Post by howlingskinwalker on Jun 16, 2018 18:54:55 GMT
The air stunk of smoke and plasma charges, flaming bushes and scorched craters littered everywhere. The crashed ship loomed into the sky, higher than a twelve storey building, huge rends and tears in its side from the surgical torpedo strike.
Casca walked across the dry, crumbling earth, his boots crunching on bits of carbon and metal shards. On either side of him, pits had been dug, slowly being filled with the corpses of dead hyenas. slave soldier’s bulky bodies were dragged to the edge, their clothing stripped from their frames, before their naked corpses were flung into the holes. Piles of HR3s were already being collected, for re-issue. Those Hyenas that did survive, milled about. Some laughed as they tore into booty, gorging on enemy supplies while others just sat around smoking or contemplating. Drones that had been destroyed, had their broken parts collected into yet more piles for collection and melting down.
“How many did we loose” he asked his subordinate, his voice clear and sharp.
“Twenty seven dead. Thirteen injured, two of which aren’t going to last” the lieutenant replied, following after his superior. “They were dug in tight”
“So it would seem” he muttered, walking a massive Heavy Drone slowly stomped past, servos whining as the two-tonne beast hefted its immense particle cannon. Too late in arrival to influence the battle, it now simply loomed over the wreck, providing overwatch. “How many enemies?”
“Twelve” the lieutenant replied dutifully “They had a good position within the wreckage. Easily pickings for their marksmen”
“How many survived?”
“Six”
“Wonderful”
They arrived at the base of the spacecraft, where the nose had plunged into the earth, carving a deep furrow. Large holes had been torn in the sides from torpedo impacts, while the entire engine compartment was scorched and carbonised. Around the base, a circle had been formed. It comprised of drones, arms extended to aim their plasma casters, or Hyena’s kneeling with loaded HR3s or several who lay prone, HSW support guns in place and ready to fire.
The reason for this circle of weaponry was a deep pit that had been recently dug, mounds of earth lining it’s rim. At the lip, stood six figures.
Each were tall, their bodies muscular beneath their shaggy coats of fur. Somewhat, they resembled wolves, though their horns and bushy tails told a different story. Their posture was proud and defiant, yet tired. Some hunched over, clutching at bloodied wounds on their bodies, trying to stem the bleeding, with others defiantly snarled at their captors.
One, a four-meter tall male with greying fur snarled at the sight of the two Aukmarian officers arriving.
“You bastards” he snarled, baring his canine teeth. “Murdering scum! You attacked us without reason you fucking pigs”
The Aukmarian raised one eyebrow, a look of disgust and mild amusement upon his face. “Indeed” he spoke harshly, “Yet here we are, with your reconnaissance vessel shot down, your armed insurgents having killed plenty of my troops and you pleading your innocence”
“Your frigates shot first” snapped a brown alien nursing a head wound to the right.
“You were straying into Aukmarian space” Casca replied flatly, examining his clawed nails. “No doubt conducting military reconnaissance for your savage empire”
“Bullshit”
“Then why were you here, barbarian?”
The greying one replied “We are surveyors! We came to find a suitable planet for an outpost. To find a home for our families! We had no idea this system was under your control”
Casca paused for a second, rubbing his vulpine chin as he considered these facts. The Hyenas and drones around him held their aim, not shifting from their positions.
“Then…” he mused “You were the reconnaissance forces for a colonial invasion, seeking to overthrow the holy Aukmarian Union”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!” snarled a massive female, naked aside from several leather totems and bone idols hanging from around her neck. “You attacked us without warning you limp-dicked infertile fuckers!”
The insult made Casca raise his eyebrows, his bottom lip quivering. He folded his hands behind his back, before slowly making his way over, his movement’s slow and methodical. The captured Ka’Rlfn watched as he approached, his white cloak fluttering over his armoured body, green eyes narrowed in a look of disgust and scorn. Some called the females attractive. All he saw was overgrown stinking beast, more like a large vermin that needed execution than an object of any sexual pleasure from him.
In reply, the female snarled back. She was of the “hunter” sub breed. Large and well muscled, her dark fur starting to turn grey at the tips. And she was massive. Casca’s eyes were just level with her chin, above her sizeable chest.
