The Insidious Mind

[Iviera]

Note: Posted in a new thread because of the huge time difference between these events and the initial Insidious thread, which was a flashback.

Insidious
Chapter 1: Duplicity

This was the last connection she needed to make. Once this network was linked up with the systems of the ship, they’d finally be able to run a large enough scan to cover the whole city, and then they would know for certain if the Nightmare was still alive, and if he was, where he was hiding. The Captain finished hacking through the firewall as the bodies of two Cypherites lay motionless behind her.

Her phone rang.

“All set to link up,” she said with satisfaction.

“Ivy, I need you back on the ship ASAP,” Davis answered with concern in his voice, which was surprising. “We’ve got… a problem.”

She quickly copied the network information and erased the recent activity from the computer, then grabbed the disk and headed for the exit.

“What’s going on?” she asked, holding the phone to her head as she rushed down the stairs to the first floor of the building.

“Distress signal…” he replied, trailing off. Davis knew what it was like to be in the heart of the fire, after defending Zion’s docks at the end of the first war – which was one of the main reasons Iviera chose him for an operator over so many skilled freeborns. He never got upset, never panicked, and because of it never made a bad decision. But he sounded upset now. She headed for a hardline.

Soon after that her eyes opened, and she was looking up as the length of metal was pulled from the back of her skull. Davis secured the jack and walked back over to his terminal without a word. Emned and QuiDormit had just been jacked out too, and they were getting to their feet slowly. Iviera sat up in the ecto-chair, looking at the operator with a sense of trepidation, noticing the square set of his shoulders, which she had only seen in him once before…

“Sentinels?” she asked quietly.

He took a deep breath and then shook his head, staring at the green code in front of him. “Maybe…”

“Come on, out with it,” Emned said as he seated himself in the Pilot’s chair. “Time’s always against us, right?”

“You jacked us out for a reason, didn’t you?” QuiDormit asked, crossing his arms.

The operator looked over his shoulder at the crew members, then sighed and turned back to the console. “It’s the Atropos II… my old hoverbarge. They just sent out a distress signal, and… we’re the only ship close enough to respond.”

Ivy understood but didn’t say anything at first. She knew how attached to that craft he was, and what he must be feeling knowing that he wasn’t on board to protect it. What’s worse, with the war on there was a very real possibility that it could be a trap set by the Machines or Cypherites, and from the sound of his voice there weren’t any Zion-friendly vessels close enough to give them support. He was probably expecting her to refuse, and in terms of responsibility, she really should.

“So why the hell are we just sitting around?” Qui asked.

The captain smirked, and then looked at her two operatives. “Plot us a course. Get us there as fast as you can, and get the guns ready – any squiddies out there are in for a surprise. I’ll notify the fleet.”

((Em & Qui, check the Neptune boards as well))

[Emned]

Emned nodded and turned back. He flipped a few switches and heard the Neptune's engine rumbling. He looked at the screens and pictured the road ahead. The ship accelerated and moved through the sewers smoothly.

"Q, are the weapons ready?" he asked through the com.
"Ready and armed," he replied.
Davis sat down next to him, looking worried. Emned looked at him from the corner of his eye and got slightly worried. He ignored the feeling and looked through the front window he suddenly pulled the break and heard some things falling on the ground.
"Em!" Iviera yelled through his headphone.
"Sorry chief, our road is blocked...must be happened recently,"
Davis looked at the maps.
"Go left through that cave, and up there," he said.
"Aight," Em replied diving down and left. He saw a big opening and carefully flew the ship through it.
"Be careful Em...not much room here," Davis warned.

Emned nodded and looked at the screen. Carefully maneuvering through the small tunnels until Davis pointed out the opening they needed. They could barely see. Emned switched on the headlights and immediately wished he didn't.

In front of him he could clearly see from a distance the remains of a hoverbarge. Davis was staring at it with open eyes and mouth.
"Captain...we need you in the cockpit. Now," Emned softly said through the com.

[dreathon]

((Good stuff guys))

[Iviera]

To all ships of The Trust, this is Captain Iviera of the Neptune. We have received an emergency transmission from the Zion Hoverbarge, Atropos II, indicating that they have come under some form of attack. We’re in route to them now, but we don’t know what to expect or what kind of resistance we’ll find when we arrive. Any backup you can give us would be appreciated.”

