Talarin, 05J.

The Alarei's homeworld, much like Sol, has been turned into a wasteland. Once a vast city-planet holding a technological monopoly over the civilizations of Amongst the Stars, it is now reduced to ash. The Alarei were masters of many sciences and technologies, and thusly have attracted the attention of many tech hunters. One would notice that the majority of Talarin's hunters are of Zelenu origin, the stocky slavic cyborgs inhabit every nook and cranny of the capital. Living like rats, they scavenge what few pieces of unknown tech and scraps of machinery to whatever company offers the highest price for it.

This planet is highly dangerous even without the trigger happy Zelenu grunts and the cut throat gang members. There are heavy windstorms that could blow a 18 wheeler onto its side, pockets of radiation, and mutated animals. Not to mention, the air is not breathable. Well, it is comprised of mostly oxygen, so humans and other oxygen breathing organism can go without a gasmask, but there is something about the air. Researchers have detected a chemical element in the air that has hallucinogenic properties. If someone were to take off their mask, they'd go insane within a couple of hours of exposure.

But despite all these dangers, those who bring back something from the depths of Talarin are usually greatly rewarded for it.

Possible Rewards: Civilizations who explore here have a chance of finding technology boosts to Augmentations and cybernetic implants, energy based weaponry, and medical discoveries.

Nation/Groups involved:

- Socialist Republic of Zeleniy.

Why they are attracted to Talarin is actually quite a simple answer: The Alarei were known for their near perfect integration with the machines they used in every day life, and this has a great pull on the cybernetically driven Zelenu culture. With the Zelenu crime families and gangs getting involved in Talarin, the government followed. Now Socialist Republic's forces patrol the decrepit streets and orbit the system, unofficially claiming it. All who enter Talarin must have a special permit identifying they are an official tech hunter, scientist, or official from their respective government.

- The United Systems Coalition.

The USC's official business here is to maintain their communications relay. Yet they still allow their corporate and military funded scientists in to investigate the ruins. While the militaries both avoid each other, their civilian prospectors, the few of those who are "legally" here under SROZ law, get in skirmishes with each other on a regular basis, creating some tension.

- Blackshark Mercenaries.

The rogue Zeleniyan army detachment of cybernetic-worshipping cultists have been some of the first explorers of the Talarin wasteland. They regard the Alarei as an extinct race of Gods that shunned humanity for their ignorance and unwillingness to be part of the Great Melding, what the Blacksharks regard as becoming one with machine.

They are crazy, guard the areas with the highest cybernetic tech reward, and shoot on sight.

"Chyort vas'mne!"

"Keep it down, you idiot!"

Kirov bent down to help his partner, who had tripped over a wire sticking out of the scrap pile they were negotiating. Guidon the Nose, they called him. He was notorious for his large schnozz, and his ability to find pieces of tech others seemed to just walk over, thus his name, the Nose. Kirov brushed some pieces of scrap electronics off him, and checked his air hose for any tears, giving it a few tugs. He then patted him on the protective helmet and gave him a thumbs up, picking his shotgun off the deck,"Come on, Nose, before your bad luck leads us to a sinkhole."

They descended the pile of scrap, and returned to their tense stances, the butts of their weapons dug into their shoulders and their trigger fingers caressing their trigger guards. Kirov and the Nose were both illegal scrappers. Dumpster divers, techno treasure hunters, thieves, the names all applied. Making their way through the ruins of the capital city, a distant howl chills them to the bone, but they don't slow their pace as gunshots echo in the same direction. These buildings are odd, and not of human design or architecture in any way, but they are familiar to them nonetheless. They have been doing this for around three months, Kirov for five actually.

Their geiger counter starting clicking wildly as they walked through a zone of heavy radiation. Being Zelenu, they ignored it. It only caused them minor discomfort, it would not kill them. They merely walked on, the geiger counter dulling to a few clicks every few seconds. They cannot see within 15 meters ahead of themselves, the dust storms are thicker than usual today, creating an even tenser environment as they cannot see what could lurk around the edge of their vision.

A low rumbling is heard, rubble and dust shaking off of the strange ruins of a race long forgotten. The two rush ahead and duck behind a large fallen pillar. The rumbling grows louder, as Kirov peaks his head over the pillar. A Zeleniyan ZMP-2 IFV, with infantry lazily sitting atop its hull bearing Kalishnikovs, rolls by. It blares some rap music, probably a favorite artist of the young soldiers.

"Zhu, zhu, zhu, nmalya na stanzy shtu! Prykybl, zastaya koroby-nu!"

Kirov quickly ducks his head, they both wait until the music fades out. Wordlessly they pick themselves up and move on. They approach a hole in their path, a shell had blown into the level below them. They didn't see any purpose for it, but it reminded them of the passenger tunnels that went under the concrete back in Kuteznagrad.

