[??? - ??] UNKNOWN LOCATION

Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN

[??? - ??] UNKNOWN LOCATION C4cbf7e542e2fa35fbc75ff67a78808d-d3ivy3t

<"Attention, all personnel: radiation badge inspection has been rescheduled for twenty hundred hours local time. All radiation badges must be reset before the midnight jump. For further information, call the Infirmary.">

The dark, sterile corridor was buzzing with activity: men and women of all colours, sizes and occupations walked in both directions, maintaining an organised flow of people through the corridor linking Sections 25 and 24. Normally, it was standard United Systems policy to not have windows on vessels, as they were a structural vulnerability that could not be justified. The fact that, in this case, there was some form of window on one side of the corridor was a surprise by itself; except that it was not an actual window, but rather a coating of high-definition LED panels on the wall, connected to the outside with a wireless camera. It gave the illusion of transparency without the weakness, and nobody seemed to mind the faint light of a nearby blue giant shining on the metal floor.

The humans, dressed in a variety of uniforms of both the civilian and military varieties, made way for a pair of men that stood out from the rest. The one on the left, a man in his mid-sixties, was the very model of a United Systems Navy officer: clad in a dark blue Admiral's Dress Uniform full with its cap, the chest of the Admiral was a neatly organised mess of commendations, medals and ribbons. His companion was dressed in a black formal suit with the USC flag pinned on it, and was obviously more than ten years younger.

"The aliens haven't said anything yet?" asked the older man, his voice full with an aura of disappointment. Obviously he was not happy with the progress the 'let the aliens stare at the wall for a few hours' interrogation method had achieved.

Indeed, as soon as the transport had arrived from Tefeull carrying the alien prisoners, they had been locked away in a series of special chambers spread out throughout the outpost: each chamber, officially dubbed the Hazardous Detainee Holding Cell, was an eight by eight airtight box of titanium alloy with four meter thick walls and armour plating on both sides. Held at a distance of almost a hundred meters from the main structure and equipped with a microscopic nuclear warhead to destroy them if the prisoners attempted escape, the only way to get to and from the small buildings that housed them was by shuttlecraft, and they were guarded by fighter patrols and turrets alike. The electrified interior of the cells and the explosion-resistant blastdoors ensured that any thoughts of escape would be quickly evaporated.

The Central Intelligence Agency had learnt a hard lesson after the interrogation of Nasari terrorist 'Tak'mul' after the creature smuggled a nuclear grenade in its stomach and killed over a hundred agents and military staff a decade prior. The deceased bodies of the Kal'bavakorians taken from the hangar bay of the Tefeull mining outpost had been moved to similar cells designed for alien autopsies, with the same precautions. No work had begun on the bodies yet, since the USC feared that they would be booby trapped: instead it erected a jamming field around the cells to prevent the armor of the Kal'bavakorians from communicating with other units, or indeed using FTL communications.

For hours, the Kal'bavakorians had been kept in the dark with absolutely no interaction; the only thing connecting them to the outside world was a series of cameras that watched their every move, using echolocation and infrared technology to amplify the image in the dark. Although some would argue that such techniques of complete isolation had worked with human prisoners before, the real reason behind the strategy was to give the analysts time to dissect the Kal'bavakorian language and come up with a way of communicating. The aliens apparently knew English, but intelligence gathering techniques had to be perfected.

"No sir. Nothing so far. Special Agent Garder claims that we should have a rough translation software in a few more hours, but we have too few intercepted samples of the alien language to analyse. It will be crude." came the answer just as the two men reached the airlock, flashing their identity passes to the guard and then submitting their wrist chips to a scan. The door opened and they stepped through, walking down the corridor for a few meters before turning to the left and entering one of the rooms marked as 'EXOBIOLOGY ISOLATION MONITORING'.

The interior was nothing more than a cramped room filled with computers and laboratory equipment, including a gigantic screen on the wall facing the blastdoor. The screen displayed nothing other than one of the Kal'bavakorian corpses, with several robotic arms around it standing by for orders. No scans had been performed yet, other than a visual inspection to find entry points. Some kind of emitter had been lowered above the corpse, pointing straight down with a large dish: an EMP emitter, ready to fry the suit's electronics in order to disarm any self-destruct mechanisms.

