A Mother's Love (Tack, Franz)

[Nemesis]

December 8th, AD 2880
L1 Colony Branch, Clockflower Colony
BFF Research Facility Control Room
10:01 PM

Tik-tak-tak-tak...



Cold.

Hungry.

But, she barely felt any of it, despite not having a wink of sleep the past two days. There was too much at stake. Her fingers fluttered across the keyboard, the screen illuminating her weary features, her dirty clothing, the bags under her eyes. Almost there, she thought. The last locks were nearly undone. Just a little while longer, and she'd have what she sought. A security alarm winked in the corner of the display, causing a sharp intake of breath-

It wasn't her. Someone else then, approaching. She was pleased to realize she felt nothing. No anxiety. No fear. Only frigid certainty.

Her finger ran down the touch-screen display, disengaging a series of locks. Not enough to endanger the populace, but enough to slow her pursuers down.

Time, thought Catalina as she settled back in.

That was all she needed now, more than anything else.

---

Facility Exterior



The destruction from BAHRAM's attack had traveled further than anyone expected. Telltales winked on and off a low, squat building settled in the corner of an industrial area - no external markings hinting at its purpose, not even the common braggadocios corporate emblems. The only indication something - anything - was wrong, was the belching of neon green vapor from pipelines that traveled deeper into the Colony's infrastructure, around which sirens could be seen, as engineers worked to try and prevent whatever was in them from leaking into the atmosphere.

This was the meeting point - now who would answer the call?

 

[Franz_Korderos]

Piper has always dreamed about visiting humanity's homes outside the planet, a dream born out of whimsical childhood dreams constantly reinforced by the very presence of the colonies. And of course she'll finally arrive in a colony inside the cockpit of a mobile weapon. She marveled at the almost-surreal similarity of the insides of the colony to what she sees back on Earth. Humanity still clings to what's familiar. It is both amusing and comforting. However, the BAHRAM's devastation was clear and Piper shelved her musings to focus on the reason why she was here.

The Guren's landspinners whirred faster and the lanky red machine sped up towards the rendezvous point.

Soon enough, Piper arrived at the location; a innocent-seeming facility and she slowed her knightmare to a stop near the entrance, debating if she should go down on foot. It was something she was leery of doing, despite being dressed in a fully protected pilot suit with a helmet, the sight of the neon green vapor doesn't inspire anything else but caution.

 

[Tackle Jackie]

This wasn't exactly how Mak wanted to be spending her evening, especially after having just dealt with the Bahram... Issue, but it's not like she could say no to her boss. Having a member of the crew go missing during launch probably wasn't the best way to start off their expedition, especially with how worried the Boss Lady seemed about it. And of course, that meant that the Meltrandi would be sent out, while she could only assume Issac was going to get his ear yelled off.

So, small mercies.

The nearly ten meter woman had launched in a modified Super Pack, armored up and navigating towards the facility. She wished she could have take a proper Mobile Weapon, but for an infiltration mission like this, she felt better having more dexterity than fire power. The giant cut her main thrusters as she descended next to the strange red robot, giving a polite finger wiggling wave down to it. "Hey, you my partner for this mission?"

 

[Franz_Korderos]

The Guren's head angled upwards to stare at the bigger ... mobile weapon?

She blinked. Then her eyes widened and her jaw dropped.

The pilot boggled at the sight of the massive woman. Instinctively, the pilot turned her knightmare fully towards the woman. She had expected many things for this mission, most of them grim thoughts about how the entire endeavor could turn ugly in a myriad of ways. The sight of her partner for this mission being a gorgeous giantess of a woman was completely out of left field for the poor half-Britannian.

"I mean this completely without offense," she began, smooth voice blasting out of the Guren's speakers, "but you are the biggest woman I have ever seen."

 

[Tackle Jackie]

"Oh?"

Mak tried to hide the smirk on her face as the other pilot just had to point out that fact, finding it positively endearing. Sure, she hadn't run into "many" smaller gals, but it was far from the shock it used to be.

"Makurol of the Nadeisco, nice to meet you."

Kneeling down, Mak offered trying to get a better look at their strange mobile weapon. "Oh, hey, I think your ride is... Probably kinda close in scale to my own i think. Kinda cool to actually see. Most mobile weapons try to be massive from what I've seen."

