Tibulass sat in on the meeting for the first time, noticing everyone's stoic faces as she sipped on her glass. Normally, not having to deal with looking at everyone was fine, but this time it was... less than that. It was awkward for her, really. She could almost feel some judging eyes baring into her because of what had happened recently. Regardless, the briefing went on, and she forced herself to listen, especially after she figured out she wouldn't be doing any flying this time.
It was an assassination mission. Five targets, all nigh-simultaneous, and she had been assigned one alongside someone else. Pretty cool. She wondered what exactly she'd be doing in regards to her ro-
"Stryker and this radiant young woman are infiltrating the gala as a couple of mercs who've pledged for the Federation. Marcus and Jen Stormare of the Black Sky Company. Can't you see the resemblance?"
She choked on her water.
"Did this motherfucker really just waltz his ass in here, willy nilly, take over some ownership from Stryker, and pretty much set me up for a night of so much disgusting wonderment and confusion? What the actual fuck is this man thinking? Hooooly shit, okay... this is alarming and scary to me right now. Umm... maybe Matija can do it? No! She can't! The groups were hand-picked! What the hell am I gonna do?!"
She wasn't having the best of times with this.
ONE PANIC-FILLED WEEK LATER...
Tibulass sat in the cockpit and looked at herself in the mirror. Her dress was... nice. It felt comfortable and it matched her hair quite well. Nevermind the extension given to it by some weird tech, it just looked... odd. She was really pretty that night.
And she... hated it? She had a feeling towards it that she wasn't quite sure of. She had spent hours getting ready, trying to do her makeup just right to conceal her scar, make her eyes pop, smooth her features, everything, and it had definitely paid off, but she wasn't exactly sure what to feel.
She sighed before looking over at her bag. It was red as well, and it was rather spacious. Spacious enough to hold her psionic-enhancing glove, a good amount of backup makeup, a purse, around two-hundred dollars, and her exoskeleton shield, but that was it. She sighed in anticipation. Tonight was gonna be a royal disaster.
She proceeded towards the cargo bay, not looking at Stryker period as she stood and waited. Everything was right on her, but she felt awkward standing in front of everyone else like a goddamn doll. It was humiliating. She had waved to two people, Harriet and Matija, before the shuttles had arrived and she climbed into hers. That was the least weird thing about tonight so far, being in a passenger seat as opposed to behind the wheel, and she was the designated Revenant Pilot.
She stayed silent for the entire ride, looking out the window instead of at Stryker. She felt too fuzzy to speak to him or anyone.
Benny wasn't keen on stepping back into the meeting room with the Alliance jarheads, but they all needed to be briefed on the plan. Stepping back inside with the others and leaning against the wall, he listened to the more detailed info given by their leader and the Alliance lapdogs.
"Target two, Quinlan Kifear... He's military. A high-ranking commander of the Shrekeer. There's a military supply depot on Teravainen, he's scheduled to make an appearance there and inspect the place. Sergeant Gunnarson will be leading an assault squad to attack the depot. Standard formations and all of that. Collateral damage will be a bonus. Stryker, the team?" Captain asked.
"Benny, Tobi, Sadaet, Henry, Harriet and Varrus." Stryker replied.
Benny raised an eyebrow at his assignment. Direct attacks were never really his thing, but the prospect of watching a military base go up in flames... excited him, and made him feel a pleasant twitch in his organic arm. Now with his undivided attention, he paid attention to the rest of the briefing up until the conclusion.
"We've got a couple of days before the targets arrive, but there's a lot of work to be done. Grayson, I need you to tune up all the guns. Amy, the Federation may still be working on old broadcasting stations and using codes from your time, can you get on signal analysis, see if you can turn up any extra intel? Benny, we're gonna need explosives, and lots of them. Sadaet, we're going to need a few mobile hack kits, that something you can rig together? Varrus and Harriet, prep some med kits. Everyone else, we're gonna be doing daily combat training. That'll be all for now."
Benny nodded when Stryker called him out. "I'll get to work on makin' what we need. Do we want a few charges with a big wallop? Or are we going with dozens o' smaller Timmies?" Benny asked. Stryker turned towards him before replying with "A bit of both. We'll need something with a lot of kick for a few things, but we also need a lot of diversionary explosions"
Benny nodded with a wicked smile. "As long as the rest o' the team's smart enough ta' stay clear of a blast zone, consider tha' place a junkyard" He replied as he went out of the war room to make ready
Throughout the week, Benny had gotten busy crafting his explosive arsenal in preparation for the big operation. It wasn’t difficult to make both standard charges with conventional items stocked in the Revenant, and IED’s with more unusual parts he found lying about, but in the end he felt he had enough ordnance to level the ship if placed correctly.
Now came for the other concern, which was talking to Matija to examine her gear for the sake of Harrison’s jetpack idea. He wasn’t sure yet if he would use it himself, but the idea piqued his interest. The problem however, was he was pretty sure she still hated his guts. He decided it would be best if he asked Koren to speak to her on their behalf. It just seemed safer for the whole group’s well-being.
The man approached Koren on the dormitory hallway. It was no surprise for the Juz’ to see Benny there since their room is next to theirs so the young man greeted Benny with a casual “Hey.”
“Hi so uhh… ya remember that thing with Harrison’s jetpacks, aye?” He asked, getting straight to the point of his visit. Koren looked at him curiously and nodded. “Yeah?”
”Yeah uhh, we needed Matija to share her gear’s specs with us for that right? As ye said. So… Think ya could ask her fer it?”
Koren shook his head in response. “Nah. You have to ask her yourself. She’s in our room right now. Anyway, see ya.” With that the Juz’ left, leaving Benny flabbergasted at the direct and cold reply.
”Well fuck ya too, blue boy…” he muttered as he went towards their room. Taking a deep breath before knocking on the door and waiting for them to answer. Matija was quick to open the door, muttering “Ya forgot your tools again, K- Oh.” She stared at Benny for a moment, seemingly confused on why he would grace her with his presence. “Wait. Why are you here?” she asked while placing herself in the door’s opening and another hand kept the door close to her side.
He sighed before responding. ”Okay… I know yer probably just trying not ta’ tell me to fuck off, right now, but… me Koren and Harrison have this little side-project ongoing before tha’ mission. And… we were hopin’ you could help us by err… letting us examine yer gear,” he said, getting to the point so as to avoid the awkwardness that was nagging at him from their meeting. Matija paused, then quirked a manicured eyebrow up. “That’s it? Okay,” she said nonchalantly.
He was looking away as she spoke, and he had to do a double-take at how quickly she responded positively to their request. ”W-wait that’s it? No… bargaining? No askin’ fer any favors or demandin’ anything?” he asked, in legitimate surprise. The confusion made Matija look away, almost annoyed at how stupid the question is before she started laughing mirthlessly. “Heheheh! Yeah of course… NOT!” The Mecorian’s tone changed into something more abrasive by the end. “Why the fuck would I let you or your friends, especially you, to touch my shit? Are you retarded?!” With that she tries to shut the door, hard, at his face.
His eyes widened at the sudden rant, and as she tried to shut the door he quickly pulled up Skelly and held it open, keeping her from shutting it, and exerting a lot of pressure on it to stop her slam. Matija on the other hand was trying to shut the door despite Skelly’s superior power on it. She hissed a “That’s fuckin’ unfair! Let go!” while slapping Skelly off and hissing other expletives at him.
”Okae fine! Fuck me fer thinkin it was actually that easy then! But is there really nothin’ I can do ta’ get ya to change yer mind? Don’t need anything I can make fer your job in the mission?” He said quickly, keeping Skelly in place. She responded with a deadpan look of done-ness and groaning before recovering and grinning. “Weeell...” she started, “You cain get on yer knees an’ ask for forgiveness for bein’ a douche ta me,” she finished.
Benny’s eyes widened again at that, and his expression flashed from surprise to anger, with Skelly squeezing onto where they held the door, causing a small dent. ”If… if I fuckin’ do this… you’ll let us look at the gear?” he asked, through gritted teeth at the audacity of her reply, asking him to basically shove his pride up his own ass.
Matija leaned on the door frame, letting Benny have his way with the door, she didn’t want it anyway. “Hmm… yeah. I’ll let ya look through my gear. I’ll even list all the mods that I’ve done and gone with it. What do ya say?” She had crossed her arms, and waited smugly for the bomber’s reply.
Benny looked down, taking a couple of deep breaths, taking Skelly’s hand off the door slowly and lowering it, though its palm remained in a claw-like position and seemed to be twitching at the fingers. ”fff-fine…” he said, taking a step back and knelt down slowly. ”I’m…” he started, hissing from the mental strain he was exerting on himself to do what she asked, and to keep his robotic arm from responding to the signals in his brain willing him to just deck her. ”I’m… sss… sorry fer… bein’ a douche… he continued, bringing his other organic hand to clasp onto Skelly as he made hissing breaths. ”Please… fff… forgive me…” he finished. She harrumphed and stepped closer to him, “..an’ for forgetting prior commitments to me,” she added for him to copy.
He inhaled deeply again before continuing. ”An’... fff-forgettin’ commitments to ya…” He said, Skelly’s palm now on the floor, making more twitches with their fingers. Matija watched Benny and Skelly, noting that the robotic hand tended to be erratic when he’s emotional, and finally sighing. “See? That wasn’t so bad,” she said as she gave him an assuring pet on the head. Benny felt himself burn up with embarrassment at the seemingly condescending gesture. ”Oh fuck off… he muttered under his breath. “C’mon in. I’ll list the modifications for you. The hell do you need it for anyway?” she said as she finally gave him room to enter when she did.
Benny took some more deep breaths, as he stood up, Skelly now being calmer as well. ”It was… Koren’s idea really. We needed a harness system to base off a… compact jetpack design on. He said yours was probably our best bet,” he said as he stepped inside, looking around her room. “Huh… I guess that’s true… I did a lot of trial an’ error with mine an’ the concept’s the same. I guess,” she said as she opens an app on her holo with a flick of her left wrist while her right hand reached out for a plasteel box that contained her gear from under her bed. She sent a list of modifications and even some old notes of hers when she made her gear towards Benny and opened the box with the other. “You gonna take this with you or..?” Matija asked, looking at Benny for a response while asking through gestures if he’s going to just look her armor over in their room.
He examined the gear as she took it out, taking note at what parts of it he could make sense of, and some that seemed to have more exotic modifications. Regardless, it certainly didn’t resemble any kind of military-grade gear he’d ever seen or stolen. He decided he’d have to refer to the list that she had sent him. “Might need to look this over in the lab… Just ta’ emulate how the harness works. I’ll call Koren an’... I guess ya can come with if ya want…” He said, thinking how he wouldn’t trust other people with his gear without his supervision. Matija shrugs at his suggestion but she found it comforting. “Ain’t got nothin’ to do before we get there, anyway. I’m still waitin’ on more intel if there’s any.” She gestured at Benny to place her armor back in its crate before closing it and awkwardly drumming her fingers on top of the lid. “Ya… cain’t really see how it works unless it’s worn, you know… Er… I-if it’s for Koren... well, I guess I won’t... mind puttin’ it on,” she said with her voice weakening with every word while avoiding eye contact.
Benny found himself momentarily surprised by her suggestion, before slightly blushing upon realizing she was offering to be examined to study the suit. ”O-oh… Uhh… I guess that would help a lot with the data… Would take a lot less simulation and calculation…” He said turning away from her. ”I’ll uhh… give ya room to change then?” Matija tapped her fingers on the lid again before nodding. “Yeah. Get out,” she said finally with a smile.
The rest of their “day” aboard the ship was spent with the trio of Benny, Matija, and Koren, running tests and simulations of movement in the lab, taking advantage of the large containment chamber in the middle as it seemed to have various scanners in place within it for examining any organism that may have been contained inside, using it to see how her body and muscles reacted to the suit, and taking notes on how they could emulate it with the jetpack design. Benny decided it was best not to call Harrison for this as Matija was not on good terms with them either, and Koren’s presence was probably the only thing that was keeping her cooperative with the various tests they were running.
The research continued til the next day, and between the two of them, they seemed to already have a working simulated model of an improvised jetpack design that wouldn’t fuck up their bodies at high speeds and sudden turns. All that was left was to construct it, and, if there was enough time before the mission, test it out.
Harrison showed themselves to be particularly useful in helping cobble together their designs using anything that was on hand, and with all 3 of them working on it, they managed to make a functional model that could be tested in the cargo bay. Naturally, Matija was the best candidate for it, given her natural agility. Harrison volunteered very eagerly to try it out, and while Benny and Koren weren’t opposed to potentially seeing their chattery crewmate fly straight into a wall, they figured Matija would be able to give the most useful test results from her better body control.
Surprisingly, the harness worked well enough, though the thruster controls had a bit of response-lag, but it was understandable given its improvised nature. It would at least serve the purposes of short-term flight which was Harrison’s original idea and purpose for the gadget. Using what was left of the week, they quickly created 4 more identical copies of the jetpack, one for each person who contributed to the device, even Matija. ”Neva’ know when ye’ll need a quick getaway in that undercover op o’ yers”
With most of their gear now in order, they made their last minute checks on their roles and missions, studying data on the location of their operaitons along with potential threats as the day of the operation closed in
ONE WEEK LATER...
Benny was putting on his armored suit and securing the locks on it within his room. The week had been a lot more exciting and productive than he had thought. He glanced at the ramshackle-looking jetpack in the corner of his room and grinned, thinking back to all that they had gone through to make that shitty-looking thing. Once his suit was one, he grabbed it, and secured the harness around his body, moving around a bit to get used to the weight of it. He had tested it out a bit in the cargo bay along with the others after Matija’s successful flying, just to make sure he wouldn’t be flying wild when he did have to use it in the field. He was glad he did because the feeling of individual flight was disorienting as Hell, but yet the thrill of it made him feel giddy in the air.
With that secure, he began packing his chosen explosives for the mission. He had around 4 high-power charges for things that just really had to go up in smoke, while carrying around a dozen small-time explosive charges to make noise and cause havoc. Get one of these next to an ammo stash or fuel reserve and I can cause some real damage… he mused, causing a wicked smile to form on his face upon imagining the catastrophic results.
