The Thin Ochre Line

The air itself seemed to hang like some thick wet mucus, damp clinging to almost every surface as it slapped into every inch of its surroundings and coated it in a multi-coloured sheen of sorts within a few seconds. Here and there thin tendril like growths would worm their way through rusted frame work, grasping whatever they had found in a vice like grip, whilst in others great thick pulsing growths would sprawl out engulfing the lower halves of ruined buildings and crushing long dead vehicles under their weight. Each of these vile growths would occasionally twitch and a faint blue pulse would run through what could almost be called veins beneath its rubbery surface, a wet warmth emanating each time they did until what had once been a cold gloomy place filled with long silent machine shops and manufactories felt more like a hot house in the midst of a nutrient cycle, or at least that was the image that came to Hastings mind as he slowly crept forward with the rest of his platoon. Behind him he could hear the near constant squelching of his comrades boots slapping through the ankle deep puddles of ichor that seemed to dot the place, ropes of slime and gunk sticking to their great coats where ever it splashed onto them. Very quickly they’d learnt to rapidly get the gunk off as it began to eat away at their gear wherever it stuck for too long, as a couple of his squad mates had found out, the sleeves on both reduced to tatters of scrap that they almost looked like they were wearing cloaks rather than the coats they had once been. Tentatively stepping over a growth in his path he looked up ahead to see where the rest of his unit had reached, and could just make out the platoon’s Lieutenant stood with the senior sergeant at what presumable had been a cross roads judging from the amount of rusted out hulks they had past in the last half an hour. The lead 2 squads had already formed up in a rough defence circle at the junction with one squad covering each of the potential paths  as the final squad, his own, brought up the rear to finish the perimeter. Momentarily distracted by what the Lieutenant was doing as his curiosity got the better of him as senior sergeant packed the radio handset away Hastings tripped on a tendril he hadn’t seen and landed with a load clatter as his rifle hit the rockcrete floor, the brim of his helmet bouncing his head slightly. The sudden noise brought every rifle in the platoon round aiming at him until those aiming them realised what had happened and a chorus of snorting and suppressed laughter rippled round the various ochre clad troopers, “The hell are you doing Hastings?, we’re not on some damned blasted sight seeing trip you incompetent twirp” the snarling bark came marching towards him with the sound of sloshing as a pair of boots swam in his vision. Lifting himself up with a grunt Hastings found senior sergeant Trod looking down at him, the sergeants habitual maroon coloured face almost flaring red as he scowl at the hapless private. “Get on your damned feet and pay attention to where your walk” Trod snapped viciously “Sorry Sergeant, damned tendrils are everywhere sergeant” Hasting got out as he pulled himself up straight. “Damned tendrils” Trod spat mockingly “Where do you think we are private, a pleasure trip on leave, pull your head together and get eyes on” the angry sergeant bawled at Hastings as the private ducked away to take up the final place in his squads defence spread. “Brown coat” Hastings muttered under his breath once Trod was out of ear shot, “Careful the lieutenant don’t catch you saying that or you’ll be up on charges” a voice whispered from his left, glancing round he found the face of his fellow private and friend Mellows. “Yeah, well he is acting so superior” Hastings grunted “Acting all chummy with the new Lieutenant, what’s his problem anyway” “From what the chatter says he was a corporal in one of the first squads that ran into the muties when we first came in here 9 months to a year back” Mellows replied. “Serious?” Hasting raised an eyebrow as he looked out into the gloom from where they had come “Yeah, ran into stuff like this back then too from what the other squads told me” Mellows nodded as he kept his rifle aimed down the road “Bet this is making him all jumpy as a rat on a heater” Mellows grinned at Hastings. That would add up Hastings thought to himself, still bad for a senior sergeant to be getting that twitchy about some weird growth things part of his mind added. What probably didn’t help matters was the fact that the ’platoon’ was an amalgamation of 3 separate platoons that had been reduced down to barely a squad each, those had been pulled together and then reduced down to the 20 or so troops that made it up now. “No wonder we’re on recce duties then” Hastings muttered as an order whipped round the mech corp troopers “Fall in and prepare to move out” the soft voice wafted out from the officer, Hastings had to admit from what he’d seen so far she was better than their last officer by some margin. Last stuck up specialist twit had gotten himself gutted by a howler after leading some gung-ho charge alongside 4 others, Hastings was glad he’d ignored that particular order for sure. Getting up he stayed with Mellows until the other two squads had begun to move and his own had started to make their own way along trailing the others as the rear element to their patrol, as he did though he noticed the lieutenant waiting for his squad to pass her before she fell into step with them, their ochre great coats and simplistic rifles standing dull and matt compared to her bright uniform of golds, blacks, oranges and browns. He noticed the thin sword hanging at her hip the most as the blade looked more like an elongated barb than anything to him, “Eye for blades Private Hastings?” the lieutenant questioned suddenly making him jump “Just a pretty sword ma’am” he replied slightly nervous all of a sudden. “Folded and reinforced steel, grandfather melted it down and shaped it from part of a bulwark girder our salvage workers pulled in one time” She spoke with an elicited accent that definitely marked her out as a specialist even more than her uniform, her very words a mark of status over others part of Hastings brain mumbled to itself. “Must have been a good metal smith to make that then” “”Oh he was, excellent fencing master too” the lieutenant responded with an unnerving grin “Taught me from a young age exactly who to watch and where to plant the tip of the blade for maximum effect, am I clear Private Hastings?” She raised an eyebrow at the private and for a moment the young face of the specialist officer disappeared and the look of an cold blooded killer sat glaring at him “Yes ma’am” Hastings nodded quickly, suddenly wishing had had followed the old platoon officers order and charged into certain death after all...

