[Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

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Booted Vulture
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[Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

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It back. Half sequel to Tiberous have comic book style tie-in to Total Extinction: Overheat. And this time It staying up and not getting deleted when i decided to throw a hissy fit.

***

The Ian I knew was full of dark cynicism. Every act of violence seemed to bury him, and he would claw his way back out of it. And every time … Some men and women thrive as soldiers. Others are destroyed. Ian was, is, a survivor. Survivors are the middle: they adapt. They live. In order to stay alive, they change themselves. As I stepped from the cover of the tree, into the drizzle, I decided that it was the survivors who were tested most sorely of all. - General Sir Leo J Bateau. – “Justice”

Tiberous: Overheated
Or
How Those Bastards Finally Dragged Me Out Of Retirement.



Act One: Storm Clouds.

I.

“Will you stop looking in that mirror?” came the annoyed voice of my friend, Lora Janus, “I swear you look in that thing more than I do. Have you gone completely vain?”

I shot a dark ‘mock-angry’ look at her, but softened it with a wink.

“Just don’t want to embarrass you in front of all your work colleagues,” I said.

I still didn’t know how she’d talked me into it. A big party at her office, a major tower owned by the Martian media conglomerate that she worked for as a reporter. Apparently the story she’d written about me had been a big hit with the public. Apparently they just lapped up tales of bloodshed, carnage and ‘heroism’, which just proved that everyone had, once again, entirely missed the point of what I’d been saying. Regardless, sales were up and the conglomerate want to celebrate, since it was Lora’s story that was the cause of it all they invited her to the party and since it was all my fault she’d decided that I just had to go with her.

I looked into the mirror again. I was wearing my cleanest shirt and trousers and a reasonably respectable, if rarely used, suit jacket. I’d managed to find time enough to shave and thus was seeing parts of my face that I’d not seen in years. I’d even found time to run a comb through my dark hair although not enough to get a hair cut, so it descended almost to my shoulders; too long to control, too short to turn into a proper tail. In short it would be a disgraceful mess by the end of the evening. Additionally there were the dark shadows under my eyes. I had not had a good night’s sleep the night before. I tried to keep my mind off the subject of my dreams; those long metal ship’s corridors… I dragged my mind back to the mirror where I looked haggard and old. I felt oddly ashamed by that. Usually I didn’t give a damn what people thought about how I looked. Usually there wasn’t anyone with me who’d look bad by association.

“You look fine,” she said as she held on to my arm and firmly steered me out the door. I started fidgeting as the elevator dropped, quite unable to stand still. Lora herself looked even more magnificent than usual which was quite an achievement; a long black dress clung to every curve from neck to her ankles; it was made from a glossy fabric that was still amazingly soft. She wore matching gloves and silver thread streaked through her matching black shawl in an intricate pattern that looked like a spider’s web constructed entirely of lightning. Her wavy golden hair was tied up above her head with seemingly random stray hairs escaping to fall down and frame her face.

We small talked as the lift dropped the several dozen stories from Lora’s apartment to the ground floor where our taxi awaited. The usual stuff; I told her horror stories about the passengers on my bus route and she told me the dirt on co-workers and the office politics they were embroiled in. Still I only got that we were really in trouble when we started to talk about the weather, cliché as that was. Still it was getting Dark and quite stormy (which come to think of it could be another cliché) and it was that way quite in defiance of the local weather channel reports for the day. I glanced at the storm clouds and frowned to myself. There was something I should remember about that kind of thing, something that would have seemed important in my old line of work. I shrugged. It was hardly important. I didn’t do that kind of work anymore, no matter what certain old friends might want.

The lift finally reached the bottom of the shaft. The street was slick with the pouring rain and we had to dash to the vehicle waiting for us. I was impressed; it was a limo. I ushered Lorna in first at the expense of being soaked to my skin for being a gentleman and then followed her in as quickly as possible. The interior was magnificently upholstered in real leather (which is probably illegal now I come to think about it) and flashy holographic displays and had a truly massive drink’s cabinet with an alcho-synthesiser that could probably manufacture any drink I cared to name. I could have been roaring drunk by the time we’d gone a block but I restrained myself. Again turning up dead drunk would not lead to impressed people.

The limo zoomed along, effortlessly weaving its way through gridlocked streets, I switched on the news; it was full of reports of various, usually contradictory, reports on clashes between CTI Meisters and various rebel factions all across the diamond district. I switched it off, before my palms started itching, It was Leo’s job to sort this out. His pups had all the resources they could ever need. They certainly didn’t need me. Or so I kept telling myself.

All too soon, the car reached its destination another vacuum scraping tower; with an ornate two story tall sign half way up that proclaimed it to be the home office of the galaxy renowned HUBBLE OBSERVER newspaper. I sighed to myself as we swept into the entrance hall (luckily the building had an awning protecting incoming vehicles from the deluge of rain without.) An elevator took us up to the 42nd floor, halfway up the building and just above the Hubble sign and we emerged into chaos.

They must have removed all the office partitions on half of the floor and then decorated the shit out of it. Heavy wooden tables were laden with food and drink on platters that were at least plated in precious metals if not in fact entirely made out of them, sophisticated lighting bathed the area in golden light and filled the area with moving holographic effects; tiny translucent fairies and birds swirled across the ceiling, in quite a similar fashion to the people moving about on the floor below. There were at least a hundred of them if my quick head count was any judge; clustering in little groups of people who knew each other with occasional migrations between groups or towards one of the tables with their abundances of fine delicacies and vintages of wine. It was obvious that the Orion Conglomerate had deep pockets.

Lorna’s hand found my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. It was only then that I realised that nearly very muscle in my body was practically quivering with tension as I stood ramrod straight and immobile. I remembered to breathe out and I remembered something I should have mentioned before now; I really don’t like crowds. Still Lorna’s grip on me offered a certain amount of comfort but it was also unbreakable and merciless. She swept us out in to the sea of strange people as she beamed in every direction. I did not smile however, I’ve never figured out how to fake a good smile without it being obvious that it was fake. I tried to look friendly of course but I don’t think passers-by were entirely convinced of my benignity.

We suddenly came face to face with a dapper gentleman in an all white suit with silver buttons and similar buckles on his gleaming, polished shoes. Each individual article of clothing that he was wearing must have cost about as much as the bus that I drove four days a week. He smiled at me and, unlike me, didn’t seem concerned that it was obviously faked. His teeth seemed to gleam. I took an instant dislike to him.

“Ah,” he said, “you must be the wonderful man everyone seems so interested in,” his tone was flirting with sarcasm.

Sparks flew between us. Metaphorically, at least. For now.

“For reasons I can’t imagine, Mister…”

The man did not supply a name as I faltered and looked quite the fool. Malice flashed in his green eyes.

Lorna came to my rescue.

“This is Cameron Drake; he’s the owner and Editor-In-Chief of the Hubble Observer” she gracefully tried to disarm the inexplicable tension between us “Cameron, This is Major,’’ I coughed meaningfully at the title, “Ian Smith, formerly of the ISMC, of whom I’ve written about at length.”

As we shook hands I noticed that his gaze did not meet mine directly but flickered down to my left arm where Lorna’s hand rested comfortably upon my left arm. So it was obvious what that was about, he had designs on the pretty young reporter. That was all. Nothing potentially too dangerous.

“Ah, yes. Now that I know your name, I recall why you seem familiar.” He smiled again, mirthlessly, “I do believe I served with you on Cetus. Well, I shouldn’t actually say served, you military types always get so up tight about other people using that word but anyway I was there, employed as the network’s war correspondent for that sector. I plied my trade and you plied yours.”

A memory came to mind, unbidden; the image of a dank fetid hell hole of a moon. Of A planet that alternated between a baking humid heat and immense thunder storms a dozen times a week. A battlefield covered in swamps; swamps with hidden mines and micro-bombs lurking just beneath the surface, so that every step risked setting something maiming or deadly off.

“If I recall correctly you ran into a spot of trouble, with the Ark did you not? I remember one of the platoon’s other squads talking about pulling you out of a fire fight with some Terina light infantry?” I forced a certain lightness into my tone, as if we were talking of trivialities.

“Why yes, your Army friends did help me out of a spot. Although I’m sad to say they wouldn’t lend me a couple of men to go out with us in the first place so they were not there for the beginning of the confrontation. My camera man was wounded before they managed to intervene.” The man’s tone was sly and it was clear his words were not intended to me but directed to my left to try and disillusion Lorna. Failure to protect media personnel was bound to go down with her like titanium anvils encased in cement.

I had become a quivering mass of muscle again. I struggled to find words to rid myself of this man’s presence before I lost my cool and slugged him one. The full details of that instance had thrown themselves to the front of my brain and were boiling it to mush. I risked an equally dishonest smile.

“I can only apologise for my fellow’s tardiness, Mr Drake, I hope my likewise tardy condolences will be of at least some small comfort to you.” My tones went beyond Blake’s flirting and led sarcasm down a dark alley for a good groping, “but right now I fear you have left me parched. I simply must go avail myself of the excellent provisions you have lying about.”

I didn’t wait for his acknowledgement, I simply turned my back and walked off. Lorna; faced with either releasing her grip on me or being dragged away, hurried to keep up with me. My walk, in my anger, suddenly conformed to my old military habit and I was dismayed to find that I was pretty much marching across the room.

Any small enthusiasm I had had for this affair had evaporated with the force of my anger, as had my reservations against embarrassing poor Lorna and heavy drinking, without breaking stride I snagged an entire drinks tray from a passing waiter on my way past him.

Seething, I found myself on a balcony just above the E of HUBBLE with all the glasses empty and half the bottle that came with the tray as well. Lorna was almost timid standing a full metre away and fiddling with her shawl as the slanted rain came through the gap between hand rail and the roof in a fair attempt to wet our bones.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what’s the matter,” Lorna said in a light tone. There were glimmers of the anger just below the surface.

“That man,” I pointed vaguely the way we came, “is a lying son of a bitch,” She gaped at me.

“I don’t exactly like the man but..”

“Cestus.” I growled. “I heard the guy’s talking in the rec room when they came back from that. Drake had been told not to go out. It was too dangerous. We outlined the risks for him. Hell even the officers flat out told him not to go. So he snuck out, probably bribed some poor sap on the gate. And what happened? That place was covered in mines, some intentional, some just failed bomblets from the cluster bombs. That camera man was injured before the guys got there. He tripped on something that then decided to explode! Boom! Both his legs were taken off by the blast. It’s a miracle the army corpsman managed to get him back to base alive. And here’s this bastard twenty five years later trying to blame it on me!”

