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Yes I am blood-related to Oskar Schindler, the Protagonist of the Steven Spielber Award-winning movie "Schindler's List." Stop asking me!
This is not part of a novel. Simply a history lesson about my family for those that are interested.
To many today, the name Oskar Schindler will not be familiar to you. Many, however, are familiar with the 1993 award winning Steven Spielberg picture 'Schindler's List,' a movie presenting to us the life of Oskar Schindler and his effects on the Holocaust during WWII. Oskar Schindler is perhaps the greatest hero to rise from the smoke and destruction of the Holocaust. As his Great-Grandson, I intent to share his legacy with the rest of the world so that they may not forget the terrors of the world and how big a difference one man can make.
To 1200 Jews a womanizing, heavy-drinking, German-Catholic industrialist and Nazi Party member named Oskar Schindler was all that stood between them and death at the hands of the Nazis. He remained true to 'his' Jews, the workers he always referred to as 'my children'. He rose to the highest level of humanity and gave them a second chance at life. He spent millions to protect them, everything he possessed, and eventually risked his life in desperate rescue attempts. In those years, millions of Jews were exposed to ruthless slaughter in the Nazi death camps, but Schindler's Jews miraculously survived. He earned their everlasting gratitude - today there are more than 7,000 descendants of his Jews living in the US, Europe and Israel.
Oskar Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 in Zwittau-Brinnlitz, Austria-Hungary (now Svitavy, Bohemia, in the Czech Republic). He was born into a wealthy business family, but in the 1930s his family soon went bankrupt because of the Great Depression. As a teenager, Schindler joined the Nazi Party. His parents, Hans and Louisa, divorced when Oskar was 27, the source of his resentment for his father.
An opportunistic businessman, he was one of many who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Schindler brutally decepted his way to own a factory in Kraków from a jewish industrialist named Nathan Wurzel. Schindler, on Wurzel's advice, renamed the factory Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik, or DEF, to manufacture enamelware. He obtained around 1,300 Jewish slave labourers to work there with the help of his Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. When Stern and Schindler were first introduced to each other, Schindler held out his hand. Stern declined to take it. When Schindler asked why, he explained that he was a Jew and it was forbidden for a Jew to shake a German's hand. Schindler answered with a Teutonic (German) expletive: "Scheiße" (s**t). Stern could tell from the start that this was no ordinary German. Initially he may have been motivated by money - hiding wealthy Jewish investors, for instance - but later he began shielding his workers without regard to cost. He would, for instance, claim that unskilled workers were essential to the factory. Harming his workers would result in complaints and demands for compensation from the government. Schindler was arrested three times during the war, once even for just kissing a young Jewish girl on the cheek. His second arrest was by the Gestapo for black market activities. Today it is known that Schindler was an Abwehr agent.
While witnessing a 1942 raid on the Kraków Ghetto, where soldiers were used to ship the ghetto inhabitants to the concentration camp at Plaszow, Schindler was appalled by the murder of many Jews whom he had tried to hide. He was a very persuasive individual, and after the raid, increasingly used all his skills to protect his Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews). Schindler went out of his way to take good care of the Jews who worked at DEF, often calling on his legendary charm and ingratiating manner to help his workers get out of difficult situations. Once, says author Eric Silver in The Book of the Just, "Two Gestapo men came to his office and demanded that he hand over a family of five who had bought forged Polish identity papers. 'Three hours after they walked in,' Schindler said, 'two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded'". Schindler also reportedly began to smuggle children out of the ghetto, delivering them to Polish nuns, who either hid them from the Nazis, or claimed they were Christian orphans. He arranged with Amon Göth, the commander of Plaszow, for 900 Jews to be transferred to an adjacent factory compound where they would be relatively safe from the depredations of the German guards. Schindler was arrested twice on suspicion of conspiracy, but managed both times to avoid being jailed. Schindler would typically bribe government officials to avoid investigation. When the advance of the Red Army threatened to liberate the concentration camps, almost all were destroyed and a majority of the inmates murdered. Schindler, however, moved 1,200 "workers" to a factory at Brněnec-Brünnlitz in Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in October 1944. When one shipment of his workers was misrouted to Auschwitz, he managed to have them returned to him at an extremely hefty price. Brněnec was liberated in May 1945.
At the end of the war Schindler emigrated to Argentina. He went bankrupt and returned to Germany in 1958 to start a series of unsuccessful business ventures. Schindler settled down in a little apartment Am Hauptbahnhof Nr. 4 in Frankfurt am Main in West Germany and tried-again with help from the Jewish organization-to establish a cement factory. This was not a success either, and it went bankrupt in 1961. His business partner in Germany cancelled the partnership saying, “…now it is clear that you are a friend of Jews and I will not work together with you anymore…” Oskar Schindler died in Hildesheim, Germany, on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. He was buried at the Christian Cemetery at Mount Zion in Jerusalem.[1] In 1963, Oskar Schindler was named a Righteous Gentile (non-Jew). He was the third Christian to ever receive this honor.
No one really knows what Schindler's motives were, including Schindler. He was quoted as saying "I knew the people who worked for me... When you know people, you have to behave toward them like human beings."
 DarkImpact · Tue Jul 11, 2006 @ 06:32am · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 6
1:53 hours, April 11, 2037 (Earth Calendar)
Uncharted Planet/ Galteh System/ Checking ship status
“What’s our Status?” Cole asked as he picked himself up off the floor.
“Not good Sir.” Brutus replied, “We lost 2 of the marines and the pilot. One has a broken leg. I doubt she’ll be able to walk.”
“Robin, how stable is the ship? Is she still functioning?”
“Let me find my glasses real quick… Ok, got ‘em. Lets see what I can find.” Robin was typing on the computer again. She was in her element once more. “Port thrusters are totaled and the ships anti-grav boosters are malfunctioning. She was never designed to enter the gravitational pull of a planet, so there is no chance of getting her back into space. As far as I can tell, all Starboard turrets were either destroyed in the fight or disabled in the crash. Surprisingly enough, we have 7 functional turrets on portside. Those may come in handy as a perimeter defense. The ship itself has enough power to last roughly 28 hours. 19 if we have any reason to use the turrets.”
“Good. That may give us a fighting chance when the Seraph come to inspect the crash. Robin, I want you to stay here. Tend to the others’ wounds and see if you can find an extra power source or fix some of the turrets. Takes this time to ready your armor as well. Brutus, Blade, you’ll help me salvage the ship of all functioning vehicles and weaponry. We’ll need whatever we find to form a defense.”
“I’ve shut off all power throughout the ship except for the bridge and the med bay to preserve energy. All the doors will be unlocked, but the lights are out and most of the doors will be closed. You’ll need to find a way to pry them open.” Robin said as she walked over to examine the marine’s broken leg.
Brutus smiled and cracked his knuckles, “No problem. Those doors will be easy to pry open.”
“Good. We should get to work. The Seraph will be on top of us any time now.”
The men that had prepared their evac ship had been careless. There were no vehicles onboard and they had only put one drop ship onboard. It hadn’t survived the crash.
“Look on the bright side. Their armory was full. At least we have plenty of weapons.”
“What good are weapons when there’s nobody to use them? We’ve searched most of this ship and, as far as I can tell, there were only a dozen men onboard. Why would they fully stock an armory, but not put any units onboard to use them. They were fully aware that they were picking us up on a Seraph controlled world, but sent no means of defense. If you ask me, something’s wrong with this scenario.” Cole had been suspicious since the beginning of their salvage hunt. They had found Beth’s body, the remains of the 3 Seraph they had killed, and those of a dozen others on the main deck, but every other floor was desolate. Not a single corpse or even a splash of blood on the other decks.
“Whoa, I hate conspiracies. I’ll leave the thinking to you guys. Just give my orders and I’ll follow them. Brutus said rubbing his head. “By the way, do you have a plan on how to get off this rock?”
“I had been hoping we could use a drop ship to at least put the wreck behind us and lose the Seraph, but since it’s totaled, our options are limited. First, we can manage to fix a radio and contact Sanctus for another ship. Second, we could hope the Seraph bring a ship with a functional slip space engine. Hijacking that would give us a clean shot at getting home.
“I like that one. If we decide to go with that, I’ll go modify a few of the rockets in the armory. EMP pulses come in handy on those ships.”
“Be ready to do that than. Chances are that radio is totaled. Just keep in mind we need to use that ship. Don’t cause any crippling damage to the ships super structure or we won’t be leaving.”
They had just finished search the hangar and were about to leave when Scryer stopped in his tracks. He was looking down at the ground where two of the metal sheets on the floor connected. He bent down on one knee, drew his knife from its sheath, and ran it along the crack on the floor. They heard metal snapping below it. Cole bent down next to Scryer to see what he was doing and noticed there were bolts between the creases. The two men stuck their fingers beneath the sheet and, together, lifted it to reveal a ladder leading downward.
“Well I’ll be damned.” Brutus said in awe. “That’s not something you find in USC ships every day.”
“Blade and I are going to head down and see what they were hiding. Brutus, you head back to Robin. Tell her what we found and assist her with her task. You won’t fit through the hole, but we’ll contact you and Robin if we find something of importance.
“Yes sir.” Brutus turned and headed for the elevator at the end of the room.
“I guess I’ll go…” Cole said as he turned around. Scryer was already half way down by time he’d turned around. Cole jumped onto the ladder and slid down into the darkness.
“What the hell are they trying to pull?” Brutus said to himself. “This isn’t a videogame. They have to be doing something against regulations if they have to hide it even from other USC personnel.”
He walked onto the bridge. Robin had injected the survivors with morphine to ease the pain and they were currently unconscious in the back of the room. He had expected her to be in her armor, but instead she had removed her clothes. She was working on the computer wearing nothing but her glasses and a pair of panties. No wonder. She had shut off the air conditioning to conserve energy, so it had to be at least 120 degrees onboard.
“Lookin’ good. You’ve grown a lot since we recruited you 2 years ago.” Brutus smiled as he closed the distance between them.
Robin blushed. She returned to her work, but not before she glared at him and uttered “Pervert” under her breath.
