[OPEN] mod plot | sacking of olympus: harbinger descends

[unplug]

CHARACTERS ▶ All characters opting in
LOCATION ▶ Olympus
SUMMARY ▶ The Zion Defense Grid with civilian relief corps arrive at 1100 6/18, and Commander Gwisin gives the orders for rescue, assault, and investigation. This log is player-run and includes The REAPER simulation option (1 of 3) in the Matrix, as well as rescue activity in the Real. Kill some zombies, save some abducted babies.
WARNINGS ▶ Violence and reference to human experimentation, possibly R.
NOTES ▶ This is Part II of the Sacking of Olympus plot. Questions/investigation here, for example, what happens when you shoot compartment x of the centipede

▶ Sacking of Olympus Part II

REAL: THE ZIONITE RESCUE OPERATION ◀

Gwisin's orders are terse over the comms, two hours before the fleet makes Olympus. Make contact and communication to the best of your ability, restore comms if possible. Provide emergency care, fire control, and evacuation, before the unidentified bogey arrives at city center.

Pandemonium reigns over the populace of Olympus, civilians trapped by fires, drones, and debris. Olympus’ forces have rallied but remain thin on the ground, and the Zionite reinforcements are direly needed. Electronic communications remain down except for the Matrix pirate signal, darkening the panic and despair that have descended over the city; REAPER drones harry every human or ship that tries the ground or air.

Organizing this wide-scale rescue in the face of explosions and still-unexplained abductions comes down to ingenuity and manpower.

REAL: HARBINGER DESCENDS ◀

Thirteen hours after the Zion rescuers arrive in Olympus, the Harbinger does too. The cavern ceiling, dead center, cracks, crumbles, boulders the size of hovercrafts hammering down on the city center. By now, thankfully, the heart of the city is empty of civilians, but as the Machine breaks through, it's instantly clear that isn't going to be enough.

Harbinger is massive. Digging mandibles up front could eat a squid whole, and have room left over to total a hovercraft; its name emblazoned on red on each segment. Scarlet optics glow against its black chassis, and drones flush out of the gasping ports in its sides the same way insects give birth in dozens. Ponderous but unmistakably powerful, the centipede-shaped robot crawls out into a dangle into empty air. Keeps dropping its head toward the city in neat, clockwork degrees, almost elegantly, to let itself down onto the rubbled cavern floor. Erratic gasps and comments sound off across the disrupted networks: the oldest of the humans, civilian or otherwise, have never seen a Machine like this in the Real.

But maybe you remember dreaming a monster like this, from another lifetime.

Pilots throughout the city gun their engines, preparing for a feat of comms-blind synchronization. The battle truly begins.

MATRIX: REAPER COMBAT FREE-FOR-ALL ◀

When the Harbinger arrives, the Matrix pirate signal augmentation doubles in strength. Triples. The operator reports start to come in, distorted from the REAPER signal jamming, but unmistakable. There's a simulation out there, like a bridge to-- what? The Matrix? The programming language carries unmistakable similarities to the Dowager's feed from Kitty Jones' call to the Atalanta, but there's nothing specifically like that strange, consuming pattern in the girl's neuro-output. At least, not on this level of the sim. Not yet.

Jack in, and the first thing you see is the cold belly of a spaceship. What you hear are the screams, bouncing echoes off catwalks and cold corridors. Next, figures coming in a wave of seemingly unstructured attack. In the vanguard, the Husks, screaming zombies-- sinewy, discolored flesh mingled with useless tech components and bioluminescence. Not far behind, the bulbous Scions with their single energy weapons. Bringing up the rear, the Banshees float in deceptively slow at first, only to accelerate into a dazing flash of teleportation, skeletal-faced, real death waiting in their razor hands.

One thing is certain: they're guarding something, though where in the recesses of this ship, the operator must largely guess.

Comments

[ex_paragon697]

I don't know, they seem pretty excited to see us.

[ He offers the joke but not much of a smile to accompany it, focused instead on that noise, echoing off the surrounding metal tunneling ahead of them and under their feet. Steve picks up the pace a bit himself, his quickening steps light and gymnastic, movements contained to precise applications of strength even in the simple motion of running.

There are other corridors splitting off from this one, but they're all quieter — and if these creatures are being set on them to prevent them from getting someplace, that's probably the way to go. When the first of the husks appear he takes their legs out from under them, quite literally this time, which seems to do the trick just fine. So he keeps it up as they both move quickly in the effort not to give them a chance to mob them, sweeping the shield low without actually letting it out of his hand, a back and forth pendulum of brutal force. Even if it doesn't kill all of them, it keeps all of them from getting back up. ]

Good plan, [ he says to Deuc eventually, equal parts grim and sincere. ]

[scission]

[It's an efficient method. Efficient enough that Deuc can easily hang back, let Steve take point, only needed to drop a shoulder into some of the falling, wrap claws to one or two necks and fling those bodies aside. It's almost too comfortable, letting someone else do the work. Familiar. Not in a way he likes.]

I wouldn't like to claim I was planning any of this.

[He replies mildly, a grim edge to it himself. There's a break in the wave of assailants as the last one in the immediate falls, scrabbling to reach for them as they pass. Deuc pauses at the next turning, the choice between one way or another, listening to the shrieks and echoes of vibration rattling down both.]

There are more to the left. [His head tips slightly, gaze distant as he picks out,] With something heavier amongst them.

[ex_paragon697]

Yeah, but I've found claiming you meant to do that after the fact tends to have the same effect, [ he says before they both pause there. He listens for just a moment, his own hearing a few steps above baseline himself, though he can't make out the details that the other man can, and doesn't try. ]

Then we go left.

[ He doesn't ask how Deuc knows. Steve would have to be a fool not to be able to guess — which is also why he lets him take the lead this time into the darker passageway — but Steve's also less concerned with the question of monsters than of choices. The man is fighting beside him; that's all he needs to know. ]