Lt. JG. Gnai - GNAI SMASH!
Lich
(( Outskirts - Breetia Township, Galaris IV ))
Just like the other towns they had seen in their drive through the Grunden lands, this village was barren of life. But it wasn’t the same sun-bleached skeleton of a town that the others had been, not in the slightest. This was still a living ghost-town, despite the lack of bustle in the streets, as evidenced by signs of tasks and errands abandoned mid-process. Carts, wheels practically still spinning, rested in side streets and roads as the team rushed past dropped goods and the odd discarded toy. The Grunt they’d taken stood abandoned as well, smouldering from a direct hit, masquerading itself quite handily as a pile of junk metal. There went their ride back to the capital…
Despite the absence of any proper living Grunden, there was evidence of more than one dead one. A lot more than one, in fact. Not that said evidence would stick around very long, as further explosions rocked the ground nearby, blasting the area with more dust and fire, covering up any bloodstains and broken bodies. That much Gnai was thankful for, even if the proximity of the blast almost toppled the suit over, which was no mean feat.
There - ahead of them, relatively distant from its fellow buildings, and still standing - was a small, squat structure with what looked like reasonably robust walls of stone. Perfect, at least for the immediate moment, so that they could gather themselves and figure out what exactly to do next.
Gnai: ::pointing with its suit’s finger towards one of the more sturdy looking buildings still standing:: There! That looks stable!
Valiani: Perfect! Let’s go.
Gnai followed the others towards the small building, stumbling through a small courtyard past a crumbling and collapsed Grunden statue. The statue in question was wearing garb more in common with the various government officials within the capitol building than the military Grunden that they’d seen, far softer and as the building drew closer, Gnai saw more similarities with the capitol building with the filigreed branches etched into the walls. It seemed far more regal and contemplative a building than the military structures, and much of the rest of town, at least the buildings that still stood.
Tho’Bi: ::glances up from Tricorder:: 90 seconds.
90 seconds until the drone that they were messing with would blow up, fantastic.
Gnai: Go, go, go!
The door barred their way, and try as Lt. Vailani might, she didn’t seem to be able to get it to open.
Valiani: Gnai? If Tho’Bi and I find something to jam into it, you think you could force the door open with the mech-suit?
Gnai: Yes, that would certainly be possible!
A nearby building collapsed under the fire, blasting the courtyard with heat and swirling embers and thick smoke. The other officers would certainly be feeling the decrease in air quality, as Gnai’s tricorder read it dropping at accelerated levels.
Lt. Vailani gestured to the fallen statue, and in particular to the arm that had broken off when the statue was presumably hit. That seemed like a sensible lever to Gnai, but it wouldn’t be fast enough to grab it, make it back to the door, and lever it open on its own.
Vailani: Tho’Bi, that arm? You think that’s heavy enough, we just need something to jam in to give Gnai something to grab onto?
Tho’Bi: ::drowned out:: 30 seconds.
Valiani: Response
He seemed to be frozen solid, and the time was still ticking down. With no visible movement from him towards the arm of the statue, Gnai took another look at the door. The wood had warped with age, and the supports of the wall somewhat shifted, jamming it into place. It was sturdy, yes, but Gnai could see where over time, water and other elements had eroded the door slightly, providing weaker points that could be exploited.
It took one final glance at the others, worried about what it might have to do next. The suit was strong enough to break down the door, sure, but Gnai hesitated to use it like this. Sure, it had used the great mechanical strength of the suit to lift some of the fallen rocks and save trapped children on Laoi III, but smashing through a door was a much more violent action, much more in line with what it had done… what the suit had done during Frontier Day.
((( Flashback: Frontier Day - Transporter Room 1 - Deck 6, USS Kitty Hawk )))
Gnai watched in horror as its suit’s arms moved without it willing them. In an instant, they had lashed out to grab ahold of the enlisted transporter chief. The poor human was stunned, their mouth opening and closing as if they wanted to say something - to say anything - but they were like Gnai, unable to speak. It couldn’t help but catch a glimpse of their eyes as it was trying its best to stop the suit from moving. No matter what it tried, however, the suit refused to respond. The transporter chief’s eyes were pulled open wide, shaking.
Gnai: ::to the transporter chief only:: ~ I’m ::partial:: sorry. I’m ::partial:: sorry. I’m ::partial:: sorry. I ::partial:: don’t know – ~
Its telepathic message was cut short when Gnai watched as its suit hurtled the transporter chief’s body at Lt. JG. Sadar, only for her to duck. The chief’s body met the wall with a crunch, before dropping to the ground, lifeless. Gnai stared at the body from within its rebellious suit, horrified.
It didn’t know how it felt. Sick? Undoubtedly. Confused? Of course. But most of what it felt was just pure shock. It couldn’t understand why its suit had done that. Had it truly lost control? It had just thrown them. Like they weighed nothing at all.
Two, Six, Seven of Eleven: ::in unison:: We are the Borg.
