KingBabar
Seraphim Initiative.
CRONOS.
442
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Posted - 2012.11.12 11:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
It was a bad planet. One of those that just eat you up an spit you out like the bug you are. It was windy, hot and poisonous. The acid wulcanic rain didn't help much either. Our scanners and scopes were almost useless. And this hunk of rock they wanted to mine. It had some kind of precious metal with a name that no one could really pronaounce, much less remember. These lumps of metal were worth all our hardship and suffering. Some it seemed, lost their clones to "accidents", who wouldn't wanna wake up in a comfy ship with a panorama window wiev for a day or two, before being shipped back down? It was tempting but I'm not a man to leave my buddies behind, even for a day.
As the months wore on and our efforts could be measured in the form of isk transferred to our accounts and not least in the the steady stream of small supply ferries going back and forth to the orbiting supply ships. Our carrier ships got filled to the brim with this "Qytq-hrhh" metal that was so precious for reasons not known to ground pounders like myself, only to be instantly replaced by another. We kept it up and our unit even got equipped with these new dropsuits. They were given to us for testing under these harsh conditions. A gamble it was, we're talking about prototype stuff here that should have been tested more in the lab before being put to work. Its amazing what a roll of ducttape can achieve, even in space.
And off course the inevitable disaster struck. An enemy task force was sent upon us just in time to avoid our planetary defences, they weren't operational yet. We watched from the ground how ship after ship got blown out of the sky. It rained heavily that day, a black foul acid kind of rain. We could see the light of numerous explosions in the lower atmosphere light up all these little charcoal bits of liquid. If we didn't know the horrific truth of the thousands of lives being lost we might actually have called it beautiful.
So there we were, stranded, without support and communications. The planetary bombardment was no picnic either. They took out most of our clones and all of the precious new suits we'd come to trust and rely upon. Even most of our clone reproduction centers were lost, all but one. We couldn't just hand the mine over to these invaders just like that. We faught them every step of the way, and we did good. The enemy sent wave after wave to our positions without breaking through. They must have lost a lot of biomass. They even went to the desperate step of bombing us again, even the mine they were here to capture. They accomplished nothing but making it almost impossible for their tanks to navigate the remaining rubble.
The planetary blocade must have been great, we didn't get any support at all. Not even the tinyest of communications came through. Locked in a attritional battle we were bound to loose, our total biomass needed for the clones were running dangerously low. From now on, no one of us exposed us to enemy fire unless there were no oher way. We still kept them at bay. They came at us time and again only to be pushed back again. And so it went.
At some point it all changed. Our troops tended to suddenly explode. No enemies within sight. They seemed almost to spontaneously burst into fire. We looked, we scanned what little we could, but nothing helped. We had to abandon the mine all together. We headed for higher ground to take up new positions, we even managed to bring our last CRU with us. But that argus haul is a tale all of its own, It didn't matter much though, our hard pressed troops kept exploding for no apparent reason.
The mine got re-opened, though in the control of the wrong kind of people. As time went by and our struggle continued in a guerilla sort of fasihion, we kept loosing clones. Some to enemy fire, most to this threat from nowhere, we still kept blowing up for no apparent reason. In a move I'm not especially proud off, I went into the CRU and re-calibrated it. The last ton or so of our bio-mas should not be spent on the pencil-pushers, the geologists or the support units. I coded the CRU to only accept the members of my company, hell I even dissmissed some of them too, the lazy, the incompetent and the brutal. For all of these unlucky souls the worst faith waited for them; Perma-death.
Perma-death is the worst that can happen to any clone, to anyone for that matter. The thought of dissapering into oblivion is a fear shared amongst all beings. Some preached that we'd all end up in this massive CRU unit placed in this place called "heaven". But I didn't believe a word of it. How could they even get the power to operate such a unit? It made no sence.
So there we were, now just a handful left on the edges of a vast battlefield surrounding a very important mine. We'd lost, no support in sight and no chance of survival. We had to go foreward, no weapons carried, arms held high. The five of us who were still capable of walking went down towards the enemy positions at the mine. Long faces, no power to our suits' shields, in agony and despair we trotted in silence towards the enemy position.
Then again, for the last time, we started to explode again. The four guys surrounded me tried to run of but it didn't work. They all died, Perma-death that is. At this point I'd given up. One lone clone, on his knees, helmet filling up with tears, waiting for death. But the explosion never came. No insta-Perma-death for me today. All I heard was this swoshing sound coming at me. I saw a light above me, something came from above. Suddenly a fairly big siluette emerged from the black rain infront of me, lights partially blinding me. There it was, this bringer of death, this unholy tech, it was called a "Myron".
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