Featuring: Zeta Squad
Hunting...
“Sahusanar, you should hear this.” The alien took one lingering glance over the stricken room, absorbing the pain that had been endured by the defenceless primitives within. He used that pain, moulded it, fed it into a righteous anger. It was a cold fury, but fury none-the-less. The Hunter turned from the scene and walked back out the way he had come, his bulky frame cutting through police tape. He cared little for whatever reason the humans had left such material around the building, though he suspected it was for some investigative reasons they would be hard pressed to find anything of him at the scene besides some slight imprints on the ground. If anything, that fact would confuse forensic investigators greatly.
“Go on, Keia.” There was a slight twinge to his reply that his supervisor caught on, it was rare to hear any sort of emotion in Hunter’s voice on mission.
“Sweep teams have detected a potential Code-2 violation; one sweeper is investigating a very tenuous but potential Code-1 violation.* No leads on the Parasite yet, but it is to remain your primary target until action is necessary, just a warning for now.” “Is that everything, Keia?” He also heard a twinge in her voice, like she had something she wanted to say but was holding it back for some reason. He was immediately suspicious, suspecting he wasn’t going to like whatever she had to say. He was right, as well.
“No, there’s something else. I know you won’t want to hear this Hunter, but listen to me and give my words proper thought, confirmed?” Reluctant, with a lengthy pause and an awkward silence preluding his response.
“Confirmed.” The Hunter said.
“We have detected a small group of humans who share your go-” “No. I do not work with primitives.” “Hunter, you will hear me. These primitives are well equipped, they share your goal, they use technology which although basic shares something of the ingenuity of your own. They are aware of what they fight, they are trained in their way, they would be of use to you.” Another lengthy pause, if not for that tone of voice, that one which betrayed that Keia was not willing to be swayed, Hunter would have refused outright. He still might have, if not for her final remarks.
“Si sorod ssat orassih hiss uslessa hiss bays saida.” I would not suggest such unless such was truth. “Saida?” “Saida, Sahusanar.” *The primary directive of the Republic is to avoid all contact with pre-t1 civilisations. Breaches of this directive are as followed, with Code-1 punished with the greatest severity.
Code 1: Direct and conscious interaction with a pre-t1 civilisation.
Code 2: Direct but accidental interaction with a pre-t1 civilisation.
Code 3: Indirect interaction with a pre-t1 civilisation.
and Gathering
On the outskirts of L.A, Hunter stalked a small group of humans. They were his quarry, but despite how mad it felt to him he meant to make contact with them in direct violation of the primary directive of the Republic. Lucky that he was exempt from Code violations, at least in extreme circumstances where conscription was justified, because otherwise he might have had to Hunt himself. Now he thought about it, that was probably why he was exempt.
The Zeta squad, unaware of their stalker, was huddled in the outskirts of LA. In a small suburb called Angel Hill to be exact. The downtrodden area was mainly an industrial area, with some less then legal operations taking the occasional stab at running their business out of the shadier parts. The Zeta squad moved as a unit. They swept the premises of an old now empty and abandoned factory that once produced brand clothing. Their quarry had come this way; they were acutely aware of its lingering presence.
"Ace calling in, all clear on west wing." One voice buzzed.
"This is Bush. All clear" Bush was heard sounding off.
"Bowen here, All clear over."
"Chief here. Proceed as per instruction." Chief, aka Lyota, spoke with authority as she continued to fan out. Stopping by a door, she froze. Her proximity alarm flickered. The other clearly didn't notice, but she did. It could have been a glitch. But she could not risk it. "Bush, Ace, round up and get here trough alley. Bowen, I need you to get back here to. She didn't think it was the Parasite. It didn't have that kind of influence on tech.
"What's up Chief"
"Someone or something might be coming our way."
"What is? Our sensors aren't picking up shit."
"Yeah. Which is the problem. Something was a bit too good at masking. It killed the ambience backdrop of the sensors." Chief mumbled. Soon they were all were all sweeping the room, their heartbeats picking up a notch.
They are quite, sisktl, but that is to be expected from primitives." Hunter watched them from on high, unconsciously mimicking the second best Predator film as he watched the heavily armed and well equipped soldiers below. His body was translucent, the camouflage feature of his armour in full affect as he remained completely still.
