The Avali Nexus

That's fantastic. I'm assuming it's either a standard Blood Wolf Dragoon helmet or Shade's personal helmet?

 

I'll be seconding this. Since I never really said anything earlier. Personally I've just grown used to it before and see it as harmless shenanigans.
Unless it goes too far as Reks said.
I've known the community for being a bit weird but let's keep it within boundaries please.

 

after trying and failing to slap an avali badge onto my tank in warthunder (I have to split it up into 4 pieces positioned at each corner of the template for it to appear on the roof, and frankly it's too much damn work to scale these sections properly), I'm just gonna ask if the avali military uses any kind of camouflage and if I can get a (preferably high res) template for it?

 

Shade's personal helmet. Every member gets a standard helmet when they pass the entry test, which they can then modify to their needs. In this case, Shade added several optics (those bright red dots), each one serving a different function (infrared, night vision, thermal, etc), and the grey sphere is a dead mans switch, if his vitals go offline without a command being issued, the sphere detonates so there is nothing left for the enemy to scavenge, maybe take out someone at point blank. The smaller grey dots with the off white inner circles are cameras, so he has an easy time filling out op records, and can serve as a scout, with a visual link back to the rest of the force. The orange runes are purely cosmetic, but they help make it look more Avali themed in my opinion.

 

unless somebody gets back to me on that camo thing, I will be using this: http://i.imgur.com/zMrehjC.jpg?1
I'll not try and put any emblems on it, maybe an aircraft, but not a tank

 

They use adaptive camouflage in which the pattern is based on their immediate environment. I'm not sure if they can do full-fledged optical cloaking, but they probably can get pretty close.

 

well shit, looks like I'm stuck with my shoddy digital camo and the occasional avali emblem on the aircraft

 

Here is the final version of my story. I won't be uploading it anywhere else, unless a fan fiction section is added to wiki, in which case I will add it there. Changes include some cleaning up of the story in general, a flashback at the end of part two, and the addition of a fourth part titled Aftermath, which deals with the changes the events of this story have caused to the Blood Wolf Dragoons protocols. It was a pleasure writing this, but I'm a little burnt out from it, so there won't be much else from me for a while. Enjoy.

Cleanup

It wasn't often the leader of the Blood Wolf Dragoons was called in to deal with something, but this wasn't most occasions. Shade looked over the hastely put together portfolio, which detailed just what was going on.

As of eight rotations ago, communication had been lost with Corp labs' site Gamma. Recon team three "First Responders" had already been deployed. Shade thought the problem would be resolved, until they had called in for backup and then failed to check back in. Now he was in route to deal with an outbreak of god knows what.

He looked over the files he had of the recon team. Blitz, Albion, Whisper, and Salamander. No real names, everyone who joined the BWD was given a callsign, less info to track back to friends and families. They were all decent, by no means rookies, but not quite veterans. A sort of limbo between senority and cannon fodder. Shade sighed, at least they aren't useless, he consoled himself.

Outside his dropship, the rush of stars streaming by slowly came to a halt, the FTL jump had finished, he was here. The planet didn't have a name, but even if it did it wouldn't have mattered. It was your average planet, some local flora and fauna, breathable atmosphere, and cold enough that an Avali didn't need a suit to walk around. Generic, non descript, and out of the way. Perfect for a covert research facility like site Gamma.

Shade checked his weapons one last time. Despite being the leader of a mercenary group, he never used any of the more exotic weapons. Instead he kept it simple. A burst fire rifle, a large caliber pistol, and when the op callexd for it, a Firelance, whcih he was regretting not bringing. From the looks of it, the site was fully comprimised, and that usually made the situation extra unpleasant, enough so to warrant an anti-tank weapon like the Firelance.

Shade stepped onto the teleport pad, shouldered his rifle, and gave the command. "Drop." Instantly he was on the planets surface, but there was no sign of the recon team, who should have been there to greet him. He quickly scanned the immediate are, and was unsettled by what he saw. It was obvious he was in the middle of what had once been a camp, but it looked like the area had been raided.

Provisions, ammo, and scraps of nanocanvas littered the ground. The tents had been torn to shreds, and he could see purple stains amidst the white of the canvas. Blood, a fight of some kind had gone down here, but between who, or what what he couldn't tell. Then he saw it, the fungal pods. The augmented reality his assault helmet provided quickly flagged the fungus, and a large biohazard warning appeared. Shade silenlty thanked the fact his helmet was both airtight, and used filters to protect him from airborne threats, in this case the fungal spores.

