Well, I'm looooong overdue with a report here. So much has happened since the last entries...
To keep it short: The Eden and some other Core ships abondoned Dabadoru and defected to.. well, no one really. We left on our own. Things happened in the Core. I found our some nasty facts. I discovered enough reasons for me to say goodbye to that life and leave. With me were Maritz in the Hellcat, Mike in the Inferno and Raya in his Sea Serpent.
Sick and tired of the way things were going in the Core we took off and headed for the furthest reaches of the Edgeworlds. Why? I don't know. Maybe we wanted to see what was there. Maybe we were looking for death. But maybe, I just wanted to risk it all. Do something, anything to make me feel alive again.
Like I said, I have no idea where we were. We were off all charts, and the navcomputers weren't any help either. Out there, it was hell. Made Delta look like a childeren's playground. Omicron 90 and 99 were nothing compared to this. If we thought that we could actually fight nomads on equal ground, forget it. If one day the nomads wake up grumpily and decide mankind has had its fun and must die, we will. we will all go down. Currently nothing we can throw at them can stop that.
We were bombed, blasted, rammed, shot at and invaded. I lost 40 men on the first day alone. There were Marduks all over. cruisers and things that haven't even shown their faces in known space yet. Maritz is normally quite level headed (unless he's stoned) but now he was contantly shouting and screaming when he was trying to keep the nomad bombers off us with the Hellcat. I also never heard Malachite swear so much in German. Mike was going pretty good in the Inferno. Too bad his luck ran out in the end. Come to think of it, I'm amased the 2 guys made it out alive.
The onslaught didn't stop for days. Constant fighting. Alarms blaring non stop. I saw the Eden and her crew dying, slowly. As if the nomads were cherishing their visitors by making us die a little more every day. Tossers.
Then came the day some of the crew became infected. Of course, they picked the most annoying time to get infected: Just as we were facing off against yet another Marduk who brought some Voids as friends. The mess started in engine room 3. A firefight erupted there. At first I thought some guys down there had finally lost it. The truth was much worse. The nomads had finally gotten to them. Now they were eating the Eden from the inside out. It was a nice change of pace, actually. If that damn Marduk outside had stopped shooting us for a second. Which it didn't. Tosser.
It was complete chaos. Soon we had over 50 infected running amok in the lower decks. I never regretted losing the sentry systems more than I did then. So Aron took a bunch of Hunters and went down there to, and I quote: 'kill the **** out of those glowy eyed sons of ****** for tearing up the god***** ship which he and his fellow ***holes had worked so hard on to keep together'
Over the comms we heard the sound sof a massive firefight: Aron had bumped into the infected crew gang on deck 7, in the portside hallway. Nomad infected or not, they could still use blasters effectively. Aron's group was being thinned out bad. So we decided to bring out the big guns: Terrors. Hard hitting, straight aiming blokes in full body armor. They pack a nigh-indestructible riot shield and plasma rifles. Those guys are perfect if you need someone dead very, very fast. We always kept them close to the bridge to make sure the bridge was safe in a case of infection. Now, we had no choice.
I told Jake to take command of the ship and deal with that giant 5 course meal outside that was tearing us a new one. I took the lead of the 10 Terrors and bolted after Aron. If Aron got himself killed, We were all screwed. He was the only one capabale of keeping the Eden going under these circumstances.
We ran through the ship, which was shaking ans shuddering violantly. There were breached pipelines everywhere. Some hallways were on fire or filled with toxic fumes. There were dead bodies scatterad all over the place. After 15 minutes we reached the firefight. Or what was left of it: the Infected were obviously better at old fashioned shooting than we thought. Not good enough though. Enter the Terrors. While I dragged Aron's bloody form from under a pile of rubble after shooting 2 nomad wannabees in the face they charged in. I gotta say, those riot shields and plasma rifles do work wonders. Just don't use em on normal humans. For you will not easily forget the sight of it. But our once-crewmembers didn't qualify as humans anymore. Anyway, there was blood and bodyparts flying all over, accompanied by the deafening rumbling of those plasma rifles. I've never seen such a gorefest. I managed to Get Aron to safety while the Terrors were having the time of their life.