“You are a rude barbarian aren’t you?” he snapped, hands drumming on the armoured plate of his hip.
The female scoffed, before spitting, the thick glob of drool splattering against Casca’s armour, sliding down his breastplate before plopping onto the floor.
“Fuck you and your fucking twats that you call gods. I hope you die trying to jerk your tiny little dong off to their fucking robots” she roared, baring as many of her fangs as she could.
Casca looked down at the salvia on his armour, and back up at the blaspheming female. His mouth drew into a tight slit, his face impassive, eyes narrowed.
In a single movement he pulled the knife from his side and slashed the female across her throat.
She gagged, hands flying to her throat as a stream of red gore blasted out from the second mouth that had been torn in her neck. The female staggered forwards, mouth gaping like a fish, before her legs gave out and she tumbled down the hole, spraying blood as she went.
The brown alien with the head wound gave a strangled scream of horror, anger and loss. From the way he screamed her name, she must have been close. Possibly a family member of a lover. Enraged, the Ka’Rlfn leapt forward, jaws bared, eyes wide with unbridled anger and a thirst for revenge and flesh. Its hooked claws extended to tear through the Aukmarian’s bared throat and rip the slender figure into shreds .
Immediately, the closest HSW gunner opened up, clutching at the butt of her support weapon tightly to reduce the recoil. Her rounds, squash-headed and metal-jacketed punched into the unarmoured alien, splintering through its heavyset ribcage and blasting through sinew and fat like a hot knife through butter. Bullets stitched up the Ka’Rlfn’s chest, splattering his fellows with blood as the gunner walked her fire up to his head, bursting his brain apart with a well-placed slug.
Casca watched with a smug grin as the ruined body tumbled down the slopes to land at the pit’s bottom, landing atop the lifeless body of the female.
“Touching” he chuckled, wiping a few droplets of gore off his armoured bodyglove.
“You fucking monster” snarled the tall male, his fists gripped tightly as he looked fit to burst with pure rage. “You soulless bastard”
“Touching indeed” the Aukmarian smiled, watching the other alien tremble with rage, desperate to throw himself onto the pale vulpine and tear him into pieces. “How you barbarians seem to care for your fellow bandits” he stopped before the larger Ka’Rlfn and looked the alien up and down. It was huge, packed with muscle and coated in shaggy fur. The fighting had torn and shredded the combat trousers and boots it had been wearing, while its chest was bare and marked with warpaint. Further evidence of these primitives savagery. “She was yours? A mate maybe? Or family? Though, I do hear that your species considers those one and the same”
Snorting chuckles came up from the watching Hyenas, grinning at the insult and at how the male shuddered with incensed anger. Though the hundreds of gun barrels were a deterrent, his restraint was fading fast, his mouth begging to tear into the soft, exposed fleshed of the pale alien’s neck.
“She …was my mate” he snarled, nostrils flaring. His fists were balled so tightly, blood trickled between his fingers from where his own claws stabbed into his flesh. “And you just murdered her”
“Indeed I did” sighed the Aukmarian, stepping backwards. “Though, what was that phrase she called me? Limp-dicked?”
His hand dove to his side and whipped out a large handgun. The Ka’Rlfn saw, and braced his legs, arms raising as he went to throw himself forwards, lips pulling back to show off his huge lupine fangs, glistening with drool.
Before he could do so, the large revolver was pointed directly at him and the trigger pulled. It buckled with recoil as the rail’s pulled the heavy slug along before launching it at supersonic speed right into the flesh of the Ka’Rlfn, where it landed in a spray of blood and fleshy rain.
The target howled as a cloud of blood and smoke erupted from between it’s legs, dousing the soil with droplets of gore. His leg’s went weak and he collapsed forwards, collapsing to the ground and writhing him pain, blood pouring out over his hands.
