Anna WitheldAnna nodded. "Right, no more stimulants forever. That's fine by me. And thanks for telling me about Smith, I'd rather not have to deal with him right now given the amount of shit on my plate. So! I'd best be off to see the Major then."
She walked to the door and turned back to look at Tuck.
"You deserved the rest Tuck. You're doing great, so just keep it up, look after yourself and don't give up hope. We're not dead yet. Oh, and if Tyrin or the others come by to check up on me, tell them I've gone to talk to the Major about important matters.
Keep up the good work Tuck. We're counting on people like you."
Thank Tuck for his hard work and go talk to the Major.
Tuck chuckles and shakes his head. "Everybody is counting on everybody, that's just the way it is." He looks you over one last time, his expression resigned. "I'd give you a warning to avoid physically or mentally stressful activity, but I think it would be rather pointless. Come on, I'll walk you out."
You follow Tuck out of the room. He's a surprising man, though somewhat less enthusiastic than he once was. Even back in the prison, shortly after the bloody revolt, he'd been thrilled beyond all sane reason when he studied the orientation device. [Intuition 17+2] Looking at the fresh lines in his face, the tension in his shoulders, you get the sinking feeling that there's something wrong, something that he isn't telling you.
Tuck nods and flashes you a smile when you manage to leave the room without keeling over. "Major is one door down on the right. I still have you down as an injured officer, so you're going to take an aide with you if you intend to leave. A precaution that I remain adamant on." Tuck shakes your hand, his kinetically generated fingers feeling odd against yours. "It's good to see you among the living once more, captain. Find one of my assistants and yell at them if you need anything else."
You look around after Tuck leaves you, partly out of habit and partly out of curiosity. The building has the feel of an prefab infirmary, stinking of antiseptic and scrubbed metal. Your room, the two adjacent rooms, and the three rooms on the opposite wall, were probably for individual quarantine before they were refitted. The hallway to your left, where Tuck headed, most likely leads back to the common infirmary floor.The other end of the hallway appears to dead-end after the last room, and there doesn't look to be much else to see.
You take the first door on the right as Tuck suggested, bracing yourself to see the major for the first time since the crater. The surprise you get when you slide the door open is, for the most part, pleasant. The major is propped up in bed, with an assistant at her right hand and two guards flanking her. Her face is drawn and pale, but her eyes snap to yours the instant you open the door, and there is no doubt that she is as clear as she ever was.
Caine gives turns back to the assistant almost immediately, and one of the guards motions for you to wait. Caine speaks softly to the assistant, though the tone seems driven more by a desire to conserve energy than to maintain secrecy. The conversation only lasts for a few more seconds before the assistant nods and scrambles off on the Major's bidding. You get a good look at his face as he passes you on the way out, and you realize that you don't recognize him.
"A colonist," Caine says after the man leaves, interpreting your look of confusion, "one of the better ones. Harriri," Caine continues, turning to slant an eye at the guard on her uninjured side. "Take a position outside. Let any messengers on return duty have a breather until I am done with the captain."
The man nods and slips past you, letting you take his place beside the major. Up close, the damage to her is noticeable. Her body is asymmetric, padded bandages doing very little to hide the fact that much of her side is missing. "To save you the trouble of asking, captain, I am as well as can be expected," the major says before you have a chance to speak. "I am alive and the Presbyter is dead, though I hear that I have you to thank for granting me that small vengeance. The rebellion has not died in this place, and we are still in a position to execute the Matriarch's plan." The woman's voice is calm and level, betraying no hint of her painfully obvious injuries. "I am glad that you survived, but there is little time for pleasant conversation. Are you ready to receive your orders, captain?"
---
Tyrin LaverosAnna...Nhh, my thoughts.
Tyrin pressed a hand to his cheek, feeling the onset of hunger already shown by the gauntness of his face, and the prominence of his cheekbones. He felt dizzy, woozy, and off-center, but was able to laugh at the idea of walking off to breakfast before any other duty is performed. The mental synergy Anna shared with him hours earlier came back in a rush--akin to his brain trying to reconfigure the past day's events in a way his body could react to. Though it was with merit, he wondered what Anna saw in the eyes of the enemy, and what exactly happened in the hours that followed while he was patching up the Major.
It must've been a pretty big battle, and he was glad to not have been disturbed throughout the whole ordeal. Hickie's health also came back to mind: he did remember passing one of the tools back to him before checking back on the thoracic cavity...and all he could then see were his hands and the work to be done.
