"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:

BlackJack:

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

Quote:"find the armory and requisition us some back up weapons. Just to be productive also see if you can find some security logs"

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:

• Devastator Acid Launcher (Kilroy)
• TI-47 Deathwind Slugthrower Sniper Rifle (500) (Valthir)

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

Virius slouched in the uncomfortable canvas seat that the Sentinel Class shuttle provided for its passengers in its cargo hold. We can fly ships through space but we still can’t make a comfortable fold up seat he sighed audibly. Another mission right on top of our last one, Aint no rest for the wicked…I guess

The shuttle shuttered from space turbulence, and Kilroy who was slouched to Virius’s left against the shuttles bulkhead, who nodded off as soon as the shuttle took off from Fort Sexton, jerked his head straight and then nodded it back to lean against the bulkhead. He was still not back to his full fighting shape since he sustained injuries during the squad’s last mission. His helmet was perched on his knee precariously, just as it was about to fall to the deck Virius snatched it up and put it next to the sleeping trooper so it wouldn’t be rolling around the deck.

Fain who was to Virius’s right was methodically checking his rifle to make sure it was in the best shape it could be for their current mission.

“This mission should be a piece of cake, but I’ve said that before and it has turned into a shitstorm so we will see,” Virius said.

“Yeah I know what you mean, I’ve been on my fair share of shitstorms,” Fain replied.

“Knock on wood,” Virius said rapping his armored gauntlet twice on the wall of the shuttle.

Fain went back to checking his gear and Virius continued to look around the shuttle, he saw the rest of the squads in Phoenix doing the same thing Blackjack was, mostly napping and checking gear with the squad leaders and their assistants either talking in pairs or studying the station’s layout on their datapads.

Virius decided he was going to try and get some sleep before the shuttle arrived at its destination. After about five minutes of doing mind relaxation techniques he started to drift slowly off into blackness. What felt like an instant later he woke to the shuttle jolting as it landed on the hanger deck of the station. Virius wiped the sleep out of his eyes and elbowed Kilroy who groggily opened his eyes and then snapped awake grabbing his helmet and standing up.

“Nice acid launcher,” Virius said eyeing up Kilroy's secondary weapon that he grabbed from the Phoenix armory before the company left Fort Sexton.

“Thanks, it should come in handy. We shouldn’t encounter any Dark Trooper droids like last time, but I have this just in case we encounter anything else that’s crazy enough to try and attack us.” Kilroy responded slinging the launcher over his shoulder and onto his back.

“Good, I’m hoping we won’t need anything crazy,” Virius said, slapping a charge pack into his E-11 and racking the reload handle.

Blackjack squad formed up and was second off the shuttle securing the company’s left flank of the hangar deck.  “Damn it’s hot in here,” Virius said to no one in particular as their group searched the left side of the hangar bay, “I can already tell this is going to be super fun.”

Garryll walked over to Captain Havock after she called a meeting over the company comm. channel. “You guys stay put, I’m going to go see what our objective is,” Valthir said moving off towards the meeting squad leaders. The squad kept searching the hangar for anything interesting, Virius and Fain moved a plasteel cargo container away from the wall and found some dead rats upturned on their backs.

Virius picked one up and hefted it in his hand, “Probably died from heat exhaustion,” He then lobbed it at Alater's back who just turned and growled back at him. Virius just grinned underneath his helmet and went back to search for anything else out of the ordinary.

Not finding anything else, the squad waited for their squad leaders to get back from their meeting so they could find out what they would be up to in this sweatbox of a station. Garryll and Valthir walked back over to their position they pulled off their helmets and took a knee to start to brief their squad. Valthir motioned for the squad to circle up and they did so following suit of their squad leaders and taking off their helmets. Instantly you could see sweat beading on everyone’s foreheads.

Garryll placed his datapad down on the ground in the center of the squad, “Okay, our objective is to get into the station’s armory and load up on whatever we feel we might need if the situation hits the fan, also our secondary objective is to find some security logs and see what happened here,” Garryll pressed a button on his datapad and schematics of the station, with their suggested route to the armory, was uploaded to each of the squad member’s HUDs.

