D&D 5E Exodus

[KirayaTiDrekan]

2052

"Fall back, damnit! Fall back! Davis, Hayes, get Reyes out of here! Now! Move!"

Air was leaking out of her suit faster than they could patch up the huge hole where her arm used to be. The sound of gunfire, muted in the thin atmosphere of Mars, seemed to echo everywhere around her. And then the...thing...roared and it seemed to drown out all other sounds, even the hissing of the air out of her suit.

There was a sudden blast of heat and screaming...the second squad was being burned alive.

2057

"Babs, tell Ark 21 to hold until we're clear of the enemy's range of fire." Colonel Marx was already gone, giving orders to the weapons crew.

"Ark 31, hold position. Repeat, hold position."

There were dozens of shuttles in the sky, all headed to the various Arks in orbit. Ark 31 was already gone, destroyed by the enemy. Ark 21 blew up in the monitors as it moved into hyperdrive activation position.

___

Ryota had no time to grieve. His wife had given him all the assurances he needed to hear that she and their son would be safe. She had said all the right words. They both knew she was lying. But, it didn't matter. Not in that moment. Now, he needed to focus on keeping the ship in one piece until the shuttles arrived.

_____

Emma and Trace could see everything from their seats on the last shuttle to Ark 17. Shuttles shot down by the enemy's strange, almost invisible black warships. Arks exploding in orbit. Fighter jets desperately trying to buy the shuttles time.

Eight hours later...

Ark 17 had spent eight hours in hyperspace before the engine crew finally managed to deactivate the hyperdrive. No one knew precisely how it worked or how fast it allowed a ship to go. Hyperspace was an entire realm of its own, with currents and eddies and who knows what else. The rough conversion, though, was about one light year per minute. Which meant Ark 17 was nearly 500 light years away from Earth.

In hyperspace, Dr. Trace Martin-Davies, Senior Airman Mike Babington, Dr. Emma Sanduine, Corporal Juno Reyes, Sato Ryota, and a couple of others on the ship, all felt...something. Heard...something. Voices, but not voices. Words, like the symphony of the universe, undecipherable, un-learnable, but undeniable. No one else knew, no one else heard. But for those that did...nothing would ever be the same.

The Escape of Ark 17 Theme

 

[Phoenix8008]

Mike stood in the bathroom in his quarters, leaning on the sink counter and staring into the mirror at his own reflection. Sometimes it seemed like someone else was staring back at him though. The man in the mirror smiled strangely at him, like he knew something that Mike hadn't figured out yet. "Hon? What are you doing in here in the dark?" a voice asked as the bright LED lights clicked on when his wife Sheryl flipped the switch by the doorway. Rubbing his face and eyes, Airman Babington shook his head slowly before turning to answer his wife of 5 years. "Nothing. Not doing a damn thing finally. After staring at the computer monitor for the last 12 hours plus, the darkness felt pretty good on my eyes.", he said as he moved to give Sheryl a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug. "Are the boys all tucked in?", he asked. "Yes.", she answered. "They finally fell over after the craziness of today wore off. It sounds different now with the hyperspace engines not running.", she commented. "Have they told you anything yet about what comes next?" "Not yet." he answered. "The signals from outside have all stopped of course. We've got no signal from Earth or any other Ark coming through the communications system now, just internal comms."

They moved out of the bathroom and around the corner to peek in the boys small shared room at their sons: 5 year old James and 3 year old Nathan. Closing the door, they moved to the kitchenette to continue their conversation. "You said that the ship sounded different to you now. What did you mean? 'Sounds different' how?" he asked her. "Just quiet after how loud it was for those 8 hours, plus the launch and attack before that. Why? How does it sound different to you?" Mike looked up at the ceiling for a moment as if thinking hard about the answer to give. After a moment, he finally replied. "Quieter, like you said. Just some strange noises here and there that I'm not used to yet I guess. We've been here for so short a time, we haven't gotten used to what normal is. Not that I'm sure how to define normal anymore anyway." He chuckled to himself and smiled a little for the first time today. "There was a time when I was younger, when I played all the tabletop RPG's and read all the comic books, that you couldn't have convinced me that discovering dragons to be a real live creature could be a bad thing... but now..." The smile faded away, and she wrapped her arms around him from behind to comfort him. "I always wanted to be a hero..." he mumbled as the tears began to come. He turned around and held her close, happy that at least this much of his family survived, but devastated at the loss of so many others. "We lost so many today..." he started, but had to stop as he got choked up and the sobbing began. '...because of me.', he completed the sentence in his mind. They buried their faces in each others shoulders and finally let it all out. For some reason, Mike saw the face in the mirror again with his closed eyes. He knew what the sad smile meant now. Things were going to be hard, but somehow... it would get better. He had to believe that was true. Because otherwise, he just might not be able to go on.

