The Hunter pitches hard as soon as it's past the bulk of its larger companion, trying to unmask both of its point defense turrets to strike down the incoming missiles. Unfortunately—for them—they aren't quite fast enough. One turret never gets the chance to fire, its sight lines blocked by the Hunter's own hull. The second fires prematurely, its firing solution not quite complete, and misses the lead missile by a scant few meters.
Then the missiles were past, the high-intensity fusion torches that composed most of their length sending them hurtling through the void far faster than the guns could possibly reorient on, running down the fleeing Omen like a pack of hungry Goujaw.
The first wave, launched as shield busters, don't bother with precision maneuvering, simply barreling straight toward the Omen and detonating when their onboard sensors informed them that they were at the optimal range to break the cruiser's shields.
Once, in the Academy, you had seen a simulation of what a Hotdust warhead looks like as it detonates. Two streams of ultra-fine dust suspended in a containment field, intertwining in a double helix. (Though you know there's know scientific reason for it, some part of you has always insisted that the antimatter should definitely be black and the normal matter white, rather than identical dull greys.)
When the missile detonates, the streams wind tighter and tighter, coiling around each-other until they eventually merge and fuse into a searing column of light.
Programmed as shield breakers, the missiles you launched reinforce the rear and sides of the containment field. It's not
nearly enough to contain the immense release of energy from a Hotdust detonation, but it
is enough to funnel a majority of the blast forward—directly into the Omen.
Enough energy to wipe a mid-sized town off the face of the planet hammers into the Omen's shields, and immediately vanishes. Mere inches thick but near infinite in depth, the Void Shields pulse, an envelope of blue-white light (yellow-green to Dagenruff eyes) flashing around the hull of the ship before away into invisibility.
Void shields operate by drawing out a thin film of Subspace, enshrouding the ship to protect it from damage, be that enemy attacks or simple collisions with floating detritus. A realm of pure energy, the layer of subspace works as an effective screen against physical objects, as physical matter is simply unable to traverse it due to the fundamental incompatibilities in the laws that govern Subspace and Realspace. Energy
can enter and exit subspace, but pouring energy into subspace is a bit like trying to raise the sea level by spitting into the waves.
No, the shields themselves are effectively invulnerable. The weakness lies in the systems that
make them. Void Shield Projectors are large, bulky, and
breakable. Every time energy passes through the shield into Subspace, it weakens the stability of the shield's envelope, placing strain on the projectors to maintain. The more energy you hit the shields with, the more strain you apply to the capacitors, and if you apply
enough energy in a short enough time frame, the entire system needs to shut down and reboot lest something vital explode.
Which is why your second wave of missiles, following a heartbeat behind the first, soar past the boundary of the cruiser's shields to detonate right next to its hull. Or, in one case, right into its engine.
Three hellish pillars of energy are dumped directly into the Omen's metal hull. The first release pours itself directly down the opening of the primary drive thruster. Explosions rock the massive collection of engines as containment is disrupted, leading to it's volatile masses to scatter within. The second warhead strikes the vessel's sole ventral turret, the cataclysmic detonation outright vaporizing the entire weapon's structure, and reducing what little is left to either free floating particles or half-melted mass of twisted metal. The last tries and fails to reach the fore of its victim. Instead, it falls short just past amidships, dumping its volatile energies into part of the Omen's forward broadside bank.
Bleeding molten metal and poisoned atmosphere, the crippled vessel's inertia drags it's screaming crew deeper into the black even as the Hunter's engines flare to chase down the one that injured it's companion ship.
But it is too little, too late.
"Set course for the Builder Station! Maximum burn!" The Hunter dives towards where you had fired your missiles from, even as the
Lost Cause races for what you had come here for on a chariot of fire. "Start a scan once it's in range. I want a place to dock before we reach it. All non-essential personnel are to prepare to evacuate the ship. I don't want to risk them blasting the
Lost Cause to pieces while we're finding the God Vessel with anyone still on it."