“Eclipse is going to see if they can try and fix the environmental controls, for now just try and stay cool by drinking water and keeping your cooling sleeves at a moderate temperature so your suit’s system doesn’t overheat. Okay, you all have the route, Alater you have point, let’s move out.”

Alater nodded and moved off toward the corridor that would lead to the station’s armory and security area. Virius picked up his normal spot at the rear and moved out with the rest of the squad taking an eerily look at the hangar bay hoping that they would get this mission done soon and back on the shuttle and away from this hell hole.

This guy is giving me the creeps. Virius was tasked with watching and in turn having to hold up  the man up since he was very unsteady on his feet. Virius had to pretty much drag the man to keep up with the pace the squad was moving at to get to the security area of the station. Virius just ignored is inconsistent bumbling and watched his sector for anything else this unnerving station was going to throw at them.

The squad continued on and slowed at a four way intersection to the sound of a consistent soft thud over and over again. The squad panned their flashlights down each corridor of the intersection to look for the originator of the sound.  “Sounds like it is coming from the right,” Valthir said moving his flashlight around trying to see the source.

“Well our objective is down that way so let’s go see what is making that sound,” Garryll responded, “Lights off Alater your going to be our eyes for the moment until we find the source,” Alater nodded an affirmative and moved down the corridor at his command.

Blackjack moved slowly down the hallway trying to be as quiet as they could to hear the thud, Virius kept trying to keep the man quiet he had his arm interlocked with as to not give away their position, he would constantly try to talk or babble something incoherent. Alater then held up his hand in a fist and the squad froze, “I can see what looks like a security guard, his pistol is holstered and he just keeps walking into a wall, his head hitting the wall is making the thud,” He said quietly over the comm.

“On my lead, turn on your lights, Alater you get closer and be ready to grab his weapon, no need to spook him into shooting,” Garryll ordered.

Alater moved closer to the guard and Garryll clicked his rifles light on as did the rest of the squad. Alater moved in quickly and pulled the guard’s pistol cleanly out of its holster at the guard’s right hip. The guard just crouched to the ground trying to cover his eyes from the squads blinding lights. From the insignia on his sleeve he was a corporal and the patch he wore above it looked like he was assigned to the Zeta replacement team.

“Are you from Zeta Team? I’m Captain Gates, Phoenix Company Stormtrooper. Identify yourself?” Garryll said moving closer to the guard.

The guard just cowered away from the squad leader, Alater in turn picked up the corporal by the back of his sweat stained uniform and set him on his feet. The guard then reached at Garryll’s chest and pleaded nervously, “We were the replacements and we found no one to replace…”

Alater backhanded the corporal slightly across the back of the head which got him off of their squad leader and seemed to knock some sense into him.

The corporal swiped some sweat away from his forehead and stared at the squad members then looked at Garryll seeming to collect himself, “Sorry about that sir, I’m Corporal Raymond Pierce, I arrived with Zeta team, um…I’m not sure how long ago that was,” the corporal said, blinking and running a hand through his sweat drenched hair, “Who are you guys?”

“We’re Blackjack squad from Phoenix Company, we were sent here to find out what happened after you guys arrived and never reported in,” Garryll said to the guard. “Come with us to the security station and we can maybe find out what you and LaMount can tell us.”

“Can I get my weapon back sir?” Pierce said to Garryll.

“Until we know what happened for sure, we’ll keep that, don’t worry we won’t let anything happen to you,” Garryll responded placing his hand on the corporal’s shoulder.

The squad started to move down the corridor some more until they came upon the security station, Virius handed LaMount off to Fain to watch and moved up to the security station’s armored door. Virius inspected the door mechanism and palmed the release, “Door looks inoperable sir.”

“See what you can do with it, with the power and computers still off you probably won’t be able to do anything though,” Garryll responded flashing his flashlight through the transperisteel that looked into the security station itself, “Looks empty.”

Virius pried off the door mechanisms cover and used a ohmmeter to check to see if there was power going to the door. Finding that there wasn’t Virius pulled a small remote power source out of his assault pack and set it on the ground. He flipped a switch and the power source glowed a soft white indicating it was on. He then pulled out two of the wires that went to the door mechanism and spliced them into the power sources attached cords.