 

[MortalPlague]

Beep, beep.

Doctor Emma Sanduine tilted her head with a speculative look on her face. The whole dragon attack and the collapse of civilization had struck her differently than most people. She had spent all her days digging in the dirt, uncovering the stories of past massacres and apocalpyses, just on a more local scale. Now, the Earth would be one big dig site. But that was not the cause for her speculative look. Rather...

"Listen closely. Do you hear it?" she asked. She paused a moment, idly moving a strand of golden hair from in front of her face with a single, delicate finger. There was something audible, just out of the range of her hearing. Were those words? Were they voices? Or was it just her imagination?

Beep, beep.

"Yes, it's some sort of signal. Not from the ship, I've heard the sounds the ship makes. This is something else. What do you think it is?" she queried. "Perhaps hyperspace is really a realm inhabited, and we have just plowed through a grand bazaar, dragging screaming victims with us..."

Beep, beep.

The beeping finally seemed to register with Doctor Sanduine. Only her eyes moved, glancing down to the comm unit on her desk, blinking with an incoming call. She blinked once, and realized her mistake. Answer the call first, then talk to the scientist on the other end.

She pressed the button. The comm flared to life with a chirp. "Doctor Sanduine," came a voice from the communicator. "The hyperdrive has stopped!"

"The murder-engine, wrought to bore through those poor hyper-people has indeed stopped, yes. With no small loss of life." Emma was on her feet and pacing now, looking increasingly excited. "Or perhaps the sound is the titanic belly of the stellar predator we have just been swallowed by."

The voice on the other end of the comm unit sounded dubious. "Um... You're making many leaps there, Doctor," he began.

"Or perhaps it's some latent psychic phenomenon being awoken throughout the ship due to proximity to a supernova? There's so many possibilities, I need to have eyes on the situation if I'm to suss out what's going on. Inform the bridge that I'm on my way." Doctor Sanduine stalked towards the door, pausing only to briefly rake a hand through her hair while eyeing herself in the mirror.

The comm-voice was even more bewildered. "I-I don't know how to inform the bridge," he said. "And I'm pretty sure you can't just walk in there."

Emma had already disappeared into the corridor.

 

[Brother Dave]

Trace lay in his bunk, trying not to listen to the strange voices in the dark. Voices that weren't really voices...more like...ideas? Concepts given substance. There's something there...some truth. What? What is it trying to tell me? Why am I afraid? He stirred restlessly, his hand raking through his dark hair. Enough! Go away! Leave me alone! He railed silently, but the voices went on, and on, and on. Finally, he sat up and swung his feet over the edge of the bunk, rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands. This is nuts. This is....I don't know what this is. It's.... "It's my imagination," he muttered quietly. "It must be." He stood and paced the small compartment. "Overworked!" he almost shouted, then calmed down. In a quieter voice, he murmured "I'm just overworked. That's all it is. The stress of the invasion..." He paced some more, then flopped back down in his bunk. I just need sleep. That's all. If only I can get to sleep. Deliberately he closed his eyes, almost squeezing them shut, and fought the voices for oblivion.
...
Trace awoke with a gasp, fragments of dreams still racing through his mind. He remembered...green? A presence. Something. Desperately he grasped at the elusive threads, but they evaporated into wisps, eluding his understanding. I was so close...so close to understanding...something... Groaning, he forced his eyes to open, rubbing the sleep out with shaking hands. It was there. I know it was. Suddenly his eyes shot open wide with realization. They're...they're gone. The voices are gone! And...something else...it's quieter now. He thought about that for a moment. The hyperdrive? He shook his head. I don't know. He stood up and paced, thinking aloud. "Doesn't matter. The hyperdrive, or something else, whatever, I'm not going to find out sitting here." Decision made, he quickly freshened up and dressed, grabbing the ever-present first aid kit from the small table next to his bunk before opening the door. I don't know what's happened. Maybe nothing. But I should make sure nobody in my section is hurt...
...
Trace hugged the young man – still a boy, really, at 19 – standing in his quarters, then slipped a couple of ration bars into the his hand, watching as the boy quickly pocketed the treasures. “I’m afraid that’s all I could get this time, son. Better than nothing, though.” He stood back and stared into the boy’s brown eyes. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to turn yourself in. You can’t keep living in nooks and crannies and scrounging food. It’ll go worse for you if you get caught, you know.” He smiled. “And what do you think they’re going to do – put you off at the next stop? Likely they’ll keep you in Iso for a couple of days, and then put you to work. You know I’ll put in a good word for you. Like it or not, you’re part of this expedition now.” The boy simply shrugged, and Trace sighed. “You’re as stubborn as your Father, aren’t you? Carter, I’m worried about you. Just…be careful, okay? You’re the only family I have on this ship.” Giving in to the inevitable, Trace motioned the boy back, then opened his door and stuck his head out into the corridor. “Okay, looks clear.” The boy darted out into the corridor, quickly making his way to the nearest access panel. Trace watched after him until he was out of sight before slowly closing his door. He walked over to his bunk and sank down, putting his chin in his hand and staring at the wall. When did everything get so complicated?
...

