The Province Of Terrans 2
A Starshatter adventure
(Art by Toodee)
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Index: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Chapter 6
Wraith in the machine
“Weapon ready to fire, I made a couple of steps back. Safe from being surrounded, I patiently waited for my second passive scan-data pulse to finish compiling. Yet the second I read what was displayed on my faceplate, I wished I had the Ghost Sweeper in my hand and not the Deathknell.”
Northstone’s fingers swiped another holo-slide from his PDA and, projected above the bar, his audience witnessed yet another horror. This time it was a wraith, its foul shapes and tendrils curled where the mech’s pilot should’ve been. Mayhap ‘twas why once living crewmates had welded shut the cockpit’s hatch?
The slide’s last still seconds of holo-data were just a tad bit smudged and those in the know, oh, they did realize what had just happened then and there. Bathed in finely tuned scanning rays capable of detecting its ghastly spectral forms, the wraith... moved.
“Everything changed in but a single second. As the mech’s feet touched the floor-plating I immediately opened fire, laser beams boring molten holes into its armor. Now, dear guests, the most opportune fact that I stood in the machine bay’s entrance worked to my advantage, if but for a few star-seconds. To face me, this ghost piloted mechanical horror had to attack straight on. Which for me, meant one simple thing.”
The Spacer took another gulp of beer, sighed and swiped another set of holo-slides. Each depicted a slice of pure, adrenaline pumping battle, where the raving spectral mecha pilot’s warhammer hand smashed walls, floor-plating, bits of metal streaking everywhere, yet kept missing flying aback Northstone. His spacesuit engines aglow with needle-shaped plasma, the brutish and deadly hammer oftentimes missed him only by a token measure.
Inches separated the gallant Spacer from his would-be demise.
All the while Northstone’s pistol, set on its normal power setting, unleashed one laser beam after another. From what was essentially one-dodge-too-deadly point blank range, it would be inconceivable for even a Spacer child to miss. Unfortunately, the SRM mech was clad in efficiently welded, thick armor-plating; more, her pilot was not of the living.
“I had expanded nearly half of my suit’s fuel reserves,” – elaborated the Spacer as he swiped another file, this time a holo-vid – “and, had I been closer to that mech, retreating back to the corridor would’ve been a notion quite ludicrous. However, after emptying one entire power pack worth of Deathknell laser beams into this mechanical horror, its outer shell suffered damage.”
The holo-vid showed Northstone deftly leaping around one plasma blob, a bit too big for the SRM to avoid. The warhammer arm was too close for comfort, yet the Spacer was quite aware of his surroundings and he took a well calculated risk. Armor damaged, the much more “crunchy” mechanical insides of the mech soaked a lot of heat, as it thoughtlessly strode straight through the crackling blob. All those molten laser holes, the holo-vid showed, they were wide open doors for plasma to gingerly stroll inside as a welcomed guest.
There was a kaleidoscope of lights followed up by a cavalcade of micro explosions, which caused more than just a tad bit of damage. Shaking and hissing, the mech made another couple of steps, its warhammer sweeping with vicious efficiency. Grazed by its very last strike, Northstone was forced to overheat his personal shield to avoid the damage to both system of metal and flesh.
Rolling away from the immovable, burning from the inside out mecha, the Spacer drew the Ghost Sweeper nearly as quick as he holstered the empty Deathknell. His audience made note of the fact that as he drew, the thumb of his spacesuit glove had already flipped the spectral smiting armament on maximum power setting.
The Spacer was not playing around.
“Understanding that this thing was just about to abandon its useless metal shell and claw at me, I immediately switched my integrated scout visor to active scanning mode. To actually be capable of hitting a spectral enemy is no small feat, even if you are able to see it coming.”
The Roundabout’s guests witnessed this storyteller displaying another holo-slide. It was said wraith on the float, its multiple tendrils extended, maw adark with unholy pinkish white energy, and an aura which had now been actively harming Northstone since his energy shield was down.
For some it was nary enough to look upon this Unlife entity and feel a glacial chill down their spine. Others, those who had been unfortunate to face one in person and lived to tell about it, their minds squirmed in layers upon layers of unforgettable pain.
“As an explorer of deep space oddities, I should hate the Unlife just as much as the Jaern scum.” – the Spacer spoke with voice devoid of anger, or that was how it sounded at first hear.
When he continued, his words were reverberating with barely contained revilement – “I have faced these filthy creatures of uncreation many a time and I execrate them with every fiber of my Terran DNA. This is why, if I could, I would’ve destroyed every single one in my vicinity. Despite the creature’s foul energies causing me no little harm, I stood gun aimed at it and pulled the trigger.”
