Snippet #2790565

Agarran tilted the young mans head and said to Jarlath. "You want them disabled? We can do that, though I'd advise keeping any fighters away from them until we've subdued them. You humanoids have a tendency to bleed a lot when your minds are assaulted."

And then the body of the young officer collapsed as Agarran released him, and reopened his own eyes. He shook his shoulders, enjoying the comfort of his own skin, before issuing a mental command.

The Orbiter rapidly relocated, in a facing that was towards the false vessel, until it was close enough in proximity for Agarran to unleash what he had in mind.

What followed was a psychic roar strong enough that the Aschen and continuum both, though they were not the target of the fury, could hear it, even those who had no psychic capability whatsoever felt the hair on their neck stand up as though someone was walking on their grave.

But for the Asylians, the effect was far more severe...

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Aboard the Unglauss

All was calm. Ilia and her people watched, and from time to time they would give her reports, such as movements by the continuum, and the approach of a strange vessel that didn't match Aschen parameters they had. Ilia considered it for awhile, watching it approach the ruse that the kinetics had sent forward. Shortly after, a single shot was fired at the Ruse.

Ilia smiled, her opponent was not an idiot. Her best guess suggested he had fired the round to verify whether the readings were accurate or not. She had to assume that the Aschen Faerie had been processing data since their arrival and was close to triangulating their position.

"Alright, they'll know where we are for sure by now, so let's-"

That was as much as she got out before her head started to split in half.

Describing what occured was difficult. Ilia, and indeed most of her crew, had expanded their conciousness to telepathically detect any threats. When so many minds worked in concert, they were able to reach out and effect a great many things.

It was as though the crew of the Unglauss were a great big sphere of liquid. This sphere could distort itself as needed to reach out and investigate or effect different events. They could use this to attack, defend, to use their ability even at a great distance from the ship itself, when focused.

However, now it was if a rain of glass was driving into that sphere, and then subsequently twisting, spinning, freezing, boiling, and all other sorts of horrible things.

Ilia barely managed to keep her eyes open, she felt a warmth dripping from her chin. She looked out across her bridge and what she saw frightened her.

Two of her crew lay very, very still, their eyes wide open, filled with blood, as more blood dripped from their ears and noses. Most of the others had their hands clamped around their heads, one in particular was repeatedly smashing her face into her console, to the point that she had broken her nose and knocked several of her teeth loose.

Connected as she was to all the rest of her crew, Ilia could feel the same agony they were all experiencing across the entirety of her ship. The fact she was still cognizant in spite of enduring such unfathomable amounts of pain was due solely to her training and experience. She ordered her thinking, endured the pain, and began analyzing.

This was the only thing that prevented the Entire crew of the Asylian vessel from collapsing into madness. As each of the crewmembers were Psychically connected to each other, all thoughts and impressions were shared and thus allowed them to communicate rapidly no matter the location on the ship. However, all physical sensations were also shared, and the attack that had hit them had taken advantage of this fact to cause immense disruption. Every single crewmen was feeling not only the agony of their own minds being torn into, but the agony of all the others added on top of it. This resulted in such a blinding amount of pain, that two fifths of the crew had expired on the spot from the sheer strain.

Had Ilia not been the tether that maintained control over the interconnected psychic crew, many of them would likely have disconnected from the connection, and the chaos that would have resulted would have prevented them from recovering at all.

As it stood, Ilia fought and struggled to issue a single order, commanding her crew to drop all other tasks and focus all efforts solely on psychic defense.

And inside the deepest part of her own mind, Ilia glared at the enemy giving out the attack. She did not know or recongnize what it was, but she could "see" it in the reflections of it's attack. A psychic attack was essentially exposing ones mind to that of their victim.

And what Ilia saw, though she would not admit it, terrified her.