The March Conspiracy

[Craines]

Within the Asylum, a bustle of activity could be seen. Nurses, doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists all ran about, trying to cure the incurable. It was within this nest of confusion that an old man in a white lab coat slipped in to the facility.

Making sure to keep out of sight of the ample security that had been placed within by keeping his head down and pretending to read a large clipboard, the man strode through the halls with an almost intimate knowledge. Finally, he reached the room he was looking for.

There were two armed guards outside the door, but they weren't expecting an old man. Saluting them both, he walked next to them. One of the guards clamped his hands onto the shoulder of the man. "No visitors. Doctor's orders."

"My dear sir," the old man began, his arms patting the guard's arm gently, "I am a doctor. Now, the patient needs..." He rifled through his clip board. "His medication and treatments soon, unless his condition deteriorates." The other guard began to pick up his hand-held communicator, but both slumped gently against the floor. "Morons," the old man said, picking both guards up and heaving them into a corner. "Thank Jehovah, God, whichever embodiment You may wish to take, thanks for making Liberty so stupid as to not place cameras on this particular cell."

The door had a double-deadbolt keeping it closed, and an old-fashion lock-and-key were required to open it, along with a password and key card. Chuckling to himself, never raising his head, the old man traced his finger across the edges of the door. A few short moments and a terrible hissing sound later, the door's defenses had been compromised. Still chuckling, the man entered the room.

Tannik Seldon sat huddled in his room. Glancing around cautiously, the man in the white lab coat made sure that there were no electronic devices in the room. Finally sure that his identity was safe from the Liberty Government, the old man spoke.

"Seldon, Tannik, once a proud member of the Southern Alliance, now confined due to schizophrenia. Tut tut tut, my good fellow, electroshock therapy? Have we no shame? Well, come along then. We haven't much time. The guards outside are dead, poor fellows, and I don't think we'll be in the best position when they are discovered. So! Let's just get you on this gurney... there's a good chap. Now, we'll just be going, get on my little craft outside, and be done with it. Okay?"

Seldon was too heavily drugged to respond, and did as he was told. Moving the gurney down the hallway at a hurried pace, the old man cried out warnings. "Gain way! Look out! We have a Class Nine dash Four! Nine dash Four, people! Get out of the bloody way, there's a good girl. Open the stupid door, your moron, before he wakes up and tries to kill us all! NINE DASH FOUR!"

No one really knew what a nine dash four was, but it sounded pretty official, and so they moved aside without delay.

Busting through the doors, the old man wheeled the still-groggy form of Tannik Seldon over to a transport ship. Placing the 'insane' man into a cryogenic tube, and then sealing the capsule, the old man placed it into the back of the transport. Activating his ship's engines, the Dirigible lifted off, sailing through the cold night sky. Armed guards swarmed the area, and panic swept the asylum. The bodies of the guards had been found, and after reviewing the tapes, no one could tell who that old man was, except that it was he who had caused the deaths and removed the high-security patient from the facility.

"He was a Nine dash Four! What do you expect me to do?" Dr. Fraltdorf demanded over the communications array. "Actually... how dare you! Of course I know what a Nine dash Four is! It's... it's a murderer or treason patient. Yep, that's what it is."

With the near-riot raging on within the Asylum, no one noticed the glowing armor of the Phantom Shock Troops as they landed silently, preparing to fulfill the ultimatum...

---

[pchwang]

"This is not only impossible, it is physically impossible," said a slightly balding man, "As in...it's against the Laws of Physics."

"We know, Stephen, you've said this a thousand times," said a young woman in a leather chair, "and frankly, if you are going to be so effing negative about everything, leave."

"I'm sorry," said Stephen, the balding man, "It's just that I get so..."

He paused and pointed at a group of young men and women wearing LPI uniforms across the room.

"..pissed when these newbs come in and tell me I'm wrong." Stephen finished.

"That," said another voice, "is because you are wrong."

Stephen and the woman in the leather chair both wheeled to see who had spoken. The man, in his mid-forties was tall, well built, and carried a cigarette between his lips.

