"All action takes place, so to speak, in a kind of twilight, which like a fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are." Principles of War by Karl Von Clausewitz

"Run the tests again." The datapad went flying from his hand and collided with the chest of a startled MedTech. Staff Scientist Jym Nezit was sick. He was sick of living on a platform on the edge of nowhere staring into the heart of a sun. Observation Platform 86-Alpha had been built over forty years ago based on the paper trail he had inherited. During that time it's ownership had changed hands several times. Yet for the life of him Nezit had no idea why anyone would want to spend a day on OP 86-A. The five years, six months, and twelve days he had been assigned to lead Epsilon team had started to seem like a prison sentence rather than a duty station.

Epsilon had been hand picked from the Vast Empire's best scientist, then plopped on OP-86A with an indirect mandate and not even a second glance from High Command.                   

Nezit had joined the science corps to advance technology for the citizens of the Vast Empire that he had grown up in. Instead he found that science in the military was all about weapons, finding new more inventive ways of destroying other people. He had also become a watered down intelligence officer, using technology to break in and gather information from other groups.

He leaned against the large transperiglass viewport in his office and let out a long breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. The Aneif system wasn't known for much. It had no inhabitable planets and gas balls parading around as moons. The one redeeming quality for the middle of no-where place was the yellow dwarf currently taking up the majority of the view before him. The sun looked like any other he had seen, but the readings the platform collected told a different story. The theory was that with the right experimentation, the solar flares could be harnessed and used as a weapon.

The most amusing thing to Nezit was that his specialty was in genetics not space science. He had to rely heavily on his team to create and execute experiments on the giant Aneif sun, while he longed for some species to understand at the deoxyribonucleic acid level.

beep, beep

Nezit frowned. The last incoming message had been high command informing him that they had delayed sending a relief team for the second time. His crew was almost two years overdue in going home, seeing their families, touching solid ground. He could see it in their eyes, the space was getting to them.

He sighed as his finger apathetically pressed the comm button, which caused his screen to instantly erupt in static.

"Nezzzzit, is that what they call you?"

The image was not from high command. Instead it was a man covered in sweat, dark reddish circles surrounded his sunken eyes.

"Yes." His voice reflected the insecurity he had about what he was seeing. "I'm Staff Scientist Jym Nezit, who are you?"

He coughed. "No time, need to...board."

Nezit punched up a display on his datapad. "Yes I see you, come into docking bay Z35 and I'll send a medical team for you and your crew."

---~~~---

"See right here ma'am, we show evidence of a transport vessel with no known markings docking with OP-86A then nothing. The whole platform goes dark and its been like that for six weeks now."

Captain Ayme Katash rubbed her chin as she examined the display. "And three weeks ago we sent in that team to relieve the crew, what was their designation again?"

"Zeta ma'am."

"Right Zeta, and they've not checked in or anything yet?"

The deck officer shook his head. "No ma'am. We did get a garbled message, mostly static but it came from the platform, after that nothing. Its has if the whole platform isn't even there, all the computer systems must be off. There are only a few scenarios that would end up playing out that way, and none of them would be good."

"Why the hell didn't anyone know about this sooner?" Havock started to pace.

"Well Captain, the platform wasn't in a strategic location and its primary mandate had to do with long term research on sun spot activity."

She snorted. "So the lives of a thousand people are insignificant due to their current job posting? Remind me to kick high command in the nuts if they even think about forgetting where they sent even one of my squads." She sighed, getting a grip on her desire to punch people of higher rank that she was. "Send out a call to the squad leaders, I want them at Fort Sexton in two days ready to be briefed and move out."

"Which squads ma'am?"

"All of them."

---~~~---

Getting large transports on short notice was asking for trouble. The beat up sentinel-class shuttle was cramped and smelled of three day old gronk eggs. Havock stood with her arms crossed towards the back of the cockpit.

