The Sodorri had been located, and the vessel has been destroyed. The words hung heavy in the air of the communication chamber as a single message blinked on the frontmost monitor. Do it. Maria hesitated for a second- the worst had indeed happened. The Earth's forces, whatever state they may be in, had somehow attacked and destroyed the Sodorri without giving it time to transmit anything. How could- Her thoughts were interrupted as she spied a large ship appear from slipspace out of the corner of her eye. It had been unlike any other she'd ever seen, a design she'd only seen in more surreal works of fiction. The ship was completely black, creating an eerie, colorless hole against the cosmos. It seemed to reach towards the Concordia as hundreds of messages scrolled past her status displays. Snapping back into reality, Maria hovered over the console and gave one last look at the captain's message. She disabled all security protocols on her transmissions, effectively spamming all possible radio channels with her message. It would hopefully reach whatever damned communications system the Earth used now. Formality became an afterthought as the ship lurched away from its unknown assailant. "This is the UEF Concordia, we mean no harm. We are here to h-" "Thrall vessel, heave to. Report to camp 28419. Rebellion will not be tolerated, resistance will be met with force. This is your final warning." An odd voice suddenly came through the ship's loud speakers. Great, she thought, They're using voice modulators. It was an odd thing to think about, but her mind was in other places. Maria continued with her transmission, shifting her focus from the Earth to the ship. If they could transmit to the ship, they should have no problem hearing this. "Don't do something we'll both regret. I don't know who you are, but you have attacked a ship of the Prodigal flotilla. Stop all hostile activity immediately."
"All hands to battle stations. Repeat, all hands to battle stations. The Sodorri had been located, and the vessel has been destroyed" Kris snapped her head upward in shock, presumably just as others did, at the captain's announcement. The Sodorri has been destroyed. Somehow, for some reason. To her knowledge, the Sodorri really isn't that much different than the Concordia in terms of overall capability, so if the Sodorri is a flaming wreck (that is, if there actually was oxygen in space), then... Before she could really think about the facts, the guy with the arm she had to fix basically left her behind in the emergency. The reason for that was obvious, but still... "Oh, whatever. I should go do something too! I'm part of this, after all!", she said to herself, quickly packing up her tools and materials. Of course, she didn't forget that Ohen still has a heatsink to fix, so she also put the necessary parts in her bag, and then-- BLAM. The ship lurched suddenly, as if something big just slammed into it, and so did she, losing her balance and... "Ow!" Landing flat on her rear. At the very least, though, she was glad she didn't fall face-first or bag-first. The former would definitely be even more painful (with the chance of breaking her nose), and the latter would probably damage all the fragile tools and parts she was carrying in it. Shock-dampener technologies aside, there was still a chance of that happening. Getting up with a slightly irritated groan, she had only managed to take a couple steps forward when a cold, stern, mechanical voice rung through the comm systems. "Thrall vessel, heave to. Report to camp 28419. Rebellion will not be tolerated, resistance will be met with force. This is your final warning." All she could think about that was "Wait, what?". At that time. After fully preparing herself with arms and armor, she moved out alongside the other engineers to their respective stations, and that was when she saw just what had slammed into the Concordia. If she was in a text-based chat right now, she would type a very long string of capitalized "F" letters ending with several hyphens. If one were to ask her directly, though? "Oh, snap"
