Though Stars May Fall
Chapter Three: First Encounter

By CMK 2004

Somewhere east of Sa'is Da'ar, Noriath
Half a minute has passed

With a hiss of releasing steam, the transport's docking ramp slid open and the soldiers piled out, weapons ready. John St.-Varda, sweeping his head around, scanned the terrain with a practiced eye. Noriath was a beautiful planet, awash with brilliant colors. The sky was a pure azure, the grass swayed gently in the calm winds, and as John looked down he realized that he had stepped on a flower. They had landed on the edge of what looked like a wheatfield. A farm stood half a kilometer away, easily visible over the golden heads of grain; a thermal scan showed no signs of life. Overhead, the transport's fighter escort made one last flyby before soaring off into space. The Star Shard had settled into progressive orbit and disappeared around the horizon long ago.

John glanced around. Each soldier was dressed in the combat uniform of a standard Federation platoon: bulletproof vests with a reflective gloss, helmets that completely obscured their faces, rubber boots, black fatigue pants, and an all-purpose utility belt with grenades. Depending on assignment, each soldier carried a different weapon. Half of them sported standard laser rifles, the latest from Federation labs. John also saw shell cannons, rocket launchers, flamethrowers, resonators, and a few pulse blades for close combat. Even the medics carried pistols. All told, there were forty-nine people in the team. John felt like the odd man out.

The squad leader stood up, satisfied that there was no immediate danger. "Coast is clear. Headquarters says that most of the gas fountains have been neutralized; however, isolated pockets could still remain in the city itself, so look sharp and keep those breathing masks operational. No signs of life anywhere around here other than those infernal plants and the other squads report the same. Stay together and keep your weapons ready. There's no telling what we might run into around here." A pink cloud hung over the city of Sa'is Da'ar in the distance. The team leader pointed out a flight of transports rising up from the city. "Those are the last of the brigades sent to knock out the gas fountains. We'll be alone in Sa'is Da'ar."

As it was, the walk to the power plant was uneventful.

From this distance, John could see but not hear his transport lifting off for the return trip to the Star Shard. The main access gate of the plant was locked but thankfully not infested. As the technical team fiddled around with securing entrance, John climbed to the top of a nearby eminence and looked around. Sa'is Da'ar was indeed overgrown. The power plant itself was barely recognizable under a pulsing tangle of unnatural veins. Everywhere he looked, John saw the same sight repeated. At this distance, nearly every building that he could see was infested by the strange plants, covered with fleshy material. Some of them pulsed ominously as though they were channeling some sort of liquid - no doubt they were the source of the mysterious sleeping gas. John could see what looked like a large artery, perhaps two meters in diameter, coming out of the top of the power plant, sagging down to the ground, and running directly towards the center of the city. It was covered entirely by a hard, rocklike material and glistened in the sunlight. It lay very still.

The access gate beeped. As the huge doors of the power plant creaked open, a dark pink gas rushed out with a sound like a sigh. John studied it calmly. The gas rendered images within it semi-opaque. More and more of it emerged as the massive steel doors grinded apart; John's comlink crackled and the squad leader reported. "This is Gamma leader, our power plant seems to have an active gas fountain somewhere in it. Will proceed with neutralization."

John had studied schematics of the power plant during his stay on the Star Shard. The plant was a huge structure divided into two rooms; a large outer section where the power was routed, and a smaller core where it was generated. The outer section was one big room with a catwalk about halfway between the ceiling and the floor that circled the entire place. As he walked into the plant, John noted that his boots made a squishing sound instead of the accustomed clicks. He glanced down; the entire squad was walking on a mess of roots and fleshy stems. The walls were partly overgrown, too, as was most of the machinery in the room. Although the lighting was poor - the light panels set in the ceiling were not active - it was easy to tell that the power core had been overgrown, too. A large fleshy structure had completely enveloped it; at the top, John noticed the same artery that he had seen earlier, coming through a hole in the ceiling and descending onto the top of the power core. He wasn't certain, though; maybe it was the sleeping gas playing tricks on his eyes. There sure was an unreasonable amount of the stuff around them.

A number of computer terminals were set up parallel to the power core and they seemed unaffected. Most of the technical team went there and the team leader told off a squad to watch over them. After a moment, the technical captain spoke through the comlink. "C technical leader here, the router computers seem intact. The backup generator's also good to go." Even as she said that, various monitors flickered to life and a few of the ceiling lights activated, giving the entire team a much better view of the situation. "Running diagnostics ... most of the power lines are intact. Let's get the power restored and we'll send it down to the communications array in a jiffy." She returned to the technical squad waiting to enter the power core.

