Zombies From the Sky

[Maharg67]

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Zero 14.1[14]{44}

 

The great shape, the twisted vessel of glimmering green mist that obscured much of its distorted physical shape, also had a large minority of area covered with white glowing mist. It was as if the two were fighting each other and they were; each supported its own form of entities to engage the others; undeath against unlife, undeath in opposition to death and unlife in opposition to life; or so was one way of perceiving such matters.

 

The green comet-projectiles kept shooting towards Terra, the Earth, but a smaller number were now launched at Mars that was mostly red except for the great, very wide, Martian Canals. The big ones were wider than the English French Channel of Terra. The medium ones were half the size of that and the small ones were half the size of the medium ones. There were also the three small oceans.

 

Citystates of Mars, what the locals called Barsoom, were quick to spot the monstrous shape above and just as quick to realize the threat that they faced. The red-brown egg laying marsupial humans, the Red Martians, of the fortified Citystates were quick to prepare their fleets of flying vessels. The hordes of hulking Green Martians, each with four arms, made plans in the ruins of Red Martian cities that they inhabited. There were others, more hidden, who also responded.

 

The first comet-projectile splashed violently into the largest of the oceans.

Edited May 25, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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Two 2.1[2]{45}

 

In a small tent, later on the same day that the damphir triplets had beaten up the Imperial Paratroopers, the sergeant stood before three other men. They sat on folding camp chairs behind a folding camp desk. One was an officer, another wore the typical outdoor gear of a boffin (scientist) and the third a business suit designed for use in tough conditions.

 

The sergeant frowned. "Those fools got hold of strong alcohol as provided by the animans that they then put into cages. The stuff, they drank, is strong even by the standards of British Imperial Paratroopers and that is saying a good deal. Those damphirs are damned fast, hard hitting, and well trained; those three knocked down my men before they knew what was happening; true the fools were drunk but even so they should have been able to defend themselves better than that."

 

The officer had hard cold eyes and expression, as did the other two behind the desk. "We accept the stupidity of your men. We would expect nothing else from them. Did you order them to capture animans?"

 

He snorted. "I would not trust those fools with such an important task. I do not know where they got the idea from to try to capture the animans. I have not acted so far because of the need to suss the situation out more. The locals are far from stupid and are led by some very canny leaders. We have the BISSA fools close at hand and they would not be pleased at our activities. Then there is Smaithe! He may not be too happy about nonhumans but I doubt he would go along with their capture for testing and dissecting."

 

The scientist scowled. "The BISSA are too soft to be truly logical in their scientific research."

 

The businessman said nothing but quietly observed everything.

 

The officer spoke again. "Return to your formal duties and continue to 'suss' out the situation. We will meet again as scheduled."

 

The sergeant departed quickly, relieved that he had not been punished for the stupidity of his men. He still wondered how the paratroopers had gotten the idea to try to capture the animans.

[Maharg67]

Two 2.1[2]{45}

 

Once the sergeant was gone, the officer turned his head towards the scientist. "You ordered those young fools to capture those animans because you became impatient to gain more scientific data. If you do that again I will kill you. We have too much to lose for you to spoil matters. Our masters would not approve of your antics."

 

The scientist nodded, as cold eyed as the others. "I made a mistake in my enthusiasm to serve our cause. I will be more disciplined in future. I put forward an offer £10,000 as a punishment payment."

 

The businessman spoke with a voice just as cold as the others. "The masters have already taken £100,000 from your monetary reserves and by taking one of your finest secondary estates in Scotland, including most of your finest horses and hounds."

 

The scientist paused before nodding. "Yes, a most sobering lesson. I will be more careful in future."

 

The sounds of birds singing came through from outside, muffled a little by tent material. Then came the muffled sounds of gunfire.

[Maharg67]

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Two 3.1[3]{46}

 

The scattered dead British Imperial Paratroopers lay where they had fallen with the corrupt sergeant who had just left the tent a very short time before. Arrows had come from the trees, striking down the soldiers even as they sought to shoot back. The attack had been well planned and executed, an ambush carried out by warriors of much skill and experience who had long fought tigerchimps and other threats.

 

The British Imperial Defence Force people were unhappy though proof was shown by the Oracle of the attempt to cage animans, the ill way they were treated, and that other attempts were being planned to capture animans. A large tent was open and in it were some big wooden crates, also opened, to expose special equipment. This was such as cages, whips, electrical cattleprods, dart rifles, vials of knock out serum, nets and even food with sedatives hidden in it.

