Camp 91, Sector one, Aschen Reverence FOB
The humid night air clung to Khavel's lungs as he strode through the decrepit mass of the slums, his greatcoat trailing along behind him. He was flanked by four of the meatiest Oriyaks he could find in the slums, all dressed similarly to him, in military issue greatcoats and overalls. They were heading west, in the direction of the harsh glare thrown off by the arc-lamps surrounding the Aschen FOB, and the pulsating glow of the gravity lift.
As they got closer, they cut a swathe through the crowds of refugees pressing against the barriers. The crowds parted like minnows before a shark, the size and stature of the Oriyaks more unnerving than the armed guards that ringed the base.
Khavel smiled as he pulled a peaked cap down over his broad and battered face, reaching inside his jacket to check that his machine-pistol was still secure under his arm. He shrugged his shoulders to better settle the weight of his body armour, and waved his men forward.
As the group reached the wall, Khavel swaggered over towards the nearest Aschen marine, and fixed the soldier with a smouldering glare. “Who in charge of here?” His men fanned out, marking the remaining marines, hands casually slipping into the pockets of their greatcoats.
As Khavel made his approach to the rest of the Aschen group, they began to chatter amongst themselves and then one of them pointed to Khavel, saying something in Anquietas and sending one of the men up into the gravity lift. As he approached and demanded who was in charge, the Marine huffed and glared at him.
“Get in line, you've got people ahead of you.” He said, two more Marines adjacent to the supply officer kept their eyes on Khavel, it seemed to these men, the Oriyak didn't exactly understand the kind of firepower the Aschen brought into the theater.
Several moments went by and the Supply officer approached, a young Lieutenant clad in duty blues. His eyes fell on the towering Oriyak before he pointed to the crowds. “Get in line or let me see your lottery ticket.” He said, his hand resting on the disruptor pistol holstered at his hip.
When Khavel slipped his hands into his pockets, a Marine instantly brought his Disruptor rifle up and towards the towering Oriyak. “Let me see your hands!” He shouted, causing two more Marines to take aim, and the Supply officer to back up and withdraw his pistol. “Hands! Now! Let me see them!” He barked. The other men got the same response, raised weapons and orders to show hands.
Khavel started to laugh, with a deep, booming voice, leisurely removing his hands from his pockets, and raising them above his head, a rather unnatural smile creasing his face. “Calm down, silly Aschen boy. Khavel not here to hurt you.”
While Khavel spoke, his men backed off, holding their hands high, eyes fixed on Khavel's back, as if waiting for a signal.
Flicking a glance over his shoulder, the Oriyak turned back to the Lieutenant, fixing him with his best winning smile, which was not terribly convincing. “I have bus-in-ness deal for you, listening to Khavel is good, no?”
On a refugee planet with millions of refugees per one Aschen Marine, one could understand how they were so easily spooked. The Supply officer silently lowered his weapon, the engines of the Reverence seemed to be drowning out much of the noise and the clamoring citizens, and with this proposition Khavel offered, the Supply Officer kept his stare fixated on the Oriyak.
“Business deal?” The Lieutenant asked, still holding his weapon out some, but not in a terribly threatening demeanor, a few seconds went by, and another palette of crates was lowered on the gravity lift. Landing on the ground with a thud, a pair of Soldiers loaded the palette onto a floor jack, and wheeled it to the other supplies, which were still being handed out to the lines of people. The sounds of shrink wrap being cut away was drowned by the clamor, and soon bags of grain were being tossed out to the people, along with bottles of water, and even small comforts like pita bread, hummus, and jars of olives were being handed out, staples in the Aschen diet.
Eyeing the weapon, Khavel took a seat atop the nearest palate of crates. “Yus. A prop-os-iton. See, I offer you a chance to make money off this mess.”
Khavel waved an arm in indication of the scrabbling masses, a gin spreading across his face. “You give me half of the supplies you and your people bring down to the surface. I sell it on to the people at double its value, and give you half the profits.”
To an Oriyak, born scratching a living, the deal seemed pretty lucrative. However, Khavel was hardly stupid, and was prepared to haggle. His men stood impassive in the crowd, watching the placement of the Aschen soldiers, hands under their jackets, but the press of civilians between them meant that they were unlikely to try anything.
The Supplies officer narrowed his eyes and then retorted. “Money? I don't think the Commander would be to terribly happy about that.” The supply officer said before he shook his head. “And besides, I'm not going to be here to rake in any of the profits, we're only here for the next week or so then we're bugging out to rendezvous with the Combined Fleet. Gonna go kick some Belks in the teeth.” The officer said, before he looked around.
