Be wary children, for on a full moon the light of the moon falls upon the bloodstain and a Terran will crawl out of that cursed spot, eyes red, teeth white and sharp, fingers curled into claws, looking for vengeance against those who slew them. - Narshivan Saying
Just because they're all dead doesn't an they aren't going to kill all of you and destroy your people. - Mantid Diplomat, 4 TXE
There is room in this grave for you too - Terran Descent Humanity Mutually Assured Destruction Saying.
The console, which was dusty, scraped, and faded, beeped and an display ca online. Unverak shifted so he could watch the text. The biggest part stood out to him.
AIRFRA DAMAGE SEVERE
MASS: 0.01%
MUNITIONS: 72.85%
REACTOR FUEL: 0.19%
ACTIVE OPERATION MASS GATHERER: ACTIVE
MASS GATHERING STARTUP: OK!
Unverak heard thumping and the sound of tal on tal. He looked down and saw sections of the wings and fuselage lift up, one end of the rectangle lifting, the other staying flush with the hull. Irises opened and Unverak could see funnels inside the rectangular sections.
MASS GATHERING... ... ... FAILURE!
ALERTING PILOT
PILOT: ERROR
SUMMONING RECOVERY VEHICLE: ERROR
SUMMONING GROUND CREW: ERROR
WARNING! LOW POWER! SHUTTING DOWN!
Unverak watched the rectangular sections lower. The slight vibration of the craft stopped. The screen shut down.
"And now the craft is dead too," the Strevik'al said dully. He climbed down, moving over to where the scientist of his species was banging on the grav-pod, trying to get the retention band to pop free. "Stop that," he said, grabbing the scientist by the collar and dragging him away even as he protested.
Unverak just stared inside the cockpit. The instrunts were damaged where high caliber kinetic rounds had penetrated the armor, the interior chanisms, and hit the pilot. He pushed the helt back slightly and looked closer.
The bones were dry. There was stains and discoloration on the padding inside, the skull was stained. There were cybernetic eyes, the bone around the eye replaced with Material-19. There was the temple located piece of cyberware and the gentle soft cloud of thin strings inside the skull. Additionally there was so kind of cybernetic at the base of the skull that was connected to the craft by a cable.
Unverak looked over the pilot's armor carefully. The arms hung to the sides of the seat. There was an eject lever, painted with fading yellow and black stripes, between the legs. There were two joysticks, both with buttons and triggers on them. The seat was obviously designed for high-G revenuers, the suit had pressure lines running to it and Unverak knew it was to use the kinetic sleeve as a pressure sleeve to keep the pilot conscious by squeezing blood to their brain.
He had not seen this model of aerospace fighter, but it followed the sa lines as the others his people had found at archeological sites.
A beaded chain with an odd dallion done in a silvery dal was hooked to a pull knob and Unverak looked at it carefully.
DAXIN THE REDEER was engraved into the bottom arc of the dal, which featured a figure-eight made up of 1's and 0's.
Religious iconography, he thought.
"You coming?" the Dra.Falten soldier asked.
"Yes," Unverak said. He climbed down carefully, dropping the last ter to the road, his knees and hocks twinging with pain.
"We should get moving," the Strevik'al soldier said, looking around. He looked at the skeletons that littered the road. "This is a dead place," he moved over to the scientist, who was turning a skull over and over in his hands, pulling the thin strands of transparent wire out of the vertebrae on the spine it was attached to. "Quit that," he snapped. He slapped the scientist across the back of the head.
"I will have you sent to the prison camps for that," the scientist snapped. "I am researching."
Without changing expression the soldier slapped the scientist across the fast, knocking him down to lay on his back among the Terror bones. With the sa dead expression the soldier stepped forward, kicking the scientist in the gut, then stepped back, appraised the situation, and stepped forward to kick him in the face.
"I told you: do not touch the dead," the soldier said. He turned and walked over to Unverak. "Terror dead are dangerous."
The scientist got to his feet, his nose bleeding. "Do not touch , nial," the scientist spat.
The soldier bent down and picked up a Terror bone, then looked at the scientist. "I could kill you with this," he said, his voice flat. "If you are so eager to understand the Terror, this shinbone could crush your skull and not even be bruised. Not even flex."
"How would you know, you who were too stupid to do anything important and were relegated to military service by the population control computer?" the scientist sneered.
The soldier bent down, replacing the bone, taking a second to brush it off before straightening up.
"How would you know, intellectually stunted one?" the scientist sneered.
"Because I saw it happen. More than once," the soldier said. He moved away, heading in the direction they had been going. "We should get moving."
