Cthulhutech: The Borderlines of the World

[EarthScorpion]

Henna sucks in her breath.

"Nearest non-compromised? Hmm."

She brings up an Augmented Reality display.

"We're the red point in the centre; the system flags know hostile actions in red. We're about equidistant from two different Early Warning Stations. They're sensor outposts," she explains to the non-military members of the team, "and'll have a few mecha around, mostly scout stuff, a small force of Vretas, and some infantry. There's EWS-4X, but that's attached to the military force defending the Ballydehob Enclave. There should be some separation, but if Ballydehob is totally compromised, they'll have made sure that the EWS stations are, too. Whatever happened there."

She points at another one. "There's also EWS-7W, but that's attached to Cork. And if the Dagonites are attacking Cork, they'll have attacked that place. The fish-fuckers aren't completely stupid, and won't want us to have too much warning. It might have been destroyed, it might be under attack right now. I don't know. The data squirt was interrupted when I caught the Dagonite tracking attempt. I've only got a Hi-Pri update."

[frigidmagi]

"Go to the nearest sensor outpost."Aiguo decided.

[EarthScorpion]

Henna stares at the map.

"Both EWS-7W and EWS-6W are roughly equidistant, but 7W is right by the coast, so we'd have to run parallel to it, and if the Cork airbase is under attack, that's the first place they'd target. 6W it is, then. 30 odd kilometres, but we're going to have to keep below 45 kmph to keep the stealth working. About an hour, all in all, accounting for necessary delays to avoid patrols or any fortifications."

And with that said, she eases the Ranger around, the noise from the engine no more than a soft hum.

You're about ten kilometres north, when you encounter the first other signs of life in the area directly. There have been several plane fly-overs, going too slow for a NEG craft; something must have gone wrong if the Dagonites have been able to operate fliers in the area without some Spitfires shredding them. However, the stealth system hides you, and they don't seem to have the bulky, heavy X-Ray equipment which would be the only guaranteed way of finding you.

The passive radar suddenly, as you cut around a hill, picks up a bloom of metal and concrete, an area of flattened land which has been built on. The jag of the perimeter wall is an unmistakable sign that the place is of human, NEG-aligned construction. This isn't a base; from the dimensions, it looks to be one of the mini-Enclaves, the small villages of people who live away from the proper Enclaves and the Arcologies. They're usually looked at with contempt by the Arcology-dwellers; what kind of person would want to live so far away from civilisation, away from public amenities, reliant on your local nanofactory and a single D-Engine for everything? Such places are hardly armed at all, they'll have small arms (which are, all in all, completely useless against anything armoured), and maybe some RPGs or a fixed anti-armour weapon. The NEG typically tries to get people away from them, into the Enclaves-proper, as they're typically smashed by the first extra-dimensional entity that threatens them, through tax breaks and the university systems, but it still protects them. Such places always have a secure hardline to a nearby NEG facility, as well someone trained in basic first aid, and they are occasionally used as field-bases of operation by Army forces.

[frigidmagi]

Aigou pointed at Alex, Tyche, Erik.

"You three with me. We'll duck out and make contact." He turned to the driver.

"If you have no definite word from us in 5 minutes, you bail fast towards the safest place you can figure. Do not risk the vehicle or anyone in it to attempt rescue or investigation just go. If we don't report you get to be in charge until you met up with higher. Understood?" Aigou said his voice sounding like a wire being scrapped on tinfoil.

[Academia Nut]

Alex performed the equivalent of a nod in his armour and said, "Right." While he would be rather more obvious to enemy sensors than a standard footsoldier, the mobile firepower he offered without risking the transport was too valuable to ignore. It made sense, and he had no reason to complain.

That of course didn't mean that he wouldn't bitch when he got shot. He was rather the most obvious one to shoot when the inevitable enemies showed up, and he rather doubted that he would be able to get as good of a jump on them as with the technicals. He was going to get a rocket up his ass, he just knew it.

[Losonti Tokash]

After some double-checking with Salky, Erik gathered up his junk and made his way over to the others. "Okay, let's do it."

