Re: The Adbot's Revenge!
At first, the machine near grave didn’t seem to do much; some stuff lit up, and that was about it. One of the more important lights that lit up, however, was in the small bunker Host was commanding from, and far from Grave’s view. The hive seemed to be it’s usual self, bar the slowly expanding hole in the top near where the Grey Goo bomb had initially been detonated, but the insides had long been turned into the grey semi-fluid. The engines had only survived for so long from the heat destroying the substance before it could have any effect, and the hull’s regeneration had allowed it to fight a slowly loosing battle of conversion/reparation. When the bottom hull finally went, the Grey Goo would pour onto the planet and have… reasonably bad effects. To contain the threat, it would need to be stopped by EMP or vaporized before ever reaching the planet… and since the EMP with the Grey Goo bomb had lost its shield and been consumed after the nuke went off, that was no longer an option. Hence Plan C… a really big shield to vaporize the problem before hitting the ground. The shield would have to be at its very peak of power to cope with the initial impact… which was reached only immediately after activation.
Host spent many horrible minutes in which the end of the world waited overhead and there was nothing between it and him, before the bottom of the ship finally failed, and the contents poured out like wrath from the heavens... or something entirely different in an over the top hentai. Host pressed a small button, and a number of motion detectors came alive. As the Grey Goo passed just into their range, the shield flared into life, incinerating the first few kilos with the initial burst far faster than would have normally been possible. The trenches went dark as the Goo blotted out all light, and for a while the only audible sound was that of metal being vaporized above them. The shield held under the pressure of the remaining Goo, and, somewhat more slowly, incinerated that as well. The final challenge came when the rest of the hive came crashing down as the engines failed to keep it hovering, dropping the rest of the shell into the Goo sitting on the shield. Despite the extra weight, the shield still did its job, and not a molecule of Goo got through.
That's when the shockwave of dark energy hit, thankfully not causing any problems with the shield. The Lurker undead felt the negative energy shockwave more than most, pausing momentarily to regain themselves. Host mentally filed the problem away to be dealt with after the Goo.
After a few minutes, the sky became bright again as the crackling stopped and the last of the Goo was vaporized. Host just about fell over in relief. A skeleton in a cowl and baggy pants entered the small bunker Host was in, forcing him to compose himself and converse with the Lurker.
“Keeper Rhomus returning. All our soldiers are either alive, undead or beyond the point where they can be brought back with their mind intact.” Its voice was male, though considerably feminine and, despite being undead, had a distinct kindness to it.
Host nodded, and said “Begin restoring any of the member casualties you can.”
Rhomus paused, and chose his words very carefully. “Do you believe that to be… rational?”
Host closed his eyes and sighed, taking a moment to think. “We are adding a new demographic. They would become outcasts… maybe even defect to us.”
“They probably wouldn’t,” Rhomus said, sounding sad, “and you’re good enough to know that.”
Host hmmed his agreement, and changed tack. “We are converting some of them to us, discretely. The undeath covers the change, it looks like we’re helping, and we get more soldiers in the end. Rational.”
“And how many should I convert?”
“As a keeper of the truth, you already know the answer. But add in, ooh… fourteen unsaved zombies to fool them. I trust you have suitable personalities ready.”
Rhomus nodded, turned, and left from where had had came, making his way to the nearest member he could ‘save’ from death. The process was, however, far more difficult than it had any right to be, because small parts of his unholy energy and the energy of all undead in the area were being stolen. The culprit was beyond his senses, and the damage nothing that he or even the more generic zombies would find fatal, so he concentrated on ‘healing’ the deceased… but it was not doing good things to them by any stretch.
Krell and Zorori had finished off the group of wraith to the score of 7-6, respectively, though Zorori’s fists were arguing fiercely that the one he’d thrown had been his kill and the score was really 6-7. Krell was beginning to turn the argument to his favor when Zorori remarked “I would have thought there’d have been more of them by now. …You suppose they’re regrouping?” Krell, hand still firmly grabbing Zorori’s faceplate, stopped the throw he had been about to make to reply.
“I suppose... we ought to break them up, then.” and added, “Tie breaker!” as he pushed Zorori away and ran in the direction of the trench that he hadn’t come from. But, no matter how far they ran, there weren’t more than a few wraith anywhere in the trenches.
“Alright, new theory," said Zorori. "They made a run for it.”
“Why the fuck would they do that? They don’t have anywhere to run to!”
“Well it was that or die here… I don’t see why they wouldn’t run. Though you’d think if they’d just run in random directions that we’d have heard word from the forum about gunning down some stragglers… we really need some battlefield surveillance about now.”
Host had reached a very similar conclusion a considerable degree faster, and was already urging the Lurkers back at base to return the satellites back to their geo-synchronous positions. The area near the battlefield was currently viewable, and while the pictures were somewhat blurred from the continuing movement of the satellites, they were still clear enough to make out the important details. For a start, there were the wraith bodies, outside the trenches and a lot of them, enough to be the entire reminder of that hive's population. They were in small separated groups various distances from the trenches and there was no sign of any other corpses. What was probably the last live wraith was going down to a small group of familiar looking vehicles with – oh my. ...With a very distinctive symbol, one belonging to a group Host knew well of. And one that had no business being here… One that could be a problem.
The satellites also showed a somewhat more distinctive presence; namely that of Oni – now controlled by Gig, though this was beyond Host’s knowledge – hovering in the air with large wings of darkness and a trail of it leading from his mouth to his body. That could also be a problem, and one a little more dangerous than the sudden appearance of Nod. Still… he wasn’t getting in Gig’s way, and didn’t plan on it anytime soon… and the creature had communicated a willingness to allow those who did not get in the way to continue their existence… though Host could almost smell it turning into a broken promise, and quickly at that...
Then there was Burrito’s group, getting into a Nod transport… and now Host definitely had to talk with Kane. He turned on the Lurker radio, gave a short but heartfelt (sounding, anyway) remark of thanks to the combined troops, told them to clean the place of any remaining wraith before they left and turned the radio to a different frequency, while walking towards the location where the Black Raven had landed. He spoke through the radio to announce his intentions to the pilot.
“Black Raven, I will be joining you. We have a transport to follow.”
