Stab Voidslay was excited. While the was in general something of a ground-state for the lich, today was exceptional.

It was not just that she was going out on a field mission for the Aotrs Myst Exploration Team for the first time in ages. The last few years had been quite eventful and she'd never been [i]bored[/i], certainly. (Which would have been [i]awful[/i].) In particular, the galaxy-shaking discovery of the facilities the led to the establishment of Damning Echo base, far-off in the galaxy and on a section of an incomplete ringworld had been [i]fascinating[/i]. (Getting to play with alien technology - especially old Harbinger robots and weapons - had been the Best Thing Ever.) Nor had the time been entirely short of action, with the invasion by the Brotherhood of the Grey Lizard a couple of years ago. Though fixing the mess they left afterwards was certainly the [i]least[/i] interesting thing she'd done.

No, that she was finally getting to go out to explore a new location with the Myst Gate with the Myst Gate - actually resuming the job that Myst Base had been intended to do, before that interruption - was only due a regular amount of excitement. The extra was because this was going to be a first. Attempting to open the Myst Gate to a KNOWN location that had not been linked to before.

Stab ran her final checks on her gear. She was the primary technician on this one, so she triple-checked all her equipment. But this was second nature even to the relatively young lich. (She was a comparitive baby at only 35, compared the her peers who were generally two plus (sometimes plus a LOT) her senior.) And this let the portions of her mind not on the job at hand to reflect.

The General (Grimzephyr Flaywind, Myst Base's CO) had called a briefing a few days ago. Long-range probes had detected some unusual anomolies in the far-off Tanshin system. These warrented investigation. But the distance was significant, even for Aotrs Gate drives - though, granted, not as far away as Damning Echo base was. Still, to make a good investigation required more than long-range scans. And if it was not of interest, sending a full fleet out that far was [i]loads[/i] of resources. Under normal circumstances, the Aotrs might have done so anyway, or dispatched a Pathfinder team. But the anomolies had piqued the interest of High Command. 

Apparently, it was Lord Foul Skream [i]himself[/i] that contacted Myst Base to talk to the Major (Carallan) Scimitar - the base's lead specialist on the gate - about the possibilty of sending a team through the Myst Gate instead. Lord Foul Skream had been following the progress of the AMET project super closely, especially since the trip to the co-ordinates of MGL-045 had turned out to be Fearmore itself, and barely four hundred miles from the Citadel. 

(That had been a whole [i]Thing[/i] in itself. Stab had been with her usual teammates, usually designated Alpha Squad. All geared-up and ready to go and they had stepped out into friendly territory. 

Barely five minutes had passed before first Lord Yeller, and then [b][i]Lord Foulskream[/i][/b] showed up, with an equally amused retinue. (Lord Yeller did not stop laughing for several minutes.) Scimitar had Snowward (ooh, Stab hoped he was enjoying his super-big promotion) run the Astrometrics Analyser for the sake of argument, but as the Major had suspected, it simply told them what they already knew.
	
Lord Death Despoil himself had arrived within a couple of hours, and took the opportunity to conduct a quick personal tour of the facility. To everyone's relief – and not a little pride – he found things very satisfactory, and even took the time to exchange a few words with each of them. (For Stab, it was a toss-up whether that had been more squee-worthy than speaking to her own personal idol.)

After a quick session with the general and major, that specific set of co-ordinates were command-encrypted for the obvious security reasons. As he left, Lord Death Despoil was already talking with Lord Foulskream about setting up a security outpost around the area of as a precaution. After all, a backdoor directly into your mostly secret capital world practically right next to the Citadel was not something to take too lightly, even if the chances of it being used were small.)

Major Scimitar was a bit bummed, but sort of pleased, as she’d hoped her co-ordinates [i]would[/i] take the connection somewhere in the direction of Aotrs space. But it was building on these things, and landing on other known places, that was letting the Major slowly get her skull around the way-complicated spacial/magical co-ordinates the denizens of Myst had built the Myst Gate on.

And, with input from the Lord Foul Skream (and reputedly from The Boss Himself), Major Scimitar has said she was as confident as she was going to be that they could program in some co-ordinates that would take them to Tanshin.



Gear check completed. Standard-issue Mark 14D coldbeam rifle, check. Standard-issue heat shorsword, check. Not-standard-issue, Stab-loves-weapons-requisitoned PP-2 Plasma Puise Pistol (replacing her coldbeam pistol) and personal frost energy whip, check. Tech scanner with her favoured tech programs and her personal cybernetic tool kit, check. Combat armour webbing over standard-issue Medium Body Armour, with three AGF-08 offenseive grenades and plenty of power cells for her weapons and equipment, check. Assault pack, with the her Crypt personal shelter tucked neatly at the bottom, check. Neatly coiled on the side of the pack was the newest addition of the personal gear she was permitted to be allocated: sixteen metres of plasteel cord. While not exactly glamorous, the first couple of trips out with Alpha, no-one had brought any and Stab was determined not to be caught out again.

