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THeMaCHinE
New member
This week's segment. Let me know what you think. 
Note: If you want to be added to my PM list to be notified when new segments come out (and have the link directly PMd to you), let me know and I will add you.
New segments will be released weekly on Mondays or Tuesdays.
As always, thanks for reading -- your comments, PMs, etc. are appreciated!!
+++++++++++++++
Past Segments:
ATBG/Segment 1 — Blackness and Light
ATBG/Segment 2 — The Descent
ATBG/Segment 3 — Calm Before The Storm
+++++++++++++++
And There Be Gods
Segment 4 -- The Quickening
By MACHINE
© 2001
All Rights Reserved
5.
50 feet. An outdoor regional meeting.
He could see the looks on their faces.
Stupid ants.
Slowing to a near hover, the shock trooper jettisoned the armor’s single, 50-pound cluster/EMF bomb into the night from an oblong slot in the suit’s back.
Dropping like a tear from the early evening sky, the pristine ovular cylinder turned end-over-end, falling soundlessly toward Ibiza’s central square — a few of those assembled below saw the trooper coming and tried to run. Most didn't. No chance for any of them.
The Xian battle hymn blared over the armor’s audio system, heavy drum beats battering their way to a climactic crescendo.
The cluster bomb triggered at 20 feet, spreading lethal bomblets over a 30-foot radius. The mini-bombs ignited at 15 feet, raining razor-like shrapnel and wet chemical fire over a solid 60-foot radius. A heavy concussion wave rocked the park-like setting.
Cacophony, screams and panic — ancient trees combusting, the wash of orange fire flowing over and igniting spasmodically flailing bodies; human figures launched skyward like misfit angels. The shock wave knocking appendages, flesh and articles of clothing free from their places in a deafening roar. The smell of burning wood, charred plastic, fried ozone and twisted metal.
Death. En masse.
Turning night into day, a phoenix-like finger of fire rose 60 feet into the evening sky, washing over the trooper like the caress of a sadistic lover. The trooper guided the heavy battle armor down through the center of the fire, hiding amongst the shifting flames.
In the blink of an eye, 487 Ibizans in the crowded city square lost their lives. Dozens more were maimed and injured. The wailing of the wounded began. For 100 feet, all electronic-based equipment went dead as a result of the EMF wave coupled with the explosion. The heavy assault rifles and armored vehicles of the surviving two-dozen city police officers at the assembly became useless, their internal components melting under the EMF onslaught. Oily tendrils of acrid smoke began to roll from the site, stinging the survivor’s eyes and nostrils.
Touching down at ground zero, in the hellish crater that moments before been a platform on which one of Ibiza’s regional overlords had been holding council with his constituents and cabinet, the trooper began to climb out of the seven-foot deep indentation amidst the flickering flames.
Helpless citizens and police watched in visceral terror as the giant armored demon’s shadow became increasingly solid, plodding methodically towards them through the fiery curtain’s veil.
6.
ETA: 3 minutes.
Aided by small red bursts from the Shoggoth suit’s thrusters, Garden bounded in great mechanical leaps across the city’s roof towards the general vicinity of the projected impact site. The armor’s central power stalk connected to his form via a spidery assembly of pulsating organic head, neck, arm and leg fittings. Inside the suit, thin living tubes snaked wetly into the crevices of Garden’s nostrils and mouth, carefully monitoring the Baron’s internal processes and supplying ideal mixtures of air, fluids and hormones to the Ibizan ruler.
With the fluidity of a half-seen shadow, Garden navigated gold-encrusted building domes, dodged spiky communication towers, touched down on narrow ledges and leapt across sprawling urban chasms.
He was one with the Shoggoth. Both man and machine.
37 generations of Ibizan royalty comprised the living elements of the ancient, space- and war-tested armor. Part low-tech mechanized armor, part sentient living creature, the rippling muscles and organic components of the biomechanical Imperial battle suit were encased in overlaid sheets of rare, dead-planet Trillian alloy. One day, after their souls had ascended to the Watchers womb, the physical remains and stored memories of Garden’s household would join the armor in cybernetic nirvana.
Though under Garden’s control, the armor shone with a warm prescience that helped guide and sharpen his actions. Hundreds of years of instinct from Ibizan warriors, renegades, scholars, kings and queens honed his steps and whispered in his ears.
Through the slotted visage of the heavy crimson suit’s horned helmet, Garden observed a sharp explosion and pop of smoke on the horizon. The Central Sector. Redoubling his efforts, Garden propelled the Shoggoth toward the flames in the distance.