They made their way under, switching their flash lights on. There was only darkness ahead of them. It was damp. They advanced a bit quicker now that they only had to watch two directions. But it was eerie. The Nose, at the rear, kept glancing over his shoulder so much to the point he walked with his back to Kirov, his rifle pointed at their six.

Kirov paused, he heard something. The Nose bumped into him. Kirov turned off his flash light and leaned against the wall, the Nose did the same. A low murmuring came from the long corridor. After determining it wasn't moving, they approached it. The wall widened to the point where the darkness was on either side of them, and the roof was no longer visible. The low murmuring came from the left, and they frozen again, letting their eyes adjust. A dark figure sat on its knees, facing the wall, kneeling before a figure slumped onto the floor. It rocked back and forth quickly, muttering in English.

"Just gotta.. just gotta.. figure out.. just.. gotta find my oxygen.. he's losing blood.. losing blood! Here.. here.. take the oxygen, you idiot!" The figure shoved a mask roughly against the unmoving body's head. Kirov made the motion to move past him slowly. "Can't have my mask off for too long.. can't have my mask off for too long.. Doc said it's 2 hours until you go crazy! Bonkers! Hoohoo! How much time has it been?! Uhhh... five minutes! Yeah, yeah! Five minutes! I'll be fine, just take the oxygen, doc! Come on, if you just wake up, you can fix yourself! Then we'll go home.. and we'll never have to see this place again.." The figure seemed completely oblivious of the two, but there was a rifle laying next to him and he was obviously lost to the gas. They kept their weapons trained on him, while slinking past him. He let out a whimper,"Doc! Doc.. come on.. the oxygen.. where's the tank?! Oh, hehe! Silly me, here it is! Come on doc, you're fine, the commies just grazed you!"

They had crept past the mentally ill man, now following a blood trail from the pair of figures that lead to the other end of the room, into another narrow corridor. It was a foreboding sight, but they had to move on. "Doc.. come on.. how long has it been? Uhh.. five minutes, right! I'll be fine.. I'll put my mask back on as soon as doc gets his! Just take your oxygen, doc! I don't wanna leave you here, man.. I wanna go home!" They seemed to be in the clear, when the Nose's boot brushed into a couple of spent shell casings. "Hello?! Who's there?!" The man turned, and Kirov starting sprinting away. The Nose glanced back at the crazed man reaching for his rifle, then to Kirov. He cursed, running after him. The man let out a whimper, screaming out in genuine terror,"WAIT! WAIT FOR ME! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE! OH GOD, DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALONE."
They sprinted for a good 100 meters until they stopped to catch their breathe, the desperate echo "alone" chilled Kirov, he knew the definition of the foreign word, unlike the lesser knowledgeable Nose. A few seconds after "alone" had finished echoing through the tunnels, an even louder bang followed it. It wasn't a controlled burst of automatic fire, and it wasn't close either. It was a single shot, adding a distinct punctuation the word. The Nose and Kirov whipped around, but they both seemed to know what had happened. The Nose let out a long sigh of exasperation, leaning against the wall,"I'm thankful we can't breathe this shit.. rather be dead in a couple minutes from asphyxiation than crazy for weeks, months even, who knows?! Shit." Kirov only offered a mere,"Yeah, in agreeance, shaken up by the whole thing. This place was hell, he thought. A place of madmen, powerful weapons and relics of a civilization brought to extinction by our ancestors, hellbeasts, and just.. mind bending things.
Kirov had heard the stories, of demons possessing greedy travellers, the story of the untold million screaming souls, voices so twisted and foul one would go deaf yet still hear them, and especially the stories of mutated Alarei descendants. It was strange, for such a stoic, unsuperstitious culture of hard working people, no longer genetically the same from their human ancestors, to talk about "demons" and "ghosts". Yet it happened. Perhaps it was the aura of mystery and the unknown that the ruins of this once great place held, driving the human mind to fear and wild imagination. Maybe the crazy-gas was leaking into our tanks in non-lethal amounts, Kirov thought with a cynical chuckle.
These thoughts only drove Kirov further, with the thought of this place becoming a distant nightmare. Something he would wake up to, while lying in bed next to the most beautiful woman in all of Kuteznagrad. He'd have a flat somewhere in the financial sector of Kuteznagrad and throw parties every day. Yeah. Something like that, he thought. His day dreams would become a reality if he finished the job set before him. And with this, he shook off the fear of the unknown threat lying before them, and lead the Nose onward into the abyss.

"I hate this place..."

