Nerva Apepeligo
Blade base alpha
Cryo lab 3
Lana shivered as she pulled her jacket around herself, it had been three months since she was put in charge of project blades while Dib was laying low in Africa, three months of pure misery.
It had taken almost a month just to figure out how Dib ran things, and even then she still only had the vaguest of ideas as to how he ran the operation. Everything seamed to run perfectly with very little outside input. But Crey hadn’t sent her to babysit; they wanted to know if Dib had any other secrets hidden away.
She found what appeared to be a discrepancy in Dib’s files, he made reference to have only eight of his blade units, but she had found details of two additional blades, unit nine and unit ten. There had been some note about them not being ready for active duty, along with a page worth of that strange gibberish that Dib wrote in.
She watched as the interns she brought in scampered around the rooms two cryo pods, every now and aging she would her one of them mutter. Behind her stood one of Dib’s blades, she could hear her shift uncomfortably, sighing, Lana turned to her. “Is something wrong miss…” she mental cursed to her self, she still hadn’t memorised any of the blades civilian names.
The blade nodded. “Teyla ma’am.”
“Teyla then, is something wrong?” Lana’s cyber eye whirred as it focused.
Teyla shifted again. “Well…. The director froze thesis two for a reason, one was mentally unstable, the others personality was only half done… they are... incomplete.”
Lana snorted. “So if they are a bit dangerous, then we’ll stun them and freeze them again.” She snapped back. That was another thing that had been getting at her, it almost seams as if Dib was still running the show, even though he was half the world away and hardly communicated with them, the blades seams to know what he wanted.
Before she could start stewing on that thought again, one of the interns scuttled up to her. “Um… ma’am… we’re... we’re ready to open them.” He muttered, keeping his eye’s to the ground.
“Very well then. Begin.”
The intern scuttled back and started typing away at the first pod, the numbers zero nine stencilled on the front. There was a hiss as a cloud of super chilled air was released, the lid slowly swinging up, after couple of seconds, a weak cough could be heard from with in.
The interns stepped forward and reached into the pod, Lana walked up and started to size up the occupant as they pulled her free. She appeared to be a extremely well built young woman, long with hair streaked with red hung over her face. One of the interns moved some of her hair to one side and let out a gasp. Most of the left half of her face was missing, tendons and exposed flesh, an empty eye socket faced the room.
Lana twisted her lip. “So, I’m taking it that this is the “unfinished” one, correct?”
Before Teyla could reply, Lana barked to some of the interns. “Take her to one of the med bay, see of you can do anything about her face.”
Two interns nodded and helped her out of the room, while the remaining ones turned fearfully to the last pod, if they defrosted the incomplete one, which meant the other had crazed one.
Almost sensing their hesitation, Lana strode up and punched the activation code into the remaining pod. The lid slowly came up with the sound of grinding gears before coming to a stop. “All this fucking secrecy and the basted can’t even be bothered to maintain his crap.” She motioned over some of the interns to help her push the lid.
As she pulled at the lid, there was the screech of metal on metal, one of the interns bent down to look in the pod. “That’s strange, sounds like it’s stuck on something.” He muttered as he looked in the gap. From the pod cam the slight sound of metal scraping against metal, then the inturn jerked, a long spider like leg punching thought his skull.
The other scatted as the leg lifted the corps, then flung it across the room, before retreating back into the pod, there was a few seconds of silence before the lid tore free, bouncing across the room as a near primal scream emanated from the pod. Lana watched as four mechanical legs emerge from the pod, they scraped at the edge of the pod for a second before digging in.
There was another scream this time as a figure raised out of the pod, the legs lifting her free. Lana could see the legs lead to some sort of backpack that resembled the ones worn by Crab spires, but this was more streamline, almost alien in design, but while she had free use of the spider legs, the rest of her limbs had been bound. Violet eye’s glared as the room from under a mess of blue hair, the spider pack letting out a slight whirring noise as it lowered her onto the floor.