The Concordia shook again as the alien craft moved closer, a drill appendage appearing the side closest to the Concordia. Slowly but surely, the drill spun up to speed, and moved ever closer to the hull of the UEF vessel. "Colonel Harrison," Murren called over his comms, "I give you the authority to do what you need to. If they think they can board this vessel, you send them right back where the came from!" Murren cursed his luck, watching the point defense lasers helpless fire on the anchoring as the voice rang through the halls again. Thrall Vessel, It mechanical tone echoed through the halls, Your hail has been received, and your resistance has been noted and logged. This vessel and all personnel will be reclaimed. Further resistance will be met with deadly force, by mandate of the Accord. You have been warned. Murren's mind raced at whatever that was supposed to mean. Reclaimed? Accord? What the hell was going on? Then, something occurred to him: he had not hailed this vessel, nor ordered it. "Communications Officer Romano, what is going on? Who sent them a hail?" As the Captain began to berate Maria, a communique came back to the Concordia from it's wide-net broadcast to Maria's station. 42.3598° N, 71.0921° W. Project Magna Secure. Awaiting Engines. Send help post haste. Dr. Abe Tsukino requesting assistance. Cannot allow research to fall into enemy hands. Locator beacon active on secure comms line. This is a recorded message. Do not reply. Message ends. The drill hit the hull of the frigate, and with a hideous screech it tore through the hull in seconds. Once through, the drill burst apart, and from the breech spilled automatons -- vaguely humanesque robots, landing in perfect sequence and spreading out in an almost geographic pattern. "DO NOT RESIST," they screeched from their chassis, "SUBMIT. OBEY." They advanced, repeating their heartless mantra as they began to close on the crew. ------------------------------------ "I don't know," Caulder responded to Alice, not bothering to look at her, "but I'll be damned if I let something slip from our fingers and into the Accord's hands." He walked the rest of the way in silence, and as they approached, the familiar deafening roar of Gaaurv dropship engines could be heard, even through the concrete. "God damnit," Caulder pulled his rifle from its sling, now breaking into a hustle. Sure enough, as they surfaced, the ramshackle dropship was hovering over the now lit ruins of MIT, spewing billows of black smoke behind it. With a quick look around, Caulder couldn't find any Gaaurv wandering about the grounds between the station and the university itself. "Looks like they're just checking it out for now," Caulder turned to the others, "Let's take it slow, and try not to attract their attention.
Harrison grinned, as he heard the Captain's words. 'Whatever I need to do to get these bastards away? I have just the plan.' he thought, with a distinctive plan in his head. He rushed to his table, and grabbed a box of cigars on it. He pulled out a long and fat cigar, not synthetic, but real Valarian tobacco. He lit it, and put into his mouth, embracing the refreshing smell of the tobacco, which was whiffed away as it moved away from him, by the smoke removers. Slight waste, but it didn't matter. He pulled down the operating rod on his rifle, and checked his cartridge. Full to the brim with a powerful caliber of bullets. He smacked it back in, and pushed the operating rod back, resulting in a round being fed to the chamber, making a click sound. ¨Yes sir. I bequest you to evacuate the outer decks though, as I will depressurize it the minute those buggers hope to get on. Meanwhile, I'll get our way to fight back, or at least get away for now., sir." That was all he said, as he moved away, and ran out the door. He brushed away some engineers, and slid through a door, controlling his massive momentum only by grabbing hold of the doorway. He made his way to the elevator, and jumped in front of the crowd of soldiers who were attempting to get in. He hissed, through the closed teeth hold his cigar ¨No time to explain, take the other one, soldiers!" and spoke to the AI controller ¨Space Infantry combat training sector, top deck. Max speed¨ The AI replied with the elevator thumping, and beginning to move at a fast pace. Music started playing, to his dismay. Was this that one elevator in the ship, rumored to not have had its music removed?, he thought, with a frustrated sigh. Fifteen agonizing seconds later, he stepped out of the elevator, and grunted. He'd have to get that hideous THING they called elevator music. He continued running, and dashed through the door leading to the Spatial Infantry training rooms. He looked around, and he found what he wanted. The spacesuit, built for zero-g combat. Pretty useless, but good if you were boarding. Not something that was done, though. That was dumb. Why board when you could blow the ship to oblivion? He walked into the suiting chamber, an intricate machine used to lock on the suit, and closed his eyes, smiling.
