Coming Home Again (Working Title)

It all started like any normal Mission. The objective was a simple one: kill the leader of the opposing organization. Entry went without a hitch, somehow it got out of control . . .

"I'm in the clear Vek, "signed Sevante" looks like we can move in." Vek sat behind the embankment, "everything is to quiet," He thought to himself. It was very quiet. They had met strong resistance at the edge of the city, it looked like a whole army had been deployed. Even the strokers . . . the thought of those horrible creatures made Vek shiver in the blazing hot sun of midday. They were the descendents of the first cyborgs, a people created by humans. As always, they were controlled, and they didn’t like it. So they went to war, just like all the pitiful races that wouldn’t bow to the yoke of the United Republic. But cyborgs were different somehow; they actually knew how to fight a war.

They changed themselves, into something more than just human and technology. Their bodies hopelessly twisted, they spread throughout the galaxy, aiding any race the Republic was at war with.

They were horror on the battlefield, so fast, you couldn’t even pull the trigger before they had killed a third of your squad. Their blades were sharp and their aim was deadly. They were the single biggest problem the Republic had ever encountered.

And here Vek sat, in the middle of the aftermath of their return attack, waiting . . . . "I can't take it anymore!" his mind screamed "I have to do something, headquarters has been down for hours, nobody's giving orders anymore!" He looked over the embankment to the visage of the battlefield. There were bodies everywhere and occasionally the larger corpse of a war beast or wreckage from a mech smoldering from the new lasers the cyborgs had used.

The United Republic was currently fighting a war with the Mertan, a race of tall, furry people with great strength. But for all their might, they had no idea how to fight a war, so the cyborgs lent them aid.

"Alright, let’s move,” crackled Vek over the com. He jumped the embankment and started running. Expected to be fired upon, he dove behind a once working mech and waited.

Nobody fired, nothing attacked. "We're all clear on the scanners," Sevante was the first to break the silence.

"Vek, you and green team take the center," intoned Xstin over the com "be careful and keep to cover, your going first, but we have your back."

Green team emerged cautiously, moving with the footfalls of trained warriors. They sighted the building up ahead, the building which contained the man they needed to kill. All the way up to the door of the building, there was no resistance. It was as if all the enemy had disappeared. Then Jack spotted something on the door.


“We got a bomb,” he screamed “everybody get down.” Green team dove for cover as Sevante sprang into action. Producing a small metal disk from he belt and pressured a small indentation. A golbe of energy formed around the disk and he pressed it onto the metal lump on the door.

"Wait," warned Sevante "the bomb has been deactivated, perhaps long before we got here.
"Something weird is going on here," Vek murmered "all right everyone, this is most likely a trap, expect the unexpected.

"Expected the unexpected" that was certainly the Republics motto. When the Republic was first formed, there were unavoidable problems, but somehow the it was able to sidestep many of them, as if it had been expecting them. Famine was not know during the Republic's take over, it had expected that. The Republic also seemed to know when a race was going to revolt, and smothered it, before it could possibly even know of dissent. Everything went perfectly until the advent of the cyborgs...

The door opened to Vek's touch and green squad filled in along the wall hiding behind the crates scattered haphazardly around the room. In the center of the room stood a pedistal, on the pedistal was a metal box.

"The sensor says the box is a detinator for the bomb," signed Sevante " or the system of bombs, this whole place is rigged!"
"Alright," Jack signed back " we don't know whats going on, so I'm going for the box, cover me."
"Watch," signed Xstin

As Jack was creeping foreward, something fired and a laser hit him in the back. Xstin was the next to fall, as the beam streamed from a high window. As Vek returned fire, he heard a footfall behind him.

As he whirled to face it, a man in a white coat was already on him, injecting something into Vek's neck.

The world swirlled, and as Vek fell to the ground, he heard the man say "another victory for the United Republic."

End of Chapter 1

The world was black, floating and soft. Slowly, ever so slowly it changed to slate gray. “Great,” Vek mumbled, “they’re bringing me to.” But the color of Vek’s world remained the same slate gray. He sat there for many eternities until the glass plate that separated him from the slate grey ceiling slid away.
“So, I’ve been awake this entire time, huh?” though Vek as he surveyed his surroundings, which consisted of a small metal tube which encased him, and the ceiling. He slowly tipped out of the tube and examined himself for injuries. “A cryo pod, that makes me wonder just how long I’ve been out,” he whispered, “and why am I talking to myself?”

He pulled himself together and looked around the building sized room. It contained row upon row of cryo sleep chambers, at least a hundred of them. Only half were occupied. “I wonder what happened to the other poor suckers,” he thought.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a door he hadn’t noticed before that had just opened. Soldiers began to fill the room with evil looking weapons. As Vek reached for his rifle, he realized that he didn’t have it nor did he have his powered battle armor that had probably taken enough damage to down a frigate.

