The VARIAtech Consulate's Story

The Xeraph forces were able to push back, obliterating a good number of the enemy. However, they lost some of their own men in the process; a handful of hunters, thirty Knights, and ten Dragoons. The enemy retreated through the vortex from which they had entered, taking with them a decidedly small number of civilians, but took them nonetheless; and that was a loss for them.

However, peace returned to the condemned sector once the dust settled and the enemy evacuated. A hunter finish retrieving his mana-lance from the crystal corpse of his enemy. "Load this one up, and be sure to keep it contained. The Sorcerers would likely want to study it." A group of Knights walked over, picking up the slain crystal figure. It was quite heavy, even given the strength-enhancement properties afforded to them by their mana-powered armor. They loaded the creature into a Stallion, and returned their attention to surveying the area: they had to make sure no one was injured.

The city of Oasis was a place of mixed extremes, the chief of which was the divergence between affluence and abject poverty. Cruel slave barons lorded over their throngs of filthy manpower, and their gleaming silver towers soared high above the filth-caked streets and pens below.

But there were some districts that were filthier than others, namely, the Slave warehouses. Abominable places packed full of pitiable wretches like so much cattle for sale. This was because, ultimately, they were. And this was very convenient for the dark forces that turned their attention there on this day.

Inside one of the larger warehouses, a rend in space-time tore itself open. It's stark white brilliance blinded the shuffling masses within for a moment, a cool wind billowing out of the aperture. The fleeting moment of beauty passed quickly, however, when a flock of dark, glassy, prism like objects came screaming out of the opening. Initially cubed in shape, they unfolded mid-air into humanoid forms with sharp, angular appendages. Forty or so of these burst out into the now chaotic crowds of slave-stock, their blank faces swiveling noiselessly as they picked out targets.

Now, obviously, being a valuable commodity, the slaves were guarded. But not so much by elite Aschen Marines as by indentured thugs with guns. As the black, crystalline men began to jab their needle-like arms into the skulls of scurrying slaves, some of the guards ran. Others opened fire at the raiders, their stray shots mowing down thrashing slaves. Blood burst from every direction like a grisly fireworks display, especially as the alien attackers returned fire. With slow, jerky movements, they pointed their sharpened arms at the guards and fired small shards of their bodies at the panicking gunmen, the crystalline flechettes exploding on impact, sending limbs flying.

Doubtless there would be Aschen defense present within five minutes, but that would be more than enough time to absorb the minds of at least fifty victims. A good haul...

Tataea was primarily known as being a gleaming example of Misranan engineering and beauty. Her sweeping, curvy architecture complimented the rolling waves that lapped against her artificial shores. The entire city bobbed and surged, as sky scrapers independent of each-other were gently jostled by waves. A place that was simultaneously sleepy and busy, the floating metropolis thrived on equal parts leisure and fervent business.

There was just one problem on living on an island. When danger came, it was difficult to run. The danger that came on this day emerged at first in the form of a grand, brilliant white portal that twisted its way open smack dab in the middle of the Tataea's tourist centers. At first, onlookers were slow to react, unsure if the apparition was some flashy new show of Misranan magical technology. But when small, glassy shapes of all sizes flew from the opening with meteoric speed, then the running started.

The assorted cubes and tetragons unfolded in mid-flight, turning into angular, crystalline humanoids with needle-like arms and feet. Their faces were flat, black vaults of emotionless drive. The screams of the fleeing turned bloody as these thirty-odd crystal men began to fly off and hunt down stragglers. With cruel efficiency, they sprouted long, angular tendrils from their forearms which pierced the back of the skull, instantly killing the victim as what appeared to be a small, colorful light was extracted.

The bold location of the attack meant that local law-enforcement response would be quicked, but this was an acceptable risk in consideration of the general remoteness of Tataea in general. For now, the grisly harvest continued...

The abandoned slums of Wing City (which were never quite literally abandoned) had spawned more pain and suffering on the whole metropolis that could reasonably be justified. Here, monsters were born and plagues were spawned. The gritty, silty roads seemed to be cracked under the oppressive weight of innumerable empty warehouses. And in the dim, morning light, there came a sharp howling sound as a stark-white portal tore itself open at the heart of where the homeless population resided.

The jaded drifters paid little mind to it at first. After all, living here meant a general sort of acceptance towards the dangerous and spectacular oddities that roamed the area. As dark, crystalline shapes began to spill out of the opening in space-time, however, the assorted beggars and louches shuffled off to their safe havens. But those places were not safe today.

