The Kharnidd Thralls made their way speedily through the water. The Lesser Thralls had been tied by glowing purple threads to their larger compatriots. For their part, the Greater Thralls glowed yellow as they propelled the others through the water at astonishing speeds. Up ahead, one of the Greater Thralls noticed a cloud of blood and guts in the water. It promptly swam through the debris, undeterred by the meaningless obstacle.
In the underwater caves the Thralls passed, a small army of bright eyes suddenly appeared.
Some time before the arrival of Kharnidd forces at the wreck site.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed at a distant groan of metal, echoing down the rusty corridors of the abandoned wreck. The Pioneers swam through the hallways as quickly as they could, examining room after room. Due to the ship’s size, going through its entirety would be a significant task. This task would take more than a few hours. Frowning, the lieutenant spoke: “We should split up.”
Everyone turned to look at Korta, baffled for a moment, before he elaborated: “We can’t loot efficiently as a large group. I will lead the main group down this central route. Sergeant Martel, Sergeant Hardgrave, you can lead smaller groups down the branching paths.”
Fortunately, Daniel remembered to turn off his comms before they picked up his angry breathing. He didn’t trust himself to respond immediately and was grateful to hear Martel speak up and ask what they were all thinking: “Sir, is that truly best? The enemy is close.”
They’d already lost four men, and even before that they’d been outnumbered. Splitting up would only exacerbate that fact. To Daniel’s ever-mounting fury, Korta responded coldly: “This is a lawfully given order, meant to complete the mission in the most efficient way possible. You will obey, Sergeant. And you will not leave this ship until I give the order. Understood?”
Stiffly, Arnold nodded. Korta turned to Daniel, and he grit his teeth and nodded as well. Daniel was struggling to master his anger as he selected the men who’d come with him as a part of his team. He chose Allen Praxis, Gronik the Andrako, and a stout-looking man by the name of Geno Allbright. Arnold picked a lanky white man named Robert Forsythe and the two Forsica to accompany him. Daniel had learned that the two lizard people were siblings named Leka and Glakon, and that Leka was actually female. Daniel honestly couldn’t tell with the non-humans, and he’d mistakenly believed that their group was all male. The confusion had apparently hurt Leka’s feelings, so Daniel had tried his best to learn to differentiate between the two.
The parties went their separate ways, and soon afterward, Daniel established a secondary communications channel with Arnold and the other members of his group. He spoke out decisively, “We need to talk.”
…
Korta snorted a little as he watched the others disappear. This decision on his part hadn’t been for entirely practical reasons. He knew that the Terran dogs were closing in on their position and had made a simple calculation. When they got here, they would likely scan the ship. From what he knew of Republican military doctrine, they would likely focus on the smaller, weaker parties before going after his larger one. That would make it easy for him to escape.
On top of that, the rewards laid out for their party were group rewards. The fewer of them that survived, the larger any individual’s share would be. If he managed to find their objective, ‘Philosopher’, and escaped with a smaller party, that meant a lot more money in his pocket. The group rewards were meant to encourage greater teamwork, rather than just having one big reward for an individual which a group might fight over. Korta could easily twist such incentives for his own ends.
There was a risk in this, but he was confident in his powers. Korta may be Mid-Grade Delta right now, but he held an ace up his sleeve. He’d brought a particularly powerful, Delta Class Morphic stone on this mission. It should bring him up to High-Grade and boost his Cloning Capacity to Gamma Class. That would be a double-edged sword if it weren’t for his Integrated Tech. Once he absorbed the stone, Korta was confident that he would have few peers in Delta Class. Korta wouldn’t use it unless he had to. He wouldn’t use it immediately, because he’d already used a few stones recently and wanted to avoid the Psionic poisoning that came with swift growth. But it was a strong fallback option.
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The main party kept moving, sweeping the corridors diligently. Korta was excited to find several corpses, using the digital keys that command had given them to loot the bodies. While the loot was technically property of the Imperium, he was confident that his father could get him an exception. Not to mention that their success in finding this loot meant they’d officially attained the group objective of being the first to loot the fallen transport. Now to see if they could find ‘Philosopher’.
