The Air Guard

Mr_Grey · 12-11-2007 12:02 PM

((This is a concept I've had running in the back of my head for a couple months, now. I'm taking this largely from the realization that the Sky Raiders started out as a military unit that fought against the same super-powered threats that the heroes did.

After the Rikti War, however, Colonel Duray was somehow corrupted and he turned his unit mercenary (and largely pirate). Now, the Sky Raiders are little more than thugs, stealing what they want and ignoring the consequences of their actions. For the most part, they've forgotten their noble origins of protecting the innocent and helpless.

What if there were those among them who hadn't?

Unlike my other threads, questions or comments are appreciated.))

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Chapter 1: Born Through Strife

-----

Vigilance.

It's a black mark on the history of military involvement in domestic defense against supernatural threats. Though the Joint Command Special Threat Response Battalion had served with distinction, it took a severe downhill turn after the Rikti War. Few knew what it was that drove Colonel Duray to turn against his country, but when he did, it sent shockwaves through the military and hero community that are still felt to this day.

The history of the Sky Raiders is already well documented. Heroes seeking to learn more will simply have to take on missions that deal with Sky Raider endeavors.

However, despite the allure of the criminal lifestyle, throughout this modern pirate army's ranks are soldiers and pilots who remember, or at least have been inspired by, their original role as Vigilance. One such man is the Commander of the North Atlantic Fleet's Third Wing, Captain Anthony Rachek.

Despite the heavily laden title, Captain Rachek wields very little actual power within the Sky Raiders. He directs roughly four bases, one of which is heavily dilapidated, and has some authority over one of the three experimental Sky Ships, the Thunder Nimbus.

Rachek had joined Vigilance after retiring from the Marine Corps as a Master Gunnery Sergeant. At first, his role was simply delegated to training. Having been a Drill Instructor a few times in his prior career, he took to the new role well. Many endeavors of the JCSTRB were able to avoid failure due to his tenacious training regimen.

Perhaps this is the reason Duray worked hard to convince the wizened old man to join him in his mad ambitions. During the first strikes against Paragon City under the newly renamed Sky Raiders, Rachek was working behind the scenes, training new recruits and helping plot strategy. He also bought the rhetoric that humanity didn't need costumed super freaks to defend itself, his survival of the Rikti War was proof enough of that.

Over the few brief years, he acquired new responsibilities and new commands. By the time he became the Commander of the North Atlantic Third Wing, he'd become largely jaded with world affairs.

Recently, however, after some recent scuffles with a small group of super-powered individuals, he's grown jaded about another issue, a personal issue. He sees more clearly the irrationality of his superiors (though he technically only answers to Colonel Duray, he knows he'd be a fool not to pay attention to the political maneuvering and backstabbing of his peers).

It seems he's been waiting for one final straw to determine his decision...

----------

--The Rikti War--

"This can't be right..." the Wing Commander stroked his goatee as he looked over the orders on his datapad, "It just can't be..."

The orders, however, were from the desk of Colonel Duray. They informed him that the total forces of the Sky Raiders were to stand down for the perceived duration of the conflict between the extra-dimensional invaders and the forces repelling them, as well as any instance in which the conflict flared anew.

That didn't set well at all with Anthony Rachek. When he got a hold of Colonel Duray and demanded an explanation, he got just what he was afraid he'd get.

He got the reason.

"We let the Rikti beat the metas down, and then the world will be ripe for the picking," the Colonel explained calmly, "What is so difficult to understand about this? It's simple tactics. You let the enemy of your enemy be your unwitting friend..."

"And allow countless innocent civilians to die?"

"Tony... You knew when you joined me, all those years ago, that this was where it would eventually lead. With those lives lost, the people will see clearly how misguided their faith in their super-powered champions truly was. They will learn to fight for themselves again. Then the rebuilding can begin."

Rachek knew where the rhetoric went after that.

"Very well," he said gruffly.

Colonel Duray didn't catch the importance of that closing phrase and terminated the conversation. What he did catch the significance of, however, was his Wing Commander's attitude. Rachek was certain that assassins would be dispatched, and while he had his own tricks to deal with that, he had little time to act on what else he knew must be done. A battle was already being waged in the city, and he had to get involved quickly. Everything from here on out depended on it.

"Ensign," he shouted, "Patch me through to the Thunder Nimbus! And get me Captain Carter, on the double, soldier!"

----

"Are you sure you should be doing this?" Captain Anderson asked, "You're taking a dangerous risk..."

"The risk is gone," Rachek growled, "I know what's coming. Duray's not going to stand idly by while he perceives treachery is happening right under his nose, real or not."

"But this?"

"Hey, if he thinks I'm going to commit an act of betrayal, I may as well do it big," the Wing Commander scrawled his signature across his datapad and hit the transmit button, "There. Now the Thunder Nimbus should be on its way to Talos Island."

"Is it actually going to..." Anderson looked flustered, "Go inside the War Walls?"

"Ha-heh, no..." the grizzled older man reached for a bottle on the table between them and poured himself a glass of whiskey, "No... The Rikti have been doing their bombing runs and fleeing zones after the capes prove too tough. There's a lot of new talent out there nowadays, stuff the Rikti didn't deal with the first time around."

"Well, what's the Thunder Nimbus supposed to do?" Anderson asked, his face belying his confusion.

"Well..." Captain Rachek chuckled.

----------

"...That's something we'll have to see on the news..."

--Talos Island--

Captain Daniels gave the commands for the Thunder Nimbus to hold steady and ordered the Skiff pilots to fan out in their respective squadrons. He swallowed hard as he realized just what he was about to do.

Still, the orders had come from Wing Commander Rachek, so it must have been sanctioned by the Brass.

The Talos Island Shield flickered as it started to force itself back to life. The heroes must have been succeeding at restoring power to the grid. Of course, that meant the bombers were on their way out.

As the Rikti ships emerged from the east shield panels, they paused. They hadn't expected to get intercepted by a flotilla in the air, much less an actual confrontation.

"Rikti warships!" Captain Daniels's strong baritone voice rang out across the water, "You have invaded this world and threatened its people for the last time! Power down your weapons, lower your ships, and surrender!"

----

As the ships hovered in place for a few tense seconds, next to the War Wall, two specks could barely be seen observing the situation with growing dread. Statesman and Citadel stared dumbfounded at this unusual turn of events (well, Statesman was puzzled, and Citadel was pondering, but you get the idea) and debated what to do about it.

"What are these idiots doing?" the champion of the city asked, "When did the Sky Raiders get a hold of such technology?"

"I believe they've been working on these vessels for a few years now," Citadel explained, "A slow effort, and largely patchwork... The Sky Ships are a new brand of floating fortress, with enough armor and firepower to weather most assaults. However, there are a few problems with fielding them, and they don't seem to do so well against enemy troop insertion..."

"Let's hope the Rikti don't figure that out," Statesman sighed, "Let's pray nobody does something stupid."

"I think we're well past that," the android hero remarked calmly, "The question is, my friend, what do we do when they act?"

----

"Nice speech, sir," the navigation ensign commented as he worked his controls, "But, they don't seem to be too willing to comply."

Captain Daniels sighed. Slowly, he reached the end of his silent count before hitting his comm controls again.

"Time's up!" he shouted, then hit the intercom button, "Hit the decks a-runnin' boys, all hands to battle stations! Cannon One, lock on and fire!"

----

"Time's up!!" the voice from the Thunder Nimbus suddenly shouted.

A second later, the starboard forward firing main gun boomed and one of the dropships exploded. Statesman and Citadel watched as the crippled craft fell slowly to the sea. It was unexpected. It hadn't outright decimated the vessel, not like the heroes of the Steel 70 had with all those other warships that had torn through the city weeks earlier, but it definitely brought the vehicle down.

However, there were still five more to deal with. The other ships silently started moving forward, and that's when the Thunder Nimbus's second assault began. Several waves of Sky Skiffs flitted through the air and started tearing after the approaching vessels. It was unprecedented, and the Rikti ships took heavy damage from the rapid assault initially.

However, the vessels were quick to recover, and they returned fire with devastating efficiency. With each strafing run, the dropships were able to damage or take down numerous Skiffs with their impeccable aim and unfathomable damage potential. The Thunder Nimbus wasn't much support, either, as it turned out the first kill had been just a fluke. The port forward firing main gun grazed its target, causing the shell to slam into the War Wall's energy shield.

----

"Dammit!" Captain Daniels shouted as they took a hit to the bow, "Fire control! Load in the RSRs on the double!"

"But sir!" came the static filled reply.

"Just do it! We're not going down without showing these alien scum that we know how to hurt them!"

It was then that Headmen teleported into the ship. Around the bridge, throughout the ship's corridors, and even in the mess hall, the black-armored aliens appeared.

However, these weren't the same limited Vigilance troops they'd faced all those years earlier. No, these were something different. With their new gadgets and firepower, the troops on board the Thunder Nimbus were able to experiment with new tactics.

By way of a for instance, two Porters working security in the medical bay caught the attention of one of the invaders by perforating it in the back. When the alien made to assault them, they dove out of a pair of windows, spinning around in the air to blast more rounds into the Rikti's face. As the Headman Gunner made to shoot at them from the open portholes, however, they had vanished, reappeared behind him, and pushed him out, one using his machete to do irreparable damage to his rifle in the process.

Much of the on-board fighting went on like this, with the soldiers committing desperate acts of personal heroism to protect their comrades and deliver some hurt and payback to the aliens that had wounded the unit's pride not so long ago. When the Dropships unleashed drones, the flank guns were deployed. These weapons were powerful anti-aircraft cannons, and the gunners operating them skillfully held back the soulless machines firing upon them.

As the dropships circled the Sky Ship, firing energy beams into its hull and scoring it's heavily armored surface, one got in sight of the port main gun again. This time, the shell didn't miss. Instead, the Rikti Steel Round lanced clean through the vessel's power core and slammed into the War Wall, where it embedded itself in the glowing blue field until its kinetic energy dissipated (which took a really long time). The dropship exploded, temporarily blinding the crew on the bridge, but the battle had served its purpose.

The remaining vessels made to flee, one of them actually damaged enough in the fight to slow its retreat. Captain Daniels smiled as he noticed two specks flying after it when his vision cleared.

"Yeah," he whispered, "You go get them. We'll take care of things on our end... Report!"

