Empyrean Iris Story Collection

For Science

The days following the capture of the infected starborn and the experimental human soldier had been characterized by a series of horrible realizations stacked one on top of the other. The starborn and the human experiment were connected somehow experimentally tampered with in such a way that gave the human near supernatural powers, and the ability to receive telepathic communication with the starborn receiving a horrible and crazed state of mind and a deteriorating body.

She glanced to the side where Conn hovered towards the back of the troop transport exchanging insults with one of the marines.

Their investigation, and scattered memories gleaned from the humans broken mind, hinted at a possible connection between the human, the starborn, the cult, the protests, and the Tesraki earthquake. Their first assumption had brought them to a forgotten source of information: A Gib scientist who had been jailed towards the beginning of the Commander's career for experimentation on humans, which generally lead to their eventual and horrible death at the hands of the scientist.

They had originally planned on interviewing the scientist for his opinions on the kind of person that would attempt such a thing, but when they attempted to contact the prison, usually self sustaining, and without the requirements of food shipment or even equipment, they found that no one was responding. Further investigation showed that all the radio channels had been blocked.

Even worse was the knowledge that the prison was one of the most advanced ever built with the guards safety in mind. How a prisoner had managed to break through without alerting any number of warning systems was more than a mystery. When they checked fingerprint and facial recognition of the human against the prison databases, they found what they were looking for.

The situation really couldn't have been worse. Someone was back at experimenting on humans, and even starborn, most everyone's money was on the original Gib scientist, and if that was the case, he was locked in with a large supply of human prisoners to experiment on freely and without repercussion. Who knew how long he had been at it, and what he could have accomplished in that time frame.

"Approaching the docking bay, prepare to board." Adam said from the pilot's seat voice metallic and distorted lightly over the intercom. To her right, Krill slid his arms through the small black backpack, while one of his neighboring marines double checked the small motor in the back for its functioning. When Krill had joined them on previous outings he had admitted to being the slowest member of the party on his legs, and especially when he was inflated, so to combat these issues, the engineering team had designed the small motor to propel him through the air when his helium sack was inflated. Of course one of the marines was still in charge of lugging a medical kit, but it was better than their earlier system.

Sunny listened to the rattle of the shuttle as it came to a light landing inside the docking bay. Vrul shielding technology allowed for a ship's easy entry from the outside while also keeping the air pressure inside the ship. As the engines powered down, the marines, and sunny quickly flooded out onto the deck leveling their weapons towards the dark corners of the room. The second shuttle followed close after making landing on the distant side of the docking bay.

Sunny turned in a sharp slow circle her eyes scanning for waiting threats, which she expected to appear from the shadowy corners of the room at any moment. Due to the close-quarters nature of their mission, they had been forced to leave the mounted machine gun behind, and she had traded the bulk of the machine gun for the light maneuverability her mother's old war staff. Of course the decorative head at the end of the shaft could be used for slicing someone to ribbons in a pinch, but the real power came from the energy coils stacked one atop the other inside the interior of the staff, the discharge of which could be absolutely devastating at middling distances.