With this one Chapter 15 is done and the next chapter is full of death, explosions and telekinetics tearing stuff apart in one last attempt of glory.
Link for visibility's shake, Chapter 15, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 714#p21714
[Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)
Moderator: Outsider Moderators
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Well the damsels outside the strong point were certainly in distress.
The marines are here to rescue the Loroi from monstrous cockroaches.
And this time they're doing it properly with battle armour and guns!
The marines are here to rescue the Loroi from monstrous cockroaches.
And this time they're doing it properly with battle armour and guns!
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Another thrilling chapter in the ongoing saga! Excellent work as always.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Lieutenant Allerberger: "Alright boys and girls, it's time to hunt some bugs!"
Marines: "BUG HUNT!! OORAH! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt!"
Loroi: "Wtf are they doing?"
Marines: "BUG HUNT!! OORAH! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt!"
Loroi: "Wtf are they doing?"
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NuclearIceCream
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Tue Feb 25, 2014 12:32 am
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I have a hard time believing marines WOULDN'T do this if they ever went up against bug aliens.Zakharra wrote:Lieutenant Allerberger: "Alright boys and girls, it's time to hunt some bugs!"
Marines: "BUG HUNT!! OORAH! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt!"
Loroi: "Wtf are they doing?"
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Chapter 16, part 1
As Teidar Sezon Razormist mentally prepared herself for the coming onslaught she couldn’t help but notice the fine details that made the strongpoint they were defending into a death trap for anyone who would try to enter it through the corridor she and the Soroin with her were covering. For some reason the Shells had taken significant extra costs when building this ship as its entire layout was split in several distinct sectors that were connected with each other via such strongpoints. The inefficiency in operating a ship with such a layout was obvious to even a Teidar but its designers probably had something entirely different on their mind since they focused on internal security above all else. It could be possible that this ship was used either as a patrol ship or a heavy armed prisoner transport; designs that would require such measures in order to ensure that any prisoners would never have a chance in taking over the ship.
Thankfully most of the defense systems were offline due to the power outage, otherwise they wouldn’t have made it this far, but the defensive positions that they now used were a clear testament to the monomaniacal design of the ship in question. The strongpoint was connecting three distinct sections of the deck they were on, three entrances in total that could normally be shut down hermetically with blast doors that would be thicker that the armor of a destroyer. They were locked in place with the power out but that didn’t change the fact that anyone who tried to storm in would instantly find themselves in a killing ground as the floor almost immediately sloped upwards leading into the elevated defensive positions that enveloped the entrance as if a V sign.
Any defenders would be perfectly covered and would have ideal shots downwards to an opponent who could only advance in limited numbers due to the corridor’s bottleneck. To rush in was suicide and the small distance to the top of the plateau couldn’t be covered without taking massive casualties. The problem was that the Shells had meticulously made it easier for their own kind to move around the strongpoint. The sloped floor leading upwards was difficult to walk on for anyone but the Shells who had placed several discreet handrails that the Shells used instead of stairs. With them in place the Shells were more than able to nimbly and quickly get to the top without losing any momentum, a testament to the speed and agility that they enjoyed in their natural gravity.
The only way to stop them from doing that was to kill them before they managed to reach the top but Razormist knew that they had neither the numbers nor the firepower necessary to do that. They would certainly kill plenty of Shells in the process but in the end she knew that this was going to be their last stand. Even with that in mind she smiled at the challenge that the ever approaching tide of Shells offered; never one to tolerate defeatism, from those she commanded and herself, she did the math and came to the conclusion that if any of them were to make it out alive they would each have to take out four Shells before dying.
An easy enough task for Teidars, even without telepathy, but the problem lay with the Soroin. They were ship crew and not the hardened ground veterans that she could trust in such a desperate fight. But they were Soroin, perhaps that still meant something even for those who never faced Shells in a real fight.
“Make sure you kill four before you die or I will hunt you down and kill you again in the Afterlife!” She bellowed as the first Shells appeared at the entrance she and her team were covering.
The Soroin opened fire in unison, their particle blasters set at maximum in order to guarantee a crippling wound if not a kill. The Shells knew that the concentrated fire would instantly take out even hard troops and they implemented a simple enough tactic for some additional cover to the Hard-troop vanguard. They just took the Loroi dead that were left behind and nailed them onto makeshift shields that the hard-troops carried to cover themselves as they just walked into the blaster fire.
“Do not falter!” Razormist yelled as she fired her blaster pistol into the slowly approaching and gruesomely covered swarm of Shells. As a tactic it was crude, gruesome but effective as their own dead offered an excellent disposable shield with their combat armors and bodies. The dead were quickly torn to shreds but with the little time they lasted the Shell vanguard managed to get a foot hold past the initial chokepoint and right into the pre-designed killing field.
“Concentrate Fire!” She yelled above the noise as she tried to guess where the heads of each hard-troop she could see were, a taxing task considering that she was without sensing while the particle flashes which turned darkness into light didn’t make things easier.
The gruesome shield of the first hardtroop had painted it with a layer of blue gore as the cross fire from the elevated positions tore it and the hard-trooper’s armor apart. Finally seeing an opening she concentrated and crushed the insides of its head and it was left standing idle as two more hard-troopers stood by the side of their dead comrade, offering themselves as living shields for the Shells behind them who carried a wide assortment of weapons and makeshift shields fashioned from torn off wall paneling
It was a tactic unique to the Shell mentality of self sacrifice for the cause, the vanguard offering their very lives as shields of those that followed and waited for the moment the defenders would have to reload. She had seen it before and she knew that the moment the fire wavered they would break lines and rush towards them with all the speed and nimbleness that the low gravity allowed them.
This tactic wouldn’t work if they had some heavy weapons but no Loroi was able to carry those in battle and thus their ground forces were forced to rely on walkers and floaters for heavy weapon support; equipment that no sane commander would bring into a boarding action. That didn’t mean that they didn’t have a counter prepared; the standard issue grenades they all carried were designed to be bundled together in order to increase their lethality. A lone grenade could take out a couple of Shells if they were right on top of it and at best wounding those in the immediate vicinity but a bundle of four grenades was more than enough to take out a whole bunch of them at the same time.
Each Teidar had three such bundles prepared and waiting for the opportune moment to telekinetically throw them to a mass of Shells. She threw the first bundle the moment the defensive fire from the Soroin begun to falter and the Shells broke ranks, the resulting explosion tearing the would be attackers apart while the ones still in the chokepoint hesitated for a moment which was all that she needed to quickly guide a second bundle right into the Shell packed corridor. The resulting explosion tore that group apart in an instant and a larger secondary explosion killed every remaining Shell in front of her position in an instant.
“Suicide bombers!” She warned out loud and used the opportunity to look at the other two approaches at the left and right of her position. Thunderspear covered her right and had already thrown her first grenade bundle and was about to throw a second when she hesitated for a moment. A Solon later a lone Shell was lifted up to the air and it was easy to see that it was another suicide bomber, a Soroin took its head off with a precise particle blast and Thunderspear crashed its body repeatedly against the wall and the ceiling, probably in the hopes to irreparably damage the detonator before throwing the battered remains back down the entrance she covered. Some of the Shells however used the opportunity that the lapse of attention from the Teidar offered and rushed up the slope to engage the defenders in close quarters.
