\| Divided Paths |/ - Chapt. 3 - Resolute - Biome (IC)

Jex, following the others at a similar pace, commentated on the group's goals.

"Dealing with mutiny from his longserving crew and now an invading alien force will have taxed Xavre's stability. He isn't suicidal, even in the most terrible of situations, but I've noticed his sanity has been waning. He will have most likely locked himself in some remote location. Your troops may have passed it by thinking nothing of it." He said, directing the last sentence toward Relthar.

"We would be better off leaving the ship without bothering to find him." He advised, and at the same time noticed the rather loud noise the group's majority of metallic boots created. He realized this wouldn't matter at all in the way of discretion, judging from the corpses strewn across several of the corridors they had passed, and the mere scuffs on Relthar's armor.

After they had taken an elevator to the upper levels and walked through countless silver-and-cobalt hallways (some of which were defended), Jex stopped abruptly, and expected that Relthar had also done so, though didn't turn around to see, and walked briskly forward through a shut cobalt door which opened as he approached. Inside, pristine white walls were adorned with slim light panels which irradiated a pleasant yet thorough luminescence, and it was this lumiscence which drew the eyes to a slender machine in the center of the room. Precisely, a UFIAI infiltrator unit.

"So." Jex started. "What do we do with this?"

((I'll get the bit with Meris and Gettrav in tomorrow))

Captain Ifka K'iirdax of the Forge Hulk Great Glutton sat in an empty pilot seat in the control room, a medpad pressed to the large cut in her forehead. Around her engineers milled around, working to repair the majority of the control mechanisms while what little medics remained tended to the wounded. Below she could hear the crunch as the Forge Hulk chewed on its latest meal, a destroyed vessel discovered relatively quickly after they had left the Wormhole.

The pilot she had been talking to turned once again and spoke up. "Captain, the main systems are back online."

Ifka tilted her head back, trying to ease the throbbing pain and stem the flow of blue blood. "Alright then, status report."

"That damaged ship we are consuming will allow us to fix 74% of our current damage. Currently the hull is being registered at 82% integrity, with shields only at 36%."

Ifka smirked slightly at how the fate of her ship and crew had been saved by the luck of finding the wreck, a small miracle even. The sheer luck of it had overpowered the problem that Ifka was sure her next question would bring up.

"Can we contact the Xarl or any other members of the Syndicate?"

The pilot frowned as he turned to the holographic screen. "All comms and navigation devices have been fried unfortunately, so we cannot contact anyone, and even if we could we have no idea if they could even reach us."

Ifka lifted her head at this."How? We are supposed to be 5 clicks from the Foundry World Haggank."

"I'm not even sure if that is where we are. Navigation was knocked out almost immediately when we jumped. We could have come out too early or too late."

"You're saying we're lost?" Ifka could feel her temper rising, and quickly made an effort to dampen it. Now was not the time to knock out a crew member in a fit of frustration.

The pilot continued with his report, his face showing signs of fear. "We currently have 250 confirmed lost hands, a further 60 injured severely enough to be unable to work, leaving us with 183 Working Class members. Slave population is down to two-thirds of its estimated original number. I'm sorry to say this, but with this many casualties the Great Glutton will take weeks to repair fully."

rubbing the Medpad against her temple, Ifka thought this over. "Alright then, we need more slaves if we want to get moving, Drones are more designed for dismantling things and we have too few engineers aboard. So we'll send seven squads of scouting craft out to determine if there are nearby populations or ships before we think about raids. This needs to be quick though, I'd rather not be in unfamiliar territory for very long. Relay this to the Sickle Controllers on say...bay 18."

The pilot nodded and with that Ifka stood up to go. Turning towards the large doors to the rear of the control room she heard the pilots voice calling her back.

"What?" she snapped, irritable over hearing possibly another complication.

The pilot gulped before continuing. "Er...Captain, you will be hopefully glad to know that engineers on deck 4 have found your brother. He is unharmed and appears to have locked himself in a storage compartment."

