By Morton Smith
"The year is 950SD. SLA Industries has been decimated by a universal catastrophe. There is little left to live for except to kill. Mort is in chaos and the rest of the World of Progress lies in ruins. From his headquarters in central Mort Slayer surveys the destruction of his empire. What's left of the streets are controlled by serial killers and monsters of all descriptions. There is nothing to do but wait to die… or is there? What follows is a short account of some of the events that took place to bring the World of Progress to where it is today."
THE LAST DAY
The largest Sammhaine, the new title for the old Gore Zone, ever organised, broadcast to every planet of the World of progress. The largest collection of killers both sanctioned and non-sanctioned made more enthralling by the participation of the newly returned Kilneck. Every serial killer, psycho, and want to be media darling had gathered to be part of this mass slaughter. No one could have expected what would happen and the consequences of one individuals actions, of one killers deed, of one mans words.
DAY ZERO
Wave of Mutilation
As the World of Progress watched Hallowe'en Jack go toe to toe with the most psychotic Stormer ever grown no one could have dreamed of the hellish nightmare that was about to unfold before them. Jack unmasked and reciting Integration 20 in front of the largest captive audience in the history of SLA Industries. Later estimates state that 80% of the population died instantly that day, 750,000,000,000 lives snuffed out by a few words. Across the universe the shockwave was felt. As far away as Static torturous deaths were recorded in there millions. In deep space Foldships melted, Ion cruisers, carriers and capital ships of evey Shaktar House exploded like super novas the skies illuminated by thousands of new stars that flickered then died.
Integration 20 was devastating. The truth, the truth about everything. The walls of what everyone thought was reality came crashing down one by one.
Mort bore the worst of the apocalypse. Death came in many forms, some just vanished others melted into pools of boiling blood, some burst into flames others exploded in showers of crimson rain. Of those that survived the majority had been deformed beyond recognition mentally and physically. Some where lucky and missed the broadcast others seemed to be unaffected by the whole thing. Even this didn't stop their deaths as the psychotic and deranged butchered those they could find.
Central Mort was sealed off by Stigmartyr agents the corporate sector and central HQ became a killing ground as anybody, regardless of SCL, who attempted to enter were killed. For the first time in centuries the high pitch wine of Decimator fire was heard as Stigmartyr agents held the defensive line and the command "None shall pass." This night became known as "The Ring of Blood".
As night fell on that first day an uneasy calm washed over the city. There was no power to anywhere outside of Central that night but the city was bright as tens of thousands of fires raged unchecked throughout. Kilcopters prowled the skies killing anything moving on the streets.
DAY ONE
On the first day…
As dawn broke over Mort on that first morning the true extent of the damage could be seen, the city lay in ruins. Fires blazed across whole sectors, thousands of residential blocks had collapsed falling through dozens of street levels creating huge craters in the cities structure. The metropolis of Mort City had been completely destroyed in a day. For the rest of that day reports of Shiver and Operatives units fighting desperate battles in Downtown flooded into Central as they attempted to reach the believed safety of HQ. Kilcopters and other airborne transports ran sorties into Downtown all day and night to airlift as many Operatives as the could, but they were hindered as roving gangs of civilians would attempt to highjack the rescue missions.
As, what could only be termed as, all out war raged though the city Central was a hive of activity as construction teams reinforced foundations and building structures to better defend it from the rest of Mort. Prefabricated huts where put up all over the streets and whole tower blocks where given over for medical, tactical and storage purposes, much to the distain of the corporate employees who had moved into their offices.
Again as night fell Mort City was silent. Silent but for the screams and gunfire that reverberated round what was left of its streets.
DAY TWO
No more heroes
The Stormer population had been hard hit by the catastrophe almost all had perished on Day Zero. Those that had survived had gone trough massive mutation most into crazed killers that would destroy any living thing they encountered. Of the rest these abominations wondered the streets filtering towards Cannibal Sector One and more specifically to Salvation Tower and Digger. The reason for this baffled most but not even the Kilcopters would venture that far from Central to find out the true nature of this exodus.