“I’m serious. You have grown a lot. I don’t just mean the size of your chest either. When we first recruited you, you were only 17, a reckless teenager joyriding through important computers. When Cole sent you on that first mission, you were reluctant to cooperate. But as you were taken deeper in, you were forced to rely on yourself more often. When you finally gave in, you were slow. Beat me no problem, but compared to now, you were slow and ignorant 2 years ago. Back than, you refused to move without being forced. Now you’ve got an entire situation under your control and you treat it as an everyday event.”
“If you’re hitting on me, it’s not going to work.” Robin said, turning a bright pink in the face.
“I’m not. It simply impresses me how much you’ve grown. I have a question. Don’t answer if you don’t want, but please humor me. Why did you accept the position on this team? After returning from that mission, you’re permanent record had been wiped clean. You were offered a position, but you didn’t have to accept it.”
“If you really want to know, I joined because of Cole. I had gone my life alone. Nobody paid me any attention unless I did something wrong, so I did what I do best. I hacked. After going on that mission, I realized there were people looking beyond my mischief. They were admiring me for who I was. Cole noticed my potential and offered me a position that could put my skill to use and improve upon it.” Robin said. She had leaned back in the chair and put her hands behind her head. She was staring at the ceiling, her breasts pointing toward the ceiling.
“Sounds like you have a crush on him.”
“No!” She blushed as she sat up and resumed her work, “I admire him. He’s a mentor and a friend, but most of all, he’s a leader. I’ll follow him to the end of the universe.”
“I’m glad we had this discussion. I just wish I could get Scryer to talk. He’s been quiet since we met him, but he seems to be speaking up lately. Maybe something will happen.”
“Where are the others?” Robin had just noticed nobody else had come back the entire time they were talking.”
“They found a hidden tunnel in Hangar D6. They decided to check it out.”
“Strange.” Robin said, “There are no tunnels on the map of the ship. However, I did notice a weird pipeline running there. I thought it was curious because it stopped just beneath the floor, but I assumed it was a gas line for refueling dropships.”
“Brutus, Robin, this is Cole. We’ve reached the bottom of the tunnel and have begun exploring below. The room is large enough to hide several thousand people and vehicles, but we have so far found nothing of importa…Cancel that. I may be mistaken, but I believe we have just found the mother load in nuclear devices. Brutus, you should get down here. We’ll need your help bringing these up. They may be of use to us.”
“Yes Sir.” Brutus said over the radio. He turned to walk out the door, but stopped short and looked over his shoulder. “By the way. Your breasts are quite large for one so young. You could make any guy happy.”
He ducked and moved through the door as her pants flew at where his head had just been.
Down in the shaft, Cole and Scryer were checking the condition of the missiles in case one of them may have been damaged in the crash.
“They look good to me.” Cole said, “We’re lucky these things didn’t kill us when we crashed.
As Scryer turned away from the missile he was inspecting, he noticed something glowing dimly in the corner of the room. He turned and walked over to find it was a laptop. He sat down in hope of learning the purpose of this room. As the screensaver dissipated, he found that it was being run on a Windows OS, probably 2000. This relic had come from the late 1990s. Why would they store something like this with nukes?
He ran through the Documents folder quickly, but found nothing but crap. He also searched through the C: Drive, which was equally useless. The only mysterious thing he found was an odd program called RUNCOMM. He tried opening it, but the program kept failing to load up. He must need a network.
Scryer was about to give up. He decided to try the Search feature. He did a search for anything containing the word ‘Sanctus.’ Nothing.
‘Nuclear.’
Nothing
‘Atomic.’
Nothing
‘Bomb’
Nothing
After a few more keywords, he typed in ‘BOOM’ out of frustration. It gave him one match. It was a file typed in MS Word. He opened it, but was quickly disappointed. Out of the entire message, only 2 words were readable. ‘Boom’ and ‘ruin.’ The rest of it was a bunch of squares. Apparently whatever had been put on this laptop used characters it didn’t understand. Scryer made a mental note to inform Robin about this later. Maybe she’ll be able to decipher it.
“Anything good on the computer?” Cole said finishing his inspection.
“Nothing I could make out.” He started making his way up the ladder. He was going to let Robin know of his discovery.
He walked in as Robin finished latching the lower half of her armor. She was still topless, so she moved to get a shirt that wouldn’t bother her under her armor.
“I found something you may want to look at. There was a laptop down in the shaft. I did a search through the files and found two that seemed out of place.”
“Give me five minutes to put my clothes back on and I’ll join you down there.”
Robin had finished preparing her armor and had made her way down to the nuke room. Scryer showed her the mysterious programs on the computer and went off to help the others. Cole and Brutus were standing around one of the missiles discussing how they might be able to keep them away from enemy hands.
“Shouldn’t we just do the opposite of what the men on Sanctus did?” Brutus suggested. “They had to get them down here somehow, so we get them out the same way.”
“Do you see any hangars doors in here? They must’ve taken up the entire floor to get these in here. If that’s the case, than I don’t think we’ll be able to get these out intact. We have low power and no tools required for that kind of work.” Cole said.
“How about a remote-detonation than? I still have a couple C4 packs from the mission. I could set them up on a remote detonator and…
“…and you’d blow us all straight to hell.” Jack said as he walked up behind them.
“He’s right. Detonation of this many explosives could put make the planet unstable. We can’t risk blowing them as long as were still here. If we manage to capture a Seraph vessel and escape this rock, the remote will be out of range.” Cole said grimly. “Our best bet is to seal these away and hope the Seraph don’t find them. We can come back later with another ship and bomb them from the sky.”
“What makes you think they’ll send a ship way out here?” replied Brutus.
“After we report our finding of the nukes to HQ, they’ll want to dispose of them quickly and question the leader of Sanctus colony. He’s breached protocol 343 of the USS Space Rights. We’re all ready at war with an alien race that has superior technology to our own. The last thing we need is a potential conflict from another branch of our own kind.”
“Hey guys. Good news.” Robin said from the computer. “I fixed the computer.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got.” Cole said as they gathered around the computer.
“First, we have the RUNCOMM program,” Robin said. “It was locking up on Jack because there was a missing file. Apparently, somebody wanted to delete the program, but did a shoddy job of it. I’ve managed to replace it and now we have access. The program is just as it sounds. It’s a communications program. I was able to recover only one transmission, which is the one Jack had already found, but had been unable to decipher. You couldn’t read it because you had to open it through this program. Here’s what it says:”
“We’ve made our ways through the forest and are currently camped out in front of the destination site. We’ve secured the perimeter around the base and have begun proceeding into the confines of the central building. The building’s infrastructure is in ruin. Several of the ceilings have collapsed, forcing us to re-direct our path. It also seems all hallways leading to our objective have been blocked off by debris. Curiously, the collapses don’t look natural. I think the previous workers wanted to seal off all access to the testing facilities in order to keep unwanted visitors from acquiring their work. We’re going to have to blast our way through. I can only pray we don’t mess this up. One wrong move and this place will either collapse or go BOOM…”
“This is all I’ve managed to uncover,” Robin Said. “The rest of the recordings were thoroughly removed. Based on what we’ve heard so far, I’d say these nukes were the objects they were searching for on that expedition.”
The floor beneath them suddenly began to rumble. Something powerful collided with the outer hull of the ship.
“Damn!” Brutus said. “You think the Seraph finally managed to mount an assault?”
Cole took a moment to catch his balance and assess the ships reaction to the attack. “No. It was too powerful to be a Seraph torpedo. Whatever it was, it was big.”
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:25pm · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 5
1:41 hours, April 11, 2037 (Earth Calendar)
Osaka Station/ Solar System/ Assessing battle results on Tolemo
“I want a full scale report on what the hell is happening out there lieutenant and I want them 10 minutes ago.” Sergeant Nyler had been pacing the halls all day, impatiently awaiting any reports from the conflict on Tolemo. He was now sitting at the head of the conference table with an unlit cigar in his mouth, waiting for the lieutenant to spit it out.
“With all due respect sir, we haven’t received any reports since we lost contact with ‘The Heavens Glory.’ That was over 2 hours ago. Thanks to a single surviving reconnaissance droid, we have confirmed that Tolemo has indeed been destroyed. We also have reason to believe that Heavens Glory was shot down by a Seraph ship that was likely left behind to insure there had been no survivors.” Lieutenant Simmons had been over the techs’ shoulders all night, monitoring the different radio frequencies near the Tolemo colony all day.
“This isn’t typical Seraph behavior. The Seraph have always aimed to keep our planets intact to reap our resources. This time they just flat out bombarded us.”
“Perhaps they realized it was futile to acquire the planet intact. They’re aiming to wipe us out sir. If they can’t have it, nobody can.”
“You don’t think I’m aware of that Lieutenant? But if the reports from the Clebrum are accurate, the actual fleet that attacked Tolemo was larger than any of us anticipated. We just lost half of our goddamn fleet and I’ll be damned if they don’t shrug off the few hundred ships we took from them. The Sergeants face was turning red with anger and stress, so he had to take a quick breath to calm himself down. “Have we heard anything from the Affliction or the Baynum?”
“No, Sir. One of the other ships reported the two changing coordinates. John Tenant, captain of the Affliction, commanded the rest of them to stay on course. Beyond that, we haven’t heard anything. Wait, we did intercept a communication between the Baynum and the Affliction that took place shortly before action was taken, but it’s very well encrypted. We haven’t been able to break it yet, but the techs are hard at work.”
“Dammit! What the hell was he thinking when he broke away and abandoned the rest of the defense. His ship could’ve been the difference between winning and losing that fight.”
“Don’t kid yourself sir. No matter how many ships we had out there, we would’ve lost. The only way we could stand a chance is by sending half of Earth’s defenses to aid. But we would’ve indeed lost against the second wave of Seraph ships.
“Hold your tongue lieutenant. Keep your rank in mind. Now why…”
A tech in the next room burst through the door. “Sir, we finished breaking the encryption on the transmission between the two rouge ships.”
Well,” Nyler said impatiently. “Are you going to play it or sit there scratching your a**?”
“Yes Sir! Right Away.” The Tech left the room and headed for his station.
Speakers in each corner of the conference room began to play, but the sound was low quality and very scratchy.
“What the hell are you thinking John!? We’re going to completely miss the assault!”