"Right." John turned his attention to the fleshy capsule in the middle of the room, the one that had completely enclosed the power core. Now that the lights were back on, he had a much better view of the core. Whatever that capsule was, it was crisscrossed by a number of small veins. Two of the soldiers were busy setting up explosives where the access hatch should have been. John slid around to the opposite side; after a moment, so did the rest of the team. "Fire in the hole!" the team leader announced. There was an explosion and the entire power core spasmed violently. When John returned to the proper side of the core, he saw that the flesh had been cleanly blown away and the access hatch stood revealed. The capsule was shaking and oozing blood through its wounds onto the floors.

Blood? Plants didn't have blood.

A whirr from above distracted John for a moment, but it was only the turbine fans coming to life and clearing away the rest of the sleeping gas. Disturbed by what he had just seen, John turned his attention to the core. The technical captain slid a card through an identifier, which gave no response. Frowning, she banged it and tried the card again; it beeped and the hatch lock was released with a hiss of steam. Mercifully the sleeping gas had just about cleared out.

The comlink crackled. "Headquarters, this is Praetor McDalen of Team Alpha reporting, we just got the power plant back online without any hassles, but it seems that the power lines to the communications array have been cut. Do we have permission to investigate?"

"Permission granted. All teams report, have you found any survivors or any clue at all as to what happened here?" A series of negatives came in response. "Keep your eyes peeled and carry on with the mission. Headquarters, out." The comlink fizzed out; the team leader kicked the steel hatch of the core and it slowly swung inwards. This time, there was no sudden eruption of sleeping gas. It was pitch dark inside and the soldiers switched on their illuminators before proceeding. John followed last, glancing at the hatch as he went in. The wall was a good fifteen centimeters of concrete, with the hatch perhaps a third of its thickness.

The comlink came to life again. "This is Delta team leader, our power plant is active. The communications array is getting all the juice we can pump out. We'll be leaving E squad here on guard and proceeding with the mission. Last team to the communications array gets no donuts for breakfast." There were isolated chuckles at the last statement, then John returned his attention to the power core.

The rays of the illuminators revealed that the power core was structurally intact, much to John's relief. It was also free of infestation. Closer examination, however, revealed that there had previously been a struggle here; there were scorch marks all over the walls as well as dry pools of blood. The generator itself was in the middle of the core room, with three different catwalks at various levels all around the room, each catwalk connected to the other via steel rungs set in the wall. There were controls located on each level and the technical team members went to each. Someone hit a switch, flooding the core with light. As he did so, John glanced upwards. There, fifteen meters above at the ceiling of the core ... the artery that he had seen outside ended here, exposed just above the generator. For the first time John had a good look at its end; it seemed to be tightly sealed with some sort of chitinous membrane and it spanned three meters in diameter. From this perspective it looked more like a mouth. He was slightly put off by the realization that whatever had infested the building had bored through fifteen centimeters of concrete. The overgrowth in general was looking less and less like the work of a plant.

"Well, this place looks clean," the team leader announced. Half a minute passed in comparative silence, then the sound of gigantic magnets winding up reached everyone's ears. The squad gave off a small cheer. "C team leader here, our power is back online and the power lines intact. We'll be leaving G squad on guard here and meeting Delta team at the communications array. Save some of those donuts for us, boys." John smiled. As the squad exchanged various high-fives, the team leader signalled for withdrawal. That was when the entire operation went to hell.

"Mayday, this is Alpha team reporting -!"

"Beta team here, we're under attack!"

"Emergency, this is Delta team -"

"What in the name of all that is worth living for are those?!" a soldier exclaimed. John's eyes instinctively shot upwards to the sealed vein, only that it was no longer sealed. The membrane had slid open; in its place, a dozen or more tentacles, each as thick as a man's waist, were slithering out of the vein. They paused for a moment, then sprang into concerted action with terrifying speed. John dove out of the way, unshouldering his rifle in one fluid motion, but the sound of everyone trying to talk at once through the comlink was distracting him. A tentacle slammed into the ground where he had been a moment ago; John opened fire and riddled its flesh with a dozen bullets. Flailing about in pain and spurting blood, the tentacle swept at him and he ducked. As he did so, he could see that his team members were being picked off in ones and twos. Technical leader was the first to go; she screamed in panic as a tentacle wrapped around her waist at blinding speed and lifted her straight into the mouth. Several soldiers soon followed; one of them clutched a shell cannon and the mouth rejected it, sending it clattering back down to the ground mangled beyond use.

