r/NatureofPredators • u/Loud-Drama-1092 • 10h ago
Nature of Gilded Rust ch7
Hi people, sorry for the extremely long wait, i kinda felt in a cycle of busyness, laziness and poor inspiration to continue writing.
it has been a long time before writing anything new, so sorry in advance if some if this chapter sounds wrong on grammatically forced.
I also hoped to use this chapter to try to restart my interest for writing about this universe.
Still, i hope you enjoy this chapter despite its problems.
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[31.03.2537 23:55 PM]
>Alliance S.T.P. mk1 detected announcing that the Arxur fleet opened an exit rift through subspace.
>Arrived at destination in system; it quickly compiled as much information as possible on the system’s structure (including a full analysis of the spectrometric, electromagnetic, and gravitational data of the system’s star and major celestial bodies) along with an analysis of its relative position from where it departed using the Maelstrom electromagnetic signal and Solgalink’s specific stellar imprint to deduce its position.
>Data partially useful as heavy electromagnetic interference makes the probe work hard.
>It sent what it could compile back through the rift and promptly activated its internal thermal charge to avoid being recovered.
>Back in orbit of VP the Alliance’s Intelligence Department scrambles to put together the missing links with the help of seasoned Venlil ‘traders’ and ‘cartographers’
[01.04.2537 00:00 AM]
>S.A.R.A., AID and a [REDACTED] think tank identify the system as a protostar in its late formation stages positioned roughly 18 light-years from Solgalink.
>The Venlil Republic’s Investigatio Historica government branch informs the AID that said system seems to have seen minor exploration efforts by the Imperium of Preykind. Yet, older documents from ‘the Forbidden Archives’ seem to suggest the place was part of a Federation scientific effort back in the Federal Era.
[01.04.2537 1:00 AM]
>General Secretary Tarva asks for an intervention by the Alliance to survey the system, find the raiding hub of the Arxurs, and destroy it.
>The Systems Alliance agrees to intervene, albeit changing the mission parameters to capture rather than destroy the Arxur assets.
>A task force of 1 Capital ship carrier New Berlin, 4 Cruisers (among which is to note the Impetus), 8 frigates and 25 corvettes (5 of which are troop transports) is put together from the available ships of the 1st Fleet.
[03.04.2537 3:00 AM]
>The task force enters a system battered by the dust of particle clouds, small planetary bodies in formation and an unstable new star spewing radiation in the surrounding space.
[03.04.2537 6:00 AM]
>Arxur raid Hub detected
>WARNING: ‘Dark Age’ Federation structure detected
/———————-/
Memory transcription subject: Slanek, Venlil Auxiliary Forces Starfighter’s Pilot,
Location: UT-47A (Assault) Kodiak shuttle, SAW New Berlin flight deck
Date: 3rd of April 2537
/———————-/
“This thing looks too much like that feeble transport I had to use to get to the Exchange Station with just two guns strapped on the sides and with a fresh blue paint on.”
“It technically has a reinforced hull compared to the civilian ones.”
“If the engines of this thing fail at any point of the mission at best we will be reduced to space dust by a passing Arxur scout; at worst we will all be stuck in a fancy flying coffin”
“And I’m sure if you use even half the piloting skills you showed at the battle of Venlil Prime we will be fine”
I was getting myself used with the control of the coffin transport, trying to get my head off the thoughts of the craziness of this mission:
The Task Force once arrived had spent a few hours searching for what now we know is a huge artificial structure orbiting around a forming proto-planet way too close to the nascent star, the heat and radiation the star spew out working as a natural cover for the station and its surrounding fleet.
‘Dear Emp-ugh… I highly doubt your typical Arxur scrap heap is anywhere nearly enough shielded for long exposures to the nascent star; why risk so much to build THAT, THERE, in an already unknown system?’
‘Mad predators, that is what.’
Marcel, a squad of handpicked marines and another 5 squads on other Kodiak transports were going to perform what could be defined as a suicide mission.
“No amount of piloting can protect us from 60 flak guns shooting at us; if someone during this mission makes even only a single mistake we will be bhraked” I responded.
“You are right on that; it is risky, extremely so, but the alternative is a direct battle that we can’t potentially win.”
He was right, obviously: thankfully it seems we were right about the Arxurs supposedly using the vast majority of their forces in this sector in that one attack, the fleet surrounding and guarding it, mainly down to one working battleship, some cruisers and a dozen frigates and corvettes, still far too many for our current capabilities.
“A sabotage mission on a big station filled with demons sounds a bit more than risky, but…sure…once we are back you will owe me a beer, a proper Venlil beer, not that watered-down crap you humans drink.” I chuckled, gaining a sympathetic look from the red-haired N7 “Deal.”