"Sir!" a lieutenant shouted and started rattling off statistics once his vision cleared as well, "Blue Squadron, total loss. Red Squadron, two fighters remain, Captain 'Sonny' and Flight Officer MacAuliffe. Gold Squadron, all fighters remain, but have suffered tremendous damage. We are engaging in a recovery effort as we speak..."

"Good," Daniels grunted, "Ensign, call Captain Macnamara and tell him his shift has started. I'll talk to the squad leaders."

He made it to the door as he whispered to himself "I owe them that much."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 12-13-2007 06:43 PM

"Colonel Duray," Captain Anderson handed the telephone receiver to Captain Rachek, "He... He doesn't sound happy."

"Of course he isn't happy," the older captain grunted as he took the device and held it to his ear, "What do you want?"

Anderson could easily hear Duray shouting back.

"What do you think I want!? Your head on a plate! You disobeyed my orders, you nearly lost the Thunder Nimbus... What else have you done that I can tack onto my list of reasons to hate you!?"

"I slept with your wife," Rachek grunted.

"I'm not married!"

"Oh yeah... Right..."

"Your fired, Rachek!" Duray growled, "Give the phone back over to Captain Anderson!"

Shrugging dismissively, the former Commander of the Sky Raiders' North Atlantic Third Wing handed the device to his friend. Anderson looked grave as he received the news and his new orders.

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir. Aye, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

He hung the receiver back on the hook and sighed.

"I'm supposed to take you into custody and prepare for your execution when the Colonel gets here."

"A personal execution!" Rachek smiled broadly, "He must be really ticked."

"This isn't funny, Tony," the other sat heavily in the cushioned chair, "You're really going to die tomorrow."

"I am?"

Anderson arched an eyebrow at his friend.

"What do you have planned?"

----------

The Andrew and the Megaburst, the other two sky ships that made up the totality of the Sky Raiders' main battle fleet, came into view later that afternoon. They weren't constructed like the Thunder Nimbus, the Andrew bearing the turret from a M-1A1 Abrams main battle tank as its main gun and the Microburst (the first constructed ship) had a single, specially designed, fix-mounted, forward-firing artillery cannon. Like the Thunder Nimbus, they lacked the energy shields typical of the Sky Raiders. Even with the latest technological advancements, the engineers of the massive vessels were unable to work their way around the power drain of shielding the hulls, so they placed a moderately heavy ceramic, metal and polymer armor on each vessel's hull to deflect rounds and energy. As such, they were able to weather even some of the most concentrated meta-human assaults, not that they'd attempted such conflicts.

Captain Andrew had a pair of platoons drill out to the main platform to receive Colonel Duray and his entourage. As the elite squadron of Skiffs landed on the far end, the soldiers engaged a "Present Arms" pose. As Colonel Duray and his honor guard exited their vehicles and formed into their own protective formation around the commander, the two greeting platoons switched to the "Order Arms" position and accomplished a "Salute Arms" pose.

"Ready, cut!" the drill sergeant ordered, and as the Raiders complied, he ordered "Parade, Rest!"

Each soldier held his weapon at his side at a slight angle and his left hand at the base of his back, his arm making a sort of wing with the sharp angle of the bend at the elbow. They stood rigidly as the Colonel, flanked by Captain Castillo and Captain Florio (the commanding captain of the Andrew), marched past and up to Captain Anderson.

Anderson took a deep, but subtle, breath as he prepared for the next part. He and Captain Carter (standing just behind him and to the right) saluted personally as the Colonel arrived and made his greeting statement.

"Good afternoon, sir. Fort Nautilus, Captain Gary Anderson reporting. All troops are present or accounted for, and I welcome you on their behalf."

"A little crude and impromptu, but I guess I don't come here enough," the Colonel returned the salute, "Perhaps that's why we're having this problem in the first place."

Captain Anderson hyperventilated a little after cutting his salute.

"At least we have the right man running the show, now," Castillo grinned broadly, "Look at the discipline in these men. Anderson will whip these troops into shape."

"Actually, it was Rachek that trained these men in drill," Captain Anderson corrected his compatriot, "And he's the one that disciplined them. He made them into the fighting force they are..."

"Their record hasn't been very exemplary," Captain Florio barked, "You've lost numerous struggles against a single group of meta humans..."

"Those metas were tougher than we'd anticipated, we didn't utilize our full potential," Captain Carter tried to explain.

"Which is still a failing of Rachek," Duray interrupted, "Captain Carter, you should remember the proper chain of command. If you have a complaint with how I or my entourage see the situation, you should send it up the chain of command."

"So you can [dreck]-can me like you did Tony?" Carter rasped, "No thank you."

"Captain Carter!" Captain Anderson shouted, "You are dismissed."

"[Frig] that!" Carter barked, "I'm telling this self-serving bas-"

"I said you're dismissed!" Captain Anderson whirled around and shouted into the face of his second-in-command.

Carter trembled violently, but shut up. He spat on the deck in front of Castillo and started to storm off before Colonel Duray snapped his fingers and had two of the Raiders from his honor guard subdue him.

"We can't be having him getting a weapon to come back here with," the Colonel explained to Captain Anderson.

"You don't need to worry about that," the drill sergeant shouted.

The three Sky Raider officers turned to the grizzled old man standing behind the honor guard. He held a rifle in his right hand and a machete in his left. A small shield generator hovered at his side.

"Present!" he shouted.

"It's Rachek!" Florio shouted.

"What's going on?" Castillo rounded on Anderson, who was pulling a pistol and aiming it at the odd-dressed pretty-boy.

"It's a trap," Colonel Duray grunted.

"Arms!" the drill sergeant shouted and the two flanking drill platoons aimed their weapons at the honor guard.

Captain Carter flexed his fingers and a pair of hold-out pistols emerged from his cuffs. He held them on his captors and took two steps back.

Colonel Duray remarked on his mistakes. He made a mistake in coming here personally. He made a mistake in forgetting what Captain Rachek looked like. He made a mistake in not checking the weapons of the two drilling platoons as he passed, then he would have noticed they were loaded with their magazines.

He made a mistake in underestimating the former Wing Commander. He made a mistake in thinking W.C. Rachek would go quietly.

"And I've got you now," Rachek shouted from his position as the drill sergeant, "What do you do now, Colonel Duray?"

The dark skinned, one-eyed, purple-uniformed pirate commander grinned.

"Simple," he answered, "I give the word, and the sky ship blasts this base to Holy Hell. I and my crew get med-evaced on the ships' reclaimators and never worry about this again. I get you executed and an example to demonstrate to the rest of the forces about what happens when you betray me."

"I don't believe you," Rachek shouted before the implications could settle into the minds of his troops, "If it were true, the gunners up there wouldn't have wasted their time waiting. As soon as I set my shield, this base would be slag."

"That's because I'm waiting for someone in particular to pull the trigger," Duray gestured and Rachek turned slightly.

The two sky ships had parted, allowing enough room between them for a third to settle in. Rachek's heart sank as he recognized it. There wasn't much he had to do to recognize it.

"Gentlemen," Colonel Duray folded his arms over his chest, "I believe you've all been acquainted with the Thunder Nimbus."

------

"Captain?" the fire control lieutenant asked, "We're within range."

"Yes," Captain Daniels sighed, "Here we stand at the threshold. Tomorrow truly is a new day..."

"Sir?"

"You know the plan. Lock on and fire."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 12-22-2007 03:51 PM

The shutters at the sides of the Thunder Nimbus opened and the turrets emerged. The gunners locked on various points of the neighboring vessels and waited for the missile turrets to fire. They didn't have to wait long. The Andrew and the Megaburst were suddenly pockmarked with scorched holes and the turrets started firing.

"What are they doing?" Duray shouted.

"Choosing sides," Rachek replied, "Get 'em!"

The drill platoons marched in and detained the honor guard. Captains Anderson and Carter held Duray and his entourage as Rachek approached. The gray-haired old man glared into the one eye of his former commander and snorted.

"Things aren't turnin' out how ya planned, huh?"

"The Nimbus can't win against the Andrew and the 'Burst," the Colonel replied darkly, "Not with the Andrew's advancements on its main gun..."

"Yeah, I heard about how they increased lateral fire stability. So... Now it just rocks uncontrollably instead of falling into the sea..."

-----

The hangar panel in the rear of the Thunder Nimbus opened and what was left of Blue Squadron tore out and arced around to deliver a blow to the Andrew's main gun. They wouldn't be in time, but with any luck, the damage to the Nimbus wouldn't be severe enough to make the mission a complete failure.

However, Captain Daniels had no intention of getting hit.

"Engineering!" he shouted, "Cut lift thrusters!"

"Captain, that's insane!" the lieutenant shouted back through the intercom.

"Just do it, or we're going to die!" Daniels then switched to the ship-wide channel, "Brace for impact!"

The turret swiveled around. The acting captain of the Andrew had a very specific target in mind. He was going to deal with the traitorous crew in one fell swoop...

As the weapon leveled on the command deck, the gunners prepared to fire. However, something unusual happened. The thrusters holding the Thunder Nimbus aloft seemed to simply cut out, and the massive air cruiser dropped out of the sky just as the tank gun fired.

The shell tore not into the Thunder Nimbus, as planned, but into the Megaburst, ripping blasting open the firing control of the vessel's main gun and leaving a gaping hole there. As the Nimbus fell to the sea, there was a loud whine as the thrusters started back up. The vessel stopped a scant few meters from the ocean surface and slowly started to rise.

Suddenly, the port bow thruster failed and the ship dipped slightly. Daniels asked the pilots for a report and the Chief Helmsman grunted something about being fine, this was just going to be tricky.

The ship lurched upwards again, and the pilots cut back on the aft lift thrusters, causing the bow, despite the loss of power, to raise faster. The cruiser turned and rolled slightly toward the Andrew. Daniels gave the order to firing control and the port forward firing gun blasted a hole through the outer hull of the other ship. The Andrew had been rolling away at the time, so the damage it sustained was minimal. However, it did serve as a clear warning.

Captain "Sonny" Sonnethavilay and Flight Officer MacAuliffe hurtled past the defenses of the Andrew and locked on the main turret.

"Okay Mac, one LRM from me, and I want you to release a cluster," the captain explained on their approach, "On my mark... Now!"

The missile streaked out of the underside of the Sky Skiff, slamming into the armor plating of the weapon. MacAuliffe's cluster of missiles impacted along the surface of the turret as well, but had the added effect of disabling the targeting scope.

