trans_9 | Battle's End

The Ohm had retreated. The various GIA forces on Lirath were withdrawn.

Refugees were being treated and dropped off at the refugee camps, and the crew that had been left there was gathered up. There hadn't been any other outbursts of Catastrophist attacks--it seemed that all of them had either been taken out or killed. Those that had been captured quickly self-detonated their neural explosives to avoid questioning, though the bodies still remained for investigation. Plenty of dead Ohm were there for study as well. Perhaps now the forces aligned against the bug menace could get some answers.

Currently, the Trans 9 was in orbit around the planet the camps were on while Stacy regenerated, allowing them access to and communication with the GIA. Several of the surviving GIA ships were orbiting, making similar repairs. It would be there only briefly before moving out.

Life went on.

Except, of course, when it didn't.

There was no time to recover the countless bodies lost in battle and it wasn't safe to stay on Lirath after the attack. The Ohm could possibly come back in greater force. Only one body was gathered up, with great respect and dignity, and carried up to the Transmigration 9--Superman's.

However, despite the people lost on Lirath--refugees, soldiers, and crew alike--the Ohm had been hurt badly this day. A full invasion force had been defeated, sent running.

They could be beaten, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The Rom?" Kasna replied thoughtfully. "I see. I'm not surprised they've gotten involved. They're secretive as hell, and I'm sure they've got their own agenda going, just like everyone else."

"But from what I know of them, they don't lie, they just...tend to selectively give you the truth. And they probably know what they're talking about. People say their elders can see the future, and I'm inclined to believe it."

"I wouldn't take anything they say without a grain of salt, but you can probably trust that what they tell you is true, even if it isn't the whole story. They turned out to be right here, after all."

Which was about what Leon figured. He thought about mentioning the Tapestry, but decided against it, for now. If they didn't know about it, he'd hold on to it as the closest thing they had to a trump card.

"They've been a bit... vague... but they've helped us out the few times we've crossed paths with them."

"Take help from where you can get it, Captain," the Admiral replied. "But be careful. You're in this even more blind than we are."

He sighs, leaning back in his chair.

"I know you've got the lives of your crew to worry about, but people have high hopes for what this ship is capable of achieving in this war. Just remember, you've always got me and everyone else who fought at Lirath to watch your backs."

Plus, the help from GIA High Command wasn't bad, either.

A few seconds after the Admiral had finished, Lash had entered the room and took a seat. Her torso was still bandaged, the plantsuit removed from it. She'd been in meetings like this before back in Black Hole, and was oddly quiet, not asking what she'd miss. She could always ask that later anyway. For now, she decided to just look at the Admiral, and listen to them talk.

Something else she quickly noticed, possibly due to the oddly zen atmosphere was that Zetta wasn't there. The councilmen had been asked to come too, right?

That was odd. But then again a lot of them weren't here right now, with all of the damage everyone had subsided. Once this was all over she'd get to the bottom of it. For now, she sat down close to the rest of the team, silent. Besides, even if she had wanted to ask question, Lash's head was still ringing from a headache.

Zouichi nodded at Lash as she sat down. He'd been keeping quiet, since it seemed like Kasna was more intent on having a heart-to-heart with Leon than anyone else, but he did wonder how much of this information was going to trickle its way down to the rest of the ship.

He was not at all surprised to hear that there were factions that didn't entirely trust each other within the GIA. Wasn't that always the case?

Tim, for his own part, wasn't surprised to hear about how deep the distrust and secrets went, either. It was natural, and it was clear enough, to him-- especially as an inherently distrusting person like he was. (Of course, that meant he also realised the irony of him being involved in a conversation about people keeping secrets.)

For his own part, he'd kept still and quiet, as he was prone to doing. The entire situation bothered him, but Leon and Kasna were covering it. The extremists, the nature of the force. The conditioning they'd encountered. He had things on his mind, but he stayed silent for the time being.

Edited 2011-08-30 23:47 (UTC)

"Its good to know t hat someone has our backs." At the least, Kansa didn't strike him as the type to have some kind of shadowy agenda, but one could never be too careful.

"What can you tell us about the Catastrophists? Like I said, we've never even heard of them before coming to Lirath."

"Pulled up a file on them just before I came over here," Kasna said, pulling out a datapad and tossing it to Leon.

"There isn't much on them. They've been around for years, but they've mostly kept a low profile. A number of bombings, but nothing on the scale of what they tried to pull here. According to manifestos found on suspects from previous cases, they seem to believe that the entire multiverse is corrupt on some level and must be destroyed to 'purify' it."

He scoffed, as the thought seemed completely preposterous to him.

"From what little we could get from these guys, it seems their leader is some guy named Nemo, but that's likely an alias of some sort. And they've obviously spent a lot of time militarizing themselves, given what we've seen today."

"I've got no idea what they're really up to, but I'm making sure High Command will be sending out Peacekeeper Investigative squads out all over GIA space to get to the bottom of it. We'll forward you anything they find out."

At this topic, and the revelation of what Kasna did know, Tim spoke up finally, voice gruff but firm. "From what we've seen, it seems like they've been conditioned to behave the way they do," he explained. It'd been his own theory, to begin with, but a channel post on the subject had confirmed it. "Typical cult fare. It's likely to be a delicate situation in some cases."

"And it obviously wasn't luck that led them to Lirath. So they have to have some kind of link to the Ohm, or some way to keep track of them. There's no way they could've guessed about Lirath, not unless they have some way to tell the future."

...

...

hn...

Was their Tapestry the only one in existence? Could the Catastrophists have another one, or something similar?

"Not surprised," Kasna replied to Tim. "We've dealt with cults that deal in that sort of thing from time to time. Even so, something about this case feels...different."

Kasna usually had good intuition, but he wanted to get all the facts before making any general conclusions.

"I was thinking about that myself," he added in response to Leon. "Precogs aren't all that uncommon, but even our best in the GIA Psi-Corps can't predict when and where the Ohm will attack. I'm wondering if they've somehow got info on the Ohm we don't...and if that's the case, it just means we need to get our hands on them even sooner."

A voice in the back of the room spoke up, ragged and tired. When he walked in was hard to tell, given how quickly he could move.

"Nemo knew things about us...mentioned something from Kara's childhood, I think. Personal stuff."

He really wasn't ready to be up and about yet. Still needed more time under the yellow sunlamps, after that beating and the radiation.

But he figured he could take a few minutes for this.

"He said he knows the unknowable. Whatever that means."

Battle's End

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