Ne Selvas Starport

(Road between Marli and Ne Selvas, Sirnoth/Elchev, 079/1106)

While the repairs were being done, the marines took stock of their situation, trying to decide what to do.

Judging from the maps, it was impossible to take another route; inter-city roads were uncommon on Sirnoth, and this was the only one connecting Marli and Ne Selvas. The lorry wasn't really designed for it, but they felt sure they could cut through the forest and work around the infestation. First, though, they needed to know how big it was.

The ubiquitous sensor balls were despatched to cicumnavigate the occupied area and try to establish its' boundaries. As the early signs had hinted, the mass was roughly circular, five miles or so across, with numerous extrusions growing out of it in the same manner as the one they'd just fought. Some were the same shape; others were tall and thin, or other weird shapes.

Sensor Ball (click for larger image!)

The distance around seemed shorter to the east, so they settled on that direction. Once LZ had finished his repairs, Uriah and his battledress led the process of pushing the lorry back onto its' wheels. They then dismounted the rear body, as well as the extra armour they'd added in Marli; armour was no protection against the kind of attack they'd just faced, and they needed to lighten the lorry if it was to travel cross country. They also reluctantly unloaded the gold bars from the bank in Marli.

With the sensor balls outriding them at 200 yards front and sides, they set off through the forest, keeping a cautions half-mile or so from the edge of the substance. Where the terrain was too bumpy, they used two of the sacrificed armour sheets to bridge the gaps.

About half-way around it occurred to them that they didn't know what was in the middle of the infestation. Detaching the inner sensor ball, they sent it winging across the area to investigate.

Further in, the strange extrusions became clearer, though in most cases, their function was a complete mystery. Everywhere, Snakes, Leapers and other exotics were moving back and forth across the surface, engaged in unfathomable tasks. Winged, scaled, serpentine forms flapped slowly above the trees; the Dragons mentioned in the Elbane listings. Other, more massive flying forms moved slowly through the air; almost spherical, as large as a house, with many twitching tendrils dangling from the body, these seemed to perceive the 'ball as it flew past. Right in the centre, a larger mass sprouted from the matrix, pulsating visibly. Around its' base were clustered masses of the egg-forms that they'd seen in the stasis tube in Elbane Base.

They immediately concluded that this was the "nest" or "mother" of the whole thing, and started triangulating the sensor ball's position to feed back to Cassandra. As they did so, there was a sudden flash of movement on the screen - and the 'ball went dead.

Aware that the result of an assault on the "nest" was going to be a wave of fighting creatures moving outwards - and straight at them - the platoon didn't call for orbital fire until they were well around the perimeter and back onto the road. Then Cassandra rained fire and brimstone down onto the centre of the infestation for a good ten minutes, eradicating the extrusion and its' eggs entirely, though not the rest of the stuff.

As she fired, dragon-flyers and the smaller missiles they'd been attacked by before shot upwards, trying to reach the source of the attack; but the ship was safe in orbit, and Cassandra laughed as she picked them off with impunity.

So the lorry pressed on towards the starport for another four hours or so. Towards the end of that time, first one and then another of the battlecomputers announced very weak incoming radio signals. The AI struggled with the faint, distorted transmissions, and eventually filtered and boosted them to intelligibility. A woman's voice, calm and unhurried, being played in a pre-recorded loop.

"This is Tamara Avalon, Captain of the MS Long Shot. If anyone human can hear this, I and one of my crew are trapped at the starport, I don't think anyone else has survived. Call back and prove you're human and I'll tell you where we are; rescue us and I'll buy you a beer. This is Tamara Avalon..."

The marines looked at each other; it could be a trick. Somehow, however, it didn't seem like the sort of tactic the Exotics went in for. Finally, Verral opened a channel, and called back. Immediately the loop stopped, and the same voice came back "live". "Am I glad to hear a human voice! Who are you guys, and how far away are you?" it asked.

Verral responded with "Let's start with you. Can we have some more ID please?". Tamara gave her ship's ID and some more registration numbers; an uplink to the Brazos' computer confirmed these as real. "Where are you?" asked Verral. "In the passenger decontamination tank at the starport," she answered. "We were interviewing a prospective passenger when the ...things... attacked. We dived in here - me and Zip Cody, my navigator - and hid."

Verral signed off, reassuring her that they were coming to help, and the lorry pressed on to the starport.

(Ne Selvas Starport, Sirnoth/Elchev, 079/1106)

Ne Selvas Starport

Entering the main gate, they entered the port's Startown. The rather rough-and-ready collection of bars and shops were severely battered, evidently the site of serious fighting, with bullet holes, blast marks and blood smears much in evidence. A shop marked "Shipboard Security" attracted their attention; several minutes later, heavier to the tune of several cases of landmines, some stealth plastic pistols, a gauss pistol and some spare laser power packs, the lorry continued up into the starport proper.