The squads had not been pleased by their mission, but Havock gave them a few new toys to play with out of the Phoenix armory. Their objective was easy for now. Board the platform and determine what the frack happened to everyone. It sounded so simple, and that fact alone gave the Captain an uneasy feeling.

The shuttle shook as it decelerated out of hyperspace. "There she is Captain."

Havock leaned forward and took in the darkened Observation Platform 86-Alpha which was dwarfed by the massive sun just beyond it. The platform drifted lifelessly in space like a body floating in golden water.

"Get us in the hanger."

She turned and headed back into the crew area. The squads were in various stages of consciousness as they mingled or slept spread out amongst the seats. "Rise and shine asswipes. We will be on the platform in fifteen, get your gear sorted."

---~~~---

Havock jumped off the landing ramp to the hanger. The stillness around her prompted her to release one of her pistols from its holster. Her eyes gazed through her HUD looking desperately for some sign of life and finding none. The whole situation had her feeling like a lost traveler who stumbled into the mouth of a starving but psychopathically patient beast.

The rest of the squads had filed out and broken off into groups to fan out and search the hanger, when suddenly several muted alarms started to go off. Havock grabbed her helmet and yanked it off to stop the annoying beeping. "What the frack?"

"The suits are overheating."

Havock raised an eyebrow at Karash, the RAIDERS medic, then moved past the annoyance she was feeling to truly take in the stiffling heat they were experiencing on the platform. "Why is it so damn hot?"

"Besides me? Oh and that, yanno, giant effing Sun on the doorstep?" Jaenna shook her head and patted Havock's shoulder.

"Funny." She grabbed her comlink since there was no way she would put her helmet back on in the heat being radiated off every surface. "Garryll, Joamer, Skarr, Snipes, get your asses over here."

They all complied, although Snipes seemed to be more pushed in her direction by Brightstar than actually moving towards her of his own volition. "First of all I want to know why the hell its so damn hot."

Skarr shrugged. "Probably an issue with the regulators, those systems should be controlled by the computer systems."

"Well we already knew the computers were fracked so that's a good place to start, Skarr take Eclipse to the air filtration regulators and make sure they aren't furballed. Snipes, take Jester to the computer control room and see if you can get the computer systems back online. Got it?"

They nodded. "Okay move out."

"You two. Joamer you and I are going up to the command center, we need to access the logs and find out if the team leads did their job and kept them up to date. Garryll, I get a really bad feeling so, you'll like this, find the armory and requisition us some back up weapons. Just to be productive also see if you can find some security logs, if things went bad here there should be some note of it there."

Havock checked her DT-57 pistols. "Alright lets go."

OOC:

Jester:

This is the same post on all threads, no you're not seeing quadruple. Your specific objective is

Quote:"Snipes, take Jester to the computer control room and see if you can get the computer systems back online."

You may encounter members of the crew, they were all human and/or common VE species (check the academy boards if you need a refresher on what species that would be) but we shall say mostly human. You will NOT find more than 9 (and I would recommend the fewer and more developed the better). Everyone you find will seem ill and confused, but remember we are all in a sweatbox so this won't seem THAT out of place to you at first.

For questions about the story PLEASE use this topic:http://comnet.imperialnetwork.com/topic/15333/ I love you all but I don't want to promise that I'll read everyones squad topic searching for questions. So please all questions there.


Specialized weapons claimed:

• Since nobody from Jester claimed a special weapon, I'm giving you guys the final weapon left: Adjudicator Hold-out Slugthrower Pistol  (Jester), you may do with it as you please but storywise Havock gave it to Snipes before we split up.

As always let SL's or ASL's post first please, Carry on.

Therex was pointing his gun at a ventilation shaft, and he didn't remember firing but the smoke and tell tale smell of ozone suggested otherwise. He had to hold himself down when a loud voice shouted, "Private! Report!"

  Slowly, he turned and faced Snipes, and tried to think of what would make sense. It wasn't likely they would believe that he blacked out.

