Allister blinked beneath his mask a little and smiled at the woman's response. He responded in turn "No maam. It just seemed best to ask someone if he or she or it," at this he nodded to the Droid "is all right. While you have some small amount of blood, I do not see any signs of physical harm. But just in case, I would like my Squad Medic take a look at you, if you would mind?"
Doc himself nodded and said "You seem to be in mild shock maam. This may be masking any sings of physical harm from you, so if I may?" He added to Allister through the Private Com Links "She doesn't seem Insane Sir. But I'll still need to check her fully. Allister said an affirmative and turned his attention to Gear.
"What about you Gear? What's your opinion of the Droid?"
Gear responded immediately "Not quite Good sir. It seems to be a true Combat Model, though obsolete, not like the other Security Droids I've seen 'till now. If we do have to eliminate them, we'll likely lose some men. Due to the fact that it seems to be decommissioned, and the girl does seem to be close to the droid, I would hazard that the Girl is the Droid's owner. Which means that it would attempt to defend her from harm."
Allister nodded to this Information and turned his attention to the Droid. "What of you Machine? Have you suffered any physical damage?"
"3W-2950, reporting, sir. Only slight stresses to physical structure" said Wednesday, "But they are irrelevant. As for you analysis, it is true that I am a decommissioned war droid, but this girl is not my owner; I am a free entity, but I was with her when the haze struck, and protected her"
"Is it within your mission perimeters to allow us to accompany you? I believe there is safety in umbers, and while my weaponry is reduced I am still capable of combat support"
"I see." Allister said, brooding at the new information."Well, you see 3W-2950. We are not a standard Military Outfit. While the vast majority of the Information concerning my group is classified, I can tell you that we are here to gather Information on the Haze. Nothing Else. Currently, you have a Civilian Protection Program on you. Probably. Either that or a Morality Core somewhere within your system, which required you to save the girl here. My Job is to learn as much as I can about The Haze, which would in turn allow for ultimate victory in this conflict."
Allister continued "While I am not a Psychopath, I am not a Saint either. I will do what is necessary for the success of this mission. We will allow both of you to accompany us but let me make this clear. If either of you interferes in this mission, then you will cease to be an interference. I, personally, would not want any unnecessary blood on my hands. But I will bloody them if that's what is necessary." The Commandant finished, his voice cold and commanding from his time directing the 23rd.
He shrugged and continued in a warmer and friendlier tone which allowed no compromise. "I believe that, even if you yourself say that it is limited, for Gear to check up on you. Just in case. Once we have a better grasp on your systems, we would be able to upgrade them with our own weaponry."
With a failsafe that would wipe you and everything around you in a 50 foot radius of course. He added mentally to himself.
"I understand your position, Commandant," said Wednesday gravely, "And I assure you that my Morality Core is functioning perfectly well. As for the upgrades, I would welcome them, but I cannot simply let you modify me; I contain anti-sabotage protocols, and attempts to modify my internal systems will cause an overload in my hydrogen reactor. it would not be a particularly large explosion but it would be fatal to all nearby, including myself"
Sophie's eyes flicked between the conversation. She took her helmet off to reveal her tear filled eyes. She fell back to the floor and put her face in her hands.
"Why is this happening?" She whispered to herself.
Sarah lay on her bed, eyes fixed blankly on the ceiling, fingers drumming a slow, mournful beat of the bed. She had been waiting for at least hour now for the doctor. While she had been waiting, she had been test her memory. Most of it had come back, her early life, Jack, the wave, Dan, Rosa and the others, cryo sleep for 5 years, returning to Earth and meeting up with Dan and Rosa and that man, Fillian, and some other people. Most of what she was missing wasn't too distressing, a couple names and some minor events. But she was missing two critical pieces of information. What she was helping Dan and Rosa deal with and what had happened too her that had landed her here.
"Everything is so strange here," she murmured to herself, "Like something out of a science fiction movie. Soon I'll be finding out I was abducted by aliens or I traveled into the future or something equally stupid." She chuckled quietly to herself, shaking her head at the thought. She heard the door open and the doctor walked in, taking a seat by her bed.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, Sarah waiting patiently for the doctor to speak while the doctor reviewed some notes. The doctor set his hand-held computer onto the bedside table and, taking deep breath, he began.
"Now, as you have been wondering how exactly you got here and since there is no easy way for me to tell you this, here goes. You were found floating on the edge of the solar system, frozen in a cryo pod. You were almost dead, if not for the cryo pod you probably would have been. Most of your body had been destroyed but, as you can see, we have managed to reconstructed it."
Sarah started to feel sick. The doctor wasn't making sense. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME!"
"We don't know. By the analysis of your ship's model and the items on board it seems that whatever happened to you happened 300 years ago."
"300 YEARS! But ... wha? ... how? ... urgh, THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!" Sarah broke down into tears, her mind attempting to make sense of what she was being told, "I don't understand, how ..." Sarah broke down into incoherent mumblings and sobs.
