Week 1 The Purifier has gone Mad ?

The Purifier has gone mad?

Unity Prime stomped across the deck of his personal assault shuttle. He was deep in a slow burning rage, the reports he was getting from Kyrpos didn’t bode well in the hunt for Warmonger’s Forgotten. From one fiend to another, whispered a voice in the corner of his mind.
Many in the Unity concensus worried that the Purifier could have been a demonic weapon. But Prime knew deep in his heart that the Purifier was never and could never be affected by the demonic. They had used every bit of knowledge collected from the mind of Kasanth, every record of memory from every demonically attached Unity members who had fled, and …disconnected.
Prime knew the Purifier was clean of any demonic taint, which meant something was wrong with the code. Unity coders were efficient, but often artistic interpretations of orders. Their codes could often change and grow as time went on. To call the programs viruses would be wrong, they were simply living.

Prime knew the Purifier, and had been concerned about this eventuality. The Purifier was a deadly weapon, one that needed additional layers of controls it would seem. He suspected sabotage, or perhaps just an imperfect design.

He sat down on a small personal skiff, insulated against the particular frequencies that the Purifier could emit. He knew its mobility and aggression protocols, as he had written them himself. With quick sensor flashes, the crew on his stealthy skiff could find the heart of the Purifier whilst the battle raged.

He, 20 Emissaries, and two Sanguine lords would board the vessel. Prime carried an experimental control rod, and went over his notes as the small and sleek black vessel arched through the battle at impossible velocities. He would board the vessel with his small party, they would drill as far as they could with his private vessel, then they would fight their way to the core. From there, he would activate the control rod, install the new pilots, and move the vessel away from the combat.

He looked forward to this additional testing data.

As Prime plotted others also raced to the system via shadow drives. The first to reach the system was the Unity Dreadnaught, IVI 717, the assault vessel of General Garmin Fe. They jumped in outside of system and used their sublight engines to speed to the battlesite.

Upon nearing the battle theater it fired its engines toward Monreth's Delight. The assault shuttle used the solar winds from the suns to glide in on the sails of the craft and modify its course as needed. The engines were running cold and all attempts were made to obscure the craft, both to the Leyas and to technological detection.

As it neared the side of the Monreth’s Delight space station, one of the Recognized in the boarding party looking out a window said, “What in the name of the ancestors are those?”
Garmin Fe looked out the window as a gleaming detailed Iron Republic Mothership shadow jumped out near the edge of a nearby moon. From it flew an entire cloud of starfighters.

Garmin Fe’s vessel could only watch for a few more moments because at that point their drift took them into the outer cloud of the interdictor satellites. They lost sight of everything, inside the cloud.

Meanwhile the Sword of Bootes, newest ship in the fleet of Sector General Palomedes arrived and deployed its starfighters on the edge of the cloud.