At this, the rest of the prisoners broke. The remaining four leapt at their captors, eyes wild, mouths snapping like rabid hounds, claws outstretched to try and kill as many as possible. In response, the pit erupted with rail rounds and pulse fire, lighting the entire scene in ghoulish shades of green and white. Every single Hyena blasted and blasted until the magazines ran empty. Round’s filled the air, stripping flesh from bone or searing meat into carbon. The Ka’Rlfn shuddered and shook, rippling with the impact of so many projectiles hitting them, one after the other. One instinctively raised its hand to protect its face, only for the individual fingers of the hand were blasted apart into chunks of bone and stringy muscle shreds, followed by the entire arm and then the alien’s canine face within the span of a single second. Bullet’s ripped pounded their way through ribs before coming out the other side and hitting the spaceship debris behind the prisoners. After seven seconds, the ruins of the four figures collapsed to the floor, barely recognisable. The Hyena’s continued to fire, their bullet’s bouncing off the ship’s armour, before the officers yelled for a cease fire.
Smoke drifted across the horrific scene. Four immense splatters of gore and viscera painted against the ship’s side, dotted with hundreds of impact marks and pulse burns. Bits of flesh and bone rolling down the pit’s walls to land atop the lifeless body of the female, in the dark pool of her own blood.
Casca watched with satisfaction, a thin smile pulling at his lips, his antennae twisting about. He checked the chamber of his own RailRevolver, before turning back to the sole remaining Ka’Rlfn. The large alien was slumped on his hands and knees, gritting it’s jagged teeth in pain and fury, one hand trying to stem the river of dark blood that gushed from the ruins between his legs. He looked upwards, eyes bloodshot with hate and pain, before managing to open his gritted jaws to speak in a ragged, hateful tone.
“You won’t get away with this” he wheezed, panting with exertion at the searing pain. “They’ll find what you did. And then we’ll come for you. And there’s nowhere for you fucks to hide, when we come and tear you into fucking pieces. Every single one of you. And nothing, none of your fucking robots will be able to stop us”
Casca paused. He stood there, looking a the prostrate figure before him. At the hate that filled his eyes, that trembled through its every being. The words of warning that it snarled drifting through his head.
He bent down, close enough to speak to the prostrate figure, but far enough to be out of reach from the creature’s claws.
“What makes you think you’ll be found” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. “You’ll be thrown in that pit and your bodies burned. Everything will be gone, not a single scrap of our presence here will remain. Your ship’s computer and black box? Gone. Torn apart, so that not a single scrap of data shall remain. No signals will leave her, not matter how many you tried to transmit. Our electronic warfare specialists will see to that, mark my words”
He chuckled, and pointed the revolver, flicking the safety off and levelling it at the Ka’Rlfn’s head.
“As for your ship? Well. Simple. All we need to do is override the engines. The blast will crater everything in a six mile radius. Nothing will be left. Every single remain will be pulverised and turned to ash” he looked up at the sky with a sly grin. “If your kind send anyone looking for you, they’ll report back how your ship had a horrible accident…how it must have seemed that you suffered some sort of failure and plunged through the atmosphere…and how your drive detonated on impact…how unfortunate…you and your crew lost with all hands. Your families will be most upset”
At the last sentence, the broken Ka’Rlfn snarled and made one last attempt to throw himself forwards, looking to rip his provoker’s leg apart. The revolver barked one, and the content’s of the last crewmember’s head was spread to the wind.
“Lieutenant!” Casca called to his subordinate, as he watched two Hyena’s roll the dead alien’s body into the pit. “Proceed with our arranged protocol. I want everyone and everything moved back onto the landers, and this thing rigged to blow”
“Yes sir!” the officer snapped, before rushing over to carry out the commands.
It took twenty minutes for the dead hyena’s to be buried, their clothing and weapons to be gathered up and loaded onboard, alongside the remains of the drones. It mattered little if anything was left. It would all be ash and molecules very soon. Then the troops began to load back onto their lander, carrying all manner of prizes and alien booty with them: a just reward for such a short but intense firefight. The last of the engineers would return, and the large landers pushed off from the surface.
Up they flew, through the searing heat of the atmosphere, soaring into the darkness of space, and the waiting fleet that beckoned.
Through the window, Casca watched. Counting down the time upon his chronograph. He waited with bated breath, his face pressed up against the window, watching the continent grow smaller and smaller.
The clock’s final seconds ticked away.
A tiny blue flash flowered upon the rocky surface, a small dot of blinding white and blue light that went supernova, before it finally winked out, leaving naught but a small storm of dust and smoke atop the surface.
