As Promised part 2 of 3 of "Crisis on Valhalla". Enjoy
[EDIT]: THIS POST IS RATED R for strong violence, graphic language, gore, and creatures that are probobly naked (the first 3 are serious!)
Crisis On Valhalla Part 2:
The
Blackbird sat elegantly in space, she had taken up formation with a civilian fuel station in orbit of Icara which she dwarfed easily, her beautiful gray, and red cylindrical hull shimmered in the starlight making her look like some living behemoth out of ancient mythology. Ross felt an excitement he had not felt in a long time, he hated leaving Lin and Icara after so long in space, but when he saw the elegant death bringer that was a super dreadnought once again his heart warmed with a glee that only the stars could bring to a man, his joy at seeing the
Blackbird was for another special reason as well, she was commanded by Captain Sandra Fowler, the young woman that he had seen rise from command of his old frigate which now lay in orbit of Icara as part of the fleet museum to command of a Super Dreadnought, one of the Empire’s deadliest warships. He remembered how proud Sandy’s parents were of her when she first received command of
HMS Saber all those long years ago, and thought back to how happy he was as well.
“Admiral, this is [/b]Blackbird[/b] LSO Kerensi, we have your shuttle on scopes, and have acheived maglock you are hands free, and welcome Admiral.” The voice on the other end of the com sounded young but professional, making Ross smile once again remembering his early days in the Royal Navy.
The massive super dreadnought turned her gun ports to broadside and fired their salute to welcome a flag officer, the area lit green as the minimum power beams fired off in sequence in a centuries old naval tradition..
Ross’s shuttle came to a halt just below the open boat bay doors of the massive super dreadnought, the mag beam held locked the shuttle in place for a moment before gently pulling the shuttle into the huge bay. As the shuttle lifted silently into position a marine and spacer honor guard braced to attention and saluted smartly at their head stood three command officers in full dress mess uniform, Captain Fowler and Commander Higgins were wearing the newer blood red jacket and black pants of the Royal Navy while Major Jahonis wore the dark green jacket and tan trousers of the Royal marines, and each was decorated with several medals and orders making them stand out even more amongst the other officers and crews.
Ross stepped off the shuttle and smiled as soon as he saw Sandra standing in salute a marine Sergeant shouted “Aten-Shut!” bringing the entire honor guard to salute. Sandra stepped forward and smiled at her old friend.
“Welcome aboard Admiral” her voice was virtually brimming with joy her eyes gleaning with pride.
“Thank you Captain Fowler.” Ross said cheerfully as he shook Fowler’s hand.
“Would you like a tour of
Blackbird sir?” her voice held all the professionalism required but her eyes were alight with pride, sure it was just another super dreadnought in a fleet of a hundred but it was
her ship and that made it unique just as it would for any captain. Ross nodded and smiled again, as she led him toward the boat bay doors and dismissed the honor guards and receiving crew.
After the tour Ross, Fowler, her XO Higgins and Marine Major Jahonis had a private dinner in her day cabin, unfortunately it was more then a social gathering as the questions revolving around Valhalla had to be discussed in detail.
“I do not understand why the local planets could not simply dispatch an SS team to investigate the sudden silence on Valhalla, or why in the universe it took them
four months to report it!” Major Jahonis said irritably as he looked over the other officers in the room.
“I too would like to be home right now Major but I’m afraid that for some reason the admiralty decided that we would be the best people to send on this little foray.” Admiral Ross barely hid his own irritation, he understood that the marine officer was probably not whining but the other man’s complaints only reminded him that Lin and Icara would very soon be far behind him.
“Sir you misunderstand me, I do not mean to offend or say that we should not be sent, only that if the local lords had sent an SS detachment to investigate before calling for the military right away then we might have some intel on what we are going into, for all we know sir my marine detachment may not be large enough to deal with problems on the surface, we may need an entire SS brigade or army regiment at our backs, if I implied otherwise sir I am sorry.” The marine hunched in his seat slightly like a child that had just been scolded by his parents.