The Brain Wasters had also changed. On Day Zero they had become fused with their Deathsuits and became literally living armour. This had altered the physical state of these creatures to the extent they no longer registered as ebb users by any form of detection. The Brain Wasters turned on anyone not of their kind especially Ebons. It is reported that these creatures even attempted to kill Necanthropes.
The Necanthrope Society had remained unnervingly aloof throughout the first few days. And few were seen although the Preceptor Teeth did spend several hours a day talking to Slayer.
Stigmartyr had effectively defended Central for two days and not one of their number had left their post since Day Zero. As night fell heavy fighting was reported on the south perimeter. Stigmartyr agents rushed to reinforce the defences only to find they were fighting elements of the Black Chapter. Only after personal intervention by Slayer did they stop fighting and the Black Chapter were permitted into Central. Field Marshall Daidler and the rest of the Black Chapter Operatives took up residence in the SLA HQ building and sent their technical crews to The Pit.
Although people had always queried the architecture of The Pit none had ever envisaged the true purpose of the night club. Over the next few days The Pit was stripped of everything that could constitute entertainment and was refitted with all manner of military hardware and effectively became a command bunker. All Operative and military organisation was now controlled jointly from HQ and The Pit.
DAY THREE
Into the light
The construction of 16 meter high gated walls around Central was well under way. All entrances to Central were sealed and mined.
The population of Central was increasing daily as more and more Operatives and Shivers arrived from all over Mort. Reports of other cities came with them. Of particular note were Orienta and Meny. Orienta itself was completely decimated with few survivors those that had reported monsters of myth and legend, probably mutated Stomers, taking control of Fort Chimera and a strange portal that had opened up in the bowels of the prison.
As for Meny the bubble had truly burst. Massive damage to the domes structure had caused it to collapse, crushing most of the city and killing almost all of its surviving residents. A few of the students and lecturers managed to save a fair percentage of the Meny data cores and transported them to Mort City.
By now what was left of the once large SLA fleet had arrived at Mort. This was hindered by the fact that the Ebon Beacon had ceased transmitting due to the massive disturbance in the ebb caused by the catastrophe. Slayer was infuriated to find the majority of this force was made up of Ion ships partially crewed by humans and that most of what was left of the Fold Fleet had made best speed for Static. With interstellar communications still ineffectual Slayer personally contacted the Primus Navigator and demanded to know why so many ships had disobeyed orders. Slayer was further enraged when the Primus Navigator couldn't give him a satisfactory answer.
If all this was not enough Preceptor Teeth then high jacked all available Fold ships and proceeded to evacuate all Necanthropes from Mort. Fighting between Necanthropes and Stigmartyr agents was fierce as Necanthropes defended the Mort Central Space Port from attack. More than twenty senior Necanthropes lost there lives as they bought time for Teeth and his minions to escape and more than sixty agents died attempting to stop them.
Only a few Necanthropes still loyal to Slayer remained as the rest of Society effectively vanished from the World of Progress.
DAY FOUR
The prodigal return
The first communication from off world came from Artery. It simply said "Stormer population on route. Consider them extremely hostile." It takes a full month for an Ion ship to reach Mort from Artery and four days for a standard communication. The message from Artery had been sent on a third class signal generator which meant it was two weeks old.
The second communication came from a Foldship crippled by the catastrophe. It was almost out of range of ebb communication but managed to relay a message by bouncing it off of the beacon on Static. It was also short and more terrifying that the one from Artery. "Contact with ForceFoldship. Magnitude Nine Displacement. Carrying the sign of Mandrake. Foldship name Yung." The largest ship that had ever served in SLA Industries Fold Fleet was magnitude Four Displacement.
On hearing this communication Static declared itself an alien free zone and forbid any non Ebons from setting foot on the planet without the express permission of the Department of Transport on Static. All non Ebons on planet were given two months to leave. No easy order to obey as transport off world was sparse to say the least.
