Dante was silent throughout the briefing, his mind on what he was about to do. Images of blaster bolts tearing through unarmored flesh, screaming humanoids running from the plasma-blackened barrels only to be shot in the back; these and more ran through Dante's mind before he forced himself to think of something else. Still there was one thought that he couldn't stop thinking, one that repeated endlessly like a corrupted message on a datapad: He was about to help commit genocide.

Oh, of course they didn't call it genocide but what else could you call what they were about to do? Their orders were to "pacify any hostiles and secure specimens of the Cleoggi". On the ground that translated to "kill everything that moves and grab the wounded so we can vivisect them in our labs". According to rebel propaganda, the Empire had viewed such actions as normal, even building death-ships with the sole purpose of wiping out entire species. Dante had always written such reports off as the product of rebel sympathisers and propagandists. Now, with the flimsies ordering to do what the shadowfeeds had always claimed, Dante felt a moment of doubt.

I am about to help with the destruction of an entire species, except for those unlucky enough to be caught. I am about to destroy a culture, a civilisation, and then help with the destruction of a world for a handful of raw materials. And the funny thing is, I don't feel more.

Brushing the thought aside, Dante heard Riqimo dismiss them and he got to his feet.

Walking through the corridors of the Dominion, he passed many other troopers and VE personnel, but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to look into their eyes.

May mercy be shown for what I'm going to do today.

Verkur listened intently during the briefing, though his mind did wander. He leaned back in his chair, rocking it a bit on its rear legs, keeping perfect balance so that he did not fall backwards and make a fool of himself. Verkur looke over to the rest of his squadmates. Most were Jester, and he felt comfortable and at ease knowing he had friends by his side.

Once the briefing was done, Verk set his cahir on the floor and stood. He nodded to Aeos, and then left the room. He walked down the hall towards the equipment room to get his gear. As he walked down the halls of the Domonion, Verk felt nothing. Not an ounce of pity or remorse, nothing. Nothing at all for the species he was about to help destroy, and easily at that.

After several minutes fo walking, Verk finally came to the equipment room. He walked in and found other troopers in the room, but saw none of his own. He moved over to the side and watched the door, waiting for someone of his squad to enter so that he had soemone to walk and talk with on the way to the drop ship.

Lucky listened intently to what Doc was saying to the group during the briefing, though she did glance a few times Alan's way. He was staring ahead, looking straight at Doc. Once they were dismissed,

Chairs scraped as everyone got up, almsot at the same time and Lucky waited for Alan to reach her side. She felt his hand on the small of her back. It felt good to have him there. Together, they moved off to the equipment room and grabbed the things they would be needing.

"Wonder what the mines on Strak look like."

"Guess we'll find out shortly."

She grabbed some manacles, an E-11/M, DC-15 blaster pistols and a blaster rifle. She moved off towards a desk which had six huge drawers. From one of them, she removed a few flash bangs.

The mining species they were getting rid of were most likely very sensitive to bright light, so these wer perfect. And what was good about them, was that they didn't blow anything up in their paths. all they did was emmit light.

Once she had everything she neede, she went to her quarters for armour , put it on and left for the shuttle bay. Once there, she saw that a few members of her group were already there, waiting.

"Hey, Lucky" came Aeos's voice.

"Hey Aeos " she replied back.

Lucky climbed into the shuttle, not wanting to stand around outside, waiting for everyone else to join them. The advantage of being alone was that you could think more clearly. Technically, one was always alone. No matter what. Which mean sthat the phrase she knew so well, was so true. She had experienced death more than once. in the hands of doctors who never wanted to listen.

Live Together, Die Alone...

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in, and a minute later, heard people start to come aboard the shuttle.

Verkur pushed himself off the wall as the squad he was with entered the armory. He waited for everyone else, and then moved over to the quatermaster to get his rad suit. After several minutes fo fighting with the damned thing, he finally got it on. The real suit felt a little bit more comfortable then the one he wore in the sim room. He nodded to the quartermaster and walked away.

Verkur moved to the weapons rack and grabbed his two carbines, attacking the first to the back of his armor. The second he held in his hand. Verk then moved over to the melee weapons, and instead of grabbing a regular vibroblade, he took a pair of ryyk kerarthorr blades. He had a pair of his own back on Tadath, but was told to leave all of his weapons there. He was glad they had at least one pair on board. Verkur attached the ryyk blades to his back as well, and in a position so that they were easily accessable. He then grabbed his carbine and went to retrieve his explosives.

After obtaining his gear, Verkur moved over to the door where Jinx waited for him. When they were both ready, they left and made their way to the hanger. Both soldiers boots thudded lightlty as they walked through the halls. Verkur gripped his rifle, and then eased his grip.

"So how you doing? I mean since the sim room?" Jinx asked.

"It was alright. Aeos went and got herself killed in the sim room."

"Oh really?" Jinx laughed.

"Yea. She's insane, and it was a bit strange. Just hopped in the vehicle I stole from some dead guy and drove off. Rammed the thing right into a bridge." Verkur shook his head.

"Yea well, thats Aeos for ya. Always wants to get things done. Its nice that most of Aurek has Jester members in it. Makes it easier for us to work together since we have already gotten past the get to know you stage."

"I suppose thats a plus." Said Verkur

There was a pause in the conversation as they continued to walk.

"So you ready for this?" Verkur sighed.

"Yea. Though I wish there wasnt any radiation. These sui are annoying, and uncomfortable."

"Yea. They can be annoying. I find the real thing better then the sim ones though." Verkur chuckled.

The two Jester members reached the hanger rather quickly, and once onboard the shuttle, they sat next to eachother so they could easily chat, rather then shout across the shuttle. A few of the other Aurek members were already onboard. Verkur sat quietly waiting for either a conversation to start, or for everyone else to board the shuttl,e and hen take off.