Staff Sergeant Jim Potter barely ever agreed with Corporal Venner; in fact, the two had developed a long-standing dislike for each other since the first day they had been sent to the planet, starting with a dispute regarding food rations. It had developed from there, and the two had barely managed to tolerate each other when they were paired for patrols, but in that moment, the Sergeant had to agree. He was not religious, but if there was a hell, he was pretty sure its name was Talarin. No single Marine had requested an assignment on the hellish world, and those that had been sent there had either pissed someone off or been very, very unlucky. Because the United Systems maintained a permanent outpost on Talarin, officially to serve as a communications relay.

The horror of the nuclear holocaust was imprinted in every corner, every building, every charred skeleton. Walking through the streets of the capital was much like taking a tour in the past, in the days when humans and the Alarei cooperated, and it reminded every single Marine on that planet just how much the United Systems had contributed to the holocaust. Potter and Venner were near the city center, the very site of the first nuclear strike in the war: a fifty megaton weapon, nicknamed 'Little David' and manufactured by the USC, had been detonated half a kilometer above the tallest skyscraper of the city. Ironically, the USC outpost had been constructed at that very site. The official line was that it was in a strategic position, but Sergeant Potter was certain that a sadistic officer had chosen the spot.

"Patrol Team 5, this is Talarin Outpost, how copy?"

The break from the chilling view was a pleasant distraction, and the Sergeant quickly activated his communications system to reply to the operator. He and Venner had been sent to patrol the outer skirts of the USC-claimed territory, the few areas neither the Zeleniyans nor the Blackshark Mercenaries dared approach because of the network of defense turrets, motion sensors and booby traps that surrounded it. There were some fresh track marks on the ground, no doubt imprinted onto the dust-covered street by one of the few tanks that USC had brought with it, but neither him or Venner paid them any thought.

"Potter to Outpost, solid copy, send message." he exclaimed, his power armor letting out a mechanical whine as the heatsinks rapidly released their heat into the air when he stopped moving.

"Be advised, we are reading a turret grid malfunction half a click from your position, turret eighty two seems to be offline. We are not getting any telemetry from that sector. Proceed to the turret and see if you can restart it, we are diverting a Superbadger with a combat engineer on board to assist. Be careful, that's where Badger 19 went missing last week."

Oh, that was just great. The turrets were more than just guns. They had a complex system of sensors that could detect any breaches into the USC zone, they were communications relays, they housed a small ammunition and fuel depot that soldiers could resupply at and, above all, they were armed with both anti-aircraft, anti-tank and antipersonnel weapons. The loss of a turret meant trouble, and according to the heads-up display, he and Venner were closest to that grid sector. It was ten minutes of walking to get to the turret from their position, and it would take at least half an hour for the Superbadger IFV to get there.

"Acknowledged Outpost, proceeding to navpoint. Uh, we can barely see anything out here, switching to motion tracker vision."

The visor of the suit of power armor blacked out for a second, and then the entire image changed radically. For one, all of the colour was gone, all of the detail had just disappeared. And it was unsteady too: the picture pulsed, almost unnoticeably to the untrained eye, refreshing twenty times a second with new data. They no longer tracked light: their suits had turned into portable SONAR beacons, transmitting high frequency sound waves above the level perceptible by the human ear and timing the delay to form a three dimensional image of their surroundings, much like a bat. The dust was gone, but the view was eerie: every small movement was amplified and displayed, and many soldiers who were not used to the hypersensitivity of the system tended to go paranoid after a few minutes. Venner activated the system as well, and the two begun to advance throughout the devastated streets.

And then he noticed the outline of a dead body through the dust, its image distorted by the sandstorm like everything else. And he sighed. Talarin Outpost was more than a communications relay: USC prospectors, both military, independent and corporate, used it as a base of operations, scavenging the ruins of the old city for any technology they could use or sell. The Zeleniyans weren't making it easy though, and instead of cooperating to exploit the ruins, USC and SRZ prospectors often fought small, unofficial skirmishes for important finds. None of it was officially reported though, and they didn't let it escalate past isolated incidents. Nine times out of ten, one of the two sides fell back as soon as it became obvious they would lose. But many of the prospectors, the independents, they lacked military training and equipment. Instead of power armor they wore cheap hazmat suits with ballistic vests, and that was just the kind of dead prospector he and Venner had just found. They had an extreme fatality rate: seven out of ten independents didn't make it back, compared to four out of ten corporate and two out of ten military. Some managed to breach their suit and went insane, others were killed by gunfire, others were crushed by the collapse of decaying buildings or ravaged by the wildlife. Less than half of their bodies were discovered.

