IKC FHew 7C6110
Darkness Dawning – Darkness Future
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Ensign Jason Hawk & Sogh Marla Varquis & Sogh Thor'nan Mal'Kor & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared
Post Details
When the crew was gathered Ro' turned to Jared, speaking unusually quietly, "Last time something like this happened, you went rogue and I lost three of my crew including the Best Tactics officer I ever had. This time, no secrets and no surprises. What is that thing?"
"Of course," Jared said with a nod, still ashen faced. He thought for a moment - this time not trying to limit what he said or leave out the uncomfortable or hard to explain parts. Simply thinking how to communicate a lot in a short time.
"It's a killing machine," he began simply. "I don't mean that in the euphemistic human 'it's exceptionally tough' sense. I mean it's a machine designed to kill."
"We called them the Nihlus, or the Clockwork Horrors. It's an entirely automated vessel designed to do two things. First, to kill any sentient life it detects or obtains information about. Second, to build more Nihlus out of any technology or other resources it finds. And they do both of those things predictably, efficiently and relentlessly."
"They don't really adapt. They're not unusually intelligent as far as artificial intelligence goes. They're roughly contemporary with most of your races in terms of technology. They're just tough, infectious, and relentless."
"You disable one of their craft, and five minutes later it's up and running again. You start attacking it again, and you suddenly find your ship starting to malfunction and turn against you because one of those blessed little scarab things they use has got aboard your ship, and there's already fifty of them in the maintenance tunnels hacking your computer. Pretty soon there's a second Nihlus ship. Then they find an old space station, and suddenly there's ten ships. You hunt that fleet down and vaporise them, and suddenly there's a hundred because one of them wandered off on it's own and found an old spacecraft junk-yard. And they just keep coming. There's no off switch."
"They're not a race. They're like a plague. A macroscopic metal plague. A long time ago they came pretty close to wiping the galaxy clean of all sentient life. They would have succeeded, if it hadn't been for a... natural disaster of a sort. There were millions of them, like an interstellar locust swarm. All from just a handful of ships. Some people said that it could have started with a single scarab."
"This ship is easily enough to start the whole process over again. And once it starts... these things are just... relentless! The Klingons, the Federation, the Romulans, the Breen... it's all just a matter of time."
He wasn't looking them in the eye any more. He was staring into space, remembering skies darkened with murderous robotic silhouettes.
"I don't think there's any way to stop them this time. We couldn't stop them last time. It took... something of a miracle."
When the enormity of what they had been told sunk in Ro' took a deep breath, "It may be as you say; we, and everyone we know will die at the hands of these things. We cannot choose when we will die, but we can choose HOW we will die. I have lived to long to fear death at the ministrations of so superior a foe."
He considered and then leant forward, "And yet it seems to me we are not dead yet. The ship has not reacted to our presence. Either it has not noticed us, or it is dead from old age itself. Perhaps we could destroy it before it wakes?"
Jared seemed to wake out of his reverie at the captains words. His eyes widened in sudden realisation.
"You're right... it hasn't attacked, and we're not cloaked. Those hunter-killer craft should be swarming us by now."
He thought hard.
"It's definitely detected us. And it's powered and active, even if it is running silent - I know that from the sensor readings. It... it must somehow have a fault in it's attack initiation logic. Perhaps we damaged one of the processing stacks or overloaded a control matrix when we collided with it."
He frowned.
"That won't last though. There'll be scarabs swarming over that already, starting the repairs. We'd be lucky to have thirty minutes."
"As for attacking it... That will most definitely make it hostile. The Nilhus are roughly equivalent to Klingon technology. But that thing is three kilometres long, and doesn't need to waste power or internal space on life support. So it's almost all guns, shields, engines and attack craft. It would eat us alive. Not to mention they're incredibly resistant to damage - they're swarming with little scarab robots that repair the ship during battle."
Ro' looked disappointed, "Then perhaps we can mark it and bring in a fleet to destroy it?"
"You'd need eight Vorcha to have even odds of matching a ship that size. And for every one battle like that that I've seen end well, there's been ten where the attacking ships have been infiltrated by Nihlus scarabs mid battle, and in the end you've just got eight new Nihlus ships. Now with information on the location of Klingon planets and bases."