The screen panel next to the door flashed on and Virius palmed the door mechanism again. The words “LOCKED” in red flashed on the screen. “Hey Pierce do you by and chance have the access card for this door?” Virius said in the corporal’s direction.

“We were supposed to get them from Epsilon team but we never found them,” Pierce said shrugging his shoulders.

“Well I will have to do this the hard way then,” Virius said turning back to the panel pulling out his custom filled slicertool. He plugged the attached retractable cable into the screen panels access port and began typing away furiously on the tool uploading a standard Imperial door cracking software.

“I should have it open in a moment or so,” Virius said to no one in particular. Just as he said it the armored security door lock disengaged and the door slid slowly open.

The security room door slid slowly opened and revealed a normal looking security station for a standard Imperial Research station, to the front there was a clerks desk with two offices flanking it and to the right there was the stations armored armory door, to the left was the station’s brig two cells with their doors open empty.

“Sergeant I’ll get to work on the armory door u access those security logs and find out what happened around here, Kilroy you watch the door, and Val and Fain can ask our two guests what they know in one of the security offices,” Garryll said moving over to the armory door, with Valthir and Fain moving into the right office to ask the two station employees what they knew. Alater kept an eye out on the interrogation and stood guard inside the room in case any of their guests were to get out of hand.

Virius moved behind the clerk’s desk and opened his slicer tool and turned on the clerk’s computer. The clerk’s computer started to boot up and the slicer connected his tool into the stations security computer to try and pull what information he could about what happened. The station’s computer loaded up and stopped with a login screen.

Virius uploaded one of his personal password cracking programs and waited for it to do its work. He laid back in the semi-comfy clerk chair and wiped away a new sheen of sweat off his brow with his black handkerchief. He wrung it out with his hands onto the floor and pulled out his canteen, he dumped some of the water on the kerchief and tied it around his neck to try and cool him off some. After doing that he took a swig out of the canteen and replaced it in its respectful pouch.

The program was still working the password and Virius watched as Garryll closely inspected the armory door’s internal locking mechanism after he pulled off the panel. All of a sudden Kilroy alerted over the comm. channel, “Heads up Jack’s and dogs, we got company.” Virius and Garryll jumped up and sprinted over to the door their weapons at the ready.

“I heard something coming from down the corridor,” Kilroy said shining his rifle’s flashlight down the hall.

Suddenly a MSE droid squealed into the flashlight’s cone of illumination and stopped, it squeaked and floored it in full reverse in surprise. Kilroy took the opportunity while the droid was spinning its wheels to shoot at it. He missed the small target but his bolt’s concussion flipped the droid on its side.

“Good shot, I’m glad u didn’t destroy it, I can maybe pull some data off this little guy. Cover me while I go and grab it,” Virius said patting Kilroy on the shoulder to signal he was coming past him and walking over to the droid still squeaking and trying to spin its tires to get away. “No you don’t little guy, your going to tell me what you’ve seen.”

He walked back over to the security room and sat back down at the clerk’s desk, he set the droid on its back and flipped its power switch so he wouldn’t have a chance to get away even if he wanted to. Garryll moved back to the armory door and said, “As soon as you get any useful data forward it to me so I can send it to the cap’n.”

“Roger that sir,” Virius responded also seeing that his password cracking program did its job and logged him into the station’s security computer. He typed on the keyboard and pulled up the most recent logs, the most recent one was from right after the station went silent, Looks like they took a ship aboard that the crew needed medical attention, Huh? That’s interesting, well I will download all the recent activity and send it up higher and let them figure this stuff out. He copied the files onto his slicer tool and sent a copy to his squad leader’s datapad and CCed a copy to the company commander.

“I just sent you and Captain Havock the security files, I’m going to work on the droid now and as soon as I find anything I will send it your way,” Virius said to Garryll who was still working on the armory door.

“Good, thanks.” Garryll responded and crossed two wires with a spark the door’s mechanism unlocked, “Hey sergeant, give me a hand with this door.”

Alater nodded and moved over to the armory door and dug into the metal with his claws and pulled the door slowly open to the left. Garryll cleared the armory with his rifle and said, “Grab what you want and extra ammo, the CO and I aren’t getting a good vibe from this place and I want us to be prepared.”