"So we're going in all or nothing?" AD-331 asks the one question you were hoping no one would. The rest of the bridge quickly goes silent as you glance at your second. "It's a valid question and you know it."
"I do." You glare down at the hololyth. "We… Our chances of winning are slim to start with, even with the Omen disabled as it now is. I… part of me is scared of losing everyone." Like you lost those Marines back on Sanskrit, like you almost lost KL. "I… I'm not ready to lose anyone else. I know the right choice is to drop a small group off to investigate the station while the
Lost Cause keeps fighting but-"
"She's an old girl that should have been retired." AD-331 sighs before shrugging. "Ah, whatever. We agreed to follow you, and that's what we'll do."
"Thanks."
Your gratitude goes unremarked as your bridge crew returns to their duties.
__________________________________________________
You reach the Builder station long before the Hunter realizes you've given it the slip when it's own survey sensors finally locate the station as well. But even as it burns for your obvious destination, your vessel is crawling to a stop beside it.
And what it is, is a vast wall of metal. The colors are difficult to make out in the fractal light of the Apollyon Nebula, but bits and pieces stick out to you in harsh clarity. It's too-smooth surface, littered with strange struts and excess sections that seem almost welded onto the outside of the superstructure give the feel of a partially decayed corpse, while the massive lettering declares "DNM-10" upon its side. And with it… a name, written in letters so vast that together they would be readable even with your ship floating in the way.
CHILDHOOD'S END
It leaves your emotions a mess. To the point you can't even begin to put words to what you are feeling.
"Captain Morev, we've located a docking beam. Everyone's ready to depart once we're attached."
"Good." You take a deep breath, somehow managing to tear your eyes from the omen of your future. "When we abandon ship, I want the crew split into nine groups. The focus will be to find either the control center or the God Vessel before the Hunter and it's crew can catch up. Hopefully the time they spend hunting us will keep them busy long enough to activate it… AD, if I don't-"
AD-331's hand clamps down on your shoulder, cutting you off. The sudden stop that comes with it spins you around so you can look up at him, the grey Dagenruff's pale eyes glaring down at you. "You will. So don't finish that order. You'll make it back to your father."
You… have nothing to say to that. There's so much you want to, but all of it feels hollow before AD-331's surety. So, instead, you simply nod to him and turn from the bridge. "I'll meet you on the other side."
You won't admit it, and he'll never call you out on it, but you flee the bridge of your Ancestor's ship.
The starboard armory is mostly barren by the time you reach it from the bridge. All of it's combat skins having already been emptied by it's assigned Marine contingent, and spare skins likely having been emptied by other crewmen that had even a modicum of combat training.
Your own Combat skin—one of three, one assigned to each of the ship's two main armories, with a third in the secondary armory towards the engineering section of the ship—sits forlorn in it's own cradle, with it's own custom fitted pulse rifle left on the rack directly across from it. Carefully, you strip the outermost layers of your clothing down to the perpetual undersuit that's been part of your 'personal style' for as long as you can remember. From there, you slip your feet into the open leggings of your combat skin so they can close around
your legs. With the new support, the rest of the suit unfolds from its resting state so it can wrap your upper torso in it's protective folds and encase your head in the helmet.
According to your political classes, Dagenruff power armor was widely considered impractical with how much effort was put into customizing it to
look like it's pilots, but you personally couldn't care less, because said impracticality allows your own armor a massive plate of extra armor meant to symbolize your hair to guard your backside. Even if it took a ridiculous amount of time to stop catching it on everything. (These thoughts come to you in a hysterical haze, the emotional turmoil that you're abandoning your only escape from the system for a wild gamble with a greater than not chance of seeing you
dead almost overwhelming, if not for the distraction exercises taught Dagenruff commanders.)
You grab your pulse rifle from its own housing in order to fold it to your thigh. Pausing, you take one look back into the nearly empty armory before walking out into the loading area for the docking clamp.
"Captain Morev, all crew members accounted for. Bridge officers are stopping by the secondary armory for extra weapons first, though."
"Understood. Anything to share before we jump?"
"Just… one question ma'am. What do we do with Lieutenant KL-0909090909?"
