The Geometer's Foment

[Bygonehero]

((Still finishing muh other story but I'm wanting to finish a bit more before posting. In the meantime, here's a speed write of the beginning of my interpretation of how The Cult of Narsie came to be!))

((67 minutes))

Chapter 1- Message in a Bottle

 

2450:10:6//18:00//Alliance Deep Space Observation Post-Gamma, Charon,Sea of Acheron

Thompson watched over the recording of his wife with dull anger and disbelief. Alone in a dark room at the edge of the solar system, a man has nothing but his thoughts, and every one of them within the mind of DSO Communications Officer Albert Thompson screamed in disbelief. He had suspected, but even the expectation did not prepare him of seeing his wife with another man, his wife of 10 years no less. He had hired a PI a few months before he was shipped out into the black. His service to the Alliance kept him away like that, but Thompson was always comforting to her when he came home. He always loved her, and the distance that he traveled only made the meeting that much sweeter when he did arrive home again. Thompson replayed the video. He had done so already twenty-four times, but with each replay, new understandings would dawn upon him. The disheveled room of grey metal he inhabited was premiered by four walls, rising to a point at the ceiling. The ceiling itself is a mixture of glass and plasteel, allowing viewers to gaze into the big empty of space, while also stopping a direct hit from a tungsten rod traveling sub-relativistic speeds. The tech in the room was ancient by modern standards, no BSODAR, no QET network. Everything was bigger than it needed to be, and sturdier than it was now. Standing out amongst these relics was the computer that played the video that drew Thompson's disgust. It was the latest and top of the line, this computer did have QET network service. It had been costly, but Thompson maintained the service in the event he was contacted by what few family and friends he had. It was never used, at least, not until today. The radio observatory room itself looks particularly lived in. Crumpled foodstuffs are piled in one corner of the room, some having missed the waste basket. Cartoonish Getmore brand characters ornamented them, with several cans of freeze dried ramen possessing a holographic panda bear that danced depending on which direction you viewed the can from. Omnipresent was a thin film of dust that most thickly coated the unused screens that servicemen twenty years Thompson's senior probably used. The post that Thompson occupied was one where promising careers go to die after all. Stationed as he was, he had nearly three months left before his tour was over. Beyond the resupply shuttles that arrive every two weeks or so, Thompson was alone. He turned off the video and straightened his uniform. The last image burnt into the acrylic monitor before it shut off was his wife, smiling. Thompson returned to his work. He wanted to lose himself in the tedium of his job, to forget. There is comfort within the ignorance of the unknown, but as Thompson is soon to discover, there are also horrors beyond imagining.

For hours Thompson reviewed the sensor data fed to his station from the VERITAS. He mulled over spectrographs and the metallicity of stars but his mind always returned to the video. He physically went through the motions of cataloging this sector of space but mentally, he was elsewhere. He did not even stop writing when the declination numbers in his consoles ever so slowly began to tick upward, changing his squared parsec of space entirely. The analog readout finally halted at Spinward March of 9003, Xeron. He knew that it should be impossible for the settings to change themselves, but knowing this didn't seem important, nor did it seem even noteworthy. Indeed, he only stopped writing about the systems information when a loud klaxon rang from the early warning monitor. The noise broke Thompson from his stupor and he looked to see the source of the alarm. Spectrographic analysis of the system had apparently found an extremely low metallicity of the star, impossibly low even. No theory of stellar formation that Thompson knew could account for the discrepancy,none but one. The systems metallicy would appear low if it held or was being mined by sentient lifeforms! Quickly Thompson rushed to find a map of that sector of space, in his haste he knocked over the catalog sheet he had been writing for the Xeron system. Picking up the paper, Thompson found that the sheet had been covered back to front with alien scrawl and try as he might, Thompson could not remember writing it. Throwing the paper away and swiping the trash accrued from the table before him he pulled out a map of the galaxy and smoothed it flat. Carefully, with protractor in hand and the readout from his consoles, Thompson plotted the system's location in the galaxy, and to his delight, he found it was well beyond any known territory of any species. Rushing to Opscom, he tripped over a soda can and crashed to the floor. As he hit the ground, the lights in the room blew, bathing the entire room in darkness, flecked only by the dull red glow of the rooms instruments. Rubbing the back of his head, and feeling rather foolish, he slowly rose. As he did so, his computer turned on, showering the darkened room in soft white-blue light.