"Retreat!" the team leader yelled. John was about to take that advice unprompted when the rest of the team, the squad that had been in the outer room, rushed in, the squad leader breathlessly reporting, "We're under attack, creatures outside got five of -" He was rudely cut off by a tentacle around the mouth. The last person in slammed the hatch shut. John looked about wildly, filled the nearest tentacle with bullets, but it seemed to only make the creature more angry. Lasers were everywhere, again filling the air with the unpleasant smell of ozone. Whatever these creatures were, they weren't stupid. In fact, seeing as how they targeted the heavy weaponry first, a distant part of John's mind suspected a sinister intelligence at work. Something had to give.

"This is Colonel Johnson," the comlink snapped, "what is going on here?"

"It's a tentacle infestation!" Tim McDalen shouted. John rolled away from another tentacle; his first ammunition clip was nearly spent. "We need to get out of here and fast!"

The mouth ... John ejected the spent ammunition cartridge and smoothly replaced it with another. Then he coolly aimed upwards at the gaping mouth and fired off a pair of concussion missiles. They detonated squarely at the base of the tentacle mass. Flailing about in agony, the tentacles hastily withdrew and the chitinous layer sealed over the mouth again.

Drained of adrenaline, John slumped with his back against a wall, listening to the sounds of the battle through his comlink. There was blood everywhere in the room, blood and scorch marks from wild laser shots. From what he heard, Team Delta had beaten back its attackers, too. More ominous, however, was the sound of Colonel Johnson's voice in the mix.

"This is Johnson, we're been cut off from our transports by unidentified hostiles. The crew has already been captured and we can't hold out forever in the spaceport. Calling all units of team Omega, return to the spaceport. The rest of you, guard your stations until reinforcements -" There was a plop, a smack, a nauseating sound of something being squished, and Johnson's voice abruptly cut off. One of the remaining technicians in the room leaned over the edge and threw up.

"Beta team leader here, attackers have retreated."

"This is McDalen, they've gone ... for now. Colonel Johnson, are you there? Respond, team Omega!"

Silence.

"Calling all units, this is Praetor McDalen. Our team is down to fourteen, two injured. I am assuming command of Alpha team in the absence of the team leader. Report in."

"Beta team here, we're down to three survivors."

"Gamma team leader reporting, we have a dozen soldiers left, four wounded. Our weaponry's about done for, too."

"Delta team here, we have seventeen left - uh-oh, here they come again!"

Each soldier in the power core room lapsed into silence, listening intently to the sound of the struggle. Each transmission was more desperate than the last until finally only static sounded in the comlink. Delta team ... Samus had been with it. At the thought that she might have been taken by the tentacles, John found himself unsatisfied. He was supposed to kill her himself. But Samus was SX - no way she'd be caught that easily. Sure enough, as McDalen tried to raise the team, the garbled voice of the bounty hunter came in. "Delta team was wiped out," Samus reported quietly, "I'm the only one left."

McDalen swore fluently. "Blast it! This whole mission's gone to pieces. All units, head for the spaceport and rendezvous there. This mission is aborted, repeat, this mission is aborted. Let's just pray that those transports are still active. I'm sure everyone remembers how to pilot one from basic training." If the heavy sarcasm in his voice at the last sentence was a joke, nobody laughed. John stood up and walked towards the hatch.

"Ronin," the team leader called, "where are you going?"

"The spaceport, of course," John replied.

"Our orders were to stay here and defend this place against all comers."

"The mission is a failure," John argued. "You heard Praetor McDalen, we should go to the spaceport and evacuate."

"And how do you know that the transport haven't been smashed into pieces?" Gamma leader asked, a hint of desperation in his voice. "How do you know that we aren't stuck in this forsaken place? Those forsaken tentacles are out there; you'll be ripped to pieces in no time."

John pointed upwards at the recently closed mouth, now twitching again. "See that? Any moment now those tentacles will be back. There were forty-nine of us to begin with, a team with maximum firepower. Now we're down to twelve with no heavy weapons whatsoever. You think you could hold this room against the tentacles? I'll take my chances out there. There's no way we could reach the Star Shard on our short-range communications." John tapped his comlink for emphasis. "McDalen's right, we have to meet at the spaceport. The transports, at least, could send off a detectable signal even if they aren't spaceworthy. Stay if you want to, but I'm leaving."

"There's no 'I' in 'team,' Ronin," Gamma leader snarled.

"There's an 'm' and an 'e,' which is good enough," John retorted. He set one hand on the hatch and pushed, hard. The hatch slowly swung open. John paused and looked around the room, but there was no movement from anyone, no one willing to follow him. He sighed and turned to leave.