"No offense taken, by the way."

 

[Franz_Korderos]

Piper marveled as the woman got closer, she can't help but be flustered. This Makurol of the Nadesico is far from an unattractive woman. It was annoying how flustered she was and she sought to regain a semblance of composure. She was glad that she was inside the Guren and that the woman couldn't see her awe or her unbridled curiosity.

"Piper Harlowe, Mercenary." She introduced herself, flashing Guren's blue eyes in greeting. "And this is the Guren, a Knightmare Frame. "

"Just what are you, if I may ask ..."

 

[Tackle Jackie]

"Meltrandi?"

Standing back up, Mak rolled her shoulders, glancing around the area. The building seemed pretty sealed at this point, but luckily, it wasn't gonna be perfect. "Come on, Pipes, let's see if we can't force this door open."

With a grin, the Meltrandi led her new compatriot to the loading docks alongside the building, eying up the door shutters. "I got this." She smiled, fiddling with her Pack a bit and detaching the massive thrusters connected to it. Looking quite a bit more comfortable, the Meltrandi would start stabbing the Bayonet of her gun pod into the base of the shutter, trying to cut out an entrance.

 

[Franz_Korderos]

"Meltrandi, huh ..." Piper mutters. That sounded familiar, which means her kind is something known but probably uncommon for the people of Earth. They were probably in some of her lessons back when she was younger but it has been a long time and she makes a point of thinking as little as possible about those hellish days.

The nickname brought a smile to her lips. This Meltrandi seems to be as easy to get along with as much as she is easy on the eyes. The Guren followed after Makurol and once she started to make an entrance into the facility, Piper twirled the Guren around languidly doing one slow sweep of the area before turning back to the opening that the armored giantess was making.

 

[Nemesis]

With time, effort, and a little muscle, the shutter to the lower level relented. A Meltran-shaped hole carved into its surface, through which the unlikely duo could enter into the facility. The service ramp continued to sink into the earth, and the temperature began to drop, causing the hairs on the back of Mak's neck to stand up on end. The scent of burning and dust that had lingered in the colony began to recede, and was replaced by something unfamiliar to Mak's senses. Sterility, cleaning supplies - but tainted with a kind of musk now, one that was difficult to place.

As Piper did one last sweep of the area before following, she might have caught a glimpse of something - but, only for a split second. Light reflecting off polished glass in the distance. It was enough to write of as an error, a trick of mind in an anxious state, but...

Were they being watched?

The sound of distant, whirring fans greeted them as the ramp evened out into what appeared to be an area for loading and unloading cargo. They were down in the innards of the Colony now, it seemed, the facility having been built directly into the superstructure - and evidently having been adopted from an older, perhaps obsolete, spaceport. Small wonder BFF had been so eager to make use of it - lots of space for cheap.

Clearly there hadn't been much done in the ways of beautification. Although the surfaces were clean, the rust and age of the materials still gave off an eerie presence. The lights were off in the receiving control tower, and nobody was present to receive them - nor did any kind of security emerge to meet them.

Immediately obvious exits were to the right, where the passage widened up to approximately 15 meters, and to the left, where it narrowed to a more moderate ten meters before winding out of sight. It was also possible to disembark and gather information, if they so chose - the only other sign of life was, nestled in the corner, a cluster of cameras that surveyed the entire room, silently.

 

[Tackle Jackie]

"This is Makurol to Nadesico- Shit spooky."

Holding her Gunpod at the ready, the Meltrandi felt chills running up her spine, thrust into one of the most uncomfortable situations she had ever been in before, the sheer... Age of the facility sending chills down her spine. Even her colony ship didn't have this... Musk to it, something deeply unsettling that she couldn't quite explain.

"Hey, any ideas of where to go on your end? I don't have... Any clues where we should start making our way. I have a feeling it's going to be the tighter space though, because life hates me and my posture."

Mak kept her head on a swivel, hoping the bit of joking would help to keep the mood up, glancing down both passageways every few seconds. She took a few deep breaths, trying to see if she could figure out which way the smell got worse....

 

[Franz_Korderos]

There was silence on the Guren's end for awhile. Piper's eyes were narrowed in thought. She was sure she caught a glimpse of something before they entered and it made her warier than she already was.

