Breed: Firefall (Final Update: 17 Dec)

[Witcher Wolf]

“Alpha leader, this is echo 3-15 to all escorts.” The hard edges of flight commander Jefferson’s voice cut through the noise of the comm’s with a static buzz that echoed in the accompanying fighter wing’s flight helmets. In the blackness of space, between the stars and whirling gases that danced a merry dance, four shapes moved in the void.

One was the lumbering bulk of a Besalius System Colony vessel, hard lines against the blackness, dark grey and only built for the laborious task of shifting men, women and children to a newly colonised world.

“Read you loud and clear Venezuela.” Came the similar reply as the sleek shape of the Colony Defence Fighter ripped through the darkness at the side of the lumbering cruiser. For a moment on the canopy the other ship was reflected, before the small vessel peeled off and back into formation with the others.

“Sector patrol reports it’s a clear run to Achilles Sir.” Mason reported in and tugged his ship to the side of his Wing leader’s. “We’re all clear to escort this bird.”

“You heard the man.” A gloved hand gripped the flightstick and Wing Commander Harris felt the familiar surge of adrenaline as he kicked his ship’s boosters into full and took the front of the convoy. As one, his two Wingmen took up positions either side of their leader and tucked their fighters into a holding pattern.

The slow lumbering shape of the Colony ship ground onwards and began to move ever faster, from the bridge Jefferson watched the other ships, running his fingers through the remains of his hair. “Trust me to get saddled with hauling Civvies.” He grumbled under his breath. “I should be out there with them, in the Big Black…I ain’t made for this kind of job, babysitting flatnecks.”

Their journey would take them out past the rim of Colony space and into just charted territory, unlike the technology of Earth, these vessels were run on a shoestring and many of them showed signs of age and misuse. Lacking the funding of their home planet, they were out here with what they had, and had to make use of everything in a much harsher environment.

Three days out from their starting point the Colony ship passed through a magnetic storm that fried most of their sensors and blew out part of the lifesupport It wasn’t a very good start and as Jefferson stalked the lower decks he was beginning to wish that he’d been strapped into the fighter escort, at least they got to dock with the ship and take a break.

Repairs were over pretty quickly and the ship was back on course and just a day or so behind schedule, the Flight Commander could live with this. Barely, so he made sure his men worked twice as hard and pushed many of them to exhaustion. He was an ogre on the bridge of his ship and because of it the crew’s morale had been dropping steadily, his last tirade had sent the ship’s helm officer to her cabin in tears and he remained remorseless.

But now there was something to at least lift their spirits, something beautiful, the world of Achilles. She hung there like a forlorn and lost child amidst the drifting chaos of space, roiling clouds of white bursting over the dark green of the planet, it was a sight that caused the whole of the bridge crew to stop and stare for a moment.

Somewhere it’s written that if you lose concentration for a second in space, you’re lucky if you survive another second to correct your mistake.

The planet continued to spin and was to bear witness to an event that would forever linger in one man’s mind. Out of the shadow of the world came a trio of something alien, they were unlike any kind of ships the crew or escort had seen. Where their vessels were all hard lines, these were sleeker and more aesthetic, sharp tech in a killer Sea of space, the humans were the fish and these were the hunters.

The first CDF was vaporised in an instant, the others peeling away from the bright stabbing flares of light that sundered metal and broke through armour. Jets of superheated gas boiled into space as the bright bubble of their comrades death lingered in falling starlight motes, his scream across the comm chilling them all to their bones.

“What the…” This was cut off as Mason hurled his ship into a long roll to avoid more gunfire from the aggressors. “Mayday, Mayday this is flight 3-15 to all Colony Defence forces in the Achilles sector, we are under attack by unknowns…repeat we are…” His scream was louder than the others and Harris had to cut off his comms he shook his stick and saw the pack close in for the kill, they were flying like nothing he’d ever encountered. It was as though they knew the book, or had even written it.

Jefferson watched on the bridge of the ship, he was about to scream into the comm for Harris’ men to do their jobs and get the attacking ships, but those words died on his lips as he watched the second fireball so close to the first and now the other pilot’s desperate struggle for survival, playing out before him like a macabre scene in some twisted graphic novel or holomovie. The pilot tried to keep his fighter moving, he was using all the tricks he knew but the enemy were dogging his every motion like bloodhounds. He would turn one way and they would already be there, bright lancing light inches away from his ship’s hull.

Then it was over, he blossomed into a ball of fire like his comrades but there was no scream, not even in death would Harris give them the smell of victory, if they cared. This action more than the sight of the enemy turning towards their ship chilled the crew even further. Jefferson watched, still mesmerised by the sight of these vessels and their sleek shapes, he watched as they drew bubbling and blistering scars down his ship’s ugly hull and oxygen was vented into the cold darkness.

“We’ve lost primary power to the ship’s thrusters Sir, we can’t manoeuvre, we’re locked on course with Achilles – if we can’t break it, we won’t be able to hit the landing window, we’d be lucky if we have a bolt left when this thing burns up.”

Thousands of Colonists, thousands of choices and in the mind of one man a single burning idea to save his skin.

“Cut the Colonist’s loose, and then…”

“No way Sir, I’m no murderer.” The helm officer balked as the ship was struck again by the enemy weapons, more burning hot holes appeared in the surface, gasses boiling into space.

“You are an officer aboard my ship, you’ll do as you’re told.” His commander’s eyes were white and narrowing with rage. “Do I make myself clear?”

“It doesn’t matter Sir, we’re going to die, and you could put a gun to my head. I wouldn’t punch that code in, to save my life.” He added under his breath. “Or yours.”

Jefferson was just about to yell again when the lights went down on the bridge and the red emergency lighting cut in with a flashing glow. He watched panels spark and men thrown from their chairs as a power-conduit blew, part of it slashing the chest of his helm officer and doubling the man over, before it buried itself neatly almost into the tough glass of the viewport.

Another explosion and another rocked the ship like it was caught in a vicious storm on the oceans of their once home planet. Trails of phosphorescent flickers rippled down the sides of the vessel and it pitched at last into the atmosphere, slamming into the first layers with the force of a ten tonne truck. Part of it buckled as the trajectory was wrong, lights flicked across various panels and then power died on the whole ship, all Jefferson could hear was the rushing of the solar winds, that turned to atmospheric winds and the whole vessel now vibrated and nearly came apart in the air. The fires that licked across her hull now openly blazed on contact with the oxygen and horrible curls of thick black smoke rolled out as the thing fell like a stone.

In the blackness above him, the aggressors were gone, vanished like mist into the morning sun.

[Witcher Wolf]

It would be seven Earth standard days before the wreck of the Achilles was found, only the crew were dead, scattered like fallen leaves…the Colonists were missing, and the search and rescue team that scoured the impact crater only managed to decode a fragment of a audio log from the Bridge.

“Cut the Colonist’s loose, and then…”

“No way Sir, I’m no murderer.”

It was ruled that Jefferson had succumbed to some kind of deep space Paranoia and in turn he had cut the Colonists cargopods loose. An extensive search of the surrounding space around Achilles lead to an inconclusive find, space debris and hull metal. The President of the Colonies ordered a full investigation into the 3-15 Venezuela disaster and the whole mess was carefully pushed under the carpet.

Someone out there knew…and someone out there watched and waited.

Deep Space Investigation Vessel – Archides – In Orbit (Achilles) – Day 1 of the Investigation.

“I still don’t get it Sir, what kind of episode would Jefferson have had to have gone like that, what triggered it?” The young Lt Carter paced the Bridge of the Archides with slow and steady steps, his face was creased with worry lines and he held a mug of steaming black coffee in one hand. “His record states he was a bit of a hard-ass but not on any psych profile.”

The Captain of the ship, and head investigative agent Lee Myers shook his head. “Son, I have no clue. You look at the man’s record, it’s spotless – a few episodes of ‘loose cannon’ syndrome and that’s about it. He was an exemplary officer, or someone fixed his record and he was a murdering son of a …” He was cut off as the comm system chimed in.

“Captain Myers, Sir?” The voice belonged to one of his agents from the search team on Achilles.

