The Dividing Line - Space

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria tapped through her database and sent over the anatomy images, "Like I said, the books will have to wait, but here's some preliminary stuff."

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin shoved herself across her lab, catching herself on a counter and grabbing a datapad from where it was magnetized to the side of a shelf. Got it, thanks very much. She sent back, setting herself against a growth to steady herself as she read over it, keeping the channel open in case Maria had more to say.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"Copy that."

Draven closed the channel, and prepared for what was to come.

 

[Aust_Nailo]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

While her kin had chosen to board the ship, the more cautious Meera chose to stay in space until the all clear was given and the station was deemed safe. She couldn't risk going into combat, especially given her combat experience compared to Deelin and Taavan. She'd only be dead weight by comparison. She kept her ship cautiously near the ships belonging to Caitlin and Maria, knowing she'd be safer with company. She kept her hand close to the radio, to prepare for any sort of emergency. She'd also nervously shuffle through her documents and papers, trying to distract herself from her nerves.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Everybody's sensors collectively went "ping." The exact source of the signal was unknown and disappeared after a moment, but it seemed to head towards the cluster of dead Mantisses that were floating around the station.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"Oh shit, what?" Ko mutters into her helmet, eyes flicking over the readings from her HUD. 'Did I let one get past me already? But we could detect the others just fine, so...' she thinks to herself spinning the ship round momentarily to bring the ladar detection into view of the area the ping came from. She grimaces as she tries to remember the optimal range of the ladar system and it's effectiveness versus different types of stealth.

Turning off the ladar she puts the Strafer back into stealth mode and kicks the engines a little to drift away from her previous spot. She would give the camera system a chance to try and spot the object before going in further, and see if Kars or the other ship captains out here had any guidance on what to do. Conventional cameras were hardly the best sensor method in the void of space, but they were undetectable and worth a shot, given the small distances involved here.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

A low rumble passed through the ship as the radar beeped, drawing Caitlin's attention from the datapad in her hands. Moving quickly, she left the pad floating and pushed herself towards the heart of her creature, linking to it as she would at the bridge and going over the short sensor readout. She immediately pointed the nose of the Concordance towards the flotsam of disassembled Mantises, starting the slow charge of her main gun, just in case.

A quick message to Maria; Something's up, stick close. and one to the Hell Strafer's last coordinates a moment after it activated it's stealth systems; I had something, but it's gone. Charging the main gun, should be ready in two or three minutes for a simple clear, if needed.

Her allies updated, she started on a general firing solution. She figured anything big enough to stop one of her large shells wouldn't be able to maneuver without pushing the debris around, stealthed or not, so she shifted into a position that let her fire into the debris field and let the shot continue on into the sun for the system they were in. One had to make concessions for things like that, missed shots travel for a very long time in the void of space.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria hovered even closer to the giant ship, not wanting to take the chance on a communication and keeping her eyes glued to her screen. She hit a switch that caused a warning light to flare up in Jeff's quarters, warning him to stay where he was. That noise had unnerved her and she shunted more power to the shields.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Once more everybody's sensors flared up, and Ko's camera caught something small and yellow racing past its lens for a moment in the debris field. Whatever it was was clearly smaller than a mantis, but also much faster. It stayed hidden for a few more moments...

And then, one of the dead Mantises began moving. As it turned and faced the group, they could see something yellow racing away from it. Then another came back to life. Then another. Faster than the group could act, the entire cluster of mantises was moving. Sluggishly, awkwardly, but moving. Whatever that yellow thing was, it did nothing less than bringing the dead back to life.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria panicked and did the first thing she could think of. She called Fletch.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

"What the..." Ko mutters to herself again, nearly hitting the thrusters in a twitch reaction. Then she saw the Mantis as they began to stir once more. "What...? N-no way!?" Hurriedly reloging them as active targets once again as she struggles to understand what's happening. "Kars! The Mantis are moving again! There was a... a yellow thing, that touched them, and they're moving!" She stammers into her coms, seeking guidance.

