"Now what exactly are we looking for?" The station master was trying hard not to sound annoyed, though his efforts were futile as his throughs practically shouted across the room at her. She didn't entirely blame him. Her call to president Hunt had effectively stopped commerce onto Earth, and by extension all other earth territories and original colonies.
The bramble colony had been her first call as their agricultural industry was the main source of export on their planet. She had yet to hear anything from them, so it remained to be seen if her warning had been headed.
Vexon Ag.
These were the crates she was looking for.
Beside her, soon to be former president hunt stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a pitena of sweat glittering off his bald scalp. He was nervous, she could what it in his head, though he actively tried not to think on the subject.
"Open them."
The station master huffed under his breath in annoyance but motioned one of his workers forward. The woman, short and round, appearing to some degree like a portly little songbird, waddled up to the crate quickly scanning the transit code that would unlock the crate before eagerly stepping away.
The others did the same, leaving Kelly to move forward.
Her guards were the only ones that bothered to follow her, but their presence here sas simply traditional, perhaps ceremonial in a way. Now that she had already been killed, there wasn't much chance of it happening again. She was probably the most dangerous thing on planet Earth at the moment, or.... Above it, in this case.
Reaching out, she opened the crate with one partially glitched hand. The Stress had brought on a more chronic bout of her condition, leaving her hands, up to her wrists completely comprised of darkness and a galaxy of distant spinning stars.
She ignored it, and everyone else did their best to do so as well as she hauled the crate open.
Looking inside it revealed nothing overtly noticeable, other than the large silver canisters marked with the Vexon logo, and a holographic shipping manifest that promised a large incoming shipment of pesticide to be shipped all over earth.
"Ms. Kelly, the Martian prime minister called. They stopped a similar shipment just as it was being prepared for transit. He wants to know what do do with it."
Kelly thought for a short moment before nodding softly to herself, "Tell him to ship it off world as soon as possible, preferably to the nearest asteroid mining station. Preferably one in a near state of closure. If that is too much then at least get him to quarantine it fff world somehow. I don't know what is in it, but I don't want to risk contamination." The man nodded and she listened as her instructions were relayed over the phone.
She leaned down into the crate, easily lifting one of the silver barrels up and out of its container. The cylinder must have weight somewhere around a hundred pounds or more, but she barely noticed the weight thanks to her status as a Maker. Others looked on in interest and fear, backing away from her as she set the barrel on the floor before her.
"Everyone out, quarantine the room, and don't let anyone in."
For the first time in so many minutes Hunt chose to speak, "Are you sure this is a good idea, Kelly." The hesitation in his voice was understandable, he was thinking bout the void invasion, images flashing through his mind of the deviation, and the scars left on Earth's surface that could still be seen from above, great swaths of land scarred and gone barren for a time as a result of the toxic nature of the void sickness.
"Yes I am sure."
He didn't argue with her, deciding quickly that it simply wasn't worth it. As far as he knew it was impossible for her to get hurt, so if she wanted to endanger herself, than so be it. He stepped away with, what basically amounted to a small battalion of guards, and it was only with some cajoling did she manage to get her own guards to follow. They were good people.
But this was out of their league.
Overhead a quarantine alarm went off, and she could hear as the doors to the entire room were airlocked and sealed tight.
INITIATING QUARANTINE PROCEDURES.
Lights blinked red, and little by little all the air was sucked out of the room, leaving a vacuum in its place. Kelly felt the change, mostly as all sound vanished from the room, but she didn't need it.
Now that the others were safe, she felt comfortable as she reached out and began unscrewing the canister valve. The canister was only designed to open using some sort of mechanical mechanisms, but as a Maker she was strong enough to force the mechanism open. As soon as there was the slightest bit of an opening, the inside of kelly's head was filled with a legion of whispering voices, hissing and chattering in her mind.
The sudden noise made her recoil, and she pulled back from the tank, which had begun to emanate a steady orange glow from the mouth of the valve.
Regaining herself from her confusion, kelly made a quick change.
Four paws hit the ground, and two large ears perked into the air as if she could hear the voices.
Kelly sniffed at the air with her leathery, wet nose.
As soon as she applied the dog's senses, she knew that something was wrong.
She could smell it.
If anyone was watching they might have noted the similarity between kelly's chosen form and Captain Vir's dog waffles, but kelly would probably have denied it. Weather her answer was true or not was a moot point because she had used the dog's nose to confirm a truth.
Void.
It was a distinct smell for sure, one that Kelly wouldn't have been able to describe if she attempted to put it into words.
She wasn't exactly sure cosmic horror had a smell.
It was incomprehensible even to a Maker mind.
There was that of course, and something that reminded her of void sickness. She smelled it once or twice on those who were still in remission for their disease. Mostly Admiral Vir and his associates, who had received the first, and less mutated version of the monstrosity that was hidden in these bottles.
Because it was the virus which was secondary.
Secondary to the creatures that hid within the virus itself, having been molded into the perfect form to infect multiple people on a mass scale.
There was only one thing to do.
Relinquishing her furry, four pawed shape, she sealed the canister shut, and returned the cylinder to the crate.
There was only one option.
Destroy all of the shipments
Immediately.
***
General Kazna sat in the charwoman's undecided throne. The room around her was dark, as most rooms were when she made her presence known. Shadows trickled up the walls and pulled at her feet like a shallow black sea. Her only source of light was the glowing golden orb, containing what remained of the Maker Anima she had been able to capture over the past few weeks.
Other Anima were being harvested at this very moment, brought to, what her human underlings had jokingly nicknamed Necritorium. WIth each passing day her power was growing, and it wouldn't be long before she would bring this war to a close.
The Void had fought the makers for billions of Eons, yet it would take her.
A mortal
To finish the war.
She had always been a good tactician
She ran the tips of her fingers over the glass orb, staring in at the swirling tendrils of Anima trapped within their glass prison, "It is your energy that will win the war. I suppose you can be proud of your one last act before your soul is consumed into forever nothingness.
The anima did not answer, but she didn't want them too.
"General."
She slowly lifted her eyes to the doorway, tapping her foot against the pooling darkness.
One of the rundi bureaucrats stood in the doorway glowing orange pinpricks marking him ut as one of their own, "Go on."
"Noctus, the foundry has been compromised."
She sat up in her seat, back stiff hands clenching the sides of her seat, "What! How."
"There is only one." the rundi answered simply
Kazna snarled, and the edges of the undersized throne crumbled beneath her hands, "Chalan." that and her filthy companion, whose name she couldn't even speak without wishing to regurgitate it.
The thought of him was vile.
The very creature that had taken her Lanus from her.
Corrupted and....
Defiled her daughter.
The thing that now left walking abominations in their wake
Somehow managing to survive even despite her expeditious removal of his organs
But perhaps that was her own fault. If the war had shone them anything it was that humans liked to cheat death, and now she was going to have to deal with the consequences.
But this.
Was more than a setback.
Thai was a foil.
Her silent anger simmed for a long moment, leaving the rundi standing nervously before her unsure of what to do, unsure of how to respond to her anger, "My... general?"
Her rage was so complete in that moment it circled back around to stillness
This would have to end soon.
She would make sure of it.
When she spoke, her voice was calm, "Get word out.... Noctus and his inhabitant are welcome in the Necritorium."