Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Midlands

as written by Lobos and Tiko

“Contacts on radar, identifying....Aschen. It’s a fleet.”

“Rev II just dropped in atmosphere above Westeria City!”

“They’re firing!”

“Where?”

“Local targets in the city. Uh...the Government Center’s just gone, WCPD HQ took a hit, still trying to get visual there. Wher-the hell are those?”

“New contacts, slipped in as the Aschen started shooting. These are unknown, ma’am and sir. Additional contacts rear to the Aschen fleet. Looks like the same type, and there’s a lot of them.”

“Shit. A volley also hit Fort Veritas, and another was shot at gypsies outside the city.”


“Aschen and unknown contacts have deployed ground units inside the city limits.”

The flood of reports came in from the operators at their consoles within the room, Max’s expression growing more and more drawn as they filtered in. A brief lull in the shouting saw the man rub at the bridge of his nose, muttering under his breath. “Gods below.”

Rhea's expression was no less grim. This wasn't a fight they could win, not in a straight up fight.

"Have they made any contact, or demands?" Rhea asked.

“None as of yet,” someone answered.

“What do we have for Aschen troop placements?” she asked.

Several holographic screens were being pulled up to plot out troop movements through the city, based on the intel they were receiving. Rhea’s eyes searched them intently before frowning.

“They’re centralized into the Aschen ethnic districts,” she noted. “They’re after their own people. Get a message to them calling for a cease fire pending negotiations, or we will start executing Tech Con personnel."

"But Prime Min-" someone started to object.

"Do it."

A regarding glance tossed the way of the Prime Minister, a ghostly echo of a nod. Cold iron. Good. “Where’s the positioning of the unknown forces?”

“All over the place. Troop deployments are centered around the big ones. It...oh my god. From the positioning, most of them are in position for fire interdiction of targets fired on. Who the hell are these people?

“For the moment, unexpected neutrals favoring us.” Growling, Max leaned over the shoulders of several techs, viewing their screens and thinking furiously. “Alright, in line with the PM. Secure assets already in custody, focus is on protection of them. Those are our resource. From the looks of it, unexpected guests aren’t friendly....to them. Let them maul each other.”

“Were any of those ships near the shots towards Veritas or the gypsy camp?”

“No sir.”

“Still shoots out of city support. Damn.” the Minister of Defense pondered a moment. “Try moving a light transport in the city to help secure prisoners. Use a remote. Let’s see if my hunch is on.”
 
as written by Tiko and Lobos

A tremor started in the floor, subtle at first, but it was enough to raise some heads and exchanged glances.

"What's that?" someone asked.

The intensity of it grew sharply and Rhea was thrown against one of the tables where she caught herself with her hands while the lights dimmed momentarily.

The sound of an explosion shook the base, but the lights came back on after only a few flickers and the tremors ceased as quickly as they had come.

"Were we hit with something?" Rhea asked.

"I don't think so, it felt like an earthquake," someone else answered. "We lost communications and surveillance with the east wing."

The readouts of the base had several zones blacked out where the east wing had collapsed. Faint gunfire could be heard in the distance as strange scuttling creatures began to flood the tunnels near the collapse site, quickly overwhelming any military personnel in the area by sheer numbers. It was like watching a wave comprised of writhing insects the size of large dogs.

“Oh shit. The base has been breached! Lock down hatch 4C!”

Shoving himself upright from where he’d stumbled into a console, Max quickly lunged for the control, slapping a hand on it as the seated operator recovered from where the man had slammed his head into his console during the quake. Sharply regarding the feed, he watched as the door closed...almost. Sparks flew from the gears as it ground to a halt a foot away from sealed, drawing a foul curse from the man.

“Get security to 4C now! Door’s still cracked open, something jammed.”

Over the TAF commline, a hail came in.

"Ministers, this is Commander Amadi Lagbadara," the former TETRS trooper's voice was underscored by a low rumbling, "I'm in full ANDEE, travelling northeast from Hafirjan at 1500 miles per hour. I should be able to reach the city in less than five minutes. I've been briefed, and I'm at your disposal. Where do you need me most?"

“Open the channel.” At a nod from the comm operator, Max responded. “Hagan Avenue, Commander. We need you aiding efforts to secure Tech Con personnel and property as custodial assets. Begin with assets that we have secured within the hot-zone. Keep in touch.”
 
as written by Lobos

Elsewhere in the Midlands...

The ground trembled, plains cracking with a frequency to regular to be natural. It bulged and sank in places, and more curiously, in still other places...burned. There was little warning as something thrust from the churning soil, a clawed foot that reached skyward a moment before slamming back down on the surface, sending a fresh quake through the tortured earth. Easily massive enough to crush a large tank under it's scaly bulk. Muscles bulged and strained against the thick hide, as the owner of the limb dragged itself to the open air.

The form was simply titanic, stone and dirt shedding from its girth as it rose. A head thrust free of the terran prison, horns the size of trucks scything the air as a second forelimb broke ground. A tangled mane adorned the beast, fur and scale were its hide, a black stain on the dim Midlands carved in silver hair. Bloody eyes burned with lambent light in the dark, and within a few moments the creature stood on the open plain from whence it came, the crater of its resting place behind it as it paused, as though feeling its weight.

This was no stranger to these lands, but its face had not been seen above the surface for centuries. Indeed, the reason for its...hesitation was, this beast had ceased its breath hundreds of years past. The resurgence of events, however, had first turned a death into a slumber. And then a slumber, into wakening. The beast shook the last debris that clung to its hide free. And as it did, a new illumination began to shed from the beast, a fell halo around the unveiled ancient creature.

Rearing its head back, it loosed a sky-rending roar as it began to trudge across the plain, a monstrosity 50 meters tall and 150 meters in length. Massing at 50,000 tons. Crackling with darkly lit electricity from the symbiotic insects dwelling within its titanic mane. And palpably shedding rage like a volcano.

Ur'Helaraakan, the Raging Guardian of the Midlands, prowled. And as it's ancient title suggested.

He was angered.
 
as written by Verse

East of Westeria, among a vast expanse of land, brief warbles could be heard, ripples in reality visibly seen as blurred distortions. Seconds later flickers of static quivered among the air before a gargantuan beast, roughly 135 meters in height, came into view. Thrown onto its back, the writhing creature howled out in agony as surges of electricity coursed through its frame. The resounding, thunderous, quake could be felt for miles. The city in the distance that faced its own trials would, perhaps, be spared the disastrous shockwave, but those who lived in the rural outskirts nearby would likely find their homes thrown into chaos.

As Hythudra squirmed upon the ground, its two heads snapping at the tentacles that had ensnared not only its right head, but its very torso, the gargantuan form of Gravagh wandered through the rippled distortion, his omnipotent appearing figure towering over the being that lay before it. A cacophonous, belted, roar escaped him, traveling for miles, as he lumbered toward Hythudra. Bending over, it took hold, with its free hand, of the beasts tail before its second hand fell upon it. With herculean force, it hurled the two headed monster across the barren landscape, tentacles unraveling and the barbs detaching from the creature as it went sailing.

Yet another belted warcry left him as he swiftly lumbered after. Hythudra's heavyset body crashed into the earth, sending up heavy clouds of dust and folded earth as if it were a carpet, before rolling onto its belly. Down, but not out, it rose to its feet once more, one of its mouths opening to spew molten slag at the inbound form of Gravagh. The second mouth unleashed a frigid blast of arctic air that swiftly frosted over Gravaghs chest whilst the molten slag poured along his right arm. Hide heavier than any other creature that had been on planet Xiria, he charged through it with minor injuries but that did not prevent him from barking out in pain. Angling his head downward, he took to a vicious gallop falling to all fours before thrusting his head upward. The hammer-like protrusion upon his face buckled the chest cavity of the dual headed creature and sank into its flesh from the force placed on it.

Hythudra cried out in agony as Gravagh did not halt his momentum, instead rising onto his two hind legs. Brandishing the creature as if it were a victorious conquer, his arms rose to grasp at both heads before pulling them apart. The force split the creature in two down to the point it had been impaled before one of the heads was torn from the rest of its body. As the lifeless carcass struck the ground, a single foot landed on its belly before Gravagh's arm fell to one of the creatures arms and mercilessly pulled, detaching it with a sickening squelch. Hardly halting, that same foot rose and then fell, crushing Hythudra's frame into the soil below whilst also forcefully ejecting its innards from the gaping, severed, portion above. A victorious roar swiftly followed before it glanced around.