He had already planned and marked potential areas as good spots for setting off charges based on the rough satellite map data of the military depot in order to maximize confusion. So long as they weren’t detected by the guards before things started exploding around them.
Due to the amount of explosive ordnance he was carrying, he had little room for grenades to carry. He grabbed 2 Incendiary grenades and 2 EMP grenades as his throwables, mainly for temporarily suppressing and removing potential threats in the mission, while he packed only 4 HE grenades for his rifle’s underslung grenade launcher. To free up space for these, he only carried 2 extra magazines in spare ammunition for his gun. He was hoping his allies would do most of the shooting for him while he took care of turning the military base into a blasted wasteland.
With his arsenal packed and secured in his equipment pack, his grenades and spare mags attached to the front of his torso, his helmet in one hand, and his RWC-BR7 in the other, he jogged outside to join up with the rest of his assigned team in the ship’s shuttle bay to get ready for the drop. He hoped to pass by Matija or maybe Koren on the way, to get a few parting words with them before they all went off to unleash their own brand of mayhem across this sorry planet.
Sure as shit hope the rest of these bastards prepared for this as much as I have, or I’ll kill ‘em myself…
The room was nearly pitch dark, apart from the white blue glow of a holo pad illuminating Henry and his bed. Noxious notes flood the air, each one feeling how you'd imagine a life ending would sound, were it music. Henry was finishing up his little project, apparently soothed by the cacophony. He hadn't been taking his combat training seriously at all, much to the disappointment of the other crew members. Instead, he'd been spending every minute of every hour he had gathering all the relevant info on Quinlan Kifear that there is to be known. Amazing how much info can be gathered with only a master hacker, 12 hijacked government bots, 7 sifter bots, and only about 168 hours straight of work.
He picks up his holo pad and his pistol, and staggers down towards the shuttle bay. He truly is a sorry sight, skin and bone from a lack of food. His skin a pale contrast to his sunken eyes, which are encircled in bags. The whites of his eyes are a consistent blood red, with no trace of moisture whatsoever. Ugh... these humans really do have feeble bodies. How do they cope with anything?
Just then, he sees Benny jogging towards the bay. Before he disappears around the corner, Henry calls out to him. "Benny! You're looking well. Seems like you took your training seriously. Nice suit.".
Stryker barely had a moment to breathe that whole week. Every day quickly turned to a blur of overseeing the combat training, discussing strategy with Voss, getting increasingly pissed off with Voss and his cronies, and helping in the mission prep. The only thing that stood out, strangely, were the moments he crossed paths with Tibulass. Time seemed to slow down every time he saw her. He'd start sweating, or find himself unable to form a proper sentence. There was one possible reason behind all of it, but.. no way, that was impossible..... right?
On the night of the job, Stryker arrived at the cargo bay slightly ahead of time, dressed in a formal black suit (that just barely fit him properly) with a red shirt and a tie that was monogrammed with the Black Sky Company insignia. He'd applied false tattoos and coiffed his hair just so to increase the resemblance to the merc he was to impersonate. Eventually Voss arrived to discuss some last minute strategy and slowly, but surely, the team arrived. Tibulass looked great, but uncomfortable as she looked around, avoiding his gaze. He shook his head quickly 'mind on the job Stryker'
Voss took front and center after everyone arrived, hands behind his back as he proclaimed. "Everybody keep in contact. Remember that this is a coordinated effort. The failure of one, means failure for all. Best of luck to all of you."
He marched off towards the elevator and a few seconds later, the cargo ramp began to lower. Everyone boarded their respective shuttles and one by one, the vehicles took off and sped off towards their destinations on the surface.
In their shuttle, Stryker awkwardly shuffled in his seat, trying not to look over at Tib too much. He observed the pilot drone the Alliance had provided and gazed out the window. Suddenly he snapped to attention.
"I nearly forgot. Matija, here" he reached inside his jacket and handed over a small case "a dose of the poison we're to use on the target. There's probably a syringe in there if you think you can get away with that undetected. Otherwise, keep the vial handy in case an opportunity to slip it in his drink arises. I've got a dose of it too, but they'll probably be checking us for weapons inside, so it's a good thing I've got this" from the same pocket inside his jacket, he retrieved a flask with a false bottom, the vial stored safely inside.
Finally, they arrived at the drop-off zone for kitchen staff, the door slid open and Stryker nodded at Tia. "Keep in contact with us, we've gotta coordinate this job carefully if we want a chance at getting out of here in one piece."
Grayson and Amy had been told to board the same shuttle as SAL and the rest of Team Three, their objective was en route and the team only had three shuttles, so it made sense to have Team Three drop them off. The duo kept to themselves as the robot piloted and slowly spoke aloud to his team.
"Our plan is simple. We'll be intercepting the convoy at intersection 112-501. A 'simple' traffic accident will cause an unexpected hold up to the route. Before they can recalculate and divert, Harrison, Kotze and myself will begin to attack from the rear. Pax and Koren, you two will be acting in the roles of the individuals involved in the accident, having a quite heated argument on an otherwise empty street. When we start attacking, take cover and join in. That is, of course, what the Alliance prepared. I believe that if we arrive with enough time to spare, I can calculate a more effective plan of attack."
They dropped off Grayson and Amy and sped off once more to their ultimate destination. The shuttle was tucked away in a side lley and SAL began to scan for better options....
As Team Two's shuttle took off, piloted autonomously by an Alliance subroutine drone, Sergeant Gunnarson tossed a hologram display unit on the floor and an overhead image of the military depot popped into view. "Listen up, here's the plan. We're dropping in just under a klick away, we'll make our way over on foot. Once we arrive at the depot, we infiltrate from this position here, and break into two groups. You three.." he pointed at Benny, Sadaet, and Henry "Are gonna take this route around Alpha Sector, plant some of the heavy duty charges. The rest of you will follow me, we'll make our way around this way and drop 2 charges by the gate, just in case the target tries to escape. Regroup at this position here. We scan for the target, if he's not in the open, we trigger the main charges, set off the alarm to draw him out. Once the kill is confirmed, we begin exfil procedure. Maximum carnage rule applies here, so by all means, go hog wild you beautiful, degenerate fuckers"
Conversation was light from there as the shuttle silently glided to the surface. Once they landed, the doors slid open and Gunnarson was the first to hop out. "Alright convicts, go time"
The first one of the survivor caravan arrived at the checkpoint with his hands held high in the air, limping across the shattered and torn road while dozens of men, women, and children of all species and ages trailed behind him. His exposed skin, face and arms, were covered in dirty bandages. Beneath the wraps, his skin was burnt and charred, peeling off grotesquely. A soldier, from a mobile guardpost, had spotted them a few kilometers out with his scout drone, and had assembled a fireteam to block off the road. A gun platform mounted to a utility truck had been brought to the center of the road. They dressed like Vanaati, probably the ones unlucky enough to be stuck in mineshafts or bunkers when the nukes glassed the town and its rebel garrison there. The leader dropped to his knees in front of the fireteam and bowed his head down to the ground.
In the distance, thunderous explosions from nuclear warheads and laser bombardment sent ripples through the still air. It was noticeably hotter: thermal energy from the fires and explosions had raised the temperature by a few degrees, at least locally. The goal of the Kotayki battlegroup was not to glass the entire planet, since they still needed to space when the battle was over, but instead to completely wipe any sort of resistance pockets that Vanaat could still harbor. In the distance, over the horizon, the city of Vanaat burned and sent thick plumes of acrid smoke into the blue sky. Drones and craft soared across the grasslands, ferrying troops and supplies. On the ground, convoys of troops were poised to enter through the city to verify the damage done and move onto the next position. Sadaet's vehicle, towing a tactical satcom array to help establish local communications for the battle damage assessment, had parked a hundred meters behind the checkpoint while they waited for the security element to clear the road. He stood behind the armored door of his truck on the running board, hand on the hilt of his holstered revolver while the other one gripped a handrail on the roof of the truck. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, his helmet linked with a d-ring to a spare loop on his plate carrier's load bearing harness. He turned to his technical expert, a warrant officer almost twice his age with wild hair and a greying beard. "Who are these guys?" Sadaet asked.
"Vanaati," said the warrant officer simply. "Probably trying to get out of there. No idea how in the hell they managed to do that, we've been glassing the town for days now."
"They've got vehicles behind them," pointed out Sadaet. He gestured in the direction, many meters behind the herd of refugees on foot with their hands in the air as well. Ragged-looking vehicles with blasted-out windshields and scorched paint drove slowly with the writhing figures of the mortally wounded in their truck flatbeds or sprawled out on backseats. "And the wind is pushing the fallout to the east, right by Battle Position Rio."
Shouting from the refugees brought Sadaet and his warrant officer back to the scene. The lead man, speaking in thickly accented Vanaati, begged for help from the fireteam. "We're poisoned! Poisoned!" he screamed at them. His hands turned to fists, he shook at the troops from his knees. "Everyone is sick! We're all burned! How could you do this? Everyone!"
"Back off! Back up!" shouted one of the security troops. Beside him, another soldier held out detection gear in his hands, registering a potential radiological threat. While radiation poisoning wasn't contagious, the concern was fallout particles: little pieces of dirt or material sucked up by the fireball and deposited with radioactive nuclides that was dispersed over the blast area. While most of it decayed within two days, there was a significant contamination risk to men and materiel from some of the elements with longer half-lives. “I swear to god, if you don’t back the fuck up I will shoot you in the fucking face.”
Sadaet’s radio started to ping, but he turned down the volume knob. The scene in front of him unfolded about as dramatically as it could have: the refugee continued to shuffle towards the checkpoint, his followers alongside him showing their wounds and desperately requesting help. A single medic had been brought forward from the convoy to assess the situation. He could be seen shaking his head, massaging his forehead with his fingertips with a pained expression on his face. An officer beside him was pointing to the refugees and talking fast. The discussion between him and the convoy security leader turned into shouting, then shoving. A shout from the little circle drew two soldiers in as the officer body-checked the medic into a ditch beside the road: one soldier restrained him, now yelling and screaming at the medic and pointing wildly at the refugees, while another helped the other man out of the ditch. What insanity.
While this unfolded, a gunshot cut through the air. The fight on the side of the road stopped: the men looked, some in shock, some in total apathy, as the checkpoint fireteam leader fired off another shot into the ground beside the refugees. “The next one goes right into your fucking forehead!” he screamed, jerking his rifle towards the leader of the huddle. The man dropped to his knees again, hands still outstretched in the air.
Sadaet turned back to ask for another cigarette from his chief. He opened up the cardboard box, withdrawing one slowly while he flicked open his lighter in the other hand. He bent his head low to light it behind the cover of his truck’s door, away from the wind, and just managed to get a good light going before the rip of a machinegun burst tore across the road. He flinched down behind the armored vehicle skin as another cacophony of rifle rounds, some even on automatic mode, shook the convoy. The screams and shrieks of dozens, hundreds even, of people, silenced the gunfire. Refugees took off sprinting in whatever way they could, scattering like balls broken in a game of pool. Bodies lay in the street, torn to shreds and missing arms, legs, and faces. Red blood seeped out from underneath the pile of dead in the streets. A pink mist gently settled down from the scene, mixing in with the blood on the road before someone called for a ceasefire.
“Stop!” shouted the officer, who had broken out of an arm-lock from a convoy securityman. “Stop shooting! What the fuck!”
“They kept coming!” replied someone else. Sadaet didn’t know who. Beside him, his chief offered up a few choice swears before settling down into his seat and closing his door. “Get in, sir,” he said simply, bluntly. “Close the door. Start the engine. Our convoy is moving.”
Teravainen
“Alright convicts, go time.”
Sergeant Gunnarson leapt from the ramp of their dropship onto the wet, muddy ground. His boots sucked into the mud, he raised his rifle to a crisp high-ready before scanning his sector. Off the ship next came Sadaet, jumping down into the dirt and unslinging his carbine from the sling on his chest. His left hand held onto the foregrip of the piece, an unregistered printed weapon he had downloaded and assembled some years ago after he could out that he could not avoid firefights with his technical expertise alone, while his left hand tapped at a small screen strapped to his left wrist. He went down a knee, bowing his body and slipping one shoulder of his assault pack off. The rest of the team assembled into a semicircle facing outwards just off the ramp of the dropship to provide security while Sadaet uncovered the drone inside his pack. He flipped the power on, unfolded its triangular wings, shouldered his bag, and stood up to toss it out.
Immediately, the drone’s engine kicked on and, as it dipped a little bit in the air, it flew off. A sensor link was established to Sadaet’s wristpiece and he began receiving live data from the sector. Visual, infrared, or other optical imagery piped into the screen while a side window displayed coordinates or pertinent alerts. “We’re live,” Sadaet said simply, his hand coming back to the weapon grip. He pushed the alert window to his contact lenses and ducked down again as the heat of the dropship engine passed over him and the crew. The engines, angled down, downwashed them in dirt, grass, and heat as it passed off back to the Revenant. Gunnarson hissed about forming up as their ride left, and the team moved into their wedge to begin moving out. The dropship was moderately stealthy, but the Federation had better sensors than that. There would at least be a rudimentary investigation into a potential intrusion, but they had plans to be long gone by the time a quick-reaction force arrived.
The team took off at a combat jog, weapons raised and scanning. Their formation passed over a few hundred meters of open ground before disappearing into the woodline. Gunnarson called them to a halt and security position while Sadaet gathered information from the drone. He had helped develop the software that turned physical and digital reconnaissance signals into actionable intelligence: his thermal sensors picked up and identified guard positions, which were matched to locations and pushed out to heads-up-displays on the other members of the team. The drone did a few flybys of the base, encircling it to double-check that it had found all of the signatures it needed. Thermal, electromagnetic, visual, and radiological hits were converted into camera positions, weapon nests, or types of buildings and vehicles. Once a few minutes had passed, the scan was complete. A fully-detailed view of the depot populated on top of the existing imagery: now they had real-time positions of the enemy position. Gunnarson ordered a final check of weapons and equipment before they began their maneuver to a critically underdefended point on the perimeter. Time to get some action.
