Faction BxP | On the General's Doorstep

[Tathra Khaeus]

Location: MYKA HOMWEWORLD
Tag: TchKren’Anook | Gristle

The vessel the Titan now stood aboard, filling the space of the Command platform was a Thruka Frigate. A Bryn'adul warship designed by the Thrum'dral, it was different but the same. The staging area on the bridge remained the same, all encircling the middle command platform, a standing position with dozens of displays and two primary mind-stones embedded into hand-height pillars. The talent of Draelvasier construction was evident in the warships design. Tathra had wondered how their military discipline had fared without the tachael-vemnak. If the craftsmanship of the ship was to be taken for all, their standards had not fallen in his absence was a small comfort. But the warship was not fresh from the hands of stonesmiths, half its armament was missing or in disrepair, nor did it house an abundance of Quilxyn or Kraemonen. In their place, Neti roots filled the gaps of the interior of the ship - hardening the damaged vessel for a journey beyond its means. Deep into unknown territory, beyond the reach of aid if anything were to go awry.

Not a new concept for him, but the others? Perhaps. Neti were travellers, lived for centuries, but were not known for violent expansion. TchKren'Anook was the first of his kind the Titan had come across with relatable qualities. His eyes shifted between the few Neti that TchKren'Anook had brought with him, new faces. He hadn't the time or privilege to vet them. An annoyance. He expected they would only get in the way. He did not trust the Neti to share the spine of their new elder.

His attention returned to the Ungulloi monitoring the Frigate. Kraemonen interlinked with their long appendages, acting as a buffer between them and the miasma of information created by the mesh of roots from the Neti and bio-mechanical instruments of the Draelvasier. Reading the Frigate was like navigating a dense web, but no one better than the Drael who created the stones to do it. The Ungulloi needed assistance, and their systems needed refinement.

"Dropping out now!" One of the Ungulloi squawked, raising its armoured club-like wrist to denote the declaration.

The Thruka shoot violently as it dropped out of hyperspace, sparks jetting from a few unmanned consoles. His paws clenching the command railing, a low and irritated growl escaping from his inner jaw. The Ungulloi opposite the other who'd called out struck the other on the shoulder, blaming its exclamation for their violent arrival.

A Draelvasier Juggernaut standing nearer growled over its weapon, scaring the pair back into their positions. He had not missed their unruly nature. But Tathra was otherwise occupied, it took some effort to get a readout from the ship. He wanted to believe it was the interference from the Neti, but truthfully it had been decades since he took control of a ship of this size.

Three decades prior, he could've manually controlled the entire vessel, armaments and all by himself. Now? Reading the status required his focus. But they were holding, the Frigate was shaken by the journey. They would need repairs, though the Kraemonen worms were already working toward that end.

"Now to see what we've found."

The viewports of the Frigate opened, a planet surrounded by rings of debris and asteroids ahead. Tathra had expected of what they'd found before. Colossal black debris. Instead a planet, brimming with life. Infested, nearly. But nothing their initial scans could interpret as signs of a civilisation. Strange.

Now it was up to the Neti. Tathra relinquished his contact with the command platform, leaving the maintenance of the Frigate to the Ungulloi for now.

He turned to TchKren'Anook. They both wanted something, but only one of them could be sure to find it. For now.

"So? Are your kin down there?" Tathra was impatient. But he hid it well. Non-emotive, all business. As usual.

They had followed what he could only describe as a scent. After they parted ways, and Kren found him again - asking for help finding his kin with the offer of discovering more about those who controlled the portal. He reluctantly accepted the voyage. Now, here they were - together.

 

[TchKren’Anook]

While Tathra Khaeus contemplated the complex web of information and one of his kinsmen snarled at a weaker crew member, TchKren'Anook watched silently with the few of his people he had managed to reunite with. The way the neti clustered, stood still like statues and gently swayed when gravity dictated that others might be jarred or stumble, all coalesced to make the arboreal people seem out of place within the confines of metal and wiring.

However, Tathra was learning that this strange subset of neti were far more adept at space faring and gifted with higher constitution than perhaps the average member of their species. Kren and his companions were uniquely adapted to the roving life of raiders and it seemed their culture reflected that. Those members of the tribe Tathra had met were still perhaps in need of thorough vetting, but each of them seemed ever ready to respond to the orders of their leader or voice their viewpoint should their individual expertise be called upon.

After the drop from hyperspace, before the viewports even opened, observers of the Neti warleader and his crew would notice strange subtle shifts in their bearing. Always difficult to read for non-botanical sentients, Neti body language was conveyed largely through the shifting of vine like hair and decisive movements of limbs in gestures more akin to sign-language than they were rough gestures.

Any watching now would see a half dozen wooden faces turn at exactly the same angle, facing the same precise direction. Tendrils of their green and brown hair snaked in the direction of the planet, the way plants sometimes creep in the direction of a star. For his part, TchKren'Anook actually took a few steps forward and drew level with his unlikely companion but his intense amber eyes bore into the sight of the planet. He was often ponderous while speaking and today was no exception. Slowly he reached out one large, many fingered hand as if he could grasp at the feeling which drew his attention so keenly to the planet.