You blink in surprise before leaning just enough to see past him, where KL lays in her stasis pod surrounded by Marines. Honestly, you had almost forgotten about her in the chaos of the day. (Or you didn't want to think about what you might have to do to her after saving her, a tiny voice in your head accuses.)
"That's a good question." You look up and around at the assembled crew. The plan was to split them all into nine groups, but not all of them would be able to take her with them. You'd love to keep her with
you, but practicality demanded that you and AD-331 travel in smaller, faster, groups. To take KL with you, you'd need more people to carry her with, even with the anti-grav unit that allowed her pod to float. And that'd slow you down.
Taking into account group sizes… you have three options: the first would be the secondary crew. Non-essentials such as cooks and medicare. They'd be on hand if anything went wrong with the pod, but if things went wrong they wouldn't be able to escape. Second option would be with the Combat Crew, the main mass of Marines and effective combatants. That ran into the problem of having no one available if something in the pod broke, but if she was released and Turned they'd be able to drop her immediately. It'd also give them an extra piece of cover as much as you didn't want to admit it. The last option would be the Engineering group. It'd have people on hand capable of fixing her pod if something goes wrong, and enough combat effectives to keep everyone alive if they can't, but they wouldn't be able to handle either as well as the dedicated groups.
"She'll go with…"
[] [KL's Pod] The Secondaries
[] [KL's Pod] The Marines
[] [KL's Pod] The Engineers
__________________________________________________
Despite popular dramas, Empire military ships didn't use narrow tubes to 'dock' with another void habitat, be it a ship or a station. Instead, an extending clamp capable of sealing itself against the hull of another vessel was used. If said vessel didn't have a compatible bay to use, then the borders would simply tear a massive hole into the hull of said vessel. On one hand, this made targeting the best docking areas on an Empire ship easy. On the other hand, when an Empire ship forcibly boarded a hostile ship, they tended to just overwhelm the defenders by suddenly coming through the entire wall.
The programmers in charge of designing the simulations back at the fleet academy took some rather strange pride in getting the looks of surprise on Helgast Marine faces as accurately depicted as possible. Probably also explained why you liked doing that simulation every weekend.
Regardless though, this time it was discarded as a tactic since you wanted the Builder Station as intact as possible for as long as possible. Even if it meant delaying the scattering of the
Lost Cause's crew by a whole three minutes for everyone to get through the hatch as possible. Once through though it leads to a new problem…
"Didn't we just come from this direction?"
"I don't have a clue, we've been going straight since we started: do you remember taking a left turn?"
"No, which is why I'm confused. The hallway was straight, but something is telling me we were just through this intersection but going down that hall." The Marine waves his gun down the indicated passage. Which probably would have helped better if everything didn't look the exact same to you.
"Can you think of a way to check?"
"Yeah, give me a minute and wait here." You and the Marine beside you shrug at each other as his buddy jogs into the darkness of the corridor. The clangs of his boots fading quickly into the distance.
"If he's not back in five minutes we're considering him lost and continuing on. I haven't seen anything even remotely looking like a directory since we got here." The Marine nods at you before you turn to the rest of your group, "Take five. NMN-2084f, any conclusive scans yet?"
"No ma'am." The female Marine shuffles her rifle and the portable scanner she had been waving around the last ten minutes between hands. "I'm not picking anything up, no atmosphere, no energy readings, nothing. It's almost as if—" She trails off as a clomping sound of metal against metal comes from the corridor in front of your group. Less than a second later seven rifles pointed down it… just for the Marine that had gone running off to slowly come into view.
You all stare at each other.
"Okay, what the actual fuck is wrong with this place." It doesn't quite come off as a question, and you find yourself agreeing with the sentiment.
"Good news, I'm pretty sure this means our pursuers aren't catching up. Bad news…"
"We're getting nowhere
fast."
A collective groan echoes through the group, even as you lower your own rifle. "Dammit… please tell me you saw something resembling a map on your way back."