Marka had always felt a great deal of discomfort during the transition between gravities; the simultaneous sinking and rising feeling, being able to taste his breakfast again. And this was no exception. As the shuttle slid out of the Dominion, the sergeant clenched his fists around the edge of his seat and held on, white knuckled. It was over in only a few short seconds, but it was long enough to cause some measure of discomposure. Even after every drop he had ever been on, it was still a bother to his senses.

Once the gravity had settled and it was deemed safe to leave their seats, the majority of the squad had crowded around a small table for a few hands of Sabaac. And it hadn’t taken them long to throw a whole bunch of credits in, raising the stakes quite interestingly. One of the soldiers was being quite foolish, throwing cards in too quickly, seemingly without thought. However, the rest of the squad seemed quite content in letting him do so, as it increased their chances of winning.
  While a large portion of the squad was playing, three were left sitting, minding their own business: Aeos, Arnaut and Marka. Each of them were sitting by themselves, seemingly wrapped up in their own minds and issues. Marka had begun to drift back off into his meditative state, not comfortable enough with the squad to join in with the game. He imagined Aeos running over strategies and back-up plans, sifting through every anomaly she could imagine twice over, making sure the squad would get back alive. But when he looked over at Arnaut, he hadn’t the foggiest what was on his mind.
  The two had served together in the ARC a while back, before Marka’s absence. But neither of them had spoken since, and the last mission they had taken together had been a twisted horror. Marka knew that he himself had been altered by it; but for Arnaut, he could not be sure.

Within a few minutes, Marka had completely submerged his mind, closing it off to whatever was around him. But, where his usual period of meditation would kick in, this time he slipped gently and easily off to sleep; something he had not had much of for many weeks. Of course, he hadn’t actually realised he had been asleep until he was awoken by someone’s hand gripping his shoulder.

Aeos raised her tight secured gloved hands to her face, not bothering to stifle the instinct to rub her eyes when she woke up.
Oh shitz it she thought, when her HUD flickered back online across her helmet visor as soon as it stopped detecting REM patterns in her system.
She stole a glance at the squad, already settled with each other, just like any regular squad.


“ATTENTION, seven minutes till touchdown-please report to the drop-zone of the shuttle,”
“Rightio Marki-boy, let’s get going,” Aeos muttered, leaning over to the seat that faced her, she grabbed her carbines that was resting on it, and bolted up. Around her, a new air washed across the atmosphere.
The calm before the storm was about to get a rude awakening.
The group rushed through several doors, before the final one shut closed behind them.  The yellowed floor beneath them were blinking in various arrays of red and green lights, which Aeos supposed was some mechanism in placed linked to the radioactivity measured as soon as the drop-zone’s hatched opened hell.
“One minute to drop-down, expect three enemy targets from mission objective, probably curious about the ship. They may not alert their clans-I repeat, they cannot alert their clans, clear them-“

There was a bump as the shuttle hit a pocket of turbulence, and Dante abruptly woke up. He rapidly turned his head both left and right until he remembered the events of the previous day: the summons five units after they got back from their last mission, the sims, the briefing, and now this. Sitting in a shuttle with a group of officers who outranked him by three or more levels and on his way to a radioactive hellhole to wipe out an entire population of primitives. Oh joy.

The shuttle shook like a thing possessed, and Dante could feel more than hear the whine of the repulsorlifts as they tried to compensate for the ship's weight. Great, just what we need: a repulsorlift failure. Grabbing one of the handholds, he clung onto it as the shuttle tilted first to the left then to the right. Nearby, the others were chatting as though nothing was wrong. Calming himself, Dante tried to ignore the shaking and instead shoved a power cell into his primary E-11 carbine. The weapons glowed a dull red for a second, then emitted a beep. A pair of circles appeared on Dante’s HUD, with a superscript giving such details as distance. Satisfied, Dante reholstered the carbine and pulled out the deece pistol he had brought with him over the protests of Gensius. The small but powerful weapon would be easier to pull out than a second E-11 carbine and had roughly the same rate of failure. 

If it did fail…Dante shrugged. That was what the vibroblade was for wasn’t it? Still, it was unlikely the natives would be able to resist. Watching your comrades get gutted and burned alive tended to have somewhat of a demoralising effect on infantry, especially badly trained or untrained ones. A voice still whispered to him, telling him to reconsider, to stop, but Dante ignored it. It was time to fight, and moral considerations would just get him killed.

There was a crackle of static, and the pilot's voice echoed through Dante's sealed helmet.
“One minute to drop-down, expect three enemy targets from mission objective, probably curious about the ship. They may not alert their clans-I repeat, they cannot alert their clans, clear them”

In other words, blow their brains out.

Dante turned off the safety on his E-11 and was the first out the hatch as the shuttle came down, its repulsorlifts sending up clouds of dust in all directions. The first thing he saw was two of the natives fleeing. They had obviously seen the large transport and were on their way to warn their kinsmen.

“Sithspawn…”

Lucky jumped out of the shuttle and landed hard on her feet. She looked around slowly, taking it all in, Aeos and Marka were standing at Verkur's side, looking at one of the creatures. It was facedown on the ground, presumably dead.

They looked like ugly, brown tree roots to her.Out of curiosity, she used a stick to open one of them's mouth. Its teeth were yellowed and its breath smelled like a mix of sulfur and dirt.
"Yuck" came Jinx's voice who was looking over her shoulder.

"Deal with it. You'll see far worse things later on in your career."

The look of surprise on his face was priceless. I bet he's not used to being spoken to that way. He looked like he was going to say something, but decided to keep it to himself. When she heard Aeos say that they should make sure they had everything they needed, she smiled to herself. She always came prepared.