  "I saw something," he finally decided on. It was dumb sure, but when you have no memory of what you were shooting at, its hard not to sound ridiculous

  "Movement up there," he tried to clarify, hoping to save himself. They checked out the wounded ventilation cover and his CO tried to pass it off as heat expansion. Therex started to remember bits and pieces. There was something, but it was so dark around here it was hard to see. His eye implant was even having trouble compensating for some reason.

  "Next time you feel like punching a hole in the station, please ask the managers," Snipes jabbed, getting a laugh from Alan. As they turned to continue searching, Therex was glad he had a helmet at that particular moment. The look on his face could get a court-martial alone, the words building in his mind could have gotten him the firing squad. His grip tightened on the shotgun as his vision blurred. Using all his will power, Therex fought back the demons from his yester-years. He jogged to catch up to the rest of his group.

  Must be Thursday. Could never get a hold of Thursdays.

"Just hold on to your own rope and walk up the cliff face," a voice said in Therex's mind. He was remembering a trip he had taken with his brother when they were younger. They had decided to scale a mountain, but neither knew what they were doing. Their uncle had offered to train them, so they set out and climbed one of the minor glaciers at Csilla's pole. Only half-way up Therex had an accident and slipped off an outcropping of ice and fell almost 20 feet.

  Therex now found himself in a similar situation. He peered up the lift shaft while the rest of the squad hooked up for the climb. Ever since his childhood, Therex had no interest in heights. Turning his view, he looked down the shaft and realized that the bottom was not visible. Whether that was because it was so tall or some trick of the light, it didn't matter. The mere lack of sight of the bottom brought a shiver down his back, and he started have cold sweats.

  Slowly he hooked himself up, and began to lean out into the lift, using all his will power to keep looking up. Eventually he was able to start moving his way up the shaft wall. His hands felt clammy and he began sweating, not due to the fact of the heat, but that was definitely a factor. Coming from a planet covered in ice, he never liked warm temperatures. He would rather spend his time warming up rather than trying to cool himself down.

  About halfway up, Therex thought he saw something again. A small glitch in his prosthetic most likely. It looked like an animal. It had the amber glow like animals have when you shine lights in their eyes. Instead of shooting he closed his eyes and kept climbing. However he could help but let out a small gasp when a hand touched his shoulder. Due to his concentration he had climbed up faster than expected and now Bright was helping him get up. He took her hand and hoisted himself up to the floor. Shaking his head, he grabbed his gear and started walking again.

Bright narrowed her eyes at the body once more before moving forward. While she trusted a veteran like Snipes, she still secretly wished for some familiarity. She would have even settled for having the BJs backing them up. While she was unfamiliar with most of them, the majority of Blackjack Squad was made up of hardened veterans of the elite brand. As she moved forward she remembered the last time she'd been in this kind of situation.

She shuddered inwardly. The last time had been the Watchers. The short battle had taken place on a much smaller vessel that she had infiltrated as part of the crew. She'd also nearly been strangled to death by a friend. She pushed the memory back under whatever rock she had pulled it out from. There were of course other situations that had come pretty close to the creeping feeling at the base of her skull.

She followed her guide's directions around one corner and down another hall way and yet another twist. She wondered if he was actually leading them to computer control room or into some elaborate trap. She watched him closely and began to notice little things that didn't make sense to her. Such as how comfortably he moved in the semi darkness around them. Where she needed the night vision aspect that her helmet provided her, Vrai didn't even seem to notice how dark it really was in the station.

As if he could feel her eyes on him. He turned and gave her a kind smile. “We're almost there I promise.” He seemed short of breath, panting quietly like he'd never had so much exercise in his life. She couldn't tell if he was sweating or not, though he probably was. Of course, he didn't have to worry about carrying almost twenty extra pounds of armor and weaponry.  His already pale skin seemed even more so when she shined her flashlight on him.