Tibulass stared at Stryker as the shuttle pulled into the front of the area. "You alright? I gotta say, I'm a bit nervous. I've been many different faces before, but never have I been a female one such as this..." She looked out of the shuttle and watched the characters move. "Excuse me real quick, just need to get my story right." Tibulass looked at the mirror as she understood who she was.
Jen Stormare. She had pledged her allegiance to the Federation with her lover, Marcus Stormare, and the two were previously mercenaries under the affiliation of the Black Sky Company, with Marcus being the founder. Jen, conveniently, had found herself relating to a high amount of Skaldurm traditions. She never smoked, always found herself close to Marcus whether it was intentional or not, and had impeccable knowledge of military-grades weapons. It was also rumored she could really hold her drink, and she was apparently closer to Ha'rek than most. More than a contact and Marcus, less than a normal acquaintance.
Tibulass took a deep breath, before clearing her throat and turning to Stryker. "So, Marcus, aren't you going to get the door?" Her voice was noticeably different, more true to Jen Stormare's than Tibulass Sepitan. "I know you've got better manners than that."
"Benny! You're looking well. Seems like you took your training seriously. Nice suit."
Benny hears the voice call out to them as they passed by. He turned and saw one of the new crewmates they had. Herbert? Henry? He wasn’t sure. He figured it would come up in conversation eventually anyway.
”Oh hey. Thanks…?” He started, not sure how to respond to them. ”Was nae about ta’ go into this unprepared. Especially not with these Alliance jackarses put in charge o’ us” He said as he continued towards the hangar area, not really gesturing at Henry as he could follow them of their own accord if they wished.
”Always best to be prepared. Speaking of… have a look at this”, Henry replies as he taps a few times on his holo pad, and going on to say ”Just sent across my preparations.”.
Benny looked curiously at the holo display and the file-send request from Henry’s device and accepted it. It seemed to be a document regarding their target, Quinlan Kifear. He decided to let it send and view it as he walked along.
Henry stumbled along behind Benny for a small while, before saying ”Oh, we have never properly met, have we? That’s no problem. My name is Henry. Used to sell old hover vehicles, before I… decided I’d had enough.”
”Sounds as boring as watchin’ a horse shit. Glad ya got outta there. Sorry ya ended up here” Benny replied frankly as he walked along to the hangar. ”And ye can just keep callin’ me Benny. Ev’ryone does.” he finished as the duo made their way along to the shuttles, heading to the ship’s main elevator lift.
”Yeah, that’s why I quit.”, Henry said, just before they got into the elevator. Little did he know that these were the last words that were to be spoken before they reached the shuttle bay. In the elevator, silence reigned like a supreme emperor, warring with that small part of you that feels like you should say something, but you never do because it might be more awkward than standing in silence. There was no inoffensive elevator music to pay attention to while they stood. Henry cleared his throat. Unfortunately, that only cut out the roaring sound of silence for a mere moment, and when it came back, it did so with a vengeance. Now the Emperor of Silence had redoubled their efforts, and all that could be heard was aggressive nothing. There was a light, long hiss as the elevator reached their desired level. The doors slid open so slowly it may have caused pain in lesser beings, and when the doors had finished the very small journey that took almost twice as long as needed, they discovered that the wrong button had been pressed. They needed to go up a floor.
Benny couldn’t remember if it was he or Henry who pressed the wrong button, but either way, he let out his frustration with a loud ”Cripes” bringing Skelly up automatically to mash the correct button as his arm registered his frustrated desire to get this awkward presence done and over with. Henry merely shuffled his feet and looked around the bare elevator.
After a much shorter duration of deafening silence between the two, they finally arrived on the Revenant’s hangar. Benny wasted no time in stepping off and away from their odd new crewmate and headed towards the direction of the gathering crowd in the hangar.
He spotted the rest of the Revenant’s motley crew gathering around their respective shuttles being briefed by the Alliance agents.
Awaiting their own shuttles were Koren and Matija, seemingly talking amongst themselves. Koren was the first to notice the two men exiting the elevator and waved at Benny as a result. Matija looked at where Koren was looking out of reflex and looked away the moment she sees one of the two. “Took you long enough,” the blue-skinned man said to Benny. “And you..? he asked as he turned to the other man that he never bothered remembering the name of.
Henry turned his bloodshot eyes on Koren and merely said, ”Yes, I am here.”, seemingly missing the point of what Koren said entirely. He waited almost a full five seconds before realising that he missed something. He wasn’t bothered to say anything about his blunder, though, opting instead to mumble something that might have sounded like words.
”So… How long ya think we’ll go fer before these Alliance shitheads screw somethin’ up?” Benny asked Koren, while checking to see if they were still in earshot of the agents, which they thankfully weren’t at the moment.
“Within an hour planetside, two and a half, if you’re being generous,” Koren responded as he too took a moment to gander on their unwanted allies. “I don’t understand why they want them with us anyway. It’s easier for black-ops to work instead of affiliated soldiers. If they die, it’s going to be under the Alliance’s name.”
Benny shrugged at that. ” Stryker says they’re deep cover agents. Dinnae ask me how they made tha’ grade, since their very air screams jarhead from a mile awae” He responded. Koren looked back at him in response, smiling. “Maybe the Feds they mingle with are just stupid. Or…” His eyes widened for a moment, contemplative, before shooting back at Benny and the druggie. “...this could be a trap.”
That last comment gave Benny an uncomfortable feeling in the pits of his stomach, but before the conversation could go any further, they were called to mount up onto the shuttles for departure. Benny took one last glance at the Juz’ and the Mecorian, and gave a quick nod before going with Henry aboard their shuttle, and began the flight to their targets.
"Listen up, here's the plan. We're dropping in just under a klick away, we'll make our way over on foot. Once we arrive at the depot, we infiltrate from this position here, and break into two groups. You three. Are gonna take this route around Alpha Sector, plant some of the heavy duty charges. The rest of you will follow me, we'll make our way around this way and drop 2 charges by the gate, just in case the target tries to escape. Regroup at this position here. We scan for the target, if he's not in the open, we trigger the main charges, set off the alarm to draw him out. Once the kill is confirmed, we begin exfil procedure. Maximum carnage rule applies here, so by all means, go hog wild you beautiful, degenerate fuckers"
The sergeant, whose name Benny couldn’t care to remember past the fact that it started with “Gun” or something, announced through the shuttle. All Benny knew was that he didn’t like this guy’s bossy and condescending attitude. He wondered if they could manage to “accidentally” hurt the guy in the midst of the chaos without compromising the mission. He didn’t honor the guy with a reply, but he nodded in acknowledgement as he checked his equipment, and adjusted his seating so he wouldn’t be pressing into that waist-mounted thruster-pack he was wearing. He wasn’t used to how heavy it was, but he had carried larger weights before and he was confident he could make use of their new toy.
Henry looked at the waist mounted jetpack and smiled. Perhaps there was good in the universe.
Eventually, the shuttle began descending to a stop and the sounds of the doors unlocking filled the space. Benny checked Skelly’s holographic display, and set it to open up on his helmet instead of projecting above his arm. He brought the map of the area up and set it to a corner of his HUD, with relevant waypoints marking their objectives. He kept it minimized to a small display, and could be easily be zoomed in with a few taps on Skelly’s touchpad. "Alright convicts, go time"” The sergeant announced leading the way. Benny Hopped out after him with the rest of the group, rifle-raised and scanning the area. He flicked on his nightvision and allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to the glare, then glanced at the minimap on his HUD. He began heading in the direction of the area marked “Alpha Sector” on the base map. He expected Henry and Sadaet to follow suit without him having to check on them.
She was annoyed that the guy, whoever the hell this guy was, had the ability to keep talking the way that he does. “I’m surprised that he’s not choking on his own damn spit yet, or worse, done in by his own guys,” she thought to herself while paying some semblance of attention to what the jarhead was saying. Not out of want, but of need. She still needed to hear what the other had to do after all. One by one, her crewmates were grouped and assigned to jobs that seemed to fit for them. She wondered who she would end up working with and hoped that it was with Koren, or Tibulass, or Harriet, or maybe even the new mysterious man that boarded their ship in such short notice. He was quite attractive and the bionics added charm to his mysterious self. Alas, the list kept getting smaller and smaller until Koren and Harriet too were relegated to their own squads. She found herself feeling less and less enthusiastic when she realizes that it’s only her, Tibulass, and Stryker left. While she did not find the Pilot annoying, she did find Stryker as such.
"Which leaves us with the final target, and this is the big fish: Zala Ha'rek. He's a core member of the Federation's leadership group. One of the original founders if the rumors are true. He's hosting a ceremonial gala, some form of political or military fundraiser, probably in support of M'raek. The plan is simple, infiltrate undercover and poison the target, slip out in the confusion of our attack run starting."
She took a moment to take in that she’s going to be alone. While it wasn’t a new concept to her, she felt outcasted when she realized that she’s the only one who won’t be having any backup. Enraged, she was about to voice her thoughts about the matter when Stryker assured her that him and Tib would be nearby. That placated the Mecorian just enough that she was willing to keep her mouth shut for the time being. “Damn right,” she thought, “I’m the only good thing around here that’s going to make sure that none of these idiots fuck it up”.
Eventually, they were all dismissed and Matija made a beeline towards her room, not bothering with the others. If anything, she thought that she’ll spend most of her days doing Stryker’s stupid drills, and recalibrating and fixing any damages that her suit may have from the previous mission. While not exactly the most adept in fixing such devices, she has basic knowledge of mechanisms and at least had Koren to ask and if she found something that she could not fix, she can always ask Grayson as the man is still in good terms with her anyway.
Stryker’s daily combat training was totally ass. Matija found the idea stupid and hated sparring with people she didn’t like. While the idea was nice enough, the execution was less than savory.
2 days in the week of waiting, a curious knock came at her door. Initially she thought Koren had forgotten his tools again so she opened the door without checking. “Ya forgot your tools again, K-” she stopped, looking at a tall man with burns scars and a robotic arm. “Oh,” she started, still confused as she put herself between the door and her room. “Wait. Why are you here?” Benny said that he wanted something from her: her armor, to be more specific. Matija rolled her eyes, was less than eager to see him. But she found it amusing that he's asking for a favor, from her of all people, and thought that it would be funny to tease the man until she shoo him off. Unfortunately for her, the Scotsman was annoyingly insistent to the point of using Skelly to keep her from slamming the door on his face. She glared at the man and wanted him out as soon as possible but then came an interesting offer, an offer to do anything for her. Matija stopped, and the door is left as is. “You cain get on yer knees an’ ask for forgiveness for bein’ a douche ta me,” she said with a grin.
Knowing that Benny would rather die than be subservient, she found herself feeling triumphant knowing that he'll never get what he wanted out of her. But when the sound of Skelly bending metal, her thoughts quickly spiralled towards the possibility of a fight. But instead of a blow, she heard the sound of gritted teeth and Benny's voice with barely withheld anger. ”If… if I fuckin’ do this… you’ll let us look at the gear?” Matija nodded at the forced words, now knowing that his pride is less important than something for once. “Hmm… yeah. I’ll let ya look through my gear. I’ll even list all the mods that I’ve done and gone with it. What do ya say?” With that said, she finally managed to get that well deserved, albeit forced, apology that she had been waiting for. It made her feel smug about being underappreciated and she had hoped that it taught Benny a lesson.
A WEEK LATER...
The days where the nerds did not need her help was more or less mind numbing.
The strain of not knowing what else to do other than follow a training regimen was not her thing and it did little to abate her anxiety. Seeing Benny and knowing that their relationship was also not the same as before bothered her, but it was at least better prior to him apologizing to her. So when game time came, she was more than happy to move up and ready. The downside, however was that she was not going to wear her suit this time. If anything, she was mostly armed with nothing more than her fists and a few things that she got herself as a precaution: one of her silken handkerchiefs, a meter of wire-rope from the ship’s supplies, and a small foldable knife that she borrowed from someone that she didn’t even bother looking up. To relax herself, she visited Tibulass before the mission and helped her fix her disguise as she had the tools and ability to make her as close to who she’s supposed to be playing as. She then gave her friend some tips on how to not trip on heels, and then left to fix up Koren even though the Juz’ was more than capable on taking care of himself.
Despite all the fanfare and anxiety of the oncoming mission, Matija fixed herself up last. Partially because she felt so vulnerable knowing that she is going to a mission without armor, mostly because she found the waiting clothes horrible and colored contacts more so. Thankfully she’ll need to be near or in the target location before she needs to fully clothe up. But that doesn’t make the look any more palatable.
On the night of the job, she came in a little before call time because her nerves won’t let her sit still. Stryker was surprisingly early (then again, of course he would), so was Tibulass though she seemed out of it. Koren followed a little after her and she nodded at the armored Juz’, internally envious that he could hide underneath his armor. Benny and some new guy came over too, though she took a moment longer to stare at Benny before looking away. Koren came over to talk to the two men and she paid no heed to them.
Eventually, they were all boarded to their shuttles with Matija sharing the space with Tibulass and Stryker. All seemed well, albeit the tense air of anxiety for what’s to come, before Stryker broke the silence that made Matija instinctively look at the unarmored man as he handed her a small case. “...a dose of the poison we're to use on the target. There's probably a syringe in there if you think you can get away with that undetected. Otherwise, keep the vial handy in case an opportunity to slip it in his drink arises. I've got a dose of it too, but they'll probably be checking us for weapons inside, so it's a good thing I've got this,” to which he produces a flask with a false bottom. While it was old-school, she could not help but find that cute in a way. But just to make sure, she too checks the case handed to her to see a small small vial and a syringe. Satisfied, she closes it before tucking it between her breasts, beneath anyone's view, as it was still the easiest way to hide items.
Upon landing, she stands and stretches for a moment, timing her breathing with the metallic hiss of the hydraulic doors opening. Stryker gave her one last reminder about keeping in contact, and she nods. “Don’t gotta tell me twice,” she grins as she made her way to the kitchen staff entrance.
