B345T's Story

Drifting in the midst of the Outer Arm, a 6th Order vessel avoided bridging into either Aschen or Continuum territory, preferring to stick to uncharted space. Their maiden voyage, the Tooth and Nail, moved silently across the void - the radars beeping and notifying the crew of something out in range.

It appeared to be a station...the ship began shifting gears and heading towards it - curious to salvage what they can.

The station the 6th order had found was of immense size, likely once a trading point or rest place in neutral uncontested space, but now long forgotten and powerless. Or so it would be thought at first glance. Further study and scans would reveal deep within the core structure a solitary power signal tied to that of a cryo-unit.

Further scans would yield naught but hundreds of locations to dock across the entirety of the satellite but one dock seemed crowded by rubble. Rubble from a destroyed ship, its innards spilled out into the void, research medical and various lab systems hung in orbit around the station. As did half the destroyed research vessel clung to its docking tube.

The test subject within the satellite flinched as electrical impulses were rushed into its brain, the cryo-stasis deactivating as outer signal probes had picked up the approaching ship.

The technicians on the Tooth and Nail began speaking among each other, checking the various diagnostics and gauging if this trip would be worth it. Deciding a scouting team was needed to investigate this, the techs called on the intercom: "Weiss Squadron, suit up. We're investigating this vessel for anything worth bringing back to Alpha Station for research."

"Roger." Came the leader of Weiss Squadron, Berkut Talonhearth. Despite being young compared to his peers, Berkut rose quickly through leadership until being entrusted with his own squadron. He had to prove to his superiors that he could manage a team. Only then could he potentially be promoted to a Petty Officer, and then soon his dream...an Admiral.

Gearing up, Weiss Squadron exited their vehicle once it had docked with the station, and the soldiers began scouting ahead. Davaab Rifles at the ready, Berkut ordered the men forwards. "Stay frosty. There may be survivors. Any survivors, we'll throw in the brig to deal with later."

the first several corridors were clean, too clean for a station that seemed to be lost and abandoned. though each door without power was a hurdle in itself. all the doors had gone into lockdown and their blast shielding had also been activated.

arrival into the first of the five rings that made up the epicenter of the station was heralded by silence and the acrid smell of 'iron' at first and with the breach of that final door. Life support activated and power coursed through the ship as its reactors came back online and so the containment unit holding the test subject opened into the rest of the station and prowling out, B345T's orders. "ESCAPE BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY."

the thoughts weren't its own but it understood them, shaking off the cryo it began running, and not stopped by corners... or doors for that matter.

back with Weiss Squadron, all around them, the stalls lit up and hidden from light were countless victims, killed in their shops and civilians butchered beyond recognition, though the plasma burn marks across the bodies indicate that death came slowly for the majority, others looked as though they had been shaken to death, crushed or had limbs bitten clean off, rent bodies little more than streaks of flesh.

sprawled out was a large power suit like armour, much of it reduced to dust, the pilot looked as if had spontaneously combusted somehow, wounds of the body and damage to the suit indicated some kind of attack at a molecular level.

Weiss Squadron wasn't completely made of newbies, however they weren't veterans by any means. Their guns had LED flashlights attached to their sides, sweating profusely under their helmets while the sights of the various corpses became apparent within the station.

"Appears as if we weren't the first to get here." One of the squad members commented.

Another piped up over the commlink. "Or some sort of insurrection took place. You never know if they were invaded, or their own men rebelled."

Berkut lifted his fist in the air for them to stop in place, looking around carefully. "Shh!" He caught sight of the power armor that had been incredibly damaged. Something about this place put him off...the nature of this space station and the fact that everyone here was dead - and all of them look like they were murdered. He lifted his rifle and looked down its sights. His finger was trained on his trigger, ready for anything. His group members had their weapons ready as well, but weren't quite as trained or ready as their squad leader.

There wasn't much protest when the order came down the pipeline to investigate a perceived derelict space station. The Squad belonging to the Imperial Defense Force's twelfth recon took up the job with glee, figuring it was going to be an easy slice at some hazard pay.

Sergeant Adamus checked his disruptor one last time, briefly shaking his head as to why the new MC weapons weren't issued to his squad for this mission; it didn't matter, as they left their Reverence S, which was cloaked, and parked roughly 50,000 kilometers away, the station slowly came into view.

"So we're supposed to investigate the station, and mark it for salvage before we initiate jurisdictional expansion." The Sergeant explained to his eight man squad. "Locate any valuable technology and seize it for the Empire." He added.

The Squad all nodded in acknowledgement, each checking their weapons, before pressurizing their Cruirass suits, and checking the wide-spectrum visual enhancements.

The Condor VTOL made contact with the hull of the station with a clunk that likely shook, and jerked the derelict space station with a dull thud.

Everyone checked their gear one last time, before a specialist with a laser cutter began to work his way on the station's hull plating.