“Go ahead agent?”

“We’ve completed a sweep of sector 1-A and there’s not a single trace of any debris from the Colonist’s cargopods, it’s like they just disappeared. Spooky isn’t the word for this.”

“Nothing?” Myers voice changed a little; he coughed and shook off a sudden cold feeling down from the back of his neck to the base of his spine. “You tell me how thousands of people vanish? Just like that?”

“I have no idea Sir, shall we continue our sweeps of the remaining sectors. We estimate it’s going to be night in around six hours and while our equipment is capable of prolonged activity, there’s a storm on the Weather monitor – we’d like to dust-off before then and return to the ship.” His agent’s voice was traced with worry and anxiety.

“That’ll be fine agent, finish as much of the sweep as possible. Lay down a beacon and we can continue in the morning. Good job. Myers out.”

“Jefferson can’t have gone mad Sir, this doesn’t smell right.” Carter fixed his commanding officer with a glare for a moment and slammed most of his coffee down in one. “A good career soldier like that doesn’t just wig out for no reason. And if we can’t find a reason here, then why the hell did he just jettison a shipload of Colonists and then ram his ship into the planet?”

“I’ll admit Son that it smells fishier than a box of trout in the summer, but you’ve seen the lack of evidence out here. You suspecting a Saboteur?” It was Myers turn to fix his subordinate with a cool gaze; he narrowed his brows and waited for a reaction.

[Witcher Wolf]

“Sabs, Pirates, it could be anything. There isn’t a trace of another ship’s drive signature for several light years. None that could be close enough to reach the vessel in time, or get far enough away unless it was something pretty advanced. Or something still here.” Both men shivered a little at his final words, and shook it off quickly. “But that’s impossible.”

“Out here Son, nothing’s truly impossible. If your gut’s telling you that something’s not right, then follow it. Tell me what you find, but let’s keep it between us.” Myers tapped a few controls and brought up a glowing readout of the surrounding planet and space on a holo-screen. “This is what we have so far, the Venezuela must have gone into the planet’s orbit around here, either under control or out of control…but there’s nothing to suggest that the ship wasn’t just rammed into the wrong orbital pathway.”

“Pilot error?”

“Possibly, then you have …” Another chime from the comm system and the bridge speakers crackled softly.

“Sir? We’ve found the ship’s data core, it’s mostly damaged but we were able to capture and hold a small fragment of one of the ship’s audio logs. You’re not going to like this Sir.” The agent’s voice was strained as though he’d heard something and just wasn’t ready to believe it. “We think Jefferson may have killed those people.”

“What?” Myers nearly choked on those words, Carter’s hand started to shake a little and he put down his cup. A gnawing feeling in the backs of their throats forced a little bile into their mouths.

“Shall we transmit the log to you Sir?”

“Y…yes, do it…I want to hear this.” The Captain was shaken, only moments ago they’d been discussing their theories on how this whole mess happened and now with this agent’s report, they’d been stunned into a state of ‘almost’ shock.

“Uploading now.” The agent’s voice cut off as the chime of the comms indicated he’d closed the channel. Moments later the data was uploaded to the Bridge and Carter looked to his Captain for some kind of signal. Myers was sitting in his chair, fingers tapping the arm in nervous thought.

“We have the transmission Captain, do you want to hear it now? Or do you want this in private?” Carter continued to wait; he was slightly worried now that Myers illusions of Jefferson’s grandeur were about to be shattered along with his own.

“Punch it.” The Captain sat upright and his face took on the neutral lines of duty, slowly his eyes became harder and his expression serious. “Turn it up and let’s hear it, Lt.”

His subordinate officer flicked the play control and the Bridge was assaulted by the various sounds of the ship’s last few moments. They could both hear the panic in the crew’s voices and the sound of the conversation between Jefferson and one of his officers.

“Cut the Colonist’s loose, and then…”

“No way Sir, I’m no murderer.”

Myers and Carter were dumbfounded; they both heard the order as clear as day and it was repeated several times, just to make sure. At the end of the replay they both exchanged glances and Myers was about to speak before Carter cut him off and turned up the volume on the recording.

The Bridge was echoing to the sounds of something, something that Carter couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was a screaming screeching noise, followed by a few hard thumps and the sound of crunching and buckling metal. He replayed it several times, fingers flowing over the filter controls like a professional sound-editor until he’d managed to bring up the recording to an almost crystal clear quality.

[Witcher Wolf]

He could also pick out the individual sounds in the background, fragments of tactical data being sent by the ship’s onboard computers. Tactical data…he blinked, that meant that the AI was running targeting programs for weapons and defences. He suddenly blurted out…

“The ship was under attack.”

“Huh?” Myers gave him one of those looks. “You said yourself that.” Again he was cut off.

“It was under attack damn it!”

“Ok Lt, explain your reasoning?” Lee Myers stood up from his chair and walked over, peering at the display, Carter was just standing quietly – he seemed to be lost in thought. “Lt!!!” That did the trick.

“Sorry Sir, I was listening to the background noise and I picked this up, it’s the cross-fade between track one and two, the data must have been jumbled and mixed – we’re getting tactical signals merged with audio. The ship was in some kind of battle, but I don’t know what with.”

As both men stood, listening intently something whined across the speakers and caused Carter to slam down the mute. He began furiously punching buttons, face set with the grim look of a man on a mission. After a while his screen showed a single message blinking on and off on the holo-projector, it was some kind of transmission that had been merged also with the last moments of the ship.

10110110-TARGET-01110100-COLLECTION-11110000
-ELIMINATE-11010101-ACCQUIRE-MATTROX-END-OF-FILE

Myers was impressed, Lee hadn’t often come across a bright spark like Carter very often in his career and now his young officer perked the man’s interest, he could very easily see him in a definite position of authority. But his eyes were drawn back to the flickering message that seemed to make no sense, a jumble of words mixed with a nonsense binary code.

“Sounds to me Sir like something was trying to communicate with the Venezuela’s AI and finding it hard, one of the recent innovations on our ships has been a core AI backup, this one must have triggered at the same time as the main AI, for some reason.” Carter sat down and studied the message with a jaundiced gaze, he clicked his tongue and tapped his fingers – it didn’t make any kind of sense.

“You were saying it’s tactical data?”

“No Sir, well, yes and no.” The young man sighed. “It’s a mess, a mix of both tactical and audio, but the audio is too fast to get all of it. What ever this is communicating it’s doing it much faster than us, like it’s taken a step out of the process – there’s pure binary communication, and there’s something like… “ He fumbled for the word, pulling all his training out in one go, digging for an answer then he blinked. “Machine code.”

“What?”

“An old means of programming Sir, way…way back when computers were about as advanced as this.” He tapped his coffee mug with a finger. “It was faster than the BASIC command language because it took an extra step or two, out of the parser.”

“Now hold on Son, you’re speaking stuff that I’m not conversant in. I might be the head of this research team, but I don’t have a degree in your area of expertise. So dumb it down a little?” Myers grinned for a moment; even through the seriousness of the situation he could still crack a slightly humorous comment or two. “Treat me like I didn’t much care for old 20th Century history?”

[Witcher Wolf]

“Oh…” Carter nodded softly. “Ok, well, imagine you speak two languages.” He paused to punch up another display. “I speak English and I speak German for instance, I was born in England and my primary language is English.” He tapped another control. “But it’s quicker for me to talk to you in English than it is German, I have to think about the German…follow me?”

“Got it in one Son, so you’re telling me what ever is on that audio log is communicating in the language of a machine?” Lee didn’t like the sound of this; it was going way over and past him at light speed. “That’s impossible right, even with our current state of the art machines on Earth…there’s no way they’re that advanced to produce sentient fully aware AI yet.”

“Correct.”

“Which means?”

“It’s not Earth’s and it sure as hell isn’t the Colonies.” Carter looked back at the signal dynamics. “And even though this bears a resemblance to the old machine languages. It’s more advanced and it’s much faster, it has more layers of encryption than the Pentagon Museum on Earth.”