With startling speed, the glinting, obsidian terrors unfolded into human shapes, but with sharpened, angular extremities. The flat faces seemed to hold a swirling light, which when looked upon seemed to paralyze the fated onlooker with a gripping fascination. With brutal precision, the crystal men drove their needle arms into the heads of their victims, sucking a similar light from the body. Screams and howls echoed from every direction as the harvest ensued.

But the worst part about this was that it was likely nobody would ever notice. Or care.

As the portal from Variatech tried to open in the Oasis city warehouse, the passive Aschen defenses, which included apparatuses in which were designed to block unauthorized teleportation would prove invaluable as the portal would be prevented from opening up; before it could even open.

Even more was the Province of Caprica outlawed things such as Slave pens, and most had to acquire their slaves offworld, and they were required to keep them in approved living conditions. Thus the warehouse in which the portal was prevented from opening contained little more than scrap metal, iron ingots, and other manufacturing supplies.

Because the Planck devices remained active, nothing was able to get through in this manner.

The distant sound of death and catastrophe was muted within the confines of the newly discovered darkness. VARIAtech was, however, dedicated to its pursuit of fresh minds to appropriate, and as such, a lone crystal man rounded the corner of the alleyway. Its blank, glassy face stared into the shadows where the boy and his cat lay, and slowly it advanced, it's needle-like forearms extended in a menacing way.

Just then, the crystalline figure stopped and turned its head towards the sky, as if heeding some kind of call. The harvest was complete. Quota met. Without so much as glancing at Tomás, the otherworldly raider folded itself up into the shape of a cube which flew up over the low roofs and out of sight.

...

Meanwhile, in the middle of the slums, other VARIAtech raiders were returning with their captures, all filing back through the twisting portal. In the span of no more than a minute, they were gone as quickly as they had come, almost seventy bodies left lifeless in their wake.

All at once, the grisly carnage suddenly halted. Not that this caused any of the screaming to stop. With precise, organized paths, the black raiders noiselessly flew back through their portal, taking the fresh minds of nearly eighty people with them...

Vixi.

A planet so ancient that it had nearly been forgotten entirely. Long had it laid outside of the overall turmoil of The Multiverse. For untold years it had orbited quietly around its star, it's people going about their own, peaceful existence.

But now that time was coming to an end.

The government of Salus could not at first be certain of what they were seeing. Suddenly, and without warning, some dark celestial, pmanet-like body appeared in the heavens, eclipsing the very center of the massive city. All attempts to scan it returnes wilday varying results, as if the planet was constantly changing. Despite blocking the light of the sun, the massive planet seemed to glow with its own internal light, which flickered and wavered constantly.

Hours passed before a sortie was planned to get a better look at this anomaly. And just as one of Salus' medium range shuttles was preparing to launch, the first meteors hit.

Devastating in their mass and speed, they crumbled vast sections of the city upon impact, leaving large craters that were visible from the Armarx. The citizens of Salus barely had time to recover from this calamity before a blood chilling truth came to light. Swarms of dark, crystalline forms emerged from the centers if the craters, some vaguely humanoid, some simply geometric abstractions. With terrible speed, they took to the streets, pinning down any survivors they could find and impaling their cranium with cruel needles projected from their mass. And while everyone was now focused on the terrors that rampaged nearly uncontested through the once-peaceful streets of Salus, the dark planet suddenly vanished, as quickly as it had come.

The sundering of Vixi had begun.

Two days had passed since the cataclysm had first gripped the planet of life. Millions were dead, fires raged across Salus, and the sky was choked with meteoric ash. The natives of the planet clung to whatever totems they needed to...whatever religious icons they though would save them, but nothing halted the advance of the 'glass men'.

Scientists from Armarx watched hopelessly from their towers on the moon above, as a great, black blight began to spread from the centers of the impact craters. The meteors from the planetary anomaly seemed to be converting the matter of Vixi into the same substance that they and the glass men were composed of.

The peaceful people of Vixi had no standing army to repel the invaders, and Armarx only had loose militias and state police. They did the best they could to help, but the scale was just too big.

The planet of life was dying.

Wing City Hospital was a veritable fortress, for all intents and purposes. Hardly anyone ever got in or out without at least ten people noticing, and aside from one small incident a few months back, no one had ever dared attack it.

But now a different kind of attack was besetting the hospital. Completely silent, and totally invisible, no one noticed it getting inside the facility. This was because, despite their impressive physical defensibility, the hospital's digital security was...lacking.

The attack was subtle. Two small viruses were installed.

One virus infected the hospital's shipping and receiving centers. All orders for new medications would be intercepted and deleted, which, in the coming weeks, would force the hospital to ration it's medical supplies.

