Series 1.5 - Celestial Bodies Collide
It was an encounter born from light and dark that resulted in pure chaos; an aberrant showdown between two forces that could not be more different and yet so similar. The fierce, crackling, manic flashes of bright white intertwined with the unshakable and immense power of darkness. The unfamiliar and terrifying energy the Sunder employed stood in stark contrast to that of the Order’s own dynamism known simply as UDE-1. It erupted around their massive physiques like lightening and acted like such in how they attacked with it. Blinding whips of pure energy darted around the dancing defensive blurs of the Order Strike Team as the two groups met somewhere in the middle of the ancient courtyard. Melora and her hand-chosen teammates were the best that the galaxy had to offer and yet were already taken aback by the efficiency of the Sunder defenders to repel their initial attacks. The Strike Team worked as purely as a unit as you could get and yet they were stalled short of the entrance due to being unable to break through the line of hulking bodies that stood before them. She knew that they would need to alter their attack and hoped that the rest would follow her lead.
The confidence she had in them to sense her change in approach stood true, as they were quick to adjust their positioning almost in tune with her own. The Sunder outnumbered them by six, yet they had been able to break the line just enough with the change in approach to push the enemy group into a circle. The closer their foes got to each other, the more violent the bright light around them became. The Controllers were hitting them with timed shots from their Resonators, as well as UDE-1-boosted strikes aimed at what appeared to be weak points in the polished armor. Though the enemy was virtually unknown and appeared to be fierce, Melora could sense that they were no match for the Controllers the more they pressed. She knew that these troops were only just meant to act as a first line of defense, and she wondered mid-flip dodge whether this facility was of importance or perhaps just a decoy. Within just a few moments of violent flurries and evasive steps the enemies were left lying in a pool of blue-tinted blood and broken pieces of radiant armor.
“That was…notably easy.” Yigit said immediately after the final Sunder was slain.
“I doubt that’s all they have to offer, something isn’t right.” said Tae.
We finally agree on something, and it has to be this?
The sibling rivalry between her brother and herself was a constant struggle; the one thing in her life that she was embarrassed by when it manifested in front of others. She hated feeling like a child again who had to prove to her parents that she was just as smart, just as strong, and just as good as her older brother in all areas of life. She hated having to push and punish herself more than a child should just to have others notice. But most of all, she hated that such a wedge had been slowly piercing its way between the two of them from then until now. It was almost as if they were no longer brother and sister and simply just Commandant and her second in command.
“I agree and we’re not going to just stand around and find out. The mission is priority and making sure we knock this place out regardless of what is really going on here is key. Let’s move!” she said as she turned on a heel and tactically began to maneuver towards the opening of the ancient temple with the others following behind her in formation.
Why haven’t we seen anyone else? They couldn’t have been the only line of defense unless this place really is just here to make us question it or even entirely meaningless to the cause.
The unfamiliar feeling of doubt began to creep back into her mind from someplace that she had never ventured inside herself. It wasn’t the ease of which they won their first skirmish with the new enemy, but rather the sense of wrong that still rippled through her UDE-1 fogged mind. Was it the other alien energy causing it or was it something more obvious yet hidden? She hated not knowing and it bothered her even more that there was no way to find out without just pushing on with the original plan. As a master tactician, she took pride in her ability to plan during field operations and to adjust on the fly. But how could she if she had no sense for what it was that was causing such a deep-rooted sense of doubt to fester in her mind?
“Commandant, I’m seeing multiple points to place my munitions.” Kel said through deep breathes as he struggled to keep up with the more experienced warriors. “I advise stopping and having me place them here.”
“Negative, we keep pushing in until we find something of value. And if not that, we bring the whole place down from the middle.” came her reply in a clear voice that showed no signs of his own physical strain.
The team kept running down dark corridor after corridor with just Melora’s sense of direction to guide them. They had yet to encounter any other hostiles and had found only meaningless caches of supplies along the route they had taken. They continued like that all the way to the inner workings of the temple until they reached what was the central sanctum; a large open area with natural lighting that must have once been a place of worship. Beams of sunlight illuminated the opening while casting sword-like columns scattered about in the dust that hung in the air. It would have been a lovely image had they not been there to destroy it.
The serenity of the view was short lived, as a sudden explosion erupted behind Melora sending her stumbling forward before she caught herself with the help of her Resonator. She spun around as soon as she regained her footing to see just what had happened. She could make out the shape of Aida and Kel through the smoke and dirt kicked up in the blast, but there was no sign of her brother or the Yigit. The wall around the opening to which they entered the great hall had collapsed into itself and left her no way of seeing further down into the pathway that they had entered from. She activated her comm-set to expand the range of the signal and called out to her brother.