"Wait," the Dra.Falten scientist said, pointing at the aerospace fighter. "Maybe we can radio soone to help us."
"It won't matter," the Strevik'al soldier said. He was vanishing into the fog.
"Hurry, co with ," Unverak told the Dremkilia, grabbing the loose cloth at the Dremkilia's shoulder and tugging.
"That was interesting," the Dremkilia smiled, hurrying to keep up with Unverak, who hurried to catch up with the Strevik'al.
The others hurried after them, careful not to kick or step on the bones.
The bones thinned out after a couple of blocks, going from a thick carpet to scattered here and there on the sidewalks, or falling out of the openings of buildings, or curled up in alcoves. So were under benches, others were in vehicles that were rusted, faded, paint and stickers peeling, plastic glazed and brittle.
The overall light level didn't change, coming from everywhere and nowhere, with areas brighter than others, other areas shadowed sohow. The fog thickened, thinned, swirled and hung heavily, a cloying, almost choking feeling to the yellowish fog. Screams could be heard in the distance, along with deep bass tallic groaning.
The Dra.Falten soldier suddenly stopped, cocking her head first one way, then the other, her leaf-like cupped ears rigid and twitching.
"Soone's coming," she said. She sniffed. "Can't sll them."
"Hide," the Strevik'al soldier said.
They tried doors, finding the shops or whatever they were all locked, the macroplas glazed and white, no signs, no stencils, just milky synthetic smart-glass that had been rendered dumb.
There was the thudding of heavy boots and everyone hid the best they could, behind cars, behind empty planters that held nothing but ash. The Dremkilia hid behind a pole that was only a handspan wide and left him exposed.
Unverak cursed and started to move toward him, gesturing for the Dremkilia to join him.
Shaped lood out of the fog as the Dremkilia darted to the front of a slowly rotting ground car. The Dremkilia froze in place, its eyes wide and ears flat with fear.
There was over a dozen of the shapes. Bipedal, two arms, bulky.
The fog swirled and revealed the figures to be power armor clad Terrors. They moved silently, in unison, in a wide V-formation across the street.
"Maybe they can... mmph," the Strevik'al scientist started to say before the Strevik'al soldier grabbed him, pulling him back, lifting him off his feet, clamping one hand over the scientist's mouth.
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"Sothing looks wrong," the Dra.Falten soldier said. "Sothing's off."
The power armor moved with the slow, powerful movents of trained power armor troops. Arms swinging, legs lifting and swinging to move the figures down the street. The armor was all pale blue, with scrapes here and there. All of them had a sigil on the shoulder. A wide brimd short cup with a short stem and a wide base. From one side of the base, up over the cup, to the other side of the base, were twelve six pointed stars. Beneath the base of the cup was a scroll, but Unverak wasn't close enough to read the writing. On one shoulder was a large rectangle, the forward end covered with a retractable shield. The other shoulder had a wide tube that was closed with an iris. The helt visor was wide, taking up the entire front of the helt. From one shoulder a thin red IR laser beam was easily visible to Unverak.
He stared at the armored figures, which looked back and forth steadily.
He realized what was wrong at the sa ti as the Dra.Falten soldier gave a gasp.
Several of them were missing all or part of one arm, sotis both. So were missing a hand. The armor chest and sotis the thighs all had indented punctures.
The Dremkilia made a small noise of fear.
The armor burst into motion, scattering, spreading out. So raised rifles, scanning upwards. Others had no weapon but extended out one fist.
One moved up to the Dremkilia, looking down the barrel of the rifle.
It was missing the faceplate, a large hole in the back of the helt, the skull had a fist sized hole in the upper right, the bone sohow warped as if it had been soft clay pulled backwards toward the hole. There was a cara lens on the upper left of the helt that Unverak could see adjusting its vision. A laser grid sprang from the right shoulder of the armor, spreading out over the Dremkilia, one larger horizontal line glowing brighter than the rest as it moved up and down the Dremkilia.
SCANNING LIFE FORM
UNKNOWN LIFE FORM
UNARD
THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL (INITIAL ESTIMATION)
ELIMINATE
The armor moved forward slightly, clearing the field of fire.
The Dremkilia licked its lips, looking up at the armor with wide eyes.
Unverak winced, sure he was about to see the Dremkilia murdered by a dead Terror.
"Can I have so candy first?" the Dremkilia asked.
THREAT LEVEL UPDATE
AUDIO LEVELS ANALYZED
THREAT LEVEL UPDATE: HARMLESS
CATEGORIZATION: NON-THREAT
OPERATOR DECISION... ... ...
