Interlude 143 - 144: The Outsider
NorCal CBT
Interlude 143 - 144: The Outsider
Date/Location:
March 12, 3065 / Alarion, Lyran Alliance (Class A)
Dropship Dotted Line, orbiting Alarion near Port Sydney, 04:37 local time
Miss Black was on her fifth cup of coffee as she continued to scrutinize the battlefield footage from the operation at the Port Sydney base. The images of the Black Marauder in action played over and over again as she pondered her options and waited for Everett Thames to report in. The incoming call alert broke her from her trance. She quickly pressed the connection button on the console.
“Lian Bian, is that you?” she asked. Instead of Everett Thames, it was Tarek Al Jabbar who replied.
“Negative, Stygian, this is Anamnesis. We were able to use our comms equipment to execute a middleman attack and get Bote access to the Lyrans’ military comms network.”
“Were you able to get any info on the Black Marauder?” Miss Black inquired.
“Yes,” Tarek replied, “we learned that they only discovered the Black Marauder’s drop pod by way of visual acquisition when it nearly collided with aerospace craft orbiting the planet–it did not show up on any sensors. Furthermore, they tried twice to shoot it down with naval weaponry and reportedly missed both times. ECM would account for the sensor blackout, but I’m not sure how a drop pod could dodge something, especially something it can’t see.”
“Thank you, Anamnesis. Regroup with the others.” Miss Black ordered before terminating the call.
She barely had enough time to take a sip of coffee before her terminal notified her of another incoming call. She jabbed the connection button and a live feed from Everett Thames appeared on her screen. Miss Black could see he was kneeling in a grassy field with Dr. Romero sat up against a tree while Nora Klaasen and Cartman Parker were being tended to by Doge and another resistance member.
“What took you so long?” she asked impatiently.
“Well, for starters, Dr. Romero and his support team weren’t at the crash site,” Everett Thames replied. “We found them in a park three kilometers outside of the I.G.E compound,” he continued.
“What were they doing there?” Miss Black asked incredulously.
“I don’t know. They weren’t responsive when we found them. Parker and Klaasen are both acting like they just got out of a cockpit after a fist fight with a Charger. Dr. Romero doesn’t seem to have handled the experience as well.” Everett Thames turned as Dr. Romero groaned.
“Looks like Dr. Romero may be coming to,” Thames said. “Let’s see if we can get anything out of him.”
Everett Thames brought the camera over to Dr. Romero and knelt down beside him.
“Dr. Romero, are you okay? Can you tell me what happened?” Thames asked.
“Ugh…where am I?” Dr. Romero asked.
“You’re in a park outside the crash site. Do you know how you got here?” Thames replied.
Dr. Romero gave another groan before responding, “This must be…where the sigils sent us.”
Everett Thames glanced back at the camera for a moment, his confusion visible, before he turned his gaze back to Dr. Romero.
“I don’t understand. What sigils?” he asked.
“I…I barely understand them, myself,” Dr. Romero said. “They’re like…Kearny-Fuchida equations written directly on reality itself.”
Everett Thames paused for a moment before saying “Dr. Romero, you’re not making any sense.”
“At the crash site…there wasn’t any kind of KF drive in the drop pod. Just…thousands of symbols covering the interior. I was analyzing them with Parker and Klaasen, and one of them…started glowing. The next thing we knew we were…elsewhere…in some kind of…spatial anomaly…It was terrifying…there were…unnatural things things there…”
Dr. Romero paused to shiver. He froze for a moment like a veteran reliving a terrible memory before he snapped to face Everett Thames and pulled him in close.
“Whatever’s piloting that Black Marauder…it can’t be human! And if it can do half of what we saw in that other place…it may be…unstoppable…”
Dr. Romero fainted, falling forward into Everett Thames’ arms. Thames leaned him back onto the tree and turned back to face the camera.
“It looks like we’ll need to give him some more time to rest,” he said with a grimace.
“What do you make of what he said?” Miss Black asked.
“I’m not sure what to think,” Everett Thames replied. “Parker and Klaasen haven’t said much, and none of it made much sense either. Whatever they saw, it really spooked them. I’ll call you back when I get something useful out of them.”
He reached up to the camera and the screen went black. Miss Black gave out a sigh as she picked up her mug to take another sip.
“At least things can’t get any worse for us,” she thought to herself.
The console cried out again to indicate another incoming call. Miss Black answered.
“This is Miss Black of Acme Amalgamated.”
A posh voice with a German accent answered. “Miss Black this is Leutnant-General Wendelin Ming Han Hildebrandt zu Zhongshan, leader of the First Lyran Regulars. I’ve just declared martial law in the area around Alarion and in accordance with the Emergency Powers Clause in Section Five of the Lyran Alliance Armed Forces Martial Law Doctrine, I am hereby conscripting your company into mandatory service for the Alliance. Failure to heed this call will result in fines, revocation of your company’s MRBC license, and/or military response from the LAAF. Please confirm that you have received and understood this transmission.”
Shit.