Ifka sighed at this, a fresh trickle of blood running down her face. "Typical Braaj, I'll get him out. He tends to only listen to me when in these situations."
________________________________________________________________________________

Gorth pushed another body into the exhaust port leading to Great Glutton's main furnace. While he and the majority of the Slave Masters had miraculously evaded injury during the Jump, the same could not be said for their charges. Crushed by falling debris, the majority of dead slaves were now being used as an emergency fuel source while the power cores remained off-line.

As a pair of Slave Masters tossed a particularly large alien corpse into the smoking fires, Gorth noticed a massive chunk of metal being dropped from the magnetic conveyor in front of the processing chamber to his left. Massive Stalker Drones immediately moved towards it, spewing out smaller Extraction Drones in preparation for dismantling.

Curiosity getting the better of the old Xenoqqi, he turned to watch as the Stalkers overturned the chunk, revealing it to be a section of hull. Gorth quickly read the giant letters painted on it before the Extraction Drones blanketed them.

ETERNAL DEVOTION.

Gorth smiled at the irony of this name, before turning back towards the job at hand.

((please note that once I have more action going, my posts will be shorter))

Relthar stared at the machine with inquisitive eyes, observing it and taking note of every detail. After a short but intense period of observation, he redirected his gaze to Jex. "I believe that is a UFIAI unit, particularly one meant for infiltration and sabotage," He started. "They can certainly be useful if utilized correctly, though the intelligence would have to be properly controlled. I have no doubt that we would be able to do that, but it's never a bad idea to be safe. These machines are always full of surprises. It would likely be best to send a team equipped to deal with this thing should it become a threat to retrieve it and bring it back to the fleet," He recommended."

"Now," Relthar began. "Where is the storage room for the belongings of the recruits?"

Survivor crossed his arms in a confused way. What the heck is the UFIAI? How dangerous could they be? And how much was one of their machines worth? All very important questions for himself.

________________________________________________________

Later.....

The Xliveien federation scout frigate, The Amber of Forests, approached the last known location of Lieutenant Avlexs' mechanical sleeves beacon. A pilot quickly ran to the shooting range to inform his superior what he saw.

"Chief Ranger Xernious! We have a problem."

The young chief turned from his shooting range spot his targets head having the only bullet holes. He stared at the pilot a bit before finally speaking.

"What happened? Did we run out of fuel again? Or did we run out of water? Did.....did Jenix fall in the toilet again?"

The pilot shook his head. "No sir. We found the location of Avlexs' beacon but all that's out their is a destroyed ship and a giant ship sort of devouring it."

Xernious was almost elated but the report he got worried him. Quickly he packed up his guns and ran to the control room. When he got their he saw the wreckage and said, "Get me in contact with that ship now."

A transmission was then sent out.

Keo knew what was happening quite well at this point, but he had no idea what to do.
At this point in time, he lurked behind the wall beside the door, awaiting for an opportunity to escape. At least, he thought that's what he was doing. He didn
t even know if the opportunity would arise, but what he was doing now was surely better than doing nothing.
Footsteps sounded outside his door, but he couldn't tell if they were invaders or Jorro'kil. He decided that they were likely the latter, seeing as the sounds of their footsteps were orderly; as if they weren't trying to take over the ship.
A sudden thought occurred to Keo: what if these invaders' goal wasn't to capture the ship, but to steal all of its contents, or worse, destroy it after they were done with it.

Thankfully Braaj appeared only shaken, not injured. Despite her relief, Ifka had been furious at him for once again failing to live up to the K'iirdax name. Still, he was thankful he was alive and relatively well when the majority of hands onboard were dead or injured.
The control room itself was now mostly repaired with apparently most systems linked back to their appropriate mechanisms. Standing in the middle with her helmet under her arm, Ifka listened to another report from the Forge Hulk's pilots. Braaj slumped into an empty seat, suddenly feeling really tired.

He was quickly jolted awake when the proximity alarms went off, devices that only activated when a potential threat appeared during the consuming cycles. Quickly rushing to his sisters side, Braaj stared at the small ship that had appeared before them.

