█ ▌SAGITTARIUS PRIME├ a post apocalyptic planetary wasteland

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WELCOME TO

? ?SAGITTARIUS PRIME ?

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[Trace]

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COUNT TO N I N E __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

A siren wailed overhead, a blare that pulsed in cascading waves and cut through the sterile silence save for the sound of a gloved hand sifting through the wreckage of a turned over file cabinet.


The figure, a slim genderless silhouette that was unidentifiable from the dark, layers of clothing draped across the shapeless body—face hidden by a darkened hood and a full filtration mask—tutted, exhaling in what was a frustrated sigh.


It had been twelve days since Nine had last seen another person; and it had been twelve days since she’d last had to unload a bullet into someone’s head.


It wasn’t a record.


Though the wasteland was vast, most only dared venture through a fraction of it; the rest of it belonged to the dust storms and the radiation and the scavengers and the patrols and if you could help it you avoided the latter. It seemed, however, that her streak of passivity would be coming to an end. It was a shame; radio silence fit her perfectly, despite the rounds of ammo bursting from her person and the SMG she was now retrieving from its place slung across her shoulder.


Nine made her way to the control room, footsteps masked by the screeching alarm and the spherical gunslate-colored drone floating silently at her heels. There was only a scant amount of time she now had, the alert a beacon for anyone with a murderous bone in their body for a mile radius around the control tower, and usually this would be her cue to slip away and back into the ruins of the wasteland where she would continue on her way.


That was a negative course of action today. She hadn’t yet found what she had come here for in the first place and if she left now, she sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to come back for a long while. She’d been saving the control panel for last, having swept methodically and carefully through the offices, and though she had come away with some things of interest they still weren’t the main prize she was looking for. Coming back wasn’t an option. That was too much time lost, unacceptable, and so she was going to have to do it now.


That was why commissions were complicated and scavenging was easier—you looked for anything that could be used, anything that someone might find attractive to own. If something went awry, you could turn your tail and never look back.


For specific contracts that wasn’t an option. There was no substitution for what your employer desired and that made the danger skyrocket in magnitude—and it was the same for the reward. Complete this assignment and, in theory, she could take a long vacation and live in whatever mild and poor excuse for luxury a civilian could have on this ruin of a planet.


Right. Die in a well-furnished hole somewhere.The idea of that made her roll her eyes, an action obscured by goggles that glowed a faint fluorescent blue. What a droll and miserable existence that would be.


You see, Nine enjoyed the chase. She didn’t like people but she also didn’t like boredom. That left her in a tricky spot, a hole in the cavity of her chest, and she filled it from time to time by taking the odd commission here and there. Too routine was droll and too complicated was frustrating. It was a difficult balancing act, one that she was absolutely terrible at.


For now, her mission was, on paper, simple: her commissioner had sent her to the various terraforming control towers across the area in search of the thick manuals that explained the operation of the control panels or something menial and uninteresting like that. There was a snag, however: she had come away with far fewer than she would have liked. Nine’s conclusion had been that someone was getting there first—someone with a purpose and a drive—and maybe today’s deviation from plan was just as well.


Maybe she had finally caught up to the fucker who was messing up her job.


Even in the wasteland, there was a certain order, a method to the depravity and the death and the freak weather that came and went in whims. She’d found that humans and death were things that tended to go hand in hand and as she carefully rounded the corner and readied her weapon, finger trailing along the safety, at the figure hunched over the control panel, she wondered if this was going to be yet another link in a continuing trend.


Then, her eyes locked onto the manual in his hand. Perhaps she had found her bogey after all. Her mind skipped, running through the cascade of ways that this could go before she settled on one. There was a way to find out but that had to be later. The most immediate course of action was to get out and that was a slightly trickier thing, exponentially more difficult when you were doing an escape for two and not one.


And, in the background, she could hear the slam of a door opening and a rush of footsteps down below.


She motioned behind her with one gloved hand, weapon still trained steadily and precisely on the figure at the control panel.


“Let’s make a deal” she said, and the words came out low and slightly warbled through the grid of her exhalation valve. “Hand me the manual and I’ll cover you.”







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[Cairean]

NUMEROUS V O I C E S __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

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Dirt, black like charcoal, covered the synthetic material of the once white gloves. In retrospect it seemed obvious that white clothing was probably the worst choice one could possibly make when buying an outfit to search through abandoned old research facilities, but a warm white jacket, gloves and a pair of bleached jeans for only ten energy-cells? Only an idiot would've refused this offer. The money he had saved during this purchase had been enough to even buy a comfy red scarf and a few bullets for his pistol!