“I also don't think you've learned about us, we don't really need money, we get good salaries and a hot meal thrice a day, I don't think the cays could even add up to a candy bar back home.”
“We're only donating what we can spare, to give you half our supplies would put the integrity if the ship and it's crew in jeopardy.” He added, before he waved his pistol. “I tell you what, when we're done, you can have whatever is left over, for free.”1
Khavel rocked back on his makeshift seat, spreading the tails of the greatcoat like a fan. “Mm. What's to guarantee that you give us anything? We take what is here now.”
He slipped off the crate, the coat flaring, revealing the thick layer of body armour, the suppressed barrel of his machine-pistol flicking free. “And, my friend, try to stop us, and the crowd will overwhelm you, and tear you into teeny-tiny pieces.” The Oriyak's tone had dropped from good-natured geniality to pure, untainted menace.
As soon as the Machine Pistol was withdrawn the Supply officer backed away, and several Marines raised their weapons and pointed at Khavel. “Aliquem mittat ad navem impugnatione pretium.” He said to a nearby Marine, who nodded and then the Officer turned back to Khavel. “There's a heavily armed very powerful Planetary Assault carrier right above us, if our position is overwhelmed, what guarantee do you have it won't open fire?” The Officer said, backing up and grasping his disruptor pistol, a second Marine shot up the gravity lift into the bowels of the ship, before bright blue-white spotlights shone onto Khavel, and his accomplices, a booming loudspeaker thundering over the clamoring of the voices.
“Step away from the supply Officer immediately, drop your weapon, and place your hands upon your head.” The voice boomed, the ship's AI had been watching the entire situation as it unfolded, bringing the attention to the Commander. Two massive Turbo-Disruptor batteries swiveled on their emplacements, lazily adjusting and aiming directly at Khavel, and the second lazily patrolled along the crowds, maybe it was a simple deterrent. Perhaps they really intended to fire. One could only guess what was going on above them.
The crowd disintegrated, some disspearing into the darkness of the shanty, others grabbing makeshift weapons, and standing with the burly Oriyaks. In total, around forty Scatterans ringed the Aschen base, weapons in their brawny hands, shouts and battle-cries tearing from their throats,. Khavel took a few steps towards the Lieutenant, the civilians pressing inside the perimiter.
“There six of you Aschen pussies, and now many of my Scatteran brothers in arms stand against your tyranny. Run up into your ship like the dogs you are, or we will feed you to our own.” As he bellowed and pontificated, Khavel pulled the machine-pistol up from his hip, indicating his men, and the more warlike of the refugees to move into the base.
The Supply officer backed up a few more steps, weighing his options. The deployment of the heavy batteries was hardly a deterrent, and this frightened the Leutenant. “So you intend to scare us off, take the supplies and hope we never come back, all while calling us Tyrants while we're trying to provide humanitarian aid for a planet our government really doesn't care about.” He said, as the group was closing in, Marines were tempted to open fire, a Sergeant shouted. “Don't fire unless fired upon.” But the stakes were about to be evened out, as a squad of ten power armored TacOps special forces slid down the gravity lift.
Two of them bore high-powered Gattling lasers, while the other three were equipped with portable Ion cannons, the other five were armed with rapid-fire Disruptor RCWs, and wrist mounted energy shields. As the Scatterrans moved into the base, the TacOps formed up in a wide circle, and began to open fire, rapid fire bolts of energy screamed from their weapons, and impacted the closing refugees, bolts of green death screamed across the field, as the power armored behemoths fanned out. “Secure the supplies, if they flee, spare them.” A Sergeant bellowed, before pumping a dozen bolts of energy into a nearby Scatterran. “Flee with your lives, or continue your advance, the decision is yours!” A Soldier bellowed. Before he turned to the Supply officer. “Orders from the Commander, we're to secure the supplies and return them to the ship, then we're bugging for orbit!” He shouted, while his men tried to grab what they could, and book it for the gravity lift.
One of the Oriyaks closest to the grav-lift wasted no time emptying his machine-pistol in the direction of the fleeing lieutenant, before hurling himself on the nearest trooper, using his size and weight to throw the smaller Aschen to the ground, snatching up the ion cannon, and blasting away at his comrades.