Nothing was recognizable. Despite being a primitive beast, he was swift in coming to the conclusion that he was lost. Infuriated, another belted roar of savagery left him before his eyes caught sight of Westeria in the distance. Eons had passed since he'd last laid eyes on a surface city. How dare these insects live upon his domain, and it would be his domain. Everything was his. It was his territory, and now he'd take it back. Heavy breaths left him in forced, seething, heaves as he stalked his way toward Westeria. Certainly, though, his 150 meter, 115,000 ton, figure would catch attention before then.
 
as written by Tiko and Lobos

Once again Rhea listened to the incoming Aschen transmission, and her expression only grew grimmer yet.

“They’re trying to buy time,” she observed.
Inviere could easily have put the matter through to someone with authority, which meant she was likely lying, or her superiors had declined the request. Either way, there was little to be done unless-

She closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her brow. She favored pacifism and peace. Her desire was to preserve lives, not end them. Could she sacrifice one for the many?

She opened her eyes and looked to Max, and the answer lay there upon her face.

Dirge felt ice run through his veins at the look, turning to the comm and sighing a moment. Deadpan, he uttered but three words.

“Execute authority given.”

“Get our Triremes into the air,” Rhea added. “Skeleton crews, and volunteers only.”

“Gods help us all.” Max whispered.
 
as written by Tiko

a short while later...

"The Triremes are online," a man said. "They have their targets. The Aschen fleets have positioning to engage the unknowns out there."

"Order the Triremes to jump from the shipyards," Rhea said.

She intended to blind-side the Aschen, and didn't want to risk the Reverence shooting them down as they tried to break atmosphere. The damages to their ship yards would be extensive, but it would assure that the ships made their jumps before the Aschen could act against them - or ascertain what their intentions were before it was too late.

One after the other, the Triremes vanished. They were fully loaded with warheads, but with only skeleton crews they hadn't the personnel to actually man the ships. Each one contained only a handful of volunteers to get the ships online and to calculate out the jumps. But their purpose wasn't to engage the Aschen... no their mission was a one way trip. A long overdue act of defiance and retaliation for every ill the Aschen people had visited upon the people of Terra over the years.

Meanwhile a vicious firefight was being engaged in at hatch 4C where the flood of insect creatures had clawed their way beneath the ajar door. The mass of carcasses and twitching limbs were rapidly helping to create a wall to slow the flood of attackers, but they had yet to get a mechanic through to try and unjam the door.

One soldier managed to roll an explosive beneath the door, and the structure shook as it detonated and tore apart every one of the alien creatures within the immediate blast radius.

"Move in!" someone shouted.

As they reached the door, a mechanic dropped a box of tools as he pulled a control pannel open.

"Make it quick!" another soldier shouted as they unloaded their guns under the ajar door to keep the insect creatures back long enough to get it down.
 
as written by Tiko

An immense quake shook the Midlands as a massive shockwave tore through the planet's crust, reverberating through caverns long hidden from the surface world. As rock was pulverized and caverns reduced to rubble, a large crevice began to split its way across the landscape heading straight for Gravagh. As the crevice snaked its way through the rock, the ground began to crumble away to reveal deep chasms in the earth.
 
as written by Tiko

"... the Aschen fleet is pulling out!"

There was a stunned silence before resounding cheers went up through the room. For the moment anyways, professionalism was tossed aside as the imminent threat of wordly destruction was momentarily abated.

Rhea closed her eyes briefly, letting a moment of relief fill her. But a moment was all she permitted herself. She knew this conflict was far from over. No... it had only just begun.

“Whoever that other force belongs to, they saved our ass.” Max leaned against the wall, sighing heavily. The bleak outcome had been averted. But new problems were around the corner, and he pushed off the wall. “Has the intrusion repulsion succeeded?”

"We just received word. Hatch 4C is closed," an officer answered. "They're still out there though. Reports put them into the thousands, if not more. Where the fuck did they come from?"

“We can address the where, why and how’s later,” Rhea answered. “For now we need to deal with the what is. Is the base secure, or do we need to evacuate?”

“It’s secure for now, but we should relocate you and Minister Dirge at once now that the immediate threat is resolved,” the officer said.

“Alright. Don’t put yourselves at risk by remaining here overlong, though. Determine whether this site is salvageable or not and then evacuate yourselves.” Glancing at Rhea, the man pondered a moment. Moving to the central unit, he accessed a list of secure sites within TNG territory, perusing the list. Weighing the options, he cleared Westeria entries off of the list, then eyed the rest.

“Astra City. We’ll figure out whether it’ll be permanent or just a stopping point there. We just need time to plan.”

“Very well,” Rhea answered. “Astra City it is.”
 
as written by barney_fife

Deep underground..

Orlin was still trying to get his bearings as his crew struggled to get the Tria's systems back online, but that was abruptly cut short as the portal above them belched the shockwave from the Revenant's FTL jump.

The crew had little time to react, as the pressure wave reverberated throughout the cavern, rocking the Alteran ship and, were it not for it's resilient construction, it's entire crew would have been liquefied then and there.

Fortunately the pressure wave washed relatively harmlessly around the Alteran ship, giving the crew inside quite the jolt, throwing several people from their feet, and tossing Orlin to the floor once more.

What came next only made things worse, as rock was dislodged from the ceiling of the cavern, and the whole thing began to collapse, the deafening clangs of rock on metal filled the ship in one massive crack of sound.

Several seconds of rock pounding on ship hull was followed up by complete silence, several sections of the ship had collapsed from the immense weight of the rubble on top of it, but the Bridge was intact, along with Orlin and the bridge crew.

The sound of creaking metal announced that collapse of the ship itself was imminent however. Orlin took one look around before he made a face. "We have to get off of this ship." He said, holding his head. "This whole thing could collapse any second." He mumbled, before he pulled out his Bifrost node.

"Everyone stand as close to me as you can." Orlin ordered, he had to save everyone he could, knowing that whoever was left would die with the ship.

Pressing the locator button on the Bifrost node, he waited. The Bifrost network would automatically lock onto the node itself, and Orlin hoped it would open a Bifrost wormhole to facilitate their escape.
 
as written by Saarai and Script

On the outskirts of Westeria City, a smuggler stood by his concealed spaceship. It used 'borrowed' technology from anywhere he could find to make sure his ship would go undetected by everything but the naked eye.

In his line of work, that's what you needed. They needed to see you when it's too late to stop you.

"Where are they?" He asked himself, checking the time on his wristwatch. As he grew impatient, a moving van made it's way towards him. "Unless they're helping me move, that's my cargo." He said, flagging down the van.

It came to a stop near him, several men and women getting out. All of them dressed in military gear and body armor.

"We're ready. We're just waiting on someone." One of them, an Asian woman, told the smuggler. "I'm Vanessa." She said, "Ty Luvo." The smuggler said, grabbing Vanessa's hand to shake it.

"I just want to get off of this dirtball. I've got a delivery to make."

____

It wasn't long before Alanna arrived, on foot, after having taken a taxi to a few streets away. Her bike, along with the majority of her other possessions had been stowed safely away by a storage company, who were in the process of transferring their stores to a more secure location in the Eastlands. She still carried her duffel bag of weapons, though a few had been taken out and were worn on her person.

She nodded to Vanessa as she arrived, "Hope I didn't keep you," she stated, "We ready to ship out?"

____

"Finally. Let's get going before there's another invasion from an evil empire." Ty said, "Vera, we're ready." He said loudly, a door opening and a ramp extending down to the ground.

"Vera?" An Invictus operative asked, moving to board the ship. "It's the name of my AI. I didn't name it." Ty explained, moving up the ramp himself to find the cockpit.

Vanessa nodded to Alanna, gesturing for her to board the ship as she and the others made the way up the ramp.

"I've got a passenger. Don't mind him though. He's been in my crew quarters being weird. Good thing my crew bailed on me. They don't have to deal with him." Ty told the group.

"Alright, kids. Settle in, buckle up, and hope we don't get caught and sent to prison." Ty said, seated in the pilot's seat. He began to power on the ship, everything gradually humming to life the way it should.

"There's so much illegal stuff on this ship."

