...And I Feel Fine, BOOK II: Legacy

[Giovanni Blasini]

Stupid phone.

And yes.

[Liam's Ghost]

No update today, BUT, in light of the release of Touring the Stars: Promised Land today, I seriously considered making the planet's indigenous Cuddle Bears agents of Nyarlethotep.

[Daemion]

Tagging this for easy finding.

[Daemion]

I'm glad to see you got the ego-centrism of most academia professors well displayed.



While I want you to keep going with the story, part of me would like a nice little book on who's who beyond the major faces we recognize. Because I'm getting confused about all the secondary characters.

Otherwise, great read.

[Starfox1701]

Since Liam directed me here I feel confident we will see more in the future. Cannot wait this is the coolest crossover I've ever read

[Liam's Ghost]

Merchant Jumpship Chuichenko
Station keeping outside Doukas Station
Jupiter L1 Point

"It's time."

Gabe Abel felt himself break out in a cold sweat at the Dark Man's words. He hadn't been startled. Not after so long under the dark man's sway. He had been alone in the engineering compartment, just one of a couple of caretakers aboard a jumpship left idle, waiting for the fortress to be lifted. But he hadn't really been alone. He was never truly alone. Not since the jump from Aldebaran all those years ago. The Dark Man was always there. Always there...

"So soon?" he asked, even as he pushed off from his resting place towards the console. It was a reflex, beyond his control. He would have stopped himself if he could. He would have left the ship years ago if he could. Stranded himself somewhere where he didn't have to feel what was outside ever again. If he could.

The dark man began reciting variables, codes, numbers, which Gabe dutifully entered into the computer system, feeding data to a subsystem of the KF drive, a useless system left behind by the march of technology. Gabe couldn't begin to understand why he was doing this.

"This will cripple the ship," he said. "The draw will burn out the power system. I don't even know if it will work with the fortress up." He had been mostly free. That was the agreement they'd made on the jump from Aldebaran. His days were his own, save for a few certain bans on what he could bring himself to do. His nights, too, for the most part. Asleep he could occasionally feel the Dark Man close by. It was only when he was outside, when the ship was slipping between reality, that he could truly feel his master's grasp.

He'd desperately hoped that the Fortress would have made him free...

The Dark Man did not respond to his concerns, only continuing to rattle off commands that his puppet continued to dutifully enter.

"This is within the proximity limit," he pled. He'd had no choice. Cancer had been ravaging his body, and in his first meeting in the outside, all those years ago, the Dark Man had offered to save him. Give him years to live, for a small price. The Dark Man had told him that the ship he served on was special, and he would have use of it.

When he entered the final commands into the computer, the Dark Man smiled. "Your debt is paid," he said as he began to fade away.

Gabe Abel felt impossible relief as the weight of unreality lifted from him, even as warning alarms sounded around him and he began to feel shudders from deep in the ship's core.

With a contented sigh, he drove a knife into his throat as the jump controller tore free from the jumpship and vanished into the unreality of KF space.

-----

It was called the Pigeon system. A distress beacon from a time before it became common to install hyperpulse generators on jumpships. Unreliable, dangerous, and at best guaranteed to strand the ship, it launched the jump controller itself through a barely controlled jump to another location, hopefully carrying a message to call for rescue. Few ships were ever equipped with it. Fewer still had survived to the present day. The Chuichenko had been one of those ships, built for a Free Worlds noble centuries ago who'd demanded the best and latest in technology.

The systems projecting the Fortress around the Sol system failed to detect or stop the pigeon. The field it projected was too small and unstable to register. Even so, the pigeon was doomed. In the best of times, you got a mangled ball of wreckage surrounding some extremely robust solid state data storage systems. This time, as the pigeon forced its way back into normal space, it, for want of a better term, smashed headlong into the barrier of Sol's gravity well.