“I’m sure the Admiral knew what you meant Major, it is just a stressful situation to be sent into as we all know, and you are correct if the local lords had done their jobs then we might not even have been necessary, but things being what they are do you believe you can handle a potential ground fight?” Sandra interceded with the same incredible skill and diplomatic grace that had made Lin like her so much, and which made William smirk just about every time he noticed it, Lin and he often teased Sandy that she should have been born to the nobility instead of the citizen stock because she would have made a perfect diplomat.
Major Jahonis sat up straighter and seemed to regain his confidence when Ross nodded at him, “Well Ma’am I think we could secure a small number of personnel on surface, or we could be used as recon but there are over two hundred million citizens on Valhalla, and most of them are of Icara-pure birth origin, they are from the defunct Rebel alliance so their loyalty already may be at question should we land. So if it came to a true ground conflict I do not believe even my marines could fight off that many people by themselves.” the major paused when Higgins made a grunting noise.
“You have something to add Higgins?” Ross said in a more even tone then he had managed for Jahonis, and made a note of it to himself to do something that showed he respected the marine officer as well.
“Sir it’s just Major Jahonis is assuming two hundred
million hostiles, the entire population of one of our own worlds, doesn’t that seem more then a little extreme? With all respect major but an entire planet rebelling against their own Praetor?” Higgins voice sounded almost amused which brought a look of steel from the marine officer.
“Well the Commander has made a point, he was not always
their Praetor, nor were all the RA worlds taken peacefully, some required threat, or even application of force before they were subdued.”
“Okay, that’s enough, Commander Major I want the two of you to work together on a plan for ground operations should they be required and how we can support any action by the marines from orbit, short of full scale bombardment, is that clear?” Ross said sharply as the two officers glared once more at each other before returning their attention to him.
‘Yes sir.” the two men echoed.
“Dismissed.” Sandra spoke softly but sternly as she watched her two officers stand to leave.
When the two other men left Ross stood, stretching stiff muscle and sighed as he thought over the situation, was it even possible for Icarans to be disloyal to their Praetor it would be the first time in thousands of years of history that an Icaran ever deliberately turned against their government. Ross shivered as a chill ran down his spine. And after a short conversation with Sandra went to his cabin to get some sleep, or at least rest for a while after the long day, and possibly his last chance for a real rest any time in the near future as God only knew how many long days he would have ahead of him until this situation was resolved.
A week had passed on board
Blackbird before they even entered the Valhalla system, and another twelve hours at six gee’s of acceleration before the dreadnought had entered scanning range, and though Ross was relieved they had finally reached their destination things became very strange almost the moment the Imperial warship began scanning the surface.
“Ma’am, Sir, I am getting very odd readings from Valhalla Capital.” The tac officer of the watch sounded wary as the his Captain walked over to the main holo display at the back of the command center and punched up a larger version of the tac station screen while Ross read an orbital scan report from the astral survey station.
“It’s totally black down there.” Fowler said nervously as she looked over the holo display.
“What do you mean totally black?” Ross cocked his head as he turned his command chair around to see the display, “My God, that’s impossible.” his voice matched the sickly look on Fowler’s face. The only way a city with cold quantum technology could go totally black is for every single power station, backup station, and orbital relay to be completely warm, which meant that for some reason the entire planet was just “unplugged”.
“Admiral if the surface is totally black then….” her sentence was cut off as battle klaxons howled and speakers sounded the beat of war drums to call marines to quarters.
“Tactical?” Ross said instinctively, as the chief gunnery officer began running checks on his gun crews’ status.
“Sir I have a single, cutter sized vessel approaching from starboard, I can’t get a clear reading beyond that sir.”
“What do you mean you can’t get a reading Ensign it’s a bloody cutter how can you not get a reading?” Fowler blurted, frustrated by the situation, a cutter was far too small to carry any form of stealth and the fact they couldn’t get a reading was just weird.
“Ma’am the cutter is signaling.” The com tech sounded timid after hearing an officer get a bootstamp from the Captain and almost cringed in her chair when Fowler looked her way.
“Open channels please.” Fowler managed to keep her voice calmer this time as she tapped the com panel and the holo display switched from a view of the planet to a young looking obviously Icaran face.