____

"I think the government have more to worry about than contraband right now," Alanna noted with a smile as she sat and strapped herself in. "They're hardly even paying attention to the looting and gangs down here. I imagine they'll be paying a lot more attention to those that are coming, than those that are going."

____

"Alright, taking off." Ty said, "Strap in." He took his own advice almost immediately, the ship starting it's takeoff. It shot out into the air, thrusters keeping it from tumbling back down to the planet until it could break the atmosphere and get a little further away from gravity.

That was mostly because Ty's ship was designed for travel from point A to point B. It wasn't exactly a type of the line model.
 
as written by Azrican and glmstr

D-Drop +11m, 2592


The dull, pounding shock of atmosphere suddenly buffering against the SPECTRE drew Tanner out of the chemically induced stupor he had been in for the past 32 hours as the booster delivered Darkbow into the waiting orbit of the planet known as Valore. The pod buckled and groaned for a few moments, buffeted by cosmic wind on one end and an invisible plate of atmosphere that sought to shove the pod back into space. It only took a minute and three seconds though for the booster’s artificial gravity to finally fail, and next a silent hand seemed to grip the pod to drag it back to earth.

“Are we dead yet?” Tanner said lazily, head lolling up and down with every bump the pod encountered. The three other seats of the Mk. IV SPECTRE faced away from the custodian’s, forming a three-pronged branch at the back of his seat nestled before the large airscreen on the door of the pod.

“Unfortunately no, I had to deal with your snoring for the past day and a half and I’m still not dead.” Riley said bluntly from his seat, not taking his eyes of the large screen in front of him. “We’re just hitting the atmosphere now.”

On the far left, the mismatched ABE unit sat strapped against the central strut of the SPECTRE pod, the few zip-ties the team had used to fasten some of the exposed tubing and wire already shorn free. “Re-entry is normally supposed to be smoother than this, agent.”

“What the fuck do you want, a shuttle from Royal Israeli?” Riley shouted back to the automated unit. The pod shuddered again, the cold bleak expanse of space bleeding away into a soft blue hue. Plates of re-entry armor could be heard rending from the pod as it stabbed through the atmosphere, sometimes passing in front of the air screen as burning patches.

“Is this the part where we all die?” Tanner replied with a groan, pulling his arms free from the coupling that kept him secured through the ride. Riley made a quick whistle and raised up a gloved hand, pointing at the air screen in front of him.

“Everyone, please, shut the fuck up so I don’t send us into a mountain.”

____

The shock of reentry jolted Erika awake, and she yelped in surprise.
"Gah! Oh, we're hitting the atmosphere now. I gotta say, a Royal Israeli shuttle would be nice right now..." She chuckled to herself, albeit loud enough so it wasn't drowned out by the roaring of the air tearing apart the ablative heat shields.
"Don't worry Tanner, this thing is as safe as a fucking baby stroller compared to the roller coasters at Hykan amusement parks. Have you seen those things?" Horakova, just like every Hykan, has broken at least one bone or received Tetanus at least once as a child from the less-than-regulated carnival rides on her home planet. The building permits were suspect, the construction was shoddy, and the sanitary was, well,below average to say the least. Her musing was by no means a lie, and hopefully it might have stayed the anxiety of possible death for a few more minutes.

____

"I've handled plenty of SPECTRE drops before." Riley said, an attempt at reassurance that wasn't well displayed. The airscreen in front of him skewed as the pod broke the ionosphere, beginning a tilt that might soon place them completely upside down as the re-entry vehicle went plunging into the atmosphere.

"That sounded a lot like a false comparison, First Sergeant ... I've never actually been on a real rollercoaster." Tanner replied sheepishly from his seat, despite the automail and plating around his body his limbs shifted nervously. "I swear to God if some spook drives us into a fucking hill I'll have my family send a letter to the Apparatus."

"Shut the fuck up, Sergeant. Your family has no clue where you are."

"That's incredibly comforting, mister Secret-Government-Spook."

"Shut the fuck up!"

Riley pushed his hands over the digital interface in front of him, various klaxons and alarms sounding as the pod began to shift and rattle pounding through the layers of atmosphere. "When we hit the ground we'll have three minutes to pick up everything and leave. I'd set your watches, people."

The cold, pale blue shade of the atmosphere gave way to the bold colors of healthy air, bright blues and azure streaking in front of them as Riley pecked and prodded at the display. "Now if I could just get some quiet time -- "

____

"Alrighty, three minute timer ready to go, tie up your shoelaces everyone!" First Sergeant Horakova tapped a few inputs into a palm-sized PDA, and a large digital 3:00 appeared in the corner of her visor. She fidgeted slightly in her seat, tensing up and getting ready for impact. She took a deep breath.

Inhale..

Exhale.

Time seemed to slow down, and outside noises were drowned out for just a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. She could feel every drop of blood rushing through her body from her pounding heart, and every fiber of muscle in her body was ready to explode with energy. Another deep breath circulated through her lungs, and Erika braced for impact.

____

The cold, bleak expanse of space bled away into a soft, vivid blanket of blue and white. As the pod broke the cloud layer the ground came racing up faster and faster. Riley continued to tap away at the holo-prompt in front of him, breath halting every moment the capsule shuddered and listed. "Alright we're touching down in five mikes. Get your time pieces set." Riley ordered, shoving the prompt away with a flick of his hand and gripping tightly at the coupling of his drop-seat.

"Ourfatherwhoartinheaven -- "

"Oh for the love of fuck Hawke, are you fucking praying?" Riley's head lulled back and tapped at the rest behind him, a groan escaping his lips as the young SFC was praying. Charles, the ABE unit strapped in, looked curiously to his right and across to Hawke.

"I found religion in basic, okay."

As the capsule impacted, airscreen died a few dozen meters above the ground and the entire pod seemed to be shaking and tumbling violently. The pod had velocity comparable to a freight train, and that would be quite a description for the capsule's touch-down: a geyser of dirt and rock spired into the air like blood from a wound, a few small bushes would have their leaves scattered into the wind while the pod first tumbled forward, smashed against a large rock and finally rolled on it's side to come resting near a large dyke.

____

"Are we all alive? Good, because we're on the clock! Three minutes boys, let's go!" Erika only took a few seconds to start the timer and unhook herself from the chair only to fall flat onto the ground. Her seat was on the bottom so her things fell and tumbled on top of the Hykan. She rolled over, grabbing her duffel bag of supplies, her gun case, and various other essential equipment she had to carry. The entire ensemble was a little over 200 pounds, which was heavier than she was in the first place.

Horakova crawled out from under the pod, gear in hand, and opened her gun case to sling her Valiant around her shoulder.
"Get out of the tin can already, we gotta move!"
 
as written by Krysis

Some miles away, Lalita Aradhana Padma Mala Sharma was sprawled in the back of her pickup truck, taking a well deserved break. With her arms folded behind her head and one dangling, bare foot tapping in midair (propped on the opposite knee), she was watching something that left a streak of smoke across the sky. Naturally, she assumed it as a plane. The radio was playing something static-y and tinny, but it had a good beat and that was all the girl cared about. The crumbs from her lunch were attracting flies, and she sat up to brush them away from her pale stomach and the waistband of her shorts, still watching the flying object. So when something shiny fell off of it and came tumbling down, she stared.

She rolled up on her knees, flexing her feathery wings for balance as she clutched the rim of the truck bed and stared. The sheet of metal flopped with deceptive grace towards the ground, floating on the air currents and loosing speed without the mass and inertia of the thing it had been attached to. Then it turned on edge when the movement of the wind stopped supporting it and arrowed to the ground, cleaving into one of the trees edging the field she was supposed to be clearing.

Lali gave a startled yell, then blushed and sighed in relief that no one was around to hear her make such a normal girlie girl sound. She was so distracted with the piece of metal, she had forgotten to keep an eye on what it had fallen from. She was busy climbing up the tree when the pod hit. When the truck rattled with the distant impact, and the radio dial jiggled to a station of pure static, she was twenty feet up and staring at the heat-blackened metal as she clung to the rough barked tree. It was suitably creepy and she gave a shout of enthusiasm. "Hurray! Something new happening in this dung heap! I wonder if the Aschens fucked up again? Or maybe it's more cyborgs! I don't think demons do space ships though, so probably not something like that..."

