Wrect of the SESV Soft Den, Under the Ship on the Surface of Hellious, GC 3478 June 10th, 0932 Hours—
Kevan lay on his back, and, for a moment, he hated life. You could say he was blessed to have survived the events of the last week… The thing was, if you tilt your head to the side while squinting, those same circumstances would look like he was cursed. After all, the facts were that he was surrounded by the rotting dead in a tomb, he was all alone on an absurdly hostile planet with scavenged gear, and he had no way to call for help. Kevan didn't know about anyone else, but that sure as hell looked to him like someone wanted him dead and to suffer along the way. But at the end of the day, he was still alive — even if he didn't feel like that was a good thing at the moment — and things can only go up from here… right? So, Kevan guessed the argument for his curse could go either way. What was utter urgoshit and an open and shut case for the universe fucking with him was what had just happened.
After spending most of two hours with a plasma cutter burning open the chest— no, that wasn't what happened. Kevan spent most of two hours throwing nervous looks over his shoulder every other second while burning through a fist-sized patch of scales on the beast's chest. Just the scales, not the scales and the meat underneath them. By the end, Kevan's neck was sore, and he was convinced that the thing's scales were stronger than a battleship's armored hull, and he wasn't talking about a single layer of six-inch enriched steel but all the layers combined. Even if he was exaggerating the situation, he wasn't stretching reality much, which meant… Well, Kevan didn't really want to think about all the implications of that.
After he was through the scales, it took a few more minutes of burning through the mussels and bone, which was ridiculous for a tool designed to cut through an inch-thick steel deck plate before reaching into the warm — not hot or sizzling or anything else logical — cavity to retrieve its core. Not spending more than a second to admire the size of the grape-sized Catalyst, he threw it into his bag before packing up what he had and limping back to the ship, which was when things turned to shit.
His limping hop began as a fast shuffle and then shifted into an agonizing jog. It might have just been his imagination getting the better of him, but the distant incessant howls echoing through the valley suddenly became much closer — as in the other side of the rim making up his home closer — and took on a hungry, bloodthirsty edge. Before the howls could last a minute, and more importantly, before he could scurry back to the safety of the ship like the rat he wanted to be, the howls rapidly shifted to the sound of dozens of throats snarling, yelping, and sudden whimpering that cut off abruptly… Yep, this is definitely a fuck Kevan moment. Why would more show up now? Why not a few minutes from now? Kevan complained while trying to put a little more pep into his step, but that wasn't made any easier by how he had to take quick, shallow breaths to prevent a bar of pain from ramming through his ribs and into his chest. I wish they would go back to howling. At least then, I could convince myself they were farther away and not getting closer.
Against his own wishes, Kevan's head turned to glance over his shoulder. The first thing he saw was the bare rocky ground, which gave him a reassurance that came crashing down like the Soft Den as he looked farther up the slope to the rising dust cloud that was utterly failing to conceal broken bodies and limbs arcing through the air. Kevan realized two things at that moment. The first was that he would never be able to unsee the horror of ripped-apart bodies hanging in the sky. Second, and this one was important, the pain from his ribs was reduced to a minor stitch in his side, and he was convinced he could move faster. Objectively, Kevan might have found the scene morbidly fascinating if he had been farther away. But being objective was for assholes who only sat in their nice comfy rooms all day, hiding from the world… I wanna go back to being objective, the regeneration capsule technician longed as he skipped over the rocky ground as fast as his legs could move.
Back in his terrible reality, an adrenalin-fueled flight was the only thought on his mind. Not that there was a distance he would ever consider far enough away from the sight at this point. The premise of that thought came from the fact that seeing it with one's eyes — with the caveat that the scene wasn't being projected through a holo — automatically put it into the category of way too fucking close. Still, being dozens of yards away only made it all the more important to put some distance between him and whatever could throw hundred-something-pound body parts tens of feet into the air.
As seconds passed, the racket of the fierce fighting behind him grew in intensity until Kevan couldn't hear the crunching of rocks under his boots. Forcing himself to keep his eyes on his lifeline, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and began to itch. Kevan knew he was their target. He could feel that even as they fought, most of their attention was focused on him. It only took one more mental step to figure out that the creature that ultimately won the battle would be the one to kill him. To put it simply, he was their prey, and running to safety was his only option.