The assembled forces headed of to their assigned armories, signing out their weapons and all the ammo they could bring down in the first drop. Rachel signed out her SMG, found a table, field stripped it and reassembled it after finding nothing wrong, she grabbed her ammo, signed out her comes gear and slung it over one shoulder before heading to the armor rack. She walked up to hers, colour pale shades of grey and white in a digital pattern, pulled out the cart on which it was hung and headed over to the long line to the assembly racks.
After a couple minutes, Rachel reached the front of the front of the line, put her armor into the slot and stepped into the tube. Mechanical arms slotted the under layers of the complex armor, connecting it to the second skin and pinching in several points, hooking the suit painfully into her nervous system. Next came the middle layer, where the servos and electronics lay, she felt each system come on line and had to focus to stay still as the outer shell of the armor was drilled into place, then her helmet appear on a tray in front of her. She picked it up, taking care not to damage anything with the added strength, although, she needn't have worried, this was her thirtieth combat drop, she was perfectly capable of not taking the caution, but she did anyways.
Rachel walked at the increased pace that came with her armor, the heavy coms pack on her back that would normally slow her pace to a crawl was like a feather, her weapons in their holsters and her ammo in its slots as she reached the pod bay. She headed to the assigned pod bay, running a quick diagnostics to make sure her suit was in fact airtight, it was, before walking to her squad's pod, which the rest of her squad was already in, she walked around to her door.
After the last of the people who would be in the first wave was strapped in and ready to go, the Admiral pulled up his time display, set it to zero, in every helmet or time readout, time reset.
With a slight lurch, Rachel felt the pod move out to the air lock, she looked out the duraglass view-port of her door as they moved out into the vacuum. She looked out over the earth, and say the size of the fleet, 13 capital ships in all, many more smaller ships, all with marines destined for the haze. She chuckled as some pods went out a head, many other noticed this as well, the comms chatter filled with phrases like, "looks like Psy-Ops is getting in on the fun!"
The small Psy Ops pods landed in remote locations within the haze, their auto turrets whirring into life and their incredibly loud speakers deploying. The sounds of death metal began flooding the landscape, the jarring chords produced by picks and fingers flaying at untuned guitars and the caterwauling of incoherent screaming was designed to give the marines the mental edge while confusing and disorienting the enemy, and it worked.
There was choruses of cheering as the pods were catapulted out of their launchers, their engines propelling them to terminal velocity the second they breached the atmosphere, headed for their predesignated drop areas. The compartment of each soldier filling with transparent shock foam, which would ensure that no limbs were broken upon impact.
Rachel's pod impacted less than thirty meters from the positions of Wednesday, Sophie and Allister's positions, the doors of the eight compartments blasting out with concussive force as the sky of the haze was filled with the red streaks of drop pods. Rachel surged out of her compartment, shock foam disintegrating as she moved, her weapon already at the ready as she found herself looking down her sight at a crazy attempting to sneak up on Sophie. She pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation, her visor quickly highlighting possible threats as her weapon did as she bade, propelling a small, triangular titanium slug at supersonic velocities silently, via powerful magnets.
The crazy stood no chance, his internal organs where literally sucked out of him as a trio of the slugs passed through his body, Rachel readjusted, designating Sophie and Wednesday as friendlies, seeing as those her visor recognized as the 23 shadow ops weren't firing on them.
FWI, Psy Ops handles Psychological warfare, not things involving telekinesis and whatnot.
Allister both heard and felt the Impact and subsequent Gun blasts coming from behind him. He slowly turned around, knowing that if it wanted him dead he would have been puking his guts out already and saw the Drop Trooper.
'God. Fucking. Dammit. Their moving already. I swear, if their stupid Heavy metal and Disruptive Drop Pods fuck up the Calibrations of the Machines I will personally see to it that, if there's STILL a planet left to save, that I will throw these Idiots out of an Airlock on Alpha Centauri.'
Meat and Dick went forward, weapons trained on the Drop Marine as their Plasma Rifles cycled to 80% power. Behind and around him, the rest of his men had started aiming their own respective weapons at the Intruder. Of course, it was a Drop Marine. But no way in hell would Allister make the mistake of letting his guard down.
His eyes darted to the pitiful remains of the Insane right next to the Marine and concluded that the Bastard was heavily armed. He may or may not have Plasma weaponry, but he sure as hell has enough weaponry to take care of the Insane. Pinging several of his men, he instructed them to switch to their Railguns. If worse comes to worse, a combined assault using all of their weapons would be enough to take the Marine down without losing too many men.
Allister spoke then "In the name of the Humanity's Greater Defense Fleet, we demand that you Identify yourself! Failure to comply within 10 seconds WILL result in you being terminated with Extreme Prejudice."
Wednesday had done his best to stay calm when the drop pod hit, expecting that the soldiers were expecting it, but the Commandant was sizing up for a fight, and Wednesday could hold no longer. He began backing off, slowly and carefully, looking for cover.