Myers couldn’t help but laugh at that. “So what, it’s Alien or what?”

“Could be.” Carter said defensively.

“You’re not one of those FCF freaks are you?”

Lee shook his head. “I mean look at us Carter, we’re the most advanced civilisation out here, we’re alone in the void Son. And you want to talk bug eyed Alien robots?”

“FCF? Oh…First Contact Fanatics?” He shook his head vehemently. “No Sir, I am not one of those nutcases.”

“Good…so let’s not hear another word about Aliens?”

“Sir.”

Carter was about to speak again when the comms chimed in for a third time today, the agent’s voice on the other end was calmer this time and he made a quick report.

“We’ve secured a medium sized sample of the ship’s hull Sir and discovered the major crash-site, it was a little way off course. Looks like the vessel must have impacted with one of the mountains and struck off at an angle. The dense formations of rocks and the forests didn’t make finding it easy, we couldn’t use scans at all – had to use the old methods of visual recognition.”

“That’s good news agent, prep your team for evac and we’ll study the finds tonight.”

“Yes Sir, do you want the whole section or a sample, it’s fairly big?”

“Take what ever you can load agent, the more evidence we have, the closer we’ll be to solving this mystery.” Myers gave a nod to Carter as he said this and cut the comms. “And the quicker we can get the hell out of here Son, this place is starting to give me the jitters.”

“I couldn’t agree more Sir, would you like me to see if I can’t get more Intel on this message, or perhaps scour the site myself? I’m not afraid of the dark and a little ground-work.” Carter gave a longish grin for a moment and shut down his display. “It would be good to get into Space for a short while, to be honest.”

Myers gave Carter a smile and turned to leave the bridge. “Sure Son, do what you want, you’re my second on this investigation. You’re doing a damn good job, keep it up and there might be a promotion in it for you – yet.” He gave his typical salute and left the room with a grinning Lt behind him.

The corridors of the Archides were moving towards the night cycle as the planet below began to show the visual signs of the coming storm. The kid must be mad to want to go down to Achilles in that kind of weather, but who was Myers to deny him his request. Out here in the Colonies, common sense often held you back more than recklessly endangering your life, after all – they were pioneers and the sons of a distant Earth. As the night cycle finally kicked in all the lights in the corridor dimmed to a soft almost golden glow, mimicking the sunset and then flickering to a white unnatural glitter. Myers was on his way to operations to report his findings so far, he passed several crewmembers who all snapped off quick salutes and finally he was left alone in the clean and practical ops room.

“Give me a secure line via FTL transmission to agent Cole.” Myers said to the comm panel, there was an acquiescent beep and the DSI screen flicked up.

Agent Willard Cole was an older man, a serious man and a man that many people wanted dead. He didn’t care; he liked it that way, so when the call came in from Myers he met it with his usual flat arrogant nature and cold demeanour answering the man’s first question with a snapped. “Report.” While dark soulless eyes stared out of the comm screen at Lee, causing the other man to take an involuntary deep sigh.

“Inconclusive.” Said the other agent. “There’s nothing much out here except for fragments of hull metal and some badly damaged data-logs.” Why the hell did he just lie, was he afraid of Cole’s acidic reply if he told him the whole truth, that one of his officers was suggesting Alien involvement, that would have gone down a treat at his next evaluation performance.

Cole’s thin lips traced a smile to this and he gave a curt nod. “As I expected.” He rubbed his chin. “You have a few more days, then I want you and your ship back on your previous assignment. Someone has to stop those Miners from escalating their claim into a full out faction war.” Oh he was going to enjoy throwing Myers into the deep end with that one, there was just something wonderful about watching a man start to drown – and flail like a lost child looking for their mother.

Myers blinked a couple of times, said nothing and nodded, you kept quiet around agent Cole until he spoke to you, then you kind of spoke to him. Mostly you let the grey-haired senior agent do the talking, or he found a way to make your life hell. Lee was still paying for a small amount of insubordination, and he knew it could only get much worse.

“Nothing to say, Myers?”

“No Sir, those are your orders Sir?”

“They are, dismissed. Oh and…Lee?” Cole gave a shark like grin. “Don’t fail me in this, people are talking…you know…they say that you’ve lost your edge.”

Myers blinked one more time as the comm screen cut out and left him staring at his own flat expression on the blank wall. He wanted to hit something, he wanted to shout and rage and scream until his lungs almost burst. But he settled for a quick walk to his cabin, locking the door and losing himself to a secret bottle of bourbon he’d packed just for this kind of occasion.

[Xenia Onatopp- Bale]

Great story, Wolfy. Genius, genius genius you are.

[TheMacroprosopus]

Oh man. This is wicked so far!

Sorry it took so long, I know I had started reading yesterday, and should have been done yesterday, but suddenly my teacher decided to teach. Then I had a night full of Java and www projects. But, I finished now.

And I love it!!

[Witcher Wolf]

Thankee and no worries Stupon, classes = tres important

[mawa]

Hey, Wolf, so you published it on boards. Great!

To all: I was fortunate to read the whole story some time ago. It's well worth the reading.

[Witcher Wolf]

Yep indeed I did MaWa, I was talking with Stupon and realised that some folk might have missed the PDF version - or don't want to trawl through threads to find it...so here it is...

Deep Space Investigation Vessel – Archides – In Orbit (Achilles) – Day 1 of the Investigation (Night).

What had begun as a small and mostly minor squall had quickly escalated into a full-blown storm, as if somewhere and somehow the very gods themselves were attempting to keep agent Carter from the surface of the planet. As he looked out of the reinforced window towards Achilles he watched the clouds flicker with the sparks of lightning, as it played across the continent where he wanted to be, he marvelled at the storm.

Big storms like that used to rage across his homeworld all the time, so he smiled a little, feeling at home already. Then with sadness, born from having to leave such a magnificent sight he made his way to the small docking bay where a bunch of technicians had prepared the four-man shuttle already.

It was a squat thing, flat at the top with a pair of stabilising wings, the canopy was reinforced and blackened – treated with an anti-glare chemical that prevented the light from nearby stars and suns from blinding the pilot.

As usual it was the typical Colony dull grey and marked with the logos of the Colonies and the D.S.I badge, it gave him a small measure of pride looking at it. The umbilical fuel lines and tubes snapped off with a hiss as one of the techs pushed a button and stood back, clipboard in hand, monitoring and making notes. The other techs swarmed like flies to get the ship ready for final launch.

“Eagle One is ready for you Sir.” A thin gangly man snapped him out of his scrutiny; he was a tech with shock of strawberry blonde hair that whirled in an unkempt mess atop his head. He wore the typical overalls of his profession and most of the surface was covered in a mix of engine oil and fuel of some kind, all it would take is one spark or another chemical and the man would do an impression of Icarus.

“Appreciated.” Carter quipped softly, grinning a little.
“Looks like you boys did a fine job on this one, anything I should know about her performance?” He gave the ship a quick visual once over again just to be sure.

“She’s running a little hot in secondary boost and the radar range has been expanded to give you a little more of an edge in the storm. We’ve also taken the liberty of stripping out some of the useless crap that finds its way onto these babies. I mean.” The tech shrugged a little. “Who needs three levels of gyro stabilisation?”

“Not me, ok, thanks, that’s it?”

“Yeah, oh and watch out for this storm, it’s gonna be a bitch to get visual on anything down there Sir.”

“Concern noted, but I’ll be alright.” The Lieutenant stepped smartly over to one of the lockers and began to change into his flight suit, setting the helmet over his head he ticked on the comm-set and gave an experimental ‘one two, one two’ into it.

“Reading you loud and clear Sir.” Replied one of the communication officers who was still monitoring the frequencies, he was in for a long night and as he listened to a few more tests from Carter he nursed a cup of cooling coffee with shaking fingers. He hated storms, hated them with a deep and abiding loathing, almost a passion.

The hatch to the shuttlecraft popped open with a hydraulic hiss and Carter stepped on board, he threw down his pack and began to load equipment onto the vessel. They were the kind of things he needed, basic survival gear and a number of scientific instruments and scanners.

