MrEdwardNigma
2011-06-20, 06:20 PM
1000 Post Unification
In the distance the trumpets of the festival still sounded, but here the atmosphere was far more grim. The largest ship ever built was being boarded by it's passengers: the enemies of the Empire, from all corners of the universe, all in shackles and trudging down the walkway in defeat.
It was a political move, of course, sending off a prisonship of this size to the nearly mythical Hades, on the 1000th birthday of the Unification. Hades was the only centre of life beyond the uttermost borderplanets, out there in the core of the black. Travelling there was considered madness, because even with the most advanced hyperdrives it would take years, and this made it the Madrillian's perfect Alcatraz. Even if one should sneak out of Hades, there was no way back alive. It represented the end of the line, and all here boarding this ship knew it, the "passengers", but also the crew... and the ship.
Captain Rivann'Arr was checking the manifest one last time. Everything needed to go smoothly, but he had no doubt it would, with his amazing intelligence. He had designed Charon himself, or at least the previous symbiotes inhabiting Arr's body had. It was unusual for a host body this old, respected and experienced to do a trivial thing such as pilot a prisonship, but Arr was close to death, closer perhaps even than his symbiote. In his 22501 years he had seen all of the known universe, and the black represented the final frontier, the only place he did not know of yet. He wished to die out there, complete.
1004 PU, Charon Bridge
"We're going to die out here!" one of the guards screamed.
Rivann'Arr sighed. He had full confidence he would get the ship back in working order soon. An electrical storm had blown out most of the systems, and now only the bridge was up and running fully. No doubt, down there in the holds, there would be chaos. Rivann'Arr wouldn't care less if the prisoners all killed each other, as long as Charon would make it to his destination.
"This is just a minor setback. I've been through electrical storms in space before, though I must admit one this large and furious would only be possible this far out into the black"
Rivann'Arr smiled. This was exactly why he'd decided to pilot this ship: to see something new. But the rest of the Madrillians on board were idiots, the scum of their society, and not quite as able to put things into perspective.
"I'm reading electronical irregularities all over the ship. They're moving, as if they're alive" Selog'Oth said. He was the only one of the crew approaching the kind of intellect that was to be expected of a Madrillian. He was what they called a Big Fish, or a Doomed One: a symbiote that had ended up in a host body used to inferior quality. This made him sort of an idiot savant in the eyes of Rivann'Arr: he was fairly intellegent, but lacked any basis of knowledge. Still, he was more agreeable than the rest of the crew.
"They are just small disturbances and non-consequential. Everything will be back to normal soon enough"
It was then that the power on the bridge fell out too.
Heckyll Dahktor/Jide Messtar, Charon Recreation Room
Breathe in, breathe out.
In the distance there were cries. Primal, evil cries. Screams too.
Breathe in, breathe out.
There were bits and pieces, and people, that were on fire. Some of the alien species up here could do that. It would be dangerous, if it weren't for all the security.
Breathe in, breathe out.
It was all starting to come back. Security failed. Everything went black. Chaos followed. Gang wars. Krygans versus Trassians, Razorheads versus the Oom, Litarion versus everyone, so it appeared... Oooooh, he had blood on his claws... And such a headache.
Breathe in, breathe out...
Heckyll was in the recreation area when it happened. Then, Jide was in what was left of it. His warriorinstincts took over and now there was a body in front of his feet. The bloody pulp didn't really allow for identification. There was still plenty of fighting, but none immediately near Heckyll/Jide. Some of the weaker species were running past, heading for the intraship transport system. Unlikely that it would be working under these circumstances of course, but he could see how they thought it better than sticking around here.
Four years. Four years the several gangs and species in the prisonship had had to build up a thorough hatred for one another, and now, with all systems down, they'd got to act upon it. Once the systems were up again of course, the turrets would probably not leave any of them standing, and the robotguards were only slightly more merciful. This was all just a massive suicide. And it was up to Heckyll how he would survive.
Anaxis Trar, Charon Repair Hall
This kind of chaos was bad for a fairly defenseless humanoid. In fact, the rampant fear and anger in the prisoners, no longer chained by extensive security, was all too much to handle for the Sathrid.
