[Rukkali]
Rukkali had woken before they landed, mind stirred by the sickening pull of gravity. As the pull increased, he dimmly became aware that they were approaching a planetary body of some kind, and now slowing their descent, Yet, as he looked about from the cargo-hold where the medical pods were being kept, all he could see was darkness.
No movement could be detected from his limited view.
How long had he been asleep?
He tried to activate the pods HUD screen, but to no avail. Though he doubted it had been too long, it wasn't easy to know for certain when the was no light, or sound.
Abruptly, all that changed.
The brightest light he had ever witnessed struck his eyes with the sensation that could only be described as pain, disorienting him as the uncomfortable feeling of gravity was embraced in full, and he experiencing a moment of free fall.
His medical pod landed hard, as it was roughly dumped onto the sand covered soil, tumbling for a few units before throwing him out as it came to a hard stop against a large rock. Beyond the bruises, all it provided him with a sense of De javu that he did not particularly appreciate. Waking up dazed and confused to crawl out as the glass door lifted, was something he felt he'd gone through enough of for several lifetimes at this point.
The additional crashing of other impacts signaled that he wasn't alone, and he lay on his back watching them slip from the craft above.
It was a Union troop carrier, of some type, though he didn't recognize the model. Hovering above the ground, the final object released was a large and heavy crate, easily thirty times his medical pod in size, which slammed into the ground to shake the soil in a final sober tone. As Rukkali got to his feet, he surveyed the area, checking himself for any injuries.
There were none.
Buzzing in his skin, he felt the familiar buzz of nanites as it hummed a symphony that allowed him to pick himself up with a vigor he hadn't expected. How simple, the action seemed. He was used to feeling weak, but for some reason, now, he felt rather strong.
The humming of nanites paired up well with the fading groan of a military ship lifted off to approach an angle for reentering orbit: its metallic hull catching the first rays of dawn as the red sun lifted over the foreign horizon.
The world, as Rukkali perceived it, almost seemed to vibrate. Perhaps the medical pod's dose that had been administered to him was sticking around a longer than normal.
It worried him, somewhat. He had probably gone over the normal dosage for a being of his mass. He had no idea the concentrations that had been used, but usually the nanites would have faded by now.
Rukkali had never heard of someone being foolish enough to try this before- horror stories of species that ran out of organic material for the synthetic mixture to use causing them to drop dead in sudden exhaustion, but apart from the buzzing, he felt fine.
Better than fine actually.
As he stretched his legs, he marveled at how strong he felt. Throughout the entire affair on that ship, none of them had even been let out of their medical containment. When he had been conscious, which was only for short periods, he heard enough going on to have been glad this was the case. His military tagging implants had identified him, but those outside of the pod had not been interested in much of anything but instructing him on the conditions of his incarceration.
He had been found guilty of upholding his duties. Of neglecting the Mercy Protocols. Of any number of long and serious crimes.
The fact that he was Rukkali Bolsorg, the former First commander of the 33rd line, leader of the Outer shell, and enforcer of the code- was now irrelevant.
A humbling situation.
In addition to this, from the best he could understand, it seemed that a conflict war had broken out, and he had the wonderful luck of being in a ship on the losing side. It was something to be grateful for, that the ship apparently surrendered peacefully once they had run out of alternative options. Rukkali distinctly remembered a glimpses of Sikka troops prowling through the chamber as a Gastruca burped out the terms of their unconditional surrender.
He heard the screams as the Sikka did what they did best, and the begging as a select few survivors were dragged off. Any resistance at all, it appeared, was futile. The pod had almost seemed like a blessing, then.
But none of that mattered, now.
He'd hoped to die in the line of duty, but he'd always suspected this was really how it would end. The Union finally getting their hands on him, sentencing him to die in some creatively terrible fashion.
A prison world, then.
Well... it could have been worse.
Rukkali took a deep breathe of air, his muscles were something different entirely, and the contrast almost threw him off balance. Ridiculously strong, his body felt as thought it were made of steel. Experimenting, he attempted to life the medical pod cover, the dense glass piece that had broken free from the larger portion upon his rough landing.
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"Are you alright Commander?" A format greeting rang out over the dry air, the sounds in his mind translated to standard Union tongue, while the echoes rippled off in foreign reverberations.
Rukkali turned to see a Mintrok, trekking up the hill along a track-line that had been cut into the soil; apparently her medical pod hadn't had the misfortune of rolling to a stop. She was of medium build, shorter than most species, and easily [two feet] shorter than himself. As was common with most Mintroks, she wore no combat suit, and simply had a bandoleer and belt that matched her olive toned shell.
A series of long cracks ran down her chitinous plates, from a rough impact. The Engineering talisman was shattered and re-fused, staggering it's image. Vaguely, Rukkali remembered her as the sharpshooter from the walls.
"In all likelihood I've been demoted, Engineer. Although I appreciate the sentiment.” Rukkali let the dense glass slip from his fingers as he straightened his back to return the formal gesture. “I don't believe I ever recieved your name during our last meeting.”
“Hico, Commander. Union orbital reserve, second class.” Her shell pieces clattered against themselves as she turned to check the others stumbling, falling, or simply rolling out of their pods with groans of discomfort. “So are they, for the most part. Sir.”
