Other Worlds: V 2.0

[initiates]

Date & Time: May 21st, beginning at 0900.
Location: The Initiative Hold and all throughout Elmer's world
Characters: Anyone participating in the fighting, anyone staying behind.
Summary: Elmer's world is fought for and lost.
Warnings: Violence, death.

They reopen the portal at 0900, May 21st. The first scientist who stepped through was killed within thirty seconds; the rest who followed made it back through to Exsilium, albeit not unscathed. The portal was shut again by a panicked operator, although a second operator knew to keep the coordinates locked.

Within ten minutes, the alert had been sent out. There's no time to wait for the Transports to gather en masse; as soon as they have a sizable enough force to stand a chance at fighting through and clearing their gateway's location, the door is opened again.

Immediately inside the door is a desolate, grim scene. What had previously been the coast of Japan is now scorched earth, blasted sand, and little else. As the first point of contact for this world, it has undoubtedly suffered the worst. Here, the UE didn't stop at governments, financial centers, and capitols — the UE destroyed everything in sight. There are enough UE soldiers remaining in the broken country to give the Transports a difficult battle, although by now the bulk of their forces have moved on.

The Initiative will soon realize the necessity of opening more gateways, just as the UE had done. Transports will be deployed to London, Berlin, Paris, DC Washington, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, Hong Kong, Madrid. Through each of these windows, the destruction is staggering. Buildings are more husks than structures, everything that can burn is alight, and the death toll is off the charts. Blackened bodies seem to line every street, while pieces litter the ground among the rubble. There's no doubt that the UE has no need of the people of this world. They're after resources only, and anything and anyone already here is to be removed.

You can find UE soldiers everywhere. They move in coordinated squadrons of 20, and each of them carries a small arsenal. Even without their incredibly advanced and destructive weaponry, they're fearfully formidable. Each soldier, while still only human, is a genetically perfect clone, further enhanced by technological implants. They're all highly trained in physical combat. Even if you can disarm one of them, don't count on close-range attacks being any easier to handle. They've brought along cannons, small flying craft, and lightweight tanks. Each of these is the top of the line in terms of technology, geared toward destroying as much as it can, as quickly as it can. The United Earth is here to destroy, and they won't stop to wonder why their targets go from being civilians and scrambling, off-guard, comparatively primitive militaries, to trained and powered Transports.

For anyone staying at home, they'll find that any Initiative presence has withdrawn fully to the Hold. All Initiative employees are needed, and most of them in the med bays. The majority of the Initiative focus is on recalling and resurrecting fallen Transports, but attention is still needed for the living-but-wounded. Any Transports who stay in Exsilium and offer their help will have it immediately accepted; they'll be put to work in the medical wings, runnings supplies, or simply set at a machine and told to keep an eye on the numbers: Transport vitals, UE movements, and maps upon maps of changing statistics and colors.

At 1500, the Initiative will recall all Transport soldiers back to Exsilium and seal shut the gateway. The UE numbers are too great, their soldiers too powerful, and Elmer's world is lost.

Comments

[fantasticforcefields]

"Ha. I've had worse days than this." She lifts them off the ground with a platform of force beneath their feet, and the pair of them go skimming along at a respectable ten miles per hour or so, the breeze not whipping through their hair because it can't get through Sue's shield. "I could go for a cup of coffee and a long bath, though."

[goinbust]

"Drink or six for me after this. Never like givin up a planet."

[fantasticforcefields]

"At least you have some experience. I've run into kids today who're in their first battle."

War is hell, but it's not usually this hellish.

[goinbust]

"I've been with kids on days like today where this was their first battle before. Always hard. Really don't seem like they prepare them well for this either."

[fantasticforcefields]

"Sending people into this untrained is inexcusable."

[goinbust]

"Well practice ain't the same as the real thing and everyone is a bit green at some point but this... This ain't right for veterans, the kids. Well I got a bad feeling about what things are going to be like when we get back."

[fantasticforcefields]

"We're accomplishing next to nothing, unless you count traumatizing a bunch of former civilians as 'something.' The Initiative had better be using whatever time we're buying them to do something other than panic."

[goinbust]

"Given how they're just throwin us everywhere, I get the feeling this is a bad command decision. Knee-jerk reaction to that world hoppin experiment getting screwed up."

[fantasticforcefields]

Sue makes a disgusted sound halfway between a sigh and a scoff. "That's what I'm afraid of."

[goinbust]

"In my experience, that's usually the case."

[fantasticforcefields]

Sue throws up her hands and lets them fall back down to her sides. Today is a mess and she'll be angry later, after she's had a nap and washed the sweat out of her hair.

"Next stop, the portal." She nods in the direction they're headed, where there are a handful of Transports visible manning a perimeter around their own personal hole in space and time.

[goinbust]

"Well thank ya kindly for the lift Miss. You goin out for another round of stragglers or just bugging out?"

[fantasticforcefields]

"My pleasure. And I'm married, actually," Sue corrects him absently. It's a novelty, not having everyone in the universe aware of her family life.

"I'll check in with Exsilium, then decide. I might go knock a few more fighter wings out of the sky now that there's no one out there for them to hit." She is so over the UE, Jim. So over it.

[goinbust]

"Well then Mrs. safe huntin... Be safe since someone prolly wants you comin home in one piece."

He salutes and starts off for the portal.

[fantasticforcefields]

"Assuming they even realize I'm gone." That's muttered, though, and when she addresses him, waving goodbye, it's in a normal voice.

"I'll see you later, Mr. Raynor."