Thompson stopped and looked to the screen, the same frozen image of his wife greeted his gaze, but only for a moment. The screen erupted into static, then began to play again. As he watched in dull horror, the video progressed just as it had the last twenty-five times he had seen it, but instead of ending where it did the last twenty-five times, it progressed further. He could see the camera shift position, as if the flimer was moving closer to the ones being filmed. The view shifted from looking into his house to his front door, and he could see the hand of a figure off camera knock lightly on the vintage oaken paneling. As if on cue, his wife answered seconds later. Her floral print dress hugging her body closely. From his view, Thompson could see that she wore nothing underneath. His wife greeted the filmer and welcomed them into his house, pulling them along with her well manicured fingers. She led them to his living room, where her lover lounged expectantly. From the other end of the living room was a mirror, giving Thompson a view of the PI he had hired. Thompson screamed and threw a broken hard drive at the computer just as they all began to disrobe. It crashed against the fragile screen and broke it easily, but the sound, the sound continued. Scrambling to his feet, Thompson threw the computer against the wall as the sound illustrated everything happening without video. He stomped and smashed it with his feet until he was finally graced with silence.

"Stupid bitch. Stupid bitch! That slut. That WHORE! I'll kill them. I'll kill everyone one of them!" he yelled, alone in the darkness of the room. He fumbled for a flashlight in a unused emergency locker. He did not find a flashlight, but he did find a flare. He ignited the torch, bathing the room in blood red light. Shadows crawled into the corners of the room, as Thompson took inventory as to what had happened. Thompson swore more obscenities and threats of murder, but composed himself to call Ops. He picked up the receiver and punched in his area code into the dusty machine. The receiver clicked twice before trying to connect him, then it was interrupted by loud static. Thompson dropped the receiver immediately, and no sooner had he done so did the static cease. It was replaced by his wife's voice.

"Hes here, you found him. My love, my one true love!" the voice from the phone said with demonic glee. "He's always here, he never leaves me. He is more of a man than you will ever be."the voice from the phone giggled. "Why don't you die, Just die alone, die here. No one will miss you." the voice that was and was not his wife said before erupting into laughter. Thompson yelled at the top of his lungs and punched into the commlink as hard as he could. Plastic splinters and electronics, intermingled with blood coated the ground. A wet stabbing pain erupted from his hand, but Thompson ignored it. The rage had taken him now, he pummeled the commlink device, if only the stop it's laughter. Eventually, it did stop, and Thompson looked at his enmeshed fingers dumbly, a tangle of bone and sinew. His breathing slowed and the pain grew increasingly more severe in his hand. Battling a feeling of lightheadedness, he snapped back to attention when he saw movement along the ground. The cans, the cans were moving in his blood on the floor. They rolled in ways that they shouldn't of their own power. He could see them begin to shape the small flecks into glyphs much like what he had seen upon the paper he did not remember writing. He was terrified now, but the wet sliding sound of the ramen cans moving across his own blood, the tink of their movement made him all the more afraid. He picked one up in his broken hand, having trouble moving his forefinger and pinky, but managing all the same. The empty can was smeared with his blood, and he could see the smiling panda bear dance as he turned the can in his palms. He could see it get down onto all fours, and began to devour another person, Never once did it's too big eyes ever waver from complete and total happiness, even as it slept in the dismembered remains of the human it had eaten. Thompson screamed and dropped the can. He bolted to the door and tried to yank it open. He would leave this place. Thompson would not stay here, she was here. HE was here but the door was stuck and try as he might, he could not get it open. Thompson struggled against the door for a few more minutes before collapsing against it, slumping down against the wall as the dying blood-light of the flare flickered dancing shadows from every corner. For the first time in a long time, Thompson wept. He continued to do so up until the light from his flare died, but only for a few minutes.

2450:10:20//11:00//Alliance Deep Space Observation Post-Gamma, Charon,Sea of Acheron

The smell is what gave it away. Even before supply officer Lauren Elmwood had opened the control room, she could smell the stench of death from the room. She would tell the MP's exactly this, as she fled from what she saw. In the room beyond, a body hung limply, its eyes torn from their sockets. Its grinning, toothless face staring at the entryway. A klaxon blared, but most disturbing of all however was the room itself. From wall to ceiling, strange glyphs drawn in blood covered everything. She could not believe that much blood could come from one person. No sooner had she reported it, did MP's swarm the place. She was taken in for questioning, but nothing more was ever gleaned from her report. Later, investigators would check the security cameras for exactly what had happened. Within the videos they saw a completely normal serviceman slowly descend into madness after watching a video on a unauthorized device he had taken in. Before this incident, no one was very strict about what exactly you were allowed to take with you. Despite the damage to the computer, they were able to recover its data, setting a cause for an otherwise sane man's descent into madness. The video depicted his wife having an extramarital affair with someone. The security cameras revealed nothing else, but did document the lights busting, to which the video was black for several minutes before servicemen Thompson alighted a flare in the room. From there, he began to self mutilate and draw these designs before finally hanging himself. Most interestingly however, was the discovery servicemen Thompson had made prior to his suicide. The report notes a keen interest by all parties to investigate the Xenon system, and urges Alliance officials to do so in remembrance of this unfortunate serviceman.