Longblade’s position to her left already had several Shells among the defenders when a suicide bomber rushed among them and detonated its explosives, killing everyone around it.
“Coldsword, to the left!” Razormist ordered the lone Teidar who was their only reserve as she herself abandoned her position in order to cover the collapsed left flank. She glanced back as an afterthought, relieved that the chokepoint was now half obstructed as a result from the explosion. “Darkwing, you and your squad follow me!” Hopefully one squad was more than enough to cover the center while they would attempt to stop the left flank from completely collapsing; she hoped that Thunderspear would be able to hold on for now.
The Shells didn’t lose any time in exploiting the situation and at least a dozen of them were already on top of the ravaged defenses while more of them were undoubtedly rushing in. Coldsword thought fast and telekinetically arced one of her grenade bundles right onto the left chokepoint that the left flank used to cover. The Shell limbs and gore that flew upwards were solid proof that she must have killed a number of them even without knowing their exact position.
Razormist kept her last grenade bundle in reserve and covered Darkwing’s Soroin who quickly advanced towards the left flank while taking shots at the Shells who in turn returned fire as they rushed to get in hand to hand combat, on which they had every advantage, with unbelievable speed.
Shell exoskeletons could easily absorb punches and kicked while even combat knives and axes were rendered almost useless by them. Their exoskeleton combined with their forward legs, their razor sharp serrated spike on their right hand and their claw at the back of their left hand made them extremely dangerous to even fully armored warriors. They knew how to use their advantages to strike at their armor’s weak point and all Shells had been trained in such kind of hand to hand combat since infancy; their preferred method of fighting was to disarm, cripple and then finish off their opponents in quick succession.
The only hope a warrior had when faced with a Shell in hand to hand was to parry and avoid the blows long enough for a comrade to take a shot and kill the Shell before it killed her; a dangerous gamble unless there were Teidar that provided cover.
Razormist’s telekinetic strength was above average, unamplified she could just keep a Shell pinned down or crush its vital organs beneath its natural exoskeleton. Amplified she could crush the exoskeleton of an ordinary Shell with ease or shove with enough strength to make it stumble or even send it flying if the gravity was weak enough.
With well honed training and experience she didn’t need sensing to see the Soroin which needed telekinetic cover and those that could last long enough to be helped afterwards. Most of the Soroin managed to easily sidestep and dodge the initial flurry of kicks by their opponent’s front legs. One of them however had made the mistake of being just a little too far from the others and two Shells singled her out immediately. She quickly shoved one of them away and shot the other at the head with her blaster pistol before realizing that a Shell was coming straight for her. She barely managed to brings her armored hands up to guard from the double kick of its front legs, her armor was dented from the shock of the strike and she was sent flying but was stopped in mid air as the Shell grabbed her right leg with his left hand and brought its free right down on her kneecap, clearly aiming to pierce it with its serrated spike. She caught its arm in mid air with Telekinesis and killed it by forcefully making it stab itself in its middle eye. She fell down and quickly opened the dead Shell’s grip and looked for more targets which were few to her surprise as no more Shells rushed up the slope at the left flank while Coldsword and the unoccupied Soroin managed to cover their comrades without much trouble.
“Cover the breach!” She ordered and looked towards Thunderspear’s position which was littered with dead Shells while the surviving Soroin fired downwards towards their own entrance. She silently offered thanks to Thunderspear’s tutors and Shadowcloud who all had taken on themselves to discipline the mischievous Teidar with constant combat drills. They never got her to act according to her caste and station but they had managed to turn her into a fine warrior from their efforts.
“Left flank clear!” Coldsword reported once she and Darkwing's Soroin finished off the remaining Shells.
“Right flank clear!” Thunderspear reported in turn.
Disbelieving her own ears Razormist looked around only to see the Soroin making sure that the dead Shells were really that before tending to their own dead and wounded.
“They had us the moment they went into hand to hand! Why would they stop bringing in more of them?” She asked out loud knowing that there were far more Shells left alive than the few dozens they killed in this assault. No one answered her and she just shook her head as she looked around before hearing what sounded like muffled screeches and explosions that reverberated throughout the ship.
“Do you hear that?”
Chapter 16, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 134#p22134
As Teidar Sezon Razormist mentally prepared herself for the coming onslaught she couldn’t help but notice the fine details that made the strongpoint they were defending into a death trap for anyone who would try to enter it through the corridor she and the Soroin with her were covering. For some reason the Shells had taken significant extra costs when building this ship as its entire layout was split in several distinct sectors that were connected with each other via such strongpoints. The inefficiency in operating a ship with such a layout was obvious to even a Teidar but its designers probably had something entirely different on their mind since they focused on internal security above all else. It could be possible that this ship was used either as a patrol ship or a heavy armed prisoner transport; designs that would require such measures in order to ensure that any prisoners would never have a chance in taking over the ship.
Thankfully most of the defense systems were offline due to the power outage, otherwise they wouldn’t have made it this far, but the defensive positions that they now used were a clear testament to the monomaniacal design of the ship in question. The strongpoint was connecting three distinct sections of the deck they were on, three entrances in total that could normally be shut down hermetically with blast doors that would be thicker that the armor of a destroyer. They were locked in place with the power out but that didn’t change the fact that anyone who tried to storm in would instantly find themselves in a killing ground as the floor almost immediately sloped upwards leading into the elevated defensive positions that enveloped the entrance as if a V sign.
Any defenders would be perfectly covered and would have ideal shots downwards to an opponent who could only advance in limited numbers due to the corridor’s bottleneck. To rush in was suicide and the small distance to the top of the plateau couldn’t be covered without taking massive casualties. The problem was that the Shells had meticulously made it easier for their own kind to move around the strongpoint. The sloped floor leading upwards was difficult to walk on for anyone but the Shells who had placed several discreet handrails that the Shells used instead of stairs. With them in place the Shells were more than able to nimbly and quickly get to the top without losing any momentum, a testament to the speed and agility that they enjoyed in their natural gravity.
The only way to stop them from doing that was to kill them before they managed to reach the top but Razormist knew that they had neither the numbers nor the firepower necessary to do that. They would certainly kill plenty of Shells in the process but in the end she knew that this was going to be their last stand. Even with that in mind she smiled at the challenge that the ever approaching tide of Shells offered; never one to tolerate defeatism, from those she commanded and herself, she did the math and came to the conclusion that if any of them were to make it out alive they would each have to take out four Shells before dying.
An easy enough task for Teidars, even without telepathy, but the problem lay with the Soroin. They were ship crew and not the hardened ground veterans that she could trust in such a desperate fight. But they were Soroin, perhaps that still meant something even for those who never faced Shells in a real fight.
“Make sure you kill four before you die or I will hunt you down and kill you again in the Afterlife!” She bellowed as the first Shells appeared at the entrance she and her team were covering.
The Soroin opened fire in unison, their particle blasters set at maximum in order to guarantee a crippling wound if not a kill. The Shells knew that the concentrated fire would instantly take out even hard troops and they implemented a simple enough tactic for some additional cover to the Hard-troop vanguard. They just took the Loroi dead that were left behind and nailed them onto makeshift shields that the hard-troops carried to cover themselves as they just walked into the blaster fire.