At the mention taht the tunnels were somewhere near, she took another slow, long look at her surroundings. The land here was barren, the soil hard as though completely made of rock, and shiny in places where wetness had been created but had not dried.

She got up from her crouching position, picked up her E-11 , held it against her chest and watched as the rest of the group busied themselves: Gathering their things together, helping out other members and meeting up with Aeos and Marka who were standing not far from her .


"All ready to go?" she heard Aeos ask the group.

Arnaut was told to kill. He killed. Behind the black visor of his helmet, he was just another trooper, another soldier lost in the chaos that was the Vast Empire. He was a designated number, possibly a casualty statistic in the future. Matters of killing species were in the hands of soldiers above his position. When he was told to annihilate, he did so. The notion that he was just an insignificant grunt, a mere screw in the mechanism of the Vast Empire, made it slightly easier to do his mission. Morals were for sissies. Though, looking at the odds stacked on them, Arnaut was soon starting to think that his notion of being a casualty statistic might be a present cause for concern, not future.

Arnaut lifted his E-11 and started firing, shots peppering the enemy. They didn’t even flinch. From all around, the cleoggi were appearing in large numbers, zeroing in on the small band of intruders that had had the misfortune of stumbling across their planet. The Imperials were outnumbered and outclassed.

“Hold them back!” Aeos was screaming, stalking the impromptu circle of Imperial soldiers that had been formed. She was holding her carbine in front of her, choosing shots, and bringing down cleoggi with ruthless efficiency.  “Don’t let a single one near! The Empire demands it!"

Arnaut backpedaled so that he had two Imperials covering his flanks. No need to try and play the hero and get himself clubbed to death outside the aid of his team. He wouldn’t look so heroic as a bleeding mass of broken plastek and fleshy meat pulverized into the ground.

He continued firing, trying to pick out shots. There he scored a shoulder hit, sending the cleoggi into fits of pain and rage. There he blew out one’s kneecap, causing it to flop to the ground bleeding. There he scored a head shot, a clean kill. Arnaut momentarily congratulated his fine skills with shooting, before realizing that both the one he’d hit in the shoulder and the one in the knee were picking themselves up off the ground, albeit with a slight disability. Arnaut cursed their fortitude and unloaded the rest of his clip into the two of him.

One fell, but the other continued on. Arnaut had no time to reload, no time to get his other E-11. Arnaut decided to beat him at his own game. Arnaut lunged forward, dodging the hasty swipe from the creatures club, and slid out his knives. The sprung forth from their sheathes in Arnaut’s bracers. Arnaut wasn’t sure if they were allowed or not but Arnaut didn’t care. As long as they kept him alive, they were staying.

Arnaut ended up crouching right in front of the creature’s lunging form. The swing carried the cleoggi off balance, and gave Arnaut the opportunity he need. He lashed out, drawing one of his knives through the meat of the cleoggi’s left leg. It cut the muscles, resulting in another howl of pain. The creature landed on the leg and immediately crumpled to the ground. Arnaut jumped on top and thrust a knife through the base of its skull before it could scream a third time.

Before Arnaut had time to move back to the ring, another cleoggi was upon him. The club came down swiftly and missed Arnaut by bare inches, hitting the corpse instead. There was sickening crack accompanied with what Arnaut assumed to be a look of dislike on the face of the cleoggi. Apparently it didn’t much like hitting its friends, dead or alive.

Arnaut stabbed, hitting it in the stomach. Ichor squirted down the length of Arnaut’s arms causing him to jump back suddenly. The beast roared and charged Arnaut, not even seeming to notice the blood pouring down and matting its fur. Arnaut, on his back, began to crawl away from the beast as quickly as he could.. If he couldn’t get on his feet, he was as good as dead. He tried to stand, only to slip off his blood soaked hands onto the ground again. The creature was close, almost upon him.

Two shots clipped it in the head and it fell just a little ways from Arnaut’s feet. Arnaut sighed relief backed up back into the circle.

Around them, there was a nice, almost clean line of dead cleoggi. Only three or four, including the one Arnaut killed, had actually managed to make it to the Imperials and engage in hand-to-hand, which was definitely their forte. The rest were pulling back, retreating into holes, and, for the most part, were pulling back into their tunnels.

All in all, the battle had raged a scant three minutes. Casualties on the cleoggi side were counted as only fifteen, despite the numbers that the cleoggi had brought to bear. Judging from the blood on the ground, Arnaut guessed a whole lot more of them had been wounded. And still managed to make it back. The creatures were tough, Arnaut gave them that.

No deaths on the Imperial side, although Alan was idly fingering the jagged scar one of the cleoggi had given his breastplate. Arnaut looked around at the aftermath, hoping to find the ‘leader’ Dante had felled with a stun bolt in the first seconds of the battle. The place where he’d fallen was empty. Considering how resilient the creatures were to the Imperial weapons, the cleoggi leader had probably walked off. Arnaut sighed. All that and not a single one captured. He hadn’t been expecting to get one so early, but still...the battle seemed like a waste.

“Let’s get moving,” Arnaut suggested. “They’ll be back.” Slowly, one by one they descended into the nearest tunnel. It was dark, darker than Arnaut would’ve suspected, but pretty spacious to accommodate the large cleoggi. And, surprisingly enough, it wasn’t connected to any of the other tunnel openings they’d seen. They’d coordinated their attack without face to face communications.

Either, they were very precise in their timing, or they had other means of communication through the tunnels. Whatever it was, it meant bad news for the Imperials. The notion that these were just semi-sentient barbarians was fading fast.