"My kin… and not my kin too. I feel-" he answered slowly, wood grain brow furrowing as he completed the thought, "I sense a grovemind not our own."

His tone was uncertain, and as was often the case with Neti, he referred to the collective. "We", "us" and "our" were common pronouns or possessive determiners, whereas reference to "self" alone was far less common. Kren's expression darkened as he continued to gaze down and completed his thought.

"An alien grovemind, its song unlike any I've heard. But yes, my people are there." And his huge hand curled into a gnarled fist until just one long finger pointed.

Tag: Gristle​

 

[Gristle]

Change had come unexpectedly to the Ykaradan colony. Change was always unexpected.

For generation after generation, the Myka had waged gory and horrific war against one another in their never-ending quest for expansion and domination of the stars. They were a territorial people, but it had been understood that any other "people" that might exist were so far away as to be moot. It was only the Myka in this section of the universe - and though there were false reports from time to time of others from beyond the stars, these had never panned out.

Until now.

Gristle had known that more would come. It was the nature of water to fill the cracks that had been left by its predecessors. Now that the quiet had been broken, it would never return to what it had been. The more philosophical of the Myka debated about whether it was time now to awaken the masters who slumbered in the cold crypts beneath the world, while those with minds toward scientific acquisition had clamored for the opportunity to examine and analyze the newcomers.

Gristle looked up, had begun to watch the skies, had alerted the cadre of War-Forms who often fell under his command to be on alert in the coming days and weeks and months so that when their foe came to reclaim the captives they had taken, they would be fully prepared for them. He'd made a point after that of watching each of the little experiments that his people performed upon the vegetation shapeshifters, hoping to determine whatever he could from the work.

They'd started early in the process by removing the limbs of their captives. It was impossible to tell whether the process was painful - after all, even if they screamed or shouted it might be a completely different meaning than what it meant for the insectoids or any of their mammalian and avian livestock. Vivisections had revealed much about the internal anatomy of the newcomers, but attempts at understanding their linguistics had been nearly fruitless.

Gristle knew when they were afraid. He'd watched it several times now. His mind had attuned to it like a hunting beast attunes to the scent of its prey, had latched onto it, and couldn't send throw it away. Fear and terror were universal, even for things so distinctly strange as these plant things.

It had been determined that they were edible, but that the nutritional value was somewhat below par. It was similar to eating grass or foliage, and while technically the Myka could succeed in this, it was fundamentally a flawed agricultural strategy. Nevertheless, the colony had drenched itself in spilled sap like an unknown delicacy, each member parading their newfound liquid chlorophyll so that their companions could try the unknown substance with them.

Gristle had found it bitter. The victim had found it more so.

It was hard to know whether there had been any deaths among the captives. They were so fundamentally different that it could be that the handful who had stopped moving were merely regenerating themselves or otherwise performing a kind of vegetable diapause. The consensus of the colony had been to bury them in well-packed manure and dirt so that they might fruit new members of their kind for further experimentation.

Gristle found himself alone in his chamber, resting after a long day of training and exertion when a minute Nanitic extracted itself from a messenger tunnel in the ceiling, cluttering to the ground with well-practiced acrobatics.

"War-Form Gristle. The aliens have arrived in orbit."

Its' message delivered, the scampering Nanitic extracted itself from the room. Gristle lifted himself from his rest, stretching his carapace-encrusted limbs until the joints popped, and then made his way up through the winding tunnels to the surface.

The surface was coated in permafrost, but underneath it could be seen that black-purple resin that made up so much of the colony's construction. A handful of structures had been built on the surface, shaped like the mountains in the far West, jutting out unobnoxiously across the plains of ice. Within one such observatory would be the sensors that had detected the newcomers, and within others would be weapons designed for the repelling of Myka warships.

Gristle opened himself to the colony, his mind flowing across the radio waves of the Thrum, the pulsing flurry of information and context that bound the Ykaradan Myka. He glanced about his kindred, downloading their essence into himself as he pondered the readiness of the kin. Here the crafter Tender expressed its joy at a new knife handle, and here the Major Bone was arguing about the best placement for a new stockroom with the Workers Lively and Steam. And here too was Terror, blood-brethren, and War-Form who sat polishing his weapons.

Gristle prodded their consciousness, prodded the coherence of that raging torrent of context, directed eyes to the surface, directed hands to their weapons. "The aliens have come." He uttered in words that were not words and thoughts that could not be ascribed to things which could not themselves in a moment become one another. The colony reacted, and gone were the debates of knife handles and stockrooms, and only hemolymph would polish the weapons of war.

The closest tower began to pulse with a brilliant light and a sound that could not be heard in the audio-range of the Myka, but which would almost certainly be detected by machines.

The siren's call. The trap laid.