"Still... they show some promise." He begrudgingly admitted, having recognised that one of the group (they all looked the same to him) seemed to have alerted the others to something in the vicinity. If he had to guess, they were probably using some form of outdated proximity sensors. In this case, that was to their benefit, as lower tech solutions were often somewhat effective at detecting the presence of GRP tech, provided you know what you were looking for. Spotting what wasn't there was a good trick that he had learned a long time ago, he suspected he was looking at a human who had learned to do the same.
They passed below him, they were sweeping the warehouses apparently and had just left the building he himself stood upon, fanning out in a defensive formation. Approaching them could be difficult without turning things into a gunfight they would surely lose, painfully. Hunter spent a moment working through this issue, deciding on his course of action. He didn't spend long, and not for a moment did he second guess himself.
His heavy bulk slammed into the ground behind the group as they prepared to move out. It was the first real indicator of his presence, as his invisibility melted away and he stood before them in his armour, though what weapons he had were clearly still attached to their mag holsters. He raised one hand, almost as if he were about to draw the curtains, it was an alien gesture of peace. His voice projected from the armour, carefully modulated so it did not seem synthetic, but rather as if the armour itself was talking.
"Hold your fire, soldiers, I do not come to fight you."All four of them instinctively moved to cover, creating a pretty impressive kill zone around the alien. But none fired, as this was clearly not the Parasite. Chief knew instinctively that who they were facing was not human. The size, the proportion, the armour. It was all alien to them.
"Identify yourself"
"Sahusanar Operative, 142." The military response to such a question was hardwired into him, he answered before even thinking.
"Your weapons are unable to breach this armour, lower them and listen to me." He waited, their next decisions could be fatal, one way or another.
Chief hesitated for a moment, then she lowered her gun. They did not have anti-personnel round or anti-armour equipment. Their rounds were specifically made to take out a psionic. They'd be an expensive and futile waste against this one. "Lower your gun guys." She said in a 'do not question me' cadence that reverberated throughout the empty factory. Her eyes fasted on their new alien acquaintance.
"I am Lyota, Zeta Squad Retrival Unit. Chief to my men." She nodded to the others. "These are my squad mates. Ace, Bowen and Bush." She pointed at him.
To the soldiers, they were confronted by what looked like something out of science fiction. Standing well over seven-foot-tall, evidently covered in some sort of dark blue-ish black armour of an unusual metal, it was difficult to tell even if there was anyone inside the armour or if it was some sort of robot. All they knew for sure was that it wasn't like anything they had ever seen, and they were clued up on the technological innovation of their country's research projects. It couldn't be one of theirs.
Hunter lowered his hand and regarded each human as their identifier was called. Good, the humans evidently shared some of the conventions of his people, and the Republic. That would make co-operation far easier. Unfortunately, he'd have a difficult job telling the humans apart enough to distinguish who he was referring to. Except for their 'Chief' whose aura of command he respected, and whose features suggested she was what humans referred to as a 'female' of their species. He could tell her apart, and one of the others looked a bit like her so she was probably a female too, but lacking that aura of command. The other two, not so much.
"Lyota, you and your... men, may refer to me as Hunter." It was unlikely they could use his native word for Hunter, seeing as how it was a sibilant language that sounded quite alien to a human.
"I will raise the head with you, I know that you and your soldiers ossa my quarry." He paused, re-adjusting his thinking and trying to avoid using his native idioms and tongue.
"We share a goal, is what I say. I am also hunting the creature you seek; we call it Parasite."Chief listened closely to the Aliens words. There was a something lost in the translation to be sure, but she got the gist of it none the less. Protocol said that any big changes to the plan needed to be logged and discussed. But they were too close to bother with such things. Instead she offered her hand. "Well. We would be stupid not to consider extra firepower a blessing. Parasite you say? Funny, that is what Zeta has come to call it to." She didn't trust the creature, but they were ill-equipped to deal with it. And Parasite had to be stopped and soon.
"So. Do any of that fancy tech of yours any Anti-Parasite equipment as it were? We are outfitted specifically to deal with it."
Hunter seemed to struggle with the question for a moment, but he gathered the gist of it eventually.