Very little of the Pigeon would even make it back into normal space, and even that was only due to the hyperaccurate data on the local KF topography provided by Gabe's Dark Man. That which did survive came out as fragments, light, and heat. Those at its arrival point, a secure storage facility near the center of the asteroid Metis, would have no time to appreciate the unique phenomena they were witnessing, as a blast wave of superheated air obliterated them, the structure they were guarding, and the surrounding city block.

Those who rushed to the scene wouldn't even begin to understand what was happening before something undeniably wrong rose from the ashes, ripping the germanium rod from its body and unleashing a paralyzing psychic roar.

[Liam's Ghost]

And we're back.

[Daryk]

And I'm glad to hear it! O0

[worktroll]

I feel fine!

[Giovanni Blasini]

Wait, refresh my memory: was that a Cthulhuspawn, or something far bigger and nastier that just got freed, and isn't Stone on Metis?

[misterpants]

It says something that remotely creating a building-leveling explosion anywhere in space-time* is probably on the bottom of the defense planner priority list in this timeline.

*ignoring pesky details like an obsolete piece of technology, sacrificing a jumpship to do so, and mapping precise KF coordinates

[worktroll]

For those of us waiting for more of this ...

Here's something I prepared earlier.

[worktroll]

(with kind permission of the author, of course!)

[Liam's Ghost]

RSS Triumphus

The video footage continued as Admiral Hale resumed speaking. "This nightmare played out all over Terra for twenty nine hours," he said as the scene shifted to different areas across the planet, all showing the same horrors being committed by men and women in Republic uniforms. "A lot of this footage came directly from the gun cameras of the Republic troops that participated in these atrocities. No shame, no effort to cover up what they had or were doing. You can see it in their eyes. They're practically proud of what they're doing."

"That's enough," Constance said as she turned away from the monstrous images playing out on the holotable. "This can't be real. Nobody could do that..."

Admiral Hale switched off the table. "I've been telling myself that for a week now," he said. "Every night I desperately hope I'll wake up to find out it was all a nightmare."

"But you've pulled survivors off the planet!" Constance protested. "The Exarchs, the other paladins. If they were a part of this..."

"They don't even remember," Admiral Hale said. "None of them can recall any clear memories from more than seventeen hours before they were pulled offworld. It's the same with almost everybody that's been evacuated. Those twenty nine hours are like a blank space in their minds, at best something like a dim memory of a nightmare. The only ones that seem to remember are completely mad... or maybe still fighting, we can't be certain."

"Not everybody snapped out of it," Constance said absently. Her briefing material had been clear on that. Active combat continued on every continent, even as the world was slowly being engulfed in lethal fallout.

"Maybe," Admiral Hale said. "We can't be sure. We know that after the twenty nine hours, some form of sanity started to reassert itself. By the third day of the uprising, Stone and some of the Paladins were coordinating a defense effort by Loyalist troops throughout western Europe, until they were forced to withdraw from Geneva by a massive attack by renegade troops and armed civilians."

Constance caught on to the incongruity immediately. "The attackers were organized," she said.

"Yeah," Admiral Hale replied. "During the twenty nine hour period, the fighting was done by small, roving packs of killers. No organization, no apparent direction to their actions aside from causing devastation. But just as our side started to get hold of itself, so did our enemies. We aren't fighting a thousand small bands of renegades. We're fighting a unified enemy, and we don't even..."

Hale was cut off by the sound of the general alarm. "Admiral to the bridge!" came the call through the ship's comms. "Hostile forces inbound!"

[Liam's Ghost]

"Shit," Hale said. "Story time later, come on."

It was a short trip from the conference room to the ship's control center, complicated only by the warship's sudden maneuvering. Once through the doors, Hale didn't break his stride as he went straight for the holotank dominating the room's center. After a moment of hesitation, Constance followed, stepping into the holographic representation of near orbit.

"Hundreds of contacts on their way up from the atmosphere," the acting commander said without even looking their way. "Small and slow, no hard returns, just thermal output."