When the shuttle had landed there were three enemy contacts.  Troopers rushed out in front of Alan and swiftly dealt with them.  From his visor, Alan glared at the back of Aeos.  He thought back to her conversation with him and Lucky on the ship and his blood still boiled.  How dare she question his commitment to the mission, she obviously did not know him at all.  He had wanted to shout at her on the ship but Lucky had held him back,

His anger towards Aeos was pushed to one side as the squad was suddenly ambushed.  Alan quickly grabbed his heavy blaster pistol from his belt and prayed silently that it worked.  Aiming it at the nearest Cleoggi, he fired.  The bolt flew straight at the Cleoggi and its head erupted as it fell down dead.

Excellent thought Alan as he started to pick off target after target.  One of the Cleoggi charged Alan.  Before Alan could react the Cleoggi had bowled him over onto the ground.  Standing over Alan, the Cleoggi brought his heavy club down.  Alan rolled on the ground as the club impacted on the ground, narrowly missing Alan.

Not being able to bring his weapon to bear on the creature, Alan saw only one window of opportunity and he took it.  He brought his boot swiftly up between the creature’s legs.  The Cleoggi stopped its attack and howled in pain.  Alan soon put it out of its misery as he fired a shot into the creature’s chest.  The Cleoggi fell back dead and Alan quickly got up and resumed the fight.

Soon the fighting was over and the squad started making their way down the tunnels.  Alan did not holster his weapon, instead he had it in his hands, ready for anything.

The tedious marching through the tunnels was exactly what the squad didn’t need. Monotonous dredging through claustrophobic and dangerous passages, no doubt infested with incredibly resilient and bloodthirsty savages, was a definite burden on one’s will; especially due to the apparent corrosiveness of the very walls. And as this wore on, each soldier became less and less enthused about the mission. But when the squad had stumbled onto the bridge, everything changed. The room was hypnotic, mesmerising in its own natural way. It seemed to immediately eradicate any and all negative feelings about the mission, about life... about anything. The blue-white light lulled the squad’s senses, calming them. They became less edgy as they peered over the edges at the crystals and waterfalls, noting the refracted light as it danced about them.
  When the order was given to move out, there was an aura of regret being channelled from each troop. The mission would always be first, of course, but that chamber had a resounding effect on each of them. Marka wondered if it had any special significance to the Cleoggi, imagining them at the bottom of the pit, gazing up in wonder, awe-struck by the phenomenal beauty.

Once the gentle echo of falling water had all but disappeared, the squad began to regain a slight degree of restlessness. The passages wound away into the earth as they had been previously, and a distant grinding sound echoed its way to the squad’s attention, furthering their awareness. It was a nerve-wrecking experience, not knowing just how close the enemy was, half expecting a horde of the natives to appear from nowhere to tear the soldiers apart.
  An unnerving thought pushed its way to the surface of Marka’s consciousness. He toyed with the notion that these beasts were simply playing with them. The Empire troops were off their homeworld, facing an unknown number of hostiles beneath the surface of a foreign planet, strolling nervously through the centre of their power. It seemed an impossible and suicidal situation, but orders were orders. Then again, the idea of capturing one of these creatures alive had been violently forced behind the need to survive.

Rather suddenly, the passage broke out into a large cavernous room, its high ceiling far out of view. There was a crackling fire at the far end, perhaps seventy metres from the squad. Though somewhat obscured by the fire, the outline of a rather large Cleoggi could be seen, crouched down, facing away from the squad. Sensing the first real opportunity to snare one of the creatures, the squad shared an unspoken command and slinked into the room, barely making a noise. Lucky, who had grabbed a launcher before they had all set out into the tunnels, was skulking towards the Cleoggi, bringing the launcher up in aim. She turned her head to Aeos, waiting for the command. She was greeted with a nod, and Lucky fired. A steel net exploded from the launcher, trapping the Cleoggi quickly. It writhed about, letting out a bellowing growl that nearly shook the ground beneath them. Verkur stepped towards the ensnared beast and used to butt of his rifle to smack it in the skull.

“It’s not moving now,” he stated, prodding the lifeless body with his boot, “though I don’t know how long it will stay that way.”

Aeos nodded, “Good work both of you. Secure it as best you can, make sure it can’t move once we leave it.”

“Leave it?” Verkur asked, tilting his head.

“Do you want to haul it all the way back outside, and then trek through all that crap again just to get back here?”

Verkur nodded, content with the logic. Marka stepped over to Aeos, a thought playing through his mind.

“We should remove its tongue,” he stated bluntly, idly fingering the hilt of his vibroblade.

“Sergeant, I really don’t th-” Aeos’ words were cut off as Marka was propelled into her, crashing them both to the ground. A Cleoggi had appeared seemingly from nowhere and charged them.

No... this couldn’t have been a trap. How did they get behind us?

“I don’t think they like us very much!” Arnaut screamed above the din of gunfire. He pivoted on his right foot, dodging a flying cleoggi as it lunged past him. He ever-so-gracefully put two rounds in its furry head.

“What...hngrh...” Marka began, slicing through the fur, muscle, tissue, and bone of the nearest cleoggi’s forearm. The limb came off in one piece “...gave you that impression?”

“Nothing really,” Arnaut replied, sidestepping as the flailing, bleeding cleoggi flopped to the ground where Arnaut had been standing. “Just...a hunch.” He took aim and killed the wounded beast easily.

“A hunch, eh?” Marka inquired nonchalantly, impaling a cleoggi’s throat on his sword.

“Yes, a hunch,” Arnaut grunted, mocking irritation. He ducked low as a stone whooshed overhead, and sprung up like a rocket. His knife entered through the armpit of the cleoggi and out the shoulder. The arm deadened, limp and useless, and the cleoggi screamed in pain. Marka came in from the left side and lopped off its head. “My hunches aren’t normally wrong. Anyway – oh, watch out.”