“Calm down Carl. We don’t need to get worked up over this. We’ve simply had a change in plans. If we stay and fight, than we will lose in the end. I’ve thought of a plan that’s risky, but can greatly improve our chances of winning. We’re going to secure one of the Seraph’s minor bases and see if we can’t attain a new toy to use against them. This is where we’re heading…”
As the two officers listened to John’s plan, they were both awed and disgusted. When the message ended, they sat there staring at each other, assessing what they had just learned. The room was quiet for a full minute.
“What team was onboard the Baynum Lieutenant?” The Sergeant asked curiously, almost in a daze. He was staring past the lieutenant’s face at the wall. He seemed to be deep in thought.
“We don’t know for sure, but there were 3 men and two women on the list that aren’t registered. We assume they’re the special team. The two women were Beth Watson and Robin Sanders. The men are Jack Scryer, Cole Halest, & Brutus. Brutus’s last name was not included and we have reason to believe that Brutus may be a nickname.”
At the mention of the 5 names, Nyler’s intuition had been confirmed.
“They’re still alive.” Sergeant Nyler said confidently. “If the people you just named off are correct, than the seraph on the planet Senvar are as good as dead.”
“With all due respect sir, do you mind my asking? Who are these people? They sound familiar, but I have been unable to decide how I know of them.”
“The people you see before you are the elite ops members of Team Brute. Beth the sniper, Robin the Hacker, Jack the blade master, Brutus the demolitions expert, and Cole, team captain and the man responsible for leading his team in over 200 victories. Thousands of Seraph deaths lay at their feet. They even managed to save Tolemo 4 of the 5 assaults Seraph launched against it. The 5th assault unfortunately being the most recent.”
The Sergeant stood and looked out the window toward the beautiful blue and green planet that rested not 5,000 KM away from them.
“Lieutenant, prepare a ship immediately and send it to the Planet Senvar. If they’re alive, we’re going to bring them home. Dismissed.”
“Yes Sir!” Simmons turned and left the room.
“Not as much as I’d hoped, but this is my first payment for you saving my life 10 years ago.” The Sergeant turned to the doorway leading to his private quarters and shut off the lights in the conference hall.
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:23pm · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 4
17:55 hours, April 10, 2037 (Earth Calendar)
Senvar/ Uncharted System/ Preparing to breach enemy base
“John! John! Do you read me, over?!”
Cole had been trying to contact the ship for 5 minutes. But the radio was filled with static bursts from the large explosion that had inevitably destroyed their only chance of escape.
“This is Cole, leader of Brute Team. If anybody is reading this, please respond.”
John,” Robin said softly. “There’s nothing out there. The fight is over and we failed our mission, but we lived to fight another day.”
”We have no way off this damn planet and it’s entirely my fault. I made an idiotic mistake that cost many men and women their lives. They’re dead while we’re still here.”
“Hey man. Lighten up on yourself. We all made a mistake. We’re a team. When one of us makes a mistake, we all make a mistake.” Brutus was trying to make light of the situation, but he didn’t know what else to say.
Meanwhile, Beth had been sitting away from the group, lost in her own thoughts. She was trying to thing of a way off the planet without The Affliction, but was so far unsuccessful.
All of a sudden, to everybody’s surprise, Scryer spoke up. “Why don’t we use the Radio station? You only reversed the receiver, so we can still contact any ships within range.”
“That could work.” Robin said. “ The Sanctus Colony is just inside range. It’ll be a weak signal, but we should be able to make contact with them.”
Several minutes later, Robin was back in the comm. station typing rapidly on the console. She had managed to repair the system and boost the power beyond the normal radius.
“Sanctus Colony, are you reading, over?” Cole spoke loudly through the microphone.
There was a short delay before they received, “This is Sanctus Colony. We are not reading your ship on our star charts or thermographs. How can we assist you?”
“This is Brute Team. We are currently stationed on the planet Senvar. Our op has gone awry and both ships ‘The Affliction’ and ‘Baynum’ have been put out of commission. We are requesting immediate evacuation ASAP.”
“Repeat. What is your position?”
Cole, with a slight hint of agitation, replied, “We are currently positioned on the planet Senvar, an abandoned Seraph Stronghold. We are requesting immediate Evac.”
“I understand, Sir. If you can send us your coordinates, we will send out an evac ship.”
Robin began typing furiously again. She was too fast for the rest of the team to track. All of a sudden, a layout of their position and space plain coordinates appeared and disappeared before their eyes.
“Sir, the coordinates have been received and a ship is being prepared for departure as we speak. Please hold your position until arrival.”
“Understood.” Cole said. He shut down the COM link and turned to Robin.
“I’m going to need your help. We need to take out that turret before our evac arrives. I want Blade and Brutus to stand guard outside the Base so we can keep radio contact with any incoming signals from space. Beth, I want you to return to your sniping point and keep a watch and the valley. Shoot only when necessary.”
“Yes sir!” The team replied in unison.
Beth and the Rest of the team split into separate groups and headed for their positions.
Brutus had sat down near to the entryway to the enemy fortress. His face was covered in soot from his encounter with the turret, but he didn’t seem to care. He had stripped the rocket pod away from his launcher and was polishing the inside. He claimed it had cost a lot and he wanted to make sure he got his moneys-worth. Truthfully, he had become attached to the weapon.
There were 4 bangs in the distance. Beth had apparently found a few targets heading in our direction. Blade had his Katana drawn and was staring intently ahead of our position. Brutus quickly reassembled his launcher and looked over the horizon to where Blade was staring. There was nothing out there.
“Hey buddy, Beth took out whatever was out there.” Scryer kept staring, ignoring Brutus remark. As he went to sit down, he took one last glimpse over the horizon and noticed a small speck off in the distance.
“Oh Hell! It’s growing!” Brutus yelped as he jumped up and shouldered his launcher once again. Within moments, he could tell what it was. The enemy had sent one of their sleek, silver drop ships into the atmosphere and it was heading for their position.
Brutus quickly contacted Cole and Robin over the COM link. “We have a major issue up here. Apparently the planet wasn’t as abandoned as we thought. One of their drop ships has been deployed and is heading in our direction. At its current velocity, it should be on top of us in roughly 6 minutes. Requesting permission to engage.”
“Hold your position.” Cole clicked off his COM link and turned to face the console Robin was hard at work trying to shut off.
“Damn them!” Robin Cursed. “They’re using a new form of encryption ands it’s being a real b***h.”
“Forget trying to shut it down for the moment. We have a problem. Brutus reported a lone drop ship heading in our direction. How fast do you think you could alter its fire trajectory?”
“Given what I’ve been able to break through, I should be able to have control in 10 minutes.”
“Damn! We need more time. Keep working. Brutus and Blade are going to buy us enough time to prepare the turret.”
Cole walked toward the entryway in hopes of getting a better reception over the COM. “Brutus. Blade. You have green light to engage. Give the enemy hell until we can gain full control of this turret.”
Brutus clicked off the COM and smiled in the direction of the incoming carrier. He put the reticule of his launcher up to his eye and aimed straight for the underbelly of the sleek, but deadly ship sailing across the sky. As it came closer to their position, he scanned the open ports for any weaknesses that might give his rockets a more effective punch. Nothing. This ship was perfectly sealed. The only way to even scratch the ship would be to fire during the launch phase of the pods. But that was too risky, so he patiently waited for the first of the pods to appear.
Sure enough, just as soon as the ship had stopped, pods began preparing for launch.
“It looks like the Seraph enlarged the capacity of their ship size.” Scryer’s eyes had widened in shock as 15 pods landed just meters below the carrier. The usual model held about 20 total pods and dropped 10 at a time, but this one likely held about 30.
All 10 of the pods open simultaneously as Brutus opened fire. The explosion had taken out 7 of the beasts and 3 others had been killed from the sharp remains of the empty pods. He loaded his last two rockets into his launcher and aimed at the ship. He opened fire just as the second wave began emerging from the small ports in the bottom. Several of the openings gave off blue electrical surges before emitting a small explosion.
“Heh. That should decrease our monkey problem.” Brutus looked over toward Blade’s position.
Blade had already unsheathed his knife and ran head-on into their flanks. One of the seraph soldiers had begun firing at Blade with a pulse rifle, but he was too slow. Blade flipped the knife upward and made a slit straight through the monkey’s neck, penetrating the backside of its head as well. Without hesitation, he brutally ripped the knife out of the creature’s throat just as a second one charged at him. This time, he ran straight at the beast with his blade held low. As the two warriors connected, the blade penetrated the thick coat of the beast’s lung. Blade viciously began to pull the knife up toward its heart while the creature leaned on him for support, hopelessly trying to breathe. He pushed the pathetic beast off his shoulder and it crashed to the ground with a loud thud.
By this time, Beth had already grasped what was going on and had begun sniping the others. She caught one in the head and watched as it exploded, spraying blood everywhere, including on Scryer. She hit another in the right arm, destroying the gun as well as blowing the arm clean off. She was about to open fire when she noticed a faint glowing at the top of her scope. She pointed upward slightly and noticed that the turret had finally become operational again. She looked down to see that Blade had already jammed his knife up through the jaw and into its cerebrum.
“Brute Team, back away from your current targets and take immediate cover. The turret is now operational and fully functional. I repeat. You have 10 seconds to disengage the enemy and find immediate cover. The turret is operational and ready to fire.”
The Seraph carrier had apparently intercepted the message. It began powering up its engines in order to make as quick an escape as possible. As the ship fled the scene, Cole watched it over the security camera Robin had managed to pull up. He was waiting for a safe range to fire without risking his teammates. After traveling nearly 600 yards, Cole finally gave the order to open fire. Robin pushed the final command that told it to fire on the Seraph and not the humans. The turret gave off a huge beam of blue energy that passed through the ship like paper. As the smoke cleared, no remains emerged. Everything had been disintegrated.
“Brute Team, what the hell is going on down there?” It seemed there evac was close and had noticed the turret go off. We’re in range and we’re sending a drop ship to pick you up now, but our radio’s receiving a lot of static.”
Cole clicked on his radio. “We had a run in with one of their new carriers. The Seraph were gracious enough to leave us a functioning turret, so we put it to good use.”
“Okay, good. The drop ship’s ETA is 15 minutes. Out.”