"No better option exists. The plan rolls ahead as scheduled. Pax, Koren, go acquire a pair of vehicles to stage the accident. Kotze, perhaps, you could assist with that. Harrison, with me, we must secure our initial attack position. By my calculations, we have eight minutes to get everything in position. Ten minutes from now the convoy will enter the street. At some unknown point in the timeline, the power to this block will be cut, giving us the perfect opportunity to begin our attack with the element of surprise. Everyone clear?"
They proceeded to set up and everything was in place with time to spare before the convoy arrived. Pax and Koren both clambered out of the crashed vehicles and started their 'argument' right in the middle of the street. Kotze, SAL, and Harrison had taken up position on a nearby overpass, a low rooftop, and the balcony of an abandoned apartment, respectively. All three positions gave a great overview of the scene below. Their target wasn't getting away.
Right on schedule, the convoy pulled onto the mostly empty street. It slowed and eventually stopped about 200 meters back from the 'crash site' SAL readied his weapon as a guard climbed out of the lead transport and began shouting at the duo in their path. Roughly it translated to:
"What is ging on here? Move at once! We are on official business!"
As if on cue, a large whirring and whine noise echoed out as the power shut down, plunging the city sector into darkness.
"Begin" SAL transitted over the comms channel as he opened fire.
Gunnarsson accessed the feeds from Sadaet's drone and directed his squad accordingly as he fired up the ion torch and waited for the signal to begin.
"Once Captain Voss' unit cuts the power to the sector, we infiltrate here. Bomb squad heads off on its rounds, the rest of you follow me up to the overwatch tower 350 meters to our 3 o'clock. Start scanning the ground to see if the target is in the open. Only open fire on my command. Everyone clear?"
After a quick acknowledgment from the squad, Gunny reached out to the Captain over their private commlink for an update. They had just attacked the power station, and confirmed the kill of target #4, so his unit would have the green light to proceed momentarily. Quite literally ten seconds later, the lights cut out and a still silence fell over the city. He blazed the ion torch to life and quickly cut through the depot's perimeter. Minutes later, his team was in position and the bomb squad had begun planting.
“Yes, of course dear” ‘Marcus’ said as he slid out of the shuttle and held out his hand for Tib to take. Stryker had adopted a rougher edge to his voice, just a slight rumble that would help him emulate Stormare’s speech pattern. As he waited for Tib to step out, he reached a hand inside his breast pocket to retrieve the formal invitation to the gala that he’d have to present at the door.
”I wonder if we can get a nice vixen to join us later for some fun? Not that you’re not spicy enough, honey.” Tib giggled as she wrapped her arm around Stryker’s to continue the ruse of them being a couple, even if she really didn’t want to. It was too weird to her, maybe she could just run away and not have to do this mission…
… no, she still had to. If anything, she was getting paid to do this in one way or another.
“Heh, it’s quite the idea Jen, but remember, we’ve got a job to do. Mr. Ha’rek only works with consummate professionals, and business comes before pleasure”
”Aww, boo.”
As they arrived at the door, Stryker presented the small holo-chip that served as the Stormare’s invitation. After alerting the guards on the door to the fact that he was carrying a pistol in a shoulder holster on his left side (the real Marcus never went anywhere without it) and surrendered it over to them, they were permitted to pass through to the gala hall.
Tib’s purse was searched, but nothing in particular was taken from it. Her stungun was almost taken, but a quick bit of lying to tell the guard it wasn’t hers and she had no psionic potential was just enough to get her in (and maybe a bit of bribery.)
The interior of the gala hall was…. extravagant to say the least. An immense chamber with a vaulted ceiling that had to be 100 feet high. A circle of marble columns ran around the room, and dead center were several square feet of sheer white tiles signifying a dance floor that stood out against the deep purple and red flooring of the rest of the room. At least a hundred beings milled around or stood in small groupings. Not another human in sight.
“Champagne sir? Ma’am?” A waiter carrying a tray of drinks said as he approached them.
“Babe?” Stryker looked over at Tib.
Tib raised her eyebrow at the drinks before nodding at the waiter and gently lifting one off the tray before taking a small sip of it. Quickly afterwards, she let out a small giggle. ”Thank you very much, sir.” After the waiter was gone, Tib stretched up to Stryker’s ear. ”Are you on edge too? I’m a bit uncomfortable with all these people around us...”
“Yeah…. Just keep your cool. We’re invited after all. You see Ha’rek anywhere?”
Stryker lightly tapped one finger on the side of his glass as he glanced around the room. He couldn’t see the target anywhere from where they were standing so he lightly nudged Tib’s shoulder and motioned for her to walk with him.
Tib’s arm locked with his as she walked beside him, putting her facade back on to continue her disguise. She took a quick pause to wink over at a certain waitress before looking up at Stryker with a bit of a flushed face. ”S-should I do something a bit risque to help make the act convincing…?”
“Just do whatever Jen would do. Whatever feels right. You are her. Own the identity.” Stryker said lowly so they wouldn’t be overheard.
Within an instant, Tib planted a kiss right on Stryker’s cheek, holding there for a moment before pulling away and giggling. ”Heheh… maybe you’ll get a real thing later, Marcus.” Tib, meanwhile, was in a flurry of mixed emotions. She didn’t know whether that was a real kiss or just her contributing to the act. In any case, her cheeks filled with a red pigment.
Stryker blushed at the unexpected show of affection. It caught him entirely off guard and he even stumbled half a step.
“I.. er, I’m sure I’ll earn it dear.” he said gruffly, slipping back into his imitation of Marcus’ voice.
A few heads turned to face the duo before Tib pushed Stryker in a direction, ushering him to move towards the bar where less chaos was going on. ”Let’s get away from all the discord. All these faces are making my head spin.”
“Yeah ok” Stryker followed her lead over to the bar and ordered them both a whiskey on the rocks. He specified a brand that looked rich, but in actuality, was barely passable as alcohol because the casks were watered down. It would help them keep up appearances at the very least.
“Can’t get drunk off this stuff” he whispered as he slid the glass across to her and turned to look out into the crowd. Finally, he spotted a familiar profile, surrounded by a throng of admirers. Zala Ha’rek, in the flesh. He nudged Tib’s side with his elbow and nodded pointedly. He brought an arm up over his mouth and feigned coughing to update Matija via the comms.
“Tia, we’ve got eyes on Ha’rek, gonna try and approach him.”
A crackle in the comms came in response carrying Matija’s voice. “Yeah, sure. I’m just tryin’a get some drinks ta roam.”
”Uh… w-what should we say when we get there…?” Tib whispered to Stryker carefully. ”Do you wanna open and I follow your lead, or should I try and make stuff up on the fly?” She backed off for a second to let Stryker decide, sipping at her trash whiskey in the meantime.
“Just follow my lead”
They waited a few moments for Ha’rek to dislodge himself from the bulk of the crowd. Stryker strategically led Tib over, so it’d look as though their paths would cross purely by chance.
“Sorry about that mate” he said as his shoulder brushed roughly against Zala’s arm. He turned to face the target and feigned surprise.
“The man of the hour. It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
“Likewise, you must be the mercenary. Not many of your kind here, so it’s a safe assumption”
“Correct sir, Marcus Stormare, of the Black Sun. My wife, Jennifer.”
Ha’rek nodded politely at her as he brought his hands together.
“Did you enjoy the sights of Valencia?”
The sentence triggered something in Stryker’s memory.. The drive!
“Yes sir, we did. Beautiful sunset. Brought you a souvenir as well.” He withdrew a small data drive from his pants pocket and handed it over. The real Marcus had it on him when Voss and his thugs had caught up to them. Presumably, they’d stripped it clean and re-filled it with junk data. Not that Ha’rek would ever know.
“Excellent, I’ll inform my accountant to authorize the transfer, and I’ll be in contact very soon with more work, but for now, enjoy your evening. The ceremony will begin shortly.”
He headed off without another word, pocketing the drive. Stryker whispered to Tib.
“Too many eyes on him. Let’s take the long way around, hope that whatever this ceremony is, it’s enough of a distraction to draw everyone’s attention, give us or Tia the chance to slip him the poison.”
”Oh yeah, definitely.” Tib looked at him. ”Surprised nobody here has commented on my tattoos yet…” She turned her gaze to the chandelier in the room and tilted her head. ”What’re you thinking the ceremony is gonna be?”
“I honestly have no idea, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the dance floor is completely empty.”
As if on cue, a female voice filled the room. “Attention please. We’re about to begin this evening’s festivities with the ceremonial opening dance. The lucky guests have already been chosen, so everybody give a warm welcome to Marcus and Jen Stormare.”
Applause thundered around the room as the color drained from Stryker’s face. Silently he mouthed ‘what the fuck’ and shook his head in disbelief.
Matija felt a small pang of panic upon hearing the unexpected announcement. Wanting to keep an eye on the target and her two companions, she strategically weaved through the crowd as she offered and provided drinks to the guests.
”... well… let’s go, shall we?” Tib grabbed hold of Stryker’s hand as she led through the crowd, making her way to the dance floor with a soft smile. She was panicking inside, but it wasn’t a bad panic. It was more like butterflies were in her stomach instead of a blackened void spilling out into her. She was… excited.
All sound had drained from Stryker’s ears but the loud thump of his heartbeat as he felt himself being dragged to the center of the room by Tib. He swallowed a few times and tried to focus as the first few notes began to play. A slow, Classical-sounding song began to filter into the room. Stryker cleared his throat and dutifully wheeled on his heels to face Tib at the center of the dance floor. He took up the position, and with a curt nod, started to lead.
Tib followed along, a most-likely strained smile plastered on her face as she stepped to the rhythm. Without much hesitation, the girl lowered her hand to Stryker as the song flowed into the melody, waiting for her “prince” to take it and guide the duo through this act of disguise and trickery.
He grasped her hand and slowly started to sway, taking a moment to get the beat of the song in his head before taking a first cautious step into a very traditional waltz.
’What the fuck am I doing?’ Stryker thought as he glanced down nervously, making sure his feet weren’t in a position to accidentally crush Tib’s.
”Hey, hey, look at me.” Tib snapped softly at Stryker. ”Don’t watch your toes, watch my eyes. It’s more convincing as an act.” She smiled at him. ”And… I’m confused, too.” “Right.. Right, sorry. It’s just…. I don’t know. Strange. Everything’s been off for the last few days, and I think I’m finally understanding why.”
He made a couple of swift moves, not too fast for the song, but just enough so it didn’t look like they were standing still.
“I think I know a way to really sell them on this, might give Tia the opportunity to move in” he could hear the song rising to a crescendo “Do you trust me?”
Tib nodded. “Of course. I’d have left long ago if I didn’t trust you.” Oh god, that came out bad. Came out too… emotionally. Ugh, what was she thinking?! Her body was in twists and turns from more than just the dancing. What did she drink a few seconds ago...? Was the shitty whiskey spiked? Shit, it was too late now if it was. She took a breath to calm down before looking at Stryker, gazing into his eyes. “I’m ready.”
He nodded back solemnly. Her words and the look on her face said it all. She was feeling the same way, she had to be. Deftly, he took a single step back and lifted one arm up, twisting his wrist slightly to spin her in place, when she was facing him again, he stepped back in, getting closer than before, their bodies were pressed together as he clasped his free arm around her waist and turned his head ever so slightly as he leaned in to kiss her.
Oh God, this was happening. Tib saw the moment in her face and all she could think about was how it felt right. The setting, the air, the lights, it was almost like she found someone at a high school’s prom night. Even with the rough start and everything that had happened on this weird intergalactic mission, she felt like she could forget it all right here. Tib saw the lean, and quickly found herself leaning into the kiss as well.
Their lips met and in that moment, everything vanished from Stryker’s head. The mission, the distraction, the dancing. There was only him, her, and the moment.
Matija kept moving amongst the crowd, saving but one glass for their VIP as she saw the... man? Woman? She doesn’t know with these aliens. All that she knew was that it was about to finish its drink and she has to be there to give him a “special” one. When she found a break in the crowd, she did her best to casually pull out the container where the vial was stored so she could open it, take the vial, and pocket the container for later disposal.
It took some self control for the Mecorian to stop herself from glancing at the two lovebirds in center stage while she was but a few feet away from their target. With a deft hand, she opened the vial and poured into the glass. It thankfully diffused fast inside the beverage and Matija was able to get next to Zala just as it was able to finish their drink.
There was a moment of palpable silence when the two kissed. Though it was already expected, it seemed that the crowd breathed in as one for a moment before their lips made contact. Matija offered Zala a new drink when she found the moment and the alien smiled and thanked her as he took the last glass.
The crowd poured in to join the dance at that moment, leaving Tib and Stryker kissing amongst the bustling arrangement of couples and partners. A few more moments passed before Tib broke away from the event, looking at Stryker with a flushed face and an embarrassed smile. ”Oh… u-uh…”
“Uhh… yeah. Let’s uh, let’s just go” He pointed and waggled a finger noncommittally “Over there.”
He took her hand and led the way over to one of the bars. He was shaking slightly as he ordered them a drink each, the strong stuff.
Tib took the drink silently and stared at it, alternating her gaze between the alcohol and Stryker’s face. She couldn’t even bring herself to drink it at all, but she also couldn’t bring herself to wipe the dumb smile off her face. They both knew what was going on, there wasn’t any use hiding it, but she still felt like she should be silent.
Finally, she broke the tension and spoke. ”So… I’m guessing that wasn’t an act?”
Stryker downed half his drink instantly, not able to look with focus at Tib until she broke the silence. “No..... no it wasn’t”
"... good." She calmly said before taking a swig of her drink and leaning against his shoulder. "I'd probably leave this place in a storm if it was, heh."
“Heh... yeah, well. It’s been brewing for a while” He turned in his seat and started scanning the crowds, looking for Matija. “You think she did it?” He dropped his voice to barely more than a whisper.
"Yeah, probably." Tib took another swig, realizing half the drink was gone afterwards. "How long have the emotions been brewing in you?"
“It was 2 days or so after..... this.” he made a quick gesture up and down in front of her.
"I'm surprised you can remember. I don't remember when I started fawning over you, except that it was after... this," She gestured up and down as well.
“Yeah..... So, what now?” He finished the drink and ordered another.