"Set one foot outside, bounty hunter," the team leader threatened loudly, "and I'll have you court-martialed!"

John turned and looked back at the man. "If you live to do so, I will be more than happy to turn myself in." With that he stepped out and slammed the hatch shut with all of his strength; after a moment, it was bolted from inside. John glanced around. Strangely enough, there were only minimal signs of a battle here. The computer monitors were still running; a quick glance showed that the plant was still delivering power to the communications array. Holding his weapon ready, John glanced around cautiously before walking over to the gates. They were still open, flooding the plant with a steady stream of sunlight. His boots squelched on the flesh underfoot as he passed.

He was just outside the doors of the power plant when it happened. A scream cut into his ears; fortunately, the volume was low enough that he was no more than startled. It cut off as quickly as it had commenced, but McDalen was active a moment later demanding a status report. John's eyes swept towards the top of the power plant. After a moment, he saw them: humanoid shapes bulging against the hard, chitinous exterior of the artery - it looked like a throat, John thought. They flailed and struggled, but the throat forced them down relentlessly; their desperate attempts to escape seemed positively pathetic compared to the awesome power of the living tunnel's muscles. The shapes slid onwards like an egg down a serpent's throat, their passage marked by a slight bulge in the tunnel for each person. John calculated where they were going and fired off a concussion missile. It detonated solidly against the artery; when the smoke cleared, he saw that the warhead had made no impression at all on the rocklike surface of the creature.

"Gamma team, report in!" McDalen shouted.

John sighed and switched the comlink on. "This is Ronin; Gamma team is gone," he said quietly. "They were trapped in the power core and picked off; I was the only one who decided to come out." This time there was no stream of invective, only silence. John whispered a quick prayer for Gamma team and turned towards the spaceport. There was nothing he could do for them now. He hoped that their deaths, if death came, would be swift and painless. He turned to walk into the city; the living tunnel stretched out along him for much of the way. The humanoid shapes within it were passed down far more quickly than John walked and soon disappeared from sight into the city.

Some of the streets were clear, some overgrown. All of them, regardless, were silent, devoid of life. As John walked past the first building at the edge of the city, he noticed an unnatural number of civilian transport skiffs nearby. Some were neatly parked alongside the edge of the streets, others had been overturned and wrecked. Several minutes' worth of searching revealed that none of the wrecked ones were operable and none of the intact ones were unlocked. John sighed, found a skiff with its authorization card left inside, and smashed in the window with a solid punch. A moment later, he had commandeered the vehicle and brought up a map of the city.

As he cautiously cruised towards the spaceport, John saw just how infested the city truly was. Nearly every building had been overgrown and many more wrecked skiffs lay haphazardly in the streets. Much more disquieting was the unnatural silence, the absence of any natural or artificial noise other than the whirr of the hijacked skiff. It was as if a neutron bomb had been dropped on the city, eliminating all life while leaving the structures intact. Well, not all life - there was that strange infestation - but certainly John felt uneasy at the lack of any human bodies anywhere. No birds or insects either. A silent takeover, as if the humans had just decided to leave. John expected signs of a one-sided struggle at the least, but all he saw as indications of chaos were the upturned skiffs and the occasional shattered window.

The main communications array was a building that jutted out of the side of the spaceport. John brought up a detailed map view of the surrounding area. The spaceport was a huge, squat structure, some twelve stories high and covering a square kilometer of area. The launch deck was located at the very top, with a surrounding enclosure of concrete about five meters in height. The communications array extended for another hundred stories; the immense radar dish at its top, now inactive, could reach all the way to Sagittarius Station. It rose like a needle above the spaceport. Glancing again at the detailed floor plan of the spaceport, John saw that a launch tube was built squarely down its middle, a structure from the old days when antigrav boosters weren't around to overcome gravity. The launch tube was twenty-five meters in diameter, able to accomodate the biggest ships in those days, and reached nearly fifty meters into the ground besides being encapsulated by the spaceport structure. Common sense dictated that the spaceport must then have a number of basements at least as deep as the launch tube went.

John got out of the skiff and pocketed its authorization card. Looking at the spaceport with his own eyes, one behind his scope, he could see that the place was thoroughly infested. The entrance to the spaceport was a big arch in the concrete structure. There made been a thin membrane covering it until recently; by the look of things, someone had just blasted a way in. There was no sign of team Omega, which was supposed to have secured a perimeter around the structure. Of course, no one had expected the mission to turn out like this.