Satisfied, Stab headed out to meet the squad in the Myst Gate room. She was going to be the last one to arrive (still in plenty of time, of course, because anything other than professionalism was unthinkable). But that was okay, Feltain knew she would double-check her stuff, 'cos he was cool like that. She headed out towards the Gate Room, still reflecting.



It was by no means a certain thing, General Flaywind had explained. ([i]Ooooh[/i], he was so [i]professional![/i] And he was just the BEST at exposition; Stab was sure that was why he got to be in charge; Stab just would go on and on and on once she got started, she'd never been good at controlling that monologuing urge, she'd go all over the place and getted side-tracked and... Wait, what was she thinking about? Right, briefing.)

It was by no means a certain thing. Major Scimitar has estimated their chances of success were no more than 70%. And that was just of hitting the SYSTEM, not necessarily the [i]intended[/i] target of Tanshin II. But as Flaywind had said, if it didn't work, then it would be no loss, just an "ordinary" Myst Gate exploration mission. The Aotrs would then just have to send someone to Tanshin the old-fashioned way, like, with starships and stuff. But if it DID work, yay, 'cos it meant they could do the recon in person AND they'd figured out how to get the Myst Gate to somewhere they WANTED to go to, instead of having to link to random places and store the useful settings. (It had taken, like, massive effort to be able to re-open the Myst Gate to places they HAD opened it to before to start with.)

Stab arrived at the Gate room. 

The Gate room was large, fifty metres wide, and a hundred long from the furthest point. The walls chamfered in the last few metres into a shallow curved vault, perhaps thirty metres high at the highest point. The floor and part of the walls were covered in the usual hangar-grey metal surface, but above that, the room was mostly stone.

There was ornamentation on the walls in the form of complex patterns, lending the impression that this was some grand cathedral – which was, of course, exactly what it had (sort of) been when built by the long-vanished Myst natives.

Sets of columns rose up along the walls. At the base, they were covered by a protective sheath of metal, but about halfway up, Stab could see they were stone. The columns were inlaid by a tracery of metals – a fair proportion of which Stab knew was gold, silver or copper or close alloys of the same, gemstones and sweeping runic-like symbols. Some of the stone was ancient, while in other places it had been restored and replaced.
	
The ceiling was dominated by a huge structure. It reminded Stab of nothing so much as the spine of some creature, running the length of the ceiling until it curved up ten metres from rear opposite to the Gate. It hung a couple of metres below the ceiling and was five or six metres is diameter. The wall columns rose to meet it, rather than the ceiling. Similar columns coming out from the ceiling met it from above – those ran through higher parts of the building. Where column and spine met, there was a complex lattice of metals around the join, restored by careful engineering work (Stab had helped), where the inlaid designs appeared to leap forth into three-dimensions and blend together.

At the far end of the room, the spine curved down into the Myst Gate device itself. 

A free-standing monolithic structure, the Myst Gate device was over half the width of the cavernous chamber, and it ran back to the far wall, which was nearly thirty meters distant. In the cathedral-like air of the room, it was reminiscent of a grand altar structure.

The basic shape was roughly rectangular from the front, but numerous protrusions and indentations visible along the sides made it defy easy description.

The front was dominated by a huge catenary arch imbedded in the surface, whose frame was two metres thick. The arch was not far short of twenty metres high, and not much narrower at the base; easily wide enough to drive a Distant Thunder Heavy IFV through with room to spare. The arch framed a smooth, blank wall. Both were made in a complex pale grey material which looked ceramic but was actually a complex stone ore. The room spine curved back along itself to disappear into the squarish stone just behind the top of the arch.

The base of the arch was raised slightly above the floor with a single step, but a shallow, heavily reinforced metal ramp ran down the centre of the room and roses to meet it – as the initial impression about it being wide enough to drive through was not far off the mark.

Aside from the featureless surface inside the arch, the whole thing was covered with more runic designs and metal traceries. Even the addition of Aotrs technology linking it to the computer system and power sources was discretely woven into the design.

Half-way down the left-hand wall, about twenty-five metres from the Gate, the operations centre jutted into the room. A starship grade bridge window protected the ops centre and a wide balcony projected from beneath it. Gantries either side ran about half-way down the length of the room, just far enough from the wall to skim the columns.