Ivy shook her head and set the headset down, wishing she had more to say. It could be anything… Machines, Cypherites, the rogue Merv ship Reposco mentioned recently, or even Halborn’s vessel. The last possibility sent a chill down her spine, though she wouldn’t hesitate to ram the ship right down his Oligarchist throat if she got the chance. Whatever an Oligarchist was…

She hurried up from the com station and arrived on the bridge, stopping in her tracks when she saw the flaming wreckage of the barge outside. Ships are destroyed all the time in the real, especially with the war in full force, but seeing it in person is something you could never get used to. The husk outside was like a wounded animal, propped up on a massive rock slab, its reactor barely keeping the external lights on. It didn’t take much imagination to think how quickly the Neptune could join it in ruin.

She took a breath. “Alright, no time to waste. Em, bring us down a few hundred meters off… somewhere that’ll help us blend in. Davis, pull the hazardous environment gear and all the working weapons we have on board. Qui…” he turned away from the navigation terminal to face her. “Get into the reactor room and cut power as soon as we touch down. Don’t kill it completely… leave us enough so that we can fire it up in a hurry. I’ll find us four working flashlights.”

There was a moment of hesitation after she had given the orders, and all three seemed to be thinking the same thing. It was Emned that finally voiced it.

“Who stays behind?” he asked.

“No one. If we’re taken out, we’ll go down together. Besides… we’ll need every hand available to carry out survivors, and we’re strongest as a group,” she answered. The other thing was the threat of an enemy getting into the ship while they were outside, but on foot there was no way for them to get back in time to rescue whoever was on board. The ship was just as vulnerable with them out here as it was with them in it.

And with a little luck a few more friendly ships will have heard the signal, she thought.

“Let’s move.”

[RedBindi]

"Red, we just got a transmission from the Neptune you need to hear"

RedBindi jerked up as the comm crackled to life above her, banging her head on the metal edge of the relay access point she'd been about to enter on the Diluculo. "Bloody hell..." she muttered as she stood the rest of the way up, careful to avoid other heavy metal objects, and made her way to the comm. Still rubbing the back of her head and muttering curse words to herself, she picked up the microphone to respond to Wheeler. "Bindi here, what's up with Ivy's ship?"

"The Zion Hoverbarge, Atropos II, came under some kind of attack. She's gone to check it out and is asking for some assistance."

RedBindi's hand dropped from her head as she took in the importance of Wheeler's simple phrase. "Wheeler, get the Titan's crew to their stations. I want her lifting off the moment I step aboard."

"What should I tell Ivy?"

"Nothing. Just get the Titan ready to go, I'll talk to her myself."

Hanging the microphone back up she sprinted to the main comm station at the front of the ship and put the headset on, not even bothering to sit down before keying up the Neptune's transmission frequency. Fenshire appeared beside her, having just ran up from another access point he had been inspecting. Looking at her he just nodded, her unspoken question answered she transmitted her message.

"This is the Hovercraft Titan and Devildog to Hovercraft Neptune. Ivy, we're on our way.

As she keyed up the Devildog’s frequency, the headset was gently removed from her head by Fenshire and placed upon his own. “Diluculo to Devildog. Sym, get the Devildog in the air and prepare to follow the Titan.”

The messages sent, RedBindi lowered the ramp of the Diluculo and sprinted across the dock towards the Titan's lowered ramp, followed closely by Fenshire. At the top waited Luminarium, who smiled at seeing her friend again, before reaching over and hitting the button to raise the ramp again and alerting Wheeler to their captain’s presence on the ship. As the ramp locked into place the tone of the hoverpads began to change, from their low idling hum to a teeth gritting thrum as power was poured into them facilitating the Titan's lift off.

[Emned]

Iviera, Davis, Quidormit and Emned slowly moved towards the wrecks of the hoverbarge. Emned carefully aimed his EMP gun forward trying to see through the darkness for any sign of Sentinels. Remnants of old human cities made traveling difficult. He looked at his ship mates. Q held a flashlight to find a path, Iviera was deep in thought and Davis was silent. Too silent.

Emned made eye contact with Ivy signaling towards Davis. She nodded softly and walked to Davis. Emned walked towards a heap of stones and steel and started to climb it. Reaching the top he saw that the road ahead was empty. He signalled down that it was safe and soon enough the four of them looked at the hoverbarge.