"Aye, boss," Ash replied her own gun drawn, eyes scanning the surrounding area for signs of movement. "But not too slow, damn dogs won't be satisfied with a fly over, they'll look for a clear spot to land and send out foot soldiers if they don't have any in the immediate area. Like a bunch of neurotic terriers in that respect." Huffing out a quiet sigh she adjusted her belt making certain everything was tied in tight before adding. "If it's all the same to you can we put Wonderland between us so I can take the rear? Not that I think so little of her training," she shot an amused smile at Alice. "Just her attention span."
Alice gave Ash a sarcastic smile and said, "Well you two can decide on that. It's not my life at stake, I mean we all known damn well that if they see you, you're as good as dead or at least the person behind you." said Alice, turning around to see the Gaaurv dropship. She took her pistol out off of her belt and checked all her chemicals to see if any were leaking. Alice looked around for another way in and saw a chance, "Hey, there's a shack over there," Alice pointed towards the rotting old wooden shack hiding behind some rubble, "mabye we can take refuge there until it's safe enough for us to make a run for one of the buildings inside the campus. Besides it's more safer than being out here and the soldiers won't waste time looking in a shack which seems almost completely destroyed." She then continued look at the dropship, just hovering over the campus.
"Whoa!" The Concordia swayed again from the force of its mysterious attacker, almost causing Kristine to fall again. Almost. An ear-splitting screech reached her then, prompting the rookie to turn back to the screen, where she could see - Wait, is that thing drilling through the hull?! As if it wasn't obvious enough already, Kris has now confirmed that she is, as well as the entire crew, indeed in trouble. Big trouble. Not counting anything that might happen next, a hull breach almost always causes atmo leak, which is always a bad thing. So what am I supposed to do now? To be perfectly honest, it wouldn't be weird if she started panicking right about now. Fortunately, she didn't, although the threat of being trampled by the onrushing people probably helped with that. Wasting no more time, she took her carbine from its bag, its stock already attached, and placed several clips of varying ammunition - hollow-point, FMJ and armor-piercing - in an easily-reached pouch. At the very least, she'd be prepared if something that needs to be shot down came across. Of course, she wasn't really confident if she can muster up enough willpower to shoot a living being, but she can trust her fight-or-flight reflexes. Hopefully. Still, having a gun doesn't mean anything when the biggest problem right now is a hull breach, leaving her positively stumped on what to do for a while... Until her eyes fell upon the standard-issue communications device on her bag. Now why didn't I think of that? Keeping her facepalm purely mental, Kristine reached out for the communicator, typing a message to her assigned squad, led by Colonel Harrison. It was likely pure chaos in the lines, but hopefully she can reach someone. "Private Adelhyde, reporting in. Currently in Hangar 2. Requesting orders"
Caulder looked at the structure Alice pointed out -- a decrepit shack, built of rotting wood, probably built by a refugee sometime just after the invasion. Shanty towns popped up all over the place as things got worse, and this was just a remnant of that terrible time. Regardless, Alice had a good idea. "Well, if we're very lucky, it might smell terrible enough to mask our sent. The mutts might hate to use normal tech, but their noses are pretty good at sniffing people out..." Caulder eyes the Gaaurv ship, it teetering in the air as if it did not belong, "But we shouldn't wait too long. I don't want to get in there and find out the Gaaurv got their damn paws on whatever is causing this." With a quick glance between Alice and Ash, Caulder bounded up the rest of the stair, making a b-line for the shack. A quick check of the plywood slab that stood in for a door proved it to be unlatched, and Caulder slipped inside, leaving it ever so cracked for this companions to follow. ---------------------------------- "Colonel Harrison!" A voice called over the marine's commlink, "This is Corporal Hoshino, I've sealed of the sections where the intruders are, but I am not sure how long that will hold them! We are awaiting further instructions!" The sound of metal hissing could be heard over the link, these robots were wasting no time in trying to cut through the bulkheads.
