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A different perspective, and a new set of characters. Funny to think how this all started.
Have a good day folks.
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“They should have been here by now” Colestone said. The human anxiously paced up and down the empty space in the centre of the mines meeting area... This was the worst part of any after mission regroup. The Lynx who stayed off to the side just seemed to calmly rest against a desk, if anything he seemed to look tired if anything else.
“You don’t think they would have followed us... That shit was far too risky, can’t believe anyone thought this was a good idea” Colestone continued as he added a head shake to his continued pacing, holding his SMG tight to his side.
The lynx finally shook his head as he spoke up, “you need to stop your stressing, if anything does happen it’s not going to have you in a fit state to do something about it”
Colestone quickly twisted around, “so you think they’re coming?” he fired back.
The Lynx just waved his hand and shook his head, “you’re far too stressed, how did they even get you into this?” The lynx he wasn’t expecting a responses, but Colestone still mumbled one anyway, “I didn’t think fighting for freedom would get me here”.
The two went back to silences. An hour had almost past and it had been an hour too long. The squad should have regrouped within twenty minutes of completing the attack on the supply convey. They got lucky with that one, the military escort was small just a couple corvettes, completely incapable of responding to even their small fighter and single frigate attack. The corvettes got away, but of the supply ships; one was destroyed and two were damaged; only one got lucky.
“They’re coming for us dammit their going to string us up, you know the CSS, and the FFP are getting harsher on insurrectionist ... Probably won’t even get a trail”, Colestone continued.
Finally, maybe under his own stress the lynx finally got up as he took a hold of the man, “oh just shut up, if they come around, we will deal with them... Get your head in gear right!”
Colestone quickly nodded his head with a fear.
Though the two were equally shaken by a soft thud. A foreign thud, clearly a sound outside of the mining facility, “did you hear that?” Colestone asked, while the Lynx kept a hold of the man’s collar. He clearly thought that if he let the man go he would split at the first chance. The lynx reached for a radio as he contacted one of three sentries just outside.
“What the hell is going on out there?” he ordered. The radio very quickly crackled back as a voice came through.
“Not sure sir, seemed like a meteor impact?”
The lynx just shut his eyes for a moment with annoyance, “well go check it out” he called back.
“Right away sir”. The lynx closed his eyes with a momentary assurance that someone was still willing, though just before the lynx could enjoy the moment the voice finally came back on the phone, “wait...what...”. The voice cut as did the radio.
Both the lynx and Colestone held a long look of concern on their face.
The walls were closing in.
“If we go now then maybe will be able to get to our ships, we still have a chance” Colestone seemed to sputter the words out with a clearly growing fear. The lynx only threw him to the ground.
“If you run then I’ll shoot you myself” the lynx stated with a matter of fact nature as he moved back over to one of the tables grabbing a rifle off the table.
“We can’t fight them; there are only two of us, who knows how many of them there are?”
The lynx just stared straight into Colestone’s soul, and the man finally shut up, as he took a hold of his SMG and readied the weapon. The two finally became completely silent. Their breath and the ambiences of the dusty and next to dead systems of the facility were the only sound.
Soon enough a muffled clatter of boots entered into the mix, the hairs on Colestones neck stood up, this was not good... The clattering of boots got louder.
“We’ve got to go”, Colestone said.
“We’ve got nowhere to go”, the lynx spoke back.
“We can find a different exit”, Colestone called as he desperately tried to find some escape.
“If you run... I will shoot you before they do”...
Colestone took a fatalistic gulp of salvia, this was really it. The clatter of boots stopped, they were right outside of the door. Colestone’s heart went a million miles a minute as the two waited. Any moment now that door would open... Normally, or blown out of its mount, that complexity did not matter. Though that momentary fixation would be their undoing, though that was already a given. As the two were taken by surprises, the maintenance access door to the back of the room slid open.
That was it.
A rattle of fire came into the room from behind the two, and despite all his assurance and bravado, the lynx was the first to fall. A laser bolts cutting into his head, neck and chest; he likely died long before he hit the ground. Colestone himself did not get out too lucky, rounds crashed into him at a lower angle, one to his chest, and two to his guts. The pain was unbearable for the moment he felt it, but shock quickly set in.
All he could was twitch on the ground, tunnel vision was setting in and all of his senses had become dull. A mute sound of the front door could be heard, but Colestone could not find the strength to look up, he tried his best to play dead but the pain was too much. Though Colestone thought he was silent, he could not stop the small twitches and soft groans of pain.
He only looked off to the side, as he watched the blurring vision of boots firstly gather around the lynx’s body.
The whole world seemed to come back to life as Colestone was flicked onto his back. The glare of a flashlight burned into his eyes as he raised a hand; both to block the light, but also beg for his life. But for the life of him, he could not find the words, though his mouth moved open and closed. The figure seemed to look down to the man for a moment, a short twinge of sympathy... No, only a short surprises that the man was still ticking.
With that a single shot rang out, as the hand collapsed to the ground.
The hand slowly drew down pointing the gun to the ground, as soft cloud of smoke bumbled from the barrel. A Brown Collie wondered over to the clearly large wolf, waiting for a moment for him to put his large pistol back into its holster. Before the Collie had a chance to speak the wolf interjected, a deep authorize tone boomed even through the helmet, “What is the situation Aatto?”