Robin stood in the shower letting the warm water run down her perfect body. She was thinking about how the mission had turned out. Why had the facility been abandoned? Why were the turrets still active? Why had they left their units behind? All of these questions kept pounding in her head, but one had her worried the most. What had she seen in the vent back in the base? Had she even seen something or was her mind playing tricks on her? She shrugged it off as she bent over to turn the water off.
She wrapped a towel around her and walked into the bunk area to change. As she walked into the room, she noticed the whole team was quiet. Cole and Brutus were playing poker on one of the bunks, Scryer was in the corner of the room polishing his knife, and Beth had a pair of headphones on and was playing videogames on a small, handheld system she liked to carry around. Robin walked over to the bunk she had been given and began to change into the casual outfit the small crew had provided for her.
She had put on a shirt and had just pulled on her panties when the ship shuddered violently. Almost simultaneously, the ships alarm began blaring in the corridors. The whole team quickly jumped to their feet while Robin finished dressing. Together, they went to gather their weapons and supplies, which they had left in the next room for quick access. Robin liked her privacy when showering, so the whole team had remained armored while they waited for her to finish. Unfortunately, their suit required assembly, which they didn’t have time for. Since she was in a T-Shirt and a pair of jeans, they would have to protect her carefully and take care in each shot they made so she wouldn’t be harmed.
They tossed her suit in a backpack and Beth slung it over her shoulder. Brutus burst through the entryway into the corridor and check to be sure it was safe. There had been no breach, so the blast must’ve come from the other side of the ship. They began moving down the hall toward the front of the ship slowly in case the life support systems had gone out. When they were around the corner from their barrack, the intercom came to life with a burst of static.
“Seraph cruisers have mounted the side of the ship and their units are beginning to board. Get platoon 5 on Decks C-E immediately. Brute team, we would appreciate any help you can provide.”
“You heard the man. Let’s move.” Cole was already back in the game and was going to attain full control of his team once more. Brutus dismounted his shotgun; Beth clicked a fresh clip into her semi-automatic rifle; Scryer looked ahead, cracking her fingers. Beth had her magnum in the holster on her thigh; Cole, having lost his weapons in the encounter with the Seraph stealth unit, had borrowed two 9mms from the armory and now had one loaded in each hand. His team was ready and the Seraph didn’t stand a chance.
As they moved down the hall, Beth had been curious about the recent happenings. The Seraph had been acting strangely. The whole mission had been strange from the start.
“Why would the Seraph board this ship? In the past, they’ve always shot us down without second thought.”
Scryer, surprisingly, spoke up, “Perhaps it has to do with the metallic creature that was roaming the vents in the base back on Senvar.”
Robin stopped short and looked over at Scryer. “You mean you saw it as well?! I noticed it when we we’re leaving the abandoned weapon room.”
“Whoa! Slow down you two.” Brutus had decided to join in on the conversation. “What do you mean you saw something in the vents? You mean we weren’t alone in that base after all.”
“I thought my mind had been playing tricks on men, but if Blade saw it as well, it may be real.”
“Could that possibly be the weapon we were sent to retrieve?” Beth asked.
“If there was indeed something metal in the vents, than that’s what the Seraph are after. But if that creature, that machine, is real, shouldn’t the Seraph have control of it and know where it is at all times?” Robin asked curiously.
Almost as if on cue, a bluish light was coming through the door down the hall. It blew in toward the team and they ducked to avoid the flying shrapnel. One of the large Seraph beasts entered the room closely followed by what looked like a commander and another that was to small in stature to be of much danger. The small creature was carrying a weird machine and was watching it intently, almost as if he was looking for something, perhaps the weapon.
The large beast glimpsed at the team and stood dumbstruck until he realized what was going on. He roared and lifted a huge weapon that looked like a mini-gun and pointed it at Brutus, who was the largest and easiest to target. He opened fire on the mammoth man just as the team ducked to the side. Rapid bursts of plasma launched down the hall, leaving gaping holes in whatever they touched. The team had taken cover behind the support beams on the side of the hall and Brutus had taken cover in a room next door.
The beast began walking toward them, gun still firing at whatever it could manage to hit. One of the bursts hit a power cord and the lights in the hall began to flicker eerily. The Large monkey released the trigger on his gun to let it cool down as he stared down intently down the hall. Cole, who could barely see, peeked around the corner of the beam to see if he could locate the target’s position. The only thing he could see were 2 large, green eyes slowly drifting down the corridor toward them.
The large beast fired a quick burst down the hall again, hoping to scare his prey out of hiding. Nothing happen. He roared loudly, apparently out of frustration.
Cole heard a series of clicking noises from across the hall. Where Scryer and Beth had taken cover. A small hum sounded and he saw a green light appear. Beth had assembled her sniper and was probably going to try and take down all 3 of the Seraph.
Beth whispered across the hall, “Give me suppression fire.”
Cole understood what she was going to do and held his pistols up, ready to go out fighting. He told Robin to stay behind cover. Brutus’s shotgun was useless at close range, so he stayed put as well. Scryer had his rifle readied. They leaned around the corner and the 2 men opened fire on the beast. They heard footsteps running in the other direction. The beast roared, but other than that, kept coming toward them. He had his sights set on Beth as she dashed for the end of the hall. They’re night vision must be excellent. Cole realized this unfortunate turn of events and burst from his cover. The beast just ignored him and continued to aim for Beth. Just as he fired, 3 bursts came down the hall. One hit the beast in the chest. Another had connected with its head, splattering blood everywhere. The third shot had gone between the legs of the beast and had connected with the leg of another of the primates down the hall.
However, it had been mere seconds too late. The Seraph’s mini-gun had gone off and at least 10 bolts had connected with Beth. Cole tried contacting her on the COM, but there was no answer. Scryer had already drawn his blade and was dashing toward the harmed Commander and his scientist ally. Blade quickly disposed of the two intruders as the others headed down the hall toward Beth’s location. When they got there, her gun had been melted and she was collapsed next to it, her eye next to the scope, blood crawling from the burn marks on her body.
Robin grab Cole’s arm and hid her face in it to avoid the gruesome sight. Brutus had set her down on her back and gently closed both her eye that had remained open. He than gathered the remains of her weapon it next to her body. He turned to walk away, his hands on his hips. Scryer had respectfully washed the blood off of his blade and, being a believer in the traditions of the Japanese, preformed a small series of movements to show his resects. She may have died, but she had died doing what she loved best. There was no better way to go than that.
As they left Beth behind, another burst struck the side of the ship. The Seraph had finally realized the weapon was not onboard and decided they no longer needed the ship intact. The team began making a move for the bridge once more and found the captain as well as most of the bridge crew had been slaughtered. 5 marines and 1 pilot that had been on the bridge had managed to take out a small wave of Seraph. 3 of them were fine, but rest were limping and nursing wounds on their arms and chests.
One of the soldiers standing guard near the door noticed them approaching. “Sure as hell glad to see you. Everybody’s dead except us. The entire crews’ vitals have flat lined.”
As he finished his sentence, another blast came from the back of the ship. One of the engines had been shot out and they were now drifting on just 2 of the 4 propulsion systems.
“We need to land immediately. Do any of you know the access codes for the navigational computer?” Cole was desperate to get off this ship as soon as possible.
The pilot stood and walked over to a monitor. He clicked in a few characters and the screen lit up. “You’re in.”
Robin checked the star charts and noticed a small, green planet that remained uncharted. “This looks like a good place to set up camp. There appear to be plenty of forests down below, so there would be a lot of cover.”
“Good enough. Cole answered. “Let’s get a move on and see if we can land this bucket in one piece.”
Robin typed in the coordinates for a tiny clearing that would provide enough room for the ship to crash land. With just two engines still online, this was going to be one hell of a rough ride. The ship lurched a little to the left and began descending toward the planet at a rather fast rate.
Sure enough, as the ship hit the gravitational pull of the planet’s atmosphere, the bridge became uncontrollably shaky. Everybody grabbed onto the closest object they could find for support. The ship collided with the ground beneath them and one final jolt threw everybody off of whatever they were holding.
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:22pm · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 3
17:35 hours, April 10, 2037 (Earth Calendar)
USC Drop Ship E117/Uncharted System/ In Vector toward Senvar
The Drop ship had chosen an LZ about a mile outside of the enemy’s perimeter, than had taken off toward the ship again. Their only hope of getting home alive would be to keep the 2 ships intact.
“Okay. We’re here. Where do you think we should start?” Brutus said with glee in his voice. He already knew what their first priority was and it was his favorite part of the mission.
“Our first goal is to take out the planetary defense grid. If those ships get taken out, we won’t be returning home for a good while. Of course, I’ll be leaving Robin and Brute in control of this task. Blade and I will cover Robin as she takes out communications, Beth will be recon, and Brutus will go on his own. We’ll meet back here in 1 hour for a status report. Avoid using COM links unless you absolutely need it. I’d rather not let the Seraph know we’re here until we’ve taken out their defenses. Everybody understand?”
Beth quickly signaled for the team to Get Down. The entire team took cover in the nearby thicket of trees as 3 successive bangs emitted from Beth’s Rifle. She did a quick scan of the surrounding area, but she didn’t find anything and gave the signal for all clear.
“Wow.” Beth said, “If they’re coming this far away from their base, this may be more difficult than we thought.”
Blade finally spoke up, “Good. I needed a workout” But after that, he went silent again.
The team made one last check over their weapons, than split up into 3 groups. Brutus was heading for the bunkers that housed the controls for the groundside turrets. Beth was moving to a cliff near the main base that would allow her to watch the entire canyon. Robin, Blade, and Cole all started toward the communications tower, where they would take out any means of calling for help once the attack began.
The small team of three had started heading for the Communications center. Blade was ahead scouting the path was his sharp eyes while Robin and Cole stayed back a distance.
“Do you know much about him?” Robin asked.
“No. His life is very secretive. He’s refuses to talk about his past. He’s a very quiet person.”
“Not to contradict you” Robin said, “But when you picked your team, you made some interesting choices for members. I still remember the day I met you. I’d been on a mission and you just followed me around. When we got back, you shocked me with your offer to join a special team. I just couldn’t refuse. But, I do have a question. Why did you pick me for the team? Surely there are hackers better than me.”