But they pushed on, ignoring the dead body. The city was littered with them, and messing with one often meant disturbing the food of the mutated beasts that roamed the streets at night. Speaking of which, it was going to go dark in less than three hours, and the orders were very strict. Any staff still outside after nightfall would have to survive on their own, because the bunker sealed its gates at that time and nobody was allowed in or out. Even flight traffic was stopped baring emergencies.

The Nose and Kirov made their way down the long, dark corridor. They switched off their lights, seeing natural light seep in through the ceiling ahead. Kirov approached it, cautiously looking up. Nothing but ashes and the dusty, beige sky. He nodded up towards the hole,"Come on, Nose, give me a hand. We've bypassed the army's main patrol zone, we're in the shit now. Don't need to creep around in this cramped tunnel.." Nose nodded, kneeling with his palms fused together, letting his comrade climb up. Kirov tossed his shotgun up, and climbed out onto the street, reaching down to help Nose up. There was a discarded USC rifle, a pool of blood, and a cracked gasmask. Seems this is where those two humans had met their fate. They needed to get out of the open.

Moving into a nearby ally, a loud howl, a blood chilling moan, came from behind. A creature of the night, seemingly out earlier than usual, leaped down from somewhere onto the dried blood. The two ducked behind some rubble, watching the unidentifiable beast snort at the ground. It then looked up suddenly, howling and moaning again. The two tensed, gripping their weapons close to them. It leaped out of view, its terrible moaning and growling cut off short by a few gunshots. The two men ran to the back of the alley, turning the corner. The path was blocked by a large wall of rubble, go figure. The Nose started to mount it, but Kirov pulled him down, making a motion to be silent. Kirov went back to the corner, peering his head around it, shotgun at the ready. Two distant, cloaked figures, with large metallic head pieces, investigated the dried blood and rifle.

Kirov wiped the dust from his mask, squinting. Just then, a figure turned the corner, three red eyes piercing the dust and ash hanging in the air from its saucer-like head. Kirov reeled his head around the corner, trying his best to control his breathing. His blood ran cold as he heard some heavy, slow footfalls in his direction. A pause. The figure started moving again, but the footsteps grew fainter, and fainter. The Nose whispered hoarsely,"Who were they?!" Kirov's eyes were locked onto a half eaten human across from them, the words "SINS OF OUR FATHERS" scratched into the wall above it. "The Blacksharks."

____________________________________________

113rd Army Battalion HQ, Talarin.
Center of the Zeleniyan-mandated Quarantine Patrol Zone.

A disgruntled Zeleniyan Army general smoked a cigar behind his desk, his several reccomendations and souvenirs from his service strewn across the room. Across from him sat a weary scientist, his legs crossed and his hands in his lap. The general sighed heavily, crossing his arms,"Well, doctor? I sent you out to the badlands after your incessant, repeated requests to go. And you didn't find anything?! You were sure there was something in the dirt out there, and not in the city, like any rational thinking man would know! So what did you find?" The doctor smiled wryly,"You were right, general, nothing was there. I was mislead by a rumor, it was my mistake. I'll look into such 'tips' from independent prospectors more thoroughly next time."

The general ground his cigar into a ash tray, angrily glaring at the man,"And you realize your secondary priority is to report those 'independent prospectors' to the authorities, as in US, the Army, doctor?" The scientist merely gave a shrug as a reply, the general gripping the bridge of his nose,"Leave, doctor, we'll have to send you through the brief on independents again if you can't remember your priorities here." The scientist nodded, leaving and taking his briefcase with him. He walked down the pristine hallways of the base, passing by several armed guards, scientific personnel, and closed doors.

He turned towards a door with two men in different uniform than the others standing guard, swiping his ID card through the reader. The door beeped and the light above it turned green, one of the guards opening it for him and closing it behind him. It was a bare conference room, just a long table with many chairs. Sitting across from him in one of the chairs was a man in a black suit, with a Zelenu flag pin on one of his lapels. He motioned with his hand towards a seat across from him, and the scientist sat down hastily. He layed the briefcase on the table,"It wasn't hard to find.. they were everywhere." He clicked it open, showing a glass tube with a greenish-brown fungal plant in dirt inside. It was cloudy with spores. The suited man took the cylinder and examined it,"And you're sure this is the cause of the hallucinogenic air?" The scientist nodded, sweat beginning to bead on his brow,"Sure enough that if you dropped that, this whole base would need to be scrubbed.. or abandoned."

With that, the suited man seemed satisfied, he stood up, pulled out a biometrically sealed case, and placed the cylinder inside carefully. The man stood up and started to make his way out. The scientist timidly asked,"Wh-where is my part of the deal, the money?! Going out of the city is suicide itself! I almost died getting that!" The agent stopped in his tracks, turned away from him. He nodded, reaching into his jacket coat,"I'm afraid I can't pay a man who doesn't exist." The scientist slowly started to stand from his chair,"What are you talking about?!" He turned, wielding a silenced GshG-40 pistol, and firing into the surprised scientist's chest, who leapt out of the chair. The doctor slammed his head on the table as he went down and collapsed back, knocking the rolling chair away.