He slowly twisted around to face the dog, who received his words with a nod before giving an overview of the situation. “Three external sentries sir and these two inside... One strike craft, two fighters and a bomber were located in the hanger... The physical markings on all the craft as well as the damage to the bomber are befitting to the description and the images from the information provided by the supply convey”
“Good good... What’s the status of our team?” the wolf continued to question, and without a fault the collie kept going.
“The team is completely unharmed, Lieutenant Squad 1, are sweeping the outside, and 2 and 3 are inside... No other contacts as of now... Only five hostiles in total”. The collie stopped as the wolf nodded his head. “Only five hostile” the wolf spoke in a low tone, clearly thinking about what he said rather than meaning to say it.
“It seems their forces have been getting smaller and smaller, eh?” the collie continued, “Maybe in a month time will have them gone completely?”
The wolf only grunted as he moved away from the body, the communicator on his wrist blared for a second. He shook his head for a moment, before flicking his wrist a couple time to get the panel to open, a small holographic image of a CSS Marine appeared. A member from the platoon which targeted the other half of the rebel attack team.
“Lieutenant looking for situation orders... Hostiles are surrendering” voice came through speakers in the helmet, the Lieutenant took a moment to process the information that was put forward too him.
“What is it?” the collie question, but the wolf ignored him.
“Can you not get order form operations?” the wolf questioned, but the solider sure voice rattled through, “We can’t get through to operations, you are the next available in command”
“Who are they?” the Lieutenant continued, his ear flicking on the inside of his helmet and banging on part of it. “Crew from the corvette sir; the two fighter pilot from this group were killed”
“Do you have their Captain?”
“No sir... The captain committed suicide, body was found with other suspected officers... We had to kill the hostile marines as well, all that’s left are low level crew, engineers, technicians, the such...” a silent hesitation came for a moment, but the marine pushed with it “they... they claim to be civilians sir, they are saying that they have been impressed into services outside of their control...”
The wolf just nodded his head for a moment once again, as he processed the information for a minute; he hated it, now there was no impulse of combat to drive is choices.
“What is it Davis?” the collie pressed again, but once again, the wolf ignored him.
He had a long and speeded though process before finally settling on a choice.
“Take them prisoner, will allow the party tribunal to decide their fate”, with that the hologram gave a nod of the head before the image stopped broadcasting, and with that Lt. Davis closed the communicator.
“Don’t worry about Aatto, problem solved...” the wolf said as he faced towards the collie for a second. Though before Aatto could press for some clarification on what had happened another marine enter into the room.
“Lt. Davis!” He called, a clear anxiety to his voice, a feeling that could only be drawn by the presences of one thing, “sir, a party affiliated craft has landed in the hanger bay, the captain requested your presences sir”
“Who is it?” Davis questioned, but the marine could only shrug his shoulders, “they gave no name sir, they just want you there now”.
Davis made his way towards the hanger bay of the decrepit mining station. The place was still working, well just about, you could go about without fear of dying of asphyxiation, but no one seemed willing to take the risk, if they had not equipped a whole EVA suit, they had an oxygen mask on. The mine itself was stripped clean, the rock was likely more empty space then rock anymore, and like most thing, probably as soon as the last bit of minerals was stripped from it, everyone cut off and left.
Finally getting to the hanger, Davis was met with the sight of a sleek party affiliated craft, like a flying blade; in no way large enough to be an ambassador’s craft, but just larger then a personal one man craft. Two enlarge, but minimalist versions of the CSS flag were stencilled to the front, to the left and the right. They were completely light grey to contrast to the black which enveloped the whole ship, making the whole thing look like a whole block with no clear separation between parts
“I never get a good feeling when the party shows up” Aatto said, as he stood to Davis side, as much as Aatto expressed a concern at the party presences he could not help but looking slightly in awe at the sleek craft. Davis only gave a grumble to show his agreement.
The entry ramp to the front gave a puff as it slowly began to move downward. Once it touched the ground the tall silhouetted figure came walking down, clad in a long black cloak. The strange attire seemed to hide almost all of the figures physical elements. At first only the spindly metallic legs appeared at the bottom, settling at couple flat spike two to the front point out diagonally, while one pointed straight back. Like birds feet, if taking to the most basic depiction; the metal had a good shine to it, well taken care of.
The figure continued further along, the body, arms and hands were obscured by the cloak, but getting to the head... That was a strange thing to look upon. It looked like a large metal casing, like a helmets of the ancients knights, but the size was too small to be that of an actual helmet. Was it a machine...? No... As the head turn, the pale vestige of a human face could be seen flush but slightly inset into the casing. An oxygen mask clung to the underside of the face, obscuring the lower half of it, but from what was visible it was clear, the figure was human... Well, least what was left of it.