“While I watched you in action that day, you moved with such grace. I instantly fell…”
All of a sudden, the COM link clicked on and off twice. That was the signal that Beth was in position and had them in her sights. Cole raised his arm and gave the thumbs up signal.
As Beth looked through her scope, she noticed Cole raise his Hand. “Good.” She murmured to herself. “ They received the signal. She looked ahead of their path. They were about 100 meters from the communications tower. She clicked on the COM, paused, and turned it off a moment later. That was the signal to inform them that they were approaching their target. They couldn’t use their radios until the communications were out, but that signal should be too insignificant for the Seraph to pay any attention to.
“Okay. Those three are covered. Let’s see what the hell Brutus is trying to pull.”
She swung her weapon to the right and checked along on the newly made path left behind by the enormous man. She scanned further ahead, but noticed that the control center for the planet side turrets was untouched. She noticed Brutus squat next to one of the guns themselves, apparently attaching something to the side.
“Dammit Brutus.” She uttered under her breath. “ The idea is to take out the defenses without being revealed. With that many explosives, you’re bound to alert the whole damned−”
As she said this, she watched a small group of Dagoth approaching from the other side of the turret, led by 2 of the Seraph, probably Commanders.
“What the Hell! The records stated the Dagoth went extinct years ago. What are they doing here!?”
The Dagoth had once been another minor alien race that lived not to far from the human Solar System. When the Humans began expanding across the galaxy, they had found ruins left behind by these creatures. They had no technology at all. They were as smart as Cavemen were, but they’d never had the chance to evolve. However, from the destruction, they were very fast and extremely deadly. From what was left of this race, Architects concluded that they had been wiped out around 1987, almost 50 years ago. Studies showed that the Seraph had wiped them out to reap the resources of the planet, but found it to be worthless. The Dagoth had put up an amazing fight. There were hundreds of primate skeletons all over the planet.
The Dagoth bore the resemblance of a wolf; however, these things had, smooth, slimy skin instead of hair and were humpbacked. They also had pincers around their mouths, sort of like a scorpion.
“Well s**t. I better take these things out before he gets caught off guard.” Beth pointed her sniper at the nearest Seraph’s head and Bang! Her weapon emitted a wisp of white smoke as the enemy dropped to the ground, blood splashed across the ground behind him.
Brutus had abandoned his turret at the sound of the sniper fire and got on the radio as Beth finished taking out the last remaining bodies. She took the heads off of both Seraph and managed to blow off the limbs of the Dagoth Creatures.
“Beth! What the hell are you doing! These guys definitely know we’re here know.” Brutus yelled into the headpiece.
“Brutus, watch your back. You’re not going to believe this, but there were 2 Seraph over the pass-“
“So what. I can handle 2 fuzz balls on my own.”
“ They were being lead by Dagoth.”
“That’s not possible, is it? It was my understanding that those things went extinct.” Brutus had a tone in his voice that sounded both nervous and anxious at the same time. He had no ideas how these things were still alive, but he was looking forward to using a new method to take these things out.
“Apparently they captured some of them and kept them as workers. Quickly, you need to take out the turrets and get to the new rendezvous point. We’re going to need a new game plan. I’ll inform the others. Beth out.”
Brutus finished arming the final bomb on the turret, than turned around to head for the main controls. He got ready to toss a grenade as the door to the building slid open, but he halted when he noticed the room was empty. He went up to the closest console and pressed the disarm button, but the speaker next to him spoke in a language he wasn’t familiar with.
“Damn! I must need a password.” There was a beeping emitting from the speaker now. After three beeps, an alarm went off and the room went red. Brutus looked around the left and right, than backed up, raised his shotgun, and pumped a shell into the main console. He heard a panel slide behind him as a turret slid out and pointed at him.
As it opened fire, Brutus ducked and took cover behind a machine at the side of the room. The turret kept firing as he shouldered his shotgun and pulled out his Launcher. He turned around, rolled to the left, and targeted the turret in a crouched stance. He fired and the rocket spiraled at the turret and exploded in a hellish blaze. Brutus had been in close proximity to the rocket, so he had felt the heat it gave off, but he remained unharmed.
“Dammit. I hate computers. This is more robin’s kind of job. I’ll do the thing I’m born to do.”
He removed his final C4 charge and placed it on the now destroyed console and armed it. He casually walked out of the room and started heading toward the new rendezvous location Beth had designated. When he was about 65 meters away from the weapon site, he grabbed a switch from one of the pouches on his vest and pressed the red button. As he continued walking, an enormous explosion went off behind him, obliterating everything within range. He felt the wind from the blast and smiled.
“Damn I’m good.” He laughed and kept walking.
Beth had just explained what she had seen to the others when the explosion went off.
“Damn. He blew the turrets sooner than I’d have liked.” Robin said. “We need to hurry before they report what’s happen.” She looked ahead, but Scryer had disappeared.
“Come on, let’s move.” Cole said. They broke into a run in order to catch up with him, but he was already at the station when they arrived. There were several bodies lying around him, all of them severed in various locations. He was sitting next to the door, nursing a wound he had taken to the shoulder.
“Damn! They get me with a Pulse Rifle. I’ll be fine. Get in there and shut down the machine.”
The Pulse Rifle is a semi-automatic weapon that launches plasma using a Magnetic Accelerator. This gives the weapon power similar to a magnum, while providing even more accuracy than a sniper rifle. It also had a targeting reticule built into the top, allowing you to snipe at medium ranges.
Robin ran inside and Cole followed right behind her, gun ready in case of enemy activity. She reached the console and began typing rapidly. She was the only one on the team that understood the Seraph language, which made her en extremely valuable member. The communicator next to her began talking, but Robin typed even quicker and the communicator cut out halfway.
“Okay. The system has been disabled. I’ve re-routed the system and changed the password. We should now be able to pick up any transmissions they send or receive in this station.”
As they walked out the door and started heading to meet up with Brutus and Beth, they saw a series of explosions up in space.
“Cole’s COM link clicked on, but it wasn’t anybody from his team.
“Brute Squad, this is The Baynum. We have encountered heavy resistance from their fleet. We have sustained major damage on port decks A-F and our shields are down to 36% capacity. Whatever you’re going to…”
Carl hadn’t even finished. An enormous, turquoise beam shot up from the center of the enemy base and collided with the core of the ship. The dull, gray metal began to glow brightly, than erupted, taking out 4 enemy ships that got to close to it.
“I took out the control system for their turrets. The bastards must have one wired to a system within their main base.” Brutus said, angry that the enemy had beaten him.
The team had rejoined shortly after the incident with the Baynum. Cole, who had just finished communicating with The Affliction, reported what had happen.
“The Baynum is gone. No launch pods were ejected and there is nothing left of the ship itself. Whatever they fired, it melted everything. The Affliction is staying right outside of the turrets range, but she’s being swarmed by dozens of enemy ships. At this rate, I’d say we have maybe 45 minutes to get in and do what we’re here to do. Let’s move.
They moved as quickly and arrived at the enemy base within 5 minutes. Brutus shouldered his launcher and fired at the 2 turrets situated around the gate entrance.
“Okay.” Robin held up a holopad and a schematic of the base appeared in the air above it. “The enemy’s base has a ground floor and 1 more floors underneath it. If we follow this route,” Robin hit a button and a trail appeared on the map, “we should be able to reach the weapon in 15 minutes. 20 if we encounter more resistance than expected.”
Brutus planted a small explosive onto the gate and blew a hole large enough to allow Brutus to enter if he crouched a little. The team made their way toward the elevator leading to the bottom floor. It seemed empty though. There were only 4 enemies on the top floor. They were all scientists that hadn’t even put up an entertaining match. Robin herself even found it easy taking one out with her little pistol.
“ This is weird. Robin said. “There are no enemies here. It’s like they just abandoned the base and left behind any stragglers. But why would they do that?”
The elevator began making their descent. Even after stepping off of the elevator, things still seemed odd. They had expected a huge welcoming party waiting for them at the foot of the elevator, but there was nobody here.
As Cole walked through the door, he heard a humming noise coming from the hall to his left. All of a sudden, a scatter beam had fired off and there were several rounds shooting from all directions, than suddenly flew in unison toward him.
The Seraph Scatter Beam was the equivalent of a Rocket Launcher. When it fires, it sends off 6 explosive white grenades that go in random directions. Than they lock on to enemy heat signatures in the room and home in on the target’s position using a technology humans had never seen before.
Cole ducked behind the wall just in time. All of the shots had grouped together and made contact with the wall right behind where he had just been standing. Cole turned the corner again and triggered his flamethrower, trying to locate the source of the attack. Sure enough, his flame reflected off of a metal armor the enemy had been wearing. He caught a glimpse of what he had been trying to find, than ducked again to swap weapons. He had picked up the pulse rifle off of the dead body that attacked Jack earlier in case this might happen.
“You four go around and take the shortest route to the weapon. I’m sure this guy is in control of the operation here. Besides, he shot at me. I have a little payback in store for him.” Cole said, with a serious look on his face. The team obeyed his orders and took a hallway off to the right.
“Here, Catch. You’ll probably find a use for it.” Robin had turned around and tossed him her magnum, than turned and ran to catch up with the rest of the team.
Cole holstered the gun and moved through the door again, aiming his Pulse Rifle at the enemy’s waist. He fired a 3-round burst and caught the stealth generator the enemy was wearing. He rolled to the right to dodge the blast the enemy had just sent at him, but he was too slow. It hit right as his feet moved, which blew him across the room. Cole had let go of his weapons out of shock and they slid out of sight.
Now that he had a chance to look at his attacker, he realized that it was one of their special op units, which explained why he had the active camouflage. The gun had melted in the ape’s hands, so he had thrown it down and was running at Cole in a blind rage.
Just as Cole stood up, the ape came to a halt in front of him and beat him back onto the ground. Before he could do anything, the beast grabbed him by the neck and lifted him against the wall. Cole tried to find a way to survive this, but if he didn’t act quickly, his neck would be severed. As his arms dangled to his sides from weakness, he felt something on his right leg.