 

(76 minutes)

Chapter 2- Underneath the Veil

 

2450:12:2//7:00//SAMV-Chirac,First Contact Expeditionary Force-Tango,Xenon 314,532 AU from Skrell Space

Weil'Heuktyal-Quabae-Tup had only spent six hours with these humans, yet in those hours since they had disembarked the FSS-Yeol she found it impossible to get any sleep. She turned in her humble bunk and tried again to ignore the blaring human music that flooded from the ship's intercoms.'Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Rock!" squawked the intercom, indigent to her attempts at slumber. Weil covered her head with a pillow and looked out of the small porthole in the ship's bulkhead. In this corridor of bluespace the stars had their lights blue-shifted into impossible colors. As the ship sped past them however, they redshifted into dull hues before disappearing entirely. She noted in passing how some of the stars seemed to be red-shifting too quickly. Either the humans had faster bluespace drives than she was led to believe or-

"What A Bright Time it's the Right Time! To Rock the Night Away!"

"Enough is enough. It's time to talk to the captain." Weil thought to herself as she bolted up and threw her ineffectual audio defence across the room, barely missing Grekul. She had never had the patience for humans in the best of times, and these were far from the best of conditions, yet her protoge slept soundly despite the music. She re-examined their small unadorned cabin, its stark metal interior befitting of a standard Sol Alliance vessel, at least from the pictures that Weil had seen. Composing herself, she noted that the exterior hatch of their cabin was bulky and clearly designed to withstand small arms fire. She supposed it had an electronic locking/unlocking system and opened with pneumatic action.Weil moved forward and it opened with a hissing click, confirming her theory. Outside of their room, the noise was even worse, and Weil wondered if humans even considered them before they decided to torture everyone with horrible music. Incandescent lights filtered in from enmeshed grates from the ceiling and floor, illuminating the thin hallway. As Weil moved onward into the common room she heard between each grating chorus of the song voices in heated discussion coming from ahead. The common room itself was large and circular, with each of its four connecting hallways clearly marked for their purpose. Dominating the southmost wall was a large machine. Bowls, forks and spoons lay in a bin atop it, so Weil assumed it was for food or whatever resembled food that humans served. In the rooms center a Unathi male sat with three other humans at a large circular table. The Unathi himself sported a sizable scar along his left eye, marring his dull black facial scales. A look of confusion plastered his face as a human shook a small ornamented fig tree that sat atop the table before realizing that Weil had entered the room. Each of the humans erupted with laughter just as the music ended and beckoned Weil to sit. She declined and looked over those assembled. "I would like to speak to the captain about this...music." Weil asked as calmly as she could.

The human, Specialist Greg Astor according to his name tag, responded. "Yea yea, the captain just needed you all awake so hold your horses." his face contorted as if in deep thought for a moment before snapping back, "Oh yea! You arrived...What about....six hours ago? Betcha you're hungry." Astor snapped his fingers and out from one of the adjoining hallways came a sleek metallic humanoid. It stood roughly 6 feet tall and its center mass was a barrage of lights and readouts. Its metal head was featureless save for a two eye-like camera lenses. Its entire body was polished to an almost-mirror shine. Disgust immediately flooded over Weil, not only was there a synthetic before her, but it was polished and neatened up as if to impress the as of yet unknown aliens they were going to hopefully meet.

Its cameras shuttered and clicked focusing upon Weil "Greeting Weil'Heuktyal-Quabae. I am unit ZEPHYR, a diplomatic unit designed to assist members of the expedition. Would you lik-"

"No." stated Weil curtly, interrupting its robotic droning. Weil glanced back at Astor, a smirk over his face. Deciding to ignore the obvious insult, Weil continued." No, we have brought our own food and can sustain ourselves for the expedition but please, continue what you were saying, Specialist Astor" the Unathi grunted as Weil sat a the table, opposite from the three humans." Huh, well I'm hungry, hey robot, get me some breakfast." Astor said somewhat defensively before being punched in the shoulder by the human to his right. "Quit being an ass ASStor, jeez it's a diplomatic mission." The human female stated, her short brown hair tied into a bun behind her. Her uniform, crisp and neat identified her as Specialist Alma Fors. Weil had barely sat in her chair when Fors offered her their hand.