But all of his previously clean clothes now were covered in dirt, oil and small pieces of rust, the rust being the newest addition. The cabinet he had opened by force had been full of it, covering large parts of his trousers with it. A single ripped out page was the reward, a lot more still missing. ​

Weather Control Unit Manual, Page 48, Chapter 2, Introduction to audio cues. ​

"The Flecteris Gamma is the state of the art solution for all your weather-optimizing needs. To ensure maximal safety for the equipment, the operating crew and the environment, the Flecteris Gamma comes equipped with a powerful auditory feedback system, capable of making itself heard even in the busiest work environments. The following pages will inform you how to distinguish the signals from each other, while forwarding you to the corresponding chapters regarding fixing the problem causing the alarms in the first place."



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Nami didn't need to read the rest of the page to figure out that the alarm currently filling the air around him probably was reserved for one of those problems, nor did he have the intention of staying around long enough to figure out the source of the feedback. He had salvaged probably all there was left of that particular manual, and the few pages he might find by searching for a few more hours simply weren't worth it.


And to be perfectly honest, these abandoned research facilities simply creeped him out sometimes. The ones with artifical lighting were especially bad, he could've sweared that he sometimes heard voices talking to him.


"You are doomed!" "Leave this place!" "It was a mistake to come here!" "Let's make a deal!" "Hand me the manual and I'll cover you."


He shuddered. Some of those voices sounded way to lifelike for his taste, he might have to buy brand radiation medicine the next time, the cheap ones seemed to have hallucinogenic components.


One last look at the control panel to check whether he had forgotten anything and Nami was ready to leave this place. But when he turned around the room was a lot less empty than it had been before.


A dark figure was standing a few meters away, a weapon aimed at him. The person also waved into the opposite direction with one hand.


Unprepared for someone sneaking up to him like this, Nami did the only sensible thing: He screamed like a little girl.


He tried to take a few steps backwards, only to stumble over the cabinet he had turned over a few minutes before in the search for some of the manual pages, creating even more noise in the process. He tried to judge whether he could get his pistol out faster than mysterious person could shoot, but this already unlikely result became even more unlikely when he heard even more footsteps coming his way.


His back to the control panel and out of options, Nami stopped screaming long enough to notice that the person didn't seem to like the footsteps any more than he did, which could only mean one thing: The arriving people were even more evil than the first person! Now faced with two potentially sadistic factions out to torture him and his precious books, Nami did what he always did in situations like these: he quickly grabbed the fake grenade hanging from his chest and pulled the pin, hoping to distract everyone long enough to escape.

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TRACE , ART BY CAIREAN
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[Trace]

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COUNT TO N I N E __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

The scream rebounded amongst the waves of the alarm. It caused her to grimace, a twitch of the mouth, and she began her approach when she heard something different amongst the sinusoidal blares.


Approaching footsteps thundered in her ears, even though they were still a distance away. They were coming in fast—heavy clomps that made no attempt to disguise their presence—and while Nine was not afraid to die, this would be a rather menial and pathetic way to go. She’d rather not, not today, not in the near future.


She flicked through her options. She could kill the man and take the manual for herself. It would be less legwork for her right now, and only having to account for yourself was magnitudes less difficult than having to survive for two. Still, the manual was a battered old thing, the spine broken and with pages missing. It wasn’t a stretch to believe that the stranger knew much more than her, might even be the one who’d been getting to each cache before she could. His information could be invaluable, his death arbitrary and inconsequential, and so it was with that reasoning that she pushed his immediate death straight out of her thoughts.


That made things tricky, however, exponentially so, and as her eyes flicked towards the door she caught a blur of movement from her peripherals. Her fingers flexed reflexively, tremoring by the trigger, but she managed to stop herself just as the man pulled out a grenade from his person and removed the pin.


A fake. It was a nice trick that had probably saved the skin off his back more than a few times. Most wastelanders weren’t trained to know the difference—why would they be?—but she’d be a poor former member of PISA if she couldn’t tell by sight alone.


The mask snapped off her face, and the rush of air—tangy and foul—left her with a bitter after taste in her mouth. There was only a moment’s time to grimace, mouth twisting, before she jerked her chin over her shoulder and shouted, shrill and frightened, into the abyss.


“Oh fuck, he’s got a grenade!”


Well, it didn’t have to be poetry.


The reaction was immediate. If there was anything she could rely on, it was that most humans were not very partial to the idea of dying or the idea of danger. The footsteps dropped, thundering and irregular, skidding on their heels as they jerked to a stop. Murmurs and swears. Shouts and shuffling against the backdrop of the alarm. It was just a moment’s worth of pause and it was all that she needed. Hesitancy was deadly; prudence and action were key.


