Doctor Jym Nezit felt his heart start to pound, his feet slowed of their own will. The sight before him looked more like a war zone than a medical facility. Kim moved past him with an iron expression on her typically soft features. She uprighted a console that appeared to suddenly have more than just emergency power.

"Things are looking up, I can connect to the network. May be able to figure out where everyone is."

Jym took two tentative steps into the room when a groan on the far side reached his ears. Part of a white hospital sheet shuffled beyond a overturned cot fifty meters deeper into the room. A last glance at Anders' frightened eyes was the last bit of courage he would be offered before he continued his approach. The sounds of crunching glass became his theme song as he moved.

"Stand up, who are you?"

Another groan was the only response.

"Dammit, It's Doctor Nezit are you injured?"

He took another step, his pulse quickening. He heard Kim scream before his eyes processed the flash of movement in front of him. He fell backwards the weight of the man...or what had been a man, pressing down on his chest.

The man breathed raggedly, spit dripping from his blood covered mouth as he got closer and closer to the doctors face. Nezit tried to look away, he tried to escape the reality of what was happening. The weight and the smell of metallic breath wouldn't allow such a vacation.

The man moved in jerky motions, smelling Nezit's neck. He was preoccupied and Anders took the advantage. She slammed a crutch into his head sending him sprawling two meters across the floor. He attempted to rise once, it proved to be his only chance as she took the two steps between them and rammed the crutch into his back like a lumberjack chopping wood.

Nezit just blinked and stared up at her.

"You okay sir?"

"Tell ya what, now you can just call me Jym."

She smiled slightly. "Okay Jym, what the frell is that?"

He stood slowly keeping his eyes on the unconscious man before him. Jym wiped the spit from his face and tried to find anything that would get the smell of his breath out of his nostrils. "He's a man, but more." He pointed at parts of his skull and chest. "Exponential hair and bone growth. Which...almost seems to be regressing as we sit here. Help me get him on a cot and...tie him down...I think we need to speak to this person when he wakes up."

---~~~---

Moran had been a good laboratory technician, everyone he ever worked with had told him so. His most recent evaluation listed him in the top tier of everyone in his department. Sure his co-workers wouldn't have minded if he accidentally fell through a transperiglass window, or at least that's the impression he got from their looks. It was also possible he was slightly paranoid, a few shrinks had suggested such things in the past, but Tho Moran was just a guy trying to do his job as far as he was concerned.

The genetics lab had been consulting with another facility on Uvania Prime. The native Shistavanens wanted to know more about their species origins, according to their records they were genetically enhanced by a group of unknown genetic engineers. Observation Platform 86-Alpha was not set up as a genetic research facility, but they did have an abundance of genetic engineers that had been on assignment looking at solar flares for well over their assigned tour of duty. He was told his expertise would be used if they did locate any unknown species near the outpost, Tho just thought it was all starting to smell like a load of crap. Working with the Shistavanens was the first truly exciting thing he'd done since joining the Vast Empire corps and it was all top secret off the books.

He had been expecting a package the day the transport arrived. He wanted to forget that day. It amused him, everything he wanted to remember - like his family back home - was lost to his mind but the one thing he could do without stuck to him like glue.

The sick men on the transport were couriers, paid to bring a sealed container of genetic material to the bored scientist on OP-86-A. Of course you get what you pay for, and these fools thought discretion meant profit, they opened the container out of curiosity then got their reward.

The compound in the container was airborne, not that anyone knew that before it was too late. The crew was focused on the new commotion, the rush they had from feeling excitement for the first time in years. Then the alarms sounded, then they realized something was wrong.

The next handful of days was a blur for Moran, and everyone else most likely. The strong among them took the weak. The command center became a shrine of sorts. The bodies of the less fortunate were piled there in poses and clustered together to form a mosaic of horror he had to endure with wonder each morning when he woke from his night of rampage.

None of them remembered anything from the night, they just started to live separate avoiding each others presence if at all possible, and if they did have the unfortunate meeting they averted their gaze. Nobody knew who did what or why and that somehow made life livable.

Moran had started a vlog, an attempt to keep his research straight to try and reverse the effects of the toxin. It was difficult since they had a mandate not to make contact with the outside world. Once that rule was broken, the next morning the entire electrical system had been...chewed.

A light blinked next to his desk. Moran frowned. Someone was headed towards the medical area, his area. He stood to prepare his confrontation with his former co-worker that should know the unspoken rules by now when he felt it. The tingle in his joints, the pain that always came before the night.