His tail reached out to touch Sophie's shoulder, "Come on" he murmured quietly through a microphone on the end, next to the CREW, "Let's get you to safety before things get ugly"
The tail helped her up, and half guided, half lifted her onto his back again, as he retreated into the wreckage of a nearby building
"My duty and my pleasure" said Wednesday softly, and if he had a face he would have smiled. He let her down as the entered the building, and he moved to a window and looked out with his tail camera
"The soldiers look ready to start fighting each other" he muttered darkly, "And if they do, it will be highly dangerous. If I tell you to, you must run, as fast as you can, even if it involves leaving me"
He hoped it would not come to that, for he felt close to the girl, and it was more than simple protection protocols; he felt a bond close to that he had heard described form owned bots when the spoke of loyalty to their masters
Sophie followed Wednesday.
"B-but, I don't want to leave you!" She complained.
She looked down at her feet and thought for a moment. She hesitated and then looked up.
"O-ok, But only if you promise that we will meet again."
"I will go with you if I can" Wednesday promised, "But if things go to the worst, I will stay here and try to slow down pursuit. It is unlikely, but if I do, I will have little chance of survival"
He saw the fear in her eyes, and took her hand in his vast claw, holding it as gently as a child "Do not worry; I doubt they will come for us; they have other objectives, and we are only small in their concerns"
Sophie looked down at her feet and closed her eyes. She took her helmet off again with her free hand. I can't let him die. I don't care what it means for me...
"Ok..." Was all she could muster.
Rachel immediately dropped her weapon and her hands shot up in the air, six of her squadmates dealt with a few lingering crazies before doing likewise, her officer, a lieutenant stepped out beside her. He was decidedly shorter, at 5'7", but was far heavier, build like a tank, strong and low, he spoke calmly, his voice smooth, yet it conveyed a gentle authority.
"Calm down Commander, we're on the same side here. I'm lieutenant Richard, this is Staff Sergeant Rachel, my comms girl, we're with the 108th drop regiment. Now, would you mind giving us a hand? The explosive bolts on our demo man's door disarmed due to proximity with that crumbled wall over there, we should be able to pry it off easily."
About a dozen other pods impacted within a hundred meters of all of them, several swerving to avoid hitting anyone, they all stepped out, weapons raised, and quickly lowering them, finding to hostiles. The small town they were in quickly felt the impacts of nearly a thousand pods, and subsequently the boot prints of nearly eight thousand marines, their weapons spewing silent death onto the crazies, who's noiseless deaths failed to alert their fellows. Oddly enough, not a single pod ventured near the metropolis where the haze had begun.
Wednesday calmed as the soldiers relaxed, and he began to wonder if he was just being paranoid. He began to edge out, but decided not to get too close to the group...
Sorry for the delay. I started on a Fan Fic project, and I was a bit busy. Better now though.
Allister kept his ire in check, softly muttering "Airlocks....all of them....if it's the last thing I do." He snapped out of it and approached Lieutenant Richard "I'm not sure about you Lieutenant but if I didn't know better, I'd have said that your commanding officers sent you on a suicide mission."
He casually waved his hand at the Drop Marines, "You drop in here, without knowing just how large, or potent the enemy is. You don't know where the enemy is, beyond the vague direction of 'Within the White zone'. No, don't deny that you know more than us. Everything the Admiralty currently knows would have come from me and my Battle Group. Also, only hostile we've fought so far, are these...things that used to be human. While yes, your Battle Armor will allow you superior combat ability in comparison to us, subtlety is not it's forte. You come in here, several thousand men with Heavy Metal blaring in as you attempt to attack an unknown enemy? While that tactic has worked in the past, do you really think they haven't taken notice. Once the actual threat presents itself Commander, not these pathetic scamps, you and most of your men will die. I, on the other hand, will not be part of it."
Allister waved at the rest of his men to follow up behind him, he then leaved the Drop Commander and his troopes behind. He yelled back at him, not bothering to look "Also, your armor shows the rank of a Lieutenant. Who the hell do you think you are to command me? I am the Commandant of the 23rd Analysis and Containment Battle Group. Roughly equivalent to a Colonel actually. Also, if your Admiral has given my forces over to you to command, then I must reluctantly say No to your request. Don't bother with the paperwork for insubordination, I honestly doubt that enough of your men will live long enough to file it."
The Commandant honestly did not care for the welfare of those idiotic enough to ignore common sense. To drop in without any foreknowledge is foolhardy. To allow yourself to be commanded by the person who went along with it is even more stupid. However, Allister could appreciate an opportunity when it comes his way. He would simply hide, which was what Team Alpha was supposed to be doing anyway, and observe as the Drop Troopers get slaughtered. The data brought in from that would be invaluable. A Perfect Plan.
As for the Admiral who allowed the drop, the loss of the entire Drop Regiment would severely discredit him. If, after the inevitable shit storm coming his way, he is still an Admiral. Then the Operatives Allister had in place would insure he would cease to be a threat.
Wednesday shrugged, "I'm not sure" he muttered, then said, "It seems that they are meant to be working together, but the commanders cannot agree and they have different priorities. If it were my choice, I would not stay too close to this confusion of soldiers"
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