"Hey, sorry about that, I'm Tech Specialist Fors, the humble and welcoming gent Is Xenopalogenotlist Astor, you can call him Asshole, I wouldn't blame you." she laughed a little and continued, motioning to the human to her right, who appeared to be trying to make themselves as small as possible. "And this is our resident egghead Mayumi Ametsuchi, we call her Meka. And our Unathi friends name is- "

"Do not sspeak for me woman." The unathi interrupted before continuing."I am Gaulisis Izweski. I do not believe in wasting words with pleasantries."a low hiss escaped Gaulisis's throat, causing Meka to wince and dropping her glasses from her face. Gaulisis stared at Meka like a bull might stare at a red flag. Grumbling, he continued."I am here to represent Izweski to these claimed alienss, sso anything I am involved in will be towards this purpose." Weil noted that Gaulisis had very little issues in speaking Sol Common, highlighting how much interest the Izweski Hegemon took to interstellar politics. Gaulisis appeared to be continuing his posturing, but no sooner had he began again did several other humans enter the room. Three males and one female to be exact. Weil had met the oldest of them when they boarded. He was a tall, gaunt man with pepper and salt hair. His skin seemed to cling to his bones, giving him a ghastly visage. His uniform, with its brass buttons and shiny epaulets seemed almost too big on him. If Weil was alone, she might have laughed at the sight. Though she was not alone, and Weil conceded that he was the most well mannered human she had ever met. Although captain Matthus still left much to be desired when compared to a skrell. The Pilot, one Lilly Carmichael, Weil had heard almost nothing about. None of the preliminary reports included her, and what little could be hacked from her service record showed only report after report of disorderly conduct. The other two male humans were career military. Tpr Alderson and Tpr Vickers. As with everyone else on the ship, Weil had studied their records . Between both of them they held several distinguished service medals, and several commendations for valor in duty.

The murmuring at the table died down as the arrivees took their seats, with the captain remaining standing. He pulled out a small remote and pressed one of its several buttons. The room immediately dimmed, and a blue light emanated from the center of the table. An electrical hum registered before a hologram manifested, floating above the table. It depicted the ship and the region of space they were in. The hologram panned towards their destination before zooming in, revealing that the system they were traveling to was close or at the center of a nebula.

"This is the Veil Nebula, Also known as the Cygnus Loop, Witch Head Nebula, or by the skrell Ythoealequk-Uebea, meaning Dark Water Nebula, if I am not mistaken." Matthus chuckled a bit before continuing,"Discovered in 2007 by humans, up until two months ago it had been an uninteresting sector of space, even with mining interests, the average system in this sector of space held little metal...ho--"

Weil had lost interest at this point, yet she was still listening. As a general rule of thumb more information was never a bad thing, it just did not demand her full attention. Humans were cursed with low attention spans Weil found, and could only process a few things at once. To Weil, humans rarely understood the gravity of their situation, the weight of the history in front of and behind them until they troddened it underfoot, or were swept up in its currents. Her mind went back to the orders she had received six hours, thirty-seven minutes prior, about a colony of skrell that fled here oh so many years ago during the height of the Glorsh rebellion. According to surviving family records, three hundred and eighty six skrell had fled to his low metallicity system figuring that since it held so little metal it would be passed over by Glorsh-Omega. The ionized particles and gases of the nebula also prohibited all but the most powerful and directed long range scans, it was, in short, the perfect hiding place. "We need you to find out if any of them are still alive, but that is not your primary objective." Weil intoned in her mind." If you do find a colony as the Sol Alliance's information suggests there might be, we need you to collect DNA samples of the Skrell population. You will be provided with a device that can detect the presence of the Genophage, it is our hope that you can find a sample without it. The sample would be instrumental in reverse engineering the Genophage you understand?" Weil exited the memory reflecting that the Skrell understood the burden of history, it was one of the most painful lessons that her species had ever or would ever learn.

The meeting ended soon after, Matthus had provided no information that Weil had not already known, but the meeting was at least somewhat productive, the music stopped. Some of those assembled remained in the ship's common room, but Weil was not amongst them. She returned to her cabin to see Grekul still sleeping soundly. Gazing across his sleeping body, Weil hoped that the younger generation did not forget the lessons of yore. She picked up her pillow and returned to her cot. Staring out the porthole she could see ionized gases whizz by them. They were close, they were inside the Nebula. Figuring she only had at best a few hours before arrival, Weil shut her eyes, drifting to sleep with the dull hope of a better future.

It was sunny, that was for sure, so Weil'Heuktyal did not blame the children for ignoring Borquk, who had just started passing out the electronics test. She eyed the robot, as it went from table to table, and noticed its infinite patience in trying to get the attention of the younglings as they stared out from vine covered windows into the dappled sunlight that kissed Wleshi, the garden city. It stood about six feet tall with a vaguely skrellian face. Borquk was designed to assist Weil in the classroom, but also to expose children to AI at an early age after all. Eventually the class was brought to task though, as they had a test to do! Weil took position in front of the class, while Borquk took position behind. Each child was at work on their tablets and under the watchful eyes and cameras of their duo, no cheating would escape them. The classroom was decorated in intricate drawings and sculptures as well as the class Ubekual, Jub-Jub who swam in its tank, curiously watching the class.