Most of Slayers senior advisors and department heads felt that the situation was spiralling out of control and demanded that Slayer do something to protect SLA Industries assets from danger. In particular the perceived inactivity of the Kilneck angered the department heads. They wanted the Kilneck to repeat their valiant efforts of the Conflict Wars and return SLA to the power it was. Slayer was quick to point out that most of the reality that people perceived was a fallacy and the Kilneck were not to be used as some kind of herald of a new age. They were at his command, nobody else would hold authority over them.
The Kilneck didn't seem to be too enamoured with this idea although none spoke out directly against Slayer, at least not publicly.
DAY FIVE
Once in a life time
At this point the general consensus was that nothing could stop the total breakdown of society. A dark age faces the World of Progress. Slayer was now showing physical sings of stress and mental exhaustion. As a result he delegated many of his duties to subordinates and new hastily organised divisions, these in turn would argue and bicker amongst themselves and achieve very little in the process. The organisation of the once mighty SLA Industries had spiralled into chaos.
At this point the existence of two, hitherto unknown, organisations came to light. The first was not so much a department or division but a group of people trained by Slayer to manipulate and distort reality. These 'Reality Engineers' were a mixed bunch of characters that seemed to have been taken from every walk of Mort life. The one thing that linked them was the fact they seemed unaffected by the catastrophe or perhaps affected the most. Their abilities were bizarre and bore no relation to anything past or present in the World of Progress or beyond. Ebons seemed to fear or at least be uneasy about them and refused to have anything to do with them. Their talents ranged from mind control through telekinetics to the total warping of reality, its time frame and people or objects in it. The ebb avoided them like the plague or rather they pushed it away. An area that a Reality Engineer walked through could take half an hour to recover its ebb flow. Over the course of the next few months Slayer would integrate some of these people into position of power and control in the various departments of SLA.
The other organisation was a new division created by Slayer to counteract any and all White Earth activity. Needed now that Stigmartyr were occupied with the defence of Mort. The SLA Investigation Division (SID) was made up of Operatives from investigative backgrounds. The SID were given a wide range of powers to aid in investigations. Helped by the fact that Slayer had effectively scrapped the SCL system the SID would be quickly hated by Stigmartyr and despised by the rest of Slayers remaining Operatives. Although they had a much more acceptable public image than Stigmartyr only the civilians seemed to accept and appreciate what they did.
With the scrapping of SC Levels and the breakdown of most monetary systems almost all of the World of Progress was very quickly reduced to a barter system. Operatives in Central could no longer buy weapons, ammunition, drugs, armour or equipment. Instead they where issued with what they required depending on there department, assignment and mission. High level Operatives felt insulted at being told to stand in line with the rest for their share and a few dozen resigned on the spot taking what was left of there equipment and weapons and disappeared into Downtown.
DAY SIX
The meek shall inherit…
The influx of civilians to Central was causing a massive logistics nightmare to ease this Slayer ordered all non-skilled civilians expelled from Central. Any trying to return would be shot. This tore apart families and caused riots when the Stigmartyr units moved in on the shanty towns to start the expulsions. These riots where short lived as any disagreements were settled at the barrel of a gun.
By now the rest of Mort City had calmed somewhat as most had been killed, found shelter they could defend or made the trip to Central. Serial killers that had survived the catastrophe were running free in Downtown. Even though SLA had spent the last few years thinning out their numbers quiet considerably hundreds perhaps thousands had a free killing ground. Some reports indicated that cognates had set up safe houses in the lower areas of Downtown where they offered protection to civilians in return for weapons equipment and services. Of course some of these services would include death.
What was left of the Shiver forces outside of Central barricaded themselves in their Shiver stations waiting from orders from Central or Commander Cradle. What they didn't know was that Cradle was dead, killed by Slayer on the day before the catastrophe after he resigned when Slayer refused to cancel the Sammhaine.
Slayer ordered that anybody that was not within the confines of Centrals walls by midnight would be considered an enemy of SLA and shot on site. This resulted in a barrage of radio communications and ebb communications to Central from all SLA employees still outside protesting at the order. This caused Slayer to do something almost unheard of in his time as controller of SLA Industries, he rescinded the order. Instead all employees attempting to enter Central would be vetted for skills, training and abilities before a decision was made as to their eligibility to enter. All entry applications where to be controlled by Stigmartyr.