Wildly gesticulating, my hand knocked off the tray that I had balanced upon the edge of the balcony. It fell 42 stories, along with the empty glasses and the half full bottle. We didn’t even hear the smash as it hit the ground.

I suddenly felt very silly. Then worried.

“Shit,” I muttered “I hope that didn’t hit anyone on the head.”

Lorna burst out giggled at the rapid series of expressions that flashed across my face and wrapped me in a quick hug.

“You done?” she smiled. She had a genuine smile. Warmth flooded through me.

“Just about.” I said, still rather abashed. I slung one arm about her shoulder. We turned in back to the party. We might even have had a good time.

We might have, if not for the starships that burst out of the heavens, literally just five seconds later.

II.

I stood there and watched as Mars was invaded. Rain splattered in my face. I was giggling, I’d finally remembered: Slipstream distortions, jump into an atmosphere and they cause one hell of a mess and whip up a massive storm front. I should have remembered.

“Leo” I said to myself, my words barely above a whisper, “You screwed up pretty badly didn’t you?”

The mood I was in, I was not much surprised when the next thing that happened was a man bursting through the doors to the balcony and firing two pistol shots into the ceiling. I turned around slowly to face him and made sure to put myself between him and Lora. It was the gentlemanly thing to do and I was not overly concerned at the prospect of catching another bullet in the gut for her sake. I spread my hands wide.

“Congratulations, that’s two bullets that I don’t have to worry about going in me.” I said to the intruder.

The intruder corrected his aim; holding his pistol in professional two handed grip, pointing exactly at my centre of mass. In the main hall, there were short bursts of automatic fire, then screams and then more gun fire. I didn’t hear the sound of bodies hitting the ground, so hopefully they like my friend here they were only wasting their ammunition on the poor helpless scenery.

The gunmen glared at me. His eye’s both saw and did not see me. It’s a certain natural talent I have. I don’t look like a hero, I have a pretty ordinary face and I don’t have the right aura. People’s eyes seem to slide right off of me. The phrase I liked to use to describe this is that I’m so remarkably unremarkable that people jut don’t take note of me. That could just be my natural modesty coming to the fore, of course. Anyway, the practical upshot of this is that when this man looked me in the eye he did not see the man I was, but just another random party goer. I was probably out on the balcony to make a pass at the hot chick in the tight dress, not realising I was way out of her league. She was obviously stringing me along for the free drinks service.

Still, he did not like snark and not imagining that I posed much of a threat he stepped forward and casually whipped his pistol butt across my face.

CRACK! The blow was sudden, well placed and very hard.

The merc keeled over, I caught his pistol, in my off hand. My right fist was still extended. I gazed at it, almost surprised. Combat reflexes are a wonderful thing, I didn’t even remember deciding to hit to the man.

I stuck the pistol in the back of my pants. I’d have preferred the quickness of a front draw but I also didn’t want a live gun that close to my privates, I don’t trust safety catches that much or this guy’s personal hygiene for that matter.

“You hit that guy!” Lorna gasped, “Why do I always get into fights when I’m around you?”

“You’re just lucky like that’ I replied, “Normally I’m very boring. It’s only when you get here; you need stories to write and I just can’t help but oblige.”

Lorna glared.

“And why are you so damn chipper?”

“It’s a party! Aren’t I supposed to be having fun?” I smirked at her with one side of my mouth and went to the door, peeking around the frame with just one eye looking out into the room beyond.

There were at least two dozen mercenaries inside. Most were armed with Submachine guns, a couple with shotguns and one guy, obviously the leader had just a very large pistol, a ‘handcannon’ as it was known in common parlance. They were dressed in shabby black clothes that echoed military uniforms. One in three had, quite sensibly added some body armour to their outfit. Most of the mercs had got all the people clustered at the sides of the room and were coving them with the SMGs but the leader was in the very centre of the room talking to Cameron Drake.

“Where’s Smith?” growled the mercenary leader. I waited for Drake to give me up. The guy didn’t like me after all and he certainly wasn’t a solider, him caving under threats was only to be expected but as it turned out; reporters, even bad ones like Drake, don’t like being bullied. They also tended to be quick with their words.

“Smith? That’s it? You so realise that there’s, like, at least two dozen people with that surname in this room alone,” said Drake.

This was a brave show in Drake’s part but also a mistake. The Leader has a similar response to snark as the man that was crumpled on the floor behind me: a pistol whip to the face. Drake screamed as his face split open across the cheek. Facial wounds often bleed quite copiously and this was not an exception. His nice white suit proved to be an unfortunate choice: it made the red blood stains much more vivid.

The Merc grabbed a fistful of Drake’s hair and used to it pull him to his feet, jabbing the handcannon under Drake’s chin.

“Ian Tiberous Smith.” He said in a commanding voice that filled every possible cubic inch of space in the room, “I know that you are here. My name is Captain Gregory Brenton of the Vulcan PMC and you should know that if you don’t show yourself. I will kill this man.”

Inwardly cursing, I very briefly considered ‘showing’ myself via a bullet to Brenton’s brain pan but he had his men too well positioned and I only had one gun, any attempt to shoot my way out of this would result in a lot of dead people and more to the point a lot of dead innocent people, as well. I was Army trained and my sense of duty allowed me to think nothing of sacrificing myself for the good of these people. I glanced again at Drake. I just wished it didn’t have to be for that asshole.

I went back to the downed merc and checked his body. He only had another couple of pistol magazines on him; .40 calibre rounds, after stowing them in my jacket pockets, I took out the weapon itself and examined it. My estimation of the man rose. It was a good solid gun. Matte black, not a flashy chrome shooter, it also fired a decent sized round and was a reliable make. I shoved it back in my pants and took Lora by the shoulders.

“Stay here alright?” I said in my softest tone, “They don’t know you’re here. So stay safe. Please.”

She nodded. So I turned around and walked into the hall. Hands raised.

“Look,” I said, to get their attention, “Could you please get a better hostage? That guy’s is an asshole, I feel really silly.”

III.

The effect this had was sudden. All the mercenaries, who were not actively engaged in pointing weapons at civilians, pointed them at me. Including Brenton’s oversized handcannon. He released his grip on Drake, letting him curl up and bleed on the floor.

“Strange,” Brenton said, “you don’t look like a decorated war hero to me”

“Strange,” I countered, “You do look like a complete asshole to me.”

“Check him,” Brenton snapped to one of his subordinates. The subordinate let his SMG hang by its shoulder strap as he fished out what looked like a palmtop computer. He pointed it at me and the chips in my head beeped at me informing me they’d been queried about my IFF tags and had responded in kind. The merc’s eyes widened and he showed the display to Brenton.

I already knew what he was seeing of course.

Name: Smith, Ian T
Service Number: 4004-5518-23XX
Branch: ISMC (ISA)
Rank: Major (Demil.)
Callsign: Dusk
Blood Type: AB
Allegies: None
Prayer: No preference.


A year ago, the information displayed would have incorrectly indicated my rank as ‘Senior Captain,’ and would not have recorded that I had been demilitarized; my cybernetics deactivated. After the battle of Kalereon, I had never officially resigned or retired, despite my frequent claims to the contrary, I’d just walked off, (as soon as I could actually walk again; I broke both my ankles during the battle) in the confusion the bureaucrats at head office hadn’t noticed and Trego and Leo never really felt like pressing the issue. Still that was until I’d first met Lorna and managed to get into a series of fights culminating in throwing someone off a bridge with an active plasma grenade. Naturally the authorities hadn’t much approved of the affair and only a little help from Lorna and Leo’s connections quashed a multitude of charges against me. Still part of that bargain had been an official recognition of my retirement (although I didn’t see twenty years backpay at the rank of Major) and the de-clawing that retirement required.

Brenton’s eyes widened slightly and then he looked back at me.

“I owe you an apology Major Smith.” His finger slipped into the trigger guard of his gun, “goodbye”

I stared down the barrel of his gun and realised what it was. Fate it seemed was not without a sense of irony. Brenton was carrying a MAP-410, the same gun I used for my sidearm for most of the war. Brenton’s gun was much newer than mine; with a reinforced barrel that was at least inch and a half longer than the old version and it mounted a reflex scope on the top instead of iron sights. That was the gun that was just about to kill me. It’s possible that if I threw myself to the side I could dodge the shot and it was even possible that I could draw my purloined pistol fast enough to take out Brenton before he blasted me. What was totally impossible was to do that and stop the other two dozen mercs from gunning down every one in the room. I knew that going in. I don’t know what I expected to happen but I knew in that moment the only thing that could get me out of this was some divine intervention.

I got it.

Golden Birds dropped down from the ceiling and started flapping and pecking in the merc’s faces. I drew my pistol as fast as possible and started firing before they realised their attackers were just holosods; holograms that were only solid as long as they believed them to be so but that’s the kind of thing you can’t ignore. My eyes flickered to the console that controlled the formerly decorative holograms, I saw a flash of blonde hair and the tip of a black and silver shawl.

Dammit, Lorna, I said stay safe

“Hit the deck,” I yelled as my pistol came up to ready stance. Only really meaning the civilians of course but half the mercenaries dropped as well. I ran forward, each step a shot and each shot a step. I put to rounds into the shotgunners first, nasty things shotguns, even if he was aiming it right at me he could hit innocents with a wide spread of buckshot or flechettes. I was, of course, trying to aim for the guys threatening civvies first put in the relatively tight confines of the room (compared to a full scale battlefield) meant that any one aiming at we would probably hit the people standing/cowering the other side of me.

I’d taken down four mercs before I reached Brenton, who had finally figured out that it was only holograms that had scratched open his face and was looking mighty pissed. I’d gotten too close to effectively shoot him without risking the civvies behind him. So I just clubbed him between the eyes with my pistol butt and then I winked at him.

“Catch me if you can.”

Then I zigzagged towards the door. I got out of it and through an office still furnished as an office and then into a long corridor that let to the elevators that were ostensibly my aim.

