Application

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Diggledom
The Mindset's Bitch
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:01 pm
Prefix: The Empire of
Name: Diggledom

Re: Application

Post by Diggledom »

Join the amazing club of being ass kicked by life.

But yeah, ready and waiting.
Otagia
ESUS Testicle Monster
Posts: 1794
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:41 pm

Re: Application

Post by Otagia »

A monster is stalking the underclass of your capital city. It is eating men, women, and children alive, tearing them to pieces while security systems inexplicably shut down, weapons jam, and robots help the creature in its killing spree.

Unbeknownst to the authorities, the "monster" is in fact a Rhunate technomancer, a massive predatory lizard with a taste for sentient flesh and the ability to manipulate electronics. RP the hunt for the technomancer, and its conclusion (whatever that may be).
Stercus stercus stercus Moriturus Sum
Diggledom
The Mindset's Bitch
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:01 pm
Prefix: The Empire of
Name: Diggledom

Re: Application

Post by Diggledom »

Black Raven Private Military Contractors Forward Operating Base
Earth
2223 Local Time

John Strachen bumped the door open with his hip; the door, like the rest of the facility, was aging, the hinges sticking, requiring an extra jolt with his hip before opening properly. He had a tray of self heating coffee canisters in his hands, yawning in the pre-dawn gloom that encompassed the airfield. Rain was sweeping across the hardcrete landing pads outside the “ready� hangar, so he tucked his head down and jogged across to the hangar. The door to the hangar was in better condition, opening easily as he tapped it with his toe. His arrival was greeted with a round of cheers, before being mobbed with people grabbing at the coffees he was carrying. Within seconds he was holding a completely empty tray.

“For fucks sake guys! One of those was for me!� He shouted, trying to be heard over the heavily synthesised beats of some new wave dance track pumping out over a jury rigged speaker system at the back of what was optimistically referred to as the ‘Ready Room’

“John, over here mon!� The deep voice with its distinctive Jamaican accent was coming from a table towards the back of the room. John began to snake through the tables towards the origin of the voice, an ex Royal Marine, Brian. The massive man was distinctive, even among the diverse group in the ready room, standing easily over 6’10�, dark black skin, a bald head and a physique that Jonathan believed had just as much to do with biochemical and medical assistance as it did with old fashioned working out. He was stretched out on one side of a table, his body armour on the floor beside him, boots up on the table and a pair of the coffee canisters in front of him.

He pulled over a chair and sat down; ripping the tab of one of the coffee canisters back and hearing the liquid inside begin to bubble as the mechanism heated it up. He had managed a single sip of the coffee before the siren sounded; the brief moment as everyone in the room paused, disbelief threading through their minds. Before the siren hitched in its first breath and started the upward whine again everyone in the room was on their feet, heading for the weapon racks mounted along the walls.

A brief struggle with un-lubricated catches on the weapons rack and John had one of the superannuated M7 carbines in his hands; he slung it over his shoulder and snagged his helmet from the table even as he headed for the dropship spooling up on the hardcrete outside the hangar. He was one of the first to the drop ship, so as soon as he was safely webbed in he began to sort his equipment. He spent a couple of seconds fighting to get his tactical vest secured, one of the medical sensors kept coming loose before he jammed it into is storage pocket. It wasn’t like they had the control systems that could incorporate full medical link-up, at best they probably recorded the heart rate of the staff, not all the extraneous information that the advanced vest could record.

By the time he had stopped fighting with his vest the drop ship had taken off, the rear loading ramp had closed and the briefing had begun, the voice of one of the mission controllers back at the airfield they had just left sounding through their ear-pieces.