It was only now that Shade realized the severity of the situation. The presence of the Agaran fungus only gave Shade a few seconds warning, as several vaguely bipedal beings lunged out from the brush surrounding the campsite. Cursing loudly, Shade again shouldered the rifle, and pulled the trigger

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~Twenty rotations ago, site Gamma received a sealed shipment of Agrarian fungal pods. The pods were designated for testing with several chemicals, to see which, if any, poved effective in killing the fungus.

~Fourteen rotations ago, one of the fungal pods ruptures, coating the crates interior in spores, and creating an undetectable hairline fracture in the supposedly airtight container.

~Twelve rotations ago, the first victim was admitted to the infirmery with complaints of nausea, disoriantation, and vomiting.

~Ten rotations ago, the twentieth victim is admitted to the infirmery, and site Gamma initiates a self imposed quarantine.

~Eight rotations ago, the majority of site Gama has been infected, with five victims having been fully consumed by the fungus. The generators go offline, and the entire facility drops off the grid.

~Seven rotations ago, recon team three "First Responders" arrives planetside and set up a camp to operate out of.

~Six rotations ago, recon team three enters the facility, and are attacked by multiple bipedal entities composed of Agrarian fungus. The recon team takes one confirmed casualty, and retreat to their camp.

~Four rotations ago, the last member of recon team three is confirmed KIA when their biosigns go offline. Data transmitted from his suit indicates the fatal blow was a small caliber pistol round matching operatives own sidearm to the head.

~One rotation ago, a heavy dropship piloted by the leader of the BWD enters orbit. Said leader proceeds to teleport to the planets surface, and is attacked by several bipedal entities composed of Agrarian fungus. All entities except for one are taken out at range by rifle fire, the last entity is then eliminated by multiple high caliber pistol rounds.

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Shade breathed a sigh of relief as the last.... thing, finnaly went down. This one had managed to get within striking distance, and took an entire clip from his pistol to take down. Quickly making a mental note to bring a larger clip next op, Shade turned to face the waypoint on his hud that marked where the facility was. He then reloaded his weapons, and set off to towards the infested building. He'd be dammed if he was going to let this situation get any further out of control.

Failsafe

It only took Shade about ten minutes to reach the facility, but to him it felt more like ten hours. After being attacked by several Agrarian hosts, he was becoming slightly paranoid. Every step he took was careful, trying to make as little noise as possible. When he had heard twig of some sort snapping, he froze, heart beating loudly enough to trigger the aucustic sensors in his helmet. Everything had him on edge, because he knew even the slightest mistake could get him killed here.


The facility before him was a mess. It's large blast doors had been smashed open, windows shattered, and the Agrarian fungus already starting to escape. Biohazards were getting flagged left and right on his HUD, and he could see what appeared to be the remains of some unfortunate local fauna nearby. What scared him more than anything else though, was how desolate the area appeared to be. Besides the few hosts he'd seen when he arrived, Shade hadn't spotted anything else. No fauna of any shape or size, no people or survivors, not even any more hosts. This was not normal.

Steeling himself for what was to come, Shade stepped into the facility. He needed to assess the situation before he could call in for help. As much as he wanted to leave this place to rot for eternity, there were procedures that needed following. He needed to verify the point of contamination, and recover any data he could easily bring with him. Pulling up a map of the facility to his HUD, Shade nearly yelled in frustration. The storage bay where the fungal pods would have been stored was down three floors.

Before he could decide to just scuttle the op, Shade heard a noise coming from a few rooms over. Pulling out his pistol, he slowly made his way through to the source of the noise, the infermery. He wasn't prepared for what he found on the other side of the door, and he would never be able to forget it either.

Before him was the partially infested body of one member of recon three. The body itself was mutilated beyond recognition, but the fractured and broken body armor, and scout helmet bearing the team's insignia erased any doubt. The body only now vaugely suggested it had once been an Avali. Fungal stalks made of flesh and feathers sprouted from the corpse in grotesque bundles. Where it's eyes had once been, now were only dark holes, infested with fungal pods.

The sight of the body sealed Shade's decision. The facility had been compromised beyond recovery. The best course of action was to initiate Failsafe protocal. He would head to the data hub, purge the logs and destroy an sensitive information he could, before exiting the facility and calling in a vessel to bombard the facility and surrounding area from orbit.

Before he left, Shade took one last look at his fallen comrad. He sighed, said a prayer to whatever gods did or didn't exist, and put a single bullet into the what had once been a head, a coup de grace for a suffering comrad.