Meanwhile, the forty civilians had swelled to almost ten times that number, the flicker of petrol bombs and improvised missiles formed from cinderblocks and scaffolding poles thrown like javelins. The crowd swelled forward over the barricade, egged on by the roars of Khavel's Oriyaks, who had stripped off their jackets, and started to fire back.
Having slipped back in the confusion, Khavel appeared at the centre of the amorphous mass, urging the mob onward with shouts and war cries, himself pushing to the front, blasting off short bursts in the direction of the Aschen troops.
As the Oriyak threw himself at one of the six ton power armored soldiers, the T-99H Heavy Combat Suit made it so the Oriyak's momentum was quickly halted by the sheer weight and strength of the powered suit The unfortunate Oriyak was quickly thrown off the soldier, before he hefted his Ion cannon and charged for a shot at one of the heavily armored Oriyaks, vaporizing him from the torso upwards in a brilliant flash of blue death. Considering these towering powered suits were roughly three or four times the size of the Oriyaks in girth, and towering at ten feet in height they had little problem with the swarming masses. All while Aschen chatter was rife with the cries of soldiers, as everyone but the power armored soldiers were being overwhelmed by the masses of crowds, the loudspeaker issued another warning.
“Fall back if you value your lives, lethal force has been authorized.” The riot was getting worse by the second, and the Soldiers were unable to hold off the thousands of people indefinitely. “We're going to have to abandon the palettes, fall back to the lift!” The Lead shouted, and as the crowds closed in, they fell back to the column of light, slowly, the behemoths began to rise upwards in the lift, and they opened fire on everyone they could that approached the lift and the palettes.
“The Ship's preparing to fire!” Another soldier bellowed, before one of the batteries discharged a blinding flash of green, and a teardrop shaped bolt of energy the size of a bus hurled itself towards the supply palettes, engulfing them in a blinding flash of green and a plume of green-black glowing smoke that flickered with energy arcs, with the dust cleared, the palettes were destroyed and largely submerged in a pool of molten rock and soil several feet in diameter.
Then as the soldiers ascended into the belly of the ship, a deafening boom echoed through the camp, and every tent near the Reverence was instantly flattened by a powerful shockwave, as the shields flickered to life, and the ship began to ascend higher into the skies.
As the Reverence pulled out, the ground below it was in total chaos, covered by thick smoke springing up from fires caused by errant petrol bombs, and the acrid discharge caused by weapons fire.
An Aschen trooper lay sprawled in the mud, bleeding copiously from a massive headwound. Before he could rise, the mob fell upon him, ripping, hammering and screaming like daemons. Khavel was in the centre of the fighting, hands locked around the throat of the Aschen Lieutenant. When the last breaths rattled from the man's body, Khavel straightened up, aiming the disruptor pistol skyward.
The series of energy blasts, combined with a throaty roar, brought almost instant calm to the mob, like the eye of a hurricane. “You've had your fun, brothers! Now take what remains and tell your story! We shall not be oppressed!”
A cheer rocketed from almost every mouth, fists, weapons and rifles punching the air. Snatching up whatever they could carry, the four-hundred strong crowd melted back into the night, leaving a circle of mangled bodies and equipment.
The three remaining Oriyaks who had instigated the brutal conflicted moved among the Aschen dead, delivering mercy kills with boot or rifle butt. They all carried slightly battered disruptor rifles, their torsos festooned with grenades and ammunition clips. In the centre of the devastation sat Khavel, an officer's cap set at a jaunty angle on his head, a pair of disruptor pistols stuck in his belt.
Pulling a slightly crushed cigar from his pocket, he lit up and grinned at his men. “A fine haul tonight. This should see us through a shitstorm.”
Commander Jameson watched the chaos below, eying the crowds before he narrowed his eyes. “Animals, Barbarians unworthy of aid, we give them supplies and they attack us. I want there to be a reminder of Scatterran brutality cast upon this world.. AI I want power to the energy projectors, I want to carve a scar into this camp.” He said, hands folded behind his back as he glared at the display screen. “Brothers, men in the service of the Confederation attacked mercilessly without warning, likewise I will return the favor to the refugees here.”