He packed a weapon or two, one pistol and a rifle just in case, more for any hostile indigenous life than the supposed ‘bug eyed’ monsters he’d made the mistake of talking about on the Bridge. Then when that was done he took the time to secure the hold and moved to the pilot’s chair.

His fingers flicked the various controls, he brought up a quick pre-launch diagnostic and checked the systems while outside the glass he could see the techs heading out of the bay, one or two stopped to pick up some miscellaneous items and they were then gone, like brightly coloured ghosts leaving only himself and the ship, which started to whine as he brought the engines up to speed.

Flickers of fire played around the back of the turbines and licked along the housing for a moment before they burst forth in a roar of ignited fuel, the ship began to thunder down the long bay and towards a pair of doors, doors that now opened like the gates of heaven or was that hell - to admit this free-flying soul to the cold and dark void of space.

[Witcher Wolf]

Out of the launch bay of the Archides the shuttlecraft shot, and angled towards the planet, the green flickering display of the re-entry window information reflected in Carter’s helm. He took hold of the stick and pulled it toward him a little, raising the nose of the craft just slightly until the holograph of the ship and the flickering boxes were in perfect alignment.

He hit the window perfectly and felt the thunder of the planet’s atmosphere punch at the hull of the ship, combined pressure and heat working to try and tear it to pieces – the whole shuttlecraft shook as it roared down through the first few layers as the front of it lit with a blazing orange flame, a flame that the pilots in his unit often called ‘Firefall’ and that is exactly what it looked like to an observer – a ball of flame tearing down through the sky like a bolt from the blue and terrible wrath from the gods.

After a while, the shaking lessened and the buffeting stopped trying to pull lose every seal and bolt from the small vessel, it now slipped out from a layer of cloud and right into the edge of the storm. The superheated hull metal spat with a vicious hiss as rain contacted it, turning most of it to steam instantly and causing tendrils of white mist to wreathe about the shuttlecraft.

As the vessel went lower into the Planet’s atmosphere, passing from the upper to the lower in a matter of seconds, Carter could see the various shapes and formations, valleys, mountains and small hills appeared in the distance, in the brief flashes of white-bursting lightning that raked from the sky like talons.

Carter relaxed, he pulled on the stick and just battled the weather, and this is how it was meant to be – one man and a bird in the dark sky, fighting to keep from being thrown down hard by an angry Planet. Achilles had secrets and he was going to find them out, all of them, or die trying.

Now Eagle One was whirling over a small range of mountains and homing in on the crash site, the information the other team had procured was invaluable in locating the signal from their tracking beacon, he switched his radar to full scan and blinked, just for a moment something else was there, lit up in a flash from the storm. He blinked once more and ignored it, must have been a radar ghost, nothing more.

He brought the ship lower and lower until he was skimming over the tops of the trees, powerful lights cutting through the darkness and turning it as bright as daylight. The trees buffeted by the powerful thrust from the shuttlecraft’s engines, leaves dancing off and blown away like shipwrecked sailors in a vicious storm.

A low and steady ping on his radar from the beacon gave him a moment to smile, he’d found it and soon enough he started to spot the signs from the crash, broken metal and torn ground, to him it looked like parts of the ship had just disintegrated upon impact. The majority of the Venezuela lay a few miles away, at the end of a deep and wicked looking trench, cut into the ground by the force of the crash, like a scar from a knife wound.

He was about to let loose a whistle once more when that shadow flickered in on the radar, again with a flash of lighting, only it wasn’t lightning – it was behind him, two bolts of white-fire slipped past his craft and he threw it into an evasive manoeuvre as more followed, weapons the like of which he’d never seen out here in the Colonies and for one terrible moment he thought of ‘aliens’ and shuddered, that was all it took, he wasn’t a combat pilot – he was a transport pilot and it showed with his lack of experience.

One of his engines was hit and he started to lose power, smoke pouring from the ruined cowling as the turbine struggled to live, pouring leaking fuel and angry yellow-gold flames down the side of the shuttlecraft. He struggled against the storm, the loss of power and the dying engine, and by some miracle managed to regain control as he overshot the crash site. Something was trying to stop him, someone was out there and they were trying to kill him, perhaps to protect the secrets of Achilles and what really happened to the Venezuela and her crew.

His eyes spotted a break in the trees and he couldn’t risk a message to his command ship, he didn’t want to draw attention to Myers’ vessel just in case they hadn’t picked it up. Down shot the shuttlecraft and he banked it hard, tearing through some of the forests canopy and shearing off part of the wing in the process, his gamble was a dangerous one – one wrong move and he’d end up just like Jefferson and the rest of them – he prayed and ducked the ship lower, bringing the gear down and hoping that when he did hit dirt the bottom of the shuttlecraft didn’t just cave in.

[Witcher Wolf]

When it hit, the impact was enough to almost break his spine, the whole thing shook like a damaged roller coaster and the scream from the tortured metal was enough to set the pilot’s teeth on edge. He kept her level and he kept her steady, it was a miracle that he didn’t rip the belly from the shuttle, but eventually it stopped in a screech of furrowed land and broken trees.

The hull was torn in several places and it would take a trained repair team days to get her spaceworthy again, and with the repair gear onboard this ship, it would take him much longer. Now he could smell burning pipelines and fried wiring, the cockpit was a mess and behind him the sound of the licking flames grew in intensity. But rather than trying to save his own skin he was determined not to lose the ship, it was his only way off this rock.

Carter punched the release on his buckle and unstrapped himself fast, his fingers were shaking from the rough landing and all he wanted was a stiff drink, nervously he hit the fire-suppression system in vain hope that it would kick in and prevent him and the ship from reaching several thousand degrees in a few seconds.

The cockpit glass had been shattered and a branch had just missed his body by several inches, now he could survey the scene with clarity he gave a shudder and prayed to something out there for the lucky escape. His luck seemed to have held as the sound of hissing suppressant filtered into the cockpit and the growls of flames being pushed down like angry hounds began to crackle and bark all around.

Long and tense, almost agonizing minutes passed as the creak and groan of superheated metal began to lessen, the crinkle cricking noises from the damaged ship falling into mute silence. Finally he took a long breath, followed by another, but no sudden feeling of complete immolation followed, just a blissful quiet solitude for now.

Of course, it was pitch black without the light from the many fires to provide a dangerous illumination. He worked fast again, pulling himself into the back of the shuttle and checking over the equipment, most of his pack was secure and his weapon was still in place, that was one of the first things he pulled from the rack.

By the time he opened the Back Bay and dropped onto the cold wet ground with a slosh from his boots, he was overburdened like a pack animal with supplies. Basic survival training told him he needed to get away from the crash site and into the forest before anyone came looking for him, the last thing he wanted was to be captured by what ever, or who ever shot down his ship.

So quick steps took him to the edge of the forest and a few more gave him a decent chance of cover, now he took the time to open his pack and snap a shot of adrenaline, he was going to need that. Carter shook like a leaf in a storm as the drug hit his system, his eyes blinked a couple of times and his pupils dilated, then he grabbed his pack and began to move off at some speed – deeper and deeper into the trees, but still within sight of the stricken shuttle.

Then he heard it, barely a whisper and barely a sound, just a flicker over the top of him and the hunter returned…scouring the site of the crash obviously. Carter dropped everything and dumped himself into the mud, rolling over and over in it, if they had any kind of thermal imaging device on that other ship he didn’t want to stand out like the crashed shuttle.

The searching vessel did indeed stop over the crashed vehicle and a moment’s light played over it, then a small bay began to open from beneath the ship and a glimmer of a beam of some kind rained down. There was a flash and the whole shuttle exploded into bright spinning fragments as it was instantly immolated by this high intensity energy weapon, bits of debris rained down all around and some of them hit the edges of the trees.

Carter’s heart sank as he watched this from the safety of his mud pool, the only small part of him that wasn’t covered in this brown mess was his faceplate on the helmet, and that was so he could keep a watch on the crash site. Wasn’t much point now, he thought as the hunter’s ship glided off, he couldn’t even tell what it was in the darkness – it was sleek and it was armed to the teeth, and that’s really all he knew and he didn’t want to know that.