Anaxis had been able to score a job on the Charon repair team due to her technical expertise, meaning she got to tinker on pieces of broken equipment and robots in the Repair Hall. It was far preferable to hanging out in "The Recreation Area", a huge gym that kept the prisoners in shape. The only reason Madrillians cared about the shape of the prisoners is because they would be working in the mines of Hades. Similarly, Anaxis was allowed to tinker because the repairs were useful to Charon, and because she'd be able to use the skill on Hades.
The Repair Hall might have been more fun than the recreation area, it was no more safe. It provided the prisoners with hammers, drills, circular saws, welding tools and a whole host of other potentially lethal tools. The workshop was stained with blood, and so far the only reason Anaxis had escaped the havoc was that she had taken cover under a small aircraft in repair.
She had some bombs lying around the workshop of course. What else to do with spare parts? All of them had been hidden in the chest of a completely broken down guards bot, who was about half a mile away in the Hall. Of course, while security was working they couldn't be smuggled out, but now...
On the other hand, the room was filled with murderous aliens, fighting in the dark. And when security kicked back in, there would be hell to pay.
Kahl Thirann, the vents
Ah, to have darkvision. All these fools go blind, just because the lights are out, and start indiscriminately whacking about, losing their heads, putting everything on fire. So very primitive. Kahl was simply able to walk up to his prey, suck him dry, and crawl into the vents, without anyone stopping him.
He now wished he'd picked a less powerful prey. he was finding it hard to squeeze through the vents with his new weight. However, after having to trade to be allowed to suck other prisoners' blood just getting to take it was, well, irresistable.
The goal of this little trip was not escape. Escape would be nice of course, but four years into this little trip it was becoming plain unlikely. It wasn't safety either. He could easily handle those buffoons, what with his darkvision edge and heck, his general edge. He was better and more dangerous than most of what was around on this ship.
No, his quest was more personal. He had received a transmission. A telepathic broadcast, and one he wasn't able to answer. The broadcaster was too far away. This meant that it was someone of considerable power, and what was more, they'd told him to come down to them. Somehow he'd felt compelled, and now opportunity had knocked at the door. Somehow he thought the voice had something to do with this.
Of course, all he had to go on was a general direction. He knocked another lid off the vent and took a look where he'd ended up. Hmmm, he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere. This was the transport shaft, a huge duct running through the ship to provide rapid transport between it's various sections. Cables were spun across the shaft in all kinds of directions to guide Charon controlled vessels, but there were also independent vehicles which hadn't stopped running. Loads of them zipped by in a flurry. It seemed like a bunch had been taken by prisoners.
Well, the general sense of direction Kahl had pointed him forward, and backward lay a whole lot of fighting, but also perhaps a safe return to his cell. He had to decide what to do now.
Sella DeHalit, Charon Transport Shaft
Space Ghosts. It was ridiculous, but it was also what he had seen. Ghostly apparitions, crackling with electricity, and scaring the hell out of the prisoners with their shrouds of death. One had flown past at two inches from his face, causing the hair on his body to stand up.
Even his cold heart was swept away in fear like that of the others prisoners and they'd fled to the safety of one of the transport shuttles. With one last burst of electricity the thing had launched, sputtered, and then stopped. They were now suspended by thick cables up top about one quarter into the huge Transport Shaft and utterly stuck.
The other prisoners on the shuttle were still delirious with fear, but Sella had recomposed himself and now calmly took in his surroundings. These shuttles were automated and really only had one button: the start button that launched the shuttle to the other side of the shaft. This was the simplest kind of shuttle and unfortunately it did not possess an autonomous energy source, as some of the vehicles whizzing past did.
The vehicle was filled with an exotic mix of aliens. It was of course dark in the shuttle, except for the occassional flash of light from a passing ship, but Sella had gotten a relatively decent look at them before boarding. there was a Sathrid, a race from one of the core planets, who was relatively calm in the face of this adversity, there was a Krygan, uncharacteristically fearful for his warriorlike people, an avian creature who was flapping it's wings wildly and clucking, a huge hulking alien whose single eye sometimes lit up like a malfucntioning flashlight and finally a subhuman slime who was trying to creep away in a corner.
The situation was, as he assessed it, quite dangerous indeed. If one of the wildly flashing by aircrafts hit the shuttle they might become detached from the cable and crash down into the abyss. What was worse: Sella didn't know a lot about most of the races in the shuttle and without access to the Net it was impossible to determine how lethal the species might turn out to be. He needed out.