So that was what he did. He didn't look back and didn't slow down from his pain. Kevan simply ran right up to the wire leading up to the ship before hopping up and clamping it in his hands. No matter how much he wanted to glance at what was hunting him or the growing demand to look at what he knew was snapping at his heels, Kevan steadfastly refused to be slowed down by turning his head right up until his hands wrapped around the wire. At that point, he could no longer resist looking over his shoulder, and as he took in his front yard, Kevan couldn't stop a shiver of fear from running up his spine.
Where there had been the bodies of tens of hoppers and two of the scaled wolf creatures, now there were also close to a hundred smaller bodies littering the area. Well, "smaller bodies" wasn't the best term when referring to creatures that looked big enough to ride if you could make a saddle that fit around all the spikes. However, when what he assumed — and really really hoped — were the adults of the race were conveniently placed nearby for comparison, it did make these new ones look tiny. The smaller scaled wolves, which was what they were, averaged in size around large dogs. Not the 'who's-a good-boy,' large dog that you pat on the side when it leans against your knee and lower thigh, but the 'oh damn, that dog's head can reach my chest on all fours.' You know, the kind that if they weren't so friendly, there would be a constant nagging thought in the back of your mind to search for the nearest weapon and consider the best way to kill it. The thing was, these almost-dogs completely lacked the friendly man's best friend qualities and were actively showing off their long, sharp fangs and claws by ripping each other apart. Something Kevan had no doubt they would do to him if given the opportunity.
Mentally cursing himself for gawking even a second within reach of these monsters, Kevan turned to look up the wire, which suddenly looked far longer than when he came down it… Why is past Kevan always an idiot with hindsight? Not that he could dwell on the impossible-to-answer question for long. Besides it being pointless, as his head turned, Kevan didn't miss that the smallest of the creatures were slinking around the edges of the battle centered around the bodies of the adult scale wolves. From how the small ones were moving, it looked suspiciously like they were attempting to head in his direction without being noticed by the others, meaning it was long past the time to get out of here. Sucking in a breath, Kevan swung his bag up onto his shoulder and tightened his grip. Bending his arms, a moan of pain escaped his lips as his feet swung inches above the ground. Apparently, his ribs didn't like his body flexing from side to side as he climbed.
Kevan's breath hitched in his chest, and he couldn't even draw in a half breath. It felt like someone had heated the tip of a harpoon before shoving it into his torso and wiggling it around. Unable to suppress the instinct, his right arm came off the wire, and he hung in the air by one arm as his other cradled his side. It hurt. It hurt almost as much as when he had to rip his left forearm off a frozen pipe as a child and rush to the sealing pressure door before he froze to death… Or maybe it was that it happened so long ago that the memory of the pain had dulled to the point that the current pain was equal…
Regardless, Kevan was going to die if he listened to the sweet thoughts of falling to the ground and cradling his side, hoping that the beasts would ignore him. He knew that, but at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to move. So Kevan gritted his teeth, hissing his breath in and out every time his body swayed, and endured the pain until he was used to it, or at least used to it enough to move. After what felt like an hour but was probably less than a minute, Kevan was finally able to reach up and grab a slightly higher handhold on the dangling wire. With a groaning scream that he tried to choke down as to not draw attention, Kevan hauled himself up an arm's length before he waited a breath to alleviate the hot iron burning in his side. And then he did it again. One hand over another, Kevan climbed to the deck above… Those torturous nine feet were some of the most challenging moments in his life, but he might as well not have bothered because when he finally made it high enough to reach up and grab the deck plating, he fell.
There was no sudden drop, signaling the wire was pulling free from whatever was holding it in place. Kevan didn't even hear a whoosh, clank, or twang as something cut the wire or it snapped from his weight. From one moment to the next, Kevan simply started falling. As his arms waved in the air, the spacer watched with wide eyes as the section of wire inches above his hand hung above his head, like it was mocking him by showing off its smoothly cut end. The fuc— Slamming into the ground, Kevan's breath was forced out of his chest with a bone creaking, "Hann~!"
Looking up at his safe haven from his back for long seconds, which was now further away than ever, Kevan was finally able to gasp in a breath and coughed out, "I should have… stayed in the ship." Knowing he had to move but unable to get up, Kevan rolled onto his side so his eyes could look up the slope, confirming the clever scale wolves were coming right for him. As they loped forward, they occasionally lunged at each other, swiping their paws or clicking their teeth inches from the sides of another scale wolf's flank and throat. It wasn't a playful nip either, but an attempt to remove one of their competitors without opening themself up for an attack.