---

Kars groans and puts up the sensor information on his HUD. The vague dull image the cameras caught told him nothing of worth. "Well tell em to stop it then. Their armour is already cracked so go to HE and Incendiary rounds. Keep your eyes open. Pay attention to prox, don't let anything close." He responds directly back to Ko.

Having not heard it from Nadia yet, he then makes sure that their lead was aware of the situation, speaking to the group in general. "Hey Commander. You getting this? The Mantis we killed outside aren't staying dead. Unidentified "yellow thing" is messing with them. My fighter is engaging."

Switching back to Ko's channel as soon as a gap in coms comes up, he adds, "Remember. Mind the debris. Avoid cross fire. Thrust to compensate on recoil. Fly short and sharp."

---

"r-Rodger. Moving to explode zombie bugs." Ko replies, blasting the engines to engage. She didn't know what was happening, nor how or why, and the sight of those things she loathed so much coming back to life like this, was a special kind of terrifying for her. But they'd been able to kill them once already, and if Kars said in a straight voice to kill them again, then that was what she'd do. Swallowing her fear and priming the guns. She could ask about the details later.

"Short and sharp. Acute ascending into boost. Wide into roll on strafe. Tumble and D5 if pinned..." Ko whispers to herself inside her helmet, reciting past lessons and instruction as she nears optimum range with the reanimated Mantis.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin sunk further into her impromptu commander's chair on the side of her lab, Her older sensors just catching the yellow thing now, when it stopped for the brief pause to reanimate the dead mantii. "That's incredible..." She muttered to herself, the scientific part of her brain lamenting that she wsa going to have to kill the specimens. Checking the charge on her main gun, she found it at about a third, nowhere near ready.

So the Cncordance started forwards again, picking up speed at an impressive rate and turning it's wide wide to the crowd of re-animating corpses. The point defense guns started firing immediately, but hte real threat was the ship itself, more than large enough to steamroll any of the mantii that did not get out of it's path quickly enough.

 

[Aust_Nailo]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

A frantic Meera watched in absolute terror as the supposedly dead enemies came back to life. Given her profession, she was use to bringing near dead plants back to life, but never had she had to bring anything organic back from the dead. To her, dead was dead. Nothing more, nothing less. So to see this was horrifying, so much so that while one of her companions moved forward, she fell back in her ship, taking pot shots at the now moving monsters. She tried to open a hailing frequency to her male companions, praying they'd help.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

The Mantises made no move to attack, even when the Concordance opened fire, even when its bullets shattered bones and destroyed organs. Rather, they converged, clustering closer and closer together, creating a ball of lifeless limbs flaying this way and that... and then the yellow dart reappeared and raced into the center of the ball.

It was as if a gate to a horrific dimension had opened. All at once, the mantis bodies were lanced, pierced by stark yellow tentacles and tying them together, creating an unliving shell around the creature. And all the while, they were still flailing. The mass of Nnyarthall flesh and armour pulsed gently as it twisted into an elongated shape... and as one, they raised their arms, guns still in hand, and opened fire on the approaching Concordance.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Maria switched the comm off and warmed her engines up as the monstrosity started its way to the Concordance. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and waited. The best thing she could do was stay out of range and keep her ship primed for a jump. He fingers flew over the keyboard as she set everything into motion.

Now all she could do was wait.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin twitched in her seat as she watched the yellow blob appearing to take control of the mass of mantis corpses. She spent a moment amazed at it's form, trying to figure out what manner of lifeform it was, before the varied gun arms raised in her direction, opening fire.

The mass of shots shredded through her shield in a matter of seconds, but the scientist had snapped out of her curiousity, already setting the large ship into a spin, as before. It's trajectory was unchanged, still on a collision course with the dead mass, but now the shots were tearing strips out of the Concordance's living armour, no spot facing the hail of fire long enough to burn through to the hull itself.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

'Was that... a space jelly? They can do that?' Ko comments mentally as she swoops in to engage, gritting her teeth with an unsettled expression.