"Then we leave it. This is a deserted area of space. There is nothing here to disturb it."
"That won't work... Their trajectory will bring it past quite a few Federation bases within a couple months and several planets including Binar in a few years. In other words... they're more of a threat to the Federation than I am." Jason said dryly.
Ro' was beginning to get exasperated, "Well, perhaps we can find a way of stopping it. It is drifting, the engines are not working. This is empty space."
Tell was only half listening to the conversation going on. Her thoughts had drifted else where. Somewhere around here was the Fallen, brand spanking new with its stupid revolutionary drive, out on a brainless foolish test run. Where the hell were they when she needed them most, she felt like hitting something or someone.
She was angry at the fact that the Fallen had gone missing and frustrated because she couldn't do anything about it. That maniacal ship out there would be attracted to Jamies unique ship like bees to honey but you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Stupid quote, where the hell had she heard that one before? What would happen if they left as Ro' suggested and the Fallen happened to just turn up? It didn't bear thinking about. She cursed inwardly and was about to vent her anger when someone beat her to it.
Ro' slammed his fist on the table so hard it actually bounced, "Well, I won't just sit here and do nothing till we die. Someone think of something. That is an ORDER!"
Tell leaned over the table at him, looking at Ro' squarely in the eye. "Well I'm not ready to die yet." she told him "I have only just got m... repaired the engines. We've been in far worse scrapes than this. Let me and Marie go over there with a couple of Beq's we might be able to shut it down."
"Nihlus don't have off switches," Jared responded, almost apologetically. "You might be able to disable a few things, but there's a ten thousand little robots the size of your fist running around inside that thing fixing stuff up and turning things on again. Plus... less friendly things."
Germite didn't know whether he had the right to speak or not, but since they were all facing their death he figured he'd have his say. "This is a kind of off the wall idea, but I have a Borg infected Targ in a stasis field. Is there a way we could infect our whole Targ population and loose them on the enemy vessel?"
Ro' raises his eyebrow, "And when the crew are all Borg, that will make them easier to kill, will it?"
Germite replied, "We don't know how to kill them now...we do know how to kill Borg."
Ro' looks to the Human, "Do we? Do you know something I don't?"
Germite says, "I don't. but he does." He points to Jason.
Jason thought for a moment... "It's possible Borg nanites, but without knowing what these things are exactly I couldn't say for sure."
Ro' looks at Jared, "Would Borg nanites affect these... things?"
Jared was thinking hard.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I honestly don't know. It'd be a battle of who could assimilate who. Both of them are very efficient. But I doubt the two forces have ever encountered each other, so there's no way to tell. At the very least they might keep each other occupied for a while. The only thing that worries me is what happens if one of them wins, and that's anyone's guess."
Jared pounded his fist on the table in frustration. IT startled everyone in the room. Jared had never hit anything for the entire time they had seen him on the vessel. He almost religiously avoided violence.
"If only I still carried vortex detonators. Or if I had the parts for a pinpoint singularity charge. But this ship doesn't even have half the..."
He petered off mid sentence struck by a thought.
"... but... they do." he breathed softly.
He looked over at Ro', "Captain... This sounds... a little suicidal, given it means boarding a ship full of homicidal automatons. But if I can get to their engine maintenance bay and get a few minutes to work... I might just be able to use bits from THEIR engines to make a device that could destroy that ship."
Ro's eyes flashed, "A lighting raid on an enemy sky fortress. Impossible odds. Only chance to save the universe. Tell me, Jared, are there songs of the ones who last fought these things? Are they remembered with honour?"
Jared nodded, "There's songs. Songs older than any of your empires. Not many left who remember them, but there's songs. The last stand of Kohlanna. Olbrinn's fleet of five. Rakaar and the endless armada. The triumph of the Korax. If somehow we survive this, I could teach them in the mess."
"Then by all that is bound in honour, you will have your raid, and I will lead it. All of us will go. We will leave one behind to mind the ship in our absence and get word to Qo'noS if we fail. This will be a battle worthy of us at last!"
"Yes, ok then. Let's go." replied Tell feigning boredom "In for a penny, in for a pound, as I say."
