the things that you might like don't grow inside of me

As he stood on the dimly lit bridge of the Ardent Reprisal, 'Tasam's normally crimson armor blueshifted by the surrounding displays and lightning.... a world burned beneath his feet.

Truthfully, the Shipmaster's only question at this point was why it couldn't burn more.

The transmission across Galactic Federation space had not been an expected one. Intelligent life wasn't as rare as many thought, but neither was it plentiful enough for previously unheard of species to appear out of the ether... or those only spoken of in the myths and legends of other races. The Yautja hadn't necessarily been unheard of by the people of certain other worlds, but it was a race that - far as 'Tasam knew - none of the civilizations formerly of the Covenant Empire had crossed paths with. At least not in written memory. And even more unexpected was what the message contained. Information, a great deal of it and seemingly freely given - and in one hand, a warning. In the other, a bounty for those willing to take up a cause. Such work was what accounted for most of Sanghelios' "exports" in recent times, but it wasn't the offer of payment for their might that had caught the Arbiter's attention.

As 'Tasam had heard it told their Arbiter had been far more concerned with the creatures detailed in the transmission.

It had been centuries since the abomination had last been seen or so much as hinted at, but even four hundred years later their ships still stood vigil over the ring known to the humans as Alpha Halo, or Installation 05. In the aftermath of the Parasite's release the ring had been glassed beyond recognition, and watched in the centuries since for the slightest hint of infestation. These new creatures were not the same... but there were enough similarities to the Parasite in their growth and propagation to warrant concern. Enough to deploy one of the relative few CAS assault carriers, a ship that was badly needed elsewhere, to deal with the problem. Or, rather, to support others who would.

That was where 'Tasam's current frustration now stemmed from.

This was not a populated world, or even one within what the Federation claimed to be their borders. The creatures warranted corrective action, yes, but 'Tasam could not for the life of him understand why that necessitated warriors to put their boots on the ground - or why he had been forbidden from acting as he saw fit, cleansing the continent with righteous flame and fury, stripping away layers and melting what remained until nothing was left but glass and molten rock, the world's mantle beneath exposed if need be. And with such a localized glassing... such was well within the realm of possibility for the standard week they'd spent in orbit.

Instead 'Tasam now stood and waited, wasting time better spent attending to other problems and other places and left with little to do but appraise his crew's handiwork.

Even from low orbit the devastation was readily apparent. Nearly a week of precision orbital bombardment had cut a clean circle nearly fifteen kilometers wide around the afflicted city, creating a ring of molten rock that still glowed an angry orange and red days later and accentuated by the burning forest fires around it. All of it - the fires, the ring of molten crust, the city - were heavily obscured by what appeared to be smoke and haze, in reality much of it the vaporized remains of the planet surface that had cooled and hardened into razor sharp silicon condensate and other oxides that had blasted the remains of the city in the wake of blistering heat and winds, overflow from the initial glassing that had converted the land into a veritable hellscape. While many of the structures were left almost perfectly intact due to the distance of the quarantine barrier... it would be many, many years before the place was ever made habitable again.

And that was to say nothing of the hole in dead center of the city. It was a far more recent scar, made by 'Tasam's order in the absence of additional work to be done after his crew had completed their original orders. Several hundred meters across, the hole began as a molten crater that sloped gently downward at first before plunging down another several hundred meters into what 'Tasam had to assume to be the city's substructure and underground municipal tunnels. Truthfully the order had overstepped his initial boundaries and acted outside the orders given to him when 'Tasam had commanded the secondary glassing... but he saw no reason not to do something. His role here was to support the incoming ground invasion, and these creatures were most likely hiding in the city's underground tunnels and networks judging from the information provided by the Yautja transmission. Whether or not the blast and ensuing heat and pressure that surely cleansed the tunnels immediately around the crater had killed the creatures there was not his concern - but the fact that it had opened the tunnels to provide a more accessible point of entry was, and a place his ship and aircraft could readily cover the advancing ground forces.

Hands moving to clasp behind his back, 'Tasam continued to simply stare at the holographic displays and projections of the world's surface as he awaited the arrival of the joint operation's allied forces.

@tag