"Alright, get ready for another pass, Mac" Sonny radioed to his wingman, "I... What the Hell? Gold One, what are you doing!?"

The Skiff had been given field repairs after the battle with the Rikti Dropships outside Talos Island's War Walls. While they were flight capable, they weren't necessarily up-to-par for the strains of active combat. They were to be used only in the most extreme of situations.

"Captain Wood!" Sonnethavilay shouted.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing," the other captain replied, "This old girl will never fly right again after what she's been through. I'm retirin' her with a bang!"

As the two pilots brought their vessels around they saw the leader of Gold Squadron arm his weapons, aim his Skiff at the Andrew's main gun, and eject. The canopy blew open and the pilot went hurtling through the air, only to disappear as the Nimbus's med-porter caught him. The Skiff smashed into the turret and detonated, disabling the weapon. With nothing left to do, the two Red Squadron fighters broke from the vessel and its defenses to make their way for Fort Nautilus.

----------

"We're letting you go," Rachek said as he and his men escorted Duray and his entire entourage back to their Skiffs.

The vehicles had been stripped of weapons and armor. Rachek knew they were in for a dark time, and he knew they had to take every advantage they could.

After the ships had been hammered so heavily, the battle waned rapidly. With the Thunder Nimbus still able to take both ships out with one shot apiece, the captains of both ships surrendered. Unfortunately, Rachek's men couldn't keep the vessels. The former Wing Commander decided to let the Raiders keep their ships. He was taking the Thunder Nimbus.

"Be glad I don't just have... Daniels blast them out of the water," Rachek growled as he looked at the scheduling clipboard, "He probably would, too. He's a pretty ballsy guy."

"A smart man would give the order," Duray commented as he stood before his Skiff, "You've made dangerous enemies today, Anthony. They will not suffer this insult lightly."

"Referring to yourself in the third person now? Not a good sign in the measure of your sanity, Colonel. Now, you'll understand if I don't salute you. Saluting is reserved for people deserving of respect. That hasn't been you for some time."

Colonel Duray regarded the former Master Gunnery Sergeant darkly for a few seconds before climbing into his Skiff. The fort's engineers had even confiscated the ammunition out of the customized sidearm he kept next to the seat, but they were kind enough to leave him his weapon.

"I don't want you coming back," Rachek shouted, "We didn't take anything you can't replace. Nothing, that is, that we haven't earned otherwise."

The Raider loyalists left without incident, and when the two crippled ships were out of sight, the Thunder Nimbus settled into the water at the foot of Fort Nautilus. The troops and officers gathered on the deck of the modified derrick and, after a few congratulatory words to the key players of the day's events, Rachek addressed the group as a whole.

"I... I appreciate your loyalty, boys. The fact that you're willing to go with me on this... This... I don't even know what this is..."

"We'll come up with a name later," Captain Daniels paused to take a sip from his beer, "For now, let's focus on what we need to do."

"We need money," Captain Anderson advised.

"And more men," Carter added, "We're so badly outnumbered out here, it's frightening."

"We need to get the ship fixed," Captain Daniels urged, "We can limp along like we are, but next time we face any kind of concerted effort, we're going to wind up getting routed. And I can assure you, Duray will bring a concerted effort as soon as he gets those ships patched up and in fighting order again."

"These are good points," Rachek grunted as he sat down heavily on a crate and twirled a machete around with the point in the deck and the pommel pressed in his palm, "And they're going to have to be addressed. You boys let me worry about it for now. Tonight, we celebrate."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 01-21-2008 03:46 PM

During the course of the Rikti War, Wing Commander Rachek directed and/or led his men in ambush attacks against the Rikti assaults, often sneaking up on them as they tried to skirt around the city. The ships often disappeared into trans-dimensional vortices, but often not without massive damage.

The few instances when heroes encountered the reformed Sky Raiders, there were some rough moments. A few Skiffs wound up getting shot down and a few of the soldiers found themselves arrested. It was because of this that Rachek asked for a meeting with General Aarons once the bulk of the hostilities between the Rikti and Earth died down.

"Hey there, Master Guns... I see old habits die hard."

Rachek held his salute stoically until the General returned it.

"Come on inside where we don't need the covers..." the General moved to open the door, but somehow the former Marine was faster.

"What're you thinking, General?" Rachek chuckled, "You know a General never has to open a door for himself."

"Quite right, quite right..."

There wasn't much to note about the offices afforded the General by the city. It was just like any other municipal office, and General Aarons was relegated to a distant corner office on the tenth floor.

"Damn pencil necks," Aarons growled in the elevator, "They never think I might want a floor office, just once. Having heroes fly in through the window on me is gonna give me a heart attack one of these days."

"You should see what it's like on my end," Rachek replied just as gruffly, "Only then we'd be doin' them a favor if we keeled over from surprise."

General Aarons's office was sparsely decorated, most of his favored office trinkets having been left in the Pentagon. However, he did have a nice big mahogany desk polished to a smooth finish.

"You don't have a Colonel or a Major working as your secretary, do you, General?" Rachek asked as he walked in after the older man.

"No, should I?"

"Maybe..." the former Sky Raider chuckled, "Don't think it would be too much of an ego-booster for him, though..."

"That's why we always choose butt-kissers for that role," Aarons made a similar chuckle as he removed his dress uniform jacket and placed it upon the coat hanger, "Now... Wing Commander Rachek... What brings you to my office?"

Anthony assumed a perfect position of attention before responding.

"I wish to redeem myself and my men, General."

Aarons assumed a similar, though more authoritative posture as he barked back at the Wing Commander.

"And what if you and your men are found unworthy?"

"That will be up to you and the Courts Martial, General."

Aarons blinked at the man who, just months earlier, had been a foe that he'd been working to eliminate.

"At ease, Master Guns... Take a seat."

"Aye, sir..." Rachek growled as he broke his pose and pulled a chair close so he could talk more easily.

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," Aarons explained, "in fact, it's quite refreshing to see someone who follows some form of military doctrine. I deal with heroes and hero-like people all day... Civilians doing work that they were never really meant for, but God or the Devil, or something decided they get powers equivalent to a small nuclear bomb, and whammo! You've got another caped crusader..."

"I never got it myself, either, sir. I mean, considering some of the heroes I've seen, where do you draw the line? What constitutes super powers? i've seen maniacs with assault rifles running loose, but so long as they've got that damn plastic card with their mug shot on it, they're free to wreak and wreck to their heart's desire..."

"Not exactly," General Z shrugged, "But I get your point. So... From what I read of the material you sent me, you want to join their ranks yourself?"

"Not exactly," Rachek grunted derisively, "I still have my worries about those vigilantes... But they seem to be keeping order, and some of the ones I've met turned out to be pretty cool. In any case, what I'm developing isn't exactly the 'Anti-Sky Raiders,' nor is it 'Super Rocket Men,' it's my boys and me tryin' to regulate a portion of the system that we once had a hand in messing up. We're tryin' to get back to our roots as Vigilance."

"Vigilance was a failure."

"That's because we had the wrong guy runnin' it," Anthony sighed, "Now... I don't know if I'm the right guy, but I can tell you that I'm damn tired of this 'playin' super pirate' business. The guys in my command are the guys that I trust and have been itchin' for somethin' true, somethin' real... Somethin' they can write home to momma about..."

"Okay, okay," Aarons held a hand up and grinned, "God, Rachek, you should really write some of that stuff down. I'm hearing you... Now... What do you offer? Is it true you have one of those flying warships the Sky Raiders have been threatening us with?"

"Yeah. The Thunder Nimbus. Tough ship."

"How's it been faring against the Rikti?"

Rachek cleared his throat, "Not as good as we could hope... It lacks maneuverability, and the aliens are getting pretty good at dodging our shots."

"How do you compensate?" Aarons flipped through some of the pages of the dossier on the subject at hand, "I mean, if they were able to outflank you, the bird wouldn't be in the sky, would she?"

"Heh... Some of my Skiff pilots have been coming up with some interesting harrying patterns. We don't have much of it, but what Rikti Steel we've got has gone a long way as a weapon material."

"Interesting... And your repairs?"

"Frankly, all of our logistics problems have been handled thus far with scavenging, scrounging, and dealing with what few Raider bases will still deal with us."

"They're still dealing with you?" Aarons was confused, "Even though Duray has an order out for your head?"

"Some of them are just scared... Others feel I'm a loon, and still others just don't care. They duck their heads into the proverbial sand and ignore the problems, prejudices and inconsistencies wrapped tightly around them, all in the name of profit. What's worse is that they know this, and don't do anything to change it. But they know me, they trust me, and they still work with me."

"That won't last much longer," Aarons mused.

"And that's why I'm here," Rachek gestured with a nod and his hands raised in the air, "I remembered you were the guy that ran Vigilance... I was hoping you'd like to run the Air Guard."

General Aarons quirked an eyebrow at the grizzled old man. The former Wing Commander looked back, his face frank. It wasn't necessarily a strange request, but it was a near impossible decision to make. Aarons' record was already heavily tarnished by his history with the Sky Raiders, and he had only recently been able to redeem himself by exposing a conspiracy of corrupt bureaucrats that intended to utilize the mercenary pirates for their own ends. Throwing his support behind this possible mad man wasn't going to help him.

That didn't stop the General from feeling regret at having to say so.

"I understand," Anthony Rachek growled as he leaned back in his chair, "Well... I won't waste anymore of your time, General. I understand you're quite busy with this whole 'Traditionalist Peace Talks' nonsense..."

"I take it you disapprove," General Aarons rose to shake Rachek's hand before he left.

"A little, yeah," the old man's grip was rough and firm, as an old warrior's handshake should be, "I have trouble trusting the aliens. Still... It's nice to see that some kind of breathing room can be had from them."

"Quite right. Quite right," Aarons broke the handshake and returned to his desk, shuffling papers for his next piece of business, "Good day, General."

"I'm not an officer, sir," Rachek replied at the door, "I'm just the man who's getting the ball rolling."

As the door closed, Aarons stared at it for a few moments.

"We'll see in time, Master Guns Rachek."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Build · 01-21-2008 10:05 PM

((This is going to be excellent Grey. Rachek has always stuck out to me in your other threads and I'm glad to see that he has finally gotten his own thread. I can't wait to see where this will go.))

I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build

"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad

Mr_Grey · 01-24-2008 08:14 AM

((Thanks, Build.))