The metallic feet clicked onto the ground as the figure continued, and Davis made a quick realisation that this figure was as tall as him, though the comparison seemed like a tree trunk next to a lamp post. It left Davis to feel a strange uncomfortable feeling, human faces were not uncommon to him, but he usually looked down to them, there was just something off putting about seeing it at his level. Two party security droids flanked to the sides of the cyborg, the blank heads softly flanked to the left and right as they continued to check the room, despite the presences of nothing but allied troops. A long skeletal hand appeared from the cloak as it reached up to the mask, pulling it off as it set it down into the cyborg’s shoulder, a soft pale cloud continued to seep from the mask.
The leather face looked about the room for the moment, before settling on Davis, the blank vacant eyes seemed to give little away, as the face only twitched what could be a meek smile.
“Lt. Davis?” the cyborg asked. As much as the face seemed to suggest a walking corpse, the voice was clear, eloquent and authoritative, thought the eyes seemed soft and wise.
Davis nodded his head, “at your service sir, what is the pleasure... We were not expecting a party representative”.
The cyborg just laughed for a moment; it was like a stuttering engine, a cough intermix with it, as a hand snaked back out of the cloak taking the oxygen mask and placing it back to the mouth for a moment. After a deep breath he continued, “no, no my friend, I have my connection to the party, but my work is on a higher scale... above bureaucratic wheel greasing... Though it has the blessing of the General Secretary, Premier and President”. The cyborg entered another small fit of coughing as it reapplied its mask. Davis could only watch, his stonewall look, only hid a growing confusion, he was a soldier, and yet this was sounding like something far beyond his scope.
This all sound like something befitting to the CISF, or CFSF.
“Why has this brought you to me?” Davis asked. The cyborg drew down his mask as he nodded his head.
“Yes, yes, that...” he coughed but held it back, “I am looking for some assistance, I’ve checked your track record, I think you’ll be a good fit” A free hand crawled out the cloak as the cyborg handed over a folded data pad to Davis, “times are changing Lt. Davis; these anarchist, insurgents, ecologist? Whatever the party has deemed them this time, has become low hanging fruit... It is now time to solve the issue we have let grow in our absences” the cyborg continued, as the hand retreated away.
“What problem is that?” Davis asked.
“It is just the issue of social degenerates, criminals, troublemakers, a variety of individual who for a time were outside of the scope of the situation we were all enraptured in for a time” the cyborg continued, seemingly waxing lyrical in an almost reminiscing way.
“So you want me to remove these people?” Davis questioned, as he opened the pad, once it started he was met with a mass of photos, mug shots and camera still of potentially thousands of people.
The cyborg seemed to ponder on that point for a while, before clarifying his desire, “what I need of you Lt. Davis, is to look within that list, and at your discursion find the people on it... if they cause you trouble, by all mean turn them to cinders, but if they surrender, or comply to your capture, report it to the data pad, and then you will be provide a drop location from which my associates will take over”
“What does that mean?” Davis latched onto that point of just dropping people off, but the cyborg played it down, taking another suck of air before explaining.
“It is not of your concern lieutenant; you are doing your duty, removing these dangers from our galaxy, and making things ready for bigger things”
“And what if they’re in Federation territory?” Davis continued to question.
A small smile played on the cyborg’s face, but before he spoke, drew once again from his oxygen mask, “you need not worry about that...” He paused as he looked to the side, another ship entered the hanger, a similar make to the cyborg’s, but slightly larger, and rather than patriotic flag decals, large grey line ran across the sides of the ship, on a diagonal, the rest of it was a smooth matte black, which blended it into formless shape.
“You will find all the documents, clothing, and supplies to keep you going for the next few months... I would advise you find an associate to take along with you... I want half the list done by the end of this year... The CSS Military Commission, are well aware of your new assignment, and the matter of crossing the territorial divide has been covered, the FFP are in as much agreement as the CSS...”
With that the cyborg gave a firm nod of the head, “that should be everything you need to know, good luck on this mission Lieutenant”. With that the cyborg placed the mask back onto his face as he went back onto his ship, his two guards coming in behind him.
With that the ramp retracted, and the ship flew away.
Finally left alone, Davis began to put the data pad away into his suit, as he turned to face Aatto. “So, you’ve got to find an associate to take with you?” the collie asked, a small wag starting in his tail, but Davis only twisted around as he went over to one of the sergeants.
“Tel!” he called, as the sergeant moved away from a group of troops and came over to the wolf.
“Aye, Davis?” Tel asked, this time around the wolf looked down upon the man’s masked face.
“Tel finish up the checks of this place, then get the troops home, am going off on special assignment”, Tel nodded his head to Davis as he went back to organise the troops, Aatto waited for a moment until Davis called to him, “come on, you’re on assignment with me”, Aatto tail started to wag again as he made his way over to the ship.
After a couple hours, Davis had sent the ship on its way, just placing it into an orbit around the mining base; he used the moment to begin to look through the list. It was a comprehensive list, nearly three – thousands, wanted individuals. Each selecting each individual opened to a comprehensive list of; names, suspected age, citizenship, offensives, and a collection of images. Davis continued to flick through them; it was a wonderful mixture of species; humans, all anthro from under the sun from mammals, reptiles, avians, amphibians, insects, etc... Alongside this a handful of rouge androids, robots, and even clones seemed to dot the list as well.
