RP Between Stolen Stars (Open!)

[Deacon]

The Krake had regarded the Terran craft impassively. He was not here as a consultant. He did not give opinions, though they thrummed across his membrane continuously, springing up like wildfires in his psyche. Sunspot flares of mental acuity danced across the blue film, signs of life and of sapience, rather than the mimic-meat that surrounded him. Walking, stilted, on their bony legs, organs precariously stuffed into skinsacks. Lacking grace. Lacking precision.

It had come to his attention that the vast majority of humans were utterly disabled. They strongly favored one hand over the other. Some had ambidexterity, but most were effectively crippled in that regard as well. These asymmetrical shamblers had somehow embarrassed the Krake Empire, reduced its holdings significantly - cowed them, humiliated them. A human might get an impulse of rage on occasion, a channeled derivative of the true feeling that had burned across the sea fields on the day the Imperial Sovereign resonated surrender. The pink-purple swirl of shame, acknowledgement of defeat in the fields of battle. How had it come to this?

This derelict was one of so many ships that had bested them. Inconceivable.

Haigen, the mission commander, slobbered his way through trying to pronounce the ship's name. All of it was gibberish to the Krake's proverbial ear - subspeak, the flapping of tongues, wet lips. Repulsive.

The remnants of battle greeted them. The Krake's weapons were drawn - the phase-pulse rifle in his right outer hand, the scattergun in his left outer hand. The two inner arms modulated a scanning tool. His suspensor field pulsed, and the ExRel drone followed behind him, over his shoulder, scanning for life. The rotary cannon buzzed menacingly in its geometrically perfect core. His personal shield generator shimmered.

"Scanning for life, captain," he quirbled through his tentacles, hulking frame silently and smoothly gliding into the room via suspensor tech. Crush-force had killed some of the androids here. Others had been shot.

The Krake awaited instructions dutifully - an impartial observer ready to transform into a brutal killing machine.

 

[Thimble]

The interior of the EißΦæþ? Abo? Eibo? Was just as confusing as the damn thing's name.

The remains of what must have been one hell of a gunfight were littered all across what was (apparently) a lounge. Kresh swept his rifle around the room, eyes keen as he swept for contact. It almost felt a little disappointing when nothing jumped out at him from the dark corners. The dead cyborgs refused to jump to life.

With a sigh he slung the carbine over his shoulder and flipped out a bioscanner. "Cover me, I'm gonna try to I/D one of these guys."

He knelt down and found one of the few corpses who seemed mostly intact. The dead cyborg didn't complain when Kresh rolled it onto its back and jammed the Bioscanner's thin needle down into a path of organic-looking flesh near its neck. After a long pause, the scanner hummed to life with scrolling data.

Their new friends turned out to be pushing the definition of "Post-Human" so hard they were almost another species.

Microprocessor Neural Interfaces, Dual-Flow Lungs, Optoelectronic Motor Controls. Someone had spent a good deal of cash outfitting their goons with serious hardware.

"Cyborgs. Serious ones. Looks like one hell of a fight."

Kreash relaxed a little bit, but somehow couldn't help but keep glancing at the viscerated corpses. That, and the way the walls seemed to have been ripped (torn? cut open?) by some ethereal force.

It gave him a nasty feeling about what they'd find here.

 

[Serenitynightowl]

'It's always been cold... It's never this silent...'

A black bead surrounded by white, just to be sandwiched by red, peers out to the vast nothingness beyond the transparent substance on the wall, from the ground across the hallway. Though it didn't know such words, the sensation was maddening. Over, and over, and over, there was little to think about, internal monolouge like a broken record. It didn't know how many times the same things were repeated, knowing that nothing would improve - would change. And yet, it continued, unable to fill the deafening silence, for the ships gentle groans and creaks offered little solace; completely ignorant of the activity a couple hallways away, guarding the door it laid before that branched off of the hallway.

'So silent... Behind the door, has been so silent...' The thought crossed for the umpteenth time, the mass of wrinkled green vines pulling into itself in another feeble attempt to figure out why they would commit such an act when under observation. The vivid image of such small figures, curled up into themselves, some vibrating, others making a terrible shriek, pitiful whispers of noise, or leaking some form of fluid from under their optics. It didn't know, for it couldn't understand. It could not scream, it could not whimper, it could not cry. So it couldn't understand why such tiny-formed species would react such a way. But now, even the ambiance lacked that, too.

If it had to estimate, from between the massacre to now, about half the time had passed since it had become quiet; itself stranded between airlocked doors that were too tiresome to reach, and impossible for it to open. Within the same given timeframe, it had reached two conclusions: It succeded in it's attempt of protection via eradication; and yet in the same vain, it failed to protect them. With too much of it's resources going into the attack, it wasn't able to recover, having spread itself too thinly. It couldn't open the door behind it, unable to gather enough strength to open the manual locks.

All the exterior vines it had planted had become too damaged during the fight, and died off from the lack of resources to sustain itself, locked between doors that it couldn't open to return to its host or look for resources to recover. Concept unknown to it - it had been a suicide mission. But it had deemed it essential, having gotten a taste of the receiving side.

No one came. No one is coming. In a way, it succeeded. In a way, it failed. And all it could do, was wait to expire as it's thoughts repeat; a broken record.

'It's always been cold... It's never this silent...'

 

[Ghostly]

Pulse

Power flowed through the umbilical and soon the dim emergency lights of the flight lounge grew bright. Sparks shot out momentarily from the live cables jutting from the wall like arteries around a wound. Their own ship could afford to lend some power - it would follow Pulse's physical form and provide her and the room she chose to inhabit.

Deacon

The Krake's devices performed their role well, they were as reliable as ever. The flight lounge was dead and cold save for residual life signs within the dying foliage that weakly gripped to the walls. Whatever they were connected to was not dead - yet it didn't seem to be close to healthy either.

The scanner indicated that while the vine extremities of this floral creature were dying, at the root it seemed to still be alive.

~

Haigen couldn't shake the feeling that they'd walked in on something they were never meant to see. He'd seen places like this before, men in white doing what they wanted with no one to see them out in the black - flying dark and answering to no one.

"Just as many science staff as security," Haigen looked at the piles of bodies and tried to piece it together - imagining what could've happened. They'd been killed through crushing force and gunfire - torn apart more like. He knelt down beside a trio plastered against the wall.

Anti-personnel rounds - designed to rip apart organics not behind armor.

"Someone turned the turrets on the crew - vines crushed the rest, tore into the walls too by the look of it." Haigen said grimly, pushing off the floor and turned to face the doorway the vines seemed to be emerging through. "Let's find what did this and get out of here," Haigen swiveled to address the others. "If any of you want to take a look around or grab anything, feel free. Personally, I'll be happier the sooner we get out of here."