Lana cautiously approached the figure, watching as she struggled the large metal bands restraining her rams and legs, muttering to her self. She poked the woman with her boot, watching as the girl twitch, before kneeling down to listen to her mutterings.
“This body is wrong…. What did that earth monkey do to me…. Wrong… so Wrong.” She turned and looked at Lana, one of her spider legs tensing slightly. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“Where is who?”
There was the sound of tearing metal as the girl pulled at her restraints. “The one that did this, the one that gave me this… this disgusting sack of flesh for a body.”
Lana motioned for an intern to come over with a sedative. “You mean Dib?”
At the mention of his name, the girl back arced as she screamed, there sound of metal tearing as her restraints fell away. One of the mechanical legs lashed out, slamming Lana in the gut and winding her, before the girl stood up and glared around the room. “Where is DIB?” she screeched. “Where is the misbegotten wretch that dare do this to ME?”
One of the inters let out a whimper as he ran for the door, there was a here was a high pitch whine, then a flash of light as the intern fell to the ground, smoke billowing from the hole in his back. That was all it took to make the others flee like panicked animals.
Lana pulled her self to her feet and watched as the girls legs let out another high pitch whine as she shot the fleeing interns one by one, looking around she tried to figure out where Teyla had got to.
There was a flicker of shadows as her question was answered by Teyla body slamming the girl from behind, trying to desperate pin her legs. She screeched as they flailed around, the spider legs screeching against the floor as they tried to gain perches.
“Get off me Bovine wench! Do you even know who I am?” She screamed, flailing madly.
Teyla garbed the back of her head and slammed it against the floor, the sound of the girl’s nose breaking filled the room. “I don’t care who you are, you are an unstable weapon and a risk to this base.”
She raised her head, blood dripping from her ruined nose. “My name… is Tak!” she screeched as elbowed Teyla in the face and rolled free. Climbing to her feet, Tak delivered a quick kick to her gut before rounding to Lana, one of her legs whipped around, punching through Lana’s shoulder with a and pinning her to the ground.
Kneeling down, she twisted the leg in Lana’s wound. “Now… tell me where Dib is terrane Ape!”
Lana looked up and smiled. “I think that’s rather irrelevant right now.”
Tak had a look of confusion, before there was the crack of an assault riffle smashing into the back of her skull, wobbling, she collapsed on top of Lana. Pushing her free, Lana climbed to her feet and pulled the spider leg from her shoulder, blocking out the pain as she looked at the figure. “What the fuck are you?” she barked at it.
It was some sort of hunched humanoid, almost resembling an ape in its stance and kitted out in combat fatigues. After staring for a couple of seconds, Lana realised that it must be one of Dib’s “golems”. “You, can you understand me?” she asked.
The golem turned to look at her, and slowly nodded. “Orders…. Ma’am?” Its voice came out in a slow rasp.
“Good, take her.” she jerked a thumb to Tak. “To a maximum security cell, the survivors are to be taken to med bay and find a living intern, promote him then have him process the paper work for the dead ones, understood?”
The golem noddled as it grabbed Tak by the leg and started to drag her out, she thought about correcting it, but decided against it. Clutching at her shoulder, she headed out of the room, she could feel Teyla’s gaze on her back and could imagine she had “I told you so” look plastered all over her face.
***
3 hour’s later.
Lana paced Dib’s office, swearing to her self. The two blades were obviously defective, unit nine seamed to barely register the world around there while unit ten, Tak, was currently restrained and heavily sedated.
“Is there any way this day could get worse?” she muttered to her self. She immediately regretted saying that as there was a beep from the desk, meaning that Dib was calling her. Biting back a torrent of profanity, she hit the receive button.
Click as a small holo projector raised from the deck and activated, a swollen eye glared at her, every now and again it blinking with metal lids. Sitting down she addressed the eye. “Hello Dib, here to gloat?”