They would flow into the same cracks as their predecessors. Change was always unexpected, but that did not mean one had to idly wait for it.

Tathra Khaeus | TchKren’Anook

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

Tathra's solid chitin jaw parsed into mandibles. He had hoped to glean more from the powerful connection between the Neti, perhaps time passed dulled the bandwidth between them. That short strip of patience was waning, but it'd serve no one to throw it in their newly made allies' faces. It did not bode well that another 'grovemind' was present, it was possible whatever their sensors had detected below and what the Neti were now encountering was the same thing. The planet could be infested with hostile life, acting as legion. They needed more information.

The Frigate continued its descent into the planet's atmosphere, using the guidance of the Neti to lead them closer to their lost brethren. Tathra had been staring through Kren, too busy thinking to consider the Neti leader.

Time to prepare for the unknown.

"Kren, focus on your own. I want their status. Leave this alien element to me."

The Titan returned to the command platform, palms against the mind-stones again. The frigate's small arsenal was primed, and two Gunboats were readied for departure in the hangar bay. Stretching their forces was inconvenient but it was a safe bet he and Kren would be of better use on the planet's surface than waiting here. They finally broke the clouds, structures jutting from the planet's surface filling the viewport. Undeniably alien, Tathra had seen similar constructs before but on a much smaller scale.

Insects.

Intelligent ones too, going by the obvious summons.

Deploying to the surface would be dangerous.

Gristle | TchKren’Anook ​

 

[TchKren’Anook]

The Neti chieftain nodded at Tathra, his decisive bearing suited Kren well and there was no reason to fret about that which they did not yet understand. But the other grovemind still gave him pause. He was not adept in the more nuanced ways of the force, unfortunately none of the raiders they'd yet reunited were. Warriors one and all, born with an innate sense for the Weave but without that special ability to feel out the various threads.

Kren grunted and turned back to his brethren as Tathra took to the command platform. Any watching would see subtle shifts in their bearing, would hear clatters and clicks like so many branches rustling against eachother in a faint breeze. Their various leg-like appendages moved as one and their bodies formed a network of rooting patterns across the frigate deck. The chieftain's face remained visible but the rest of his kin shifted their forms until they resembled so many strange trees with long tendrils that would act as antennae to amplify any signal their captured forces might yet give off.

"They have been… Tormented. Their numbers… Dwindled." Came TchKren'Anook's solemn baritone.

Tathra Khaeus could sense something else in the Neti's voice, something he likely knew intimately from his time warring: vengeance and wrath. Those ideals were held in check by the stoic war leader and he closed those strange pupil-less amber eyes as he extended his focus out, attempting to pinpoint the more exact location of his captured brethren. Again he pointed, the gesture a confirmation of his earlier statement, and he added the assurance.

"Those who yet live will fight if we can free them, we can lend them root and branch to salve their injuries."

Gristle​

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

Dangerous.

Hostages, complications. Simple foot soldiers were negligible losses on first contact. But they were more than just expendable fodder to the Neti. To Kren they were his kin, the words alone... Tormented. Dwindled. When you lead, those who follow are an extension of ones self. When they suffered, it was your own suffering. He'd felt much the same for his own coven, those close to him. His prized vassals. Draelvaiser he had essentially raised, molded into warriors without comparison. But now, all dead. Worst of all, he turned traitor. Tathra pursed his upper mandibles, the friction making a sound like a hissing kiss of disapproval.

Towards who or what, the bridge of the Frigate could only guess and had little time to dwell on it. The Thruka Frigate had an assortment of offensive weapons in varying states of decay. Tetrarch assault cannons, ballista, and flak turrets. Enough to turn overgrown mounds into rubble. Tathra was a betting Drael, and he bet they had the bigger stick, and sticks were good for crushing insects. But that would both be boring and likely kill the hostages the young Kren cared so much for.

Dangerous and necessary.

A message arrived at the bridge, the Gunboats were ready. One for Kren to secure his kin, and another for him. The ships supported living quarters, and the escape pod bay had been converted into a small hangar. Thrum'dral engineering was focused on combat, not exploration. But Draelvasier nature was to endure, they made do.

Tathra removed himself from the Command Platform, hands-free from the mind-stones as the attending crew took over control of the ship. The Titan turned to Kren;

"With me." -

The doors to the hangar parted as Tathra and Kren arrived with the other Neti warriors in toe. The Titan stepped aside to his awaiting retinue, a group of bodyguards, veterans of their Drael civil war. Alongside them, Draelvasier Shamans, all female with mandibles wound shut, sworn to only speak through blessings on the wind. They applied his armour, bruised and wrought with damage. His sword, a lacklustre replacement for his Axe, half burnt and its hilt covered in awkward notches. A flail with an explosive core placed at his waist, and a cape that covered half his back now hung from the right shoulder.

Tathra breathed a sigh of relief, more comfortable now than before. His paw clenched the hilt of the blade, ready now to greet the fetid life below. They would be introduced to something that fights back.