"And who the hell are you?" asked Stephen.

"Stephen, calm down," said the Leather Chair woman, "How did you get in?"

"That isn't the question," answered the smoking man, "the question is, why did all these people die?"

"Ummm..." said Stephen sarcastically, "WE have been trying to figure out. If you'd like to help, do go ahead."

"Sure," said the smoking man, removing the cigarette from his mouth, "You are looking at it wrong."

"What?" asked the Leather Chair woman, "What do you mean?"

The young men and women stared at the smoker.

"You are viewing the dead as the victims," said the smoker, "and the building as the crime scene. What happens, when you view the buildng as the victim and the dead people as the crime scene?"

"This is ridiculous," laughed Stephen nervously.

"Really?" continued the smoker, "Did anyone report anything missing?"

"They were all dead," said one of the young men and women across the room.

"Anything missing from their bodies? Anything extracted?" asked the smoker.

"Wait," said other one of the young men, "Flesh."

---

[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?

[pchwang]

"This is where the meat is packed," said the man in the white body suit and white apron, "I'm sorry that this tour has to go backwards, but the door on the other end is..."

"It's fine," said Inspector George Stuart. He had returned to the original site where the RNA of Harrison Gurney had been found.

"Before the meat is packed, it goes through this giant tube, where it is cooked," continued the man in white, "and...oh jeez."

"What's wrong?" asked Stuart, distracted by the hum of a machine to his left.

"Leak," said the man in white, "forgot to mention it to boss. It's been there for a few weeks."

Stuart turned to where the man in white was looking. It was a small platform where the blood and juices of the meat passing through the tube landed. The man in white continued, but in Stuart's mind, a voice simply droned on in his mind.

"Oye," said Stuart to the man, "Is there any way I can get to that platform?"

---

[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?

[Kane]

"Death marches forward!" The front guards of the Asylum only had a moment to register the battle cry before a rocket erupted from the evening landscape. About halfway towards the unlucky squad, the rocket erupted and delivered its' deadly payload on a terminal velocity course to Hell. Shards of metal, each as long as a grown mans forearm and sharpened to almost molecule width, speared the entire front of the building. The guards were dead before they knew what had happened, but the some of the spears continued into windows and doors. Screams began to erupt from the wounded and maimed, and the assault team of Phantom terrorists moved in.

With the panic of the old man abducting one of the patients and this new attack, organized resistance was nonexistent. The Phantom Slayers lived up to their namesake. The chatter of the Phantoms trade-mark Flechette Cannons echoed throughout the Asylum, soon silencing the discordinant chorus of cries, and Crystal Oni made sure not a single signal got outside the building. The Phantoms didn't even bother with trying to find Tannick; Crystal Oni had seen the old man appear, watched the resulting confusion, and determined that their target had been taken within a 99% probability. Thus, it was just time to slay.

Blood coated the walls and floors, pooling in garish and gruesome patterns on the floor as people slipped, slid, and died in the crimson innocence. Those who were lucky died instantly, others died slowly, bleeding to death and writhing in pain. And one unlucky fellow...

"No! Please, you can't do this!" Dr. Fraltdorf pleaded with the 4 Phantoms holding him down. All of them had worn light combat armor, suitable for Black Operations and reconnaissance. Coupled with the white faceless masks they wore, some now spattered with red gems even more precious then rubies, they proved to be quite the terrors. They never heeded the cried of those they butchered, claiming the lives of all within; even the insane patients held inside the Asylum-turned-slaughter house. A fifth arrived on the scene, and looked down at the struggling doctor. His struggles ceased for a moment, and he stared up at the new arrival. That was, until the fifth pulled out a scalpel and advanced. Then the doctor began to scream all the louder.

"No! NO! NOOOOOO! AAAAAIIIIIIII-" His cries continued much in the same vein, rising to an unhealthy pitch within a few moments. And then... Silence.