The audience witnessed how this wraith recoiled from the first beam, a growing burning hole in its being. Yet with otherworldly malice it cleaved at Northstone with all of its appendages. Shrouded in malevolent dark glow, sweeping at him with speed not of this world, these attacks appeared nigh impossible to evade. However, even measured against this horror which was actively draining his very life force away, the Spacer did prove his quality once more.
With nary a wince, Northstone Firehand withstood this assault, and as he spat blood behind his faceplate, the mighty beamgun made short work of this wraith.
The Spacer touched his face, as if remembering where he’d been hit by the horror and following another sip of beer, continued his tale – “Ancient it may have been, but nothing, not even a foul specter like this one could exist forever. Like all things, good or bad, it had to face its end. I, however, could not waste a second but had to fly from the olden mecha’s final resting place and as far as I could.”
Heavy on food and drink, people may have forgotten what occurred when a powerful machine suffered internal damage, but the Spacer did not. He swiped another short holo-vid which showed him running and jumping, and finally flying back into the machine bay, as the corridor behind him became temporary home of an explosion. The mecha’s reactor had perhaps suffered the most damage from that plasma blob and suffered a critical overload.
Derelict this olden warship was, yet some of her subsystems were still operational. Northstone’s beautified spacesuit, its engines spewing long trains of plasma, gracefully slipped through the swiftly closing gate of the machine bay. Hissing and cracking from the overload, the masterfully crafted Terran machine of space exploration was in need of a short rest. Thus, before he left that place, the Spacer made sure every system of his was properly cooled down.
First things first, he reloaded both pistols with a fresh power pack each.
“See, my dear guests, I would’ve loved to backtrack using the service tunnel.” – said he and projected another couple of holo-slides, before he added – “But exploration is oftentimes quite the unpredictable venture. As you can see from the map provided by FSS Bird Of Hope’s scanners, when my search of this bay was over, I had to make my way out by use of these derelict pipes.”
They saw him point at a literal maze of twisted piping, one which had once been used to supply a giant life support system with various gases, now long defunct. However, the scans were not complete, nor did they show anything else but the structure itself. They who listened to Northstone’s tale knew full well that braving said maze would come with its own set of dangers.
“Indeed, though significantly uncomfortable and tedious to navigate, these pipes offered me access to different parts of the derelict I usually couldn’t reach. This walk however had to wait since I first had to see what loot I could gain from the skeletal Jaern. Thus, setting my scout visor to help me look for traps, I approached the corpse.”
Of course, the Spacer made sure that everything he’d recorded for storytelling purposes was properly displayed. His audience watched him carefully probe around the metal clad skeleton, making sure there weren’t any mines or booby-traps. Then, just to be on the safe side, he produced an old tablet and via a jerry-rigged set of crystalline optic connectors, managed to plug it into the Jaern suit.
“They are quite foul and sneaky, these cannibals.” – said Northstone as the Roundabout witnessed him go through old cyber defenses like they were inactive – “Yet this one had perished by his own hand, it would seem, and only after he finished what he was ordered to do.”
Displayed on his projector there were a number of files, written in Raid, the pirate clan universal lingo, of all languages. Translated by Northstone, who was known to have mastered multiple alien tongues during his long years of exploring Fringe Space, it was quickly made apparent that this Jaern was part of a zealous sect. Led by a soul huntress calling herself the “Deliverer”, he was part of a Jaern tribe which migrated inside the derelict warship on the look for something... or someone.
“Now I knew who modified the SRM mech.” – said the Spacer, with a lot more disgust in his voice than when he simply talked about the Jaern – “Subserviently, reverently, this foul muncher performed a long list of tasks and turned the mecha into what I had quite the hard time fighting with. This evolved hunter was under orders, you see!”
To understand how someone, even vile cannibals like the Jaern, could do such a thing, was not easy. Every creature had instincts of self-preservation, yet this was a fanatic. According to his own logs, he was dying of hunger and indeed, in his suit’s automatic medical dispenser system there lay two canisters, one empty.
Poison of the nerve-weapon type.
“Those of you who know of the Jaern, I need not tell you what happens when they cannot eat. Everyone else, please, try to imagine what occurs when they who revel as they consume their victims alive, fall into zombification. Corpse eaters, Devourers, Gluttons... consumed by hunger they’ll gobble everything, even their own dead. Their ravenous thirst for flesh is such that it cannot be ever satisfied.”