Military Campaign Progress
Some would say humanity has been accompanied since its earliest days by a single shadow cast by its own innate curiosity, in this they are right in a way, but that sense of wonder has in its own way cast a shadow in turn that has walked beside mankind for just as long but in far more silence than the first. The phrase ‘the mind is a killer’ comes from this secret shadow as humanity pushed out from its cave dwelling origins as a species, those curious few heading out deeper and deeper into the surrounding forests and lands, pushing mankind further and further onward, all the while that little shadow would grow with each step as doubt became its own paradigm of fear on onside and caution on the other. This caution when put into the mind of a worrier throughout the whole of humanity creates the sense of paranoia that has helped to shape the course of human history just as surely as the steps taken by those willing to walk into the darkness and push back the shadows. With every passing era of time mankind has developed and evolved with a growing confidence as new knowledge has birthed new sciences and new understandings, for the main populace of each new dawn the curiosity of the human spirit has been praised with out ever realising that the paranoid doubt of their rivals getting one step ahead had in fact driven the acts which spurred on their latest achievements. With the birth of nations and empires this paranoia would drive mankind into its darkest era and again out into the light as the push and pull of the duality that is mankind’s drive and thirst for knowledge played out into yet another cycle, leading to eventual armies clashing and revelations splitting the world anew. By the dawn of electronic age this paranoia that had once always resulted in the mass spilling of blood had been drawn into the realm of shadows as the light of progress cast it back into the dark supposedly banished by reason, but here paranoia always finds a way  to grow as in every form of conflict that little voice in the back of mankind's head that can so often lead to mistrust and clashes can also save its life.