++++++++++++++++++
Note: If you want to be added to my PM list to be notified when new segments come out (and have the link directly PMd to you), let me know and I will add you.
New segments will be released weekly on Mondays or Tuesdays.
As always, thanks for reading -- your comments, PMs, etc. are appreciated!!
+++++++++++++++
Past Segments:
ATBG/Segment 1 — Blackness and Light
ATBG/Segment 2 — The Descent
ATBG/Segment 3 — Calm Before The Storm
+++++++++++++++
And There Be Gods
Segment 4 -- The Quickening
By MACHINE
© 2001
All Rights Reserved
5.
50 feet. An outdoor regional meeting.
He could see the looks on their faces.
Stupid ants.
Slowing to a near hover, the shock trooper jettisoned the armor’s single, 50-pound cluster/EMF bomb into the night from an oblong slot in the suit’s back.
Dropping like a tear from the early evening sky, the pristine ovular cylinder turned end-over-end, falling soundlessly toward Ibiza’s central square — a few of those assembled below saw the trooper coming and tried to run. Most didn't. No chance for any of them.
The Xian battle hymn blared over the armor’s audio system, heavy drum beats battering their way to a climactic crescendo.
The cluster bomb triggered at 20 feet, spreading lethal bomblets over a 30-foot radius. The mini-bombs ignited at 15 feet, raining razor-like shrapnel and wet chemical fire over a solid 60-foot radius. A heavy concussion wave rocked the park-like setting.
Cacophony, screams and panic — ancient trees combusting, the wash of orange fire flowing over and igniting spasmodically flailing bodies; human figures launched skyward like misfit angels. The shock wave knocking appendages, flesh and articles of clothing free from their places in a deafening roar. The smell of burning wood, charred plastic, fried ozone and twisted metal.
Death. En masse.
Turning night into day, a phoenix-like finger of fire rose 60 feet into the evening sky, washing over the trooper like the caress of a sadistic lover. The trooper guided the heavy battle armor down through the center of the fire, hiding amongst the shifting flames.
In the blink of an eye, 487 Ibizans in the crowded city square lost their lives. Dozens more were maimed and injured. The wailing of the wounded began. For 100 feet, all electronic-based equipment went dead as a result of the EMF wave coupled with the explosion. The heavy assault rifles and armored vehicles of the surviving two-dozen city police officers at the assembly became useless, their internal components melting under the EMF onslaught. Oily tendrils of acrid smoke began to roll from the site, stinging the survivor’s eyes and nostrils.
Touching down at ground zero, in the hellish crater that moments before been a platform on which one of Ibiza’s regional overlords had been holding council with his constituents and cabinet, the trooper began to climb out of the seven-foot deep indentation amidst the flickering flames.
Helpless citizens and police watched in visceral terror as the giant armored demon’s shadow became increasingly solid, plodding methodically towards them through the fiery curtain’s veil.
6.
ETA: 3 minutes.
Aided by small red bursts from the Shoggoth suit’s thrusters, Garden bounded in great mechanical leaps across the city’s roof towards the general vicinity of the projected impact site. The armor’s central power stalk connected to his form via a spidery assembly of pulsating organic head, neck, arm and leg fittings. Inside the suit, thin living tubes snaked wetly into the crevices of Garden’s nostrils and mouth, carefully monitoring the Baron’s internal processes and supplying ideal mixtures of air, fluids and hormones to the Ibizan ruler.
With the fluidity of a half-seen shadow, Garden navigated gold-encrusted building domes, dodged spiky communication towers, touched down on narrow ledges and leapt across sprawling urban chasms.
He was one with the Shoggoth. Both man and machine.
37 generations of Ibizan royalty comprised the living elements of the ancient, space- and war-tested armor. Part low-tech mechanized armor, part sentient living creature, the rippling muscles and organic components of the biomechanical Imperial battle suit were encased in overlaid sheets of rare, dead-planet Trillian alloy. One day, after their souls had ascended to the Watchers womb, the physical remains and stored memories of Garden’s household would join the armor in cybernetic nirvana.
Though under Garden’s control, the armor shone with a warm prescience that helped guide and sharpen his actions. Hundreds of years of instinct from Ibizan warriors, renegades, scholars, kings and queens honed his steps and whispered in his ears.
Through the slotted visage of the heavy crimson suit’s horned helmet, Garden observed a sharp explosion and pop of smoke on the horizon. The Central Sector. Redoubling his efforts, Garden propelled the Shoggoth toward the flames in the distance.
++++++++++++++++++
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