Taking a deep breath, he looked around and nodded at one of the other Unchained, giving him a smile before gesturing to the door with both hand and head. It was another's turn to rest in the bed that held him. It was wondrous what a seemingly mundane mattress could do for the fatigued and the weary.
He flexed his right arm in a circle as he moved towards the exit. It was time to check on Anna.
Check on Anna!
You thread your way out of the re-purposed home, passing unchained and colonists both. The building seems to be in use as a staging ground for equipment and hard supplies. The Unchained didn't take a lot with them, and the colonist supplies aren't exactly military, but you see several colonists at work cataloging the pile while a pair of fabricators work to turn the random mess into a useful mess. A steady stream of people enter and exit the building, most bringing in or carrying out objects from the pile, but a few bedraggled rebels trickle in for the comfort of the massed beds. You notice that about half of the Unchained have adopted the colonist neck leeches to mitigate the radiation poisoning from the rain.
All of the unchained who recognize you nod or salute, despite the fact that you're not an officer of any kind, but all seem too busy to try engaging you as you leave. The air outside smells of char and fresh rain, but the canopy is cloudless and the phosphorescent fungi are bright. The fires of the previous night have been extinguished, but smoke still rises from the smoldering remnants a few structures that were built from local materials instead of colony ship prefabs. There is no place you can look where you don't see either an Unchained or a colonist moving with a purpose. [Observation 16] Oddly, you notice one group of twelve colonists being led between a pair of heavily armed soldiers. The colonists keep their eyes down, but you get a glimpse of terrified and enraged snarls as they past.
A sharp whistle from your right side gets your attention, and you turn to see another unchained approaching, a colored shoulder plate marking him as a minor overseer. Not a combat officer, but meant to keep things running smoothly in the aftermath of action. "You! Did you just wake up, or did you get tasked to admire the scenery? Either way I've got a new job for you. Symps are burning bodies in the northwest and they need a fresh pyrokinetic to get it started, get over there and..." The man pauses, getting a good look at you. "Oh Godamnit. Apologies Laveros, I didn't recognize you. Tuck put out a standing task for you, didn't tell me what it was. He's set up in the colonist infirmary, two burned fields west. It has beds full of dying colonists out front, you can't miss it." The overseer shakes his head in disgust. "Excuse me, have to find someone who can show these idiots how to light a fire."
You stop the overseer from moving on long enough to ask after Anna, though the man looks irritated at the interruption. "Captain Witheld? You're in luck, she got taken to the same infirmary you're going to be visiting. Heard she got her own room in the intensive section. You can visit her and chat in between shooting the assholes trying to steal her pills."
You've never really met this overseer beyond casual recognition before now, and you dearly hope that being abrasive is a coping mechanism rather than a personality trait. Still, you nod politely and he takes that as his cue to stride off and hunt someone else down.
The walk to the infirmary is both surprisingly pleasant and disconcerting. The thrum around you, of a the rebellion coming back together is, on the one hand, deeply comforting. You've survived hell, and, even in the middle of an alien forest, you're rebuilding and growing stronger. This is a new day, and your cell of the revolution is still alive to see it dawn. Yet, there is a feeling that something is terribly wrong, and it grows as you walk. You pass more groups of colonists that seem to be under guard, and you catch more than one hateful look from the corner of your eye. Furtive shapes move inside dark buildings, ducking completely out of sight as you pass, but there's nothing to stop you from sensing the raw power of their mixed fear and anger.. Some of the colonists seem to have joined the unchained, but others... Others look as though they wish they had the strength to finish the job the Technocracy started.
When you get close to the colonist infirmary, you start to get a sense of why. Bodies are lined up outside on a variety of makeshift beds, tended primarily by people who don't look like clinical staff or combat medics, let alone doctors of any kind. Judging by the puckered edges of nascent infections and the bright red of unclosed wounds, most of these people aren't unchained psionics- just colonists caught in the crossfire.
You notice no shortage of the hateful glances you caught earlier as you walk through the fields of wounded, though these seem oddly mixed with hope. Most of these people clearly blame the Unchained for what has happened, and yet they are also desperate for the miracles that only your kind can provide. You ignore the looks as best you can as you head inside. You might be able to do something for some of them later, but not now.
Things are different once you enter the infirmary. The main floor, a cannibalized prefab from the original colony ship, is jammed packed with beds holding badly damaged unchained. Medics and the few real trained personnel that the Unchained have are in constant motion, juggling patients at the edge of critical condition. The passive regeneration of these psionics isn't quite enough to stabilize them, and the effort to remain alive is draining their bodies rapidly. Most of those that survive this level of injury will suffer systemic tissue degeneration from the effort of sustained regeneration, not permanent, but debilitating nonetheless.