“This is an urgent call; I say again, this is an urgent call. We have an orbital burn failure, followed by deep incursion. No combat is expected, I say again, no combat is expected. Mission objective is to locate landing zone of incoming craft, then contain area and provide search and rescue crews for any crew members in the craft. Full biohazard requirements, though no evidence of biohazard infection, this is a purely a safety procedure.�

The announcement about the biohazard requirements was met with a chorus of jeers; no one liked wearing the full face masks, sealing themselves to the limited air supplies stored on the back of their suits. The rest of the briefing was fairly standard, the organisation of the three different squads, each spread across their own drop ship. Johnathan filtered most of it out, listening to his place in the plan; point man, first into the craft; and the extra little details, radio channels and so on, before checking the seal on his face mask.

It didn’t take long for them to get to the crash site; within an hour they were hovering over the largest part of the wreckage he looked down, trying to piece the remains together into a single craft. The largest piece of wreckage was floating with less than a meter between the water and the top of its super-structure, with the occasional wave breaking across the top of the dull white dome, eddying around an open hatch. Johnathan frowned, he had never been a spacer himself, but he knew from the VR training they had all gone through as the training for the job that normally any survivors of the crash would wait in survival pods until they were rescued, not try to get out of the craft on their own.

The dropship floated down, hovering barely ten meters above the water before they deployed the rope. Johnathan slid down, covered by the guns of the other two dropships. He had to crouch to avoid falling with the unsteady movement due to the waves, awkwardly staggering forwards until he was next to the hatch. Black scorch marks surrounded the hatchway, where the explosive bolts had blown the hatch out, probably somewhere near the bottom of the ocean by now. He risked a glance into the hatchway, looking around. Even with the damage caused by the explosive bolts it appeared in relatively good condition, an anti-septic white colour, with a single multi-purpose display flicking through its preset screens mounted on one wall. There was a pool of water in the bottom of the airlock, sloshing from side to side with the movement of the wreckage, but nothing else out of the ordinary.

“I am entering the craft now; entry hatch has been blown, but appears to be due to explosive bolts.�

“Acknowledged, continue with the mission.� The cool tone of a commander placed miles from the unfolding situation did nothing to calm his ever increasing level of tension.

He reached down and grasped one of the handles mounted on the inner airlock door, moving his feet through the water so that he had a firm footing before heaving the door open, the water draining into the interior of the ship. He ducked down, activating the torch on his rifle and using it to sweep the inside of the ship. The inside of the ship was meant to be the same clinical white as the air-lock; instead it was streaked with dark red marks, darker impact craters and on one wall a line of three deep scratches.

“Command, there is something very wrong down here. I can see structural damage that doesn’t appear to be due to the landing. Request permission to extract.�

“Denied, continue with the mission.� The reply was almost instantaneous, prompting another scowl.

A bigger wave hit the side of the wreckage, jolting the inner airlock door. The movement caught his attention, making him automatically reach to try and catch it, leaving him leaning across the open hatch, desperately reaching for the door. When the ship dropped over the crest of the wave it rocked enough that he lost his balance, falling towards the open hatch. He tried to grasp something with his free hand as he fell, but only succeeded in spinning his body enough that his head clipped the hatchway as he fell through it.

“Fuuuuuuuuu...� He began to say as he fell, before being silenced as he hit the ground, his rifle adding another blow to the side of his head on its sling and his shoulder protesting at its rough treatment.

As he looked up towards the hatch he realised he had landed softer than he would have expected, he tried to look around, before realising the torch on his rifle had died. Cursing he fished a small handheld light out of his vest before looking around again. This time he saw exactly what he had landed in; disbelief and nausea swept through him, swallowing hard against the urge to vomit he reported his new finding to control.

Protectorate Internal Security Service Office – London Office
Earth
0238 Local Time

William Morgan stretched as he got out of the taxi that he had been forced to hire to get to the office at such short notice. His car was somewhere out of the city with Sarah, she had gone to some late night office party and hadn’t been at home when he had been woken by the vid-call from the office. He had a can of amphetamine cola, trying to wake himself up enough to actually be of some use in the situation. Despite the drink he was still tired, yawning even as he tried to maintain some semblance of coherent thought. Another taxi pulled up in front of him and out stepped Martha, she too was holding a can of amphetamine cola, her face pale with lack of sleep, but even so he felt a faint stab of jealousy for her new boyfriend. He and Martha had spent a while flirting with each other, but he had been given a six month assignment one of the Lagrange stations and when he had got back she had a partner.