"I have prepared two Gunboats. You will take one, find your hostages. Secure them. I will take the other to meet this invitation." A voice that filled the hangar bay, drew the attention of all in attendance. But it was also undeniably eager.

Tathra did not enjoy sitting idle, watching his enemy through a scope. He preferred to see how their limbs separated up close. The Titan made his way into one of the Gunboats, followed only by two of his retinue. One tall, more battle scar than flesh. The other, small and green around the mandibles.

They were to play as audience.

TchKren’Anook | Gristle ​

 

[Gristle]

Gristle had considered since the arrival of the aliens how best to deal with their elimination when the time came for their reinforcements to arrive. He knew that the shapeshifters could be subjected to the usual gambit of physical assaults and ailments, however, it seemed reasonable to conclude that cutting and piercing implements were especially effective. He imagined that enough study might reveal some innate weakness to extreme heat or cold as well, though it would be challenging to create freezing weapons.

Rather than consider a multitude of potentialities; questions that simply could not be answered without significant study and preparation, Gristle resolved instead to focus his attention on the creation of a strategy with which he could impede and annihilate the intruders. The first step of this plan had been to lure them into landing roughly where he desired, and this was, it seemed, going to go off without a hitch.

A hundred eyes and minds tuned in to one another, a web of vision and understanding that encapsulated the area as those who had chosen to join in the ambush opened themselves to their peers, each one throwing each and every detail back to the Nexus for additional processing. Gristle followed the stream of consciousness for a moment, and became aware that the Crafters were already attempting to identify the materials which made up the craft, while others attempted to decipher what the construction of the vessel meant for the sociological and cognitive standards of its builders.

Gristle was thankful that its weight had not crushed him. He imagined that it would have ached severely. His own eyes were impeded by virtue of his position and so he relied on the wandering glares of others who peered out from hidden tunnels and kill-holes etched out of resin towers.

The landing craft seemed strange to Gristle, though this was scarcely a surprise. Indeed, it would have been far more worrying if the vehicle had been nearly identical to their landers. Regardless of this oddity, though, he doubted that it would be able to survive their trap once it had been triggered. Now that the vehicle had landed it was time to guarantee that it would no longer be allowed to leave.

With a signal cast through the Thrum, a handful of the nearest towers linked to one another and began to generate electrical charge near their peaks. At first, this was probably not visible to anyone present, though Gristle knew that soon the excess power would spark and glow white blue and from then on it would be far more difficult to keep them completely hidden. It didn't matter - he doubted that the newcomers would figure out exactly how to deal with them in time to merit an escape. Once they had fully charged, going back up into the air would mean obliteration by innumerable volts.

Gristle had been electrocuted before. Lightning always made one think of the veins and arteries within the body and they way they carried hemolymph in snaking patterns across the flesh. He had presumed prior to the injury that electricity would grasp onto these twisting passageways and pulse them with such force as to cause them to burst. In reality, though, he had found that being electrocuted felt a significant degree more like being burned and having one's muscles cramp all at once.

Still - he thought that his original interpretation would probably be the fate of the shuttle-craft were it to lift from its landed position.

Warfare was as much about brutal weapons and conniving tactics as it was about ensuring your enemy was deceived and uncertain, though, and Gristle balked at the idea of a sudden onrush against the landing craft, especially since he was fairly certain it possessed some degree of weaponry and could likely vaporize a handful of the Myka before they could affect crippling damage to it.

Gristle did not know every weakness of the aliens, but they too did not know any weakness of the Myka they were soon to face. They might presume hostility because of the absence of their peers, but they had not come in guns-blazing either and so perhaps there was some trepidation as to whether their peers had truly been taken or whether they had died through other circumstances.

The War-Form intended to keep his enemy guessing as to the true nature of their opponent as long as possible. He wanted them to be uncertain, panicked, frantic, so that he could take advantage. He needed too to identify their leader so that the telepaths and mind-readers of the Ykaradan could begin to scalp knowledge from the depths of their foe, and insert delirious nonsensical environmental shifts to further confuse and deflate the aggression of their opponent.

It was for this reason that none of the Myka were originally visible from the surface as the landing craft fell. When its door opened, though, a trio of Nanitics would be dispatched from a few small tunnels. They would remain as visible as possible, and had been instructed to make coo'ing and gentle sounds not dissimilar to what might be made when attempting to soothe livestock. The hope was that the high pitch would trigger a kind of sympathetic response in the newcomers, though it was just as possible that it would be for not. Regardless of if the ruse worked or not, they were to carefully or speedily approach the aliens.

Once they had drawn close, the small tortoise-like shells upon their backs would play their part. Originally, Gristle suspected that they would appear to be some manner of natural shell. Perhaps the newcomers would correctly identify them as artificial instead, but that did not necessarily indicate danger. There were animals in the natural world who would steal the shells of others to wear for protection.

None of those animals, though, would fill the shells with the corrosive acids of the Major caste, or have the toxicity heightened through repeated additions of enzymes and chemical compounds until it could eat through stone.