"So... We've got no support from Aarons?" Captain Daniels asked as he reviewed the notes for their meeting, "No help forthcoming from the Pentagon, either, I see..."

"Nope," Rachek frowned as he leaned back in his chair, "Aarons doesn't want another fiasco like he got with Duray, and the Top Brass wouldn't even return my calls while I was stateside. As it stands, we're on our own... In tangible ways."

"Tangible?" Captain Anderson growled, "Looks like every conceivable way, too."

"Well, I did get word from the City Rep that the Mayor and the City Council are supporting our pardons, and the F.C. has decided that, until the State or Federal government says otherwise, they're gonna let us alone," Anthony held up a few notarized sheets of paper, "That in itself is a kind of support."

"Support enough to keep us from having to fight a war on two fronts instead of one," Anderson grumbled, "And why are you having our engineers and mechanics tear apart the Skiffs?"

"A bad feeling..."

"A bad feeling!?" Anderson jumped up, his face red with rage, "Damn it, Tony, you've cut us off from our friends, our family, our supplies... We're about as [dreck]-canned as we can be, and all because of your macho head games!"

"If you're gonna betray me, Anderson," Rachek growled back, "Pull your damn sidearm now and get it over with."

"What?"

Rachek stood from his chair, his speed causing enough force for it to be knocked back, and slammed his fists into the table.

"This isn't the time for power-struggles and backstabbing, Anderson! You knew what was coming from the last time we pulled this [dreck]! Remember Vigilance? It wasn't that long ago, buddy, and you knew what was coming from the last time! I haven't cut you off from [dreck]! Your wife and kids are still in Idaho, and there ain't no one tellin' ya you can't see them! I don't care if you're just tellin' me what you always wanted to tell Duray, we do not have the time nor the room for this crap! So you can either shoot me now, or get the Hell out!"

He drew his machete and stabbed it into the table. Captain Anderson stared at it for a couple seconds. The rest of the captains looked from one to the other. It may not have been a "Round Table," but as the Air Guard stood, they had no superiors at the moment. Rachek was only the de facto leader as things stood, and if anybody wanted to make a power play, this would be the time.

Captain Anderson didn't move for his sidearm. He just frowned and looked down at the table.

"Now, if ya ain't gonna shoot me, and you ain't gonna leave, sit down and wait until we've got all of our news," Anthony grumbled as he retrieved his chair, "I'm too old and too tired to be putting up with this cliche [dreck]..."

The meeting resumed. Captain Daniels explained that they'd been making headway with the repairs of the Thunder Nimbus since they recruited the talents of the Defender-class hero from the Brutal Warriors Order. Rachek was hoping to bring their base and their dropship into the Air Guard, at least as allies, except the ship had been lost to the Rikti War (oddly enough to a rare instance of the Honoree tearing through the city), and aside for a few supply runs, the base had been abandoned since the end of the major hostilities.

Rachek sighed and ground out his cigar. He was glad that the B.W.O. had forgiven him and his troops, and were even willing to work with them, but he didn't like how fortune was turning against them. He decided they should maintain patrols around the old base anyway, at least until he received word that the group had abandoned it. Maybe then the Air Guard would take it themselves.

The dismantling of the Sky Skiffs was going rapidly. It was here that Carter explained his concerns. There were rumors that the Nemesis Army was behind the Sky Raiders being formed in the first place, and Rachek wanted to ensure there was nothing the Brass Mad Man could hold over them. As such, he had to ensure they weren't using any "Steam Tech." This seemed to allay Captain Anderson's fears, and the bald man issued an apology to the grizzled Wing Commander.

Captain Sonnethavilay was heading the engineers who were trying to develop a new rapid-assault hovercraft, but until they knew how the current ones really worked, they were having slow progress. There was a possibility that they could use Longbow Chasers for part of the design as well, but the officers agreed that it would be better to wait until they got authorization before trying that (or at least wait until they could surreptitiously get some wreckage from somewhere, like the war zone known as Siren's Call).

Captain Macnamara brought up a few pointers on how they could deal with payroll problems. Most of them involved taking the Air Guard mercenary, like the Sky Raiders, only with more regard for the law. He suggested that they take on a couple charity jobs first, to build up a reputation. Organizations like the Red Cross, and UNICEF could definitely use the support. Plus, once they established that they would remain loyal to the cause, they would remain loyal, providing support whenever the organizations figured they would need it. The collected captains actually figured that was a good idea, even going so far as to amend that they utilize that as part of their recruiting campaign.

Finally, they turned to Captain Carter. Carter had training outside of the Sky Raiders, like most of them, but his training was a lot darker and more intense than most of them would have cared to partake in. From it, he had deep knowledge about "behind-the-door" politics, as well as strategies and tactics the Air Guard could utilize to make themselves more unique and not just "Sky Raiders with a New Paint Job." A few of the other officers were a bit concerned at Carter's outside training and what that really meant about his loyalties, but Rachek waved their concerns aside.

"Carter's one of us. He promised me, and I believe him."

"I'm starting a new training regimen tomorrow," Carter finished explaining, almost as if he didn't hear or didn't care about what the other officers had to say, "We're going to be outnumbered for a long time, and we can't afford to lose any troops. We need to be able to handle whatever comes our way, and it's going to be a lot."

"Okay," Macnamara agreed, "Alright, we'll let the issue slide for now, Carter, but one of these days, you're going to have to explain to us just who you worked for."

"Trust me," the other Captain said as he started heading for the door, "When I tell you, it'll be too soon. They're the stuff of nightmares."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 01-30-2008 07:09 AM

Captain Carter crested the top of the hill. Though he had access to all sorts of jetpacks, he preferred the climb for this one, it gave him a better feel for everything around him. Lesser men would have broken a sweat at this point. Carter, however, was not one of them.

He examined the concrete structure at the top of the hill and noticed that the person he'd come to meet wasn't there. He narrowed his eyes and retraced his steps to this point.

Carter had trained up a large force of the newly formed Air Guard, mostly the former Sky Raiders who tested well for alternative studies. It was going to take a lot of out-of-the-box thinking to handle the tasks before them, some of which would include putting down super-powered villains. Training included much of what he'd gotten from his own former employers, though it took a little effort to locate enough inclines, training dummies (nicknamed "Ivan" by most military units), and various hazards to accomplish the proper conditions. He would make Special Qualification marksmen out of them yet.

Before he put them through their final training operations, however, he had to settle his affairs. He knew there were certain individuals and cliques within the intelligence community that wouldn't accept the Air Guard once they found out it had someone like him in it. At least, not unless he took steps to ease their reactions.

That was why he'd set up this meeting. Crimson and Indigo had been a thorn in the side of the Malta Group for a few years, now. Carter was hoping they'd be receptive to the information he had to provide to them. Some of it was outdated, some of it was outright falsehoods (but knowing that could still provide a cunning mind with information leading to the truth), and a few documents bore information regarding a few long-term goals and events that the Group had in motion. He shuddered at the thought that this was just a modicum of what he knew of his former employers.

"Freeze," he heard the smooth feminine voice intone as a sharp piece of steel pressed into his throat.

He should have figured. Indigo was paranoid to a fault, just like her partner. Being a former member of the Sisterhood could do that to a girl, though. Just like being a former Malta Group Gunslinger...

"The documents?" she asked, "Slowly..."

"There's no need for this," he muttered as he slowly and smoothly proffered the documents up and to his right, "I contacted you, remember?"

"Do you know how many times your former employers have tried this same tactic with us? We've lost good friends to this..."

Still, she withdrew the knife.

"Your posture doesn't indicate someone intending to betray me, however," Indigo took the papers from Carter's hand and walked over to her regular contact point, "Let's see... Got this... Got this... This is new... Fake? Damn... Well, I'll pull my people away from that... Mostly..."

Carter sat down and took in the landscape as she read through the articles. It was a pretty patch of land, a few acres of surprisingly untouched wilderness within an urban zone. Now wonder she'd chosen it as her contact point and the Devouring Earth were patrolling through to preserve it.

He wondered if he should tell her that her location here had been compromised. It wasn't him, no, but over time, the Group had come to learn much about their two most hated and feared rivals. It was that fear, in fact, that kept them from sending Knives or assassins after them. Nobody knew what those two knew, and there was a possibility that the duo had enough information to send enough Meta Humans to enough locations to cripple the Malta Group operations indefinitely.

Or it could be a load. Either way, however, the Group didn't assault Indigo, Crimson, their families, or their friends. Largely because all they had were their codenames, but still, even if they had the rest of the information, well, there's no way to take that kind of assault except for personal.

"Alright, 'Mr. Carter,'" Indigo finally sighed, "Your information checks out. There's enough here that matches up with what we already knew and enough information here that, even if it is disinformation, we've got new leads to follow up on. Thank you for being so... Forthright. Now, what's the deal? Do you want a new identity? A second chance?"

"No," Carter shrugged as he turned back to her, "And it's Captain, thank you. I'm just delivering this information to you as... as a finalization of my resignation. I have more important work to deal with than just being a pawn in a scared old man's game."

"Scared old man?"

"Go far enough up any organization, and you'll find one man who runs it all. The Council has the Center, Nemesis runs the Nemesis Army, Arachnos has Lord Recluse, and the Malta Group has Director 1. Nobody's ever met the guy, mind you, except his most loyal unit. From what I've learned of them, he's an old CIA spook who got scared when the Berlin Wall fell, and has been trying to keep a Cold War going since, just for his own job security."

"That fits some of what we've researched."

"Keep an eye out on all of our political representatives," Carter started heading back down the hill, "Candidates, nominees... Anybody who seems to appear out of nowhere, and even a few that are already established. If they've got connections to Big Oil, the major auto companies or even the aerotech industries, there's a likelihood they've been coerced by my former drinking buddies."

"So what do you want for all of this?" Indigo shouted down to him.

"Just leave Rachek alone!" he yelled back, "The Air Guard is something this world needs. The world needs a new inspiration, a force that tells them 'Yes, you are normal, but that doesn't mean you have to be scared.' We may not be that inspiration, not yet, but we're the foundation for it. Like I said: More important work."

Indigo nodded. She knew he wouldn't see it, he never looked back as he descended the hill, but his silence indicated he understood the tone of their conversation. There would be no trouble from Crimson and Indigo.

Not initially, anyway. There were still investigations to be done, and they couldn't be certain Carter was the only one the Group had seeded into the North Atlantic Third Wing.