Parking in the main carpark, they entered the starport building through the front entrance, and followed Tamara's directions through the ticket hall, through the atrium under the control tower, and into the passenger terminal. Throughout the starport, the eerie sense of abandonment grew; shops were open, luggage and debris was scattered around, occasional clawmarks and bullet pocks marked the walls, and smears of blood showed where people had been slain. Noticeably, there were no signs that burrowing Exotics had pierced the polished plascrete floors.

As they passed various shops, Jacques collected a selection of feminine clothes with Tamara in mind, paying perhaps a little too close attention to the matter of underwear.

Moving past the checkin and baggage desks, they broke through into the "backstage" areas of the 'port, and rapidly reached the medical facilities set aside for passengers arriving in need of treatment. Dominating this area was a huge, pressure-tight cylinder, used to isolate contagious cases or decompress travellers arriving from different atmospheric pressure situations.

Peering through the view port in the massive end hatch, the marines could see two people inside. A skinny, darkhaired young man - hardly more than a boy - was lain on the floor, his head pillowed on a folded jacket and improvised bandages covering several serious claw wounds. Standing looking out, the other figure was clearly Tamara Avalon herself. Tall for a woman, dressed in a skin-tight jumpsuit and armed with a laser pistol and energy blade, she had rich thick red hair, eyes like green agates, a firm but beautiful face, and a broad grin at the sight of rescuers. Motioning them to move backwards, she ignited her lightsabre and burned out the ad hoc welds she'd sealed the door with in a shower of sparks. Once the door was open, Verral sent Maid Marian to provide what medical attention the two required - and to check them for any sign they weren't what they claimed to be. The corpsman did so, after first forcibly ejecting grinning marines who had indicated they wanted to "guard" this process.

Tamara Avalon

Afterwards, the marines talked with Tamara about what had happened when the 'port was attacked. She described how her ship - the Long Shot - had arrived at Sirnoth in its' normal manner, planning to pick up some spec cargo and passengers, and deliver a charter cargo of high-tech computerised machine tools for one of the local factories. She mentioned in passing that the starport dispatchers had told her trade was bad when she jumped in, that there were no cargo or passengers, although when she landed, this turned out not to be true. Having unloaded their cargo, the crew of the Long Shot had dispersed in different directions, some into the 'port, the engineers back aboard to service the drives ready for the next Jump.

Tamara herself, along with Zip Cody, was in the passenger terminal, closing a deal with a prospective passenger, when all hell broke loose. The power went off (close questioning from the marines elicted the fact that this happened as soon as the attack commenced), and Exotics poured into the starport. Tamara and Zip fought their way to the decon tank and sealed themselves in, then were forced to listen over the radio to their shipmates being slaughtered. The Long Shot itself was completely destroyed in a massive explosion - undoubtedly the power plant blowing - although whether this was an accident or a suicide she didn't know.

Concluding her story, she asked brightly, "So - where's your ship? When do we leave?" There was slight embarrasment among the Marines as the lustre of their rescue faded just a smidgeon at this point with them having to explain that their ship was unable to evac them at this time. The marines spread out over the starport. Reagan headed for the control tower, looking for the controls for the defence systems. Uriah and Verral located a good place in the tower atrium to create a defensible position; then Uriah took Ted and LZ to . Jacques went off to locate the starport Security building to see if any worthwhile equipment was available there.

Jacques delivers his shopping (click for larger image!)

Breaking into the security offices, Jacques found largely empty racks for rifles, body armour and other equipment. Evidently the security troops had put up some sort of fight. He found some ammunition, and, stuffed into a back shelf, three backpack RAM launcher units, built to the local TL and badly in need of a charging.

Power Plant [not one of mine!]

Down in the power plant, Uriah and LZ located the control room, the reactor core, and the distribution systems. In the latter, they found that the connecting cables had all been severed with precise, surgical use of explosives. The main controls were undamaged, but without serious re-wiring, power wasn't going to be available. This clearly haden't been done by fleeing plant techs or handless Exotics; military specialists had disabled this power plant. Who? Why?

Pushing this question aside for the moment, the three set to work repairing the feeds required to get the computers and defence turrets working again.

Verral and Jacques boosted a 4x4 ground car from the carpark and set off to drive it across the starport to explore. This was not a smooth process, as neither of them was qualified in or even especially good at driving archaic ground vehicles, but after a few swerves and bumps, they arrived at the Emergency Services building.

Within, they found a good selection of undamaged grav vehicles; four ambulances, four fire tenders and a police speeder. This sparked some ideas, along the lines of remote-controlled decoys to increase the Brazos' chance of reaching the ground to lift the platoon. Following this up, they lurched across the 'port to the hangars at the other side.