Maharg67's Den (shorter works, short stories, poetry, etc.)

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 6.1[8] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #8

 

Jack aimed a large pistol, a magnum revolver pistol, and fired with a blast. The echo rang heavily in the chamber. Knight-Captain Paul Anderson was hurled back from where he was about to detonate a powerful bomb, a bomb that would have destroyed himself along with many others and a large area; this would have been helped by the fact they were in the main ammunition chamber of the outpost armoury. Jack would not have risked using his pistol in such a place under other circumstances but he had been forced to stop the knight-captain from detonating a bomb. The dead knight-captain twitched very strangely, so strongly at times that he jumped totally off the ground. Then, abruptly, he lay still for now both he and the 'thing' inside were dead.

 

It had been a very close call and Jack wondered what had woken him, had drawn him to go at once to the armoury. Gwen, also in body-armor, stood close to him clutching a big semiautomatic pistol equipped with an advanced top attached helix magazine that could hold up to 60 bullets. This was along with the 12 bullets in the standard magazine.

 

Owen stood back, to one side, holding a standard Brotherhood of Steel autorifle equipped also with a grenadeshell launcher. Owen had gone through a time of being dead, with out being dead, and after coming out of it he had become very resistant to physical damage and very fast with healing. Problem was he was also slower than he had once been and did not swim very well as if weighed down extra in water. Torchwood had discovered that other such cases had been taking place around the world, before Doomsday, and that the results were known as deathfanes.

 

Jack crouched at the side of the dead knight-captain even as Brothers of Steel came storming into the room. They went to shoot but one of them, named Liza Lyon, stopped this from happening. She was a real Brotherhood of Steel Military Intelligence Operative. She was the oldest daughter of Elder Lyons, there being three of them, and had spent most of her career in covert operations from sabotage to hit-run strikes and spying.

 

She stood looking upon the scene with a grim expression on her face. "What ever the parasitic entities are, what their purpose is, is linked to Juno Base. That is the same base you of Torchwood were based in. What we know is that these parasitic entities share genetic similarities with the zetan aliens, being the same aliens Torchwood was helping the American Federal Government to deal with. We think it is no coincidence that we have reports of zetans holding secretive meetings with Enclaven Officers in the Wastelands north-north-west of DC. We have allies in that direction and I can say no more than that on the matter."

 

Gwen frowned. "I have dreamed of zetans being dissected to reveal parasitic entities inside them. That took place in Juno Base in the months leading up to Doomsday. There were also dissections of humans that revealed the same entities inside them. The humans were all going, or were, quite insane before they died. They were often killed by government, or militia, forces in the DC who were dealing with their increasing madness. Then Juno Base was attacked, both from within and outside, and much violence broke out. Some form of exotic assistance arrived to help the defenders against both the invaders, and the traitors. Yet I can not quite see what they were, in my dreams, or what they did to help; much is hidden! I feel horror at the idea of returning to Juno Base but we must go there to reveal the truth."

 

Gwen changed subjects. "Do you know of the damaged holotape that Paul Anderson showed us?"

 

Liza gave Gwen a puzzled look. "We do not know of any important, damaged, holotape that Knight-Captain Paul Anderson had possession of. Is it important enough to look at straight away?"

 

Jack Harkness nodded. "Yes, it is!"

 

That was good enough for Liza Lyons, thanks to her strong knowledge of his reputation.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

I have been having a necessary break from writing in Druid's Garden but will soon be back with new material. Graham, alias Maharg67.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 7.1[9] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #9

After viewing the holotape some more discussions took place.

Jack led a scouting party towards Juno Base, or at least the area above the deeply buried base. The unit was made up of both Torchwood people and Brothers of Steel. They were soon threading through the desolate landscape and making their way away from the Washington Monument. Though in theory the area was under the control of the Brotherhood of Steel, there were few signs of this being actually true.

They saw the crashed saucerboat, that was guarded by three Troopers of Steel in power armour along with a semi-portable gun-turret but headed away from it. Jack wondered what the 'brotherhood' had taken from it, if anything. Zetan technologies were designed to give away no secrets if captured and, as far as Jack knew, had given away none to humanity of that world.

He had started to wonder if any thing of Torchwood had survived in far off Great Britain that was now 'United Commonwealth Kingdom'. What had survived of anything that had been the British Isles that he had once known, centuries ago. What of Cardiff and the Torchwood Base there?

They rested in a partly collapsed robotic warehouse, the robotics having long been looted along with much else, and Jack discussed plans with Gwen, Liza and others there. The ways, once used to gain access to Juno Base, would probably no longer exist.

