Objective: Investigate disappearance of 3-ship patrol in Thuringia Sector 6B. Last Contact: Debris Shelf Beta-6. Last ping received faint Rheinwehr telemetry. Notable Anomalies: No wreckage, no distress beacons recovered.
Straub volunteered for solo recon. Loaded into Arbeiter-class ‘Maschinenpistole,’ he departed Pacifica under transponder silence. Aboard: minimal armament, enhanced scanning module, recovery clamps.
MISSION TRANSCRIPT - AUDIO EXCERPT: "Power cycling's intermittent. No drift signatures... wait... there. Portside. There's a silhouette pinned between the thermal scatter. Looks intact. Looks Rheinland, but... old? IFF's dead... I'm moving in."
SITE CONTACT - SECTOR 6B:Straub didn’t expect the warmth inside the wreck. It smelled like blood and ozone. The MND Valkyrae lay wedged in the Thuringia debris field like a rusted fang, power flickering faintly from ruptured core lines. Its hull was cracked from pressure and impact — but intact enough to board.
The pilot sat slumped in the cockpit — helmet shattered, suit torn wide across the chest, hands charred and fused to the melted control yoke.
No comms.No breathing.
But the face...
The face still had color.
Straub stepped forward slowly. His sidearm trembled in his gloved hand. The cabin lights pulsed with dying voltage, casting the remains in flickers of amber and black. A neural interface crackled faintly, spewing garbled telemetry into a dead comm net.
Then — motion.
The pilot lurched forward with an unnatural spasm.
No scream. No breath. Just motion.
Straub fired.
Point-blank, without thought, into the pilot’s face. Bone and helmet shattered in a mist of pressure and rot. The body collapsed against the harness — but something within it kept moving.
From the ruin of its jaw came a wet, sucking hiss — followed by a tendril, slick and violet-blue, pulsing with light and fluid.
It lashed forward.
Straub turned, too slow.
The thing struck like a spear — into his open mouth, slamming down his throat with inhuman strength. It writhed as it entered, biting past teeth and muscle and memory. He convulsed, hands clawing at his throat, his chest, his weapon — but he couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t fall.
Then came the voices.
Not sounds — but meanings, embedded in emotion, carved into his thoughts like molten glass. Psionic spikes shredded his identity. Loyalty, memory, purpose....
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Operational Briefing