Alater grinned and walked into the armory surveying the different types of equipment they were getting full reign at. Virius plugged his slicertool into the droid and started the download of its data then excitedly jumped up towards the armory. As soon as Alater walked out with his fill Virius brushed past him and surveyed the equipment.

His eyes fell on one of his favorite weapons, the A280 armor piercing rifle, and this one had an attached grenade launcher, he gave out a devilish giggle and slung his E-11 on his back and picked up the A280 with grenade launcher and cleared them both. “Now this is my kind of weapon,” He switched all of his E-11 power packs into his assault pack and loaded up on the armor piercing rounds. He also loaded up with an assortment of grenades for the launcher, a mix of high explosive, buckshot and a few flares.

Virius grinned and walked out of the armory and back to the clerk’s desk, setting his newly acquired rifle on the desk he spun his slicer tool around to face him and sent the data he retrieve to his squad leader and their CO. He rounded the desk and sat back into the comfy chair, knowing they might be there for a little while the senior sergeant pulled out one of his favorite Rheagant Gold Cigar, he smelled its enticing aroma, cut it with his knife and lit the end with his Imperial issue zippo. He pulled on it and blew a smoke ring savoring the flavor as the smoke rose towards the ceiling.

He watched as the smoke lazily moved up then disappeared into the stations ventilation system, Huh? I thought the system was in-op. He took another drag on the cigar and blew upwards again, he watched as the smoke, faster this time, get sucked into the vent. “Hey Cap’n, it looks like the ventilation system is on but it’s only circulating the air and not cooling this place any.”

“Yeah looks like it,” Garryll said stepping to the front of the clerk’s desk looking up at the vent, “Hopefully Eclipse will get the cooling system to work soon.”

OOC:

I'm still not sure what is going on with the whole background of the story so I am leaving that up to the highers I know Havvie has something fun planned for us.

"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

Garryll went back and looked at a few of the older recordings, but none of them had any new information that would be relevant to their mission. All they knew, still, was that things had been fine until Zeta had arrived, and things had quickly gone to hell soon after.

Valthir stood a few feet to his right, eyes flicking between LaMount and Pierce. Valthir’s rifle was in-hand, but held at rest, pointed down at the ground in front of him. Gates caught the eye of Alater and Kilroy, and flicked his glance at their two guests. They nodded lightly, and subtly changed their positions so they could rotate rifles more effectively on the two men, who remained oblivious to the fact that three heavily armed men were now just a second and a half from turning them into corpses.

Virius emerged from the armory, an automated hover-cart following him. The cart was carrying a half-dozen rifles, grenades, blaster cartridges and a couple of blaster pistols. “I’ve got the guns, sir.”

“Good,” Gates said, then tapped his earbud comlink. “Gates to Havock.”

“Yea, go Garryll. Did you find anything in the security office?” Havock’s voice crackled back, tinged with static and interference.

"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," Gates replied, summarizing the discoveries of the last twenty minutes.

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

LaMount’s head swivelled towards Gates like a tank’s turret. His eyes were wide-open and veins visibly pulsed in his forehead. Impossible. He couldn’t have heard anything from Havock that could possibly set him off...

Across the link, there was a sound of Havock talking to someone else, raised voices, then a clatter of Stormtrooper armor hitting metal deck.

“Stop!” Valthir cried, rifle rising. Gates whipped his revolver out of his holster, taking his attention off of the commotion on the other side of the link. LaMount had lunged forwards, knocking one of the Galm troopers - Cipher - to the ground and screaming from the room like a dog on fire. The Blackjack ASL held his fire, for fear of hitting his ally.

“Shit! LaMount went effing insane!” Gates barked, but suddenly, Pierce was moving too. “Get -!”

The ex-security officer was chased by a flurry of blaster fire, but dodged it all as he shot from the room out of another door.

“Gates?” Havock’s voice crackled over the link.

“Shit! Something is wrong with our survivors. They just went friggin’ nuts on us and took off,” the SL replied.

"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."

