Eternal Fire

"I...I'll be..."

Sigrun tried opening one eye, but the stench made her look away. Her stomach was turning in on itself. She had killed things before...mainly animals for slaughter or wild dogs. Never anything...that even had the slightest of relations with human.

"...I'll catch up with you soon."

She walked around the corner to throw up.

"Yeah alright! That's the way to do it!" Jerry said enthusiastically after the tunneler stopped moving. He took the Ziz a couple steps back, stopping as he noticed the 'hairballs' beneath him. "So what the heck are these..." he trailed off as he poked at one with the Ziz's claw, then zoomed in his vision to confirm what they were as the suspicion came to him.

"What the fuck! Doc this thing has been chewing on people in suits like ours!" Jerry yelled angrily, the Ziz's weapons unfolding into ready position as he turned towards the domed structure behind them. "You better start talking old man! What haven't you told us?!" he went on furiously.

"Christ calm down. You know zat mention of crushing bone earlier? Zat was actually a zing zat happened with zee previous teams. You are the 5th team in 2 months. Zee Tunneller posed a obstacle out and I just kept adjusting zee suits," Dr. O responded, a bit annoyed.

"What did you want me to tell you? Zat zere was a large abomination out in ze wastes zat had killed previous teams and I had no idea if you would live or die? Yes sounds perfect for a team of misfits who just got their hands on high powered weapons. Also, genius... the Vault was designed to withstand the colonies falling... what would your current weapons do other than damage systems other travellers of the wastes could use to survive?"

The scavenger drones turned up nothing, at best a few uninfected circuit boards, the rest of the machine was too ingrained with flesh from the pilot mass that it was essentially useless now.

"I don't have to damage the whole thing just to put you down old man" Jerry growled back; clearly he was not satisfied with the doctor's answer.

"You could have told us we'd be in danger before we stepped out of the dome! You could have told us about what was coming after us and how to defeat it! This fucking thing basically took us by surprise and it's a miracle that none of us died! You didn't say anything about it until it was right on top of us! Even though you knew it would be coming for us, so don't give me that 'need to know' bullshit! The blood of those previous teams is on your hands, motherfucker, and I'm just about ready to come tearing in there and make you pay for that!"

edited 16th Feb '15 8:52:27 AM by FirockFinion

"Did I force you to fight? Did I force you to make zose steps out? No. I made a offer, told you zat zee suits were incomplete. But I also said you could have left. It was zee same with the previous teams. So, drop the sense of justice. I had no idea if it would return or not. It had been a month since I last saw it," Dr. O calmly replied.

"And as you can see, your suits kept you safe and you worked out a plan. The previous teams thought zey were gods with zee suits and didn't think a way to defeat it. Choosing to just pound it with bullets and blades."

Dominic listened at the shouting match that had broken out between Jerry and the doctor. It confirmed his suspicions about the doctor being selective the truth and also explained how he knew so much about the tunneler. Dominic peered inside the maw of the tunneler, switching his headlights on to get a better look at what was inside the creature´s stomach. It had apparently eaten members of the previous teams, but was it just for sustenance or were there other reasons behind the tunneler´s behaviour?

Dr O let out a sigh, "Even I didn't know zat it ate the suits. All contact died as soon as zee user died. It has been a few months since I lost contact with my project. Zings have changed, any logs I might have may very well be outdated. Keep zis in mind."

A prompt appeared on their HU Ds, "Now. We can update zis. If you could please scan zee Tunneller I may be able to piece together a complete log zat will make any possible future encounters childs play. I can't keep affording to have any suit teams die on me. Oh and scan any former suit users I may be able to make a theory as to why zey were eaten."

A grumble was heard, "And I will try to give out any info I can within reason. Nothing relating to my project or my exact location. I don't have a kill switch or a restraining bolt for you so I have no reason to believe a group of armored ubermensch won't betray me first chance zey get."

edited 16th Feb '15 2:35:17 PM by EchoingSilence

Sigrun climbed out of the downed tunneller, still looking a bit pale. Thankfully, the nanites in her body were already hard at work at recovering the body, although the mind could still need some time. While the others checked out the wreckage and argued with the doctor, she sat down in the shade of the big machine to take a breather.

Dominic continued his investigation of the maw of the tunneler, scanning the rows grinding "teeth" inside it and using his floodlight to search for anything interesting inside the creature´s stomach. Although it appeared that he would have to enter the stomach itself to properly scan it. "Right, doctor. I´m going to investigate the stomach now. The tunneler was probably just eating suit users to get sustenance for it´s... organic components, but I have this sinking feeling that there could be more to it."

Dominic gazed into the tunneler´s maw for moment before unsheathing his vibromachete. As he started entering the tunneler´s stomach, machete at the ready, Dominic mentally contacted his AI. "Aegis. start analyzing the data I´m gathering and forward your findings to the doctor along with the raw data." "Acknowledged. Analyzing..."