"Get someone on it. Give it a few more minutes and then have them interrogate the lead alien through a drone avatar. I will be watching the autopsy, so I am leaving you in charge of the questioning. And inform the President that we are about to try cutting one of them open. That'll be all." exclaimed the uniformed man, folding his arms at the sight of the alien piece of armor.

"Yes, Director."

The suited man turned around to exit the room, walking out into the corridor again and stepping onto the seal engraved on the floor: a bald eagle, with its wings spread open and holding a spear and a lightning bolt in each of its claws, with the words:

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
COMMAND OUTPOST HYDRA SXCN-01

"And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

Subject: Re: [??? - ??] UNKNOWN LOCATION Mon Jun 16, 2014 7:16 pm

(( Want me to be involved in this? ))

Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08

((Duh, obviously, they are going to interrogate the prisoners...))

Subject: Re: [??? - ??] UNKNOWN LOCATION Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:35 am

(( Awesome, lol ))

Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Section 24: Exobiology Isolation Monitoring

"Visual inspection of the armour is insufficient to reveal the material the alien exoskeleton is composed of. It appears to be metallic in nature, and the damage profile observed by our own soldiers in the field indicates a titanium or titanium alloy composite on the exterior surface. The laser scan has given us a blueprint of the suit's exterior, although the alien nature of the armour prevents us from making useful speculation as to the function of the various elements."

The exobiology and autopsy team was a paradox itself: several doctors and engineers, most of them in simple BDUs and without any actual surgical tools, were seated behind a series of consoles that formed a circle around a holographic display. The armoured alien corpse was displayed on that very space, along with the robotic arms and tools that would be used to both crack the suit open and perform a very detailed autopsy. In reality, the corpse was located several kilometers away, deposited in a bomb-resistant structure that was guarded by automated combat drones and turrets and equipped with a self destruct mechanism.

The Central Intelligence Agency had prepared for every possibility, and for that, 'Hydra Station' had also been classified as 'zombie proof', 'flood proof' and even 'dragon proof'. Coming up with impossibly complicated, borderline paranormal scenarios was part of the CIA's modus operandi: there was no possible way to prepare for the billions of catastrophic scenarios that could occur on a space station. Instead, it could make preventative measures for scenarios that could be extended to several problems: for example, a 'zombie attack' defence plan was also useful in the event of a viral outbreak, an escaped alien captive or even an invasion by enemy soldiers, since it included isolation protocols. The paranoia ran so deep in the United Systems intelligence community that HYDRA was the only known station to be equipped with jump drives, a quad of them like the Avenger, and jumped to random locations at random times. The only recorded coordinates of the station's next locations was held deep within the Pentagon on Europa, the most guarded facility in the USC, including several fakes. Not even the President had access to that data.

Standing behind the autopsy dream-team, Director Lance Womack checked the time on a nearby screen and returned to watching with interest. The engineers had taken over, lead by some eccentric genius from Europa Polytechnic, and were in the process of calibrating the electromagnetic pulse generator in order to fry the suit's circuits and thus disarm any self destruct mechanisms before they could activate. Studying the computer systems was a low priority at the moment: the real purpose of this first attempt to access the body was to gain detailed information on Kal'bavakorian biology, in accordance with the ancient saying 'know thy enemy'. The engineers, all of them distinguished scientists, most of them professors at some of the Coalition's Ivy League universities, had already studied the tons of information gathered by the short battle in both space and on the Talla'zouna asteroid and had ran countless simulations regarding the intensity of the pulse.

"Electromagnetic pulse generator has been calibrated, electric field strength set to two hundred thousand volts per meter. Commencing five microsecond pulse, five repetitions." exclaimed the lead engineer, a short, scruffy old man with short graying hair and a peculiar set of goggles. One of the robotic arms lowered from the ceiling and hovered its parabolic dish above the suit, only to suddenly heat up and retract upwards as the electromagnetic pulse was delivered. It was done: a powerful electromagnetic pulse had been focused on the suit, hopefully shutting down all electronics before they had a chance to trigger a self destruct.

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Containment Cell 28

For hours, Hazel One had been kept in complete darkness: even the tiny dot lights that indicated the status of the cameras, at least the ones that were visible, had been disabled. Excellent sound proofing, and the fact that the room was held far from the station in the vacuum of space, made sure that the containment chamber was more effective than the harshest of prison isolation wards. The same was true for the rooms his comrades had been deposited in: each had been placed far away from the other, and several drone fighters patrolled the space surrounding them in order to prevent any escapes. The rooms were, after all, not connected to the station with anything other than the structural girders that secured them in place: all transit was done via shuttlecraft. The containment cell's only other feature was a pair of opaque pods, undoubtedly holding combat androids similar to those encountered on Tefeull.