As the 400 strong crowd filtered back into the night, the Air suddenly began to stink of ozone and there was a strange tension in the air, the Reverence above was positioning itself slightly by adjusting it's Yaw. The AI then delivered the report. “I have garnered several positions, I am certain that the instigators will learn the error shortly, Energy Projectors are powered full, if we frighten them, they will leave us alone?” She said, and as the Reverence positioned itself, a blinding sphere of light suddenly began to form on the bottom bow portion of the ship, and the immediate area would be laden with magnetic activity, if Khavel was watching, he would see the Reverence was positioning itself, and preparing to glass the planet in response to the attack. The Three Oriyaks would be faced with the Reverence's sheer might, as a blinding stream of red-yellow light struck the ground and threw up a plume of plasma flame, the stream of light seared towards the three Oriyaks, engulfing and vaporizing everything within it's wake. Khavel would have precious seconds to flee before he was consumed in the flame.
Commander Jameson was fuming, staring at the screen. “These barbarians displayed no honor, only savagry.”
As the beam of light stamped down into the camp, Khavel started running, followed close behind by his comrades. One of them was unlucky enough to be vaporized by the column of fire, but eventually, the duo ended up crouched in the entrance of a sewage culvert, ankle deep in the filth of millions of people.
Khavel leant against the cold concrete of the culvert, a disruptor rifle across his knees. He watched the sky, a massive grin spreading across his face, as the bright streak of anti-orbital missiles slashed up towards the source of the beam of light. Maybe the Militia wern't so bad after all, the Oriyak thought as he picked himself up, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and disappearing into the night, his comrade close at his heel.
“I have incoming missile attacks.. impact in thirty seconds.” The AI Chimed in, as the Commander growled. “Return fire, shields full power.” He said, the AI then spoke, the ship then rocked with the impact from the missiles, but she held fast as milky white shields flickered and repelled the impact of the Anti-orbital missiles, then the AI spoke. “The Shields have resisted the impact, they are depleted to fifty percent, shall I broadcast a request to cease fire?” She asked and the Commander growled. “I don't want to help these animals anymore, I want the Combined fleet to burn this planet to ashes!” He said, the AI then injected some reason .
“Commander, we can make up for our attack by offering to provide the Planetary Government a share of supplies.” She said, then she opened a channel to the Provisional Government.
“I would like to offer an apology, we were defending ourselves from a mob of crazed Oriyaks intent on killing our men for passing out aid, perhaps we can maintain aid to your world, but would like to go through more secure channels." The AI explained.
At the far end of the riot a platoon of militiamen sprang into action, launching a concentrated attack into the mob with a barrage of gas canisters and police equipment. As a militamen drove a club into a rioters side, a fire-engine was seen dousing a two-story prefab structure with fire-retardant foam and water; locking his rifle, a militaman hefted the weapon into his shoulder and released a burst of rubber-bullets into the crowd, the devices spreading out into miniature balls at the velocities and throwing a trio of refugees onto their backs, knocking the chair-legs and sticks that had been their weapons.
"Move up, move up! Stand back or I will fucking shoot you!" He shouted to the other militia nearby, occupying themselves with either beating any opponents to the ground or helping the aid workers put out the fires. High above them, the Reverence could be seen with a pair of high-intensity designating lasers painting the mass of the vessel.
"God damn Oriyaks! They ripped the whole fucking thing apart!"
At a command center just outside of Fort Pastor, west of Camp 91, the Provisional Government was startled to receive the reports coming from the PG guard force in the camp. When a technician burst his way through the door, the Scatterran threw himself into the room as General Norman Shrike and a team of logistical attaches.
"What in the hell just happened? I told you to put Militia in that camp to oversee the operations, you let a bunch of Sovraks walk into a camp full of fucking Oriyaks with their pants down?" He said, before the technician brought him the communique from the Aschen Reverence.
"We've received a wide-band comms from the Reverence, sir." Norman ran a hand over his graying hair before looking to a map of Fort Pastor.
"Direct them to the Harboring Space above Fort Pastor, make ready for a heavy landing."
The Commander awaited a response, as a thick plume of smoke rose up from the billowing fires and the glassed soil after the Reverence cut a wide swathe of flame and death in the middle of the prefabricated Aschen FOB. By now, Sniper teams, and other personnel were hanging out of opened hangar bays and watching below, while the Reverence's AI threw up ECM and special laser jammers, which used small designating lasers to throw off missile guidance systems. And even used lasers directly into the designation lens of the missile. In tandem with shields, and special Chaff emplacements to throw off RADAR Guidance. But the ship held fire and would quickly comply and move away from the riot, as Rioters discharged Aschen weapons up at the Reverence, and the Snipers watched the occasional flash of green in the Oriyak mob.