Below those were several blast walls, to provide cover for infantry and the two heavy weapons turrets currently retracted into the walls.

Finally, there were two sets of hangar bay doors leading to the base’s vehicle bays; one was situated between two columns on the right wall, opposite the ops centre and the other was towards the right side of the rear wall.

A few metres from the Gate, a Sentry Drone sat on a launch cradle. A few more metres behind it, the Fallen Soul multirole assigned to this mission sat on a cradle of its own, with the left hatch open.

Stab's squad of eight waited outside the vehicle, clustered near the cradle's ladder under the door. For this mission, they would be designated Alpha Squad - typical for the first squad going out on a new mission - but in composition it was not the same liches she worked with most often. The Myst Gate project by necessity had a more flexible unit set-up, but most of the time, a squad deployed would be the same, plus or minus. For this mission, though, Stab was not under the command of Captain Norath Deathbringer, but newly-promoted Captain Feltain Fleshslicer. (Actually, Norath was still newly a Captain himself, comparatively, he'd gotten promoted with the whole squad for discovering Damning Echo, Stab mused.) Feltain was the one she knew the best of the other seven, though she had - naturally - a working relationship with all the others.

As she appraoched, Feltain nodded to her curtly in greeting, and a couple of the others made little waves, which she returned, with her excitement evident in the larger movements. There was no exchange of "are you ready?" since it was unnecessary; if Stab wasn't, she'd have said so right away.

Feltain had chosen from the resources allocated to this mission to make a typical start: Fallen Soul and the two crew for transport, and a Sentry Drone to perform an initial, local area sweep. The sweep would be monitored, and might last for up to twelve hours. But, of course, as they had no idea what they would find on the other side, so the squad needed to be assembled ready in case they had to go now.

(The Myst Gate's wormhole could only be held fully open for only an hour or two (they still hadn't beaten the record of three hours, nine minues and forty-three seconds), but by closing it down to a pinhole, they could stretch it out to seventy-five hours. However, as in the last two or three hours, the wormhole became increasingly unstable, so the safety limit was no more than 72 hours. Of course, since the Myst Gate opened on a world in exactly the same spot, now they could open Myst Gates to the SAME place more than once, the gate closing "only" meant waiting, out of contact, for twenty-four hours for the recharge, rather than being maybe lost in some forgotten part of the galaxy until regular Gate forces could be sent to fetch you.)

More unusually, an ouside normal Myst Gate protocols, Stab knew that the [i]Traitor[/i]-Class Recon Destroyer [i]Crippling Glare[/i] would be observing from afar, outside the system. The [i]Crippling Glare[/i] had been the vessel to perform the long-range scans as was thus the closest to the scene, currently located in interstellar space on stealth watch - to be joined by a fleet if it became necessary.

As she joined the group, Stab noted Feltain had managed to requisition himself a Mark 18 coldbeam rifle for his personal geat alloted. Stab was deeply jealous. Top-of-the-line, new equipment, it was [i]waaay[/i] better than her Mark 14D, which wasn't even the most recent Mark 14. But Myst Base wasn't a front-line combat station, so they were low on the list for the absolute newest weapons, at least for standard issue. Stab probably could have gotten one herself, but it would have taken most of her equipment allocation for her rank and experience, as as a lowly Second Trooper, she didn't get all that much. So most of it had to go on stuff she needed to do her main job, which was primarily cybernetics and robotics. And she wasn't the best shot. This wasn't to say she was a poor shooter, just that her combat skills were only in the upper middling range. While she devoted more time to it than the primary casters and wider-field-technicians usually could, the full-time soldiers were naturally better then she was.

And this time, she would almost be the bottom of the pack, since with only one full necromancer (the freakishly tall Coldblaze Shadowflight, a former elf, like herself), the rest of the group was atypically soldier-heavy. While it was in one way comforting to have TWO Snake Launchers (and, she noted, wth approval, looking at the warhead casings, all brand-new SK-4s), and a coldbeam support in the hands of someone who could best use it, it meant Stab was the only technical specialist. And that was [i]because[/i] she was more martially inclined than most of the techs. Feltain had allocated a good amount of the mission resources to help her in particular rush through some emergancy training to get her speed up on the non-robot stuff not in her speciality area. But Stab was completely confident in her ability to handle the job, or she wouldn't have accepted it. It was all [i]soo[/i] exciting!

Feltain couldn't have missed the way she was practically vibrating with excitement, judging by the amused light from his eyeglows behind his helmet visor. Nor did Shadowflight; his unusually tall, slender frame shook in quiet chuckle, and he shook his helmeted head. Nodding towards her in indication, he half-turned to the others.