A few sentinels lay broken next to the barge and there had been a fight. The barge was broken, bent and torn apart.

Iviera turned around and looked at her crew.

"Em, check for active computers, we need to know what happened,"
He nodded.
"The others, check for any survivors and prepare for anything,"
They nodded.

The band of four quickly ran to the barge preparing for the worst.

[deffdog]

Deffdog sits in the Copilot station Next to Suezuki. The Shadrack was navigating down a cavern on the outskirts of New Zion returning from an mission to find out why contact was lost with one of the sensor nets.

“I hate Maintenance runs.. Go out and find the only reason something stop transmitting is a dam rock smashed it,” Deffdog said frustrated.

“Agreed, “ her eye is drawn to the blinking communications panel, “Deff, we receiving a broadcast.”

He flips the switch and hears the voice of Captain Iviera.

“ … Atropos II, indicating that they have come under some form of attack. We’re in route to them now, but we don’t know what to expect or what kind of resistance we’ll find when we arrive. Any backup you can give us would be appreciated.”.

Deffdog begins to speak, “What is.. “

To all ships of The Trust, this is Captain Iviera of the Neptune. We have received an emergency transmission from the Zion Hoverbarge,..

“Hmm It’s a recording.”

Deffdog turns down the communication’s panel switches the intercom to the Full Craft Intercom.

“Attention Crew of the Shadrack,”

Jazz perks up from her station listening to the announcement, while continuing to monitor Pyro and Hunter Jacked into the Matrix.

Maatkare stops her welding on the engines and listens to the announcement.

Some other free born mechanics and security men, some of which have been with the Shadrack since the evacuation of Outpost One, cease from their current Duties and listen in.

“It looks like the Neptune may need our Assistance. An Zion Hoverbarge has gone down, we will be changing course to assist. We will need to be prepared to give humanitarian aid. We don’t know what brought the barge down so prepare for anything. Lets get to it people.”

Jazz begins punching into her computer, begin speaking into her headset, informing Hunter and Pyro of the announcement, and finds and prepares and exit for them.

She removes the jacks, Pyro without a word moves toward the weapons consoled, and Hunter heads for the gun turret controls. Bobbi, who had heard the announcement, has now moved into the infirmary, preparing for the emergency trauma patients that will come.

Deffdog looks over to Suezuki, her eyes firmly on her job and making the adjustments to intercept with the Neptune. Deffdog sits back in his chair thinking of Ivy. He had really gotten to know Ivy since she returned to Broadcast Depth. He enjoyed talking with her, let’s hope that they will get that opportunity again.

The Shadrack has a sudden jolt as it moves out of the caverns into the damaged sewers.

[Iviera]

The ship was a disaster. Iviera really hadn't been expecting anything good, and as the crew approached the wreck of the ship her fears were confirmed. She looked at her operator, who seemed to have drawn into himself and was gazing at the ship with a strange expression.

"There isn't anything you could possibly have done, D," she said quietly. "The swarm that came after them would have been too much for any of our ships to take alone, no matter how valiantly the crew fought."

"It's not that." His face turned quizzical. "The barge never comes through this section of the tunnels... I made sure I explained that to Gene before I left her in charge. This whole area is dangerous - like that collapse we saw on the way here. They shouldn't have been here. Besides..." he turned his flashlight on the side of the hull as they moved towards it, saying, "do you see any tear wounds? Puncture holes? Anything you would expect to see after a heated battle with squids?"

"But there are dead sentinels all over," Qui said, kicking one of the mechanical corpses.

The sound echoed, carrying through the tunnel. At least, that's what it seemed at first. Something else had moved nearby, producing the grating noise of metal on stone, and within seconds all four beams of light were probing the same pile of rubble a hundred feet away. More dead machines littered the ground there, but nothing moved. The captain finally exhaled.

Inside the ship they found more of the same. Chairs were toppled and displays hung from the ceiling and walls, a few feebly trying to display information as they stuttered and sparked uselessly. And there were bodies... so many bodies. Davis was talking quietly to himself as they searched.

"...not a scratch on him... and this one... an arc-welder burn..."

"D?" Emned asked, turning his light in that direction.

The operator shook his head, smirking. "Not a single one was killed by a sentinel. In fact, half of them look like their jacks were... hmm?" he stopped, hearing the sound of coughing, and quickly turned his torch, illuminating a thin female form half-crushed under the weight of the life systems terminal. "GENE!" Davis dashed over, and the crew followed quickly.

