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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy" data-source="post: 9641274" data-attributes="member: 1412">We slept heavily, or at least I did. It had been hard work riding and I was glad of something soft to sit on, never mind a bed to sleep in. The five of us ate from a buffet and as we discussed plans Oran’s comm rang. It was Dr. Danvier. She wanted us to fly out to some mountain range and repair a meteorological data system which had gone down. As the dry season was going on for considerably longer than usual she was unusually conscious of the weather. Peter was grumbling, asking us how they repair such systems when they don’t have us - he doesn’t like flying in atmosphere and our experience on Walston hadn’t helped matters. We said our goodbyes to Sir Tayce and, bum more sore than ever, we set off for the Project. We made good progress and arrived before lunch on the next day, to be greeted by an impatient Dr. Danvier. After a hasty meal we set off. It was 400km to the site. We fed the coordinates into our ship and off we flew.We could see the storm clouds gathering above and beyond the mountains by the time we were cruising over the foothills. Dark and menacing with barely perceptible flashes of lightning they obscured sight. By this point Peter was in a thoroughly bad mood and hadn’t stopped muttering to himself since we set off. I never thought I’d see him wishing he was on a horse! For all his petulance he put in a masterly display of piloting. We could feel the wind buffeting the ship as the winds outside grew but we held level. Flying straight to the designated mountain I sat at sensors and looked for any glimmer of evidence of tech. It didn’t take us long to find the exact spot we needed to fly to.“Typical! Nowhere to land. I’ll have to hover while one of you jumps out. We can lower a weighted rope to bring you back up.” - Peter.“Right, I’ll get ready.” - LilyPeter and I looked at each other. My engineering skills were much better than Lily’s, even though she was the natural choice for the dangerous environment.“I’ll join you.” - me.We prepped and Peter took us in close enough for us to only have to jump about 3 metres. Lily first, then me. The storm was as intense as we had expected and the rain was lashing us. We fought our way across the few metres to the beacon and I started opening it up. It was a good thing Lily was there as she could provide a little much needed shelter as I worked. My guess was that it had been struck by lightning in the last 72 hours. It was mostly fried but its data core was well protected and I thought I could get some limited functionality out of it. At least enough to monitor the storm, then it would need extensive repairs or, preferably, replacing. With my fingers numbing and vision impaired I did my best, transmitting the data to my comm and jury-rigging the transponder to broadcast - Helena reported that they could pick up the signal. We turned and fought our way back to the drop-off/pick-up site. Helena tossed out a rope which flailed wildly and struck Lily heavily. We crouched as it lashed above our heads, waiting for a moment to pounce. Lily took the initiative and threw herself bodily onto it, steadying it with her weight as I grabbed hold and climbed up. The wind was stronger and Pete was having a difficult time hold her steady, but, on the whole, was doing a good job. As I entered the airlock Lily tied the rope around her waist and Helena and I hauled her up. I had benefited from the weight of Lily steadying the rope. Without that stabilising force Lily was slammed against the side of the ship several times. She was bloodied and bruised by the time we got her in - how she held on I’ll never know. Helena barked at Pete to get going and helped me carry the injured Lily to the sick-bay.We had invested in some very good medical equipment and Lily’s injuries weren’t serious, although they did include a couple of broken ribs and some lacerations. Worried about Lily, and with a nagging sense of guilt I distracted myself by going over the meteorological data. As we knew there was a storm coming and it was going to be a doozy. We reported back to the Project and sent the data we had. At no point had the clouds faded from view on our return journey and we didn’t need the meteorological data flowing into our systems to know the storm would not take long to hit Artemis. Danvier contacted us as we approached the project.“There’s been another sighting. An Anderson’s Predator was spotted by one of the drones about 9km south-southeast of here. It’s a little too close to the last sighting of Rudy’s herd. Got check it out and bring the Predator back with you. We can’t have it running around down there.”We changed course to look for the offending animal. We had always known that there couldn’t be only one of them, but we had hoped that the one which we had found earlier was an anomaly and the rest lived far away. We hadn’t really thought about it and now we started to feel some apprehension. It didn’t take long to arrive in the general area and I reached out to find its mind. By chance we found ourselves almost directly over it. We also found Rudy’s herd, barely a kilometre ahead of it. We had arrived none too soon! We agreed to buy a grav-car as soon as we got to a planet which sells