All of a sudden, he remembered Robin’s gift. He slowly reached for the weapon and gripped it firmly. He lifted his right boot and attempted to kick the Seraph off of him. He struck the ape in the chest as hard as he could, which caused it to flinch. This was just what he’d wanted. Cole took advantage of the loosened grip to raise the magnum and fired 3 rounds into its chest before it finally went down.
Cole slid to the floor and took a deep breath. As soon as it started, he had stood up and went off to catch his team. His flamethrower was destroyed and the Pulse Rifle was nowhere to be seen.
“Sir. Receiving a transmission from The Clebrum.” Jholee said.
“Play them on the bridge speakers. We all deserve to know what’s happening.” John had poured himself a cup of whiskey and had been awaiting the news of the battle for Tolemo.
“Anybody…eading this, we have taken major casualties. The number of expect…hips was greatly underestimated. There are only… dozen of us left, but I don’t know how long we… them. Destruction is imminent. Tolemo has a mere few hours to… action and evacuate the planet.
“This transmission was sent half an hour ago. No other transmissions have been received since than.” Jholee replied.
“There’s a chance that more ships have arrived in time to support the remainder of the fleet.” John said. He was getting that weird feeling that he’d had earlier. “Not much longer now.” John said to himself.
“Cole, are you reading me?” Brutus said over the COM
“Yes, I’m here. What’s the news on our objective?”
It’s a fake. The weapon’s not here. When the Seraph packed up and left, they took it with them.”
We need to get topside and contact The Affliction. It’s time to get back to Tolemo and decide our next plan of defense. I’ll meet you at the elevator.”
“Roger. Brutus out.”
As the team left, Robin thought she saw something move in the vent on the ceiling. She brushed it off and went on with the rest of the team.
In a few minutes, the team was groundside and attempting to establish a channel with the ship.
“Captain John, this is Cole of Brute Team. The mission was a failure. The Seraph have evacuated the planet and they took the weapon with them.”
“Roger Brute Team. We’ll be moving within range to send a ship for pick-up. Hold your position.
“Yes Sir.”
“Do you guys here a humming noise?” Beth asked.
“Oh my God!” Cole realized their mistake. He quickly got back on the COM link
“ Affliction, this is Cole. The turret is still operational, move out of range and…”
It was too late. The turret had already fired and pierced the core of the ship.
The alarms within the ship went off and there were red lights flashing throughout the ship. The captain had given up on drinking from the cup. He now had the bottle grasped tightly in his hand. The ship was moments away from explosion.
“Sir, we’ve received another message from The Clebrum. Should I play it over the speakers?
“Do as you wish.” John’s fear had been confirmed. He knew from the start he wasn’t meant to survive, but he never planned it would be like this. They had been sniped by the cowards on the planet.
“This is the Clebrum giv…final report. We ar…ast remaining ship. Our bac…p arrived to late. There are …ndreds of enemy ship as we…peak. More keep on arriving. What…they have planned, its… ona be huge. We have just…cieved a report that Tolemo is…nder attack. There is nothing we…an do now. Oh god! They’ve just fired a…”
“It goes to static and cuts out there sir.” Jholee was rigid in this time of crisis. He was born military and would remain that way until the very end.
“So this is how it all ends. It’s my entire fault. I made the mistake of jumping into this fight without first confirming the intel about the weapon. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure working with you all. I say we toast the greatest moments of our lives.”
John held his bottle out and poured several cups for the crew. “To Earth.” They all said together. They lifted their glasses and swallowed in a single gulp. That was the last thing the crew ever did.
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:21pm · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 2
16:47 hours, April 10, 2037 (Earth Calendar)
USC Vessel The Affliction/ Telo System/ Approaching Seraph Fleet
The young man awoke with a shudder. He opened his eyes and felt a chill run down his spine. He looked around, but there was no room to move. He was lying in a cold, metal tube. But, for some reason, his body didn’t sense any danger. He just waited, lying there quietly.
After about 15 seconds, it all hit him. He was first class John Tenant, Captain of the Halcyon Class B Warship “The Affliction,” the fastest and strongest ship the human race had to offer. He’d always had dreams as a child of being the captain of this ship. After pulling a few strings and breaking a few rules at the academy, he had finally landed himself a small position aboard the beautiful ship. For 2 years, he had jumped the ranks of the other officers and soon became the ships captain.
He was a very young man at the age of 25, but he had seen more action in the last 2 years than most men would see in a life time. While he had never been a soldier in ground combat, he still had training with standard issue weapons like the Pistol and the Rifle. He had never trained with the standard armor. He realized, should he need armor of any kind, he was good as dead anyway. He was a tactical genius and the best Captain in the fleet. Armor was the least of his concerns anyway.
He had been put into a cryogenic state shortly after his ship was set on course. His crew was one of hundreds assigned to oppose and repel the enemy approaching the colony Tolemo.
They call themselves the Seraph. The Seraph classify themselves into 3 groups, but they all resemble Ape like creatures, only their intelligence is ten fold. The small groups are usually the smartest ones. They study human technology and take advantage of this to improve and use it against us. The middle set group usually includes ship captains, technicians, Stealth Operatives and basic foot soldiers. The large ones, of course, are typically the last resort. They’re power hungry and won’t let anything stop them until either it or its opponent is dead. They are commonly used in dire situations or a situation of large scale.
Back in the year 2015, space technology had a breakthrough. By 2020, the humans had managed to enter 3 systems surrounding their own using a new technology that let them break light speed, which is now referred to as Slipspace. They had sent a research team to the edge of the newest system, which they had dubbed the Telo system. They had set up bases on different planets throughout the 4 systems. Back than, there was only 1 colony in the Telo system. That colony was Tolemo. However, the ship had passed through a severe electric storm. The ship had no power and had it not been for their suits, they would have frozen to death instantly. After 2 days of drifting, they encountered a UFO, which we now know was a Seraph Cruiser. The cruiser restored power back to the human shuttle and followed suit as the researchers returned home to Tolemo. In 2021, the Seraph had agreed to sign a peace treaty with the humans. The two races thrived off of each others knowledge and technology. The human exploration in space advanced quickly.
Video recordings of the trial on Nov. 8th 2028 were vague, but from what had been mentioned, the Seraph were furious that we had used the technology for such wasteful purposes. It was also believed that the worlds the Seraph inhabited were running on short supply of resources. Humans had spread like wildfire across the galaxy, so the Seraph deemed the humans expendable. To this day, it’s every human’s sole duty to protect the location of Earth. If the Seraph should find out that it’s their home world, they will destroy it and doom the human race to extinction. They’re latest goal had been to capture Tolemo, the planet with the greatest supply of resources in Human command. It is also home to over 350 million people and the largest Starfleet in the system. It cannot be allowed to fall.
Following behind his ship were 65 others ready for the assault. He would rendezvous with 120 more. Another 50 were positioned in a perimeter around the colony in case of surprise assaults. This had most people worried. Throughout history, nobody had ever seen this many ships gather in one place. Even so, they were well out numbered and outgunned. Reports revealed that the Seraph were sending a fleet of about 400 ships. These ships are also technologically more advanced. As weapons, the ships used super heated plasma torpedoes. Plasma was thought to be impossible to shape, but the Seraph how managed to find a way. Their ships also had a special beam cannon that was made out of an odd, glowing material that was unidentified to the human race. The Seraph use it like a sniper, picking off all ships at long range. The downside to this weapon is that it overheats and melts the gun after 2 uses.
John snapped out his subconscious state as somebody’s voice came in through a speaker above his head.
“Welcome back, Sir. We’ll be arriving at the rendezvous point with the rest of the fleet in 45 minutes. We’re taking the time available to unfreeze everyone and prep them for combat. Are you ready for release, sir?”
“Yes, go ahead. Is there a warm shower waiting for me?”
“Of course, Sir. It’s standard protocol. The left over cryo frost could send a person into shock outside of the chamber.”
The Lid covering the cryo chamber began to lift and pull back over his head. The captain stood up and looked around the room. The room was gigantic. There were 3-dozen tubes up and down each of the 8 rows. About half of the chambers on his row were just beginning to open.
John started walking toward the shower quickly, but was stopped by Nick, the man responsible for unsealing the chambers on his row.
“Don’t forget sir, you need to lick your lips.”
“Damn, I was hoping he’d forget,” John muttered under his breath.
“What was that, Sir?” Nick asked. He didn’t act like it, but he knew what the captain said. He just liked to get under the captains skins. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I said thanks for the reminder,” The captain took his tongue and lick around his lips. Bleh!
The cryo tubes were designed for 1 reason. To keep people from aging at an accelerated speed. When you enter a slipstream rift, the laws of time are breached and the pressure of the speed puts a major stress on your body. This causes your body to deteriorate at a much higher speed, slowly whittling people’s lives shorter.
It was strange actually. When they had first acquired slipstream technology, the journey didn’t age the passenger. In fact, it was quite the opposite. While traveling, it took so long to travel long distances. People had aged 10 years while you only aged a week. Than a corporation called FlyTech invented a new slipspace engine, which is what they now used. The engine had a completely different effect on ones age. Thanks to cryogenic hibernation, aging was no longer a major issue.
Unfortunately, the freezing process would cause a loss of nutrients while you were in there. To fix that, the cryo frost has a formula inside that can be licked to restore these nutrients. The first time this formula was put into action, it tasted exactly like vomit. The scientists keep tampering with the flavor. Now it tastes like vomit with a hint of lime inside.
“Wonderful, I hate vomit and I hate Lime. Let’s just mix the two flavors together,” John muttered silently.
“Hey, come on,” Nick said laughingly. “It can’t be near as bad as the lemon. That’s a taste nobody wants to remember.”
“Maybe that’s because lemon was so bad, you’re scared to go back into cryo. Trust me; the flavors get worse as they go.”
“Uh, sir, you better hurry to the shower before the cryo frost takes effect.”
“What’s our ETA? How long until we reach the Seraph?”
“We arrive with the rest of the fleet in 40 minutes. We’re expecting contact with the Seraph in about an hour.”
John was standing on the bridge. He’d done some thinking and realized a simple assault would be doing nothing more than buying a little time. They needed a new plan.
“Jholee, pull up a star map displaying the distance between our trajectory and Senvar. Than, pin the location of our fleet and the Enemy’s location. “
The navigator looked back. “Done, Sir. Forwarding it to the main screen… now.”