“Your really the navy? Oh thank God and all the saints I thought you’d never come.” The man sounded almost tearful as he snapped a half dignified salute, not much of the man was showing but the black collar and crossed lightning bolts emblem emblazoned on it told Fowler that the man was an SS officer. She returned the salute as a matter of courtesy rather then necessity as military officers automatically outranked any SS personnel.
“What is going on here Mister?” Ross voice was calm and cold as he addressed the young man on the screen.
“Sir! Please let us dock then I’ll tell you everything, I don’t want to talk over the com line it’s not safe, you must understand sir, please!” The man’s pleading tone took the entire bridge crew aback, not many military people respected the SS, because they saw them as unprofessional amateurs but to see even one of them almost sobbing was enough to make anyone nervous.
“Tactical can you get me a reading yet?” Ross said under his breath, as he turned his back to the screen.
“Aye sir, but something about that cutter just isn’t normal sir.” The man replied in the same hushed tone.
“Care to explain further Ensign.” Ross hissed back as he turned to face the officer.
“I wish I could sir but I can’t, I’m sorry.” The officer cringed at what he expected to be a furious reply but Fowler and Ross simply looked at each other and nodded.
“Thank you tactical.” Ross managed a whisp of a smile before returning to face the screen.
“Whom am I addressing officer?” Ross kept his voice cold and calm even as the strange feeling in his gut continued to gnaw at him.
“Sir?” the man looked stunned at the question and Ross felt another twist in his stomach, any Icaran soldier, or even SS personnel with any shred of discipline left would answer the question immediately.
“I said who are you mister.” Ross tone turned dangerous as he took a step closer to the screen.
“I am citizen captain Brochensky sir, 33rd SS brigade, Midenshield.” the officer replied in a less then respectful tone. ‘Sir please let us dock I’ll explain everything.”
Ross signaled his com tech to cut the channel, and began pacing the deck for a moment until Fowler walked up to her superior, she looked worried but Ross knew her well enough to know she wasn’t about to admit it.
“Something about this whole situation doesn’t feel right Sandy, an entire world gone black and one of our own blasted cutters that we can’t get a proper reading on, add to that an SS captain who’s acting like hell is chasing him.” he paused in his pacing for a second and made eye contact with Sandra.
“I know sir, but if we don’t grant him permission to dock it’ll be a lot harder to find out what the hell is going on down there.” Sandra kept her gaze locked with Ross and felt like she could feel his brain churning with thoughts.
“It’s your ship Sandy, I won’t risk it’s safety unless you feel that this is the only way.” they both knew that he was senior officer and could easily order her to do anything he wanted, but Ross was no the type of man that would shove another officer’s opinion aside simply because he was senior.
Fowler nodded and turned to her com tech, “Spacer, open a channel to that cutter if you’d please and grant them permission to dock in boat bay 1.” she waited until the young woman at the com station nodded and tabbed a personal com key on her command panel.
“Major Jahonis, have a full platoon of your best marines assembled in boat bay 1 to greet our
guests I’ll be there momentarily to join you.”
“Aye ma’am.” Major Jahonis voice boomed in reply.
Sandra turned to Ross and saluted “You have the bridge sir.” she grinned and headed for the bridge doors.
Moments later she was at the entrance to boat bay one along with a full platoon of
Blackbird’s marines, she made her way to Major Jahonis and returned his salute.
“Status Major?” she was still buckling armor to her vac suit as she walked up to the marine Major, who like the other marines was wearing a “hard” vac suit, which meant it was built with armor plating already on it.
“Ma’am the cutter is coming in now, the boat bay crew are all carrying side arms, but there are only 6 of them at the moment and there are at least 20 people on that cutter.” He shrugged “I was waiting to go in until you arrived ma’am.”
“Alright let’s get in there I want to find out what is going on here.” she pulled a dart pistol and followed the marines through the blast doors that led to the boat bay.
The cutter bore the marks of the SS orbital security force but something about it’s hull looked deformed, though Sandra couldn’t put her finger on it, she looked nervously at the large guns that the cutter was armed with and frowned deeply.
“Major, tell your men to be careful.” she whispered over the secure com channel.
“Aye ma’am.” the reply sounded strange to Fowler, Major Jahohis voice was almost anxious something she had never thought she’d hear from the big fearless marine Major that had fought boarding actions and ground fights for the past two decades.