She'd pry the metal sheet loose at about the time the squad was getting out of their tin can with their gear, and started to wrestle it into the bed of the truck. It wasn't that it was too heavy for her, it was just big enough to be awkward.
 
as written by Azrican, glmstr, and Krysis

"Grab your shit and let's split, we've gotta' be at least five klicks away from this bucket before we settle down." Riley said, hitting a release on the coupling and sending one final kick into the ablative door that had served as the air screen. The door hissed and then came flying off it's threshold, landing on the ground with a metallic din. "Charles, you're carryin' all the ammo. Get a move on Metal Man."

"Affirmative, agent."

Next out of the pod was Sergeant Hawke, dropping onto his knees with a gasp. He rested his chest on the M-18 slung across him. "Christ that was worse than the Tower of Doom in basic." He said, rising to his feet in the exoskin. Known as the Type-6 Geko, it was a common pattern of exo-armor used throughout the Apparatus by signals controllers, and while thinly protected for an exoskin it allowed personnel to carry the large quantum entanglement arrays.

Riley pulled the faceplate up from his helmet, taking a full breath of air. "Atmosphere seems standard, plenty of green around ... at least it isn't Balaclava." He said, staring across the plains until his watch beeped. "Minute and a half, we good to go?" The Cobalt agent inquired, shifting his feet as he turned to look at the rest of the team. Duffels and containers hung off of him like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

____

"We're fine, but we need to scramble before any local animals or sentients start getting curious," Erika nearly tore the mask from her face and clipped it to one of the many loops on her uniform to attach things to. She took a few gulps of air, it was different than Hyka but it was breathable and very clean, which is really all that mattered at the moment.

"Over there, let's set up camp a few klicks inside. Must be game and wood aplenty, and we'll have better cover," she pointed towards the nearby tree line and started towards it.
"It'll be a family vacation, we can roast marshmallows in uncharted territory!"

____

The piece of shielding was big enough that it stuck up out of the side of the truck bed like a sail. Lalita thought about it for a few minutes as she pulled her boots on, then threw two logs on top of the end inside to weight it down before she clambered into the cab. She'd have to drive careful and slow, carting her prize to town. After all, if there were scary alien warlords running amuck, the local law enforcement needed to know about it.

If it was a full-on invasion they'd even need soldiers! The refugees from Westeria would need to be shipped elsewhere, which was the most wonderful thing in her mind. All those people looking for work so they could move on or find a new home made it hard for a semi-demon-ish looking girl to find the sort of jobs she could do. Too much history with scary demon warlords made them not trust her, even though she was completely normal! Except for little wings. And the scales. And how strong she was. Oh, alright, she wasn't normal at all, but she tried to be.

"Oh please let it be something dangerous! Get these people out of here!" She pleaded to any deity that might be listening as the old truck rattled along. She was oblivious to the column of smoke off to the right of the road, where the rest of the pod had landed, so focused on keeping the truck on the road despite the buffeting of a light breeze.

____

"That looks like a good place to setup." Riley looked down at the wrist-mounted PDA in his attire, where a program was beginning to map the local area. As the team started on their way, they moved in bounding overwatch: Hawke and Charles were at the rear, and knelt in the tall grass every thirty or forty meters.

"If this planet's inhabited it mustn't be too thoroughly populated, this area looks largely untouched." Charles replied, the automaton's limbs creaking and grinding. Hawke was on the ABE's right, two hands clutching at the M-18A5 strapped to his chest.

"We've got about three more klicks before we can find a spot to bury this stuff. Keep your heads on a swivel." Riley brought the AR-93 up to his shoulder and peered through the holographic scope, magnifying the surroundings as he scanned side to side.

____

"Alright, I'll set a waypoint on my map," Erika tapped a location about three klicks into the forest on her map application, and a little marker showed up.
"It might be farmland or something, maybe they don't have planets dedicated to it here," she shrugged and glanced to her sides again.

After another minute or so of walking, her wrist-mounted PDA started to beep.
"Alrighty, we're here! Welcome to base camp," she started putting her bags and gear down, and sat on a nearby tree stump.

____

Lalita wouldn't get to her destination before the futuristic floating sheriff's car would flash lights at her and indicate she should pull over. The stoic deputy listened to her excited babbling for a few minutes, a few lights blinking on his robotic 'face' to indicate he was hearing and recording the statement. When she finished, there was a whirling sound and a copy of her report issued from his chest in paper form.

"Be at ease, citizen. This space debris is likely just a ship shot down by the blockade! There is nothing to fear! Go in peace!" It declared in the booming 'heroic' voice that sounded like it belonged in a bad Saturday morning cartoon.

Lalita blinked a few times, holding the piece of paper, then wilted visibly. Her wings drooped and her hands fell to her sides after she realized that what she held was also a bill. A fine for 'unsafe transportation of recyclable materials'.

____

Hawke and Charles were quickly unpacking the entanglement array off the back of the Sergeant's exoskin, while Riley watched his feet and stepped toward any soft ground. The wrist-mounted PDA has a short-range matter-penetrating radar powered by the hardware adorned in the agent's drop armor. "Alright, it's been a few hours now so someone, or something, likely found the pod."

The agent watched the rest of the soldiers for a moment before reaching through underneath the plating and ripped his dogtags free, tossing them on the ground in front of him. "Tanner, Hawke, after you get that entanglement array set up we need to put a cache down. First Sergeant, you're with me on packing the gear we take."

____

"Alright. I'd advise we all bring at least a side arm in terms of weaponry, but that's just me being paranoid," Erika nodded and stuffed her AP-50 into the collar of her exoskin, as her bra wasn't really in reach for that trick.

She started shoving more essential stuff into duffel bags to bring along: food, water, a simple water purifier, several sets of more civillian clothes for each team member, walkie-talkies, and a little bit of ammo for the various pistols brought along. She also set aside a few extra bags she brought along, and laid them out on the floor.
"Personal belongings can go in these, anything you really don't want to bury. On top of that, we can carry souvenirs if there's a city nearby," and of course she immediately packed her sword into the bag for herself.
"I don't think I should be carrying this thing around openly, but I don't want to let it out of my sight."

____

As the hours passed at the small camp the team would have alternated two at a time digging a hole eight feet deep and five across, at which point they were able to pack all the heaviest of their equipment, an emergency survival pack and, most importantly any sensitive materials or devices that could openly identify them with the Exogarden forces. While there was little evidence to suggest the Starfleet had ever cataloged the planet before, the Scatterrans had come to learn the advantages of anonymity.

Riley picked up a few more shovels full of dirt, tossing it onto a smoothed out portion of the ground. After tossing some dead grass and a few ruined branches it would appear as nothing more than a log pile used by foragers or ranchers. "Alright. We'll mark this on our HUDs for later." The agent replied, taking a few swigs from his canteen.

"Now comes the fun part. Time to play find a road." Hawke replied, taking a rest on a fallen tree with a glinting flask in one hand.

____

Erika poked some more commands into her PDA, setting a waypoint on the cache. A little flag now sat in the tiny map of what was currently explored in the Midlands, so she dismissed the map and turned the display off for now. She looked over both shoulders, frowning at what she saw all around her.
"Are we going to visit any beaches? The oceans on Hyka weren't great for swimming and the early scans of Valore showed lots of water, and I even brought some swimsuits just for the occasion." She could already imagine the warm Sol shining on her, the soft golden sand between her toes and deep azure waves lapping at her feet, but for now they were still in the middle of a forest next to some plains in the middle of nowhere.

"Find a Road, I love that game!" Erika chimed, mostly sarcastic but not entirely. After sitting around a little longer to stretch her stiff muscles and pop her neck, she hopped up and decided to pick a way to go.

"Eenie meenie miney-that way," Horakova pointed in an arbitrarily chosen direction, and started walking.

____

"The coastline of this continent seems to be several hundred klicks away, from the initial view we got dropping in." Riley said, resting his hands on the two weapons slung behind his back. The agent's eyes poured over a holographic map projected from his wrist. "We might need to use an eyeglass to find a road unless we want to be stumbling around the woods for a while."

"The local weather suggests a coastline due polar south." The ABE chimed in from a few steps behind Riley. The agent studied the sky for a few moments, first scanning at the horizon and then trying to find the tallest, brightest clouds.