The screen next to John Flickered to life and he had a large chart of the surrounding area. “If we keep on our current trajectory, we will encounter the enemy in 17 minutes.” John muttered to himself. “But even if we do win this victory, it won’t make a difference. The seraph have hundreds more ships at their disposal. This conflict would have many human casualties and we just don’t have that kind of resources. If we don’t act fast, not just Tolemo, but the entire human race, will fall. I won’t let that happen.”
“Jholee, change of trajectory. Drop the ship down 4000 degrees and 36 degrees starboard. Order The Baynum to follow us and order the rest of the ships to stay on course.”
“But, Sir, we’ll miss the Seraph if we stick to this trajectory.”
“We’re not going to that fight. We’ve got a much larger mission to take on. Change it now, Jholee.”
“Yes Sir. But, with all due respect, what is your plan?”
“It’s simple. We’re heading for one of the Seraph’s minor bases. To win this war, we’re going to need some new weapons. The seraph are going to be the one that provide us with it.”
“Sir, that’s a suicide mission.”
“Not necessarily. The Affliction and the Baynum are the two strongest ships in the fleet. I would’ve ordered all of the ships to stay on course, but there’s a special team onboard the Baynum that’ll be more than willing to take on the groundside portion of this mission. Now, open up a COM channel with the ships captain. We need to debrief the team…”
“What the hell are you thinking John!? We’re going to completely miss the assault!”
“Calm down Carl. We don’t need to get worked up over this. We’ve simply had a change in plans. If we stay and fight, we will lose in the end. I’ve thought of a plan that’s risky, but can greatly improve our chances of winning. We’re going to secure one of the Seraph’s minor bases and see if we can’t attain a new toy to use against them. This is where we’re heading.”
John hit a few buttons and Carl’s screen received a large Photo of an icy planet.
“This is the planet Senvar.” The captain said over the COM link. “A probe picked up this image about a week ago, so it’s not to far out of date.”
“No offense John, but you’re nuts! This shot alone contains more troops and ships than we can handle. We’d be slaughtered the moment we hit the ground.”
“That’s why we’re not going to land. We’re going to stay back and provide cover fire.”
“Cover fire?! For what?!”
“You know Carl, for somebody that aced the academy without cheating, you have a habit of not using the one muscle that counts in a situation. We’re going to send in Brute Squad. I know they’d be more than willing to take on an assignment of this magnitude.”
Back on the Affliction, the Bridge crew was working frantically to reinforce any chance of survival.
“Sir, we’ll reach Senvar in exactly one hour. Are you sue you still want to go through with this?” Jholee was fearful of what might happen, but than again, most people would be. The crew had been through so much that they’d learned how to fear something, but never show it. They were able to keep clear-headed and knew how to handle a dangerous situation long before they were even assigned onboard. John had handpicked each and every crewmember aboard the ship. He had the best of the best. Though, against the Seraph, sometimes the best just wasn’t enough.
“Yes, stay on course and keep me informed on our status. Carl, I’d recommend you go down and Brief the team.”
Inside the crew’s quarters, 5 people were resting up. The first is a woman named Robin. She’s the smallest on the team, but by far the smartest. Her hair is kept in a long, silky sheet of Golden Brown. She wears a pair of wire-rim glasses that give her a cute appearance. She also wears a light, grayish armor that proves effective for hiding in the shadows when she’s outnumbered. She has an IQ of 190 and is a computer genius. She even managed to hack into the mainframe of a Seraph ship they’d boarded a few years back. Unfortunately, her small stature of 5’ 3” and 119 lbs makes it difficult for her to use a gun. She wields a 9mm handgun most of the time, but she never leaves home without her magnum. Since she does most of her work on computers and stealth ambushes, she has no need for large weapons. She had, at one time, been a wanted felon. She had hacked government computers across the Solar System, which caused a lot of issues. When she turned 17, they finally managed to track her down and take her in for questioning. A young man had approached her and asked her to attend him on a mission where they were required to obtain codes from a computer located within a rebel force that had abandoned the rest of the humans. He had been of no assistance during the mission. He had forced her to do all of the work and for that she resented and respected him at the same time. He had given her no real Intel, but he had had faith in her and her skills. She was surprised to return home from the mission with her record cleared and an offer to join a team called Brute Squad. She accepted and became the first member to be recruited into the squad. Being the youngest on the team at 19, she’s very popular with the male crewmembers. Over the years, she’d put up with it, but she developed a habit of getting very defensive around those outside of her team. That makes her perfect for her job.
The next person is a behemoth, at 7’ 2” and weighing 278 lbs. He goes by the nickname Brutus, but has never revealed his real name. He wears a heavy armor that appeared to be a fusion of green, brown, and black, almost like the uniforms the US military wore 20 years ago. His hair is blonde and kept moderately short. Although unknown, it’s believed he is about 34 years old. Quite obviously, he’s the heavy weapons specialist. He has an IQ of 107 and can wield any weapon he can manage to grasp. He’ll use whatever he can carry, but he usually sticks with a top-loaded, 12-gauge shotgun and a Rocket Launcher with custom made rockets of his own design that usually contain EMP pulses or flammable gas containers for an effective after-effect. Brutus had been recruited after a 1-man mission where he was assigned to locate the terrorist’s base and destroy the generators that powered their defense turrets. Brutus did the mission his own way. He landed with all the heavy weapons he could handle and personally destroyed ever defense turret the enemies had. Than, he had fought his way down to the generators and set the bomb on the generator for half an hour. If he hadn’t found the base leader in 20 minutes, the bomb would be enough to disable any means of escaping. There had been a ship landed outside and figured that was the best place to look. He went outside, took 3 Rockets, and put the ship out of order. The mission became a cakewalk and Brutus was awarded several medals and offered a chance to join a newly formed team known as Brute Squad.
The third member is by far the deadliest. Her name is Beth, but her nickname, which appropriately suits her, is Snipe. Her IQ is roughly 120 and she clocks in at 5½ ft and 125 lbs. She is 26 years old and has dark brown hair, which she keeps at standard military length. She’s a crack shot and has mastered the use of a sniper Rifle. She can snipe from any angle and climb to any height. When the rest of the Team moves into the fray of battle, she stays behind and positions herself to provide backup fire. She has a record of taking out enemies before they’re even able to build a defense, giving the team the advantage. Thousands of deaths have been laid at her feet. She had gone through a rough childhood. Her parents were abusive and her teachers had assured her that she’d never amount to anything. They had all mysteriously disappeared shortly after their snide comments about her. Most claimed she was a cold-blooded killer, but few saw the potential she contained as a military leader. She had been recruited in Brute Squad in hope of gaining recognition from the rest of the government.
The fourth member is a special case. His name is Jack Scryer, codenamed Blade. He’s 35 years old, but is technically 58. He has grayish-black hair and wears it thin on the side and an inch on the top. He’s 6 ft, weighs 192 lbs, and has an IQ of 110 He has had extensive training with the Japanese, Russian, and United States militaries before the humans had colonized other planets. Since than, the world’s leading countries had joined forces to govern the other colonies. Naturally, the tactics used in the military were drastically altered to suit there needs. However, his skills were not put to waste. Thanks to his training in Russia and the U.S, he has mastered the use of a knives and blades. He also runs at extraordinary speeds thanks to the Japanese military. In the past, he had used his 10” Large Tanto Combat knife in countless operations. He came home after every op with both a medal and, more importantly, his life. However, during the 2007 viral war, a bomb had been set off, releasing a dose of an altered, deadlier version of the Small Pox virus with it. Scryer, among 40 other U.S soldiers, had been put in a permanent cryogenic state for 26 years as quarantine until they could find an anti-virus. Scryer was one of the 7 people that survived the extremity of the disease. Brute Squad usually found and recruited their members, but Scryer had used his ingenuity to track them down. After extensive research, the team leader had equipped Scryer, nicknamed Blade, with a new, 12” Impact Blade, which he now carries in a sheath right over his left breast for quick use, and had given him light training with the use of the standard issue Rifle as a backup on the field. Since than, Scryer’s had very little to say and his past remains vastly unknown.
The fifth member is the team leader. His name’s Cole, but he goes by the nickname ‘Dark.’ He’s a little less than 6½ feet tall and weighs about 170 lbs. He’s 21 years old. His hair is Dark Brown and usually kept at a length long enough to cover his eyes and ears. He has an IQ of 140 and is an amazing strategist. He’s been friends with John, the captain of The Affliction, for a number of years. They both loved sharing strategies with each other and even corrected flaws in each other’s plans. Unfortunately, his skill with a weapon is poor. To make up for it, he has superb leadership skills and the ability to set traps and ambushes that are invisible to the enemy without extensive searching. His preferred weapon is a specially equipped flamethrower that uses a highly condensed fuel. The fuel causes the flame to emit a dark, maroon flame. Cole is the original Founder of the team Brute Squad. He had hand picked each of the four members 2 years ago in order to create the ultimate team. He had gone on specially rigged ops with each of the members and studied their reaction in combat. The results were shocking and his team was formulated. To this day, they are the top ranked Op in the government.
Carl walked through the door soundlessly, but the team had even managed to hear that.
“Captain on deck!” Cole yelled. The whole team stood at attention, saluting.
“At ease team. We have a new mission and you’re the only team that can pull it off. As you well know, our fleet is meeting head on with the Seraph armada. John has had a change in plan though. We are currently in vector for Senvar, an icy world that serves as a minor base for the Seraph. Our goal is to obtain a new weapon. As of now, we know nothing about this weapon except for the reports we’ve picked up of where it was heading. You’ll all flank groundside while we provide whatever support we can from just outside the atmosphere. Does everybody understand?”
Brutus spoke up. “What kind of weapons are we packing onboard right now? I’d hate to be caught without my launcher or shotgun. Not that there fur balls would stand a chance anyway, I just feel assured with something powerful in my hands.”
“Of course, we have everything a man could want. I assume your all going to stick with your usual than?” Carl inquired.
“Why wouldn’t we? That’s the most effective way through and through,” Robin cued in.
“Than it’s settled. Get down to the preparation bay and rendezvous with your pilot in the hangar in 1 hour.”