This may seem like running away. That’s for the very good reason that it was running away. I’m not one of those pompous gits that can say ‘strategic withdrawal’ with a straight face. I was running away but I would fiercely contest that it was a cowardly action. I was retreating towards the lifts which would allow me to escape the building. If they let me escape the building the hostages would do them no good. They had no way to contact me to hold them hostage for a start so they would have lost me and I seemed to be their target. Looking into Brenton’s eyes I saw that he liked to think of himself as a professional; he was not the mad dog killer type. He wasn’t going to kill hostages unless it was necessary and a fit of pique did not count.

Besides killing media personnel is right up there with offing kid’s puppies on the ‘people will think you’re the bad guys’ scale but then so is ‘betraying your species to alien empires for money.’ Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…

Another good reason for running away is to get people to chase you. Totally fucks up their careful positioning and formations and splits them into the competent or lazy ones that fall back and the young pups that are eager for blood and will chase you as hard as they can. In this specific case, half a dozen of the mercs pounded down the hall after me without a care. Not noticing I’d ducked behind a pillar only halfway along the corridor.

I quickly weighed options; I could just open fire but they had guns that were bigger than mine and had a lot more of them. I could just let them run fast and then open fire, which gave me a much better change of winning the initial gun battle but ran the risk of me being caught between this vanguard and the more experienced men to follow. Or I could just wait until they were alongside me and then punch them the fuck out.

Of those, perhaps the lattermost option does not sound like the best option to the common man but I am not a common man. Common men are not usually Stormcommandos. That is, in fact, a most uncommon trait and while as a Stormcommando I flatter myself on being an excellent shot with a rifle or almost any small-arms weaponry from hold out pistols up to ‘Jackhammer’ nuclear rocket launchers, I must admit I’m an even more excellent melee fighter. For one very good reason; I’m an army man. The Army has long since been abandoned and absorbed by the Marine corp. but it was still around when I first join the ISAF and it left something with me that I carry to this day. I stepped out and smacked the closest guy in the jaw with a closed fist.

I fancied that I could hear a metallic clang with the impact.

Reinforced knuckles. I don’t need a cumbersome knuckleduster in my hand, mine are inbuilt. The man goes down very decisively. The back two men open up on me with their guns. They do a lot of damage to their fellows. Another one falls permanently, before I even touched him. ‘Friendly fire’ really isn’t, especially to the back of the head. I dodged left putting the biggest guy in front between me and the trigger happy pair.

The big guy at least was getting with the game plan, dropping his machine pistol and pulling out some kind of baton as his friend attempts to flank me. He attacked improbably quickly for such a large fella, with quick flicks of the baton’s weighted head, I backed away quickly avoiding blows as much as I could or deflecting it off the extremities. I screeched as it glanced off my forearm. The damned thing was electrified and sent a disabling shock upon impact! I was surprised. I let the next one right through and got my leg zapped. I collapsed to my knees in front of the guy. (That’s I line I hope never to have to use again) Still I whipped my good arm around and through the guy’s legs, forcibly knocking his knees together and upsetting his balance so he crashed down along side me. I caught the baton carrying arm and guided its fall so the electric end slammed into the guy’s gut and pressed it down hard enough so it delivered its entire charge in one quick brain frying jolt.

That was when a solid stock was slammed into the back of my head, none to gently I might add. My vision went blurry for a second but fortunately my Stormcommando qualifications include a thick skull and an ever growing resistance to being bludgeoned. Not getting up from my knees I slammed an elbow out and up behind me, catching the unarmoured sap in his solar plexus and probing up into his organs. He staggered; completely winded and helpless and I plucked his gun from his hands.

The whole hand-to-hand exchange had taken roughly a dozen seconds, twenty tops. The two shooters had barely had time to recognise their fellows had lost and were slow on the trigger this time. Too shocked by their previous friendly fire folly to shoot. I pulled the trigger on my newly acquired SMG and, with a long burst of fire, cut them both in half. There was an almighty roar from the weapon and the recoil was much heavier than expected. I looked at the gun curiously even as I turned to the guy who I had taken it from and applied to the butt to his face, at speed. His skull did not prove as resilient as mine.

I looked at the gun; It looked like a common brand of SMG, but the shape of the body was significantly more angular and narrow across the beam and the magazine was longer as well. It was chambered for rifle calibre rounds and was, in fact, not a submachine gun at all but an ultra-compact Carbine. I hefted it, grinning internally and threw the strap over my shoulder. I noticed that it even came with a reload taped to the inserted mag. Unsure how much ammo had been discharged I shrugged and reloaded it and then my pistol as well for good measure.

As I did so, I became aware of an awful fact; my hands seemed to be shaking. Even while doing something as simple as changing a clip. On the heels of that one fact were a host of others coming charging into my brain; I was out of breath; my legs were filling up with lactic acid and were on the verge of a major cramp; my head was still spinning slightly from the blow and that was affecting my balance and my knuckles hurt where’d I’d been hitting people.

This all lead up to the worst revelation of all; just how much I’d depended on my army cybernetics. They’d been cheap and already out-of-date when they were installed but I still needed them apparently. Look at me now. I’d taken down barely ten guys, even counting the poor bugger that got shot in the back, and I’d done most of them in with a firearm and I was getting tired.

Getting old is a terrible thing. I needed to level the playing field somehow. There were fourteen more guys in the building and they were going to be much harder to take down than these overconfident fools.

Maybe I really should just get to the other lifts on the floor.

But that meant leaving Lorna in trouble. Not to mention all the other people in the building. I couldn’t do that. If I did that I wouldn’t be me, or at least not a me I wanted be.

Looking around desperately, I sudden saw my salvation strapped to the big man’s chest.

Grenades

Well one grenade, actually. Singular. Still it was infinitely more grenade that I had a couple of seconds earlier. I’d have preferred more of course, it was a bit much to hope that all fourteen mercenaries would politely place themselves within one grenade’s blast radius of each other.

Keeping an eye open, I managed a stumbling jog to the elevator and hitting the call button, which produced a remarkably loud beeping sound. Perfect, that would get the tossers running this way. I slung my carbine over my right shoulder by the strap. Taking a firm grip on the grenade in my left hand (and making sure I had the fuse grip in hand) I pulled the pin with my right, tossed it away and filled the hand with my pistol. I did not trust myself to control the carbine one handed, another sign of my decline.

Brenton at least at a slight grasp of elementary tactics, I will give him that. Of the fourteen remaining men, he took eleven with him to hunt me down. Only leaving a couple with the civilians to make sure they couldn’t interfere. The rest he split into three groups of four, one set of four game along the corridor, while the others circled around and attacked from doors to the left and the right. To avoid the fire from the centre group I would have to expose myself to cross fire from the two flanking groups. Or at least that was the theory. I took some calming breathes as they approached. If I had the inclination or the right I would have prayed for a god, any god, to grant me more speed. For only that and the steadiness of my aim were going get my out this alive, much less in one piece.

I started to run. The two corridors were just ahead, I had to pass through the gap and the cross fire as quickly as possible to avoid nasty accidents. This however also meant charging the quartet directly ahead of me. I started firing for effect as I broke into a lat out sprint; I emptied half the mag with poorly aimed suppression fire. I think I managed to graze a couple of them. But that was all. I threw myself into a combat roll as I reached the breach, passing through it, drawing a hasty volley of fire from the mercs that did more damage to them than to me, while upside I down I sent the grenade rolling towards the large group of four mercs along the rightmost corridor. Coming up a crouch, both hands steadied my pistol, I held it sideways and focus on the rightmost figure. Don’t worry, there was a reason, I’ve not gone all ‘gangsta,’ although hitting the target was slightly more difficult, the range was short enough that it didn’t matter; I double tapped rightmost man, the recoil swung the muzzle to the left; putting the next guy directly in my line of fire. I emptied the rest of the mag. The first three guys got double taps to the chest, I returned my pistol to the vertical position to put my last round between the final guy’s eyes.

I didn’t stop moving but continuing moving and turning until I standing upright and facing the way I’d come. I’d just downed eight people in as many seconds; it was obvious that I was finding my stride again, old man or no.

The last four man team charged around the corner, the first three at full speed, with Brenton holding back to take up the rear. Inwardly part of me sighed. I hoped this was not the best money could buy. They really were making a hash of this but a much larger part of me, sad to say, soared with elation; soared at the sheer superiority of my abilities.

I gunned down the first two guys with the carbine on full auto, taking only a couple of grazes in return. Before the third man bull-rushed me. I lost the rifle but kept my feet, staggering back as we traded heavy blows. His fists slammed in to my hip and glanced off my temple, only making my growing headache worst. I countered by slamming a palm into each of his ears, crushing his head between a thunderclap of a blow.

Brenton fired as I span to face him; the super heat rounded missing my head by a clear foot. I titled my head to the side, marvelling at the man’s incompetence. The gun had a damn scope on it, how the hell could you miss with it at point blank range no less? I can only surmise that poor Gregory was severely rattled by the carnage I’d inflicted upon his men.

The recoil has pushed Greg’s arm 45 degrees towards the ceiling; I stepped inside his range and seized his gun arm before he could lower it back to firing position. I gave him my best ‘killer’ grin.

“I think this is a bit too much of a gun for you, Greg,’ I tightened my grip, “I really am going to have to take it.”

I slammed my knee into his midsection causing him to curl into the near simultaneous headbutt that knocked him into the ground. Hard. I winced as I felt blood course out my nose from the slightly misplaced blow but it was worth it. Now the gun was in my hand. My aim dropped to the ground.

The roar of the MAP-410 sounded like another thunder clap.

IV.

Captain Gregory Brenton of the Vulcan Private Military Company (PMC) slumped to the ground; Dead. His gun, the gun I killed with him smoked slightly in my grip. It’s a MAP-410 and even though it’s a different series than mine, its grip still sat in my hand like an old familiar friend but even the comforting weight of it in my hand did not stop my racing pulsing and spinning head. Sometimes being a nigh unstoppable trained killing machine has its down sides. I concentrated in controlling my breath. Making sure I took deep, regular breaths. In for two seconds, out for two. Just keeping myself to that rhythm occupied my mind until my pulse and breathing returned to normal. As I started moving again I suddenly became aware of how damp, my clothes were. Chills passed through me where the sweat soaked shirt clung to my chest, I grimaced at the continued evidence of the deterioration of my fighting trim. I slowly bent over to retrieve the carbine I had been using and reloaded it with the last mag I had. Likewise I searched Brenton’s cooling body to reload the MAP. More mags went into my pockets.

Walking very slowly and deliberately I head back to the ballroom where ‘the party’ was, remembering that there were probably two last mercs that needed to be dealt with.