“Do not falter!” Razormist yelled as she fired her blaster pistol into the slowly approaching and gruesomely covered swarm of Shells. As a tactic it was crude, gruesome but effective as their own dead offered an excellent disposable shield with their combat armors and bodies. The dead were quickly torn to shreds but with the little time they lasted the Shell vanguard managed to get a foot hold past the initial chokepoint and right into the pre-designed killing field.
“Concentrate Fire!” She yelled above the noise as she tried to guess where the heads of each hard-troop she could see were, a taxing task considering that she was without sensing while the particle flashes which turned darkness into light didn’t make things easier.
The gruesome shield of the first hardtroop had painted it with a layer of blue gore as the cross fire from the elevated positions tore it and the hard-trooper’s armor apart. Finally seeing an opening she concentrated and crushed the insides of its head and it was left standing idle as two more hard-troopers stood by the side of their dead comrade, offering themselves as living shields for the Shells behind them who carried a wide assortment of weapons and makeshift shields fashioned from torn off wall paneling
It was a tactic unique to the Shell mentality of self sacrifice for the cause, the vanguard offering their very lives as shields of those that followed and waited for the moment the defenders would have to reload. She had seen it before and she knew that the moment the fire wavered they would break lines and rush towards them with all the speed and nimbleness that the low gravity allowed them.
This tactic wouldn’t work if they had some heavy weapons but no Loroi was able to carry those in battle and thus their ground forces were forced to rely on walkers and floaters for heavy weapon support; equipment that no sane commander would bring into a boarding action. That didn’t mean that they didn’t have a counter prepared; the standard issue grenades they all carried were designed to be bundled together in order to increase their lethality. A lone grenade could take out a couple of Shells if they were right on top of it and at best wounding those in the immediate vicinity but a bundle of four grenades was more than enough to take out a whole bunch of them at the same time.
Each Teidar had three such bundles prepared and waiting for the opportune moment to telekinetically throw them to a mass of Shells. She threw the first bundle the moment the defensive fire from the Soroin begun to falter and the Shells broke ranks, the resulting explosion tearing the would be attackers apart while the ones still in the chokepoint hesitated for a moment which was all that she needed to quickly guide a second bundle right into the Shell packed corridor. The resulting explosion tore that group apart in an instant and a larger secondary explosion killed every remaining Shell in front of her position in an instant.
“Suicide bombers!” She warned out loud and used the opportunity to look at the other two approaches at the left and right of her position. Thunderspear covered her right and had already thrown her first grenade bundle and was about to throw a second when she hesitated for a moment. A Solon later a lone Shell was lifted up to the air and it was easy to see that it was another suicide bomber, a Soroin took its head off with a precise particle blast and Thunderspear crashed its body repeatedly against the wall and the ceiling, probably in the hopes to irreparably damage the detonator before throwing the battered remains back down the entrance she covered. Some of the Shells however used the opportunity that the lapse of attention from the Teidar offered and rushed up the slope to engage the defenders in close quarters.
Longblade’s position to her left already had several Shells among the defenders when a suicide bomber rushed among them and detonated its explosives, killing everyone around it.
“Coldsword, to the left!” Razormist ordered the lone Teidar who was their only reserve as she herself abandoned her position in order to cover the collapsed left flank. She glanced back as an afterthought, relieved that the chokepoint was now half obstructed as a result from the explosion. “Darkwing, you and your squad follow me!” Hopefully one squad was more than enough to cover the center while they would attempt to stop the left flank from completely collapsing; she hoped that Thunderspear would be able to hold on for now.
The Shells didn’t lose any time in exploiting the situation and at least a dozen of them were already on top of the ravaged defenses while more of them were undoubtedly rushing in. Coldsword thought fast and telekinetically arced one of her grenade bundles right onto the left chokepoint that the left flank used to cover. The Shell limbs and gore that flew upwards were solid proof that she must have killed a number of them even without knowing their exact position.
Razormist kept her last grenade bundle in reserve and covered Darkwing’s Soroin who quickly advanced towards the left flank while taking shots at the Shells who in turn returned fire as they rushed to get in hand to hand combat, on which they had every advantage, with unbelievable speed.
Shell exoskeletons could easily absorb punches and kicked while even combat knives and axes were rendered almost useless by them. Their exoskeleton combined with their forward legs, their razor sharp serrated spike on their right hand and their claw at the back of their left hand made them extremely dangerous to even fully armored warriors. They knew how to use their advantages to strike at their armor’s weak point and all Shells had been trained in such kind of hand to hand combat since infancy; their preferred method of fighting was to disarm, cripple and then finish off their opponents in quick succession.
The only hope a warrior had when faced with a Shell in hand to hand was to parry and avoid the blows long enough for a comrade to take a shot and kill the Shell before it killed her; a dangerous gamble unless there were Teidar that provided cover.
Razormist’s telekinetic strength was above average, unamplified she could just keep a Shell pinned down or crush its vital organs beneath its natural exoskeleton. Amplified she could crush the exoskeleton of an ordinary Shell with ease or shove with enough strength to make it stumble or even send it flying if the gravity was weak enough.
With well honed training and experience she didn’t need sensing to see the Soroin which needed telekinetic cover and those that could last long enough to be helped afterwards. Most of the Soroin managed to easily sidestep and dodge the initial flurry of kicks by their opponent’s front legs. One of them however had made the mistake of being just a little too far from the others and two Shells singled her out immediately. She quickly shoved one of them away and shot the other at the head with her blaster pistol before realizing that a Shell was coming straight for her. She barely managed to brings her armored hands up to guard from the double kick of its front legs, her armor was dented from the shock of the strike and she was sent flying but was stopped in mid air as the Shell grabbed her right leg with his left hand and brought its free right down on her kneecap, clearly aiming to pierce it with its serrated spike. She caught its arm in mid air with Telekinesis and killed it by forcefully making it stab itself in its middle eye. She fell down and quickly opened the dead Shell’s grip and looked for more targets which were few to her surprise as no more Shells rushed up the slope at the left flank while Coldsword and the unoccupied Soroin managed to cover their comrades without much trouble.
“Cover the breach!” She ordered and looked towards Thunderspear’s position which was littered with dead Shells while the surviving Soroin fired downwards towards their own entrance. She silently offered thanks to Thunderspear’s tutors and Shadowcloud who all had taken on themselves to discipline the mischievous Teidar with constant combat drills. They never got her to act according to her caste and station but they had managed to turn her into a fine warrior from their efforts.
“Left flank clear!” Coldsword reported once she and Darkwing's Soroin finished off the remaining Shells.
“Right flank clear!” Thunderspear reported in turn.
Disbelieving her own ears Razormist looked around only to see the Soroin making sure that the dead Shells were really that before tending to their own dead and wounded.
“They had us the moment they went into hand to hand! Why would they stop bringing in more of them?” She asked out loud knowing that there were far more Shells left alive than the few dozens they killed in this assault. No one answered her and she just shook her head as she looked around before hearing what sounded like muffled screeches and explosions that reverberated throughout the ship.
“Do you hear that?”
Chapter 16, part 2: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 134#p22134
Last edited by Guest on Wed Aug 23, 2017 8:05 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
All the commentary that is needed, methinks.