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Ensign Jason Hawk & Sogh Marla Varquis & Sogh Thor'nan Mal'Kor & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared
Post Details
| Title | Darkness Future | |
| Mission | Darkness Dawning | |
| Author(s) | HoD Ro' Matlh & Ensign Jason Hawk & Sogh Marla Varquis & Sogh Thor'nan Mal'Kor & Soghla' Marie St. Helene & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared | |
| Posted | Mon Jun 18, 2012 @ 1:49am | |
| Location | Briefing Room, Deck 2 | |
| Timeline | NOW! | |
| Tag | Jason |
"Of course," Jared said with a nod, still ashen faced. He thought for a moment - this time not trying to limit what he said or leave out the uncomfortable or hard to explain parts. Simply thinking how to communicate a lot in a short time.
"It's a killing machine," he began simply. "I don't mean that in the euphemistic human 'it's exceptionally tough' sense. I mean it's a machine designed to kill."
"We called them the Nihlus, or the Clockwork Horrors. It's an entirely automated vessel designed to do two things. First, to kill any sentient life it detects or obtains information about. Second, to build more Nihlus out of any technology or other resources it finds. And they do both of those things predictably, efficiently and relentlessly."
"They don't really adapt. They're not unusually intelligent as far as artificial intelligence goes. They're roughly contemporary with most of your races in terms of technology. They're just tough, infectious, and relentless."
"You disable one of their craft, and five minutes later it's up and running again. You start attacking it again, and you suddenly find your ship starting to malfunction and turn against you because one of those blessed little scarab things they use has got aboard your ship, and there's already fifty of them in the maintenance tunnels hacking your computer. Pretty soon there's a second Nihlus ship. Then they find an old space station, and suddenly there's ten ships. You hunt that fleet down and vaporise them, and suddenly there's a hundred because one of them wandered off on it's own and found an old spacecraft junk-yard. And they just keep coming. There's no off switch."
"They're not a race. They're like a plague. A macroscopic metal plague. A long time ago they came pretty close to wiping the galaxy clean of all sentient life. They would have succeeded, if it hadn't been for a... natural disaster of a sort. There were millions of them, like an interstellar locust swarm. All from just a handful of ships. Some people said that it could have started with a single scarab."
"This ship is easily enough to start the whole process over again. And once it starts... these things are just... relentless! The Klingons, the Federation, the Romulans, the Breen... it's all just a matter of time."
He wasn't looking them in the eye any more. He was staring into space, remembering skies darkened with murderous robotic silhouettes.
"I don't think there's any way to stop them this time. We couldn't stop them last time. It took... something of a miracle."
When the enormity of what they had been told sunk in Ro' took a deep breath, "It may be as you say; we, and everyone we know will die at the hands of these things. We cannot choose when we will die, but we can choose HOW we will die. I have lived to long to fear death at the ministrations of so superior a foe."
He considered and then leant forward, "And yet it seems to me we are not dead yet. The ship has not reacted to our presence. Either it has not noticed us, or it is dead from old age itself. Perhaps we could destroy it before it wakes?"
Jared seemed to wake out of his reverie at the captains words. His eyes widened in sudden realisation.
"You're right... it hasn't attacked, and we're not cloaked. Those hunter-killer craft should be swarming us by now."
He thought hard.
"It's definitely detected us. And it's powered and active, even if it is running silent - I know that from the sensor readings. It... it must somehow have a fault in it's attack initiation logic. Perhaps we damaged one of the processing stacks or overloaded a control matrix when we collided with it."
He frowned.
"That won't last though. There'll be scarabs swarming over that already, starting the repairs. We'd be lucky to have thirty minutes."
"As for attacking it... That will most definitely make it hostile. The Nilhus are roughly equivalent to Klingon technology. But that thing is three kilometres long, and doesn't need to waste power or internal space on life support. So it's almost all guns, shields, engines and attack craft. It would eat us alive. Not to mention they're incredibly resistant to damage - they're swarming with little scarab robots that repair the ship during battle."
Ro' looked disappointed, "Then perhaps we can mark it and bring in a fleet to destroy it?"
"You'd need eight Vorcha to have even odds of matching a ship that size. And for every one battle like that that I've seen end well, there's been ten where the attacking ships have been infiltrated by Nihlus scarabs mid battle, and in the end you've just got eight new Nihlus ships. Now with information on the location of Klingon planets and bases."