I must have looked quite the sight when I burst back into the room; A rifle in one hand, the heavy pistol in the other, my hair a mussed, sweaty mess and my suit covered in tears, bloodstains (other people’s and mine) and even a couple of char marks where I’d been too close to hot rounds and the grenade. My nose was slightly flatter that it had been and was dripping crimson down my body. Still it seemed that my job had already been done for me: both of the two remaining goons were crumpled in a heap. One with a bullet wound through the shoulder, the other with a couple of holes in his leg. I frowned and found Lorna.

“Er…” I started lamely, “What happened here then?” I asked her.

Lorna waved something familiar in my face. A sleek modern caseless ammo firing pistol made of polymers. I had seen it before. It belonged to Lorna. She’d been the one to shoot the remaining people.

“You brought a gun to a party?” I stared at Lorna, outraged, “You didn’t let me bring a gun! How come you get to have a gun?”

Lorna just smirked at me. It was hard to get too outraged with her when she looked like that.

I took a closer look at the two mercs, huddled together amidst a menacing cloud of ex-hostages. Both their wounds had very luckily missed any major arteries and were just disabling painful rather than deadly, although one of them was going to need some quite complicated surgery to regain full use of his arm. I couldn’t honestly say I cared much for their lives but I did care, that Lorna didn’t have to become a killer. It just seem wrong to me that the next generation would have to turn into me all over again.

Drake was not at all happy, he was surround by flunkies with first aid kits and seemed to be staunching his wound with an entire silken table clothe that was now mostly blood red.

“There you are; you damned coward,” he growled at me, “Look at this! And there you were running the fuck away!”

From the tone of his voice you’d have thought for all the world that I’d told him mouthing off to a mercenary was the best idea I’d ever heard. I shrugged.

“Did you happen to notice the eighteen people, who chased me?’ I replied, though I’ve no idea why, “Do you notice how they are no longer around? And by ‘around’ I mean ‘in the land of the living’. You. Are. Welcome.”

It was about this time that the adrenaline rush which had sustained me gave up on it as a bad effort. I sagged. Dropping the carbine. I almost sat right down there on my ass. Luckily for me, Lorna was there instantly putting an arm under my shoulder and keeping me on my feet.

“Thanks,” I said to her, now ignoring Drake completely, “You got any idea what’s going on?”

Lorna shook her head.

“But you’re a news reporter!” I snarked, “Isn’t it, like, your job to know why alien space ships happen to drop out of the sky? Isn’t that like a human interest story?”

“Look if you’re going to be like that I’ll just drop you on your ass,” Lorna shot back, “and isn’t someone going to miss these guys? Assuming someone sent them and Brenton wasn’t just another loony with a score to settle.”

I stared at her.

“That’s a very good damned point. It might be an idea to actually get out of here right?” I stood up straight, addressed everyone in the room with my ‘officer’s voice’ in an attempt to sound authoritarian, “Everyone? Everyone! Oi! Listen up! Now if you’ve read any of colleague’s work about who I am and what I do, so here’s some friendly advice about the whole ‘bad guys are dropping out of the sky’ deal. Go home. Barricade your doors and don’t open up until you have to or the NUA’s showed up to rescue your collective assi. That’s what I plan to do. Good night. It was nice meeting you all. Sorry about the carnage. Um... ok, that’s all I was going to say, uh... Thanks?”

They looked at like me like I was some kind of gibbering idiot. I internally shrugged. If they didn’t want to listen that was their look out. Lorna and I quickly made it to the lift and hit the button for the ground floor, I noticed Drake looking daggers at us as we made our escape. I guiltily turned Lorna.

“I didn’t just get you fired did I?” Strange thing to worry about at the time but I still did.

“You really don’t grasp how well those war stories sold, do you?” Lora smiled in the knowledge that she was very good at her job, “I could get a new job on the strength of those articles alone, you know. Plus if I keep following you around, there’s bound to be a few more worth telling.”

“I don’t think, the inside of my apartment is going to be that interesting Lorna,” I said.

“You didn’t actually mean it did you?” Lora said, “About sitting in your room with the door locked”

“Well I’ll probably also be pointing a shotgun at it as well but yeah, sure. I stocked up on beer last week so I should be good for a few weeks.”

“You’re going to sit out an alien invasion?”

“Yep. This is Leo’s problem. He’s the General and I’m retired, remember? You were there when they made it formal. Besides I’m far too old and slow for this work.”

“b-but you just wiped out, like, an entire army, single handed. You weren’t even armed to start with!”

“Just one army? Thanks for proving my point.”

The lift doors opened and we staggered through the lobby and out into the still rain swept night. The sounds of sirens, explosions and panic echoed through the street. I sighed; I knew this tune all too well.

“I suppose taking the limo back is out of the question?”

On the road next to the Hubble building, there was a slightly tipsy blue skinned draseran was trying to get into his car. His graze was frequently shooting fearful looks at the skies. I approached him cautiously.

“Hey there, mate,” I said, “Um.. my friend and I need to get home. I was wondering...”

I trailed off as I was speaking the draseran shot me a look, his eyes bulged and he threw me his keys and then legged it off in the other direction.

“Hang on!” I called after him, “I only wanted a lift, I wasn’t…”

He was gone.

“…Threatening you,” I finished. I turned back to Lorna abashedly and waved the keys, “I don’t look that scary do I?”

I didn’t even have the pistol in my hand either. It was tucked in the back of my pants again out of sight.

“Not now that I know you.” She replied caught halfway between guilt and amusement at my expression.

We quickly got in the car and set it into motion, practicality outweighing our guilt for accidentally carjacking the draseran. This was something of an emergency, after all. I zoomed off through the streets of Neo York, trying not to attract any real attention. I steered well away from any explosions or smoke or any neighbourhood that was considered ‘dangerous’ at the best of times. I get several blocks before I realised I didn’t actually have a specific destination in mind and on top of that, Lorna seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder all of a sudden. Silly to say but I couldn’t the life of me imagine why. I can be pretty dumb. Strike that, I’m pretty dumb most of the time really.

I still had to ask her though,

“Er… should I drop you off at your place then.”

The look she gave me was cutting a scale that was competitive with a beam sword.

“Well, I think I’d be much safer at your place, wouldn’t I?”

“Sure, you’re always welcome.” Although from the look of that look, it was obvious that, this time, I’d be sleeping on the coach.

We didn’t talk for the rest of the trip. Although I tried to think of someway to tactfully start a conversation somehow and ‘how about them floating spaceships?’ didn’t really seem to cut it. The weather of course was rather cliché and also took us back to the alien spaceships. I already knew all the family news and that they were all, thankfully, off world but that eliminate that as topic of conversation as well. I was still thinking when we pulled into the back alley behind my apartment block.

‘Damn it all.’ I said, suddenly remembering that subtlety of speech, hell speech period, was not what I was well known for, “Lorna, what’s wrong?”

“You mean apart from the fact that the entire damn planet just got invaded?” she snapped back, thin lipped.

“Yes! It didn’t seem to bother you half an hour ago!” We jumped out of the car, slammed the doors in a futile show of emotion and walked inside at a rapid pace. My apartment building didn’t have an elevator, at least not a working one, so we would have to walk up four flights of stairs to get to my rooms.

“Well that was before you revealed your grand strategy for beating it was ‘lets all just sit tight, close our eyes and hope it goes away on its own!” she said.

“I’m sorry, are you angry because I told other people to do that, or because that’s what I plan to do?” We reached the top of the second flight.

“Both!” she nearly shouted, “Do you know just how long, I’ve spent writing about you? Everything you did! How much it cost you? I’ve been telling everyone, how you were determined, loyal to his friends, terrible to his enemies, near unstoppable in a fight! I heaped every virtue I could think of you at your feet! Do you see the nature of my complaint yet?!”

I did. I’d got my gritty reality all over her hero worship. I’d jumped off her pedestal and flipped her The Bird. Too damned bad. All it meant was she’d never listened to a damn thing I said.

As we reached the top of the final stairs. I stopped and faced her, getting between her and my rooms so she had to stop and look me in the eye.

“Lorna. Look at me.” I said bluntly, holding out my hands. They were shaking slightly. “That’s been happening when ever I’m not doing something with them. That’s not age Lorna, no matter how much I gripe about getting old. It’s not me being angry with you either. Do you know what that is? It’s Fear. I’m bloody scared Lorna. I have never talked to you about the battle of Kalereon. Now I will. I failed there. Talk about the Tyraxes all you like, my mission was to evacuate the flag officers. I failed. Each and everyone of them died there but that’s not what really gets to me. It’s all the other people that died before that. All the DART troopers, the marines, Sa…. They kept telling me to get the Admirals out while they held the line. They died there, protecting me. For nothing So if I did it. If I did what you wanted, if I used myself to rally everyone to fight against the invaders, thanks to your articles people would respond and people would die And twenty years so I swore to myself that no kids were going to go off and die for me again” There were tears in my eyes now. I half turned and stumbled towards my apartment, “So I’m getting out of it, Lorna. It doesn’t matter way you or Leo says. I’m getting out. No, I am out already. I. Am…”

I turned the corner. The door to my apartment was wide open, there were boot tracks leading in and out of it. I looked up and all I could see inside was a mess, every thing I owned had been thrown across the floor in some one’s search. All the drawers, containers, everything; lying in a random mess where they’d been thrown on the floor. Someone had been here and they had not had friendly intensions.

“out?”

End Act 1
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Mobius 1 »

It's a shame I forgot to comment the first time, because this is really fun to read. The dialogue is great- and though I'm sad Brenton died - I say it's a real good background story for TEO (yes, whenever I get around to finishing that next chapter), even with the awesome subtitle.

Whatever I can say, I'm all up for another chapter.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Ford Prefect »

I enjoyed that. Something about the 'bitter; annoyed' style to the narrative really works for me, and I'm looking forward to more. Some of the especially colourful metaphors were fun, too. :)
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Booted Vulture »

Alright I'm going to go to chapter updates instead of Acts for this. It should be quicker and hope encourage me to keep going with it. I've also been reading alot of Dresden Files recently, so first person is in. Though Warn me if Ian starts sounding like a young smart alec wizard rather than grumpy grizzled veteran.

Act Two: Kicking And Screaming

V.

So there I was; standing in the ruins of my apartment and the ruins of my life. I sagged internally and then righted one of my chairs. I slumped down in it and let out a great breath.