"It's the only mercy I can give you now. I'm sorry"

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Having typed in the last details into the op beacon and set up the trasmiter, he closes the outer airlock doors before jetisioning the beacon into orbit. "I followed your protocols, you'd better not screw this up. Not after what these people went through" he says out loud. He heads over to the cockpit and types in coordinates before engaging the FTL jump. As the stars begin to speed by outside the cockpit, he walks over to his table, sits down, and begins to write a letter.

"I regret to inform you, your son has been confirmed KIA" he types before sitting back. For the first time in years, he can feel tears. And he wasn't sorry about them either. This op had finnaly opened his eyes to what was really happening.

Shade thought back to that fatefull day, where he had lost his entire pack to a raging megafauna they had been hunting. An Avali's pack, their entire world, as important to them as a limb is to a human. He remembered anger, hate, regret... and fear. Most Avali who lost their entire pack went mad. He hadn't wanted to go down that path.

Losing his pack is what spurred Shade on to create the Blood Wolf Dragoons. And now, faced with the harsh reality of what he'd made happen, it finnaly dawned on him what he'd really done. He'd made a disposable pack. If one member died, they were replaced with a new member. He'd thrown lives away for his own, selfish reasons.

The world was unforgiving, and when you throw away lives as if they meant nothing, the world had a way of forcing you to acknowledge what you'd done. This was the op that broke his shell. And he was all the stronger for it. He wiped the tears from his eyes and went back to typing. He was beyond redemption at this point, but that wouldn't stop him from making what ammends he could.

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Retrospect



The following is a summary of the events that followed operative Shade's entry into site Gamma. The events are listed in chronological order as best as can be asserned. The times given are estimates, and may be innacurate.

~RA indicates rotations ago. Op clock begins once operative Shade enters the facility.

20~RA-Site Gamma recieves a shipment of Agrarian fungal pods designated for testing.


14~RA-One of the fungal pods ruptures, compomising the seal of it's container.

12~RA-First victim begins to show symptems of Agrarian infestation

10~RA-Infested individual count reaches 20. Site Gamma enters self imposed quarantine.

8~RA-The majority of the site is infected. Five victims have been fully infested. Generators go offline, and site Gamma drops off the grid.

7~RA-Recon team 3 "First Responders" arrive and set up a camp to operate out of.

6~RA-Recon team 3 enters the facility. they are ambushed, and one operative, Blitz, is confirmed KIA.

4~RA-The last member of recon team 3, Albion, is confirmed KIA when their biosigns go offline. Sensors indicate the fatal blow was a small caliber pistol round matching operatives own sidearm to the head. Event cannot be friendly fire, as all other operatives are KIA.

1~RA-Operative Shade enters into orbit above the planet. Upon arriving planetside, operative is almost immediatly attacked by several hosts. The majority of hosts are eliminated at range with rifle fire. The final host is eliminated with multiple high caliber rounds.

-0:12-Operative makes his way from the campsite to the facility.

0:00-Operative enters facility.

0:01-Operative hears a sound coming from the infirmery.

0:02-Operative discovers the partially infested body of recon three operative Blitz. Operative neutralizes host before it can become a threat.

0:07-Operative enters stairwell to level two.

01-Operative arrives at main data hub doors. Doors are blocked by several large fungal growths. Operative proceeds to begin cutting through fungal growth using his personal combat knife.

03~34-Operative is interupted by three(3) hosts. One host is eliminated by pistol fire. The other two hosts proceed to engage operative in close quartes combat. Operative dispaches one host with his personal combat knife, but the knife becomes lodged in the host. Operative then proceeds to engage the last host in hand to hand combat for several seconds before he can execute the host with a point blank pistol round.

06-Operative finishes cutting through the large fungal growths, and enters the data hub. Operative proceeds to initiate Failsafe protocol, wiping the systems and destroying all electronic data.

0:49- Operative enters stairwell to level one.

0:50~53-Operative deviates from Failsafe protocol and enters the main speciman lab, where he proceeds to execute all contained specimins, and activates the labs steralization system before leaving. Reasons for this deviation are unknown.

1:01~1:28-Operative exits site Gamma, and proceeds to return to his dropship before setting up an op beacon and engaging FTL. Operative has not reponded to comand as of yet. It is over four rotations past op at the time this report is being written

4:46-Blood Wolf Dragoon vessel "Planetary Caliber" enters orbit above planet.

4:49~5:04-Blood Wolf Dragoon vessel confirms Failsafe protocol is in effect. Vessel begins bombardment of compromised facility and surrounding area.