Luckily she had both. She was a reactionary, but perception was never more than a stone’s throw away. A flick of her wrist had her unclipping a smoke grenade from her belt; the real thing. Not that fake shit.


The canister snapped out of her hand, landing with a crack out the door. Plumes of thick gray smoke was released from the body as soon as it hit the floor, clouding the entirety of the hall and spiraling back into the room like a snake. Sounds of panic mingled with the still blaring alarm and the hissing of the release from the canister. It wouldn’t be enough to stop them—not even close—but it bought time, maybe a moment’s worth; and that was more than enough.


It took just three steps to close in on the young man, each foot placed with a leisurely deliberateness. A quick motion and her arm lashed out, fingers fisting in the front of his jacket, pulling the stranger forward until they were nearly nose to nose, until he could feel the puffs of air as chest rose and fall exiting the mask. Her voice reverberated, low yet strong, against the mouth piece.


“Follow the drone, lay low, and hang onto the manual.”


No time to spare, no time to hesitate. The spherical combat drone, monitor flickering with what seemed to be static, hovering right above her head zipped into action. It whirred once, twice, and three times, and then it shot off into the smoke, making a beeline for the entrance of the facility.


And with that, she wrenched his arm, shoving him towards the door and into the smoke.


** Note: rewritten post of the original. Hadn't saved it, ugh.







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TRACE , ART FROM HERE
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[Cairean]

THAT DIDN'T WORK A S .P L A N N E D __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

The echo of shoes hitting the cold concrete floor, loud curses, the low humming of hover engines, filtered breathing.


"Keep your head down, follow the drone, and don't drop the manual."


Confusion, adrenaline, tunnel vision.


Nami stumbled through the room towards a door, the glow of the drone illuminating the dark staircase behind the doorframe. The ruse with the grenade hadn't worked, now it was 'fight or flight', and as any sane person knew 'flight' was always the better option. Unless you knew that you'd win of course, but that wasn't the case here.


Coming up with a new plan while literally on the run was easier said than done, especially if one didn't have to run from people very often, and so Name just went with the flow for the moment. The creepy automatic companion leading the way, there wasn't much he could do if he didn't want to run into the arms of the people who apparently tried to rob him. Or kill him to eat his flesh, cannibalism also was an option. Either way, the probability of ending up in the clutches of an armed group that kidnapped people for benevolent reasons was rather low.


The drone moved surprisingly fast, Nami almost didn't manage following. Two floors down the drone left the staircase and entered a large rather empty hall. The golden rays of light falling through the windows that it was slowly getting late. Meanwhile the flying metal thingy had stopped advancing, and simply hovered there on the spot.


Unsure of what to do, Nami decided to take another look at the manual. What could possibly be in there that would attract such a large crowd?


Before he had the chance to investigate he was interrupted by the sound of several feet outside the hall. Not willing to risk anything he jumped behind the nearest cover he could find and waited.


This whole expedition hadn't quite worked as planned.

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CODE AND GRAPHICS BY

TRACE , ART BY CAIREAN
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[Trace]

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COUNT TO N I N E __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

The mask filtered out the smoke, and the goggles cut a path for her into the thick plumes. These men were garbed in mismatched gear but none had their face obscured by a filtration mask. With that scant knowledge, she could guess they were either low rung members of one of the various raider groups out here, a group of backwater mercenaries, or scavengers. Self-taught or badly trained but no less deadly. They had the firepower and they had the vicious intent and it wouldn’t be the first time that that carried someone through. Strip away the instinct and you have nothing else; fill someone full of it—up to the brim—and she’d seen a grown man rip someone limb to limb with nothing but cortisol and norepinephrine pumping through his veins. These men were full of it. Their hearts were pounding, nearly puncturing their chests with each beat. Nine, however, was still, a seed of calm. She could see their aggression in how they swung their arms, groping blindly into the abyss of smoke, nearly catching the stranger with their crusted over fingertips.


No matter. The woman flew past, a whirlwind, and in her wake one crashed down, blood pooling from his neck. She never looked back.


As far as she was concerned, she had all the advantages, unfair or otherwise.


Now was time to carry through.


AIRO would keep an eye on manual boy, she had no doubt about that. Try and step outside without her and she had written the command to keep him close but out of harms way. This wasn’t an action of charity; he would either be collateral damage or an asset, nothing more, nothing less. The pressing and bare minimum concern was keeping the manual in tact—and AIRO in working condition.