 

At once investigations were launched by British Imperial Military, the Watchguardia, the BISSA and by the United Alliance. It was soon discovered that those behind the plans had vanished away, taking people and stolen resources with them. The expeditionary people were not pleased. Traitors turned out to have been amongst all three newcomer factions but most had been of the general British Imperials. While some were from the the Watchguardia, even fewer were from the BISSA.

 

At once searches began to track down those who had vanished.

 

It was not a good start to combined operations between the various factions.

Edited May 30, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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Zero 15.1[15]{47}

 

With the monstrous vessel getting closer to the Earth, Terra, more comet-projectiles were launched to shoot towards the home world. Now, though, some were partly covered with glowing white mist instead of glimmering green mist. A very few had both that seemed to be fighting some kind of bizarre conflict with each other.

 

What was the white mist and was it dangerous? Was this enemy of an enemy a friend of humanity or harmless to humanity or what?

 

The rocketship still orbited Luna, Earth's moon, while preparations were being made to send not only another rocketship but two one way rocket-containers full of equipment and supplies to construct a temporary Lunar Orbital spacestation with. The construction work on orbital defence platforms, around the home world, was also sped up as much as possible with out taking dangerous short cuts.

 

The League of Nations was soon to be confronted with other threats other than the one coming from space. Some of them had been festering in secret for a very long time.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

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Two 4.1[4]{48}

 

The parachute crates, and canisters, kept drifting down from the sky with out explanation except that they seemed to emerge from the bottom of curiously shaped clouds. The expeditionary force, along with the locals, were gaining many resources but it appeared that the 'gifts from the sky', as many had come to call them, were falling across most of the islands.

 

The British Imperial Defence Force people tried to grab up all of the containers falling onto the big island but were soon halted by angry responses from the Watchguardia, the BISSA and the United Alliance. All needed what was coming from 'up there'. Soon cave chambers were filled with reserves of equipment and supplies, being mostly supplies included preserved food.

 

Refugees began to arrive on the island, landing on its shorelines or coming up its bigger rivers, with what they could bring with them. There were humans, oomans and others but mostly animans of the faster breeding kinds. They spoke of brutal fighting going on between terrible forces, of glittering mists and glowing mists, of strange electromechanical machines and other mechanisms fighting each other. Much of what they spoke of was fragmented, hear say and unreliable. Yet they did speak of exotic humanoids parachuting from the same strange kind of clouds from which the containers were coming from.

 

At the same time the damphir triplets, and reavers, made an attempt to go up river. That is up the river from which came the strange jittering corpses, barges of undead attackers and other horrors. With difficulty they got through what were difficult passages and past smashed barges; evidence indicated the attack, of barges filled undead, had started out larger than it was when it managed to reach the target glowcavern. At least four barges had been smashed and there was no sign of any undead that might have come from them.

 

Then the expeditionary force was in a very large glowcavern but it showed abandonment though there were some bizarre features there, some disturbing clues to what had happened there. Yet there was also much that was of more mundane nature.

[Maharg67]

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Two 5.1[5]{49}

 

Quinn, Katrina and Salina paced quietly through a settlement that seemed to have no logical layout to it, no common sense design. Buildings, many crumbling and abandoned looking, were placed almost randomly. Other structures appeared to make little sense and some were of dreadful appearance, promising horrible purposes. There were the pits full of long decayed bodies, the metal vats of bad smelling liquids and even preserved corpses hanging from metal poles.

 

The three saw the big towers, three of them, reaching up towards the glowcrystal clad ceiling of the glowcavern. From the towers, in blackened iron cages, hung burnt looking skeletons.

 

Salina spat in disgust and indicated a huge mound of earth overgrown with a light layer of grasses. "A mass grave for sure. This place is full of the after taste of death and worse."

 

Quinn nodded. "There were powerful, malignant, entities here carrying out some kind of very nasty experiments."

 

Katrina frowned hard. "As usual we lack enough information to make even a good guess at what was going on here."

 

Something moved that was not any of the 13 reavers that had come with them. It turned out to be a stray dog. It was half starved but it was natural enough. Yet the damphir triplets carefully examined it, just in case, before adopting him as a pet-companion. They were soon taking turns to carry around the sleeping, cleaned, fed and medically treated canine.

 

The reavers were puzzled at this seeming waste of resources on a mere animal of no real use. Yet they knew that the damphir triplets were very hard fighters so began to wonder if there were good reasons to behave in such a way. What was also at work was something special, subtle, about Salina, Quinn and Katrina.