You catch a glimpse of Tuck through a window at the far end of the room. He seems to be in an office, separated from the main floor, and he also appears to be in a heated argument with another individual that you can't see.
---
James Evan James put his head in his hands. "Strange things in my body and mind politics, it's the coma all over again. I should have stuck to my guns about the whole Orientation thing. Oh well. ...do I get a say in what specific variety of insanity I'm going to live with, at least? Just... I never really aimed to kill you, Iscariot, and the second time we fought was immediately after I tried to bring you back. And, Blight, well, you tried to kill me and Iscariot first, though... we're past that. It seems like you have control of everything but my muscles, considering you know about the various body-sharing-organisms I've gone through and can manipulate my senses. Though I'll admit this is better than going into la-la-land every time I want to talk.
...also, now that I think about it Blight probably isn't the best name. Prefer anything else...?"
James proceeds to stop here, realizing that he is naked in a freezing cold morgue, and also in a morgue.
Might as well test to see if I can... transmit my thoughts to you without having to physically talk to myself. I... figure I should probably deal with my physical situation too now.
James looks around to see if there was anything he could clothe himself with.
Blight snorts. "I had good reason to kill you, still have good reasons, though I've been convinced there are better reasons to work together. Like that new body we talked about. Oh, and Bly is fine, should be nice reminder for you," she adds, smiling at you with a great many teeth.
Iscariot spreads his hands. "Death threats aside, what would you have done in our position? We are all individuals, we all desire our freedom, and yet the freedom of any one of us will cost the freedoms of the others. You could have had the Unchained burn us out of your mind, and we would have had few options to stop you. This relationship is... equitable." He stands and helps you up, providing an arm that feels surprisingly physical.
You look around the cold grey world of the morgue once you're on your feet, looking for anything that looks like it might hold clothing and trying to think at either Iscariot or Bly while you look. You just about go cross-eyed from the effort of thinking, but neither of them seem to react. This could mean that you're doing it wrong, or that they left your thoughts to you alone. Which, all things considered, is kinda nice of them. [Observation 14] Over in the corner, by the stairs that lead up, is bin full of clothes. They look torn, and bizarre patterns of grey on grey make you think that they're probably bloody, but they look a hell of lot better than going skins in a corpse fridge feels.
You grab a mismatched set of thickened work pants and a reasonably warm long sleeved shirt. The shirt has a laser burn just below the neckline, and the left side of the pant's waistline feels stiff with dried blood, but they're warm enough. You draw the line at attempting to find undergarments, going commando rather than trying to find fitting set of corpse-underwear.
Health: 113/113 (+1)
Stamina: 125/125 (+2)
Carried Weight: 0/300
Attire: Bloody, mismatched clothing.
Inv:
Not a damn thing.
Status: Fine
---
Toomas Amk"Varic, would you happen to be enjoying the same treatment as Rob?" Amk asks, rather suspicious, awaiting an answer before turning back to Wakeman. He looks a tad ruffled, and swallows.
"Wakeman. I cannot trust you if you do not trust me as well. I chose to work with Murnau to render his numbers overwhelming and prevent needless waste of resources. But I fear that our burgeoning business relationship may not remain workable as long as one between you and me, due to lack of transparency and dubious choices in associates. Mia and Rob, for instance. Both are less than desirable people to work with, to say nothing of several others, Varic possibly being an exception, and indications are abundant that there may be several secrets kept there that would prove deleterious to my further existence eventually."
"With that in mind, I would certainly like to join you, for you are an altogether more reasonable individual to work with in my experience. But with what I know of your plan, my confidence in your long-term success is rather low, even if short-term it seems more probable than that of Murnau. I am reasonably certain you are not an idiot, and know what you are doing, but perhaps I have misjudged. I allow for such a possibility, naturally, as I have been disappointed in this regard before."
"But know this - if you agree to reveal to me your entire plan, I can personally guarantee that, if it is good, I will aid you however I can. And if it is not, I will not work with either you or Murnau, and seek my own way out of this place, probably not interfering with whatever clandestine plots you all seem so eager to enact. This I can swear, if you would accept it. But if you do not reveal the plan, I will simply return to Murnau with what I have learned, and continue despite my misgivings in the hope that the initial appeal of Murnau's plan carries on through the entire affair."