"I don't know, actually." Tib finished her drink off and placed it on the bar, leaning right back into Stryker's shoulder. "I'm kind of relieved, honestly."
“Yeah, me too.”
"I think, uh, we just hold out for a little longer," She looked out into the crowd. "Wait for the main event. Either that, or we could get 'Tija and just scoot."
“Yeah, of course we have to wait for her.... but I was thinking more along the lines of... later”
"... shit, I dunno." Tib shrugged. "I've never been in this position before."
Meanwhile, amongst the crowd, Matija instinctively used routes where she would float mostly unnoticed. If some called out to her for a drink, she would apologise and show that she no longer has any on her and simply offered to get them a new one, something that the aliens seem to appreciate as she got back to the kitchen to get more refreshments before weaving through the thinning crowd as the more brazen guests now preferred the dance floor to the sides.
“Ma’am, sir?” She moved behind Stryker and Tibulass, then on their front right like most servers seem to be doing. “Your drink,” she said as she placed a new glass down the table and swept her hand past the edge to drop the poison vial at Tibulass’ lap. “Please don’t enjoy the party,” she added with a forced smile on her face and a bow to dismiss herself when she heard more people asking her for a drink.
Stryker nodded in acknowledgment, noticing the subtle drop of the vial. He hoped Matija had her comms still on as he whispered. “As soon as the show starts, get out of here through the way you came in. We’ll pick you up in a few minutes”
He looked across at Tib and smiled slyly. “Dearest… you don’t look too well, are you feeling alright?”
Tibulass tilted her head at first before placing a hand on her head and standing up, her other hand planted firmly on the bar counter for support. ”Oh, dear… I’m feeling a little dizzy from the dancing…” she remarked, winking at Stryker. ”I-it’s that damn condition again. I think I forgot my meds earlier.”
A scream cut through the din of the crowd and all at once, everything went silent. A glass or two shattered and Stryker quickly looked over to see a throng of people clustered near where Ha’rek had been standing and talking just minutes before. The job was done. He threw a concerned look on his face and grabbed up Tib’s drink, he sniffed it and tossed it aside, letting it shatter against the wall.
“Jen, Jen! It’s gonna be ok, you’re gonna be ok…. Help! Someone help!” he shouted as he scooped her up in his arms “My wife’s been poisoned!”
He did his damndest to keep a grin off his face as he started for the exit, a few faces turned in their direction, but by and large, all attention was directed over to the center of the room, where Zala Ha’rek was choking on his final breaths.
”H-honey… is everything gonna be okay?” Tib asked with a softer voice before she coughed herself. It was a weaker cough, but it still sold the performance beautifully, not that anyone was really paying attention to the two running out of the event, other than Matija who was running out of the location while nearly doubling over from wrapping one arm over her stomach and another on her mouth.
They slipped away without incident and picked up Matija before zipping off to the rendezvous point where the Revenant was due to pick them up upon completion of the job. Eventually the ship arrived and Stryker flew the shuttle into the cargo bay.
“We must be the first ones back” Stryker said as he noticed that the other shuttles were still absent. Matija wandered off and Stryker called after her to quickly congratulate her on a job well done. When he turned, Tib was standing there waiting for him. God, she was beautiful, and he felt no embarrassment finally admitting that to himself.
”So…… drink to a job well done? In my cabin?” he felt his face go red as he realized what that idea probably sounded like.
”... y’know what? Lemme change first, maybe wash the shit out of my hair, then I’ll take you up on that offer.”
”Alright yeah. I could use a shower myself. The door will be open whenever you’re ready.”
”I know. It was picked open like a week ago.” ”Oh…. Uh, ok. Well, anyway, see you in a bit?”
Stryker smiled and nodded as he headed off to his room to prepare for her arrival.
"Once Captain Voss' unit cuts the power to the sector, we infiltrate here. Bomb squad heads off on its rounds, the rest of you follow me up to the overwatch tower 350 meters to our 3 o'clock. Start scanning the ground to see if the target is in the open. Only open fire on my command. Everyone clear?"
Benny replied with "On the off chance we forget how our target looks, do we jus' open fire on ev'ryone?" He asked with a smile under his helmet, earning a scowl from the Alliance officer. Benny raised Skelly up in surrender. "Jus' asking" He said as they began working through the barrier as the power went out. With his nightvision already active, he simply waited for everyone to start piling through the opening. He checked his HUD quickly and began heading into the direction of Alpha sector under the cover of darkness, assuming Henry and Sadaet were following him as they should have been.
"How much heat are ya all packin'? Do we gotta ration our poppies or do we go happy hour on their arses?" He asked the rest of his group as they converged on the first of their bomb points without much resistance, given it was still on the outlying areas of the base. However, he could already see flashlights and emergency-power spotlights activating here and there.
Henry loitered silently until the wall was opened, and in an effort to beat the crowd, he was the last through the hole, to avoid the hustle. He stalked the crew without so much as a peep, eyes darting all over the place. In response to Benny's question, held up his pistol. With a twinge of dismay, he said "I'll be rationing".
While the bomb squad planted the charges, Henry watched the dark curtain of the blacked out city, pockmarked with distant lights. "This really shouldn't be going so well," Henry said, as he learned that the assassination had been successful.
Benny looked over at Henry when he heard him speak in that odd tone of his. There was nothing inherently wrong with his voice, but something just seemed off about it every time he heard him speak. His words also worried him, most especially with Koren's earlier warning about this potentially being a trap. However, Benny had other much more immediate concerns at the moment. He ducked into cover behind a large pre-fab building when he heard footsteps approaching. Through the nightvision he saw the bright cones from the soldiers' flashlights as they passed.
Stealth wasn't exactly his specialty, but if they started making noise it would cause all Hell to rain down on them. He muttered a curse as he tightened the grip on his gun in case the troopers looked thoroughly and caught them. Thankfully they only ran by quickly, likely to check on the gates and make sure that intruders wouldn't get. Maybe check the perimeter. Benny wondered if he should have gone for the kills despite the Alliance jarhead's orders not to attack without his go. But it was too late now. He checked his HUD and saw they were near one of the bomb sites. He quietly approached a structure that was marked as some kind of secondary fuel garage.
"Physical lock here... nae electronic so it dinny open up on a blackout. Shite... Any of you know how to get this fucker open before ya start lookin' for other places ta' blow?" He asked his group, checking the rest of the bomb sites marked on his holo-map.
Koren found the city air distasteful. With a sigh, he pulls out his gas mask to filter out the undesirable air off of his sensitive lungs and moves closer to the rest of the group. Sal, the robot, talked after a beep. “The plan rolls ahead as scheduled. Pax, Koren, go acquire a pair of vehicles to stage the accident.” Koren nodded and went off to acquire a land car. Due to the area’s nature as a city, he easily found one by the slums. The old-style car security was easy to deal with, he thought. With a bit of tampering here and there, the car’s faulty security got easily bypassed, allowing him entry with a confirmatory beep. The Juz’ winced in his mask and quickly jumped in the car to hotwire and run away with it.
On the way, he listened to their comms. When Pax confirmed to him that he is near the meeting point, the Juz’ hastened his speed to ram head-first towards the other car.
The cars whined and beeped in response. He reckons that if any of their cars were ensured, the respective companies would be hearing about their little wreckage by now. Regardless, he comes out of his car after a few moments and started playing the role of a wronged man.
“What are you DOING, you metal REJECT!” Koren raised his voice past his mask, waving his arms around as he had seen his people and others do so whenever they fought. The heated exchange came just in time for the convoy to stop before them.
Someone shouted from inside the cars in a language that Koren could not understand. He simply glared at them and continued on with his argument until the whirring whine of the entire block’s electric grid shutting down signalled them to raise weapons and fire. The sound of ballistic fire and flashes of energy weaponry made the area appear like a beacon of death to anyone who may be near enough to hear or see the event.
(OOC: So first thing's first, real talk, I cut some corners on the editing side of things here, dialogue colors and stuff, just to finally get it up. If general consensus is its hard to read, I'll come back later and fix it up, but for now, lets go!)
Edit: I dropped the ball here in terms of tagging everyone, sorry!
Mission Summary: Alliance-appointed commanding officer of Squad 3, Sergeant Gunnarson died early in the assault, from there, the objective was all but forgotten as Benny and Sadaet platooned the leadership role to get everyone out alive except Harriet who tragically didn’t survive. The explosives did their job, creating enough chaos within the military depot to cover the team’s escape, the target may very well have been eliminated, but who could say for sure with no way to confirm the kill. On SAL’s side of things, things went better. Their objective was completed, but they still took losses, particularly Pax. Both teams are currently en route back to the ship. Meanwhile………….
Take The Shot A (final?) collab between myself and Xandrya
Grayson stuck around after the meeting long enough to get his copy of the recon report. He found Amy hanging around near the Armory door.
“Hey love, can ya believe this shit? Fuckin’ arseholes bargin’ in like they own the place.”
Amy scoffed, turning around to face Grayson. "Well you could easily tell he's one of those people judging by his appearance. Gotta give props to Stryker though, he kept his cool."
She took a quick look inside the armory, figuring he'd get started soon.
"You're about to start doing the lord's work, aren't you?"
“Aye, but there’s nothin’ holy about my work, except for how damn good it is. How about your job, got a place to set up? If not, come on in, ya can use the workstation terminal if ya want”
"I have the set up in the room. Actually grabbed the drive and took it back there but I don't think it'll be missed. Thanks anyway."
“Alright, see yas later”
Grayson spent most of the next week either working in the armory or with Amy, they split their time together between working on her sharpshooting, and sleeping. By the night of the job, she was more than up to snuff. They’d gone over their plan a dozen times, fine-tuning the details until it was just right, now it was time to finally put it to action.
“How’s the upgrades love?” he asked as they armored up.
“They seem good, although we’ll really find out when we put them to the test,” Amy went on as she geared up with some of her equipment. She was a bit nervous given it was her first time taking on the role, but she would simply have to rely on the training she’d received.
“Aye, that we will. Listen, I know yer a little jittery, but ya don’t need ta be. You’re gonna be great out there. Now, that said, maybe hold on to me tight when we gotta use this” he tapped one of the Spider’s Web modules on his belt “Ta grapple up to our nest. I tested the hook-up as best as I could, but anything could happen in the field. Don’t wanna take too many chances.”
He stepped over and hugged her reassuringly. It was only slightly awkward with both of them in armor. “Love ya Ames. Game face on. I’ll carry the rifles, grab me helmet?”
“You sound reassuring enough to be believed, so I’ll take your word for it.”
Amy pulled away, giving Grayson’s hand a little squeeze before reaching for the helmet. “Just keep up the pep talk and I think we’ll be fine. Even if we don’t come out unscathed, I don’t think it’ll be a total disaster.”
“No worries dear, we got this.”
Grayson picked up the pair of rifles and gestured for Amy to lead the way down to the cargo bay. They stood off to the side, Grayson silently running some final checks and pre-op diagnostics on his implant, before Stryker, Voss and the other two jarheads arrived.
Voss took front and center after everyone arrived, hands behind his back as he proclaimed. "Everybody keep in contact. Remember that this is a coordinated effort. The failure of one, means failure for all. Best of luck to all of you."
Grayson and Amy boarded their assigned shuttle, with SAL’s unit, and quietly went over their plan one more time. Before too long, they had reached their drop off point. Grayson uttered a quick ‘good luck’ to SAL and the squad as he hopped out.
He set up a secure comm link with Amy’s gear in case they were separated and reached back to his Mag-sling to retrieve his folded rifle and watched it unfurl itself into a standard sniper configuration. He made sure the readout on his implant was synced up to the rifle’s scope and now that he was set, nodded at his partner.
“Ready ta rock darlin’?”
She nodded in reply and took point, heading across the rooftop as silently as possible. She knelt next to the keypad on the locked access door and retrieved a small device from her belt. Just as they planned, she easily hacked the security on the door and they headed on, following their agreed-upon route to a ‘T’. At one point, Grayson got a little overzealous, got a few steps too far ahead and was nearly spotted by a civilian, but Amy was there to stop him, her arms barely reaching all the way around him in his bulky armor as she clasped them around him and tried to drag him back into the shadows.
“Jeez Ames” he whispered, cracking a smile as soon as he realized that no damage had been done “I know ya can’t keep your hands off me, but we’ve got a job to do.” She could only reply by rolling her eyes and shooting him a look that just screamed ’Are you for real?’ “Be serious” she whispered sternly.
He chuckled quietly and winked at her. “Just a joke lass. Let’s keep movin’”
They proceeded on in near-silence without incident. Finally, after one more expertly-executed door hack from Amy, they emerged onto the half-completed rooftop of a building under construction. Well, a rooftop. Twenty-story towers reached for the sky on either side of them. This rooftop was merely halfway up, a connecting point between the towers. Grayson quickly scanned the western tower with his implant to ensure structural integrity and locked on to an open space in the scaffolding.
“Alright, I see a good spot to set tha’ nest” he said as he beckoned Amy over. With a few clicks on his wrist-mounted computer, three of the grappling nodes on his Spider’s Web activated. Two shot upward and locked into place on the scaffolding seventeen stories up. The other just sat there limply, Grayson slid his rifle around to his back and pulled the cabling out by hand to gently looped it around Amy’s waist before latching it onto the small metal hook on her left hip.
“Cable’s strong, there’s no way it’s gonna break” he said confidently “Ya trust me love?” She nodded, but Grayson could see some apprehension on her face. So as an added measure of safety, he locked his arms together around her back before activating the Web. They reeled upward quickly, but not too quickly. After a minute or two, they arrived and clambered over the mass of scaffolding and rebar to finally reach their destination, Amy untangled herself from the grapple cable and unslung her rifle.
“West of here right?” “Aye, should be easy enough to spot ‘em.” Grayson replied as he retrieved his own rifle and the two of them walked over to the west-facing side of the floor and set up.
The golden hues of the translucent bubble shield were like a beacon in the dark for Grayson’s trained eyes, especially with a large swath of the city coated in darkness because of the power outage. The intel was solid, it was extremely low-grade. Even a standard-issue pistol round could penetrate that. He guessed that whoever had organized Mabar M’raek’s fundraiser didn’t expect there’d be anyone on the planet stupid enough to try to take her out like this.