When the Captain reached the bottom of the hill, he stopped. The corner of his mouth quirked and he could feel his throat go dry. His gut was telling him what he already knew. There was a hit out on him. While the Malta Group wasn't going to attack Crimson or Indigo, they weren't above assaulting those that tried to help them. Technically, that wasn't personal, that was business.

"You can step out of the bushes, ladies," Carter rasped as he adjusted his suit's cuffs, "I know you're there."

It was a squad of ten Knives of Artemis. They were just the ones that were visible, too. Carter narrowed his eyes and could discern two distortions in the air. It was actually a full squad of twelve, with possibly a thirteenth (their squad leader) still waiting out how this would turn out.

"We're not taking any chances with you," one of the women said as she drew her sword, "Stay still, and this will go very quickly and painlessly."

"Nothing you girls do is ever painless," Carter replied calmly, "Especially against men. Frankly, I was surprised the higher ups could trust you enough, much more that you could trust us."

"Silence, cur!" the girl rushed toward him, her footsteps near-silent.

Before she got too close, however, Carter threw his right hand out fast at her, and a hold-out pistol slid out of his business suit's cuff and landed squarely in his palm. He gripped the weapon and squeezed off three rounds, the girl dropped to the ground.

"Anybody else wanna be a hero?" he asked as the girls started to circle him, "I see..."

A knife blade popped out of the pistol's handle and he sliced the buttons off the front of his suit. The jacket flared open and the pistols he wore in the shoulder harness underneath were now readily available. He shot his left hand toward one of the blurs, however, and fired a second hold-out pistol at the girl there, there was no sense letting her get the drop on him. The body faded into view as it hit the dirt.

"Kill him!" a voice shouted from the trees.

Carter emptied his hold-out pistols into the crush and used the smallish weapons to deflect the incoming blades. He still got a few nicks and scrapes, but he wasn't dead. Rolling away, he avoided the normal caltrop littering that the Knives were more famous for, and got enough room to draw his pistols.

In short order, the squad had been virtually eliminated. One of the more entertaining moments was when he froze a girl with a Cryo Bullet and shattered her out of the icy prison with a Flame Bullet. Now, they were three (four, counting the Hand waiting in the thicket), including their Blade, who was seething at the deaths of her compatriots.

Carter calmly reloaded.

"You will pay for this!" she screamed.

"Not when your sisters have finished crying after they see what I've done to you," the former Gunslinger replied coldly.

With a scream, the three girls rushed him, and he gunned down the Blade's support first with a pair of shots to the head. The Blade he caught with a pistol whip to the face. She rolled with the hit, however, and he was forced to deflect her sword with his left pistol. The resulting damage from the superbly sharp weapon incapacitated the gun irreparably, and Carter was sweeped off his feet with a kick to the back of his knees.

As the Blade was about to bring her sword sliding into his throat, however, he leveled his surviving gun and fired. It wasn't the sort of shot he wanted to do to any woman, and the damage done was simply indescribable in any gentle sense. It turned out he wasn't boasting with his warning to the Blade, the sight made even him feel a little sick.

He wished he had just been boasting. He wished the fight hadn't come to this.

As he picked himself up, a bolt lodged into his thigh. Carter screamed, it had been in inside thigh hit. Whoever was shooting had just barely missed the artery there. When he went to aim his pistol toward the thicket, another bolt streaked out, pinning his upper arm to his torso. He could feel the head of the projectile scraping against his ribs.

"You..." the Hand of Artemis rasped as she emerged from the thicket, tears obviously streaking her face, "ANIMAL! Look what you've done!"

"I had no choice," Carter growled back, "You're here to kill me!"

"And I will," the Blade leveled her crossbow at the former Gunslinger, right between his eyes, "I will."

Fire exploded from her back, and the Hand was thrown forward, her aim toward Carter's head thrown off so that the bolt skewered a car's tire, sending it careening into traffic. Even if she succeeded in her mission, this Hand was in for some serious reindoctrination. They weren't supposed to be this public.

Still, there was the source of the Fire Bullet to consider. Who among the Malta Group would help Carter? There were a few out there whom he'd consider to be friends, but it was highly unlikely that they knew of his treachery, not would their cordial relationships supersede their loyalty to the Group.

As the Hand whirled around to face her new opponent, she was smashed in the chest by a flying knee attack and she went barreling over Carter. That was different, as was the apparent Gunslinger now standing where the Hand used to be.

"Who the hell are you?" the Air Guard Captain asked as the dark-blue uniformed young man circled around him and the Hand recovered herself, "You can't be one of my old friends... They're the ones that sent this girl."

"Fight now," the high-toned voice replied behind the face wrap, "talk later."

The Hand drew her blade, but she still shot a bolt at her new assailant. The projectile smashed into his chest, right where his diaphragm would be. However, all she got out of him was a slight stumble. When she moved to slice his head off, he caught the blade with his forearm and delivered a hard kick to her solar plexus, sending her sprawling. He then drew a pistol and flipped a shot into the Hand's kneecap. Howling, the Hand of Artemis disappeared as her own emergency teleporter took her to wherever her base of operations was.

"Thanks," Carter croaked as he pulled his arm free of his torso, "UGH!"

"You should let medical experts handle that," the Gunslinger explained as he handed over a small device, "Med-porter beacon. Don't worry, we've got lots of these."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Cobalt Black Three-Eight-Nine, and you're lucky I was on duty patrolling the hills around here."

"You're with the Group?"

"I'm with a group, and that's all you need to know."

Carter regarded the shorter, younger man. There was definitely quite a bit off about his behavior, especially if he was a Gunslinger as he was dressed.

"You don't fight like a typical Gunslinger..."

"Then I guess I'm an atypical Gunslinger. Now, you better hurry before you bleed out. I'd hate to have to report to Indy that her new boyfriend just got iced because he was too dumb to use the Red Cross Express."

"Indy? Wait, I'm not-"

"In joke," Aaron Durj interrupted as he pressed a button on the beacon still in Carter's outstretched hand and the wounded Air Guard Captain disappeared to a secure wing of the Harvey Medical Center.

The former Praetorian Malta Resistance Operative then turned on his radio and called into it.

"B-P, this is C-B, over."

"Loud and clear, C-B," the voice of the CIA agent at the top of the hill replied, "How is the package?"

"Secure, B-P. Resuming patrol. Over."

"Roger that. Over."

The Gunslinger put a call in to the police to check out the automobile accident. He made certain that they would know not to look for him nor the cause of the source of the disturbance as he tagged each of the dead bodies and sent them porting to the Harvey Morgue. Once he was done spreading ammonia on the ground, he disappeared into the thicket.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 02-03-2008 03:40 AM

Captain Carter shouted at the recruits scrambling through his challenge course. Some of his advanced students were assisting him. Their approach was similar to that of Army and Marine Basic Training Instructors. He wished he had a Navy Instructor in the bunch to round things out, but there hadn't been one that had passed thus far, yet.

Carter anticipated that in a week, he would have the force he needed for their first "Supernatural" exercise. He hoped no heroes or rogues wound up cleaning out that Circle of Thorns lair. From the intelligence he gathered, the denizens were just a small, unimportant group. They were just starting to excavate their section of Oranbega and weren't in a position to make any raids, either, so they shouldn't be drawing any attention.

"How goes it?" Captain Rachek asked as he marched up next to Carter and observed the exhausted looking soldiers, "Cripes, they look about as useless as a urine-flavored lollipop."

"They're doing better than they should," Carter replied, "I'm going to have to run a sweep to see if somebody's sneaking them food."

One of the recruits got knocked off the deck of the oil tanker by an air cannon trap. The Instructors laughed and an advanced student leaped into the water to recover the recruit.

"Get him to medical, make sure he clears for training!" Carter shouted to Flight Officer MacAuliffe.

Captain Rachek leveled his rifle at a point above a recruit's head and fired. The distressed young man dropped as the bulelt pinged off the steel next to him and curled up into a little ball there.

"Keep your head down!" the grizzled old man shouted, "The enemy will actually be aiming at your grape!"

"Mac!" Carter shouted, "Get Johnston out of there!"

"Why'd he crumple like that?" Rachek asked as he slung his rifle back over his shoulder.

"Well, it was a bit of a shock, Tony. You almost made my skeleton jump out of my skin... But I've been having trouble with Johnston since this began. He's as good as any of 'em, physically, mentally... But there's something missing, and whatever it is, it's causing him and a few others to very nearly have a nervous break at the point anyone who normally meets their conditions has their second or third wind."

"Hm..." Rachek stroked the bristles on his chin and nodded, "Let em see his dossier, and the ones of the recruits you're having trouble with. I'll see if I can find the common element."

----------

"Private Johnston, do you know why you've been brought to my office?"

"Sir, because this recruit lodged a formal complaint about the Captain, sir."

Rachek laughed at the Guardsman. It took him nearly a minute to stop chuckling.

"Okay, okay... I'll admit, I saw that. Trust me, though, you needed that shock. I bet you'll never keep popping your head up when you're crawling under barbed wire again, huh?"

Private Johnston blinked and looked forlornly at the desk.

"At ease, Guardsman, sit down," Rachek waved his guest to the chair on the opposite side of his desk and opened a folder, "Let's see... A former Marine, just from that, you and I have a lot in common, but don't think this makes us drinkin' buddies."

"No sir."

"Parents, divorced... Father remarried, mother... Remarried recently. Two siblings, older and younger brother. No indication of a relationship... Do you have a girlfriend, or do you just spend the night with the first cute face that winks at you when you arrive at port?"

"Uh... I just go home, sir."

Rachek nodded and flipped through the folder some more.

"Sir, may I speak freely?"

"Shoot."

"Are you going to do anything about my complaint?"

"Me? No. What happens next is entirely up to you. Either you can get over the fact that I risked your life to teach you a valuable life lesson, or you can quit training and quit the Air Guard. I won't think any less of ya, Carter's putting you guys through a step below Hell on Earth, and you didn't exactly sign up for that. You wouldn't be the first to quit, and I don't expect ya to be the last, but that training out there is the future of the Air Guard, because we're outnumbered, and it gets worse every day. We have to be tough, mean, and sharp. It has to be second nature, and we simply cannot afford to make mistakes. So... What's it going to be?"

"I want to prove I can do this, sir. I want to be a part of the Air Guard."

"Alright," Rachek closed the dossier and set it aside, "So, Johnston, tell me. Why are you having trouble on the courses? Carter tells me there's almost no difference between you and the other recruits, physically or mentally. So what keeps making you crack under the pressure?"