SpoilerShow
This is my Mod voice. If you see this in a thread, it means that the time for gentle reminders has passed.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
You know what would be ideal in this scenario?
Awesome chapter Dragoongfa! Now if you will excuse me I am going to play me some DOW 2 Retribution. Imperial Guard vs Tyranids.
Awesome chapter Dragoongfa! Now if you will excuse me I am going to play me some DOW 2 Retribution. Imperial Guard vs Tyranids.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I'm thinking: 
Hence my earlier post about the bug hunt.
Hence my earlier post about the bug hunt.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
That is EXACTLY what they would do.NuclearIceCream wrote:I have a hard time believing marines WOULDN'T do this if they ever went up against bug aliens.Zakharra wrote:Lieutenant Allerberger: "Alright boys and girls, it's time to hunt some bugs!"
Marines: "BUG HUNT!! OORAH! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt! Bug Hunt!"
Loroi: "Wtf are they doing?"
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
SpoilerShow
Is it my annoying behaviour you want to avoid. You got much better in your first versions, by now I only see stuff spell checkers would not see.dragoongfa wrote:Chapter 16, part 1
[...]
The Soroin opened fire in unison, their particle blasters set at maximum in order to guarantee a crippling wound if not a kill. The Shells knew that the concentrated fire would instantly take out even hard troops and the they implemented a simple enough tactic for some additional cover to the Hard-troop vanguard. They simply took the Loroi dead that were left behind and nailed them onto makeshift shields that the hard-troops carried to cover themselves as they just walked into the blaster fire.
(Wow, that chapter is intense. And it leaves me, once again, wanting more.)
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Chapter 16, part 2
“Clear, all hostiles down!” Sergeant Antares reported a few moments after the last bug was torn apart.
“Sounds like the rest of them are on the way!” Master Sergeant Anderson added.
Marine Lieutenant Josef Allerberger didn’t have any choice on the matter, he hoped that the Loroi would be able to last long enough for them to find them and extract them but the fact that they couldn’t hear any explosions or energy weapon’s fire must have meant that the Umiak had finally got them.
He glanced around as he made the decision to quickly retrace their steps to the Loroi airlock; the relatively open intersection they were currently in must have been where the bugs hit them after they unleashed the ‘Shout’. There was plenty of blood, some dead bugs and even some Loroi limbs but no Loroi dead who must have been dragged away in a hurry if he was to judge by the blood trails that lead deeper into the dark corridor from which the unmistakable ruckus of battle was being heard just a few moments ago.
They were going to run straight towards the noise when a small group of bugs literally run into them from another of the intersection’s corridors; their MD-45s tore them apart in seconds but two more small groups followed suit and they found themselves locked down in a firefight. Thankfully there weren’t any of the heavily armored variants who by the looks of things were akin to cyborgs which would explain the toughness and dogged determination in the face of death that they showed back at Matveyev. Still, even the normal bugs wasted enough of their time by the time they finished them off.
“We were too late…” He said angrily
“Sir, the Loroi medic doesn’t look well!” Private Hood said and he turned to see what the matter with her was. Doranzer Needle was on her knees, visibly shaking and unable to stand up.
“I am sorry Doranzer Needle but we have to go.” He said and offered his hand in order to help her to stand up.
“…No…Shout…Strong…Close…” She replied as she shooked her head violently.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes…Shout…Feel…Close…”
“Can you tell me which way?”
“I...Hard…Shout…Focus…” It was plainly obvious to see that she was worse off now than she was when they first entered the ship. If close proximity to the ‘Shout’ affected them more then it should make sense that they were close to it. He wonder how any Loroi managed to survive if this ‘Shout’ affected them in such a way but then he realized something and he had only a few moments to decide on a course of action.
“Alpha and Charlie, defend this point. Beta you are with me!” He ordered as he grabbed Doranzer Needle and forced her to stand up. “Anderson, hold this point at all costs!”
“Sir? What’s the plan?” Master Sergeant Anderson asked.
“It’s all or nothing now, we must be close to what the Loroi were after and the Umiak don’t want us to have it.” He explained as he half carried the Loroi medic who could barely stand even as she used him as a support. “Doranzer Needle, I need you to tell me when we will be getting closer to the ‘Shout’, do you understand?” He said in Trade as he walked towards to corridor from which the first group of bugs came from.
“…Yes…”
“Beta, we try this corridor first.” He said as he pointed forward with his weapon and the squad immediately formed around him with Sergeant Antares and two of his men on point while the remaining two brought up the rear. They had barely managed to take a few steps into the corridor when the first few bugs rushed into the intersection and the marines they left behind opened fire.
“Another small group!” Master Sergeant Anderson reported. “Nothing we can’t handle!”
“Hold the fort marine.” He replied.
“Don’t take too long or you will miss all the bugs.” Anderson joked.
“I have a feeling that bug hunting will become an honored tradition in the future sergeant.” He replied with a chuckle as he half carried the Loroi medic.
“…Close…” She managed to say as she obviously became less and less lucid with each passing step.
“Just keep yourself focused.” He replied but she didn’t say anything.
The screeching in his head had gotten stronger as well but even with it numbing his mind he didn’t have any trouble connecting the dots which led to the mess they were now stuck in.
The Loroi really wanted something from this ship, they wanted it so bad that dropped everything and launched an attack on their own despite the situation they were in. What they wanted was surely telepathic as well, there was no other explanation to everything that had happened up to that point; telepathy was the greatest advantage they had in this war and they were in the precipice of losing this advantage.
The problem was the human immunity which had to be real from the way the Loroi acted towards them when they went to investigate their ship. The Loroi actions made even more sense now that they knew about the Umiak telepathic abilities; it was easy to deduce that the Loroi attack and inherent hostility towards them wasn’t just because of the human immunity to telepathy but because of the new telepathic abilities of the Umiak. The Loroi who attack Gomez didn’t do so because of fearing the unknown but because she must have believed that they were enemies.
The Loroi had known in advance that the Umiak had found a way to hide themselves from their telepathic sensing and this Umiak ability explained why they were surprised to learn about the Umiak ship. The Loroi couldn’t sense it and they had assembled and activated the emergency generator by that point; which meant that they had the necessary power to activate any equipment they needed.
The Umiak hiding themselves gave them an advantage since the Loroi own history clearly stated that they had a greater industrial capacity than the Loroi; them having telepathy however would affect humanity sooner or later because of the human immunity. The Umiak had learned the hard way how advantageous telepathy was and now that they had some short of telepathy of their own they wouldn’t look kindly to anyone who had immunity to it.
With both sides actively employing telepathy the human predicament was greater than ever; Humans were now a threat to both sides, a threat that sooner or later would force either of the two to act against them. With one swell swoop the human vested interests were shifted from picking the winner who would protect them, to making sure that the lesser evil would come on top in the end.
For better or for worse the lesser evil was the genocidal Loroi Union; the Umiak Hierarchy wasn’t just an expansionist entity, they were an entity that was driven by the monomaniacal goal to eliminate all potential threats. Many of Matveyev’s crew, himself included, had managed to skim through the Loroi history of the war that they were given. It was not what they expected; the expected propaganda and skewered narrative were evidently there but their war history had far more in it than that. There were plenty of somber self-reflections, critiques and outright admittances of fault; something that anyone who read history would never find in any official history of a still running war.