"Like Luna?" Admiral Hale asked. Constance was lost. Another area where her briefing had been sparse. She knew Luna had been attacked, but hadn't gotten any details.

"We think so," the captain said. "Can't be sure, we've never seen them operating in the atmosphere before. Our friends on Bismarck weren't much help either."

Bismarck, the warship run by the Minnesota Freehold. Surprise allies that had been hiding in the Belt. There were at least a dozen problems Constance had with that convenient little story, especially now, but not much she could do about it.

"I'm sorry," Admiral Hale said as he looked back to her. "I thought I'd have more time to explain, well, everything. There are terabytes of data we couldn't risk sending you by courier."

Constance didn't respond, instead turning her attention to the hundreds of icons climbing through the atmospheric interface. Like all of the Paladins (with the possible exception of the Ghost Paladin), she was a military officer with all the requisite experience, however her specialty had been in ground operations and logistics. Even so, as she selected and called up detailed information on one of the inbound contacts, she knew that what she was seeing didn't look right. "What am I looking at?" She asked.

Admiral Hale sighed. "The enemy," he said. "Beyond that, we don't know." He slipped a hand up to toggle the headset he wore to transmit. "This is Admiral Hale to all ships. Weapons free, engage at will."

----

Dragon Flight, on Combat Space patrol

"You heard the man," Dragon Lead called out to his provisional squadron as he kicked up the thrust of his Poignard. "Remember your briefings and keep sharp. Engagement range is at least two hundred klicks, and there's no fire control signal to give you warning."

Being the only survivors to escape from Luna, as well as the only pilots to have engaged the... aliens (that was going to take some time to get used to) had its privileges, and its drawbacks. Dragon Lead and his wingman had spent a day in debriefing after parking in the Bismarck's landing bays, digging up every last detail they could from their brief engagement over Kepler.   

Right after that came orders for Dragon Lead to take command of an entire provisional squadron in support of the evacuation effort. In addition to his wingman, he had six survivors from Terra under his command, flying a motley collection of whatever was available. They'd made it through so far, conducting combat air patrols and air strikes to support the evacuation in Turkey, but most of them were still pretty shaky. Even with his own brief exposure to this "enemy", Dragon Lead knew he couldn't even begin to imagine what it was like to have actually been on Terra when this nightmare had started.

Hundreds of targets filled his heads up display as his squadron closed in on a course that would skate just above the interface. Just like at Luna, they were all small targets, low acceleration, their thermal output almost like primitive chemical rockets. "One minute to engage," he called out. Waiting was the hardest part. A few of his squadron mates had longer range weaponry, some were already firing, but his own Poignard would have to get closer, close enough for the enemy to shoot back, before he could do much.

Behind them, both the Triumphus and Bismarck opened up with their capital beam weapons, sweeping the approaching cloud of contacts with dispersed fire. Entire groups of targets began to disappear in brief flashes of light. Knowing that this enemy could be killed offered a brief moment of reassurance to Dragon Lead, before his own fighter began to shudder under multiple impacts.

"Damnit!" he shouted as he threw his craft into violent evasive maneuvers. Fault sensors popped up all over the craft. His comms were alive with reports from his squad. The enemy had engaged. "Maximum thrust!" he ordered. "Go straight through!"

As the range indicator on his hud spun down, he triggered his weapons, spraying shells and laser fire across the enemy.

[worktroll]

[Liam's Ghost]

More?!


I'll see what I can do.

[Zureal]

please give us more! *begging*

[nighthunter]

Ok, I just stumbled upon ...And I Feel Fine a few days ago, and I have enjoyed reading this immensely!  The scope of this is fantastic, and the Lovecraftian elements are spot-on, especially the efforts to integrate it with the setting.  Bravo!