Off into the night it sped and the DSI Agent rose from the mud like some hellish swamp creature, kicking a small frog like animal from his boot, it gave an annoyed ‘croak’ and hopped off into another pool. The light from the burners on the vessel gave him an obvious direction to go, and since he was stuck on the planet unless Myers’ sent down a rescue ship, he was determined to continue with the mission plan.

[Witcher Wolf]

The darkness closed all around him and he moved quietly and carefully through the dense forest, weighed down some by his pack he was only able to travel at a slower speed, but that for him was enough.

He must have trudged hopelessly for hours and hours, until he came to a small clearing where there were signs of some kind of encampment, it had been abandoned some time ago by the look of things and Carter took a few moments to scour it for anything useful.

The whole place was a mess and several bodies were just lying where they’d fallen, they looked to him like they were a group of prospectors or a survey team of some kind – they had large holes in their chests, as though something had burst its way through from back to front, or front to back.

The edges were cauterised and there was no blood, not a single drop of red stained the ground at all.

His maglight broke through the veil of night with a bright piercing beam and illuminated the scene like some ghastly science-fiction waxwork.

He was able to piece together a few things from his examination; four members were on this team and from a charred ID card he could just make out a name, Wilson or something similar.

He was about to leave the camp when his sharp eyes spotted a fallen branch and something under it, he moved over, crunching across the remains of their fire-pit and scooping a small box up into his suited hand.

As luck would have it, this was a holo-recorder and it seemed to be pretty ok, a few cracks in the surface of the material but nothing that indicated the device was going to be inoperable.

With a moment’s pause given for the dead, he flicked the device on, there was a soft hum and a blue glow as the holo-recorder powered up. Small flickers danced across the built in screen and several buttons illuminated, he searched the data logs of the device and settled on a particular recording.

“Senior Chief Wilson O’Hara of the Colony Survey Team – Beta Five.” The voice was thick accented, almost American and slightly Irish in the lilt. The image was mostly fuzzy as the recorders built in recovery systems tried to put the log back in order, obviously the device wasn’t as undamaged as he first thought.

O’Hara seemed to be a middle aged, mostly rotund man and his hair was cropped short and looked as though someone had done it with a hedge-trimmer and failed miserably. He had three others with him, two men and one woman. The recorder must have been passed from one to the other as each member of the team introduced themselves.

“First Technician – Ethan Waverly…Colony Survey Team – Beta Five…will you STOP doing that!!!” The man started out with a soft English accent and ended up screaming at the other man who kept making faces behind him. “And that would be the soon to be dead, chief botanist, Elijah In-The-Grave!” Ethan looked like a typical suit, he wore immaculate overalls and his dark hair was kept in a neat ponytail, he looked entirely too serious.

Elijah snatched the recorder and grinned at it, he was a red head, a man with a fiery copper coloured mop of hair and a bright ‘jokers’ smile. “Elijah Jones.” He purred at the screen. “I am THE Man, who is going to feed Ethan here his teeth if he doesn’t stop being so stuffy!” He started to run around to where the woman was, grinning at her like a deranged weasel or some kind of similar creature. “And this lovely creature is…”

A pair of dark flinty eyes fixed on him, the holo-recorder was taken from his hand and a cold smile met his grin. “Miho Takawa.” She was oriental, Japanese and prim. She shot his joke down like Carter’s ship; all ice daggers with her eyes and cold white from that smile. O’Hara took a moment to mime, complete with sounds a crash and burn. “Chief Science Officer of the Colony Survey Team – Beta Five.”

He pushed the last log entry…and wished he hadn’t.

The four people rezzed in again, they were sleeping it seemed and someone must have left the camera on, Carter figured from the position that it was attempting to get a good look at Miho’s sleeping form, he shook his head sadly as he watched.

They seemed to be going through that routine, until O’Hara woke with a start and shot out of his sleeping bag, he began to curse as a small ‘porcupine’ like creature snuffled out from the inside of his bag and began to waddle towards him, the man picked up a stick and began to scream at it. This woke his comrades up, and all bar Miho laughed at him.

Elijah was laughing hard, right up to the point that a white-hot bolt of plasma or something ripped through his chest turning his guts to boiled pulp in an instant, he flailed backwards and caught the holo-recorder with an outstretched arm, knocking it down onto the ground. His scream died on his lips and nothing more was heard from him on the recording, Carter’s glance to the body confirmed he was dead before he hit the ground.

The rest of the recording played out like some holo-shocker flick with the sounds of hissing-whining weapons in the background, the Colonists were caught by surprise and they didn’t stand a chance, the last to fall was Miho who dropped just before the holo-recorders’ lens – flint eyes staring lifelessly from her beautiful face.

Carter suppressed a shudder and he was about to turn it off, when at the edges of the recorders’ field of vision something moved, he caught a brief glimpse of a shadow and then the camera cut out, it was there for a moment.

A single illuminated ‘eye’ of some kind.

He dropped the device and snapped off his helmet, his whole body was shaking, from head to toe and he shivered at the accusing look in the woman’s eyes, right before the image of the ‘red’ eye smashed into his subconscious with the light-speed impact of a captured thought. Now all he could see was that solitary eye, that inhuman, almost camera-like eye.

And out there in the darkness, while he sat and shuddered again, there was a click – almost like a camera shutter going off in the blackness of the trees, too tiny for his hearing to pick up. But what ever made that click caused a few night birds to scatter and Carter snapped his attention to the tree line.

This could well have saved his life.

A few seconds…helmet replaced and he was moving…just in time.

The area around him lit up like the fourth and a searing blast of blue/white screamed from the trees, he had only those few seconds prior to this to react and he threw himself to the side. The plasma bolt smashed into the trunk of a nearby tree and blew part of it into flying splinters of charred wood. Smoke rose in long trails from the gaping wound in the trunk and Carter sprang up from where he’d landed, making a short ‘zigzag’ motion to the opposite side of the clearing, pulling his rifle and firing erratically.

More bolts followed and the young Lt threw himself down again just as bright light tore over his head and he felt the heat even through his suit’s helmet.

Now he rolled over and over until he could pull himself up, breathing hard, his heart racing – he saw that eye again, but only cold anger replaced the fear now and he levelled the rifle firing off staccato burst after burst at his aggressor, praying there was only one.

He wasn’t sure if he’d hit his target, but there were a few loud metallic ricochets and a number of dull thuds, right before part of his hiding place was vaporised as another bolt tore part of the tree away in an acrid stench.

[Witcher Wolf]

Carter took a chance and moved again, this time to behind a small outcropping of rock; he didn’t fire back this time – not wanting to give away his position.

His chest was heaving and his helmet didn’t make breathing properly any easier, so he unclipped it and threw it into the tree line a distance away from where he was, another whine of plasma and a few more bolts zipped into the darkness and into that direction.

That gave him an idea, he grabbed a small rock and hurled it out into the dark, a little way from the helmet…sure enough the aggressor took the bait and he finally caught a glimpse of what was hunting him.

The creature was like nothing he’d ever seen; it was tall, sleek and made entirely of some kind of metal. The life forms head was elongated, like a deformed surveillance camera and it had a single red glowing eye that searched the darkness for him. It was built upon the standard humanoid frame, two arms, two legs – but there the similarity ended…it was alien, and it was hunting him down.

No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t dismiss it and as the ambient light from the sky cut through the canopy of the trees and painted a nightmarish picture of this ‘thing’.

He was forced to admit that the FCF were right, there were aliens and they did exist. Then logic and insanity began to war inside his head, they can’t be aliens, they’re a secret weapons project…all these thoughts jumbled into his mind, a snap of a branch close to his head yanked him out of his reverie and into a cold sweat.

For long moments he didn’t want to turn around, but he knew he must, but he was shocked when he looked into the wild, maddened and staring eyes of the human face level with his own.

“N..north…” An urgent voice cracked like a whip. “You have to see! See for yourself!” It got louder and louder, until the man who was dressed in a pilot’s flight-suit and ragged as a torn leaf, began to shout. “You have to see it! It’s real!”

