People say that war is hell. This looked it.

Buildings and cars and bodies are scattered like broken toys as far as the eye can see, stretching out toward a dirty horizon. Even the clouds seems streaked with mud and blood, and they're taking it out on everyone below with a constant stream of cold, soaking rain.

The sounds of fighting seem to come from all directions, but at this moment, there's no one else in sight.

A breather. The calm before the storm.

[[OOC: This is for everyone who was involved with "The Lurking Fear". Questions go to Milo or Kaylin.]]

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Iron Fist, Erwin, Goliath, Lash, Robert Donovan, Seeley Booth]}

There is a resounding mental alarum that sounds through the ship. Nearly "deafening." Lights flash from places for extra emphasis, making it impossible to ignore.

||Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention. All personnel please report to the Observation Deck. Attention, Attention, all personnel...||

It's entirely likely that she won't stop repeating the announcement until, well, everyone reports to Obs Deck. Outside the windows, a very Earth-like planet is visible, hanging in space. The mouth in the huge statue opens, revealing a screen. On it, the dossier for the mission flickers into display, understandable to every person there. Smaller copies of the dossier appear in holographic form in front of everyone.

The planet's stats, right next to a rotating holographic picture of it, marbled blue and green, are as follows:

Planet Designation: Earth-78734XM45
Status: Terrestrial, H-class.
Non-sentient life: Extensive flora and fauna.
Semi-Sentient Life: Yes.
Sentient Life: Homo Sapiens. [Various translations of "human" appear here so everyone understands it]
Water: 69.5% of the planet's surface.

Climate: Earth-like, in the throes of a mild nuclear winter [Click here for cultural equivalents for non-Earth cultures.]
Landscape: Varied.
Air: Normoxic concentration. Slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

Air Pressure: 101.3 kPa (kilopascals) = 14.7 psi (pounds per square inch)
Sky: Blue. Often overcast.
Sun: A class G2V, yellow star.

Warnings: Wildlife and plant-life can be hazardous. Humans can be hazardous. A human cultural and legal database is available. [click here]

Mission: Revive the spiritual entity at the North Pole.

--

Following that, there are various maps and things visible. The version of Earth this world is may be very recognizable to some, but vast cities dot its surface.

||Attention, podmates. Attention.||

Apparently Stacy wants their attention.

||It is critical that you pay attention at this time.||

A few people will be able to avoid the call by being in the right place at the right time, but most will be gathered up on Obs Deck.

[ooc: Organization Post | You can post into the gathering thread. I'll add more subthreads with explanations of aspects of the mission as we go. Note: If you don't have time to post to this mission briefing but still want to have your character in the plot, that's fine. You can just pretend they were there the whole time. If you DON'T want your characters to be in this plot altogether, however, don't have them in the briefing--Stacy could have missed snagging them.]

Lafiel floated in the great chambers, weightless and warm as a great womb. Organic docking clamps (T-shaped with surfaces like teeth) held great shadowy shapes, sleek and metal. They were curved, beautiful and deadly.

The first clamp held a ponyu class, the only fighter in the Abh fleet. Its split tail and rounded body gave it the appearance of some great metal sailfish. As Lafiel pushed off the wall to float close to it, she remembered being pursued by the corrupt Baron Febdash in one of these crafts. He, a fellow Abh had been her first kill. At the time she had not understood why it upset Jinnto.

Now, after having suffered wounds and faced down things like humans that called with human throats in the thick and humid night, she thought she did, at least a little.

She climbed inside to inspect it.

When she was done, she moved onto the next ship. It was much more squat than the ponyu, flattened, round body with a smaller cockpit that poked out like the head of a turtle. An assault transport class, designed to ferry troops to ground worlds in the rare event the Abh needed to become involved in lander affairs. Inside, however, she would find an uglier shape: bulbous and spherical, it filled the hold. It was a hoksath or antimatter mine, a weapon capable of turning a continent into a skin melting inferno.

And it was fueled.

Unsettled, she double and triple checked the security on it, before floating away.

[OOC: If weapons of mass destruction are against the rules i'll happily change this post.]

Everyone's had a chance to recover somewhat, to stop reeling or at least try. Now that people are at least somewhat closer to being on balance again, it's time to say goodbye.