At last, the lights in the cell were activated and bathed the walls in menacing red. There was a table built into the structure, and two unmovable chairs, but other than those and the two pods the tiny chamber was empty. Only the slots holding a quad of automated turrets stood apart from the ceiling, and the lights seemed to have been integrated into the metal itself. Strangely enough, a few moments after the lights turned on a series of insect-sized vents begun to replace the air in the chamber with a different mixture. The atmospheric composition was changing to accommodate Kal'bavakorian life, and was made identical to that inside the asteroid base on Tefeull within a few moments. Several seconds later, one of the two pods slid open and from within emerged a combat android, coloured in black and with the same devilish red eyes as the ones on the asteroid.

The machine took a moment to examine its surroundings, using some kind of laser scanning module, before its eyes centered in on the alien. It took a few steps towards the table as the pod secured itself again, and retracted the machinegun arm into some kind of slot, replacing it with sharp claws. The claws then folded in on themselves, forming a crude version of human fingers, and the drone proceeded to sit down on the chair.

<"Remove your armour and sit."> it ordered in crude Kal'bavakorian, its voice purely mechanical with absolutely no inflection or intonation. Its eyes tracked the alien's moves like a predator stalking its pray, and the cameras around the room turned to get a good view of the alien.

Subject: Re: [??? - ??] UNKNOWN LOCATION Mon Jun 30, 2014 3:13 am

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Section 24: Exobiology Isolation Monitoring

The male Kal'Bavakorian body lays motionless on the examination table. The short alien is interesting upon first examination, having only three fingers on each hand, and having two large toes on the front of its feet, with a third larger toe on the rear of each foot for support. This particular specimen is around five feet tall exactly, and is rather muscular as seen from the unarmored, fabric-like sections where the armor gives way to allow for joint mobility. The Kal'Bavakorian armor system is also visually stimulating, with multiple blinking lights and sensors still active upon the corpse's suit. This particular Kal'Bavakorian seems to have been killed by a suit puncture via a high velocity round impacting the 'sternum' area of the chest, with a blackish substance having seeped violently out of the wound from the corpse and covered the front of the armor. Multiple other rounds seem to have impacted the chest area of the armor as well, but have been stopped by some unknown function of the suit; something for further inspection.

As the science team sends the powerful jolt of energy into the suit, something odd begins to transpire almost immediately.

The innards of the suit were suddenly becoming very.. Warm?

Thermal sensors begin to pick up an extremely hot signature from within' the suit, quickly spreading to the entire body encompassed by it. Even worse, a terrible smell and a stack of smoke begin to rise from the hole in the center of the armor; an odd fizzling, bubbling ooze rising from it as well.

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Containment Cell 28

He was dreaming.

He could smell the delightful, mouth-watering aroma of a freshly baked Ooga-Fruit Pie sitting on the countertop. The delightful honks of his hatchling daughter as she entered the doorway of his humble abode; a backpack over one of her shoulders, and her long, braided silver hair hanging over the other. He was almost h-.. No, wait; he had just gotten home. Yes, that was it. His wife had just returned from Alliance Central Hospital just a few hours before; she had been working a long shift there. She had left the food for him, spending just enough time to make it before she passed out from the long hours. He had been running PT with his Legion Platoon the entire week, preparing for departure from Kal'Bavakor to some odd posting in the Outer Territories, something he wasn't particularly excited about. They'd run a lot of 'Foreign Contact Deployment' holo-trials, and were being issued low-tech suits of modified Kas'Ka Armor for some reason.. He remembered arguing quite angrily about it! How the bas'tu could Hazel Squad fight those bastard Alonzai Pirates without good tech? He didn't care though.. The pie, his daughter, his beautiful wife; they were so close. He ignored the pie, although it smelled more amazing than anything he could possibly think of, and bent over to pick up the squealing little hatchling below. He wanted to spend as much time with them before he left. She was so excited to tell him about the history class she had been taki-...