5:26-Blood Wolf Dragoon confirms the facility and the area of 120 miles surrounding it have been fully bombarded. Vessel engages FTL and returns to command

--Note, at six days past op, operative Shade breached protocol and informed operative Blitz's family of his death. At operatives own orders, the family is not to be subject to any actions due to their knowledge of sensitive information. This present a serious breach by our highest ranking operative. Review of Failsafe protocol will be discused, as will protocol regarding information leaks.

-So you've read the report have you. I guess you know everything now. No, still have questions? Fine, Guess I'll answer them. Why'd I enter the specimen lab? To put them out of their misery. No creature deserves that fate. What did I do during those six days I was AWOL? I visited Blitz's family. Gave them the news. Told them he died fighting, a hero. Everything I said was a lie. The poor kid had a pistol round in his kneecap. He was the slowest, so they left him to die. The unexplained pistol round to Albion's head. His own doing. He couldn't live with what he'd done to Blitz. He'd have lived through this if not for his guilt. Those all your questions? Good. This op was a failure, it's time to let it fade away.--Shade

Aftermath



In the wake of the contamination and infestation of site Gamma, the council has unanimously agreed to review Failsafe protocol. After discussion, the decision was reached to suspend any and all research into the Agrarian fungus. This breach has demonstrated just how dangerous this fungus is, and damage caused already outweighs any benefits that could be gained from continued research.

In the wake of operative Shades breach of protocol involving the distribution of sensitive information, the council has agreed to hold a hearing to determine operative Shades's compitence. The council has elected to overlook operative Shade's breach of protocol due to his position as both founder of this organization and as the most effective operative this organization has. Any further inqueries regarding this matter are closed.

In the wake of the leak of sensitive information regarding the death of one of this organizations operatives, the council has agreed to review protocol regarding the dissemination of sensitive information to the immediate family of deceased individuals. The council has decided that all operatives may record a message to be sent to their immediate family in the case of their death. These messages may not contain any information regarding their location, or the ops they have been dispatched on.

A funeral is to be held aboard the Blood Wolf Dragoon planet vessel "High Command" to commemerate the deaths of recon team three "First Responders". Operative Shade will present a speach to the procession regarding the changes that have been enacted following the events at site Gamma. Attendance to this event is not mandatory, though it is encouraged. As recon team three had many friends within our organization, counslers are available to any individualswho need their help coping with this loss. The council themselves will be making an apperance later this week to talk about the changes in protocols this event has inspired. Again, attendance is not mandatory, but is encouraged. That will be all for now.

 

Seems I've left everyone speechless. I must take this opportunity to act! SHENANIG -*gets jettisoned into orbit*

 

wow

 

This just gave me a flashback to my Wolfenstein 3D days. Thanks for taking me back to the 1990s.

 

Dude that was an EPIC story and to be honest with the fact of my wild imagination and game play of lots of games I could actually visualize the entire area in 3D (But at least you didn't put as much detail into the storys areas as 50 shades of grey (about 2 - 3 pages describing a door handle is the sort of detail they put into that story ) If I could animate I could do short clips of areas from there, but I'm not really good with animating (I tryed Maya it's simple but confusing as all hell at the same time)

 

Easter Eggs!

 

Thanks. I usually only go into detail in a story if it's important, if not I let the reader fill in the blanks. It lets the reader create their own details, for example the burst fire rifle. I never describe it, but I'm sure a few people got an image in their head just from that tiny detail. I also took a lesson from a book I read that says to avoid describing the monster/villain/eldritch horror in detail. The reader starts making assumptions, and in this case the idea is scarier than the reality. Set the description in stone, and you take away some of the fear.

 

Fixed. Mr Fow1er, I don't want to nag, but it doesn't take that long to add commas and other punctuation.

Deneb's story is very well written, so nice work!

 

I feel kinda bad for Fowler, I mean, he loses points for the semi-leetspeak name, and the terrible punctuation, and generally behaving like a 12 year old, but I can sympathize with being the passive aggressive punching bag for an entire community

 

Thank you Reks. I'm quite proud of how well it was received by you guys.

NO SYMPATHY FOR THE WEAK!!!

 

I still don't see the difference, asides from coloration... I must be missing something obvious >.>

 

Well think of it this way I can talk without taking a breath for about a minute and a half somewhere around there which I barely ever do but never the less the reason I type like this is because I don't look at my keyboard much unless playing piano, but yes I should try to punctuate

You.. Have no clue how much of a beating I can take that doesn't affect me (also think thats one of the side affects of my thought line being that of a psychopath)

 

I think we can call this a success, modding thread on /r/starbound, both of the top comments are about the avali