“Damn,”

Lorna followed me into the room and shut the door; the lock was gone and it didn’t stay shut but slowly creaked open a couple of inches. I scowled, got up and kicked it. It apparently knew what was good for it and stayed closed this time.

“Hrm,” said Lorna, thoughtfully, pacing, while I searched the wreckage of my home.

“Hrm?” I replied as I looked about the alcove that served as my kitchen, and then swore under my breath, “Bastards made off with the booze, of course, but I can offer coffee or tea, at least if you don’t mind your tea bags with boot prints on them”

She ignored the second inquiry and continued along her own train of thought.

“None of the other doors were broken like this; all throughout the building.”

“Noticed that did you?” I said grumpily, “and what do your keen investigative reporting instincts conclude from that?”

“That it wasn’t just looters, I expect its too early for them to be about anyway. This place was specifically targeted for attack, presumably because of you,” she replied.

“Seems sensible enough; if they know enough to hit me at party you only got me to agree to go to three days ago; they practically have to be well enough informed to know where I live. Oh, and know where you live as well,” I said.

“The point is; they know who you are and want you out of their picture for whatever reason. It’s not like they are going to let you get away with slaughtering a platoon of their men; you can’t exactly sit here and wait for them to try again can you?”

I glowered at her and changed the subject.

“Sit down, Lorna, please?” I wandered to my cupboard (wrecked of course) and ducked my head inside, “now since our last little… adventure; I’ve managed to organise myself a bit better…”

I vividly recalled searching through a draw of gun parts searching for extra weapons, the last time when Lorna and I got into trouble and were chased across town by a vengeance mad ex-ONI Agent.

Luckily since then I’d maintained a small cache of weapons to be handy in case of such an emergency. I thumped hard on the back wall of the wardrobe; it made a hollow thunk noise, then retracted, leaving my treasure trove accessible. I pulled something out and tossed it carelessly over my shoulder.

“one shottie”

I found something else. It clattered as it hit the ground

“Flak vest.”

My battered pistol picked up another dent as it landed on top of the pile.

“One pistol and… aha!”

I carefully withdrew it; 90 centimetres of folded and alloyed titanium; balanced around a single hand sized grip and a heavy, brass-knuckle like, handguard. In short: one of the most beautiful weapons I’ve ever held.

I placed it reverently against the wall and then pulled on the tactical vest; it was sleeveless but quite thick and reasonably resilient to hits from both bullets and low power energy weapons provided they didn’t score a direct hit or were just at point blank range; it also had lots of handy pockets, which I started filling with ammo.

“So..” I started mildly, “You’ve met Carnage Marines right?”

Lorna nodded giving me look that was equal parts ‘I’m still angry with you’ and ‘what the hell are you about?’

“Loud,” I continued my apparently no sequitorial line of conversation, ‘”Brusque, obvious, overgunned, immortality complex and tend to live by the adage ‘if brute force doesn’t work you’re not using enough’”

“Sounds about typical for them, yes.”

I retrieved Benton’s pistol; Slipped a spare round in the breech; flipped it over and loaded a full mag and was about to slide into the holster hanging from the vest down to my leg when I realised the holster was already full; I pulled a silvery metal card out of it and stuck the pistol in instead.

“And Leo’s pretty much a Carnage Marine’s Carnage Marine.” I said thoughtfully, turning the card over and over in my hands.

“…So?” Lorna said in an exasperated tone of voice.

Aside from a small barcode in the top left corner and the circular indentation in the edge above it; there were only three letters on the card. Deeply engraved into the back and embossed on the front.

C T I


“So how come he’s such a damn good spook..?”

-Three Weeks Earlier-

We met where we always did; a war memorial, it was a little tradition of ours. It didn’t do anything good for our moods though. As always, I was there first, morosely considering the many names on the wall and the many empty graves they represented. A shadow loomed behind me. It could have been intimidating, for most people it would have been but since I knew who it was; the opposite held true for me. My shoulders relaxed, my posture slipping from tense, to a slight slump. The vague sense of unease that usually surrounded me lifted; there was a Stormcommando at my back. It made me feel safer. Not safe, never safe but closer that I usually got.

“I’m not going to do it you know.” I said. Not really caring if he believed me. Denials were expected from me at this point.

Leo huffed as he moved alongside me. We both leaned on the picket fence. He was wearing an incredibly stylish suit, I was wearing a battered jacket, discoloured and nearly worn through in places.

“You don’t know what I was going to say” he said annoyed.

“I can guess,”

“And?”

“You’re the Director of the Cadre of Tactical Intelligence and you want my help. You don’t want my unique skill set to go to waste; I’d be doing good work with you. Have a vital role in safeguarding the future of the Union. Make sure all the kids get to bed safely and have pleasant dreams and get lots of soft cuddly toys. Am I getting anywhere close?”

“No.”

“Damn”

“I don’t want you to do this. You want you to do this because you need it. You need a purpose and to be frank, you miss the action.”

Leo can’t have missed the look that flittered across my face; denial, horror, revulsion and not a small amount of molten fury.

“Come on, Smith. I had to bail you out of jail last year for shooting up a bar and going on a kill-crazy rampage.”

“Hey!” I said, unable to let that pass, “My rampages are anything but crazy. Besides it was all legitimate self-defense. You were at the verdict, remember?”

“Oh really and what will your excuse be next time?”

“There’s not going to be a next time.”

“Then why are you still carrying your piece?” He was right. I had my shoulder rig on. Heavy pistol tucked under my left arm; spare mags on the right.

“Dammit, Leo. If I wanted action, I’d join up all over again, wouldn’t I?”

“Because you don’t trust the military.”

“Right and I should trust you?” I snarled.

There was a long uneasy pause. I hadn’t realised I was going to say that. I didn’t realise I’d thought that. Of course I could trust him, one part of me screeched. It’s Leo. He’s the only other one left. The only one you know you can trust. And another part whispered that he wasn’t Leo. He was the Director General of the Cadre for Tactical Intelligence. How could you trust a spook like that?

“I’m sorry” I said very quietly. “I just remember what you said, when you first started that gig. ‘Someone has to be the bad guy,’ right? Just answer me one question; was this your idea or Trego’s?”

His pause told me all I needed to know. Leo was well meaning. I’m sure of it but the real brain behind this was Trego’s cold calculating reptilian mind; a brilliant tactician and strategist, but with aims and values that only corresponded with mine at the most general of levels. I could only wonder how much of Leo had rubbed off on him in the last couple of decades or more importantly; vice-versa.

“Ian,” Leo said just as softly, “I really think this would be a good idea. Just think about it.”

He slipped something into my pocket then; it looked like a business card but comparatively very thick and it was metallic and shiny. I shrugged. In the end I just had to trust him. It shouldn’t have been as hard as it was.

-The Present-

I considered Leo’s calling card, running my thumb of the edge of it until I found the small circular indentation next to one corner and pushed it. There was a small click, so quiet that I might have just imagined it and it ejected a tiny translucent data cable.

“Urgh,” I made a small noise of complaint, “I hate these things. I can never find the damn socket.”

Lorna made a disgusted noise.

“You baby,” she said sharply, taking the card and data cable from my hands, “Let me do it.”

And she shoved the tiny plug into my neck. Just behind my left ear, there was another tiny click as the plug linked with my cybernetics’ data point.

My body thrummed and came alive, as signals from the device coursed through me. I could almost hear the whines and whirrs of re-activating servos and gears. A familiar voice filled my ears as my internal communications chipset came back online.

“Hello Ian,” Leo said, with just the slightest edge of smugness, “I knew you’d come around.”

“Desperate times, Leo...” I snarked to myself, as the recording continued unperturbed.

“First, I’m sure you’re wondering what that tickling sensation is. Along with this message, the card I gave you contains the most up to date nano-enhancers that my tech guys can come up with. They can’t do much to upgrade your hardware but they will provide complete protection against all known chemical, biological and technological plagues, as well as limited radiation protection.”

I grimaced. I disliked being injected with things, especially without as much as a ‘by-your-leave’.

“Don’t make faces,” the recording continued, “the nanos are vastly increasing your survivability index. Now the role you’ve accepted is top level CTI. You’re pretty much autonomous, you only answer to me,” there was the briefest of brief pauses, “and Trego, of course, and ultimately the government. Just think of yourself as a Troubleshooter. You see trouble, you shoot it. I’ll leave it your finely honed instincts to find and identify trouble when you see it.

“So...” And here Ian could hear the grin spreading over Bateau’s face, “Welcome to my World... BLACKNIGHT.”
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

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The smart-assery plays directly into Ian's field, if anything. Of the original 303rd, he's obviously the most likely to be snarky and that trait would magnify, not soften, in his grumpy "old" age - not that 40/50 is anywhere near old in TE. Bateau's, what, 56, and he'd probably still be easily in his prime, and could stay there for a longass time with cybernetics.

Anyway, it's a great set-up that pretty much opens Ian to the high-end galactic level shit going on. Or, since this is pre-TEO, right in his backyard.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Ford Prefect »

Where do I get business cards like that? I want to be able to hand them over and have my holographic face smugly proclaim 'Welcome to my world ... PUCEKNIGHT'.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Booted Vulture »

Mobius 1 wrote:The smart-assery plays directly into Ian's field, if anything. Of the original 303rd, he's obviously the most likely to be snarky and that trait would magnify, not soften, in his grumpy "old" age - not that 40/50 is anywhere near old in TE. Bateau's, what, 56, and he'd probably still be easily in his prime, and could stay there for a longass time with cybernetics.
Yeah, so you've said before. Stll not been incorporated into my personal canon :P Plus old and grumpy is a state of mind. Leo's got to be older than fifty. He fought in the scorpia wars after all.
Anyway, it's a great set-up that pretty much opens Ian to the high-end galactic level shit going on. Or, since this is pre-TEO, right in his backyard.
Technically its all set post-TEO. Or at least post the TEO thats posted. if you posted more it would suddenly be an interqel.
FROD wrote: Where do I get business cards like that? I want to be able to hand them over and have my holographic face smugly proclaim 'Welcome to my world ... PUCEKNIGHT'.
Bleh! BLACKKNIGHT was Mobius' title. Though i hope you now understand Leo is now voiced by Kevin Conroy.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Mobius 1 »

Leo's got to be older than fifty. He fought in the scorpia wars after all
I remember the quote, but I based the number off of Leo being 36 in his TE RP profile. So he'd be 36-37 by the time of TEO.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Ford Prefect »

I mentioned the Scorpia Wars, in the context of killing a Scorp with the patented knife hand, before I remembered that the Scorpia Wars happened waaaay before the events of TE's 'modern day'. At least I think they did.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Booted Vulture »

Well, when I moved to chapters rather than Act, I promised myself I get one done a month. So first I was aiming for mid march. Then I thought, 'well any time in March will count right' Well that didn't work out so well. Yay, procrastination. So here's March's chapter. I owe you another one this month. Definitely some Dresden slipping in here now.