"BAAASG'TEJSKAAAA.." He cried in Kal'Bavakorian as the lights suddenly activated, and the machine stepped over towards him, so imposing was it. His heart was racing, and he was hyperventilating almost immediately. Where was he, and what the bash'tu was going on? Wait...

The communication tower, the alien airstrike.. The human pilot Hazel attempted to capture. The far'tuking machines got him and his team.

He needed to relax; to calm down. He opened his mouth wide, and began to slowly take deep breaths in and out; trying his best to relax. His HUD was alerting the air regeneration systems to compensate for his fearful breathing, and the scrubbers were delivering just enough air to keep him calm, even though the outside atmosphere appeared to read as breathable.

Then the machine spoke. Hazel One paused, and glanced down at himself. He was sitting in some sort of chair; unrestricted to it, for now. Quickly, he dropped his hands into his lap and, with another somewhat shaky breath, glared upwards at the alien drone that stood above him. He replied, his voice unnerved, but defiant in every possible way. He even spoke in broken English, not willing to give the humans any pride in their sketchy translation software. The helmet speakers would amplify his speech considerably.

"I will not. Leave, coward machine.. Your masters meet me in person, or I not speak.."

Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Section 24: Exobiology Isolation Monitoring

wip

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Containment Cell 28

The towering endoskeleton took another step forward, its red eyes flashing again; it seemed to be a reaction that occurred almost by reflex, as if the creators of the machine had put in extra effort to make it strike fear into the enemy with a mere glance from its optical sensors. Curiously, it examined its prisoner: it could not acquire any data on heartrate, blood pressure, skin temperature or chemical composition due to the armor the creature was wearing, but it could employ another tactic to force it into submission: despair. There was nowhere to run, after all. But it did have one more duty to perform: slam that last statement into the dust and crush it before the alien got any ideas.

"A paradoxical statement. Machines do not have emotions. Fear is an emotion. Cowardice stems from fear. Therefore, the adjective coward does not apply to this unit." Its metallic jaw did not move while it spoke, adding to the uncanniness of the situation. Its shape was humanoid, verging on human, for reasons unknown: the Coalition had already recognized that the human body was frail, that its shape was not optimal for space combat and that bipedal locomotion was inferior in many regards to tracked vehicles or quadrupedal machines. And yet there it was, the drone, mocking the biological nature of both humans and Kal'bavakorians with its form.

Something happened, however: the red glow of the eyes dissipated and was almost instantly replaced by cold blue, with the machine's tone likewise changing: it was mechanical, but there was inflection to it, as if someone had taken control from the other end. "After Action Report, Operation Golden Retriever. Mission objective: the transfer of the three alien prisoners from Sector Tefeull to CIA headquarters. Mission status: failure. Prisoners attempted escape during transit to HYDRA station, resulting in the loss of one Chetco military transport, four HK-1 combat endoskeletons and two CIA pilots. Chances of recovery of the bodies of the prisoners and crew zero. Funeral held for Captain Paul Mendez and Lieutenant Erika Gray at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, without bodies. No next of kin. Report signed by Major Peter Lens, Special Operations Command FTL Fighter Escort Wing, and Doctor Marie Oppenheimer, President of the United Systems Coalition. End of report." it stated, and the wall on the left side of the room morphed to display the signed documents. "You and your men died a few hours ago due to a catastrophic fusion reactor breach of the Chetco aircraft transporting you: you and your men attacked the escorting drones, accidentally triggered a grenade and breached the fusion compartment. The resulting explosion yield was equivalent to twelve point seven kilotons of TNT. Your bodies were vaporized during the first millisecond of the blast."

Officially, the aliens did not exist any more: it was a grim truth, but the CIA really knew how to cover its tracks. It maintained several thousand fake entries into the service registry of all agencies, servicemen that had never existed, to add realism to its coverups through their deaths, actions or awarded commendations. "There will be no help. No rescue. The Coalition will never acknowledge your existence, and in time, you and your men will be forgotten by history as casualties of war. You will never go back to your families, you will never see the sun again and you will never, ever have contact with anyone but this drone, controlled through various agents such as myself."

