FTL: Kill Team Alpha

[Jasan Quinn]

A tribute to one of my most memorable runs, and one of the most heroic crews in the Federation. Hope you all enjoy it!

FTL: Kill Team Alpha

Audio transcript recovered from the Neo Panthera incident. Entirety of recovered file enclosed.

How old are you, son? Because it looks to me like you've barely started puberty! I gave twenty years to the service, and I've been part of the Uprising since the beginning! You've got my file right there, you really think I'd have earned all those commendations if I was just some pant-wetting little scrote who bolts at the first sign of trouble? No I wouldn't have!
So why are we here? Because there's a difference between dying for a cause and throwing your life away, and I know that difference. I know what's out there, and if you did you wouldn't be half as cocky as you are right now.

What am I talking about? It all goes back to the Last Stand. You remember that lone Kestrel that managed to somehow thwart the entire insurrection and leave us bogged in this mess of a civil war? Well, I was a group captain back then. Mostly in charge of rear line stuff, the inglorious but essential work that keeps a fleet running. One of my cocksure new crews gets it in their head to take their Red-Tail and cut through the Mantis Homeworlds, trying to intercept the Kestrel and regain the initiative. They went silent, and the recon drones sent to find them never came back either.
Standing orders were to get confirmation on any ship that went dark, so I dispatched two light cruisers. They vanished as well. My gut told me this had to be checked out, so I diverted an entire battlegroup and we hunted down our lost ships. And we found them. Oh, but we found them.

They were adrift, systems still live for the most part. Someone had done a bit of scavenging, but they hadn't stayed long. We went aboard the first ship and found it drained of atmosphere. The entire crew had piled into the life support chamber, locked down the doors and vented the rest of the ship. They'd all died in that room, torn apart by Mantis talons.
The next ship was little better. The crew had died at their posts, but they hadn't died cleanly. A running battle had been waged and we could tell from the weapon discharges they'd been pushed back, deck by deck, from the transporter room, through the shield generator to the medical bay. There, ordnance had blown open the skin and ejected them out into space. The attackers were Mantis, but there was something off about it - no weapons fire. They'd gone through the ship with their bare hands, or blades, or whatever you call those hellspawned limbs of theirs.

We moved on to the next sector, a pirate-infested hell-hole, and the trail wasn't hard to pick up again. We found a Mantis ship, totally untouched. The transport logs stated that two individuals had beamed onto the bridge, and then some time later four Mantis had beamed themselves to an unknown vessel, followed by two additional life forms who left via external beam.
The next ship was a Rock pirate crew. The captain's log records a boarding action under way on the engineering deck. Five minutes later he gives the order to abandon ship. Half his crew were found dead at the lifeboats, cut down as they tried to escape. The only weapons used on board were Rock rocks, and some kind of sharp melee weapon. Yes, like a Mantis blade.
But it was the Slug ship that left me chilled.

It was a powerhouse of a ship, with four layers of shields and enough firepower to cripple a dreadnought, and as was becoming the norm it was also completely intact on the outside. We docked at the starboard hatch and were greeted by a pair of boarding drones. One was decapitated, the other tore in half. The blast doors ahead of us had been ripped open. Not blown open, but smashed clean through. It would take phenomenal strength, or fanatical bloodlust to do that. My guess is these Mantis had both.
They worked their way through the ship, liquefying the crew one by one. No, I'm not using 'purple prose' here. You ever see those old comedy videos where a guy paints a room by blowing up a can of paint and winds up covering every last inch in a perfectly even coat? That's the sight that met us when we walked onto the gun deck. I've seen Slugs get shot, I've seen them get blown up, but I can't begin to imagine how you could kill one so violently as these Mantis did.
On the bridge, we finally found out who we were dealing with. There was a recording of the Slug captain begging for his life, offering the universe and more in exchange for their miserable lives. Then we heard the hiss of a Mantis, the click of his freakish bug-feet on the metal of the deck, and he rasped back at the Slug, 'You will give us anything?'
Anything, the Slug replied.
'Then give us a challenge!' And then the screaming started, although not for very long.
After the Slug died, the Mantis said, 'Kill Team Alpha to Bridge: ship secured. Begin salvage operation.'

Kill Team Alpha. Just saying the name sends a chill down my spine. We followed the trail of carnage they left right up to an unmarked jump point, which in turn sent up headlong into an unknown nebula. We were about two Sectors ahead of the main push now, but flying utterly blind.
I figured that these Mantis were just pirates out for plunder, hitting ships, stripping the choice parts and running before anyone could hit back. Of course, given our mission, I also had to entertain the idea they were Federation Agents, but for all their flaws I could never see the damn Feds using anyone as brutal as Kill Team Alpha. Sure, a Federation ship might board you, might use Mantis to do it, and might even fight to the death, but these things were unnatural, demons in insect shape.
We found them soon after the jump. The Red-Tail had stopped to make some upgrades care of a borrowed smuggler's orbital. Our lead ship, a light cruiser, came into weapons range and was boarded before she could achieve a weapons lock. Internal sensors showed two Mantis materalise on the shield deck, and in less time than it took to cry out both deck hands were dead.