“They'll run out of ammunition eventually.” He said, before the Militia Command received a communique from the AI. “Be advised, the raiders stole several Disruptor rifles, and pistols from our dead, when the area is secure we'll need to round up our dead.”
General Shrike cursed under his breath as he watched a digital relay from the camp. In the command center of Fort Pastor, soldiers were running through the halls and carrying equipment with them while an area was prepared to receive the incoming Aschen transmission.
"Open up a wide-link and give them Enhanced Guidance Data to Fort Pastor -- the sooner they get out of that god damn camp the better, for everyone." He said, turning to a militia commander.
"They never informed us they were planning to set down for aid. We had six hundred militia ready to facilitate the op waiting through the night to set up checkpoints." The commander remarked flatly, before Shrike pounded a hand into a desk and shouted.
"I don't want excuses, god dammit, there are twenty-thre million people in that camp. God knows how many died from a fucking glassing alone. We could lose control of the whole region, half the continent by the end of a fucking week." He said, rubbing at his eyes as technicians and specialists designated a harboring-site for the hulk of the Aschen Reverence.
"We're on the edge of a new outbreak, god knows how many slow burns are festering in the population now -- and then this happens."
The Reverence continued on it's course towards the fort, the shanties and the prefab buildings below them, passing idly as the ship hovered over towards the fort, using the guidance data that it was provided, the Commander waited and watched. “This whole idea went to shit.” He said, looking down to see the people in the streets, wallowing in their own excrement and filth. It was a stark contrast to the wide and clean streets of Caprica City.
“We're on approach to the Fort.” The AI said, as several screens came up, after a moment, one of them was an Aschen doctor. “Commander, One of the Supply officers has come up sick with some kind of infection, I've got him in hermetic quarentine after he reported a tight chest and was coughing, bloodwork shows an unusual bacterium in the body, it's multiplying .” He said, then the Commander ran a line to the PG.
“One of our soldiers is sick with cold like symptoms, our medical personnel have explained to me that this is unusual, what kind of ailments are existent on this world?” He asked, shifting his weight.
The General felt his chest steel as he heard the Aschen commander over the interface; the planet had a plethora of bacteria and wildlife that was capable of causing harm, there were portions of the continent that were uninhabitable from the native life.
"What did they just say? -- Sick?" A commander inquired as he looked to the General.
"They've never set foot in these sectors of the galaxy ... " He returned, looking back to the communications avenue.
"This planet has multiple pathogenic organisms capable of human infection, one of your soldiers was probably exposed through the improper sewage treatment at the camp."
The General looked over to a PG medical technician, his face sullen for a moment as he pushed away a datapad.
"The Provisional Government has handled the majority of humanitarian operations on New Pastor, over the past three years we've had several outbreaks of bacterial and viral infections, but we've been able to treat these with relative ease."
The Commander shook his head. “You don't understand, my men are immune to every known disease and most unknown disease, this pathogen is overwhelming his nanite immunity and replicating faster than the Tretonin can kill it.” The Commander explained, already things were going from bad to worse. “My Medics report that several other men contracted bacterial and viral infections that their enhanced immunities overpowered and conquered the disease with no manifestation of symptoms, but this particular pathogen.. it's overpowering his natural, and artificial immunity.”
" I don't believe you understand, ... Beyond the Aschen scope of knowledge, there are nearly thirteen million bacterial pathogens alone in Scatterran Medical history the Aschen have probably never been exposed to. There are four billion people on this planet, twenty-three million in that Camp that was just visited; improper sewage management, poor food supply and god knows what else is in that place makes it a breeding ground for disease and epidemic. Your soldiers should not have gone to the surface without a proper Scatterran escort." He said, confident that this particular case wasn't an exposure to Iramorbus, there was no indication that the pathogen had survived.
"Bloodgut is a bacterial infection that has been rampant in Camp 91 for the past year, symptomps normally include a large-area of infection in a short amount of time."
The Commander nodded. “I'll keep an eye on this man and see if his condition improves, I will send you any relevant details.” He said before he terminated the link, then he heaved a sigh. “Doc, keep him in quarentine, I want the man in a sterile environment and tended accordingly.” He added, while the Reverence hovered above the fort. The Soldiers inside determining that it was best to keep in the ship, unaware that the lone Marine in Quarantine might be the Aschen's patient zero.
Post has been corroborated between AzricanRepublic, Barney_fife, and XavierDantius32, and is not to be construed as Autoing, God Modding, or shenanigans. 