“Soon as ya spot her Ames, we can get this done and go home” he sighted up and focused in on the rooftop.
Suddenly, searing pain shot through his head, he yelped and panicked as his vision went dark briefly and the pain ricocheted around his head.
“My….. my fuckin’ eye’s gone dead. Bastards musta had targeted EMP refractors installed. Normally they just short out targeting computers and electronic scopes. This one killed my whole damn implant. I’m alright, it’ll reboot in a bit, but my head’s throbbing somethin’ mad…. I can’t take the shot. You have to do it Ames.” He looked her dead in the face and tried to quell any doubts she had. “You can do this, you got the skill, I believe in you.”
"Me. Alone?"
Amy got up, pacing back and forth for a moment as she came to terms with what she had to do. If she was off just the slightest, then they were practically dead. The thought ate away at her, but Grayson was right, she had a job to do. "Well, it's not like I have a choice, let's just do this then."
She took his place behind the rifle, adjusting herself until she felt relaxed enough to gently place her finger on the trigger guard. Amy looked through the scope, finding her target and aligning her to the crosshair. Amy slowly breathed in and out as her finger found its place on the trigger, and a few moments later, the shot pierced through the air.
Grayson realized his error all-too-late- the shielding around the rooftop distorted the view. Amy’s aim was off by a few inches as a result of that and the bullet struck the wrong person entirely.
“We gotta go” he said, putting his arm out to force the rifle down as Amy tried to take a second shot “Babe, there’s no time, we gotta go NOW!”
HIs head throbbed and the room was spinning as his ‘normal’ eye tried to focus. The implant was rebooting, but his vision was still pitch-black. He was panicking slightly as he snapped the rifle back to it’s Mag-Sling and grasped at notches on the Spider’s Web.
“Here, tie yerself on, I’ll try and sight up on the way out.”
They hurried into position and Grayson grabbed Amy tightly as he tried to sight up a suitable grapple point without his usual aid. His vision in the cyber-eye blinked back but the implant itself was still out of action.
“Fuck it” he said to himself as he inhaled and fired out a line. The flashing lights of security drones and incoming transports were drawing closer. Best guess? They had a few minutes to get completely clear of the sector. “Hol’ on tight Ames” he said, trying to stay strong for the both of them despite how panicked he was.
The duo were flung into the air on the immediate propulsion….. And moments later, they were struck by a phaser blast and the line was severed by a security drone that had snuck up on them. Grayson threw his arms out wildly, trying to quickly initiate another grapple, literally anywhere. Finally, a line struck and held, slowing their descent just enough to save their lives. Grayson and Amy fell in a heap, limbs splayed all over each other. Their suits were disabled by the phaser, so their movement was severely limited.
“Ya ok Ames?” he asked, breathing heavily.
“Yeah…. Still here” she replied, equally breathless.
The lights were closing in. They had no way out.
“We gotta crush our comms… right away”
He tapped into a secure line and quickly transmitted a one-way message to the Captain. “Stryker….. We got burned. Not gunna make it out of this one mate. It’s been an honor.”
Amy had laid her earpiece close to his hand. He took his own out, not even sure if he had ended the transmission. A dozen guards had surrounded them, all of them guns at the ready.
They sat up and Amy slowly raised her hands in surrender. He raised one of his own, leaving his fist clenched and pressing down against the two comm devices.
“HANDS IN THE AIR!”
“Amy… baby, close your eyes, just do it” he said, not moving his hand. The guard who had spoken took a step forward.
“I said hands up!”
As fast as he could, Grayson brought his fist up and smashed it down, he barely saw the flash of light as everything faded away………..
From Action to Action: Growing A Pair A mini-collab between me and Garde
Stryker’s brow was coated in sweat as he exhaled heavily. Halfway through their drink, he and Tibulass had shared a look and just…… pounced on one another like teenagers overcome with lust. One thing led to another and here they were, in his bed, sheet draped across their bodies and Tib’s head nestled against his chest. He chuckled a little bit as he finally caught his breath. “Well…. That was…. Wow. That was something.”
“........ y-yeah, it was.” Tibulass stuttered as she snuggled a little closer. Truth is, she was feeling a little weird after that, and was still processing it herself. “Listen, we…. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning. The others’ll be back soon if they haven’t already arrived, but don’t worry about them and what they’ll think. I want you to spend the night… if you’re comfortable with that.”
“...maybe we should keep it a secret. Let ‘em find out find out for themselves.” Tib suggested as she shivered a bit “I gotta steal one of your shirts for the night though, because fuck that dress.”
“Yeah, maybe…. And sure thing, go ahead” he pondered for a second. “Actually, I’ve gotta get up for a minute” he nudged her head and started to sidle towards the edge of the bed. Tib nodded as she moved… and promptly rolled off the bed, landing on the floor with a thud before scurrying over to the dresser and grabbing a shirt to pull on. Her face was red as she stated. “..I was too tired to stand up out of bed, in case you were wondering.”
“Yeah sure, that’s what happened” he said with a grin as he walked into the bathroom. “Uh... yeah, it is” she called after him. When he re-emerged a minute later, he caught her eye and smiled. She simply pointed towards the desk
“Is that supposed to be blinking?”
“Hm?” his gaze shifted over to where she was pointing. It was his comms earpiece, a small red light flashing repeatedly on the side of it. He sat and fumbled around with it as he accessed the incoming message.
“What is it?” Tib asked as she clambered back in bed “Alliance on our ass again?”
Stryker’s face had gone white as a ghost, his breathing shallow and ragged as the transmission looped again in his head. He stopped the playback and silently started typing something into his terminal.
“Stryker?” she asked, concerned “What is it?”
With one final keystroke the transmission played aloud for her to hear for herself as Grayson’s voice crackled to life ”Stryker…. We got burned. Not gunna make it outta this one mate…... It’s been an honor.” A second voice, more distant but clear and booming. “HANDS IN THE AIR!” “Amy.. baby close yer eyes, just do it” “I said, hands up!” A laser blast reverberated around the room before the transmission cut to static.
Tib, eyes wide with shock, immediately jumped out of bed, grabbed Stryker’s pants and pulled them on as she headed for the door “Stryker! We gotta go get them, are you coming or not!?”
He sounded utterly defeated as he spun in his chair to look at her. “Tib…. we can’t. The others are on their way back. Assuming things went well, the surface is probably on complete lockdown. Even if they are still alive, they won’t be for long.”
“Yeah, no. That was a tazer. The fuckin’ love birds are okay. And you know as well as I do that they’d do the same if it was us, so get dressed.”
“....” Stryker was speechless, all he could do was stare with his mouth open slightly. This woman was amazing.
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t get sidetracked by me stealing your pants, let’s get moving Cap.”
“What?” he snapped back to reality “Oh right, yeah, let’s go.” He found some clothes and got dressed as Tib ushered him along. “Onwards, mister-in-the-know!” she said as she stepped out into the hall “Posthaste!”
Literally five minutes later, just long enough for Stryker and Tib to find Voss and explain the situation to him
“No, absolutely not” Voss said defiantly “We had our orders, executed them, and now we leave before reinforcements arrive or investigations start. They knew the risks, not our problem they couldn’t deliver on their end of the bargain. In war sometimes you lose the pawns.”
“Fuck you Voss” Stryker said, his voice dripping with venom “none of us signed up for this, we’re not willing soldiers in your little war, and we’re not fucking pawns to be used either. They’re people, they’re my crew, and my friends.”
“That’s what you think, is it…. Captain?” Voss said snidely “you and your little band of misfits are nothing….. Nothing more than tools to be used. With one simple message beamed back to Earth, this project ends and all of you get a swift bullet to the head before I get the pleasure of dumping your corpses at the far reaches of the Expanse, so fall in line, or I will make yo-”
CRACK
Stryker’s fist collided with Voss’ face, bones splintered and blood flew freely as the jarhead collapsed backwards. Sergeant Treliving, standing nearby, instantly reached for his sidearm, but Tib was already in his face, grabbing his arm.
“Can’t let’cha do that, sorry!”
Before the soldier cold protest, the room lit up with a strobe-flash of Tib’s psionics and the sergeant fell to the floor, ears bloody and limbs twitching.
Stryker, feeling a crazy adrenaline rush, chuckled uncomfortably.
“Hope Sadaet’s countermeasures are ready, because I think we just went rogue”
Tib wiped some blood from her nose “Oh… that’s new…. And it’s about fucking time!” She kept rubbing her nose as she looked over to the Captain. “So, what’s the plan for saving our damsels in distress?”
“Right” Stryker’s brain jumped into action and he stroked his beard quickly as the plan came together “First, let’s restrain captain dickhead and his buddy here. Get word down to the others to take out the other guy if he’s still alive. Once the shuttles are docked, we’ll load them on their craft and set their autopilot to send them far away from this system. Hopefully buy us a few days to rescue Grayson and Amy and sever the Alliance’s remote controls on the ship. We’ll worry about everything else after.”
"On it! I'll have to score us a getaway, so you want it quick and painful, or slow and painless?" Stryker was alarmed at her wording "wait, what?!" "The-the getaway. Quick one, or safe one?" "Oh. Safe, we can't afford to lose any more of us. We're on our own now." "Alrighty, no crashing and banging into other ships on our way out then." Tib rushed her way towards the cockpit, reaching for her communicator to get a message down to the shuttle to warn the others about their plan.
Stryker stood over the two unconscious and restrained soldiers in the war room, and for the first time in a long time, a smile crossed his face as he felt genuinely happy, and optimistic for what the future would bring.
"Fockin' bloody idiots!" Benny screamed out, ducking behind a building for cover as the sound of gunfire and explosions erupted around him. Whether he was referring to the enemy soldiers or his teammates, even he couldn't say for sure, but it was something he really had to get out of his system with how botched everything had gotten. After their oh-so-noble squad leader went down when shit began hitting the proverbial fan, Sadaet and Benny found themselves organizing the rest of the crew as they scrambled to escape while causing as much mayhem as possible to cover their tracks.
That part of the job was at least easy for Benny. He had built his entire criminal career upon causing chaos and so it came almost instinctively to him. The problem with causing chaos on the fly however was that sometimes, you got mixed up in it too. "Can anyone even hear me right naow?!" He shouted trying to reconnect to the team comms that had ended up becoming jammed after most of the explosions they had set off collapsed several buildings around them. Their short-range comm traffic had gotten blocked by the material debris and the energy weapons charging and firing from all around the place.
"Ah fuck it! Not like we need them, do we boy?!" He said as he quickly tapped on Skelly's touchpad and interacted with his HUD, marking a few of his remaining planted charges and setting them to blow nearby. It achieved the desired effect as the gunfire in his direction momentarily stopped and he bolted, heading further towards their planned extraction. "Hah! And they say I'M THA' ONE who canny keep me attention proper!" He exclaimed.
He dived behind the cover of an unoccupied tank as he double checked his distance from their evac zone on his HUD. He thought for a moment about how great it would be to hijack the tank he was next to and drive it to their extraction, but there wasn't any time to break into its systems. Not with the soldiers gathering their wits and would soon be able to organize a proper base defense. He figured that they'd have anti-vehicle rockets ready to fire once he got it moving. He was thankful for Sadaet's cyberwarfare skills managing to keep most of the nastier automated defenses offline and disrupting the coordination of the alien soldiers.
"Ah well... I can still cause a helluva' quake..." He muttered with a grin beneath his helmet as he ran some quick calculations with how long it would take him to reach the extraction, running and flying. He figured it was about long enough as his final diversion would allow. He brought up the triggers for his largest bomb, and the ones rigged to a number of fuel storage areas and began setting them on timers, though he kept the big one off a timer, intending to set it off manually. Benny took a deep breath as he prepared to get moving.
"DUCK, COVER AN' HOLD YA TWATS!" He shouted as he detonated the largest explosive that had been set inside a storage shed they had found near the command center in the middle of the base.
After a couple tense seconds, a powerful sound like a long thunderclap rumbled through the air and Benny braced himself against the Tank as he waited for the shockwave that tore through the complex. The moment he felt the tank move and felt himself get winded, though the tank took the worst of it. The moment the feeling passed he sprinted and boosted himself through the air with the jetpacks he and Harrison had made. He kept an eye on the timers, knowing when he had to brace himself for the next blast, though he expected them to be much weaker than the initial one. He expected the soldiers to be holding their position and keeping their heads down as the explosions rocked the base. A part of him felt a sense of disappointment and loss however at not being in a position to observe and enjoy the full effect of his explosives, but that was how it went sometimes with his job.
Some of the charges failed to detonate, either because the signal didnt go through or some hero managed to defuse them, but it brought him the time he needed to meet up with the rest of the surviving team members on the way to extraction, landing less than gracefully as he stumbled among the fleeing group. "Oi! Dun tell me ya blowhards were leavin' withou' me!"
Revenant: Some hours after the mission
Benny had just finished changing out of his armor and had managed to finally refill the magazines on most of his weapons, something he felt just a little bit safer at doing. He had also received word that Stryker's team had gotten back without a hitch, and felt odd at being relieved to know that Matija hadn't become a casualty of their overly-complicated assassination. He didn't much care for the other losses though.
When a call came through the ship comms with Tibulass speaking, he instinctively reached for his laser sidearm in response toe the loud noise. He felt annoyed as to what was so important that it had to be announced like that, but when he heard the message he slowly began smiling. They were going rogue now.
"Now things get real fun..." He muttered as he put on a jacket and got ready to meet with the others, and to shoot any Alliance operatives still aboard.
How long had it been since the Feds had taken him? A few days? A week? Longer? Grayson couldn’t tell anymore. When he woke up, he was in a dark cell, alone, Amy was nowhere to be seen, and none of the guards would answer him when he screamed at them through the slot in the door they used to shove food and water into the room. He’d been through interrogation a few times, but he staunchly refused to talk, every time, even when they resorted to torture.
He felt the mag-shackles powering up. Someone was coming and it was useless to try and fight back, so he stepped over to the closest wall and laid his wrists against it, facing the door. The officer who had been in charge of interrogating him stepped inside once Grayson was restrained.