"Let's go to that wide passage. We'll probably cover more ground by splitting up but this place is giving me the creeps."

The landspinners revved and she took a slow and stead pace towards the larger corridor, searchlights on and the knife held in her knightmare's left limb poised for anything.

"And keep an eye out. I might be mistaken but I saw a reflection in the distance before we entered." Here the pilot's voice lowered. "Somebody took note of our arrival and I don't like that. Not one bit."

 

[Nemesis]

As the two left, just barely perceptile, a pair of long, thin antennae extended from a grate in the floor. They waved briefly, tantalizingly in the direction of the two new arrivals - and then, as silently as they had appeared, slipped back into the vent.

The path they had chosen was long and straight, interrupted only by grooves in the ceiling that indicated the presence of emergency shutters. For a solid ten minutes, they traveled wholly uninterrupted. From the Guren's sensors, they were now somewhere in the Colony wall, only a few layers of steel separating them from vacuum - and yet from ahead of them came the slow, rushing sound of water.

Eventually, the passageway opened up - and with it, the noise became a roar.



The sound - and the smell indicated that they'd found some sort of waste-processing plant. Towers of water fountained out of grilles in the walls far above, pooling into a massive, seemingly bottomless trench that was beneath - part of an intricate system that ejected waste gathered from the Colonies into space. There were numerous substations such as this, which recycled as much as physically possible from its inhabitants, reducing possible waste to a fraction of what it could be - and the Colonists were none the wiser.

To their left was a peculiar sight, however. Large discs, piled unceremoniously in a heap, each a dull gray and riddled with cracks.

Perhaps they might have heard of them before, mentioned passingly in a news report: Plates.

Beside it as well was something equally unusual. A sort of transluscent half-circle, rising out of the floor, with a crack down its center, its texture somewhere between plastic and metal.

"Why...?"

A voice crackled over the loudspeaker. A woman's, familiar, doubtlessly to the Meltran: Catalina Merlot, Sharon Apple's manager. The tension, the stress in her voice made it sound like a completely different person, as though she were tip-toeing along the edge.

"Why are you here?"

There was a short silence, before she continued.

"...Please. Just let me do this. For once. Let me do her some good. I've made... so many mistakes..."

Visible just behind the piles of refuse was another passageway, leading further in - but perhaps something in the woman's tone might have given them pause.

"...Don't you have children of your own?"

 

[Tackle Jackie]

Makurol sealed the faceplate on her helmet, as she listened to Catalina speak, shoulders tense as she gently nudged her new team with her shin- pointing towards the nearest wall where she could hear the skittering.

"Miss Catalina, if you tell us what you're doing, we can help. And uhm. No, I'm uh, single. Haven't even... Thought about having kids yet..? Like-"

Her gunpod spun up and began to pepper the wall bullet holes, making her way to the next passageway as confidently as she could- And watching as best she could for any openings in the walls, readying to blast anything that came through.

"It's super not safe here and I wanna get everyone out asap-!"

 

[Franz_Korderos]

"I'm single and very gay, miss! Sorry!" Piper hollered, instinctively making the Guren turn around to cover get down on its haunches, to prepare for anything that might burst from the walls. She was the smaller of the two and she prepared her knightmare to intercept whatever's in the walls that got the giantess tense.

"Not ready for that commitment either!"

She followed after the taller alien, making sure to watch their blindspots constantly. Guren's knife was ready to strike and the machine cannon attached to that arm is ready to fire, all the while her machine's infamous right hand is coiled and steady, read to grab a hold of anything that needs to die quickly.

 

[Nemesis]

"What am I doing...?"

Catalina absorbed what the two said - but it was clear from her tone: she'd barely even listened. No, the point of her speech was simply that: to slow them down momentarily. She rose from her seat in the control center: It was finally time to put her plan into action.

"What I should have done all these years: helping... my daughter..."

There was a dry, mechanical click as the mic was shut off. And then-

The Gunpod's gunfire echoed all through the enclosed space, almost deafening in volume as it tore into the walls. For a moment there was nothing. Then, a pus-like ooze, dribbling out of where she'd scored direct hits on the things lurking just out of sight, that had been following, converging on their location as they'd traveled. The distant clattering, insect-like chittering and rustling of legs moving was now impossible to deny.