Something whooshed low over the warehouse, loud but not overly so, and Jack looked up with a soft curse. Then he explained. "That was a zetan saucerboat or I have never heard one before, which I have far too many times. The saucerboats are quieter than the zetan dropships and less powerful. Zetans can be difficult to kill with their energy weapons, armour and other tricks."

Liza frowned hard, her helmet being removed. "Brothers of Steel have fought zetans in a large number of skirmishes but no bigger fights than that. I have only been involved in one such firefight. The zetans might have superior technologies but they are not very good soldiers with inflexible thinking."

Gwen shrugged, just a little. "If the zetans are infested with bizarre parasites than that might explain the inflexible thinking; they would be mere flesh puppets."

It was an interesting, if dark, idea!

Edited March 29, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 8.2[10] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a time #10

The expeditionary force managed to find utility tunnels that took them down to a secondary subway tunnel that had once run not trains but smaller trams. They went in what seemed the wrong direction, to get to Juno Base, but then found a secret entrance to a way to get there. It was a well hidden armored power door.

From then on they were heading down into the depths of a series of spiral ramping tunnels. They found locked storerooms that held many valuable resources, utility alcoves with more, semiactive robots in special bays and even a semiactive electric tram network. They sped along in one of the bigger trams, with a quiet humming noise, and did good time.

The last step was to decide to use a large express elevator or a big spiral rampway tunnel going down. They chose the rampway tunnel for the elevator could too easily become a death trap.

Memories were returning to the Torchwood people and though not all were good, many were of a more mundane nature of living and working in Juno Base.

They then came to the first scene of a former battle. Guards, in power armour, lay as long dead and scattered around a big lobby like chamber. They seemed to have been killing each other. Two destroyed sentrybots were there but who had wiped them out was a mystery. As it was they were able to loot useful items from the dead soldiers.

Jack frowned to himself after the dead remains had been examined. "The parasitic entities were in control of about half of the combatants. They must have gone berserk and attacked the other power armoured guards."

Owen frowned hard as he examined the long dead remains of a parasite. "What were those fools up to, in Juno Base, that would lead to this kind of stupidity?"

Gwen spoke. "That is what we are trying to find out."

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 8.3[11] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a time #11

 

Juno Base proper was entered by going through a big armored wheel-door of VaultTek design and construction. It was jammed open with a big battlebot (more powerful version of a sentrybot) rammed into the floor slot. As they entered the base, the Torchwood people found even more memories returning and many of those were not good at all.

 

The parasitic entities had been in the highly restricted research zone of Juno Base where Torchwood people were not allowed to go or to know about. The day that disaster struck Juno Base was when out of that zone flooded hundreds of humans under the control of the parasites. Before them, fleeing or even fighting as they went, were many others. Androids could not be controlled by the parasites, that did not even bother to go after them, but there were only a dozen or so of them involved.

 

The Torchwood people had soon become involved in the struggle for survival.

 

They found themselves in a big multiple purpose chamber, partly damaged by past events, and Jack looked around with an expression of puzzlement. "We did not totally lose the battle with the parasitic infested humans. A large part of Juno Base was secured against them. So why are our memories still unclear?"

 

The Brothers of Steel spread out carefully. There were good resources there.

 

Gwen had another good question. "Where are the survivors?"

 

Jack turned to her. "This was not part of the secured zone. Perhaps they are still there."

 

They began to hack the computer network-systems in the big chamber and took control over roboremotes, remotes and robots in bays in storage spaces. Turrets were activated under control as were 3Deyes. The full reactivation, through out the local area, would take time and some repair work.

 

Toshiko, the oriental woman with Torchwood, was in control of the hacking, being the computer genius that she was.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 9.1[12] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post At a Time #12

 

They came shambling, and snarling, out of the depths of Juno Base. Their humanity was long gone as their bodies were now twisted, misshapen things neither human or zetan in nature. The parasitic things inside them had become them, absorbing them or so it was soon to be discovered with the examination of dead bodies.

 

Gunfire spat out from turrets, robots and from the Brothers of Steel. The attackers shuddered and fell, dying easily, dying mercifully for clearly there was much pain there. More and more came only to die before they could do any harm. They slashed at things with long blades, snapped at air with long fangs and snarled at anything that was killing them.

 

After over a hundred had come, and had died, only then did they stop coming.

 

Soon Owen, of Torchwood, was doing a dissection of a twisted body while wearing a lightly armoured hazmat suit of tighter fit than the old kinds. The other bodies had been hurriedly body-bagged and dumped into chambers that were then sealed off. A Brotherhood medic was soon assisting him and she turned out to have excellent skills and much experience so that in practical terms Kate was a doctor.

