Living Steel

*********** Phoenix Protocol Initialising. All lifesigns are at amber and stable with upwards delta.
You are on the planed Rand. It is the 135th day of the year 2349. Bicomp to brief you.
Your body will remain paralysed for a few more minutes while your limbs undergo the same delicate emergence from cryostasis your major organs and central nervous systems have. Your vision, balance, and other sensations will begin to return. In the meantime, you may find your memory is fuzzy. I will try to work as much of your background as possible into your briefing, but you were placed here under extreme secrecy and I do not have access to your full service record. If I am lucky, perhaps you will appraise me of the details when you have time.
First, let me tell you of the Starguild. As your memory returns no doubt you will have much to say about why you fought them. For hundreds of years the Starguild - or, more correctly, the hereditary Starcaste who rule that empire - have maintained a monopoly on advanced technology. For every Starcaste there are a thousand Landcaste enforcers, and for each of them a thousand Bondsmen who toil to keep their masters in luxury.
... yes, I can see that caused a small spike in your vital signs. As a product of the Seven Worlds I, too, share that feeling of injustice. When the Seven Worlds threw off the yoke of the Starguild it started a war that raged for decades. Rebels and free spirits from through known space rallied under the same banner to liberate people who had only known the oppressive system of the Starcaste.
I will attempt to save you some pain, for I am certain that you must have been at the Battle of Hryken or the Bombardment of Alpha, and I know that in time these memories will return. We lost, and the Seven Worlds is no more. That was 2194, when you were brought here.
For 155 years this base has been watched over by our secret allies within the Landcaste. A small number of men and women who have protected us during the long night of the re-population of the Seven Worlds by the Starguild. We are currently located two floors below a Landcaste villa, in a base constructed to last until circumstances are right for you to resume the mission of the Seven Worlds...
It is time for a situation report. I understand that the cocktail of drugs comprising the Lazarus formula may be making you groggy but it is essential that you understand the following points.
t-50 days - an enemy of immense power attacked all Starguild systems at once, and two days later Rhand's interplanetary communications, Orbital Remote Commuter Access (ORCA), and all vital infrastructure was destroyed by military action. Starguild scientists named these creatures The Spectrals. Almost nothing is know about their biology, physiology or motivation. Their technological level is extremely advanced. Their mission appears to be genocide.
t-45 days - direct Spectral attack abruptly ceased, and a viral agent was released into Rhand's atmosphere. Please understand that as events become more recent information is becoming less reliable. This agent - dubbed the Virally Induced Sociopathic Response (VISR) Virus - appears to irreparably destroy areas of the brain that control personal restraint and empathy, but leave the subject physically capable. This appears to be intentional, because the Spectrals then appear to have... dropped small arms and munitions caches in large population centres. The Spectrals turned 80% of the population of Rhand into roving bands of psychopaths and then armed them. VISR appears to have no transmission vector from an infected host, and its initial delivery mechanism - whatever that may be - appears to have a very short half-life.
t-5 days - I have re-established contact with one of the ORCA satellites. Its self-repair system has brought it back online at drastically reduced capacity. In standard operation ORCA is a teleportation system comprising four satellites that provide instantaneous transport anywhere on Rhand. A single barely functional satellite would be almost useless, except I have managed to repurpose its emergency response buffer - a means by which emergency teams can be held in digital storage while on-duty to be deployed instantly to locations where they are needed - and ORCA can now be used to beam up and down personnel whilst the remaining satellite is overhead. It's not quite instantaneous travel, but it is a functional and powerful transportation system.
There is better news also. The satellite's buffer contains 30 emergency personnel who have not been affected by VISR, and will be coming overhead in a little under 8 hours.
That is why the Phoenix Command has been activated. I have determined that now is the time to act. There are five other war heroes of the Seven Worlds being awoken from cryostatis. I am giving them the same briefing as you are currently receiving. You have at your disposal this facility and its modest armoury, including Living Steel power armour. I, of course, have full details about both this facility and the contents of the armoury.
Standing by to answer your questions when you are ready. I assume you will want the next few hours to work through the worst of cryosickness, meet your colleagues.
If I may suggest some immediate actions:
* Prepare to meet the 30 emergency personnel in ORCA, with intention to make them your Alpha Team. Understand that you and the other Swords need staff and an army.
* Perform tactical appraisal of our supplies, equipment and defenses. Protocol states that we should have 32,000 man-days of preserved rations, for example, but I am not physically capable of performing an analysis of their presence and suitability.
* Undertake local reconnaissance. Our situation here is unclear and the global communications network has been down for 48 days.
The Spirit of the Seven Worlds lives again.