“This is going to be a long operation” Davis mumbled to himself as he continued to thumb down the list.
Just then the door to cockpit opened, as Aatto wondered his way in, coming up behind Davis as he took a look at the screen. “This is going to be a long operation ain’t it?” Aatto ask, while Davis continued to flick through the list.
Though before he could make a comment he stopped. His attention was drawn to singular image.
“What’s up?” Aatto asked as he followed Davis eyes as they tracked through the screen.
Another lupine, the pattern on it was close to that of Davis’s but unlike the rusty red of Davis, one was a more bronze or brown.
The name section was marked out with an added addendum, /unknown: multiple names awaiting possible corrections/ from that a list potential names were given: /Terry Akers, Quill Avers, Alice Fargin, Gin Holloway/.
/Age: 20 – 28/
/Citizenship; CSS/
/Suspect offensive: Murder of Federal and Confederate Marshalls, draft evasion, abduction of Federal citizen, destruction of CSS property, and one moving violation./
Davis quickly began to look through the collections of recorded images, several mug shots reported as job ID photos, mainly industrial job IDs, alongside that there was a mass of camera images from several space and planetary station cameras, a tall figure, defiantly a lupine, female at that, but those features were quite mute... That explained the male names, could be easy to pull that off, and it likely would work with most outside of the species, most people seemed easily confused, most humans seemingly couldn’t tell the difference between some vulpine or a lupine, and the many divisions within that.
Aatto just watched the trouble look on Davis’s face before drawing his hand against his neck.
“Hey, you alright?” Atto asked, as Davis finally seemed to snap back to reality.
“Yeah... It’s nothing” Davis said, as he continued to look over the data pad.
“This one taking your interest?” Aatto questioned as he leaned forward, Davis just shut the data pad. As he twisted around to get up, only now to be presented with underdressed collie.
“Making yourself comfortable aye?” Davis said, Aatto gave a sly smile in response but it drop as the wolf walked passed him.
“You’re alright, right?” Aatto asked one more time. Davis stopped in the door way of the cockpit, he wanted to look annoyed, but when he twisted to look at the collie’s slightly concerned face he just couldn’t hold it. The expression dropped as he walked back over before taking a crouch to make the height difference less imposing before giving the collie a scratch on the head. The collie expectantly received the gesture well, closing his eyes, slightly lifting his head, as his tail wagged at pace.
“It’s like I said, nothing to worry about” with that Davis got back up.
“The only people who are going to worry will be the people on that list” Aatto said in a playful tone, Davis just smiled as he shook his head... Though deep on the inside Davis could not shake that face from his mind... He knew it well, and it filled him with anger...
The small paper plane flew across the small mess in the ship. Mayra had taken to slowly forging paper planes as her and Paul just sat about in silences for a moment. The two had come in to eat, but even after that neither of them had decide to leave, and yet neither seemed willing to make conversation.
Paul had for the first time since they met, had removed his helmet. Though to no surprise his face was still covered by a silk cover, which only highlighted two thing, his grey eye’s which were typical for clones, and the human shape of his head, something Mayra had well expected, though even that gave her no fuel to make any comments. Paul himself said nothing as he just began to mess around with ports and sockets on his helmet as well as wiping at the inside and outside of the visor.
Paul eventually started to talk, “look I just wanted say... I think we could do with an extra pair of hands around here”. His voice had calm drawl as he slowly moved his gaze away from his helmet to look over to Mayra, while she began to stop putting folds into her next paper plane.
“You not enjoying my company anymore?” Mayra said, herself keeping a similar dead pan tone, as her attention quickly went from Paul and back to the paper plane.
“It’ll just make things easier” Paul explained, “extra set of hand, then if you go onto do another one of your party tricks, I won’t be left having to find someone to help me out” Paul finally began to wipe down the helmet .
Mayra just gave a smirk, “so you trying to call me some dead weight” she joked. Though Paul was not receptive of it, or just ignored it.
“No – no, I just want to make things simpler for us” he replied, at this point inspecting his helmet as he twisted it about in his hands.
Mayra just shook her head, “what do you have in mind?” she asked, as she finally picked up the finish paper plane and threw it; it went much further then the last, but failed to reach the wall. Mayra grumbled with disappointment as she finally turned back to Paul as he was latching his helmet back to his suit.
“Well I don’t know” Paul replied, “human, clone, android, anthro... You’re the captain” Paul finally reconnected the tubes to his helmet. “Well, if you know where we’re going next, just let me know, I’ll be in the cockpit”.
Though just as Paul got up to leave Mayra too got up to meet him, “hey” she called, stopping him just at the door way. Paul twisted around to look up to her as she placed a hand onto his shoulder.
“Look, don’t think on this too much... But I just wanted to say thank you... You’ve done well for our first job”, Mayra said. Paul just nodded his head.
“You’re welcome” Paul replied, as he opened the door, “As much as I didn’t agree with your methods, thank for saving my skin”. With that Paul left disappearing down the corridor.
Mayra just smiled as she started to ponder on that fact; where the hell were they going to go next?
Have a good day folks.