“You’ve refused to talk thus far” Adredza said to begin “My superiors are getting impatient, but you’ve withstood everything we’ve attempted. You are a surprisingly resilient human. So this is your last opportunity. Tell me what I want to know, or I will not be responsible for your fate.”
“An’ I told you…..” his voice was harsh and crackly from lack of use “Where’s Amy Rosseau? I’m not sayin’ a fuckin’ thing until you bring her to me, I need ta know she’s safe… because that’s how I’m gunna decide how painful yer death is when I get outta here.”
“Big words from a man without a friend in the ‘verse” Adredza said “I can see you’ve made your choice. In the morning you’ll be transferred into the custody of the Kyln. The Knoxx Freighter is en route to ferry you there. Make your peace with this fate, because no one will ever see you again.”
He left without a word, leaving Grayson in darkness once more.
In the morning, he was shuffled out of the cell and put in proper restraints as he was turned over to the black-armored crew of the Knoxx. He’d heard stories of the Kyln, a massive mobile prison ship. People said it was impenetrable, that no one who ever entered left alive. Those stories didn’t concern him in the least. What did, was the fact that Amy was nowhere to be seen as he was marched out of the holding facility.
Once he was on board the freighter, the restraints were removed and he was shoved into an open-concept holding cell with a handful of other prisoners. He felt a strange sense of calmness as he walked to a bench and sat down, head in his hands, looking defeated, but really, the gears in his head had just started spinning.
“Grayson?” a voice asked.
He didn’t recognise it at first, nor the woman it belonged to. It definitely wasn’t Amy, however. For one, the hair was the wrong color. This woman’s hair was a tawny brown, and braided. She stood up, revealing that she was taller and more muscular than Amy had ever been; that most women Grayson had ever told his name to, in fact. It wasn’t until he’d take a look at her still-dirty face that he’d recognise her sly features and crooked smile.
“T-Taleste?? That you lass?” he croaked out as the fog slowly cleared from his head “How…. how? We all thought ya were dead.”
The woman chuckled, then switched benches to sit opposite Grayson. “Well,” she started, “I was captured by a group of pirates who aren’t know for keeping prisoners, that’s true, but I convinced them to buck that trend, and that I’d be more...useful alive than dead. I then started living as a concubine, and obviously not-so-fun factors aside, it wasn’t a totally bad time. I learned to fight. I actually made some friends. And then a raid went badly and every whun else died rather than surrender to the authorities. As for me, I’ve kept alive this long because I know when to surrender to fight another day. What about you? How is that Revenant thing going?”
“I’m sorry that happened to you” Grayson said, his face finally catching the light to reveal the burn marks around his cyber-eye, the swelling and cuts around his other eye, and the dried blood of a scabbed-over cut on his cheek that was almost guaranteed to scar.
“We were out here on a job….. Didn’t go as planned.”
He paused to cough, his throat dried out, once he composed himself, he looked up thoughtfully.
“From what I remember of that night, yer sacrifice got us all out alive, an’ none of us even got a chance to thank ya for it. You came out alright on the other side, but I’m still sorry we couldn’t do anythin’ to help ya.” He cast a glance around the room. “If I know Stryker, he’ll be plottin’ somethn’ to try an’ save us. How long ya been here? Long enough to get a feel for the guard shifts, or get ta know the locals?”
Taleste smiled at the thanks, and dismissed the apology with a slight change in her body language. “We all had a job to do, and we all knew the risks. Even so, it’s nice t’be appreciated. And I haven’t been here that long, no. To be honest, this prison is inescapable. I might try to escape, but I’m not banking on it.”
“Oh, we’re gettin’ outta here. Ain’t nothin’ that’s inescapable… except this Kyln place they’re takin’ us, if the rumors are true……. Ya got anythin’ sharp on ya? Even a hairpin or a particularly sharp fingernail would do, just enough to break skin.”
Taleste stood up at stretched, then sat beside Grayson so they could have a quieter, more discreet conversation. “So you’re saying that we break out before we get there. That could work. I don’t have anything sharp, but there are still a lot of ways I can hurt someone without them. What are you thinking?”
“When they took me, they stuck an inhibitor chip in my neck, blocks my implant from workin’ right” he leaned forward and pried his shirt collar back a bit to show the slight bulge “We get that out, I ‘kin start figurin’ out a weak point, then we put tagether a plan.”
Taleste studied the bulge in his skin where the inhibitor chip was, then looked around to check if there were any guards, and how far away they were, then turned back to Grayson. “I have an idea, but it’s going to be very painful, it’s going to be messy, and it’s going to draw a lot of attention to us. Long story short, the only sharp things I have on me right now are my teeth.”
“Oh, aye… that’s not ideal, but… ok, do what ya gotta do.” He leaned forward and gritted his teeth, preparing himself for what needed to be done.
The ex-thief nodded, gave him a sympathetic look, then lunged forward and bit down hard on the outline of the inhibitor chip. Once she punctured the skin, she bit down harder to make the wound bigger, then, once she had the inhibitor in her teeth, ripped it out with a powerful pull-back of her neck, taking some skin with it.
“AH! Jaysus!” he exclaimed as under-his-breath as possible, inhaling sharply as he tried to keep the noise down. He blinked a few times, clearing the tears that had involuntarily formed and feeling the implant finally restarting. He started tugging at his shirt sleeve, trying to rip a strip off to cover the wound and stem any bleeding.
“That did it… great stuff Taleste. Now, ‘ere’s the rub….. Can’t get outta here, just the two of us. We’re gonna need a bit of help, from them” he nodded in the direction of the handful of other prisoners who shared their holding cell. “You’re definitely the better talker…. Right now especially, think you can rally us some troops?”
Taleste nodded, wiped away the blood from her mouth and chin, and turned to study the rest of the transport, or as much as she could see from here. She was looking out for any prisoner of interest. Any prisoner who looked like an easy mark, or perhaps a very difficult mark. Either way, she believed she’d know when she saw them.
They were sharing the holding cell with just 4 others- a Karthian wrapped up in a full-steel straight jacket and jaw harness. A human man sat near the restrained alien, dark-haired with a crew cut. He was exhibiting telltale signs of stardust withdrawal- red nose, darkened eyes, shaking hands. Not far away sat an Endo warrior, easily distinguishable by the near-white skin, shaved head and wide green eyes. The Endo were a cult-like tribe of humans who believed that the key to the next stage of evolution was injecting themselves with a cross-mixture of various alien DNA. This one in particular had a steel gauntlet encasing his left arm up to the elbow, probably restraining a cybernetic limb. Lastly, off at the back by herself, was a very normal-looking human woman, pale-skinned, ginger hair, tattoos peeking out of her short-sleeved prisoner shirt. She was eying up Grayson closely, carefully. Not like she knew him, more that she was simply wary of the newcomer to the holding cell.
-
Stryker stepped into the war room, his brow furrowed as he checked out the latest recon images on his datapad. It had been 3 days since Grayson and Amy had been taken, 3 days since he had cold-cocked Voss and jettisoned him and Treliving in their shuttle off to the far corner of the galaxy. The ‘rescue attempts’ had gone poorly, to say the least. The morning after the incident, Grayson had been taken to a max security Federation facility on the far side of the planet. They kept the place on high alert, so storming the beaches was suicide. Amy had been kept in the city center, the same holding facility the duo had initially been brought to. There hadn’t been any movement there at all. The team had actually just this morning, managed to get a bug onto an unsecured server, where they learned that Amy had already been transferred off-world and Grayson was due to be sent to the Kyln the next morning. Perfect timing as always.
SAL had approached the captain a day ago, with a rather startling confession. The reason he and Grayson were a ‘package deal’ despite seemingly hating each other. A few years back, they had both independently accepted a contract from a crime boss who operated out of the Corvais System. The job involved crossing an active war zone, and had gone poorly, so as punishment, the boss had proximity-based microbombs implanted in both of them. SAL reassured Stryker that they still had time before he and Grayson needed to ‘check in’ to keep the bombs dormant, but the clock was ticking down. Just another day in the life.
“Alright gang” he said as he looked up at the assembled crew “I’m not gonna sugar coat this. We already lost some good people, and we’ve only got one shot to try and save the one who still has a chance. You all have your jobs, you all have access to the transport ship blueprints to review the plan. We strike as soon as they clear the system, best estimate is in about 6 hours. I want gunners at their positions and the boarding party ready to move in. Any questions at all, you send them my way. Until then, dismissed.”
The days immediately after the mission were spent with a tentatively celebratory mood. The remaining members of the crew were happy to have gotten out alive, and also no longer being the Alliance's lapdogs. But the mood was soured by the losses they had taken, some members having been friends with the few who didn't return, the most obvious of course being Grayson, the trusted partner of their de-facto leader, Stryker.
During the first time the crew was assembled to discuss what to do with them, Benny was among the first to suggest "Fuck 'em. They're either dead or they're on their way ta' being it with the shit we've done to that planet and we'll probably just get more of us caught trying". Unfortunately, SAL had reported that Grayson was a priority due to the fact that he was rigged to explode if he didn't get close to Grayson within a few days. Benny put out the idea to simply jettison SAL out the airlock, which he quickly retracted after a combined glare from Matija and Tibulass.
"What if we just defused it? The Mad Scotsman here could probably figure out how it works" Matija asked. "Oh of course. Let's try the first thing the meatbag and I thought of when we had the chance. I am certain it shall turn out better this time" SAL retorted. This caused Matija to shake her head and sigh. "We're a buncha tough-as-nails bastards makin' our way through the galaxy, but sure! Let's risk our hard-earned freedom fer some hero work." She said with a sarcastic smile. "At least we only need to rescue one person... Not like we'll use the entire ship or whatever. Yanno? The ship that happens to be our only home." She finished in a defeated tone.
Benny walked down the hallway contemplatively. After the meeting had been adjourned Matija had tapped him on the shoulder, telling him to meet at her room in a few hours. She mentioned she just had to take care of a few things before they spoke. It was an odd request and he didn't see any reason to say no.
While some might have thought this would lead into a more heated encounter, Benny often considered the worst case scenario when it came to things. Oftentimes it let him be ready for when shit hit the fan. So he wondered if there was something she had wanted to settle with him. Perhaps she still harbored some earlier resentment and wanted to make that clear? Terminate their acquaintanceship? Maybe she felt that he owed her more for helping with their jetpack project and planned to extort him for it? Possibilities ran through his head and very few of them were good.
Because of that he didnt notice that he was already standing in front of her room, lingering idly in the hallway. He wasn't sure for how long but he figured he had hesitated long enough with his daydreaming and might as well get this over with. He knocked once on the door and waited for her to open it. No response.
He tried to knock again and this time called out to her as he did. "Hey uhh... Ya called me here? It's Ben. He said. This time the door opened a crack with Matija peering out before opening it further. "Hey. Come on in" she replied. He tentatively stepped inside and looked around the room as Matija closed the door behind him. It was certainly much neater than his own
"Sooo... wa's this about?" Benny asked. "Iunno. I just, uh. Wanted ta ask, I guess. How you're... doing?" She started as she walked over to her bed and gestured for him to sit nearby. She looked him over and took note of the visible bruises he had taken during their harrowing escape. "You got yerself checked yet? No internal bleedings or anything?" She continued. Benny nodded as he hesitantly approached and took a seat at the edge of her bed.
"Oh uhh... fine I guess? And aye I got checked out on tha' flight back. Nothin's broken in there" He responded. Matija seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if wondering what to say before speaking. "You, uuh... Doing okay? I mean, with yer mission gettin' all messed up an' shite- er- shit. Ahah..." She said, correcting her mis-pronunciation.
"Uhhh... I'm fine I mean... is nae anymore dangerous than what I've already done before" He started, feeling awkward about the whole exchange. "So... did ya just call me ta' check up on me? 'cause ya could'a asked it earlier in tha' meeting" He continued.
"Aye I guess but yanno... Sometimes things happen and... shit I guess." She responded with a sigh before she turned her head up and spoke in a more annoyed and aggressive tone. "Look, I just wanted to ask you how you were an' shit. I'm fine, by the way." She finished with a huff. Benny looked at her uncertainly before talking. "Oh... yeah I uhh... heard yer part o' the mission went off withou' a hitch. That was... some good news yesterday at least. Ya ken with... all the other shite..." He responded, not sure if that was what she wanted to hear.
"Yeah good. Thanks" She said sarcastically as she turned away from him with her arms crossed. After a long uncomfortable pause she took a deep inhale and exhale and spoke again. "... I got... Worried when... the comms got too exciting. I couldn't hear past tha explosions so I got... scared that we'll be nicked one too many men off." She said in a less hostile tone. Benny looked at her, puzzled at her behavior before responding. "I see... Well ... we lost the Alliance attack dog at least" He answered.
"Yeah. That's one thing..." She said, with a long silent pause before continuing. "So uh. Anything in mind lately? Thoughts? Lingering senses of wonder?" She asked in a bit more casual tone.
"Wonderin' thoughts? Well... guess we could start with me thinkin' ya dinny just called me here for a 'how'd'ya do?'. Is there... somethin' yer wantin' ta' tell me? 'Cause I've been gettin' that feel since earlier. An' if it's about me body odor or somethin' then jus' spit it out already. I've heard worse" He said glancing away, feeling a bit annoyed that she seemed to be beating around the bush so much.
Matija grinned in amusement before talking. "Well ya know you need more showers and maybe a stronger deodorant. Trim yer armpit hairs ta lessent the musk and... hm. Use deodorants more often. Like, every after baths kinda deal." She said chuckling at the end of it.
Beny turned to look at them directly with a frown. "Oh well thanks a fuckin' lot fer this invitation ta yer hygiene lecture then!" He said in exaggerated annoyance before turning away from her."But... if that'll get ye off me case about it then... I'll keep it in mind..." He mumbled while still looking away.
Matija continued chuckling though it died down at Benny sounding defeated. "So... nothing?" She asked with a disappointed tone. "Okae. Fine. I like you. If you don't wannit, you're free ta leave." She continued quickly with a hint of exasperation.