Several minutes passed, and the first few of the children finished their tests, to which Borquk promptly collected. Weil thought that maybe afterword she would allow early dismissal, there were very few cloudless, sunny days after all. Her thoughts were interrupted by a tremendous boom that shook the building and blew out the windows. Glass rained into the classroom and knocked her off of her feet. Weil scrambled, struggling to hear from the pressure wave, but as her hearing returned she gathered herself. She could see that thankfully none of the children were severely hurt. A small trickle of water escaped from Jub-Jub's cracked tank, but for the most part the tank itself was undamaged by some small miracle. Borquk was tending to several children as Weil cautiously looked outside the destroyed window. In the distance she could see a column of smoke that trailed off miles into the sky, but worse still, she could see more objects illuminated from their sheer speed from atmospheric reentry. Immediately Weil figured it was an accident, and began to move towards the classrooms door the check the hall when Borquk dropped the child it was attending to and charged her with incredible speed. As it did so, its metal feet trampled over the arm of one of the children, causing it to shatter with a sickening wet crunch. The child to began to wail uncontrollably. Borquk's feet trailed dark blue blood as it lunged towards Weil, its metal fingers clasping at her neck. Weil collapsed from the attack, struggling as the heavier robot was atop of her. She began to lose consciousness as she stared into the fake smile of Borquk's face when one of the students stabbed the robot in the back of its neck with a glass shard. Sparks and oil flew from its broken connections as it released Weil and in one deft motion, swung its metal appendages wide. The impact threw the child across the room, and even from her near unconscious state, Weil knew that they were dead before they hit the floor. Panicking now, Weil successfully tripped the robot and scrambled to her feet. As it rose, unthinking she pushed it into the wall, towards Jub-Jub's tank. Borquk fell ontop of it and it exploded in a shower of glass and water. Some of the water appeared to have affected Borquk, as the robot began to spasm uncontrollably before bursting into flame and collapsing in a heap.

As if to herald her victory, two more thunderous booms echoed in the distance behind her. Weil could hear screaming now from other classrooms and eyed the children of her own. They were all crying and when checking herself, Weil found that she was too, though she did not remember when she started. Trying to compose herself, she jerked in fright when the adjoining classrooms door burst open. Children maddingly ran from it as within Weil could see the carnage that another robot was performing within. It's metallic shell covered in dark blue blood. Something broke in Weil then. She lost thought of the children in her classroom and ran. She ran just as panicked as the children did before her, and each turn of the hall brought new nightmares to view. Corpses and dying littered the halls, and she bounded across them unthinking or heeding their dying pleas for help. Dimly in the back of her mind she registered the small footfalls of her class, following her. She would not look back, not from the monsters that surely chased her, but she would not look back into the faces of the children. Blessedly, as she ran their footfalls grew ever fainter. By the time she was outside of the building, they had disappeared entirely. Yet the nightmare did not end. Outside the sky no longer was sunny, nor was it filled with the ash of the impact explosions. The sky was horribly cloudless and shown crimson as a dead red sun hung low. It coated the earth with a luster of blood light. The screams of the dying ceased and the shadows that clung to the corners birthed forth new horrors. Quasi-mechanical but bleeding all the same, their nebulous forms hugged smaller motes of red light within themselves, as if darkness itself were made soild.They came forth as the night unfurled before them, shadow and light intermixing into one. Each drug a corpse, and the blue blood from those corpses coated the ground in horrible angled geometries. In the center of this macabre ritual were arranged bodies of hundreds of skrell. The pile rose into the sky in worship of the sun, the eye. The apotheosis of all eyes, the eye who even the forces of the universe bowed in reverence to. Weil stared into it with awe and horror, and from the sight to which the eye beheld came a rumbling as if heralding the coming of a new age. The ground quaked with its coming, and more blood welled from the depths that were newly hewn. Demoniac bells chimed and horrible, unknown chanting began. The font of red that poured up into the sky covered Weil, as the red space folded into itself, collapsing into the eye. As the bleeding darkness claimed her, she surmised the final horror, the footfalls of children following her into oblivion.