 

Owen went and spoke to others, while Kate continued with some work wearing her own hazmat-suit. Lyons, Gwen and Jack were there. He showed his horror on his face. "Those people, those things, suffered horribly and I do not just mean the humans. The parasitic entities also suffered. Those abominations should never have been created. It was an alliance of government and corporations that was behind the stupidity. Government was the Enclaven, a large government faction inside the US Federal Government, GenTek and the Umbrella Corporation (UmbCorp). Most of Juno Base was considered, by this group, to be a diversion from the important research, and development, of the complex. How do I know this? Because somebody left a message bullet in the body."

 

He showed the small projectile, that would probably have been shot into the body by some kind of gun.

 

Owen went on speaking. "I suspect that message bullets were shot into many of the abominations and that it was no accident, of course, that a small machine is in the medical bay designed to read the message bullets. There is a lot of data in each message bullet and I only read the pre-briefing. A group was working inside the complex to sabotage that and other projects."

 

All had been effected deeply by the abominations though all of them were veterans of horrific experiences.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 9.2[13] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #13

 

"There was the project to deal with the zetans, in their increasing raids and abductions, in the USA. For some reason they increased after the USA conquered Canada. There were whispers of large hitech expeditions going into the depths of Canada, into sparsely populated areas. Clearly they were seeking something and whispers spoke of a very large alien saucer having crashed there centuries ago; the native peoples had legends of it. It could have been a zetan mothership."

 

Toshiko indicated a holographic projection of a map showing Canada along with Southern Alaska and the states of the Northern USA. There were red, yellow and green markers in parts of Northern Canada.

 

"Green was least likely possibilities, yellow fairly likely and red most likely. The color scheme indicated the danger that comes with finding any zetan mothership. If they gained materials from such a kind it would explain how they gained such to use in the experiments here, including the parasites."

 

The young oriental woman shook her head. "We need more data and that, I suspect, could be found deeper into Juno Base. That is in the heavily secured sector where Torchwood people were not allowed to go before Doomsday took place."

 

Jack grinned and then gave a soft laugh. "Jack Harkness does not like such boundaries to his curiosity. I was able to infiltrate into one sector where an experiment was being done on creating creatures, called supermutants, with something called FEV reinforced mutagenic gel. Hopefully such an evil experiment was bound to fail."

 

Lyons frowned. "Supermutants are a problem in many parts of the former USA and other parts of the world. They are not the same but very similar to each other as sub-populations. The Brotherhood of Steel has fought with them many times. Local supermutants come from a local TekVault, as far as we know, and not from here."

 

Jack sighed. "I never managed to infiltrate other very top secret projects before Doomsday struck."

 

The only answer was to infiltrate deeper into Juno Base but they had been intending to do that anyway.

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 10.1[14] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #14

 

The small expeditionary group reached the area where Torchwood, and others, had worked on the Zetan Project before Doomsday had taken place. The subcomplex was in surprisingly good condition with plenty of useful resources to be found. Lyons was increasing interested in the idea of the Brotherhood of Steel either salvaging from the base or even taking it over. The Torchwood people were not so sure that this was a good idea, fearing that things might be stirred up that the Brotherhood might find hard to deal with.

 

They kept on moving, investigating projects working on ways to make aircraft, cities, highway traveling people and others safer from zetan attack or abductions. Many of the projects had led to results that helped against zetan saucers later on, before and on Doomsday.

 

The odd humans came out of doors and held a variety of weapons but made no hostile moves. They wore lightly armored hazmat suits or power armor or just jumpsuits. Each one of them had an odd bump on the top of their head and a kind of armored flat slug melded into their upper backs. This was clearly seen with those wearing jumpsuits. They were clearly a form of parasite but one that did not seem to be hurting the hosts.

 

A youthful appearing woman stepped forward, wearing a jumpsuit and holding a triple barreled shotgun. "Good, you did not shoot at first sight as others have done."

 

Jack Harkness gave a mild grin. "I have visited many worlds and have had many encounters with a great variety of lifeforms including societies of positive cooperative hosts and others. I take it you survived the outbreak of parasitic creatures."

 

The woman smiled. "Yes, we can 'sense' that there is something very different about you, Jack Harkness of Torchwood. Yes, we have access to databanks with data about the PreDoomsday Era. We cooperate peacefully with one another in order to survive. We survived simply because the wild parasites did not have the hunger for us, who already had riders. The wild parasites came in a great rush, an onslaught that overwhelmed even the powerful, sophisticated, security network-systems. We were experimental test subjects, both hosts and riders, neither being volunteers. I suggest we find a secure place to have a productive discussion in, that is productive for both of our groups."