For the culture that makes up the Mech-Corp of the ruins this dual nature defines them in a multitude of ways with the very aims of them all being based in this strange duality. Curiosity pushes them to try and reclaim what was once lost, striving to rebuild was had been so ruined in centuries past so that mankind might once more stride forward in the light of progress, however for ever step forward it takes one step is taken back by the paranoia that infects every level of society towards those from outside of their culture, the joven savages, psychotic clans, ancient soldiers and sly miners all viewed with not an eye towards cooperation but how long before they try to steal what the mech-corp have worked so hard for since the fall. For the specialist that’s make up the upper half of society within the culture this sense of paranoia is often taken as a welcome notion as the mind set they are brought up into from the earliest years reinforces the idea that if you consider that you matter the fact you believe someone is out to steal from you or your birth right simply confounds that you do indeed matter, at least in the eyes of your social peers. For the lower masses of the technicians this paranoia acts as a safeguard in its own way, less on a personal level but more on the collective identity of who they are within mech-corp society, the notion that some specialist will at some point cause them a problem or try to use them as stepping stones to be trod on prepares every technician for its inevitably and provides a barrier against it all the same as the collective response when one specialist pushes it to far beyond what their culture will allow keeps the specialists from pushing the divide too often as their own paranoia screams about the potentially full blooded response from the technicians as a whole. One place however that both of these senses of mistrust do however come together in their own way in amongst the very ruins they seek to reclaim for their own, the military expeditions providing a worthy breeding ground for the two sides of the same coin so to speak to form as one and offer some form of protection against the creatures that lurk within the shadows.

The first days of the new season would be met by the old guard as a whole with a pallor of dread as the army began to slowly hear of the reports brought back in the final days of the last months by those units cautiously pushing ahead of the army. For the few fresh faced replacements that had taken the spots hear and there the tales told round platoon fires did little for their morale as the veterans who had survived thus far into the campaign recalled memories of the first days pushing into the territory and the tendrils and ichor coating everything that had been found then. Clearly those officers still remaining from those days almost a year ago had the same thoughts come to the fore in their minds as they gathered for the morning briefings, battered and weary faces sat together around the table in the command tent as the collected intelligence was poured over in every detail. In the most part the usually vocal meetings were uncharacteristically quiet for a change as the remaining leadership of the old guard each knew that bickering for prestige counted for nought right now. What didn't help matters was the mech-corp army’s own casualties, reports brought from the various battalion infirmaries combined with after action reports submitted  had the old guard at just over 55% total strength heading into the season with the swarm’s own strength being anyone’s guess. The following days would compound this issue further as new slowly filtered through to the front in some form of double edged sort of way, during the middle of the sixth day into the month a single courier would arrive on a spluttering and barely serviceable moto-tricycle. Dropping off their information pouches and a small stack of letters from little chatter the gate guards could get from the impatient and twitchy rider hinted at something having happened in the agri-dome from what the home papers were saying, the Morsville rioters had been dealt with last season but when the escort patrol had arrived to pick up the general ’Ironside’ Mayhew part way into the expeditions deployment him and his own squad were nowhere to be found apparently. The disappearance of the general would whip round the army like lighting over the following couple of days until it finally voiced itself in a command staff briefing during the third day of the second week, the assembled officers clashing in a chorus of arguing voices and counter clashing statements over the disappearance. The colonel of the old guard’s 1st battalion would restore some semblance of order after putting a round from his side arm through the table before them all and verbally tearing a strip off of those officers with the look to argue still in their eye. The rest of the briefing would fall into some kind of order over the following hours as the officers present debated what course of action to take. In this the 1st battalion colonel held a dispatch in his hand from the high command back in the home lands, they were conducting their own investigation into the matter as well due to the nature of the expedition but in the mean time they had appointed a new general to take command as Mayhew’s replacement. At this the meeting falls silent as the officers grumble but listen carefully to the contents of the dispatch, this new general was another member of the expeditionary forces who had become tied up with other commitments for the season but had already dispatched orders to the old guard to push forward against the swarm and go on the attack properly. At this a few officers raise an eyebrow at the bravado of the order but with the confirmation of the general-ship they wouldn’t disobey an order and more than a few officers present in the meeting as it filed out into the gloomy light wore a face with some form of revenge against the mutants clearly in mind. The rest of the week and majority of the days into the one after that would see the army continue with its forward patrols but also begin to consolidate units together to form functioning line companies once more as units were issued with preparatory orders with crates of ammunition being opened up and troops drilled together with new squad mates from various depleted units. In the background support units would inventory their own supplies and begin to draw up reaction plans to the coming likely engagement with medical posts pulling reserves of sanitiser and cleaner packs open for the likely already infected and vicious wounds that would follow any such action in such places. By the beginning of the final week of the month the old guard would be set in place ready to push forward as the battered army readied itself for what was to come, one thing would be picked up though by those forces who had fought alongside the army of the people’s; the quiet step, in the previous season. A few soldiers here and there had managed to strike genuinely cordial relations with their temporary allies but over the last handful of weeks since the turn of the season those same hunters and gatherers who the old guard had befriended had seemed to become withdrawn for some reason. A handful of ’officers’ or chiefs as they called them from their army had come across to coordinate as they had been doing but each time there was one or two less until the last one in the previous week had been all that was seen of the peoples army at all. By the dawn of the last day of the month as the stand too order rang out around the mech-corp army camp few would wonder exactly where the quiet step had gone and if they were about to march into some hellscape expecting allies by their side where they would now only find shadows.