them as Peter took us lower. We spotted it as it ran through an open area. It spotted us and reacted in the most predictable manner, it ran. The three of us left Peter at the helm and took up positions in the cargo area, nervously peering out of the open bay doors. We had tranquilliser darts for our snub pistols and our personal stunners, but neither of those have good range. It wasn’t going to be easy hitting it unless Peter could get us very close and it seemed that the closer we got the faster it ran. Flying at an altitude of about 20m Peter kept us steady in the growing wind. I focused myself on the task itself and carefully “reached” for the thing's mind. I pushed an order “stay still” into its terrified mind. It froze and we opened fire with our stunners. We each struck it at least once and it crumpled to the floor. We had trouble getting the thing into the ship as it weighted a lot, but we somehow managed it. It took minutes to get back to the base.Peter was concerned about the weather as the wind was gaining strength moment by moment. We landed back at a base buzzing with the news that the dry period was about to end. Work effectively ceased after we had manhandled the Predator into a cage. Word travelled quickly after our arrival and it seemed like everyone was watching the skies. Loud cheers went up as the first drops landed on the parched ground, heavy and making little craters in the dust. Beers appeared in just about every hand and even Dr. Danvier was seen grinning. It had reached the point where the synth-bail maker, which could turn almost any vegetation into a facsimile of a bail of hay had been producing dry, crumbling masses of grey. I don’t think people knew how relieved they would be when the rains came. Before long the individual droplets had become a torrential downpour. We stayed out in it, luxuriating in our sodden clothes and finishing our beers.I felt a first hint of disquiet when I saw Boutros call Danvier into the main building. Moments later the intercom carried Danvier’s voice to us all. We all had to attend the main building for an emergency meeting. Even Danvier and Boutros’s sombre expressions weren’t enough to dampen our spirits but the drone footage Danvier played for us was. We watched dozens of Predators moving quickly through rain.“The drone was a few kilometres to the south. We have no idea how many there are, but it’s too many. We will need to take action.” - Danvier“If they are heading this way then it will mean the end of the project!” Shouted someone from the gathered crowd.“They need to be culled.” - Oran“No! We can’t just choose which species is cuddlier and kill the others. The Przewalski’s aren’t native here, we can’t prioritise them over the Predators.”“We can. The Przewalski’s Horses are endangered across the Imperium. We didn’t bring the Andersons and they will completely upend the eco-system. A handful we could cope with. But if they can breed to these number then they can’t stay. We need to protect the project and find a way to eliminate the Andersons.” - DanvierThe debate continued for a short while, but the outcome was clear. Unless we all jumped into our ship it wasn’t just a case of saving the animals at the project. We might die as well. We could have fitted into the ship but that meant completely abandoning Project Artemis and no-one wanted to do that, despite them not wanting to wipe out a population of a species. Those who stuck to their opposition to killing the Andersons received a commission to lead both types of horses to the northeast to keep them out of harms way. The rest of us had to fortify the project and fight. It would be dangerous and even with handing out the auto-rifles we had on board we couldn’t be certain of the outcome. Danvier left to speak to the Lord of Pyramus as we set to work. We wanted to try and channel the Predators into what was effectively a killing zone, although no-one used that term. Peter moved the ship to block one route into the compound and we built walls with fragile bails. Before we had finished Sir Tayce arrived in her grav-car along with her security detachment. The head of her security argued strongly that the knight should return to her estate but she was adamant. A compromise was made by which she would stay in the grav-car which would serve both as a spotter and an aerial gun platform. Two of her security stayed with her and the other two joined us on the ground. We took our positions as Boutros shouted information from the drone he had following the pack. His intelligence wasn’t very good due to the terrible weather. The sun reached the horizon and we braced ourselves for the fight.We had corralled as many of the weird turkey things in “paddock” 3, which was really just a roughly rectangular arrangements of bails of hay. We didn’t like to do it but ironically they would be safer there, used as bait, than they would be if we either released them or kept them in their regular paddock, paddock one. At least here they were in between the veterinary centre and the main building. The veterinary centre was just one floor but the main building had two floors above ground and a communications tower. The tower didn’t allow anyone to take up a posture conducive to firing so it wasn’t a viable sniper spot. Lily took up a position on the roof of the main building, south of paddock 