Echoing Silence, in your last post Dr.O seemed to respond to Dominic. I´m just just wondering if that was a slipup, since Dominic didn´t actually say anything but just think it.

edited 18th Feb '15 1:52:57 PM by Brassmoon

Slipup it seems.

"Exactly what I was thinking Dominic. No mutant gets extra mass from nowhere," Dr. O commented.

A few scans turned up a few more dead bodies and progenitor nanites that were in charge of fixing the machine.

edited 19th Feb '15 11:33:55 AM by EchoingSilence

Gaius sighed to himself. Well, as far as first impressions go, that wasn't great... Sheathing his cannon, he made his way for the Ziz. "Hey, Mister Dragon, I'm gonna come in and dock if that's alright. ...This is all getting just a bit... heavy..."

Of course, Gaius was referring to the situation rather than his armor. Jerry had voiced many similar concerns to the ones Gaius was presently having. Granted, it's likely most of the group felt the same, but it's good that at least someone could speak up.

Dominic observed the scene of horror inside the tunneler's stomach. It looked like it functioned as more of a storage for the corpses, with the nanites taking care of the "digestion". Dominic focused on investigating the corpses more closely. The maw would certainly cause a lot of damage, but he was not certain that could explain all the damage.

Dominic opened comms to the doctor. "Doc, does the suit have any way to gather samples for analysis? I found some interesting nanites that seem to be part of the maintenance system. There are also a lot of corpses, but I have not found any animal remains so far. That seems odd to me. You'd think something this big would require more sustenance than just suit users."

"You are the 5th team in 2 months... It had been a month since I last saw it... It has been a few months since I lost contact with my project..."

You ain't keeping your story straight, doc' Jerry thought to himself, but decided not to speak aloud. Nobody seemed to be making a big deal out of it besides him, and Jerry wasn't quite keen on turning everyone else with a super advanced suit around into an enemy. Even if he did think he could actually take most of them; that was probably just the machismo thinking though. (Plus there was the matter of the guy with the big elephant suit, who was the only one, in Jerry's opinion, that could stand against him.)

So Jerry just sat quietly, his anger simmering as his thoughts trailed off, until one of the smaller suit guys approached and addressed him. "Huh? Oh yeah, I guess you can come aboard... Uh wait, in?" Jerry said, momentarily confused.

:D (/^_^)/

With the chime of the AI, a large hatch on the side of the Ziz opened up, folding down a ramp which led to the internal compartment. "Oh, I guess that's how" Jerry commented idly. On the sides of the room were bays that seemed intended for suits, while the floor between was extremely utilitarian; only a long 'table' of sorts that seemed more like just a rectangle of metal built into the floor occupied the center of the room. Along the sides of it though were small compartments to put things in; between those and more compartments in the suit bays and along the walls, there seemed to be plenty of room to place things, though currently nothing occupied that space. Even the excess floor space could presumably have furniture of some such put in, just as long as it was all secured in place.

edited 25th Feb '15 8:25:44 AM by FirockFinion

"Yes zee suits should have sampling devices to test zee environment. So sampling the nanites from the Tunneller should be possible."

Dr. O's attention turned to Jerry, "seems you have zee transport apartments open. Vunderbar! Zis will make transporting your fellow troops easier."

Dominic had crouched down to investigate one of the corpses when he heard back from the doctor."A sampler? Huh, let's see..." Flicking his way trough the suit's systems, Dominic quickly found the sampling equipment. Locating a promising cluster of the tunneler's nanites, he carefully extracted a small sample for further analysis.

Returning to the corpse he had been investigating, Dominic contacted his AI "Aegis? Start analyzing the nanites I gathered. I want to know what they are and what they do. If possible, try to figure out if they have any exploitable weaknesses." "Acknowledged. Analyzing..." Aegis answered in a neutral monotone. Focusing his attention back to the corpse, Dominic started prodding and scanning it. He was not exactly a medical doctor, but he figured that he could at least get the rough idea of what had happened to the poor bastard. The doctor could probably figure out more from the data Dominic was sending him, although there was no telling how much he would actually reveal.

edited 26th Feb '15 2:35:01 PM by Brassmoon

Anke walked around and sat beside Sigrun, her helmet in hand and drones in tow. "Hey kid, I meant it back then, are you alright?"

edited 3rd Mar '15 1:09:23 PM by Sanojutsu

Sigrun looked up, a weak smile on her face. She was still pale, but some colour had returned to her face.

"I've been better, but...I'm coming to. It was just...a shock, y'know? Seeing that...thing and everything. Glad it's been dealt with."

Wind's AI had been very helpful and played a series of mental exercises meant for shock therapy for soldiers.

"Though, wouldn't mind putting some distance between us and this...thing. Are we ready to move on soon, mabye?"