“Tae, are you okay?!” she hastily said over the sound of shifting rocks and damaged, buzzing Sunder equipment. “Vice Commandant Rowe, please respond!”
There was nothing but the echoes of silence intwined with the ringing in her ears.
“Tae or Yigit, if you’re alive back there please respond!” she said with just the faintest bit of dismay in her words now; though the command pad on her Resonator had not alerted her that anyone’s lifelines had been severed completely.
Still more silence. Until a voice broke through, but not one that she had wanted to hear.
“Boss lady, I’m getting readings of a massive blast emanating from under the facility. Is everyone alright down there?” said Alere via the comm-set in the ship, with none of the usual seductiveness layered in her voice.
“I need you to try and contact my brother or Yigit. We’ve been separated and I think there might be interference of some kind down here. I haven’t been able to reach them, but I’m not getting any alerts on my Resonator about them being K.I.A.”
“Will do, stand by.” Alere clicked.
After what felt like hours, Alere’s voice finally returned through Melora’s earpiece.
“I contacted the Vice Commandant directly. They’re both okay, just a little worse for wear. They can’t get to you through the way you came, but they’re going to try and detour back down a different path. Tae said he’d keep trying to get in touch with you, but if not, he’d relay any important information through me.”
“That works for me. I’ll take the other two and see about making a detonation of our own in here; Commandant Rowe, out.”
Aida had already flooded the area with a healing pool of UDE-1 for whatever minor injuries the three of them may had sustained in the blast, which allowed Melora a moment to gather her thoughts and decide what the next course of action would be now that the plan had been disrupted.
Was that what had me feeling so insecure? It couldn’t have been.
“We need to keep moving and find some place for you to set up your payload, Kel. I see some non-natural light coming from down a hallway on the other side of this room. We’ll head that way and see if there’s anything of value down there.”
“Aye, aye. I’m ready to go when you are.” said Kel, even more wide-eyed than he had been since they first touched down. The adrenaline of the fight and the unexpected explosion clearly had rocked him, but she knew he was well trained enough to deal with it. And he had a thing for explosions. Aida gave a simple nod of the head in agreement, clearly straining against the influence of using UDE-1 to heal the others.
Two more Sunder troopers emerged from the opening that the trio had been sprinting towards and were cut down with ease, outmatched and under-skilled compared to the Controllers and the power of their Resonators. Melora was clearly the better pure fighter, but Kel and Aida held their own in the battle. Still, she worried if they had to contend with another size force of the enemy they encountered outside. Even with the ability, pure numbers could matter more when it came down to it. And Aida was hardly known for her fighting skills and Kel was untested.
But as they made their way down the hallway towards the source of light, she was relieved to see that there was no other Sunder in their path. The three of them flowed into another open sanctum, but a much smaller one than before this time. And what space there had been originally for rituals had been filled with large pieces of electronic equipment and preservation tanks of some kind. At first glance, it seemed to be a twisted aquarium basked in a bright, electric light.
“What in the galaxy is this stuff?” Kel said in a dumbfounded, windless breath.
“I’m not sure, but I think we found what we’ve been looking to sabotage.” said Melora, as she continued to make her way further into the room around different instruments and panels blocking her path.
“Is this some kind of…menagerie or something? These things look like they’re still alive.” asked Aida, as she got close to the glass of a tank that contained a pair of unidentifiable masses of flesh and teeth that pulsated through a tide of pink-tinted gel. She placed a gloved hand against the glass and the flesh near it pulled itself away from her.
“It’s either that or a kind of breeding ground, I think. Most of these things look dangerous to me.” said Melora as she slowly made her away around to the many different containers to see what creatures they held. The monsters she came across were so tormenting and disgusting to see that it made her sick just imagining the kind of damage even just a few of them could do if released on any of the peaceful planets or societies in the Assemblage.
I can’t allow that to happen. Even if there are thousands of other places like this one, I’ll find them all and destroy them all before any of these abominations ever hurts someone I swore to protect.
But then she saw…him? He was a man, not unlike the Galaxy Standard of man, yet wasn’t. Not exactly, that is. She sensed no UDE-1 energy inside or around him like she would of every other living thing in the entire known space. He was suspended in the same pinkish ooze that the others were, but had tubing running into his nostrils and throat. He was still alive, but she was unsure of how coherent he would have been in that kind of suspended animation of life. She was not even sure what he really was.
The others continued to search the rest of the room as she stepped up closer to get a better view of the man before her. She was puzzled and intrigued by clearly seeing him and yet not feeling him at all. He had a faint glow not unlike that of the Sunder, yet it did not appear to be nearly as bright or wild as the energy that engulfed them. He was motionless yet his eyes were open, though lacking any sign of awareness, they shone with a white light of their own.