The hunter in the forest stopped its inspection of the helmet and turned the glowing eye towards the sound of the frenzied mans voice. Slowly it moved, clicking servos as metallic feet trampled small plants and flowers beneath them.

“Shut up!” Carter grabbed the other mans shoulders and shook him. “You want to get us both killed?”

But the pilot was too far gone to care, he shoved Carter hard and the Lt held on, trying to hold him back…the wild eyed human wouldn’t listen and as Carter made a desperate last attempt to latch onto something he caught the man’s dog-tags.

“North!” He screamed and broke free of the young Lt, running right out in the open and towards the hunter with a reckless weaving gait as his long legs drove him onwards.

Carter didn’t waste any time, he took the man’s diversion and ran the opposite way putting as much distance between him and them as possible, his legs ached and he collapsed onto the ground after a few miles or so.

The pilot wasn’t quite dead yet, he was being inspected and examined at the end of a long slender claw-like hand. The hunter held him up to its camera-eye and turned his head this way and that, metallic fingers digging into the soft skin at his throat.

“Get bent!” He spat into the eye with enough venom to cause an oozing sticky mass of spittle and blood to drip down it.

The hunter tightened its grip and shook the man a little; he made several gasping sounds and started to choke, his eyes widened and he spat again, defiant to the last.

“I…said…get…F!” He didn’t finish the last word, as there was a sickening crack as the bones in his neck gave way, the spinal column shattering as the pressure from the life form’s metal talons proved too much for the inferior human flesh and bone.

The hunter dropped the lifeless corpse onto the ground and searched for a sign of a weapon.

Logic dictated that the prey was armed - this prey was not. The red eye scanned the location and there was a tiny click from the servos inside, a thermal image camera engaged with a flicker of CPU processing time – it swept the location, pinpointing not one but two residual heat traces, the one was matched to the terminated life form before it, the other moved off into the forests and left a nice hot trail for the hunter to follow.

So it did, slowly, almost taking pleasure in this new game.

Meanwhile Carter was curled up on the forest floor, once again lying in the mud, as the storm above him didn’t want to loosen its grip on the planet. He shivered from the cold and tucked himself into a tighter and tighter ball.

The dog tags slipped from his grip and landed in the mud, remaining on the surface for a moment, if he could see them – he didn’t make a move to pull them out of their watery grave, his mind didn’t even register the name on the metal discs.

Pilot 2nd Class

Gerald Romax

Callsign: Slinter

Colony Survey Team – Beta 5

The water gurgled, laughing almost as the discs were swallowed beneath the greedy surface, leaving only a soft ‘chuckle’ as a final footnote to the pilot’s life. Carter closed his eyes and remained in the cold embrace of the undergrowth for a while longer, his suit barely protecting him from hypothermia, he kept seeing the empty stare inside the man’s eyes, fragments of a broken mind.

The hunter…closed in…metallic feet making slow but swift progress in the storm.

There was a brief flash of movement caught by the lens fragment of the alien’s eye, it turned with a whisper of servos to scan – that was the last thing it saw, a crack sounded in the trees, startling night-birds to flight with a flutter of disturbed wings.

A red light went out…

POWER TERMINAL – REBOOT SYSTEM – FAILURE – POWER TERMINA…

[Witcher Wolf]

Deep Space Investigation Vessel – Archides – In Orbit (Achilles) – Day 2 of the Investigation (Almost Dawn).

The ship was just moving into the day cycle and Myers was back on the Bridge looking out of the large window at the stars again, they always held a special place in his soul – he wanted his grave out here, nothing to tie him to a planet. He smoothed back his hair and sipped from his coffee, transferring his attention to the blue/green of Achilles.

I hope Carter’s ok down there, hasn’t reported back yet…perhaps I should comm. Him?

The Captain crossed to the console and punched up a secure frequency, waiting for a few moments he keyed the communications console a couple of times. Carter’s com-set was on, the signal was getting through.

“Lt Carter, report in, this is Myers…do you copy?”

Static answered back with a hideous crone-like crackling cackle.

“Carter, do you read?”

Once more the crackle of the airwaves mocked him.

Deep in his gut he knew something had gone wrong, he was the only one manning the Bridge at the moment so he slid into the chair and brought up the ship’s long-range sensors. The storm was slowly abating and loosing its grip on the planet below. Small dancing bolts of lightning flickered across the clouds and lit them with a sudden flash here and there, it really was quite spectacular.

The sensors began their sweeps, sending information back to the ship; he began to become more and more uneasy as time went on. Not a sign of the ship that should be there, he reasoned it could be the storm but even then there should be a small faint signal. He kept at this endeavour for at least another hour and by now the sun was up on Achilles – the sky free from the heavy storm and the lightning long gone.

Still nothing…

Then on another pass the sensors locked onto a small area of the planet, readouts began to flicker in and the picture they painted wasn’t good. The remains of Carter’s ship were revealed, but the fuzzy picture that played on the holo readout was barely recognisable – but somehow the black box had survived the disaster. It was emitting a low frequency heartbeat, a lifeline beep…beep…beep like a patient in a Hospital lying on a terminal bed.

Breaking all protocol and breaking all rules, Myers punched in the security code to the ship’s box and began to download the information to the Archides data banks. He had to know, he wanted to know and damn the rules – he was going to know. The data began to stream in, just about the same time some of the crew meandered onto the Bridge and found him at the ops station looking like a worn and haggard ghost.

“You ok Sir?”

“Yeah, but look at this.” The Captain jabbed a finger at the control panel and part of the large view-screen flickered to display the location and what was left of Carter’s ship.

“Oh my god.” The young officer sat down, another put her hand on his shoulder and gawked at the image.

“Carter?” She asked with a shudder.

“It gets better.” Myers replied and triggered the black box’s replay.

They all watched Carter’s ship come under fire from the unknown shadow, they all watched as the front and rear cameras recorded footage of the desperate fight for survival. But the female officer caught something that they all didn’t catch in the ship’s final moments.

“There!” She shot towards the screen and poked it with her finger. “Freeze on that frame and go back three steps, Sir.”

He did as she asked, and there he saw it, Carter hauling ass into the undergrowth and hitting the deck, not long before a blast of something obliterated the cameras and ended the recording with the chilling words.

Pilot: Crew of 1: Presumed KIA.

“He’s alive, I don’t believe it…he’s damn well alive!” The Captain sat back in the chair and shook his head. “And he said to me, he don’t know the first two things about Combat and Survival – that lucky son of a gun has got to have more balls than a whole Unit of the C.D.F.”

“Yes, Sir.” The woman officer laughed a little and stepped to her station. “Should we organise a rescue operation? Or?”

“We’re ill equipped to deal with this kind of thing, but punch me up the FTL com-array. I’ve got a call to make.” Myers stood up and moved across to the side of the station. “A CDF General owes me big-time.”

[Witcher Wolf]

“The FTL programs’ running Sir and the com-array is all yours.” She smiled a little, which faded when she thought of Carter down there – she began to wonder if he was injured, if she’d even see him again. Her mother had always said something like.

“You don’t know what you’ve got, till it’s gone.”

Now she really knew what that meant. These people might be her crewmates and superiors but they were also like her family, she fought down a sudden wave of emotion and fixed on something else.

“He’ll be fine.” Said another crewman, hoping he sounded sincere; he had to admit that the Lt’s situation looked pretty grim.

Myers closed his eyes and then let out a deep breath, it was time to shake the tree and see what fell out. As they opened he keyed in the secure channel to his friend’s ship and prayed to any gods that might be out there.

“General Wilson?” The Captain said quietly into the com. “This is Myers, Lee Myers of the Archides.” There were a few moments of silence.

“Myers eh?” The man’s voice was steady and held those tones of command in its bass depths. “Lee…Myers.” Then he began to chuckle. “Well it’s good to hear your voice Son, now what can I do for you, I guess this aint gonna be no courtesy call?”

“No, we have a situation on Achilles that I think the CDF needs to look into, can you get the Green light from the President?”

