The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend? Again?!
31 Aug 2020LilliSWE
The recovery of the lost escape pod has proven successful. The pod contained a child of twelve years old who was later identified as the daughter of REDACTED. The child remains hospitalized in intensive care. My team is standing by waiting for her to recover before questioning her about what happened. I would do anything to be there myself, but something mysterious has reached my desk.
An unknown communication reached my desk. It was an encoded message that took my techs 4 hours to decrypt. It requested me, by name, to come to a known barnacle forest site. The site in question has been visited a couple of times by myself. In my early days, I harvested meta-alloys to gain a reputation with Felicity Farseer. I select a team of Imperial marines to accompany me on this mission. We board the Adjudicator and set sail for the barnacle forest.
"Admiral, we're arriving at the forest. Should we land outside the perimeter?"
Yes. Launch the taipan to circle the site and provide overwatch. We land just outside the perimeter of the eerie forest. I take a crew of five soldiers and load up the rovers. We proceed to the deciphered coordinates and are greeted by a group of Thargoid scavengers.
The soldiers ready their weapons as the scavengers approach the vehicles, but they show no signs of hostility or aggression. I tell my men to lower their weapons and stand down. They comply, much to their objections. The lead scavenger approaches me and instantly begins transmitting what appears to be another encoded message. I begin recording the transmission to my console for the technicians to decode. As soon as the transmission ends, the scavengers erupt into plumes of caustic gas. They were far enough away from me as to not prove lethal. We board the rovers and head back to the Adjudicator. I look at the code on the console and just stare at the scribble:
47c-546754n32 e1ux3ux3u3u32 124321pu3[ru23ru[32r2 effew.fw.efefehf el32ru32r 3rl32jrl23enfenfenwfl lr2jrlt2r43298549r5u3ref jr2jrffew; ljfl8f
One may think this is just a child punching random keys on a keyboard, but like the last one, this will contain valuable information.
As we idly sit on the surface as the techs attempt to decipher the code, I ponder as to why I'm getting messages delivered to me by Thargoids. I am loudly interrupted by my lead tech who comes running into the mess hall.
ADMIRAL! You're not going to believe this. The messages that have been coming to us are from the Thargoids themselves. It states that an Oresrian Thargoid wishes to meet with you and you alone. It has provided a date for the meeting and coordinates of an abandoned facility that was attacked by Thargoids. I highly recommend you NOT go alone. This could be a set up to cut the head off of the snake.
I am going to accept this invitation. This may very well be a trap, but no risk, no reward. This entity has most likely broken their ethics in order to arrange this meeting, so it may indeed prove fruitful.