A twisted grin crossed his face. Perfection. Not a single trace remaining.
The officer turned about on his heel and stalked towards the lander’s cockpit.
There were more bandits to find.
Casca walked across the dry, crumbling earth, his boots crunching on bits of carbon and metal shards. On either side of him, pits had been dug, slowly being filled with the corpses of dead hyenas. slave soldier’s bulky bodies were dragged to the edge, their clothing stripped from their frames, before their naked corpses were flung into the holes. Piles of HR3s were already being collected, for re-issue. Those Hyenas that did survive, milled about. Some laughed as they tore into booty, gorging on enemy supplies while others just sat around smoking or contemplating. Drones that had been destroyed, had their broken parts collected into yet more piles for collection and melting down.
“How many did we loose” he asked his subordinate, his voice clear and sharp.
“Twenty seven dead. Thirteen injured, two of which aren’t going to last” the lieutenant replied, following after his superior. “They were dug in tight”
“So it would seem” he muttered, walking a massive Heavy Drone slowly stomped past, servos whining as the two-tonne beast hefted its immense particle cannon. Too late in arrival to influence the battle, it now simply loomed over the wreck, providing overwatch. “How many enemies?”
“Twelve” the lieutenant replied dutifully “They had a good position within the wreckage. Easily pickings for their marksmen”
“How many survived?”
“Six”
“Wonderful”
They arrived at the base of the spacecraft, where the nose had plunged into the earth, carving a deep furrow. Large holes had been torn in the sides from torpedo impacts, while the entire engine compartment was scorched and carbonised. Around the base, a circle had been formed. It comprised of drones, arms extended to aim their plasma casters, or Hyena’s kneeling with loaded HR3s or several who lay prone, HSW support guns in place and ready to fire.
The reason for this circle of weaponry was a deep pit that had been recently dug, mounds of earth lining it’s rim. At the lip, stood six figures.
Each were tall, their bodies muscular beneath their shaggy coats of fur. Somewhat, they resembled wolves, though their horns and bushy tails told a different story. Their posture was proud and defiant, yet tired. Some hunched over, clutching at bloodied wounds on their bodies, trying to stem the bleeding, with others defiantly snarled at their captors.
One, a four-meter tall male with greying fur snarled at the sight of the two Aukmarian officers arriving.
“You bastards” he snarled, baring his canine teeth. “Murdering scum! You attacked us without reason you fucking pigs”
The Aukmarian raised one eyebrow, a look of disgust and mild amusement upon his face. “Indeed” he spoke harshly, “Yet here we are, with your reconnaissance vessel shot down, your armed insurgents having killed plenty of my troops and you pleading your innocence”
“Your frigates shot first” snapped a brown alien nursing a head wound to the right.
“You were straying into Aukmarian space” Casca replied flatly, examining his clawed nails. “No doubt conducting military reconnaissance for your savage empire”
“Bullshit”
“Then why were you here, barbarian?”
The greying one replied “We are surveyors! We came to find a suitable planet for an outpost. To find a home for our families! We had no idea this system was under your control”
Casca paused for a second, rubbing his vulpine chin as he considered these facts. The Hyenas and drones around him held their aim, not shifting from their positions.
“Then…” he mused “You were the reconnaissance forces for a colonial invasion, seeking to overthrow the holy Aukmarian Union”
“That’s bullshit and you know it!” snarled a massive female, naked aside from several leather totems and bone idols hanging from around her neck. “You attacked us without warning you limp-dicked infertile fuckers!”
The insult made Casca raise his eyebrows, his bottom lip quivering. He folded his hands behind his back, before slowly making his way over, his movement’s slow and methodical. The captured Ka’Rlfn watched as he approached, his white cloak fluttering over his armoured body, green eyes narrowed in a look of disgust and scorn. Some called the females attractive. All he saw was overgrown stinking beast, more like a large vermin that needed execution than an object of any sexual pleasure from him.
In reply, the female snarled back. She was of the “hunter” sub breed. Large and well muscled, her dark fur starting to turn grey at the tips. And she was massive. Casca’s eyes were just level with her chin, above her sizeable chest.
“You are a rude barbarian aren’t you?” he snapped, hands drumming on the armoured plate of his hip.
