OOC:

Continue your story on this thread. Squad Leaders, you will have your orders via Comnet PM.

The Sentinel-class shuttle, Lucian departed from the ISD Dominion towards its destination: Arkania. This was not by any means a short trip, it also was not the longest trip the VE had ever been on either. One way or another: Senior Sergeant Ron was going out of his mind waiting for the mission to start.

Anival was playing a game of Holochess with Kanderin Draken, who were currently in somewhat of a stalemate as it seemed neither side was making any progress. Ron had decided to take a brief catnap, hoping that when he woke up they would be there. In a sense, Ron got his wish. The Lucian began to shake violently, which caused anyone sleeping to wake up. Fighting to stay perfectly upright, Ron made his way to the cockpit to have a word with the pilot.

The ship had actually come out of hyperspace due to the intense gravitational wells from one of the moons of Bogden. It was too intense for the ship to be able to maneuver against, therefore the ship began a rather rough decent towards the moon called Kohlma.

"Pilot? What's the situation?"

"Well sir, we were pulled out of hyperspace by some force and it is too strong for our engines to escape. We are making a slow descent it seems towards one of the moons of Bogden."

"So...when is the backup ship arriving?"

"What do you mean?"

"Surely, you contacted the Dominion and informed them of the situation. They would surely send another ship to come get us."

"I'm afraid not. We also have lost our communications due to them being jammed from somewhere."

"What of our companions? Is the same thing happening to them?"

"I am afraid I have no answer for you sir. I would hope they took a different flight path than us and therefore avoided this mess, but even the wisest cannot tell. I suppose if we crash nearby another shuttle, we'll know it's them."

So this was it. They could all die here. No one to contact and no backup on its way. Maybe this would be their new home? Live a life away from the conflicts of war. Life...was a very interesting term. From the earliest days of childhood, a child dreams of what they want to do with their life. Even as an adult, no matter how mature or aged: one still dreams of the life they would like to lead. Life however, is dependent on the absence of death. If death were to be present in a man's life, that life would be then and there forfeit. Hoping this would not be the case for any of them, Ron went back to relay the news to the squad; hoping for the best.

Anival was looking at the game before him, Rykin pointing out wrong moves, and cursing whenever his advice was not taken, and complimenting when his advice was fallowed, Rykin was good, but he was starting to get annoying, the game wasn’t making progression, and they seemed to be at a stale-mate of sorts. Anival took in a breath and Watched Kanderin cross his arms around his chest and look at the board with a fixed expression.

“If you move it, he will capture your emperor” he warned to Kand, who responded with a growl. Anival couldn’t help chuckle. Kand moved the piece despite the warning, Anival smiled Rykin was right, Kand had just signed the surrender and handed it to him,  Rykin stood and cursed loudly, mumbling about Kanderin’s intellect level.

Anival leaned in and smiled, he had him. Before the taste of victory could be had, the ship lurched, and buckled; Ron came in and announced what was happening. The squad immediately started doing there own tasks, Anival started donning his armor, he had been waiting for the longest possible moment, it seemed the time had come.

Waiting for the impact was like waiting for the sun to explode, questions ran through Anival’s head, what if they crashed and didn’t make it? What if he was horribly maimed, would his career come to a premature halt? There were so many things that hadn’t been done, and hadn’t achieved. Finally the moment came, and the ship hit the moons surface.

Anival flew over the holochess table, and impacted on a wall, Rykin landed on Rougeboy, the whole occupants of the ships bounced inside the transport, it all ended as quickly as it had started. The squad filed out of the ship, rattled and bruised but not severely hurt, which was surprising for the damage done to the ship. He wasn’t an expert but he was sure it wouldn’t fly again, later he proved to be wrong as Bacredi corrected them.

Anival started sorting through the remains of the ship, seeing what was salvageable, a small portion of the transport seemed like it would make an adequate camp. Anival continued to rummage through some midsize rubble, looking for his bag. Anival frowned he couldn’t find it, he cursed loudly and quickly stopped, the squad fallowed Ron, there had been a small disturbance. They rounded the wreckage and arrived at the scene of the problem, there was a gruesome pile of human remains, fresh human remains, specifically the pilot.

A few troopers ran off to empty the contents of their stomachs. Anival held himself, slightly, this reminded him of the campaign on Horst.

"We're going to track down this thing." Ron said without any trace of emotion.

"And... then what?" inquired warbird.

"Then?" Ron spoke in a small voice.  "Then we kill it, and do the same thing to it, that it did to the pilot.  I want nothing left of it, understand?  Nothing."