By This time Stigmartyr agents were at braking point. In the space of a week they had been reduced from ultra-clandestine Operatives to immigration officers. Some applied for entry into SID, some disserted and others took out their frustrations on the civilian population.
Slayer seemingly in a fit of range disbanded Stigmartyr instantly on hearing their protests. Reassigning them to SID, Reality Engineering and the Black Chapter. The last order caused even more problems as the hatred between the two organisations, kept secret for decades, became very public and in some cases resulted in fighting and the occasional death.
The Black Chapter took over control of the wall defences and immigration.
DAY SEVEN
The last day
Given the chaos of the last seven days most had quickly settled into their new world. Those that could not cope and went insane were either put out of their misery or expelled from Central.
The rest of Mort City and Mort as a whole was left to smoulder, rot and die along with the World of Progress. Or at least that was what it looked like.
The first reality wave hits Mort. These phenomenon where like mini catastrophes although causing much less damage than the original. Some were localised to areas no more than 3 metres square while others would affect whole regions of space or planets. Their duration also varied from second, to hour to days. Reality waves lasting days were seldom bigger than three or four square kilometres. There frequency would fluctuate between two hours and two or three weeks. Later this time would increase until months would pass before a wave disturbed any where.
WEEK TWO
All's quiet
More communication from off world indicated that what remained of SLA forces on Dante' had left on whatever transport they could find and had set course for Mort.
No more sightings of the Foldship Yüng were reported.
More ships arrived at Mort, most carry no cargo but some are still loaded. Of these the most important is the Pah-Jarkost (Gods Ghost) with a manifest of 7000 cubic tones of medical supplies, food, construction materials and weapons.
Slayer sends three Ion drive carries to Dante with orders to bring back as much military hardware as possible.
A report from a small Ion frigate on route from Fiddlers Green informs Slayer that Red Rebel Four research facility has been overrun by enemy forces, affiliation unknown. Later reports and information from Mitzz of the Kilneck confirm the enemy force to be that of the Black Church. For the first time RD4's location is general knowledge, three planets distant from its sun in the same system as White Earth.
WEEK THREE
Life is but a dream
Field Marshal Daidler requests permission from Slayer to take an expeditionary force to RD4 to rescue any survivors from the Black Chapter units stationed there, Slayer refuses. Instead Daidler is ordered to make the Ion battle cruses "The Cross" space worthy. The Cross is an ancient ship, over 800 years old, and is considered to be at best an antique and at worst scrap metal even though it is rated as a Magnitude 3 Displacement vessel. Most see this as a diversionary tactic by Slayer to keep Daidler occupied.
Reports of White Earth activity in Downtown increase. With no Stigmartyr agents to keep this in check Downtown is believed to be nothing more than a playground for White Earth demons and acolytes. In addition to the chaos that is now Downtown all perimeter walls of the Cannibal sectors have been breached in several places. Carrien and other abominations including several failed Karma experiments are now hunting in the lower Downtown areas of Mort City.
WEEK FOUR
Into the valley of death
The Ion transports from Artery arrive in orbit. With little atmospheric defences SLA are helpless to stop the Stormers ferrying to Cannibal sector one on whatever shuttle craft they have. Some crash as a result of repeated Kilcopter attack of these several hit and destroy large sections of CS1's perimeter wall.
Slayer orders all remaining Frothers to prepare for a tactical assault on Cannibal Sector One. Even the Frothers know this is suicide and protest. Slayers calls all Clan heads to discuss the mission. The Clans agree to take the mission only after Slayer promises the assistance of all seven members of the Kilneck.