Charles hovered in the air, leaning back and crossing his legs as though he were in a recliner. He sighed at the chat between the doctor and Jerry.

"My god this is boring. First the fight is anticlimatic as hell, next all this talk about the Doc keeping secrets... can we just go already?" He said. Grumbling, he climbed aboard the Ziz and laid down on the floor. "Fuck it. Wake me when we get there."

The results came in, a low whistle came from the doc as his image returned to everyone's HU Ds, this time in motion, the Doctor was in a heavily armored room filled with various monitors and consoles, he had bags under his eyes as if he hadn't slept for awhile, not to say some minor graying of his hair from stress. He adjusted his glasses as he read over the results.

"Zat theory of zee suits as sustenance vas true it seems. Hell even other organic lifeforms have been eaten and catalogued by zee nanites and the Tunneller. Once ze first suit got in, poor bastard tried regenerating his way out... ended out fusing with zee core systems which transferred control of his nanites to zee tunneller, whose own self repair systems... well... as you can see..."

He let out a sigh and leaned back in his chair, before pulling out a bottle of beer from outside of the camera's view, "Ja... best continue. Zat vas... Zat vas quite zee mess... I apologize for holding back info. Next time I will transfer any and all information regarding enemies you are fighting and hope zat it is not outdated. Plus getting a drone up soon vould be nice, wouldn't have to see zings from your eyes."

Dominic looked around inside the tunneler's stomach. The revelation about the nanites helped in shedding some light on the actions of the tunneler. Besides sustenance, the creature had probably also started hunting for new sources of nanites. Dominic clambered out of the stomach and started heading for Mendoza's suit. "Mendoza, I'll be docking with you. I'm done investigating the stomach and I doubt there is anything interesting left of the controlling intellect. Further investigation would take more time than we have to spare."

Dominic continued towards Mendoza for a moment before opening comms again. "Hey, Anke, Sigrun, whichever of you killed the thing. Good job." He sought for proper words for a moment before continuing. "Right, regarding the ...creature. Did it seem Sapient? Did it attempt to communicate in some fashion? Or was it a mere raging beast? Seeing the creature was probably a horrifying experience, but for what it's worth, I think killing it was an act of mercy."

Sigrun was getting back on her feet when Wind patched through a radio communication from Dominic.

"Sigrun here. I was the one who got there first and killed it. Uh...how to describe it. It wasn't anywhere near human any more, that's for sure. It was like...a big mass of meat that covered the whole room. But there were still, err, bits of human in there. Like, eyes that worked."

She grimaced as she described it, but Wind had assured her that getting an objective description of her foe would help with processing the memory.

"As for sapience...uh. It spoke to me. Well, it was more like...chanting, I guess? It just said "Join or die" repeatedly, until I...well, blew it up."

...in hindsight, she realized that she wasn't sure that it had been the mutant saying that, since she'd never seen any mouths move.

"Join or die? Well, that's ominous. Seems like what remained of the pilots hadn't degenerated into a feral state. Although it does sound like they had gone insane. Thank you for answering my questions, Sigrun. It must be hard for you, but I hope it helps you as well. Anyway, I think we can start getting on our way. Lingering here doesn't have any benefit."

By now, Dominic had reached Mendoza's suit. He had not had time to properly dock last time, but now he was hoping to spend at least a moment out of his armor. He was also interested in seeing what the interior of Mendoza's behemoth looked like, since it was apparently supposed to have room for plenty of people. Dominic started looking for some way to enter the gargantuan suit.

Jerry didn't like the way the doctor used the term 'fellow troops' towards him; Jerry didn't like to think of himself as a mindless soldier following orders, nor did he like anyone referring to him as such. But he decided not to speak out to the doc about it. Still in a bad mood though, he found it less easy to ignore Charles' statement. After figuring out how to make it so he would only transmit to Charles, so that he wouldn't have to bother anyone else, Jerry spoke up.

"Oh, I'm sorry that you found the life threatening fight against the giant metal worm so boring! Next time I'll let you stand in front of the giant gaping maw of death! I'm sure you'll find that much more exciting!" Jerry berated sarcastically, before getting more serious. "If you continue to view the lives of everyone here so lowly, you can get the fuck out of my dragon and walk" he threatened.

That made Jerry feel at least a little better; seemed like in the meantime a few of the others had been talking about the tunneler's digestion and its... Pilot? Pilots? Jerry wasn't able to follow all the conversation, but it sounded like some disturbing stuff. The Ziz slowly moved over to beside the fallen tunneler, the large footsteps somewhat subdued by the feet sinking into the sand rather than stomping on top of it. "I'm ready to go whenever you guys are" Jerry said calmly after switching back to transmitting to everyone. "I'm in no rush; just as long as we don't sit here all day, I'll be good to wait" he added, since he didn't want to seem impatient. As far as he knew, there wasn't exactly a time limit on their mission.