The eye tracked her before replying in an annoyingly familiar tone. “I could gloat but I don’t see the point, you know you made an error and that will keep eating away at you.” the eye swivelled, taking in the office. “But I must ask, what did you hope to achieve with it?”
Lana blinked. “What are you implying? That I tried to take them for myself or that I would rat you out to the countess?”
The eye bobbed as Dib chuckled. “Rat me out to the countess, no. those two blades where her idea.”
She glared at the desk with a shocked expression. “What?”
“It’s quite simple, she asked me to create to special blades. When done they would be inserted into Arachnos and given special orders. Beyond that she would not tell me anything.”
“So you played along like a good little drone?”
“Yes, I am.” The eye bobbed again. “As long as I do as she wishes, she has no reason to terminate my employment.”
Lana glared at the unblinking eye. “And I’m expected to believe that’s it? No clever plans, no ideas to twist the situation to your advantage?”
The eye gave another dark chuckle. “And prolong my stay in Africa? No, I think not.”
“So you’re finally coming back?”
“Yes, my… exile is at an end, but don’t worry, you won’t be leaving the blades so soon.”
The colour drained from her face. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, you haven’t heard yet? Upon my return, you are to be my watch dog. Just in case I try to… twist the situation to my advantage.”
Lana slumped in the chair. “You’re… your serious?’
“Indeed, thesis orders are from the countess herself. You are apparently a loyal follower that can not be bribed or corrupted, while I am a mind that still has some secret to give.
So, I shall be returning within the week. I look forward to working with you Lana.” The eye blinked the faded as Dib ended the call.
Glaring at where the eye was, Lana swore as she brought her mace down on the desk. Obviously she must have upset some one to get stuck with this job… unless.
She grinned slightly, she knew she was part of the Scimitars referred to as “Blunt Weapons” so maybe this was a chance to prove she was more than that? Leaning back in the chair she pulled the mace free and rested it on her lap, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. She might even be able to use this to land her a promotion.
Chuckling slightly, she thought out loud. “No one ever said working for Crey would be easy.”
Blade base alpha
Cryo lab 3
Lana shivered as she pulled her jacket around herself, it had been three months since she was put in charge of project blades while Dib was laying low in Africa, three months of pure misery.
It had taken almost a month just to figure out how Dib ran things, and even then she still only had the vaguest of ideas as to how he ran the operation. Everything seamed to run perfectly with very little outside input. But Crey hadn’t sent her to babysit; they wanted to know if Dib had any other secrets hidden away.
She found what appeared to be a discrepancy in Dib’s files, he made reference to have only eight of his blade units, but she had found details of two additional blades, unit nine and unit ten. There had been some note about them not being ready for active duty, along with a page worth of that strange gibberish that Dib wrote in.
She watched as the interns she brought in scampered around the rooms two cryo pods, every now and aging she would her one of them mutter. Behind her stood one of Dib’s blades, she could hear her shift uncomfortably, sighing, Lana turned to her. “Is something wrong miss…” she mental cursed to her self, she still hadn’t memorised any of the blades civilian names.
The blade nodded. “Teyla ma’am.”
“Teyla then, is something wrong?” Lana’s cyber eye whirred as it focused.
Teyla shifted again. “Well…. The director froze thesis two for a reason, one was mentally unstable, the others personality was only half done… they are... incomplete.”
Lana snorted. “So if they are a bit dangerous, then we’ll stun them and freeze them again.” She snapped back. That was another thing that had been getting at her, it almost seams as if Dib was still running the show, even though he was half the world away and hardly communicated with them, the blades seams to know what he wanted.
Before she could start stewing on that thought again, one of the interns scuttled up to her. “Um… ma’am… we’re... we’re ready to open them.” He muttered, keeping his eye’s to the ground.
“Very well then. Begin.”
The intern scuttled back and started typing away at the first pod, the numbers zero nine stencilled on the front. There was a hiss as a cloud of super chilled air was released, the lid slowly swinging up, after couple of seconds, a weak cough could be heard from with in.