Five more minutes, they were through, the soft red glow of molten metal illuminating a dark cooridor before the men dropped in, activating their internal HUD, which did away with the need for any illumination that could give their positions away.

"Power, and life signs... looks like near one of what looks like a cargo bay, on the same torus as us..." The Sergeant called out. "Additional life sign moving rapidly through the station... request additional overwatch."

"Acknowledged, focusing scanners to provide additional overwatch... life signs might be a sixth order judging by the ship docked with the station; engage and neutralize." The Ship's Tactical officer replied. "I've got an unknown on the rogue signal, use caution."

The Sergeant nodded. "Let's move..." He said, starting towards the first blast door. "Get that door open..." He ordered, and the specialist moved with his high powered laser cutter, and began to slowly get to work.

the Cyborg came to a halt, the sensors dotted throughout the station relaying information to it, a breach in one of the outer corridors of the station.

'ASCHEN SIGNATURES DETECTED, MISSION PARAMETERS CHANGED, ANNIHILATE EVERYTHING, NO WORD OF THE TEST MUST GET OUT' the chemicals and electronic signals rushed through the heavily augmented brain f the alien life form and its pace picked back up, charging down corridors as it made its way to a security substation.

the door would crumble down reduced to dust in two short 'barks' from the creature, stepping inside the A.I took control and extended small manipulator arms from the back and shoulders of the beast. integrating with the station's systems it would open all doors throughout the station, followed by reactivating the electronic shielding across the station, save for a few pockets that couldn't be blocked.

the 'shielding' would begin jamming any communication into and out of the station or so the people; who put their cyborg on the station, thought. The virus implemented B345T would destroy the terminal, reducing it to a mass of rubble before moving on towards its closest targets, the 6th order troops who hung about in one of the main market terminals.

as it entered the terminal a level above, it would slow down and allow its active camouflage to conceal itself.

The technicians docked with the station looked nervously at the terminal on their own starship, not only noticing potential hostiles arriving at the station, but also...there was something else within the station. They weren't alone. They were never alone. "Shit shit shit..." He muttered, sliding on his chair to reach for the comms equipment, flipping the switch. "Weiss Squadron, Weiss Squadron. Come in."

Berkut lifted his hand, pressing the button on the side of his comm to speak to control. "Berkut here. Speak."

"Commander Berkut," The technician began looking over his equipment. As he was beginning to speak, B345T had begun its jamming. "Un--...sche....war....careful. You...do...alone..."

"Hello? Hello?!" Berkut looked back to his men who were pointing out the doors within the station had opened on their own. There was something seriously wrong here... "Someone's jamming the signal to Control. It could be a survivor within the station, I don't know why they'd do this...but be warned. This whole thing could be a trap."

One of the Weiss Squadron recruits spoke up to the commander. "Sir. Should we continue along?"

"We'll continue for now, but set your weapons to plasma bolts. No use in saving your bolts if there's an unknown hostile on board." The men began moving forwards, heading towards the center of the station...or at least, where they assumed the center was located.

The Aschen team had managed to make it a bulkheads deeper into the station before their communications got cutoff, the Sergeant growled briefly as the map in his HUD cut out.

"Overwatch.... can you read me?"

One of the squad members tapped his own helmet, and shook his head.

"We're blind..." The Sergeant grumbled. Fortunately they still had internal communications among themselves, and whatever seemed to be jamming them, was between them, and their ship.

Adamus nodded, and gestured to the wall. "We need to re-establish overwatch; otherwise we're going to be blind in here."

One of the squad members, a Specialist was closely examining the walls, running a gloved, and armored hand across the panels. "Wide-spec's got conduits, network cables, and the like running through here... if we can find the main bus, we could jack in with a Computron and take over the station... I'll just need to figure out what cable does what."

Grasping the edges of the metal panel, he used the enhanced strength of the suit to tear the panel from the wall, resulting in an audible clunk echoing through the halls.

"We'll hold position here until we can bring down the jamming field..." Adamus said, signalling his men to fan out into defensible locations, slowly they blended into the darkness as active camouflage engaged.

The specialist began to work at the cables, using small probes attatched to cables to figure out which did what, it would be a slow, grueling process to hijack the network, but it was a process these men were trained in.

B345T prowled closer to the edge of the level he was on and then skulked over the edge and turning placing a paw onto the underside of his floor about fifty yards behind Weiss squadron, the magnetic 'clamp' activating allowing it to walk upside down freely. he watches the team, picking a target.

though B345T would freeze as the A.I sharing the cyborg's brain, noticed the alteration of atmospheric levels around one of the nodes.

a snarl escaped the jaws of the cyborg before it unclamped from the roof landed down on the floor, no longer stalking, it dropped the active camouflage and charged one of Weiss squad, aiming for any specialist in the squad first off...

if caught his victim's head would be crushed in the jaws.

all this before taking off again, active camouflage reactivating, as it meant to stop any intrusions into ITS network.

the network itself running deep within the skeleton of the station, each node's 'wiring' not visible amongst the station's standard wiring and power cables. however, the nodes each made up of some kind of foreign crystalline structure with an almost bioluminescent glow to them.