"Gene... what?!..." he said, voice hollow.

"Davis?" she blinked several times, clearly on the brink of consciousness. "Cypherite... posing as a new recruit. We got her, that b*tch... but it was too late."

"It's alright, save your strength," he replied, grabbing the side of the terminal. The others moved in, and with their combined effort they managed to lift it up, freeing the girl.

"We have to get her back to the ship as quick as possible," Qui said, stowing his EMP rifle over his shoulder.

"You're right," The Captain agreed, "but first, everyone spread out. There are bound to be a few more survivors."

[Emned]

Emned moved towards the operator's consoles. Many screens were broken except for the main one. He lay his rifle on the ground and started to safely shutdown the system and unplug the harddrives for later examination. He put them in his backpack and turned towards the lower area of the ship. Several dead bodies lay on the ground, like they just had dropped dead on the spot.

"Anyone alive?" he asked not expecting an answer. Suddenly he heard a cough.

"Typical..." he said turning towards the sound. in the light of his flashlight he saw a young woman he recognized.

"Leila?" he asked surprised kneeling down next to her. Her body was stuck under some metal plates. Her eyes were closed.
"It's okay...we're here to safe you," Emned said in his most reassuring voice. She opened her eyes.
"Em...is that you?" she asked.
"Hush..." he said.

He put his rifle on his back and started to push the metal away. With much difficulty he succeeded. He looked at the woman and saw her legs were bleeding. He opened his bag and pulled bandages from it. He sort of stopped the bleeding, wishing he had followed more medical training programs. He quickly checked for broken bones or other bleedings.

"Okay Leila, I am going to lift you up," he said. She nodded softly. Together they made their way to the main deck where Iviera was standing.

"I stopped the bleeding of her legs...but she needs medical attention...asap," he said. "I also have the hard drives of the ships computer to analyze,"

He looked around him. "Any other survivors?" he asked.


(Leila is the girl I saved in one of my first missions, you can read about it in the story Heroes. I also assumed that we still used hard drives)

[Iviera]

In the end they found three living people. Davis was carrying the ship’s captain, Gene. Emned had rescued, for a second time, the young operative named Leila, and shortly thereafter Qui came into view, his considerable size weighed down by the masculine form draped over his shoulders. This man, whom Qui had found to be unconscious but breathing, had suffered a bad blow to the head, leaving a long gash down the left side of his face. Bandages were now wrapped around the worst of it.

“I could swear I know him from somewhere…” Iviera said, looking at the man, “But that’ll have to wait. Let’s get these three back to the Neptune and we’ll plot our next move from there.”

She was met with nods from her crewmates, and without any hesitation she led them back to the hatch and out of the ship. Now weighed down by the survivors, their movement through the rubble was slow and painful, and the captain was forced to find easier paths for them to follow. They doubled back more than once, and with every passing moment her chest seemed to get tighter, as she knew there were fewer places in the world that they would be more exposed than here. At least the massive size of the tunnels helped to shroud them, like the proverbial needle in a haystack.

More than halfway back to the ship, an electrical buzzing began to echo through the area. Those will be the other Trust ships… I hope, The Captain thought as she scanned the shadowy environment above her. Then, like a shift in the wind, another sound loomed even more loudly. It was as if a train and a tornado were having a fight and they were coming ever closer.

“What the hell is that?” Iviera asked, stopping momentarily and fingering the trigger of her EMP rifle.

”That…” Davis said, voice dropping to a low foreboding pitch, “Is a thousand reasons why we should all have stayed in bed this morning.”

They all seemed to look up at once.

”Sentinels…” she whispered, as a column of black and red began pouring out of the ceiling far above them.

[RedBindi]

"Red..."

"I see it Wheeler, trust me... I see it. Any response from the Neptune yet?" RedBindi looked over to Vapor, her face a tight mask of concentration as she piloted the bulk of the Titan at breakneck speed through the tunnels.

"No. Nothing, just the same message over and over again."

RedBindi cussed under her breath as her radar screen showed more and more sentinels pouring out of an adjacent tunnel and heading right for the grounded Neptune. Over to her left the comms station crackled to life, Fenshire's voice coming over the speakers. "Bindi, you seeing what I'm seeing."