I watched that battle play out in real time. All that little Red-Tail did was duck and weave, dodging weapons fire and funneling all her power to shields. Meanwhile, Kill Team Alpha tore through the ship deck by deck, section by section. Doors couldn't stop them; they just punched their claws into the metal and carved a hole. Bullets bounced off their carapace, if they hit at all. And they rarely did - most of the time any man who tried to line up a shot would suddenly find a Mantis up in his face, and then the freak would bite his face off. Or hack off all his limbs and leave him screaming on the deck. Or burst him. I... I can't even explain how. The crew just turned into red mist, like they'd been hit by a meteorite!
When the crew were dead, the Mantis would turn off the auto-guidance and the scavengers came aboard. We tried to take advantage of that and jump them while they were picking the bones clean. We sent in a Dreadnought, and opened up with enough firepower to erase that sad little Red-Tail from existence.
Well, it sure did vanish! But moments later, Kill Team Alpha was aboard. Then missiles and lasers hit us from nowhere; turns out they'd somehow got a cloak onto that old rust bucket! And it was a good one too - a match for that prototype on the Flagship that we weren't meant to know about. Even so, her hand was played; all we needed was one clear shot and it was over.
But the Red-Tail was fast, her shields had been upgraded, and more importantly we had Kill Team Alpha storming our decks. I ordered the Marines to the teleporter to counter-attack, only to find those damn Mantis had got there first! A dozen of the Uprising's finest soldiers tried and failed to storm the teleporter. Seven were carted off to the medical bay. Four were simply torn to ribbons. The last man made it through the bloody carnage to find the console had been smashed beyond all use. Kill Team Alpha were gone.

It wasn't long before they came back though. We detected the intrusion one section over from the medibay. Then the damn Red-Tail came in, firing everything it had on us. They focused on our triage station and managed to damage the power-relays in the region. One stray shot would have atomised their own boarding party, but they didn't care; all that mattered was our nano-drones were offline. Our brave boys, still being stitched back together... no mercy was shown by either side. I just wish the Mantis had begged as much as our men did.
And so, like every ship before us, we fell to Kill Team Alpha. We lost our weapons, and then life support, and then they came for the bridge. I wasn't going to die like that. We saw the Mantis coming, still soaked in the blood of our Marines, our gunners, our medics, and I made the hard call. I announced to the ship that all remaining personnel were to secure the access corridor, and then I told the bridge crew to take to our pods. It was the only way, and it was barely enough. Mine was the last to go - I owed my men that much - and as the airlock door sealed shut I saw the Mantis storm the bridge, trailing the crimson remains of the men and women who'd bought us time to flee. They walked toward me, heads weaving from side to side as though they were struggling to comprehend what they saw. They stood outside my pod and stared at me. One of them spoke. I couldn't hear him, but I could read his lips. I'd dealt with enough filthy Mantis to do that.
He said, 'We'll remember your face.'

The Red-Tail vanished into the nebula after that. Damned if I know where it went. The Odysseus picked me up and I ordered her to come about and run like hell back home! The Captain had seen enough not to argue. We left our battlegroup in disarray, and no, I don't know what became of them. I'd like to think they just did what we did, and suddenly decided the Uprising might not need them any more. I'd like to think they've settled down and started new lives under false identities. I'd like to think that. I... I have to think that.
We couldn't go back. I'd witnessed two Mantis do more damage than any warship could. I'd seen them overcome Slugs, Rocks, other Mantis and our finest warriors. Nothing we sent at them could stop them. Nothing was strong enough. They'd fight boarding drones, they'd rip systems out of airless rooms, they'd beam into rooms burning end to end just for the sake of claiming one more head!
And I knew that even if I boarded the Flagship itself, that wouldn't be enough. I can't help but wonder if that's what happened, if Kill Team Alpha had been part of that final battle. In my nightmares I can see the Admiralty, triumphant aboard our secret weapon, poised to crush the Federation's High Command... and then I hear the hiss of a materialisation beam, and the terrible sound of Mantis claws cutting through flesh.

I am loyal to the Uprising, but those things cannot be overcome by ordinary men! Better to live! At least this way I can tell my story! At least, perhaps, you can take what I've learned and-
That's the general alarm! What's happening? Tell me! I am still an officer of this fleet, damn you! I demand answers! It... it can't be... them, can it? Please, take these cuffs off! Take them off! I'm begging you! You have to let me go! They're here for me! No! Don't leave me in here! You can't stop them! You can't stop Kill Team Alpha! Nothing can! If they're here then we're already dead!

... Well, at least you'll listen to me now. Yes, I know the Marines failed. Didn't you listen to what I told you? The drones will hold them for a while, but not for long. Listen to me, please! We have only one option. Go to the generator room and overload the system. Of course I know what that will do! It's the only way! Soldiers can't stop them! Machines can't stop them! But I'm damn sure that a sixty megaton detonation will stop them! I've seen Kill Team Alpha survive everything we can throw at them, but I doubt even they can survive that! Go, before its too late!

Transcript terminates here. Forensic team found the damage recorder unit some four mines away from the remains of the Neo Panthera outpost, remarkably undamaged despite the nuclear detonation. Initial autopsy report indicates no survivors. Cause of detonation remains unknown.