****

"Jesus H. Christ..." One of the LPI officers finally spoke what each of them was thinking. A second suddenly became violently sick. The press officials, for once, were silent as well. The cameramen panned across the slicked corridor, the reporters staring on with abject terror. The recordings went direct to the broadcast tower, so the whole world and soon the universe would see the blood bath, in real time no less! Cautiously, the LPI and press began to move forward. Deeper and deeper into the Hell on earth they ventured, fortunately the ones responsible seemed to have left. Not that it made things much better. The officers would need psychiatric help after this blood bath. Shell Shock had nothing on this.

One of the officers heard a noise, a soft whimper, and peaked his head into the Directors' officer. There, amidst a pool of his own blood, lay a shirtless and bleeding Doctor Fraltdorf.

"Sweet Mary... Someone get a medic in here!" The officer rushed over to the dying man, trying to find out what had happened to him. A large slit bisected his belly, a wire running out of it and into a closet. Two paramedics ran in and began trying to save the doctor on the table. The officer, meanwhile, slowly followed the wire.

"Somethings inside. Dope him and get me the extractors!" The second medic nodded and opened up the kit each paramedic lived with. A shot was administered to the man to erase the pain, indeed most conscious thoughts, and they next began to open the wound. Carefully, so as not to cause further damage. Soon, the LPI man got to the door, and opened it. Inside the large closet lay an almost as large box. The letters "AMB" were printed on the side in big bold stencil. A slightly smaller stencil lay below the primary letters, reading "WARNING! EXTREAMLY VOLITILE! HANDLE WITH CARE!" Gears churned, electrical impulses raced, and the light bulb in the officers head clicked on as one of the medics spoke.

"What the heck is this thing?"

"It's a-"

****

The light could be seen from space. A rather large orb of light ballooned on the surface of Denver, extinguishing untold numbers of lives and injuring even more. Only a small amount of Antimatter could be contained, even in a bomb that size, but even a small amount of anti-matter was more then enough to wipe out the Asylum and a good chunk of the surface of Planet Denver around it.

Dark Star smiled, the insane glint in his eyes even more apparent now. With a tap of the fingers, he sent the next message away.

***

INCOMMING TRANSMISSION:
DESTINATION: All DoD Offices
COMM ID: -UNKNOWN-
ENCRYPTION: -NA-

Now you know what happens when you disobey me. Fail again, and this will happen on every planet. Can you find them all? Can you stop them all? Can you let more of Liberty die?

It is because of you that this happened. The dead are thus because -you- failed to deliver. You had twelve hours, and you squandered them away. Dillied and dallied until zero hour. And then you had nothing to offer. You had a shield to ward off the hammer stroke, but brought it up too late only to find it gone.

Poor men. Poor, poor, men. Sad little kings of the sad little hill. Do you still see yourselves mighty, or have you suddenly been reminded of your mortality?

Oh, and you can use the crater to rebuild. Anti-matter doesn't leave behind radiation, so the ground is just fine. Perhaps a little hot, temperature-wise, but still useable.

With all due respect,
Mr.Mortifera

MESSAGE ENDS:

---

This is the real true story of rock and roll; it was not about anything more then, how to live your life, as a gangster, in sartorial splendor, and turning the world into a place where normality would never return again...- Malcolm McLaren

[Dab]

The fingers gently tapping the desk froze.

"And this was located where?" The officer standing in front of Luciaden stood at rigid attention in front of the desk spoke, "Planet Denver sir. Local police forces have not yet ascertained to identity of those responsible."

Luciaden allowed a grim smile to come to his face. Though he hated them viciously, the Phantoms were good a good distraction. And an uncontrolled means of hurting his enemies. "We know the parties involved. They tried a similar trick on Planet Honshu. Failed to kill me of course."

"What are our actions sir?" Luciaden began subconsciously tapping the desk again with his metal prosthetic hand as he thought, his chin resting on his flesh hand. "For now.. Nothing. We will make no public displays of being involved in the matter. I want you to send a message to our intelligence ship. Give this to the captain." He handed him a card with special lettering on the cover. "Tell him to use the 'King' decrypt."

"Yes sir, is that all?" the officer asked. "Yes, you are dismissed." The captain saluted and left the room.