"...No ma'am, I didn't. It was a straight hallway." Which shouldn't be possible considering he looped, but apparently this place didn't fucking
care. Brilliant.
"Well, for lack of better ideas, let's keep moving. I don't want to risk our friends catching up to us, as unlikely as that is." Your escorts push themselves to their feet so you can continue moving. Carefully taking the standard escort pattern, the Marine in the lead begins leading you all down the hall he had just come from. "This is frustrating. Even if we're not looping in circles, how the hell did the Builders find their way through this mess? None of the other sites ever had this problem as far as accessible records are concerned."
"Even if they did, it'd actually make sense that it'd be redacted, because who'd believe it?"
"That's a good point." You shine the light from your rifle against the wall, partially hoping for a map to magically appear. "What I want to know is how the fuck we're supposed to find anything. Did they have implants telling them where to go, or did they just live on these for so long they memorized it all?"
"Considering we haven't even found the power core, I really hope it wasn't the latter. Because then how are we going to find anything?"
"Wonder until we die of thirst maybe," you morbidly snark, "knowing my luck there
are maps we've passed but they're all hidden by the fact there's no power to their projectors."
"Actually, while we're on the topic I have a question." One of the Marines in the back calls forward, flashing their own light across the ceiling.
"Shoot."
"How exactly
did the Builders power everything? I mean, I've seen some maps of Builder Colonies before, but there always seemed so few power plants for their sizes. And I'm not seeing any kind of relay at all."
"Funny note that," you respond, shrugging your shoulders. "They actually found a way to tap into Subspace and draw power from it. We don't have a clue
how, but it's the colonial generators we found that even let us know that Subspace existed before we gave up searching for alternate FTL methods to Hellscape."
"Really?" Is the disbelieving response, "But isn't Subspace… you know, completely inimical to matter? How did they channel the energy required to power a colony without a super structure the
size of the colony to keep it all stable?"
"That's the joke, no one has a clue." You tap against the wall, the sound of your metal gauntlet striking metal walls echoing down the passage. "The most accepted theory is some kind of super-matter that somehow resists the breakdown imposed by subspace energy. Personally I think they use a dedicated energy field to direct it all." Though both theories had holes in them. The former simply ignored how no known matter could resist subspace energy for long, and your own not explaining how they still used that power to fuel things. "Either way, Empire scientists have been studying Builder power cores since…" You trail off, slowly coming to a halt as the rest of your group realizes what you have.
Namely, while you were monologuing about the Builders, you've come up to a wide set of double doors at a T-intersection with large, bold, letters proclaiming "CENTRAL CORE" across them.
"There is no way in Hell this is a coincidence." It takes you a full five seconds to realize the words came from your own mouth. "Weapons ready. Whatever trust I had for this place just went down the fucking drain." The reassuring clicking of safeties coming off fills the air as your group carefully approaches the doors.
They open silently once you're within a few feet, and the group freezes.
You step back, and the doors close.
The Marines—none of whom had moved with you— all look at you.
You step forward, and the doors open.
"Well that's totally reassuring." No one remarks on how your voice breaks halfway through the joke. Instead, they shake off whatever thoughts they were having before stepping forward into the entryway, with you entering last. The doors close as soon as you're through, but no one notices. Instead, all focus is on the room within.
Metal fades into flesh. A necrotic stench somehow seeps through the vacuum to infest the air in your suit. The feeling of standing on—or in this case, within—a corpse is almost overwhelming. Especially since the dormant ball of flesh in the middle makes you think of a heart.
"Are we really in a space station?"
You glance at NMN-2084f before refocusing on the rest of the flesh-filled room. "I… don't think so. This place, whatever it is, isn't a station. It's a creature." 'And if this is any proof, it's probably dead' you think, but don't say out loud. "We need to find the God Vessel. And I think I figured out how."
"Ma'am?"
"Think about it; when we were just blindly wandering, there was nothing but blank hallways. But as soon as we started talking about Builder power cores, we stumbled into this place."
"Are you sure? We were talking about quite a few topics before that."