As a side note, what do I know about Wakeman's crew? Anybody I have spoken to, or remember?
"I don't have a good plan," Wakeman replies. "What I have is the last act of a desperate man, same as Murnau. I don't trust you, and you shouldn't trust me. I'm taking as many people as will come, and I'm getting us onto the nearest planet. There are colony worlds for deviants in Eridani, and I know how to manipulate a colonist database. I don't ask for your complete loyalty, and I think you're a little soft in the head to offer it to me for a 'good' plan, but if you come with us, stay suspicious, and keep your eyes open, I will treat you like a human being. Otherwise... Go back to Murnau, tell him of me, give him my message." Wakeman seems to relax, his expression shifting from carefully neutral to resigned. "There is a difference between what I want to do and what I need to do. I want to save you, but I don't need to. If you're not willing to work with me, despite mistrust, then I'm willing to let you die here. It's not what I want, but only a fool would sacrifice his needs for his wants. I learned that the hard way, and I don't intend to pay twice for the lesson."
[Gather information Hidden] Varic looks over at you, his expression still one of badly controlled apprehension. "Treatment? Is Rob-" Varic glances quickly back to Wakeman, "What treatment?"
[Luck 14] You never were the social type, and non-electronic connections aren't exactly your strong suit, but you know at least one person who's going to be hardcore on Wakeman's side. Triss, a Deviant preacher and drug dealer, was one of the ones who had been supporting Wakeman in the locker room. She was a big one for redemption, and for chemically 'touching the faces of the powers', but was also one of the first to learn to manipulate her structure. You knew her fairly well, though she'll probably want to kill you a couple times for supporting Murnau in the locker room conflict.
Health: 439/590 -[1,6]
Degeneration: Irises have lost color.
Carried Weight: 43/120
Attire: Plain Technician Uniform, White. Annwn CFUS (50/50, 15lbs)
Inventory:
Eldjotnar Shotgun (4/4 A, 12/12 E, 10lbs)
Energy Cell x3 (Fully Charged)
20 gauge gauss canister x12
Mechanical Bypass Kit (10 lbs, 8/10)
Mechanic's Utility Knife (1lb)
Pad (Charged, significant free space, 1lb)
Odei Flechette Pistol (3/5, 6lbs)
Status: Fine
---
Dominique WakemanFuck. Fuck. FUCK! Fennec knew more about Aoibheann than Dom thought... which meant he might know what she should and should not be able to do. And if Taiya said word one about her mental shielding to Fennec, then she might be completely fucked. This was bad. And there was no way to off Taiya - even by pushing her into the pack of freaks - without drawing major suspicion or ire toward her.
Fucking shit! Maybe she could bluff if she did something he didn't expect. Say she got some new tricks recently or something; it would at least be a partial truth. I really fucking hope those two weren't ever involved and he tries to pull some shit, because I don't think I could handle that on top of the rest of this shit, I really don't. She cracked her neck nervously and turned to look at the north door.
"That's what you need to do, and I'll help... but I still need to grab at least one test subject. I already have one in mind from going through the files. I believe I have enough leverage to get him to come along quietly." She didn't even want to entertain the idea that Jeffrey might be one of those things they had fought. Psychics and rubber men... what kind of horrible shit is the technocracy not capable of?
After thinking about the choice for a moment, she spoke. "I'm not afraid to go first. But if I rearguard, I can try to set up another psychic barrier and delay them even further. Either way, Cadet Taiya should stay in the back to seal off that door once we go through it... so it's up to you whether you want to stay back with her or trust me to keep her safe."
Fennec nods.
"I trust you with my life and Taiya's, but I would like to have a word with the girl. You take point, I've been running forwards and killing Freaks for long enough that walking backwards and killing Freaks sounds like good change of pace. Let's finish this." Fennec gives the remnants of his injured squad a few moments to pull back together into a formation, issuing brief orders and encouragement before taking Taiya aside and switching off the general channel. Things could go very, very wrong there, and you're fully cognizant of the fact. Worse, they're going to be behind you. That means, at best, you'll have a split second of psychic warning before the bullets start hitting your back. You take your soldiers forward, your own commands somewhat more clipped than Fennec's. You don't know if it's something empathic, but Alonso and Basilio seem to catch your mood. Their faces don't show emotion, but they keep their weapons half raised and keep you protectively flanked at all times.