“Just checking to see if your not going to kick the bucket on us, Dr. Halofall.” She said, sounding concerned.

“Please, just call me Vrai. I never was one for formalities. I never did catch your name.” He said looking over at her helmeted face.

“I never gave it.” She said simply, though not unkindly. “Vrai, where is everyone? Our intel says there should be over one thousand in personnel on this station.” Bright asked trying to figure out why she was so on edge.

“Honestly I don't know. It is strange though.” Vrai said looking about him.

She chinned the comm unit in her helmet to the private channel she'd set up with Snipes. “Something isn't right here.” She stated.

“No argument here.” Snipes replied. His voice seemed strained and on edge. It also sounded as though he was actively trying not to sound strained and tense. “Our guide?”

“There is definitely something not right about him. I meant where are all the damn people?” Bright continued to move in the direction they had been heading. She was sweating in her armor and regretted not cutting her hair when she had the chance. Her desire to remove her helmet and simply be able to breathe freer was overwhelming. Brightstar was not a claustrophobic person, but the heat and close quarters of her helmet and armor sent a shiver of panic through her. 

“Other than that half eaten carcass back there, and Dr. Halofall here. I have no idea.” The squad leader replied. “Any ideas on what may have happened to them?”

Bright thought back to the man that had been displayed on the barrier. So Snipes had noticed the same thing she had. She'd naturally kept her boys back so that she could check things out. She hoped vehemently that she would not encounter whatever had caused such a mess. As for the missing people of which there should have been many many more of? She couldn't think of a single thing that would cause that many people to vanish with so little trace.

“I got nothin'.” She said back. “Look I'll keep watching Halofall, just....” She trailed off trying to find the right words. “Just watch our backs. I do want to live to a ripe old age, and die on some planet somewhere, not on this metal death trap.” There were other things she would like to have said she wanted, but this was neither the time nor the place.

“I'll do what I can.” He replied. “We should be about there according to the signs on the walls. Keep him in your sight. Snipes out.”

Bright nodded and kept watching the good doctor. To her right Psycho, kept turning his head like he was looking at something. “Psycho, you okay?” She asked.

He looked at her and shrugged. “I keep seeing spots in the shadows. I don't know, probably just me. I'm getting a heat headache. I hope Eclipse gets those air ducts working soon.”

Bright nodded. “They need power first. We do our job first. Then worry about whether or not the air ducts work.”

“Yes, Ma'am.” Psycho said with a nod.

A few more turns and a particularly dark and narrow passageway later, the stood in front of the control room door.  Bright couldn't help but think that things seemed too easy. “Boss, we're here.” She said cautiously. She would not open that door unless she was sure that Snipes was ready for her too. You just never could tell what was behind strange doors you knew nothing about.

"Jym...Jym..."

The world slapped him in the face, waking him from his slumber. Nezit's face was wet and his body cold. His naked skin stretched out in an awkward position against the laboratory floor. A shaky hand reached up slowly to brush sweat soaked hair out of his blurry eyes.

He jerked violently backwards like an animal in captivity for too long.

"Shh, Jym its me."

He squinted trying to make out the figure before him. "Anders?"

The figure of a small framed woman half lying on the floor near him came into hazy view. She had an over-sized lab coat wrapped around her equally damp body and secured by her hand not touching his face anymore.

Something was wrong, his memory wasn't clear. He had no clue how he got into the laboratory, what lab he was in, or why in the hell he was naked. The short term wasn't the only thing that was muttled, he found himself struggling with things he should have known, like his mother's name or his sister's for that matter. He wasn't even sure he had a sister or if that was a dream.

"Where...what happened?" He started to sit up then found himself gently being pushed down and given a pair of pants.

"Pants first, then talking."

She got up and staggered over to a stool. She was exhausted. Jym realized he had never seen the woman doing anything but operating beyond barriers. She had been one of the primary lab assistants in the solar research facility. Kim Anders did far more work than any other 'assistant' he had ever known, she practically ran the place. 