If they weren't coming in his direction — though even with that fact, Kevan wanted to convince himself it was just a coincidence despite the hostility in their eyes — or he was looking down on them from the paradise of the death ship, he might spend a few minutes watching them bounce around. It was impressive and somewhat cute in an adolescent-murder-machine kind of way. And yet, from where he was on the ground, these murder machines were no longer looking as small or cute with every single one of their strides.
"I guess… I should get up now." Kevan hissed as his whole body screamed at him to lay still. Ignoring the call to embrace death, he sat up before pushing off the ground with his left arm, as his right arm was too busy cradling his side, which was hurting a lot more than it did before for some reason. It was easier than it should have been, as, after all, Kevan was headed down a mysterious ramp that screamed of danger, so less distance to force his body upright. Which was a good thing, right? Looking over the debris-strewn… Well, it's technically a tunnel now, not a ramp. Shuffling down the slope to the tunnel, Kevan entered the shadowy embrace of the Soft Den. Within a dozen steps, Kevan reached the first significant obstacle along the path, and he planted his hand on the broken piece of the hull as he glanced over his shoulder one more time.
Not seeing a change in his circumstances, Kevan muttered in resignation, "This is a fucking stupid idea." But no longer having a justification to stall and knowing he was on the clock, Kevan blew out his breath to suck in his chest and gut as he slid through a gap between the tunnel wall and the precariously perched few tons of metal with sharp-looking bits. On the other side of the hull piece, Kevan found himself inside a jungle gym of sparking half-melted wires dipping into the opening like streamers interspaced by jagged metal beams. With the frequent shorting-out of the wires creating sparks and the rare flickering lights that survived the ship crash, Kevan could mostly see. However, he still took a moment to turn on the light function of his personal holo, and he was greeted by all the obstacles trying to hide, which he now had to twist and bend around… which was great.
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Kevan reluctantly shuffled farther down the slope, immediately bending under a beam attached to the hull piece to move forward. After a second, in which he straightened his back while leveling out his breathing, Kevan continued down and, given the environment he was in, skirted around something with every step. Ideally, Kevan did so by circling around or stepping over the hazard, but when the spacer had to, he would clamber under them with a groan that bordered uncomfortably close to a whimper.
Every few steps, especially right before he had to duck, he would flash his light overhead, hoping for a passage into the ship. Kevan wasn't so greedy as to require the passage to lead somewhere. It just had to be large enough for him to crawl into it. He would also like to have a nearby piece of metal he could use to weld the entrance closed, but he would take a length of steel to use as a spear.
Simple as Kevan's wants were, reality refused to grant them. Not only did it refuse, but as he carefully made his way deeper, the sounds of fighting that had been near constant since he entered the tunnel abruptly stopped. A faint hope that the winning scale wolf would leave him alone sparked to life inside him, but a few yelps of pain and a crash or two snuffed it out. As the sniffing sounds of his pursuer grew closer and louder, Kevan's options had all but dwindled to fight and probably die.
It didn't help his situation that the farther down he went, the higher the ramp walls became. You know, putting the starship that he was trying to climb into farther away. What was surprising was the level of debris filling the trench. It was like the ship was held together by glue, and it was now falling apart. Crawling under a section of the hull that blocked all but a small part of the passage, Kevan couldn't help but freeze for a moment before letting out a wild barking laugh. "Why not!? Why. Fucking. Not!"
Getting to his feet and brushing off his jumpsuit, Kevan took a step before carefully bending over to pick up a fist-sized chunk of steel. Tossing the metal in his hand, the technician continued to the section of the outer hull jammed into the passage. The way it fell lodged the deck between the wall and floor at something less than thirty degrees, meaning it wasn't so steep that he couldn't easily walk up it, but it would take some effort. Stepping up the deck, Kevan slipped into the gunner seat of the major cannon, quickly scanning the controls with his eyes before testing out a couple. They didn't do anything, but that was what he expected, as it was disconnected from the ship's power supply.
How did a cannon on the Soft Den's outer hull survive intact while the ship tumbled over the ground for who knew how many miles before crashing to a stop? Kevan didn't give a shit how. It was here, and that was all that mattered. Would he rather have a minor cannon? Sure, they were easier to control, but on the other hand, the smaller rounds might not do the job, so it was better to have the overkill and not need it than need it and not have it. And if this didn't kill the monster chasing him, then he was always going to die, so he might as well go out with a bang.