I told em to clean house while I carried Aron back medroom 1. It was the only medroom still operational. Thank god it was the closest one to the bridge. Once there I let the whitecoats deal with Aron: he was banged up, but they were pretty sure he'd live. I bolted back to the bridge whilst shouting orders at the Terrors. I got no reply. All I heard was shouting, shooting and as I heard a loud splattering noise, I was sure I heard giggling. Weirdly enough, that made me quite certain the Terrors had the Infected situation under control. For now. I did realise at this time that the Sentry systems needed to be restored. Otherwise we'd be overrun eventually.
Back on the bridge Jake had managed to get the ship into cruise, even though 2 engines were blown to hell. We had escaped the Marduk. We had escaped with out lifes. Well, most of us anyway. Too bad we lost Malachite as we escaped: he had 3 Voids on him as the Eden had entered cruise Jake told me. Now, that crazy Rheinlander was nowhere to be seen. Last Jake heard from his as he was already 23k from the Eden was 'stirb! Stirb, verdammte Tintenfish! Stirb jezt!'. Probably his dying words. Even though I had no clue what Malachite had meant as we left him to die, I guessed it wasn't something charming about us...
Then came Summer Vacation as we scathingly called it. 2 days of 'peace'. We were somewhere, anywhere in some pitch black piece of space. Normally, it was enough to scre the pants off someone. But we liked it: we couldn't see nomads, and liked to think they couldn't see us.
We used the time to asess the damage and get some repairs done. Aron was back on his feet. The Terrors had lost 2 of their guys in the battle of the portside hallway on deck 7. There were only 8 of em left. Good enough to kill loads and loads of bad guys. But they weren't beamable: if poo hit the ship in 2 different places, we would be boned. So I had Aron work on the Sentry systems while Jake was on crew detail. So far over 140 dead. Graves would be jumping for joy: 140 less paychecks to write out.
On the second day, Aron got the Sentry systems back online. With the ceiling mounted smartguns online Infected were less proplematic than before. Apart from the fact that I needed their human hosts as crew...
Anyway: our peace had lasted long enough. We were found. And the cat and mouse game began all over again. The Eden was at 53% allround operational status. Not enough to keep us alive any longer in these parts. Raya's Sea Serpent was damaged badly as well and was held together by crude patchwork. The Hellcat was doing relatively good, apart from the fact that all of its weapons were blown off. But Maritz, that crazy idiot, figured that was no propblem: 'If the Hellcat is to be destroyed, so be it. If mankind is to be extinct, let it. And if it is my fate to die, I must simply laugh'. Speaking those words, he charged one of our first visitors, a nomad cruiser, head on.
The Eden kicked into gear, slooooooowly (damn you Aron, damn you to hell. why can't you keep this rustbucket in one piece) the cruise engines came online and we were off. And nearly offed at that. As we left the black void, we saw a massive blue energy beam headed straight for us. The shields were at their maximum capacity (70%, best we could manage) but I somehow doubted that they would be much help. I ordered a full evasive manouvre. The entire ship shuddered and vibrated and stuff, including crewmembers, was flying across the bridge. We narrowly avoided being hit by that... thing. It ripped a hole in the void behind us, like a light cutting into a shadow. I do NOT want to know what would have happened if that had hit us. Although I did perfectly well know what would have happened...
Then we ran into the owner of the beam. I regret that all the cameras were fried. If such a thing ever visits mankind, I hope it drops me a line first; so I can get the hell out of Sirius. It was massive. Like a giant Marduk on steroids. Eden could have fitted in 10 times over. I imagine this thing was the size of maybe 2 or 3 Juggernauts. We were all standing, or lying, gaping at that thing. Deep down I felt pride swell up inside me: the nomads had sent in their partypiece to kill off that stupid git Damoclass once and for all. Me, feeling the personal need to live, decided it was time to make the nommies work for their kill.