He quickly dressed, making sure to turn around. When he turned back he noticed that it wouldn't have mattered, her eyes were closed as she rubbed her forehead.

"You have a headache too?"

She looked at him silently and seemed to gather her composure before responding. "Yes, Jym where is everyone else?"

"Heh." He looked around and swallowed as his heart rate increased. "Wait, we are in the genetics lab. This area should be staffed at all hours...why is it empty?"

Anders looked sadly in his direction. They both were leaning heavily against the nearest tables to their position. "I've been up and down this cooridor, I can't find anyone Jym. I also can't remember a damn thing from the past twelve hours or so." She looked away ashamed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to speak like that in front of you sir."

"Kim, I think we are far beyond standing on ceremony here." He staggered over to a nearby terminal. The screen flickered then proceeded to enter a perpetual state of loading.

"Sith spawned piece of crap." He ran a still shaky hand through his damp hair. "We need to find out what happened."

"Medical, I kinda remember an alarm in medical."

"Okay, that works, we can try to fix the computers from there...maybe...I really was never much of a tech."

She smiled but couldn't bring herself to laugh. "I've got you covered there sir."

---~~~---

Havock flipped through the security files. Standard issues, PR greivences, nothing exciting at all. There was an interesting vid, of some kind of disturbance in medical. She decided to watch it as Joamer  continued to question their interesting survivor.

The command logs had only yielded a reference to a transport that docked shortly before they lost contact. Which she had to agree with Joamer, could not be a coincidence.

"Find anything?" Jaenna's eyes remained on Dr. Issac Montrei, the biological geneticist who was asking several personal questions Havock couldn't believe Joamer was answering.

"No, you?"

She looked annoyed, Jaenna had a particular glint in her eyes after she had punched something, it was there. "Nothing of any use. The station was functioning normally according to logs, hell they were boring, then poof nothing."

Doctor Montrei sat back on a desk chair and started to scratch his neck as he changed the subject to include Joamer's diet.

"I'm glad you're here." Jaenna frowned and raised her eyebrow at Havock. "The computers, I suck at hacking, so I'm glad you're here."

"Sure." Jaenna nodded, by her expression she wanted to say more but chose not to. Her decision was sealed when Havock's com buzzed.

"Gates to Havock."

"Yea, go Garryll. Did you find anything in the security office?"

"We've got a tech and a security officer here, haven't found any other survivors. I sent you basically what we found, another vid showed someone putting a hurting on the mainframes."

Havock nodded to herself. "Well since I'm not sweating like a tauntan on Tatooine I'm going to assume Skarr got the coolant systems going. I haven't heard from Jester though. Let's meet up at the control room with them and regroup."

"NO!" Doctor Montrei jumped up from his chair with an agility she would have never assumed for a man of his age or physical appearance. He grabbed at Havock's ear pieces trying to rip it off her head. 

"Good God, what's wrong with you?"

The major pushed him off of her sending him rolling into a crouch position with his head down. He was a fragile old man, who now was raising his eyes to her like a wild cat about to attack its prey.

"You may not go to the command center."

"I 'may' not? Tell you what, you 'may' stand there while this squad points their guns at you."

The doctor growled like an animal. It was off putting enough to even make Havock take a step back. Then before any of them could even react he ran on all fours knocking Dusk off his feet as he barreled through the doors.

"Okay...well that was strange."

Karash made a 'pfft' sound. "Like anything with this squad is ever normal."

"Joamer, what in the hell were you two talking about?"

Her comm buzzed. "Yea."

"...LaMont....effing insa..." The static was interrupted by blaster fire.

"Gates?"

"Shit something is wrong with our survivors. They just went friggin nuts on us and took off."

"I think they are heading for the command center, keep trying to raise Jester on the comms. I'll contact Eclipse and lets get our asses to that command center to see what the hell is so important there."