There is a message throughout the ship, one tinged with sadness:

||Attention, crew. Those who wish to attend the funeral services for the crew-mates that died during the conflict should report to Obs Deck immediately. Services will begin in approximately a thirty Earth standard minutes.||

The floor of the Obs Deck shifts to allow lifts to come up through it. Tubes connect from the space there to the hatches that suddenly appear between the windows, giving something of an impression that the closed caskets are missiles about to be shot through a missile tube. The funeral pods themselves have clear round domes in them--some of the people that died more peacefully are visible, looking as if they're sleeping. Most, however, were killed in a way that would make them appear less than presentable, so in their funeral pods only the vaguest outlines of humanoid forms can be made out. Some have entirely closed pods or were vaporized and thus, only have a funeral pod there to represent them.

The ship lurches lightly as it comes to a stop to a random universe, but where it's stopped at is beautiful to behold. They are in the middle of a nebula, surrounded by red and blue plasma. Several new stars burn brightly, here, and they are stopped near one, just short of being sucked in by its gravitational pull. It's a red dwarf, small and faint and new, but its light is welcoming. Here, where the very fires of creation burn, and stars are born is the last place the dead will be sent.

[ooc: Instruction thingies]

Robert waited casually near the entrance of the Sensoriums, arms folded across his chest as he waited for Meluly to arrive. He'd been serious about learning to pitol...whatever they were called again. He felt as if just wielding a rifle wouldn't be enough in this war they were in now, just like beat cops weren't enough to keep down crime. He shifted his stance slightly, glad that the new rooms they'd gotten allowed him to store some of his gear, so he wasn't stuck carrying his rifle around all day in fear of it being nicked by a less than honest crewmate.

And he would learn and he would do well, he told himself. If not for himself or the crew, for those who needed protecting from the Ohm. And for everybody who hadn't had the chance to fight back, the innocents who were destroyed without even knowing what had happened.

 Between nearly killing himself trying to help people and his talk with Nathan, Peter was exhausted. Even with his upbeat demeanor, it was hard to not say he felt stressed. His flight-breaks no longer helping, he decided he needed to take a few hours. He found himself at the sensoriums, a place he had heard talked about like the holodeck from Star Trek. As he walked in, it was a blank room. He closed his eyes and thought to himself. 

I just need a way to relax.

He suddenly heard music, and opened his eyes to what appeared to be a high class nightclub, but filled with the strangest creatures he had ever seen, even since arriving on the ship. Behind the bar, a green-skinned redhead with horns, more conspicuous for his paisley shirt and purple ascot, was trying to get his attention.  

"Hey, kiddo, didn't you hear them call your name?" The demon said, smiling. "You're up, bubbulah. Don't worry, I picked a good song for you." Peter eyed him warily. Wherever this place had come from, it was not his head. But decided not to question it, and went to stand in front of a karaoke machine on stage. He picked up the mike and saw the song, and smiled. He loved this song. EVERYONE loved this song. Luckily, a few years in boy's choir had given him a sense of tune, and puberty had left him with a decent tenor. So, he began to sing. 

o/` I can't fight this feeling any longer,
      And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow... o/` 

That was all it took. As if suddenly injected with 100 ccs of pure rock ballad awesome, Peter closed his eyes and began letting the music take him, eventually rocking out. He had forgotten what it was like, honestly. Forgotten the fun of just letting go and having fun. And as he finished up the REO Speedwagon classic, breathing heavily and feeling alive, he wished he hadn't. 

But then he opened his eyes to notice more than just his holographic audience had filtered into the "club". 

"Uh... Next?" He said as he hastily replaced the mike and went to get a holo-beer. 

That was embarrassing.  He could only hope someone would follow him up and make it slightly less so.

[ooc: Start a subthread with your character approaching the stage and singing a song. Characters can react to other's performances even if they aren't singing themselves. And any song you'd like, Lorne has the entire mutliverse on karaoke. I'm not asking, and neither should you.]

The undead were pounding at the doors -- all of them, and the windows, and the walls in general for that matter.

The front doors were going to be a problem, though. They zombies were actually breaking through there.

Battle stations everyone!

A mass of zombies has laid seige to the Vatican.

Time to fight for your lives!!!

Stacy jerks and shudders to a sudden stop, likely upsetting more than a few things already upset because the comms have stopped working. And deep down inside Stacy, on the first level, a little section thoughtfully titled "Contagion Containment and Quarantine" spilled open.

Hal 9000 had opened it up. And the things that had been kept there were still alive.

Or at least, they were moving...

Their groans echoed through the lower level as they spilled out of Quarantine 1, shambling and shuffling toward the Hub. The Hub would take them where they wanted to go. And what they wanted to do first was make some new friends.

So they went to the Pod Caverns. Then, after that, the zombies started heading up to the City...

