Kashikoi flicked her black furred tail as she examined the message she had been given to deliver. The 34-year-old gray skinned neko grinned as she brushed back her obviously dyed hair. The turquoise blue fading to purple seemed to fit her easy going personality.
“Ohhh, this one’s a doozy.”
The courier had been given an audio message cylinder by the commander of the Baron’s house troops. It was to be delivered outside of her home, the city-state of Aerios, to one of the outposts.
A simple job.
Out of pure amusement, she activated the message cylinder for the third time. What followed was a long berating rant by the commander to the officer in charge of the outpost.
“Captain Gascal! It seems running an outpost is a task beyond your capabilities! You have failed to make your weekly report and you do not seem able to answer any of your communication lines. Consider yourself reprimanded! Send your report or your next assignment will be janitorial work in the latrines.”
“Hooohoooo! Someone’s in trouble!” Kashikoi giggled.
She pulled her pocketwatch that was always stuck at 12:00.
“Better get moving though. Nice quick message delivery and then I can go home.”
The neko ensured her blue phial necklace was around her neck and her omnigun was belted on her hip. Finally she checked to make sure the most important part of her ensemble of was on her; a bar of chocolate. Such a precious commodity. She was dressed in her favorite clothes; a leather jacket, a red T-shirt with a black heart, some skinny black jeans, boots, and a long black ribbon tying her hair back.
Kashi was in no hurry as she mounted her cycle. If it could be called a cycle, there were no tires. Some form of repulsor field kept it hovering just over the surface while a fan like motor in the real propelled it. The craft could only fly higher than a few feet off the ground, and it was Kashikoi’s pride and joy.
She wove her way through the streets of Aerios and out through the gate. A shimmering bridge of light greeted her for miles on end. Aerios and all the other city-states were artificial floating islands. Far below were scorched and desolate lands, long ravaged by the ancients’ final war. Kashi knew those lands well, she had grown up on the surface before fate intervened and she became one of the Baron’s couriers.
Travelling on the bridges was always a perilous undertaking, but Kashi’s destination wasn’t too far from the well patrolled outskirts of Aerios. Kashikoi stayed alert as she cruised along the shimmering light bridge. Dumb couriers didn’t live long and just because an area was well patrolled didn’t mean there wasn’t trouble. As she travelled she hummed a tune to herself.
Her journey was but a few minutes and soon the outpost came into view, a square tower alone on the vast emptiness of the light bridge. Kashi slowed her cycle as she drew closer seeing the guard shack with the barrier raised.
That was curious.
No guard challenged her as she hovered by the shack. Drawing closer to the outpost she found the outerwall manned by a single guard leaning over the barrier staring down at her.
“Heya,” Kashikoi waved at him.
The guard didn’t respond.
“Oh, super serious type I see. I’ve come on official orders from your commander! He gave me a message cylinder.”
No reply.
She couldn’t even tell if he could hear her.
“So let me in so I can deliver this to your captain.”
The guard still didn’t reply.
“Heeeeey! Dummy,” Kashikoi shouted at him.
Again no reply.
In frustration Kashikoi fished out an empty bottle and tossed it at the guard, “Say something, jerk!”
The bottle bounced off of the guards helmet and clattered to the ground on the outer wall. Kashikoi’s tail twitched. That didn’t even phase him? She moved closer and could actually stare up at the guard and saw for the first time that his eyes were open but vacant.
A corpse.
Despite being in a lot of dangerous situations, firefights, and seeing dead bodies before, Kashikoi screamed. She just felt it was necessary. Not because she was actually frightened, but because that was just how her odd mind worked.
“Okay, I screamed. Uhhhh… yeah… I should probably just leave…,” Kashi muttered to herself.
But then a thought came to her. What if someone needed help inside? What if she was questioned upon her return on not doing anything?
“Fine, I’ll do a quick investigation and then I’m outta here,” Kashikoi proclaimed. “I so don’t get paid enough for this.”
She grabbed her chocolate bar from her pouch and quickly devoured it. Whatever dangers she would face, she would do so after having a bit of delectable chocolate. After the most important thing was done, Kashi then set out to find a way inside the outpost. The front entrance was a blast proof door that was shut and sealed tight, Kashi’s gun would do little against a door meant to withstand explosives.
The neko circled the perimeter of the outpost noting just how eerie the place was without the bustle of activity. Usually there would be announcements over the PA system, troopers drilling, and vehicles coming and going. By contrast the outpost now seemed like one of the many ruins down below on the surface, long dead and silent.
Finally Kashi found her way in, a small but noticeable hole in the wall. It was definitely recent and done with some heavy weapon. Scorch marks lined the rim of the hole and bits of rubble lay scattered along the surface of the light bridge. The wound in the outpost was far too small for Kashi’s vehicle but big enough for her to crawl into.
“Well here goes nothing.” The neko slipped through the hole in the wall.
The interior of the outpost was lit only by the emergency lighting, dim lights that only provided the sparsest amount of illumination. Thankfully for a neko like her, she could see in dim lighting very well.
Kashikoi wrinkled her nose as she smelled the stench of something burned. The walls were pockmarked by blaster shots and bits of rubble lay strewn along with a few fallen weapons. The worst was yet to come. Kashi pulled up short as she reached what appeared to be the messhall. Tables had been overturned as improvised cover and food trays were scattered about. Two bodies lay strewn among the detritus. A pair of humans, one with a hole burned clear through his sternum and the other literally folded in half.