“With all due respect to his candy ass on Ryn, if I want to come check something out, I don’t need no Green Light – I aint his errand boy.” Myers could almost see the man chewing a big fat cigar.

“That’s good to hear, when can I expect the Scimitar?”

“That bucket of bolts, that was decommissioned last year.” There was a snort. “Get that stupid dumb-assed radio turned down, what the hell is that kind of music? Sounds like a cat being strangled with a violin.” He made a cough into the comm. “Sorry about that Lee, was someone playing crap in the hangar again.”

“It’s ok, so what are you running now, if the Scimitars out to pasture?” Myers gave a slight chuckle at the silence; his friend was a big and brash individual with a typical gung-ho desire to blow things to bits.

“The Raptor.” Wilson gave a big long almost lewd laugh. “You’ll get to see her soon enough, she’s a mean mother of a ship. Oh and I gots me some of your old Unit riding the rails with me.” He gave another cough and continued. “Domino Squad now, they likes a killin things Son, just like you did. You should consider givin up that ass-poor job under Cole and come work for me again.”

“If only I could.” Myers looked to his crew. “But they kind of need me here, I’m the only one keeping them from going mad.” It was the Captain’s turn to laugh a little and Wilson echoed it.

“Bulldung Son, pure hunnerd percent crap.” Another snort followed. “You drag you and your whole crew to my ship and I promise you, you aint gonna regret it. Got places for em all, lost a few good men on a hop we did last cycle – stupid damn Earth crap blew up on us, never made it into the atmosphere – we’re sticking with Colony made gear now.”

[Witcher Wolf]

“Cole would blow a gasket.” Myers was tempted, he risked another look at his crew, and they were busy now running the ship. “You said, all my crew?”

“Darn right Son, all of them…take em all on.”

“Seriously?”

Wilson gave a long sigh and growled. “Have you ever known me to yank your chain?”

“No…true…”

“I’m not gonna give you the offer again, but I really would like you back with us. The Raptor would benefit from your expertise in the field and do you really want a desk job all your life?” The General’s voice rumbled softly once more and he took a long drag of his cigar.

“What about Cole?” Myers almost said yes, blast this man was still as persuasive as ever.

“You leave that jumped up stick-insect to me Son, I’ve eaten his kind as an appetiser chased down with hot molten lead.” A belly laugh rolled from the General. “Watch for the Raptor in about two hours, you can’t miss us. We’re the ship with the slogan – If you can read this: We’ve already kicked your ass and drunk your beer.”

“Roger.” He cut the com-array signal and looked back at the planet. “Hang on Carter, we’re coming for you.”

“Sir?” The woman snapped from what she was doing and raised a brow.

“General Wilson is on his way and he’s got a proposition for us.” Into his command chair he sank and sat like a broody hen for a moment. “I want a full crew turn out in thirty minutes on the rec-deck.”

“Yes Sir, any reason?” She asked sending a ship-wide communication.

“Change of pace, I’ll brief you all on the deck later on.” He closed his eyes, the signal that no more questions were to be asked.

“Yes Sir.” Anna went back to what she was doing, joining them all in the brooding silence of the Bridge, only broken by the mechanical and electronic chatters and whispers of the equipment. The planet’s fate, Carter’s fate and the fate of them all seemed to hinge on the arrival of the CDF Raptor and the brash General.

Wilson wasn’t wrong; when the CDF Raptor appeared out of jumpspace it was a mean looking ship, bigger than Myers vessel and bristling with guns. It had the appearance of a space born shark and the teeth to match, he couldn’t help but chuckle as the slogan was indeed painted on the side in massive letters. The dark grey hull shone with the reflected the light from the nearby sun, giving the vessel an almost mythical quality.

It wasn’t a time for pleasantries or sugarcoated words; it was a time for steel and plasma. The Captain stood on Wilson’s deck and gazed around the inside of the massive ship, there were at least a half-a-dozen prepped dropships sitting like waiting tigers, engines already emitting that low hum and about sixty or so men and woman, all of them tooled up and ready to go head to head with anyone and anything - they were ‘Domino’ Squad and they looked as though they meant business.

“Alright Squad.” The voice of the General cut through the deck like a knife through butter. “This is Captain Myers, from now on, he’ll be leading Domino Squad – I want you to give this man your best, some of you are wet behind the ears and don’t know him, but let me tell you this, you follow his lead and you’ll be fine – you deviate and I’ll space your sorry a’ss myself.” He paused and chewed on his cigar. “Do you follow me boys and girls?”

“Sir, YES, Sir!” Came the automatic reply.

When you were with the General you learned pretty quickly, let the man do what he wanted, it wasn’t worth the trouble of extracting his boot from upside your backside. In this case Myers just nodded in assent to his old friend and vowed he’d get his own back – but it did feel good to have those people turn their attention to him, waiting expectantly for what he had to say.

“At ease.” He began. “We have a downed operative on that planet, one of my men, but as of now he’s one of your men – he’s one of us. There are a number of unconfirmed hostiles of unknown origin on the planet’s surface – there is also hostile air support.” He then added. “And I tell you now people, we think we may be dealing with a terrorist group or mercenary outfit, so I want you to be on the ball.”

“Sir, YES, Sir!” Wilson had them drilled well; they were like a finely tuned engine.

“Tactical Data is being fed to the briefing modules in each of your assigned vessels, the man’s name is Carter and his description has been loaded, consider him a priority one mission objective.” He paused to let this sink in. “What ever happens, we do not leave without him, this whole mission is to get Carter. Only engage the hostiles if you have no other choice.”

“Understood, Sir!” The automatic reply once more flooded the bay; Wilson just stood there and grinned while his cigar smoke curled upwards.

“Alright Dominos.” He cut across Myers for a moment. “The hop begins now, you have your orders, make us proud.”

The Captain gave Wilson a black look for a moment and turned to face him.

”Sorry Son, had to get this show on the road, they like em short and sweet in my opinion.” Then he was off, heading towards the command deck of his ship. “Myers, you’ll be goin down with em, better suit up and rest assured, we’ve got the big guns online should you run into anything too big to handle.”

“Yes General.” And he too was heading towards the equipment room, stocking up and grabbing his gear from one of the store-units. It was almost as if his place in Wilson’s unit was still warm, everything felt so familiar even though they were on a different ship. His next port of call was on one of the dropships; he chose one with a mean looking panther on the front as the noseart.

The external view of the Raptor was bleak only for a few moments until the ship disgorged it’s cargo of heavy dropships, their engines igniting like fireflies and one by one they roared into the approach vector of the planet – lighting up in a half-a-dozen ‘Firefalls’ – to Wilson’s eyes the sight was almost hypnotic as he watched the vehicles peel away from the ship and dive into the swirling white as their hulls were superheated by the re-entry.

Onboard Meyer’s vessel everyone was checking weapons and the whole ship was silent apart from the one armoured figure’s litany – it seemed to the Captain, it was some kind of prayer.

“God forgive those who stand against us, cause us to smite them in his name and God save those who stand in the way of his rotary cannon of justice.”

[Witcher Wolf]

“Amen.” Said the whole Squad suddenly; even Myers mumbled it under his breath, caught in the fervour of the man’s words. He turned to another figure and asked quietly, whom the speaker was.

“That’s the Preacher, Father Aron King.” The woman answered while slamming a fresh clip into her rifle. “He’s probably the most tapped of all the Dominos.”

“Tapped?”

“Yeah, nuts.” She grinned under her helmet. “Welcome to the unit Sir, I think you’ll fit right in.” Another mad grin followed. “You can call me Lexa.”

His comm frazzled as the ship bucked a little, the pilot’s voice cut across it. “Don’t worry, we hit an air pocket coming out of the re-entry tunnel, nothing this bird can’t handle, dropzone in sight, five minutes till putdown.”

“Look sharp.” Myers said - Domino Squad snapped to attention, even the Preacher in his pitch-black armour, a bone-white skull painted on his helmet turned to face the Captain.

“Five minutes…”

“Five minutes till we put the hammer of God onto the heathens Sir?” The man’s voice was thick with some kind of accent, but Myers couldn’t place it.

