Malicious Violence near Limnadian District!

This interview was taken from a CDF scout. The interviewee prefers to remain nameless

We thought it was another wild goose chase. We get ‘sightings’ all the time. 

There’s lots of fear in Atlas haven and the surrounding areas. People get scared and they start seeing things. A piece of scrap metal catching the sun. Once it was a bloody sweet wrapper! So most of the time it’s nothing.  

But this time it was different. 

I was out on patrol between Atlas Haven and Limnadian District. There had been reports of people seeing ‘glinting metal’ from far off. Same old story. 
 
Being a private, I’d been sent to check it out. 

Corporal said it was probably just some old mining equipment. I’d no reason to disbelieve him. 

It was dusk when I came up over the hill. 

And then I saw something.  

Four big heaps of abandoned mining equipment in a clearing about 200 metres away. 

I thought I’d better go down and check it out anyway. Log the exact waypoint for the report. Corporal is a stickler for detail.

I started inspecting the junk. I remember thinking it was odd. The way all the heaps looked exactly like the others. Too alike. Almost uniform. 

Then I started thinking these aren’t piles of scrap metal. They’re manufactured units. Some sort of machine. 

And then I heard something. 

A soft, electronic murmuring. Over and over. Something like “ooyartarr ayarrtairleh”. It sounded like an ancient language or something. 

I looked around but I couldn’t find the source of the ‘chanting’. 

What happened next took me by complete surprise.

The junk piles suddenly ‘stood up’ in one smooth motion. Like unfolding scissors from a penknife.

There were four of them. I found myself in the middle.

No way out.   

There was something insectile about them. Their stance and movement resembled that of a giant preying mantis, but instead of raptorial legs they had two giant sabers of pure white light. Their long, thin heads looked just like sniper scopes, apart from a single neon-white ‘eye’ where the ocular lens would have been.

All four of those eyes were glaring at me.

One of them came closer than the rest. The others held back.

He had a large chip in his sabre.

I remember that because it was ‘chippy’ who got me first.

The sabre sliced right through my forearm. One moment it was attached to my arm, the next it was lying at my feet. The pain was almost blinding. 

Then another one stuck me in the eye. Slowly pushed the point all the way in till it reached the optic nerve. 

I screamed and blacked out.

When I awoke they started again...

[Long Pause]

It took a long time to die. 

By the end I was limbless and half-blind. 

They must have left my other eye so I could see what was happening to me. 

I used to do the same thing to spiders as a kid. Seems the karma finally caught up with me.

[Pause]

Once I thought their aim was just to kill us. Efficiently. Mechanically. Simple extermination of a pest. Nothing more. Nothing personal.

But they’re just like us.

They’re cruel. 

They want us to suffer before they annihilate us. They want us to scream. To lose all hope. All dignity.

To fall at their feet and admit our weakness.  

Don’t let them do to others what they did to me. 

Fight back.

Fight. 

The interviewee asks all brave colonists to stand guard at Atlas Haven, Fort Troy and Limnadian District this weekend.