She looked up and caught sight of him, smiled and raised the can in welcome.
“They called you in to then Will?� She asked, walking over to join him at the entrance to the office.

“Yeah, it had better be something important for him to wake us at this time of the morning.�

It took nearly five minutes for the two to get through the security measures and make their way to the operations room. They made their way into the room; already a number of the staff were there, setting up displays, talking quietly among themselves or just trying to wake themselves up, some with coffees, others with amphetamine colas and a couple popping stim-tabs.

There was a sudden swirling in the air at one end of the room, what appeared to be a face made up of cloud coalesced, looking down on the staff in the office below it. The sudden appearance of what appeared to be a sentient cloud didn’t alarm anyone, the overall commander of the London office was an AI that went by the name Tempest and regularly appeared as a storm cloud, floating above the operations room, seeming to watch over everyone’s shoulders as they worked.

“I am sorry to summon you all at this time of the morning, but we have something that requires our urgent attention. At twenty-two twenty-five local time the cargo freighter Ephraim Hart suffered a catastrophic navigation failure and crashed in the Atlantic. As per standing operational procedures contractors from the Black Raven Corporation approached the vessel, when they made contact they discovered that the crew on the vessel were dead and that it appeared somebody or something had left the ship between the landing and them arriving on scene.�

On one of the office walls a map appeared, showing the position of the crash, the route that the mercenaries had taken to the crash site and then a further series of red crosses, leading from a town on the south-west coast of England towards London itself.

“Since the landing a series of events have raised our attention. Three bodies were discovered in the town of Barnstaple, all three of the bodies were found around the waterfront, in areas that are covered by surveillance systems. For some reason the systems have failed to record any image of the assailant, one of the victims was a night guard at one of the docks, he managed to draw and fire an electrolaser, a civilian issue one. Normally this would automatically trigger a three minute recording, but in this case the recording system failed. We have three eye-witness reports from the area, but their details are patchy and inconsistent. They all claim to have seen something that resembled a large lizard, the exact details vary, but they all agree on a few points; namely, it is approximately two meters long, it has a series of blades growing from its back, moves primarily on all fours and has a tail approximately half the length of its body.�

Three separate pictures flashed up on one of the wall screens, broadly similar, each displayed an artist’s rendition of what the witnesses were describing.

“For some reason this creature appears to have some kind of control over our computer systems, we haven’t managed to get an image of any kind of this creature, the three bodies were unrecoverable, their mind-stores degraded beyond usefulness and the speed at which the creature is moving indicates some kind of transport link, possibly our own. Due to these problems with our computerised systems, we have been given a tasking by Security Central Command. All agents with active field experience are to be formed into hunt teams, a number of possible intercept points have been computed, each four person team will be deployed to a single point.�

A map of London appeared on all four of the walls, three specific points flashing in green.

“Each hunt team will be accompanied by a combat robot; you will all have access to police communications, though the local police departments have all been briefed to stay well back from any conflict. We will also have a rapid reaction team in the air, ready to move on any location within a couple of minutes, we just need you to hold the creature in the area before we can get some support in there for you.�

Besides each flashing green deployment point four small pictures appeared, each picture from taken from identity badges, indicating which agents would be going to which points, with a pair of gunships to one side of the map, each listing the twenty agents that would be deployed in each vessel.

“If there are any questions please ask using the standard computer system, if not, please collect your equipment from the armoury and move to your positions.�

William was assigned to one of the gunships, he was with a pair of undercover agents he had worked with before, three Internal Affairs officers he recognised, a four man detachment from the office security team and twelve people that he knew worked in the office but wasn’t sure of any other details about.