Gristle wondered if the aliens might be able to see through the mere artificial nature of the shells, see the liquid sloshing about in the specially constructed casing, and question what its purpose could be or whether they were dealing with mere animals or something more intelligent.

It didn't matter. Gristle did not believe the alien's intuition or knowledge would allow them to understand the most important tidbit of lore for dealing with the trio of encroaching Nanitics.

After all, how could they really know what a Myka bomb looked like?

Tathra Khaeus | TchKren’Anook

 

[TchKren’Anook]

There was a disturbance amongst the small group of Neti, difficult for an outsider to spot perhaps but an uncomfortable shifting of root and branch nonetheless. They did not trust the man with strange bark, could not discern the emotions of a face so alien to their own full body expressions, and not all had agreed fully with Kren's decision to seek their lost members. They acted as one though, as it was known by all that the war-leader would not suffer a coward amongst his ranks. For now, Tathra was a worthy ally and in truth, Kren needed his forces to achieve his current goals.

And besides… they needed his lieutenant.

Nanalia, who was strong in the most delicate ways of the Force, who would be able to recount the most accurate information about her captors and would prove an invaluable asset in this time of great uncertainty, when they'd all been cast through space time into a new extragalactic place.

Kren's body reshaped, rematerializing limbs for walking and adjusting weaponry along his body. His attention returned to Tathra Khaeus and indeed his troupe followed seamlessly, giving no outward indication that some in their rank were uneasy. The Neti chieftain made his way to the indicated gunboat after their host said his piece and his people filled the space, their bodies already twisting and shifting, coloration darkening to match the strange surface of the planet they were about to descend to. Kren began giving orders in his mother tongue as the doors clicked shut behind.

"We are to become one with this fell place, if only for a short while. Stealth will not be simple with so little cover, but we will together move as creeping vines and tripping roots. Let us circumvent the primary area of skirmish, let us remain aware and seek entrances."

They'd spend the decent communing in a similar way they had minutes earlier, attuning to the weakening pulse of life their endangered companions gave off. And when they landed, they would be unrecognizable as living beings at all save for their movement and their humming presence in the Force.

Gristle​

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

Tathra sat in the singular seat available in the deployment bay, taking a whetstone to Scourge. Back and forth, the blade sang as its edge was prepared to cleave through foes. His intense gaze fell from the Thrak to Kad, eyeing the younger Drael as he looked over his arsenal. Kad had only been a hatchling when the civil war ended. Thrak, a seasoned warrior of the conflicts with the Silver Jedi and the Sith. Both served well, and both bit their tongue when the Neti were brought aboard the ship. The Draelvasier had over time become accustomed to the Thrum'dral and Ungulloi under their command. But the Neti were not under their command, they stood as equal to the Drael, and soon perhaps the Thrum'dral would petition for the same.

His officers did not care for it. Neither did he, in his hidden heart. But all Drael - good, loyal Drael, learned to hide the truth of what was within. This was the essence of Maerd-Ka, the martial art taught to all Draelvasier and it was facsimile for all aspects of their world. Drael were passionate, glory-driven beings. But true passion can be patient, true glory is for those who wait. Discipline was all, discipline was the master.

So none dared speak of it. It was irrelevant to the current moment. They would descend upon their common foe. Tathra returned to the simplicity of his blade, focusing on the minute details of its refined edge.

This was a ritual he had taken on before battle since the loss of his Axe. A magical weapon such as it did not require repeat upkeep. But he did not see it as tedious anymore than the upkeep of his own physical and mental effectiveness.

It was all in service of what was to come next.

The Gunboat closed in on their destination.

Bait to the lure.

The Gunboat descended into the glow. The silver plates of the boat's shell glimmered in the light as they passed through the light and down between the various structures beneath. Large parallel spires on either flank. However no scans showed armaments within or attached to the spires. It was time to get a better look. Deployment bay doors began whining open in both directions. The Thrum'dral pilot went once danger-close to each of the spires. The Ungulloi took control of the twin spike turrets on either side, preparing for a potential ambush. The pilot was ordered to keep the forward-facing plasma-thrower primed and the Gunboat off the surface.

It would be of more value with its mobility.

Most insects were afraid of fire.

Tathra had instructed his warriors to be cautious. Kad was outfitted in light attire, carrying a Syphon class beam rifle in hand with a Mace equipped on his back. Thrak, per usual; a Kraker, and a Axe strapped over the lower half of his back. Both with Manglers on the hip. Tathra was the first off the boat, shaking as he leaped from the bay door onto the ground below. It was odd, like secretion. Built not by industry but by creatures, like a nest. Or a hive. Tathra's eyes shifted in intensity as he switched from different forms of sight.

The creatures within the walls were not as hidden as they believed themselves to be. Tathra had faced a dozen similar creatures before. They could not trust what was obvious, they were in their den now.