((( Present Day - Outside Grunden Church, Breetia Township, Galaris IV )))
It couldn’t dwell on the betrayal it had felt (its own creation, turning on it, trying to eliminate it on the orders of a malevolent hive mind… the antithesis to everything Gnai wanted as a Galadoran), seeing its own suit assimilated by the Borg and bent on destroying any life that came near its mechanical hands (or down the sights of its stolen phaser rifle, which had inspired Gnai to resolve to never fire a phaser on another living being again). But the real betrayal was to the other members of the crew of the Kitty Hawk, those that had died because of it. The ones who it still couldn’t forget the faces of, shocked as they were, no matter how much it tried to push those memories down and away.
The suit wasn’t the same one, no, that lay broken at the bottom of Kitty Falls on Luna, but Gnai worried all the same. Would its crewmates see it in a different light, would they be afraid of the power that lay in the mechanical fists that it wore? It had asked Lt. Sadar to keep any stories of how violent the suit had been under the assimilation of the Borg to herself, like it had kept her own secret of the secondary jaw to itself.
One thing about stress that Gnai had realized was that it had the tendency to stretch moments into hours, and compress hours into moments. A glance at the chronometer on its tricorder, still out, showed that barely any time had passed. But that was too much time already.
Gnai dropped the tricorder, throwing all caution to the wind, and started to slam on the door with its mechanical fists, pummeling it with all the suit’s might. Each blow of its fists cracked the stubborn old wood, sending showers of splinters around it, and carving craters into the delicate carving work that traced vines in intricate patterns across the surface.
((( Flashback: Frontier Day, later - Bridge - Deck 1, USS Kitty Hawk )))
One of the suit’s own metal hands had formed into a fist, aimed directly at where Gnai rested at the base of its tank.
With a slam, the first fist hit, joining in on the disassembly process and further weakening the transparent aluminum. The other hand balled up as well, and landed another slug cracking the tank’s surface. Water rushed out faster, spilling over the floor of the bridge as more of the transparent aluminum broke. The suit and the Borg drone made short work of it, and soon Gnai had inched back as far as it could, water almost drained from the tank, trying to shrink back from where the suit’s arms were wrenching apart the remnants of the front wall that had contained it.
((( Present Day - Outside Grunden Church, Breetia Township, Galaris IV )))
The sound of the wood splintering and metal wrenching apart brought back another memory of that horrible day, try as much as it did to push it back down. It was hard to forget when its suit, under command from the Borg, had turned its fists upon itself, trying to tear through transparent aluminum and reinforced metals to squeeze the life out of its own occupant.
Valiani: Response
With one final slam of the suit’s fists, the remainder of the door collapsed, and Gnai waved the others into the darkness of the building, trying to rush inside before the final seconds of the drone’s timer elapsed.
Gnai: It’s open!
It waited until the others had gone inside, before following up behind them (it was a coward, yes, but remembering the loss of life that was all its fault during Frontier Day had motivated Gnai to put itself between the others and this potential danger), trying to pull any pieces of the door to cover the hole in the wall, in what it knew to be a futile act.
(( Inside Gruden Church - Breetia Township, Galaris IV ))
The second biggest regret that Gnai had (besides having to use its suit as a weapon again) was dropping its tricorder to the ground to break down the door and rescue their team. A scientist without its tricorder was a very sad thing, and the second it realized what it had done, there was no turning back to retrieve it.
Instead, the drone blew up. Presumably.
Gnai had no way of telling if the large explosion that ripped through the air was the drone, or simply another, larger bomb from the already-in-progress attack, but the pieces of the shattered door had slammed into the back of its tank, pushing it forwards in a massive gust of wind. The stained glass that it had only briefly registered beforehand all vanished in an instant, spreading shards of all the colors of the rainbow through the air and across the floor.
Thankfully, the suit had landed on its front, which allowed Gnai to far easier push itself back to its feet, as it slowly tried to get back to vertical. As it looked around, it saw Ens. Tho’Bi looking confused.
Gnai: Are you alright, ensign?
Tho’Bi: Response
Valiani: Response
Despite the violent explosion behind them, the immediate danger from that drone seemed to be over, and there was a strange silence that fell over the building. It was full of small embroidered cushions, arranged in concentric circles around a small tree (Gnai was no botanist, but it looked a similar species to the one that they had seen in the government building), underneath what had presumably been some sort of elaborate stained glass skylight, but now was just a hole filled with the metal skeleton that had supported intricate depictions of Grunden. The branches of the tree were littered with the glass, but they had also spared the area directly underneath it from the barrage of sharp fragments.
Gnai: This seems… to be some sort of religious building.
Vailani/Tho’Bi: Response
Ah, right. The tricorder that it had left outside. Gnai was fairly certain that it was destroyed, and it had no desire to stick its proverbial neck out to check.
Gnai: Would either of you be willing to lend this your tricorder…? It got left outside in the chaos.
Vailani/Tho’Bi: Response
Tags/TBC :)