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“They should have been here by now” Colestone said. The human anxiously paced up and down the empty space in the centre of the mines meeting area... This was the worst part of any after mission regroup. The Lynx who stayed off to the side just seemed to calmly rest against a desk, if anything he seemed to look tired if anything else.
“You don’t think they would have followed us... That shit was far too risky, can’t believe anyone thought this was a good idea” Colestone continued as he added a head shake to his continued pacing, holding his SMG tight to his side.
The lynx finally shook his head as he spoke up, “you need to stop your stressing, if anything does happen it’s not going to have you in a fit state to do something about it”
Colestone quickly twisted around, “so you think they’re coming?” he fired back.
The Lynx just waved his hand and shook his head, “you’re far too stressed, how did they even get you into this?” The lynx he wasn’t expecting a responses, but Colestone still mumbled one anyway, “I didn’t think fighting for freedom would get me here”.
The two went back to silences. An hour had almost past and it had been an hour too long. The squad should have regrouped within twenty minutes of completing the attack on the supply convey. They got lucky with that one, the military escort was small just a couple corvettes, completely incapable of responding to even their small fighter and single frigate attack. The corvettes got away, but of the supply ships; one was destroyed and two were damaged; only one got lucky.
“They’re coming for us dammit their going to string us up, you know the CSS, and the FFP are getting harsher on insurrectionist ... Probably won’t even get a trail”, Colestone continued.
Finally, maybe under his own stress the lynx finally got up as he took a hold of the man, “oh just shut up, if they come around, we will deal with them... Get your head in gear right!”
Colestone quickly nodded his head with a fear.
Though the two were equally shaken by a soft thud. A foreign thud, clearly a sound outside of the mining facility, “did you hear that?” Colestone asked, while the Lynx kept a hold of the man’s collar. He clearly thought that if he let the man go he would split at the first chance. The lynx reached for a radio as he contacted one of three sentries just outside.
“What the hell is going on out there?” he ordered. The radio very quickly crackled back as a voice came through.
“Not sure sir, seemed like a meteor impact?”
The lynx just shut his eyes for a moment with annoyance, “well go check it out” he called back.
“Right away sir”. The lynx closed his eyes with a momentary assurance that someone was still willing, though just before the lynx could enjoy the moment the voice finally came back on the phone, “wait...what...”. The voice cut as did the radio.
Both the lynx and Colestone held a long look of concern on their face.
The walls were closing in.
“If we go now then maybe will be able to get to our ships, we still have a chance” Colestone seemed to sputter the words out with a clearly growing fear. The lynx only threw him to the ground.
“If you run then I’ll shoot you myself” the lynx stated with a matter of fact nature as he moved back over to one of the tables grabbing a rifle off the table.
“We can’t fight them; there are only two of us, who knows how many of them there are?”
The lynx just stared straight into Colestone’s soul, and the man finally shut up, as he took a hold of his SMG and readied the weapon. The two finally became completely silent. Their breath and the ambiences of the dusty and next to dead systems of the facility were the only sound.
Soon enough a muffled clatter of boots entered into the mix, the hairs on Colestones neck stood up, this was not good... The clattering of boots got louder.
“We’ve got to go”, Colestone said.
“We’ve got nowhere to go”, the lynx spoke back.
“We can find a different exit”, Colestone called as he desperately tried to find some escape.
“If you run... I will shoot you before they do”...
Colestone took a fatalistic gulp of salvia, this was really it. The clatter of boots stopped, they were right outside of the door. Colestone’s heart went a million miles a minute as the two waited. Any moment now that door would open... Normally, or blown out of its mount, that complexity did not matter. Though that momentary fixation would be their undoing, though that was already a given. As the two were taken by surprises, the maintenance access door to the back of the room slid open.
That was it.
A rattle of fire came into the room from behind the two, and despite all his assurance and bravado, the lynx was the first to fall. A laser bolts cutting into his head, neck and chest; he likely died long before he hit the ground. Colestone himself did not get out too lucky, rounds crashed into him at a lower angle, one to his chest, and two to his guts. The pain was unbearable for the moment he felt it, but shock quickly set in.
All he could was twitch on the ground, tunnel vision was setting in and all of his senses had become dull. A mute sound of the front door could be heard, but Colestone could not find the strength to look up, he tried his best to play dead but the pain was too much. Though Colestone thought he was silent, he could not stop the small twitches and soft groans of pain.
He only looked off to the side, as he watched the blurring vision of boots firstly gather around the lynx’s body.
The whole world seemed to come back to life as Colestone was flicked onto his back. The glare of a flashlight burned into his eyes as he raised a hand; both to block the light, but also beg for his life. But for the life of him, he could not find the words, though his mouth moved open and closed. The figure seemed to look down to the man for a moment, a short twinge of sympathy... No, only a short surprises that the man was still ticking.
With that a single shot rang out, as the hand collapsed to the ground.
The hand slowly drew down pointing the gun to the ground, as soft cloud of smoke bumbled from the barrel. A Brown Collie wondered over to the clearly large wolf, waiting for a moment for him to put his large pistol back into its holster. Before the Collie had a chance to speak the wolf interjected, a deep authorize tone boomed even through the helmet, “What is the situation Aatto?”