“Preacher? Yes, if we have to.”

“Amen Sir, Amen.”

The drop was only minutes away and the Squad began to ready themselves, Myers gripped his rifle and the thing felt as though he’d never let it go – crunch time.

“And they came then those angels of the new age, setting fire to the sky and with the holy fire of their retribution brought the wrath of the Lord upon the heads of the mercenary heathens.” Preacher’s almost mono-syllabic droning came at the moment the ship burst from the cloud cover and began to skim across the trees.

“No sign of Carter’s life-signs Sir.” The Pilot piped up in Myers’ headset. “Lots of interference though, it might clear up when we hit the LZ.”

“Yes, keep scanning.” It wouldn’t be long now, they could all sense it and as the ship buffeted with the heavy turbulence, the pilot fought with the controls to bring it level. The Captain watched the branches and the foliage skim by as the ship dipped lower; another voice snapped him back to reality.

“Captain Myers, Sir?” It was Lucas, the squad’s comm’s officer. “I’ve got something on the rig, you need to hear, I can’t make head or tails of it though – most of it’s garbled.”

“Ok, pipe it through my tac-set.” He put one hand on the bulkhead and gripped a steel pipe, fingers lacing round it as the ship bobbed again, then the message crackled through into his ears.

“Thi…s…i….derson….st…se, to all a….ied f…ces – we are under a….ck, re….at, under …..k…”

Then it was silent, it was deathly silent as though the communication cut out and the only sound that remained was the thumping of the Captain’s heart, it hammered now in his chest, a deep gnawing feeling in his soul began to surface – those might have been the last words of Anderson Starbase.

“What the hell!” The Pilot’s tones were stressed and the ship rocked to the side, out of the starboard window there was a bright flash of blue/white light that streaked off, narrowly missing the vessel and bubbling the paint in places. “Hostile incoming fire, hang on tight people.”

Two answering blasts from the Dropship’s side mounted rocket-launchers flared as the ship dodged and weaved from side to side, the space in which the Pilot had to manoeuvre it began to dwindle. The rockets smashed into their targets, churning the ground into broken dust and flying debris – smoke poured from the shells of the two stationary plasma guns.

The Breed that manned them were turned into scrap metal in a white-hot instant, first blood was on the hands of the strike team. The Pilot’s cheer followed by the effusive swearing confirmed to Myers that they might have a chance against these mercenaries, he did not know what really awaited him or his men – he was about to find out.

The ship hit the deck and the landing gear bucked a little as the weight of the vessel impacted against the hydraulic mechanism. It groaned, complained – but held.

“Alright people, move out!” Yelled Myers and punched the hatch release, scrambling out of the ship as fast as he can. “Lucas, I want tactical updates from the Raptor’s sensors, give me as much info as you can.”

“Yes Sir!”

“Lexa, Preacher…” He turned to face them both. “Cover the north side of the clearing, take Jones and Michaels with you.” Then he barked another set of orders. “Pilot, get this crate in the air and we’ll radio for evac when we need it.”
The Pilot’s answer was given as the Dropship’s door closed with a hiss and the ship rose into the sky on a pillar of fire. Myers’ raised his hand to cover his visor and watched the vessel streak up into the sky. Something passed, and as it did, there were four stabbing beams of light. The other ship was struck by three of them and turned into a ball of fire, expanding into the sky as the Breed vessel curved away and across the landscape.

“Fu…” Myers didn’t have time to complete the curse word, as the North area of their makeshift camp came alive with the sound of gunfire, the Domino Marines guarding that zone engaging the enemy.

“Lucas, we need a sit-rep NOW!” He snarled as stray blue bolts peppered the clearing. “Hit the deck!” He really didn’t have to tell them twice, men and women were scrambling into the dirt and providing covering fire for the other Marines.

Lucas bellied over to Myers and shook his head. “It’s not good Sir, Raptor reports that the other Dropships were hit on the way down, they weren’t as lucky as we were, we’re all that’s left.”

“How the hell did they know?”

“I don’t know Sir, perhaps they were monitoring our supposedly secure frequency?”

More gunfire forced Lucas to almost bury himself in the ground. “That was too close…”

“Keep in contact with the Raptor…”

“Sir…”

[Witcher Wolf]

“Moreton, bring that damn heavy gun with you, we’re going to assist Preacher and Lexa. Move it!” Myers gripped his rifle, fired off a couple of bursts as covering fire and both men began to charge off to the North of the clearing, firing sporadically. Waves of light ripped from the trees and missed them both, and then a large illuminated burst incinerated a nearby tree into shards of wood.

“These are not Mercs, Sir, they’re too well equipped.” Moreton slid down behind a rock and lifted the huge gun over it, firing towards the edge of the clearing. “These are plasma weapons, those things are mil R&D, I’ve seen nothing like this before…”

“If they’re not Mercs, then what the hell are they?” Myers lifted his head and part of his rock vaporised into dust. “Rogue Military?”

“Could be…”
“Lexa, how are you and Preacher doing?” Myers snapped open his voice communications and locked the channel. “Report?”

“Holding our own Sir, but these are not Mercs.” Her voice had the edge of fear about it. “They’re…not even human.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re like some kind of robot, but they’re…” Her voice was cut short and Myers was forced to pull his helmet off as Lexa’s scream cut into his senses, it gurgled and died, there was another speaker on the line so he slammed his helmet back on.

“Lexa is KIA Captain.” Came the voice of the Preacher. “Heathen scum, unholy warriors of Satan!” Myers could hear the other man’s heavy gun answering the death of his friend, with a barking chant. “It is truly the devils work Sir, they have one red eye like the Lord of the Pit himself.”

“Carter was right.” Myers sank behind the rock. “He said there were other things out there, we laughed about it, joked about it.”

“Now it’s true.” Came the Preacher’s voice. “These are devils and they must be slain!”

There was a bright flash from the North and more gunfire. Then a series of gigantic explosions came from the South and bodies of men were hurled into the sky, like rag-dolls at the hands of some uncaring puppeteer. Myers ducked lower and his heart rate rocketed sky-high. “Damn it!”

They had come here as the hunters expecting an easy prey, expecting soft fleshy bodies and simple tactics. What they hadn’t expected is for their adversary to be waiting and prepared – great numbers of Breed now advanced from the North while supported by mobile artillery from the South. Lucas, thought Myers, he never had a chance – now the Raptor would be a sitting duck out there, ripe for an attack.

Moreton’s head turned to molten white light and the man’s body dropped backwards, as the relentless adversary advanced, bolts of bright energy flowing from their rifles, every step taken brought with it a rain of plasma that cut down those still standing.

The Captain said a prayer and brought his weapon to bear, firing at the Breed, they converged on him. The first bolt hit him – he was thrown backwards, a hole bored right through his shoulder cutting through his armour as though it were smoke. But he picked himself up and kept firing, bringing down two or three of the alien creatures – but in the end their numbers overwhelmed him and his broken, burned and abused body slammed to the ground – a smoking marker to his last stand.

It was over as quickly as it began, the Breed scanned the corpses for survivors and moved on – killing any that were too weak to be useful. Those who were lucky enough to fit the Breed’s logical pattern for useful personnel were loaded onto an armoured transporter. The lead transporter already had a familiar battered human figure on board, the nametag on his suit showing his name…

Lt Carter: DSI

The General’s vessel never stood a chance, Carter watched dimly through the transporter’s window as the Breed vessel slipped into space like a deadly insect. Bits of the stricken Raptor were spinning like metal stars, bodies littered the area, slowing bumping into each other and into the bits of hull metal. Blood globules spattering into the floating flotsam and jetsam of a quick and one-sided battle, Carter turned his eyes away from the window.

He could see the Breed’s larger vessel, he did not know what the alien monsters had in store for him there – but he knew one thing, it didn’t involve peace or harmony. Suppressing an involuntary shudder he looked one last time at the last remains of a grand battle, wondering where Myer’s ship could have been in all that junk…Carter didn’t know that as the pieces of the Archides began to hit the atmosphere – that was the last Firefall he’d ever see.

(The End)