The telepathic Loroi who couldn’t lie to each other had actually maintained their truthfulness even in their wartime histories; they wrote down the truth as they knew it and the realization was sobering to everyone who read it, despite the fact that it was hard to read at times. The Loroi admitted that they were partially responsible for that incident that started the war, some short of a minor skirmish in a contested border system. The Umiak response that the Loroi presented was initially unbelievable in its scale, some even said that it was an obvious fabrication when they first went through that part, but as they raced through the accounts they all realized that it was the truth; there was no other way to explain the extreme losses and conquered territories.
Both the Orgus and the Loroi accounts depicted the Umiak in the same way; as a force that would stop at nothing to attain an advantage and their own run in with the Umiak didn’t do anything but reinforce what they were told. A monomaniacal state that forcefully expanded onto others couldn’t be trusted not to take radical measures against those who nullified their newfound telepathic advantage; they already enslaved anyone in their path, it wasn’t hard to imagine what they would do to someone whose very existence threatened them.
This didn’t mean that the Loroi could be trusted, they proved themselves genocidal but their history was rife with internal politicking with alien members of the Loroi Union and their other alien allies; over exaggerated accounts or not, the Loroi looked like they were willing to cooperate and negotiate with aliens, they had to be wary of them but so far they were arguably the lesser of the two evils.
He had to make a choice with what he knew in mind and what he chose was that the Loroi had to get their hands on the telepathic apparatus of the Umiak; Humanity as a whole didn’t know where to start in order to make heads or tails about it but the Loroi who so desperately wanted it would certainly gleam something from it.
He didn’t know if Shadowcloud or anyone else from her team were still alive, he didn’t even know if Anderson would be able to hold back the Umiak crew long enough from them to secure whatever the Loroi were after. What he did know is that even if a single marine was left alive with the Umiak telepathic equipment still intact then humanity with have something valuable to offer.
“I hear movement up ahead… it’s another intersection.” Sergeant Antares reported from a dozen or so meters ahead of them.
“Hold on.” He said as he gently pulled the Loroi off him and sat her on the floor with her back on the wall before telling her to stay there in Trade. She didn’t reply, she just looked at him and blinked.
The firefight back the way they came from reverberated throughout the ship, they couldn’t see that far back due to the turns they had taken but it was obvious that the others were still holding on, despite the fact that they couldn’t contact them anymore probably due to some short of Umiak ECM.
He stacked with the others and did a last moment check of his weapons before giving the signal.
“It’s all or nothing now Marines.” He said and Sergeant Antares through a flash bang grenade which went off a moment after several bugs cried out in their clicky language and fire several particle slots at the mouth of the corridor which lead into the intersection.
“Go!” The momentarily blindness of the bugs allowed them to rush through the fire as they fired wildly throughout the intersection. “To the right!”
The Umiak had barricaded a corridor to their right, a couple of them were behind the makeshift barricade, carrying some short of particle blaster pistols which the fired blindly into the intersection as if they were maddened. The problem were the two armored bugs that were rushing towards them with unimaginable speed.
Antares who was first barely managed to get off a shot, the SHEAP exploding harmlessly right before hitting the wall behind the bug, he was sent flying and crashing onto the wall by the combined kicks of the bug’s two frontal legs. Hood who was right behind him tried to bring his weapon to bear but the bug was too far; it dexterously pivoted itself on one of its hind legs, knocking his weapon aside with a kick before grabbing him and stabbing him repeatedly with gleaming metallic spike that protruded from the bug’s right metallic hand.
Him paying attention to what happened in front of him nearly cost him his life as the second armored bug kicked the marine behind him and tried to stab him in turn; he parried the spike with his rifle at the last moment before ducking beneath a swipe by the bug’s left arm. He tried to bring his weapon to bear as well but the bug once again tried to stab him with lighting speed; he parried it away with his left arm but the bug instantly grabbed it with a razor sharp metallic claw that protruded from the back of its left hand as it brought it back for another strike. Despite his armor the claw closed and cut his left arm off before he could feel any pain.
He felt his severed limb burn as if it was on fire while the bug brought back its right hand to try and stab him again before stumbling forward and falling onto him, sending him sprawling on the floor with his legs pinned down by its armored corpse. The unmistakable flashes and telltale bangs of firing MD-45s lit the room as the two standing marines finally fired and killed the two armored bugs before taking out the other two who were still blindly firing their blaster pistols from behind the barrier.
“Clear!” Somebody cried out. The whole fight lasted less than five seconds and all of the bugs guarding the intersection were dead but they paid a price for that.
“Hold on sir!” Sergeant Antares said as he took the armored bug off him before grabbing his bleeding stump in order to apply coagulant foam and close it off with an emergency tap. His own armor had already applied the local anesthetic dose and his entire left arm had gone completely numb by that point.
“I see two dead.” He managed to say once he paid some attention to the flashing status of Beta squad, the rest of his force being just marked as out of range as the sounds of the ongoing firefight still reached them.
“Just one, Hood. The other was stabbed on the shoulder and got grazed by a blaster which plaid havoc with his HUD.” Sergeant Antares said as he inspected the closed off stump.
“The others are still at it…” He said as he looked around. “Find whatever the bugs were protecting but keep it alive and in one piece.”
Chapter 16, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 176#p22176
“Clear, all hostiles down!” Sergeant Antares reported a few moments after the last bug was torn apart.
“Sounds like the rest of them are on the way!” Master Sergeant Anderson added.
Marine Lieutenant Josef Allerberger didn’t have any choice on the matter, he hoped that the Loroi would be able to last long enough for them to find them and extract them but the fact that they couldn’t hear any explosions or energy weapon’s fire must have meant that the Umiak had finally got them.
He glanced around as he made the decision to quickly retrace their steps to the Loroi airlock; the relatively open intersection they were currently in must have been where the bugs hit them after they unleashed the ‘Shout’. There was plenty of blood, some dead bugs and even some Loroi limbs but no Loroi dead who must have been dragged away in a hurry if he was to judge by the blood trails that lead deeper into the dark corridor from which the unmistakable ruckus of battle was being heard just a few moments ago.
They were going to run straight towards the noise when a small group of bugs literally run into them from another of the intersection’s corridors; their MD-45s tore them apart in seconds but two more small groups followed suit and they found themselves locked down in a firefight. Thankfully there weren’t any of the heavily armored variants who by the looks of things were akin to cyborgs which would explain the toughness and dogged determination in the face of death that they showed back at Matveyev. Still, even the normal bugs wasted enough of their time by the time they finished them off.
“We were too late…” He said angrily
“Sir, the Loroi medic doesn’t look well!” Private Hood said and he turned to see what the matter with her was. Doranzer Needle was on her knees, visibly shaking and unable to stand up.
“I am sorry Doranzer Needle but we have to go.” He said and offered his hand in order to help her to stand up.
“…No…Shout…Strong…Close…” She replied as she shooked her head violently.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes…Shout…Feel…Close…”
“Can you tell me which way?”