[frigidmagi]

With a grunt of acknowledgment, Aigou opened the door and leapt out. He broke to the left of the door and ran towards the nearest cover and stopped dropping down and putting himself in a position to give covering fire.

[EarthScorpion]

There is a conspicuous lack of return fire or ravening extra-dimensional monstrosities. Whether this is considered a good thing or not largely depends upon an individual's level of paranoia. However, the point is that the three infantry and the powered armour are the only large lifeforms about. That isn't to say that it's too silent, in the deathly way that some places hit by EDEs are; you can heard birdsong, and there's rustling in the grass which, upon closer inspection and the mass pointing of guns, turns out to be a rabbit.

Behind the investigators, the IFV waits, invisible. Salky tucked it up against a dip in the land, so even if there is a faint ping through the stealth, it should be filtered out as noise automatically.

The perimeter wall appears, upon closer inspection, to be intact; it isn't scarred by battle marks or that characteristic double tear that would indicate Dagonite powered armour scaling the four metre surrounding wall. The gate, however, is unsealed, with the door fully open. A standard NEG Army supply truck is half way through, overturned. A closer inspection would be needed to get more details.

[frigidmagi]

Aigou pointed at Alex and made a stay there motion. He pointed at Erik and made a follow me motion. With that he headed towards the gate and the overturned truck, carefully, his weapon up at the ready.

It was to damn quiet. Where was everyone?

[Losonti Tokash]

Erik made a face, but followed along. He was plainly nervous about the situation.

This is about the part where the villagers come screaming out of the buildings.

[EarthScorpion]

The overturned truck, now that you get closer, has a tight cluster of bullet holes, right through the windscreen in front of the driver. They continue through, into the seat, the dark red-brown of dried blood soaked into the padding. There's no body, though. Aiguo is the only one who notices the bloodied drag marks on the ground, faded by the environment, only visible in the cracks and recesses on the ground, which indicates that something removed the body after the driver was shot.

In the back of the truck is a few broken open crates of standard issue nanofactory feeder modules. They're all the Metal cells; the Organic and the Hydrocarbon raw materials have been removed. It is possible for nanofactories to built things from their base elements, but that's much slower and takes much more energy, so instead they're fed with structured molecules, which can be used in standardised design. Someone saw fit to take the lighter chain molecules, but leave the heavy metal element samples, the ones used in consumer goods such as electronics rather than food or plastics. The iron sample is rusted, Aiguo notices too, which means that this happened a while ago; long enough that the hole punched into that feeder let the elements in.

Beyond the truck, there can be seen traces that this happened a while ago. There are streaks of dirt from rain down the buildings; a thin layer of grime over all the windows. Pockmarks of bullets can be seen in a few buildings, but much fewer than might be expected if everyone was fighting for their lives against a forced intrusion, and there are no larger blasts, whether from explosives or energy weapons, in sight.

These towns are built to a fixed design; perhaps a few hundred people lived in this model. They're made so that it's possible to fall back to the centre, until main NEG forces arrive. They're also not as monitored as arcologies, but there should be some form of security network here, although if there's no-one watching it, all it can do is trigger alarms in the town's control room.

[frigidmagi]

Aigou's mouth went dry and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest. Some of the more clever bastards of the Storm set up traps like this... Did the enemies of humanity talk to each other? Coordinate at all? A ridiculous image of a Dagonite, a cultist and a monster of the storm sitting around a table and sipping tea while gentelly discussing proper anti-human tactics came to him.

The oddest things came to you when you were about to stick your dick into a meat grinder.

The drag marks could mean lots of things. Humans dragging away a comrade to a safe place. Monsters dragging him away for the larder. Hell, the driver could have dragged himself. He needed to get closer.

He signaled to Erik to follow and signaled to Alex to stay put. He was sure that would make Alex happy and Erik unhappy but those were the breaks. He advanced to the truck, slowly scanning the area for traps and movement. He was sure he would be unable to hear anything over his own heart as he eased forward, foot by foot.