The cutter’s door slid open, the marines formed a semi-circle around the entrance as the armed deck crew and Captain Fowler found a place to get out of the way, they weren’t cowards by any means but marines tended to get a little protective of their navy comrades whenever there was a security risk aboard ship and all the off duty jokes aside the navy respected their “joeys” and stayed out of their way when it was a marine area o expertise.
Several minutes passed and still nobody emerged from the cutter, which seemed to make everyone more aware the gun turrets on the cutter.
“This is Captain Sandra Fowler, of His Majesty’s Ship
Blackbird I order you to step your cutter now to be inspected!” Fowler said sternly over her com’s “announce” channel.
Yet still nothing but eerie silence came from the cutter, Fowler repeated her order twice more and both times no reply.
“Fowler, this is Ross, what’s going on down there?” Though his tone was cold and professional Fowler heard raw nerves in his voice.
“I don’t know sir, I don’t understand it, there are twenty life signs aboard yet no reply.”
“Tell Jahonis he has permission to send in a team if he sees that as an acceptable option. Ross out.” his last order made the hair on the back of her neck rise, to give a Marine permission “if he sees it as acceptable” meant that if Jahonis chose he could order his marines out and have the navy flush the cutter back into space, where it would be “cleansed” be a secondary gun turret that was probably already being trained on boat bay one’s doors.
Fowler passed on the orders verbatim to the major and after a moment his crisp strong voice echoed over the
Blackbird’s tactical com channel.
“I need three volunteers to form an entry team.” almost the second he barked the order every marine in the formation took a step closer to the entrance.
“Alright, Johnson, Sakowitz, Kim you three move up, everyone else covering positions.” Jahonis voice was still wary as the three marines stepped forward, one of whom was carrying an SM 93 breaching gun, a weapon that fired twelve micro-explosive darts simultaneously into a target.
As the three entered the hatch the two marines carrying auto-rifles switched on their flashlights, making the scene even more eerie, as the light from the marines vanished from sight Fowler’s stomach knotted and her spine felt like it was about to twitch it’s way out of her back.
“Advance team, what do you see?” Jahonis voice hissed.
“Sir, there’s barely any light here, we are making our way to the cockpit but, stand bye.” Marine Talia Sackowitz voice stopped and for a second the com went quiet before the three marines began speaking again
“Can anyone else hear that” a voice Fowler didn’t recognize said
“What the hell was it?
“I can’t see, where is this damn smoke coming from”
“It’s not smoke, wait something is moving in here, oh my God!”
The sound of gunfire erupted from within the cutter followed by screamed orders and more firing.
’God get out get the hell out!”
“My leg oh son of a ***** it tore off my leg…”
“[censored] [censored] [censored]!”
“Kim where are you?!, Kim oh God no!”
More muzzle flashes flared, over the com the sound of rending flesh and bone could be heard followed suddenly by silence from within the cutter, Fowler could see that Jahonis wanted to go in but he was too much of a veteran to rush into that kind of situation.
“Advance team reply, advance team please reply.” Jahonis sounded tortured over the com until a quiet whisper came over the com net.
“Sir, their life signs are gone, they’re…..they’re dead sir.”
“There’s movement sir!” A marine almost shouted over the com line.
A figure emerged in the shadow of the cutter’s hatch, the surrounding marines turned their weapons in the figure’s direction; a marine turned on their flashlight revealing a horrible sight, it was Talia Sackowitz or at least what had once been Talia the bloody wrecked body that stood before them could no longer be called the young marine, her helmet’s face plate had been torn away revealing the last agonized expression she had when she died.
The marines stood shocked for a moment, Talia’s torso was torn open and something that looked like a spike was the only thing holding her mangled body upright, until suddenly her body was thrown forward onto one of the marines standing watch over the hatch, knocking him over.
The creature that emerged from the hatch looked like something out of a science fiction book, a mangled ruinous creature that looked as if it had armor plates some how melded into it’s flesh, it lunged from the hatch with amazing speed and tore one of the marines open in a flash of arterial spray and torn flesh. The creature lunged at Major Jahonis but the veteran marine jumped out of the way and attempted to drive his force bayonet into it’s side, unfortunately the bayonet snapped off clean sending sparks and shards of broken metal flashing away from the creature, it turned around attempted to drive the spike that was it’s right arm into Jahonis again but a burst of fire from a marine knocked the creature off guard.