"Then we leave it. This is a deserted area of space. There is nothing here to disturb it."
"That won't work... Their trajectory will bring it past quite a few Federation bases within a couple months and several planets including Binar in a few years. In other words... they're more of a threat to the Federation than I am." Jason said dryly.
Ro' was beginning to get exasperated, "Well, perhaps we can find a way of stopping it. It is drifting, the engines are not working. This is empty space."
Tell was only half listening to the conversation going on. Her thoughts had drifted else where. Somewhere around here was the Fallen, brand spanking new with its stupid revolutionary drive, out on a brainless foolish test run. Where the hell were they when she needed them most, she felt like hitting something or someone.
She was angry at the fact that the Fallen had gone missing and frustrated because she couldn't do anything about it. That maniacal ship out there would be attracted to Jamies unique ship like bees to honey but you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Stupid quote, where the hell had she heard that one before? What would happen if they left as Ro' suggested and the Fallen happened to just turn up? It didn't bear thinking about. She cursed inwardly and was about to vent her anger when someone beat her to it.
Ro' slammed his fist on the table so hard it actually bounced, "Well, I won't just sit here and do nothing till we die. Someone think of something. That is an ORDER!"
Tell leaned over the table at him, looking at Ro' squarely in the eye. "Well I'm not ready to die yet." she told him "I have only just got m... repaired the engines. We've been in far worse scrapes than this. Let me and Marie go over there with a couple of Beq's we might be able to shut it down."
"Nihlus don't have off switches," Jared responded, almost apologetically. "You might be able to disable a few things, but there's a ten thousand little robots the size of your fist running around inside that thing fixing stuff up and turning things on again. Plus... less friendly things."
Germite didn't know whether he had the right to speak or not, but since they were all facing their death he figured he'd have his say. "This is a kind of off the wall idea, but I have a Borg infected Targ in a stasis field. Is there a way we could infect our whole Targ population and loose them on the enemy vessel?"
Ro' raises his eyebrow, "And when the crew are all Borg, that will make them easier to kill, will it?"
Germite replied, "We don't know how to kill them now...we do know how to kill Borg."
Ro' looks to the Human, "Do we? Do you know something I don't?"
Germite says, "I don't. but he does." He points to Jason.
Jason thought for a moment... "It's possible Borg nanites, but without knowing what these things are exactly I couldn't say for sure."
Ro' looks at Jared, "Would Borg nanites affect these... things?"
Jared was thinking hard.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I honestly don't know. It'd be a battle of who could assimilate who. Both of them are very efficient. But I doubt the two forces have ever encountered each other, so there's no way to tell. At the very least they might keep each other occupied for a while. The only thing that worries me is what happens if one of them wins, and that's anyone's guess."
Jared pounded his fist on the table in frustration. IT startled everyone in the room. Jared had never hit anything for the entire time they had seen him on the vessel. He almost religiously avoided violence.
"If only I still carried vortex detonators. Or if I had the parts for a pinpoint singularity charge. But this ship doesn't even have half the..."
He petered off mid sentence struck by a thought.
"... but... they do." he breathed softly.
He looked over at Ro', "Captain... This sounds... a little suicidal, given it means boarding a ship full of homicidal automatons. But if I can get to their engine maintenance bay and get a few minutes to work... I might just be able to use bits from THEIR engines to make a device that could destroy that ship."
Ro's eyes flashed, "A lighting raid on an enemy sky fortress. Impossible odds. Only chance to save the universe. Tell me, Jared, are there songs of the ones who last fought these things? Are they remembered with honour?"
Jared nodded, "There's songs. Songs older than any of your empires. Not many left who remember them, but there's songs. The last stand of Kohlanna. Olbrinn's fleet of five. Rakaar and the endless armada. The triumph of the Korax. If somehow we survive this, I could teach them in the mess."
"Then by all that is bound in honour, you will have your raid, and I will lead it. All of us will go. We will leave one behind to mind the ship in our absence and get word to Qo'noS if we fail. This will be a battle worthy of us at last!"
"Yes, ok then. Let's go." replied Tell feigning boredom "In for a penny, in for a pound, as I say."