With B345T fast approaching bulkheads around the Aschen squad began to remotely open. having cleared the distance in little under 2-4 minutes.
though B345T would enter into the maintenance tunnels, slowing his pace and moving below the floor underneath the Aschen.

On edge due to the sounds pervading the station, and the never ending feeling that they weren't alone, Weiss Squadron were demoralized and ready to fire at whoever or whatever came from the next corner, and the next...that was, until they heard a something metallic being torn down one of the halls further down.

"Shit...whatever it is, it's tearing into the station." Came from one of the men leading, the entire squad stopping to investigate. "Whatever is here, it's a bit of a ways away. We should be--"

He was interrupted by a loud and sickening CRUNCH as the teeth of the cyborg abomination clamped down on his head. In response, his body let out a spasm and fired off a couple bullets in mid-air at nothing, only hitting a wall but completely ruining any sense of surprise the group once had.

Metal shards from his helmet were now embedded into his skull, brushing against the soft gray matter and tissue within and leaking a sickly red and gray matter from the holes that the teeth had bore into him. "M-...muuh...m..." Were the man's strained last words as he collapsed, the remnants from his head splashing and now pooling in a grisly display of horror.

The other men were in a combination of shock and anger, trying to shoot at the thing but...it had already left. They were now one man short. And not only that, but the thing that made the metallic noise down the hall now knew of their presence...and most likely weren't more of these things - else they'd be swarmed by now.

Berkut's eyes went wide under his helmet, immediately commanding his troops to surround him in a defensive position.

"Men. It appears we've made a mistake coming aboard this ship...fuck...what do we do?"

The second in command among them looked around, then pointed ahead - away from where the metallic noise came from. "The thing has disappeared for now. If we can reactivate the power to this place, we might be able to launch it into space. If not, there should be escape pods. The Tooth and Nail should be able to pick us up if we need to escape that way...that is, if this damn jamming ends when we get out of the station."

Berkut weighed his options carefully, sweat trickling down his head and gripping his rifle tighter. "Alright. We'll keep heading for the center. If we lose another man, we're heading straight for the Tooth and Nail and leaving. I can't do this with only five of us."

"Understood!" Came the others, and Weiss Squadron began to make haste towards the command center. If anything, restoring power could give them an idea of what they're up against...

The Network specialist continued to work his diagnostics among the power, and network cables of the station. "Sarge... I'm not having a whole lot of luck here, I'm gonna hook a stinger up to the power conduits and try to overload the station's power supply." He explained, pulling a small clamp like device from his satchel, an Aschen Stinger as they called them, small devices designed to emit a powerful pulse of energy, intended to overload electrical, and power distribution systems to trigger a temporary outage.

Adamus offered a brief nod, but the calm of the group was interrupted suddenly by weapons fire, and a sickening crunch.

The Aschen team snapped to attention, sensor suites were honed in, and a decision was made.

"We're heading back to the VTOL to get reinforcements and re-establish overwatch... set a timer on that stinger... and fall back."

A moment later, the bulkheads began to open.

"I've got movement!" One of the men called out on his radio.

"Overlapping fields of fire, keep your sensors hot, and your eyes peeled." Adamus ordered, and the men formed up into a bounding overwatch position, leapfrogging back towards where their Condor had docked.

"we're heading back to the VTOL..." B345T stopped for a brief moment, his 'stummer' activating. a device that reduced the sound of his steps to nothing and that of his fractal bark.

"I've Got Movement!" the voices were now above B345T.

"Overlapping fields of Fire, Keep your sensors hot, and your eyes peeled." B345t would begin shifting its body around to prep for its attack, opening its mouth a dim beam of energies would fly into the floor above the maintenance path.

the floor underfoot would begin to vibrate, as its molecular structure was being reduced by fractal disintegration, taking only a couple seconds before the floor was weak enough that the 'Fractal bark' had begun on the suits and weapons of the Aschen squad above and their flesh. molecules trying to tear apart and an increase in bodily temperatures. this happening long before any combustion of fats or blood reduced to vapors.

after a total of five seconds, B345T would burst through the weakened floor, tearing a hole ten feet up and down the length of the corridor and to the walls, tail flailing with the bladed club on its end swinging for heads, its jaws finding the specialist and like paper, the helmet would be crushed near instantly if the attack was to be successful.

Leaving the corpse with its comrades again with great speed B345T would take off again, leaving the Aschen behind, slamming shut the bulkheads. remotely. it's next Objective.

Disable the VTOL, trap its prey.

Nirvana the Dark arrives to the area of space, having traveled long and far...she eyed the empty space surrounding her - positioned as if standing upon a floor beneath her with her hands behind her back.