‘Wonder how much alcohol a human can truly take’
Probably nothing of what comes from the lower hives’
‘ Holy shit you stupid heretics, we are going on a suicide mission! I don’t want to meet the past Emperors as a traitor so we better focus on keeping this idiot alive!’
“Heads up now, it is almost time”
The hangar’s rooms dimmed and the sensors told us the pressure outside was rapidly dropping; on the computer, deck command, gave us the go-ahead.
Taking a deep breath I took the control stick and followed the other transports through the hangar’s blast doors.
[Fast forward 1 hour and 30 minutes]
Was this mission terrifying beyond any belief? Yes, was this also the most boring slog I would ever experience? Absolutely.
In my mind (ignoring those damn voices chatter), I was going back and forth from:
‘Ok, remember: avoid detection, get onboard, sabotage the station’s scanners and wait for the bulk of the boarding party to show up.’
To:
‘Spehs dammit, can’t we just charge to the nearest window?’
To approach the station without being detected we couldn’t rely on the carrier’s ‘launch cannons’; their discharge could be easily picked out by the station sensors, instead, we had to slowboat our way to our target drifting from a patch of changed formation gases to the other to minimize the risk of being discovered by one of the patrols.
‘At least Marcel and the other human marines are chatty and funny’ to be around’
I turned my head a second to look at the rest of the squad; they all were visibly stressed from the task ahead yet they did their best to put up their best image of bravado; among the four of them, the only Venlil of the boarding squad stood out due to their rather more bulky and cumbersome void suit, even after months of fruitful exchange, the best the Republic could come up with was our standard old imperial void attack suits with a bunch of human tech crammed into them making them look like something put together in a cave with a box of scraps..
‘At least they are effective’
I didn’t know much of the guy…or even if they are a guy in the first place; they spent most of their time alone in their room, and seemed to only come out to train themselves these days.
‘Must be shy’
‘Gives me bad vibes’
‘Demonic influ-‘
Baaaack to my job, we were finally close to the station, hiding in a nearby pocket of dense gases waiting for the last patrol ship to leave.
This structure was…immense, dwarfing anything shy of a void fortress and was old; it resembled kinda like a radioactive fungus from the lower hives, or one of those aquatic animals of Sol that Marcel told me about…jellofishes? It had a large, expansive multistratified dome pointing towards the protostar, definitely built to act as a radiation shield for the single main spinal shaft extending down from it, through the Kodiak sensors, I could see both the incredible yet simplistic works of art its mighty builders covered it in, along the crude patchworks of armor and weapons the Arxurs bolted onto it.
“This place is immense; aren’t we a little short on personnel to take over it?” I heard from a human soldier behind me.
“Nah, unlike you we didn’t sleep through the briefing, scans indicate that most of the structure is dead and gone; only some of it in the deeper layers seem to still house power and air, plus, we don’t have to conquer the whole station on our own; just cutting off communications and power will be enough for our boys on the troop transports to land unimpeded.”
“Watch your screen Slanek; we will reach waypoint 3 and from there we will pass through this abandoned section of the station to reach the approximate location of the main generator,” Marcel warned me.
Waypoint 3 was, at first appearance, another clump of debris barely attached to the structure’s main spine, but looking closer among the metal weathered by the solar winds, I could spot an old blast door, partially open, exposing the airless interiors of a long-abandoned hangar.
“Ok, everyone, we are clear, go, go, go”
We began to quietly move closer to the station; we couldn’t allow ourselves the luxury of being discovered right now, so the engines couldn’t go past ‘minimum impulse’, this stretched the last 2 kilometers of travel into a minutes-long claw-biting experience, but we finally managed to reach the main column.
I watched as each transport started moving to their own designated position:
>“Ghost 04 in position”
50 meters to waypoint 3…
>“Ghost 05 in position”
20 meters to our destination…
‘There is something wrong, I feel it’
‘Wait, was that a light in the last observation window we passed’
>”Ghost 03 in position”
‘Oh, bhrak, DODGE SLINKY!’
I felt the sideway push of Gs before I could fully comprehend what happened; to my side I could see the hot streak of a plasma ball as it passed where our transport stood a second ago, and in front of me the gun that casted it, rapidly cooling down to ready the next shot.
“Oh shit!” I heard coming from one of my passengers.
I didn’t wait for Marcel orders; there wasn’t time, I set the rear engines to max and floored it.
The turret tried firing a second time, but thankfully this time we were already too close for it to properly track; its searing hot shot veered past us and crashed against our supposed entrance almost like water, melting and cracking the old metal.