The interior of the spaceport was dark but seemed free of infestation; tiled floors met steel-lined walls and concrete-supported pillars. When he walked in, John noticed Praetor McDalen, Samus Aran, and a dozen soldiers standing around. Some of the latter had splotches of blood on their uniforms. "St.-Varda," McDalen greeted him. "Good, you're here. Once Beta team appears, we'll head up."

"So few left ... you realize that we're walking into a trap, right?" John asked.

McDalen ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Indeed. I know - I cannot help but know. Still, what choice do we have, really? We either make a run for it or sit around and get picked off here. Star Shard won't be coming around the horizon for another seven standard hours; if the transports aren't operable, then we have to hold out for that long as well as however long it takes for evacuation to arrive. These aren't good odds, Ronin. Still, if we're going to die here, might as well try to get away."

John smiled. "That sort of attitude is what made you my worthiest opponent on Serapa."

"Yeah." McDalen chuckled too. "I have to admit, you're the best soldier I've ever seen. I don't like saying this to a bounty hunter, but ... you've earned my respect, John, you really have. If we get out, I'll buy you enough beers to have you hungover for a standard month."

"Justine wouldn't like that," John pointed out.

McDalen's smile faded somewhat. "Your girlfriend, huh? I heard every bounty hunter has at least one, and probably more. I have a family, though ... my oldest son is already sixteen. Don't let anyone know, John, but I'm getting too old for this sort of work. I'm nearly forty-five standard years old. After this ... give me an office job any day." He looked up past John's shoulder. "Here come Owen Custer and what's left of Beta team. Three people. That makes ... nineteen all told. Nineteen, out of a hundred ninety-six to begin with. Someone's head is going to roll for this." McDalen's indicated that it would be his own and that he would be content so long as someone was left alive to take responsibility.

McDalen called everyone in for a group meeting. "I tried the elevators earlier, but they're all inoperable. We'll have to take the stairs up to the highest floor. Listen to me, all of you: we're going to get out of here. We will make it, as long as everyone sticks together. I don't know what's out there waiting for us, but as long as we work together, cover each other's backs, we'll make it for sure." He looked around, his eyes pausing for an extra second on John's. "I have faith in all of you."

The Praetor picked up his weapon - it was a long pulse blade, an elegant weapon shaped as a sword and capable of shearing through the hardest material. Flicking on an illuminator, he led the way into the darkness of the spaceport. While overrun on the outside, it seemed clear within and John was oddly comforted by this fact. He walked on the right flank of the group, Samus on the left, both with their weapons armed and ready. John did not have an illuminator, but at least his imaging scope could switch over to thermal or x-ray at a moment's notice. McDalen found the first flight of stairs upwards and they ascended quietly, each soldier keenly aware of the surroundings.

It took them about half an hour to reach the launch deck, only to find that it was sealed and could be opened only from the control tower. It took another half hour for John and Owen to go to the tower and unseal the launch deck. As the little squad emerged once more into the open air, every soldier saw the signs of Stanton Graylan's last stand; shell pockets, burn marks, and blood. There was even a ten-foot tentacle piece cleanly severed at the base by a pulse blade. The absence of any ships besides the two transports was a conspicuous one. The two remaining technical members went over to inspect the tentacle while Praetor McDalen ran to the transports. Even from his distance, however, John could see that it was pointless. McDalen confirmed the guess a moment later. "Transports have been wrecked pretty thoroughly. They'll never fly again. Communications ... operable."

At that last word, the entire band breathed out a communal sigh of relief. Tim McDalen busied himself setting soldiers in various defensive positions around the transports, spreading out the weapons for the best possible line of sight coverage as well as maximum firepower. Between them, the band had fifteen laser rifles, two shell cannons, two pulse blades, and the individual weapons that John, Owen, and Samus used. In her position, Samus leaned against a wrecked transport and stared at her arm cannon. Owen, in the meanwhile, tipped his ten-gallon hat back and brandished a wicked-looking energy cannon. He and John had been placed together atop the transports, where they could cover any side with superior firepower at a moment's notice.

John looked around himself. The launch deck was a whole square kilometer in area, made of thick concrete. The four entrances to the deck, one in each cardinal direction, provided the only means of access to the deck. The entire deck was level and bare of any ships save for the wrecked transports at the center of the deck. They had been parked north and south of the launch tube, which was sealed at the moment by a half-meter thick concrete barrier. If they were attacked, any tentacle would have to wade through half a kilometer's worth of murderous firepower to reach them. Still, it was a bad position and they were all aware of that, McDalen most of all; the wrecked transports were evidence that the tentacles could indeed reach so far. "Now what do we do?" Owen asked through the comlink.

"We wait for six standard hours and pray," McDalen said.