The Dark Voice

Restless Undead Stalk Yridia III

Freelance Correspondant Welshman Corsair
Yridia System, Yridia III - The ring of armour and rifles around the capital city of Yridia III was lifted last night after the latest incident to occur in Tarenti space involving the walking undead.

For many nights and many days the denizens of Y3 Prime have stayed locked away in their domiciles as the forces of Tarentum work their way through the dark, foreboding streets cleansing the area of the undead. For many, the long dark nights of far off blaster fires and the screaming of neighbours devoured by the creatures was too much and queues have formed by the emergency landing pad, queues of desperate citizens craving to be allowed back home to Yridia II or IX.

Working through the crowd and into the city proper the scenes of destruction become apparent. Corpses of humans, aliens and bizarre Frankenstein creatures litter the causeways with pitted, carbonised walls from the running fire fights that have occurred over the last 48 hours. Unfortunately, holocams have not been permitted into the city proper so as such no pictorial evidence exists that can convey the desperation evident in this newly built city that once must have radiated such hope and promise for the new settlers.

On a journey from the suburbs to the central constabulary station onboard a heavily armed convoy, a moment of panic ensued as one of the unaccounted for lesser undead, no doubt summoned by a Tarenti to serve him in the battle, ambled into the road. A brief, but intense, barrage of blasterfire from our escorts later saw the relief convoy enter the centre of the city and into further carnage.

The police station, where Tarenti forces had rendezvoused at to stock up on armaments and consumables was a guttered wreck, plassteel girders lay melted, twisted into obscene monuments to the death that had so recently been wreaked here. Mem-plas boards, that had until a few hours ago, lay broken and crumpled on the floors blaster craters, sabre scoring and streaked blood testifying to combat.

Corpses have been laid outside the station inside a water feature which should be full of crystal clear water but instead is drowning under slowly congealing blood. The smell of iron and rotting flesh is overpowering.

Directing the clean up operation was one Captain Dyl’Jo’Ban (29) from Bakura and long time leader of a section of Tarentum’s spec forces and a member of the team who retook the capital from the creatures.

“A small sample of various creatures were brought down on-planet from the labs on Yridia IX as part of a Clan Summit authorised training regimen. Unfortunately due to either sabotage or unfortunate accident the creatures escaped and began running amok. Thankfully almost half of clan Tarentum was already committed to the training exercise and were in the city and as such House Gladius were able to call in reinforcements and begin containment. After the alarm was raised, the commander in chief of Tarenti forces authorised the decent of my commando force onto the world to shore up defences until Tridens had arrived, our extraction was successful and along with Tridens we were able to carve a salient towards the Gladius troops and facilitate their retreat to this point whereupon both houses acted in conjunction to drive the creatures from the city. Considering the forces arrayed against us, military and civilian casualties have been relatively light. Damage to the city’s infrastructure has been estimated to be in the several billions, however the Barons who sponsored the construction of this city have been quick to reassure the population that funds will soon be available. Thank you for your time.”

A hefting of a battle scarred A-280 rifle ended the ad hoc interview however questions are still to be raised about the handling of this crisis involving the undead in Tarentum. The third outbreak in half a dozen years and yet still the experimentation into the forces of death continues. The only ranking Tarenti involved with the projects willing to be interviewed was Warlord Welshman Corsair Erinos Tarentae, the Dean of Necrozoology at the Yridia IX labs:

“Our powers of Necromancy give us a great scope to further our understanding of the Dark Side, we’d be fool to not attempt to delve into its dark depths. So what if a few of them escape? What we learn to create we must learn to destroy. Whilst the deaths of a few Yridians or Tarenti is regrettable the sheer wealth of information gained by each sacrifice is mind blowing… Take the B’alams I created… I barely knew of their true capacity for destruction until I had to fight hand to claw with one of them… beautiful animals… it saddened me to kill it.”

Asked whether he believed Tarentum had any ulterior motives for designing these creatures, the Tarentae merely fixed me in the sights of his optics.

“Of course we do, why else would we go out of our way to create armies of undead? It’s all well and good sending our Sith Warriors and Obelisk troopers down to fight the rival Clans or the odd pirate nest but why should we risk our investments? Soon we will have a controllable, invincible warrior-creature in our grasp and then Tarentum will truly be powerful.”

Interview concluded and escorted out of the camp by two crafted servants, similar no doubt to those who had earlier ran amok, Tarentum’s mastery of her art is obvious. Whilst the odd aberration will occur, the benefit for the Brotherhood due to their research is enormous.