Arnaut shoved Marka aside roughly and unloaded half a clip into a charging cleoggi’s face. The corpse’s momentum carried Arnaut to the ground. Marka ran over and shoved the beast off, pulling up the spluttering, half-choked Arnaut off the ground. “They’re heavy,” Arnaut admitted, looking at the thing on the ground.

All around them the battle was still raging. Arnaut and Marka took one last look at the dead beast that has almost flattened Arnaut before entering back into the fray.

Cleoggi were coming out of the woodworks, just like before, swarming the Imperials and forcing them into a tight group. The Imperials were forced back toward the tunnel, away from their captured prize. They were being herded, Arnaut could tell. Back, behind the fire, he could see two or three cleoggi untying the one they’d almost captured.

Arnaut cursed them, them and their intelligence. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to be primitive, easy targets. Not thinkers, ambushers, and actual enemies. This was wrong, all wrong, all so very very wrong.

Arnaut, in a fit of rage, threw aside his E-11 and lunged at the closest cleoggi. He landed on its chest, his forward momentum not enough to push it down, but enough to give Arnaut ample oppurtunity.to put in a few quick jabs. Blood seeped out of the wounds in its side and leg.

“Lucky, net, now!” Arnaut screamed, taking a small step back from the monster. He turned back to it just as its arm swung around. The blow nearly cracked Arnaut’s helmet and sent him skidding back into the Imperial ranks, knocking Jinx down in the process. As Arnaut lay on the ground dazed, he heard Lucky’s launcher fire, the small swoosh noise the net made as it exited the tube, and heard a cheer rise up. Soon, while Arnaut was still on the ground, the limp, ensnared body of a cleoggi was pulled up beside him. They had their prize.

Someone roughly pulled Arnaut to his feet and gave him a push down the hallway. The Imperials were falling back, dragging the cleoggi for all their worth, racing back through the halls. Marka, Aeos, and Alan were at the rear, keeping back the cleoggi at the tunnel mouth, as the rest of the squad started to get away with the beast.

Arnaut soon came to his senses and ran up beside the netted cleoggi. He grabbed a part of the net and added his strength the flight. They were making it, they were actually making it! Arnaut’s spirits lifted. They could finish this. They just had to make it back to the shuttle and this would all be over.

Even as he told himself that, he knew it wasn’t true. Aeos, Alan, and Marka’s fight was fading into the background noise, and a new noise was become louder. It echoed through the smooth halls, resounding in the deep chambers. It was an eerie sound, one that chilled them all to the bone.

It was the sound of hundreds upon hundreds of cleoggi howling.

OOC:

I don’t intend for our captured cleoggi to stay with us for long. Lose him, kill him, do something. Maybe have us fall in a neat trap or something in the hallways. Something.

Verkur heard the rumble as the frag was struck by the rifle blasts. The whole tunnel shook, and then the inevitable occured. The ceiling collapsed. Aurek kept their run as the tunnels ceiling came down, though more then was needed or wanted. It came down in sheets, whole sections falling down following the squad.

"Jump!" Verkur yelled trough the comlink.

The entire squad jumped forward as one and hit the ground, just in time to miss the last chunks of falling earth. Dust and debris filled the tunnels, clouding the squads vision. One by one they began to stand, coughing and breathing heavy to regain their breath.

"Everyone alright?" Aeos asked, breathing deeply.

"Im good." Verkur answered
"Same here." Marka said leaning against the tunnel wall.
"Could be better." Dante complained.
"I hate these tunnels." Answered Jinx.
"We all do but we have to continue." Arnaut said calmly.
"I hate this whole planet." Lucky said.

"Good, we should..." Aeos began.

Each of them fekt each it, and dreaded it. The floor was rumbling now. Then it gave in. The stone had taken such a bteaning, from both the explosion, and the falling tunnel roof. There was no escaping it, and it came so quickly that the group was caught completly off guard. They fell, down, down, deeper and deeper into the wretched planet. Then nothing, all went black. One by one they awoke.

No one knew how far they had fallen, or how long they had been out for, but they all knew they had  no idea where they were. After several minutes of reorganizing and tending to eachother, they all looked around. The room was amazing. They had fallen onto what appeared to be a bridge made of the earth itself. All around them was water, falling from the underground water falls. It struck them then that they could see. The blue white crystals covered the walls, illuminating the whole room easily. From where they were they could see the middle of the room. A small island sat undisturbed in the blue liquid that surrounded them.

They began making their way towards that island. They drew nearer and nearer, until they could finally see the whole island. All along its edges were staffs, tipped with the glowing crystals. In the center of the island was a table surrounded by some sort of plant. Upon the table sat a coffer.

OOC:

I just wanted to make it known that the credit for this room goes to Arnaut and Marka.

OOC:

Due to the disregard of the previous post's conclusion, Dante's post is to be ignored.

Marka, for the first time in his living memory, took a step back in fear as the seven creatures rose up from the water. The way the seemed to just sit up out of the water, as if rising from some sort of grave, sent a chill through his body. Their stiff silhouettes dripped with liquidr, giving them a blue aura as the light of the crystals was magnified around them. Immediately, these rising Cleoggi stood out from the rest the squad had dealt with. Their frames were broader, thicker. They were at least a foot taller as well. Their features were distorted and twisted, their flesh stretched in some places, loose and sagging in others. Their torsos were riddled with sores, and in some cases, open wounds. But the main difference Marka noticed was the almost complete lack of life in them. It was as if any sort of personality, any individuality had been stripped away, leaving only the bare shells they saw before them.