The female scoffed, before spitting, the thick glob of drool splattering against Casca’s armour, sliding down his breastplate before plopping onto the floor.
“Fuck you and your fucking twats that you call gods. I hope you die trying to jerk your tiny little dong off to their fucking robots” she roared, baring as many of her fangs as she could.
Casca looked down at the salvia on his armour, and back up at the blaspheming female. His mouth drew into a tight slit, his face impassive, eyes narrowed.
In a single movement he pulled the knife from his side and slashed the female across her throat.
She gagged, hands flying to her throat as a stream of red gore blasted out from the second mouth that had been torn in her neck. The female staggered forwards, mouth gaping like a fish, before her legs gave out and she tumbled down the hole, spraying blood as she went.
The brown alien with the head wound gave a strangled scream of horror, anger and loss. From the way he screamed her name, she must have been close. Possibly a family member of a lover. Enraged, the Ka’Rlfn leapt forward, jaws bared, eyes wide with unbridled anger and a thirst for revenge and flesh. Its hooked claws extended to tear through the Aukmarian’s bared throat and rip the slender figure into shreds .
Immediately, the closest HSW gunner opened up, clutching at the butt of her support weapon tightly to reduce the recoil. Her rounds, squash-headed and metal-jacketed punched into the unarmoured alien, splintering through its heavyset ribcage and blasting through sinew and fat like a hot knife through butter. Bullets stitched up the Ka’Rlfn’s chest, splattering his fellows with blood as the gunner walked her fire up to his head, bursting his brain apart with a well-placed slug.
Casca watched with a smug grin as the ruined body tumbled down the slopes to land at the pit’s bottom, landing atop the lifeless body of the female.
“Touching” he chuckled, wiping a few droplets of gore off his armoured bodyglove.
“You fucking monster” snarled the tall male, his fists gripped tightly as he looked fit to burst with pure rage. “You soulless bastard”
“Touching indeed” the Aukmarian smiled, watching the other alien tremble with rage, desperate to throw himself onto the pale vulpine and tear him into pieces. “How you barbarians seem to care for your fellow bandits” he stopped before the larger Ka’Rlfn and looked the alien up and down. It was huge, packed with muscle and coated in shaggy fur. The fighting had torn and shredded the combat trousers and boots it had been wearing, while its chest was bare and marked with warpaint. Further evidence of these primitives savagery. “She was yours? A mate maybe? Or family? Though, I do hear that your species considers those one and the same”
Snorting chuckles came up from the watching Hyenas, grinning at the insult and at how the male shuddered with incensed anger. Though the hundreds of gun barrels were a deterrent, his restraint was fading fast, his mouth begging to tear into the soft, exposed fleshed of the pale alien’s neck.
“She …was my mate” he snarled, nostrils flaring. His fists were balled so tightly, blood trickled between his fingers from where his own claws stabbed into his flesh. “And you just murdered her”
“Indeed I did” sighed the Aukmarian, stepping backwards. “Though, what was that phrase she called me? Limp-dicked?”
His hand dove to his side and whipped out a large handgun. The Ka’Rlfn saw, and braced his legs, arms raising as he went to throw himself forwards, lips pulling back to show off his huge lupine fangs, glistening with drool.
Before he could do so, the large revolver was pointed directly at him and the trigger pulled. It buckled with recoil as the rail’s pulled the heavy slug along before launching it at supersonic speed right into the flesh of the Ka’Rlfn, where it landed in a spray of blood and fleshy rain.
The target howled as a cloud of blood and smoke erupted from between it’s legs, dousing the soil with droplets of gore. His leg’s went weak and he collapsed forwards, collapsing to the ground and writhing him pain, blood pouring out over his hands.
At this, the rest of the prisoners broke. The remaining four leapt at their captors, eyes wild, mouths snapping like rabid hounds, claws outstretched to try and kill as many as possible. In response, the pit erupted with rail rounds and pulse fire, lighting the entire scene in ghoulish shades of green and white. Every single Hyena blasted and blasted until the magazines ran empty. Round’s filled the air, stripping flesh from bone or searing meat into carbon. The Ka’Rlfn shuddered and shook, rippling with the impact of so many projectiles hitting them, one after the other. One instinctively raised its hand to protect its face, only for the individual fingers of the hand were blasted apart into chunks of bone and stringy muscle shreds, followed by the entire arm and then the alien’s canine face within the span of a single second. Bullet’s ripped pounded their way through ribs before coming out the other side and hitting the spaceship debris behind the prisoners. After seven seconds, the ruins of the four figures collapsed to the floor, barely recognisable. The Hyena’s continued to fire, their bullet’s bouncing off the ship’s armour, before the officers yelled for a cease fire.