He quickly hunted through the photos and saw that Martha was deployed on the other drop ship; at least he wouldn’t have to try and force small talk while they waited for something that might well not happen. He looked around and spotted one of the security officers, Craig Evans, who he was deployed with. Craig was an Ajax Class bio-roid, a reinforced skeleton; a hormone boosted musculature, enhanced neural system and sharpened reflexes, combined to make him a genetically designed soldier, but one that appeared, superficially at least, to be human. Even with the negative press that some of the Ajax class had received after one was involved in a high profile crime spree William always felt better when Craig was around, his intimidating size and appearance being offset by his more gentle personality. The two of them began to head towards the armoury, the first step in them preparing for the upcoming mission.

It wasn’t long before they were skimming over the city, the twenty agents standing in the back of the gun ship and the two crew safely ensconced in their crash-webbed seats in the cockpit, communicating with the troop compartment through a pair of mounted speakers. The compartment was relatively relaxed, some murmured conversations, a couple of people leaning against the back wall were looking at a small foldable computer screen and one of the security officers appeared to be sleeping in the corner of the hold.

This all changed when a panicked voice came over the radio, piped through the mounted speakers. It was heavily distorted, random overlays of static obscuring the voice, but even through the interference the panic and terror was evident.

“Engaged! I say again ...... target appears to have some ...... equipment failing ...... projectiles.�

A sudden extra loud burst of static made him wince, when the signal came back there were no coherent words, screams and a gulping sobs. The pilot flicked a switch and routed his voice back into the troop compartment.

“We have a location, our ETA is less than two minutes at full speed, prepare for full combat drop.�

Another couple of controls and the gunships weapon pods flicked open, a pair of chin mounted railguns, wing mounted missile launchers slid into firing positions and a pair of hatch mounted gauss miniguns deployed, automated gunnery systems taking control of each weapon system. Whatever had managed to land on the planet was going to be welcomed with an awful lot of firepower if it appeared to present any threat to the Protectorate agents heading out to meet it.

The gunship hovered to a stop at the largest of the capitals transport terminals, a number of magnetic levitation tracks led into it, a number of landing pads for airborne transport and even a runway for any older aircraft wishing to land at the terminal. Although it had been evacuated when Tempest had predicted that the mysterious visitor would be likely to pass through it the lights and automated systems had been left active, mass transports floating through the system, drones carrying out their pre-programmed instructions and the occasional un-manned cargo transport silently pulling up, ready to be unloaded by the tireless efforts of the drones. The twenty man team dismounted and began to make their way into the facility, even as the gun ship took flight again, its weapons swinging to cover the facility as it took a covering position, ready to provide support if necessary.

The scene inside was faintly surreal, bearing more similarities to a tri-d horror than reality. Blood splatters and weapon damage covered the 1st floor arrival zone and there were even some shell casings near one of the pools. A pair of the station cleaning ‘bots were slowly making a dent in the mess, but even so there was ample evidence of the slaughter that had taken place within the last few minutes.

The first sighting of the creature was as it attempted to leave the southern entrance of the transit station, unluckily for the creature it attempted to leave just as the second gun ship was arriving. The right hand minigun began to fire, ice beginning to form along the outside of its cooling sleeve even as it began to spit the 4mm darts out, the first burst lasting less than a second and firing over a hundred shots. Even as the gun fired a slight thermal updraft through the targeting off, most of the needles passing too high, but three punched through the bony plates running along the creatures spine. While this didn’t do any significant damage it did alert the creature to the impending attack, making it duck backwards into the building. The gun ship dropped towards the ground, swinging to bring its railguns into play, the two 40mm railguns beginning to pump high explosive rounds at near supersonic velocities into the front of the station. The rounds detonated with muffled explosions, each blast cratering the wall and flinging bits of ceramic wall out into the street around the entrance. The twenty man team deployed into an extended line and began to advance, aiming to push the creature back towards the first hunt team to be deployed.