“Stealth” he thought, “is my only way out of this.” He slowly knelt down behind a cryo tube and prepared himself for when a soldier would pass him by.

The soldiers slowly spread throughout the room, checking very carefully around the cryo tubes.
“They must know that I’m not in my tube, now I have no chance of surprising them,” he thought as he hid, ”if only I could get one of their guns!”

And then to his surprise, Vek spotted a soldier checking a tube a couple feet away, with his back toward him. Without thinking, Vek rolled out from under the tube and leaped at the man, snaring his neck in his arms. The first thing Vek noticed about the man was that he was cool, not warm. The man had very little smell, as if he had bathed in deodorizer. Vek squeezed the mans neck, but instead of bone, he encountered something as hard of metal and where his trachea should be, was some kind of metal rod. He felt inside the mans neck and could feel something moving around.

“Wires!” Vek though, “this man is a cyborg, what’s going on here?!” Vek felt a scorching pain in his back and his body revolted, releasing his grip on the mans neck and throwing him to the floor. “This man is a cyborg!” he called out, “for the republic, destroy him!”
Vek’s target rubbed his neck “he must be experiencing some aftereffects of the cryo, take him to the others, he’ll be fine.”
“Others!” Vek thought as he stood back up, “so they’re not dead!”
A soldier approached him and mumbled “you cooperation will make it easier on yourself, sir, please follow me” as he holstered his weapon and walked out the door. The other soldiers kept their guns pointed at Vek as he followed. When he reached the doorsill something made him look over his shoulder. Vek caught sight of the soldier he had attacked, and saw the flash of metal in his eye, as he continued through the door.


End of Chapter 2




{I will update this post, not post a new one, till I am done with chapter 2, which should be this weekend}. Last Update: 2-28-08 6:10 pm

{Light.}

Where am I?

I feel so weak . . .

The {dark} is all around me . . . I feel it closing in.

Things made of {rock and metal}, looking for me. I must hide.

I must go . . . {down} No, to the {center} . . .

Of what?

A {sphere} . . . Of light? Metal? Rock?

I must hide.

There is something moving, beyond the {sphere} of {metal}

There are {others} there. Other what?

What am I? Where am I?

I fell them, {biting} me again, from the {dark.}

I must hide.


Time passes . . .


I’ve lost the {others}, I can’t find them . . .

{PAIN!}

I MUST HIDE!




{Chapter 3 is short, after I realized what I wanted to do with it, so ch 3 became 4 and now this is 3. Its short, but relevant. I just wanted to get the story moving again.}

Chapter 4

Vek continued through the door, on the other side a long hallway stretched leisurely into the distance, describing a shallow curve.

Curve!

“I’m either on a Republic ship or station, but that still doesn’t explain the cyborg,” Vek’s mind
wandered “the fools are all in incredible danger, and they worry about me.” Vek followed his less than social guards and eventually the hall ended at a turbo lift.
“Now’s my chance,” thought Vek “ a lift means enclosed space, I can try for one of their guns.”
As the entered the small lift, Vek jumped and introduced his foot to the left guard’s face. As the other turned to react, Vek brought his arm around in an uppercut, sending the guard’s head through the ceiling.

Vek removed their outer armor and weapons.
As he mounted the armor onto his implanted contact points, he took stock.
“Two laz-rifles, a patchy set of armor, three pulse grenades, and a restraint clip, great” Vek mumbled as the readouts in his helmet came to life and adapted to his armory.
“The rifles are fresh too, they don’t even stand a chance.” At this point the lift chimed and Vek leapt through the widening opening. As he landed, his armor picked up an immense contact on radar and a man sized hole was melted in the plating next to his feet, by a plasma pulse.

{This isen't the end of the chapter, just a good "stopping" point.
Date: Jun 21 08}

Towering before him stood a metal mountain.

While the United Republic shunned cyborgs, they embraced machines. The chaotic productions of a computer and and organic mind were not present in a pure machine. So the production of grand mechanicons continued unabated.

The one in front of Vek was a new assault design, but he couldn't place the model.

Assault machines are designed for one ultimate goal, to kill as much as possible before they are rendered inactive. Towering over the battlefield, these machines are able to compress down to the size of a man for transport. Their twin plasma cannons wreak havoc on anything not equipped with a magnetic shield. The different models vary, but all of them are modular, making for easy repair and equipment changes. Since the quality and designers of each module change over time, older assault models acquire a patchwork of parts, but are still as deadly as the day they were made.

Vek stood there, because there was nothing he could do. At this range, in a straight corridor and a single target, this machine must have a 100% targeting solution, it was a miracle Vek was still alive. As they both stood there, Vek's hastily acquired armor dectected that it was being scanned, by the machine or something else . . .

