Chapter 2: Prologue(2)

Alois woke to a splitting pain in the back of his head and the stench of burning electronics in his nostrils. Concerned, he looked around and sighed in relief as he saw that none of the members of his team were critically injured, even as sparks flew from the damaged electronics around them. Using the combat knife he carried in its sheath on his chest, he cut the harness adhering him to the side of the pod.

Orienting himself, he began to shake the young man next to him, shouting,"Get up! We have to get moving, the enemy could easily spot our location!"

Slowly, the boy regained his senses, and opened his eyes. Eyes widening, he exclaimed, "Yes sir, I'll grab the supplies and weapons!"

Alois didn't even bother to correct him this time, as he hurried to revive the others. "Hey kid," he said, while trying to wake up Klaus, "what's your name?"

The boy, shocked by the modicum of compassion the man he idolized gave him, responded quickly, saying "Its Davon, sir, Davon Agincourt."

Dragging the unconscious body of Klaus, Alois responded, saying, " I'm gonna need your help for this, gather all the explosives outside, so they don't explode and kill us all by the stray sparks."

All too eager to please, Davon shouldered the pack full of explosives and pushed the hatch that led to the open air. As he did so, both Davon and Alois braced themselves for what they were about to see on the ground of Vatore. The only thing that could be said about the flora and fauna of Vatore was that it was unlike any normal living being that had been seen before by these two men. Trees, with gesticulating, fleshy hands sprouted from bone-like branches as if they were leaves, being supported by exposed roots that reminded them disturbingly of leg bones. The grasses and weeds made them feel as though they were standing on a field of matted hair, and the stalks of the weeds had strange growths that made them feel as though they were being watched by something that was very, very hungry. A ratlike creature comprised almost entirely of bone skittered through the hairlike bushes.

Alois and Davon worked quickly to get the rest of the team and the supplies out of the smoldering drop pod before waiting for the rest of them to wake up. After close to 15 minutes, Klaus and the others woke with groans. Alois ignored the groans for a time and checked the gear they had scavenged. Looking through the weapons first, he spotted several standard ballistic rifles, along with an energy lance and assorted sidearms. Energy Lances were newly developed weapons for Solarii, previously, they never had the ability to create small enough power cells, but with the advent of quantum storage, they could stuff an entire reactors worth of energy into a subspace, finally making such handheld designs plausible. Looking at the explosives, he discerned several breaching charges, smoke grenades and pheromones used to distract Vatorite soldiers.

'Its odd' Alois thought, 'normally their abominations would be swarming us right as we crash down, at least, from previous experience, so why aren't they doing so now? The soldiers are not well known for being intelligent...'

"Everyone! We need to move! Something has changed with their soldiers, and whatever it is, there is no way in hell that its in our favor." Alois shouted, galvanizing the soldiers into taking what they needed, while he poached the Energy lance and a breaching charge for himself. " I'll be taking point, Klaus, you take control of our communication gear and Davon, you bring up the rear, the others should stay in the middle and watch for any changes in the underbrush. We are going to proceed immediately to the rally point just outside of the breeding facility."

"Sir is there something wrong?" Davon asked, startled at the level of precaution the captain chose.

"Its a hunch, but I think that they may have added psionics as a base for their soldiers. We have only recently been experimenting with it, so we don't quite know what causes individuals to be psionically gifted, but they are capable of removing the inhibitions of people, or creating restrictions in their unconscious, truly the perfect way to control a bunch of unthinking beasts whose only goal is to capture women." Alois responded, remembering how he had read that there were so called awakenings going on back home, for children who were able to project their wants into another's mind.

"Your saying that there is a single psionic individual controlling a large number of enemy soldiers, like how an ant queen controls the worker ants?" Klaus interrupted, incredulously. Alois Nodded, gravely.

"It might be a good idea for us to get moving. Its possible the only reason we aren't dead right now is the deployment of the armored legions that happened just as we landed."

With that, the team started off into the disgusting jungle of body parts. With every step they took, a visceral squishing sound echoed in the ears, and not even 15 minutes after departing, their boots dripped with pieces of hairlike grass and globs of blood and viscera.

"Hey, does anyone need-- " Davon began, but was cut off by the what appear to be the trees whispering. Immediately, all 6 of them readied their rifles and were on high alert, waiting for a rustling. Alois, being experimented on with all sorts of cybernetic gear, activated an EM detector implant, designed to look for anomalous brain activity in a moderate radius. Picking up 4 signatures nearby, he casually whispered to Davon, "They are all in the tallest bushes, I can burn them out with the lance, can you shoot straight enough to kill them?" Causing Davon to nod, ever so slightly.

'Well, maybe this kid will make it after all, at least he can follow orders well.' He thought, while Aiming the sleek rifle at the masses of hair and firing a crackling line of energy at it, causing whatever was inside to scream in pain. With this, the other three rushed out, their natural bone armor covering over sized apelike bodies; all four of their compound eyes focused on the team, and their right arms, which was an amalgam of bone and tissue shaped to be a rudimentary gun. All three beasts fired these, causing maggots to fly through the air at their targets. The six took up positions, with Alois firing the energy lance to burn through their armor, and the others dumping magazine after magazine into the burned areas, allowing the bullets to actually penetrate the skin of the enemy. Before the first volley even ended, two solariians and one Vatorian thrall lie dead or dying. Ducking behind a particularly agitated tree, Alois continued to fire at the remaining thralls, Downing one more before yelling to the rest.

"Regroup and dump every single round you have into the last one while I reload! We take him out and we keep our element of surprise!"

Not even bothering to shout back in agreement, Davon and the rest of the team began firing nonstop at the head, chest, and shoulders of the thrall, doing minimal damage, but cracking the bone plates while Alois worked the power cartridge into the sheathe, and hearing it click, the weapon whirred to life, ready to fire. Not even taking a second to marvel at the engineering before him, he aimed at the thralls armored head and let loose a crackle of energy for a full 4 seconds, causing the head to burned clean off its shoulders.Looking at the others who were still standing, he asked.

"Everyone else okay? We don't know what the hell they have done to their original thralls, they normally are beast like and use primarily melee instead of ranged, meaning those maggots could be carriers of neurotoxins or some other nasty bioweapon. We need to keep moving, I don't know how these soldiers are linked, but its best that we are gone before they arrive, seeing as the others are dead."

Hearing this, they didn't even bother to bury the dead, as they saw an odd fluid being leaked out of the orifices of their allies, and made their way to the facility they were ordered to destroy.