[Story] Tales of Annihilation -- Latest episode: #29 Blood and Fire IV

Oh wow, metal planets and progenitors! LavaSnake is happy!

Yes!!! Something else to look forward to!

I wanted my username to be something random but original. I was thinking for quite some time while I worked on the very first episode that was soon to be ready for release at the time, back in February.

So when the episode was done, I had to create this forum account. For about half an hour while I browsed the web I was thinking... thinking on what the heck should be my name. I eventually stumbled into a photo of some cheese, and I immediately thought "that's it! that's my name!". There was a problem though... the name was already taken, so it resulted in another half an hour thinking.

I figured I should add something that sort of resembles some part of my personality. I decided to go with "loner" because I'm a rather lonely person with quite some issues with communication skills. However, "loner" was a rather stupid word and didn't seem to fit into context at all... So I looked for synonyms, and that's when I found the word "solitary". I thought that would be original enough, so I decided to go with it.

Hence, SolitaryCheese was born.

The End.

I was wondering that too. Thanks for answering. (Ninja bump)

I'll be your friend Solitary. <3

<3

And don't forget the glorious CamelCasing!

Hype Intensifies ! (bump)

Sorry for the delay, my beloved citizens, but my time ended up being much shorter than anticipated. The past few weeks were a bit... crowded, and it seems the following weeks may be similarly busy.

But fear not! The next episode is in the works, and I am hoping to get it finished sooner than later, but definitely before the end of all times.

Bump intensifies!

Thanks for the update. Here's to some more free time for all of us!

Bump for love.

What love we give you...
Edit: "what we love give you" doesn't make sense last I checked...

#GetBumped.

I'm sorry @SolitaryCheese their is only so long that we can keep this thread alive, you must give us something

I'll keep bumping this as long as he releases new entries in the series.

Bump.

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Thunderbird

His systems slowly came back to life, one after another, until every single function was working properly. Commander Thunderbird was floating in space aboard his transport ship, all alone, surrounded by nothing but the vast darkness of space.

His trajectory was leading him towards a nearby star, and would have been melted and vaporized into nothingness by the massive heat if it was not for his early awakening. It was what the bionics referred to as the concept of luck, he noted.

Thunderbird was fortunate enough to avoid such fate, but he was still lost in the abyss without any idea about his location relative to the place where he became unconscious. He remembered exactly why it happened, just so during his time dormant, his sensors were absolutely non-functional. He had no knowledge of the time he had spent unconscious, nor the distance he had traveled.


[…]


It started as a simple mission to explore a secluded gas giant having been recently retired from service in the war, as the conflict with the Xziphid Hegemony was soon to end. Following the orders of the Progenitor Coalition, Thunderbird traveled to the distant gas giant to record some data from the planet's atmosphere.

The end of war was nigh, and the upcoming result was already well known. With the introduction of commanders on the side of the Coalition, the Progenitor forces were able to break the enemy forces with ease. As the Xziphid forces retreated, more and more commanders became obsolete and were re-purposed for other tasks. Thunderbird received the task of exploration.

The intel had shown that there was no Xziphid activity in the area, and so, he did not expect any complication. However, it was a mistake not to expect enemy forces. The ambush took him by surprise; two enemy battlecruisers appeared, then began tearing his transport to shreds, and then they left, thinking there were no survivors left.

He floated among the debris of his transport, slowly trying to reclaim the metal and rebuild the ship with the newly invented nanolathe technology, but he suffered heavy damage. He managed to finish the construction and ignited the engines, heading away from the gravitational pull of the gas giant... moments later, he entered into an inactive state...


[…]


He found three planets in the solar system. The first was the nearest to the star, riddled with lava flows and an extremely unstable atmosphere. Thunderbird considered landing on its surface, but his calculations had shown it was far too risky.

The second planet seemed to be safer, as it was further away from the sun, and the surface appeared to be something solid. There was also no sign of atmosphere. Neither his long distance scanners, nor his visual sensors worked at hundred percent, therefore, he could not determine anything much about the planet.

He ignited the thrusters of the ship and headed towards the planet with a relatively high velocity. As he reached closer, he determined that the surface was metal. There seemed to be massive structures on either poles at first, but as he reached even closer, he realized that it was in fact one structure, spanning across the core of the planet. It appeared to be some sort of generator or a weapon. It was an artificial planet which seemed to be abandoned. Landing on its surface deemed to be the most logical decision; to recover and to possibly claim the planet for the Coalition.