VI.

That Night passed in much the same way that I had pessimistically predicted. Lorna slept in my bed, alone. I pulled the armchair up facing the door and slept there. Fully dressed and cradling a shotgun in my arms. I didn’t sleep well; my subconscious presented me with dreams of wading through waist deep mine-laden swamps that was also the long metal corridors and cargo bays of massive starships. Which, of course, sounds silly when you’re awake but in the way of dreams was perfectly convincing and terrifying at the time.

My parting with Lorna the next morning also did not go well but at length, I convinced her not to come with me, or just pissed her off so much she didn’t want to, it was hard to tell. I asked her to check up on the only person left in the city, I even half way trusted. Megan Rickson, a veteran of the Ark war (aren’t we all?) and former member of the Raptor’s Rogues, Easly’s squadron. More importantly we’d served together in the lead up the Battle Of Kalereon. Of course, it was quite possible that Rickson hadn’t taken as much convincing as me to get tooled up and head out to fight the good fight, or that her place had been equally as raided as mine but if she was there, then Lorna would be safe with her.

I, on the other hand, was going not going to go into hiding. Though as I looked into the mirror on the way out, I saw I looked more like an especially militant bike rather than a professional soldier. I was wearing my flak vest, of course but over that I was wearing the protective leathers of a motorcyclist, but with the collision plates replaced with trauma plates from military spec armour. Not quite on par with a Stormcommando suit but better than nothing.

As I came out my apartment building I was a veritable walking armoury. Sticking up over my shoulders were two scabbards; one with a top loading shotgun and the other held my vibrosword; an officer’s sabre, which I’d had long before I was one. The brand spanking new MAP I’d acquired from the mercenary captain; with the lengthened and reinforced barrel and reflex scope was strapped to my right thigh with a couple of extra mags in the specially made holster and my trusty old MAP pistol was holstered at the small of my back as a back up gun. More ammo, knives and other assorted goodies were stashed anywhere I had room to put them.

I was going to war and unlike many previous occasions, I actually knew where I was going. Along with re-activated cybernetics, fresh nanos and pre-recorded sarcasm, Leo’s toy surprise had downloaded quite a bit of local information into my head; CTI safehouses and equipments caches mainly. I picked a small safehouse from near the bottom of the list as my destination; given the level of intel the bad guys had already shown, it was a fair bet most of the larger ones were already compromised.

I took my motorcycle. Like my arms cache it was a recent purchase, kept on hand for emergencies. Most of the time, I don’t like to drive anything apart from my bus but in certain circumstances, it was handy to be able to get around quickly and independently. Your city being overrun by aliens and marauding mercenaries definitely qualifies as a ‘certain circumstance.’

The streets were unnaturally quiet but at least free of enemy tanks, for the moment, at least. I zoomed along almost completely unhindered. The safehouse I’d picked was based in the basement of an apartment block, kinda of like a stereotypical nerd’s lair, only with heavy weapons in the place of dice and stale pizza boxes.

I hammered down the steps cutting down through the street to the safehouse’s door, which had severe overtones of metalness with an underlying theme of impenetrability. I was brought up short, however, when a figure popped out of an alcove and pointed a rifle at my chest. I glared at the person and then winced; the guy was a child. I blinked, and tried to reset my mind from ‘battle scared veteran’ to ‘normal person’, and looked again.

Nope, still just a kid.

Alright, alright. Maybe he was legally an adult but still shy of twenty if you ask me. He was slightly grimy and had the kind of sparse stubble on his face a teenager thinks is a beard. The dark hair on his head in was swept back in stylish spikes, or at least it had been two days ago. Now it just looked unkempt. What amazed me was the sheer number of layers the man was wearing unzipped. The bottom layers was a grimy grey t-shirt, covered in an armoured jumpsuit, covered in a Hawaiian shirt, covered in a tactical vest.

“Drop your weapon,” the kid snarled.

I spread my hands away from my various holstered cannonry.

“Any particular one?” I replied lightly.

“No funny business, Mister,” The kid jabbed the rifle barrel at me, bringing to my immediate attention. It was tiny; barely a 20cal. A gritted my teeth and suppressed a growl, I was being threatened by a snot nosed punk with a rifle wouldn’t plink cans with.

“First,” I growled, “I’m here to help. Second, the safety catch on that trainer rifle is still in the ‘on’ position.”

To give the kid his credit, his eyes barely flickered down as he reached up with one thumb to confirm the safety catch’s position by touch, but still it deflected his attention for the merest fraction second and with that merest fraction of a second I darted my hand out to shove the barrel out of line with my face.

“Sunnuva,” the boy cursed and tried to push it back in line. It didn’t budge against my grip, such is the strength of heroes; the ability to outmuscle scrawny teenagers.

“Should I at this point, point out that if I weren’t friendly you wouldn’t have that end of the gun either?” I grinned wolfishly, “Or do I have to get rough, kid?”

“So,” the kid said and stopped struggling with his weapon, “you’re here at a secret safehouse to help. Great. I’m Lieutenant Jack Baylor.”

I cocked my eyebrow. I could have said ‘If you’re an LT, I’m a metal dinosaur killing machine’ instead but the eyebrow thing is so much more succinct.

Cadet,” he muttered glancing downward, “Cadet Lieutenant Baylor.”

“Nice to meet you, Cadet,” I drawled, “You can call me Dusk.” Suck on that Leo. I like my call sign.

“Dusk?” Baylor’s eye popped. “The Dusk?”

“I didn’t know I rated a definitive article but sure, I guess.” I responded, uneasily.

“Shit, of course, you should be in there,” Jack tripped over his words, “’n’ here I am holding you up like some kind of idiot.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I shrugged, “I mean I don’t think one minute will make much difference, it’s not like the whole place is about to go up or anything.”

Of course that was when the building exploded. Story of my life, really.

~

When next I regained consciousness, I was laying in the dirt on top of Jack Baylor, who I was quite pleased to note, still breathing. No point throwing yourself between someone and an explosion if they were going to croak it anyway. I pulled myself to my feet, coughed out a couple of lung’s worth of dust and looked about.

There was small noise, a dull crack accompanied by a small clickkety-clack that I could barely hear over the post explosion pounding in my ears. It sounded eerily familiar as if I had heard the noise recently, though I would have been, at most, semi-conscious at the time. Pulling my shotgun out of its gun-scabbard on my back, I finally remembered to query my re-activated implants and discovered I’d been unconscious for just over quarter of an hour.

The shotgun made a reassuring solid noise as I pumped it to chamber around. Noting to my dismay as perfectly adequate round dropped out of the eject port as I did since I’d chambered the damn thing when I loaded this morning.

Laboriously I stooped picked up the round and shoved back in the top of the weapon. The shottie was an old boarding gun and ‘upside down’ compared to traditional weapons; with the tubular magazine mounted above the barrel and the pump hanging down and wrapping the barrel. The weight of the magazine helped combat muzzle rise and despite making the sights awkward it had the advantage of not spitting spent cases right in your face, instead sending them in a nice safe downwards direction.
Most of the building where the safehouse had resided was still intact, though it was smouldering in several placed. One of the previously invincible metal doors was hanging off its hinges, twisted and broken. The other was just missing in action. The smoke billowing from the safe house and slowed to a trickle at one corner now, so I levelled my shotgun and slowly advanced inside.

Let me say this straight off; I have many flaws. More than I could list, and those are only the ones I know about myself but at this moment; I’m thinking that my worst flaw is a terrible temptation to get myself killed doing the right thing. It’s the only reason I can think of that explains why I was walking in to a flaming, post-explosively unstable building.

As soon as I could see the place had taken a pounding, half the internal walls were collapsed and the air was thick with powdered plaster. I forged deeper, past a couple of now unmanned, defensive points and into the base proper. The briefest glances on the few bodies I saw showed me they were most definitely dead.

I’d almost decided that whatever had happened had been universally fatal and was going to start trying to find the exit again when I heard a small noise from beyond the next section of wall. Instinctively, I whirled towards it and darted through a hole in the wall, hopping over its singed black ankle high remains. I led with my shotgun of course and abruptly found myself pointing its barrel directly in the face of a very wide eyed looking woman. She lurched back and to the side in a panic. Levelling the pistol she’d been fiddling with the second before at my midsection; the barrel dancing through figures of eight as she tried to steady it.

“Hey! Hey!” I cried, trying to point my shotgun in a non-threatening sort of way, “Easy, girl, I’m here to help. I’m Ian.”

Now that I could see her I ran an over her. (Professionally, I mean.) She was just under five foot tall, compact looking. Hair the colour of dark honey pulled back in a braid. Panic blazed from sea-green eyes and soot was plastered on one temple and streaked all down her cheek and the uniform was simply soaked in dust. It had evidently been damaged in the attack since it was hanging open to the way, exposing a grey tank top that clung to her body and not unshapely bust. (Okay, so not so professional. Go ahead, sue me.) From the muscles I could see, she seemed fit but not active. Maybe a tech or even a clerk, not front line.

When my eyes returned to her face, she did not look convinced.

“Look,” I said, cajolingly, “Who’d be stupid enough to come in here just to kill survivors?”

A look passed over her face though I could tell if it was amusement or annoyance at my statement. Still she looked less scared, which was an improvement from where we started.

“W-we were gathering everyone we could here,” She said, “Trying to figure out someway to resist, or get the word out or anything. I d-don’t know if it was a bomb or a missile attack or what but then whole p-place just...”

“I know,” I said reassuringly, “It doesn’t matter, we’ve just got to get out while we still can. I think the exits this way...”

I turned back towards to the door.