Onboard the bridge of the I.R. Mothership, Mothership Captain Ian MacConald, was in the center of the battlecenter on the bridge. A huge array of holographic images represented the suspected cloud of satellites. A small Nanite projector showed Sector General Palomedes. Captain MacConald hated that Palomedes son was stationed on his vessel. It meant the Sector General considered the ship his personal interest, and more damn work and paperwork for MacConald.
“Sir, with all due respect,” said MacConald, “I can do my job sir.”
“I know you can Captain, I am simply ordering you to use the Ascending Phalanx formation,” said Sector General Palomedes, “Then prep a boarding pod, my son and I have already discussed it, and he has volunteered to take the battle into Monreth’s delight to save the hostages.”
“Sir with all due respect, that idea is terrible. We don’t even know what’s inside that cloud,” said Captain MacConald.
“Now we will,” said Palomedes without regard for the lesser officer, “They are Unity, and in my time fighting them, they have a significant weakness to EMP. Check the loads on how we sent you out from Dry dock, Captain.”
“All EMP missiles, but why?” asked the Captain feeling set up.
“I was planning for an offensive on the E-strain,” replied Palomedes with a smile even shown on the flowing Nanite display.
“Good fortune for all of us,” grumbled MacConald as he ordered his starships into Ascending Phalanx.
“On my command the brave pilots of the Iron Republic Starfleet shall fire their compliments of EMP missiles. That is 600 EMP missiles in a cloud that the vessels in their path could not hope to dodge,” said Palomedes smugly, “Signal the Interdictor Starships. Have them shut down their engines. This will be epic. I want your best Comm. Officer on this task MacConald, do this and I see a Starfleet Colonel in your near future.”
MacConald had heart talk like this before. And he couldn’t stand cronyism.
“Sir I’ll do as you say, because you ordered it sir, not because of some prize,” said MacConald grudgingly.
“Good man, MacConald,” said Palomedes, “Tell me when they are ready?”
Only a few tense moments passed, Captain MacConald finally nodded his head in agreement. “Signal sent and received by our comm. Officer, Sir and Ascending Phalanx achieved. If they decide to move out of this zone we will lose our entire force.”
“Have faith Captain, have faith,” said Palomedes, “We will answer this threat with bravery in the face of death. Captain It is time to fire.”
“Salvo 1, ready.”
“Fire”
“Salvo 2, ready”
“Fire”
“Salvo 3, ready”
“Fire”
“Final Salvo, ready”
“Fire…Now Captain prepare the Domebuster’s boarding pods,” commanded Sector General Palomedes.
“They are prepared sir”
“Fire…and now we withdraw to see what will occur,” said Palomedes smugly.
Aboard the boarding pod that was hurtling towards Monreth’s Delight was Lieutenant Palomedes, son of the legendary Sector General. He was sweating inside the heavy Cyclops Tank Killer armor. It was his first time in such heavy power armor. He hadn’t quite mastered the environmental controls, but at least he was inside the armor.
The Brethren standing around him were Betas, and wearing the standard Martian Battlearmor. Over his comms he could hear the Betas internal chatter. They were morbid tube-born creatures, he decided, and tightened his grip on the Mach Cannon.
They slammed into the side of Monreth’s Delight, and locked the boarding pods into place. “Time to move out,” commanded Lieutenant Palomedes. As they walked from the windowless pod onto the main viewing floor of Monreth’s delight Lieutenant Palomedes got his first sight of a space battle affected by the purifier. The low yield EMP Missiles had crackled and stunned the entire cloud of satellites. There were larger interdictor satellites and smaller screamer drones now floating quiet in space. The EMP had disabled them. They were stopped halfway chewing through the interdictors and each other. Three of the Interdictor’s immediately turned on their engines and exited the range of the satellites and jumped away. One remained floating, dead in space.
Lieutenant Palomedes saw Monreth’s Delight had not been free of the Screamer drones and their rampaged.
Hallways were filled with blood spatter but no physical remains. All consumed by the screamer drones. In one hallway the screamers had fallen down mid chew. He quickly fired his mach cannon destroying the corpse just in case.
“Sir didn’t the Sector General ask that all sample be taken?” asked the Brethren.
“I don’t want them waking up and cutting off our escape route. Follow my lead,” said Lt. Palomedes and the deck clearing began as they went for the Reactor room. The lights were off and they were making their way into the depths of the ship. When they felt a crashing of grapplelines hitting the Space Station.
“Sir we have visual of a Unity Dreadnaught powering up its engines and attaching grapplelines to Monreth’s Delight.
“They’re trying to save the station,” said Lt. Palomedes without prejudice, “Let them do what they can. We will discuss jurisdiction once any innocents are saved.”
“Sir?” asked the Brethren in confusion.
“We have much to discuss when we are on the way home, squad,” said Lt. Palomedes with a shake of his head. But for now, we need to reach the reactor, he thought, and lead his men into the darkness of the shut down station.

A few moments earlier

Captain Kir'Yay of the Quall Frigate "Burning Hope" flashed into the battlefield and observed the action. The interdictor fleet began to withdraw as the Sword of Bootes launched its fighters into the fray. Kir'Yay stretched his four arms up then back onto his twin set of armrests on his large command chair. He turned his head toward his communications officer, one of the Horned Dog cultists and told him that it was time. He smiled to himself as the flaming portal opened up beside the ship, one hundred Neo Flayer Scout ships emerged from the hole in waves the portal closing after they were through. They would engage any enemy star fighters and begin to strafe the Purifier with their fireball cannons. Not that he believed that they could cause any significant damage as they were only a distraction anyway. Kir'Yay turned to his pilot and ordered him to go to ramming speed. They would rip through the enemy's hull with their frontal horn and deposit his force of one hundred flayers and thirty Quall N'Drone.