The landing was extremely smooth and easy. He stepped out of the transporter and detected a strange spot in the distance. He recognized it as the metal dispenser, designed to transfer metal from the planet's storage system to units on the surface for construction. It was only logical, as otherwise, construction on the surface would require recycling of the material which the planet's surface consisted of. Building a simple metal extractor over it makes perfect use of it, and that is what Thunderbird did.

He had the metal, now he needed the energy. Using the metal he had, and the little energy his own generator could provide, he constructed the first power plant that provided the valuable power which he needed for further expansion.

Everything was prepared to build his base. He aimed his nano-lathe cannon towards an empty location to begin the construction of an air factory. Thunderbird loved the concept of flying, and he always preferred to use fast and agile warplanes on the battlefield. In fact, he was among the few commanders of the Coalition who were constructed with wings of their own, making them able to fly and personally lead aerial attacks.

He had plenty of time to build up, as there was nothing that would interfere... at least, that is what he had thought.

Upon finishing the construction of the factory, he queued a few aerial scouts for production, and as they explored the surface of the planet, they stumbled into some units with unknown intents.

They were light tanks with a symbol painted on them, which Thunderbird could not recognize – a hawk and a cogwheel. Their designs seemed familiar to him, yet they were different; almost like the units he had in his blueprint database. He suspected they belonged to another commander, but while he was dormant, the designs of basic combat units were altered slightly. However, he was unable to create an explanation to the symbol.

He sent a message signal to greet his fellow commander, but even after hours passed, there was no response. Something was wrong, he could clearly see. Perhaps the commander just didn't receive the signal? Perhaps he just doesn't care... perhaps he is busy. Or perhaps... he just doesn't want to reveal his position by sending a response. Theories like these haunted his artificial mind.

Nevertheless, he immediately rescheduled the construction, aiming to produce combat units. Starting with a few air fabricators to help with the expansion, followed by more air factories to develop air superiority. A short range radar was now on-line, providing valuable intel to Thunderbird.

However, everything was silent. Not even a scout that would try to find him, nothing at all. In the meantime, his scouts found gigantic thrusters positioned at strategic locations across the planet, most likely capable of relocating the entire celestial body.

The scouts located even more units, but none of them seemed to react to their presence, even though, they were all very active.

One of his scouts flew by the north pole and detected that five massive structures were being in construction around the tip of the enormous device.

Nothing happened. Nothing at all. It worried him too much to ignore the silence. He rearranged his production schedules just in a few short nanoseconds, and immediately ordered the construction of an orbital launcher to create a radar satellite to find out what was going on in the abyss.


[…]


(continued in next post due to character limit)

Within a short period of time, the satellite was prepared for launch. The engines were ignited, and the construction slowly ascended into the darkness of space.

The first hint of signals arrived shortly after... At first a few spots appeared on the radar, then over time, more and more things were spotted. All of them gathered around a much larger object. There were at least a hundred-thousand of them, and those that did not appear on radar would most likely made the number into a million.

Thunderbird knew it that those did not gather around the gigantic object for mere fascination; there was a battle going on, and he needed to know who were the participants.

Crowds of fabricators gathered at the orbital launcher to construct a scout that was capable of flying and navigating deeper into the space as long as it had the fuel – though, that only lasted for a short time. He needed every bit of information he could gather. That included visuals; he had to see who fought who.

The tiny space drone approached the scene, slowly, but surely. The sight of a battle was full of bright colors of explosions and millions if not billions of various projectiles racing towards countless different targets. Yet, despite such a huge firework it was, in space there was no sound... a massive battle in complete silence.

Thousands of battleships exploded every second, but more and more kept coming through hundreds of portals floating in space... But there was one; one portal that was as brilliant as any sun would be and almost as great as any planet. A gigantic teleporter in space, pouring hundreds of thousands of heavily armored space vessels, all ready to pour death upon the enemy.

It seemed to be two armies fighting against one another. The giant teleporter belonged to one, and the hundreds of little ones belonged to the other. The ones coming through the small ones looked familiar to Thunderbird; they were almost the same as he remembered – the war machines of the coalition, the ones designed to be built by commanders and their fabricators, but they looked different... more advanced than the ones he remembered.