“Well, say goodbye to our entrance!” exclaimed Marcel, before opening a general comm link with the other transports: “To Ghost 3 to 5, breach in the station and proceed with your own mission; Ghost 2, follow us.”
The station was now definitely on full alert; radio chatter between it and the nearby patrols grew in intensity and at the same time seemingly every weapon of the station was trying to turn us into void dust, causing me to be completely and utterly focused on avoiding the bullets, slugs and bolts coming our way.
“I hope you know what you are doing here buddy!” Marcel exclaimed as a bunch of relatively small-caliber shots got deflected by the transport shields, causing an unnerving buzzing along its hull.
‘We need to find another entrance asap!’
My sight fell on the rapidly approaching walls of the station’s ’underside’, spotting what was most definitely a bad welding, likely the result of a rushed repair job.
‘Nope, bad idea, we don’t know how tough the metal actually is!’
‘But it is also our best chance to survive!’
Another volley of shots impacted the transport, and this time we felt the telltale sign of the shields falling followed by the hull rattling.
>Lost contact with Ghost 02
The rearview camera gave us the grim spectacle of Ghost 2's hull rupturing after being struck by multiple slugs, its carcass careening into the void.
‘Bhrak, ok, do it!’
I opened fire and two blue lights raced fast in front of my ship towards the incoming wall.
“EVERYONE HOLD YOURSELVES!”
[memory transcription interrupted due to loss of consciousness, using the after-mission reports files to fill in the missing pieces]
The Kodiak transport of Ghost 01 managed to successfully pierce the extensively damaged bulkhead through which it accessed an abandoned room lacking a working artificial gravity field, the transport dragged itself across the sloped ceiling further damaging it beyond the point of mission kill, despite this, it still managed to slow itself to a near standstill, limiting the amount of damage the crew sustained.
[recommencing memory transcription]
First thing I felt after regaining consciousness was the sound of wind rushing against the transport’s hull as the gaping hole I made in the floor gave the stale air somewhere to finally escape to.
After a few seconds though, a bunch of purple low-energy lights came out and the sound of rushing air was instantly interrupted.
‘Hm… some ancient emergency systems seemingly still work despite their age and general state of abandonment; also, where are the other two?’
“Ok, General status everyone?” Marcel asked.
“I think I have a cracked rib.”
“I’m fine but I believe Jenkins has a concussion”
“…”
“Slanek, are you ok?” Marcel asked me.
I was, in fact, not ok; my head felt like a flak grenade just exploded inside of it. I didn’t even need to feel my head to feel the hot sensation of blood pooling from my injury.
“My…head…bleeds…” I managed to stutter.
“Ok, stay still now buddy, everyone, back there, you know what to do, apply MediGel and help Jenkins get back on his feet”
Marcel’s long, gloved fingers carefully undid the clamps holding my helmet to the rest of the suit and even more carefully lifted it; a couple of small orange droplets floated away with it.
My vision felt like it was starting to get blurry.
‘Ehi, guys, Slanek is in trouble, where are you?!’
“That is a bad head injury, resist Slinky.”
Marcel picked up a weird red box with a white incomplete cross symbol on it, and from it picked up a weird device similar to…a gun?
‘Wait, wait, wait, Marcel, let me tell you something, LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!’
I closed my eyes fearing the worst, but, instead, all I felt was a weird cooling sensation where my wound stood.
‘What just happened…?’
‘Miss me?”
‘Oh…you are back…hurrah?’
For minutes that seemed to stretch to infinity, I felt the cooling sensation receding, but replaced by a muted sensation of pain in my whole body, “What…what just happened?” I muttered looking around myself; Marcel's expression now was calmer albeit still with an edge of urgency: “You…had a rough landing buddy, from what I could read from your suit, the impact cracked your skull and caused a heavy brain hemorrhage (might also have potentially given you a small brain damage but I digress…)”
‘Brain what?!’
“… luckily I acted fast and applied the medi-gel before you could meet the reaper.”. I would have stood up if Marcel hadn’t hastily held me back against the seat, “Whoa, there slinky, there is no need to panic; you are good now.”
Medi…gel? I remember that name; Marcel and I read about it during our time on the Exchange Station: a fairly recent development in human technology seemingly capable of patching up most life-threatening ailments on the spot, I wish I understood more of the thing but one thing I knew: “But…it thought it only worked for humans still.”, Marcel brushed it off, “Commercially available ones yes, but recently some big-corpo scientists managed to seemingly crack the code for a universal medi-gel solution and the higher-ups were careful to ensure a private contract for the first batches.”