You know what they say: the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Or the slower they are. So I ordered the Eden to move past the thing as close as possible: it was so fat I figured it could't bring its guns to bare if we were too close. Secondly, It would be slow to turn. By the time it had banked and turned, we would be long gone. The nomad Big Momma, as we later came to call it, disagreed. Instead, it just teleported in our face. I can tell ya: having a Monster Marduk teleport in your face is the biggest mood killer ever. 'ok, fine.'I thought. 'you win. do it'. The Eden came to an emergency stop to avoid a collision that would have surely been the end of us.
Then nothing happened. It just said there, doing nothing. Like it was waiting for us to beg for our lives. it had chosen the wrong ship. Not because we're are all such toughguys, no. Because we all knew we were worthless scumbags. Welcome to the Guild. Then suddenly, it became clear to me why that thing didn't kill us. As it fired its first shot at us, back at the void, it had aimed to kill. Now, it had changed its collective mind. It wanted something from us. I didn't like the prospect of finding out just what it wanted. But we had little choice. Then I heard voices in my head. I knew what that meant: my psychic barrier was about to fail on me. The one thing that had kept me, and the remaninder of the crew sane.
My vision blurred. I saw images of an unknown system, which somehow was not so unknown to me.. There were Planets I didn't know, yet recognised. Realising what was happening to me I though 'oh hell no. I'm not turning sushi here' Spouting some corny movie quote I reached for my shoulder holster and pulled out its content. My trusty Scorcher. An outdated, but heavily modified plasma revolver. I had always wondered what it would feel like, getting shot in the head. Now was as good a time as ever to find out. I set the revolver to my right temple and pulled the trigger.
So much has happened. I'll just carry on where Damoclass left off. He says he can't remember anything for a while after pulling the trigger.
He never did.
In fact, he lowered the gun and just stood there, staring off in the distance. As if he was having playing a game with the big Mama: first one to laugh gets to do the dishes.
Deciding that our spaced out captain was no good, I took command. Soon, I also heard the voices. But in the distance. As if the were shouting at me from behind a thick glass window.
I could keep my thoughts together enough to order rational commands: 'get us the F outta here NOW!'
The Eden's cruise engines charged. But Big Mama wasn't about to let us leave. Deciding that its new mind controlled toy was about to run out on it, it initiated plan b: kill the wanker. The front of that massive thing opened up and we could see what was going on inside. A mixture of whirling colours, amassing into something solid. It didn't take a genius to figure out what it was doing. A shame really that the cruise engines took longer to charge than it took the Mama to prepare its torpdeo like thing.
They say as you are about to die, you see your life flashing in front of you. What crap. All I thought was: 'damn, I should have become a pastery baker instead'. Then The Mama fired its projectile.
As it was about to exit the front of the nomad vessel it suddenly stopped, as if it was stuck on a long wire that had streched out fully. It became obvious why: the Hellcat had caught up with us. And was headed straight for the Mama's opening.
The comms sprung to life: 'tell me the tractor beam on that thing is still operational. Otherwise I'm about to get really thin'. Having said that, Maritz ejected from his bottlenose as it charged at the Mama. I ordered the pod to be tractored in asap. I had no idea what would happen if the gunship collided with that torpedo thing still stuck in the Uber Marduk. The Mama didn't want to find out as well I guess: its front closed before the Hellcat smashed into the blue material and was instantly vaporised.
Then the most beatiful sound ever was heard: 'cruise engines engaged'. The Eden charged past the Mama before it could resume its fiiring prcedure. But I wouldn't dance for joy just yet: the 2 cruisers that found us in the void were closing on our six: Maritz had delayed them with his CDs, but now they were back. And the fact remained that the Mama could still pop up wherever it wanted. realising this, I hoped it had a poor sense of prioraties.
Raya and Mike were about to find out. They launched and each headed for a different direction than the Eden. This seemed to work: the Mama didn't teleport imidiatly. The 2 cruisers on our six decided that they liked Mike best. And they had brought friends. Assassins.