OPERATOR ERROR
DIFFERENCE ENGINE ENGAGED... ... ...
ELIMINATE
PRIORITY OVERRIDE: CONSERVE AMMUNITION
PRIORITY OVERRIDE: MASS: 0.0028%
SLUSH: 0%
RESU PATROL
The rifle was pulled back to port arms and the armor moved back into the street. The other armors moved over and together they kept moving down the street.
Unverak let loose a breath he hadn't known he was holding, sagging slightly, when the figures vanished into the fog.
"This way," the Strevik'al said, motioning from down an alley.
Everyone hustled after him, running quickly across the street one at a ti to the next alley. They moved around empty rusting garbage bins, past closed doors that sported peeling paint and large splotches of oxidation.
After a long mont everyone stopped, the Strevik'al and Dra.Falten scientists gasping. Unverak joined them, one hand on the wall, bent at the waist, taking deep whooping gasps. The Dremkilia moved up next to him, rubbing Unverak's lower back with one paw.
"I'm glad that it decided I didn't need killed," the Dremkilia said softly. He patted Unverak's back as the scientist stood up, still breathing deeply.
"You got lucky," Unverak said, still gasping.
"They were dead. They were all dead," the Dra.Falten scientist said, their voice thick with horror. "Dead inside the armor, but they were still patrolling the city."
"Dead Terrans Still Kill," the Dremkilia smiled. When everyone looked he just shrugged. "I saw that movie in the mining facility recreation center. It is a Lanaktallan scary movie."
"That they do," the Strevik'al soldier said softly, far enough away from Unverak that they were barely visible in the glowing fog. "We should get moving again."
Unverak nodded, half-staggering as he followed the rest.
The alley opened up into a larger street, a boulevard with decaying vehicles in opposite facing lines, a curbed section in the middle full of brown ash that was barely visible. The buildings across the boulevard were only a suggestion in the fog.
"We'll run for the big one. Hide under the trailer, plan our next move," the Strevik'al soldier said.
Unverak just nodded.
The Strevik'al soldier broke into a run and everyone followed, the Dremkilia bringing up the rear as it waddled as fast as it could on its short thick legs. They ducked under the trailer and followed the Strevik'al soldier as he slowyly made his way up to the tractor.
He looked around the tire and suddenly jerked back, making a universal motion to be quiet.
Unverak looked out just as a loud, wordless, gobbling cry sounded out.
Figures jumped on the vehicles all facing left. Many had spears, so just had knives fashioned from shards of macroplas or endosteel. They were all dressed in dark green rags, with brown leather straps in an X across the chest and as a belt across their waist.
Another loud wordless cry sounded out.
From out of the fog ca a group wearing blue rags, throwing spears, knives, as they ran at the ones in green. Ones in red ca out of the alley across the street, doing the sa.
In monts there were dozens fighting in the street, on top of the cars. Makeshift blades flashed, spears were thrust into flesh. There were screams of agony, roars of aggression, but Unverak did not hear anything or see any body language that could be perceived as a plea for rcy. His head started to hurt, he could taste overripe berries, and the band across his forehead began to feel warm. The others clutched their heads, struggling to stay silent. The Dremkilia closed its eyes and hugged itself, shivering.
Blood oozed from one of Unverak's ears, unnoticed.
One group broke off, running away, so stopping to throw spears back the way they ca. The red group ran in another direction and the blue group stood on top of the cars, howling, beating their chests with fists.
The pressure seed to increase, the taste of overripe berries thickened.
Unverak could see terrible mutations. Eyes that weren't spaced right, or were too many. Vestigial fingers and limbs. Misshapen face and heads, limbs out of proportion, no ears or too many ears or misshapen ears.
They all had markings carved into their foreheads. Chevrons over crosses, so chevrons with arcs below. They had markings on their cheeks. Thin slashes, each group of four having a diagonal line through them. Multiple groups.
After a mont the blue group jumped down off the vehicles and moved on. As they moved away the pressure and ache in Unverak's head eased up.
Unverak looked at the others, then shook his head.
The pressure was almost gone and Unverak wiped his nose, grimacing at the sar of blood on the cuff.
"Terrors. Real Terrors," the Dra.Falten scientist said. "They fight like animals."
"Look, so still there," the Dremkilia said, pointing.
So were trying to crawl away, or struggling to get to their feet. One was holding loops of intestine in one arm, cradled close to their hunched body, as they staggered in the direction their comrades had gone. One stood up and slowly pulled a spear from their belly, giving a roar of pain as they wrenched it free and tossed it to the side. It gasped, blood pouring out of its belly and onto the ground.