Were one of them to cast a gaze down at the waterfall, they would have immediately regretted it. Segmented, glowing blue eyes, dozens in number, advancing from below. Bulbous, multi-legged bodies bobbing as they crawled up to meet their foes, the AMIDA biological weapons advancing in a tide of flesh. As the first of their number began to cross the lip, feelers waving in the air, sensing the taste of their quarry - the two would have been greeted with a spray of flesh-melting acid, spat at terrifying velocities from their mandibles, as more and more of their number began to close in...

 

[Tackle Jackie]

"Grab the plate and follow my lead!"

Mak backed away from the edge of the waterfall as quickly as she could, dodging acid sprinting towards the pile of debris and with Piper's help, heaving up one of the plates- Using it as a makeshift shield as she guided the two of them towards the next passage going deeper, the Meltrandi wedged it as best she could with the help of the refuse and the Guren, blocking the pathway behind them.

"Now run run run!"

 

[Franz_Korderos]

She wordlessly followed the giantess' words, landspinners making a loud noise as she dodged the acid spits, making the Guren dance like a maniac before making the huge right arm extend towards the Plate, clawed digits securely holding the strange object before she reversed with all the skinny knightmare frame's strength.

"Going as fast as I can!"

Piper has held onto the plate at a good angle, enough that she could peer past it to see the bugs clamoring after them. With a grimace, she raised the Guren's free arm and fired the machine cannon at the gaps, pelting them with lead in the hopes of thinning the swarm.

 

[Nemesis]

With every passing second, the terrors drew nearer. Waving antennae and grasping, insectoid limbs coming into view as the two hurried to stem the flow. As the plates were wheeled into place, the staccato hiss of acid and spines was almost deafening as it splattered against the makeshift barricade. With no time left to lose, the two plunged deeper into the facility, the thrumming and banging of their pursuers against the Plates echoing through the air, following them as they moved.

"So you made it, then."



The voice of Catalina echoed to greet them as the entered the heart of the complex. There was a buzzing in the air - green, hovering AMIDA watched them as they appeared - yet, no attack was made. Not yet.

It was a long, gunmetal gray room - what had once been a Mass Driver, yet now was condemned to disuse and decay. Situated at the opposite end from them... was she, Catalina, alongside a Plate. This one... unlike those that had been seen before, glimmered brilliantly under the floodlights above. It was not only alive, but thriving. Even the AMIDA seemed to respect it, keeping their distance, as Catalina touched her forehead to its surface, saying quietly.

"If you'd just laid down to die... it would have been easier. That woman, what she said to me..."

...She trailed off, voice cracking delicately under the stress, as tears flowed down her face. As if in response, the Plate began to glow. A silent storm of energy, beginning to pool before the two of them - and it was now that the AMIDA took their signal.

"One day, when you have babies of your own... You'll understand."

A fusillade of acid-spiked needles was sent down at the two new arrivals, as light began to fill the room. Something great, something almost mythical was taking place, and they were intruders in this sacred space.

 

[Tackle Jackie]

"Oh my god, YOU'RE BEING A REALLY SHITTY MOM RIGHT NOW!" Mak yelled as she threw herself out of the way of the falling needles, one glancing off the armored plating of her leg. This was a bad time all around, but first things first were to deal with the fucking bugs. Opening fire with her gunpod, Mak would do her best to spray in a cone from her position, hoping to either kill outright- or maybe clip some wings if she wasn't that lucky.

"How do you expect us to be mom's if you're setting this kind of example! Aren't you supposed to help people learn how to be mom's instead of trying to kill them??"

 

[Franz_Korderos]

"Again, I'm not interested in being a mom but she's got a point, lady!" She hollered but then the squeal of her landspinners rang out as she accelerated, dodging the acids and dancing on the solid ground below, firing at the fucking bugs in a variety of angles.

"Start making sense, lady!"

Then the Guren starts racing towards the wall, firing her slash harken towards one of the flying bugs, reversing as soon as the Harken struck and using the sudden momentum shift and the pull of the harken back to its casing to slam the hooked bug towards the wall she was originally heading to.

"Your family life doesn't seem healthy and I'm pretty damn sure that this isn't gonna help things!"