Arknights: Starsfall I

Chapter 5

"That was a catastrophe"

"What the hell... happened..." The Melee Soldier was back. Their little craft that they found was floating in some direction with whatever Senior Casters and personnel they had left. He sighed as a caster kept the thing flowing along the water. Something that was dangerous back where they used to be, home, but now it was one of their only opportunities.

"Looks like the Local guards have arrived," the Senior caster to his left says, silently playing with a fire she had created, "Big weird machines... guns more powerful than even what the Sankta could make..."

The butcher from earlier sighed, his back still being tended to, "Curse those guards earlier, now my back hurts like shit..."

Silently laughing, the melee soldier stopped shortly after it began. "Well... we still barely know where we are, apart from in the water." The butcher chuckles. They had managed to get some food before leaving, some uncooked meat and vegetables they stole from what looked like a market.

"The other craft said they saw something in the distance..." The caster began, looking as the other craft began to head northward. The Melee soldier also turns to take a look for himself. Looked like lights in the distance. Shaking his head, he goes back to focusing on his food.

"Oh did they...? Well, they are free to investigate it," he concedes, "it's only a few casters and some Originium on that one..." scanning around the craft, there were several others like it, following them.

He looks out to the wide ocean. Was he scared? Hell yeah he was. Unknown place, unknown waters... hell we're lucky that some of us know how to use a craft like this...

The sum hum now filled the air. Slowly, slowly, land began to disappear from their sight, never to be seen till they began to come back this way again. With a readied sigh, standing after he finished eating his little meal, he turned forward to the ocean, its color matched the sky, illuminated only by the moon's light.

His fellow caster joined him, listening to whatever conversations the other crafts had. She sighed, watching the silent beauty of the sky and ocean, just as the soldier made his decision.

"We can try and cross this ocean... let's hope that whatever awaits us is not so hostile..."

The Pentagon

"Give it to me straight," a general slowly began as he looked an intelligence officer in the eye. "What the hell is happening down there?" The CIA agent shrugs as she sets down some files, "We aren't sure sir,"

A timeline is presented before him, "Yesterday, at around 10:21 PM EST, we lost a satellite that was doing a habitable world check on our own system," he picks up the timeline and starts looking it over. "Shortly after that, we get reports of an unknown group of people, masked in white, attacking Liberty Hall, and then a follow up at Mercy Hospital of people being impaled with a strange black crystal."

"A biological weapon?" he questioned, the agent shaking her head, "Not that we know of sir, if it is, then it leads to the possibility that this was a deliberate act of war or act of terrorism."

"But no chemical weapon can cause black crystals to be impaled or formed in a person's body, correct?" The CIA agent looked up, as if trying to recall, before shaking her head, "Not that I know of sir." The general sighs and faces the desk again.

The general looked at the pictures and then at his laptop, 'You said you have footage of the event?" The agent nods, producing a USB drive and plugging it in. "That I do sir," she lets the program boot up and show all of the footage to the general, who had taken his officer's cap off.

He watched the footage, silently, intently, deciphering all of its footage, as if he was a youtube AI trying to analyze each frame for something to copy-right a person.

He then leans back, nodding intently, "Send this to the Joint Chiefs, the DHS, anybody, this is a serious threat to our existence that we are looking at here."

"Right away sir," the CIA agent began to walk away, the general leaning back in his seat, and taking a look at a Strategic Map of the United States. Philadelphia highlighted in red. He steps up to the strategic map and pinches it. He noticed the presence of the 75th Ranger Regiment and he began to think.

"They must know something... they were there on the ground, perhaps they have some first hand experience down there with the rest of the units deployed." He takes out a paper and his phone.

"Hello?" A female's voice on the other line heard, "Yes, it's me, can you put me through to Hunter 2-1?"

Northern Tundra

Why am I out here?  FrostNova began to wonder as she trudged through the snow. The cold wasn't terrible for her, actually. It made her feel secure, as her Arts mostly rely on the cold.

 The fact that it was in the far north wasn't exactly terrible either. A lot of the environment is not the thing that was bothering her, none of it in fact was.

No, it's just the fact that Tallulah sent her out here after the disappearance of the Base in the Columbian Union.

That was strange.

She shook her head. Ms. Tallulah has always been a little off in the head. Crownslayer was also sure of this fact and why she is always wary of trying to follow her orders. Frostnova thinks she has a good reason for it.

Most of the time she doesn't, and Tallulah's orders sometimes do have little kernels of truth and strategic genius in them.

FrostNova then stopped as she saw a flag waving in the distance and, coolly, she realized. Ah... an Ursus base... That was probably why she sent her up here. 

It's the extreme cold, she can handle the extreme cold, and from the look of things, there probably isn't too many to take care of.

Preparing her arts, she walked forward, unsure of what is to become of her.