"That's how the Legions found Ameria right, charting the coast first?" Tanner interjected, one hand holding onto the interface boom sprouting from over his shoulder as he walked in the middle of the team. When he wasn't busy precisely tuning the device, a process that he estimated to Riley would take well over four hours, he managed to follow their conversations briefly. As he well knew, one of the few past-times of a march were either talk or cadence: no one wanted to do cadence.

"Astute knowledge of ancient history Sergeant, but this is hardly Ameria." Riley said, his eyes following from the map to a copse of trees ahead of them. "Coasts do mean cities, though."

____

Lali got more and more incoherent as she explained what she had seen and found to the Sheriff again and again. While the deputies were robots, the sheriff was a man with a huge beer belly and a tendency to think women were either 'nice gals' or 'uppity little tramps'. The jury was still out on what he thought of the passionate, exotic creature though, since sometimes she could be just as reasonable as can be, then have a wild flight of fantasy the next time he saw her.

He rubbed his forehead to try to ease back the beginning of a headache as she launched into the fifth reiteration. Finally, he interrupted, "Ms. Sharma, I am inclined to believe you, but I need proof before I can call in resources. Westeria is in a real pickle as it is, and if we can deal with this space junk local, well, that's what we should do. So why don't you go out and find me some proof, hmmm? Maybe put this problem to bed on your own."

"Don't make fun of me." Lalita pouted, then turned on her heel and stalked out of the office, though she paused at the doorway.

"I'll erase that fine, just get rid of that sheet of metal ASAP, ya hear?" The sheriff called in his friendliest hillbilly accent, and grinned at how offended the strange, winged girl was.

She dumped the sheet of metal in the parking lot, though she moved it so it laid flat and wouldn't cause problems for other folks with rubber tires like those on her truck. Then it was off to find the main piece of whatever it was the had fallen. There were plenty of roads in and about the area she was looking for, and where there weren't paved roads, there were field access points, logging roads, trails meant for recreational vehicles, driveways that meandered for a mile or more and even the occasional path to an old family graveyard. Most of which would tear the axle and paint job off of any vehicle that dared them, but still navigable by foot.

By the time Lalita started looking, the smoke had dissipated, so she was reduced to merely driving around aimlessly. The engine of the old truck was loud. The radio was even louder. The better to drown out the muttering of the frustrated young woman as she combed the area haphazardly.

____

"Well I don't know what we're waiting for then, let's get moving," First Sergeant Horakova pivoted on her leading foot and turned towards where Riley suggested the coasts were. She started walking with them, when suddenly a faint roar of an engine echoed through the forest.

"Shut up for a second, I think I hear something!" Erika crouched low and held a cupped hand to her ear, and the sound was slowly getting louder. She immediately started running in about a 90-degree angle to the source of the noise, it was moving fast and she was hoping to intercept.
"Come on, it's a vehicle! We can hitchhike into one of their cities!" She was excited at the thought of the locals actually being a moderately advanced species, it would make Scatterran communication with them that much easier.

____

"Sounds like a combustion engine, heavy-class likely." Riley said, looking over at Charles as they followed along the path. Following their point man, Erika, they swept across the forest at a good pace with the sound of the engine leading them towards a road. "Slow the roll there, First Sergeant. We have no clue who's on that road."

"Audio analysis suggests a civilian vehicle." Charles interjected as a matter of factually, taking a kneel behind Riley as they approached the road and found themselves off in the bush-choked ditch at the shoulder of the lane. "Eight-cylinders or so, possibly twelve but I will need a better angle."

"We could carjack 'em." Tanner suggested flatly, crouching low onto his stomach with his M-18 aimed lazily down the road.

"This isn't the Core, SFC. We do things with subtly here. We're going to tag the truck and follow it." Riley said, putting his AR-93 away and retrieving a blocky metallic weapon from the mount on his back.

____

"No need to be so hostile to whoever it is, we can just ask them for a ride. If this is anything like Hyka, they would gladly at least let us ride along. Besides, even if they meant harm, we would blow them to hell in seconds," Erika pumped her shotgun for emphasis. Upon seeing the road, she scrambled through the brush until she was standing beside the road, facing the direction the sound was coming from.

"Remember, we're the aliens here. We come in peace, and all that."

____

The three other soldiers remained in the ditch while Erika stood on the road. Riley laid with his back against the ground for a moment, studying the sky again and also thinking for a moment as he drew a bloc of ammunition from his tactical vest and moved to load it into the M4A. The .50 caliber slug was packed with a group of tracking and targeting drones that were capable of adhering to most known materials. "This is far from Hyka but ... Charles, tag this thing and follow us."

Riley motioned for the automaton to come take the M4A, tossing the high caliber rifle to the ABE. Charles deftly caught it with one hand, having his finger on the trigger a second latter and taking Riley's position as he crawled out onto the road a few meters away from Erika. "Sergeant Hawke, keep Charles close by and make sure that array gets working."

"Aye-aye Spookman."

____

Lalita had been staring off to her left at something shiny stuck in a field before the movement ahead caught her eye. The tired tires groaned in protest as she stomped on the break, so she let up almost immediately. There was a person by the road? Another one climbed out of the ditch after throwing something that looked suspiciously like a bulky rifle, though she didn't see where it landed. The truck slowed to a cautious crawl as the girl inside fumbled with the knobs to turn the radio off.

Her bright amber eyes went wide as she realized that the person that stood up first was a woman! And had a shotgun on her back. She was tempted to hit the gas and roar off when she recognized the danger, but wasn't she looking for dangerous aliens? So the truck eased up next to Erika before it finally stopped rolling entirely.

Lalita shook her long back hair so it mostly covered the fine lacy scales that decorated the right side of her face as she turned her head to smile at Erika. While embarrassed color stained her cheeks, she asked, "You folks lost? Car trouble maybe?"

At about that moment, Lali was mentally kicking herself for not changing her clothes. Sure she had to wear something that left most of her back exposed, but she could have at least put on a dress that tied behind her neck instead of the halter top that was barely decent. She looked like a slut in her working clothes and she knew it, but there was no help for it at that point.

____

"Hi!" Erika smiled and slowly approached the unusual person in the truck.
"We're not from here, and someone stole our car when we were asleep. Could you give us a ride into town?" She scratched her head and waved over the rest of the squad. The woman she was talking to seemed nice enough, and would be their ticket in.

____

Riley kept his hands as far away from his weapon as seemed peaceful as the First Sergeant spoke with the woman in the car. From what he could see the terran, or Valoran if he so chose to get specific, at least appeared humanoid. He mentally bristled as he watched Erika wave over at the rest of the squad, giving a deadpan look back at the woman before crossing one arm in front of his chest and hanging it over the stock of his AR-93.

"What the fuck is the Hyker doing, Riley?" Hawke replied shortly into his mic as he caught Erika's subtle movements. Riley shifted his weight, turning back towards the ditch just slightly and then beginning to haul himself into the bed of the pickup whenever he got a clear from the First Sergeant.

"Calm down, we're dumb Offworlders remember."
 
as written by Krysis, glmstr, and Azrican

"You're lucky you didn't loose your weapons too. There has been a plague of refugees lately. Most of them are decent people, just trying to find a new start, but there are a few that you can't trust even if you can throw them a long way." Lalita chatted with Erika in a friendly manner. She leaned over to unlock the passenger door of the truck, her short, fluffy dark wings stretching out for balance as she shoved open the door.

"You wanna report the theft to the sheriff, I guess? There is only room for one more in the cab, so-- Okay, looks like your friend already figured out the situation. Isn't the other one coming too?" She peered into the brush where she had seen movement before, but didn't get out of the truck to look.

Some small movement of Erika's brought the strange girl's attention back to her and one soft, pale hand (with dirty fingernails and chipped plum nail polish) was stuck out the window towards her for a handshake, "I'm Lalita, by the way. And I talk too much."

____

"That's okay," Erika smiled and shook Lalita's hand, "and I'm Erika."
She climbed into the cab with her new companion-of-sorts, and looked at the driver. "So, could you take us into one of the bigger cities around here? We need to call home, they might be able to help us," Horakova shrugged and gestured to her PDA, but didn't turn it on. The seat reminded her of the cheap-but-dependable trucks used for work on Hyka. However this seemed more like the older models, without as many of the extra luxury features that were optional for the ones at home.