"Vapes, switch us to an open comm then head to the turrets. We see it Fen, I'm going to grab their attention... try to keep them off my weak areas."

"Sis... let me help..." RedBindi glanced to DarkAlma, then to the remaining crew. The Titan was running a skeleton crew at the moment and she was going to need every last person on her for the fight to come.

"Alright. Grab a turret with Vapes and Leon. Each of you should have command of at least two, maybe three different turrets. Do as much damage as you can. Zagar, stay with the reactor and keep her running... I don't care what you have to do to do so. Mica, watch those life support systems like a hawk. Lumi, take over comms for now and be prepared to shift power where ever we need it."

The crew of the Titan had been through this before, many times in the past several months and they moved with speed and efficiency born of a battle-hardened crew to their stations. Knowing the Devildog was close behind and watching her back she flew straight into the middle of the swarm, guns blazing, and front hull plates crushing as many as she could force in front of her. Behind her the Devildog began to systematically clean off any sentinels attempting to attach to her hull as they moved as a unit to protect the Neptune.

"Fen, if Ivy's down there she'll find a way to let us know her position... meanwhile... I hope a couple other ships heard her transmission..."

[deffdog]

“Deff you see this? as Sue glared at the monitors, the cavern they were entering was filled with a sentinel swarm.

Deffdog keeps his eyes on the sensors, the raging sentinel force now in the cavern

“The Titan and the Devildog are already engaging, shall we join them,” Sue Asks

“Not Just Yet, Keep running on low pads, keep our output low, I want to get as close as we can to the Neptune, so we can land.”

“Deff your not thinking about?” Deffdog cuts her off.

“We need to get people down their to find them, its safe to assume their not on the Neptune, with that message still repeating. We have a better chance of finding them alive, on the ground.”

Suezuki Sighs and gave out a not very enthused “Aye Sir.”

Deffdog exits the command deck and makes his way toward the storage bay. The Hovercraft was full of life, as the crew was preparing for the battle.

His eye catches to Aerios, his old friend, with lightning rifle on her shoulder.

“Ready for this Aerios?,”

“Completely”, she answered with a smile, “these trust guys know their stuff, and well be able to hold out, out there.”

“Assemble your team and meet up with me in the storage hold.”

“Yes, sir”

Deffdog walks down the corridor and takes the ladder down to the storage hold.

Maatkare and Pyro were prepping the final piece of equipment for the ground team, the APU.

Deffdog approaches them, “We ready to go?”

Pyro looks over to Deffdog, “Deff, I still think I should go with you guys.”

“Pyro, we’ve been over this, your needed here. Is she ready?,” looking up at the APU.

Pyro sighs, “It’s ready, these new APU’s have the newer smaller shells, you’ll last twice as long that what they did in ... old Zion dock.”

“Great well load me up.”

Deffdog climbs the ladder into the APU, he puts on his headset.

“Mic Check, Sue you receiving?”

He begins powering up the consoles.

“I hear you Deff, sounding good. I’ve already started landing procedures, were as close as were going to get without being spotted.”

“Alright and Sue, your in command till I get back. Join the Devildog and the Titan in the fight once were offloaded.”

“…. Understood.”

The hovercraft jerks, as it has finished its landing procedure, Deffdog Grabs the controls of the unit and begins walking it out of the docking station toward the hold doors.

Aerios and her team had already assembled at the main storage hold door. Maatkare had moved to the door control.

Deffdog nods to her and the door begins to open. The sound of Sentinels and the guns of the hovercrafts resound. The tunnel was dark but with the ensuing battle, there was enough light to see the Neptune about a quarter mile away.

Deffdog looks down at Aerios and her team.

“Lets do this” he shouts and raising the arm of the APU.

Outside the sound was of the battle was booming.

Deffdog looks back behind as the Shadrack lifted up off the ground and moved at full speed into the battle.

[Iviera]

A deafening clamor erupted from above as the Titan, a gunship of epic proportions, rammed the bulk of the sentinel swarm head-on. Mechanical wreckage rained down all around the small group as they raced through the rubble, like a hailstorm of fire and metal. Iviera had never, in her wildest nightmares, imagined having this perspective in the midst of a battle.

The Machines had been split in half, now a cloud spiraling around RedBindi and Fenshire's ships, while the remainder continued its downward descent toward the barge and the Neptune. It was impossible for this to be a coincidence... no, this was a trap. The sentinels knew exactly what they were after.