Weil jolted from the nightmare with a start. Over the intercoms played yet another human song, this one had several chiming instruments, yet she paid this little mind as her head throbbed with pain. She had not had such a vivid nightmare in a long time. Rubbing her head she looked outside the ship's porthole and saw the stars still, and unmoving. They had stopped, they had arrived.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Guest

[Bygonehero]

Chapter 2- Underneath the Veil

 

2450:12:2//7:00//SAMV-Chirac,First Contact Expeditionary Force-Tango,Xenon 314,532 AU from Skrell Space

Weil'Heuktyal-Quabae-Tup had only spent six hours with these humans, yet in those hours since they had disembarked the FSS-Yeol she found it impossible to get any sleep. She turned in her humble bunk and tried again to ignore the blaring human music that flooded from the ship's intercoms.'Jingle Bell, Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Rock!" squawked the intercom, indigent to her attempts at slumber. Weil covered her head with a pillow and looked out of the small porthole in the ship's bulkhead. In this corridor of bluespace the stars had their lights blue-shifted into impossible colors. As the ship sped past them however, they redshifted into dull hues before disappearing entirely. She noted in passing how some of the stars seemed to be red-shifting too quickly. Either the humans had faster bluespace drives than she was led to believe or-

"What A Bright Time it's the Right Time! To Rock the Night Away!"

"Enough is enough. It's time to talk to the captain." Weil thought to herself as she bolted up and threw her ineffectual audio defence across the room, barely missing Grekul. She had never had the patience for humans in the best of times, and these were far from the best of conditions, yet her protoge slept soundly despite the music. She re-examined their small unadorned cabin, its stark metal interior befitting of a standard Sol Alliance vessel, at least from the pictures that Weil had seen. Composing herself, she noted that the exterior hatch of their cabin was bulky and clearly designed to withstand small arms fire. She supposed it had an electronic locking/unlocking system and opened with pneumatic action.Weil moved forward and it opened with a hissing click, confirming her theory. Outside of their room, the noise was even worse, and Weil wondered if humans even considered them before they decided to torture everyone with horrible music. Incandescent lights filtered in from enmeshed grates from the ceiling and floor, illuminating the thin hallway. As Weil moved onward into the common room she heard between each grating chorus of the song voices in heated discussion coming from ahead. The common room itself was large and circular, with each of its four connecting hallways clearly marked for their purpose. Dominating the southmost wall was a large machine. Bowls, forks and spoons lay in a bin atop it, so Weil assumed it was for food or whatever resembled food that humans served. In the rooms center a Unathi male sat with three other humans at a large circular table. The Unathi himself sported a sizable scar along his left eye, marring his dull black facial scales. A look of confusion plastered his face as a human shook a small ornamented fig tree that sat atop the table before realizing that Weil had entered the room. Each of the humans erupted with laughter just as the music ended and beckoned Weil to sit. She declined and looked over those assembled. "I would like to speak to the captain about this...music." Weil asked as calmly as she could.

The human, Specialist Greg Astor according to his name tag, responded. "Yea yea, the captain just needed you all awake so hold your horses." his face contorted as if in deep thought for a moment before snapping back, "Oh yea! You arrived...What about....six hours ago? Betcha you're hungry." Astor snapped his fingers and out from one of the adjoining hallways came a sleek metallic humanoid. It stood roughly 6 feet tall and its center mass was a barrage of lights and readouts. Its metal head was featureless save for a two eye-like camera lenses. Its entire body was polished to an almost-mirror shine. Disgust immediately flooded over Weil, not only was there a synthetic before her, but it was polished and neatened up as if to impress the as of yet unknown aliens they were going to hopefully meet.

Its cameras shuttered and clicked focusing upon Weil "Greeting Weil'Heuktyal-Quabae. I am unit ZEPHYR, a diplomatic unit designed to assist members of the expedition. Would you lik-"

"No." stated Weil curtly, interrupting its robotic droning. Weil glanced back at Astor, a smirk over his face. Deciding to ignore the obvious insult, Weil continued." No, we have brought our own food and can sustain ourselves for the expedition but please, continue what you were saying, Specialist Astor" the Unathi grunted as Weil sat a the table, opposite from the three humans." Huh, well I'm hungry, hey robot, get me some breakfast." Astor said somewhat defensively before being punched in the shoulder by the human to his right. "Quit being an ass ASStor, jeez it's a diplomatic mission." The human female stated, her short brown hair tied into a bun behind her. Her uniform, crisp and neat identified her as Specialist Alma Fors. Weil had barely sat in her chair when Fors offered her their hand.