He slowly twisted around to face the dog, who received his words with a nod before giving an overview of the situation. “Three external sentries sir and these two inside... One strike craft, two fighters and a bomber were located in the hanger... The physical markings on all the craft as well as the damage to the bomber are befitting to the description and the images from the information provided by the supply convey”
“Good good... What’s the status of our team?” the wolf continued to question, and without a fault the collie kept going.
“The team is completely unharmed, Lieutenant Squad 1, are sweeping the outside, and 2 and 3 are inside... No other contacts as of now... Only five hostiles in total”. The collie stopped as the wolf nodded his head. “Only five hostile” the wolf spoke in a low tone, clearly thinking about what he said rather than meaning to say it.
“It seems their forces have been getting smaller and smaller, eh?” the collie continued, “Maybe in a month time will have them gone completely?”
The wolf only grunted as he moved away from the body, the communicator on his wrist blared for a second. He shook his head for a moment, before flicking his wrist a couple time to get the panel to open, a small holographic image of a CSS Marine appeared. A member from the platoon which targeted the other half of the rebel attack team.
“Lieutenant looking for situation orders... Hostiles are surrendering” voice came through speakers in the helmet, the Lieutenant took a moment to process the information that was put forward too him.
“What is it?” the collie question, but the wolf ignored him.
“Can you not get order form operations?” the wolf questioned, but the solider sure voice rattled through, “We can’t get through to operations, you are the next available in command”
“Who are they?” the Lieutenant continued, his ear flicking on the inside of his helmet and banging on part of it. “Crew from the corvette sir; the two fighter pilot from this group were killed”
“Do you have their Captain?”
“No sir... The captain committed suicide, body was found with other suspected officers... We had to kill the hostile marines as well, all that’s left are low level crew, engineers, technicians, the such...” a silent hesitation came for a moment, but the marine pushed with it “they... they claim to be civilians sir, they are saying that they have been impressed into services outside of their control...”
The wolf just nodded his head for a moment once again, as he processed the information for a minute; he hated it, now there was no impulse of combat to drive is choices.
“What is it Davis?” the collie pressed again, but once again, the wolf ignored him.
He had a long and speeded though process before finally settling on a choice.
“Take them prisoner, will allow the party tribunal to decide their fate”, with that the hologram gave a nod of the head before the image stopped broadcasting, and with that Lt. Davis closed the communicator.
“Don’t worry about Aatto, problem solved...” the wolf said as he faced towards the collie for a second. Though before Aatto could press for some clarification on what had happened another marine enter into the room.
“Lt. Davis!” He called, a clear anxiety to his voice, a feeling that could only be drawn by the presences of one thing, “sir, a party affiliated craft has landed in the hanger bay, the captain requested your presences sir”
“Who is it?” Davis questioned, but the marine could only shrug his shoulders, “they gave no name sir, they just want you there now”.
Davis made his way towards the hanger bay of the decrepit mining station. The place was still working, well just about, you could go about without fear of dying of asphyxiation, but no one seemed willing to take the risk, if they had not equipped a whole EVA suit, they had an oxygen mask on. The mine itself was stripped clean, the rock was likely more empty space then rock anymore, and like most thing, probably as soon as the last bit of minerals was stripped from it, everyone cut off and left.
Finally getting to the hanger, Davis was met with the sight of a sleek party affiliated craft, like a flying blade; in no way large enough to be an ambassador’s craft, but just larger then a personal one man craft. Two enlarge, but minimalist versions of the CSS flag were stencilled to the front, to the left and the right. They were completely light grey to contrast to the black which enveloped the whole ship, making the whole thing look like a whole block with no clear separation between parts
“I never get a good feeling when the party shows up” Aatto said, as he stood to Davis side, as much as Aatto expressed a concern at the party presences he could not help but looking slightly in awe at the sleek craft. Davis only gave a grumble to show his agreement.
The entry ramp to the front gave a puff as it slowly began to move downward. Once it touched the ground the tall silhouetted figure came walking down, clad in a long black cloak. The strange attire seemed to hide almost all of the figures physical elements. At first only the spindly metallic legs appeared at the bottom, settling at couple flat spike two to the front point out diagonally, while one pointed straight back. Like birds feet, if taking to the most basic depiction; the metal had a good shine to it, well taken care of.
The figure continued further along, the body, arms and hands were obscured by the cloak, but getting to the head... That was a strange thing to look upon. It looked like a large metal casing, like a helmets of the ancients knights, but the size was too small to be that of an actual helmet. Was it a machine...? No... As the head turn, the pale vestige of a human face could be seen flush but slightly inset into the casing. An oxygen mask clung to the underside of the face, obscuring the lower half of it, but from what was visible it was clear, the figure was human... Well, least what was left of it.
The metallic feet clicked onto the ground as the figure continued, and Davis made a quick realisation that this figure was as tall as him, though the comparison seemed like a tree trunk next to a lamp post. It left Davis to feel a strange uncomfortable feeling, human faces were not uncommon to him, but he usually looked down to them, there was just something off putting about seeing it at his level. Two party security droids flanked to the sides of the cyborg, the blank heads softly flanked to the left and right as they continued to check the room, despite the presences of nothing but allied troops. A long skeletal hand appeared from the cloak as it reached up to the mask, pulling it off as it set it down into the cyborg’s shoulder, a soft pale cloud continued to seep from the mask.