"Sire.." Thrak growled out the word, hefting his barrel in the direction of three small creatures six metres away.

They had gone beyond the Titan's notice. But not now. The small ugly things ahead of them did not share the same shape as the creatures within the walls. But no doubt, if they lived here - they were thralls of the ecosystem.

Without flinching Tathra took the sidearm from his hip, firing at the middling creature. All three were caught in the impact-explosion Draemidus Ore shell.

A little taste from his home for those so kind to invite him into theirs.

Gristle | TchKren’Anook ​

 

[Gristle]

Nanitics were considered to be something akin to barely living beings by many of the Myka. It was difficult to attach a significant amount of emotion to something with such limited cognitive and intellectual capacity as a Nanitic, and though they still engaged in play and recreation, it was hard not to think of them as something like a pet as opposed to a member of the Myka race. That did not mean that they ought to be obliterated without thought or consequence, and the sheer violence within which three of them had been torn asunder by the alien brought forth irritation from Gristle.

Of course, he had planned only moments ago to sacrifice all of them in an explosion. Perhaps it was hypocritical now to be upset at their deaths, but he felt as if though the obsolescence of their action had diminished their value. It was one thing to self-detonate in order to eliminate an enemy intruder, but it was quite another to be caught in the fire of a single projectile and be splashed across the ground by it. Gristle eyed the lingering splatter of hemolymph which had been pasted against the ground, and a particularly meaty chunk of flesh alongside it, and felt his hunger stoked to meet his agitation.

Such destructive capacity meant that it would be necessary to meet them with subterfuge as opposed to direct confrontation. Gristle was still suspicious of how these beings functioned and whether they would be capable of extraordinary feats, but it was impossible to account for everything. He would simply need to assail them in the safest way possible and attempt to collate whatever data could be taken from their skirmishes. They were nowhere near the Thrum, nor any of the most vital infrastructure of the colony... they had time to play with their invaders until they had beaten them.

Perhaps the aliens had noted their insectoid nature and determined that they would function similarly to the micro-life that populated so many worlds. Did they expect savagery? Did they understand that they too were dealing with intelligent life... or perhaps they did not quite have the same method of thinking at all and these beings did not think, but instead reacted on an ever-increasing web of complex instincts?

Irrelevant.

Gristle outstretched his thoughts, touching the Thrum, communing and becoming his brethren. "Retreat into the underground completely. We cannot know if they see us in the dark as we see them." There was movement from the watching places as the Myka complied, burrowing further into the tunnels they had laid so many years prior. "Ready yourselves to remove the support from under them. We will collapse the ground completely." He shared his battle plan with them, shared his thought on how they would fall through the floor - or rather that it would fall from under them - and how they would take the advantage to kill their enemies when they did.

It would take a few minutes to ready all of the support pillars and infrastructure to be collapsed, but the Myka were in no hurry. A handful of watchful Nanitics stood guard at the various entrances into the darkness, and they could alert them to any shifts or movements in the intruders. The Myka too had another advantage: they did not need to make any noise to deconstruct their infrastructure, because all of it could be hit at once instead of gradually. They would get into position, await the signal, and then collapse things so rapidly that it was hoped their foe could not possibly react in time.

Gristle wondered if they would fall directly onto him. He was under them already - had been under them since the beginning of their arrival - though the half-meter of soil and resin had likely made it impossible to view him, and he had been exceedingly patient in his movements.

If they did fall, he would be very ready to devour the largest of them.

An alert. A warning. Something that made the hairs stand up in anticipatory dread. There was something moving through the grounds of the colony, something that had been sensed through the Force by the concave of Ykaradan telepaths. It was uncertain - unsighted - unknown, but nevertheless present, like a tumorous growth that can be felt beneath the skin, but whose malignancy is unfelt by tactile means, its shape concealed by hide, its origin obscured by time.

Gristle knew he must ascertain this new threat too and deal with it, but it was far off, and he needed more than what he had to come to a conclusion. For now, they would need to be careful and cautious.

And caution beget brutality.

"Cut and carve the limbs of the prisoners until they are unable to walk." He could not have them escaping and being used to supplement his enemy, but they were far too valuable a prize to terminate either. His thoughts were broadcast out, and he could feel the protest of his more empathic kin at the sheer horror of his commanded mutilation. This was a matter of war, though, and the command was carried out by those who had been tempered by its hate or who whose hearts had never known anything but apathy toward the intruders.

If they did not want to be torn apart and hacked and bled, why had they come here? Was there a secret and perverse desire in their strange and alien hearts to be victimized like this? Gristle knew it was an affectation to think such things; an excuse for a judgment query that would never come except by means of the ever-shifting fortunes and fates that the universe blessed and condemned with.

The prisoners were danced about like playthings, strung up by their captors, but there was no joviality or festivity in the proceedings neither from the Myka torturers nor from the pruned plant things.

Gristle mused that there was no pleasure in gardening when one was the plant, but he kept this sickly thought to himself.

