Eclipsed {Part Two}

Post by Neonhyper

This is the chapter where you realize I all lied to you.

---

It was an amazing feat of engineering. Even Raythe and Flynn, who could only tell you what sort of mechanics made a gun better than normal, could see that. The Ebon Falcon rested in the middle of the illuminated hangar, surrounded by a ring of faintly flashing red lights. True to its name, the aircraft's exterior was made of plates a color between actual black and slate grey. It's wings were folded upright against the side of its hull and an inactive rotor extended from each side of the tail-wing.

The three stepped onto a separate platform, a hydraulic hiss preceding its detachment from the balcony as it slowly lowered down to the hangar's main floor. Their boots echoed harshly as they approached the Falcon, where the engineering crew reluctantly backed away. Minshi ignored the loathing glares she was given as she approached the landing ramp underneath the enormous aircraft, skirting under the low base of the cockpit.

Following the pilot up the ramp was the captain and her lieutenant. The latter of the pair, once all three of them had entered the steel interior, slid his hand against the button panel to the side of the entrance. The landing ramp drew into itself and folded upwards, sealing the Falcon off from the hangar. Raythe ducked her head to avoid skimming her scalp across the ceiling as they wound their way into the center chamber of the aircraft.

Hanging from the ceiling, angled to be seen from the walls nearest to the door they entered and the one across, sat monitors blank and silent. The two long walls contained built-in lockers; Raythe had opened one to see it was already filled with various offensive equipment. There was a decent amount of space between the walls and the four vertical rails that ran from ceiling to floor. Minshi left the two in the main room, sliding open the far door that served as the barrier into the cockpit.

Instruments layered the walls and the dashboard of the pilot's chamber. The gnome woman gratefully sunk into the leather bound metal chair, spinning it to face the front of the aircraft. Half of a thick glass dome provided vision out into the hangar bay; even that was unnecessary with all the equipment that relayed almost everything she would be able to see and more. Minshi rolled her shoulders back, letting her fingers slide up and flick a couple of switches with loud clicks on a metal board above her head.

Dulls buttons flashed into luminance of greens, reds, oranges, and blues as power began to wash through the aircraft. The low standby lighting gave way to full fluorescence in the main cabin and provided back lighting for Minshi's cockpit. She ran her tongue across her upper lip in delight as she slapped on the headset that sat barely untouched on the dashboard. In a few more moments, a soft hum came from the Falcon as its engine was primed and waited to be fully activated.

"This is pilot Minshi Coglight, requesting systems clearance for access to the surface," the gnome stated after activating the communications and resting her hands on the double, connected joysticks that allowed her control of the ship's movement.

"The Ebon Falcon is cleared for exit, Minshi. The ascent will proceed momentarily," came the tense reply, that was quickly added upon. "Good luck out there."

"Luck will have nothing to do with it," Minshi muttered softly.

Above the Falcon, the high ceiling of the hangar began to pull back near the center, revealing the entrance to a vertical tunnel. The metallic clamor increased, with gears grinding upon gears and metal clawing upon metal, as the red ringed circle beneath the aircraft twisted and began to rise. Steadily at first, and then faster, the platform rose into the cylindrical passage and the lights lining the tunnel walls flashed by in a blur.

Raythe and Flynn sat across from each other in the main room, seated strapped into two of the six chairs against the width walls. The captain had her rifle balanced between her knees, staring at Flynn, who's head was tilted down with his arms wrapped around his helmet. They both glanced up the moment the rise of the Falcon slowed and Minshi's voice came crackling over the comm from the cockpit into their cabin.

"We'll be breaking to the surface in a few more moments. When we lift off you're free to get out of your seats."

The gnomish pilot leaned her head forward, twisting her neck to the side so that she could see above the aircraft. A circular blast door separated them from the outside, and it quickly slid open as the Falcon reached the ground level and the platform went motionless with a grinding hiss. The violent stirring in the air left a thin sheet of ash upon the cockpit shield that was quickly displaced by another rush of unnatural wind.