“Open fire, bring it down!” Jahonis shouted as he managed to level his rifle again, firing a burst of explosive darts into the creature’s chest but managed only to take a small chunk out of it’s armor, the other marines opened up on the creature but it barely slowed down as it lashed out at another marine sending her flying several feet back into a crate with a resounding crash of armor on metal.
While the marines were distracted by the man sized creature, no one noticed several much smaller creatures slipping out of the cutter’s hatch, one of which jumped onto a marine knocking him to the deck, the marine whiled around to aim his auto-rifle at it but was too late the creature slammed six centimeter long ‘fangs” into his stomach and began motions that resembled Earth crocodile’s death rolls, the marine howled in pain until a spray of Auto-rifle fire from a nearby marine tore the creature apart in a gruesome eruption of innards and liquids.
“Sandra what the….[static] is going on down there?” Ross’ voice boomed over her com, Fowler dodged for cover as she tabbed her com key.
“Admiral get more marines to deck three forward, and seal it off for God’s sake, there are some sort of creatures in that cutter, we’ve got five dead marines already and I don’t know if we can stop them.” Her voice sounded terrified even to her own ears but she hardly had time to notice as an unbearable pain tore through her left leg and a blood curdling scream that she could hardly believe was hers cut the air like a knife.
She managed to kick the creature off of her with her right leg but her side arm had fallen out of reach and the injury began burning like fire, the creature jumped for her face to strike it’s death blow when a bayonet tore it’s side open and a rifle butt knocked it aside.
As her vision began to fade and the world turned to blackness and silence, Fowler remembered looking up into a marine helmet an hearing someone that seemed far off shouting orders to fall back.
The marine that picked Fowler up handed her off to one of the armed deck crew as Jahonis shouted orders for the navy personnel to fall back and began barking orders at his marines.
The man sized creature had finally begun to slow down, but the corpse on the end of it’s right arm was providing it a grizzly shield as the dead marine’s comrades attempted to get a clean shot at the beast.
Just then one of the turrets on the cutter came to life, and fired a green hellish blast into a fire team of marines that had taken cover behind some crates, vaporizing them all and turning the area into a fiery wreck.
“Get the hell out now!” Jahonis shouted, until his marines began shuffling back towards the big blast doors that sealed off the boat bay, a scream from behind him made Jahonis turn around just in time to see a marine’s head severed and thrown aside by one of the smaller creatures who’s four limbs could barely even be called proper legs. A marines darts quickly ended the fowl creature’s life but another leapt over the ruined heap of the other and lunged for on of the deck hands, taking him down in bloody cloud that didn’t even have time to scream.
The turret fired again and sent the upper half of a marine sprawling across the deck plating, having vaporized the rest of him with the deck plating he had been standing on. A brave marine charged forward with a hand grenade, barely dodging the manlike creature’s vicious spiked arm, Jahonis almost wept as he saw the young marine ram the grenade down one of the gun barrels taking the turret out with him and saving his fellows from more ruinous fire.
The last marine barely managed to slip through the blast doors before quarantine effects sealed the boat bay off and the sound of air rushing out signaled the purging of the filth that remained in the bay, a secondary battery outside did it’s job with precision and turned the cutter into a cloud of particles and vaporize plating.
Major Jahonis took stock of his dead and counted eight marines and two deck crew, as well as another two marines wounded with horrible bites like those in captain Fowler’s leg.
“Alright let’s get these three to sickbay and get some more troops down here to make sure we’ve completely purged that filth from the boat bay.” He felt weary yet part of his mind would not shake the fear that some how one or more of those smaller creatures made it out of the boat bay while the blast doors were still open.
To Be Continued
Re: A new Game story (From the begining)
"Bobs your uncle." (Thats just the way it is)
don't just skim and you'd probobly enjoy the story much more lol 
seriously though thanks for the comments guys. Part 3 is forming up in my head now but it might take a week or two, hopefully not much longer then that.
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