3, with a couple of the project staff. I was on the machinery shed’s roof with Peter and Danvier, west of the main building. Helena and a few more of the project staff sat uncomfortably on the roof of the stables to the east of the main building and the rest of the the project staff joined the members of the security detail on the veterinary  centre, to the north of paddock 3. The Anderson’s Predators approached from the south but the ship and bails of hay blocked the spaces between the machinery shed, the main building and the stables, so the Predators were forced to come from the east and west.A flash of lightning gave us our first view of the coming creatures. A group of maybe 5 rushed from the west. They were nearly at the foot of the building when I first saw them and opened fire. I hit my target with a burst and it stumbled to one side, but didn’t stop. Peter and Danvier shot at the rushing creatures as they bounded past our building. We couldn’t hear the gunfire over the storm but the one I shot fell, I assumed by Lily. They turned towards paddock 3 and found themselves in the cross fire from the shed and main building. Another two fell before they reached the paddock. A shriek came from behind me and I turn to see one of the Predators scrambling onto the roof. Peter and I turned our auto-rifles on it, my shot going wildly off target, Peter taking it in the leg. Peter’s and my eyes met.“Danvier, stay by the north east of the roof and concentrate on any that make it to the paddock. We’ll focus on those approaching.” - me.A shaken Danvier nodded and stepped behind me as Peter finished off the Predator on the roof. We could just make out a scrambling noise and briefly saw a head above the edge of the building. A Predator had tried to emulate its pack-mate but hadn’t made the jump. Peter and I hurried to the edge and fired on the animal as it was getting back up form its fall. They might eventually die after one or two hits but it took a worryingly large number of hits to put one down and until then they were dangerous. A quick glance told me that others had made it into the paddock area and movement to the north showed that some had gone around our position to come at paddock 3 relatively safely. Two more tried the jump and managed to get sufficient purchase to make it onto the roof. You wouldn’t have thought those small arms would be up to the task, but they were.  The one nearest to me snapped its jaws where my arm had been a moment ago and I dropped my rifle. My hand scrambled on my belt and my hand came up holding my gauss pistol and it lunged again. Both its claws and my gunshot missed its target. It lost its balance on the slippery roof and I fired again, giving it a minor wound. Peter and Danvier were fending off the other. Shots came down from above as Sir Tayce joined the fray. She was wielding a huge hunting rifle of some sort and one of her security was firing a Gauss rifle. The animal went down. I spun and fired at the other, missing again. My shot went wide for fear of hitting Danvier, who was on her back being mauled by the thing. Peter stood close by and pumped rounds into it. I lept towards Danvier as the Predator fell. She was badly cut but I didn’t think it was life threatening. The grav-car hovered, covering us as I tried to stem the blood loss and Peter fired at the newest arrivals. I cut away some of Danvier’s jacket and blouse and pressed a pad onto her wound.“Press on this,” I yelled at her as she winced. I started to pull out a length of adhesive tape as the grav-car lowered and a security guard lept down. I taped her up as well as I could in the rain and we man-handled her in to the car. Sir Tayce was methodically aiming, firing and reloading. As the car flew skyward another of the beasts landed by my side and lashed out. I had left my pistol where Danvier fell so I snatched my knife out of its sheathe and did what I could. A confusing melee ensured which seemed to last for hours. I lashed out at it and scored a few minor hits, which it ignored and it finally clamped its teeth onto my arm in a way my diplo vest couldn’t resist. Our blood mingled in the rain. We both separated for a moment and Peter open up on it as soon as he wasn’t worried the he would hit me. Shots joined Peter’s from above, Lily this time I later found out. I forced my mind to focus through the pain and used Awareness to heal the damage. There didn’t appear to be any more attacking from our direction and Peter moved to fire on the ones in the paddock.The fight had lasted for just a few minutes but the carnage was terrible. Easily a score lay dead between us and paddock 3. More around our building and the ones on the roof. It was the same all over the compound. One of the project workers had been seriously mauled, even worse than Daniver, and more than half had some sort of injury. One had a gunshot wound, fortunately not a serious one. The battle for Project Artemis was over. Those of us well enough and possessing medic skills, which was most of us to be fair, set to work patching each other up. Some Anderson’s Predators had escaped, most of them wounded and unlikely to be much of a threat. There would be an ongoing operation to make sure the rest couldn’t make a breeding pack again, but for now we could rest.</blockquote>

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