The sound of the explosions reached William and the team he was with, spurring them onwards. They moved forwards, weapons raised; hunting for their target among the waiting rooms, inspection offices, administration departments and cargo handling areas that made up the massive terminal. It was a surreal experience William thought, even as he moved forwards; normally thousands, if not millions of people would pass through here every day, but here they were, stalking through an entirely abandoned facility, the only signs of life the blood and damage to the walls. After the short burst of firing from the other side of the building there had been no more sighting of the creature, instead it had settled into a standard hunt scenario; clearing a room, closing and locking the entrances and moving onto the next one.

The next engagement lasted for less than three seconds, as two men entered one of the stations security offices. The first one in was holding a close assault weapon, in effect a fully automatic gauss shotgun, able to empty its twenty round magazine in two seconds of firing. He died before he could fire a shot. The creature had been attempting to hide from the hunters in the room, when he entered the room it swung its clawed hand towards him. The combat equipment he was wearing was designed for policing actions, where large scale combat wasn’t expected, it could have protected against firearms, fragments from grenades or other explosives, even taken some physical force out of attacks, but the clawed hand hit his head, slamming it into the ceramic wall behind him. The helmet itself distorted under the shock, with its occupant’s skull taking enough force to shatter, killing him before he realised what happened.

The man standing behind him saw the claw come from behind one of the walls and began to fire. He was holding a standard 4mm Gauss rifle, capable of firing darts out at slightly under 5’000 feet per second. He squeezed the trigger, aiming at the wall to the side of the door where he thought the creature was likely to be. On any normal wall the darts would have easily punched through, shredding anything the other side of the door as it suffered multiple hits; but this was one of the security offices, instead of being a single wall it was layered, designed to dissipate the force of any attack, whether energy based or kinetic. So instead of the darts penetrating the wall and hitting the creature they were stopped by the wall. This wasn’t to say they did no damage, the walls were an old design and the sheer amount of energy that the new rifle designs could bring to bear managed to fracture the inner wall, before spalling effects filled the security office with ceramic slivers. These slivers didn’t do enough damage to actually kill the creature, but covered it in superficial injuries, dripping blood from a couple of the heavier injuries, one still with a 2 centimetre sliver of wall sticking out of its leg. It still managed to escape from the shocked survivor, smashing through the door and flinging him down the corridor before turning tail and running for an exit.

The blood trail was enough though; the survivor from the attack was quickly joined by William and the rest of the team. They followed the trail into one of the cargo handling areas, a large warehouse, filled with sealed containers. It didn’t take long for them to close down the entrances, sealing them in place with dabs of contact adhesive, enough that it would be loud and obvious if anyone tried to get through.

As soon as they were locked in they began to search, splitting into three teams, each team with at least one close assault weapon and one of the light machine guns. William and Craig found themselves on the same team, hunting through one of the storage areas for containers holding what appeared to be some kind of clothing. Craig was the first to see it, his enhanced reactions swinging his weapon to bear and beginning to fire even as the creature attempted to dodge behind one of the metal containers. His burst blew a hole through the container, filling the air with brightly coloured shreds of clothing. One of the newer agents, probably the first time in a truly dangerous situation, began to fire too, swinging his rifle across the container the creature had dived behind. The noise of the impacts covered the sound of the creature accelerating, before diving around the corner of one container and across the open space separating two of the stacks and back into cover. The tail end of the patrol was doing his job though, even as the creature dived into view he squeezed the trigger of his light machine gun, trying to swing it fast enough to bring it to bear. He didn’t manage to get it squarely on target, but two of the needles he fired hit the creature’s tail, the kinetic energy almost tearing the appendage off the creature’s body. It screeched, a weird noise, seeming to resonate within the bones of the men present, enough to put them on edge.

The firing from the back of the group was enough to distract the in-experienced agent, who turned away from the area he was meant to be watching in order to see what was happening. As silence descended on the group again they could hear the faint sounds of claws on metal, as one they looked at the three high stack of containers the creature had hidden behind, somewhere behind that stack the creature was doing something, though they weren’t going to wait to find out. They began to file towards one end of the box before another hissing scream broke the air, followed by louder sounds of claw on metal.