He looked around for a second, and then ran towards the hissing sound. Again, he had no clue how the aliens looked on the other side of the door, but he couldn't waste much time. They were going to cut through the bulkhead any time soon, and he'd rather not get overwhelmed, as much as he wanted to fight them, face to face. He yelled back over the comms, with a tone of urgency becoming apparent in his voice. "Corporal, I am going to ask you, to release the airlocks. Don't wait for the place to depressurize, just open them. All the bulkheads, so we can throw these bastards of our ship. This is an order. Do not worry about anything else, just get the deck depressurized. Double time!" He clicked off the comms, and stared hard at the door, as he raised his rifle. One way or another, he was gonna see them. And one way or another, he was going to kill them, and stop the buggers from raiding their ship. He checked the Satchel charge on his belt, and hoped to God that the alien ship's raider insertion connector, or whatever it was, wasn't made of explosion resistant thing, because if that was the case, he was going to get killed.
The ship rocked back and forth for a brief second and a dull grinding sound resonated through the communications chamber. Maria kicked herself for being a fool as she started coming up with an explanation for the captain. Alerts from all parts of the ship flashed on her screens and the ship-bounced radios became full of chatter; if she could hear whatever was happening from all the way inside of her cabin, it was bad. She held the button on her commlink and prepared herself to face the captain. "Captain, I..." Her voice trailed off as she noticed a light on the console blink several times. There was an incoming transmission from the Earth, something pre-recorded, but it was still a reply! Maria gave a quick thank-you to however many deities she could recall from her theology classes and resumed her speech. "I've got a reply from the ground, sir," She started playing the message and quickly forwarded a copy to the captain, hoping that it would distract him from her own fuck-up. Project Magna... engines... send help... enemy hands... locator beacon. The humanity of the message surprised her after the nasty conversation with their attackers. She didn't know who the man was, what kind of engines he wanted, or what kind of enemy he was facing, but the fact that there were other people on the planet that weren't part of... whoever was attacking them, gave her a small amount of hope. She ran a quick search for the coordinates on antiqued atlases. Part of Northern America, close enough to the ship so that the location could be reached easily... even on an evacuation craft. She shook her head from the thought and went back to her old job. Soldiers mobilizing, pilots scrambling, technicians reinforcing what they could. Thankfully, it seemed that the members of her assigned squad had finally gone reported in and started getting in on the action. This was more like it. She connected to the squad's comm channel, just in time to- Wait, is the Colonel going to vent the ship? The idea was absolutely crazy, liable to get the crew killed faster than whatever was boarding the ship. But then again, this was Colonel Harrison, expert in making batshit crazy plans, and she hadn't heard the entire conversation. Maybe there was a good reason, whatever it could be, that she had missed. She toggled the microphone on her earpiece to constantly transmit and spoke. "Communications Officer Romano, what is going on? Need a sitrep." Man, she missed this part of the simulations. Nothing like an attack to get the blood pumping.
Alice agreed with Caulder, nodding at his statement, '...but their noses are pretty good at sniffing people out...' Thing was that Alice personally knew how well their noses were. When the Accords hit, they seem to attack the army bases first. Alice and her comrades were hiding in blast hole made by the a 'grenade' thrown by the soldiers. It was dark and almost impossible to see. They camped until suddenly her men were attacked by the Gaaurv. She was the only one who made it alive. She saw Caulder making his way over to the shed she pointed out in a way he wouldn't be seen. He kept the door open, slightly, for Alice and Ash to come inside. Assuming that Ash was still waiting for Alice to make a move so she can be in the back to protect the gang. She looked around to see if she can spot any Gaaurvs coming in but there weren't. She quickly, while crouching, ran over to the shed and waited for Ash to come.