Reaching into the bag, Kevan fished out the thumb-sized Catalyst, only spending a moment to inspect the gem. It had a smooth surface and was slightly oval, but that wasn't what drew his attention. It was the color. He had seen plenty of catalyst crystals — even one as large as his head — but never one that was colored a maroon with specks of black. Putting aside the minor mystery, the spacer placed the Catalyst onto a small pedestal in the center of the converter. The moment the two surfaces touched, the pedestal flashed an identical color to the Catalyst, and metal claws lifted from the pedestal, keeping it in place.
Sliding closed a transparent shield to the Catalyst chamber, Kevan moved his attention to the shell forge that was just above and to the right of the converter. With practiced ease, Kevan flipped two safety covers up before depressing the buttons underneath for two seconds, and with a thrum, the egg-shaped device came to life, and a blue semi-opaque light beam shot from the bottom center of the half-open dome to its peak. Over the next few moments, the top of the shell forge shifted into a dark blue, and a sky-blue domain extended to fill the beam's cavity. Seemingly all on its own, the field stopped at the edge of the opening facing Kevan, not extending a hair's width past it. At the same time as the forge began to turn on, the Catalyst looked as if it was evaporating like dry ice, except the mist was tinted maroon and had an inner light to it. Before the haze could spread, it was sucked into the claws holding the Catalyst in place. With the fog's vanishing, the artillery station's controls and monitors came to life, and that was Kevan's signal to start tapping through menus, preparing the weapon to fire. Usually, the emplacement was manned by three crewmen, each taking a spot as either a gunner, a forger, or a tracker, though one person could perform all the required jobs if needed.
When the swarm invaded civilized space, it was quickly realized that weapons fired directly by someone's hand were more effective than those that weren't. Additionally, the more stages a person was directly involved in creating the weapons and munitions, the better the results. Given that every advantage was needed at the time, the populations of entire worlds were put to work manufacturing weapons, but still, it wasn't enough. Even with the creation of the tools, the logistics of moving all the supplies fast enough and in enough bulk simply didn't work out in the humans' favor.
It wasn't until the forge was created and then developed to a usable iteration that several problems were solved. When a forge enriches a material — and it could be anything — with Catalyst, it alters the material at a fundamental level. The most obvious change would be the volume and weight of an object. If you somehow got your hands on a large enough quantity of Catalyst, you could theoretically increase an object's mass and volume by a thousand times; however, the diminishing returns made it impractical after three-hundred-thirty-six times. Which was putting aside the fact that it was the greatest power source to have ever been discovered.
Faced with impossibilities according to the laws of physics — that were extremely convenient for the military, who didn't give a shit about the reasons behind them — physicists who didn't hang up their lab coats immediately started throwing out all kinds of weird theories. There were two leading hypotheses, the first being the Expansion Theory, which states that subatomic particles within a given element were actually more atoms of that element that were somehow compressed to the quantum level. When an element is enriched, the catalyst energy pulls the compressed atoms back into real space with the corresponding weight and volume. The other leading theory was the Blueprint Theory, which said the catalyst energy copied the atomic structures before it punctured the fabric of reality at a quantum level. Anti-matter will flood through the hole, react with the catalyst energy without destroying existence, and form new matter according to the copied structure.
In Kevan's opinion, the scientists were talking out of their asses, trying to justify their profession as their theories didn't address key issues. Whatever the real answer was, the result was instead of filling starship hulls with thousands or tens of thousands of rounds, starships could be filled with millions of steel slivers a fraction the size. All that was needed then was Catalyst. A substance that just so happened to be harvested from leviathans. Most thought it was a convenient cycle. However, it also prevented the batteries on a starship from being easily categorized by bore size, as every shell was different depending on who was making it and how much Catalyst was put into the creation. And it wasn't just because of human error and inconsistency, but efficiency. The more flare and personality the forger put into their shell, the better they worked… for whatever reason.
Content that the station would fire and that it was mostly aimed at the hole he climbed through, Kevan turned and hefted the chunk of steel as he looked at the forge. From sitting in the seat to now, only a handful of seconds had passed. His eyes flicked past the monitors positioned around the seat to where he could swear he heard panting, only emphasizing the necessity of his actions. "Suck it up and be a man," Kevan said to himself in an attempt to psych himself up.