The machine spoke,”your efforts are commendable, but futile, please follow this unit to your destination. Any variance from the set course will lead to instant termination.” The machine stalked off down the corridor, a dell thudding marking it's footsteps. Vek followed behind, meekly wondering what his purpose in life was.

After a long march through the ship that stretched into infinity, the assault android led Vek into a modest room with two doors.

“You will remove all weapons here, before proceeding,” the droid vocalized.
“When is this ever going to end,” Vek thought as he removed his weapons,”I feel like I'm going in circles.” After all of his weapons were neutralized, the android stepped back. The door opposite let out three loud tones and slid open to the most amazing vista Vek had ever seen.

The bridge of the starship was vast. Larger even then the huge buildings of the planet Vek had just fought on. He could see space, but this wasn't viewed through a small portal on a drop pod, this was a grand vista, viewed through the building sized pane on the side of an immense battleship. Stretching off into the distance, ship after immense ship bristled with weapons, all in orbit around a dull silver sphere . . .


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Vek stepped on to the bridge, and was impressed. All of his military career was spent in small, crowded space shuttles, they could barely count as ships, And then, there was this place. It was a commanders ships, a place where things happened, a place . . .

The android pushed Vek out on to the platform, interrupting his thoughts. He was standing on a platform on the back of the deck, with a grand slope leading downwards, just after that was a hill, on which perched the command platform. To the left and right of the literal “hill” in the ship, were command pits, that were connected by a trench of consoles stretching around the front of the hill, out of sight. All of this was capped by a transparent dome of mono-metal, which consists of a single molecule and requires massive production facilities.

“What have I gotten myself into?” Vek pondered as he walked down the slope. Then he noticed where he was being led to. In the starboard side command pit, was assembled a motley crew of the Republic soldiers. As he was pushed into the temporary prison, Vek took stock of the others. Most were physically fit, and like himself had the thick callouses of low level power armor abrasion against the skin.

“None of the soldiers are ranked higher then a corporal.” he murmured to himself, and then he was tapped on the shoulder.

“Hey Vek, expect the unexpected, idiot” breathed Sevante. Vek whirled to confront him, but Sevante was already bringing his leg around, trying to trip Vek. Vek reached down and caught his leg from behind, then gave a hard tug and sent Sevante sprawling.

“Man is it good to see you,” Vek said,”It's been forever.”
Sevante picked himself up off the ground, “well, you haven't done so bad for yourself, you have armor! The rest of us are practically naked.”
Vek laughed,” Hah, I'm still in this fishbowl with you! I bet that you didn't even . . . “

A loud blaring sound made all of them jump, then a man began to speak to them from the command deck on top of the hill.

“Alright soldiers, I am Commander Slint” spoke Commander Slint,” and I'm going to say this the easy way . . .you have been kidnapped by the United Republic to perform a mission of the utmost importance for the United Republic, during which you will defend me from the United Republic, and retrieve important technologies for use against the United Republic.

Vek gazed at the confused soldiers around him and tried to puzzle out meaning from the words of the man with blue hair.

Spoiler:

“Thats right” shouted Commander Slint,” This is an emergency recall of Republic resources, and I don't see why I should hide everything from you. About one week the planet you see outside was discovered. As you all know, the know metal supplies have been decreasing for centuries, so the Republic has been sending scouting parties farther out along the galactic arm. And they found this.”

He gestured at one of his attendants, and a hologram of the planet expanded above their heads. Statistics on weather patterns, continental masses, and temperature orbited around the holo-planet like satellites.

“I would like to draw your attention to the composition of the planet.” As he spoke, the chart of composition grew large enough for everyone to read. Everything on the graph was below average except metals, which stood at a shockingly high 30%.

“Thirty percent,” muttered Vek,”That planet is a practical goldmine”
“Yah,” Sevante responded,”if you could get it out, it makes me wonder why they haven't already moved a full mining instillation in.”

The commander began speaking again,” so, you understand the importance of this planet. It must be kept secret from cyborg, for if they found it, it would be a much greater advantage to them then it would ever be for us. As for why we have not begun the mining process, well, this is not your straight forward planet. The bulk of the metal is from constructs of an unknown origin, which means that if we started mining haphazardly, we could destroy something incredibly valuable, not to mention the fact that some kind of plague or nano-parasite could slip aboard a mining ship and be carried throughout the Republic.”

Slint paused,” so you job is to scout out an completely unknown, alien planet. As for inhabitants, are scans indicate no presence of standard production or consumption, so we don't need to worry about the builders. Follow the assault android, where you will be retrofitted with equipment and put into your drop pods.”

As the soldiers were led away, the commander turned to one of his sub-captains. “If this works, and my operation remains undetected, then I could be the only one to supply heavy metal to the Republic for 300 years! This is a great opportunity for us all to get rich, and at the expense of a few soldiers. Who wouldn't take that bet?”