Message encryption: GMN-King

For the eyes of Captain Laerasonis only.

W4BA,}AQx,yE3@:#<EXJ]RI.9)RK<@4GAL?u>7L?|8Qr0}E3;J)BQ|7uA7AJ
X8@C0'`Q]yR;;?y?>62yA52J)83:>4B@9DBRw69xRAB?4J:.?4G:2Jd;3;?$@EL
BuAFL,#7Q40)R;AJu;7./4B8L?|8?ZJl<L2=4J;974=A694LAB=4573:'8QF:*R
62;uEFZJ]YH2J)E3;>z8D2/4BD10'FQA:4BG?J)E7.>*EKL?$REB;%?KL?|8Q
?0(BG?.yFQ;0y771X4sEL1$EQx4v8DAD4!3CD@R;3J);7FJ)EKL?$REA:%RK<@B`Q

w4!?QA3y@_

End of message





(OOC: No, its not random typing. *Looks pointedly at Kane.* It actually is an encryption, which can be decrypted by those who know the key for it. [Post re-posted. Didn't see anything about needing an invite, but someone told me I should first. Now that I do have permission, here it is again.)

---

[Craines]

The Dirigible sped softly through the vacuum of space. It was a sight that anyone would see again and again on any given day, for the Dirigible was a Large Train. Now, it had been heavily modified, but no onlooker, or even scanning system, could detect what those modifications were.

However, soon the Large Train was no longer on the trade lanes, instead heading for a large nebula. Setting the Dirigible on autopilot, the old man moved backwards to the cargo storage. There, he opened up the cryo-tube that Tannik Seldon was being held in. Pressing a complicated password in, which he revealed after turning a key, the pod's two halves slid apart. There was a loud hissing sound as some of the super-cooled air was released into the room temperature gases. This dissipated, however, and the old man reached into the container. Grasping the poor sap who was located in its depths, the old man pulled him out.

Tannik Seldon was cold. He had every right to be, seeing as how he had just been removed from a cryogenic freezing capsule. But still, he was cold. And that didn't make him think quite right.

After the two had been acquainted, in which Seldon had tried to bludgeon the old man in the base of the neck with some spare piping, attempted to strange the old man with the sash to his hospital gown, and had tried to bite the old man, Tannik had decided to leave. The ship, from the vibrations Tannik could feel rumbling across the floor, was moving fast. If he wanted to escape, sooner would be far better than later.

Luckily for Tannik, a ship was in the far corner of the cargo hold. The old man followed the gaze of the rescued hostage and looked at the ship.

"Oh no. Oh no, no, no. That is my private vessel, Seldon. No no no." But even as he turned his head back at Tannik, the old man saw him running. "Son of a...! Get back here, you fool! We're still in Liberty space!"

"Does this thing have stealth capabilities?!" Seldon cried out, reaching the sleek black craft. The old man was far behind, not being able to run the length of the cargo hold.

"Huhuhuhuh," the old man panted. "Yes, it does. Highly experimental. You can even bypass the planetary shields of Cambridge with it. Slips through shielding, and all sorts of stuff. Wait. Get out of that! No! THAT'S MINE!"

But Tannik wasn't thinking. This was his chance. Climbing into the ship, he activated one of the archaic looking buttons. A little blue light lit up. "I wonder what this does..." he wondered aloud. The old man, who had seen something move on the outside, ran backwards, managing to get to the airlock. Closing the door, he peered out. Tannik pressed a second button, and that blue light changed into a red one. A little dinging sound was made as the cockpit was closed, and once it did, a missile erupted from the bowels of the tiny ship into the side of the Large Train. Chunks of metal flew out with the ship. Decompression began, and the entire cargo hold was crushed.

The old man pressed a few more buttons, and the cargo hold detached from the Dirigible. Then, a series of explosives detonated, and there were no remains of the hold. Nothing could be seen, for the nebula had surrounded the ship before Seldon's little stunt, and there was nothing to fear. As the ship reached the unmarked jump hole, the old man sighed. Pressing the send button, a letter entered the inbox of an office, somewhere far away. No one had intercepted it, no one had read it. It was a normal letter, after all, and nothing could make it seem any more important. After all, it was just a request for a puppy.