He staggered into the main room, willing his body to wait just a few more minutes before he lost himself to the fury. His eyes rolled back and he collapsed behind the overturned cot.

---~~~---

Moran woke with a start. There was a bright light in his eyes and he couldn't move his arms or legs. The light gave him a pause, the lights hadn't been on in so long.

"He's awake."

Tho turned slowly to look at the two scientists.

"Look bud, I don't know what kinda crazy stuff your into but..."

"Are you two insane?" He cut off the somewhat pretty woman then turned his attention to the man. "First of all you are in my territory, second its late and you both are sweating enough that I can tell we should not be in the same floor much less the same room together. Once the change happens...hell I don't know what happens but it always is worse when we are in groups."

"The change?"

Jym stepped closer. "Is that what happened to everyone? Did they 'change'?"

Moran sighed and fell back to the cot. He'd encountered this, rarely, but he had met others since the botched delivery. Where as most of the crew had some memory, or at least an insight that something was not right, the more isolated among them just forgot completely. It was another component in the puzzle that just didn't make any sense to him.

"We need to get to the command center."

Anders stepped closer looking aggravated with the whole situation. "Why?"

Tho rolled his eyes and looked back at Jym. "All your questions will be answered with a short trip to the command center, of course none of us may survive that trip at this time of day, but hey if it gets me untied. Also there's the intruders to deal with."

"What intruders?" Anders and Nezit spoke at the same time.

"Don't know, but I set up proximity alarms, silent ones. They went off a little while ago, and there's a shuttle in the docking bay. I think our government decided to find out what we've been up to out here."

---~~~---

Havock looked at her datapad in the darkness of the crawl space.

"Seriously, how much farther already?" Jaenna impatiently commented to Joamer.

From what she could tell, Jester was still pinned down in a storage area and had gotten themselves locked in by some kind of malfunction. Blackjack and Eclipse were both just about to gain access to the control room and RAIDERS would arrive in their own unique style from the ducts above. The first objective needed to be getting Jester out of the closet they had trapped themselves in.

"Almost there Jae."

Almost there.

---~~~---

Nezit's mouth dropped open at the sight before him in the command center. The room was covered in a brownish goo, he assumed was blood. There were half eaten body parts thrown around and a small room off to the side that Jym remembered held some cold storage for live specimens. He remembered it because he always thought it was the strangest thing to have in the main command room.

Milling around the room were almost a dozen half-men half-wolves pacing around the commanders office like caged animals. The were waiting for something, or someone. None of them looked pleased to see the three newcomers to the party.

"Why do I get a bad feeling about this?" Anders whispered to him.

"Why am I sweating suddenly and why do my joints suddenly feel like they are on fire are my first questions, I'll work on yours after that."

A loud 'bang' from behind them stopped all thought on all matters of interest. The others in the room stopped their paces and turned slowly to stare at the door. Someone else was coming, Nezit didn't get the impression this situation would end well at all.

OOC:

All squads will continue on this thread until the bitter end. I tried to somewhat describe the command room, we need to get Jester out and then basically run for our lives. Work together, use the discussion topic to coordinate posts.

Gates kicked the door again. Something was happening in the command center, sure as sure. The links were dead, the halls were marked with evidence of heavy combat - splattered with blood, nicked with scratches, dented by blows. The stink of weeks’ worth of death and dying and some other, animal stench had grown more obvious and prevalent the closer they got to the center.

“Sir...a breaching charge will work a lot better than your combat boots,” Virius said quietly.

“Right. Hand me one,” Gates said, sticking his hand at the sergeant. The man dug in his backpack and dropped a charge into Garryll’s hand. He stuck the charge onto the door and tapped the activation keys. The device beeped in response, and the Stormtroopers backed off a few steps.

With a harsh bang, the explosive detonated, but the heavy steel door failed to smash in as he intended.

“God damn, that sucked. Gimmie another,” Garryll said, but as he was approaching the door again, a sudden cacophony sounded from the ducts above them. It sounded like someone dropped a whole truckload of firecrackers and nerf meat, repeatedly.

“What in the nine hells was that?” Gates hissed, aiming his rifle at the ceiling. “Did something get in the vents or somethin’?”

Valthir turned to him to say something, but as he was, the command center door behind Gates groaned and fell in. The Blackjacks peered in, their rifles tracking quickly. “Move in.”

They boiled in, stepping over the broken door, the stench of something awful slapping them in the face, mask and rebreather or no.

“What in hell has happened here..?” Valthir muttered. He poked something with his boot. “Shit...”

“Is that an arm? That’s an arm, ain’t it. Fuck, this is sick,” Gates said. “Move in. We’re burning this place to the ground.”