Once both Caulder and Alice were inside, Ash watched the transport carefully as she made her way across the ground to the shed. slipping inside, she made a careful inspection of the room looking for anything of use or a potential escape should they fin themselves under attack. given the state of the place... and the smell just about any wall could be knocked out. As defensive positions went it would be next to useless, but in regards to cover it was useful. They just had to hope that those damn dogs didn't notice them creeping about. Moving to an older section of wall she pulled out her multi-tool and carefully gouged out a hole in the wall facing the position of the craft where she could watch it and get any indication that they'd been spotted. it didn't look like it so far, but then they might be more distracted by whatever it is that going on inside MIT. "I think we're clear for the moment," Ash murmured
Nope, nothing. No reply to her request from the commlines. Considering the situation, though, that should be a given. There's only one operator in charge of her squad, after all. But without directions... Just what is she supposed to do? Kris let out a small sigh, following the other troops as they moved into position. Her nerves were still tense enough to produce cold sweat, but her hands were no longer shaking. That's a step up, at least. She divided her attention between the gun in her hands, the organized chaos in front of her eyes, and her squad's communications channel -- Wait, did Colonel Harrison just gave a command for deck depressurization? Kristine knew the dangers of doing so; she is an engineer, after all, and for the few seconds that she could think she could not think of a reason that her colonel, master of unorthodox strategies, would give that order, aside from -- Her gaze and thoughts moved to the alien object right on top of the Concordia. In hindsight, there really wasn't any other reason available anyway. Still, she had yet to hear the entire plan. Keeping up with the crowd, she put more caution in paying attention to her squad's comm channels; she doesn't want to miss anything.
"Ah, hell." the colonel said in frustrations. He'd hoped for a little more time, but it seemed that it wasn't the case. He quickly backpedaled, moving for the alcove of the airlock. On his way there, it closed the bulkheads to all other decks, even the elevator. He wasn't getting anyone else killed on his watch, and definitely not because of his own plans. He took a last peek at the door, watching as the door began to open up. He got a single look at the monstrous abominations that he expected, but instead saw machines. That would make sense, but this made things complicated. They would be harder to deal with than flesh and blood, but the lack of a proper AI, which was impossible to create, would give him a mental and tactical superiority. But what worrier him was the fact that you didn't need consciousness to put bullets into someone. He closed his eyes, hung on to a ledge with the best grip he could, as the first of the alien machines turned over, and he pulled the manual release. Immediate decompression followed, pulling almost 95% of all of the machines nearby out into the deep expanse of space. He clicked the comms and yelled "Release airlocks, on boarded decks! Now!", without following up with military adjecture. He wasn't going to be holding on for long, but that was part of his plan, wasn't it? "Permission to leave the ship, sir?" he said into the comms, but he didn't wait for an answer. He let go, and was pulled right out into the expanse of dead space. All that he could see was the hull of the alien space ship, and the tendrils of the drill. The memory of his z-space training came back to him, and he spread out his arms. It wouldn't do much, except create a larger chance of grabbing on to anything. The hull came closer and closer towards him, as well as the boarding tendrils. He activated the thrusters on the suit, small things that were quite useless without training. He had to keep it running for a certain amount of time, or he could either get bashed into the hull at a crushing speed, or miss the tendrils entirely. Thankfully, he had calculated correctly, and he'd managed to reach and grab onto the tendrils. They were made of a really weird alloy, but he didn't have the time to think about it. Action was key. Hell, time was key. He reached towards his back, and grabbed the explosive case from next to his rifle, and hoped to god that the metal used in the boarding tendril wasn't too powerful.
Ohen charged on, keeping cautious as he still had a nagging fear of the boarders. What would they look like? He decided he probably doesn't want to know. Before he could move on, a command was uttered into his comms. Depressurize the deck? "The guy is insane..." He muttered, but he knew he didn't have a better plan. Well since that was his original destination, plans had to be changed. He peered into the armory, and walked in. Quickly scanning the room for Colonel Harrison, he found no trace of him in the bustling of the other soldiers. Suddenly he realized he could just request orders through comms. Idiot. Unaware of Harrison's current situation, he said into comms "This is Private Ohen Green requesting further orders, sir". He straightened his vest and fixed his helmet so that it doesn't cover some of his vision, waiting for an answer.