It was something of an inane objective, since no one knew exactly what ‘Philosopher’ was besides the fact that it was supposed to be some sort of serum with enormous benefits. Still, Korta and the others looked around for anything unusual like that for some time. The search proved fruitless, then Reggie piped up: “I felt somethin’. Some kind o’ scan.”
Korta scowled. They were here already: “Scan them back. See what they’re doing.”
Reggie’s eyes glowed purple: “They’re just outside the ship. 20 of ‘em. They’re not comin’ in. They’re stayin’ outside and…goin’ to a cave?”
That was strange. Why would the Republic refrain from coming after them directly? Had those cowards decided to pull back?
As he thought that, Korta noticed one more body floating around in a corner room. It was a sturdy black male with sad-looking eyes, and it piqued the lieutenant’s curiosity. Swimming over, he went through the body’s inventory as the others asked him questions: “Sir, what are our orders?”
He ignored them for now. If the Republicans weren’t coming inside, they had plenty more time. For now, Korta’s attention was occupied by something strange. A metallic vial, filled with a beautiful-looking blood-red substance, that he’d taken from the body. A small smile came over Korta’s face as he watched it slosh back and forth, and when he scanned it, the results were: ”???”
Fascinating. Now that was a prospect for their objective if he’d ever seen it. As Korta tucked it away, he heard the Colare’s voice again: “There’s more! Comin’ from above. 44 of ‘em!”
Korta’s face paled immediately. He hadn’t expected so many Terrans to get here so quickly. A minor hitch of panic entered his voice as he gave more orders: “Time to retreat. Leave the others. We can’t save them.”
…
After some communication and navigation, Daniel’s team met up with the other team of four. They’d all agreed that the commander was out of his head and that they needed to stick together. They couldn’t go back to the other group at the moment, but they could have each other’s backs. Soon after they met up, Daniel got a notification:
Scan Detected
He promptly scanned right back, limiting the scanner’s range while maximizing the detail. What he saw chilled him to the core: “We need to leave. Now.”
The others looked at him questioningly, but when he explained the situation, they followed Daniel down the corridor. Daniel radioed the other group as they swam, informing them of the danger. There was no time to waste leaving the normal way, so he quickly manifested the Heavenly Armament and began cutting a hole in the ship’s outer hull. Daniel punched the cut piece of circular metal out of the way and was about to exit before taking blaster fire from somewhere out in the dark. One actually hit Daniel, but it did only superficial damage to his hardened skin from that range. He heard Geno call out in distress: “The hell was that?”
…
Soon after Charon did his scan, he blanched with fear, then said, “Boss, we’ve got big trouble. There are Imperials already in the ship. Much worse than them are the things coming down at us from above. They’re still a ways away, but it looks like we’ve got a bunch of funky Xenos swimming for the ship. 44 swimmers, watched over by a 45th who seems to be…floating?”
The Lieutenant cocked his head to the side, apparently thinking, “Let’s swim to that cave over there. It will give us a vantage point to watch the Xenos tear apart the Imperials. Then, we’ll swoop in and finish off the weakened monsters.”
It was a decent plan, so far as such things go. But as they were swimming over to the cave, several of the soldiers noticed something moving on the side of the ship. Emily turned and saw a humanoid figure, outlined in blue, that was immediately shot at by several of her comrades. She couldn’t help a slight wince of empathy as she watched the form get struck in the chest and sent flying backward. The men continued to watch the hole carefully, ready to shoot at anything that moved. Then something happened that shocked everyone. A male’s voice crackled over the comms on the open channels: “All human forces within the basin, do you read me? I repeat, all human forces within the basin, do you read me?”
Irritated yet slightly intrigued, the Lieutenant signaled back: “What do you want, Imperial slime?”
“An alliance.”
Emily heard the others give coughs or scoffs of surprise at the proposition, though truth be told, she was interested. She had no personal grudge with the Empire or its people. Heck, it was her own people who always seemed to be causing her trouble. The Lieutenant, it seemed, didn’t share her feelings: “An alliance? Even a ceasefire would be more than you deserve.”
“Right now, we are all under attack by a hostile Xenos force known as the Kharnidd. Against this kind of enemy, humankind needs to be united. Our nations are not currently at war. In the spirit of that peace, and for the sake of all our lives, I’m asking you to work with me.”
Before the Lieutenant could answer back, a horrific shriek echoed out from above them.
It was the shriek of triumphant hunters.