The interns stepped forward and reached into the pod, Lana walked up and started to size up the occupant as they pulled her free. She appeared to be a extremely well built young woman, long with hair streaked with red hung over her face. One of the interns moved some of her hair to one side and let out a gasp. Most of the left half of her face was missing, tendons and exposed flesh, an empty eye socket faced the room.
Lana twisted her lip. “So, I’m taking it that this is the “unfinished” one, correct?”
Before Teyla could reply, Lana barked to some of the interns. “Take her to one of the med bay, see of you can do anything about her face.”
Two interns nodded and helped her out of the room, while the remaining ones turned fearfully to the last pod, if they defrosted the incomplete one, which meant the other had crazed one.
Almost sensing their hesitation, Lana strode up and punched the activation code into the remaining pod. The lid slowly came up with the sound of grinding gears before coming to a stop. “All this fucking secrecy and the basted can’t even be bothered to maintain his crap.” She motioned over some of the interns to help her push the lid.
As she pulled at the lid, there was the screech of metal on metal, one of the interns bent down to look in the pod. “That’s strange, sounds like it’s stuck on something.” He muttered as he looked in the gap. From the pod cam the slight sound of metal scraping against metal, then the inturn jerked, a long spider like leg punching thought his skull.
The other scatted as the leg lifted the corps, then flung it across the room, before retreating back into the pod, there was a few seconds of silence before the lid tore free, bouncing across the room as a near primal scream emanated from the pod. Lana watched as four mechanical legs emerge from the pod, they scraped at the edge of the pod for a second before digging in.
There was another scream this time as a figure raised out of the pod, the legs lifting her free. Lana could see the legs lead to some sort of backpack that resembled the ones worn by Crab spires, but this was more streamline, almost alien in design, but while she had free use of the spider legs, the rest of her limbs had been bound. Violet eye’s glared as the room from under a mess of blue hair, the spider pack letting out a slight whirring noise as it lowered her onto the floor.
Lana cautiously approached the figure, watching as she struggled the large metal bands restraining her rams and legs, muttering to her self. She poked the woman with her boot, watching as the girl twitch, before kneeling down to listen to her mutterings.
“This body is wrong…. What did that earth monkey do to me…. Wrong… so Wrong.” She turned and looked at Lana, one of her spider legs tensing slightly. “Where is he?” she demanded.
“Where is who?”
There was the sound of tearing metal as the girl pulled at her restraints. “The one that did this, the one that gave me this… this disgusting sack of flesh for a body.”
Lana motioned for an intern to come over with a sedative. “You mean Dib?”
At the mention of his name, the girl back arced as she screamed, there sound of metal tearing as her restraints fell away. One of the mechanical legs lashed out, slamming Lana in the gut and winding her, before the girl stood up and glared around the room. “Where is DIB?” she screeched. “Where is the misbegotten wretch that dare do this to ME?”
One of the inters let out a whimper as he ran for the door, there was a here was a high pitch whine, then a flash of light as the intern fell to the ground, smoke billowing from the hole in his back. That was all it took to make the others flee like panicked animals.
Lana pulled her self to her feet and watched as the girls legs let out another high pitch whine as she shot the fleeing interns one by one, looking around she tried to figure out where Teyla had got to.
There was a flicker of shadows as her question was answered by Teyla body slamming the girl from behind, trying to desperate pin her legs. She screeched as they flailed around, the spider legs screeching against the floor as they tried to gain perches.
“Get off me Bovine wench! Do you even know who I am?” She screamed, flailing madly.
Teyla garbed the back of her head and slammed it against the floor, the sound of the girl’s nose breaking filled the room. “I don’t care who you are, you are an unstable weapon and a risk to this base.”
She raised her head, blood dripping from her ruined nose. “My name… is Tak!” she screeched as elbowed Teyla in the face and rolled free. Climbing to her feet, Tak delivered a quick kick to her gut before rounding to Lana, one of her legs whipped around, punching through Lana’s shoulder with a and pinning her to the ground.