"I don't know, sir... I just seem to... I look inside myself for that little bit of strength, but all I can think is that I'm going to die and it's not going to matter... I feel like we're all just deluding ourselves, like we're gonna get wiped off the face of the planet and make a minor footnote in the history of the Sky Raiders."

"So it's a question of faith?"

"I guess..."

Anthony steepled his fingers and blinked. He seemed to be suddenly lost in thought. Finally, he dismissed the private back to his training, and offered an apology for the shot so close to his head. After a few hours of debating with himself, he got a hold of a few of the other captains and told them his idea. Once they agreed, he requisitioned a Skiff that the Engineers hadn't gutted yet and blasted off for Nigeria.

----------

"Gentlemen..." Captain Carter announced at the graduation ceremony, "I know I've been running you ragged, and that a lot of you hate my ever-living guts right now. That can't be helped, but in time, I trust you will come to understand. tomorrow, your final test begins."

"I thought you said training's completed!" one Guardsman shouted at him, "What the Hell are we doing all of this for!?"

"Fall in, Kuhne!" Carter shouted back, and the Guardsman reacted accordingly, "Your training is complete. I have nothing more to teach you that real experience won't do better. Up until today, about the worst supernatural threats most of you faced were Freedom Corps, Arachnos, and the Rikti. However, those groups are just a minor fraction of just how far our enemy can go. Tomorrow, I'm taking this unit to wipe out a base of the Circle of Thorns. It's your final test, but you will be taking it as Guardsmen, not as recruits or students."

There was a slight murmuring throughout the ranks. There was always a murmuring in the ranks when bad or dangerous news was delivered, it couldn't be helped, and Carter smiled.

"Relax. The fact that you're here means I have confidence in all of you. Tomorrow, we'll show the villains in that submerged city section that there's a new force to be reckoned with, one that won't simply be bought out or bargained with, one that isn't afraid of their nightmarish monstrosities! Today, however, we celebrate, for you are the first in a new corps of defenders of freedom... True freedom, too! The freedom to think, to say, to do what we want! The freedom to rest peacefully at night! The freedom to make a choice... Gentlemen, I salute you, for you are more than just Air Guardsmen... you are a symbol. You are a statement."

He saluted, and the platoon sergeants ordered an answering salute that the platoons delivered. Captain Carter cut his as they did and dismissed the first training company. During the mingle, Private Johnston approached him and made to shake his hand.

"What's this for?" the training coordinator asked as they shook.

"For letting me continue," Johnston replied breathily, "For having some faith in me..."

"Somebody has to have faith in you. If not me, then who?"

"I believe that becomes my employer's responsibility," a smooth voice replied from behind Carter.

"Father Morgan?" the captain asked as he turned around.

"Anthony informed me that some of your men are suffering a crisis of faith," the priest replied with a calm smile and a clap on the shoulder, "It's good to see you, Captain. Private Johnston."

"Father," the Guardsman replied with a bow, "I trust you'll be leading us in a prayer before the mission tomorrow?"

"For those who wish to pray, yes. I'm glad to see you among this crowd, Private. You should do well in your new career."

"Thank you, Father."

Captain Carter nodded to himself as he realized why one of his foremost problematic students had a near-complete turnaround in performance. Considering all he'd dealt with in his life, he wondered why he himself hadn't suffered a similar crisis of faith.

"Because you're still standing," Morgan replied as he voiced his concerns, "You have faith in yourself that you won't let your friends down. This is not as terrible a thing as some of my contemporaries and counterparts would have you believe. Just be certain you never compromise yourself, and you should do perfectly fine."

"But I've compromised myself so many times, Father. I have numerous sins that are going to haunt me for a long time... Perhaps until they catch up to finish me."

"Well, if it were easy, Redemption wouldn't be worth doing, now, would it?" the priest replied with a grin and a wink, "It's time to celebrate, Captain. This is something to worry about later."

((Father Morgan was introduced in this thread.))

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 02-13-2008 11:13 PM

"Who the Hell are these guys?"

The Guardsmen had taken their positions all throughout the island. They were told the location was an excavated section of the lost subterranean city of Oranbega, but the individuals they found were not the wizards they were expecting.

"Well?" Sergeant Kuhne hissed into his radio again, "What's the situation? Who are these guys?"

"You're currently looking at a cell of a very secretive organization," Carter explained across the channel, "Listen up, boys, these are about the toughest in the world, and they know it. If we're going to be the force Rachek wants us to be, you better be able to take this group down. I'm rootin' for ya. Kuhne, you've got the command."

"Aye, sir..." the sergeant growled before switching to another channel, "Alright boys, on my mark, we unleash Hell..."

----------

--Air Guard Base: AG-03--

AG-03 wasn't like most of the other bases in the Air Guard. AG-04 was the only other one that was as odd as this one, and that was only so it could have the apparatuses to facilitate the docking and servicing of the Thunder Nimbus. Where AG-04 looked like a construction site in the middle of the sea, AG-03 was a block.

Here was where the Guardsmen's Engineers tried desperately to convert acquired technology, both from their old lives and from various missions they undertook (though they were sorely lacking in equipment from the latter source). In the time it had taken Captain Carter to train up his first platoon, the engineers had converted roughly a third of the technology they had, though they still had to test a lot of what they'd come up with.

"So, what is it you wanted to show us?" Captain Rachek asked the Engineering Captain, a man simply named Jones.

"Sir, we've been working on diagrams and charts... According to our projections, it won't be much longer before the Raiders have the other two ships at least into working order, and if they focused on one, they could be combat ready within the week."

"I'm working on that," Rachek replied, "I've got some individuals in mind to put the convalescence of the Andrew and the Megaburst on a near permanent status. Still, it's going to take convincing them... I hope the contract I sent to the U.N. yesterday gets accepted."

"Sir?"

"We need capitol, plain and simple. If we can turn our mercenary outfit into an official group, like Vanguard, well.."

"That would make the plans we're making here more viable!" Jones suddenly exclaimed, "Sir, look, we have designs for all sorts of air ships... Disassembling the skiffs and converting some of those Raptor Packs was really helpful in solving some of our power issues... We might even be able to retrofit the Nimbus and improve its efficiency!"

"That doesn't explain what you wanted me to see," Rachek folded his arms over his chest and looked disinterestedly at the diagrams, "Ship designs we can't use? What are these? Flying destroyers?"

"Yes sir, but that wasn't what I wanted to show you," Jones typed into his communicator, "If you'll come with me..."

They marched sharply to the window overlooking one of many testing bays. Each bay was separated from the others by a thick wall of concrete and steel. Man-shape-similar targets (not exactly humanoid, in that they lacked a head and arms) lined the side opposite the doors. There were several pockmarks and craters dotted all along the floor and wall. Some of the targets were simply deteriorated.

AG-03 had been a testing base for some time, even during its Sky Raider days.

As the officers looked down into the testing bay, there was a rhythmic, heavy, metallic clunking sound. A shuttered cargo door opened and Rachek quirked and eyebrow at the armored monstrosity that emerged. It looked like a man in some form of blocky exosuit with a minigun.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" the former Wing Commander growled.

"Right now, we call it an Extreme Environment Exosuit," Captain Jones picked up a microphone and talked into it, "Target One, Mister Greene."

The suited man immediately revved up his minigun and started firing on the first target. Unlike the weapons the Council and Longbow used, this was a heavy piece of artillery, firing large caliber rounds instead of the smaller-sized ammunition of the other groups. The revolving three-barreled result was the equivalent of a Sky Skiff chaingun with legs.

"Well, that was nice, but I don't see how it gives us an edge," Rachek muttered.

"Well, there's one more test to perform... Mind you... We're uncertain about this one... Greene! Launch a grenade!"

"Are you sure?" a voice replied through the communications system, "I mean, I know the lab boys say they worked the kinks out, but I just don't know..."

"Do it!"

the armored man seemed to shrug, but set himself. There was a loud "phoont" sound and a small object launched out of the tube mounted on the left shoulder of the armored battlesuit. Rachek watched the object bounce repeatedly on the ground, but Jones seemed distraught about the distance the object had traveled.

"Ten feet," he grumbled, "We need more distance if that's going to be effective."

"I'm telling you, man, we need to work on a shoulder-mounted gun, first!" Greene replied, "Last thing our boys need is someone getting too close..."

"That's what the blade is for!"

"You mean this?" Greene held up his left hand and what looked like a thick blade with a serrated back shot out and locked into place, extending his melee range about a foot in length.

"Unless he's got some extra power behind that swing, he's not going to be doing anything," Rachek commented.

"Of course he has extra power," Jones chuckled, "If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to lift that minigun."

Rachek nodded. What he saw wasn't necessarily anything new, but it did show promise. He hoped the deal he'd proposed to the United Nations would be accepted. With any luck, the Air Guard would be providing security for peacekeeping missions and gaining some much-needed publicity for it.

Perhaps then he'd have proven to General Aarons that Vigilance hadn't entirely failed him.

----------

--Malta Group Excavation Site 3-3-5--

"So..." Desert Rat 4-1-9 growled at Carter, "You're the traitor who's pushin' 'em."

"Aye," Carter replied darkly, "And proud of it. You haven't ported out of here. Either your system's malfunctioning, or you've got something to say."

"You know I've got nothing to say..."

"Whoa re these guys?" Kuhne asked as he pressed the field dressing to the wound on his shoulder, "[Jebus]! What the Hell were those things?"

"Titans," Carter explained, "I'll start giving briefings next week. you did well, Sergeant. Exceptionally low losses compared to the projected results."

"We lost thirty good men out there because we didn't know what we were up against!"

"And I needed to know you could handle such a situation!" Carter shouted back, "In this world, we do not face the known and simple! We face the odd, the unusual, and the downright bizarre! We will face brutality beyond comprehension, depravity above approach, and it will be our job to take it down!"

"I thought that was our job," Desert Rat chuckled.

"Your job backs Big Oil, Big Auto, and Big Industry," the former Gunslinger retorted, "Anything that threatens them, you're there to cut it down, whether it's a meta human or a protest. Sometimes you're in the employ of the highest bidder, other times, you're in the direct service of one of the Directors, scared men afraid of losing what scraps of power they've got. If you were a smarter man, you'd make the same choice I made and break off from them now."

"And get my [butt] shot for it?" Desert Rat smiled, "I ain't that stupid."

