers away from his boot.

It tried to bite me, she whispered inside her own head as she broke the gangly fingers clasping her ankle. The fucker tried to bite me. How sick is that?

Kicking her leg finally loose, the pilot listened carefully, wanting to be sure there weren't anymore of these... infected about. She wasn't very worried about getting bit: her jumpsuit was built to take punishment and to keep the pilot inside of it alive. If the Principality R&D hadn't been exaggerating, a helmeted pilot could even survive in complete vacuum - for as long as long as the small emergency tank of oxygen on her belt lasted.

This, of course, wasn't vacuum, but thinking it better to keep her flesh secured, the pilot put on her helmet and opened the air slits, like gills at the side of the helmet. The helmet's electronic functions were shot by the ion storm, but at least it would keep her face where it was meant to be - as well as hid her expressions behind the jet black faceguard.

She kept listening, and then decided to break the rules: she activated her comm, hoping that the emergency signal was still intact. She looked around, trying to find a place where she could be easily picked up once the evac arrived.

If they arrived...


Approaching Vooka

Meanwhile, a new set of spacecraft was likely to be picked up by the ships orbiting the storm-wracked world: a small shuttle and two fighter planes.

"Attention unknown vessels", a message was transmitted from the small convoy. "This is Commander Savander, of Principality Far Fleet. We are responding to a distress call we received from this system."

There was likely to be a ship or ships nearby, perhaps somewhere at the outskirts of the system. While the shuttle was FTL-capable on short distances, the fighter planes were not.

For the Greywatch vessel this development was perhaps interesting, as the sensor echo of the fighter planes matched that of the fighter plane that had crash-landed.

The Greywatch ship remained silent to these newcomers even though the report from tactical officer piqued the captain's interest. "So," he started, "These other ships. You're telling me that some of them-" The officer cut him off, "According to the scans taken from the surface, some of the small craft in that convoy are the same as the one found on the surface." The captain nodded, "I see... open SCN to Prime and send them a report on everything so far... I wish we had a research vessel. Then we might be getting some more answers." The comms officer was concerned about other things, "Sir, how shall we respond to the message put out by PFF?" The captain thought for a moment, "Well, they said they were responding to a distress call. Let them be." The captain thought to himself for a moment, "We wouldn't happen to have any Xarniosi on our ship would we?" Another officer looked up from their console, "No sir." The captain sighed, "Damn, that would be golden right now..."

Communique to the Belkan vessel

You know, I think we might wait a bit to interpret these readings. Wouldn't want to send anyone into harms way just yet. Very odd, very disconcerting. Haven't seen this sort of thing before. I'll likely just destroy those nanites, not exactly comfortable with bringing potential contagions back on board.

Reinvigorates dead tissue by the looks of it. Some sort of viral vector, certainly...Most interesting.

Bus...
Avum seemed confused, brow creasing as he gave Nathan a strange look. The man felt that perhaps the Alversian was a few fries short of a full Happy Meal here. "We are close, now," he turned and pointed to the front of the bus, where a brown, dust-covered mountain range could be seen, totally devoid of any vegetation or snow, just like the rest of the landscape. However, the vehicle turned away from the range and came to an idling stop. In front of the bus was what appeared to be an old, decrepit barn, a crumbling farmhouse not far away. The bus moved slowly into the darkness of the barn, and then stopped, doors opening. As Avum led the others out he explained. "It's too easy to follow the tire tracks, although the wind and hordes do a good job of concealing it. From here we'll go on foot."

Battlecruizer crash site...
The servants of the Dusk Elder would find that thousands of zombies had converged on the ship, and though as they came they were blasted into so much noxious vapor by the defenses, more pushed forward, up against the hull, scratching and pounding and uttering their signature animalistic cry. Of course, even all the zombies on the continent couldn't hope to so much as dent the tough starship grade armor, but that would never deter them. They knew, not in the way a person knows or even a animal knows, but in the most basic of ways, they knew prey was in there, and they would never stop trying to force an entrance until either they were destroyed or the barrier was overcome.
Unfortunately, this wasn't all they had to worry about.
While the locals cared little for the crashed ship, being too large to attack for supplies and already surrounded by a murderous mob of the walking dead, others were very intrigued by the presence of the vessel. The battlecruizer was not far from the mountain range, and there were a number of hills roughly a mile away from its position. From there four figures watched, sharing a pair of high-tech electrobinoculars, unseen by anyone at the moment. They wore no armor, but instead light clothing, relatively clean though in dark colors, browns, grays, blacks and deep blues. They were equipped with what appeared to be slugthrower assault rifles, much more modern looking than the ancient bolt-actions, and one of them had a pack slung over his back that bulged with ammunition, among other things. Their features were impossible to identify behind brown goggled helmets, but it was easy to tell only two of them were human. The third was far larger than any of the other three, eight feet tall, almost ape-like with gray leathery skin, little piggish orange eyes watching the ship and swarming undead from behind the helmet, what little white hair he possessed swaying slightly in the wind. The fourth was almost a complete opposite, only five foot one, with a ebony fox tail not unlike that of Chloe's, though smaller and slimmer. If anyone had been observing them they could almost have fancied they could see piercing yellow eyes behind the helmet. Indeed, with these two on display the two humans seemed unremarkable, but it was the first man in line, viewing though the electrobinoculars, that issued the order.
"We take them now. Let's move."

Northeastern outskirts of the City...
It would probably be heard before it was seen, a whishing noise followed by a soft metallic clang. A steel bolt, like that fired from a crossbow, ricocheted off the ground directly in front of the leader of the Greywatch group, flipping and bouncing to come to a halt inside the party. With the quiet unexpectedness of the attack, it was impossible to tell which of the buildings before them was inhabited by the shooter, but the message was obvious. It was a clear warning shot, one could only have missed like that if they were extremely unlucky, as if the sniper was saying, I could have chosen to hit you, but I didn't.