[Academia Nut]

Alex was going to get shot, he just knew it. Whatever had done this was going to be hiding somewhere, waiting for everyone's attention to be focused upon the empty truck and then some monstrosity was going to pop out of nowhere and shoot at the biggest threat, namely him. His only hope was that whatever was out there had not anticipated powered armour and he would be protected by his gear. That was why he wore it. But he was going to get shot, he just knew it!

A slight thought pointed out the fact that his obsession with the idea that he was going to get him shot proably would get him shot by having pay attention to the wrong thing at the wrong time.

[Marcao]

He waited patiently on his position aware of the tenuous position of their current circumstances. He had come to do a job but life had once again proven to be more complicated than he had expected. His attention flickered from the console arrayed in front of him and settled on watching Aigou as he stalked his way towards the truck.

He is being careful. In his position. I would be too...


There were a dozen ways to die in this place and he was certain that he could think of a hundred more. He had expected to have been clawing his way into the facility by now. What the hell had happened in there? He did not allow his mind to wander. He pulled his thoughts back and focused on Aigou once more.

I hope he knows what he is doing.

[EarthScorpion]

The area around the truck is clear. No ravenous monsters or cunning Dagonite ambushes wait around it, as far as can be seen. Now that you get close enough to see the wheels on the right hand side, the side which it rolled onto, you can see that two of the wheels (and wheel mountings) are completely wrecked. Some kind of projectile weapon smashed them, and a fair sized one at that; from Aigou's best estimate, it looks like the kind of damage you'd get from a 20mm anti-armour railweapon, maybe 25mm at the outside. Still small enough to be infantry carried (although no human could fire it from the hip), and also fairly commonly used as secondary or tertiary weapons on vehicles. The IFV has one of those as a retractable turret. The passage, though, is clearly that of a solid projectile, as opposed to an explosive or energy weapon.

The point is, someone deliberately crippled this vehicle, either before it crashed (although the driver was also shot with rifle fire, and why would they waste anti-armour fire on a basically unarmoured truck), or afterwards, to prevent anyone from righting it. And if the latter is true, then it would suggest that this wasn't the Dagonites, because the Order are infamous for their tendency to loot any gear they can get their hands on.

A glance into the driver's cabin shows that the D-Engine of the truck is still there, and operational; the dashboard display (grimy from water seeping into the vehicle through the open door) is lit up. From the damage, you don't think that anything damaged the internal computer, which should have internal records of what this truck was doing.

The access plate by the door is deactivated. Not bypassed or destroyed, merely off, unresponsive to any commands, leaving the door stuck in the "open" position. The one on the other side is the same.

A flight of birds flaps overhead, settling down on one of the buildings in front of you, though the gate. Their cheeping is incongruous with the mystery before you; mundanity in this weirdness. What the hell happened here?

[frigidmagi]

Aigou hunkered down behind the truck and peeped around it into the village. The whole thing screamed of human action but that didn't make any bloody sense! A cult? That could be it. They should just bogey on out of here... But... He needed more to report.

He signaled to Erik to hurry up. He needed to go into the village and someone was going to cover him.

[Losonti Tokash]

Erik really wanted to check the truck's records, but on the other hand, he really didn't.

Like it matters, I've got Marlboro Man here telling me to more or less stick my head out the window.

He sighed and made his way up to Aigou's position, his sidearm in a death grip and eyes looking every which way.

[EarthScorpion]

Aigou slowly advances into the village, using as much cover as possible. It isn't even eerily quiet; there is the noise of birds, from within the high walls. Nature is very slowly reclaiming this enclave of humanity in the south of Ireland.

The inside remains the same; the occasional patch of bullets scarring the walls, with no sign of any larger weapons having been fired. Oddly, now that he looks, Aiguo can see that there are much more bullet marks around the inside of the outer wall than on the buildings.

He glances at the nearest building, a somewhat fortified building, designed to face the entrance. The doors on that building are stuck in the open position too, and the hatches through which the automated defences would have protruded are still locked shut.

[frigidmagi]

Aigou almost turned back right there. But, his training overrode that. He needed to have something concrete to report after all. Making sure of his weapon he stepped carefully and quietly into the building, scanning for any sign of an ambush or trap...