Blackjack raised their rifles, and their gazes settled on the two nearest targets - two ill-looking people, one male, one female.


“Congratulations,” Gates said, turning his external mic on. “The purge gets to start with you.”

The man’s eyes widened. Gates levelled his E-45. Beside him, the rest of his Stormtroopers did the same, rifles aimed at the two.

They fired, ten-odd blaster rifles lighting up the room red and blue and green, laser fire spitting from the Stormtroopers. The room stood out starkly in the laser fire, Garryll noted as the adrenaline pumped loud in his eardrums - blood stained the floors, the walls; there were dozens of severed arms and legs scattered across the room.

The Blackjacks lowered their rifles slowly, after a second or so of fire.

There was something standing in between the Stromtroopers and their targets.

“Why can’t anyone just die on this damn station?!” Gates barked. The thing looked at him as he yelled and then stomped forwards. “Kill it. Let’s take the kiddie gloves off.”

The Blackjacks aimed again and opened up, full auto. The wolf-thing was burned into their retinas, its outline highlighted by the blazing laser fire.

There was a woman screaming behind the thing, something hysterical. Their guns clicked empty, one by one, and the Blackjacks ejected the spent clips and reached for more.

The wolf’s fur was on fire, but it stared at Gates with yellow eyes, hatred and fury burning across the dozen feet separating him from the thing. It opened its maw and roared, then stomped at him.

His ‘45 was spent, but it wouldn’t have been of much help anyway. He grabbed a grenade off of his belt and yanked the pin. The routine action took only a second, but that was enough time for the thing to smash into him.

Garryll Gates, Stormtrooper Captain and leader of Phoenix’s elite Blackjack squad, was not a small man - only a hair under two meters tall, with a decade of combat experience under his belt. And he’d never seen anything like this before. It knocked him down, its jaws snapping close to his T-visor.

“Get off me,” Gates grunted, his left arm braced across its neck. He ratcheted his right arm back and jammed the grenade into its slobbering jaws, before dropping his right hand to his belt and ripping the magnum out of its holster tried aiming it at the thing.

His mental clock only gave him a moment before the grenade would explode. A trio of blasters fired from his right, and the wolf growled as it was slapped off of him by the heavy fire. It roared again, but was cut short as the grenade exploded.

A bit of bloody flesh hit Gates in the visor. “Wonderful. One down -”

The wolf’s arm gripped his leg, and the half-destroyed creature dragged itself at the Blackjack squad leader. Gates aimed his revolver at the thing’s face and emptied the chambers.

Mox sat on a desk trying to keep a straight face. In reality every part of his was filled with fear. Monsters you can not kill? Mox thought to himself, over and over again. How can this be..... it survived a 90 rounds from a shotgun... holy shit... HOLY SHIT! Mox started to whisper as he fell deeper and deeper into uncountable fear.

“Wildcard!” he heard someone's voice coming from his right. He looked up and right and saw Joamer and Havock standing near the barricaded blast door. After a short while everyone realised why.

“It's silent...” Joamer whispered. Suddenly a muffled shout could be heard.

“Why can’t anyone just die on this damn station?!”

“Clear the door!” Havock called out, while grabbing the nearest thing she could and throwing  it away. Mox jumped of the desk and bounced off the floor using his hands and landed next to the rest of the platoon.

It took a while until they managed to clear the door. Then they were approached by another obstacle; the mutated wolfs pushed the blast door in, effectively stopping any normal means from opening them.

“Damned DOORS!!!” Joamer roared as he punched the middle of the door with his cybernetic arm.  The swung forward and fell out of their frame. Havock, Joamer and Eclipse SL ran out of the to see what happened, rifles in hand. Rest of Wildcard followed them closely.

“Fuck off, you god forsaken monster!” a man shouted while shooting at the mutated wolf, at the same time being dragged by the leg. The wolf was on fire, and didn't have an arm.

“Raiders, help Garryll! Eclipse, help the rest of Blackjack!” Havock shouted

Mox unclipped his vibroblades, swallowed, pushed himself in front of the group. And looked at the two. He then done something incredibly stupid, as he didn't think, being consumed by fear. His instincts were telling him it was best to destroy the danger, rather then avoid; something he would never do if he could think properly. He charged at the wolf.

“MOX, STOP!!!” Joamer roared, trying to grab Mox. But it was too late, Mox was already by the man and the beast. “Damn this boy, everyone shoot at the wolf!”