“I...Hard…Shout…Focus…” It was plainly obvious to see that she was worse off now than she was when they first entered the ship. If close proximity to the ‘Shout’ affected them more then it should make sense that they were close to it. He wonder how any Loroi managed to survive if this ‘Shout’ affected them in such a way but then he realized something and he had only a few moments to decide on a course of action.
“Alpha and Charlie, defend this point. Beta you are with me!” He ordered as he grabbed Doranzer Needle and forced her to stand up. “Anderson, hold this point at all costs!”
“Sir? What’s the plan?” Master Sergeant Anderson asked.
“It’s all or nothing now, we must be close to what the Loroi were after and the Umiak don’t want us to have it.” He explained as he half carried the Loroi medic who could barely stand even as she used him as a support. “Doranzer Needle, I need you to tell me when we will be getting closer to the ‘Shout’, do you understand?” He said in Trade as he walked towards to corridor from which the first group of bugs came from.
“…Yes…”
“Beta, we try this corridor first.” He said as he pointed forward with his weapon and the squad immediately formed around him with Sergeant Antares and two of his men on point while the remaining two brought up the rear. They had barely managed to take a few steps into the corridor when the first few bugs rushed into the intersection and the marines they left behind opened fire.
“Another small group!” Master Sergeant Anderson reported. “Nothing we can’t handle!”
“Hold the fort marine.” He replied.
“Don’t take too long or you will miss all the bugs.” Anderson joked.
“I have a feeling that bug hunting will become an honored tradition in the future sergeant.” He replied with a chuckle as he half carried the Loroi medic.
“…Close…” She managed to say as she obviously became less and less lucid with each passing step.
“Just keep yourself focused.” He replied but she didn’t say anything.
The screeching in his head had gotten stronger as well but even with it numbing his mind he didn’t have any trouble connecting the dots which led to the mess they were now stuck in.
The Loroi really wanted something from this ship, they wanted it so bad that dropped everything and launched an attack on their own despite the situation they were in. What they wanted was surely telepathic as well, there was no other explanation to everything that had happened up to that point; telepathy was the greatest advantage they had in this war and they were in the precipice of losing this advantage.
The problem was the human immunity which had to be real from the way the Loroi acted towards them when they went to investigate their ship. The Loroi actions made even more sense now that they knew about the Umiak telepathic abilities; it was easy to deduce that the Loroi attack and inherent hostility towards them wasn’t just because of the human immunity to telepathy but because of the new telepathic abilities of the Umiak. The Loroi who attack Gomez didn’t do so because of fearing the unknown but because she must have believed that they were enemies.
The Loroi had known in advance that the Umiak had found a way to hide themselves from their telepathic sensing and this Umiak ability explained why they were surprised to learn about the Umiak ship. The Loroi couldn’t sense it and they had assembled and activated the emergency generator by that point; which meant that they had the necessary power to activate any equipment they needed.
The Umiak hiding themselves gave them an advantage since the Loroi own history clearly stated that they had a greater industrial capacity than the Loroi; them having telepathy however would affect humanity sooner or later because of the human immunity. The Umiak had learned the hard way how advantageous telepathy was and now that they had some short of telepathy of their own they wouldn’t look kindly to anyone who had immunity to it.
With both sides actively employing telepathy the human predicament was greater than ever; Humans were now a threat to both sides, a threat that sooner or later would force either of the two to act against them. With one swell swoop the human vested interests were shifted from picking the winner who would protect them, to making sure that the lesser evil would come on top in the end.
For better or for worse the lesser evil was the genocidal Loroi Union; the Umiak Hierarchy wasn’t just an expansionist entity, they were an entity that was driven by the monomaniacal goal to eliminate all potential threats. Many of Matveyev’s crew, himself included, had managed to skim through the Loroi history of the war that they were given. It was not what they expected; the expected propaganda and skewered narrative were evidently there but their war history had far more in it than that. There were plenty of somber self-reflections, critiques and outright admittances of fault; something that anyone who read history would never find in any official history of a still running war.
The telepathic Loroi who couldn’t lie to each other had actually maintained their truthfulness even in their wartime histories; they wrote down the truth as they knew it and the realization was sobering to everyone who read it, despite the fact that it was hard to read at times. The Loroi admitted that they were partially responsible for that incident that started the war, some short of a minor skirmish in a contested border system. The Umiak response that the Loroi presented was initially unbelievable in its scale, some even said that it was an obvious fabrication when they first went through that part, but as they raced through the accounts they all realized that it was the truth; there was no other way to explain the extreme losses and conquered territories.
Both the Orgus and the Loroi accounts depicted the Umiak in the same way; as a force that would stop at nothing to attain an advantage and their own run in with the Umiak didn’t do anything but reinforce what they were told. A monomaniacal state that forcefully expanded onto others couldn’t be trusted not to take radical measures against those who nullified their newfound telepathic advantage; they already enslaved anyone in their path, it wasn’t hard to imagine what they would do to someone whose very existence threatened them.
This didn’t mean that the Loroi could be trusted, they proved themselves genocidal but their history was rife with internal politicking with alien members of the Loroi Union and their other alien allies; over exaggerated accounts or not, the Loroi looked like they were willing to cooperate and negotiate with aliens, they had to be wary of them but so far they were arguably the lesser of the two evils.
He had to make a choice with what he knew in mind and what he chose was that the Loroi had to get their hands on the telepathic apparatus of the Umiak; Humanity as a whole didn’t know where to start in order to make heads or tails about it but the Loroi who so desperately wanted it would certainly gleam something from it.
He didn’t know if Shadowcloud or anyone else from her team were still alive, he didn’t even know if Anderson would be able to hold back the Umiak crew long enough from them to secure whatever the Loroi were after. What he did know is that even if a single marine was left alive with the Umiak telepathic equipment still intact then humanity with have something valuable to offer.
“I hear movement up ahead… it’s another intersection.” Sergeant Antares reported from a dozen or so meters ahead of them.
“Hold on.” He said as he gently pulled the Loroi off him and sat her on the floor with her back on the wall before telling her to stay there in Trade. She didn’t reply, she just looked at him and blinked.
The firefight back the way they came from reverberated throughout the ship, they couldn’t see that far back due to the turns they had taken but it was obvious that the others were still holding on, despite the fact that they couldn’t contact them anymore probably due to some short of Umiak ECM.
He stacked with the others and did a last moment check of his weapons before giving the signal.
“It’s all or nothing now Marines.” He said and Sergeant Antares through a flash bang grenade which went off a moment after several bugs cried out in their clicky language and fire several particle slots at the mouth of the corridor which lead into the intersection.
“Go!” The momentarily blindness of the bugs allowed them to rush through the fire as they fired wildly throughout the intersection. “To the right!”
The Umiak had barricaded a corridor to their right, a couple of them were behind the makeshift barricade, carrying some short of particle blaster pistols which the fired blindly into the intersection as if they were maddened. The problem were the two armored bugs that were rushing towards them with unimaginable speed.
Antares who was first barely managed to get off a shot, the SHEAP exploding harmlessly right before hitting the wall behind the bug, he was sent flying and crashing onto the wall by the combined kicks of the bug’s two frontal legs. Hood who was right behind him tried to bring his weapon to bear but the bug was too far; it dexterously pivoted itself on one of its hind legs, knocking his weapon aside with a kick before grabbing him and stabbing him repeatedly with gleaming metallic spike that protruded from the bug’s right metallic hand.
