PARANOOBIUS part two

LV223 January 2, 2094    A spacecraft lands, the Raijin. It sets down in the same site as the Prometheus.    The Raijin  has articulated thrusters like the Prometheus, but offers a heavier, more rugged appearance. The Raijin is black and yellow, large barrels visible port and starboard, antenna and sensors raked and minimal. It has no windows.      The Raijin has followed the Prometheus, and observed its fate from orbit, including the bizarre spectacle of the second Juggernaut. Aside from optical sighting, there was no data recorded of the Juggernauts departure, all the Raijins sensing devices saying it simply was not there.     Unlike the Prometheus, the crew is made up of 20 well armed Yutani Space Agents, mostly Japanese, and one Synthetic.      A landing party of 12 and the Synthetic investigate the wreckage, the Silo, and the Juggernaut. The crew is clad in black, with the yellow Yutani crest over the heart. Bubble helmeted. 5 carry shotguns holstered between their shoulder blades, like swords. 3 bear flame throwers. All have sidearms, including the Synthetic.      The Synthetic is helmeted, and gives the appearance of a Ninja, with a collar covering the lower half of its head, and mirrored goggles. They all speak in Japanese, without subtitles.     In the Life Boat, they find the Engineer, relatively  undecomposed and the Trilobite, having rotted straight through the floor. They also find Vickers, somewhat battered but conscious.  Vickers  wears a helmet. She and the Synthetic regard each other quietly. The Synthetic speaks over its shoulder to the Agents, two of whom raise their weapons, large, sleek double barreled shotguns.      The Synthetic moves in and restrains Vickers' wrists behind her back with rubber loops that contract when snapped. Vickers, without struggle, is taken captive and led back to the Raijin, two shotguns trained on her head.    In the Juggernaut, the Synthetic activates the Orrery. The webs of data flare, flicker and disappear. Final image of the data reflected in the synthetics goggles. The whole ship suddenly gains tremendous weight, and sinks violently into the ground. Inside, all goes dark, save for the Agent's suit lights, which drop to the floor. Silence, then urgent Japanese fills the bandwidth. They evacuate the Juggernaut, now embedded several meters into the soil. Fine dust chokes the air.     They proceed to the  first Dome. Inside, they follow the data trail of Fifield's pups, acquired in orbit. They are wary, having some idea of the drama that unfolded here. As a precaution, they do not remove their helmets.      In the venting chamber, a soft patter of condensate rain.  The synthetic crouches and  examines thick puddles of matter on the ground, faintly luminous in the glare of the flashlights. A large droplet strikes the helmet of the hindmost Agent, sliding slowly down the glass like mucous. It comes away in strings when he touches it, smoking faintly. It etches a dull track on his helmet, is liquefying the fingertips of his glove. He shakes his hand violently and trains his flashlight up, into a hand that suddenly blossoms from the shadows above, black, dripping, with arachnid fingers long as a man. The fingers close around him from above, the nails penetrating his groin. He howls as he's lifted off his feet, and his comrades swing around, unholstering their weapons. Before them the hand slowly makes a fist, and the shrieking agent squirts between the fingers like red slush.        5 shotguns and 5 sidearms discharge at once. Muzzle  flashes reveal a confusion of black shapes unfolding on the ceiling, their locus a quickflash cheshire grin of peeled lips and glassy highlights descending from the shadows. A second hand flashes out as the first hand drops the wet remains.  2 more Agents are laid open at the belly, a graceful arc of blood, organs and mucous briefly intersecting the space. A not so lucky shot hits something soft as they crumple and a gut wrenching shriek echoes through the chamber, a spray of yellow matter covering one Agent from head to waist. He claws at himself as his helmet and suit smoke, go grey and fibrous, and cave in, limbs falling to the ground as his remains liquify, caustic spatter burning straight through another Agents arm and helmet. His scream tears through his fellows headsets as his limb detaches and he stumbles back against a spattered wall, liquified rock sliding down onto him from above. His scream climbs as it sinks, smoking, into his helmet and upper body.    Silence, save for the sound of things dissolving and ragged, ghoulish panting of the thing hidden in the smoke.      The Agent's suit lights show in the haze like halos. Hollow Japanese fills their headsets, as blood and dissolution puddle around them. One by one they blink off, backing away as they do. Before the last one can go dark a ragged  maw parts the smoke,  burnt, pocked  with  flechettes,  strings of saliva hung from cracked black teeth the size of bayonettes, and then another mouth snaps out, taking the still illuminated Agent by the torso and snapping his vertebrae into the murk. The awful panting.  Panic overwhelms the broadcast, reaching a crescendo as a flame whips out like hells own breath and the thing is exposed, the fully grown and unfathomably hostile Deacon, 18 feet tall and black as night.  It shrieks once again, baring tooth upon tooth, lips and gums burning away. It crouches like an ape, filling the tunnel, shoulders high above the fantastic thorn of its head. Muscle over bone, a gigantic black skinless thing, it is violence incarnate.      Its hands flash out, really masses of legs projecting from knurled palms, and pulls the flame throwing Agent  into the smoke, the shrapnel of his helmet tinkling to the ground. The flame dies. Darkness. Wet pops of dislocation and the sound of muscle rent from the bone, the squish of caustic saliva drizzled into mortal wounds. A wail so hopeless as to reduce hardened men to jelly, crackling over their headsets. It is torturing their comrade to death.     The three Survivors and the Synthetic run, the lament of their comrade ceasing abruptly. In moments the injured Deacon gives chase, and they are backed as a group into the Urn Chamber.