Footsteps pounded after her but she was quick—had been quicker than most in her unit—and she ducked behind the corner and then another. She jimmied the knob of one of the doors. Success. It turned and she thrust it open, the door banging as it hit the wall. She tucked herself behind it, hinging her rifle back on the sling around her shoulders. The thunder of footsteps rounded the corner. Shouts of confusion, whispers of caution. One approached the door, one fearful step at a time, and once he was in range her arm darted forward, wrenching him around the collar and yanking him into the door. There was a crunch as his head flew back, slamming into the corner. His throat gushed blood, a gurgle and a choke, and Nine was off once again, clearing the stairs four at a time.


Two floors down and she took to a slow, heart thrumming in her chest even as her face was peerlessly smooth. Her gait was slow, almost languid even as she was no less alert. She wasn’t on edge—rarely was, these days—but there was a methodical quality to her footsteps, the manner that she turned her head, surveying her surroundings with every sense in her arsenal. She entered the hall, the last rays of sunlight streaming through the windows, casting jagged patterns of shadow upon the floor.


“AIRO,” she hissed and the drone turned. A mechanical whirr, a pop of some joint, and a spiny joint elongated from its spherical body. It floated past, monitor shuttering, and made a beeline for the direction whence she came. The noise from the stairs meant the men were almost at the bottom, almost there, and it was with one efficient leap that she vaulted over an overturned table, crouched behind it, and casually drew out and readied her weapon overhead.


Angry shouts rang out amongst bursts of fire, of bullets hitting concrete and metal, missing their mark. AIRO sped back into the room, this time with the men following in its wake. One was picked off immediately, a spray of fire that found its mark dead center of the man’s chest. The body slumped, knees hitting the ground first.


Return fire followed and so did she--so did AIRO. The metal joint fired, a bright white laser, carving a jagged path amongst the hostiles, a flash of distraction and sometimes injury.


Bullets seared past. Until they didn't anymore.


Until four men lay dead on the ground and silence filled the hall once again.







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[Cairean]

A common misconception people have (from watching movies or playing video games) is that silencers make weapons almost unhearable, and that the reason for their invention was stealth.


It wasn't. The reason was that firing an unsilenced weapon within a building would damage the eardrums of every person in the room.


"AAarrrgh!"


Nami covered his now ringing ears with his hands. Unexperienced and untrained with weapons he foolishly hadn't bought any ear protection when shopping for his gun, and only the large size of the hall he was in prevented his eardrums from popping.


From the corner of his eyes he noticed that the drone had left his side at some point. Unable to hear whether anyone was in the room with him or not he decided the best course of action was to just stay put.


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[Trace]

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COUNT TO N I N E __

LOCATION - REMOTE TERRAFORMING CONTROL TOWER 18, OUTPOST 18, SECTOR 9, AREA 240, SAGITTARIUS PRIME

In the momentary lull, Nine stepped out from her cover. She looked left, right, all the entrances, and then crouched over to the nearest body, one gloved hand rifling through the corpse’s jacket pockets before emptying his pockets of anything remotely useful. Her haul got her a silver locket, a package of beef jerky, some ammunitions, and a crudely made tin can bomb. That she left behind. No use playing with fire if she didn’t have to.


The drone returned, blipping once or twice, shuttering to her feet as it landed, skidding across the floor in a smoking tangle just feet away from the guy who had been busy screaming his ass off in the middle of the fire fight. Now, the room was silent, but the clomp of footsteps from somewhere above them was even more apparent. Of course they had split up, of course that hadn’t been all of them. She had grown careless, soft. They’d heard the loud bursts of fire and from the rattle of the stairs it wouldn’t be long before they shot them all. Dead.


She picked up a sound that dragged across the room, some sort of shuffling from the hallway over.


“Shit,” she hissed under her breath. More reinforcements. It wasn’t worth it to stand ground, not with the risk of death and not with the drain it was going to put on her ammunitions. There wasn’t another ammunitions depot for miles and keeping cover across the vast stretches of wasteland couldn’t always be guaranteed. The terrain was too harsh, the people too brutal. The best option now was to turn tail and run. Live to see another day.


“More coming,” she ground out, frustrated. Her voice was low, almost stuck in the depths of her mask, and she sucked up oxygen like it was candy. “We’re getting outta here.”


She shot a look back over her shoulder, a mournful passing glance at the drone that was still attempting to whirr back into action, to lift itself off the ground. Someone was going to have a field day about that.


She pointed the butt of her rifle towards him before swinging it down to the smoking drone. “Pick it up and follow me.”


The front door banged on her way out, straight into the wastelands.







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