Cyan-606-482, Holding Cell
An incident several days before had condemned Cyan to a week of solitary confinement in his cell, and perhaps that had been a lucky development for him. Sure, he'd only spit into the Krygan's face in self-defence, but his buddies would have retaliated all the same as soon as they saw him in the recreation hall, rules be damned. That was, so Cyan had gathered, how their society functioned. Blood for blood.
Certainly, in light of recent development, it had been a blessing. His communication inplant was providing him with worrying information from outside his cell: screams. There had also been several exclamations about "space ghosts". Cyan did not know what this meant, but it sounded worrying. More worrying even was the failure of light in his cell, leading to his magnificent paintings on the walls to become obscured from him. He felt slightly queasy in the dark.
It was at this point some passing entity bumped into the door, hard, and several sheets of metal fell out. Cyan had to whizz back to avoid the clattering pieces of metal crushing him. Now the electrical feeds of the door lay open. The sound in the hallway subsided.
Of course, his cell might currently be depressing, but out there... he might get killed. Cyan wondered what to do.
This One, Special Holding Cell
It was relieved when the endless streams of electricity keeping it confined to it's cell finally stopped. The reason seemed obvious. All around it all electricity had ceased. A massive failure of systems. Outside in the hallway it could detect the only exception to this rule: entities that did not cause any sort of tremor through ground contact, but were arching with electricity, as if they were made of it.
This prospect scared it. But it was hungry. And it wanted out.
The door to the cell was wrenched open. Beyond it stood a Trassian. This One had learnt to recognise the species by their footsteps. They were becoming rare in the galaxy, but in it's younger days This One had seen more of the species, the brutal, stonecovered Trassians. It looked at was, to the Trassian, probably just a heap of dirt.
"Gorro Glog Gog Gorro" it blurbed in it's own language, at which point more of the creatures entered, and they wrenched the door back shut behind them.
The Trassians sat down at the edge of the metal bowl, their feet almost resting on This One, and started a conversation that was, sadly enough, completely incomprehensible to This One.
In the distance the trumpets of the festival still sounded, but here the atmosphere was far more grim. The largest ship ever built was being boarded by it's passengers: the enemies of the Empire, from all corners of the universe, all in shackles and trudging down the walkway in defeat.
It was a political move, of course, sending off a prisonship of this size to the nearly mythical Hades, on the 1000th birthday of the Unification. Hades was the only centre of life beyond the uttermost borderplanets, out there in the core of the black. Travelling there was considered madness, because even with the most advanced hyperdrives it would take years, and this made it the Madrillian's perfect Alcatraz. Even if one should sneak out of Hades, there was no way back alive. It represented the end of the line, and all here boarding this ship knew it, the "passengers", but also the crew... and the ship.
Captain Rivann'Arr was checking the manifest one last time. Everything needed to go smoothly, but he had no doubt it would, with his amazing intelligence. He had designed Charon himself, or at least the previous symbiotes inhabiting Arr's body had. It was unusual for a host body this old, respected and experienced to do a trivial thing such as pilot a prisonship, but Arr was close to death, closer perhaps even than his symbiote. In his 22501 years he had seen all of the known universe, and the black represented the final frontier, the only place he did not know of yet. He wished to die out there, complete.
1004 PU, Charon Bridge
"We're going to die out here!" one of the guards screamed.
Rivann'Arr sighed. He had full confidence he would get the ship back in working order soon. An electrical storm had blown out most of the systems, and now only the bridge was up and running fully. No doubt, down there in the holds, there would be chaos. Rivann'Arr wouldn't care less if the prisoners all killed each other, as long as Charon would make it to his destination.
"This is just a minor setback. I've been through electrical storms in space before, though I must admit one this large and furious would only be possible this far out into the black"
Rivann'Arr smiled. This was exactly why he'd decided to pilot this ship: to see something new. But the rest of the Madrillians on board were idiots, the scum of their society, and not quite as able to put things into perspective.