The two armies mercilessly massacred one another, not noticing the tiny drone that was slowly floating towards them, or perhaps they just didn't care at all.

As he analyzed more and more of the incoming visuals, he noticed something... Though, the familiar army appeared to consist of a single army at first, as he zoomed closer, he saw four distinct symbols on the ships and battledrones all around the battlefield.

The first symbol he saw was strange, and not seemed to resemble anything; it was most similar to some sort of star. The second he had found was resembling a hawk sitting on a cogwheel, proud and glorious – it was the one which he'd already seen back on the artificial moon. The third was a hexagon with a resemblance of a commander's face inside, perhaps the face of the leader – the hexagon seemed to resemble a gloria around the face... perhaps a religion, a reference to a religious symbol? Finally, the fourth... a flaming human skull, a symbol of death and destruction.

Side by side, the four groups battled together to defeat a common enemy, whose ships were not familiar at all to Thunderbird. They were alien, and all of them seemed to be made of some organic matter, some weak and vulnerable flesh, melted away by the superior strength of metal and machine. Yet, despite the superior technology and unity of four armies, they still struggled to defeat the common enemy, as despite having inferior armor, their weapons were just as effective against metal as theirs against flesh, and they had the advantage of greater numbers, as the enormous portal poured an endless stream of units to the battlefield.

The union of four was losing more units than what could come through hundreds of their teleporters; the alien army clearly had the upper hand, and was most likely going to achieve victory.

However, as Thunderbird spied on the battle through the eyes of his drone, the planet he was standing on suddenly started to tremble below his feet. The planet was moving, slowly at first, then faster and faster, accelerating towards the field of battle. His scouts reported that the thrusters he had found earlier were all ignited, and that the construction around the north pole was complete.

Thunderbird knew he had to escape the place as fast as possible. He signaled his transport ship to immediately fly to his position, to pick him and some of his fabricators up, along with a small portion of the metal from the nearby storage place.

As his ship made away from the massive metal moon, he gazed back at the scene, using a telesope, and saw that the weapon on the artificial planet, that spanned across its core, was activated as it headed towards the battlefield.

The planet began to slow down as it reached closer, and the weapon radiated more and more bright with every passing second. It seemed to target the gigantic portal...

Suddenly, a huge bright beam appeared, hitting the outer ring of the massive teleporter, piercing through its matter in a mere nanosecond, then the beam disappeared.

The portal ceased to exist, the brightness turned into darkness as the parts and machinery that formed the enormous ring of the device exploded from bit to bit, starting at the point where it was pierced, then spreading around the ring...

Then some faint light appeared in the center of the ring where the portal once swirled with blinding brightness...

Suddenly a bright flash of light, and the next thing Thunderbird saw was a gigantic shock wave heading towards all directions, forming a perfect sphere, spreading with blazing speed, it was becoming so large it reached his transport ship and passed across him... then everything turned dark. It was an EMP wave which disabled all of his systems.


[…]


He did not know how much time he had spent in unconscious state. His systems slowly recovered, and was ready to reignite the thrusters of his ship.

As his sensors activated, he immediately detected signs of singularity... A black hole formed in place of the gigantic portal. The massive force of gravity pulled every object in its vicinity towards its core, thus including Thunderbird's ship.

The engines all ran at full capacity, and even beyond, struggling against the massive force of gravity. Nobody has ever returned from a black hole, and Thunderbird did not want to be consumed by one, to disappear for an eternity, despite the curiosity for what may be in there...

Most of the battling forces were already consumed, and those that were not had no chance to every escape, as they were too close to the core where the force of gravity was much more powerful.

The ship was slowly gaining distance, away from the singularity, slowly but surely. There was only one thing left to do... it was something what the humans referred to as “hope”. The only thing remained was to hope the engines would not malfunction.


[…]


Days had passed, but Thunderbird's ship slowly managed to gain enough distance from the black hole to safely depart from the area. He had no particular idea of where to go next; he just picked a nearby solar system at random, and decided to head there...

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Sorry for the long delay, everyone. There had been quite some real life issues during the past weeks which ruined my mood, thus preventing me from adding any meaningful content to the table, and I didn't want to "force it".

Hopefully things get better in the next weeks.

As always, I'd love to read your feedbacks, be it negative or a big plus.

I'm already working on the next episode, and I will be able to post the little teaser Soon™. The next episode will introduce some new characters and some interesting plot twists!