“You’ve got to be joking...” Arn muttered, standing shoulder to shoulder with Marka.

Although these Cleoggi moved slower than their brethren, it wasn’t enough to give the squad any huge advantage. They had begun scrambling up a bank at the other end of the island, their hulking frames becoming more and more threatening.
  As the squad lifted their weapons, a guttural, bellowing laugh could be heard from above. Simultaneously, each of the squad looked up, spotting a lone Cleoggi standing on the edge of a passage about forty metres above, cut straight into the rock face. He was carrying a staff-like object, strikingly similar to those that were stuck in the ground on the island. It was topped with one of the crystals, but had a more radiant glow about it than any of the others. It was almost hard to look at...

Aeos lifted her carbine, bringing the above Cleoggi into her sights. Her finger was pulling back on the trigger when her target simply turned away, disappearing into the shadow of the earth. With a frustrated groan, she turned her attention back towards the now advancing, mutated Cleoggi.

“Take them down. Do not hesitate or we will all die,” she roared.

The firing commenced, round after round ripping into the colossal creatures. They staggered and slowed for a moment, but never stopped advancing. The blaster bolts were doing very little, if indeed anything except creating new scars. Though their faces didn’t show it, the feeling that the beasts were becoming angered at the constant barrage of shots filled the air. Thick, black blood oozed across their chests and limbs. But they would not be deterred. Though the squad still had some explosives left, none were game to use them after the last time. They had very few places to run this time.

After emptying a clip into one of the beasts, only to have it snarl dismissively, Marka dropped his carbine and unsheathed his vibroblade, sensing his options running thin. There were seven of these creatures and eight of the Aurek squad members, but the fight already seemed weighed in favour of the Cleoggi.
  The right-most of them had targeted Marka and began to quicken its pace of advance. The Sergeant stood his ground, and raised himself onto his toes, hoping that he could out-manoeuvre the creature. It reached him, despite taking another few rounds from Arn, and took an almighty swipe at the trooper’s helmet. Luckily its blundering style allowed Marka ample opportunity to duck around behind it. As he did, he brought the blade arcing upwards into the armpit of the creature.
  With any other enemy, it would have broken through the shoulder and out through the collarbone, completely decimating its body. But the blade sunk in barely two inches, causing the Cleoggi to swing around. Its giant forearm connected with Marka’s chest plate and sent him hurtling across the ground, finally coming to rest in a crumpled heap on the water’s edge. He was still conscious, barely, but was in incredible pain and was struggling for breath. Hoping his lung hadn’t been punctured, the sergeant rose to his feet, unsteady at first. Once his stability had returned, he fell into stance again, waiting for the creature to make another advance. Of course, once it did, he was unsure what he was going to do.

The rest of the squad had fared better so far, though still having to duck and weave for their lives. Arn was playing cat and mouse with one of them, jabbing it relentlessly with his gauntlet blades every moment he found an opening. But as with Marka’s foe, the attacks seemed relatively futile.

His enemy advancing again, Marka banished the idea of killing the beast, and thought instead about disabling it as best he could. His initial instinct was to focus on the legs, and specifically the Achilles tendon. Without time to hold another thought, the mutated Cleoggi had reached him, and took another clumsy swipe. Ducking and spinning behind the beast again, Marka raised the blade over his shoulder and hacked as hard as he could straight into its heel. Howling, the creature fell to one knee. The sergeant was suddenly overwhelmed with hope and the notion of actually escaping the room alive. But as quickly as hope had come, so was it taken away again. Seeming to shrug off the wound, the Cleoggi got to its feet, heel bleeding away profusely. It took a step onto its wounded leg and made no sign that it was still an issue.

It was then that Marka heard a loud shattering noise, followed by a splash. One of the larger crystals on the wall had been struck by a stray blaster shot, broke, and crashed into the water. As soon as it had, Marka’s enemy staggered, its features suddenly riddled with pain. The wounded leg collapsed beneath it, the blood flowingly more freely.

Their life force is bound to the crystals... somehow. Must be something to do with focusing the radiation, Marka thought.

He turned from his enemy for a moment, not surprised at the newfound sluggishness of the Cleoggi. Each of them was moving with the lethargy of being wounded, old wounds opening up slightly.
  Arnaut had witnessed the same thing, and pointed up at the larger crystal formations between dodging attacks.

“Destroy those large crystals clusters! It affects them somehow,” Arn cried, unfortunately being shoved to the ground shortly afterwards. He got back to his feet swiftly though, and Marka turned his attention back to his enemy.

It was struggling back to its feet, though being infinitely more cautious about it. The sergeant knew his carbine was on the other side of the creature, and couldn’t pass by without it reaching him. So, deciding he may as well attempt to go over the top, Marka lifted his leg and booted the Cleoggi in the face. It fell back, and connected with the ground with a loud thud. After using its chest as a spring board, Marka had launched himself onto the other side of the creature, and had picked his carbine up, replaced the cell and scanned the walls for another large crystal formation.

It only took a moment, luckily, as each moment that passed was a moment longer the squad had to fight, and no doubt they were tiring. Marka sure felt the burn of fatigue deep within his body, making it clear that he couldn’t go on forever. After unloading a few rounds into the nearest crystal cluster, he watched it shatter and fall, and took delight in the shriek of his enemy. It squirmed on the ground, and looked vulnerable. So the sergeant fired off a few shots into the skull of the creature, distorting its features further. The bloodied face was thrashing from side to side, arms flailing beside it.

