Darkness Dawning – Run Dark, Run Deep
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Jared

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Post Details

Title   Run Dark, Run Deep
Mission   Darkness Dawning
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh & Soghla' Jared
Posted   Thu Aug 02, 2012 @ 3:10pm
Location   Nhilus Ship
Timeline   ...hard to say...
Ro' and May'Bel's paired disruptors were running so hot they glowed. Every time a purple beam played over one of hem it vanished behind a disruptor blast. The fire was so furious there was no room for all the scarabs to fit in to gather their fallen.

There was a clunk and a whine. and Jared stood up and took a step back. Looking around, he picked up a plasma-cutter from the tools on the floor, cranking the power up past the safety margins and watching for anything that got past the disruptors. As a scarab landed on the wall beside him, he prodded the cutter against it and sliced his foe in two with a flare of blue light.

There was a "THWOOMPH" sound from Jared's device, and they all watched a shimmer pass through the air around them. Ribbons of purple energy began to coil out of the device, lazily curling around nearby sections of engine machinery and effortlessly warping them into surreal shapes.

"It's active. No way to stop it now! Best not to let the purple ribbons touch you."

One of the trailing streamers coiled gently around the leg of Ru'fimohp's corpse. It seemed to... ripple for a moment. Then it burst - spraying purple ichor across several feet of decking.

"How long?" May'Bel demanded over the keening of his disruptor's overheat alert.

"73 seconds from when I turned it on. "

He thought for a moment.

"Actually... that's not exactly true. I'll be 73 seconds from the F'Hew's perspective. But within the distortions produced by the device, the inversive quantum mass debt is going to play hell with relativity. For us it'll probably be more like... Seven minutes? Eight maybe? Way too many variables to guess accurately."

"I totally forgot about that!"

Ro' began to walk forward, still firing, "What is the blast radius?"

"Implosive mass-collapse radius of around five kellicams. Secondary blast shockwave around ten kellicams."

"In real words, ancient!"

"Everything within five goes squish! Then everything within ten goes boom."

"How long is the ship?" Ro' kept walking, forcing the Nihlus back with pure fire power. Jared turned in alarm as the war-bot that had killed Ru'fimohp began to move again. But a moment later another purple ribbon of energy coiled gently around it, and it was rent in two with an explosion of sparks and tortured metal.

Behind them scarabs began to swarm over the device, drawn to it's destructive energy emanations like moths to a flame.

"4 kellicams. That's an hour walk," May'bel responded, "And we have seven minutes."

"So what do we do," Jared asked adjusting his grip on the cutter.

Ro' and May'bel looked at each other and exchanged a broad grin.

"We RUN!"