“What’s your name by the wa...” I asked but trailed off as I noted the body on the other side of the hole from the tech woman. He was sat leant across the door, sagging over his stomach, a pistol next to a limp hand. He was quite dead. None of it was particularly surprising, he was no different from any other corpse I’d seen in here or over the last forty years since I first joined the army. I realised almost too late, what was setting off alarm bells; the man was curled around his injuries, nearly concealing the three bullet holes in his chest that killed him

BLAM The silenced round whizzed past my head. I didn’t know if it was the realisation that had prompted my side step or if I had simply sensed the motion of the tech behind me.

I didn’t stop moving, spinning to face her even as my finger tightened on the shotgun’s trigger. She’d obviously been taken flatfooted by my survival and hadn’t shifted her aim to match my lateral motion.

“Freeze,” I growled, before she could re-aim the gun and miraculously; she did. She stood completely motionless. I looked at her, the change was almost stunning. The pistol didn’t waver in her grip at all, and all traces of emotion had been wiped from her face replaced with utter detachment. Only the slightest glint of frustration showed in her emerald-hard gaze now.

“You’re not a tech are you?” I asked.

“No, I’m not.” She replied.

“I’m an idiot,” I muttered.

“Yes, you are.” She said, “You should have shot me already.”

“I’ve got lots more questions to ask,” I smiled mirthlessly, “And since I’ve got the shotgun and since it's pointed the right way unlike that pistol, I think I can take you.”

I should have known better. Really, I have no excuse at all.

“Do you now?” She said and then flexed slightly. I caught a glimpse of something metal on her forearms and then neon gridlines surrounded her arms, replaced by gauntlets a split second later.

Digital holsters I thought, even as I tightened my finger the rest of the way of the trigger as my shotgun roared. I pumped a new round into nearly before buckshot left the barrel to fly one foot...

And bounced of a translucent forcefield over the woman’s chest. I gazed, dumbstruck, as more metal plates sprouted from the gauntlets, spreading up the woman’s arms. She gained at least a foot of height as a similar process encased her legs, and suddenly she was taller than me. With the detached interest of the almost certainly soon at be dead, I noted that the digital holsters were sprouting equipment with more digital holster inbuilt which was just cheating as far as I was concerned. Also supposedly impossible but I case military science may have advanced in the two decades I wasn’t looking.

Plates from a back holster spread around her ribs and over her shoulders before interlocking at the centre of her chest and a helmet snapped closed around her head with a very solid sound KA-CHUNK. Where once a kinda cute woman had stood, there was now a deadly chrome Carnage Marine with just a hint of curves.

Plasma pistols the size of some carbines were now mounted on her hips but instead she was just pointing her gauntlets at me: The wrist lasers mounted there announcing their presence with a red hot glow.

“So?” She said sardonically, “Still think you can take me?”

“Aww crap,” was all I could muster as a response.

“Oh and My name's Elizabeth by the way.”

I was so dead.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Mobius 1 »

Digital holsters for a carnage mech is an awesome idea. It's like instant Power Rangers.
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Ford Prefect »

The shotgun made a reassuring solid noise as I pumped it to chamber around. Noting to my dismay as perfectly adequate round dropped out of the eject port as I did since I’d chambered the damn thing when I loaded this morning.
I laughed. Even better than the 'digital holsters in digital holsters' joke.



Also the BLACKNIGHT thing made me imagine the following exchange:

IAN: I just want to say, I think the 'BLACKNIGHT' thing is kind of ... cheesy.
LEO: It's a CTI thing, I've got one too. The system is totally automated.
IAN: So what's yours then?
LEO: GODSPEAR.
-extended pause-
LEO: The GODSPEAR is my penis.

:v
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Booted Vulture »

Okay, you knew as well as I did the one update a month thing was never going to pan out. Still…

Akshun!



VII.

There are many reasons I survived the war. Good teammates were not an insignificant part of it, not to mention my skills with guns, swords and fists but in the end being fit, intelligent, well armed and incredibly skilled will only get you so far.

In the end it’s just down to luck.

I backed away from the powersuited woman, even as she pointed her wrist lasers at my chest, raising my hands in the tradition ‘oh dear god, please don’t shoot me’ gesture. I make no apologies for that; being shot really hurts and also because I was still holding the primed shotgun in my other hand. My finger clenched convulsively. The shotgun roared and blasted hot buckshot out of the barrel at extreme velocity. Of course it was still in my raised hand and was pointing well away from both of us. The shot slammed through a random segment of ceiling with a dull crunching sound.

A couple of seconds passed. I think Elizabeth was too busy laughing at my stupidity to zap me. Then a long groan echoed through the building, a tortured sound of metal under too much strain.

And then the building collapsed.

As distractions go it wouldn’t have been my first choice but it was undeniably effective. A few tonnes of descending masonry will make anyone flinch. Lumps of rubble started coming through the ceiling, smashing through the plaster, so thick white dust filled the air.

I ran, dodging through broken walls and around falling chunks of wall. Behind me I heard the screech of discharging capacitors as her wrist laser went off. Falling bits of debris suddenly burst in to red flame all around me as they intersected with the energy beams. The air around became hot and hard to breath. Luckily the amount of debris between me and the wannabe carnage marine threw off her aim.

Just as I reached the front door there was a titanic crash behind me as the rest of the supports gave way at once, reducing the number of stories in building by one. I leapt headlong out of the front door in an explosion of dust and pulverised plaster.

Of course it takes more than accidently dropping a building on a mighty morphing Carnage Marine to stop it. Slow down possibly, but as I heard the crash of rubble being thrown aside, I figured that she wouldn’t have been slowed down for very long. Laboriously I pulled myself to my feet and started staggering away from it. On the ground Jack Baylor was stirring and I yanked him to his feet.

“Come on, come on,” I said, shaking him into alertness.

“Wha..?” Jack said, vaguely, “What happened?”

“Save the questions for when we’re not about to killed to death by a broad in a carnage suit,” I growled, “Now is the time for running or shooting. Preferably both.”

I matched actions to my words, turning back to the shifting pile of rubble where the CTI base had been. And started firing off rounds, as fast I can pump the gun and I can pump real quick... Just forget I said that will you? Smoking red cases littered the ground as sent about another six rounds of buckshot down range. Not that it would do much good, it hadn’t exactly proven effective with a direct hit from point blank range but it did me wonders psychologically speaking. Plus I wanted to switch ammo types and didn’t want to bother unloading the gun.

My shottie mounted two racks for carrying extra shells, the one on the main body of the gun was carrying more maroon buckshot rounds; the set of rounds strapped to gun’s solid stock however were green cased and contained solid slug rounds. Each shot containing a single heavy penetrator, which had a marginally better chance of piercing heavy armour than a spray of pellets. I yanked the pump on the shotgun all the way back until it locked, exposing the gun’s chamber directly from the loading gate and allowing me to load the first round straight into the barrel and then released the action and loaded the other seven slugs into the tube magazine.

There was a muted roar and a power suit lifted itself from the rubble in a billowing cloud of dust. I think all I’d managed do to it was scuff the paint work a bit. Revealing shiny chrome under the cream-with-red-stripes custom work. And from her stance I guessed Betsy really liked the paint work on her armour, then again. I could be imagining it, six tonnes of metal tend to add hostility to anyone’s body language.

“Sooo, Jack,” I said as I shouldered the shotgun, “How did you do in retreating school?”

As it turned out, he did very well at retreating. I wondered if that was a cause for concerned. I steadied my aim and fired off a couple of rounds as he fell back. One pinged off of a hyperalloy pauldron and the other fizzled into none-existence on the energy shield covering her collar bone.

She responded with a good dozen, blood red laser beams aimed at my face. The hot retort was enough to make me duck behind my wall fragment cover. Some combination of the explosion, falling rubbish and awful clogging grime and dust must have been fouling up her targeting computers or something, because none the beams found their target. As the cacophony of discharging beam emitters died down I heard a terse Ready! from Baylor followed by the barking sound that was either a particular ferocious Chihuahua or Baylor’s rifle. The latter made more sense in context of course.

I ducked and ran, retreating as fast as my legs would carry me to the next bit of cover. As I dropped to one knee beside it and aimed my weapon at the advancing Carnage Marine as sour tang reached my noise, even over the stench of burnt propellant from my shotgun. I glanced down to find I wasn’t the only thing being covered.

“Ready!” I said and, as Baylor leapfrogged past me, I added, “Aww, shit.”

My bike was lying next to me. As did a chunk of building about the size of my torso. They seemed to have met at some speed. The frame of the bike was bend out of shape and the body was fractured and leaking fuel.

The barking of Baylor’s gun ceased for a second.

“Reloading,” he said, and then, “What do you mean, ‘Aww shit’?”

“Aww shit, as in my ride got busted,” I shot back, “and I’m pretty sure my coverage doesn’t include falling masonry damage. Cover me some more while I find something.”

I rummaged through my many pockets before I found what I looking for and slapped down ontop of my bike.

“Ok,” I said, lightly, “lets start running again.”

“Oh, great plan, boss” Baylor snarked but still obeyed as we leapfrogged our way further away from the ever advancing Marine. Who seemed to be picking up momentum, her power suit, gave her added height and lengthened her stride, making her far quicker than you would credit for an clunky iron giant. No sooner had we retreated out of her sight than she was striding past the cover I had occupied scant seconds earlier. I searched my mind for cycle related puns and coming up blank, just thumbed my detonator as I said;

“Buh-Bye, Betsy!”

The demo charge I’d planted off with my bike went off instantly, igniting the cracked fuel tank with an almighty whthump! launching the wrecked cycle (now totally beyond hope of insurance claimabillity) straight up in a spray of flame and shrapnel that scoured the Carnage Marine from head to toe.

And proved to be about as effective as a dunking paint-stripper in ruining the suit’s paint job but did little else to perturb the occupant. Elizabeth advanced and I could almost see the smirk beneath opaque face mask. She’d abandoned the in-built lasers and and filled her hands with colossal plasma guns, the wide bores of which were already starting to pre-heat a brilliant orangey-red colour,

I shrugged at Baylor,

“Well that was my ace in the hole, there.”

He looked back at me.

“We’re so very dead.” He said, ashen faced.

I shrugged again, turned and started to fire again. Emptying rounds from the shotgun as fast as I could pull the trigger and work the action, until the breach locked open, keeping a grip on gun with my left hand I pulled the heavy pistol from my thigh holster and, resting it on my left wrist and let fly with that as well sending eight magnetically propelled superheat rounds, down range to be turned away be curved helmets and cleverly shaped energy fields.