[[OOC: Holy $#%&, Team Left Behind, ZOMBIES. Going to set up some subthreads, please wait until I do! INFO HERE, FIRST SUB-THREAD GO GO GO!]]

The Vatican had a lot of ground to cover. Normally covered in expansive gardens (just empty plots on the ship) and comprised of a multitude of buildings, holing up there meant holing up in simply a part of the Vatican. The group was therefore in St. Peter's Basilica, which had had most of its entrances sealed off. Now they had to work on small windows and a few other entrances left neglected, but overall, it was a very defensible position. There were no exits other than the ones leading to the sacristy and treasury--which was their main avenue of escape, and heavily guarded. The prisoners were being kept in this area, and guarded by the rear guards, as leaving them in the prison was deemed too dangerous for their safety. As bad as they'd been with the Yeerk conflict, they were crew, and no one wanted them to die.

The courtyard was a chokepoint. Gunners could sit on the roofs of the buildings running alongside the courtyard to strafe St. Peter's square from the sides.

The various chapels and vestibules along the sides made excellent areas for food, medical, and weapons supplies to be gathered, and most were clustered in the middle of the basilica. The Medical area was in the Chapel of the Column, the main weapons and ammo caches, and Food storage areas were in the two Transepts, respectively, to the sides of the Papal altar. Pews all in the main areas had been converted to sleeping areas, right in the center of the whole place.

There was still work to be done, before the other group could leave. Last minute barricades, blocking more windows, moving the last of the medical supplies, inventorying the food, and so on. Then it would be time to hunker down.

So push up your sleeves and lend someone else a hand, folks.

[ooc: Read instructions for these threads here!]

In some ways fainting had been a blessing to Chaucer. Medically, it was nothing but a nightmare, but he hadn't had to deal with the doctors or healers, or whoever had patched him up in the end. Whoever it was had done a brilliant job; Geoff had been terrified that he'd lose his arm at the very least, probably die. Instead he'd woken up to a splint and some heavy sort of wrapping. He couldn't move his arm, but it wasn't missing. A few minutes of checking it over had passed before he'd even noticed the odd pulling in his side and noticed the bandages there.

The relative lack of pain was a marvel in itself.

He needed to find out who had helped him, thank them, eventually. When he got out of the medbay. For now he was propped up slightly in his bed, struggling with the stylus for his comm. Left-handed writing was ridiculously difficult, made even more awkward by the unfamiliarity of the surface, but it was something to do. A way to write Philippa, one he could transcribe into legibility later.

About a full day had passed since the Yeerk mess, when Leon called all of Security together for a debriefing. He wanted to give everyone a chance to get their wounds treated and to rest up. To say that it had been a rough day yesterday would be an understatement. He also wanted to give his people a chance to get their heads clear. Emotions run high after a battle, so he wanted to let everyone cool off and let some of the things the Captain said sink in.

Leon himself, though, wasn't able to take advantage of the time off, though. He looked like shit, less from the physical injuries than from the physical and emotional fatigue wearing on him. With Claire still out cold from emergency surgery, he hadn't slept at all, and likely wouldn't until he knew she was all right. Even now, his thoughts didn't drift far from her.

But with his team assembled in the briefing room, Leon stood front and center to address them.

( Read more... )

[Instructions: Here.]

Despite a few tricks up their sleeves, the Conspirators hardly stood a chance. It's all or nothing as they make a few last ditch attempts to kill the Yeerk, and as the fight grinds to a screeching halt.

Will they kill the Yeerk?

Will someone other than the Yeerk get killed in the crossfire?

[Instructions: Here.]

The fighting begins in earnest, as bystanders get dragged in, have to duck out of the way, or join in to help out, but with more people entering the fray, there's even more chaos.

Buildings have been cracked, a nearby fountain has been smashed, causing water to pour over the ground and make things even more of a mess.

Can anyone, Security or the Conspirators, keep the situation under control?

[Instructions: Here.]

Mahatma Gandhi once said: "In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place."

It was entirely likely that the crew would be very split on interpretation of that quote. Some thought the right thing was punishing what they saw as a mind-slaver for a crime with the ultimate penalty. Others thought that if a trial had dictated that imprisonment was punishment enough that it truly was.

It was time to move the Yeerk, in its containment unit, from the Precinct in the City, to its secure prison in the MedBay, where its prison sentence was to take place.

It was also time for the conspirators to move and make sure that it never made it.

( There's a storm brewing )

When he was ready, he finally called all of security into one of the briefing rooms. In front of where he stood, there was a holographic layout of part of the city, which highlighted the few direct routes between the Precinct and the Hub. Somewhere along those routes Sam would have to attack, since outside of the city, Stacy wouldn't let him.