Less than a hundred yards were between the crew and the ship when a branch of the swarm descended on it, preparing to latch on to the hull. Within a few feet of their goal, a barrage of white-hot gunfire erupted, slicing through their ranks, followed by a ripple of explosions that sent metallic bodies hurtling through the air. The crew took refuge behind a nearby slab of rock as flaming machines landed all around them.

"What in the..." Emned began.

"That looked like..." Davis said between labored breaths.

"That..." Iviera finished with a grin, "Was Deffdog."

They began moving again, running as hard as possible over the uneven terrain while lugging the survivors. The way had been cleared by APU gunfire, leaving a wide open path from them to the ship, and they were through it in moments. Guarding the hatch, she gestured everyone to move in while scanning the air with her rifle. That's when she saw it... a lone sentinel that had survived the initial burst of fire.

The machine whipped toward the ship, tentacles curling back like fangs, and then... it stopped.

Iviera had never been this close to one of the living death machines before, and despite the fact that it had no features or means of expressing emotion, it seemed to look... perplexed. Something about the hull had caught its attention. Something strange enough to stop it in mid-flight. While the Captain found herself, however briefly, sharing its confusion, she knew when an opportunity had been given to her, and she pulled the trigger. There was a discharge of blue-gold electrical energy, and then the machine joined the other disabled sentinels on the tunnel floor.

Darting inside, she slammed down the hatch control and retracted the walkway before tossing the rifle to one side.

"Get us the hell in the air, and spin up those turrets! We're not out of the shit yet!" She yelled.

[Neoteny]

His thin frame stood arms-crossed less than a meter from the flight display, chewing on an unseen thought. On a glowing blue projection were charted maps of the tunnels with bright red markers displaying the last reported location of each ship in the fleet. His expressionless face watched as a stream of arrows erupted from the red marker labelled "HvCFT NEPTUNE" towards a green marker, one of the various ships registered under the Zion military, but not known well enough to the ship's systems to be labelled.

"What's going-"

"Captain, we're receiving a transmission from the Neptune," came the deep, stern voice of the Saltpillar's first mate and operator, Wanzer.

"Toss me a headset," Neoteny responded with a bit of a growl, catching the thin item with one hand and attatching it to his ear in one swift motion.

He did not toss it back after listening to the message, but rather punched a command line into one of the numerous keyboards surrounding the cockpit before he spoke.

"Assemble on the deck. Now."

He marched slowly past the operator's desk, where he lay the headset back down by the array of monitors and keyboards in a sedentary fashion as Wanzer also rose to his feet and joined Neoteny as Microcoulomb, Ryumanjisen, and Shinte joined them on the deck of the ship.

He was blunt, as always.

"The Neptune's found a downed barge, they're asking for assistance."

"They haven't removed those things from the fleet and scrapped them into smaller craft yet?" Microcoulomb yawned, fingers scratching the back of her head through her black hair.

"No, I suppose not. But that doesn't matter. We're going."

Ryu spoke up, "Do we expect enemies?"

"Maybe," Neoteny replied, "But here's the plan. We're going to enter backward with the cargo hold open in anticipation of hostile intervention. Hoverbarges don't just down themselves, after all. Anyway, I want it open just enough so that Shinte and Wanzer can get lightning cannons out to fire at whatever comes our way. In the mean time, do what you can with the scrap we have to fortify the opening in the hold beyond what's already there, and be prepared to close it at a moment's notice."

"And what do we do when our weapons run out of power?" Shinte asked.

"Grab one from one of the dead Cypherites decorating the floors, and when that one's out of charge, throw the dead body.

Ryu and Coul will be manning the artillery. Ryu will have the chain guns under the ship, Coul will have the rooftop cannon. I want the cannon and the right chain gun facing the rear, and the left chain still facing forward, just in case we're followed. I'll have my finger on the EMP, anyway..."

They stood for a moment in silence before his gruff undertone cut the silence once more, "What're you waiting for? Get your asses in position."

Everyone moved.

---

As the white marker displaying the position of the Saltpillar approached the red marker of the Neptune, an eerie silece caused by the lack of nearby crew crept into Neoteny's brain, and sent a slight shiver down his otherwise still and upright spine.

"Almost there..." he said, exhaling slowly, watching as the red beacon denoting the Titan's position appeared not far from the Neptune, as the same phenomena caused both the Devildog and Shadrack to materialize on screen.