"Understood, Hico." Rukkali brushed his combat suit of sand as best he could. “I don't suppose you have any details on what we're doing here?”
The Mintrok paused as her jaws parted to taste the air. “Well, I remember that ship crashing into the base, but not much afterwords. I took a nasty fall before that even happened.” Another pause with a scoff that seemed to indicate distaste. “I remember being rescued." She clicked her mandibles in thought. "A Union squad pulled us off of the planet."
"And now we are planet-side again." Rukkali found his face shifting in discomfort as he peered off into the distance. Sand dunes, dust storms, and a red sun were practically all that greeted him beyond the rising temperatures, and the slow wind. Turning back to the close at hand, he surveyed the mess around him. Something was ringing true as recognition, but he wasn't quite certain what it was. He hadn't been here before- where it was. “I would have expected that I would be held as prisoners for something a little more formal. Some public display, at the very least...”
"Prisoners? What could they have found us guilty of?"
"Anything they wanted." Rukkali sighed.
There were fifteen other medical units scattered about the dune, each with their occupants groggily pulling themselves up and out of their respective pods. As they hiked up the slope, Rukkali took notice of one individual specifically. Unlike the others, it had already made it up the hill, and was prying at the locking mechanism on the supply crate.
An Oxot, and a large one, Rukkali recognized the posture of a soldier. More apparently, he recognized the Union's Inner System emblem, branded on it's arm along side two linear dashes. A Veteran, promoted through combat to the rank of field leader.
A field leader that was growing more desperate with each massive shove against the crate's locking mechanism.
“Soldier!” Rukkali shouted up the hill as he dug in to jog up the rest of the way. "Can I be of assistance?"
The Oxot barely gave him a glance as it's muscles bulged, forcing the jammed metal to give, bit by bit. “We're all dead if I can't get this open. That's your status report, whoever you are.”
The metal gave, and the heavy crate was pried open with a grunt as the Oxot shoved, muscles flexing under strain and reptilian scales. Inside was a vehicle, a land strider, one of the few mechanical units that still relied upon wheeled transport. It was a military antique in this day and age, and not a highly prized one. At best, it could be considered a surplus relic.
The Oxot voiced his complaint immediately.
“They don't want any of us to fracking survive, then.” His colors shifted in swirls of anger, as his scales reflected his emotions. “That's that. We're dead.”
Rukkali walked into the crate, and surveyed the gear supplied. There wasn't much, that was crystal clear.
Outside of the six-wheeled relic, there was a single container of ration pellets, and a few barrels of liquid, only two of which appeared to be water- the others were labeled as a liquid fuel source. Even as he performed a walk-through of the vehicle, Rukkali had a very hard time not agreeing with the Field Leader, someone indeed wanted them to die- at least a majority of them.
He exited the container, leaving the Mintrok engineer to inspect the vehicle. As Rukkali felt the heat of the sun on his face, he brought up a hand to cover his eyes from the light as they adjusted. There weren't many soldiers in the group. From his view on uniforms alone, most had actually come from the planet with him and the Mintrok, and were Union engineers. The three that were soldiers were gathered together discussing in hushed tones, though. As Rukkali approached, what reached his ears hissed of urgency, as their panic leaked into their conversation. All of them were Oxot, though the field leader took half a head taller than the other two, each of which bore the infantry unit brands on their scales.
“It was a Senate squad, Gastruca lead. I can never sleep in those fracking pods. I heard everything.” the Field leader hushed his voice, his tongue flicking into view. “We're on Attica.”
“You can't be serious- How the in the void did they get away with that?”
“They slapped some bogus charge- labeled us as traitors along with the rest of them. Twenty planetary rotation sentence. We're on the wrong side of whatever the frack started when we landed, you all heard what they did to the crew that resisted.”
“I didn't hear anything, the shot that took me out planetside kept me out. When I woke up, all I saw was that death-squad.” The smallest of the three spoke quickly. “Some of those Sikka troopers, through the glass when I woke up the first time. Evil things, those ones.”
“What do you expect- they're full carnivorous. Only reason they're even allowed in the Union is because they're Senate pets. They make problems go away.” The Field leader's colors shifted to a deep black. “You ever heard of anyone surviving twenty days on Attica? Even if they do have some orbital drone watching us to signal for pickup at the end of this sentence, and didn't just dump us here... Our chances are slim to none.”
A crack of thunder rocked the desert air, as a flaming object streaked across the sky. Rukkali could make out exhaust thrusts attempting to control the atmospheric entry, as pieces of it broke off. An escape pod, and from recent memory- a Union military pod judging by it's shape.
Any further chance at details were lost as the fiery streak blew past them to crash into the distance, but several more blasts of noise- and shockwaves that lifted most of the group off of their feet, announced that the pod was not alone. Watching closely, Rukkai counted nineteen more pods that were screeching their way across the sky, creating interlocking trails of smoke and fire on their way down.
"Excellent." Rukkali bellowed a laugh as he pulled himself off of the ground, as clouds of sand and dust settled around them. “I believe our chances have just improved, Field Leader.”
…
Array Class Monitoring System – Coverage zone IV // Group III //
Surviving Members [Full]: Convicted 578043 → 578060
[ -- Class XII Prison World: Attica – ]
Sentence: [Death] / [Twenty Rotation Commitment]
[Rotation I]
…