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“What happened here,” Kashikoi wondered. “Raiders?”
It wasn’t uncommon for raiders from the surface to make their way up to the lightbridges, but a raider gang overrunning an outpost didn’t seem likely and there was no evidence of any crystal shard guns.
“A rival nation,” she pondered.
Aerios had many enemies among the other city-states. A squad from one of their foes would have the organization and training to take an outpost, but, again, this didn’t seem to match. Enemy soldiers would be quick to refortify the outpost as their own, or destroy it completely.
“I really don’t know,” Kashikoi sighed. A thought came to her as she moved into the kitchen. A cook, a kemonomimi with canine ears and tail, lay dead also. His hand still clutched his kitchen knife that was badly chipped as if he had hacked in desperation at something. His neck was twisted at an odd angle.
Kashikoi paid him no mind as she stepped around him and began rifling through the pantries. It would be a pity to let any food go to waste, especially if there was any chocolate. The neko was disappointed to find no chocolate. However, there was some fruit snacks and some biscuit mix and she’d settle for that. Taking her loot with her, Kashi started for the entrance she’d come in.
But to her disbelief the hole was covered, as rubble had fallen in front of it somehow.
“Oh for the love of… Really,” Kashikoi cried. “Uggggghhhhhh!”
She stuck her tongue out at the blocked passage and gave it a few kicks for good measure.
“No worries. I’ll just open the doors from the inside. There’s got to be a control room somewhere.”
She set her loot down as she pondered, “Hmm.”
Kashi drew her gun from its holster. Things were getting too weird for her liking. She thumbed the switch on her pistol and it morphed into a carbine; bit more intimidating that way.
“Now if I was building an outpost, where would I place the control center,” Kashikoi asked herself.
“Oooh! I know right smack in the center. Duh!”
The neko courier padded her way down the empty halls with her boots echoing off of the walls. She found more evidence of violence along the way in the form of blood, impacts from small arms fire, and bodies. Eventually she found what she sought. The forced open metal doors and the soft light of electronic screens revealed itself as the control room.
“Yeah,” Kashikoi exclaimed pumping her fist in the air, moving in, and keeping her carbine at the ready.
The control room was vacant, aside from yet another dead body. The fallen neko had been thrown against the wall so hard it had killed him. Kashi wasn’t even surprised anymore at finding bodies. She changed her gun back into a pistol and holstered it as she looked around the control room.
The security cameras all showed the same exact inactivity she was used to. Nothing but dead hallways and dead bodies. The courier then looked to see what buttons would end the lockdown, but then turned her head back to the cameras. Had she seen something in her peripheral? Like a brief flicker of shadow? Was there a survivor?
She found the PA switch but stopped.
What if whatever had caused all of this was still inside?
It could just be vermin.
Or a trick of the eyes?
Kashikoi shook the worries out of her head and went back to the control panel.
“Now what pretty button do I press to make this place open up again?”
She chewed her lip.
“Ah forget it! I’ll just push buttons at random and hope nothing goes kablooie.”
The neko began to do just that. She heard the whine of the intercom turning on and several camera screens were changed, but none seemed to be the main doors.
“Why is nothing labeled? How do they train the new guys? Is there an operating manual?”
Kashikoi’s voice echoed as she still had the PA turned on. Growling she fumbled with more buttons and a screen suddenly flicked on that had been off. An entry at the top of the screen showed it was a video log from several days ago.
“Nyah,” Kashi questioned.
The screen showed an officer with captain’s rank and horse ears protruding from beneath his cap. Was this the outpost commander; Captain Gascal?
The captain spoke.
“Today was yet another uneventful day in the outpost. All duties were performed. No in fractions to report.”
The officer’s horse ears twitched, “Oh. I guess there is one thing to note. A trader visited us today and we purchased supplies, which I authorized funds for. However, my tech specialist used his own money to buy a piece of junk from the trader. The merchant claims it’s a relic from the Ancients. I personally think it’s just a hunk of useless metal. Just setting the record straight that I did not authorize this purchase and my tech acted alone by wasting his own funds.”
“BOR-ing,” Kashikoi stated as she skipped to a new entry.
Once again Gascal was on the screen, this time in another part of the outpost. A conical hunk of metal lay on a table behind him.
“It seems like that purchase wasn’t a waste of money after all. We’ve heard electronic noises and the sounds of something shifting. Today we are going to attempt to cut into the shell and extract whatever piece of the ancients lies within.”
Two soldiers were priming a plasma cutter as the commander spoke. The entry stopped recording.
The next entry started abruptly and Gascal appeared again. His face cut and bloody while his eyes were wide with terror. There was the sound of weapons fire in the background.
“This was a mistake… We never should have… It’s got a t…. Oh shhhiii!”
The screen cut to static as a message flashed on-screen.
NO FURTHER ENTRIES
“Nope.” Kashikoi stated, “Nope, nope, and nope again. I gotta get out of here!”
Her feline ears twitched as she heard something just outside the door. The sound of metallic scraping made her cringe. Kashi drew her pistol just as metallic tendrils shot out from the gloom. Her tail went straight up in alarm.
“Tentacles?! I do not do tentacles! I hate tentacles!”