____

Riley tossed his AR-93 into the truck bed before hauling himself up over the tailgate and coming to a rest with his back against the cab. As he heard Erika talking, the Cobalt agent leaned his head back against the metal of the cab. Giving one subtle signal to the two other COLSOG operators hiding off the side of the road. The agent left one hand idly hanging off the passenger side of the truck, counting down his fingers.

When the truck finally moved and the engine sputtered loud again, Riley notched a foot back and sent it crashing against the wheelbase on the driver's side of the truck: the sound of a boot knocking on dull aluminum would have been just enough of a distraction from the clang that could be heard as Charles fired a single SPOT drone into the tail bumper of the truck. "For a clunker this thing looks like it's been hauling somethin' ... somethin' big." Riley called out, his voice directed at no one in particular but easily heard from the cab.

____

"Er. Westeria is the biggest, nearest city, but there are goings on there. Aschen uprisings, gravity bombed neighborhoods... things like that. Not a place to be right now." Lalita offered, giving Erika a curious look. After all, everyone Knew that. That's why there were refugees.

"Or did you mean another city? I mean, I get my supplies in a small town, but there are phones there." the strange girl flashed a big smile at Erika, "Hey! Did you folks just get out of a time loop or something where there was no tech? It's not as common as it used to be, but it still happens. I mean, I'm not even from this when/where myself. They think I came from a country down in the Caldonia peninsula. Except the place I remember hasn't existed for about a thousand years."

Her truck was always making funny noises, so she paid the 'thunk' no mind. The bed of the truck had transported many different kinds of material, and was rather dirty. There was bits of branches, fresh leaves and dead ones, a couple of bits of charcoal and a smear of ashes, as well as whatever might have fallen off of the heat shield that she had carted around so hopefully.

Lalita was the sort of person that would just ramble on if someone let her, especially if she was actually nervous. It was actually hard to remember Not to mention aliens, because either these were they or they were a mercenary bunch that would try to make a profit off of that information.

____

"No time loops as far as I can tell, our homeland has been around for, well, a really long time," Erika gave a subtle nod to the passengers behind her, signaling the tracker placement as a success.
"The Aschen? Who are they, and why are they uprising?" She sent a text message via her PDA to Riley:
Take note, there seems to be a belligerent party here, called 'The Aschen'. She's going to explain, I'll keep a recording.
First Sergeant Horakova sent the message, and fished through the applications to turn on the voice recorder.

____

Riley spent his time in the back nursing a cigarette as the truck continued on down the road. Despite his lackadaisical appearance, the agent was keenly aware of the conversation going on in the cab. He heard a quick chiming fill his ears, a communique reaching his ruggedized comm-set. While, initially, getting such a relay might be suspicious Riley estimated it's origin was merely a few inches behind him. "Keep your ears open, 1SG. I'll get Charles started on an extranet drag."

His reply was transferred to text: not through speech but an inter-neural drive in the base of his neck that linked him intrinsically to the armor and hardware wrapped around his form. Next, he took one long drag and stubbed the burning ember out on the toe of his boot: when he finally did speak, it was in a low, hushed tone. "Charles, when you've got the entanglement relay online get to work on this soundbite from the First Sergeant."

After he only received a short auditory tone, in his civilian life he'd equate it to a xerox machine, Riley keyed back into the interface with Horakova. Rather than speak the bilateral neural pathways could yield a dialogue without any spoken words.

Goings on are the kind of goings on we're going for, Horakova. Steer this bucket towards Westeria.

____

Lalita gave Erika a brilliant smile, "I Knew it! You're not from here. Everyone knows about the Aschens. They've been causing trouble for a whole generation, as far as I can tell. Okay, so what I've pieced together is that they are an alien empire way off somewhere and they think they are soooo much better than anyone else that when you Don't fall in line and sign up to be slaves, they get pissed. But the people are usually decent folks. They look human, might even technically Be human, so they blend in just fine. Mostly the ones that move to Valore, that's this planet, just want to be out from under the iron boot of their emperor."

Lalita was driving rather slow, mostly because there hadn't been a decision on where they were going, but also because she was excitedly running her mouth. "They have been trying to subdue us for years now. Long enough that some of the people that immigrated here have teenage or grown kids at least. I think there was an invasion, and a war, and then an armistice. They tried a financial take-over too with some company called 'Tech-con', I think. I might have the name wrong. But when That didn't work, someone got upset and shot some innocent civilians, and then the one that did the shooting was killed or something, and the Aschens decided to use that as an excuse to get aggressive again, but we beat their fleet."

She stopped to take a breath then, laughing a little. "Now there is some weird space anomalies because of that battle, on top of our usual instability on the surface, and there was a huge fight in Westeria that spawned More anomalies too. So people are fleeing the city. I mean, a war zone is one thing, but when trees start shooting out of the ground and taking buildings out, it's past time to go."

Then the strange girl got a little more somber as she adds, "Besides, there is no telling what the Aschens brought, left, or might put together. Half the time, I think they really hate us and want to turn our funny little mudball into a desolate, irradiated rock."

____

"That's interesting," Erika smiled and accessed the neural interface she forgot she had, responding to Riley via text again but without typing this time.
She says the Aschen are a pretty dystopian-sounding empire from a faraway place, they kill a lot of civillians, and have been trying to take over and/or destroy Valore for a long time now. Their government is extremely brutal and the emperor's word is law to them, but a lot of the aschen citizens around here are trying to escape the empire's grasp.
"Say, could we go to Westeria? I kind of want to see all the weird stuff myself. It might be pretty weird for a tourist destination, but I guess curiosity and thrill seeking got the better of us," Horakova glanced to the side and let her arm hang out the window, feeling the breeze as the large truck ambled down the road.

____

Riley tapped his foot out to an unheard rhythm as Erika replied snippets of the conversation back to him. He could travel tens of thousands of lightyears, cross mountain ranges the size of continents and no matter where he went there was always something like this. A broken world lost to civilization but a mere carcass for a larger power to eat. He had hardly knew the name "Aschen" before this operation, but already he felt his mind steeling: the Cobalt agent hardly knew them personally, but he did know their kind. "Great ... welcome to the Expanse, there's no civilization beyond the Veil ... welcome to the Exogarden."

Riley's eyes were caught for a moment as the truck came trundling past a field on sandy, choking dirt roads. The wreckage of a small craft, perhaps a strike-fighter or transport, sat in the middle of a barren, scorched field. It's internal skeleton reached out of the debris, sticking up like fingers: a bird's last attempt to returning to the sky. Something in his stomach seemed to turn for a moment, typical of a dark realization. He whispered under his breath slightly, pulling a cigarette from his breast pocket. "War feeds itself. Where ever there's food."

Keep her talking about this region, we need to get as much information as we can.

____

"You... want to go into the crazy crazy place? Now?" Lalita Sharma didn't look at Erika this time, gripping the steering wheel tightly and wearing a worried frown. She shifted her weight a little, uncomfortable with the idea.

"Umm. I'll have to get gas. And I'd like to stop at my place to pick up something with a bit more umph than the varmint popper I've got under my seat. It'd be wrong to let you guys just walk into that mess on your own, without a guide. How are you fixed for armor that works against energy weapons? That's what the Aschens soldier types use and they are the ones most likely to shoot strangers." Her little wings tightened up against her back into two balls of feathers, but her jaw was set into a determined line and the truck picked up speed with a destination in mind.

"Might be safer to pick up a load of supplies to take into town too. People are always less hostile when you bring them food." Lalita mentioned, still not comfortable with the idea of just driving straight into Westeria. It was a bit crazy, like driving into a tornado instead of the sensible act of hiding until the storm passed.

____

"Yeah, I guess you could say we're crazy, or dumb, or maybe we just really know what we're doing," Erika smirked and sent another neural text to Riley:
Aschen specialize in energy weapons and are very agressive, make sure to engage them at range.

She shifted a little in her seat as Lalita went in to a bit of detail to why they were taking a detour. "Alright, let's get your supplies. We should have plenty for body armour and weapons, so take your time," the 1st Sergeant yawned a little, but her eyes widened suddenly. She frantically sent another text to the agent in the back,
Shit, I buried my AR-98. I brought the shotgun and the MP, we might need to make another stop back at base camp.

____

No way in hell we're going back for it, Horakova. Not with a civvie tagging along.