"I'm reading electronical irregularities all over the ship. They're moving, as if they're alive" Selog'Oth said. He was the only one of the crew approaching the kind of intellect that was to be expected of a Madrillian. He was what they called a Big Fish, or a Doomed One: a symbiote that had ended up in a host body used to inferior quality. This made him sort of an idiot savant in the eyes of Rivann'Arr: he was fairly intellegent, but lacked any basis of knowledge. Still, he was more agreeable than the rest of the crew.
"They are just small disturbances and non-consequential. Everything will be back to normal soon enough"
It was then that the power on the bridge fell out too.
Heckyll Dahktor/Jide Messtar, Charon Recreation Room
Breathe in, breathe out.
In the distance there were cries. Primal, evil cries. Screams too.
Breathe in, breathe out.
There were bits and pieces, and people, that were on fire. Some of the alien species up here could do that. It would be dangerous, if it weren't for all the security.
Breathe in, breathe out.
It was all starting to come back. Security failed. Everything went black. Chaos followed. Gang wars. Krygans versus Trassians, Razorheads versus the Oom, Litarion versus everyone, so it appeared... Oooooh, he had blood on his claws... And such a headache.
Breathe in, breathe out...
Heckyll was in the recreation area when it happened. Then, Jide was in what was left of it. His warriorinstincts took over and now there was a body in front of his feet. The bloody pulp didn't really allow for identification. There was still plenty of fighting, but none immediately near Heckyll/Jide. Some of the weaker species were running past, heading for the intraship transport system. Unlikely that it would be working under these circumstances of course, but he could see how they thought it better than sticking around here.
Four years. Four years the several gangs and species in the prisonship had had to build up a thorough hatred for one another, and now, with all systems down, they'd got to act upon it. Once the systems were up again of course, the turrets would probably not leave any of them standing, and the robotguards were only slightly more merciful. This was all just a massive suicide. And it was up to Heckyll how he would survive.
Anaxis Trar, Charon Repair Hall
This kind of chaos was bad for a fairly defenseless humanoid. In fact, the rampant fear and anger in the prisoners, no longer chained by extensive security, was all too much to handle for the Sathrid.
Anaxis had been able to score a job on the Charon repair team due to her technical expertise, meaning she got to tinker on pieces of broken equipment and robots in the Repair Hall. It was far preferable to hanging out in "The Recreation Area", a huge gym that kept the prisoners in shape. The only reason Madrillians cared about the shape of the prisoners is because they would be working in the mines of Hades. Similarly, Anaxis was allowed to tinker because the repairs were useful to Charon, and because she'd be able to use the skill on Hades.
The Repair Hall might have been more fun than the recreation area, it was no more safe. It provided the prisoners with hammers, drills, circular saws, welding tools and a whole host of other potentially lethal tools. The workshop was stained with blood, and so far the only reason Anaxis had escaped the havoc was that she had taken cover under a small aircraft in repair.
She had some bombs lying around the workshop of course. What else to do with spare parts? All of them had been hidden in the chest of a completely broken down guards bot, who was about half a mile away in the Hall. Of course, while security was working they couldn't be smuggled out, but now...
On the other hand, the room was filled with murderous aliens, fighting in the dark. And when security kicked back in, there would be hell to pay.
Kahl Thirann, the vents
Ah, to have darkvision. All these fools go blind, just because the lights are out, and start indiscriminately whacking about, losing their heads, putting everything on fire. So very primitive. Kahl was simply able to walk up to his prey, suck him dry, and crawl into the vents, without anyone stopping him.
He now wished he'd picked a less powerful prey. he was finding it hard to squeeze through the vents with his new weight. However, after having to trade to be allowed to suck other prisoners' blood just getting to take it was, well, irresistable.
The goal of this little trip was not escape. Escape would be nice of course, but four years into this little trip it was becoming plain unlikely. It wasn't safety either. He could easily handle those buffoons, what with his darkvision edge and heck, his general edge. He was better and more dangerous than most of what was around on this ship.
No, his quest was more personal. He had received a transmission. A telepathic broadcast, and one he wasn't able to answer. The broadcaster was too far away. This meant that it was someone of considerable power, and what was more, they'd told him to come down to them. Somehow he'd felt compelled, and now opportunity had knocked at the door. Somehow he thought the voice had something to do with this.