She knew that it was likely the “man” was just some kind of twisted false clone or experiment to be used against them, but she had to know more. Her eyes were fixated on his soulless gaze through the silt between them. Unaware to her, shadows of UDE-1 began to form around her own body and face, encircling her in a cloud of smoke-like energy. She whispered something under her breath that even her own mind didn’t catch at first, as if someone else had said it instead.
Who are you? What are you?
She had to find out.
The confidence she had in them to sense her change in approach stood true, as they were quick to adjust their positioning almost in tune with her own. The Sunder outnumbered them by six, yet they had been able to break the line just enough with the change in approach to push the enemy group into a circle. The closer their foes got to each other, the more violent the bright light around them became. The Controllers were hitting them with timed shots from their Resonators, as well as UDE-1-boosted strikes aimed at what appeared to be weak points in the polished armor. Though the enemy was virtually unknown and appeared to be fierce, Melora could sense that they were no match for the Controllers the more they pressed. She knew that these troops were only just meant to act as a first line of defense, and she wondered mid-flip dodge whether this facility was of importance or perhaps just a decoy. Within just a few moments of violent flurries and evasive steps the enemies were left lying in a pool of blue-tinted blood and broken pieces of radiant armor.
“That was…notably easy.” Yigit said immediately after the final Sunder was slain.
“I doubt that’s all they have to offer, something isn’t right.” said Tae.
We finally agree on something, and it has to be this?
The sibling rivalry between her brother and herself was a constant struggle; the one thing in her life that she was embarrassed by when it manifested in front of others. She hated feeling like a child again who had to prove to her parents that she was just as smart, just as strong, and just as good as her older brother in all areas of life. She hated having to push and punish herself more than a child should just to have others notice. But most of all, she hated that such a wedge had been slowly piercing its way between the two of them from then until now. It was almost as if they were no longer brother and sister and simply just Commandant and her second in command.
“I agree and we’re not going to just stand around and find out. The mission is priority and making sure we knock this place out regardless of what is really going on here is key. Let’s move!” she said as she turned on a heel and tactically began to maneuver towards the opening of the ancient temple with the others following behind her in formation.
Why haven’t we seen anyone else? They couldn’t have been the only line of defense unless this place really is just here to make us question it or even entirely meaningless to the cause.
The unfamiliar feeling of doubt began to creep back into her mind from someplace that she had never ventured inside herself. It wasn’t the ease of which they won their first skirmish with the new enemy, but rather the sense of wrong that still rippled through her UDE-1 fogged mind. Was it the other alien energy causing it or was it something more obvious yet hidden? She hated not knowing and it bothered her even more that there was no way to find out without just pushing on with the original plan. As a master tactician, she took pride in her ability to plan during field operations and to adjust on the fly. But how could she if she had no sense for what it was that was causing such a deep-rooted sense of doubt to fester in her mind?
“Commandant, I’m seeing multiple points to place my munitions.” Kel said through deep breathes as he struggled to keep up with the more experienced warriors. “I advise stopping and having me place them here.”
“Negative, we keep pushing in until we find something of value. And if not that, we bring the whole place down from the middle.” came her reply in a clear voice that showed no signs of his own physical strain.
The team kept running down dark corridor after corridor with just Melora’s sense of direction to guide them. They had yet to encounter any other hostiles and had found only meaningless caches of supplies along the route they had taken. They continued like that all the way to the inner workings of the temple until they reached what was the central sanctum; a large open area with natural lighting that must have once been a place of worship. Beams of sunlight illuminated the opening while casting sword-like columns scattered about in the dust that hung in the air. It would have been a lovely image had they not been there to destroy it.
The serenity of the view was short lived, as a sudden explosion erupted behind Melora sending her stumbling forward before she caught herself with the help of her Resonator. She spun around as soon as she regained her footing to see just what had happened. She could make out the shape of Aida and Kel through the smoke and dirt kicked up in the blast, but there was no sign of her brother or the Yigit. The wall around the opening to which they entered the great hall had collapsed into itself and left her no way of seeing further down into the pathway that they had entered from. She activated her comm-set to expand the range of the signal and called out to her brother.
“Tae, are you okay?!” she hastily said over the sound of shifting rocks and damaged, buzzing Sunder equipment. “Vice Commandant Rowe, please respond!”
There was nothing but the echoes of silence intwined with the ringing in her ears.
“Tae or Yigit, if you’re alive back there please respond!” she said with just the faintest bit of dismay in her words now; though the command pad on her Resonator had not alerted her that anyone’s lifelines had been severed completely.
Still more silence. Until a voice broke through, but not one that she had wanted to hear.