Ifka began to fill him in. "Seems to be a sort of scouting frigate, unknown make or species. Somehow it managed to sneak up on us. We're currently breaking off from the Eternal Devotion and setting into defensive parameters."

Braaj nodded, safe in the knowledge that his sister could keep cool in a situation such as this, ironic as it was.

"H-have all hands been locked-d down for b-b-battle stations?"

"Yes, everyone is on high alert. Hopefully these people don't take offence to us helping ourselves to scrap. Also the scouting expedition we were about to make has been postponed."

As the buzzing alarms whined down, a new noise powered up, complete with blinking light.

A pilot spoke up. "Captain, Negotiator...we have a transmission from that ship coming in. Single channel, not encrypted."

"Patch it through."

Ifka turned to Braaj, smiling slightly. "Your time to shine brother, you'd better not screw this up."

Braaj gulped and set himself, trying to control the bubbling uncertainties in his stomach. As the channel opened with a whine, a large holographic screen blinked up showing the face of the messenger. Despite his revulsion Braaj kept himself steady, making sure he would not disappoint his sister this time.

Clearing his throat, he spoke to the insectoid beast-thing that was watching.

"I am Braaj K'iirdax representing the K'iirdax Family of the Xenoqqi Industrial Syndicate. This Forge Hulk is heavily armed and currently in defensive parameters. Hostility WILL be met with deadly force. Name yourself and state your reason for being here."

Xernious stood their a bit dazed at that introduction. "Wow that was quite the introduction. Do...Do I have to do something like that?"

"Uhhh... Xernious you do realize that they can hear you right?" One of the pilots said.

"I am? I thought I had to push a button or something....oh never mind. Hello! I am Chief Ranger Xernious Armex of the Xliveien Federation. I am on a mission with my sister to find a missing Lieutenant and a Mercenary we fear is a part of a terrorist plot in order to make any new race we run into fear my species. Wow I said much more of a mouthful than you... ANYWAYS If you choose to attack. We will retaliate."

_____________________________________________________________________

Avlex looked to Keo a bit worried. He didn't know what to do or how to react all he could say though is.

"Keo if whatever comes through that door tries to kill us. I might go into a state of mind where I might mistake you for an enemy."

Keo initially didn't respond to Avlex, but backed down within a few seconds. "Well, I don't think we could sit still much longer, can we?" He asked rhetorically.

"I know you're right, but..." He paused. He started an unrelated statement, "I guess we're dealing with two evils."

He looked back at Avlex with a rather dazed look, "But we can't just sit here. Can we?"
Keo wasn't thinking clearly, and he knew it. He looked at Avlex blankly, waiting for a suggestion of some sort.

Ifka raised her eyebrows at Xernious' words. Frankly she had expected the Xivleien to be more serious, but it was always hard to tell the personalities of aliens. After all, Braaj was the Negotiator, not her.

She lowered her vision from the screen as a pilot handed her a smaller dataslate. It showed an in-depth scan of the Xliveien vessel, complete with glowing smudges indicating life signs.

Ifka looked back up to see Braaj fidgeting a bit. She sighed, even with his grand introduction and the bungled response, her brother was still nervous...or not. Ifka remembered how Braaj had come up with a secret language in his youth, based on body movement and foot taps. She cursed herself for scoffing at him and not paying enough attention now that this was important.

Now how did it go? Wrist twitch, two foot taps, neck scratch...

Sister, orders?

Ifka would have to rely on the taps themselves to get her message across, Braaj's face still staring at Xernious'. She got her foot moving.

65 crew. Most might be soldiers.

Prepare for raid? We easily overpower them. Only 65. Ship is tiny compared to us.

No. Tell no life signs found. Lieutenant and Terrorist not here or dead. Don't anger them. Might be worth trading with in future.

Yes Sister.

((Currently thinking up Braaj's response, might take a bit))

Avlex sat their a bit before standing up. He was sick of feeling useless and he was sick of acting like a coward. He looked over to Keo looking determined.