Him paying attention to what happened in front of him nearly cost him his life as the second armored bug kicked the marine behind him and tried to stab him in turn; he parried the spike with his rifle at the last moment before ducking beneath a swipe by the bug’s left arm. He tried to bring his weapon to bear as well but the bug once again tried to stab him with lighting speed; he parried it away with his left arm but the bug instantly grabbed it with a razor sharp metallic claw that protruded from the back of its left hand as it brought it back for another strike. Despite his armor the claw closed and cut his left arm off before he could feel any pain.
He felt his severed limb burn as if it was on fire while the bug brought back its right hand to try and stab him again before stumbling forward and falling onto him, sending him sprawling on the floor with his legs pinned down by its armored corpse. The unmistakable flashes and telltale bangs of firing MD-45s lit the room as the two standing marines finally fired and killed the two armored bugs before taking out the other two who were still blindly firing their blaster pistols from behind the barrier.
“Clear!” Somebody cried out. The whole fight lasted less than five seconds and all of the bugs guarding the intersection were dead but they paid a price for that.
“Hold on sir!” Sergeant Antares said as he took the armored bug off him before grabbing his bleeding stump in order to apply coagulant foam and close it off with an emergency tap. His own armor had already applied the local anesthetic dose and his entire left arm had gone completely numb by that point.
“I see two dead.” He managed to say once he paid some attention to the flashing status of Beta squad, the rest of his force being just marked as out of range as the sounds of the ongoing firefight still reached them.
“Just one, Hood. The other was stabbed on the shoulder and got grazed by a blaster which plaid havoc with his HUD.” Sergeant Antares said as he inspected the closed off stump.
“The others are still at it…” He said as he looked around. “Find whatever the bugs were protecting but keep it alive and in one piece.”
Chapter 16, part 3: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 176#p22176
Last edited by Guest on Thu Dec 17, 2015 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Two reasons for the considerable delay:
I got pissed off with this one and had to rewrite it twice and I actually broke one of my ground rules and started working on an other Outsider fan fic while this is still unfinished.
In any way, the next part should be ready sometime tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
I got pissed off with this one and had to rewrite it twice and I actually broke one of my ground rules and started working on an other Outsider fan fic while this is still unfinished.
In any way, the next part should be ready sometime tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I still like it very much!
The price paid is rising, will the attained price be worth it?
But then, Humanities survival is at stake! What are a few soldier's lifes compared to that?
The price paid is rising, will the attained price be worth it?
But then, Humanities survival is at stake! What are a few soldier's lifes compared to that?
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
NO!!!!!! Not the space elves 
Or is that just what the marines think happened.
(did they really die?
)
Or is that just what the marines think happened.
(did they really die?
)Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
I would guess the Humans accidentally cut off the Umiak soldiers from attacking the Loroi.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Krulle wrote:I would guess the Humans accidentally cut off the Umiak soldiers from attacking the Loroi.
another possibility is that the humans were closer to he device and moving towards it, and were clearly not affected by it, hence they would be seen as the more dangerous foe since the Loroi are definitely negatively affected. As long as the device is screaming, the Loroi are neutralized. Human's aren't. Thus we are the greater immediate threat.
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
From every sc if I have ever read/watched. Humans are always the greater threat .Zakharra wrote:Krulle wrote:I would guess the Humans accidentally cut off the Umiak soldiers from attacking the Loroi.
another possibility is that the humans were closer to he device and moving towards it, and were clearly not affected by it, hence they would be seen as the more dangerous foe since the Loroi are definitely negatively affected. As long as the device is screaming, the Loroi are neutralized. Human's aren't. Thus we are the greater immediate threat.
If we aren't then we will become so.
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
That's the essence of the Humanity Fuck Yeah! trope which tends to seep into Sci-Fi and Fantasy storytelling because the author and the audience almost always want to relate with human protagonists/main characters, or at least mostly human.peragrin wrote:From every sc if I have ever read/watched. Humans are always the greater threat .Zakharra wrote:Krulle wrote:I would guess the Humans accidentally cut off the Umiak soldiers from attacking the Loroi.
another possibility is that the humans were closer to he device and moving towards it, and were clearly not affected by it, hence they would be seen as the more dangerous foe since the Loroi are definitely negatively affected. As long as the device is screaming, the Loroi are neutralized. Human's aren't. Thus we are the greater immediate threat.
If we aren't then we will become so.
The sole exception that I have run across is the 'Shakara!' comic from 2000AD which had an intentional subversion of the trope in which Earth is destroyed in the very first page and the last human ever is killed shortly thereafter. Of course the main POV character is an alien woman who looks very much human with 'human' clothing because nobody thought that anyone would relate to the comic if some characters weren't relate able.
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dragoongfa
- Posts: 1920
- Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
- Location: Athens, Greece
Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror
Chapter 16, part 3
After everything that had transpired Kitiiikht-14-Tahkit-Tuk saw himself as a fool. His focus on offering one last contribution to the war effort by killing the torturing witches was a folly. Was he a coward? Acting like that in order to prolong his life just a bit more?
No, he had fully embraced the certainty of death the moment he realized that their true opponents were a group of torturing killers. His sin was pride, he wanted his death and the deaths of his subordinates to be one last contribution to the Hierarchy’s goal but in the end his actions were to the Hierarchy’s detriment.
He should have instantly disassembled the device before he and everyone who knew about it committed suicide. Only this would guarantee that it and knowledge about it wouldn’t fall on the clutches of the enemy. He realized his grave mistake when he called for most of the device’s guard to aid in the push against the torturing witches. They had taken grave loses but they had victory in their grasp, the only thing needed to do was to keep pushing while their defense was crumbling.
But the humans suddenly appeared close to the device, catching him by surprise; not only for them being there but for the fact that they were seemingly unaffected by the device. Everyone but Umiak should have been affected by it but they weren’t and losing the device to them wasn’t an option even if they killed all of the witches in turn. They had to secure the device before its handful of defenders fell; he had to stop the attack in order to do just that.
Through luck or careful planning the humans had cut them off from the device and due to their attack on the witches they couldn’t concentrate their numbers to attack them as the three different groups that attacked the Enemies had to take different routes to the device.
The meager guards he had foolishly left were now dead and Kt’rkrktkr 48 trkrk could not hope to offer any resistance to the humans. He felt the device’s fear in his head once the humans got to its compartment and he still felt the shriek it let out once they disconnected Kt’rkrktkr 48 trkrk from it.
The device’s shriek seemed to come from everywhere and it confused every Umiak left alive but they still attacked the humans who were completely unfazed by it. They still would have managed to get through them if not for the fact that they had brought heavy projectile weapons with them instead of the lasers that most species on their tech level used.
He had hoped beyond all reason that the device’s shriek would keep the torturing killers at bay long enough for them to defeat the humans and blow up the device but his hope faded the moment the shriek subsided and disappeared.
Drawing the last vestiges of his willpower he prepared his own spike and tried to trust it into his head through his frontal eye but his motion was stopped midway as an unseen force forcefully lifted him in the air and slammed him hard on the ceiling before crushing him hard on the floor and pinning him there as if he was suddenly under the effects of heavy gravity. Unable to use his limbs he called out for someone to kill him before it was too late but the few subordinates he had with him abruptly fell dead one after the other before they could do anything.