Northstone swiped another holo-slide to the projector, one which showed a smaller Jaern hunter. Clad in a ragged armored suit and missing an arm, in its maddening gluttony, this thing looked even scarier than the one he’d shown them before. More, it would appear that the zombified Jaern had chewed off his own arm since bits of bloodied flesh still dangled from his gob. But what would fuel their nightmares was the look in this fallen creature’s eye. Hollow, yet aglow with rabid ache for flesh, this once proud hunter had sacrificed even his wretched soul.
It was true – there were fates worse than death.
“I analyzed the leftover poison canister and pocketed it in my backpack since its stasis seal was still good. Not one to use bio-weapons, when it came to these filthy monsters, no Terran would pull their punches.” – said the Spacer and ate another deviled egg, drinking what was left in his pint before he asked for a full one.
“The data-storage in this suit was protected with three layers of defenses, the last of which was supposed to delete everything, had someone unwary tried to gain entry. I deactivated it, but not before the bot wiped some of the data. Unfortunately, this bit contained most of the zealot’s personal logs and updated map files. I did gain information of his last two stops before descending into the same piping I aimed to traverse to continue my exploration.”
Northstone displayed a detailed scan of the Jaern armored suit and listed all possible items to loot. Of course, not a single member of his audience imagined that the thrifty Spacer would burden himself unnecessarily. After all, he still carried a big canister on his back full of high-grade fuel, including his combat supplies. Yet with some time on his hands and being quite nifty with his repair tools, Northstone could loot himself a potentially life-saving advantage.
(A) “The Jaern armored suit was wrecked, yet its integrated computer core was of fine craftsmanship. Manufactured by the pirate clan Vog’Ra, you see. Therefore, I made sure to deactivate the reactor and with great care recovered this delicate piece of computing. To augment my own computer core, however, I needed to find a sealed area so I could exit my spacesuit.”
(B) “That Jaern weapon was beastly, heavy-ish and yet, nothing blasted apart thick metal as well as the PPG. Weather my target was another mech, evolved fifteen foot tall Jaern hunter, or simply a locked gate, the PPG would do its job. The hunter carried it loaded with a big power pack, yet he had no spares. I took the weapon and could easily fix the bulk of its damage, incurred by decades of laying here. Its energy chamber was fused to perpetual overcharge though, and I could only fire it once...”
(C) “There was something else I could grab and potentially forge multiple uses for. The Jaern armored suit had been powered by a micro-fusion reactor, and when successfully shut down, quite recoverable. Who knew what ancient machines or computers I could energize with it? Of course, I could always set it to overload mode, thus fashioning a simple, yet powerful fusion bomb from it.”
The Spacer made a pause and explored the tapestry of eager faces who surrounded him. Making the audience think of and anticipate what he’d loot from the deadly places he explored, was perhaps one of his most favorite storytelling feats. Once more, he shifted the holoprojector back to the pipes and, this time with every bit of data taken from the Jaern. There were not two, but three possible locations which he could reach.
“I was then wondering, why were the Jaern outfitted with such efficient computers and by the enigmatic, cybernetic-loving Vog’Ra?” – said he and shrugged in his spacesuit, a feat of dexterity on itself, before he added – “Without wasting time thinking about it, I got to work looting. Meanwhile, I chose where I’d go next and let my computer show me every possible route through that maze of pipes.”
Dear reader, where exactly was Northstone Firehand about to go following his successful acquisition of Jaern loot and information?
(One) “There was this junction the Jaern stopped before coming here. From his data-core, I gathered somebody had converted it into a bio-incubation chamber of sorts. While the cannibalistic scum had no use of it, edible plants and medicinal herbs which possibly grew there could be quite useful. Indeed, I did have plentiful supplies, yet exploration was a rather unpredictable profession, as you all can very well see.”
(Two) “One of the pipes circled around and allowed me to reach that olden shelter area. Shielded, I could leave my spacesuit, perform maintenance, rest, and make use of the Jaern loot that I just hauled. Moreover, on my original scans, that place was supposedly home to some intact supply crates. After shooing a few power packs, I would love to grab replacements.”
(Three) “Intriguing as it was, I was not in the habit of missing on chances. The second area I pilfered from the Jaern data-core was a nearby living quarters. More of a barracks, you see, and prolly where some of the troops which protected this derelict warship took shelter. From the scans my reviled dead enemy made, it would appear ravaged, broken by centuries of battle, yet it may hold secrets of its own. After all, the Jaern weren’t famous for their love for exploration.”
(*_*_*)
Dear reader, please do not forget to post your pick in the comments below, and elaborate upon why you think our protagonist should do so.
I like the creative fusion of C and 3, it seems quite combustible in terms of the momentum and action.
A or c, preferably a, and 3.