More shots were heard, and more crystals blew apart, and Marka sensed his enemy was weak enough to kill. He dropped his carbine once more, deciding upon a more brutal act of revenge. Unsheathing his vibroblade again, he stepped over to the writhing beast and stood at its head, feet to either side. As it moved about violently in pain, Marka pointed his blade down, lifted it high above his head, and as the sound of another crystal could be heard breaking apart he brought it down furiously into the Cleoggi’s throat. It pierced the skin and sunk deep, and with a quick and vicious twist of the blade, the beast was spent.

“They can be killed now!” he yelled, though the squad had seemed to have picked up on that already. Arnaut was standing on his creature’s arms, pummelling its chest with solid, thumping strikes from his gauntlet blade.

That Cleoggi before... with the staff... must have been some sort of shaman. And these creatures... the few to be affected by radiation and still survive? How do we get out of here? Thoughts raced through Marka’s mind almost too quick for him to identify them.

Another crystal smashed, and the fighting continued.

Arnaut wiped that last of the blood off his blades on one of the cleoggi’s fur and resheathed them. The seven cleoggi lay in twisted piles of hair and meat around the small island, the new wounds open and raw, their liquids flowing and tainting the clear pool. For how much blood was flowing into it, the water around the island remained miraculously clear. It was an eerie sight, watching the blood flow into the water and simply...dissipate. Not natural. Not in the slightest.

Neither were their fine cleoggi friends, Arnaut reminded himself. They’d been zombies, almost. And who knew the crystals could be used like that? Arnaut eyed the raw crystals, still jutting out of the walls, across the pool. They weren’t being used, but Arnaut wondered if they too would be refined to make more cleoggi ‘zombies’. Arnaut’s eyes wandered past the crystals and up, to the darkness that surrounded them.

He had assumed that it was an enclosed chamber, but he could see now that it was more of a shaft that went straight up. They were probably directly underneath the first waterfall room they’d entered.. They were a lot further down now, Arnaut mused. The cleoggi tunnels were indeed quite deep. Arnaut kicked the ground lightly, silently wondering how many more tunnels snaked and twisted beneath his feet.

The rest of the squad had begun to gather around the small stone table in the middle of the island. The locked box still sat in the center with everyone looking on, wondering if it'd be safe to touch or not. It was an odd sort of box, with no sharp corners or straight lines, and looked as if it had be grown rather than built. Made entirely of metal and plastek, it didn't look to be of Imperial make, and the cleoggi certainly didn't have the technology to manufacture such a box. Finally Verkur reached out and snatched it off.

"It...won't...grngh...budge," he said, trying to pry it open. It fell to the floor. Marka pulled out his carbine and shot at it twice. The shots reflected off and made everyone duck.

"You'll get us killed with that thing," Jinx said, pushing Marka's carbine down.

"We might as well take it along with us. There might be something...interesting in it," Verkur said, staring at the undamaged box.

"Only if you carry it," Marka said, already turning away.

"Of course," Verkur chuckled.

“Alright, let’s move. There could be more of those,” Marka said, turning for the only tunnel leading out of the room. The Aureks followed quickly.

The hallways they were in now weren’t like the other ones. On either side, between the floor and the walls, ran two narrow channels of water, flowing away from the pool. All the hallways seemed to have them, flowing next to the wall, glowing with the small deposits of crystals forming at the bottom of the channels.

They didn’t hear any more cleoggi, which was a relief. The large mass that had been assembling when they fell through the floor had seemed to simply fade away. They were probably in other parts of the tunnels, waiting for the squad to make it back up again. That wasn’t a happy thought, knowing that the only way of escape lead right through the tunnels most populated areas.

The hallways they were in, though, were deserted. It reminded them of the first hallways they’d entered. Dark, silent, and foreboding. The only difference was the glowing water slowly gliding past them as they walked.

After a while, as Arnaut’s chron had gone screwy and wouldn’t tell time straight any more, they emerged in another chamber. It was quite a sight. All around the edged, even stacked in the channels of water, were the glowing blue crystals, so many that everyone’s helmet visors darkened the instant they entered the room. But even that wasn’t the most fascinating thing. In the center of the chamber, arranged in nice little piles, were groups of a new crystal, red ones. They didn’t glow hardly at all, seeming almost sinister in the way that they sat, minutely throbbing with a deep, inner crimson light. And then, in the center of them, was one lone orange crystal. Its glow was just as dull as the red crystals’.

Marka walked over, unafraid, and picked up one of the red crystals.

“So there are three types of crystals,” he murmured, looking into it. “What do they do, you think?” He tossed the crystal to Alan, the nearest Aurek member. He held it up, looking at it intently.

“We should probably take a few with us. We can have the labs test them when we get out of here.”

“If we get out of here,” someone commented. It was a testament to everyone’s fear that no one rebuked the trooper.

“Let’s go,” Arnaut said, cutting through the uneasy silence.

They didn’t get far before the cleoggi came for them again. It started with howling, in the distance. Soon there were screeches and louder howling. Everyone started to move faster. Guns were drawn all around, and every trooper checked their power cells at least twice a minute.

Arnaut gripped his E-11 in his right hand and the red crystal in his left. For some reason, holding the crystal was reassuring. It was an uncommunicated taunt toward the cleoggi, as if saying “I have your crystal and you can’t do anything about it” in a bold way that was at odds the rising terror that Arnaut felt building inside of him. If the circumstances had been different, Arnaut would’ve laughed at that notion. But they weren’t and so Arnaut held the crystal for all his worth.

They entered into another room, larger than both the sacrificial room and the crystal chamber combined. The narrow, only about fifty feet wide, strip of land they were on connected the two doorways, but, apart from that, the room was entirely water. Once again, the room rose up and out of sight, with blue crystals illuminating only their immediate surroundings. Arnaut wondered if the shafts were man-made or if they’d been there before even the cleoggi.

