Legacy: Beyond the Veil

The Lion's den: Part one

Noah awoke just as easily as he had been put to sleep, the slight sting of a needle wound suggesting that that might have been the work of yet another chemical. "They sure use those drugs freely..." He mumbled to himself, allowing the Wychhunters to guide him to his feet and line him up before the carrier's single loading ramp, which opened with the hiss of preheated hydraulics.

An industrial cacophony rushed to meet him, carried through an air that was surprisingly lacking in substance. It was thin and carried hardly any smell, as if it came straight from the processing plants instead of having been filtered a hundred thousand times like it should be. Most notable was the sea of bright, hellish white light which now flooded the craft's poorly lit interior from outside, forcing Noah to shield his eyes with an arm. Before the ramp had even moved down far enough to hit the ground, the Wychhunters marched off in a stride Noah could only describe as hurried, leaving him behind. The dull clanging of their armored boots against the metal floor of the personnel carrier was swiftly replaced by the hollow thumping of those same boots on concrete bitumen, then faded off into the distance, melding into the incoherent rumble ahead.

Noah had just enough time to wonder if the soldiers had forgotten about him before the armored gauntlet of their officer clamped around his shoulder from behind and shoved him forwards, just gently enough that he didn't topple right over.

Noah stumbled onto the landing pad and slowly shuffled forwards, lowering his arm as his pupils gradually contracted. He wiped the brightness-induced tears away to see, jerking up as he saw the place he had been brought to.
Another push from behind encouraged him none too subtly to start moving, so he did. He walked in a straight line forwards, assuming that the Wychhunter would be there to guide him in whichever direction he was supposed to go.

The enormous plaza he found himself in was bustling with activity; he counted hundreds -if not thousands- of the warskin-wearing soldiers, supported by a few dozen warriors clad in the same kind of armor his captor wore. They marched around in columns six abreast and several dozen deep, surrounding larger war machines bristling with guns, their gunmetal armored plates glinting in the light that seemed to come from everywhere, to the point that none of them casted a shadow. He looked up with a squint, tracing the source of the light to an array of huge beam lamps similar to those used in the city's underground farms, which spread heat and light alike.

Noah counted ten such groups at first glance, but as his eyes adjusted further to the blinding light and his vision was gradually restored, he noted that whatever place he had been brought to was far larger than he had initially imagined; The landing pad he walked upon was but one of hundreds, and one of the smaller ones at that. Nearly all said pads were occupied by aerial craft of all sizes and shapes. Noah saw a lot of craft identical to the one he had arrived in. These seemed to be the runts of the litter. Larger were sleek and deadly-looking craft Noah assumed to be gunships. The name seemed apt enough, seeing as how these craft carried numerous fat, multi-barreled cannons under their chins and wings.

Far overshadowing both types of ships were gargantuan, box-shaped troop transports Noah estimated to be nearing two hundred meters in length, the thrusters of which alone were several times larger than the small carriers crowding the pads around these behemoths. Most streams of soldiers were directed onto these huge shuttles, marching into their extended landing ramps. The cockpits of these ships were positioned at the front, looming over those soldiers entering their bays.

Before he knew it, Noah's fantasy ran amok with that sight and spiced it up a little, transforming the ship into a monster of immense proportions with its jaw unhinged, glaring maliciously as hundreds of its hapless prey stumbled right into its waiting maw.