Tathra Khaeus | TchKren’Anook

 

[TchKren’Anook]

The drop ship loaded up with menacing botanicals split off from the main trajectory taken by several of the others. Aiming instead somewhat away from where the main first encounter was likely to take place. Though it could perhaps be taken as cowardice, this course was set by TchKren'Anook and crew out of careful calculation.

They landed roughly a klick away from Tathra Khaeus and co. The pod opened and-

Nothing visible happened within the opening. Not at first.

An observer from a few yards or more away wouldn't be able to discern anything recognizable as humanoid or otherwise. What did appear was a webbing mass of dark, creeping matter which all but oozed out of the drop pod. It stayed low to the ground and at first crept tentatively, but soon picked up speed with a strange sense of certainty. In truth the mass was huge and it moved with the intelligence of half a dozen Neti thinking in unison.

It was tricky for them to move as such and it severely limited the amount of gear they could carry but Kren had decided to favor stealth over all else. Tathra would make good on his end by being a big, bloody distraction. That much he knew. So the Neti moved in eerie tandem and crept with haste toward the nearest discernible opening in the strange resinous planet. A ripple of warning echoed through their joined form as they reached the alien entryway. They would not get much farther without meeting opposition, they felt certain. Quickly they made to reform their individual shapes, in the shadow of an outcropping of the strange material this odd place was made from.

Kren took the lead with one of his best warriors currently available to him, a sturdy Neti named Ordo who specialized in guarded offense and could throw up a wall if necessary. He held his other largest companion, Nefell'Akk, in reserve because he knew that his captive kin would require immediate support.

"Forward, cautiously" he signaled in quick speak as they made their way downward.

Gristle​

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

The shot rang out, reverberating against the large pillars around them. Tathra didn't even bother to watch the creatures beneath his line of sight evaporate, he could hear them sizzle. Acid. Insects that exploded with acidic blood perhaps, Scourge was going to get another stain, he had been right to use the whetstone. Kad and Thrak raised their weapons instinctively as the Titan returned the Pulveriser to his waist. Tathra watched the local inhabitants react, moving in unison, even flinching collectively.

Strange.

"Xiaq." He growled, watching as the overwhelming force of insectoid inhabitants began to recede.

Perhaps they believed themselves vulnerable to the sidearm in his paw, unused to another Galaxies technologies. Perhaps. Or, they were smarter than they seemed - the destruction of their scout's first attempt at a trap had likely made them feel less secure behind their bulwark of chitin and stone. Tathra focused then on the Master-Shard, linking his thoughts to that of the Ungulloi gunners and pilot, and Kad and Thrak. Immediately reviewing the Gunboats sensors. With a thought, the Gunboat began to hover slightly above the ground once again. Close enough that they could reach it if overrun. But, he expected an ambush. However loud he had to be to draw the scent away from the Neti warriors extracting their own, he welcomed the challenge of this curious new foe. It was the purpose of a Draelvasier, to stand against the waves. To tear out weakness roots and stem. These new creatures would understand why the Draelvasier did not hide, not linger behind walls and within halls when a fair fight was provided.

They were the wall.

The Titan finally turned his observation to the ground at his feet, the acid wasn't just burning through the soil underfoot. It was draining into it, and then suddenly everything loose was too. Tathra did not move, tightening his paws into massive red fists as his vision shifted repeatedly to try an ascertain what lay beneath. No use. He recognised the vibrations, the shifting weight underfoot as if a Servitor was beneath his feet. Though this was not quite the same, this was less chaotic.

"On the Gunboat!" Tathra shouted back to the two warriors closer to the Gunboat.

Thrak did not hesitate, throwing his weight back into the ramp-like open door of the bay. Kad froze, only managing to turn as the ground sunk underfoot and leaped for the Gunboat. His paw missed the door as the young Drael yelped, only to be caught at the last moment by Thrak's meaty gauntleted arm. But the grapple was too loose as Thrak was focused on his Kraker, already underslung in his other paw, opening fire at the creatures below with a charged shot of his Kraker and then another. Kad fell, rolling down the edge of the tunnel wall, losing track of his Syphon as he fell.

Tathra dropped like an anvil, kicking up dirt and resin upon impact with the ground fifteen metres deep. The Gunboat maintained its elevation just above the landing surface, now with its plasma thrower and turrets aimed into the new crevice. Ready to fire on the Titan's order. An order that hadn't come.

It was time to meet the insectoids face to face.

TchKren’Anook | Gristle

 

[Gristle]

Facing the Neti

Silent alarms were raised, klaxon calls comprised of inaudible radio signals which were every bit as chilling as their auditory counterpart. There were intruders somewhere within the colony, and they had already managed to creep into the tunnel systems which served as its thoroughfares and highways. Forward scouts made contact quickly; Nanitics were plethora in the colonies of the Myka, and they were able to squeeze into concealed cubbyholes and locales from whence they could spy these new intruders without great fear of detection.