The leather face looked about the room for the moment, before settling on Davis, the blank vacant eyes seemed to give little away, as the face only twitched what could be a meek smile.
“Lt. Davis?” the cyborg asked. As much as the face seemed to suggest a walking corpse, the voice was clear, eloquent and authoritative, thought the eyes seemed soft and wise.
Davis nodded his head, “at your service sir, what is the pleasure... We were not expecting a party representative”.
The cyborg just laughed for a moment; it was like a stuttering engine, a cough intermix with it, as a hand snaked back out of the cloak taking the oxygen mask and placing it back to the mouth for a moment. After a deep breath he continued, “no, no my friend, I have my connection to the party, but my work is on a higher scale... above bureaucratic wheel greasing... Though it has the blessing of the General Secretary, Premier and President”. The cyborg entered another small fit of coughing as it reapplied its mask. Davis could only watch, his stonewall look, only hid a growing confusion, he was a soldier, and yet this was sounding like something far beyond his scope.
This all sound like something befitting to the CISF, or CFSF.
“Why has this brought you to me?” Davis asked. The cyborg drew down his mask as he nodded his head.
“Yes, yes, that...” he coughed but held it back, “I am looking for some assistance, I’ve checked your track record, I think you’ll be a good fit” A free hand crawled out the cloak as the cyborg handed over a folded data pad to Davis, “times are changing Lt. Davis; these anarchist, insurgents, ecologist? Whatever the party has deemed them this time, has become low hanging fruit... It is now time to solve the issue we have let grow in our absences” the cyborg continued, as the hand retreated away.
“What problem is that?” Davis asked.
“It is just the issue of social degenerates, criminals, troublemakers, a variety of individual who for a time were outside of the scope of the situation we were all enraptured in for a time” the cyborg continued, seemingly waxing lyrical in an almost reminiscing way.
“So you want me to remove these people?” Davis questioned, as he opened the pad, once it started he was met with a mass of photos, mug shots and camera still of potentially thousands of people.
The cyborg seemed to ponder on that point for a while, before clarifying his desire, “what I need of you Lt. Davis, is to look within that list, and at your discursion find the people on it... if they cause you trouble, by all mean turn them to cinders, but if they surrender, or comply to your capture, report it to the data pad, and then you will be provide a drop location from which my associates will take over”
“What does that mean?” Davis latched onto that point of just dropping people off, but the cyborg played it down, taking another suck of air before explaining.
“It is not of your concern lieutenant; you are doing your duty, removing these dangers from our galaxy, and making things ready for bigger things”
“And what if they’re in Federation territory?” Davis continued to question.
A small smile played on the cyborg’s face, but before he spoke, drew once again from his oxygen mask, “you need not worry about that...” He paused as he looked to the side, another ship entered the hanger, a similar make to the cyborg’s, but slightly larger, and rather than patriotic flag decals, large grey line ran across the sides of the ship, on a diagonal, the rest of it was a smooth matte black, which blended it into formless shape.
“You will find all the documents, clothing, and supplies to keep you going for the next few months... I would advise you find an associate to take along with you... I want half the list done by the end of this year... The CSS Military Commission, are well aware of your new assignment, and the matter of crossing the territorial divide has been covered, the FFP are in as much agreement as the CSS...”
With that the cyborg gave a firm nod of the head, “that should be everything you need to know, good luck on this mission Lieutenant”. With that the cyborg placed the mask back onto his face as he went back onto his ship, his two guards coming in behind him.
With that the ramp retracted, and the ship flew away.
Finally left alone, Davis began to put the data pad away into his suit, as he turned to face Aatto. “So, you’ve got to find an associate to take with you?” the collie asked, a small wag starting in his tail, but Davis only twisted around as he went over to one of the sergeants.
“Tel!” he called, as the sergeant moved away from a group of troops and came over to the wolf.
“Aye, Davis?” Tel asked, this time around the wolf looked down upon the man’s masked face.
“Tel finish up the checks of this place, then get the troops home, am going off on special assignment”, Tel nodded his head to Davis as he went back to organise the troops, Aatto waited for a moment until Davis called to him, “come on, you’re on assignment with me”, Aatto tail started to wag again as he made his way over to the ship.
After a couple hours, Davis had sent the ship on its way, just placing it into an orbit around the mining base; he used the moment to begin to look through the list. It was a comprehensive list, nearly three – thousands, wanted individuals. Each selecting each individual opened to a comprehensive list of; names, suspected age, citizenship, offensives, and a collection of images. Davis continued to flick through them; it was a wonderful mixture of species; humans, all anthro from under the sun from mammals, reptiles, avians, amphibians, insects, etc... Alongside this a handful of rouge androids, robots, and even clones seemed to dot the list as well.
“This is going to be a long operation” Davis mumbled to himself as he continued to thumb down the list.
Just then the door to cockpit opened, as Aatto wondered his way in, coming up behind Davis as he took a look at the screen. “This is going to be a long operation ain’t it?” Aatto ask, while Davis continued to flick through the list.