 

Things had been taken from there, many things, as proven by odd drag marks and more typical wagon wheel marks. Everything had been taken to a central point and then, it seemed, had vanished mysteriously. There were also many foot prints of different kinds, some being more familiar than others.

 

When the Oracle arrived, materialising out of mid air, she looked around before quietly asked the triplets, and reavers, to depart. After the Oracle left that place there was nothing left but the bare glowcavern itself. Somehow everything else had been disposed of so that there were not even holes in the ground. Even the big towers were gone along with the mass graves.

 

The Oracle slept for three days as if what ever she had done had drained much energy from her.

[Maharg67]

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Two 6.1[6]{50}

 

Zombies came floating, in parachutes, down from the bizarre clouds except that these ones were intelligent enough to use machineguns, strange electromechanical suits and other devices, including other weapons. There did not seem to be any ghouls or lichs or other forms of undead such as vampires amongst them.

 

Some of the parachute zombies fell into the islands seas, and salt water channels, and perished despite their strange gear. Others fell into fresh water and some of those survived to clamber out onto shorelines. The landings appeared to be concentrated on a large island, even much larger than the one that the United Alliance was based on.

 

Amongst the refugees arriving at the island, which was gaining the popular name of Freedom Island, were groups of reavers and tigerchimps along with other forms of unlifen and exotic hybrids. Both the lords of the reavers and tigerchimps had been destroyed though those that served them, who came to the island, did not have any real details of what had happened to them.

 

Setting up a series of forts, and smaller outposts, along the shoreline was a logical step to take and soon refugees were being recruited by the United Alliance to assist.

 

The Oracle awoke, from her long sleep, to start giving speeches to large crowds in a glowcavern that was shaped to be a fine theatre with good acoustic quality.

 

Meetings were held, plans were made, briefings were held, and guarded working groups sent to build the outposts and bigger forts.

 

No parachute zombies fell upon Freedom Island but very few considered that would make the island safer in the longer run.

[Maharg67]

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Two 7.1[7]{51}

 

The mechanical zombies moved quickly towards the glowcavern's defensive positions. United Alliance fighters met them with bullets, arrows and even rocket-grenades. Arrows, coated with undead killing substances, hit vulnerable spots in the strange zombie suits. The mechanical zombies fired heavy machineguns or hurled oversized hand-grenades. The glowcavern was the very one that the Oracle had cleansed, the very one that had once held the horrific place.

 

What had drawn the bizarre attackers there was unknown but that did not matter. The glowcavern could provide a way to get to the underground spaces beneath Freedom Island and that would be a disaster.

 

The damphir triplets were there along with the First Mate. Somehow the title had become his name and yet he did not seem to care. He had become again the assistant to Captain ManMonster, who was not there but with the Oracle in a meeting, and was representing him there; this meant he represented Captain ManMonster's people.

 

A dispenser menu of weapons, and armour, allowed the United Alliance a supply of swords, plate armour, compact crossbows and other devices. The types of armour were very light and yet protective being quasileather, chain-mail and metallic plate. Weapons were longswords, shortswords, flails, battlehammers, battle-axes, maces, javelins, daggers, combat knives and even lances along with the bows, arrows, crossbows and bolts. All of the devices did extra damage to the undead and had added exotic abilities when used by some.

 

The damphir triplets fired off arrows with deadly effect, their own subtle abilities somehow causing the arrow strikes to do extra damage.

 

The evil one, the vampire creature in bizarre metallic armour, flickered into existence before vanishing after a quick look around. It had come to find something and its facial expression was one of both surprise and rage.

 

As soon as the armoured vampire was gone, the mechanical zombies withdrew as rapidly as they could. They took with them their dead and damaged, dragging both away with the same lack of regard for any pain caused to the damaged zombies.

 

Had the vampire been seeking something that was linked to the former activity of the glowcavern? The triplets could think of no better explanation but had no desire to jump to conclusions either.

 

The three had found they were good, strong, 'healers' and began to tend to the wounded along with healers.

[Maharg67]

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Zero 16.1[16]{52}

 

Satellites captured images of odd activity on the former Zaztek homeland. High altitude spy rocket-planes confirmed that there were moving groups, construction taking place and other concerning signs. It was happening on a sudden, efficiently carried out, large scale.

 

League of Nations ships, and island bases, were put on red alert.

 

It was the last thing the League of Nations needed to face, especially when facing the threat from space!

 

Were the two connected!?

 

Had surviving Zazteks, surviving against seemingly impossible odds, discovered what was happening with the comet-projectiles and had decided it was time to carry out some kind of long term plan?

 

There were yet more emergency meetings held at the LN Centres of the world.