That being said, are there any plans to continue this?  I realize that there were challenges (Liam's Ghost was very direct about those in a few posts), and I respect that.  Just curious, because of the enjoyment I have had in journeying through this wonderful story.

Well done, good sir!

[Liam's Ghost]

Triumphus

"Where are our shots falling?" Admiral Hale called as the Triumphus lumbered through a ponderous maneuver to fully unmask its starboard side.

"Northern Black Sea," another officer replied. "Maybe some stray shots into Crimea."

Constance winced involuntarily. Even without direct experience, she knew there was no safe way for warships to fight in near orbit. The damage from a stray shot of naval weapons fire could be catastrophic for those caught on the ground.

But likely just like Admiral Hale, she couldn't see any other option. These mysterious enemies just kept coming, swarming up from the planetary surface no matter how many their guns and fighters struck down.

"We can't keep this up," Hale said, before glancing back to Constance. "Paladin McGuire," he said, "Between our three warships, there's about forty thousand refugees up here with the fleet. We're too low to maintain station and fight this battle, and even if we boost to a higher altitude, the people in our holds aren't secured for hard maneuvering."

"You want us to withdraw?" She couldn't begin to understand why he was telling her this. He'd already siezed power. "That'd mean abandoning the evacuation in Turkey."

"I'm saying we've already lost the evacuation," Admiral Hale said. "But there are forty thousand people that I think we still can save."

As if to punctuate his point, faint tremors rattled through the deck beneath them as warning alarms began to sound. The enemy had reached them.

"You're the ranking officer!" Admiral Hale declared. "It's your call!"

Realization finally hit her. That was why she was here. That was why Hale had wanted her to know. He wasn't trying to secure her or convince her to accept his rule. She was the only Paladin left that he could even hope to trust. He needed her to lead.

"Give the orders, Admiral," Constance said. "Get the fleet out of here."

[Liam's Ghost]

Author note: please accept the above small passage as a promissory note for future installments. I very much intend to get back to this on a fairly regular schedule.

[SethsMatches]

We'll be here... jonesing  #P

[Daryk]

I'm just glad to see it back again... I can't wait for more!

[Grognard]

read it again.
and again.
and there's a nuance there...
and again....

[Liam's Ghost]

Tonight's (September 6) update is delayed by the Eagle Creek wildfires in Oregon. We're nowhere near the fires to be at risk, however the smoke was very thick today, aggravating my old man lungs and making it difficult to function. I hope to have an update tomorrow, covering the difficulties of dogfighting in space with eldritch abominations.   

[Liam's Ghost]

Dragon Lead

These enemies gave Dragon Lead no time to think. Even plodding along as they did, they were able to swarm all around him and his squadron, attacking from every direction with weapons that gave almost no warning, showed none of the telltales he'd been trained to watch for. No fire control, no line of tracers... just a brief surge of energy around one of the contacts before you got hit. He'd set up his computer to put out a warning whenever it picked up a surge, but with so many contacts out there, it was just an endless parade of noise with no idea who was shooting at who.

With no warning, that meant either burning fuel on constant evasion, or accepting getting hit. Each hit ripped another chunk out of his fighter and sent an em pulse through his systems, scrambling them even further.

He jerked his fighter into a hard spin, walking autocannon fire across a passing target, more like a hole in space surrounded by a halo of thermal energy really. His only confirmation of a kill came when the halo abruptly vanished.

"What the hell are these things?" Dragon 4 called out. "It's like we're fighting ghosts!"

"Tell that to Five and Eight," Dragon 3 replied. The two fighters were sweeping up behind a wave of enemy contacts closing in on a fleeing Mule. Unlike the larger dropships, the... things... seemed able to move without regards to the gravity well the dropship was pulling out of. "They sure as hell found out they were rea..." The communication cut out as Dragon 3 disintegrated into fragments.

Dragon Lead swore as he opened the throttle all the way, spraying laser fire into a pair of contacts closing in on him.  His momentum was carrying him in the wrong direction, but he needed to get back to the rest of his squadron, while there was still a squadron left to get back too.