The squad formed up in three columns, and they moved out. Anival looked down by chance, and next to the body was his bag, a small debate went through his mind, in the end a smaller part of him won, he picked up the canvass sack, and tied it to his utility belt, and fallowed the squad.

The sun was setting, and it cast eerie shadows, over the ground. It was slowly retreating behind the horizon, seemingly to hide from the planet. The trees around them seemed to be alive in the wind, almost whispering to them, almost like a haunting warning, Anival shivered involuntarily. The little hairs on his neck were standing at attention.

“Ron!” yelled out Anival.

Ron ran to the back of the small column and looked at him. Anival signaled at a tree, there was blood on the ground and some peculiar footprints, nothing Anival had seen before. The tree seemed to have been scraped of most of its barks, as if it had been used as a scratching post.

“We are on the right track.” Muttered Ron, and took the lead again.

Dead inside? Rogueboy mused to himself. We’re all a little dead inside. Truth was that RB usually did not let himself think about all those times he had to run past enemy emplacements and seen those ahead of him and those behind him get torn into pieces while he survived unscathed. The reason why RB prevented himself from thinking those thoughts is because there is simply no answer. Maybe the person’s armour in front of him had some blood on it and attracted the gunner’s eye? Who knew the reason?

Enough with the mental rambling, time to get your shit together and follow the pretty blood stained trail. Just like in Hvlansil and Gradizzle, leaving a breadcrumb trail.

“I’ll take point.” Rogueboy said, since normally no one wanted to take point.

The trail led them through a series of bushes going uphill, twice they had lost the trail and twice it had been found, once by Rogueboy who had found a blood streaked bone stuck in one of the bushes. The other time Ron had found the trail when he spotted a hand lying on the ground. Finally they had caught up to their culprit, it was reptilian perhaps a Barabel, but not like any Rogueboy had ever seen. It was slightly taller than the tallest Barabel, measuring at an approximate two and a half meters. Its scales were none of the colours that Rogueboy had ever seen in his limited exposure to Barabels, instead of red, green, or gray; the scales were brown.

The Barabel let out a roar as it used a long arm to stuff its face full of raw meat. “What do we do?” Rogueboy asked Ron.

“Open fire?” Ron partially asked and commanded at the same time.

Rogueboy shook his head as if debating before finally taking careful aim with his six-shot grenade launcher. Poom! The sound of the grenade leaving the launcher echoed through the thick underbrush, the beastly Barabel looked up just in time to for the grenade to hit the ground and explode. The explosion kicked up a lot of dirt and smoke, and the squad opened up some small arms fire just to make sure.

The smoke finally started clearing and the squad was startled with what they saw. Nothing there was a small crater in the ground. “Where the hell did it go?” Rogueboy asked as he holstered his rifle and swapped it for the RB-407 repeating blaster that Wraith seemed to favour. While the RB-407 had a much faster rate of fire, Alex felt that the bolts were also much weaker and he always preferred quality over quantity in his shots.

“It’s in the trees!” Anival shouted as he opened fire.

The Barabel let out a huge roar as it jumped from one tree to another over a hundred blaster bolts following it. “Reloading!” Kanderin shouted. Another reason RB preferred quality over quantity; generally speaking there was not as many reloads.

Just then the Barabel leapt from the tree and landed on top of one of the troopers, and began to claw him. The two trooper nearest the Barabel switched for their polearms and each of them brought down the blade as hard as they could. There was a sound that reminded Rogueboy of metal on metal and one of the polearms broke from the blow.

“What the hell...” Anival murmured.

“Bring it down!” Ron commanded.

Rykin looked at his broken polearm in puzzlement. “Oi! Rykin, catch!” Rogueboy shouted as his threw his vibro-bayonet at him.

Using one arm to catch the knife Rykin charged the Barabel who had just finished decapitating the hapless trooper. Rykin jumped on top of the Barabel’s back and turned on the vibro mode of the knife, the blade took a few seconds before it pierced the scale that acted as armoured plating, within seconds the Barabel was dead.

“Report in!” Ron commanded.

“Rogueboy, alive!” Alex called out, while the rest of the squad did the same.

“We lost Arok.” Ron stated.

The squad was silent before Bacredi broke the silence. “Where the hell did that come from?” He said as he pointed behind Rogueboy.

RB whirled around his blaster coming up, just in case it was something hostile. Instead he found his eyes staring at an ancient castle. Four spires rose up with jagged rock hooks protruding upwards. “This looks messed up.” Someone stated as Rogueboy’s eyes took in the bridge, with the moat. The place looked abandoned, and it was definitely eerie something about it told RB that the squad should avoid it at all costs.