The next few days would see the old guard begin to move out in force from their established positions and as the first couple of days of the second month rolled by it would be accompanied by the sound of marching feet meeting centuries old rockcrete as terse weary commands flicked back and forth down the columns of mech-corp troops as each company pressed onward. Those first troops to move into the previously patrolled areas would follow the routes laid out by the forward scout platoons as they moved into a maze of yet further rusted out warehouses, assembly lines and half collapsed manufacturing compounds, ancient factories sitting silent and long dead as tense eyes darted across them for signs of movement as the army took each step forward with a palatable air of caution. Those troops coming up from behind would not get the luxury of caution as the general orders sent down from the battalion commands urged them forward at a steady but constant pace, with two main avenues of approach forming around the army as it split into its attack columns for the march ahead. By the eve of the fifth day each column would encamp themselves into defensive positions around their first stage objectives, runners and light radio traffic between the various companies filing back reports of the armies progress so far alongside more detailed reports as to the tangled vein like tendrils seemingly infecting everywhere, with more of the transparent slime covered pods being reported clustered together in larger spaces or located by squads checking underground access tunnels. Here the first casualties would come not from direct mutant presence but the nerves of other mech-corp troops as squads popped up in unexpected places after following a tunnel. Twice friendly fire accidents would unfortunately claim the lives of mech-corp troops as the army marched ever onward as the first week of the second month came to a close and the following few days passed by to nought but the sound of marching feet and the occasional bark of a rifle as some long dead corpse managed to spook an overly tense trooper on point. By the end of sixth day of the second week this tense frustration and anxiety would work itself all the way up to the army’s remaining command staff as meetings often as not began to descend into heated arguments between assembled officers at the lack of contact with the mutant swarm, not helping matters were the reports coming from the maintenance engineers contingent of the army. Evidently whatever the slime and ichor was coating the tendrils and pods was highly corrosive and was eating away at troops kit and in some cases weapons, they had already had one report of a grenadiers weapons pouch having been eaten through and the grenades inside having detonated from the corrosion killing the grenadier and his squad mate, wounding four others in the ensuing blast. At this the officers present all lost their voice as the realisation that they would have to slow the pace whilst they circulated amended orders to the leading companies, this would take two days at least with the army coming to a halt whilst it did. When the army finally began to move out again properly on the second day of the third week troops cautiously moved around any puddle or tendril, trying not to get to close to whatever it was that ate through their equipment. This would cause its own issues as the previously well formed columns began to string out at chokepoints, units attempting to avoid the damaging corrosion holding up units following closely behind. The various colonels had intended for the army to be well onto their second phase line objectives by this point but with the unexpected stop and the friendly fire incidents they were half a week behind already and they all knew it was going to get worse the deeper they moved into this living quagmire. By the weeks end the entire army was sitting staring into the last tenth of the territory they needed to reclaim but here they began to encounter the first signs that the swarm which had pulled back previously was still here.