The sub-captain agreed and moved back to work. After all, he basically had the destruction of a planet to plan . . .

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Vek was herded down the hall with the rest of the soldiers, who numbered around fifty. As they walked down the hallway, Vek caught up on events.

“After you went down, we all hid among the crates,”Sevante signed*,”but it was futile, they had the building surrounded and we were cut off. We fought them as long as we could, but the same guy that got you has this vicious ability to get behind people and inject them. The last thing I remember is falling to the floor, trying to get him off my back”

“I guess nobody else made it, all the survivors are here, but we have bigger problems.”Vek motioned back,” when they woke me up, I was sure one of them was a cyborg, I felt it with my own two hands. Yet, the others seemed to trust him.”

“Are you sure?” Sevante was adamant,”then I am officially confused. This whole operation is screwed up.”

“Sevante”, Vek motioned,” all the pieces don't add up. We need to try and find a way to get control of the situation . . .”

They had reached their destination. It was a large auditorium with a platform in the center. To the left and right of the platform were two house sized metal crates. As the droid lined them up along the wall one of the ship-based soldiers walked towards them after examining a panel on one of the metal crates.

“This is the equipment station,” He called out,” as long as you don't flinch during the process, you shouldn't be dismembered. Don't get any funny ideas once equipped, there are many more assault androids where that one came from..” He paused,” first order of business, ranks. There are forty nine of you worms. You will be deployed in groups of seven each, so seven groups of seven. You will have one mission commander and each group will have one leader.

“The mission commander is . . . Dern!”, he shouted,”you have the best combat record of those assembled, get over here, your up for equipment.” Dern walked forward and stood on the pedestal. The soldier pressed a button on the console he had been looking at earlier.

As if awakened from a deep sleep, the crates rumbled and the panels closest to the pedestal slid open., revealing a mass of mechanized armatures. Shooting forth like the hair of Medusa, they accelerated faster into invisibility, welding plates of metal and electronics around Dern. This went on for about sixty seconds, as a suit of power armor was built from scratch around him. When the arms retreated back from whence they came, he stepped down, resplendent in the most technologically advanced armor any of them had ever seen.

Dern stood there for a moment stunned, then an evil grin spread across his face. He raised his right arm, a plasma spike extending from it, a Soup of charge clinging to it. Then before anyone could blink, a small hole appeared on the front of his forehead. A look of astonishment flashed on his face as he fell forward, dead.

In front of him stood the soldier who had addressed them, holding his laz pistole aimed at where Dern's head had been.


*In case you haven't noticed, they switch to signing when they don't want others to know what their saying, and yes I am doing it on purpose.

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“Well, get in line,” he shouted, “I ain't gonna let you just stand there, now am I? Get in the constructor!” He turned to Vek. “You are the new squad commander, get it . . .now . . .” Vek began to wonder about the sanity of the soldier as he positioned himself in the machine. With a whir it built an impeccable suit of immense firepower around him. As Vek stepped off the pedistal, he could feel the metal monster around him come to life. Then he felt it plug into the standard machine interface in the back of his neck . . .

With a whirl of color and sound the world resolved its self into the armor's view of the world. Everything was amazingly sharp, but that wasn't even the most interesting part. The world around Vek was filled with hovering blue lines of energy and equations. It told him masses, weights, accelerations, velocities, and energies . . .energy was displayed as floating pools of liquid with various densities and sizes.

“Now I understand what Dern had felt,” Vek was interrupted.

“Alright, this armor tells you complete information about the world around you, hell, it can practically see around corners, aim your gun, and fire for you. With that said, it also processes energy differently. That armor does not have a single projectile weapon in it's manifold. It can manipulate energy directly, through some technology discovered by the boys down in R & D. So, if your battery is running low, you take the energy you need to recharge you armor. Just don't try anything here, it will be dected and you will be shot on spot . . . anybody doubt my aim?”

Vek just tuned out the tirade and began to think,”if this armor manipulates raw energy, then these idiots have no idea the possibilities . . .

All of the soldiers were equipped and briefly trained in their new weapons. Once the trainer left, not even bothering to look back, they followed the android down to an elevator shaft. They all loaded up into the cavernous space. It started moving with the screech of stressed metal but as they left the shaft, they gazed upon the stars. They were traveling along the backbone of the ship, which stretched for miles in every direction. The passed control towers and gun emplacements and the moved toward the tip of the prow. They vanished back into a tube, and unloaded. After a series of twists and turns, they were shepherded into the drop pods and launched, following the graceful arc of brick building, through space.

Eventually they encountered turbulence as Vek gazed on, his mind a dull buzz.

As they fell through the atmosphere, he saw a mushroom cloud in the distance. The com beeped “sir, one of the power reactors has gone critical, secure yourself.” Vek glanced at the readout, in a daze as the shock wave sent the pod tumbling, then everything went black.