"Yes, but when you asked about them, we
all started focusing on them. I believe that this… place, creature, whatever, might be psionic. So in order to find our way through it, we need to focus on what we want to find, and it'll lead us there."
"But it's dead." Seems like you weren't the only one to come to that conclusion. "How is it going to be leading us anywhere?"
"Even dead gods dream."
Guns are up, and your group have circled back to back before the words finish fading into the vacuum around you. "The fuck was that?!"
You don't answer, more focused on keeping your heart from bursting in your chest. Everyone lockstepping to the left to give the rest the chance to view the entire room without breaking formation, every fourth step half taking a moment to look up.
"They come. Hurry."
The doors to the Core snap open, and you all swing your guns around as one. But nothing comes through. You force your throat to relax, and swallow the spit that has pooled in your mouth. "Focus on finding the control room and awakening the God Vessel. Nothing else." None of the Marines respond, but they also don't hesitate to follow you as you break for the door.
Once through, you take an immediate right and sprint down the open hallway that remains no different from the ones you've passed through before. Focusing on your destination through the fear is difficult, every shadow down every turn you pass drawing your eye like a moth to a flame. The question of "is that an enemy?" hounding your steps constantly, intersection after intersection.
It is this paranoia that saves your life.
A light flickers out of the corner of your eye. A tiny, easily dismissed thing under normal circumstances. You and the rest of your group dive for the floor as soon as it begins to register, allowing the fullisade of rounds to fly blindly down the corridor you were just passing without hitting a single one of you. Your own shoulder hits the ground, and your gun is emptying its own five hundred round clip at the oncoming Marines in green and red armor.
They all dive for cover that isn't there, but you don't stop long enough to make sure they die to your group's collective fire. Instead, you're kicking off the floor and skidding across it on your fake hair.
Once line of sight is broken, you half-flop into a roll that allows you to scramble to your feet. "Keep moving! Don't stop!" None of your Marines do, though part of you thinks it is a near thing.
Seconds later, more fire suddenly comes from behind you. Several rounds spark off your armor's energy barrier, but none get through. "Left!" No one questions you at the next intersection, and all eight of your group follow. The respite is brief, but long enough for shields to recharge.
The featureless hallways suddenly give way to a vast walkway that oversees what feels like an endless expanse of crypods. Whether or not they're empty though remains unknown, as you don't stop running to check. Instead, as soon as the expanse gives way once more to hallways, you take an immediate right at the first intersection you come to.
And the, just as suddenly as the central core, a new door presents itself to you.
It is larger than the double doors to the power core, but is blank and featureless. There is no description for what lies beyond; no warnings or heralds. It also refuses to open as you sprint up to it and throw your shoulder against it. "Shit!"
"Do we keep running?" The words are barely out of the Marine's mouth before a stream of rounds from one of your pursuer's pulse rifles answer, deflecting off his shield. "I'll take that as a yes!"
"Wait. The door will open."
The desperation in the voice halts you before you even finish turning to run, turning what would have been a mad sprint into a dive for cover. "We…" Everything you know says staying here is suicide. Your gut says it's a fool's errand that will end with you and yours dead. "We fight." Something deep, some primal part of you, says this is the hour of judgement. "Rotate positions, make sure your shields don't go down! We hold as long as necessary for the door to open!"
Your Marines, ever loyal to your command, don't question the order. But instead of hiding as protocol demands, you stand with them, rotating through the line as well. It devolves into a battle of attrition.
You stand at the corner and fire until either your shield beeps a warning, or your gun runs dry.
You step away, reloading and allowing your shield to recharge.
The others rotate through.
You go back to firing.
It's terrifying.
You keep firing.
After what feels like an eternity, it all goes wrong. A second group is suddenly in one of the other hallways flanking you. You cannot tell if they figured out how to navigate, or another pack had just gotten lucky.
They start firing and like that you cannot recharge your shields. You can only reload and pray.
The world becomes nothing but light and screams and shouts. Your focus leaves you hyper aware, even as your escort goes down one after the other. You down seven, the image of their blood flash boiling in the vacuum seared into your mind. A great many somethings hit you, but you ignore them in favor of reloading your gun.