Benny feelt his brows raise at her response. "Whuh..?" He started as he turned back towards her. "Not ta'... sound like a pre-teen schoolboy but... ya mean as in a 'like like' sorta way...?" He asked, already feeling stupid at his phrasing. "Pretty sure you are a pre-teen school boy. Yeah. I 'like-like' you." She lied with a roll of her eyes.
"Oh..." He breathed out, wondering how to feel or what to say about this. Though he did feel a flush of embarassment from the situation. He turned away from her before speaking. "Tha's uhh... erm... Fuckin' Hell... no one's told me that in bloody years I dinny ken what I'm supposed ta' say to that!" He said, his voice turning almost into mutters by the end of it. He paused momentarily before continuing. "I... Guess I like... You an' yer company too... Shite me in the arse this sounds stupid..." He finished while pressing his organic palm onto his forehead and trying to his his blushing with the same arm.
"Maybe some people have been tryin' to but you're just dense," Matija responded with a smile while also blushing herself. "If anything, I'm glad that we're in mutual agreement ta this. Usually, if it was more heated, this bed would be used for more than sitting." She finished with a reflexive chuckle.
"Eh?" Benny started glancing between them and the bed. "What do ye... Oh! Oh ya meant fer... Aye I... guess that would'a been the norm" He continued, blushing more in embarassment at how poorly he seemed to be handling it.
"It's awkward ta push it... Anyway, good talk." She said slapping him on the back, and hitting one of his bruises. Benny winced in response. "Ow... bad spot" He said with a groan. Matija immediately recoiled. "Oooh... shite. Sorry... Erm... how bad's tha bruisings?" she asked. "Most'll pass soon just... well a tank smacked me in that spot so it's a bit of a dinger" He explained. "Eh? Damn. Where?" She asked looked over his back. "Tha' part ya hit a... shockwave made a parked tank gimme a mean lovetap" He explained. "Oh. You should probably give me a rundown of what the hell just happened on your end since the big man's the only guy that really knows everything." She requested.
With a slight smile, he started re-telling the events at the military base from his perspective, with much commentary on the thoughts of his teammates and the ineptness of the Federation soldiers. They whiled away the hours sharing how each of their missions went and Benny actually found it pleasant to share his experiences and thoughts with someone. No one really ever bothered letting him talk freely much before. He always felt like he had to interrupt or interject. HBy the time they called it a night and parted ways, Benny felt like perhaps they ought to talk with each other more often.
After that crew meeting there wasn't much arguing the point that they HAD to save Grayson, or at least get the implanted bomb, as Benny added. Much of their time afterwards was devoted to coming up with a plan of attack to break out their resident sniper. They had considered breaking into the prison directly, but information gathered by Stryker and Sadaet over contacts and extranet sources ruled that out. There was too many risks involved. However, an opportunity presented itself when they intercepted information talking about Grayson's transfer onto a prison ship. They would be put into a transport craft heading off world which gave the Revenant crew the perfect time to strike. Eventually, the thinkers of their ragtag band came up with a plan and doled out the roles to each member of the crew to give them time to prepare before zero hour. On the day of the breakout, Stryker gathered the team together for one last quick briefing.
“Alright gang... I’m not gonna sugar coat this. We already lost some good people, and we’ve only got one shot to try and save the one who still has a chance. You all have your jobs, you all have access to the transport ship blueprints to review the plan. We strike as soon as they clear the system, best estimate is in about 6 hours. I want gunners at their positions and the boarding party ready to move in. Any questions at all, you send them my way. Until then, dismissed.”
Benny gave a curt nod of acknowledgement before turning around to head out and continue their preparations. Before they did however, Benny turned his head to shout out the rest of them "If this all goes sideways and we canny get tha' bombs ta' play nice, we better be leavin' the bag o' bolts behind!" He exclaimed, not wanting to return to the ship just to have SAL blow it apart.
With that, he went to his workshop to prepare the necessary items for the task. He packed 2 Tear gas grenades, 2 EMP grenades, and 2 Sleeping gas grenades on his bandolier. He figured he ought to keep his arsenal on the more non-lethal side given that they were unsure where the guards may fortify themselves and they wouldn't want to accidentally kill Grayson in the fight. He also prepared 2 Acidic bombs packed behind him to help make their way through a wall without potentially killing anyone on the other side of it. He did however, bring 3 Frag grenades for loading into his rifle's underslung launcher in case they had to clear a room without worry for collateral damage, and of course at least 4 magazines. The makeshift jetpack was stowed away in the workshop, given that it would have very little value inside of a transport ship.
"Alright, Skelly... Let's go keep this ship from blowin' up" He said to his robotic arm as he curled the fingers into a fist and stretched them out as a habitual practice of movement. Even after having used the bionic arm for so long, it was still sometimes odd to feel nothing but a numb sensation of motion whenever he moved it. With that, he decided to join the rest of the boarding party in preparation for the heist.
Tarka Rukk. 32 year old Karthian. -Leader of an independent pirate band. -Karthians are highly intelligent natural predators who have retractable sharpened bone blades, detachable jaws and fangs that can secrete a numbing neurotoxin.
Darius Neymar -30 year old human male. -Member of Tarka's pirate crew. -High potential psionic. Informally trained so he has untapped energy reserves -Stardust user. Currently in withdrawal
"Crusher" -26 year old, Tech-savvy Endo (a cult-like tribe of human who believe the key to the next stage of evolution lies in physiological changes to genetics via injecting themselves with a cross-mixture of various alien DNA. -Easily distinguishable by the near-white skin, shaved head, wide green eyes, and affinity for cybernetics. -Arrested for hacking Federation Data Storage Reserves
Moon -27 year old human woman. 5'4. Pale skin. Ginger hair, shoulder length, straight with some curls. -Combat medic -Mercenary, currently unaffiliated with any company. -Not known for being a team player.
Tarka had sat patiently and listened as the human had crossed the cell and begun to explain that she and the newcomer were plotting an escape but would need assistance. His companion Darius had spoken on his behalf, given that his jaw was currently locked up in a harness. He had nodded along through the introductions and all that. The woman who called herself Taleste was in the middle of trying to free the Endo's cybernetic arm from its encasing when the other woman, Moon she called herself interjected the planning.
"Don't mean to interrupt, it's a great speech and all, but your man over there isn't looking too hot."
Grayson's eyes watered openly. He was trapped in a never ending loop of old memories, part of his implant's reset process was to playback old recordings to mask the loading procedure. ".....such a dork sometimes, you know that?" Amy said, unable to suppress a giggle as she turned over in the bed to face him, scooting closer to lay her head against his chest and wrap an arm around him. "I am serious though love" Grayson insisted as he absentmindedly stroked her back, his fingernails lightly scraping along her shirt "the parabolic of tha shot kin be recreated 78.9% of the time right now. Wit my work applied, even some'un like meself who've never played holo could do it with 86%" "I don't doubt you, I just can't believe you're trying to get me interested in calculations at this hour when I'm trying to sleep" she leaned up long enough to kiss him "goodnight nerd..... love you" "I love you too hon... don't know how I'd live witout ya" Grayson replied "I never wanna spend a day apart from you for the rest of our lives" "Uh, yeah, I can tell" she giggled again as she played with the diamond ring on her finger.
SLAP "Snap out of it hero, we need those eyes of yours to get out of here... apparently" The voice cut through the memory, severing the train of thought like a hot knife through butter. Grayson grabbed his face with one hand and yelped in momentary pain as he wiped his eyes with the other and looked up from his seat to see the short ginger woman smirking down at him. "C'mon, up and at em.... don't literally get up though. At first glance, it seems to me like you have at least 2 cracked ribs, so walking out of here is gonna suck, save your energy."
Slowly, the room came back into focus and the implant had fully reset, so he got to work with scanning their surroundings, trying to identify the proper security panel. "Plan's simple folks" he said, just low enough for all of them to hear "First things first, we all need to appear as if we're still properly restrained. Once I find the right security panels, the Endo over there can hack them remotely. One to loop the security footage in this cell, and another to overload the automated response system. Once that's dead, the psionic can blast open that door, and we all fight our way to the security center for this section of the ship, blow open the doors to all the cells, and move up, arming ourselves every chance we get, until we wipe out these Feddy bastards and take the ship into the Deadzone before disappearing on our own ways"
"Ballsy" the redheaded woman said with a smirk "I like it" The two pirates and the Endo nodded in cautious agreement, they didn't seem totally sold, but everyone in that cell knew that they had to try- anything was better than what would happen if the ship arrived at the Kyln.
Grayson pointed out the right security panel and Crusher got to work, subtly toying with hidden switches and triggers under the prosthetic skin of his arm, his eyes glimmered red all the while. No one moved, or even spoke for several minutes until finally Crusher's lips parted. "I'm in" he said, barely more than a whisper "It's done"
"Taleste, mind helpin' me up?" Grayson said with an arm outstretched as he held his side, throbbing painfully after Moon's not-so-gentle poking-and-prodding excuse of a medical examination. While Tarka, Moon and Crsher busied themselves with tossing off already loosened restraints, Darius stood, scratching his nose as he sniffed audibly and started to weave his hands around in the air close to the door, which began to hum and glow with psionic energy.
"Everyone ready?" he asked as he pressed his hands against the door. The psionic glow vanished for a moment before Darius' hands started shining bright blue, the glow spread to the door itself and it shook violently on its hinges before being tossed clear of the frame with a loud clatter.
"GO!" Tarka hissed loudly as spikes erupted from his forearms and he and Darius charged out the door, soon followed by Crusher.
Revenant, Bridge On Fast Approach Vector With Prison Freighter Knoxx
Stryker, fully armored sans helmet, stood behind Tib's chair as they came up quickly on the prison transport ship. He was still and silent as he let her do her thing, no need to be barking orders when she already knew what she had to do. The more technically proficient members of the crew had really banded together to pull off a few minor miracles for the sake of the mission. Firstly, they had been able to equip the ship with a weaponized EMP to disable the defense measures on the Knoxx, secondly, reverse-engineering the proximity meter on the bomb in SAL's head to actively seek out Grayson's own proximity signal, and finally, digging around in the Revenant's weapons systems uncovered some pirate subroutines that the Alliance hadn't scrubbed completely. That was the key to their plan, options to safely board the ship and get their guy back. The last update had indicated that Sadaet's countermeasures to disable the Alliance surveillance and control tech were nearly complete as well.
Tib and a small team were staying behind to man the guns and protect the ship, everyone else was geared up and waiting down below. Stryker held the small sensor in his hand that was pinging Grayson's location, soon they'd be in range to get an exact location on him.
"Everyone hold on, here we go" Stryker broadcast over the comms as he took a seat in the co-pilot's chair while Tib increased their speed. The Revenant's drive core roared and echoed through the ship as she streaked forward. There was no hiding the fact that they were coming for the Knoxx, surely they'd have registered the approach on the sensors now and were attempting to hail them to no avail.
"Launching EMP.... now" Stryker said as the ship pulled up alongside the Knoxx and dropped to match their speed. The ship rocked and stuttered for a moment as the outer guns started to batter their shields, but he calmly flipped a switch and the angled EMP blast killed their defenses. "Gun crew, sync up" Stryker announced as he held up the location device "Seems like Grayson is on the starboard side of the ship, we'll breach over here, mid-ship hallway of the port side and fight our way across." "His signal is..... moving?" SAL said over comms "Curious" "Should've figured he wouldn't give up without a fight" Stryker replied "Ok, shots synced, go"
The side-facing guns of the Revenant rotated into position and opened fire, peppering through the shields and eventually cracking the hull. "Breach registered" Stryker said. Tib nodded and pulled the ship away, looping around swiftly and increasing the speed just enough to catch up to the Knoxx and line up the front of the ship with the hull breach. "Boarding harpoons loaded up.... fire" Every second gun along the right side of the ship fired a single time in unison. Electro-magnetic anchors that synced up to the ship's guns via laser-lines. An old piece of tech that pirates still used today to latch on to their prey and hold them captive. Though with the massive size difference between the Revenant and the Knoxx, it was more like they were a flea dug in tight to the bigger ship.
"Alright well..... good luck" Stryker said a little awkwardly as he ducked his head in close enough to kiss the side of Tib's head before getting up and heading down to group up with the others.
'What the hell are you doing? She's gonna think you're a dork' a little voice in his head said as his face flushed red on the way downstairs. Outside, the ship angled itself slightly and deployed a docking tunnel at high enough speed to punch through the hull breach and initiate a gravity seal. Thanks again pirate tech. Stryker checked his weapons with one hand as he fumbled with his helmet in the other, marching to the front of the line of his assembled team members.
"No big speech this time guys, simple as can be. Expect heavy resistance, watch each others backs, and lets bring our boy home" Stryker said as his helmet snapped into place. The boarding seal was complete and the tunnel opened up. He led the charge with a subtle nod as a 'let's go' to everyone else.
Taleste listened to Grayson's plan. She kept quiet because it didn't matter either way, but there was no point in looping the security footage. They'd be fighting their way out and raising hell shortly anyway, and it won't even help keep the records clean because they'll all likely be captured on every other security camera between here and the Security Center. Even if they aren't, their cell will be empty. It won't take a detective to work out that this group were the culprits of the mayhem that they're about to cause. The rest of the plan was solid. Risky, but a lot better than getting the prospect of getting sent to the Kyln. There would be no getting out of there.
When Crusher began to hack, Taleste changed her mind, and still appearing to be restrained, wandered over to him. "There's no point in looping the camera, mate. The seconds it will buy us before we start making noise isn't worth the time it would take to set up a loop in the first place. Just saying," she spoke quietly, before moving back to Grayson's side.
Once they were all ready to go, Taleste slipped off her restraints and pulled Grayson to his feet, and putting his arm over her shoulder. The door finally gave way and exploded off it's hinges. Everyone burst out before her, and she and Grayson slowly ambled their way behind the rest, who fought a path for them. Taleste had never been a big fan of fighting, but her recent time with the SKaldrum hve given her an appreciation for the sheer visceral joy of combat. The moment she saw something she could use as a blade, Grayson was getting passed on to somewhun else!