Minshi's hand scattered across the dashboard, leaving buttons pressed in and switches flicked. The wings of the Falcon lowered down and stretched out and the rotors began to turn, deadly silent save for the beating of the air. She pulled the controls back, the aircraft raising itself into the air as the landing gear retracted into the bottom of the aircraft. The pilot then sharply pushed the controls forward, speeding the vessel onward and a good distance into the air.

"And we're airborne," Minshi said, her mouth widening into a grin as she tapped Selindera's coordinates into the keypad next to her radar map. "Next stop: the middle of nowhere."

---

It was a wasteland upon the surface, the very reason that survivors huddled under the ground to fight for their lives. The blighted ground was a stark brownish-grey, nearly level were it not for dips, trenches, and craters that lined the earth. Most of the time the actual ground wasn't even visible above the carpet of wreckage that buried it. Scraps of metal, collapsed buildings, miles of tangled and useless wire, and the boney skeletons whose owners were all but forgotten were strewn across haphazardly.

A large structure, now toppled over completely on its side, most of the walls stripped apart, lay in the center of a rare area where the ground was flat and barely obscured. Huddled in a corner where steel met steel and rock sheltered from any outside eyes was a lanky elven figure with his knees against his chest. Shining green eyes barely pierced the looming shadows as his gaze darted constantly, watching anything near him that wasn't protected by walls.

No one would have called him paranoid, considering the dangers of the surface, but that was exactly his mindset. Paranoia. It had been caution and luck that had kept him alive for five years; he was determined to not let anything that wasn't chance kill him because of carelessness. However, not even the most careful people survived that long before starvation got to them, or worse. For that, many people, would they not think him dead, would call him lucky.

Marcin Sunhawk had many a thing to say against that.

His streak of bad luck had begun the day he was assigned to a scientific expedition tasked with researching the state of the surface to see what had to be done to make it habitable again. One week into the project, the entire expedition had been slaughtered by a mass ambush of mutations. Somehow, he had managed to escape, only to find he had probably doomed himself to a worse, and slower, death. He had no food, no shelter, and the mutations had destroyed their aircraft.

They may have called it luck, but he always thought it was prolonging the inevitable. The discovery was shocking, to find that underneath carapace, blistered flesh, or mottled skin, the mutations really did taste just like chicken. Not only that, but the recycling equipment expeditions used to procure fresh water was still intact in his bags. It wasn't a glamorous way to survive, but it was a way.

So there he was, five years later, running from shelter to shelter when the mutations finally gathered a large enough force that he couldn't handle by himself. Running with the knowledge that one day his 'luck' would run out, and that he would find himself with his head impaled on a boney spike, lacerated to shreds, or perhaps choking on his own blood. He hated it, staring at his life like sands dribbling from one side of the hourglass to the other, but he would not let himself die.

"It is probably in your best interests to lower tension levels before your blood pressure rises too high and you end up dying."

Marcin let his shoulders slump at the sound of the monotone, synthesized female voice. The sin'dorei flicked bangs of fading auburn out of his face and glanced up at the airy hum drawing closer to him. Floating in the air was a small metal sphere, no bigger than his fist, with one red light on the top hemisphere of tiny welded plates. It twisted to face that 'eye' towards him, even tilting as if it were looking down at him.

"Shut up SEICU," he said dryly.

SEICU, or as it was formally christened upon his originally making of it, the Simulated Emotional and Intelligence Companion Unit, quipped back, "Shutting up is not one of my programmed protocols. Denied."

He scowled and buried his head in his knees. Another reason to be counted unlucky, having been stuck for five years with only the AI as company. It was worse than being alone, "Then do something useful... I don't know, like transmitting another rescue request!"

"Unit will attempt to connect with other computer signals for another request when the other six hundred and seventy five requests go through."