The commander was the one to first pick up the shot and was far from impressed. She picked up the bolt, holding it in her hands for a moment before crushing it with a snarl. "Drones, Genocide Protocol rank 1." The Drones straightened up upon hearing this command, focusing intently on anything and everything around them. The Leanorian commander smiled, she had a few tricks of her own though she doubted she would need them.

As the Guests clambered out, helped by Chloe for many were still shivering in fear and shock from what they had witnesses, Nathan turned to Avum, still grinning,
"Hold on, if they find a set of tire marks easy to track, what about a whole load of footprints? Would it not be easier to track them" He said it without malice nor without a challenge in his voice, for Nathan was an expert at saying outrageous things and getting away with it for the manner in which he said them. Nathaniel T. Barnes had wrestled his way out of more than one hotspot with words alone. He could use them as effectively as anyone could use guns.
Chloe was still unnerved by the group's attentions on her. She did know if they were used to seeing Aliens such as her. Humanoids with Foxears and tails were not common in this part of the universe. She felt nervous but she knew that she had to be strong. She would not lose face in front of Nathan, nor these other people,

"Anyway," it was still Nathan chatting away as if he were in the glistening gardens of Illesia, "Which way? Left or right? Up or down?"

Even with the few elements which still were actually showing their presence on the planet and the locals, it was no difficult task for the group to continue following the tracks the bus had left onto the ground. Whatever other groups had passed through them, they still had, for the most part, only passed through them rather than gone in the same direction as the bus had, which meant that all that had to be done was to find the tracks once more and they were once again on the right path. Doing so did not take much time thanks to the presence of the Dusk Elder, who could, without much trouble, find the way.

But still, they did have a distinct problem with their tracking of the bus. They were quite a bit slower than the vehicle had been, and even at their best speed it would take hours to reach whatever place it was that those they were tracking had gone.

At least they did not need breaks.

Wasteland...
"The tracks left by the living are indistinguishable from those left by the dead," said Avum shortly in response to Nathan. "As long as we don't walk in any kind of formation, we'll be fine."
The four men spread out, with Avum taking the front, the driver to one side and the gunner to the other, all armed with bolt-action single-shot rifles and a small variety of other weapons apparently quite effective at killing zombies. They were careful to never move above walking speed, and equally so not to make their positions seem like a diamond formation. However, Jeeko somehow found reason to get inside of the group, and Chloe soon found him walking more or less beside her. "How did you come to be here?" he asked her, eyes bright as they studied her features and strange fox-like attatchments.

Northeastern outskirts of the City...
One of the Drones might detect movement from what appeared to be a half destroyed apartment building, gone as quickly as it had come. Aside from this there was nothing but the wind whistling mournfully though the empty ruins, with no indications that would suggest recent inhabitation.

Battlecruizer crash site...
If the outer sensors or cameras on the SLFS Sharkbait they would see the four figures approch rapidly. As the hordes turned towards them there was a flash of green light followed by a heat pulse and a swath was carved though the mob, being traversed the instant it opened up by the beings. A grappling laucher shot out from the pistol of the fox being and reeled him up, landing on the hull of the ship. The other three followed suit so by the time to groaning undead crowd closed again they were safely on top of the ship, out of the grasp of the monsters. Working quickly, silently and efficently, they kneeled on the hull and began to place shaped charges onto it. Once set they found any cover the surface of the Battlecruizer provided and detonated them, blowing a neat five and a half foot wide hole into the side.

One of the humans cautiously peeked over to look into the hole, wondering where they had made their enterence at.
OOC: Feel free to place them pretty much anywhere, you also have a TG.

Chloe noticed him looking and tried not to show her own discomfort. However, her flicking tail was enough evidence of that. However, it was rude not to answer a question and, as a Xiscapian, she hated to be rude above all things, she thought about her answer carefully,
"I'm a Mercenary," She replied, shrugging, "I'm was hired to look after Mister Sheen as he took a few dozen guests around the Galaxy, showing them rare or uninhabited worlds. This is just one of a dozen worlds we have already visited. However, it seems this uninhabited world was not quite as empty as we have hoped." She looked at him again, saw where he was looking and smiled,
"Never seen a tail before?" She swished her bushy tail in query.

Two Drones looked over to a nearby ruin, pointed their weapons at it instictively. Something was toying with them, something was trying to get under their skin. "Commander." Said one of the Drones, the commander looked over, "I felt the presence too, but we have to press on. We're not stopping until we find out what the hell happened here." The Drones nodded and the group began moving again. Theye were all tense, to the point that if someone tried that intentional missing trick again, there was a good chance the Drones would begin burning some real ammo.

Some time after the locals had left their transport inside the crumbling barn, the group of undead could see it from a distance. Not to mention the fact that the tracks of the bus lead there as well. But they were still a bit away from the abandoned farm. Basically they yet could not tell what the living had done after reaching the farm, other than what could be concluded from the place: They obviously weren't using the farm for anything. So, as they continued to walk towards the farm, the Dusk Elder began probing the place magically.

They would know where to go once they got there.

((OOC: I hope you weren't waiting for me to post because all my guys are really doing is following your guys, and there isn't much I can say. Other than that they're still on the trail.))

OOC: Ugh, yeah, I'm afraid I've got a lot on my plate right now. In truth I completely forgot about this thread, and with what I've got going on I'm not going to be able to make consistent, decent-quality posts, so I'm going to have to close it down. As you might have inferred it took me this long, and with a reminder besides, just to post that I won't be posting anymore, so I'm not really in a state to continue. Sorry guys, maybe some other time we can start afresh.

Bump. For my own reasons ;)