“Orders?” Someone asked Ron.

“We’re checking that place out.” The Wraith squad leader said.

It was love at first sight. It was bliss and heaven and all the good dreams he had ever had rolled into one and flying through timeless hyperspace, while nothing else could possibly bother him. It was all the best days he had ever had made real.

It was Omnicet, the “good stuff” that Kanderin had given Rykin at Ron’s bequest, and Rykin felt his contempt for others vanish. It was so gone, that he could stand being around Warbird and didn’t feel like mouthing off to Ron as often as he used to. If anything, he felt happy, and he didn’t even care that he couldn’t move the fingers on his right hand enough to pull his E-11 rifle’s trigger. He just switched his stance around and compensated by aiming and firing the rifle with his left hand, which sufficed fairly well for combat like this. It didn’t really matter where you hit these animals. That is, if you could hit them at all. They were fast devils when it came down to it.

Anival and Jamasis were carrying the late Arok’s body, bedecked in his armor, nearer to the monsters’ citadel, with the rest of the squad covering them, in a v-shaped pattern. They advanced slowly, letting the two troopers carry the private’s body at their own pace so they wouldn’t be tired for the rest of their assault on these monsters.

Rykin , Rogueboy, and Warbird were on one side while Ron and Reek made up the other side of their squadmates’ cover.  Rykin had to hold back a silly, malicious giggle, the Omnicet loosening his tongue to the point of stupidity. It was difficult, because Rykin was thinking about the sheer absurdity of both the plan in general and their chances in general.

Both were ridiculous, in Rykin’s mind. They had lost contact with the Dominion and the remainder of the task groups, and they were stuck without transportation on some backwater moon infested with these rampaging monsters…one of which had already eliminated one of their number. The Barabel, which he had killed. It was easier to think of these things are monsters, even though they seemed all too sentient to Rykin.

It was enough to send a normal, sound person into despair. It was enough to send someone like Rykin, however, into a fit of giggles that he couldn’t help but experience. They were quickly cut off, but they could be enough to alert their quarry to their presence. A swift “Hush Rykin!” from Ron wasn’t even enough to cut them off, and Rogueboy gestured that he should stop.

Through their communications channel, Kanderin couldn’t help but crack a joke.

“I think I might have given him too high of a dosage, Ron.” The squad cracked up, but Ron wasn’t amused.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that these things might have enhanced hearing? Cut the chatter!” The squad all muttered their acquiescence, and even Rykin quieted down. It was about time as well, because Anival and Jamasis had the body in position and came running back to where the rest of Wraith waited. It was the signal to take their positions to catch whatever monsters got caught in their crossfire.

Anival slung his A-280 over his shoulder and loaded his sta-54, and held it level, the creature was taken down quickly but had taken down a trooper, Anival murmured a silent chant, a custom learned since infancy, and touched his eyebrow then brought it to his lips, the trooper hadn't been in wraith long, but he was a fellow trooper none the less.

Ron gave orders and they made sure they were followed, Anival hoisted the body along with Jamasis, the late Arok was heavier than he seemed, and they shuffled to the place Ron had stated, they laid the body down, looking over the body one last time, Anival stripped it of a couple useful items, and ran back to were the squad was hiding.

The noises seemed to be amplified by the silence, Anival wanted to hush everyone for breathing loudly, but he was sure it was just him being paranoid, you didn't live long in the army without being a bit paranoid. Finally after what seemed forever they took the bait, so to speak, and Ron gave the go ahead.

Anival, Bacredi, Rougeboy and Reek quickly ran off to the left, trees and boulders offering a small amount of cover, while Ron, Rykin, Warbird, and Kanderin ran to the opposite side. Anival was alert, looking everywhere, seeing everything and hearing everything, finally they reached the end.  The creatures in front of them hadn't noticed their would be attackers behind them. Ron nodded his helmeted head, and the squad opened fire.

Anival's assault rifle spat out bolt after bolt, they downed a few beasts before they noticed, the jumbled remains looked at each other as if confused, then looked at them and roared, shrieked, it was difficult to explain the noises that assaulted them, though the helmets offered some protection, it wasn't enough to block it all out.

There were only about five of the beasts left standing, and they had gotten far, even after being pummeled by the squads combined firepower. Finally one reload later, the field lay alone, except for the bodies of the creatures. Taking off his helmet, Anival wiped the sweat from his brow, and took a drink of water, he caught something off to a side, he finished the water, and donned his helmet. And made sure he had enough shots for whatever jumped at him.