Holstering the pistol, the mysterious man made his way out of the stuffy conference room.

"So, uh, Sarge... What did you do to end up here?"

The question seemed silly, but its purpose was more than to extract information from his patrol partner. Corporal Venner was one of the many Marines who were absolutely, completely creeped out by the ruins of Talarin, going as far as to have panic attacks every once in a while, especially when in small teams. Many claimed that the chemicals in the air could turn a man into a mindless, insane husk within hours, but the city itself could do the same to anyone over the course of weeks. It was more than the constant fog, or the strange noises, or the creatures lurking in the dark. Death was everywhere: it surrounded them, and even in the tiny little outpost the United Systems had set up, the atmosphere was one of constant depression. The gates were sealed before nightfall, not to keep the creatures out, or the Blacksharks: the turrets and tanks could take care of that. It was to grant the inhabitants of the base some peace of mind, the ability to sleep knowing that there were several hundred meters of rock, metal and concrete between them and the nearest threat.

And Corporal Venner was absolutely creeped out in that moment. His power armor had the endurance, firepower and strength to take down a dozen men, but he still felt like a tiny boy afraid of the dark: the sonic vision helped distance him from the scene, removing all colours and turning it into something less intimidating, but at the same time it drove him to paranoia. A change in air current, a falling rock, a distant creek, they were all amplified and displayed both as a visual disturbance in his field of vision and as a sound against his ears, complete with spatial awareness. Most 'greens', as the troops referred to soldiers fresh out of the academy who had seen no action, didn't make it past their first week on the planet, and the base doctor declared them unfit for duty on Talarin and shipped them back to Europa. Venner, he was one of the unlucky ones. Too scared to work, not scared enough to not work.

The Sergeant's answer was much different than the obscenity Venner was expecting. "Illegal discharge of a firearm. I had been assigned to one of the asteroid mines, you know, the ones with all the spiders on them, and one of them got so annoying that I just shot it. The Commander wouldn't have minded if I hadn't accidentally damaged one of the drills in the process." he explained, just as desperate for something to take his mind off of the constant ticking of the sensor as it pinged to get new echolocation data. 'Spiders', of course, referred to the Nasari workers, the six-legged slaves that the Coalition used for the hard labour no human was interested in doing.

Thankfully, the trip to the turret was uneventful, a blessing in the hellhole of Talarin. It was called a 'turret', but the structure was more like an actual outpost, a gigantic anti-tank turret surrounded by mobile sentries and a Surface-to-Air Missile Launcher. The smaller weapons were connected with thick, armoured cabling to the main gun, which was linked to an antenna and a RADAR system positioned at the top of a nearby building. At first, the two couldn't figure out what the problem was: all the turrets seemed offline, their barrels pointed downwards in the safe position, but as they walked closer, they caught a glimpse of just what had happened. There was a hole on the side of the main turret, and judging by the torn cabling and sparks, something had taken its anger on the device. But there was more: the side panel had been ripped open, and the computer screens were cracked, with the keyboard having been torn off and tossed in the side.

"...Patrol team to Outpost... We have a problem."

Unsecured Zeleniyan communications come through, but nothing promising. Just curt responses from one unit to another over the radio. Independent communications come through as well, but there is very little chatter, and it is mostly in spoken code.

________________________________________________________

The analysts aboard Starsearcher-5 cursed and frantically began scanning, one of them calling out  to the Intel officer aboard the ship,"Komrade Leytenant! Another contact, it went dark as soon as it entered again!" The intelligence officer cursed as well,"Start a communications scan! If we can't see them, I want to know what they're saying!"

The electronic warfare defense ship hailed the carrier group it was deployed from,"Command, Starsearcher-5, we've got two unidentified entries into high orbit. Could be a possible systems malfunction, but both went off the map as soon as they entered, suggesting two stealth craft entries." The Captain of the ship scowled heavily upon hearing this,"Command acknowledges, Starsearcher-5, keep at it, we're sending more your way." The Captain slammed his hand down on his chair, standing,"Divert Starsearcher 4 and 6 to 5's quadrant! Scramble the Hoodlums and began low orbit scans. Have all squadrons on the ready. Get 113rd to double their patrols and deploy their anti air. And get me the USC now, fucking capitalists are behind this, I know it!"

The Zeleniyan fleet is clearly spooked, the wasp's nest seems to have been awoken, as both the Army and the Navy double their patrols. Anti-Air Shilkas now patrol with ZMP-2s and V2-D hoodlums soar high over Talarin. A hail request is received by the USC from the Zeleniyan battle group.