"Yes, I am equipped with anti-psionic weaponry and implants, I see you have taken similar precautions. However, if you fight the Parasite as you are, it will destroy you." He spoke in a matter of fact way, a right he hadn't really earned as he had yet to face the Parasite himself. All he had to go on, though it was a reasonable deduction, was that Parasite was one of the most wanted criminals in the Republic. Four humans with rudimentary technology just could not take something like that down. Not without help.
"I am not here to offer my help, I am here to... conscript, yours. If you follow my orders, you may survive the fight ahead, I will not take orders and to work without a chain of command would be worse than to fight separately, so my offer is non-negotiable.""Conscript? Now listen her-" Bowen began but Ace stopped him.
"Conscript would imply we are subjects to you and those you represent. We are sovereign citizens of the United States, of Earth. We will follow you, and let you lead, but only because you seem to be better equipped and informed."
"I do not know your language well, but I say conscript because I am taking you into armed service, and you have no choice. It is well that you recognise this." He held up his left hand in a peaceable gesture and slowly drew a strange bulky looking pistol from behind the small of his back. He kept it pointed low, so as to not startle the sisktl humans.
"This, is a Sarastor. You would call it 'Singer'. It is effective against psionics, and the fields they create. You can see how this will be of use against the Parasite. He assumed the soldiers understood why it would be effective, and presented it handle first to their leader. To her, it would resemble a small weaponised mega-phone, and look quite ridiculous if not for the fact that it was clearly made from that same strange metal Hunter's armour seemed to consist of. It was heavy, but not cumbrously so.
"Ace." Chief look to the mousey redhaired woman who was bending forward to get a better look. "Interesting. This metal.. Its so vibrant. It's alien alright." She said and straightened up. She presented her own weapon for Hunter to inspect.
"This is a Heckler and Kosh Z-22 model. They are prototype models really, based on what our boys in white can conjure up. We are all packing Anti-Psi rounds. Once fired, they vibrate with a energy frequency that slices through any psychic forcefield."
Hunter allowed the woman to take his weapon so he could get more hands on with the pistol. It was important to understand the limitation of his allies, and how much he would need to equip them with to make them an effective fighting force. Practiced fingers, deft despite their armour cladded nature, broke the weapon apart in an impressive replication of the cleaning process. It was not a weapon he knew anything about, but his experience and skill with firearms was legendary. He put the weapon back together as fast as he had broken it up, somehow not dropping any of the separate pieces, and gave it back to its owner.
He railed off a bunch of the weapons statistics, somehow recognising on sight the strengths and limitations of the firearm. It was a practical and efficient weapon, but it lacked a measure of sophistication. It was like an iron sighted hunting rifle stacked up against a military DMR with precision scope, functional, but at a disadvantage none-the-less.
"Simple, but functional. I will not expect you to use a weapon you are unfamiliar with, but I can outfit you each with a Sarastor if you wish.""...Do we get to ke-"
"I am fairly sure we do not." Chief stopped the over enthusiastic Ace before she put a foot so far in her mouth she'd choke. "We employ some pretty potent equipment for our planet, but if you see fit to help us outfit for this particular mission. I think we can learn to operate within acceptable standards, even for you Space Man." She said as she rested her own rifle on her shoulder. "I am sticking to this though." She patted the clearly alien weapon.
"Our boys found it in a crash pod around 70 years ago. To date, nobody knows how to replicate it. And it is likely for the best." She said. The Semi organic looking, weirdly shaped rifle was something Hunter might know of. To him it would be a outdated thing seen in fringe space and used by a races of nomadic, very hostile lifeforms. The rifle was a crude, high energy beam rifle. Meant to put down very big targets. It would be sufficient against Parasites defences due to the sheer power of its beam.
Hunter had noticed it, but he was purposely ignoring it. He didn't want to draw attention to the fact that he knew just what it was, and would have to come back later and kill every single person who had knowledge of the weapon, destroying the original. It was unfortunate that such technology had fell into the hands of a human.
"So, you have some idea of what I may be. I would advise you to draw back your mind, curiosity will not serve you well with me. I will outfit each of you with a Sarastor, you will return the weapons to me when our work here is done and that will be the end of it. "Roger that. I am of the firm mind that we shouldn't mess with what isn't ours." She offered him a smile “It's why I took this job to begin with." She saluted him. "Consider us conscripted then."
"Welcome to the GRP, Zeta."
Member
LeeRoy
Nytefall