At the last moment he made a step, that made him jump over the wolf, while at the same time trying to plunge his blades into the fur. Both of them but slided off the skin. At the same time a salve of bullets and blaster fire hit the wolf.

“What the hell?” Mox shouted as he continued to run towards a wall.

The shots made it only worse for RAIDERS, as the monster looked at them, his yellow eyes glowing even harder. Mox ran up the wall and plunged one of his vibroblades into the wall. He then put his weight on one of his feet and clipped the other vibroblade to the back of his belt. Mox looked at the flesh, where the beast's arm should be, unclipped his pistol and shot couple of shots. Two of the them hit the flesh. The monster screamed in pain, and immediately charged at Mox.

“FARK!!!!” Mox shouted. He then done the only thing that came to his head. He quickly clipped the pistol back. After that grabbed the handle of the blade with his other hand, pulled himself up, and with his feet being close to the blade he pushed himself, getting the blade out of the wall. This sent him flying near the ceiling. At the same time the dog beast jumped at reached for Mox. Mox could feel the pawn ripping the back of his armour, but luckily the fangs didn't touch the man's skin.

The only sound you could hear was shouts of Wildcard, sound of shots and reloads, and breathing of the mutated wolf. Mox made a somersault, landed easily and sprinted towards RAIDERS. He clipped his other vibroblade to his belt and ran as fast as he could. In a moment he was by Garryll, who crawled towards RAIDERS, and he jumped over him as high as he could. He made a somersault over RAIDERS and landed behind them.

“Shoot where his right arm should be!!” Mox roared as he turned around, unclipping his DC-17M.

OOC:

ECLIPSE

Confusion. Confusion was a state of mind that could kill. It clouded the mind and usually resulted someone getting hurt. Sometimes fatally. Confusion was what Norith Skarr felt inside the Command Center of Observation Platform 86-Alpha. And it aptly described the situation they were in. There was no coordination to anything. The people turned Shistavanen were still attacking with mindless rage. And Phoenix were still battling for their lives.

Everything sounded muted to Skarr. From the blaster sounds to the growls of the beasts. He did not know where any other member of Eclipse was at the moment. He knew they each could handle themselves just fine, but somehow he was still worried. The wolves were just too powerful, and so far, almost unkillable. Only a few had been killed so far. Each time a new wolf fell, the others grew even more enraged.

One of the wolves came close enough to make a swipe at Skarr’s head. It brought him back to reality as he ducked. The wave of sound hit him like an actual force. No longer were the sounds muted, he heard everything as he should. He brought the butt of his rifle up to the wolf’s jaw, making it stagger backward. So far, Skarr had only killed one and it had been with a lucky shot through the creature’s eye.

Everywhere throughout the center, Skarr seen several soldiers pairing up together to take on the wolves. Ever since Mox and Heliwer had taken on the wolves nearly alone, everything had gone to hell. He had watched Garryll and Valthir pepper a wolf with continuous fire, Zippy and Ion tackle a wolf and shove a thermal detonator down it’s throat, and Havock and Joamer using a sharp piece of durasteel to behead a wolf.

Skarr shot at the wolf currently swiping at him. He tried to think of ways he could kill the damn thing himself. There weren’t many ways he could do it. His mind strained as he fended off the large creature when an idea had come to him. It was his blaster rifle that had done it. He had been using the Old Republic era rifle he had found in the armory on the station. And the idea he had was inspired by the Old Republic. If not for the history books he had been reading, he would not have had the idea so quickly.

Back in the Clone Wars, it was not uncommon for the Republic’s troopers to encounter Super Battle Droids that they could not defeat. And so, the bravest of the clone soldiers would run up to their droid counterparts and fire continuously into their stomach region, burning through the tough armor and creating a hole. Then one of those clones would run up with a thermal detonator and shove it into the droid, blowing the thing to shrapnel. It was a fairly dangerous tactic, even more so with the creatures they faced now, but it had to be done.

The squad leader switched his blaster to automatic fire and turned it’s power to the highest setting. He began firing into its stomach the moment the creature raised its arm for another swipe. The wolf recoiled and still Skarr fired the weapon until the energy reading stated empty. He threw the weapon aside, grabbed a thermal detonator from his belt, flipped it on, and shoved it into the Shistavanen. Skarr’s foot lashed out, kicking the wolf away from him. His blaster pistol came out of its holster and he continued to fire into the wolf’s head, keeping the beast away from him.

A few seconds passed and the creature exploded, bathing everything near it in blood and gore. Skarr wiped the blood from his visor and gathered his wits together.

“Eclipse! Form up on me! It’s time for us to end this!” Skarr ordered.