"Shot by them, shot by us, hammer-fisted by a meta..." Kuhne smiled, "Not much of a bright future in this business, huh?"

"Kind of makes you wonder why we even get into it," Carter started walking away.

"Pandora's box is open," the sergeant replied, "No sense cryin' over it, now we gotta deal with the situation. So... Are we takin' him back?"

"He popped a false tooth and swallowed a cyanide pill," Carter sighed as the Commander slumped to the ground, "I heard him crack it as you told him his options. The easy way out..."

"[Jebus]..."

"Sir! Sir!" Private Johnston, who was miraculously unharmed (and had even single-handedly taken down one of the Hercules Titans before it could merge with its partner) ran up with a laptop in his hands, "We found some files on their operations!"

"Excellent," Carter replied, "Remit it over to your sergeant and prepare to acquire whatever technology we can carry..."

He hefted up a sapper rifle and smiled.

"You boys are gonna love what we can do with these."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 03-12-2008 01:59 PM

((It's been a while since I've posted in Air Guard. I feel this is unfortunate, but it's hard to describe the day-to-day doldrums of a military outfit that hasn't already been said time and time again, in novels, film, games and other aspects of the media.

The basic plan of the Air Guard was already indicated earlier. Rachek worked a deal out with the United Nations to provide added security for their relief efforts at a massively reduced price. This helped boost the A.G.'s reputation, and they've also worked for some private contracts.

This is supposed to be an excerpt from one of the Air Guard's missions. Captain Carter personally evaluates each mission to determine how his training is affecting the troops and their capabilities. He also uses it to gauge the morale of the troops and determine what works and what doesn't as far as tactics.))

"Alright, Corporal Webb," Carter sighed as he set the folder aside and it promptly disappeared into the shadows of his office outside the desk lamp's light, "What's your take on this last mission?"

He'd been poring over it all day. Interview after interview with the soldiers of Guard Wing 1-7-1. They were one of the mercenary units, a combined force of Skiffs, troops, and regionally acquired vehicles. In this last mission, they'd been able to convert some pick-up trucks and a bus into some technical armored personnel carriers. The U.N. forces hadn't been too keen on that idea, but it worked...

...For the most part.

"I don't really remember what happened," Corporal Webb replied, "One second, I'm patrolling around a village we're deploying UNICEF supplies to, the next, my radio's blaring about incoming trouble..."

-----

"We were guarding the U.N. reps as they administered vaccinations, delivered farming supplies and instructed the locals in how to work and irrigate the land around them..."

"Corporal Webb!" Sergeant Latchu shouted from a nearby ridge, "I need you to keep an eye on things over here. I just got a call saying an urgent message is coming through."

"Aye, Sergeant," the Corporal replied and assumed the post.

He had five Guardsmen in his direct command. Simple men with simple names, Jones, Smith, Gonzales, Sanchez and Reed. They were all still Privates in the Guard, they hadn't completed all of Carter's training courses to be promoted, nor had they distinguished themselves. However, Webb had worked with Jones and Gonzales before, and had heard some good things about the others. It was a decent fire team, if a little large.

"Alright, guys, what's the word been here on the east flank?"

"Nothing too fancy, Corporal," Smith replied, "Some wild animals, but they keep to the tall grass."

"Good, good."

"Things remained like that for a few more seconds. Maybe it was longer, but I know Jones. After a couple minutes of nothing to do, he's straight into a story about the latest girl he's slept with and how it was funny. I can't remember him saying anything like that by the time my radio squawked..."

"Webb! Look alive! We got hostiles comin' in from the east! Set your fire points! Dobson's nest's right-most line of fire is the big dead tree!"

"Alright boys, you know the drill," Webb replied as he jammed a knife into the sandbag, "Don't take your machine gun past this point, Jones. Dobson's team has the rest that way. We got hostiles, and we better be ready!"

"We weren't quite ready for them. They were thugs from a nearby warlord. The U.N. boys warned us about them, that they usually just moved in after we left and took what they wanted from the villagers. This time, they were bold enough to try to take it by force. Scuttlebutt said that the U.N. usually tried to deal with them rather than fight, but apparently Captain Mac wanted to make an example of these guys. Probably would have worked, too, if the Skiff missiles hadn't malfunctioned."

Corporal Webb and his soldiers fired on the incoming vehicle. The windshield wasn't bulletproof, and the driver slumped over in the hail of bullets. This didn't stop the oncoming vehicle, however, and the freight truck careened into Dobson's nest. Fortunately, Dobson and his team were able to dive out of the way, but now they were out in the open and their foxhole was destroyed.

The bandits inside the truck's box tried to storm out, but the Guardsmen cut them down. Dobson was still in the middle of the road, however, as the next truck came barreling in.

They were too far from an actual medical teleporter to save themselves. If they died out here, they were really dead. Webb panicked, and made a strange decision for such a condition.

"Corporal!" Reed shouted at his superior, "What are you doing!?"

"Keep firing on the incoming! I'm saving Dob!"

And Webb ran. In his armor, uniform (a gray thing that the group had acquired from a cheap outlet company), and harnesses with his ammunition and full canteens, his run felt slow. Seeing the vehicle bearing down on his compatriot, he felt a sudden adrenaline rush, and everything else was a blur.

If he hadn't been concentrating so hard on his rather unique use for a combat roll, he probably wouldn't have been so surprised. As the next truck trundled toward Corporal Dobson, he tackled the fallen Guardsman and dragged his fellow out of the road.

"What the Hell are you doing?" the other Corporal shouted at Webb as their legs rattled against the side paneling of the previous truck, "Are you crazy?"

"I don't know," Webb replied, then tried to say more, but the roar of the other truck crashing into the wall of a building on the other side of the street covered it. He hadn't seen that Dobson had shot the driver.

The mostly mud structure stopped the vehicle fast. Privates Reed, Gonzales and Sanchez then fired into the bed of the box, taking out the bandits inside. Private Smith, once the shooting was done, rushed the passenger side of the cab and dragged the squad's commander out. He was shouting orders in Swahili, English, French, and Spanish in rapid succession (if he were still working for the U.S. Army, he'd be a rich young man) as he pinned the officer to the ground.

"Okay! Okay!" the rough-shaven man shouted back, "I understand! I understand! I'm down! I'm down!"

"English?" Smith barked, "Good! Stay down!"

-----

"The rest of the Guardsmen showed up after that and we used the trucks as cover while we fought off the rest of the bandits. The second truck had a machine gun in it, fifty-cal. Good condition, too. The first one probably had one, but after how it crashed, there wasn't going to be any using it. The rest of the soldiers didn't try storming the gates and we had a bit of a pitched battle before Captain MacNamara and the U.N. forces commander were able to negotiate the surrender of the raid leader. We took their guns, mostly 'Kalash-knock-offs,' and handed them over to the villagers. The leader was handed over to the authorities and I'm hoping that leads to more arrests, but I have my doubts."

"You did your best and that's all we ask of you," Carter replied as he finished writing down the last of his notes, "Did Captain MacNamara explain why he felt it was a good idea to turn the arsenal over to the villagers?"

"He and the U.N. commander said the village was likely to face reprisals from friends of those bandits. It slowed us down some, but after the battle, the rest of the tour went by without incident, and we taught those people how to use the weapons, defend themselves... They already had a watch set up for wild animals and bandits. Before, they just hid. Now I guess we wait and see."

"Indeed," Carter sighed, "Very well, Sergeant, you're dismissed."

"Sir?"

"Oh, yes... Captain MacNamara stated that he wants everybody who was on that front line promoted. Staff Sergeant Latchu gave me your names. We'll be holding the official ceremony tomorrow, but the party's tonight. Congratulations."

"Oh," the newly promoted sergeant's eyes bugged out of his head a little as he took in the news, "Thank you, sir."

"You'll still need to do some of the training courses, but others can be written off based on your experience. I'll work it out on my end."

As Sergeant Webb left the office, Carter sighed. With every mission, his job got more complicated. This last one, he was repeatedly told about the Sky Skiff failings. The engineers were working so hard at developing a new model of aircraft, they were neglecting their duties at maintaining the ones they currently had.

Of course, Captains Rachek, Daniels, and Jones already knew that. Maybe now they'd cut back on the research and development to afford more effort toward maintenance.

Still, Carter couldn't help but wonder at what this last mission had done. It was the first one that had made a lasting impact on the locals, that was a fact. He rather wished he had an agent of some kind keeping tabs on the community Webb was talking about.

----------

They didn't always have a name for their village. West Libertalia only seemed to have time to come up with names for the major cities. That left it up to them to come up with a name for themselves.

When Jordan the Fierce decided to see what had become of his cousin's assault, he found the community of Red Sands instead. The village elder told him in no uncertain terms that they weren't going to be putting up with the bandit's harassment anymore.

When Jordan prepared to order the destruction of the town, the bandits had to find a new leader, for their old one was immediately put down by the village's most experienced hunter. H'tek N'rlai was a good shot with his rifle, he even once shot down a rampaging lion with one shell. Though he disliked the fact that his people now had the same weapons that had been used to torment them for so many years, he saw the necessity of them. If they didn't have them, he wouldn't have had the safety to take the shot he'd been itching to take for the five long years since his retirement from service in the West Libertalia Infantry.

Upon seeing their commander fall, the bandits splintered almost immediately. Like rabid dogs, they fell upon each other. Each lieutenant claimed the band, and none of the three were willing to back down.

The villagers watched the small army tear itself apart that day. What few rogues strayed into their community were summarily shot if they had a weapon. If unarmed (or just traveling with a weapon slung), they were detained. The villagers weren't monsters after all.

In the end, blood, bodies and wreckage covered the land intended to be the farms of Red Sands.

"It's alright," H'Tek said over the crowd in their native tongue, "The gods demand a sacrifice before any great change can truly be made. Today, we have sacrificed our lives as supplicants to cowards and infidels. Today, we begin the new future of Red Sands. Today, we take back our pride."

"What about the wreckage?" a young man asked the wizened village leader.

"Tomorrow we clean it up," N'rlai said with a smirk, "Besides, vultures have to eat, too."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 03-25-2008 04:03 PM

"Ahoy there!"