Though before he could make a comment he stopped. His attention was drawn to singular image.
“What’s up?” Aatto asked as he followed Davis eyes as they tracked through the screen.
Another lupine, the pattern on it was close to that of Davis’s but unlike the rusty red of Davis, one was a more bronze or brown.
The name section was marked out with an added addendum, /unknown: multiple names awaiting possible corrections/ from that a list potential names were given: /Terry Akers, Quill Avers, Alice Fargin, Gin Holloway/.
/Age: 20 – 28/
/Citizenship; CSS/
/Suspect offensive: Murder of Federal and Confederate Marshalls, draft evasion, abduction of Federal citizen, destruction of CSS property, and one moving violation./
Davis quickly began to look through the collections of recorded images, several mug shots reported as job ID photos, mainly industrial job IDs, alongside that there was a mass of camera images from several space and planetary station cameras, a tall figure, defiantly a lupine, female at that, but those features were quite mute... That explained the male names, could be easy to pull that off, and it likely would work with most outside of the species, most people seemed easily confused, most humans seemingly couldn’t tell the difference between some vulpine or a lupine, and the many divisions within that.
Aatto just watched the trouble look on Davis’s face before drawing his hand against his neck.
“Hey, you alright?” Atto asked, as Davis finally seemed to snap back to reality.
“Yeah... It’s nothing” Davis said, as he continued to look over the data pad.
“This one taking your interest?” Aatto questioned as he leaned forward, Davis just shut the data pad. As he twisted around to get up, only now to be presented with underdressed collie.
“Making yourself comfortable aye?” Davis said, Aatto gave a sly smile in response but it drop as the wolf walked passed him.
“You’re alright, right?” Aatto asked one more time. Davis stopped in the door way of the cockpit, he wanted to look annoyed, but when he twisted to look at the collie’s slightly concerned face he just couldn’t hold it. The expression dropped as he walked back over before taking a crouch to make the height difference less imposing before giving the collie a scratch on the head. The collie expectantly received the gesture well, closing his eyes, slightly lifting his head, as his tail wagged at pace.
“It’s like I said, nothing to worry about” with that Davis got back up.
“The only people who are going to worry will be the people on that list” Aatto said in a playful tone, Davis just smiled as he shook his head... Though deep on the inside Davis could not shake that face from his mind... He knew it well, and it filled him with anger...
The small paper plane flew across the small mess in the ship. Mayra had taken to slowly forging paper planes as her and Paul just sat about in silences for a moment. The two had come in to eat, but even after that neither of them had decide to leave, and yet neither seemed willing to make conversation.
Paul had for the first time since they met, had removed his helmet. Though to no surprise his face was still covered by a silk cover, which only highlighted two thing, his grey eye’s which were typical for clones, and the human shape of his head, something Mayra had well expected, though even that gave her no fuel to make any comments. Paul himself said nothing as he just began to mess around with ports and sockets on his helmet as well as wiping at the inside and outside of the visor.
Paul eventually started to talk, “look I just wanted say... I think we could do with an extra pair of hands around here”. His voice had calm drawl as he slowly moved his gaze away from his helmet to look over to Mayra, while she began to stop putting folds into her next paper plane.
“You not enjoying my company anymore?” Mayra said, herself keeping a similar dead pan tone, as her attention quickly went from Paul and back to the paper plane.
“It’ll just make things easier” Paul explained, “extra set of hand, then if you go onto do another one of your party tricks, I won’t be left having to find someone to help me out” Paul finally began to wipe down the helmet .
Mayra just gave a smirk, “so you trying to call me some dead weight” she joked. Though Paul was not receptive of it, or just ignored it.
“No – no, I just want to make things simpler for us” he replied, at this point inspecting his helmet as he twisted it about in his hands.
Mayra just shook her head, “what do you have in mind?” she asked, as she finally picked up the finish paper plane and threw it; it went much further then the last, but failed to reach the wall. Mayra grumbled with disappointment as she finally turned back to Paul as he was latching his helmet back to his suit.
“Well I don’t know” Paul replied, “human, clone, android, anthro... You’re the captain” Paul finally reconnected the tubes to his helmet. “Well, if you know where we’re going next, just let me know, I’ll be in the cockpit”.
Though just as Paul got up to leave Mayra too got up to meet him, “hey” she called, stopping him just at the door way. Paul twisted around to look up to her as she placed a hand onto his shoulder.
“Look, don’t think on this too much... But I just wanted to say thank you... You’ve done well for our first job”, Mayra said. Paul just nodded his head.
“You’re welcome” Paul replied, as he opened the door, “As much as I didn’t agree with your methods, thank for saving my skin”. With that Paul left disappearing down the corridor.
Mayra just smiled as she started to ponder on that fact; where the hell were they going to go next?
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Multiple characters
Size 50 x 50px
Listed in Folders
You're on the right lines, but I won't say we got like two...
Three stories before that revelation.
Though I gotta say you're either really good at reading between
the lines, or God damn am I predictable.
Three stories before that revelation.
Though I gotta say you're either really good at reading between
the lines, or God damn am I predictable.
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