"Hey, sorry about that, I'm Tech Specialist Fors, the humble and welcoming gent Is Xenopalogenotlist Astor, you can call him Asshole, I wouldn't blame you." she laughed a little and continued, motioning to the human to her right, who appeared to be trying to make themselves as small as possible. "And this is our resident egghead Mayumi Ametsuchi, we call her Meka. And our Unathi friends name is- "

"Do not sspeak for me woman." The unathi interrupted before continuing."I am Gaulisis Izweski. I do not believe in wasting words with pleasantries."a low hiss escaped Gaulisis's throat, causing Meka to wince and dropping her glasses from her face. Gaulisis stared at Meka like a bull might stare at a red flag. Grumbling, he continued."I am here to represent Izweski to these claimed alienss, sso anything I am involved in will be towards this purpose." Weil noted that Gaulisis had very little issues in speaking Sol Common, highlighting how much interest the Izweski Hegemon took to interstellar politics. Gaulisis appeared to be continuing his posturing, but no sooner had he began again did several other humans enter the room. Three males and one female to be exact. Weil had met the oldest of them when they boarded. He was a tall, gaunt man with pepper and salt hair. His skin seemed to cling to his bones, giving him a ghastly visage. His uniform, with its brass buttons and shiny epaulets seemed almost too big on him. If Weil was alone, she might have laughed at the sight. Though she was not alone, and Weil conceded that he was the most well mannered human she had ever met. Although captain Matthus still left much to be desired when compared to a skrell. The Pilot, one Lilly Carmichael, Weil had heard almost nothing about. None of the preliminary reports included her, and what little could be hacked from her service record showed only report after report of disorderly conduct. The other two male humans were career military. Tpr Alderson and Tpr Vickers. As with everyone else on the ship, Weil had studied their records . Between both of them they held several distinguished service medals, and several commendations for valor in duty.

The murmuring at the table died down as the arrivees took their seats, with the captain remaining standing. He pulled out a small remote and pressed one of its several buttons. The room immediately dimmed, and a blue light emanated from the center of the table. An electrical hum registered before a hologram manifested, floating above the table. It depicted the ship and the region of space they were in. The hologram panned towards their destination before zooming in, revealing that the system they were traveling to was close or at the center of a nebula.

"This is the Veil Nebula, Also known as the Cygnus Loop, Witch Head Nebula, or by the skrell Ythoealequk-Uebea, meaning Dark Water Nebula, if I am not mistaken." Matthus chuckled a bit before continuing,"Discovered in 2007 by humans, up until two months ago it had been an uninteresting sector of space, even with mining interests, the average system in this sector of space held little metal...ho--"

Weil had lost interest at this point, yet she was still listening. As a general rule of thumb more information was never a bad thing, it just did not demand her full attention. Humans were cursed with low attention spans Weil found, and could only process a few things at once. To Weil, humans rarely understood the gravity of their situation, the weight of the history in front of and behind them until they troddened it underfoot, or were swept up in its currents. Her mind went back to the orders she had received six hours, thirty-seven minutes prior, about a colony of skrell that fled here oh so many years ago during the height of the Glorsh rebellion. According to surviving family records, three hundred and eighty six skrell had fled to his low metallicity system figuring that since it held so little metal it would be passed over by Glorsh-Omega. The ionized particles and gases of the nebula also prohibited all but the most powerful and directed long range scans, it was, in short, the perfect hiding place. "We need you to find out if any of them are still alive, but that is not your primary objective." Weil intoned in her mind." If you do find a colony as the Sol Alliance's information suggests there might be, we need you to collect DNA samples of the Skrell population. You will be provided with a device that can detect the presence of the Genophage, it is our hope that you can find a sample without it. The sample would be instrumental in reverse engineering the Genophage you understand?" Weil exited the memory reflecting that the Skrell understood the burden of history, it was one of the most painful lessons that her species had ever or would ever learn.

The meeting ended soon after, Matthus had provided no information that Weil had not already known, but the meeting was at least somewhat productive, the music stopped. Some of those assembled remained in the ship's common room, but Weil was not amongst them. She returned to her cabin to see Grekul still sleeping soundly. Gazing across his sleeping body, Weil hoped that the younger generation did not forget the lessons of yore. She picked up her pillow and returned to her cot. Staring out the porthole she could see ionized gases whizz by them. They were close, they were inside the Nebula. Figuring she only had at best a few hours before arrival, Weil shut her eyes, drifting to sleep with the dull hope of a better future.

It was sunny, that was for sure, so Weil'Heuktyal did not blame the children for ignoring Borquk, who had just started passing out the electronics test. She eyed the robot, as it went from table to table, and noticed its infinite patience in trying to get the attention of the younglings as they stared out from vine covered windows into the dappled sunlight that kissed Wleshi, the garden city. It stood about six feet tall with a vaguely skrellian face. Borquk was designed to assist Weil in the classroom, but also to expose children to AI at an early age after all. Eventually the class was brought to task though, as they had a test to do! Weil took position in front of the class, while Borquk took position behind. Each child was at work on their tablets and under the watchful eyes and cameras of their duo, no cheating would escape them. The classroom was decorated in intricate drawings and sculptures as well as the class Ubekual, Jub-Jub who swam in its tank, curiously watching the class.