Actually heading forwards is surprisingly painless, despite the feeling that you're about to take a blow from behind. The remnants of the platoon move forwards cautiously, watching the doorways for any sign of movement. Nothing comes, though you can feel spikes of animal frustration from the waiting Cellburners. The rearguard crosses the threshold of the northern door without incident, and Taiya begins sealing the door with the engineers. Less than a minute later, the door slides smoothly into place, and one of the engineers drill something into the door. You can feel the electronic pulse as the door signals that it has been sealed, [P.Empathetics 19] and a moment later you feel a second, unexpected pulse coming back through the walls of the station. Though the connection is faint, you can feel the minds of the Freaks calm, drifting away from their unwilling posts at the edge of the judgement hall.
Fennec signals that the engineers have packed up, and you start the foreguard moving at a quick march. The wax has grown familiar now, and it's homogenizing effect is now its most bizarre quality. One corridor is much the same as another when they're all covered in bluish wax, and doorways and turns become your only means of knowing that you're really going anywhere at all.
"We should be getting close," Fennec sends from the rear,
"one turn, then one-hundred fifty until we get to the military sector locks. We have access keys, so th-" A voice on the general channel interrupts Fennec, cutting across with a static laden signal.
"Signal rotated to 32.93.10. This is Doctor Polburn, attempting to reach the military detachment approaching military gate 3. Please respond. Rotating frequency in seven seconds." "This is Arbiter Fennec," Fennec sends back immediately, muting all other broadcast frequencies.
"We are receiving. What is your position and status?" "I- oh, stars above! We are barricaded in the military mess and surveillance post, there are fifty-eight of us, some of us are injured. We're all that's left, but that's not important! There is a pack of experiments one floor below you, and we believe they are intentionally bypassing you in order to get to your ship." Fennec is silent for long moment.
"Polburn, there is interference on the line, please repeat." Polburn repeats, and, for the first time, you can feel Fennec become upset beneath his normal calm.
"Polburn, is this intel sure? We've seen these experiments, and they seemed barely more than animals. Would these creatures even be capable of comprehending what a ship is?" "Not all of them are stupid, arbiter. None of them are even remotely human, as you may have seen, but not all of them are animal. Some are quite intelligent- flesh eating, eternally hungry, and utterly without human morals, but still retaining their former intelligence and memories. They control the others like an insect swarm, and they want nothing more than to escape this station. Please, we're not fighters, you have to stop them!" "Message acknowledged. Hold communication until my reply." Fennec unmutes your communications, switching to the command channel with you and Taiya.
"Taiya, does the signal trace check out?" The cadet's reply is immediate.
"Signal origin is within the military surveillance substation. Their hold point makes sense, there would be enough food and space to support their group, and both of those sections have blast seals on all doors and ventilation. Assuming they kept the Wax material out in the beginning, they could have remained in good health quite easily." A slow breath rattles through the comms.
"I had hoped for something more sinister. It would be a lot easier to believe that 'doctor Polburn' was lying about the strike force if he'd lied about his location. I can't read him with all the interference on the line, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that neither of you can read him through a couple alloy walls... Malcolm Olson was second to the TCR, so he should have been the one on the line. This means he could be one of the wounded, or he could just have delegated communications in order to see to something else, we don't know. I do know that if there really is a smart Freak, or a group of smart Freaks, mixed up in this, we can't afford to let them get to the ship. The door we welded in place will slow them down, but after what I've seen... Even if the smart ones didn't think to bring breaching tools, I don't know how long it will hold. We can't let them get to the ship first, but I don't know if we can retrieve more than half-a-hundred civilians, escort them and their wounded back to the ship, and beat the Freaks in a race. Your thoughts, Harlequin?"Health: 128/128
Stamina: 120/120 (+14)
Carried Weight: 124/210
Attire: Harlequin Uniform, Styx Assault Armor (150/150, 60lbs. Integrated Power cell charged 3/3, Internal Ammunition Supply [Cerico, 14])
Inv:
Dominique's Abassy Heavy pistol -laser sight- [6, 8lbs]
.50 pistol clip (7 0.2lbs) x5
Artemis Railgun (3/3 A, 3/3 E 18lbs)
Size S-3 rail spike pack (3, 0.6lbs) x2
Cerico Shotgun (24/8 A, 16lbs)
12 gauge shells (8, 0.3lbs) x5
Stun club (50/50 11lbs)
Advanced Medical Kit (10/10) (5lbs)
Energy Cell (Full, 0.5lbs) x5
ORS (3) x2
Chitin Nodule
Status: Fine
Author
Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 490398 times)