Then there was a thudding, ahead of them, Anival turned around, and there jumping out of the trees came many of the creatures they had just slaughtered like banthas. They looked as if they wanted revenge, and, a meal.

“Run!!” screamed Anival, and he threw an adhesive grenade, he delayed the timer for ten seconds, so as to get the maximum effect, he only carried three.

The squad ran towards the citadel, hoping for cover, Anival looked up and behind him, just in time as a winged beast grabbed him by his shoulders, and raised him two meters off the ground, Anival raised his rifle, and fired three short burst, the creature let him go and started to fall, Anival tucked himself into a ball and hit the ground, rolling to a stop ahead of the squad, standing up Anival walked into the castle, and waited for the rest of the squad.

Once inside they closed the huge double doors, they made a grinding noise as they shut, Rykin placed beam horizontally along the door. Anival leaned against the door, and took of his helmet, he gulped in air.


“Orders?” asked Anival through breaths.

“Make camp.”

“In here?” asked Jamasis.

“No outside, with them, I'm sure they are warm and fuzzy in bed.” responded RB

Anival burst out laughing, it had come out wrong, but it was more of a laugh of relieve, one which Kand joined in on too.

Anival looked around, the places smelled of mold, blood, and unwashed bodies, he wrinkled his nose. The place looked like it was a weird cross of primitive construction, and modern technology, but somehow it seemed outdated, and new at the same time, it was a weird mix for the inside, the floors looked like they had been stripped, revealing the buildings foundation. The roof went high, as if they were inside a mountain.

“What about a fire?” asked Rykin.

Ron seemed to mull it over, then nodded, the beasts knew were they were, they might as well stay in some relative comfort. They had started a fire with pieces of broken wood inside the building. Anival sat around the fire, and untied the bag of jerky from his belt, it had somehow survived. Anival passed the bag around the odd circle, some of the troopers were all raw nerves, they took a piece anyhow. They were determined to stay calm.

Anival took out a sabaac deck he always carried, and held it up.

“Anybody up for a game of cards?”

The creatures were dying easily.  Too easily.  Most of the troopers weren't even under heavy stress, to the contrary, they were easily slaughtering the few creatures that approached them.  Ron himself had little difficulty dispatching of the few creatures that barred his way.  Something was not right.

They were sentient beings, capable of making intelligent decisions and of using advanced strategies to trap and kill their enemies, or prey.  The fact that they were dying so easily could only possibly point to one thing, they were suicides, leading the squad into a trap.

Perhaps it was bad then, that they were split up.  When Alex suggested the three teams, Ron was initially hesitant, and if it wasn't for the support from the others Ron probably would have kept them together.  Even so, at the time the idea wasn't so bad- as long as the creatures could be suppressed with small groups.  Ron wasn't so sure that they could be...

Up the stairs he climbed, up, up the citadel tower he hurried- his destination being the radio tower at the top.  With that he could send a message to (what he hoped) was an orbiting Dominion for help off the planet.  Everything rested on that one chance.  So up he climbed, meeting no resistance- and fatiguing little- until he reached the top.

And there he found what he thought to be the most monstrous and terrifying creature that he had ever encountered.  It was an enormous Gora Beast, covered entirely with scales from its frilled head to its long, foul tail.  It's head was like a dragon's, with a large snout and mouth filled with tiny sharp teeth.  It had a forked tongue, and long black claws, and it's eyes were elliptical and cat-like.  It was large, but not bulky- and it hopped and leaped around the cavernous tower room as a panther.  Though it did not breathe fire- it spat an acidic liquid which burned through steel and reeked as it did.  But most terrifying of all was a single long claw on the back of its reptilian hand, covered in the black acidic fluid, which projected outwards as an assassin's blade would.  For as it leaped about the room it dug this claw into wood, stone, and steel cutting them apart and leaving everything in it's wake demolished and useless.

This creature, however, had a most peculiar way of moving.  It never touched the ground, or moved on any horizontal plane for that matter, but instead lived upon the walls of the cavernous room as a parasite might.  In this fashion it leaped from wall to wall, sometimes even spanning the cylindrical room like a bird, always hanging on to the wall with the large, poisonous claws that it hand on its hands and feet.

The top room was immensely tall, and open, with a single giant column in the middle of it.  At the top of the this column was a horizontal, flat plane- with an area no larger than eight feet across in all directions.  To get to the top of this column, one had to climb a spiralling staircase that were dug into the walls of the tower; once the stairs became parallel to the top of the tower, a bridge spanned between the stairs and the column in the middle.  The communications system was located on the top of the column, the only place in the tower that the strange creature would not bother Ron.