The second virus infected the system that tracked patient care, such as drug regimens, treatmention schedules, and the like. This virus would manipulate the scheduling and dosing software so that, in the event of a ration scenario, all meta-humans would be treated before standard civilians.

Now time simply had to pass before the next phase...

There was nothing that could be done.

For the past week, the former residents of the planet of life had watched in horror as their paradise world slowly turned into a black, crystalline husk of its former self. It was assumed that anyone who hadn't escaped by this point was already dead, since the atmosphere of Vixi had been eaten away by the foul black substance that corrupted the planet.

Scientists on Armarx had noted that, despite retaining the same overall mass, Vixi was shrinking, becoming more and more dense. What they could not understand were the whirling clouds of color that seemed to rage beneath the glassy surface of the planet.

Then it happened.

On the twentieth day of Vixi's siege, the now dead planet of life suddenly vanished in a brilliant flash of light. The surface of Armarx was bombarded by exotic particles that didn't even have names, and in the aftermath of the incandescence, there was simply empty space.




Vixi was no more.

As the Deathweaver fleet began to descend on Eden-12, a sudden anomaly would be detected. In a bright flash of light, a medium sized moon would seem to randomly appear in orbit around Eden-12. It's composition was incredibly dense, and it's glossy black surface seemed to be back lit by mysterious clouds of color and light.

There was a pause.

Within the massive black sphere, minds were now racing.

There was supposed to be no resistance here. What happened?


We can't account for all variables; clearly someone has the same idea we do.

I can't detecy any mental signals on those ships.

Should we proceed with seeding?

Not sure. Let me ask Nealaphh.

...

Nealaphh says to hold off, and to observe.

And if they try to make contact?

We'll just play dumb, as usual. There's no reason for them to believe we're a anything other than a giant shiny rock.

Alright, if you say so.



...and so the black moon remained, placid, high above the planet and the dark warships that loomed in low orbit.

The Deathweaver ships slowly surrounded the planet. As they moved into position, several torpedo-like objects were expelled and sent shooting off towards the planet's surface. They congregated towards the more developed and populated parts of the colony.

When the VARIAtech vessel entered the system, several sensors aboard the Deathweaver command ship, Hades Tribute, flared. Though there were no life signatures on any of the ships, they were not silent. Powerful psychics and sensors would detect the faintest echoes of psionic signatures that formed a web with the Hades Tribute's command deck as the center. The epicenter suddenly flared like a bonfire.

The skeletal captain's ghostly blue eyes glowered at the wall of the command deck, as if his cold gaze was attempting to pierce through the hull and drill straight into the black moon through sheer will. His eyes took on a new focus as another, far more powerful, mind peered through them like a pair of binoculars.

"What do we have here..." the new presence pondered as it attempted to telepathically probe the black moon.

-----

Meanwhile, on the surface of Eden-12.

It happened so fast.

John laid prone underneath a car. Blood curdling screams and animalistic roars bled through the hands that covered his ears. An explosion from a grenade sent a concussive wave across the town square, causing him to screw his eyes tighter. Blood already ran through the streets. How long had he been lying there? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

All he needed was to buy a part to fix his combine. He had to order it off-world and it arrived yesterday. John decided to take the afternoon off and head to the city to pick it up.

Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!

They fell from the sky like meteors. These... capsules. The objects crashed into buildings and streets and sent everyone panicking. Then they opened. Armored men came charging out of them screaming like animals. Except, they weren't men... There were long gashes in their blast armor where rotten flesh spilled out. Unnatural blue flames burned where their eyes should have been.

Then they started killing.

Men, women, children. Police. Civilians. Young and old... No one was safe. Some of the monsters resorted to tearing their victims apart with their teeth! John could've sworn he saw living shadows, these pools of hate and rage manifested as predatory darkness, pounce from the alleyways and drag whoever they could back into whatever pit they crawled out from. Their gurgled screams were swiftly silenced.

A shadow fell over him.

John opened his eyes.

The monster's scream drowned out his own.

More blood joined the river that flooded the street.

We're missing out on a lot of blanks down there.

I'm aware.

You don't think we could just pick at the scraps?

Nealaphh said to wait, so we wait.

Fine, fine...wait...we're getting pinged.

How? We haven't manifested any electronic comms.

No, no psionically. Someone on that ship is a mentalist.

...that changes things.

Yeah. I'm going to consult with Nealaphh, he- oh wait. He's coming himself.

Near where the black, glowing moon had popped into existence, there came another bright flash, much smaller than the one that had heralded the moon's arrival.