Almost 3000 Frothers, in full battle dress, are transported to CS1 along with the Kilneck. Along the rubble of the sector wall they stood with full ceremonial battle banners. The attack was supposed to eliminate what was left of the Stormer population that had emigrated to CS1. As the Frothers advanced on Salvation Tower a multitude of creatures, some estimates report their numbers as high as 6000, swarmed towards them. They seemed to appear from everywhere, buildings, streets and even from under ground. True to their nature the Frothers ran headlong into battle and paid the price for their typical bravery. Hundreds died on the first advance more on the second. By the third the Stormers had encircled the Frother Clans and the battle was lost. Even the mighty Kilneck found it difficult to hold off against the Stormer army. It is reported that one member of the Kilneck almost had their head severed from their body by one of the creatures blows. When the retreat was sounded only five Frothers and the Kilneck were able to escape. The rest were butchered by the Carnal Stormers. The Frother clans were no more. With only a few dozen left on Mort and a similar picture on other worlds the Frother was official extinct as a race.
MONTH TWO
Born in a storm
The weather of Mort had changed drastically since the catastrophe. Storms raged constantly causing havoc as lighting strikes became a daily hazard. Flooding took its toll on the majority of the city with Central being the only area able to withstand the flash floods and rising water levels. The geography of Mort city had totally changed as large parts of it were washed away. New rivers and lakes had formed throughout leaving what was left of the Morts road structure destroyed. The underground network and the city sub structure were totally under water but rumours abound of areas that still could sustain life.
All of Centrals defences where now in place and the perimeter walls finished. Communication off world had been restored and a full assessment of the destruction of the WoP got underway.
The assessment of the World of Progress made grim reading. Few had survived untouched with most planets and races as a whole were reporting huge casualties on a species wide scale. The Shaktar home world was one of the few places no contact could be made and the only information came from an Ion pilot gone insane. He spoke of the gods walking the earth as they did eons ago, laying waste to whole regions of the planet. Not that it mattered as almost 80% of the Shaktar race had been lost in the catastrophe. Along with them went 70% of the Wraiths, 85% of the human population and at least 65% of the Ebons. As part of some kind of twisted irony the Brain Wasters had suffered the least actual fatalities as far as anyone could tell, but the mutation they had went through meant that they could no longer be considered the Brain Waster race. They had become something far more terrifying and deadly. By now any Stormer that wasn't in CS1 was dead or lost somewhere on the outer rim of the WoP. In total only about 0.01% of the Stormer breeds were physically unaffected by the catastrophe and of then at least half were insane and subsequently destroyed.
New Paris was rebuilding some semblance of order and had secured most of its cities. But with few natural resources it relied on other worlds for its supplies of food, medicals supplies, the majority of its clean water and weapons. Its systems proximity to that of Morts hindered this as Mort claimed the lions share of any supplies in that area of the WoP.
Static's alien expulsion program had gone unchecked by SLA and almost all had been transported off world. Any alien left on Static was there by permission of the department of Transport and Immigration. Still with much of its natural resources untouched Static was more or less back to normal but much quieter. The only problems they had in the first few months was with the eradication of the Brain Wasters on planet. This was dealt with swiftly by the Ebon Guard.
MONTH THREE
Came the brave and the bold
Ion ships from Dante' arrive at Mort. Only 18,500 troops had made the trip from the war world. Department of War records stated at the time the total number of personnel on Dante was around 76,000,000.
With this influx of personnel came new problems. Most of these troops where carrier military and adjusting to, what to them was, civilian life was not easy. No rigid military controls, no routine and a much reduced chance of death by Thresher cannon.
The SID began to extend its sphere of influence over the WoP. Now with sufficient numbers to conduct field operations the first of the SID agents left Mort for various worlds still under control of SLA Industries. Operating in two man teams these agents, charged with the suppression of all Reality and White Earth activity, became known as The Watchers. With powers to equal those of the old Stigmartyr units and with no jurisdictional boundaries the SID quickly became feared, hated and suspected by everyone as they carried out their witch hunts. Of course the large percentage of these agents did actually follow the letter of the law but some used their power to settle grudges or for petty pleasures. Most cases that the SID handled resulted in torture, incarceration and then death for the guilty parties or simply death as the work load of the agents was such that they had little time to arrest and interrogate prisoners.
Disclaimer:
All refrences to material published or in development by Nightfall Games is © Nightfal Games all other material © Morton Smith 2000.
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