Of course, all he had to go on was a general direction. He knocked another lid off the vent and took a look where he'd ended up. Hmmm, he'd taken a wrong turn somewhere. This was the transport shaft, a huge duct running through the ship to provide rapid transport between it's various sections. Cables were spun across the shaft in all kinds of directions to guide Charon controlled vessels, but there were also independent vehicles which hadn't stopped running. Loads of them zipped by in a flurry. It seemed like a bunch had been taken by prisoners.
Well, the general sense of direction Kahl had pointed him forward, and backward lay a whole lot of fighting, but also perhaps a safe return to his cell. He had to decide what to do now.
Sella DeHalit, Charon Transport Shaft
Space Ghosts. It was ridiculous, but it was also what he had seen. Ghostly apparitions, crackling with electricity, and scaring the hell out of the prisoners with their shrouds of death. One had flown past at two inches from his face, causing the hair on his body to stand up.
Even his cold heart was swept away in fear like that of the others prisoners and they'd fled to the safety of one of the transport shuttles. With one last burst of electricity the thing had launched, sputtered, and then stopped. They were now suspended by thick cables up top about one quarter into the huge Transport Shaft and utterly stuck.
The other prisoners on the shuttle were still delirious with fear, but Sella had recomposed himself and now calmly took in his surroundings. These shuttles were automated and really only had one button: the start button that launched the shuttle to the other side of the shaft. This was the simplest kind of shuttle and unfortunately it did not possess an autonomous energy source, as some of the vehicles whizzing past did.
The vehicle was filled with an exotic mix of aliens. It was of course dark in the shuttle, except for the occassional flash of light from a passing ship, but Sella had gotten a relatively decent look at them before boarding. there was a Sathrid, a race from one of the core planets, who was relatively calm in the face of this adversity, there was a Krygan, uncharacteristically fearful for his warriorlike people, an avian creature who was flapping it's wings wildly and clucking, a huge hulking alien whose single eye sometimes lit up like a malfucntioning flashlight and finally a subhuman slime who was trying to creep away in a corner.
The situation was, as he assessed it, quite dangerous indeed. If one of the wildly flashing by aircrafts hit the shuttle they might become detached from the cable and crash down into the abyss. What was worse: Sella didn't know a lot about most of the races in the shuttle and without access to the Net it was impossible to determine how lethal the species might turn out to be. He needed out.
Cyan-606-482, Holding Cell
An incident several days before had condemned Cyan to a week of solitary confinement in his cell, and perhaps that had been a lucky development for him. Sure, he'd only spit into the Krygan's face in self-defence, but his buddies would have retaliated all the same as soon as they saw him in the recreation hall, rules be damned. That was, so Cyan had gathered, how their society functioned. Blood for blood.
Certainly, in light of recent development, it had been a blessing. His communication inplant was providing him with worrying information from outside his cell: screams. There had also been several exclamations about "space ghosts". Cyan did not know what this meant, but it sounded worrying. More worrying even was the failure of light in his cell, leading to his magnificent paintings on the walls to become obscured from him. He felt slightly queasy in the dark.
It was at this point some passing entity bumped into the door, hard, and several sheets of metal fell out. Cyan had to whizz back to avoid the clattering pieces of metal crushing him. Now the electrical feeds of the door lay open. The sound in the hallway subsided.
Of course, his cell might currently be depressing, but out there... he might get killed. Cyan wondered what to do.
This One, Special Holding Cell
It was relieved when the endless streams of electricity keeping it confined to it's cell finally stopped. The reason seemed obvious. All around it all electricity had ceased. A massive failure of systems. Outside in the hallway it could detect the only exception to this rule: entities that did not cause any sort of tremor through ground contact, but were arching with electricity, as if they were made of it.
This prospect scared it. But it was hungry. And it wanted out.
The door to the cell was wrenched open. Beyond it stood a Trassian. This One had learnt to recognise the species by their footsteps. They were becoming rare in the galaxy, but in it's younger days This One had seen more of the species, the brutal, stonecovered Trassians. It looked at was, to the Trassian, probably just a heap of dirt.
"Gorro Glog Gog Gorro" it blurbed in it's own language, at which point more of the creatures entered, and they wrenched the door back shut behind them.
The Trassians sat down at the edge of the metal bowl, their feet almost resting on This One, and started a conversation that was, sadly enough, completely incomprehensible to This One.