Punching a few keys on his interface, the map zoomed in to the area a bit more closely, so that he could read the distances and specific positions of each ship, while another screen showed the view out the Saltpillar's tail.

And within moments, the ship arrived at a scene of blazing guns and swarming metal, a nearby APU driving shells into the swarms.

"Well, I'll be damned."

He made a quick check of the display of the tunnels before the ship before making the order, "Ryu, turn the other turret to the rear. All of you, begin firing. There was a General, right? Let's hope we nail the new one."

As a steady roar of rapid gunfire roared forth from the turrets below the ship mixed in with the bass of the artillery cannon firing from the top along longer intervals and the faint, almost unheard treble of the lightning cannons being fired from the cargo hold, metal forms began to sink from their cloudlike masses in the sky.

And upon the console of the cockpit, a glass case lay open, practically removed from the red button it only casually guarded, a finger hovering just above it, prepared to press it at the necessary moment, if there were one.

Silently, he hoped that the combined forces of five hovercraft could ward off the machine swarm.

[QuiDormit]

((I figured I'd post this here since this thread hasn't been moved over to the new forums yet.))


Captain Iviera shouted out to the crew, "Get those people strapped down in crew quarters, and get to your battle stations, STAT! We'll deal with them after we get out of this." The crew of the Neptune immediately scrambled at their captain's order. Emned secured Leila in the crew quarters and headed to the cockpit and Davis did the same with Gene. QuiDormit hesitated at the bulkhead, the large bandaged man still on his shoulders.

Iviera immediately noticed his blank stare and asked, "Q, are you OK?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just a little shaken, is all."
"Yeah. Things in the real can be quite a bit more terrifying than the simulation. You gonna be OK? I need you at the top of your game right now." Iviera asked concernedly. QuiDormit started towards the crew chambers with his unconscious burden and shouted, "I won't let you down, Ivy!" She watched as he ran down the corridor and sighed with relief.

She immediately got on the comms to contact Deffdog, who was still out there in his APU. "Deff, bring that bad boy on over and load up." Deffdog was still a few hundred yards from the ship. "Ivy, are you sure you have room?"
"Deff, get your ass in here, we're NOT leaving you guys on the ground. Besides, I could use another gunner," she said with a smile. As Iviera and Deffdog met up in the cargo hold to load in his APU, Davis was running a weapons system scan, getting all of the turrets on line and primed. Aerios and some of her crew took the last turrets, and the rest of her crew was forced to wait in the cargo hold. Emned was strapped into the pilot's seat getting the ship ready for takeoff while QuiDormit hopped into the navigator's chair next to Emned, and checked through his maps and charts.

"Whaddya got, Q?" Emned impatiently asked. "Still looking... I just need another moment to find... Damnit! We're completely sealed off. We've only got one direction to go; into the mess." Emned stared hard at the controls for a moment, mentally preparing himself. "Ivy, did you get that?"
"Yeah, Em, I copy. You guys ready up there?"
Simultaneously Emned and QuiDormit confirmed their captian's question.

Emned slowly lifted the ship up off the ground. With a loud hydrolic hiss the landing gear was brought up. He turned the ship about and gunned it into the fray. The dark tunnel ahead was lit up by hoverpads and flashes of gunfire. Unfortunately, a more immediate concern lie directly overhead. Another stream of sentinals broke off from the rest of the group and headed right for the Neptune.

"Oh no you don't," muttered Davis. Iviera, concentrating on the mass of organic-looking metal slowly said, "Wait for it... Let them line right up. Em, take her straight up and into the group; everyone else take aim." Deffdog stared at his screen, hundreds of targets lining up. "Ivy!" he shouted, and without missing a beat, she screamed, "Now! Fire at will!" All that could be heard was the thunderous sound of the turrets unloading into the swarm. Emned pulled back on the flight stick as hard as he could, sweat lining his forehead as the ship plowed through any squiddies that the gunners missed.

The minutes that passed felt like hours. A rain of shells and sentinels fell to the darkness below. "We're through!" shouted QuiDormit over the comms and everyone cheered. Just ahead, the rest of the hovercrafts could be seen, still mopping up the remians of the sentinels.

Davis turned to Iviera with one eyebrow cocked and asked, "well, Cap... What now?"