There was no time for finding out now. As they started to hurry across, a large cleoggi dropped down, blocking the exit. They hadn’t even noticed him, hanging above the doorway. He was at least as massive as the ones they’d encountered back in the sacrificial room, although not covered in wounds. His staff was held out in front of him with both hands, and the bluish crystal on top began to glow. The squad knew what was happening; they opened fire, all guns blazing into the shaman, trying to bring him down. They weren’t successful.

In his trance, eyes closed, staff held outward, the cleoggi hardly seemed to notice the blaster shots tearing through his body. He stood, motionless, as the shots tore through his abdomen, limbs, and, remarkably, even through his skull.

The water around the Imperials began to bubble and froth splashing up around the trooper’s boots. They started to fire at the water, hoping to kill the cleoggi before they could rise. They weren’t succesful. The shaman finished his work, slumping onto the ground, a steaming heap of burned flesh. At least twenty cleoggi jumped from the water simultaneously. They were scarred and twisted, just like the other ones, looking as if they’d died weeks ago. Arnaut opened fire on them, depleting two clips before he was forced back by two charging creatures. He dodged to the side, nearly falling into the water.

A meaty fist came slamming down, and Arnaut rolled. The cleoggi pounded again, and impacted the ground again as Arnaut rolled to his feet. He sliced out at the creature, enough to make it halt for a second.  A second was all Arnaut needed to scan the walls of the chamber and find which crystals were glowing brighter than the others. Those were the ones holding the cleoggi in their deathless state. There were many, climbing up the wall for at least a hundred feet. It would take time to find and shoot them all. Arnaut found the nearest one and fired. It shattered, but there was no noticeable change in the cleoggi.

Arnaut dodged another two swipes, ducking as another cleoggi swung at him from the side, and began to pick off more crystals. There were too many, far too many. They wouldn’t last much longer, certainly not long enough to try and hit all the crystals.

Arnaut reached for his second carbine, only to find that not only was he still holding the red crystal but that he’d also left his carbine on the ground with the first two ensnared cleoggi. He stared at the crystal dumbly for a second, trying to decide what to do. AS he looked up, he found himself right in the path of another lunging cleoggi. Time seemed to slow. There was no time to move, no time to fire, no time to think or do anything. The cleoggi hit Arnaut full on. The blow jarred the crystal from Arnaut’s grasp and sent in flying into the air. Arnaut saw it, suspended, still throbbing slightly, twisting lazing in open space. Arnaut reached in vain for it as he fell. He could see it falling, ever falling, right into the water next to Arnaut, between a cleoggi’s feet.

The world turned white. In a brief fraction of a fraction of a second, the life entire universe flashed before him, again and again, an eternity upon an eternity wrapped in an infinitesimally small amount of time. Arnaut’s blood turned to ice. His heart flatlined. His skin caught fire and burned him to a cinder. His soul was torn apart down to his very basest existence. Arnaut was dead, had always been dead, and would always be dead.

And suddenly there was life. Arnaut gasped for breathe, his head breaking the surface of the water. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t remember anything, was just barely sure of his own name. He just knew that he was alive. Alive. He kicked with his legs, keeping himself up. He groped for a handhold something hard, anything. He found the land, hard and slick with liquid, most of which Arnaut figured wasn’t even water. What’s water? He pulled himself up onto the land, gasping and shaking.

His name was Arnaut Taran. That was a good place to start. He was twenty-nine years old, standard. Good, good. He was...was...he was. The rest of his memories were foggy as if someone had put a veil between him and them.  He couldn’t remember anything. He couldn’t remember anything at all.

* * *

On the small length of land, chaos ensued. In the water, large chunks of hairy meat were bobbing up and down mixed with a copious amount of blood. The explosion caused by the crystal had sent Arnaut hurtling through the air and into the water on the side of the land. The stone the cleoggi and Imperials had been fighting on had been shattered where the crystal exploded, leaving a gaping hole connecting the pools of water on either side. Three cleoggi had been between Arnaut and the blast and all three had ended up dead. Two more had been caught by fractured stone shards and lost more vital organs and fluids than even their pain resistant bodies could function without. Arnaut had been lucky to survive.

The remaining cleoggi were berserk. They screamed, louder than any of the Imperials had heard them scream before, and ran amok, sometimes falling, other times crashing into one another, but never stopping. Very few of the Imperials were still fighting. Two lay unconscious, thrown by the blast. Others were wandering aimlessly, partially blind and deaf, stunned by the intense light and sound produced by the blast. Aeos, Lucky and Dante where the only ones actually fully aware and conscious. They had been the farthest away from the blast, nearly to the hallway, and had been facing away when it had occurred.

They hurried, not wasting any time to fight the maddened cleoggi, to help the rest of the squad. Together, they started to pull the rest of the squad off their feet and get them reoriented. It was a painstaking process. Cleoggi knocked down those on their feet, especially if they were still dazed and didn’t try to dodge. It was fifteen minutes before the three of them managed to get the rest of the squad into the hallway, away from the cleoggi who were still going crazy. Everyone was battered and weary. Most people were only semi-concious, including Verkur, who still clung to his box like his life depended upon it. His eyes were glazed and he didn't seem to be noticing anything happening outside of five feet around him, but he held onto the box with a death-grip.

The squad as a whole was useless in a fight, but they moved on anyway. If it came to a fight, they’d all most certainly be dead. But they had to keep moving. It kept them doing something, rather than waiting to die. If there was any hope for survival, they had to move and hope against hope that they didn’t meet any more cleoggi.

OOC:

It's a long one, I know. We discussed the crystal ideas on IRC, so, y'know, just come on if you have questions. I think we have the pseudo-science of how all the crystals work down pat, so come on IRC and talk if you don't get it. Oh, and, yeah, my character has amnesia