Kneeling down, she twisted the leg in Lana’s wound. “Now… tell me where Dib is terrane Ape!”
Lana looked up and smiled. “I think that’s rather irrelevant right now.”
Tak had a look of confusion, before there was the crack of an assault riffle smashing into the back of her skull, wobbling, she collapsed on top of Lana. Pushing her free, Lana climbed to her feet and pulled the spider leg from her shoulder, blocking out the pain as she looked at the figure. “What the fuck are you?” she barked at it.
It was some sort of hunched humanoid, almost resembling an ape in its stance and kitted out in combat fatigues. After staring for a couple of seconds, Lana realised that it must be one of Dib’s “golems”. “You, can you understand me?” she asked.
The golem turned to look at her, and slowly nodded. “Orders…. Ma’am?” Its voice came out in a slow rasp.
“Good, take her.” she jerked a thumb to Tak. “To a maximum security cell, the survivors are to be taken to med bay and find a living intern, promote him then have him process the paper work for the dead ones, understood?”
The golem noddled as it grabbed Tak by the leg and started to drag her out, she thought about correcting it, but decided against it. Clutching at her shoulder, she headed out of the room, she could feel Teyla’s gaze on her back and could imagine she had “I told you so” look plastered all over her face.
***
3 hour’s later.
Lana paced Dib’s office, swearing to her self. The two blades were obviously defective, unit nine seamed to barely register the world around there while unit ten, Tak, was currently restrained and heavily sedated.
“Is there any way this day could get worse?” she muttered to her self. She immediately regretted saying that as there was a beep from the desk, meaning that Dib was calling her. Biting back a torrent of profanity, she hit the receive button.
Click as a small holo projector raised from the deck and activated, a swollen eye glared at her, every now and again it blinking with metal lids. Sitting down she addressed the eye. “Hello Dib, here to gloat?”
The eye tracked her before replying in an annoyingly familiar tone. “I could gloat but I don’t see the point, you know you made an error and that will keep eating away at you.” the eye swivelled, taking in the office. “But I must ask, what did you hope to achieve with it?”
Lana blinked. “What are you implying? That I tried to take them for myself or that I would rat you out to the countess?”
The eye bobbed as Dib chuckled. “Rat me out to the countess, no. those two blades where her idea.”
She glared at the desk with a shocked expression. “What?”
“It’s quite simple, she asked me to create to special blades. When done they would be inserted into Arachnos and given special orders. Beyond that she would not tell me anything.”
“So you played along like a good little drone?”
“Yes, I am.” The eye bobbed again. “As long as I do as she wishes, she has no reason to terminate my employment.”
Lana glared at the unblinking eye. “And I’m expected to believe that’s it? No clever plans, no ideas to twist the situation to your advantage?”
The eye gave another dark chuckle. “And prolong my stay in Africa? No, I think not.”
“So you’re finally coming back?”
“Yes, my… exile is at an end, but don’t worry, you won’t be leaving the blades so soon.”
The colour drained from her face. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, you haven’t heard yet? Upon my return, you are to be my watch dog. Just in case I try to… twist the situation to my advantage.”
Lana slumped in the chair. “You’re… your serious?’
“Indeed, thesis orders are from the countess herself. You are apparently a loyal follower that can not be bribed or corrupted, while I am a mind that still has some secret to give.
So, I shall be returning within the week. I look forward to working with you Lana.” The eye blinked the faded as Dib ended the call.
Glaring at where the eye was, Lana swore as she brought her mace down on the desk. Obviously she must have upset some one to get stuck with this job… unless.
She grinned slightly, she knew she was part of the Scimitars referred to as “Blunt Weapons” so maybe this was a chance to prove she was more than that? Leaning back in the chair she pulled the mace free and rested it on her lap, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. She might even be able to use this to land her a promotion.
Chuckling slightly, she thought out loud. “No one ever said working for Crey would be easy.”