It didn't help much, but Kevan still thrust his hands forward into the forge a moment later. As his skin came into contact with the shimmering blue domain, Kevan's whole body jerked, and he almost pulled his arms back on instinct. Any part of his body that was exposed to the field felt like it was being burned, which was bad enough, but there was also a feeling like electricity was shooting up his arms before spreading throughout his body. "Argh! Fuck! This is worse than I remembered," Kevan ground out between his teeth.
What didn't help at all was that Kevan knew he could pull his hands back at any moment, and not only would they be fine, but there would be no damage. He also learned from experience that the longer his hands were in the field, the worse it would feel at his stage and tier, so he ground his teeth and forced his body to lean forward until the lump of steel touched the central beam within the forge. Within a second of the steel being within the ray, the metal began to emit a blue glow and spin. Usually, touching a piece of irregularly shaped steel that was spinning with a hand would be an excellent way to lose said hand. However, when the steel began to glow and spin, it also became as easily moldable as wet clay. Falling back on his old cadet training, Kevan shaped the steel into a cylinder with a mostly pointed tip on one end, which wasn't half bad if he said so himself.
Yanking his hands and creation out of the machine, Kevan almost dropped the near-foot-long and four-inch wide shell as it was unexpectedly heavy. Planting his foot to the side to stop himself from falling out of his seat, Kevan grunted with a mixture of pain and effort as he pulled the shell to his chest before dropping it onto the rail. Trying to catch his breath and tentatively leaning back into the chair again, the spacer watched the forearm-sized lump of steel roll along the rails until it settled next to the cannon's breach. Placing one hand on the aiming joystick and the other on the plunger, Kevan made a few more adjustments to the barrel's position as he chambered the round. With everything ready, now all Kevan could do was wait to see how his fate would be decided, and he began to grow uneasy.
Thoughts of what lay a little farther along the tunnel popped into his mind. Maybe a section of the hull a bit further down had a ramp into the ship? Perhaps it had a compartment for him to hide in or even a pulse rifle lying on the ground, just waiting for him to come along and pick it up. And then there was the nagging fear that he would miss. He was a decent shot back in the academy, but that was training… And anyone who experienced combat could tell you that the two weren't the same, no matter how demanding your training was. And then there was the fact he had never trained to do anything so stupid. The rail gun was meant to destroy targets thousands of miles away, not twelve feet. Also, aren't rail guns supposed to—
Seeing a black canine head and then body slink under the nearby piece of deck, a vicious smile spread over his face. The technician waited a beat for the scale wolf to creep into his crosshairs, and then he shoved the plunger forward, propelling the round into range of the coils. The magnetic rings activated with a high-pitched buzz, and before Kevan could react, the gun was rocking from the recoil. As he felt the movement, Kevan thought, oh, fuck me… as reality stretched, giving him plenty of time to realize how badly he fucked up.
First and foremost, a rail gun had two settings for how it would fire. It was nothing all that complicated, which made it all the more embarrassing that Kevan forgot about it. One set the cannon to full power, and the other was a throttle that drastically decreased the speed at which the round was fired. Inside an atmosphere, firing a shell a tenth of the speed of light with air acting as resistance would heat up even enriched rounds to the point they disintegrated into a thousand molten suns. And it was a sight Kevan would never forget as long as he lived… which would probably be when the cannon landed on top of him a second from now. With the light of the molten round still in the air, the artillery piece, anchored to a piece of steel that was attached to nothing, continued to flip backward along with Kevan, who was still sitting in his seat.
And then Kevan was flying out of the chair he didn't strap himself into — because he's a dumbass — his ears filled with the sounds of the destruction he unleashed. While he assumed the gun tore itself apart, Kevan bounced over the ground and other objects he couldn't identify until he came to a crashing halt. With his vision blurred and the only audible sound that of rending and settling steel, Kevan's head flopped to the side as he looked around.
The injured man's vision slowly came into focus, and a chuckle burst out of him, followed a moment later by a coughing fit of pain. Not that the pain stopped him from reaching out along whatever piece of a passage wall he had stopped on to grab a handle. "Fucking. Everywhere," Kevan spat out with some blood as he pulled the emergency medical kit free before popping it open. Grabbing the bright green injector, he pressed it against his leg before pressing the button to inject the medical nanites into his body before passing out.