OOC:

whew finally ya? Okay so Jester you are just about to get a shit ton of company. Everyone else head towards the command center (you should pass a rather nasty barricade before you get there with bodies attached to it, see the Jester thread if you need more detail). You will find more "survivors" but they shouldn't be named just more humans acting like dogs, no transformation yet, but you know where this is going I think. Once you are all in the command center SL's will send me a PM and we shall meet Dr. Nezit

Snipes ground his teeth behind the helmet of his mimetic armor. This whole confined station was beginning to really get to him, that combined with the inexperience and nerves of his squad made that little survival instinct inside him tell him to run. He never listened to it, but the fact that it was present was a bad omen. Snipes believed in omens, portents and prophecy. No particular reason, possibly just a whim and a romanticized view of the supernatural.

Thump. Thump

Snipes spun around and unconsciously activated his armor, shimmering into nothing as he pointed his war worn weapon at the door. Another thump and the door bent, which was decidedly the exact opposite of good. Durasteel was generally in the category of things that didn't tend to bend, if it was bending and possibly buckling then that might be a problem, and not a problem he could really worry about later.

“I'm assuming we don't have any combat engineers? No? Well shit.” He cursed, mostly to himself.

“Snipes, orders?”

“Alan and THX, improvise some grenade tripwires across that door, ASAP. Use the grappling wire from your belt if you have to, it's never any help anyway. Bright, find a back door. Anyone else, take up a defensive position, whatever's out there I want to fill it with holes.”

They didn't bother to acknowledge, instead moving quickly to comply. Snipes was completely fine with that, finding himself a nice cozy office chair to sit in that was the perfect height for using one of the consoles for cover. He could sit and still be covered, he'd already forgotten that he was invisible.

“I see you, but I don't see you.” The voice rattled Snipes, combined with the dark and his already tense mood.

The doctor was crouched down near a console, he eyed the door as though his long lost love lay on the other side, occasionally shooting looks towards the Jester's and licking his lips, his manner reminded Snipes of a dog at bay.

“Oh piss off, you old fart.” Snipes growled.

“Snipes!” Bright hissed in his ear.

“I'm sick of the old fuck,” Snipes said, not bothering to mute his external vocals.

“Oh but I am so hungry.” Doctor Halofall said.

That was the exact moment Snipes decided he'd had his fill. Still quite invisible he walked over to the man and lifted him up by his collar. Snipes stared into those eyes, they looked almost feral and it made a shiver run down Snipes spine. For his part Doctor Halofall did not look the least bit perterbed by being lifted up by an invisible six-foot-three special forces trooper.

“My good Doctor, I've had quite enough of your strangeness.” Snipes vented, “You will obey or I will lock you in cuffs and drag you behind us all the way to the transport. We won't go straight there, of course, we have other things to do first. I will, however drag you by your face the entire way.”

Vrai's eye's widened, but not in horror or shock, but in excitement. The momentary bewilderment on Snipes part was enough of an opening for Vrai to surprise him; he kicked. He kicked Snipes squarely in the chest sending the large squad leader crashing into one of the consoles, to observers a console suddenly splintered and dented in the shape of a man.

As Snipes began pulling himself out of the wreckage of the console Vrai charged another direction, towards THX and Alan. Snipes could do little half crumpled into the console. He could barely even watch as the clearly quite mad scientist barreled into Alan, ripping into the unprotected neck of his armor. THX rolled out of the way almost immediately. For once the trooper neurosis played to his favor.

An explosion echoed inside the room, Snipes helmet automatically shutting out the shock-wave before it could destroy his ears, but it didn't save him from being toppled over once again. Snipes lay there, embracing the floor with open arms when a distinct clunk sounded in front of him; he looked up to see a SCOPE helmet bouncing idly across the floor, once, twice, three times before it settled on it's back, a fleshy mess of neck protruding from it, still leaking blood across the station's already beaten floor.