Then Mama made up its mind: The Eden would be the best target. I hate aliens that can prioritise. Damn that Raya: the most nimble ship and he got nothing to evade. Then again: maybe that was why the nomads made their choice like this.
The Mama teleported again, this time on our six. This didn't sit well with me. Judging from the first shot it had fired at us, the projectile would be able to catch up to us, even in cruise. I looked at Damoclass. He was still standig there, as a statue. Figuring CMs worked on smaller ships I ordered Raya to get close to the Eden, and spam CDs like mad, same as the Eden. Mike was a little to busy to help: the Assassins had caught up to him and had disrupted his cruise engines. The cruisers were clsoing on him fast as well.
With a shower of CMs behind us, The Eden and Raya ran like hell. There was no warning alarm: but the Mama had fired its payload. It was coming after us. I could hear Raya yell over the comms. He was able to see the thing closing on us by looking over his shoulder.
'bank left! No, right! ****, it's closing fast!'
I was out of ideas. That thing would catch up to us within 13 seconds and that would be it. I ordered Raya to get away from the Eden.
'oh crap, it's going to hit! Bank ha- what? leave? Now what good is that gonna do?!'
Obviously, Raya didn't feel like dying alone out there. Can't blame him. If you gotta go, you gotta go.
Then Damoclass came back to his senses. I didn't even realise it untill I heard his voice: 'my my, They won't let up, do they?'
With 7 seconds to impact our 2 fleeing ships entered some sort of weird nebula-like cloud. Then we heard a system announcement: 'gravitational hazard, detected'
Even with our messed up scanners, we were able to detect a jumphole like thing 2.7k below us. 2.7k in 4 seconds? No way. Well, at least we would go out in style: we'd enter the hole as a ship breaking apart and come out the other end as scrap metal and bodayparts. Raya shot upward still spamming CMs like mad.
We all braced for a deadly impact that never came. All we could see was the tunnel like view of a jump sequence. It seemed Raya's last dicth attempt to throw off the projectile had bought us the 1.5 seconds we needed to reach the hole.
But were was he? And Mike? Suddenly we heard a lot of swearing. Seems Raya was still alive and busy shaking off persuers.
'It missed! hahaha! stupid squid! you don't hold a candle to my Sea Serpent! try and hit me eh? bring friends! you'll need em!'
I ordered him and Mike to enter the jumphole. as well. Raya obliged and jumped through. I'm sure Mike would have loved to do so as well. If he wasn't dead.
'heh... Well, I got as far as I figured I would. [warning, hullbreach iminent] Looks like I'm not such an ace after all, eh Maritz?'
Then there was only static.
Looked like Maritz had to comission a new bomber if we would ever make it back to Delta.
As Raya came out of the Jumphole, he brought his assassin friends along. But this time we were ready. For once, we did the arse kicking. We mowed em dowm with the secondary turrets before they could even manouver.
We activated cruise again, with Raya close behind. This place looked familiar...
Damoclass spoke again. 'yeah, I've seen this. we're in Omicron 90'
Seems Damoclass' 'talk' with the Big Mama suddenly made sense. That thing had shown him the way, in order to get an infected warship back to Delta. To Dabadoru. The only reason its scheme had failed was because our mental barriers were stronger than that of Damcolass: he had suffered one too many attacks on his mind. It had left his mind weakened, and open to mental attacks. No wonder the Monster Marduk choose to attack him. But for now: we were safe.
Heh. The irnony. Discovering that you are in Omicron 90, and thinking 'phew. thank god I'm safe'.
Damoclass took command after I made sure he wasn't fully jellyfied. The Eden was walking on its last legs: 23% operational effectiveness. 5 engines broken down. A thrid of the crew dead. We had lost the Hellcat, we had lost the Inferno.and we had lost Malachite. Raya 'sSerpent was about to fall apart.