Craig was the first around the corner, pausing in surprise at the scene before him. The creature’s tail lay on the floor, next to a strip of metal that had been torn from the back of the container before being used for the crude surgery. A pool of blood was spreading from the tail and there were smears of blood leading up the side of the container, he quickly looked up and saw the creature disappearing over the top of the stack, heading away from them again. He suddenly changed direction, his enhancements coming into stark regard when compared to the reactions of the un-enhanced humans surrounding him. They were moving as if trapped in amber, while he dodged through them, heading back towards the original side of the container. He had made his way through the group before the first one started to follow him. He grinned inside his helmet, it was moments like this that made him feel so good, deep down he knew it was because it was programmed into him on a genetic level to enjoy the thrill of combat, but on the surface he didn’t care, he never felt so excited with anything bar combat.

He reached the front of the container in time to see the creature begin to slide towards the ground. Easily enough time to raise his rifle and begin to fire, he aimed at a point on the second container, in line with the direction the creature was travelling, then, holding his finger on the trigger, he began to raise his rifle, walking the line of darts up towards the creature. There was barely enough time for the creature begin to screech before the darts walked up and through its body, blood spraying from the holes the small darts punched through the armoured skin of the lizard. The controlled descent became a free fall, followed by a sickly crunch as the creature hit the floor, folding into a pose no human could ever hope to copy.

William managed to round the corner in time to see the end of the hunt. Craig approached the downed creature, weapon raised, eyes scanning for any signs of life. There was a sudden twitch from one of the creatures legs, already covered in blood, but there was no hesitation by Craig, he fired another burst straight into the leg, blood, muscle and what appeared to be bone spraying out across the floor before he turned his aim to the creatures head. Instead of firing a burst he switched to single shot, punching two needles straight through the brain and into the warehouse floor. The creature slumped even further, the little remaining tension easing out of its muscles. It was dead, but it raised more questions than it answered, it was something that had never been seen before, something that appeared intimately familiar with Humans, but made no attempt to communicate with them. All in all, it raised more questions than it solved and certainly didn’t do anything from inter-species relationships, even with the aliens that obviously weren’t related to the lizard creature.

OOC:
Well, there we go, not amazingly happy with the end but I couldn’t really think of a better way to finish.
Incidentally what is happening if the board shuts down? Do our efforts get redirected somewhere else?
Diggledom
The Mindset's Bitch
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:01 pm
Prefix: The Empire of
Name: Diggledom

Re: Application

Post by Diggledom »

Sorry I took a couple of liberties with the exact details of the story, I hope it is close enough to count, I can always redo it if it isn't I just couldn' think of any way to link my mental view of the Protectorate with the story.
Otagia
ESUS Testicle Monster
Posts: 1794
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:41 pm

Re: Application

Post by Otagia »

The boards will be rehosted on another site, and probably a slightly different domain (I'm looking at .com rather than .co.uk, myself), likely by either myself or Balrogga. I've got a backup of the forums sitting in my inbox from a couple of days ago, and am copying your last post to a text file as we speak anyhow. So rest assured that you won't lose anything.

Of course, I make no promises about activity levels on the forums, both now and after the transition, however it works out. ;)
Stercus stercus stercus Moriturus Sum
Diggledom
The Mindset's Bitch
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 1:01 pm
Prefix: The Empire of
Name: Diggledom

Re: Application

Post by Diggledom »

Okay, I just wondered. If you want to give me the last assignment then I can start writing and will post it on the new board? Just email me a link to it when it is up?
Otagia
ESUS Testicle Monster
Posts: 1794
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2005 10:41 pm

Re: Application

Post by Otagia »

Sorry about that, little bit busy lately with hosting and RL issues. Having a parent in hospice sucks. Test will be up shortly.
Stercus stercus stercus Moriturus Sum
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