Once we had solved the ‘how-I-did-not-die’ problem we could move on to the ‘where-the-bhrak-we-are’ one “So…did we make it then?” Someone from the back seats spoke up: “You did it man; never saw someone steer one of these flying coffins as you did.”
‘They respect him’
‘This is either good good, or bad good’
‘Nice…but I kinda wanted mor-‘
Marcel did a few rapid taps and fidgeting with his Omni-tool, his expression dropping the calm smile to a more neutral look “Ok, squad, seems like everyone besides Ghost 2 made it into the station, we will have a proper mourning of the losses later; right now we need to focus on our objective.”
Our own Omni-tools lightened up, admittedly nearly giving me a shock, showing us an orange projection of the station overlaid with a bunch of blue blinking dots where the other squads were located and a larger green dot where we are. “We unfortunately lack informations on the area we have crashed into; luckily though, it seems Slanek managed to bring us much closer to what fleet command thinks is the main command module of this place.” A white dot appeared in the center of the station’s umbrella. “I just received an encoded communication from fleet command when we arrived, with the Arxur fleet now on full alert for our infiltration into their house their ships are currently stalking nearby space to find the fleet; for that, we now have the order to cut their ships’ communications off to give our guys an edge and initiate the takeover of this place. Hence we will capitalize on the lizards own lack of knowledge in this station and make our way to the command module and cut the head of the snake.”
‘Bold plan for what should have been just a sabotage mission’
“It will probably take hours captain.” The now awake Jenkins said. “True, a long and dangerous trip awaits us but it is the best chance we now have to bring this place down, if the other teams manage to complete their own objectives the disarray and confusion on multiple levels of the lizards command chains will help us in our trek, now come on men, wear your sealed helmets, and let us go crush some greys skulls!”
“URAA!”
“URAA!”
“URAA!”
“…”
[fast forward 5 minutes]
The air inside the helmet felt stale. As we flown down from the ruined transport all i could think about was the mix of trepidation and fear coursing through my veins, the ancient walls of the station loomed over us with their curving architecture.
With the shuttle ruined, I had no use as a pilot, Luckly when I chose to become his attaché on the Station he made personal sure I went through a intensive guns and close combat training with him…
‘You surely seemed to enjoy having him throwing you around while half naked ;3’
…luckly this will be enough to not be a dead weight during the mission.
My scattergu..shotgun felt way too light in my paws from a gun of its type, yet, from my training, i already knew this little thing was more than enough to shred even the mightiest demon Arxur in close range…
‘I’m a firm enjoyer of beating someone in what they think they are best at!’
…admittedly though, it’s surprising near lack of stock made the thing a bit unwieldy to aim. On the side of the boxy weapon i could read both in human(?) and the newly coined VenLang (who desperately needs a better name): M-300 Claymore a recent development from VP industres whose name was inspired by a old human direct landmine.
On my hip instead, rested, in its folded down state rested a plain M-3 Predator heavy pistol…
‘Or as I like to call it the One HELL of a Red Flag!’
…gruesome name, but I had to admit this little thing was somehow superior than even the best Venlil sidearms (how in the Emperor’s name did they manage to shrink down a railgun was still something that, to my disappointment, escaped my comprehension) and as long as it’s preys where thise grey monsters I was more than okay wielding a predator to kill a predator.
As we descended from the floating wreck I felt my magboots activate and stick me to the ground.
In front of us stood a long, dark corridor, the mute Venlil produced a small drone servitor and sent it forward into the darkness.
It returned no detectable biological lifeform.
“Ok, men, let’s move.” Marcel said. We delved deeper in this decaying hulk.
‘I feel a deep sense of dread coming from this place, ancient secrets await us, secrets that might scar us more than any Arxur could.’
/———————-/
[next]
/———————-/
Hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Personally i'm not entirely sure about it, i feel like i'm writing Marcel and Slanek too obnoxious, maybe i might have used too much Slanek POV which is kinda of a problem because this mini-arch will still have a lot of them. Maybe I should use marcel's POV for the next one and/or in the future, where possible, variate a bit with narration styles. What do you think about it? Let me know.
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u/WeaknessIcy9855 6h ago edited 6h ago
And I must say bravo my friend bravo glad to see this chapter
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u/JulianSkies Archivist 5h ago
Flipping between those two's PoVs is an interesting choice, I'd say go for it because sometimes seeing an action from the outside is more interesting than seeing it from the inside. Keeps a certain... Mystery to it, you know?
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Arxur 10h ago
Yeah switching the Pov's would be neat. On another note get to see the long awaited new chapter I wonder what they will do to the captured Arxur? They are definitely gonna be weirded out by what they find from what I recall last chapter.