Riley shifted onto his side, pulling the AR-93 up from his chest and letting it hang over the side of the truck-bed. He took the time now to study the terrain, and visually inspect as much as he could whenever he came across bodies, or the burned out chassis of a vehicle, or random detritus strewn about the road and fields. The agent gave a quick glance down to his PDA, guiding the mouse using his index and thumb as a pad. He tapped his thumb on the bottom of his index finger and an audio-relay crackled to life.

"Hawke, Charles, we're in-bound to a city called Westeria. Top off on ammo and hardware and get your asses in gear behind us, we'll be in the city a few hours ahead and find a place to set up ... Oh, and get the First Sergeant's rifle too. I don't want my rifleman using just foul language if/when we actually have a gunfight on our hands."

____

"Okay. Um. Another thing you should know about Valore? Everything works here. We've got everything, from androids to elves. The occasional dragon flies around and sets forests on fire, and there have been other things known to show up too. Too many things to mention, really." It seemed like Lali didn't need to much prompting to keep talking, but then she did warn Erika right up front about her tendency to talk too much.

"That means that stuff you might not think will do anything, actually does stuff. Like telepathy, illusions, fireballs out of nothing and things like that. So guns aren't the only danger. If someone acts like they have no reason to fear you, they probably have some kind of ace up their sleeve." Lalita smiled a bit at Erika and shrugged one shoulder. It might be noted that Lali never seemed too awed at Erika and her friends either, though with the exotic bits on the otherwise human looking girl, one might wonder what else was not standard about her.

"If you want to look at a map, I have one in the glove compartment. Just be careful when you open it. I don't remember what else I stuffed in there too." If Erika opened the indicated compartment, there would be a sheaf of papers, a ball of twine, a pocket knife, and the promised map somewhere in the middle. On the map, aside from all the other printed stuff, there is a handwritten star labeled 'Home' with a date written under it.

____

"Alright, thanks for the warning," Erika fumbled through the glove compartment and opened up the described map of Valore. She quickly turned on her PDA and took several pictures of the map, sending the images to Riley.
Send this to ABE, it'll make our job easier

____

"Really? That's it? Okay then." Lali shrugged at the one-way flow of information, a little miffed that Erika didn't seem to want to tell her anything at all. Of course, the demonic looking girl was used to not being trusted, and though it was hard, she sighed and decided to be patient.

Her home was the first stop, which turned out to be an old-fashioned log cabin with just three rooms. Her passengers were welcome to make use of the facilities, as the less organized civilian dithered over what to take and what to leave. The 'varmint popper' from under the truck seat, turned out to be a small caliber hunting rifle, which wasn't much good for anything larger than a dog. It would get left in the gun rack while the shotgun got pulled out. She hesitated over a larger caliber rifle for a while, but then settled on something in a plain black box that she didn't open in sight of the others. The rest was left unlocked, if they wanted to peruse her small collection of older, but lovingly maintained weapons (including a scimitar and a handful of throwing knives).

She also changed her clothes, since jeans and a t-shirt (even with the back ripped up) was much more appropriate than the halter top and cut-offs. The boots stayed the same though, and a matching hat got plunked on her head to help disguise the scales on her face by shadowing them.

If there were no further questions for her, she'd just get on with the business of refueling the truck from the farm's tank, and heaving 50lbs bags of dried beans into the bed of the truck. For some reason, Lali thought they would need to bribe people with easily stored food.

____

The Cobalt agent had remained in the back of the truck as the woman stopped at, what was assumed to be, her residence. Riley didn't have too much of a conviction to ask, or really at all speak, to the woman considering how much he had heard her talking in the cab. Information was necessary of course, but there had come points when he would've rather put his magnum under his chin. He waited silently, though Erika would've heard no remark from him if she chose to follow: instead, he put together all sorts of possibilities in his head as he watched the abhuman go through her front door.

If he were a bandit, this would have been the perfect setup for a shake down: mayhaps the natives here had a different definition of "eye candy" but, he got the jist when he saw who was in the truck. Something inherently overrode any suspicions he had of the woman, his wariness had not yet dissipated but he knew in his gut that if she had any foul intentions they would have transpired already. Granted, one of the last things he expected to find on this planet was anything even remotely human.

As the woman began to collect her things, Riley climbed away from the cab to shunt the bag of beans into the corner of the bed. Despite the automail and his exoskin, sitting on a vibrating chassis for hours on end got uncomfortable. Seating himself back down on the bag as the woman prepared to leave, Riley pulled a matte-black revolver from his chest-rig and pushed the cylinder open: as Lali came towards the driver's side door Riley leaned an arm off the truck with a tiny, metal gray slug. "'Scuse me ma'am, just got a quick question ... y'ever seen one of these before?"

Regardless of the answer Riley would simply nod and return to his seating arrangement with his head against the back of the cab. Any attempt beyond the response was only met with a soft shrug until the truck finally started to move again. The agent slid the projectile back into the cylinder and closed it with a click, watching the road stretch out behind them as they continued on.


A few miles or so down the road, a startling pound was heard on the back window of the cab, Riley's gloved hand smacking a few more times as he could be heard shouting from the bed. "Slow it down for a second, cut the gas!"

____

"What, what?" Erika instinctively grabbed her shotgun. Her left hand fished through some pockets, fumbling about until she managed to push six slugs into the weapon. The ever-so-loud pumping noise that followed would be easily heard from the back of the truck, and she stuck her head out the window to see what Riley was so riled up about (no pun intended). While the Hykan loved her homeland and was always telling silly anecdotes about it, she's seen more than enough crime to be ready to pull a gun on almost any situation that seemed shady.
"What are you so concerned about, and when do I shoot it?"

____

"Shit!" Lalita cried out at the first banging and shouting, and the truck leaped forward at first. Then she opened the window to the truck bed so she could understand what Riley was saying.

"Here?" She asked in confusion and revulsion. The terrain along both sides of the road was torn up and Lalita had avoided driving towards Westeria ever since-- well, for years. She swallowed hard as she took her foot off the gas and eased the brake down a little to slow them further, giving Erika a nervous look as well.

"Calm down, please. There is nothing to shoot except buzzards." The civilian girl didn't want to get off the road to park, so she just pulled as far to the right as she could before stopping, unless Riley instructed her to keep driving.

____

"Right here." Riley clarified, lurching forward with the truck as it came to a slow, rolling stop. He would have preferred to keep the truck on the road as much as possible as well, just in case this turned into something bigger. While from the cab, behind glass, the various debris and objects that littered the road may have appeared insignificant. However, he wasn't looking at the burned out shells of cars or armored vehicles and not the abandoned carts, buggies or wagons that had been discarded in hurried, frantic evacuation.

When the truck finally come to a stop Riley hopped down from the back, landing off the driver's side door. He drew a hand up to the magnum in his chest-holster, ripping it free with a single tug. As he came around the side of the bed, he saw what he was looking for.

Judging by the way his uniform fit, Riley estimated the corpse in front of him just a few meters off the road was barely in his early twenties, maybe even younger. The smell of death was the first thing he had noticed, about a quarter mile down the road. Then, as scorched flesh or blasted metal gave way to the stench of cordite, he knew they would be passing just what he was looking for.

"1SG, get over here. Tell the girl to stay in the car." He called back to the pick-up, the magnum lazily hanging in his grip as he bent down to inspect the man more thoroughly. After Erika had made her way over, Riley idly scratched at his chin with the barrel of the revolver. "Looks like she's telling the truth at least. These guys must've been out here for a day or two probably ... adds up with our timeline of events from outside the system."

"They're conventional military looks like, body armor seems to be ceramic-based -- though I think that guy over there has a plate carrier." He indicated to another slumped figure hanging over a felled tree with the revolver. "We're gonna' need to lift their patches. Insignia, radios, things like that."

"Time to put on a costume, Sergeant Horakova."

____

"Hooray, playing dress-up," Erika gave a playfully fake enthusiasm and dragged the body behind a tree. Various bits of clothes flew from behind the trunk with the shfff and zip of a uniform being shed and discarded. The process of afterwards stripping the uniform from the soldier was taking surprisingly long, as the limp and disgusting body was not easily wanting her to steal its cloth and ceramic outer covering, and she then insisted on at least sort of scraping off whatever what was left inside of it before even thinking of putting it on. The process was going to take a few minutes, even before she would start putting the new uniform on.