Yet even as Ron took all of this in, the creature initiated the race between life and death.  It was fortunate that the thing started on the opposite side of the tower; as Ron began his panicked climb up the staircase, it leaped from the wall to the side of the column.  Ron prepared his E-11 blaster rifle as he ran up the stairs, the distance between his position and the bridge seemed ridiculous to him. 

The thing sprung from the middle column, and then after turning about the column twice in following Ron's movements, it leaped for a spot only ten feet in front of him, in anticipation of it's prey.  Ron unloaded his E-11 in the direction of the beast, but it was so spry, that it managed to avoid the spray of fire- leaping from side to side with an alacrity that surprised even Ron.  Yet even though he could not kill the thing, the blaster rifle kept it away from him.  Ron was slowly ascending the staircase, as long as he kept a steady stream of fire aimed at the beast.

He was only ten feet from the bridge when suddenly the power conduit blew in his blaster rifle.  The terror on Ron's face was nothing compared to his cry of fear when he saw the thing leap towards him.  He managed to dodge the first leap, but came dangerously close to falling off the stairs to the impossibly far drop below.  The lizard finally landed upon him, barely missing spearing him with it's massive claws.  Ron was pinned beneath the thing's tail, and was unable to move, only an arm was free from the weight of the lizard.  Ron had a single frag grenade- but in order to survive he had to make sure that the grenade was deep inside the creature so as to stop the force of the explosion from killing Ron.  He waited until he saw the beast's demonic face, and then quickly grabbed the frag grenade and threw it into the open mouth of the lizard. 

When the thing swallowed the grenade, it loosened it's hold on Ron long enough for him to leap down the stairs.  Ron leaped, but could not keep from rolling downwards, and even for a moment managed to come close to rolling off the edge.  At the last moment, when he body came closest to the edge, the frag grenade exploded, sending parts of the creature flying everywhere- and blasting Ron against the wall- away from the edge of the stairs.  His back his the wall first, knocking the wind out of him- and temporarily stunning him for the next hour.

When at last he came around, he warily forced himself up the stairs, came at last to the bridge, and finally came to the top of the column where he found the radio communications system.  He tuned the signals to the Imperial Communications channel, and prayed that his message would be heard:

"This is Senior Sergeant Ron of Wraith Squad sending a message of distress to any Imperial personnel!  Repeat please, is there anyone reading this message?"

A faint message came back confirming Ron's hope,

"Sergeant this is The Dominion, we're sending down aid to your location, please remain in the area so that we can..."

Crash!  Ron looked over to his direct left at the smashed remains of the satellite dish that was used to send out the high frequency radio messages.  It had fallen from the high roof of the tower, and where it had been there was now a large hole.

"Shit." Ron thought to himself.  At least he could safely get out of there...

Clang!  Ron turned quickly, only to cringe as a large metal beam missed him by a few feet and hit the column only a few feet below him.  That caused Ron to look up... and run to the bridge and stairs.

For above him he saw many creatures, all of them ripping apart the ceiling and crawling inside the tower.  There were hundreds of them, and they were all flooding into the tower through the now breached roof.  It would not be long until they filled the entire citadel... it would not be long before Wraith Squad would have company- and the fun and games would be over.

Ron rain like a wild man down the stairs, screaming the entire time.  As he came to the bottom of the stairs he shut the heavy metal door with a vengeance.  That would stop them only temporarily, however.  They needed to get out of the citadel!

Ron yelled from room to room, pulling troopers with him as he raced to get out of the flooding citadel.  He yelled to him, urging them to get out, cursing at them in their slowness and their awed expression of their squad leader running like a madman.  Some of them even paused and watched him run by desperately, only to run after him as they saw what followed in his wake.  Ron managed to get them all out... but that's when it got worse.

Waiting outside was a score more of them, at least thirty in all.  They were motionless, but ready; and as the squad filed out.. they realized that they had run straight into a trap. 

Ron wasted no time.  He pulled Alex and Bacredi towards him, and yelled,

"Throw all your explosives towards the middle!  Do it now!"

A giant explosion rendered the beasts apart.  In it's wake was a single path leading out to the plains of the desolate planet.  The squad stood dumbly; Anival being the only one who could find words to speak.

"Well what do we do now?"

From inside the citadel, the cries of hundreds of mad beasts reached their ears.  Ron quickly motioned away from the citadel and yelled for a retreat.

"Run!"