He called out again in desperation but there was no one around, he could still hear the desperate voices of his subordinates through his comm. unit as they died one after the other until he could hear nothing anymore.
Moments felt like eternity as he was constantly pressed against the floor, he needed to die before the witches got to him but he was completely helpless. After a while he hear several running footsteps but they weren’t the quadruped pattern of his kind but the bipedal one of the Enemy.
He knew that they had come for him; he could see their armored feet with his side eyes as they surrounded him and waited for something in total silence. Some moments later a few of them made way for another one of their kind who walked up to him and stayed still right next to his head examining him.
Suddenly his right arm was crushed and torn off with unimaginable force; he wanted to cry out in pain but no words left him as the unseen force stopped even his mandibles from moving. Then he felt as if his severed stump was on fire, no it was fire; he smelled the burned flesh and exoskeleton as they were fused by the heat, effectively cauterizing the wound and stopping the bleeding.
None of the enemies said anything as the process repeated itself for all of his remaining limbs; in the he was left only with the agonizing pain and the smell of his own cauterized stumps. Suddenly the force that had pinned him down reversed itself and he found himself airborne again. He was quickly pivoted around and was brought face to face with the enemy that came in last; the enemy just looked straight at him through the helmet’s visor.
“I always find your kind’s ships annoying…” The enemy said in his own language. “Your big black eyes not only offer you a greater field of vision through their positioning but they also allow you to see better at a slightly larger visual spectrum. A fact that has always pissed me off when I board your ships, because your emergency lighting barely registers to us and as such I am always forced to use the helmet’s night vision.”
He made to reply but the invisible force that kept his mandibles from moving was still there.
“Wearing the helmet deprives me of many enjoyable sensations, like the subtle noises your exoskeleton makes when it is about to crack or the amazing smell your kind lets out when you are burned from the inside out.” The enemy laughed at that, one of the handful of mannerisms that were similar to both of their kinds. “Don’t worry though; I am sure that you will make it up to me one way or the other. So many things that you can do for me, like answering what did your kind do to the one you used against us?” The enemy then slightly shook her head while chuckling. “But I am getting inpatient; there are things that have to be done before then but have no fear though. We will spend a lot of time together in the future.”
Chapter 17, part 1: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 337#p22337
After everything that had transpired Kitiiikht-14-Tahkit-Tuk saw himself as a fool. His focus on offering one last contribution to the war effort by killing the torturing witches was a folly. Was he a coward? Acting like that in order to prolong his life just a bit more?
No, he had fully embraced the certainty of death the moment he realized that their true opponents were a group of torturing killers. His sin was pride, he wanted his death and the deaths of his subordinates to be one last contribution to the Hierarchy’s goal but in the end his actions were to the Hierarchy’s detriment.
He should have instantly disassembled the device before he and everyone who knew about it committed suicide. Only this would guarantee that it and knowledge about it wouldn’t fall on the clutches of the enemy. He realized his grave mistake when he called for most of the device’s guard to aid in the push against the torturing witches. They had taken grave loses but they had victory in their grasp, the only thing needed to do was to keep pushing while their defense was crumbling.
But the humans suddenly appeared close to the device, catching him by surprise; not only for them being there but for the fact that they were seemingly unaffected by the device. Everyone but Umiak should have been affected by it but they weren’t and losing the device to them wasn’t an option even if they killed all of the witches in turn. They had to secure the device before its handful of defenders fell; he had to stop the attack in order to do just that.
Through luck or careful planning the humans had cut them off from the device and due to their attack on the witches they couldn’t concentrate their numbers to attack them as the three different groups that attacked the Enemies had to take different routes to the device.
The meager guards he had foolishly left were now dead and Kt’rkrktkr 48 trkrk could not hope to offer any resistance to the humans. He felt the device’s fear in his head once the humans got to its compartment and he still felt the shriek it let out once they disconnected Kt’rkrktkr 48 trkrk from it.
The device’s shriek seemed to come from everywhere and it confused every Umiak left alive but they still attacked the humans who were completely unfazed by it. They still would have managed to get through them if not for the fact that they had brought heavy projectile weapons with them instead of the lasers that most species on their tech level used.
He had hoped beyond all reason that the device’s shriek would keep the torturing killers at bay long enough for them to defeat the humans and blow up the device but his hope faded the moment the shriek subsided and disappeared.
Drawing the last vestiges of his willpower he prepared his own spike and tried to trust it into his head through his frontal eye but his motion was stopped midway as an unseen force forcefully lifted him in the air and slammed him hard on the ceiling before crushing him hard on the floor and pinning him there as if he was suddenly under the effects of heavy gravity. Unable to use his limbs he called out for someone to kill him before it was too late but the few subordinates he had with him abruptly fell dead one after the other before they could do anything.
He called out again in desperation but there was no one around, he could still hear the desperate voices of his subordinates through his comm. unit as they died one after the other until he could hear nothing anymore.
Moments felt like eternity as he was constantly pressed against the floor, he needed to die before the witches got to him but he was completely helpless. After a while he hear several running footsteps but they weren’t the quadruped pattern of his kind but the bipedal one of the Enemy.
He knew that they had come for him; he could see their armored feet with his side eyes as they surrounded him and waited for something in total silence. Some moments later a few of them made way for another one of their kind who walked up to him and stayed still right next to his head examining him.
Suddenly his right arm was crushed and torn off with unimaginable force; he wanted to cry out in pain but no words left him as the unseen force stopped even his mandibles from moving. Then he felt as if his severed stump was on fire, no it was fire; he smelled the burned flesh and exoskeleton as they were fused by the heat, effectively cauterizing the wound and stopping the bleeding.
None of the enemies said anything as the process repeated itself for all of his remaining limbs; in the he was left only with the agonizing pain and the smell of his own cauterized stumps. Suddenly the force that had pinned him down reversed itself and he found himself airborne again. He was quickly pivoted around and was brought face to face with the enemy that came in last; the enemy just looked straight at him through the helmet’s visor.
“I always find your kind’s ships annoying…” The enemy said in his own language. “Your big black eyes not only offer you a greater field of vision through their positioning but they also allow you to see better at a slightly larger visual spectrum. A fact that has always pissed me off when I board your ships, because your emergency lighting barely registers to us and as such I am always forced to use the helmet’s night vision.”
He made to reply but the invisible force that kept his mandibles from moving was still there.
“Wearing the helmet deprives me of many enjoyable sensations, like the subtle noises your exoskeleton makes when it is about to crack or the amazing smell your kind lets out when you are burned from the inside out.” The enemy laughed at that, one of the handful of mannerisms that were similar to both of their kinds. “Don’t worry though; I am sure that you will make it up to me one way or the other. So many things that you can do for me, like answering what did your kind do to the one you used against us?” The enemy then slightly shook her head while chuckling. “But I am getting inpatient; there are things that have to be done before then but have no fear though. We will spend a lot of time together in the future.”
Chapter 17, part 1: http://www.well-of-souls.com/forums/vie ... 337#p22337
Last edited by Guest on Sat Dec 26, 2015 12:00 am, edited 1 time in total.