This new object also appeared to be made of whatever comprised the nearby planetoid, but it's configuration was much different, somewhat reminiscent of a giant, stylized crystalline bird of prey. Only a single light shone throughout this construct; a pure silver radiance that flashed in rhythmic patterns.

Captain Deathweaver would feel his psychic outreach met, but not rebuked, by the new mind inside the bird vessel.

"Greetings. We are the Consulate. We admire your initiatives taking place here." the mind replied in a soft, pleasant tone.

While the Deathweavers continued to pillage the colony below, the black ghost ships moved into positions above the open farmlands. After they stopped, beams of... energy... screamed from the ships and bombarded the planet like a hailstorm of death incarnate. The energy was black as the void and gave off no light, heat, or any other noticeable signatures. It ate away at whatever it touched and radiated with a sickening aura of wrongness. Finally, the beams of energy collided with the rolling hills of farmland. Crops, vegetation, and the earth itself withered, blackened, and died at its touch. Metal constructs were reduced to piles of rusted scrap. Animals and colonists simply dropped like sacks of rocks and moved no more.

The Deathweaver ships did not stop with burning and salting the colony's fields. Several missiles leaped from the vessels and made direct courses to the cities. They exploded in the atmosphere, sending numerous smaller warheads throughout the populated areas where they erupted with a greenish black gas.

"We are the Deathweavers." replied the mind that continued to probe the VARIAtech ship. It dispersed like a fog, automatically seeping into the minds of the crew and sifting through their contents. When Nealaphh touched the mind, he would get a glimpse of ten thousand others raving, gnashing, and screaming with animalistic rage and murderous hatred. However, a much more powerful presence encompassed them, channeling the emotions of the lesser minds into calculated focus with an uncompromising will of iron.

"And I am their Voice."

Gro'chal might be slightly taken aback when he found that the black crystalline moon contained not just a few hundred...not just a few thousand...not even a few million minds...

The black moon was inhabited by almost three billion independent psyches: disembodied mind that lived within this strange black substance. Every single one of them was psychic.

So when Gro'chal attempted to subtly infuse his mind into the hub of mental activity, he would suddenly feel the scrutiny of countless other minds looking directly at him. But rather than push him out of their commune, the minds seemed to...welcome him. They seemed eager to let them brush up against their minds and glean small things here and there.

Maybe this was an ideal existence.

Maybe his mind should stay with them.

Regardless, Nealaphh continued to speak to Gro'chal, apparently nonplussed by the necromancer captain's self important declaration.

"I see that, yes. It is good to know that The Consulate is not the only power within this verse that values the power of the mind. In fact, we value minds above all else. Each one is a treasure, full of potential..." Nealaphh said calmly. The crystal bird rotated on a central axis as if to regard the planet below, which was slowly starting to go from green and blue, to brown and black.

"Normally it is our desire to liberate unenlightened minds from their physical bindings, and such was our intention with this small world. Do not have concern that we will be interfering, however. In fact, at this juncture, we would like to invite you for further discourse..."

A large explosion from the planet's surface gleamed across the glistening black carapace of The Consulate vessel."

"...at your own convenience, of course."

Gro'chal was momentarily overwhelmed by the abrupt and unexpected vastness of the hivemind. However, when the countless minds tried to connect with his own, they would not find another willing drone to join their collective.

Pain.

A flash of burning cities.

Death.

Thousands of lifetimes of despair and anguish.

Rage.

A resolve that could sunder mountains and shatter the boundaries of Life and Death.

Suddenly, the doorway to the necromancer's own hivemind was cut off with a mental construct of an adamantium sphere. Gro'chal still maintained a telepathic link with Nealapph, but his presence was cold and emotionless. It was in sharp contrast to the cancerous well of darkness it was a moment ago.

"The Dead will find vengeance for the many crimes of the Living." Gro'chal replied. "Those who find no acceptance or joy among the unascended will find kinship and purpose in the embrace of Death. I will entertain the idea of mutually beneficial agreement in the interest of these goals."

Meanwhile, the strange gas continued to disperse over the cities and the living dead rampaged through the streets. Large portions of once bountiful farms were now massive swaths of blackened and diseased wasteland.

"I've got a fix." The Tactical officer reported, and a large icon flickered to life on the holographic display in front of Admiral Hanley.

She affixed her gaze to the soft cyan hues of the representation of space, with the occasional lighter icon depicting space debris. She watched the flickering yellow outline of the Obsidian Eagle.

"Hail them." Admiral Hanley instructed.

"Obsidian Eagle, this is the Esteem broadcasting on a priority one channel, please respond."

The message would repeat until they responded, as the hulking form of the Reverence II rounded an errant asteroid.