Global Campaign Finale: Doomsday – Part One

We're here - the Edge of Sanity global campaign is drawing to an end, and it's time to plunge into the narrative finale.

Hold onto your hats, because the Nameless are here...

0710hrs - Solar Day 274 - Tersia Prime - Low Orbit

The Asterian plan has succeeded beyond all doubt. The Nameless have taken the bait, and Tersia Prime—once a vital frontier colony—is entering its final days.

The massive Ul-Ug’urub vessels drift into low orbit, sleek and unnervingly silent. They hover above the polar icecaps and jagged mountain ranges, casting immense shadows over the barren wastes. The settlements of Tersia's weary colonists lie beneath, worn thin by two months of unpredictable Nightstalker raids. Hollow-eyed and desperate, they lift their faces to the heavens, wondering if the end has finally arrived.

The ships are a sight both magnificent and grotesque, spiny surfaces bristling with strange weapons, armoured in chitinous plating that shimmers like the exoskeleton of  a monstrous insect. Trailing behind, vast tendrils snake through the sky — creature and machine fused in bizarre union. But for all their menace, the ships simply float in the sky, strange and still.

Across Tersia's plains, strange sounds reverberate —low hums, eerie clicks, and sorrowful groans forming a haunting symphony. Are the ships…talking to each other? Charging weapons? No one knows, and the atmosphere is thick with tension. The clock is ticking down for Tersia Prime, and each second feels like a lifetime.

2120hrs – Solar Day 278 – Tersia Prime – Matokar Mountains

On the evening of the fourth day, it begins.

In the desolate foothills of the Matokar mountain range, the miners at the outpost glance nervously at the sky. In a blinding moment, brilliant shafts of light start to rain down from the hovering Nameless ships, illuminating the distant peaks. Intense beams ripple across rocky summits, creating a hypnotic dance of light and shadow. After all the bloodshed and horror, this moment of strange beauty feels like a breath of calm before the storm.

But it's not just the light shifting — the mountain itself is changing. Colour drains from the peaks, surfaces now darkening beneath the pulsating glow.

Then with a gut-wrenching shudder, their rocky features begin to liquify – every crack, shelf, and boulder in turn.  What was once vast solid matter is melting into a great, inky wave, descending with impossible force.

The miners should run, though they don't. They're transfixed, caught in the surreal, awful majesty of it all. The skyline is slowly collapsing into a great cascade, descending in torrents toward the plain below. The first waves don't quite reach the village—but larger ones are coming. Many, many more.

Now the impossible sight is becoming more real. Cold, dark liquid reaches them, soaking through their work boots. Fear stirs as the next wave rises to their knees. The third wave is waist-high and the trance is fully broken. Panic erupts.

More waves are coming, hundreds, each taller than the last as peak after peak of the skyline steadily melts into an endless tide. The once industrious outpost is now a mass of splashing, screaming crowds, until they are finally hushed by the deafening crash of an unravelling world.

Far above the chaos and panic, the Asterian Clade Ships quietly drift away from Tersia Prime’s high orbit. Their work is done here, and nothing is getting off the planet alive. Not any more.

2210hrs – Solar Day 278– Tersia Prime – Corlon City Limits

"Keep firing!" Ector roars, unloading a shotgun into the leaping Nightstalker. The beast crumples mid-air, crashing into the slowly rising floodwaters with a sickening wet thud.

The retreat is working, but barely. Step by step, they fight their way back toward the spaceport, an unstoppable tide of horrors swarming toward them. Blaine, ever the cold and practical tactician is in his element, coordinating the scattered cells in a way they have never been directed before. His rifle rests momentarily as he surveys the chaos. With a sharp tug, he pulls his communicator back up to his mouth.

"Even cells, covering fire! Odd cells, prepare to move!" His sharp eyes lock onto a desolator-wielding Grogan on his left from Cell Three, who nods back in understanding. Blaine’s deep voice echoes over the radio again. "Move!"

Gunfire once again rips into the Nightstalker horde, cutting through the writhing mass as the odd-numbered cells scramble back to the next precious scraps of hard cover, abandoned cars and cargo trucks littering the main approach to the spaceport. Ector looks around at the world slowly drowning around them—rivers of water slowly flooding in towards his friends —but he still grins like a wolf on the hunt. They’re looking less like a desperate mob now and more like a—

Someone catches his eye. The cell to his right is retreating in perfect formation. Fast, no missteps, without panic. As they pass his position, the cell leader meets his gaze with a short upward nod of recognition. Ector freezes. A ghost from his past, but unmistakable – that smile, smart brown hair, familiar dark blue armour plates over black fatigues.

"Dulinsky? You’re here?"

"Not now, Ector” she calls while running by, “save it for the ship". She splashes down into position behind the engine block of a cargo truck, one arm braced on her forward knee, and rattles off a precise three-round burst.

He’s jolted back to reality as the cold water climbs over the neck of his boots, cruelly reminding him once again that the world is ending.

2220hrs – Solar Day 278 – Tersia Prime – Corlon Spaceport

They’re not going to make it. The stragglers, physically drained from the sustained retreat, are slogging through knee-high water, trying desperately to rejoin their friends, but the Nightstalker horde is faster. A hard decision looms.

Blaine’s voice crackles through the comm-link, making the call no one else wants to. His tone is cold, devoid of emotion. "Seal the doors. Do it now."

The ancient spaceport gates groan to life, gears grinding as they strain to shake free layers of rust, and sand. Slowly, painfully, they begin to close. The rebels peer out over the flooded concourse, willing their comrades onward. The moments tick by until the stragglers are finally swallowed alive by a frenzied tide of claws, fangs, and faceless horrors crashing through red spray.

Ector dashes toward the manual override, jamming a scaffold pole into the wheel and calling for help. Together, they strain against the mechanism, muscles burning, but it won’t budge. The doors are moving too slowly. The sickening truth sets in—the Nightstalkers will reach them before the gates seal.

Erika Dulinsky steps forward, calm and commanding. She’s ex-corporation military, an officer no less, plain for all to see from her manner and bearing. Blaine watches approvingly, and leaves her to handle it. He leads half the fighters toward the parked ships, splashing through the rising water. Time to get out.

Her presence is steady, a rock in the chaos, and the rebels respond to her clear, steady orders. "Cell Seven, form up here!” As they obey, she grabs a young Sphyr by his jacket, and pulls him forcefully across to a better firing position. “Range. Two hundred meters. Rapid…fire!"

She turns, and calls out again. "Cell Nine, on me! We’re shutting those gates ourselves.” She spots a rack full of dock-worker exosuits. “Grab those loader units, and suit up. Now!"

Fighters scramble into the clunky mechanical frames, daring to hope that the wet servo motors will still work. Others lay down desperate fire out through the gate, but the Nightstalkers surge forward, barely slowed. The inky black floodwater climbs higher, creeping up toward their waists. Behind her calm facade, Erika can feel the truth.

Death is coming from all sides, her troops are tiring fast, and it’s going to be very, very close.

**** CONTINUED IN PART TWO HERE*****