Kirov and the Nose scaled the rubble pile, knowing that what lie over it would not be salvation from the Blacksharks, but they had to push on. They slid down the other side, moving along the wall of the alley and peaking out. There it stood, the great capital square. It was said that it was the jewel of the capital district, that the people who were important enough to be allowed onto Talarin would forever remember the beautiful sculptures and Alarei architecture that it held. But now, it was the heart of evil. The Blackshark's lair supposedly lay underneath it, in the underground tunnels.

Several toppled columns and eroded statues stood before the many great halls. Kirov had only glimpsed at this place once, a picture an expert prospector had taken. This prospector was dead. He came back from the square a rich man, and his greed drove him back. Both he and his partner were never heard from again.

It was said that the Blacksharks did not kill humans, not if they didn't have to. They only kill Xenos outright, apparently a blasphemous existence in their twisted religion. That's what made them horrifying. The Blacksharks, the boogeymen of Zelenu culture. They would steal you in the night and make you an unthinking slave if you didn't behave or do well in class. Well, now that Kirov was no longer a child, he knew not to believe in ghost stories fabricated by tired parents. But he still slept every night with his pistol in hand, round in the chamber, because of what he heard of the Blacksharks.

The Blacksharks, knowing that they sit upon the greatest site of profit gain, wait for their human or Zelenu counter parts. Once they saw one, they would abduct them. There were many ways they did this. One such way is, a crack sniper would shoot you in the leg and your weapon in half while you lie on the ground in pain. Then four or five of them would drag you away into their lair, while you screamed and kicked all the way down. They would strap you into whatever medieval, surgical machine they had down there, and the painful conversion would begin. When you awoke, you would no longer be yourself. You would be The Meld. Or atleast that's what that old man had said before a campfire of prospectors, rookie and master alike. It shook all to the core.

And now they had to walk through it. But not without a little help. Kirov turned to the Nose,"Unpack your bag, this is where we wear them." The Nose nodded, dropping his kit and beginning to pull something out. Kirov scanned the skyline, the broken skyscrapers and government buildings could have held any number of snipers. The uneven and broken ceilings could conceal hundreds of the monsters. He turned back to Kirov, who had layed out some strange material and several little reflective pads everywhere. It was an experimental cloaking technology, provided by the company that hired the two to retrieve this tech they desired.

They read off the instructions carefully, and donned the cloaks. It was made of a material that naturally blended in with its surroundings. In a comical moment, the Nose swept his hands across the ground, like a man who had lost his contacts,"Shit, where is it?!" He muttered under his breathe, gripping a filmy piece of material and pulling it off the ground, he sighed with relief and donned the cloak. They then put the reflective pads on their chests, their knees, the top of their head, elbows, and shoulders. Kirov briefed the Nose,"Okay, we should be able to see each other with these visors,"He held up a pair of blue visors with a battery pack on either side of the frame, sliding them over his eyes. "The instructions say we'll have about 30 minutes of juice, so we need to get across the plaza as fast as possible, turn it off, and use it only when we need to when we get inside." The Nose slid his glasses on, and nodded,"Okay, druk, I'm ready!" Kirov layed a hand on the back of his neck,"Keep it together, brother, we'll be rich men after this, and this place will just be a bad dream! Now let's go."

They pressed once on the little devices on their wrists, and they turned invisible. They could still see their outline by a blue cartoon-like shadow in the tactical visor's HUD. Kirov led the way as he moved swiftly through the square, vaulting a statue and making his way towards the scientific building, who's eroding Alarei symbols he had memorized. It was a massive plaza, and incredibly empty. Kirov glanced up at one of the ceilings and did a double take. A saucerheaded Blackshark sniper stood up there, scanning the plaza with a huge rifle. It took no notice of them.

They scaled the many steps of the scientific building. There were so many it made Kirov dizzy to look up at how many more. Their legs began to go numb, and the Nose began to wheeze heavily,"Keep up, Nose!" Kirov hoarsely whispered through his headset.

They reached the top, exhausted, taking cover behind a pillar, they deactivated their cloaking devices. Taking a moment to catch their breathe, Kirov nodded towards the massive pair of open doors. Well, one of them had fallen over a long time ago. They entered into a massive auditorium, and were immediately met by a patrolling group of 5 Blacksharks. They ducked behind a pillar, Kirov turned around the corner to get a look at them. They passed under the filtered blue light from the ceiling above, their cloaks extended all the way down from their shoulders to their feet, giving the illusion they were gliding along, not walking. Once they passed into the next room, Kirov muttered,"We're in the bee's nest now.."