Smoke drifted across the horrific scene. Four immense splatters of gore and viscera painted against the ship’s side, dotted with hundreds of impact marks and pulse burns. Bits of flesh and bone rolling down the pit’s walls to land atop the lifeless body of the female, in the dark pool of her own blood.
Casca watched with satisfaction, a thin smile pulling at his lips, his antennae twisting about. He checked the chamber of his own RailRevolver, before turning back to the sole remaining Ka’Rlfn. The large alien was slumped on his hands and knees, gritting it’s jagged teeth in pain and fury, one hand trying to stem the river of dark blood that gushed from the ruins between his legs. He looked upwards, eyes bloodshot with hate and pain, before managing to open his gritted jaws to speak in a ragged, hateful tone.
“You won’t get away with this” he wheezed, panting with exertion at the searing pain. “They’ll find what you did. And then we’ll come for you. And there’s nowhere for you fucks to hide, when we come and tear you into fucking pieces. Every single one of you. And nothing, none of your fucking robots will be able to stop us”
Casca paused. He stood there, looking a the prostrate figure before him. At the hate that filled his eyes, that trembled through its every being. The words of warning that it snarled drifting through his head.
He bent down, close enough to speak to the prostrate figure, but far enough to be out of reach from the creature’s claws.
“What makes you think you’ll be found” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper. “You’ll be thrown in that pit and your bodies burned. Everything will be gone, not a single scrap of our presence here will remain. Your ship’s computer and black box? Gone. Torn apart, so that not a single scrap of data shall remain. No signals will leave her, not matter how many you tried to transmit. Our electronic warfare specialists will see to that, mark my words”
He chuckled, and pointed the revolver, flicking the safety off and levelling it at the Ka’Rlfn’s head.
“As for your ship? Well. Simple. All we need to do is override the engines. The blast will crater everything in a six mile radius. Nothing will be left. Every single remain will be pulverised and turned to ash” he looked up at the sky with a sly grin. “If your kind send anyone looking for you, they’ll report back how your ship had a horrible accident…how it must have seemed that you suffered some sort of failure and plunged through the atmosphere…and how your drive detonated on impact…how unfortunate…you and your crew lost with all hands. Your families will be most upset”
At the last sentence, the broken Ka’Rlfn snarled and made one last attempt to throw himself forwards, looking to rip his provoker’s leg apart. The revolver barked one, and the content’s of the last crewmember’s head was spread to the wind.
“Lieutenant!” Casca called to his subordinate, as he watched two Hyena’s roll the dead alien’s body into the pit. “Proceed with our arranged protocol. I want everyone and everything moved back onto the landers, and this thing rigged to blow”
“Yes sir!” the officer snapped, before rushing over to carry out the commands.
It took twenty minutes for the dead hyena’s to be buried, their clothing and weapons to be gathered up and loaded onboard, alongside the remains of the drones. It mattered little if anything was left. It would all be ash and molecules very soon. Then the troops began to load back onto their lander, carrying all manner of prizes and alien booty with them: a just reward for such a short but intense firefight. The last of the engineers would return, and the large landers pushed off from the surface.
Up they flew, through the searing heat of the atmosphere, soaring into the darkness of space, and the waiting fleet that beckoned.
Through the window, Casca watched. Counting down the time upon his chronograph. He waited with bated breath, his face pressed up against the window, watching the continent grow smaller and smaller.
The clock’s final seconds ticked away.
A tiny blue flash flowered upon the rocky surface, a small dot of blinding white and blue light that went supernova, before it finally winked out, leaving naught but a small storm of dust and smoke atop the surface.
A twisted grin crossed his face. Perfection. Not a single trace remaining.
The officer turned about on his heel and stalked towards the lander’s cockpit.
There were more bandits to find.