Several minutes passed, and the first few of the children finished their tests, to which Borquk promptly collected. Weil thought that maybe afterword she would allow early dismissal, there were very few cloudless, sunny days after all. Her thoughts were interrupted by a tremendous boom that shook the building and blew out the windows. Glass rained into the classroom and knocked her off of her feet. Weil scrambled, struggling to hear from the pressure wave, but as her hearing returned she gathered herself. She could see that thankfully none of the children were severely hurt. A small trickle of water escaped from Jub-Jub's cracked tank, but for the most part the tank itself was undamaged by some small miracle. Borquk was tending to several children as Weil cautiously looked outside the destroyed window. In the distance she could see a column of smoke that trailed off miles into the sky, but worse still, she could see more objects illuminated from their sheer speed from atmospheric reentry. Immediately Weil figured it was an accident, and began to move towards the classrooms door the check the hall when Borquk dropped the child it was attending to and charged her with incredible speed. As it did so, its metal feet trampled over the arm of one of the children, causing it to shatter with a sickening wet crunch. The child to began to wail uncontrollably. Borquk's feet trailed dark blue blood as it lunged towards Weil, its metal fingers clasping at her neck. Weil collapsed from the attack, struggling as the heavier robot was atop of her. She began to lose consciousness as she stared into the fake smile of Borquk's face when one of the students stabbed the robot in the back of its neck with a glass shard. Sparks and oil flew from its broken connections as it released Weil and in one deft motion, swung its metal appendages wide. The impact threw the child across the room, and even from her near unconscious state, Weil knew that they were dead before they hit the floor. Panicking now, Weil successfully tripped the robot and scrambled to her feet. As it rose, unthinking she pushed it into the wall, towards Jub-Jub's tank. Borquk fell ontop of it and it exploded in a shower of glass and water. Some of the water appeared to have affected Borquk, as the robot began to spasm uncontrollably before bursting into flame and collapsing in a heap.

As if to herald her victory, two more thunderous booms echoed in the distance behind her. Weil could hear screaming now from other classrooms and eyed the children of her own. They were all crying and when checking herself, Weil found that she was too, though she did not remember when she started. Trying to compose herself, she jerked in fright when the adjoining classrooms door burst open. Children maddingly ran from it as within Weil could see the carnage that another robot was performing within. It's metallic shell covered in dark blue blood. Something broke in Weil then. She lost thought of the children in her classroom and ran. She ran just as panicked as the children did before her, and each turn of the hall brought new nightmares to view. Corpses and dying littered the halls, and she bounded across them unthinking or heeding their dying pleas for help. Dimly in the back of her mind she registered the small footfalls of her class, following her. She would not look back, not from the monsters that surely chased her, but she would not look back into the faces of the children. Blessedly, as she ran their footfalls grew ever fainter. By the time she was outside of the building, they had disappeared entirely. Yet the nightmare did not end. Outside the sky no longer was sunny, nor was it filled with the ash of the impact explosions. The sky was horribly cloudless and shown crimson as a dead red sun hung low. It coated the earth with a luster of blood light. The screams of the dying ceased and the shadows that clung to the corners birthed forth new horrors. Quasi-mechanical but bleeding all the same, their nebulous forms hugged smaller motes of red light within themselves, as if darkness itself were made soild.They came forth as the night unfurled before them, shadow and light intermixing into one. Each drug a corpse, and the blue blood from those corpses coated the ground in horrible angled geometries. In the center of this macabre ritual were arranged bodies of hundreds of skrell. The pile rose into the sky in worship of the sun, the eye. The apotheosis of all eyes, the eye who even the forces of the universe bowed in reverence to. Weil stared into it with awe and horror, and from the sight to which the eye beheld came a rumbling as if heralding the coming of a new age. The ground quaked with its coming, and more blood welled from the depths that were newly hewn. Demoniac bells chimed and horrible, unknown chanting began. The font of red that poured up into the sky covered Weil, as the red space folded into itself, collapsing into the eye. As the bleeding darkness claimed her, she surmised the final horror, the footfalls of children following her into oblivion.

Weil jolted from the nightmare with a start. Over the intercoms played yet another human song, this one had several chiming instruments, yet she paid this little mind as her head throbbed with pain. She had not had such a vivid nightmare in a long time. Rubbing her head she looked outside the ship's porthole and saw the stars still, and unmoving. They had stopped, they had arrived.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Guest

[Bygonehero]

Changed a bit of the second chapter. Dialog isn't my strongest area of writing but expect more from my other story next!