// Still awaiting a reply from Blitz here

FKS. Weimar (CA-050), Talarin Space

The unarmed, civillian barge came from slip space and proceeded to hail the Zeleniy space station.

"+- Orbital Command, this is the FKS. Weimar. Requesting permission to land on the planet's surface, authorization credentials have been sent via secured packet stream.-+"

The ship waited in space, allowing itself to be taken by the natural orbit of the planet, the telecomm operator would notice that the research credentials have been authorized by the late politburo executive who was engulfed in the fateful explosion on Kutzengrad.

_______________________________________________________________________________


Signal Collection Team "Voodoo"
Overwatch Position, Zeleniy Outpost, 2300 Local Time

The SOT-A was perched inside of a decrepit building, two of the men working the crypto machines, where as the others overlook the research outpost about two clicks to their front. They watch through the high powered scopes of equally high powered rifles, scanning the compound for anything that would be note, defenses and patrols being a no brainier.

Stepan stood with several of his officers around an observation console, after several scans a reliable holographic model of Zeleniyan military positions was created and presented to the assembled men and women. The old admiral quickly pointed out an open area of space,

"There." he gave a single word and his staff nodded.

Officially the Commonwealth Fleet was there to establish a research and salvage operation which is why they had several civilian ships for the purposes of establishing a base on the planets surface and maintain a massive yet logistically feasible presence on the planet with which the High Command hoped to catapult the Commonwealth's technological capacity to put them on equal footing with other powers.

Unofficially the operation was a show of force and a way to guarantee permanent access to the planet for both the Commonwealth and any of it's allies.

Apraksin returned to his command chair and sent his orders to the fleet, they would deploy organized specifically according to class and group. Light Carriers would take up the rear positions and project force in such a way to influence the battlespace in a positive defensive capacity if attacked. One destroyer would each lead a circular formation of six frigates to allow immediately point defense and deployment of offensive capable mines to limit enemy intrusions into the formation whilst the remaining three destroyers would remain near the light carriers to be applied as the Admiral saw fit and to defend the vulnerable craft.

Behind this front line of these destroyer-frigate groups would be four formations of missile ships numbering three each who would be easily capable of projecting force onto distant enemy ships whilst remaining covered by the frigates and destroyers. Stepan was convinced that he could easily win a battle of attrition against Zeleniyan forces if it came to blows by hitting reverse inertial thrusters and constantly bombarding the enemy with long range attacks and offensive mines. Although there still remained the possibility of being hit in the back by enemy reinforcements which would have to be remedied by an immediate FTL jump before maximum damage could be accomplished by hostile forces. After that the Commonwealth would have to adopt a skirmishing strategy to render the effective control of Talarin by Zeleniyan forces impossible.

Of course this was all theory at this point, the only information Stepan had on current Zeleniyan military power was from their operations in Tefeull. Either way their forces were swiftly making their way towards a designated zone waiting to see if they would be contacted or intercepted by other forces. If not, then they would proceed regardless and began the construction of a research outpost with plans for an orbital station already in the works.

Talarin Surface, The Great Palace of the Melder, former headquarters for medical research by the Alarei.



The two treasure hunters quietly make their way through the ruined halls of the once great research center. They hide in the rubble and behind the strange Alarei architecture as the several patrols of robotic Blacksharks walk by. They follow the map they had been given, the shoddy, dimly backlit PDA showing them the way. They found themselves descending underground gradually, taking many backroutes and odd turns, presumably to avoid regular patrols. Whoever made this map must be a millionaire, thought Kirov.

They were getting close to their objective when they heard yelling and struggling from the next hall. Kirov held a hand up to Nose's chest, creeping around the dark corner to poke his head around slowly. A Zeleniyan motostreleki soldier was being dragged by two ominous cloaked beings, his right kneecap bleeding profusely. He struggled and screamed,"Let me go! Fuck you! Fuck you! I'll choke before you take me!" He shook his head vigorously, trying to shake the gasmask off. His two captors stopped at a door, one of them stepping up to a panel, which scanned him. After a moment, the door opened, and the two dragged the man in.

The man's yells were muffled as the door closed behind them. They quieted suddenly. Then as Kirov made a motion to keep moving, a high pitched whine of a machine was heard, followed by a bloodcurdling scream. More moving parts and machinery clanking, the screams following every little sound the machine made. Kirov felt sick, he quickly moved down the hall towards his objective.

After 20 more minutes of sneaking around, they came to it. They slid down a pile of rubble, into another hallway below them. They looked to the right, stairs. To their left, a huge hermetically sealed door at the end of the corridor. They quickened their pace, knowing that this was it. Kirov ran up to it, ordering nose in a harsh whisper to watch the hall. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a blue, triangular device. Feeling his hands over the door's control panel, he found the little slot that it fit. He slid the device in, standing back. A moment passed, and the door churned. Like two massive hands peeling its entwined fingers back, the door gave way.