This might not be the same kind of fish in a barrel spore she'd shot at for target practice before, but as long as it was made of the same rough stuff, it'd burn just the same. Or so she was counting on. Despite the fearsome and goulish display of this new form, Ko counted it's conjoined mass as a considerable advantage, compared to a normal Mantis swarm. Not having to worry about being surrounded in a crossfire, with all the fire coming from a single direction would make things easier for her. More so, by forming up so tightly, it couldn't have presented a more vulnerable target.

As the mass opens fire upon the concordance, Ko zig zags her way in whilst the bulk of it's firepower is distracted, and lines up for a four gun barrage. Mere moments before she's about to pull the trigger, Kars chimes in firmly through her coms. "Plasma cannon."

Understanding and acknowledging the split second instruction, Ko squeezes on the trigger for the ships underslung plasma cannon, imediately following with the barrage of 30mm gatling fire into the hole left by the armour vaporising plasma bolt. The storm of tank busting calibre bullets that slam into the wound comprising a 50/50 mix of high explosive and special incendiary rounds that burst with a white hot compound that would burn even in vacuum.

The volley away Ko wastes no time in pulling away and making a series of cautionary evasive shunts. She checks her ammo count, and tries to evaluate the effect on her target. All fair estimates told her there shouldn't be much left. It was a hail of fire that would have turned an armoured mammoth into a red mist.

 

[Rule 34]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

The combined efforts of Caitlin and Ko tore a massive hole into the amalgam of dead bodies, revealing its core as burning, shredded body parts tumbled away into the darkness of space. In its center was what Caitlin immediately identified as an offshoot of the Ardez spores, though this version was much smaller than the normal brown spores. No one else had ever seen something like it. She could be the first scientist ever to catalogue it! That would certainly put the uppity Dr. Ardetzki in his place.

The yellow spore, however, would not let itself be studied this easily. Slowly, the tentacles started to move the bodies of the dead around to cover up the vulnerable creature at its center.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Caitlin was stunned when she got a good look at the creature inside the mass of parts, now that it was holding more of less still. Do we have any way of capturing this thing alive? She sent to the other ships. This creature is incredible, I think if we disable it somehow, I can keep it contained.

Regardless of their answer, the Concordance would stop after ramming the creature, the bulky ship having clipped the side of the mass instead of hitting it straight on like she had planned. She didn't wish to destroy it now, however, so the point defense guns spun up again instead, firing at it in bursts that would allow the creature to move the mass of mantis corpses around to defend itself with more easily. It would wear out the creature's offense though, and hopefully make it easier to capture. She kept her own ship spinning in place. The shields weren't going to stand against it, so she needed to spread the resultant damage around as much as she could until it was safe to capture.

 

[Unknown Squid]

Re: The Dividing Line - Space

Ko grins with the successful attack. She was a little surprised that the core of the strange mass had survived intact, but was primed and already lining up for the kill shot. Another searing and volatile plasma bolt or two into the squishy core, followed up with a rocket, should settle things...

Squeezing the trigger, she hears the request from Caitlin, and in a split second of uncertainty, she snaps her aim away from the creature. The plasma bolt skimming the target and instead blowing away another chunk of the zombie armour shell. Frustrated by being made to hesitate she quickly rolls away and goes evasive for a while. Doing a close range scan for energy signatures, trying to roughly gauge how many weapons the blob had left and where they were concentrated.

In the meantime she fires a few tiny bursts of explosive rounds into what remained of the protective shell, to keep it "off balance" and to prevent it forming up too strongly. But otherwise waits to hear whether they actually had any means of capturing this thing or not. She wouldn't be happy if it got away. A waste of good plasma cells.

((Meera! We need you! ))