 

[Shayuri]

Juno Reyes was lying on her back in her bunk. Her eyes were closed, moving fitfully under their lids.

Corporal Reyes was on her back at the junction of the corridors right outside the hydro bay. Her ears were full of radio chatter and the thin hissing roar of decompression and the much thicker roar of the monster in front of her. She groped for her gun for a second before realizing the gun, and the arm she was groping with, wasn’t there. In its place was a hollow place full of pain and dawning horror. Sealant gel bubbled around the edges of the hole in her HEV suit where her arm had been, but it was meant to seal punctures, not rips of that size. She was blacking out. Blood loss, or oxygen starvation? Juno wasn’t sure. The monster, some alien lizard-looking thing the size of a semi-trailer, glared down at her with glowing yellow eyes. It opened its mouth, and Juno could SEE the fire burning deep down its throat. She reached for her gun…she didn’t want to die by fire…that would be the worst way she could imagine. But her gun wasn’t there. Her gun wasn’t there.

vzht zht

Her eyes flew open and she sat up and looked quickly around, breathing hard; her heart slamming unmercifully in her chest. Her right arm whirred as she instinctively raised it to defend herself…and she sagged. Ah, that had been what she’d heard. She drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them, trying to spin down. The trauma counselor had suggested that she detach the arm when she slept if the sound of it woke her up…but when Juno had tried that it had been even worse. Lacking the arm, her throat closed up and panic crowded black around the edges of her vision. Not having it made her feel helpless all over again. It was worth a few startled wake-ups to avoid that. And at least it interrupted the nightmares.

Silver linings, and all.

As she cooled off with her head lying on her knees, Juno regarded her artificial hand and arm. The servos in it whirred quietly as she turned it this way and that, staring at it with a sort of disturbed fascination that hadn’t dwindled since it had been installed. It still felt…foreign to her, like something she was wearing over her real arm. It was sleek and smooth, gunmetal grey with just a bit of shininess. It had been designed to resemble her actual arm in size and shape and strength, to ease the assimilation process, but they couldn’t make it look real. Limitations of the 3-D printer tech they used to make it…the good facilities for that kind of thing were back on Earth. Going there was out of the question.

The war still raged there. A war so one-sided that desperately evacuating the planet had been the only hope for survival.

That was a bad thought. It led to thoughts of Earth, of leaving her home and her people in their hour of need, and the black pressed in again, and it was hard to breathe, and…was that a voice?

In a heartbeat Juno was out of her bed and the gun she kept under her pillow was in her hand. It wasn’t loaded of course, she wasn’t allowed live ordnance off duty any more than anyone else was, but whoever was in here might not know that.

“Lights,” she growled, and the lamp in the ceiling of her cramped cabin came on. It had very little room for someone to hide though. Bed, small dresser with three drawers, and an even smaller desk/tabletop. The ‘furniture’ was part of the ship’s structure itself. Only the chair could be moved. It was literally impossible for someone to hide. She was tall enough to see over the dresser. She had clear sightlines.

Worse, the voices hadn’t stopped. Hallucinations stopped, didn’t they? When you looked at them, or listened to them…when you directed the full force of your attention to them, they melted away. But she still heard a whispery susurration of voices. They were too quiet to make out what they were saying, but it was definitely voices, not just engine hum or…

The LACK of engine hum. The ship had stopped. Or at least it wasn’t still in hyperspace.

Juno slapped the gun onto the top of her dresser and started pulling clothes on in a hurry. By the time she was pulling her boots on she realized the ‘voices’ had stopped. Hyperspace stuff, she thought. The drive was full of crazy, and the briefing had warned that there could be ‘unusual effects’ associated with turning it on or off. That had to be what it was.

