Food for Thought (Denon Dominion)

[Valiens Nantaris]

@[member="Cira"] @[member="Allaina Mare"] @[member="Hevana Martin"] @[member="Sarge Potteiger"] @[member="Ayden Cater"] @[member="Lenavina Martin"] @[member="Zero"] @[member="Jak Sandrow"] @[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"] @[member="Malica Drezyan"]

Denon had once been the second largest population in the galaxy. However, where populations mixed in such close proximity, there was always the danger of disease. The Gulag Virus had struck the city brutally hard, wiping out billions. Order had collapsed, and anarchy had reigned for decades

And then a new horror had arisen. Deep in the ruined city a terrible, insatiable threat had appeared, killing the survivors and making them into horrific zombie-like creatures who had an appetite for blood.

And so Omega Pyre had been called in to Denon to help try and contain the problem and gain control over the strategic planet.

On one of the few remaining landing pads in the centre of the city planet's former heart, a series of Omega transports landed.

Tegaea was dressed in her new armour and carried one of the new boltguns. "Right, let's go people, I want a perimeter around this area! Cira, we are on the ground!"

 

[Cira]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

Cira wasn't hiding her signature for this mission. No, instead she was blazing it for all to see if they were interested. With the situation as it was on Denon, the cons outweighed the pros at keeping herself hidden within the ranks of Omega Pyre employee's.

Her black spidersilk armor clung like a second skin over her voluptuous curves. She wore no helmet this time around, but a small metalic comm ear bud hung just over her left ear, the length of her long auburn hair pulled severely back in a high ponytail at the crown of her head.

She took a powercell and checked it's energy level. Turning to glance at Teg, she gave a curt nod, "Good. I want no one to split off from their squad. Keep a keen eye out there. " she slid the powercell into her blaster pistol. "And to remember to double tap." golden eyes twinkled as she said with mild amusement.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea looked around. They were on top of a large area of reasonably well-maintained area of the upper city. Here the most fortunate survivors of Denon lived, fearing to go down to the lower levels, and unwilling to let anyone up in case they were infected.

"I want all elevators secured by our people. No one comes up or down without us knowing."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

The once proud city planet of Denon had been reduced to smouldering ruins and dilapidated buildings. A few dead bodies hung from lampposts, more mutilated bodies lined the streets.

The few ships on the landing pag were burnt out husks, wrecked beyond repair. At least that meant there would be no escape for these creatures from here. Well...unless they seized the Omega transports.

Siobhan moved warily, stretching out with the Force to assess dangers. Admittedly this was one of the better parts of Denon, some buildings still stood, they had electricity on occasion, though power cuts were frequent. The ex-Jedi had faced zombies before, back when she and Adril had foiled Shadow's experiments.

The memory made her grimace...considering what had happened afterwards. "Nothing like a good hunt with a boomstick to pass the day," she said sardonically. She shoved it away, focusing on the task. Her lightsabre was on her belt, in addition she had armed herself with one of the new boltguns.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

In the Skies
@[member="Cira"]

Circling above the landed transports like a carrion bird was a lone Argevent; or rather, a converted one. Half it's cargo space was gone, traded in for more armor and weapons on the transport. It's hull was a matte black and as it banked to circle lazily around the assembled OmegaPyre soldiers, the name stenciled on the side became visible quite readily.

Cruor.

Nestled within was Sarge and a squad of 9 handpicked OmegaPyre shocktroopers. They were the reinforcements for when things went south. Hugely south. Slowly the ship came to hover over the group and a lone figure jumped from the back.

Trading in his usual bulky armor for something more manueverable, the man approached Cira and snapped off a quick salute. "Ma'am. Cruor stands ready for orders." His squad, codenamed Cruor, was the QRF for this mission. If things went south, they called him.

"OH!"

He digs around at his waist for a moment before he pulls a small, easily portable thermos from his belt and hands it to her.

What was in it? Coffee.

Black.

Why? Just to see how she'd react.

 

[Qae Shena]

Over Denon.

The massive ship of war. It was huge. Omega Pyre's biggest warship to date, commanded by none other than its biggest lover of starships. It was the most glorious warship Omega Pyre had, designed to annihilate any other starship that came close to it and break it into a million tiny pieces under the best-armed vessel in space.

Allaina Mare was the most capable commander of this vessel and the best person in the business to do it. She knew her weapons. She was now the commander of a ship that was s aply named to take care of the space business. Invicta. Undefeatable. This was her baby and it would not be broken.

"Omega Invicta,"she muttered under her breath, taking her rightful seat in the captain's chair.