As the Neo Flayers entered the outer cloud of the Interdictor satellites, their commlinks shut down. But they began their last order, using their fireball cannons to cut through the shut down screamers and begin strafing the side of the Purifier. The Burning Hope charged forward slamming its front horn into the hull of the purifier.
Captain Kir’Yay left the bridge and made his way down to the horn where his Quall and Flayers were already charging across the halls of the Purifier destroying stunned Screamers.
They neared the bridge of the Purifier deep inside it at the same time as Unity Prime. At Prime’s side stood two Sanguine Lords and twenty Emissaries and a menajerie of broken technotrocities dressed in Kasanthian Military uniforms.
Captain Kir’Yay roared his displeasure and moved to cross the bridge until he saw the blood that covered the central, control panel-free bridge chamber.
At that moment the backup systems on the purifier restarted and the remaining Screamers reactivated. But that wasn’t all. Micro assemblers built into the hull of Purifier reinforced the cloud with endless screamers. The monstrous attack mekanoids were single minded and without purpose it seemed except to eat everything in sight except the Purifier itself. The crowd of Screamers struck both boarding parties from all sides. The massacre was brutal. Technobroken were consumed where they stood. Even as they blasted, crushed and smashed Screamers more were coming from all sides. Eating the boarding party and each other without abandon, the Screamers were terrifying.
Captain Kir’yay called back to his crew but all he got was static, it must be the Interdictors, he hoped. Then the guns on his vessel stopped sounding.
The battle was matched.
Unity Prime struggled to the center of the command room, raising the control rod hoping to calm the ship and bring it out of aggression mode. He looked back to see nearly half of his Emissaries were already killed and consumed by Screamers. One was currently eating through his left arm, and another was biting through Prime’s shoulder.
Finally Prime activated the link between the Purifier and its new crew.
The ship withdrew its Screamers who scurried away back down the corridors. Unity Prime swore he saw the screamer who had been eating his hand, glare back at him with its lack of eyes and swing its mouth into a smirk before following the rest of the pack.
Interdictor satellites withdrew into its hull.
Captain Kir’Yir found himself and two of his entire boarding party standing safely around him with a pile of broken Screamers on all sides.
Unity Prime, sweat on his brow, and bleeding from countless bitemarks said , “Withdraw Quall or I will be forced to withdraw you?”
“And If I kill your crew and you instead?” asked Captain Kir’Yir.
“Kill my crew and I hypothesize the ship will revert to aggression mode and kill us all,” said Unity Prime without any humor.
“Then I’ll just have to kill you!” said the Quall Captain raising a hand. Prime was forced to his knees as flames engulfed his flesh and blood body.
His Sanguine Lords stepped forward ripping the Quall apart at a molecular level.
Prime stood up smoke flowing off his skin, his pain evident, “I appreciate your defense, it is only too bad the bodies could not be saved for reclamation.”
One of the Sanguine Lords bowed its head in agreement, the other still seemed too distracted by consuming the remains of the dead technobroken.
Prime sighed heavily. The loss of life on this mission was acceptably high for a test under their old mission parameters, but now, Prime found himself wracked by guilt.
The Purifier was never meant to be used near colonies or inhabited places.
“Signal to the fleet we are withdrawing to deep space, I must run more tests on the Purifier it seems to consume even its own crew…”

Onboard Monreth’s Delight, Lt. Palomedes was knee high in Screamer corpses. Only the heavy power armor had saved his life from being consumed. It’s armor was now dented and cracked in many places but had barely held.
All of his Brethren bodyguards were dead, and he was alone on a ship that now just contained blood and Screamer corpses.
Lt. Palomedes kicked the nearest dead Screamer. The robotic drone-satellite had its head smashed open by a mach cannon hit, and was quite dead. It was designed only to eat and emit a painful sound that made fighting them nigh impossible.
Suddenly the deck shook as the ship jumped to FTL.
Lt. Palomedes was standing in front of the Reactor and finished placing the shadow jumped. He now had the chance to get the “rescuers” right where he wanted them.
At the moment they went to enter the shadow satellite, he popped the reactor on and activated the shadow drive, pulling them through.
Instead of being transferred to the Unity FTL network, they were now on the plane of Awareness right near the three remaining Interdictors carriers.
Lt. Palomedes activated the commlink to the Unity Dreadnaught, “Unity rescuers, you obviously came here to help. I offer you free passage away and will even offer rewards to your captain if he so chooses.”
Garmin Fe smiled, the I.R. offering him rewards? That was rich.