The blood suddenly slowed, then stopped. The Terror slowly stood up to full height, beat on its chest with its fists, and gave a loud roaring cry before moving over to another Terror wearing the sa colors. It heaved the other one's arm over its shoulder and helped it keep moving.
One by one the wounded got back up, staggering away, vanishing into the fog.
Unverak just stared.
Only a few were still laying on the ground.
The Strevik'al scientist ran over, kneeling down, ripping open the shirt of one. It was male, with a broken off piece of macroplas sticking out of one eye and the skull broken open, brains spilling onto the pavent. The Strevik'al started prodding at the dead Terror.
The Strevik'al soldier ran over and tackled the scientist, punching as they rolled across the street.
"Kill you..." the soldier scread out.
The Dra.Falten soldier ran over, pulling the Strevik'al soldier off of the scientist.
"Quit that," the Dra.Falten said. She shook the panting Strevik'al. "We don't have ti for this."
Unverak moved up to the Strevik'al scientist and looked down at the supine being.
"You keep ignoring his commands, and one of these tis we won't be fast enough to save you," Unverak warned.
"But Science must be..." the scientist started to say.
"DON'T TOUCH THEIR DEAD!" the soldier scread out.
There was silence for a long mont.
Then the sound of tal on tal.
The sound of stone skipping across stone.
A giggle further in the mist from across the street.
A scraping sound.
The Dra.Falten soldier let go. "Move," she snapped. She ran for an alley.
They turned two corners, Unverak slowing down so the Dremkilia could keep up, when the others ca to a stop.
A group of small Terrors stood in the street. They had cloths over their faces, revealing only their narrowed eyes. One had two vestigial arms under the larger ones. Another had two arms on the sa side. One had three eyes, the middle one milky white and weeping.
"Crap," the Dra.Falten soldier said.
As if that was the cue, all nine of the smaller Terrors pulled blades out from under their rags.
Unverak turned and his heart sank.
There were five others behind his group, all holding knives.
Both groups were wearing blue rags.
Unverak's group moved against each other, back to back, jostling, as the Terrors slowly approached.
A siren sounded out.
This one was long, wailing, undulating in a new pattern.
The fog turned a sickly pea green.
The two groups of Terrors suddenly turned and ran, moving through the closest doors.
Unverak knew fear when he saw it.
"We need to get off the street," Unverak said. He pointed at an open door. "There."
Without waiting, he grabbed the Dremkilia's arm and pulled the smaller being along.
Past the door was a dark stairwell. Unverak looked up, changed his mind, and ran for the door at the end of the stairwell. He pushed through, the other following, and he ran through the hallways, stopping to push at doors, trying to find one that was open.
He didn't know why, but sothing about the siren and the change in fog color caused a panic response.
Twice, Terrors pushed past them, rushing to doors they managed to open, then barricade and/or lock behind them.
Fear made Unverak gag as he followed the others, trying to keep up, his joints hurting.
"Here!" the Dra.Falten scientist said, waving at the others.
Beyond was a room full of debris, piles of rags, chunks of broken furniture, shattered pieces of technology, with transparent windows at the far side.
When Unverak and the Dremkilia ran through, the Dra.Falten scientist slamd the door, pulling a broken table in front of it. Unverak and the Strevik'al soldier helped pull more debris in front of the door even as the Dremkilia reached out and engaged the lock, smiling at everyone as he did so.
"They're... running..." the Dra.Falten soldier said.
Unverak looked and saw that the Dra.Falten Way of the ans trooper was standing at the window, looking at the sickly-pea-green fog swirl outside. The light had dimd, but in so way the fog seed thinner but visibility was worse.
"From what?" Unverak asked, moving up.
The fog seed to darken further.
"I... I don't know," the Way of the ans trooper said.
"The fog is weird," the Dra.Falten scientist said. "Look, darker patches."
As they watched, three Terror males threw themselves against the window, clawing at it, looking over their shoulders and screaming, then back to the window they were hamring on.
Long tentacles slithered out of the dark spots.
They wrapped around the three Terrors.
Unverak was paying attention. He saw the clothing suddenly rot and hiss. The flesh beneath hiss and bubble and dissolve as the tentacle wrapped around the Terror in front of him. More tentacles squird out of the fog, wrapping around the arms and legs of the Terror, flesh and cloth dissolving.
Watching in horror Unverak saw the tentacles open, unroll, so that they were flat against the skin. Unverak had the impression of barbed hooks, sharps chunks of cartilage,
All three were suddenly yanked into the fog.
The group looked at each other, then back outside.
The fog thickened and darkened.
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