"Have us stay on station over Denon and wait for further orders from below. Deploy dropships on request and route all fighter traffic through our controller. Scan any incoming vessels and let's keep our eyes peeled."

 

[Tilda Sai]

@ALL OMEGA PYRE GROUND PERSONNEL

​

"Have every squad check in with a confirmation that their scanners are at max energy level and prepped to come online."

"Aye sir!"

"We got Aurek, Besh, Cresh, and Thesh online!"

"Good."

From her perch aboard the temporary Omega Pyre headquarters on the upper levels of Denon's skyscraper, Major Anika Od'manteiv personally led the intel and security operatives that would be in charge of overseeing each and every one's of Omega Pyre's personal security cameras, as well as the portable sticky holocameras that each squad had to place in various parts of the lower levels to give Anika a set of eagle eyes to aid the ground personal. They would also have a limited amount of 3D scanner self propelling lasers that would help get a holographic map of the area.

"All ready to go, Major Od'Manteiv."

"Patch me through." came Anika's curt order.

"Aye aye!" A pause as the Selkath intel officer readied the transmission. "Ready Major."

"This is Major Anika Od'Manteiv, and I will be your direct connection to each and every squad out there. I am your eyes in the dark ladies and gentleman, so ensure that you place those holocameras in the intervals described to you in your briefing."

Slate gray eyes drew up towards the two dozen displays.

"We are online."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]!" Tegaea called. When the Major had come over, she looked at her. "I need you to get some information about what's below. Safe zones, dangerous zones, everything. I want to know all we can about these zombies. We're going to get a team together of our best troops and make a recce down at the lower level, but we need intel first."

Tegaea looked next along to where more Omega personnel were landing. "@[member="Cira"], do you have any intel we can use in regards to these zombies?"

 

[Cira]

@[member="Sarge Potteiger"] @[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

Twin orbs the hue of the finest Corellian whiskey swiveled to lock on the heavily armoured Sarge to her right. Her expression was stoic, and she stood passively blinking at the man. Without a word, she holstered her blaster pistol at her thigh. Figures he would do some crazed roddin' bull like this.

However, she was picking up on things. Cues. Like the fact he really enjoyed getting a reaction out of her.

So instead of rolling her eyes in a 180 like she wanted to, she instead took the thermos-- and brought it to her lips. Taking a swig, she drank it down. Nothing like a bit of caffinee to get the system going on alert.

She then pressed the thermos back onto Sarge's chest, already turning around to face away from him. The slight upward perk at the corner of her mouth fading as quickly as it came.

At least he remembered she liked it black.

At the question, she began ambling alongside Tegaea, "Preliminary reports suggest that the scientists of Denon attempted to create some sort of cure to counter the virus." there came the grimace, "However, things didn't go according to plan. " a pause. "They never do."

"There will be some form of mutated version of it down there. Go for kill shots. We don't know exactly how long the incubation period is.... " a pause, "Although getting one back might help our techs to figure out if there is a cure."

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

@[member="Cira"]

Sarge took the thermos and put it back where he'd retrieved it from, taking a good solid moment to enjoy the view as she turned away from him. Bet she looks real good cleaning her... waffle maker. What? That didn't even make sense to him, and he was crazy.

By most people's estimations, that is.

But the momentary pause when he'd handed her the thermos followed by a lack of reaction meant one thing; she was catching on. Good. She was seeing his game and adjusting accordingly. Just as planned.

Without orders, he simply stood and waited nearby as his transport lowered itself to the landing pad and cycled the engines down just enough to keep them running, but not enough to shut them off.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Sure, the Unity awaits us!" Siobhan called to Tegaea. She went about questioning some of the frightened inhabitants and militiamen, who were understandably wary of intruders.

Since it's terribly late where this writer is living, it shall not be described in detail. We can assume that Siobhan's bludgeoning tactics proved useful and she soon returned to @[member="Tegaea Alcori"] and @[member="Cira"].

"Big surprise, the zombies turn others by biting them," she said matter-of-factly. "There's an abandoned military base from before the collapse, it's crawling with the bastards. Oh, and some of 'em know how to use guns."

One could assume that there were different strains of the virus. She handed Tegs a datapad with some information on zones. "Couple scattered colonist groups were cut off on the lower levels, probably got slaughtered by now."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"Great, zombies with guns," Tegaea said. She frowned. "Well, we need to plan this carefully. The first thing I want is to get some drones down into the depths to survey the situation. After that we'll need to catch a zombie for study, undead or dead, I don't care. We should then be able to create an antidote...or at least have some more data. Get your things in gear, we're going down."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"Smart zombies with guns, been there, done that," Siobhan said, though she wary as well. "Long as they don't start creepy chants about The Unity." As Tegaea would know this was a reference to the zombies Shadow had created.