Like I said, survival is all about luck. Luck and Timing. So you don’t ever give up, you keep going, because every second you last is one more roll of the dice. It’s one more chance for your luck to make its mark. It’s just one more moment in which a miracle might arrive.

Betsy hefted her plasma guns and held them straight out, at shoulder level, arms akimbo, sighting down the natural points of their barrels. It’s a good move and I admired it; that way no faulty targeting computer was going to tip the scales in my favour. Mechanical fingers tightened on the weapons triggers and...

The bullet bounced off the Carnage Marine’s temple with a great gonging sound of reverberating metal. The power suit stumbled under the impact, more due to the surprise than any real hurt done to her, I thought. The screech of burning tires and a straining engine filled the air as we all turned towards the sound of our salvation. A close to civilian model Gento Jeep roared towards us, it looked like I feel, ancient and worn down to hell and back. In the few parts of it that weren’t scraped and scratched beyond recognition it was done up in MetroCop colours but it was open backed and where there would be a machine gun cupola on any self-respecting military model there was just a hole. A hole with a lizard sticking out; a Terina in MetroSWAT armour and a bolt action sniper rifle, no less.

Turning towards the new thread, Betsy poured fire at it as fast at the energy guns could throw it. The plasma guns make a distinctive sound, like if you mixed the sound of igniting gas, with a thunderbolt and then added a lion’s roar as a backdrop. I don’t pretend to know how the driver of the gento did it, but he managed to dodge every damn bolt the Carnage Marine sent at him, while winding it way through chunks of rubble and partially present walls.

When it comes to gift horses, I’ve always tried to remember what happened to the Trojans, but right at that second, I just ran towards to jeep, grabbing Baylor by the scruff of the neck and throwing him in the back of the jeep as it went by it what was half an emergency stop and half a hand brake turn to get his facing away from the homicidal madwoman in shining armour.

“Go!” I growled and the driver didn’t need to be told twice. To be truthful, he probably didn’t need to be told once. I dropped both my empty guns and pulled my backup MAP handcannon as we soared away on rubber tire wings. Me and Baylor and the Terina in the roof all poured fire back at Betsy as we made our bid for freedom. She gave chase as much as she was able, running and firing those big honking plasma guns as she went, but power armour not running and shooting is not that easy, energy fire splattered all over the place and little of it got close to us.

In the end, even though the power suit was far quicker than you’d credit it, it was still no match for a good set of wheels and a foot on the gas. I looked about the vehicle, it was remarkably open plan. The wall between the cargo section that me and Jack had dived in and the driver’s cabin was more or less missing and only the cracked front windshield was stopping a gale from blow me right off the vehicle again.

“Whoever you are,” I said, sticking my head into the main cabin, “your timing is nearly faultless,”

“Nearly?” said the driver, in exaggerated outrage, drawing my attention to him. Blond hair fell past his shoulders and was tied in a loose tail by a leather band at the base of his neck. He was lantern jawed and blue eyed and was smirking a lopsided grin at me in an awfully familiar way. I took in his reflective aviator shades and the leather bomber jacket and fought the urge to facepalm.

“Oh god, you’re a flyboy,” I groaned, “that explains the driving,”

“You got a problem with flyboys?” The driver asked.

“As a rule,” I muttered, “Name’s Ian.”

“I’m Johan and that young lady,” The driver made a motion that could just be thought of as being in the direction of the terina sniper, “likes to be called Keen-Seer for reasons that entirely elude me.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” I said, forcing myself to nod politely. I liked to think I’d got pretty good about being friendly to Ark species, but then they’re not usually hauling rifles around when they get on the bus. Old habits die hard and all that, but then saving my life has always been a good way to introduce yourself.

Even though I hadn’t emptied the magazine, I reloaded the gun I was holding and slipped it back to the holster on the back of my belt and the stopping picked up the long barrelled MAP and the shotgun from where i dropped them and repeated the process; reloading the weapons and adding fresh round to the shell carriers on the shotgun. As I concentrated on my guns and not the hard cornering and excessive acceleration that formed the flyboy’s driving style, my face assumed its default expression,

“Hey Ian,” Johan shouted back, “No need to look so glum, we’re free and clear, man.”

There was an almighty roar of powering up hover engines from a side alley that I’d barely seen as we whizzed past. Then three vehicles zoomed out of it and took up pursuit positions. I glared at three wide cannon barrels mounted on teardrop shaped chassis. They were Assault Pods, basically a turret strapped on a one-man tankette. I glanced back at Johan in disbelieve.

“Why the hell would you say something like that?” I shouted over the boom of cannon fire.

The jeep lurched and wavered back and forth as Johan started to dodge and weave the car as we sped onto the freeway. It was three wide lanes and detached from any convenient side streets to dodge down, as it turned in a long huge arc and elevated over the city’s ground level. This was going to go great for us. Still the mad seat of the pant’s driving actually seemed to be keeping us of the way of most of the incoming shells.

So there we were, hurtling down a road, debris and abandoned vehicles all over the place, pursued by hover tankettes. My heart was racing, nothing like the prospect of so many different imminent demise to get the blood flowing. Still its good for you, lots of nice oxygen and adrenaline getting to the right bits with a little help from the internals. My hands were barely shaking.

Beside me, Baylor was less composed.

“ohshit!ohmotherfuckinghell!fuckyshittyshit!” The swearwords pouring out of him in a constant stream. It was almost lyrical. Almost.

It was a second later when I realised my jaw was clenched hard enough to hear to the grind of teeth on teeth that I realised I was much less steady than I thought. You’d think I’d be used to this but then perhaps it was because I’d done this before that was getting to me. Speeding gento’s chased by Tanks. All I can say is there better not be any robots in the damn things. An itching sensation was spiralling out from a spot on my gut and I felt unsteady on my feet, as if my ankles weren’t working properly. In short they making me felt like shit.

I decided to take it out on them.

My hand lanced out behind me and seized the handbrake, yanking it up as hard as I could. There was the loudest screeching sound imaginable and the distinct aroma of burning brake pads and of course we instantly lost ground, the distance between us and our lead pursuer reduced dramatically. Just at the moment it fired again, sending a kinetic shell the size of my head shooting over us. Skimming the top of the Gento at such close range that the pressure wave felt like someone had trapped our temples in a industrial sized vice and slammed it shut. I felt my cybernetically-enhanced eardrums strain under the blow. Then we were bumper to Sloped-Frontal-Armour with the assault pod and I released the brake once more and set off down the cargo compartment at a full sprint.

The one liner ‘don’t wait up kids’ occurred to me the second after I made the leap from Gento to Tankette.

The thing about Tankette’s are small, only a couple of steps from the main chassis to the turret section with the pilot. On the other hand, those couple of steps can be perilous since not only was I standing on a few millimetres of explosive reactive armour, the driver does tend to take kindly to joyriders. This particular pod pilot vented his displeasure by trying to sweep my legs out from on under me with his tank barrel. But, hey, at least he wasn’t shooting at the damn jeep anymore, I thought, as I hurled myself headlong over the barrel.

Have you ever bellyfloped onto to a tank turret? Protip, it’s not as fun as it looks, especially when you haven’t practised breakfalls in a decade or so. My knee exploded in white pain as it crashed against unyielding hull. On the other hand before the driver could try that again, I’d hauled myself on top of the turret. Drawing my sabre awkwardly in my left hand and placing my right on the pommel, I stabbed it down at the lock of the turret hatch. I don’t know if someone went crazy on costcutting for the hatch or whether we Army lads had designed our sabres specifically for use as a crowbar but the thing popped open when I put my back into it.

I dropped through the hatch, boot first, kicking the lightly armoured and above all helmetless drive in the temple with a pleasant cracking sound. Tank interiors aren’t exactly what you call room, but for a few more hastily applied bootings And I managed to wrestle myself in front of the controls. People think you need specialised training to drive Tanks, that’s not strictly speaking true, you just need specialist training to drive tanks, well A lot of the basics are simple to figure out and computer assisted a lot of the time as well.

I stamped a foot on the accelerator and brought myself back up to speed. Hopefully I’d been blocked from their sight by the bulk of the tankette as I boarded it and I’d not lost that much ground on it, I was now level with the tankettes to either side instead of leading a V shaped formation. Which worked out for the best anyway. Whether they’d realised their lead had been hijacked in the finest traditions of the 303rd’s founder, or not I had to act quickly, before a stray round turned the gento into splinters.

There were two joysticks in front of me. One to control the overall tank, the other for aiming the turret. I yanked one to the left and one to the right. In response the pod zoomed sideways. I felt rather than saw the impact as I slammed into the pod to my left, in response I just yanked the joystick even harder the left, crushing the enemy pod between the megacrete freeway sidewall and my own vehicle until it plowed right through it and over the edge of the hundred foot drop. Feeling the sudden lack of resistance I yanked my craft back in line with the road to avoid following my foe’s leathal dive.

My other hand swung the targeting crosshairs of the main cannon over the final enemy pod and pulled the trigger. Bombarding it with 100mm shells as fast as the autoloader could, well, autoload. My first shot fell a little short and to the left of the target. Spraying it with shrapnel and liberated road surfacing. The second and third shots however slammed through the thin side and rear armour of the pod, smashing it in severly before the pod, powered by its contrary nature, exploded outwards in a detonation of black smoke and red fire.

Ahead, The gento flashed it lights wildly and I could see Jack and Keen-Seer waving and cheering. Gently we throttled down, coming to a stand still a good half a kilometer down the road from the fireball. I lost no time in pulling myself out of the cramped pod and down to the ground.

I staggered back towards the jeep, feeling punch-drunk. My legs didn’t seemed to be doing their job properly.

“Well, that was fun.” I mumbled, as I sat on the end of the jeep.

“It’s a good start,” said Johan, “but what are we going to do now?”

All the things considered, it was a very good question. It took me at least ten seconds to notice no-one was offering any suggestions.

And another ten to realize they were all looking to me for answers…

END ACT TWO
Last edited by Booted Vulture on Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ah Brother! It's been too long!
Mobius 1
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Re: [Giftsnap] Tiberous: Overheated

Post by Mobius 1 »

I laughed, so hard. I don't think I stopped laughing. I still need to do a more in-depth read so I can ask questions and stuff, but all's good here.
SHADOW TEMPEST BLACK || STB2: MIDNIGHT PARADOX
The day our skys fe||, the heavens split to create new skies.
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