“Roger that, Havock. Blackjack! The Major has a new mission for us - we’re moving out,” Gates said, closing his link and addressing his squad. They looked shaken by the sudden action out of the survivors after the lethargy that had plagued them for the last half-hour. “Now, gentleman.”

The squad responded to the second prompting quickly, but it shouldn’t have been necessary. Even the troopers who had been confident upon moving into the station were feeling the tension now, as they’d seen first-hand what was happening. Gates picked up his E-45 and slid his pistol back into its holster, but left the covering flap unbuttoned for easier access.

Something had gone seriously wrong with this place. It was a good thing they’d sent Stormtroopers rather than some third relief team, or they’d have to deal with an even bigger problem. Gates could feel it - this was going to get ugly, and fast.

Blackjack left the security offices cautiously, guns primed, loaded and ready for any turn of events. The cool air from the station’s AC was starting to trickle in, and all of them had replaced their helmets. Gates welcomed the HUD and the centimeter and a half of reinforced plastoid over his face.

The ten-odd soldiers were strung out along the hall, each searching for anything that was hostile, hunting shadows with their flashlights and guarding intersections with their blaster rifles. Regular status updates came from each member of the team as they cleared an intersection, side-room or moved forwards.

“Hold,” Alater said. “Something’s up ahead in the hall.”

The massive lizard slipped forwards, every hunting instinct playing into his silent approach. The rest of the Stormtroopers hunkered down, waiting on the Barabel to check what he’d detected. After a long minute of waiting, the sissing of the large reptile came across the link.

“You’d better see this, Garryll.”

“Valthir, on me,” Gates mumbled to his ASL. “Blackjack: hold this position.”

Valthir and Gates moved forwards, not bothering to be as quiet as Alater had been. They turned a corner, and Gates frowned behind his visor.

“Gods!” he muttered. Office chairs, desks, small appliances, ripped-up deck plates and random bits of metal had been stacked up and welded together, smashed together, and generally been formed into a make-shift wall. That was almost expected of a group that was clearly hostile to outsiders.

The surprising part was the grotesquely displayed body. Bits had been chewed out, chunks were missing, organs had leaked out and the entire body was bloody.

“What is this?” Valthir replied, disgusted by the sight. “Has the entire station gone feral?”

“They can’t have - they could still throw a barricade together, and the survivors seemed normal enough until the very end,” Gates grunted. He pulled his combat knife from its hip sheath and severed one of the ropes that was keeping the dead man up. His bile rose as the man flopped about bonelessly, his arm barely attached to his shoulder. Valthir followed his lead slicing one of the other ropes down.

As they severed the last of the supports, the man flopped and crashed wetly to the ground. The humid, hot environment had done nothing for graceful decomposition, and the corpse was truly disgusting.

They dragged the corpse away from the barricade, then left it. They would attend to the last rites of the man later - if they could.

“Get me a demo charge up here, ASAP,” Gates spat into the Blackjack link. “Move it, troopers!”

One of the Galm troopers - he’d forgotten which, but the fireteam had worked with them before and they’d tagged along again - rounded the corner with a demo charge in hand. “Set up, trooper.”

“Roger, Captain,” the trooper replied, and began priming the charge.

After a half-minute or so, the man jammed the charge into a convenient gap in the welds, and nodded. They pulled back, and the trooper pulled a detonator from his belt. He jammed the button down, and a muffled explosion threw the barricade apart.

“Alright Blackjack, move it up!” Gates ordered. The squad behind him snapped-to at his order, and passed through the wrecked barricade, avoiding the burned edges of the barricade.

“How far is the command center?” asked Virius, E-11 pointed forwards, but question directed backwards at the SL.

“Less than one-fifty meters,” Gates said, eyeing his HUD map. “We should be able to get them on comms soon - damn station’s scrambling everything.”

They moved forwards even more carefully. The presence of the barricade suggested that they’d soon reach the still-inhabited bits of the station. What was inhabiting them, however, was up for debate.

An explosion echoed down the hall, from somewhere in front of them.

“What the hell was that?” asked Kilroy. “It sounded like an explosion.”

“It probably was an explosion, and it probably came from Jester,” Gates said. “Command Center. On the double, dammit!”

OOC:

Blackjack will be reaching the command center imminently