"Keo. Your right. We can't just sit here and just do nothing. Now tell me are you good enough to remove this power dampener?"

Keo finally felt confidence surging through him, interpreting Avlex agreeing with him as a sign that he was on the right track.

Upon hearing Avlex's second statement,  he paused. A sudden horror filled him, I don't know what a power dampener is. Despite this, he seemed to remain calm on the outside. He hadn't been able to express any emotion at all lately, so this wasn't surprising.

"Possibly," Keo said quietly, quickly scanning the room. "That, of course,  depends... Have you seen it?" He approached a device that looked rather suspicious,  finding himself in a very embarrassing position, in that he was possibly risking his health in order to look competent in front of Avlex.

Taking a deep breath, he got to work. He cut wires fairly smoothly and quickly,  trying to detach the development from the ship.

Suddenly, a small whirring sound was heard throughout the room.

"I think I did something," Keo muttered. He had a stroke of luck, but he knew that it was unlikely that he'd have another one.

Braaj mulled Ifka's message over. He had been surprised that she had actually chosen the passive path, being of a more aggressive nature. At least there wasn't going to be any fighting, otherwise he'd have to find the storage compartment again.

Looking back up at the screen and the Xliveien's face, he prepared to speak.

"Thankfully I do not believe it will come to arms between us. We are simply wary as we are currently stuck in unfamiliar territory after an...experiment, so to say".

Not waiting for an answer, Braaj pressed on.

"Concerning the people you are searching for, the Eternal Devotion was a lifeless husk when we found it. I'm sorry to say but the people you've come for have either fled the catastrophe that befell the ship or have succumbed to it, although the corpses we have collected from the processing engines so far don't resemble your kind."

"Sir. Avlexs' arms signal when cold but both he and Survivors dead or alive chips are still active." One of the pilots said from off screen.

Xernious sighed abit. He didn't know if it was from relief or from disappointment. Before he could say anything another officer comes from behind him and stands next to him. She was abit shorter than him but she did not care. She cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Hello. I am Sword Dancer Xalia Armex. I also command this vessel and if you would not mind me asking. What is it you are doing to that ruined vessel? And have you seen a black ship among the wrekage?"

She sure knows how to jump up and start asking questions. Xernious had began to think to himself after she jumped right up.

Braaj grimaced. It was always difficult to explain the Maw function and Processing Engines to alien races, so he'd have to tread lightly.

"T-to put it bluntly, our ship...is eating the o-o-other ship. It's one of the primary func-c-tions we have on this vessel, s-sort of a repair mechanism you could say. Usually we go for ast-t-teroids and space j-junk, but this ship was empty so..."

He grimaced again. He could tell his stutter was coming back and fast, so he'd have to think of something.

"Really i-it's not my place to say, so might I introduce the C-c-captain of our ship?"

_________________________________________________________________

Ifka stepped forward. While Braaj had started well, he was flailing now and needed her to help get him out.

"I am Captain Ifka K'iirdax, 17th in line to the Xarldom of the K'iirdax Family. I must apologise for my brother, he's a little lost right now".

Standing as straight as she could, arms folded behind her, Ifka still stood a head shorter than her subordinates. Unperturbed, she continued where Braaj left off.

"The Great Glutton is a Forge Hulk, a factory cruiser designed for production, scrap collection and if need be, war. Currently we are recycling the Eternal Devotion into composite parts and molten metal for future use as repairs. As bluntly as Braaj said it, yes our ship is eating it."

"As for a black ship, our sensors are...blunt at the moment, explaining how you managed to get so close without us noticing you. I suspect this ship is outside our current range, cloaked or possibly not here at all".

Avlex looked at Keo a bit confused. Your guessing that he does not know what you were talking about. Watching him work you get more and more confused before you finally speak.

"Umm Keo I kinda meant this power dampener on my robotic sleeve. Oh and be careful when you remove it."

You say motioning to the power dampener on the sleeve.
______________________________________________________________________

"Darn it," Xalia said turning to her brother, "Xernious, there is no telling where Survivor is plus with his planning skills.....there is no telling what could happen."