As the first day of the final week of the second month slipped by reports began to make their way back of large walls of tendrils gripped round buildings covered in blister like protrusions, bloody screeching being heard in the gloom above the forward units during the evening cycle. Those units closet to the tendril ‘walls’ reported the sound of scuttling and movement behind the walls and echoing from around them as something was circling them, whilst patrols that had attempted to find a round around the blockages had spotted direct movement ahead of them as if something was countering their forward reconnaissance. Rapidly units were pulled back as companies fell back into adhoc positions ready to  respond at the first signs of contact in their sector, across the entire army companies waited in the half light as the sound of inhuman voices began to slowly fill the air, the sound a movement all around them pulling at the nerves of every trooper. For a few scant hours the most optimistic officers still amongst the army hoped it was simply posturing from the mutants and that this was all they could muster to scare them in the night, they would be sorely proven wrong as the dawn broke on following day. The first reports would filter back through to battalion command as front line companies called in with contact on the flanks of the advance, packs of mutants barrelling from cover amongst the rusted out hulks of conveyors of some sort and hurling themselves into the mech-corp lines. These first clashes would slowly escalate over the course of the day until the entire frontline was well and truly engaged with constant reports coming in from every company across the entire army of bloody engagements with various packs of swarming mutants. This pattern would repeat itself for the remainder of the days of the second month of the season as time and time again waves of mutant spawn would slam into the mech-corp lines, close quarters battles raging up and down the front before eventually the mutants withdrew into the night when their numbers dropped below a critical mass, leaving ragged weary mech-corp troopers holding an increasingly thin ochre line as the wounded and dead were brought back in an ever increasing number. The final eve of the month would see the army excuse if they had completely forgotten about where the people’s army had disappeared too but in the low hours as tense sentries peered out into the surrounding darkness a single lone runner made their way into the main camp of the old guard. What the runner had to say was never heard as they reported directly to the old guard’s leaders, said what they had been sent to say and was gone back into the night just as quickly. One thing was noted however was the freshly bound wounds the runner was covered in, clearly wherever the quiet step were they weren’t having a good time of it and then some one officer would quip.

The first week of the final month of the season would pass by to the sound of raging battles, barks of gunfire and the screeches of inhuman throats smashing into one another with unbridled fury. Each day would bring fresh wounded and fresh dead as the Old guard and mutant swarm tried to take the upper hand from one another in a series of ever escalating engagements that drew in one company of troopers and then another until the frontline ebbed and flowed like water as each side pushed and probed before being pushed back and having to counter their opponents own pushes and probes. By the evening of the seventh day the Old guard would find themselves clawing to hold onto the adhoc front line they had pushed up to, blocked from their forward advance the swarm was hammering into their flanks with an ever increasing ferocity  that was slowly hour by hour beginning to push them one step back and then another. Calling together a meeting between the various command staff of the army the battalion colonels would over the course of the next few hours face a stark situation, with the lines so heavily engaged they were faced with only two real options, hold and try to endure the mounting casualties or withdraw to the phase 1 objectives from the previous month and make a better stand there. In the end it was an easy call as during the following week the rear units of medical staff, engineers and logistic troops began to redeploy back to the previous months objectives to reset up there. Over the next week the casualties; both walking and those born by stretchers, were evacuated back to these old positions with the most depleted infantry companies falling back in good order to take up defensive choke points as one by one the Old guard back to fall back. During the evening of the second day of the third week the first full line companies would break from their positions and withdraw to the new defence line  until only a skeleton force was manning the forward line until come the first gloomy light of the morning cycle these units too would begin their own retreat to link up with their fellows. Clearly sensing their prey was up to something these last units would be hampered all the way by roving packs of howlers and air born harpies, mobbing units that failed to keep up the necessary pace to out run the mutants, leaving ochre coated bodies lying where they fell as the last units of the Old guard reached the defence line with the sound of mutants following close behind. The last days of the month and season would see the Old guard hammered by the resurgent swarm as it poured from its hiding place and crashed into the mech-corp lines once more, disturbingly reports filtering back from forward observers noted that some of the mutants seemed to be coated in a transparent slime like that which had been seen within the strange pods growing off of the tendrils. Others reported back odd markings in the mutants carapace that looked almost like a younger variant of those already encountered, this in of itself would have pointed to something the assembled officers of the Old guard knew as not good putting it politely, but to add to this fact half way through the meeting a tired and wounded messenger from the people’s army was shown into the command tent. Bleeding from an open laceration that bisected the messenger’s right eye they delivered stark news from the so far unseen people’s army, whatever had roused the mutants to swarm forward once more hadn’t just caught the old guard but the quiet step as well in a vicious counter offensive. Both army’s had been sent sprawling backwards  into retreat leaving the mutants now with almost a full third of the territory once more in their claw like grip.