____

Lalita was trying not to notice anything. Her mind was coming up with all sorts of things that aliens might do to corpses as it was and she didn't want confirmation on Any of it. Maybe a little peek. No! Eyes forward! But--

Then there was movement that she couldn't help seeing when Erika squatted down to struggle with the dead body. Her jaw dropped as she saw more bare skin than she expected, though it was only a brief glimpse. Then she put the flashers on for the truck, so no one would hit it, and leaped from the cab to run towards Erika, her waist-length wings flapping frantically as if that would give her more speed. She waved her arms to get her attention as she called out to the other girl. "Stop stop stop! You Don't want to do that."

Lali wouldn't step behind the tree though, blushing deeply for the other girl. "You don't want to put a dead man's foulness against your bare skin. You'll get sick or infected with something. Do you even need the whole uniform?"

About then she looked over at Riley and blushed again. He didn't even have to change his expression to make her feel like she was being a naughty inconvenience. She clarified with a quaver in her voice, "I think that it will soon be common for even real soldiers to just attach the badge stuff to their civilian clothes, if it gets as bad as it has in the past."

____

Riley was busy rooting through the dead lad's pockets and pouches. He swiped away some dirt and gravel from his tactical vest, holding onto the corner of a small patch with two fingers. "Terran Armed Forces huh ... guess you boys should've been a little more heavily armed." He replied shortly. Ripping the patch off from the young man's vest, he lorded over the corpse for a few more moments: eyes glassy and pointed at no particular place on the vest. He reached out again to rip away the nametag.

He was a little too busy to find it curious Horakova was dragging a body behind he a tree until fitting the tag over his breast pocket. When he watched a tactical vest go bouncing out into the dirt behind the tree he raised his eyebrows. "First Sergeant ... are you taking off your uniform to put on his?" Riley's voice easily carried back to the truck, as it did past the tree. "We just need the identifiers, Horakova." He replied in a deadpan tone, eyes going towards the tree she had used as an impromptu changing veil. "But points for thoroughness, though."

Riley stayed in his position as the woman came sprinting from the truck towards the First Sergeant. Despite the fact his palm wrapped tightly about the magnum, he made no effort to brandish it: as a member of the ODI he knew Horakova could defend herself unarmed easily. She could probably do more damage than the hand cannon he wielded. "The native's right, First Sergeant."

____

"...I'm not very clever sometimes." Erika blushed and started putting her clothes back on. Her embarrassment was not even slightly in her nudeness, but in the fact that her lapse of judgement was, in fact, really god damn stupid. She drew her sword and cut loose the patches and insignias with ease, and simply wandered around the corpses until finding a female soldier. She dragged said corpse behind another tree, but this time just taking her uniform and hastily burying the body under a log. She tossed the folded up (and putrid) uniform to Riley, "Just in case I need to change into this later, but good lord it needs to be cleaned. Hell, I need a shower after that."

____

"Eh, the way he said 'dress up' might have confused anyone." Lalita was willing to help Erika find another body to loot at least, though when the undressing of the corpse started she'd bolt back to the truck. It had been interesting trying to figure out who the TAF had been fighting, since all the bodies she saw had the same logos on them. Not that she really went looking far afield.

An old garbage bag, once used to transport leaves and grass to be burnt, was stuffed behind the truck's seat. While Lali waited for the other two, she'd spend some time digging it out, and then placing it neatly in the bed of the truck. Hopefully Riley would use it to put whatever needed washing in it, so the smell would be contained. And if they got stopped, no one would ask why they had dead uniforms if they were hidden in the black bag.

____

"Thank you kindly ma'am." Riley replied as he clamored back into the truck with the uniforms, quickly taking the bag and stuffing them into the plastic liner. "Alright ladies -- or lady and whatever you are -- next stop Westeria." Riley hollered from the bed of the pick-up, notching his hand on the window twice for the ponies to start going. He wrapped a palm around the foreguard of his AR-93, hiking it up to lean it against the cab with the barrel pointing downwards.

Then, he settled in for another long drive, waiting atop the beans with his eyes towards the sky. By the time they got to Westeria he'd be out of cigarettes, at his rate.

 
as written by Script

"Excuse me."

A woman's voice, originating from the far side of the tree where Erika was dealing with the corpse. There was nobody there.

"Nope. Down here. Little more. There we go."

The origin of the speech was a grisly sight. A woman's head, severed at the neck as though by a blade, lay in the dirt on its side. Her flesh was pallid and had a slightly putrid tone to it, clearly dead. The long dark hair that was splayed out in the dirt was grimy and unkempt. Were it not for the deathly gauntness to her features, she might once have been considered attractive, but now her appearance was - in a word - horrific.

The most unnerving features, however, were twofold. The first, the fact that her eyes were a solid glow of colour, an eerie yellow-green. The second? The fact that she was talking.

"What?" She questioned at any looks of horror or surprise, "Never seen a talking head before?"

The head actually seemed genuinely surprised at the possibility.
 
as written by glmstr

Erika brushed herself off and slung her shotgun around her shoulder again, just getting ready to leave when she heard a voice. She looked down in curiosity, finding a head that seemed to be talking to her. Horakova had to do a double take, and even then she thought she was going mad on this planet. Of course, that didn't stop her from responding.
"No, I really never have," Erika picked up the head, and looked at it. It seemed dead enough, but its eyes were glowing as if possessed. "We're trying to go somewhere right now, so I'll just bring you along for the ride."

The 1st Sergeant plucked the head from the ground and carried it over to the truck, and tossed it in the back of the truck next to Riley.
"Riley, before you shoot me for being crazy, I swear this head just spoke to me. Try talking to it."
 
as written by Script

"Ow," the head said after being tossed into the truck. "Okay. That's fine. Just throw me around. Not like I have feelings or anything, I'm just a head."

She scowled. "And I was hoping you could help me find my body. Rather than drive me away from it. That's pretty much the opposite of useful."

Somewhere amongst the scattered bodies, an arm flailed upwards wildly.

"I've already been waiting there for most of the day. Boring as fuck, let me tell you. There was an exciting moment when a crow came down and pecked me for a bit, but otherwise, I've been staring at grass for ... some hours."
 
as written by Krysis

Lalita gave a puzzled frown at Erika carrying a severed head to the truck, then winced at the solitary body part being roughly handled. If it splattered on the beans, that would be problematic. Then it talked and she gave a startled gasp.

"Oh no. No no no. Not taking a possessed head with us." The demon-ish girl hopped down for the driver's seat and stepped on the tire so she could lean as far into the bed of the truck as possible without actually getting into it, but hesitated about grabbing for the loathsome cargo.

"Er... Erika, is it slimey or anything?" she asked and squirmed uncomfortably.
 
as written by Azrican

Riley's eyes turned over towards Erika, just as what appeared to be a severed head appeared in her head and then went bouncing around in the truck bed. His knee-jerk reaction was, of most infantrymen, typical as he recoiled against the cab of the truck with a disgusted look on his face. "God dammit Horakova this isn't Hyka you fucking -- why did you pick up a severed head?!" When he indeed heard the head speak, the look that came over his face was one of simple consternation. Then, it quickly changed to the visage of a man who considered the duties of his job far more worthy than the dirt pay he made.

As the abhuman came up to fish for the severed cranium, Riley's hand instinctively drew for the large magnum in his chest-holster just in case this ... whatever it is decided to get feisty. "I'm with our voluble tour guide over here, we've already got enough weird in our merry band of adventurers." He replied shortly, before offering one hand up to Lalita to stall her for a moment. Next, he spoke at the abomination sitting in front of him. "Alright I'll bite, this isn't the first time I've seen a talking head ... what's your story -- Headless Horsewoman, kids in the woods with a Ouija board? I can tell already why I got stuck in the Exogarden fleets."
 
as written by glmstr

"I grabbed it because it was speaking to me, obviously," Erika rolled her eyes playfully, as if this was anywhere near normal for her.
"Come on, let's go find your body," Erika reached into the truck and snatched up the head again, and walked back towards where she found it originally. There were quite a few dead bodies, so finding the headless (and possibly moving) one shouldn't be that hard, right?

"Now, how will we find it? Is it flailing or something, or are we going to play warmer-colder?" She made sure the head was facing forwards, occasionally turning it left and right so it could see where the soldier was taking it.
 
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