Tannik now had his archaic stealth ship, but was unable to read any of the inscriptions. Fearing he might blow the ship up on accident, he began to interface the ship with his neuralnet. It seemed to work fine, and so, Tannik Seldon began to set simple waypoints for his ship to follow. The old man was in an unmarked system, reading the response to his wishes for a puppy, and the Bretonian Director, McTraland, was being fed into a device that removed atoms one by one in an immensely uncomfortable way. All in all, a very active day indeed.

---

[sushi]

The guard sighed. Night shifts at Houston Spaceport were always boring, and this one was worse than most. Why couldn't some of those criminals at least try to plunder ships from their launchpads? Surely some of them could have the decency to give him some excitement. He'd thought there might be some excitement a couple of weeks ago, when he received some strange orders to watch a particular docking bay and make sure that nobody got to the ship...what was it called? Aedos. He think that was it. But so far, nobody had. The Spatial had simply sat on in it's roofless type-3 bay, quiet as ever.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous crash. The guard lept to his feet, and headed to the nearest video terminal. He was slightly giddy. Something had finally happened! Long-neglected training kicked smoothly into gear, though. The guard quickly scanned the video feeds and saw that the docking bay occupied by the Aedos was no longer empty. Instead, smoke was pouring from what looked like a wreck on the far side of the bay. The guard sounded the alarm, and sped towards the docking bay...

He got there at the same time as several other guards. He keyed in the override code, and the door slid open. A huge backdraft of dust and smoke poured through, blinding the guards and throwing them back a bit. They charged in anyway, just in time to see the Aedos lifting off, soaring upwards into the night sky. Some of the guards chased it with a few futile blaster bolts, but it was too late... the Aedos was gone.

When the smoke and dust cleared, several of the guards headed to a comm station to report that the Aedos had gone, while others investigated the wreck. It was a strange ship: small, sleek, and completely black. The landing gear had completely buckled... it had been landed pretty rough. One guard noticed gas escaping from the engine block...

GET DOWN! The guards scattered and ran as fast as they could for the exit as the escaping gas intensified. The hull around the engine suddenly buckled, generating a shower of sparks...that was enough. The erupting gas burst into flame, an inferno billowing out of the twisted side of the black ship. The ship rolled, then skittered and danced across the floor propelled by this impromptu rocket. It gained a pretty respectable velocity before slamming into the wall of the docking bay and exploding.

"Get the DoD on the line. NOW!"

---

Tannik_Seldon[Aedos] - Tannik Seldon's ongoing story
--Other Characters--
Leroy_Fenning - Bio

[sushi]

-- Liberty News Network --

Liberty continues to deny conspiracy allegations

In a recent press conference, the Liberty government denied all allegations that a dangerous conspiracy managed to take control of the Department of Defense several months ago. They acknowledged that there had been a number of "administrative difficulties," but denied persistent rumors that a dozen high-ranking officials had been quietly arrested. The government has also continued its refusal to speculate about the mysterious attack on Denver Hospital occurring about the same time.

"This is not unexpected," LNN correspondent Jamie Winters reports. "But there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Why, for example, did the Department of Defense publish a house-wide warrant for the arrest of Tannik Seldon, then rescind that order only a month later? And if those DoD officials haven't been arrested, where are they? Nobody has been able to get in touch with them. And I mean nobody. Not us, not the police, not the justice department. They've disappeared, and there's something that the government isn't telling us about it."

Further muddying the waters, an inside source informed us that the aforementioned Tannik Seldon, previously captain of a Liberty Navy fighter squadron, has been quietly granted an official pardon and an honorable discharge from Liberty's armed forces, despite having been mysteriously missing since the attack on Denver Hospital. When questioned, Government officials denied all comment on the matter.

---

Tannik_Seldon[Aedos] - Tannik Seldon's ongoing story
--Other Characters--
Leroy_Fenning - Bio