Maybe not all of the scientists wanted to create a cure, she thought. Shadow had been banished into the fade, but only a fool would think that he would stay there forever and his knowledge hadn't vanished with him.

Or maybe there was no connection at all and she was just being paranoid. She shoved that thought away. "I'm ready to head out to zombieland. Just give the order."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

"Right. @[member="Cira"], we're heading a level down. We'll be in contact, but if you don't hear from us...well...hope we're not eaten. I don't think they'll find enough brains in us for much of a snack!" she joked.

Heading with Siobhan they reached an elevator and headed down into the ruined levels below. Tegaea switched her display to infrared and activated her motion tracker.
"You load buckshot, I'll load bolts," Tegaea ordered. She inserted a magazine into her gun and engaged it, ready to fire.

In the distance they could hear strange noises, screeches and calls.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Tegaea Alcori"]

"I wonder, if I get bitten and eat enough brains, does my arm grow back?" Siobhan brought up her boltgun and quickly loaded buckshot. The large gun felt heavy in her hands, but one could not doubt its efficacy and it was deal for crowd suppression in close quarters.

She took a few steps forward, wary at the screeching and shrieks in the distance, stretching out with the Force she could make out...something, but the creatures were difficult to sense. They passed through a dark alleyway, all power had long died, a few badly mauled corpses lying on the ground greeted them.

Siobhan came to an abrupt halt, scanning and gripping her boltgun tightly. Then suddenly she spun to the right and pulled the trigger, letting loose a buckshot round in the same moment as a damaged door was broken down. There was a loud screech when a pale, rotting corpse got its head blown off.

From across the streets more zombies emerged, swarming them. Siobhan fired another solid durasteel slug at close distance when the creatures came at them, then another. Stepping forward for a moment she held out her flesh hand, leaning the boltgun on her shoulder, to unleash a force push against a group of creatures, but more were swarming out.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Zombies! Soon they were everywhere. Siobhan opened up with slugs and buckshot, while Tegaea opened fire at the oncoming enemy with explosive bolts. The sharp crack of the gun firing was matched only by the percussive crump of the explosion a second later.
Zombies fell to the ground, blown apart by the explosion, while Siobhan blasted those which got closer.

At last the creatures drew off, eyeing them hatefully from the shadows, waiting.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

At least these zombies did not have guns...yet. Their more advanced brethren must still be waiting somewhere in the wings. The street before them was soon littered with very dead bodies, many of them missing limbs, while others had been torn to shreds by the explosive rounds unleashed by Tegaea.

Siobhan blasted away at some fleeing zombies, then stopped to reload, bringing up her boltgun when she heard shrieks, but the zombies had taken off into the shadows, no doubt eyeing them vengefully and planning to swarm them when they got the chance.

She sent a burst message to @[member="Anika Od'Manteiv"]. "Engaged the first group of zombies on level two. Looks infested," turning to @[member="Tegaea Alcori"] she cracked a small smile. "Nice shooting. Seems like the boomstick is an instant cure."

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

Tegaea looked around, noticing the zombies had backed off for now. She also keyed her comm into @[member="Anika Od'Manteiv"]. "We are heading back up to the main level. Make sure the elevator is ready. We've got a good idea of what it's like down here."
She looked down at a zombie, once a young adult male human. It had been blasted with a slug and had lost most of its chest. Still, it'd be a useful specimen. She fired off her remaining bolts into the darkness where she saw movement, and loaded buckshot.
"Come on, Siobhan, we'll take this one back for study. Make sure none of the blood gets on you." Tegaea was helped by the fact that her armour was sealed shut, but Siobhan had no such protection.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

"You know that mine and Adril's blood created zombies once...and gave 'em brains and they had this weird hive mind thing," Siobhan quipped, putting on a pair of gloves and picking up the zombie, trying to hold it an angle where its blood would not splatter on her.

Unlike Tegs she did not wear sealed armour, just her usual paramilitary fatigues and combat pants, covered by a trenchcoat. "So, if I get infected, do I get to be a super zombie then?" she wondered aloud as they dragged the mutilated corpse away.

 

[Vora Kaar]

Zero usualy thought that Tegaea was the leader of the Omega Pyre. But for some reason she was, what seemed, to take orders from the other Read headed woman in the body hugging armor. He saw that Tegaea left with Siohban and He was not wanting to Join them now. With caution he walked up to @[member="Cira"] and asked one question

"What need Is there of me?" If he was to be sent down to the ground level with the vice president and the lady warrior, he'll go, but he felt that he was needed for a different thing in mind.