Xernious shook his head. He knew she was right but he also knew the only real reason she was worried was because she wanted to defeat Survivor in a dual and that's it. He patted her shoulder and began to speck.

"Thank you for that information. We apologize for interrupting your...... mulching. You may continue. We are just going to scan the wreckage and see if we can find any signs for ourselves. We will be here if you need anything."

Ifka nodded, motioning for her pilots (who had gathered around to get a better look at the screen) to return to their stations. She was about to speak when an engineer handed her a dataslate, this one depicting the assorted engines aboard.

Turning back to the Xliveiens, Ifka spoke. "Understood. It seems our engines are now completely functional so we'll pull back to allow you access to the Eternal Devotion. Frankly it has been a while since I have had such a civilised transmission from an alien species, usually I just get howls of rage and various obscenities".

__________________________________________________________

Great Glutton with painstaking slowness let go of its prize. Small chunks of metal detached from the Eternal Devotion's crumpled frame, drifting off into space.

With a mighty jolt, the giant Forge Hulk's reverse thrusters kicked in. Dozens of light pinpricks dotted the forward facing of the great ship, pushing it back with their combined power.

"Unsurprisingly it's been hidden from your strategic overview. We keep the confiscated items in the weapons storage. One level below us. I'll take us there.. but we truly need to be quick." Jex said, and set off quite briskly for the aforementioned weapons room.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________


Near both the Xliveien scout vessel and the Xenoqqi forge hulk, the arrival of a new fleet had its introduction perfectly summed up with the newly torn slipspace ruptures. The bright distortions in space allowed three new ships to enter the area smoothly and precisely.

These new ships' hulls were thick and diamond-shaped, and seemed to be in multiples of two, though the sections were welded together during construction. On the sides of the hull, large rectangular armor plates were connected to it very closely by shifting plates joining the two together (these were not visible), both of which were protected by a particle energy shield. The ships were tinted a very light grey, with metallic blue highlights.

Seeing the unexpected visitors, these new ships activated advanced encryption programs for all communication systems, and started disrupting the communications of the alien ships as per protocol.

Clearly they were prepared for whatever was to come next.

The Xenoqqi were more prepared this time when the proximity alarms went off. Immediately reacting to the jamming signal as a sign of hostility, the pilots pulled back Great Glutton to face the new arrivals. Now almost at peak functionality, turrets and missile bays rose to life and shields flickered back to almost full capacity. Inside their hangars, Sickle and Bomber drones shuddered in their nesting ports as they too activated.

Ifka's eyes narrowed as she viewed the incoming craft. "And just when I was in a good mood...".

Relthar and the rest of the group followed closely behind Jex, hastily approaching the room in which the confiscated items were stored. On the way, they encountered minimal resistance; This was likely due to the majority of the Eternal Devotion's crew and guards were busy fighting off the Alkisuns at higher priority locations, and their numbers were most definitely plummeting as well (The Alkisun troops were better trained, equipped, and organized).

Upon reaching the storage area, Relthar turned to Jex, wiping the purple blood of one unfortunate Jorro'kil off of one of his axes with a gray cloth. Instead of speaking, he simply nodded at the entrance to the room. The problem should have been clear to Jex. The weapons storage was, understandably, locked, though it had been used recently by the Federation troops. Though Relthar could force it open, he found it would be unnecessary to do so, as it could pose multiple risks and there was no point to it if the entrance could simply be unlocked.

Survivor stated at the door where his weapons were. He wanted it open. He knew that he could easily rip the door open with his arm but he did not want to many aliens to know what his arm could do. So he decided it would be safer to wait.
________________________________________________________

One of the pilots turned in his chair towards Xernious the moment the new ships had came in.

"Sir. Some new ships came in. They look like they are ready to attack. Order?"

Xernious thought for a second before speacking.

"Don't attack it just might be what they want. Have caution though. We don't know what they could be possibly planning."

The pilot nodded and kept an eye on the new ships.