One of those closing contacts blinked out of existence, but the other briefly flashed, delivering a blast to the wing root of Dragon Lead's battered fighter. The fighter's hull groaned as an entire section of the wing tore away, pulled by the thrust of the starboard nozzle. The competing forces of the two nozzles slewed the craft to one side just right to carry it directly into the path of the closing contact.

As the thing tore through his fighter's nose at a few thousand kilometers per hour, Dragon Lead got his first real look at his enemy. If he were thinking clearly, he might have wondered how that could even be possible, but instead he screamed as a bulbous mass of green flesh slipped past him, ripping his canopy open with one inhuman claw even as it seemed to disintegrate into vapor.

[Liam's Ghost]

I am halfway through the next update. Expect to see something later tonight.

[Liam's Ghost]

Metis

Three teams of power suits darted and bounced their way through the maze of alleys, roads, and access corridors of the industrial district, handling the crowded environment and the spin-generated gravity with a grace that came from constant practice, and an urgency that came from the unknown.

The blast that had torn through a block of the industrial district had also killed any communications or surveillance systems active on scene (techs said probably some sort of electromagnetic pulse). From the first responders, all they'd heard were screams before those comms were cut off as well. They had no information about what had happened or who had attacked the habitat, only that someone definitely had.

It was the sort of situation the Hazard teams had been trained for. Under the encouragement of some bigwig named Alister Morgan, Metis and the other major belt colonies had been gradually reinforcing their internal security forces since the Jihad, keeping it mostly quiet by flagging them as civilian security rather than militia, even as they issued them powered armor, aerofighters, and assault ships.

"Two blocks out," Major Tanaga called out to his troops. "Stealth approach from here. Beta, Spinward side. Gamma, Anti. Call out when you're in position." He received a chorus of acknowledgements as the other Nighthawk teams set out to their assigned positions. The urgency had necessitated their fast, reckless, and noisy transit into the industrial sector, but this close to the target zone, facing an unknown enemy, keeping it quiet was the order of the day. "Alpha team, let's move."

-----

RSS Falchion

"Don't you have security forces?" Morgan demanded.

"They were in the facility," Agent Ebon responded. "They've been out of contact since the blast." The two men were in the security station aboard their recently commandeered Republic dropship, observing as the ship's crew and passengers were being gathered up by the boarding party in the main conference room, while also waiting for further news from the disaster in the industrial district.

"I'm sure I'll have a lot of words to say to whoever let you set up that facility here." Morgan said icily. On the surface, relations with the Minnesota Freehold and the Belt weren't that complicated. The Freehold was classified, and nominally treated, as simply another settlement under the vaguely defined authority of the Metis Commision, albeit an extrasolar one. And as a settlement with considerable economic pull in the belt, they were entitled to space on Metis to house representatives and necessary materials. Most had the decency to limit such materials to office equipment however. The battleship Morgan could begrudgingly accept, it couldn't leave the system even if the Freeholders wanted it to. The Freehold's alien menagerie was another matter entirely. "Can you tell me anything useful at all?"

"If I knew something, I'd tell you," Agent Ebon Said. "If the servitor has somehow broken containment after all these centuries, I can only guess it'll attempt to escape the colony. The blast might have been the result of it attempting to jump out. If not... you have to understand, nobody I know of has even seen an active servitor in nearly a thousand years. There's no way to be sure how it will act, or how dangerous it could be."

"All the more reason not to endanger millions of people by keeping it here, mister Ebon," Morgan snapped.

[David CGB]

Nice stuff

[worktroll]

Just like Soviet bio-agent plants in the middle of cities ... "No-one will look for us here!"

Servitor = shoggoth? Or Spawn of Cthulhu?

(for the record, just started Tim Curran's "The Hive", a modern retake on "At the Mountains of Madness" ...)