Trouble at the Barnacle Matrix
28 Aug 2023Lion12
The day was late. It was nearing the edge of the night when I noticed a notification from Canonn Research. New structures had been discovered named Thargoid Barnacle Matrixes. I immediately slammed my ships controls into the nearest maelstrom cluster i could find, Taranis, and headed straight for the fated system of Hyades Sector DQ-O b6-0. As I searched the atmospheric worlds of this system, I saw something unusual. A Thargoid signal from planet 4. It was then when it clicked in my head, this meant a Barnacle Matrix site. I immediately headed straight for it through many interdiction, with my DBX taking hit after hit from thargoids before finally arriving at the planet and barely getting the DSS scan in to reveal the surface site on my side panel.
Once down at the site, I stayed cautious. I knew from brave canonn folk that these sites weren't unguarded so I parked my ship far, and drove in with my Scorpion SRV. Initially, I didn't see anything of note. Some new codex entries sure, but nothing incredible that I can pick up without my cargo hold shitting itself. So I continue on my look and at this point Xarionn is well on his way over to see what it's about, when a familiar and welcomed sight appears in the wing. Elena Darkov.
As I'm messaging in the comms about the discovery, Im met with a bright yellow piss beam shooting at me as my covas screams bloody murder at me. I look over whilst scrambling shield pips to see its some Revenants that have appeared from Narnia to come shoot me. Guess the canonn folk were right after all about it being guarded. I took refuge behind a large boulder while a waited for elena and xarionn to arrive as support, and luckily for me the revenants must have the memory of a newborn child as they quickly forgot me and went about their patrol. Within time the two axi mentors met up with me and as we looked over the hill we made a disturbing discovery. The Revenants weren't just there in a small group; there must've been 6, 12, 20 or more of them all staring us down as the scorpions shields rapidly decreased, causing me to need to rapidly retreat back to the safety rock.
We weren't in any position to fight these all at once. We only had a scorpion and a scarab, which would be destroyed too easily. So we had to go on foot and have a shootout as yet another familiar face joined in on the wing. Grimscrub quickly swooped in with his eagle, directing attention away from us as missiles rained hellfire from above. We were taking them out with great efficiency now, and all was looking good until we heard an explosion. A shock wave pushed us back down the small hill we perched on as the Eagle came crashing into the the site itself, impaling the fuel tank onto the spiky Barnacle roots and causing an instant explosion, destroying grim's ship immediately. Now the focus was back on us, as we cowered in fear on our hill, with only our safety boulder now as our method of comfort.
We stayed there a while as we thought of what to do before coming to the conclusion to make a mad dash for our ships and gtfo. We ran and ran as lasers flew by left and right. Elena manned the guns on the scorpion as our ships flew down almost synchronised as they landed. Xarionn docked and diverted fire with his ship as I dropped elena off at his ship. I then got to my own as we took off to supercruise, ready to jump to safety and discuss what we had seen. As we talked, we came to a decision of what to name it. We eventually concluded on one to commemorate the ground soldiers of the fight, naming it Mentor Land and swearing to come back to take back what is ours one day.
That was a few weeks ago, and we've discovered many different Matrixes since them. Enough to cause severe issues of logistics since it appears no matter what we do, we can't reclaim the systems at all. For now we wait, as the AXI waits to take what's rightfully ours with a full on assault on the site.