More of the plant-things had come, no doubt to rescue or eliminate their kin. There was no telling whether they had come for their retrieval or only for their obliteration so that they might not reveal their secret biology to the insectoids, though Gristle secretly suspected the former. It would have been far easier to bathe the world in fire than to dispatch a strike team like this to infiltrate their colony grounds.

Knowing the position of the invaders did not mean that reinforcements could instantaneously arrive. The agrarian holding pens had been reconfigured to keep intelligent prisoners, but the surrounding areas were still largely staffed by Workers and the occasional Major who would assist with bringing in the harvest or collecting slaughtered carcasses. Only a handful of the other castes were present here; the odd Synaptic to maintain their connection to the Thrum, a band of Crafters involved in surgical manipulation and vivisection as well as analysis of the invaders equipment, and a single War-Form who stood guard over the region and occasionally involved itself in the actual work of slaughtering livestock.

This workforce did not possess many War Gasters in their midst, or other implements of battle. Only the occasional handful of armaments had been scattered here in the event of hostile raids. Nevertheless, as the alarm sounded and battle commands were given, a gathering of war tools was made and a contingent formed out of those available for battle. If these individuals had been trapped in their own experiences, then perhaps they would be made short work of, but in a heartbeat each carried with them a lifetime of battle and hunting and conflict. Muscle memory could not be taught in this way, but cognitive understanding could, and tactically advantageous positions were taken as they prepared to ambush their invaders.

The Myka had brought ten-thousand solar systems under their heel, had subjugated both nature and its total absence. They would not roll over and die.

---

---

Facing the Draelvasier

The floor beneath the crustacean menace fell out with all of the timing that had been expected. Though it was true that a million minds could offer their hypothesis for where exactly each mote of dust and stone might fall, none truly knew until it had already commenced. Gristle moved with the speed of a trained killer, one who relied as much upon his own memories and experiences as those of his bloodied ancestors.

Miniature explosions burst from the weapons of these hard-shelled invaders, spitting projectiles at lethal speeds and striking stone,dirt, and kin all at once. Gristle felt the agony of a Worker whose forelimbs had both been severed by a stray round, blasting hemolymph and viscera against the wall, the viscoelastic nature immediately coagulating with loose particulates and forming something like a morbid constellation against the background. He did not fixate on such things, though they were seen and understood by eyes that were not his own.

He went for the largest predator. His kin could fixate on the others, spraying neurotoxins and caustic chemical substances upon them from crevices and concealed places as they attempted to wound and slay their foes. Gristle leaped from his ambush position, slamming against the back of the great intruder, eleven-hundred kilograms of spike-covered plate driving into its target with all of the benefit of surprise and gravity to slam it downward. Instantly, Gristle's gaster twisted around, wrapping partially about the mid-section of the creature so as to spray horrible neurotoxins directly into its alien face.

And then, the work completed or the attack deflected, Gristle would aim to flee toward the nearest tunnel system, and the Myka would cease their onslaught and obediently comply with the work, shifting back into deeper shadowy tunnel systems where they could lay another ambush for their prey.



Tathra Khaeus | TchKren’Anook

 

[Tathra Khaeus]

​

Down into the pit, dust and flame engulfed the small arena. A den of what patrons of the Galaxy would call monsters and devils. But for the Titan, this was where he belonged. No more debate, no reasoning.

Proof of his mettle.

Finally, the prey had come out from finding. Tathra had only caught a glimpse of their full form in the dust but it was enough to know what kind of foe they were facing. With infrared vision, the details were lost - especially at a distance. It was all meat, no distinctions. But even if the exposed form of the enemy passed one of their sights for a split second, Tathra could inspect them. The master shard received the information from his fellow Drael. Large, insectoids. That was all he needed to know. The obvious structural weaknesses were their joints, faces, mouths, and reproductive organs. An exterior of hard blackened chitin, curls of matted fur, and spikes lined their bodies, no doubt their antennas hidden within their strange asymmetric exterior. Insectoids like these, at this scale.

They were vulnerable to their weaponry and opened fire with acid in return. That was enough to draw his blade. As the large creature landed on his back, Tathra braced on his right foot, pulling his body forward with the force of the ton weight creature landing on his back, he would use its weight to his advantage, throwing its momentum forward in his movement, his left hand grabbing the hilt of Scourge on his back, turning its edge into the creature and yanking hard and over his shoulder with enough exerted force to throw a starfighter over his shoulder.

Immediately his right shot out with the flail in hand, whipping out its explosive edge into the creature as it landed - intending to strike it with an explosive blast upon contact before it would recover. The boldest of their lot would die painfully, quickly and with little effort and soon the rest would follow. Thrak and Kad worked in unison, laying down any bug creature that dared to close the distance on any of the trio, blowing them away into pieces of bug meat against the cave walls, wet with blood, their armour hissing with acid burns.

The Gunboat turned its plasmathrower on the intricate tunnels, flooding half of them with molten plasma as some of their enemies attempted to retreat.

TchKren’Anook | Gristle ​