Carl turned and walked to the door in his usual tight stance. He stopped just short of the door and turned to the face team.
“I wish you the best of luck. Give them hell.”
“Yes sir!” The team replied in unison.
The captain left the room and didn’t glance back.
The entire team had gathered in the armory and had begun preparing for the mission ahead of them.
“Should I equip my sniper with an AM2V scope or just the standard issue?” Beth asked.
“I’d recommend the standard issue. The AM2V have thermal vision, but they usually break in intense situation.” Robin replied.
“True. But you could always fix it, couldn’t you?”
“No. The scope takes to much power. I’d have to disassemble it to find the bug, but we wouldn’t have enough power to reactivate it afterward.”
Beth frowned. “That’s a shame. I’ve been hearing about a new model of the scope that reduces power usage by half.”
“What those guys don’t realize is that if they were to just fix the bugs, there’d be no need to fix the scope in the first place. The power decrease is a nice touch, but it’ll spend more time under repair than in combat.”
“Wow,” Beth replied. “Sometimes you’re more negative than me.”
“That’s enough bickering you two. We should all just stick to what we’re good with,” Brutus said as he lifted an RPGx2 rocket Launcher and shouldered it. ‘We want to catch the enemy with their pants down, but if we’re not careful, this operation could quickly turn into a positive action for the Seraph. The last thing I want is to die by the hands of an over sized monkey.”
Beth had a smirk on her face.” For once, you and I agree on something. Don’t get any funny ideas though.”
“Heh! That hurts me feelings. What makes you think I would ever do something like that?” Brutus put on his innocent face, but he knew nobody believed him.
“Beth and I have both worked with you before,” Robin said. “You’re not the most innocent…”
“ETA is 15 minutes,” announced the overhead speaker.” Head to the launch deck and prepare for departure.”
“Ah, reliable Kelly. Maybe we should recruit her into the team,” Cole said jokingly.
“That’s not funny,” Robin had a frown on her face.
“Whoa! Take it easy. We would never replace you Robin. We’re a team.”
Cole finished prepping his armor and slapped a canister of highly condensed fuel into his flamethrower. He looked over at Scryer. “You doing okay over there Jack?”
He just nodded his head as he finished polishing his blade.
“Okay team, let’s move.”
“Jholee, drop power to 13%. That should be enough to mask our presence. Boost power sensors as high as we can manage. I don’t want though sneaky bastards taking us by surprise,” John said.
“Yes Sir. Power down to 13% with sensors operating at 65%,” Jholee replied. “Dropship E117 has been launched from the Baynum’s Drop Bay and will be coming in contact with the planets atmosphere in 5…”
“Open a private COM link with the ship upon entry. I wish to speak to the heroes,” John was feeling unusually nervous, but not about the Op. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get to see this fight through.
“Brute squad, this is John Tenant, Captain of ‘The Affliction’, do you read?”
“Yes, Sir. This is Cole, leader of Brute Squad.”
Brutus, who had an entire side to the dropship due to his size, spoke up. “Can we take your order?” He sat back and laughed. Brutus sense of humor had never been that good, but they let it slide. He had never liked ships. He claimed that floating in space left a lack of control that made them an easy target. But, if he was calm enough to be joking about the entry, he was going to be stone solid once they touched down.
“I’m glad to here you haven’t lost your humor Brutus.”
“I try sir. But there’s not a lot to laugh at these days.”
“Team, I want to wish you the best of luck. This mission could be the deciding factor between winning and losing the war. There’s no room for slipups on both our parts.
“Thank you sir. We wish you the best of luck and we’re hoping you keeping all of our Asses covered,” Beth replied
“Don’t worry Beth. You do your part and we’ll do ours the best we can. I’m sorry we can’t accompany you down to the planet, but we’d only slow you down. Good Luck.” The COM link went static, than shut off.
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:19pm · 0 Comments |
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Chapter 1
16:27 hours, November 9, 2028 (Earth Calendar)
Adagio Colony Courtroom / Corpir System / Murder Trial
“You stand accused of two Assassinations and a third failed attempt upon the representatives of the Seraph race on our world. If proven guilty, you will be charged for Discrimination, Murder, and breach of the 2021 Peace Treaty between the Seraph and the Humans. How do you plead?” the Judge said looking down at the man in the middle of the courtroom.
The entire room was completely round and Chairs arched ¾ of the way around. Located in the very center of the room was a young man. He appeared to be a little ruffed up, but didn’t show the signs of being in any major fights… fights where the opponent could fight back anyway.
The young man, Trask Brenton, looked around the room at the council sitting before him. On one side, there were a group of humans. The other side contained 2-dozen of those stinking Seraph freaks. The commander of the Seraph had taken the time to join them for this meeting concerning 2 men he had lost with a 3rd badly injured. Trask looked straight ahead at the Judge in front of him and told them exactly what they had expected to hear.
“I did indeed assault the Seraph representatives. But before you convict me and move on, let me tell you why I did it.”
Trask made a quick glance over at Ryzos, the Seraph commander. He had begun laughing and talking to the guard behind him the moment Trask had admitted there was a good reason for the murder of his men.
In the rafters above, a 12-year-old boy named Cole watched the trial behind glass windows. His older sister Jessica was a guard assigned to the protection of the Ambassador, who was currently giving a trial for reasons he was too young to understand. His sister was a role model. He tried to do everything like she did and even wanted to grow up and be a soldier in the military as well. Right now, even though he couldn’t hear through the glass, he wanted to make sure Jessica was all right. Neither of them had ever trusted the Seraph and this trial made them nervous.
“Your honor, I attacked the representatives with the best intentions. I had been assigned to make them comfortable during there stay here on Adagio. They had requested I bring them a box from their ship on the dock, so I hurried away. As I hurried down the hallway, I remembered I had left a food cart by the door that was meant for one of the visitors from Tolemo that I was also attending. I ran back to drop it off at the kitchen on the way, but I heard one of the Seraph representatives talking. I cracked the door open so I could hear well. Two of them had a diagram sitting on a table and a third was talking through a weird looking microphone. The two by the table were telling the third about the planet’s defense codes and strategic positioning. He than repeated everything he was told into the communicator. As they folded the diagram, I remember hearing them say all too clearly “The assault will begin in 24 hours.” That’s when I realized what they wanted to do and attacked them,” Trask said, confident in the ambassador’s faith.
“This is preposterous!” Shouted Ryzos.
The ambassador, who had been quietly listening to his explanation, finally spoke up. “I’m curious as to how you would recognize something as secret as the defense codes. Please, indulge me Trask.”
“Well, since I’m in a dire predicament, I guess it won’t hurt to tell you, would it. I’m a hacker that enjoys joyriding the network. I’m a bit paranoid and I felt the government might have been hiding information from the public. I went through the government files, but had no luck in finding any conspiracies. However, I did run into the defense codes, which I know work the STA turrets and the OM Turrets.
“So you know what the defense code is and you would recognize it upon hearing it, is that correct?”
“Yes your honor.” Trask knew he had done the right thing.
“This whole trial is fallacy!” Ryzos roared. “Everything that rat has spewed out of his mouth is false!”
Trask lost his temper. He stood up from his chair and looked toward Ryzos fiercely. “You’re the one that’s lying! I heard with my own ears that you’re planning to attack our world. You’re jealous of our greatness. You feel weak compared to us because you’re nothing but a giant, disgusting bea−”
He was cut off as one of Ryzos guards fired a burst of its rifle into his neck. As soon as he finished, he and the other guards pointed their own weapons at the other humans spread through the room. They shot down 8 more people as the rest of them began to run. An alarm went off in the distance and the armed humans opened fire on the Seraph.
Jessica, who had been prepared for this moment, quickly flipped a table on its side and pushed the ambassador beneath it. She than ducked down herself and unlocked her own Rifle. She fired 3 quick burst and one of the seraphs’ heads burst open.
In the distance, they could here a loud boom. Ryzos, who had taken to hiding beneath his own desk, must have contacted the ships Trask had told them about and ordered them to begin the assault. So he had been telling the truth.
In the room above, Cole watched as the two sides began slaughtering each other. He saw his sister take cover behind a table and kill one of the aliens, but a lot of them had directed their fire in her direction. The table was being massacred. It wouldn’t provide cover for much longer.
Jessica launched a grenade over toward the group of enemies, but most of them ducked out of the way. She only killed 2 of them. The rest of the human guards had been taken out. It was now just Jessica, the ambassador, and 1 other guard against a dozen Seraph and their leader, who had still not emerged from his cover.
Jessica was completely ducked beneath the table now, randomly firing her gun over the top. As she pulled her gun back down to reload, she felt a p***k in her back. One of the bolts had managed to melt through the steel table and had penetrated her armor. Almost instantly, she felt 3 more bolts burst through the table 2 of them connected with her back and the third hit the back of her head. Ignoring the immense pain, she stood straight up as a last ditch attempt to take out whatever she could. As she did, she noticed several more units in heavy armor had entered the fight. Without thinking, she opened fire on the group, but it was too late. Hundreds of plasma bolts connected with her body, killing her instantaneously.
Cole was screaming for his sister to get up. She wasn’t moving, but he wouldn’t accept that she was dead. He pounded on the glass, trying desperately to wake her up, but it was no use. The glass was soundproof and she wouldn’t get up anyway.
A small platoon of marines had been deployed to rescue any surviving civilians. As they entered the lounge above the council room, they found the young boy crying in his arms on the sofa. He had a picture of his sister in his hands. It had been taken the day she had left school to become a soldier. One of the marines walked over and rested his hand on Cole’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” He lifted Cole into his arms and they carried him toward the ships being used to evacuate all civilians.
In the room below, Ryzos had finally emerged from his hiding spot and began to assume control of his men. He walked over to where Jessica had been hiding and tossed the destroyed table out of his way. The ambassador was sitting there, staring him dead in the eyes, willing the gigantic beast to drop dead.
Ryzos smiled as he began talking to her. “This is but a taste of our military power. Let your death serve as a warning to all that oppose us. We shall be swift, silent, and merciless. You’re death shall mark the end of your races reign and the rebirth of our own. This is our war, and there’s nothing any of you can do to stop us.”
DarkImpact · Thu Jun 29, 2006 @ 09:18pm · 0 Comments |
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