There was nothing for it. We headed for the jumphole to Omicron 99, 745k away. At least we were left alone. Behind us, the Jumphole had disappreared. Something that would have shocked me if I wasn't in a constant state of shock already. We heard an occasional buzzing on the comms. Just static. Maritz was pretty angry. He and Raya had lost their mate, Mike. Plus, Maritz had lost his bomber. Maybe that upset him more. I dunno.
Then a mesage came in, as we were just on our way to teh jumphole. A message from the Guild. Damoclass read it and snorted. Then he threw a massive fit. Apperantly the Guild wanted him back. And tried luring him in by making him a Guild Master.
'Tsch. Those old fools. They think they can sucker me again? I will no longer be their puppet in their vain crusade for power. But I will play along. Then, when the time has come, they will find out just how I feel about the Guild. And what my plans for the future are...'
As we closed on the jumphole to 99, the comms sprang to life once more '....jemand? *static* wie bin ich hier... *static*
Seems Malachite wasn't as dead as Mike. You can say a lot of things about Rheinlanders, but they are as sturdy as the ships they make.
we tried to reach him, to no avail. Hoping he knew he was in 90, we decided to sit by the jumphole as it was all clear there. Damoclass even mentioned something like 'they must've run out of nomads by now...'
Then, after waiting for 7 hours, a blip appeared on the scanners. Malachite's IFF.
'How nice of you to drop by again, you immortal SoB' Aron spat at him. Aron and Malachite were friends. At least, I think so. They played cards together a lot. So I guess Aron was glad to see he could still shake down Malachite. IF we made it back to base.
Which we did, amasingly enough. The trip to 99 and Iota was very standard by now. It could hardly bother us. Ok, so we were once again bombed to hell. We suffered a hull breach and 200 more men lost their lifes. Who cares? After the last few weeks, Iota jsut couldn't bother us anymore.
We made it through to Delta. And eventually Dabadoru. What a trip, Maritz would say.
But I gotta say: as a pastery baker, I would not have had this much excitement in me life.
The Eden is pretty much toast. As I write this, she is in the docks at Alabama, being completely overhauled. She was on the verge of exploding as we drifted into Dabadoru, with no steering, power, thrusters or life support.
I've written enough for now. So I'll just do rep sheet.
Hellcat
Destroyed. Pilot retrieved alive. New Bottlenose already commisioned. Left for Liberty.
Malachite
Manta heavily damaged. Was more expensive to repair the ship than commision a new one. Ditched it on some depots near Yaren. Malachite is alive and kicking.
Raya 'Crash' Remnant
Destroyed. His Sea serpent made it all the way back to Dabadoru. But exloded during the docking sequence. So in the end, even Raya sucked vacuum. His pod was tractored in. I heard he left the Edgeworlds and is now in Liberty, assembling a squadron of Sea Serpents. Crazy tosser.
Inferno
Destroyed. Pilot Mike Sulivan K.I.A.
Maritz will commision a new Moray to replace it. Note to self: send flowers to Mike's mother. Oh wait, she died 2 months ago he told me. Oh well. If anyone asks: he's dead.
Eden
Half the crew is dead, new crew is being arranged. The ship is being repaired. This will take a week or so. All of Alabama can work on her as no other ships are currently in construction.
Jake and Aron are both ok. I'm the one they're worried about. They think I may have truned nomad or something. Hell, I can't blame em. But still, even I can't tell if I'm possesed or not. Time will tell I guess. What I do know now, is that the Core needs better technology. We need every ounce of strenght we can find. If the day comes when the nomads go to war, we need to be ready.
The Order won't be able to stop them. They are not approaching this problem in the right fashion. The are only getting in the way. The Core isn't handling this properly though. But with my new found 'powers' as a Guild Master, and some good old fashioned well timed assassinations, I'm sure I can steer the Core in the right direction. Then, when those blue bastards show up, we will be ready. We will obliterate them by their own means. And if we fail to stop them? Tough.
And if we succeed in stopping them. Well, It's safe to say the Core will be the nr 1 power in Sirius. With the houses and the Hispanians shooting each other to pieces, they will be weakened. Nothing can stop us then.
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