The gun went back under her pillow before she left to report for duty.

It helped her get to sleep, knowing it was there.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

OOC: [MENTION=24052]smartmonkey[/MENTION], are you still with us?

 

[MortalPlague]

Muttering under her breath, Emma returned to her quarters. She collected her long trenchcoat and slipped it on, before returning to the corridor on her quest for the bridge.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

OOC: I am under the weather today, but if [MENTION=24052]smartmonkey[/MENTION] doesn't get a post in by tomorrow, we'll move on without him. He can drop back in any time, though.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

The hyperdrive pulsed as it it had a life of its own...perhaps it did. No one was tending it now. All of the engineers and technicians were busy with minor repairs and making sure the mundane engines would hold up.

The original had been taken, intact, from an alien ship in 1947, now known to belong to one of the minion races of the dragons, beings called drow, and duplicated as best as the government was able. They didn't know how it worked, they just knew that it did. But no one wanted to be near it for very long...because it whispered.

Not audibly...but spend too much time near it and thoughts started entering your mind. Thoughts not your own. Memories of war in strange realms. Haunting melodies never heard on Earth. Smells of strange flowers and alien oceans.

Now it called out to those who could hear it...

Carter Davies was drawn by the voices, unable or unwilling to resist. He had never seen the hyperdrive before now...it was a part of the ship impossible to access...but the voices told him the access codes...the voices let him in. It was an oddly egg-shaped thing, black and opaque like obsidian, held in a steel framework. Patterns sometimes swirled and shifted across its surface. Carter could only stare, a mixture of fascination and horror rooting him in place.

Cheryl lay nestled in Mike's arms in their small bunk that folded out from the wall. Their quarters were among only 300 family-sized units...meaning they were two living quarters with the wall between them partially removed to create a second, only semi-private sleeping area for the children. Cheryl whimpered in her sleep, a brief nightmare quickening her breathing. And then...the voices. This time louder, filling Mike's mind. He realized that he wasn't hearing them, he was feeling them. Someone...something...was calling out to him. Begging him to find it. He instinctively knew that whatever it was was in the hyperdrive.

Emma could still hear the voices as she made her way to the bridge. She passed other people in the corridor, but they didn't seem to register as anything but obstacles. The voices were calling. It wasn't until she'd reached the engine room that she realized she hadn't been going to the bridge at all. The access code to the hyperdrive suddenly invaded her mind, repeating itself over and over...despite the fact that she'd never known the access code before.

Trace woke with a start...voices were in his mind, like before while the hyperdrive was active. But they were different now...pleading, begging, urging. In his mind, invading his thoughts. They wanted him to go somewhere...an image of the doors to the engine room sprang into his mind unbidden. And Carter...Carter was there. He knew with absolute certainty...because he could see him, but not with his own eyes. It was like, for just a moment, he was hovering above Carter as the boy stared at something, awestruck and unmoving.

Reyes and the other marines were in the large briefing room set aside by Major Reynolds, the commander of the Marines on board Ark 17. Gunnery Sergeant McAdams was currently saying something...Reyes realizes she hasn't been paying attention for several minutes. The voices were back, in her head, in her thoughts. Something was happening in the engine room. Just then, Private Dawson grabbed the sides of his head and shrieked, "Make it stop! Make it stop! The voices!" He started thrashing about violently, clipping Private Hayes in the face with an elbow and bloodying Hayes' nose. McAdams barks an order, "Secure Dawson!"

 

[Phoenix8008]

Mike rolled over and got out of his bunk and started getting dressed before he was even fully awake. He stopped and his brow furrowed in confusion for a moment as he wondered to himself, 'What the heck am I doing?'

'Well, of course I'm going to listen to what the voices are telling me to do and go to a restricted access zone of the ship so I can see what the voices want me to see in the engine room. Makes perfect sense!' Instead of continuing to get dressed he sat down on the one chair in the room instead. 'I should wake up Sheryl. I SHOULD go report myself to the clinic so they can put me in a rubber room, if they thought to build one in this thing. At least now I'm pretty sure that it's not just guilt driving me nuts. I can't think why the voices of Ark 21 would be wanting me to go to the engine room. So that leaves some other outside influence. Like the Dragons or another of their servant races who can do God knows what to us. I should just go back to bed.', he thought to himself as he suddenly realized that his boots were on and he just finished tying them up. He was now fully dressed.

"Oh FRAK!" he whispered to himself as he stood up and walked out the door of his quarters and turned towards the engineering section.