The Nose turned around, staring in awe inside the vault. They both cautiously stepped inside, and saw a great machine built into the wall. It had the outline of a tall, thin humanoid inside of a glass sealed case, and many little mechanical arms hanging limply inside it. There were hundreds of tubes and wires from the machine into the glass case. Kirov shook his head,"No this can't be it.. they said it would be small enough to carry back!" The Nose took a step forward, tripping over something. He caught himself, turning to see what it was, he jumped back, preparing his rifle. He looked down at it again, chuckling nervously,"Just a dead blue one! Heh.. Hey, what've you got there?"

He reached down and pried something from the Alarei skeleton's hands. It was a hollow metal cylinder. He held it up to Kirov, who took it and looked over it, then looked over the machine again. He saw a small panel opened slightly, and walked up to the machine, slowly pulling it away. The panel door swung open, hundreds of cylinders inside hanging from suspended clamps. He wrenched one from one of the clamp's hands. It was much heavier than the one in his left hand. He dropped the empty one and turned to the Nose,"Take as many of these as you can!"

They stuffed their backpacks full of the little vials, and when they were just under an overbearing weight, they left. They turned to the door, and froze as they saw three cloaked figures standing there, watching them. One stepped forward, his black, robotic arms spreading either way out from under his cloak, as if offering a hug. He spoke with a monotone voice,"As the prophecy foretold, two misguided have unlocked the Great Chamber. Rejoice, brothers. They have given way to the Great Melding." Kirov began to sweat profusely, did someone set them up? How did these freaks know, did they see them coming in? He couldn't think about that now, all he had to think about was getting out alive. He became invisible in the middle of the Blackshark member's ranting, strafing sideways and raising his Kalishnikov, the Nose was a second too late and as he turned invisible the two Blacksharks on either side of him raised their rifles with an instant reaction time and shot the Nose as he was turning invisible. He fell onto the floor, blood pouring out from under the stealth cloak as he gurgled and choked.

The two Blacksharks stood stock still, their dome heads turning, all the little robotic eyes scanning every single corner. Suddenly a burst of of machinegun fire from the left struck the leftmost Blackshark, injuring him as he returned fire as the slightly visible Kirov. Kirov went invisible again as soon as he stopped firing. The three spread out from the doorway, as the door closed behind them. Kirov moved about the room, shooting and scooting to different pieces of cover as he did. But this fire fight did not last for long, as the Blackshark's supreme sensory equipment cornered him, slowly walking towards the column he was hiding behind as they suppressed him with automatic fire.

As they reloaded, Kirov turned the corner to fire, but was struck in the chest twice. He collapsed on his back, gasping, feeling himself. The rounds didn't go through his vest, but he was in shock. As he tried to get up, the three figures were already upon him. One of them took him by the scruff of his vest and picked him up with great strength, slamming him against the wall. He gripped the cloak and tore through it with one hand, the high tech equipment shredding and leaving Kirov visible. The Last thing Kirov remembered was the Blackshark repeatedly pounding his face into the wall until his gasmask lenses began to give way.

Talarin Orbit, Zeleniyan Outpost Station Dvakok.

The CIC lit up as the several contacts came in. The unarmed civillian barge was let in, in the panic of the several contacts jumping at once, the radio operator didn't care that the authorizing signature was that of a dead politician, nor did he even know who he was.

The Outpost called in for reinforcements as the 2 Kravenkov missile cruisers and 2 Patrul frigates made their way to the other side of orbit. One of the missile cruisers was already on stand by near the outpost, and it positioned itself in a defensive stance in front of the outpost. Rear Admiral Lovodnik angrily stood over the CIC of Outpost Dvakok,"Arm the CIWS and the nuclear package! Get a warning message to them, level critical! And phone back to Fleet Command! Get these stone-aged imbeciles out of my space!"

An urgent message was broadcasted to the Fleet, a heavily accented woman speaking,"Trevogyi! Trevogyi, Commonwealth Fleet! You are entering a demilitarized zone administrated by the Armistice Council and enforced by the USC and Socialist Republics of Zeleniy! If you enter within 1 million kilometers orbit around Talarin all civillian vessels will be dealt with by lethal force. If any military vessels enter 2 million kilometers orbit around Talarin, it is an act of war against both parties. Please respond or lethal action will be taken."

The Outpost scrambles several fighter and attack/bomber squadrons. They pull up alongside the civilian crafts, pulling a turn in front of their bridges to brandish underside of their fighter/bomber craft, showing their full armament of anti-ship missiles, before pulling off and trailing behind the crafts.