Out of all of the routes, he chose the widest walkway there. Right now they had Sam outnumbered and outgunned, but none of that mattered if they didn't have room to utilize it.

A group of six, consisting of Leon, The Master Chief, Samus Aran, Worf, Marcus, and Ronon, were going to take the Yeerk. Carol Danvers would be flying overhead. The rest of the Security team would be along the route, keeping watch out for Sam, but their primary function would be crowd control. If Sam attacked, it would be up to them to protect the bystanders first and foremost, and keep others from getting involved. If people started jumping in, the situation could spiral downwards in a hurry. He did not want a riot on his hands The six with the Yeerk would be the primary ones to engage Sam and whoever he had with him.

When Leon addressed the group, he spoke as if he was laying all his cards out on the table, but he did not mention his suspicions about a traitor among them. They needed to trust each other, and they needed to believe that he trusted them. And he did trust them... he trusted them enough to mention the sub-armory, where some of the more high powered weapons, non-lethal riot ordinance (including rubber bullets, flashbangs, tear gas, and beanbag shotgun rounds) and basic body armor (re: Kevlar) was available to them.

But there were still a few cards he was going to play close to the vest.

"All right, people, that's the plan. Any questions?"

Sitting on one of the rooftops, looking out over the city, was none other than Jason Todd. Clad in his plant suit, leather jacket, and red domino mask. His gun was stashed in his coat pocket and his knife, well his knife was hidden. He didn't exactly know what to do in this place. He could go and locate Tim and mess with him some more, but that would get old fast. He didn't want to grow tired of messing with the kid.

He could get out and be social, but that went against everything he was. He didn't go out and make friends. There was no point, and no one here seemed to be of any interest to him anyways. Plus if one of them pissed him off and he was forced too... The tentacles from his first day here sprang to mind and he shivered. He hated tentacles. So getting pissed and beating anyone up was out of the question. At least in a place where the bitch would see him.

He growls a bit and kicked a piece of stone off of the rooftop and watched it fall to the ground. This was stupid. Why the hell would this ship bring him here, if he couldn't do anything? He'd rather be fucking dead! Well.. not dead. But at least back home he could have had a chance of..

He shook his head. He wasn't going to think about home right now. Too much had happened, he wanted to forget it all. The plan to take back Gotham as the Batman had failed, badly. It was time to move on. Make a new plan. He just had to figure out what the hell that plan was going to be, then how he was going to go about it.

It was going to be a long night... day... whatever.

Robert had taken it upon himself to gather and check over the physical evidence at the jailbreak. It infuriated him, really, that someone would be so callous and selfish as to flaunt the (albeit crude) justice system they had in place aboard Stacy. There were rules, and rules had to be followed. Even if you didn't like what happened. He knew there were a few cases where the creep had gotten off, and he hadn't liked it any better then anybody else, but you didn't go out and try to kill the guy because the system failed. It was just wrong. And why you would do so was a mystery to the former police officer.

He paused outside Leon's office to check on the information he had with him, flipping through the files on his omnicomm (locked of course) to insure that he had everything. Leon was a good guy to run the ship's security, Robert thought. Good head on his shoulders and seemed to know what he was doing in regards to police work and keeping the peace. He raised a hand and knocked quietly on the door before stepping inside.

"Leon, hi. Just got done organizing all the the evidence we found down in the cells. Thought you might wanna take a look at it."

Today, the sensoriums are decked out like a baseball field, enshrouded in conifers. A storm rumbles overhead and while there may not be any vampires hanging around, Supermassive Black Hole could quite possibly be playing in the background. And Peter Parker, decked out in a Meatship Mets jersey, could quite possibly be dancing his way up to the plate.

"... and now Parker steps up to bat," he commentates peppily to himself, "It's been a tough start to the season for the young Forest Hills leadoff. The coaches are attributing his bad form to an unfortunate case of abduction but at only twenty one, he's certainly got pluck."

From the mound a pitching machine groans into life and spits out its first ball. There's a resounding crack as he drives the ball squarely down centerfield, his spider-strength powering the ball way off into the trees.

"We caught up with Parker after the game for a few words on his magnificent opening punt post-game." he continues, "'Well, what can I say Kent? After the last few misfires we decided to keep play simple this time around. I just play to my strengths, Kent. I've got a good arm and as my uncle taught me, with great power comes great responsibility...'"

So, anyone up for a game of metabaseball? Somebody has to shut him up.