"If we have to wait another twelve hours and she just explodes, do you reckon we get a different tech, or do we just have to carry the pieces?" There was a general rumble of snickers, which deepened into laughter as Stab's own giggle came out a bit more high-pitched and excited than she'd intended.

Further comment was cut short as General Flaywind in the operations centre opened the general comms.

"Alpha. Just got word from [i]Crippling Glare[/i] and they're in position. Major Scimitar's also completed her final checks, so as soon as you're good-to-go, we can start ahead of schedule."

"Yes, sir," Feltain replied, saluting smartly and then turning to the squad. "Alpha, in position."

Stab, like the others, immediately schooled herself into professionalism, as if a switch had been thrown. The eight of them climbed into the Fallen Soul and took their seats, stowing their gear. The Fallen Soul's hatch sealed. The comparment was windowless, but instead lit by artifical light - which not strictly necessary, it always helped. The walls and roof also had virtual window screens, allowing them took see outside due to data from the sensors. (Unlike Stab's first trip in a Fallen Soul and through the Myst Gate, where everything had had to be turned off due to the massive EMP.)

"Alpha to Command, Alpha is ready for go," Feltain reported crisply.

"Acknowlegded, Alpha Squad,” General Flaywind’s voice came over the comms. “Gate activation sequence initiated.”

There was a brief pause, and the voice of the female Gate officer, Master Star-Sergeant Sable Onyx, sounded.

“Initialising Myst Gate now.” A warning alarm blared a single note. The columns around the room began to light up, the traceries glowing with blue, green, white and gold lights. The lights ran up into the room spine and finally down into the Myst Gate itself, and it came alive with a multitude of colours.

The featureless surface beneath the arch rippled like the surface of water when a stone was dropped into it. As the ripples continued, the grey surface faded, leaving Stab staring into the now-familiar vortex of red bands of swirling cloud. Some bands whirled clockwise, some anti-clockwise. Crackles of golden lighting jumped at random intervals between the clouds, though none across the eye of the vortex itself. The vortex always seemed bigger than the arch, as if the arch was just a window into it and the vortex extended into infinity.

The voice of the Gate officer continued. “Attempting to connect to Tanshin system.”

No Myst Gate number, Stab noted. That was unusual. 

The lights and runes on the Myst Gate started to flicker and change colour in sequence. The vortex seemed to shudder a little and some of the bands of clouds slowed or speed up slightly.

After a few seconds, the lights stabilised. Nothing more happened for several long seconds but then the vortex changed.

The vortex appeared to shrink in length, the infinite disappearing point suddenly rushing closer, stopping what looked like maybe ten or twenty metres from the Myst Gate. An impenetrable curtain of falling red fine mist, a waterfall of crimson cloud, completely obscured the vortex beyond, though Stab could just about make out the sides of the vortex spiralling into it. Simultaneously, a glowing red mist formed at the same level as the bottom of the Myst Gate arch. The mist coalesced into a flat surface of what looked solid dim red light, forming a bridge between the arch and the curtain, anchored in empty space over the swirling vortex around it. 

A few of the Myst Gate’s lights and runes changed slightly ocne more and then remained static.

“Connection established,” Gate officer Onyx’s voice confirmed.

There was a minute’s pause, as the command centre conducts the initial sensor scan. Very little could be determined via a scan through the Myst Gate – after all, if that was not true, there would be little need for either Stab's team or the Drones – only some basic information that could be ascertained like atmospheric composition, gravity and obvious background radiation (like the EM spike on MGL-034 on her first trip); not always consistently – but enough to know that the gate had not emerged in a black hole or the heart of a star.

Stab heard General Flaywind again. “Alpha, initial scans are inconclusive. Gravity within up to 2G variance range from standard, EM levels standard. Can't get a clear reading on the atmosphere, but nothing it triggering the hostile parameteres tags."

Stab nodded to herself quietly. Mot the best of results, but, in the end, that was why the drone went in FIRST. And, if she was honest, sometimes the surprise of just.., Stepping through to see what you found (even vicarously) was exciting all by itself. She flipped her tech scanner on and linked into the Fallen Soul's system so she could watch the telemetry herself. Beside her, she could see a couple of the others, including Feltain, doing the same on their standard scanners.

Flaywind continued. "Sentry Drone, go.”

The Sentry Drone wordlessly rose up from the cradle and its engine ignited. With a whoosh of motion, it jetted foward and disappeared into the curtain of mist.

Now, Stab though, the really big, exciting question was what they were going to find when the drone came out the other side...