Dark_RP

Today was the day I learned the depths of human despair.

Dara and I organized the camp while Natalya and Marika attempted to find the main camp the Migou belonged to, to no avail. Smith was still limping his way back to us when the ground shook and the air was filled with a cacophonous explosion. From our vantage point in the foothills we could see over the forested land to Mt St Helen which was in the throes of a serious eruption.

As Marika and Natalya were headed back to camp we received orders to investigate the eruption. Dara had already redirected his drone to do just that and we were prepping for an investigatory pass in any event.

Dara's drone spotted a suspicious shadow, one look at it and I knew - a Migou Dragonfly - a stealth mech often used in reconnaissance missions. The Dragonfly was surveying the eruption, but soon it had gathered the data it needed and it head off, Dara's drone following quietly behind. It led to an established modular Migou base.

I constructed a plan.
Marika would stand in overwatch position as the base was nestled in a ravine - she would disable the Dragonfly should the base become alerted.
Natalya would standby to assist extraction in the same event.
Smith, Dara and I would sneak into the base and attempt to gather intel on its purpose. We would use {restricted} to bend light to render us invisible, but I wouldn't be able to hold it for long.

We approached and Smith took it upon himself to probe the mind of the Migou guard outside. He shared the intel we received about numbers of Migou inside and that this base was indeed related to the eruptions in some way...but the blood had drained from his face and he looked like he was about to pass out. I don't want to know what that was like for him.

Unfortunately Dara's skills were insufficient to breach the entrance due to some kind of organic biometric system overseen by an AI that Dara didn't want to alert. Disheartened we decided to get out of there and reformulate a plan, when the guard decided to step inside - inserting an 'appendage' into a hole in the wall and the door irised open - we quickly followed behind.

We moved towards the centre of the structure. At one point having to squeeze against the wall to avoid the detection of a passing guard. I cycled Dara as being visible/not visible to open the door into the central area. We cautiously proceeded.

Inside was a largish anteroom chamber. At the far end a window was built into the wall, allowing site to some kind of transdimensional generator/engine - to behold it was to question one's own position in the cosmos, like a sinking vertigo. Above this room looked to be some kind of control room. Dara atttemted to remotely hack the systems inside but found no storage devices and in his searching came to the attention of the AI which tripped the alarms.

Two guards came out of the control room and we hid as a third one came from behind us. We followed the third one out and confronted it in the corridor dispatching it relatively quickly. Natalya was called in and the pilot was heading to the Dragonfly. Marika was given the all clear to destroy the Dragonfly and its pilot.

Dara reckoned the engine was building up to something and that it was probably the cause of the eruptions. A third one had to be averted. Dara attempted to disconnect it's power using his mind but we later discovered he was just removing the control signals.

Smith tried destroying the glass and the wall around the engine with grenades, but it was too tough.

We received imperative orders from control to get as much data as possible and destroy the engine.

We stormed the control room. Natalya blowing a grave wind in before us she quickly moved from guard to guard slicing and dicing them as they were peppered with small arms fire. They didn't last. Also in the room were Migou officers/scientists who seemed to be ready to ingest some noxious liquid. I shot one vial shattering it and spilling its contents and Dara snatched the other out of the scientist's hand with his telekinesis.

There were storage devices, I report. These devices looked exactly like human brains. Knowing the Migou that's almost certainly what they are. But despite Dara's interest in this, I was drawn to the monitors studying them for useful intelligence. That's when I noticed the video of the Hive ship. It took two or three looks before I realized it wasn't in orbit around the moon. This was another Hive ship, as best I could tell, it was in transit. I despaired, it must be heading here - where else would they be interested in sending one?

While Natalya and I processed this, Dara and Smith had used retro-cognition and tech skills to work out how to operate the gesture based operating system well enough to turn the engine off.

Today was the day I learned the depths of human despair. And I can speak nothing of it outside this report.

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2086 - the year that humanity's despair became tangible, the year that despair was kept absolutely secret. The NEG losses were almost universal from China to Alaska, and it was sure to get worse and will probably never get better again.