Then, your rifle is out of ammunition. You have nothing to reload with.
You drop it, falling to a knee. The hand cannon that KL had bought you the day you were accepted into the Fleet Academy is suddenly in your hand. Its massive caliber slugs punch through the barriers of your murders like they're made of glass, even as it's recoil echoes through your suit loud enough the hysterical part of your mind is convinced it will blow your eardrums.
You keep firing, then reloading, then firing some more.
You don't remember when you fall against the still-sealed door, clutching a breach in your suit. The pain is distant, partitioned against your rational mind that systematically picks targets one after the other. Three rounds to drop a soldier, twelve rounds a clip, each clip claims four lives.
Your Marines are all down. You cannot tell if any of them are alive thanks to a shot that grazes your helmet, frying the electronics within. Your shield is gone, the damage to your suit so extensive there isn't enough emitters left to project a field.
You keep firing… and the door opens.
The sound is horrific, more a scream of tortured metal as whatever servos that control it tear it free. Bit and pieces of the frame fall loosely, even as you make a break for the room within—
It isn't a command center. It isn't
anything but a black void.
A black void with a ghost imprisoned within.
She is beautiful in a way mere words cannot describe. Her skin, pale as snow. Her hair and dress white as the stars. It is an image of crushing isolation that almost sends your mind into spiraling madness as soon as you see it. But that thought is pushed away, forced down into the pit of gibbering hysteria you are forcibly shoving aside in favor of survival.
Something cracks through your armor and you stumble, even as the black void is stained by a curtain of red.
'A heavy anti-infantry rifle', a detached part of your mind registers, 'deflected by my hair ornament.' The sudden lightheadedness from the lost weight confirms the thought even as it forms.
You don't fall to the floor, but the monument to isolation doesn't catch you either. You crash into it, and knock it to the ground.
'She is soft.' The same detached part of your mind that identified the weapon that has killed you notes, even though you have no idea how you know. You blink and realize that's because you don't know. It wasn't actually your thought.
The figure is looking down at you, through it's pitch black blindfold. "My love…"
The words echo oddly as your vision swims, a sharp beep of a low-oxygen warning cuts through everything. "Who… are you?"
She smiles.
"I am yours. I am your
Childhood's End."
You dream the dream of gods as Death awakens in the cosmos.
__________________________________________________
The laws it exists under are different. It knows 1 + 1 equals 2, but it also knows that does not have to apply to it. Blood alone should not have been enough to start the process, but it does.
The dead god's heart takes a single beat. And everything
changes.
Metal and reality alike scream across the void in agony as something within this long forgotten tomb stretches for the first time in an eon. Tendrils of
something else rip their way free of physical mass and lunge for the parasites that rest upon the corpse-womb that entombs what lies within.
The crippled watcher can do nothing
but watch as those tendrils rip through their should-have-been victim's teeth and into the Hunter that had been on its far side as soon as their guns are in motion. The collective psychic death scream of six thousand souls echoes across the void as the first victims of the coming nightmare are claimed.
Millions of tons of material is drawn into the not-maw of the awakening entity. A psionic blast that drives thousands of the watcher's crew to madness screeches across the void in a joyous revelation. Loose bits of slaughtered ship all that remains even as the aged God Seeker is tossed aside like a used toy.
It is into this nightmare that the Chosen-class battlecruiser finally arrives from Hellscape.
And with front row seats, its crew bears witness to the birth of a god as it tears its way free of the dead womb that had housed it.
Alert: Story Integral Vote
(Story Integral Votes do more than decide what path your character will take. They shape the world around you into something else, and dictate the shape of the nightmare to come.)
[] [CHILDHOOD'S END] A
[] [CHILDHOOD'S END] B
[] [CHILDHOOD'S END] C
[] [CHILDHOOD'S END] D
__________________________________________________
(Gaujaw are a species of large carnivorous fish that hunt in packs. Think tiger fish, but they brought the whole squad. They're also the size of a mastiff.)