Summary:

The Old Guard has once more found itself In active combat as the army followed its new general’s orders, pushing forward into the remaining third of the occupied territory hoping to reclaim it from the mutant swarm that had previously fallen back. Unfortunately it was found that the swarm hadn’t retreated and whatever it had been doing seems to be spawned new generations of mutants, which in turn have slammed into the Old guard and forced them into retreat back to where they began to season with not much to show for it beyond a growing list of casualties pushing the army to its integrity limit. As such the mutants still occupy 33% of the territory with the Mech-corp army occupying 66% of the territory at this time, additionally the Old guard have been forced onto the defensive once again with the quiet step of the people’s having been forced back as well in the surprise assault. (NOTE: The Old Guard have suffered a further 143 casualties from this season which puts their standing strength at 1542/3000. If this strength falls below 1200/3000 the army will collapse and cease to exist. The enemy swarms overall strength is unknown but estimates put it at around 1900/3000)

A Game of Masks
With the ongoing situation within the agri-dome ever involving and changing the inevitable feedback from the various reports filed and information gathered that is put before the parliament often as not causes the usual series of verbal clashes that fill the halls of the guild slope on a near regular basis as each party and collective group tries to gain the upper hand for their aims whilst addressing the disseminated information made public to the general masses. In this the successful resolution of the Morsville refugees in the previous season had an unexpected side affect with the delegation intending to head out to the dome having being stuck sorting out the relocation of the most peaceful Morsville survivors to new homes whilst also assisting in re-establishing their own settlements garrison objectives now the immediate crisis was over. Holding a series of papers in one hand one of the party leaders in the parliament during on debate brandishes them as all the proof needed to further escalate the response as they wade through the list of supposed ‘complaints’ from Morsville residents only to be verbally shot down by other parties in a chorus of hisses and boos that force the party lead back to their bench seat. Taking the chance a number of more back bench members put their own spin on the resolution from various angles as they almost succeed in stirring the debate back on course with a little help from union party members and the parliamentary speaker. One thing does however still come up though across each party as the voices jostle for position amongst the leaders of the mech-corp, that of the strange symbol found on one of the protestors. At this the parties descend into their usual areas of squabbling whilst the military attachés present simply harrumph at any looks from the political parties whenever they dare to point fingers. The revelation from the agri-dome however of the true nature of the entity calling itself ‘Demon’ does catch the attention of more than a few of the more senior parliamentary members as the report is read out during the later ends of the debate. Calls for further investigation are mixed with those calling for the destruction of the entity know identified as the dome’s old logistical AI whilst others focus on calling for inquiries into how exactly this could have happened under the mech-corps nose. During this the military representative gets up and quietly leaves the hall as it descends once more into endless bickering as it habitually did and instead entered a small side room filled with a few officers drawn from the various militia regiments and a few specialists from connected houses. Their discussions remain behind closed doors but when they leave some hours later a small number of dispatches are sent out including a package for the new general of the Old Guard.

Summary:

1) Due to unforeseen consequences from the successful resolution to the Morsville ‘protestors’ incident the delegation that should have been present during the previous season had only just found time to make their way to the agri-dome, they will be arriving at some point during Saturday morning all being well and intend to speak with the mech-corp expedition members present, as well as deliver a package of sorts.

2) With the swarm previously thought to have withdrawn launching a surprise counter offensive straight into the face of the mech-corp army the militia command have sent orders to the expedition to attempt to learn what they can about the growths observed by the Old guard and find some kind of counter to its effects in an attempt to reduced accidental casualties, alongside also finding out what happened to the quiet step who were supposed to be supporting the Old guard.

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