"And you know what the best part is? Your cooperation, and even your survival, are of no consequence. We got what we wanted: our scientists are already at work mapping out the genome of your dead compatriots, and we are expected to have a viable biological weapon within the next two weeks. Our strategic missile command has been moved to readiness status DEFCON 2 in preparation for a nuclear launch against your homeworld, pending the retrieval of its location. The only reason you are alive is because someone in the upper echelons of government wants me to find out if there are any redeeming qualities to your people, any reason at all to not crush you like bugs. You are alive only because the President of the United Systems has become sentimental, and decided that exterminating an entire species without knowing their name is bad PR. You are alive only because I am being paid to waste my time asking you questions I know you will not answer, because believe me, the scientists down at Xenoanatomy are itching to get their hands on a live specimen for dissection. So if you don't want to talk, just save us both the time and say it."

Having finished the monotone, the agent behind the machine seems to have stopped talking altogether, expecting an answer.

Posts : 172 Join date : 2014-01-08

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Section 24: Exobiology Isolation Monitoring

wip

DEEP SPACE
LOCATION: UNKNOWN
Situation Room

"...the latest reports from Tefeull indicate that the New Terran fleet has seized the most valuable chunks of former SRZ and UCFP territory, and while obtaining the left-overs has given us an additional two weeks' breathing room before our fuel runs dry, we have been unable to obtain the swift and decisive strategic victory we hoped for..."

If there was one thing that the President did not want to think about, it was the fuel crisis. Or the war. Or the fact that not one, but two human nations were backing an alien race. Or the horrid deal with the devil she had made by giving the military permission to restore all nuclear arms to active status. Or anything that was not sleep. Now that she remembered it, she hadn't slept in more than forty-eight hours, and was it already Tuesday?

"...the Governor of the State of Warsaw has officially requested the intervention of the 3rd National Guard Division to quell the riots, and it is estimated that material damages in New Warsaw will climb to four billion dollars unless martial law is declared immediately..."

Why didn't she take one of those fancy stimulant pills again? Oh, right, it would interact badly with her painkiller subscription. And was this her twentieth coffee? Or was it thirty? She was probably losing it: within two days, the Coalition had gone from slowly fixing its problems to being at war with one alien nation and on the verge of it with two more, and all because the Zeleniyans of all people had just given up and retreated to their homeworld to fight their own war. She never thought she would blame the Zeleniyans for not being a nuisance.

"...Marine Division Tefeull has again requested reinforcements to quell the Nasari uprisings, and while casualties on our side has been low, over twenty percent of Nasari assets have been lost as a result of summary executions and fighting. Representatives from Exxon, Planetary Resources and Energon have requested permission to execute their entire stock of Nasari workers and replace them with robotic units from SpecCom, but the Department of Energy has denied their request due to the delay in fuel delivery it would cause..."

And was it lunchtime already? Or did-

"Madame President."

The short woman snapped to look at General Robert Howard, the commanding officer of the Special Operations Command, and shook her head a bit to make it easier to focus. "Yes, General?" she asked, making it obvious that she had been unable to keep up with the earlier conversation.

"We need a decision now, Madame President." he stated, pushing a red folder with 'OPERATION PROTECT FREEDOM - TOP SECRET' written on it across the table and in front of the President, for her consideration. "Our most optimistic estimates predict a loss of civil order within the next two weeks as a result of fuel shortages and the plunging value of the United Systems Military in the stock market. Public confidence in the military is at an all time low, and several corporations have already refused to discuss renewing their security contracts with the Army. At this rate, we will be unable to maintain national defense." he explained, eyeing the folder emphatically. "We need a decision."

She had already read the folder, of course: "General... What you are asking me to do is... You want to put combat androids and mechs in the streets, start a genocide, send half a million troops to Talarin and gain permission to use Agent Gray against both domestic enemies and council members... Do you even realize what you are asking here? Is there not another way? I mean, I am not a military expert, but don't we now have a complete monopoly on strategic nuclear arms? We are free from deterrence, can't you deal with it conventionally?"

"Madame President, this is exactly why we need to move swiftly on this. We can not guarantee that the squids do not have their own nuclear deterrent, and with them, the New Terrans and the Imperium ganging up against us, sitting this one out is not an option. We also have a pro-Nasari terrorist group operating on domestic soil that just stole enough Agent Gray to kill every single being in a city the size of Washington. SpecCom is ready to deliver thirty thousand combat androids to the National Guard within the next twenty-four hours, but you need to authorize their use domestically."

There was some hesitation, but eventually, the President removed the cap from her pen and put her signature on the inside of the folder. "You have your signature. Just... Win this."

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