Marcin turned his back to SEICU, grumbling under his breath as the AI eventually turned away and went back to patrolling the perimeter around his hiding location. So far it was one of the best locations he had found; having been able to remain there for more than a couple of months without the large ambushes typical of staying in one spot for more than a few weeks. He hadn't even seen a mutation for a few days. Some people may have called that lucky, but he was running out of food.

One of his ears twitched at the sound of rusted metal cracking under foot. He could have spoken too soon, knowing the way some of the mutations had appendages that weighed as much as an iron boot. Marcin sucked in a sharp breath, the ones following were fast paced and labored. Another crack, followed by swish of severing wires, and the crunch of rocky wasteland being dragged along. The blood elf twisted to the side, removing an iron rod with a hooked top out of a pile nearby.

Muffled hisses flooded his ears, the clicking of a mutation with mandibles, and the scraping of metal. Marcin inched forward, brandishing the rod as he pressed his side to one of the battered steel walls of the building. The noises were coming closer. Scuffling, scraping, hissing, cracking, clicking, crunching, wailing; every sound he could attribute to the monsters was crashing down on him in a cacophony of a horde.

He was sure he would be upon them if they rounded the corner up ahead where the wall had been wrenched off and dropped into a jagged slope of slag. Marcin prepared himself, ready to use the element of surprise that the mutations readily used on their prey.

"Unit suggest that you do not attempt to bludgeon your would-be-rescuers to death, thus defeating the purpose of them coming all the way out here to save you," SEICU's voice cut straight into him, causing Marcin to drop his weapon in surprise.

"Wha--"

He looked back from the floating metal orb to where the 'mutations' had been coming from, only to find that the AI was correct. Standing before him were not hideous perversions of flesh and bone but actually living, breathing survivors. Marcin's breath of relief was caught in his throat, unable to be released in the disbelief of what he thought was simply hallucination.

One was tall, a night elf by the looks of it, with a long mane of midnight blue hair whose glaring stare could be felt even behind the vision-enhancing visor that hid her eyes. She had a very enormous rifle propped against her shoulder, clenched in a grip of half-satisfaction and half-disgust. At her side, a few steps back, was one with the stature of a human man. Rippling muscles were compacted tight into the confines of black armor slashed with lines of white light.

"He's here, Minshi, in the flesh," Raythe stated, two fingers pressed against her headset.

SEICU hummed as the robotic sphere bobbed up and down near Marcin's shoulder, the blood elf still holding a dumbfounded expression as he stared at Raythe and Flynn, "They are not figments of your imagination," the AI chided before the kaldorei captain addressed him.

"Marcin Sunhawk, by order of Survivor Commander Selindera Sunhawk, you are to be removed from the waste that is the surface world and returned to safety to be put back into use for our cause."

Post by Neonhyper

Author's Comments -

- I apologize, I know there was supposed to be action in this chapter by I went a little overboard describing the Falcon and realized that there was no space for it.

- Next chapter there will be action! I promise! Aerial dogfight kk?

- Marcin and SEICU. Oh boy I love these characters too. And it's pronounced 'Say-sue', if you're confused.

- One last character to be introduced, and you might be surprised how important and yet no they are...

Post by 355559

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Neonhyper

I'm curious at one aspect, but I'm afraid to mention it and make you go oh crap and completely rewrite the story.

Ask, I've thought this over well.

Post by 355559

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Neonhyper

Wheres the magic?

It's there, just no characters I'm writing about have magical proficiency. Except Selindera, as you may see later, as she's a paladin.

Post by 236602

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Post by Neonhyper

Finding him was relatively easy it seems, I bet you that on the way back, there will be action, loads of it, and a straight-foward plan becoming very complicated.

Good read as always, Neon.

Oh yes.

Oh yes.

There will be action, complications shall arise, and the hammer will fall. And maybe we'll actually learn what happened to Azeroth. Maybe, maybe?

I find my lack of regular feedback disturbing...

Post by Behelich

*graps his throat, coughing*

You should know already that I approve of this, why are you Force-choking me?

Eclipsed {Part Two}

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