“Boss lady, I’m getting readings of a massive blast emanating from under the facility. Is everyone alright down there?” said Alere via the comm-set in the ship, with none of the usual seductiveness layered in her voice.
“I need you to try and contact my brother or Yigit. We’ve been separated and I think there might be interference of some kind down here. I haven’t been able to reach them, but I’m not getting any alerts on my Resonator about them being K.I.A.”
“Will do, stand by.” Alere clicked.
After what felt like hours, Alere’s voice finally returned through Melora’s earpiece.
“I contacted the Vice Commandant directly. They’re both okay, just a little worse for wear. They can’t get to you through the way you came, but they’re going to try and detour back down a different path. Tae said he’d keep trying to get in touch with you, but if not, he’d relay any important information through me.”
“That works for me. I’ll take the other two and see about making a detonation of our own in here; Commandant Rowe, out.”
Aida had already flooded the area with a healing pool of UDE-1 for whatever minor injuries the three of them may had sustained in the blast, which allowed Melora a moment to gather her thoughts and decide what the next course of action would be now that the plan had been disrupted.
Was that what had me feeling so insecure? It couldn’t have been.
“We need to keep moving and find some place for you to set up your payload, Kel. I see some non-natural light coming from down a hallway on the other side of this room. We’ll head that way and see if there’s anything of value down there.”
“Aye, aye. I’m ready to go when you are.” said Kel, even more wide-eyed than he had been since they first touched down. The adrenaline of the fight and the unexpected explosion clearly had rocked him, but she knew he was well trained enough to deal with it. And he had a thing for explosions. Aida gave a simple nod of the head in agreement, clearly straining against the influence of using UDE-1 to heal the others.
Two more Sunder troopers emerged from the opening that the trio had been sprinting towards and were cut down with ease, outmatched and under-skilled compared to the Controllers and the power of their Resonators. Melora was clearly the better pure fighter, but Kel and Aida held their own in the battle. Still, she worried if they had to contend with another size force of the enemy they encountered outside. Even with the ability, pure numbers could matter more when it came down to it. And Aida was hardly known for her fighting skills and Kel was untested.
But as they made their way down the hallway towards the source of light, she was relieved to see that there was no other Sunder in their path. The three of them flowed into another open sanctum, but a much smaller one than before this time. And what space there had been originally for rituals had been filled with large pieces of electronic equipment and preservation tanks of some kind. At first glance, it seemed to be a twisted aquarium basked in a bright, electric light.
“What in the galaxy is this stuff?” Kel said in a dumbfounded, windless breath.
“I’m not sure, but I think we found what we’ve been looking to sabotage.” said Melora, as she continued to make her way further into the room around different instruments and panels blocking her path.
“Is this some kind of…menagerie or something? These things look like they’re still alive.” asked Aida, as she got close to the glass of a tank that contained a pair of unidentifiable masses of flesh and teeth that pulsated through a tide of pink-tinted gel. She placed a gloved hand against the glass and the flesh near it pulled itself away from her.
“It’s either that or a kind of breeding ground, I think. Most of these things look dangerous to me.” said Melora as she slowly made her away around to the many different containers to see what creatures they held. The monsters she came across were so tormenting and disgusting to see that it made her sick just imagining the kind of damage even just a few of them could do if released on any of the peaceful planets or societies in the Assemblage.
I can’t allow that to happen. Even if there are thousands of other places like this one, I’ll find them all and destroy them all before any of these abominations ever hurts someone I swore to protect.
But then she saw…him? He was a man, not unlike the Galaxy Standard of man, yet wasn’t. Not exactly, that is. She sensed no UDE-1 energy inside or around him like she would of every other living thing in the entire known space. He was suspended in the same pinkish ooze that the others were, but had tubing running into his nostrils and throat. He was still alive, but she was unsure of how coherent he would have been in that kind of suspended animation of life. She was not even sure what he really was.
The others continued to search the rest of the room as she stepped up closer to get a better view of the man before her. She was puzzled and intrigued by clearly seeing him and yet not feeling him at all. He had a faint glow not unlike that of the Sunder, yet it did not appear to be nearly as bright or wild as the energy that engulfed them. He was motionless yet his eyes were open, though lacking any sign of awareness, they shone with a white light of their own.
She knew that it was likely the “man” was just some kind of twisted false clone or experiment to be used against them, but she had to know more. Her eyes were fixated on his soulless gaze through the silt between them. Unaware to her, shadows of UDE-1 began to form around her own body and face, encircling her in a cloud of smoke-like energy. She whispered something under her breath that even her own mind didn’t catch at first, as if someone else had said it instead.
Who are you? What are you?
She had to find out.