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 10.2[15] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #15

 

They called themselves the Coopines, that each being both a host and a rider in harmony. There were some 90,000 of them and they were steadily increasing in numbers despite some problems with fertility. They feared, rightfully enough, that they would not be accepted by many Wastelanders. They did have good relations with rhouls (generally peaceful, defensive aggressive, feral ghouls) who dwelt in part of the outer base and in caves at the edge of the Juno Base.

 

Sarisale, Leader of the Coopines, was astonished by the large amount of crazines, wild brutal combinations of host and rider, that the newcomers had killed off. She showed both gratitude and sadness. "We have tried, many times, to save the crazines from their suffering but all our efforts failed. Instead we have killed off groups of them, when given the chance to do so, both for our security and for reasons of mercy. We know that the parasites, including part of ourselves, are altered zetans known as zetors. They, we, were the product of a failed zetan research and development project that was in a zetan mothership that crashed in Northern Canada, very close to the Canada-Alaska Border. Getting to that mothership, and controlling access to it in many ways, was the real reason that the United States of America invaded Canada."

 

She frowned softly as around them, in the fairly large chamber, machinery hummed quietly. "The zetan mothership was moved, don't ask me how, to below Juno Base. There was a fairly powerful earthquake in the area that took everybody by surprise, including scientists."

 

Gwen responded. "I heard about it but that was before Torchwood people were sent to Washington DC, let alone entered Juno Base."

 

"Nobody should ever have trusted the Umbrella Corporation." Sarisale scowled with distaste. "GenTek was bad enough but UmbCorp was very twisted. Look what happened in Raccoon City."

 

"The incident nearly led to a world wide zombie virus pandemic." Owen snorted. "Instead we ended up with a world wide problem with aggressive feral ghouls (zhouls) and other mutated monsters."

 

"Do not forget the supermutants or the berserker carnivore apes of Caesar's Legions. There are stories that the carnivore apes were taken out of a large zetan saucership, perhaps even the same mothership that the zetors came from." Lyons spoke from where she sat in her power armor, with the helmet removed. "What do you say, of that, Sarisale?"

 

Sarisale shrugged. "While we have managed to gain access to many databanks, a few were damaged and there are far many more that we can not safely reach and that is because of the other threats active in Juno Base. That is threats that make the crazines seem harmless in comparison. I suggest that we help each other gain more resources from Juno Base while dealing with those threats that will certainly get out of Juno Base sooner or later."

 

Jack smiled but with an odd little twist to his mouth. "I think that you were behind the parasite outbreak that has brought so much suffering to so many."

 

The Coopine Leader nodded. "We would have told you in good time. We were desperate to escape because our mass termination had been ordered, by those in charge of our project, but we did not foresee the consequences of our actions; who could have done so? Who could have foreseen that corruption had led to shortcuts being made in some areas of the complex, including internal security doors and drop-barriers?"

 

Jack sighed. "A good story but I think it was you Coopines who sabotaged things in order that the outbreak would be so overwhelming destructive. You also sent those crazines at us so as to test us, if not to destroy us. That way you would have gotten rid of two threats at once."

Edited January 25, 2014 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

DC Torchwood

One 10.3[16] Juno Base Mysteries

One Post at a Time #16

 

The Coopines froze for a moment and then went for their guns and other weapons. Being ready for treachery, the Steel Brothers shot first with blazing battlerifles and big powerful pistols. Sarisale was dropped as Jack shot her with his big pistol. It was over in seconds with the other Torchwood people not taking any part in the violence.

 

Jack carefully propped up the dying Sarisale on a shoulder-satchel and she spoke. "We were the slaves of the riders for we were not even Coopines. Those exist deeper in Juno Base and are truly equals with each other. We were Puppetines, the victims of intelligent, organized parasites. They lied so much, seem incapable of doing anything else with others. The wild berserker crazines were created largely by the Puppetines trying to create more of their own by capturing free humans who are allies of the true Coopines."

 

Jack nodded. "You were one of those who were working on the zetan parasite project to turn the parasites into some kind of bioweapon to use against the enemies of the USA."

 

"The money was good and they offered free dental cover." The woman shrugged. "As you can see I paid dearly for my lack of wisdom. Watch out for the supermutants ridden by Puppetines and the wild supermutants that went out of control or never have had parasites riding them. Oh, yes, the cybermen. There was some work being done here, in Juno Base, on cyborgs known as cybermen. It was only a minor part of the project but there are some gun happy cybermen running around who are very immune to parasitic take over."

 

Sarisale closed her eyes, sighed as if deeply relieved, and died peacefully.

Edited March 29, 2014 by Maharg67