Jex slid a metallic slat over a panel beside the door, and it opened accordingly. With arm outstretched, he gestured for them to enter. Inside, the room was a solid dark gray, a reflection of some of the weapons it contained. Walking over to a large, tan, angular container, he slid the same slatkey over another panel, which unlocked it. Inside, the personal items of not only Survivor, but Keo, Avlex, Lucean, and Corena were neatly organized and held in place by what appeared to be leather belts.

"Take what you need." Jex said.

((Xenoqqi/Xliveien/Jorro'kil subplot post coming soon))

Ariz strained against the Krathunians holding him down, but without any success.

"Where am I" he rasped, blinking and looking around. The lights seemed a little blinding to him, and, most likely due to the pain of his injury, his vision was a bit blurred.

"Where's that Jorro'kil?" he gasped. "Gonna kill him!" He made another feeble attempt to rise, and then slumped grimacing.
_________________________________

Along with the personal items within the container could also be seen a blade of Markovan make, its handle bound in a dark, synthetic plastic; the scabbard was made of a similar material, dark, almost black in color. Near this was a small handgun of the sort carried by Captains within the Markovan Army. These were undoubtedly the property of Ariz.

One of the Krathunians holding Ariz in place looked down upon him. To the Markovan, the soldier would be nothing more than a silhouette due to the lighting of the room and his condition - a terrifying one at that, as the Krathunian was heavily armored. He was about to speak when the one working on the injury had noticed the consciousness of the patient and yelled out, "Get me more anesthesia!"

Footsteps could be heard a short distance away, the heavy impact of boots upon the floor. This was presumably an assistant of sorts looking for more medicine with which to sedate Ariz. A voice came from one of the Krathunians above. "You are going to be okay. Do not worry, for the moment," It said, in an almost gentle voice. After these words, a small needle was driven into a vein, and Ariz was taken under once more as the operation proceeded.

__________________

Relthar, slowly observing the contents of the storage room, walked up to one of the other Alkisun soldiers. "Get a squad to bring all of this back to the dropships," He ordered with an authoritative tone. The soldier nodded quickly and rushed off to complete the task.

Corena, meanwhile, approached her belongings, hastily grabbing them and placing them within the chest and back brace where Mischief was located. These ranged in their function and use from a small compressible pistol to several tools for hacking and networking as well as repairing an AI. As she emptied the box, another message appeared on her HUD.

"Do you really trust them?"

Corena stared at this for several moments. "Why?" She asked Mischief in response.

"Regardless of our... Grievances with the Eternal Devotion, we are not being put into much better hands. The Alkisuns are criminals. You know that as well as I do. They are perhaps worse than Xavre and his crew. How do we know that they will not do something worse with us?" The AI argued.

Corena, glancing down at her plasmatic rifle, sighed audibly. "That's a risk I'm willing to take for my freedom."

Survivor stared at his supplies for a second. He then grabbed and unsheathed his black sword and examined it. He sighed in relief that no damage was done to it. He put the sheath back on the sword and strapped it to his back. He then grabbed his pistols, which there were six of, and strapped them to him. He then took a look at Avlexs stuff. Two pistols and..... A vial? He grabbed the vial and his eyes widened when he read the label.

It can't be....Xeolite X....so this is the reason why the confederates sent me... He then looked side to side and hid it in a compartment in his armor.

Running an in-depth scan on the vessels while simultaneously transmitting a radio-wave as well as 'smart' COMMs programs to counteract any scans from the foreign ships, these dual-diamond-shape ships systematically allotted a portion of their data storage to the new designs they found in both the Xenoqqi Forge Hulk, and the Xlivien Scout Ships.

With the new tactical information, it must have been decided that contact was necessary; and so a message reached out to the Xenoqqi and the Xliveien vessels.

"We have come to reclaim what is ours. A Destroyer known as the Eternal Devotion. You will desist from any offensive protocol in the name of the Confederate Nations of Ravena until we can decide what the nature of the situation is."

The ships awaited a response.