Captain "Sonny" Sonnethavilay hovered next to the cargo ship in his Skiff while it bobbed and bucked in the turbulent wind. It wasn't a very powerful storm, in fact, at times it cleared up and sunlight got through, but that was no reason not to be careful. There weren't many of the fliers left after all these months. Only the accomplished pilots were being allowed to keep their Skiffs (if they were still functional), and Sonny was lucky that his acts of heroism throughout his career with the Air Guard had allowed him to requisition the reconstruction of his Red Squadron. His wingmen, Captain Wood (formerly of Gold Squadron) and the recently promoted Lieutenant "Mac" MacAuliffe hovered next to him in their own Skiffs (Wood's having been replaced by a Skiff slated for dismantling after a long and arduous argument with the Engineering officers), their weapons armed and sensors sweeping across the decks of the nearby vessel.

It was an unmarked ship, which already made it suspicious. The fact that there were armed guards dotting its surface was another cause for concern. However, in an age where a terrorist organization could take over a small island nation and turn it into one of the major powers of the world, such things weren't entirely uncommon. Still, there was no reason for this cargo ship to be anywhere near AG-04.

Sonnethavilay launched the Red Squadron as soon as they caught the ship on radar. There weren't any signals coming in from the ship, and when he got close, the fact that the poncho-clad guards seemed to tense up on their weapons only further concerned him.

"Mac," his high-toned, yet even voice came over the radio after he greeted the ship, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"I'm getting energy readings from their weapons, but it's not the same kinds of power spikes as out of Rikti guns," the lieutenant replied, "It looks like the sort of stuff I would see around the Vortex soldiers of the Council."

"You mean the guys with the sound guns?"

"Yeah."

Sonny clicked back on his loudspeaker and hailed the ship one more time.

"I am Captain Sonnethavilay. I'm requesting permission to come aboard. If you're willing to comply, I can be reached on channel 83.3."

He didn't have long to wait.

"We hear you, Captain," came the crisp reply, "Come on down."

"I don't trust this," Sonny said to Wood and Mac, "Cover me..."

He brought the Skiff down near the bow of the ship. The funny thing about the Skiffs was that they were lightweight and required few actual landing pads. He was able to settle the vessel next to the cargo crates, but he wasn't about to get the chance to do that.

In the center of the ship was a tarp covering a cargo hole. Sparks flew from the tarp's moorings and it suddenly fluttered off into the wind. There was a loud whine as twin engines fired up and a VTOL helicopter started rising out of the hold.

"It's a trap!" Captain Wood's voice shouted the obvious into the squadron leader's ear, "Get out of there, Sonny!"

Sonnethavilay was entranced by his new opponent, however. The machine was thin and sleek. It glittered in what bits of light broke through the clouds; it was a golden tint. The ponchos of the guards on deck flew off, revealing yellow-and-brown colored mercenaries.

"Gold Brickers?" the captain asked as he pulled back on the stick and his ship hovered up and backed away from the offending machine.

It looked like a small helicopter, but instead of a single set of propellers mounted on top of the machine, it had a pair of pods mounted on the sides. Inside the pods were a set of rapidly spinning fans. It was a system similar to the Gold Bricker packs. Sonny figured that there was probably also a jet engine mounted in the back under the tail which held a rotor (which was similarly contained in the same manner as the lift rotors were).

The vehicle wouldn't be imposing if it weren't for the high-caliber machine guns mounted on four points surrounding the nose of the craft. They didn't seem to be terribly unique, guns were guns in the end, but ammunition could change the situation drastically.

"So, the infamous Air Guard," a voice chuckled over the channel Sonny had indicated, "You boys are causing something fo a ruckus in the Isles. Nobody knows whether we should take you seriously, or just keep laughing!"

"A lot of people say the same about you Lebowskis."

"What? Oh. Right. Well, once we smash your base here and get us some swag, our reputation will improve and the world will see your sad little band as it is."

The Golden Howler started firing and bullets spanged off the Skiff's hull. They weren't armor piercing. Of course, considering the alternative effects of the Gold Brickers' typical armaments, perhaps they didn't need to be. The nose cone of the helicopter rotated and opened, it was apparently a cover for the machine's main weapon, and Sonny understood.

"We've been fired on, boys," he announced to his wingmen, "Fire at will, take their new toy out of the sky!"

"You got it, Sonny!"

The Sky Skiffs opened fire, their bullets ricocheting off the armor plating of the helicopter.

"You marred my perfect finish!" the helicopter's pilot's voice squelched from Sonny's radio, "You'll pay for that!"

Sonny could see the rain ripple as the sound wave erupted from the weapon inside the nose cone. The wave slammed into his Skiff's hull and he was sent spinning around. Bullets spanged off his armor again and his sensors indicated a sudden drop in hull integrity.

"Crap! We gotta take that thing out of the sky, fast!" the squadron leader shouted into his radio, then, after switching to another channel, "A.G. Zero Four! We need support out here! We're under attack!"

"Roger that, Captain Sonny," came the friendly reply of Captain White from the Control Tower, "Support is inbound, coming outta Hangar Three..."

"What does that-?" Sonny stopped.

Hangar 3 was where they were working on the new prototype the engineers from AG-03 had delivered. But that couldn't be what they were about to send to help him and his boys out, could it?

"Tower are you cra-" his words were cut off as his Skiff shuddered anew and he had to focus on keeping from being torn apart.

MacAuliffe and Wood strafed the Golden Howler. Their bullets didn't make a dent on the gold-colored armor, but the missile they struck it with left a nasty dent. Whatever the thing was made of, it was tough.

Sonny was tired of being horsed around with, so he dove into a follow-up attack. His chainguns blazing, he streaked past the jinking machine. The VTOL circled around as he moved past and peppered his Skiff with a fresh hail of gunfire. One bullet scored into his canopy, the hole sending spiderweb cracks throughout the windshield. Sonny cursed as he brought his Skiff around for another pass, his hand hovered over the "Eject" button.

Wood and Mac had completed another strafe, this time catching bullets and a sound wave to their aft thrusters each. Their crafts crippled, unable to return to base unless the firefight was finished, they turned around and started hovering in mid-air. The three Skiffs circled the Golden Howler, each equidistant from the others. Sonny gave the order and they started firing. Bullets bounced, rockets dented, and the angry shouts coming from Sonny's radio indicated they were having some success.

The Howler leveled on his Skiff, though. This was it. One more sonic blast and a hail of bullets later, Sonny would find himself in the drink, hopefully zipped back to the base, but the teleporter tech had been finicky lately, so nothing was a guarantee.

Bullet impacts sparked on the side of the Howler and the display continued on a steady stream for several seconds. The Red Squadron pilots looked to the source of the machine gun fire and could barely make out a dark shape moving toward them. Suddenly, what looked like a flying "Y" streaked through a patch of sunlight, yellow fire trailing out of thrusters mounted on its wings as it started picking up speed. Fire also started barking out from under the sides of the cockpit again. A missile also popped out of the back of the vessel, fired up, and slammed into the port lift rotor of the Howler, decimating it.

"What the Heh-AAAAAUGH!" Sonny's radio blared, "Mayday! Mayday!"

The prototype fighter zipped past the Golden Howler as it crashed back into the deck and spattered the cargo ship with the last of its ammunition. A second missile streaked out from under the starboard wing and blew apart the bridge.

"Now that's what I call a field test!" the protorype's pilot announced over Sonny's frequency, "You guys alright?"

"Latchu? Is that you, Gunny?"

"Yeah, Cap. I'm the guy they pegged to run this hog."

"How's it handling?"

"I think they got it just about right..."

----------

"We're still stumped on a name," the chief engineer explained in the debriefing, "We're kind of focused on Iron Raven..."

"I just want to be sure of one thing," Lieutenant MacAuliffe interrupted, "You guys didn't set this up, did you? I mean, the Thunder Nimbus could have settled this real fast, but it's patrolling for Rikti Ships out by New England. It's also kind of suspicious that the Brickers knew where to find us just when we had a prototype on hand..."

"It's a bit odd that the Brickers had their own unique vehicle to show off, too," the engineer, Captain Adams, retorted, "Frankly, Mac, we're not a big enough organization to orchestrate anything. Rachek, Carter, maybe those guys could pull something like that off, but the reality is that we lack the capital, the ingenuity, and the means to pull something like that here. We were intending to have Latchu paint fight with Sonny."

"Dang," the former Marine Gunnery Sergeant grinned, "Now we'll never know who's better."

"You only just started flying," the Red Squadron leader chuckled back, "I'd fly circles around you!"

"Hey guys," Mac tapped one of the Guardsmen on the shoulder, "Is anybody going to take care of that boat? The Gold Brickers look ticked."

Out in the distance, the cargo ship, dead in the water, was buzzing with activity from the angry high-tech bandits. The control system had been annihilated, and they weren't too keen on how to jury rig a new system. This had a lot of the former Navy engineers chuckling and snickering as they watched the impotent fist shaking of the angry jet pack bandits.

"Nah, we're gonna let them tire themselves out while the Coast Guard comes out to pick them up," Captain Adams explained, "It's easier this way. Don't worry, if any of them get too close, the turrets will take them out long before any of our troops can."

"Sweet."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 04-05-2008 12:05 PM

Weeks went by and the Air Guard transitioned into routine. Carter had trained up a group of Guardsmen that he could trust to train the next crops of troops. He was fortunate Captains Rachek, Anderson and Daniels approved of them, it made getting on to this next little matter so much easier.

As things stood, the Air Guard was controlled by the three captains. Rachek as the visionary head, Anderson the number cruncher, and Daniels commanded the front line. There was also a consul of other captains, but everybody knew the triad was the one in control. Still, that didn't make it any form of autocracy. At its current stage of development, the Guardsmen viewed each other like a brotherhood. Sometimes, Carter wished it could stay that way.

As he walked to his destination, he pondered on his name. Carter. It was the name the Group had given him, the name he introduced himself to the Sky Raiders North Atlantic Fleet's Third Wing Commander, and the only name he could remember. He vaguely remembered his mother and father. He couldn't remember if he had any siblings, but then, he was much older than them if they existed, anyway.

The Group had taken his identity away. They took his old life away. Before, Carter wondered if the old one was worth keeping. People typically didn't make choices like that if they have something to lose, though sometimes, they do it because they have everything to lose if they don't.

It was troubling. He couldn't trust his memory. He'd been so many different people, so many different lives, lies, schemes, scams, tricks, traps, baits, cons, and all other manner of scum and villainy. Was it any wonder that some part of him was screaming for something more? Something right?

Apparently the Group wondered. They wondered about everything and everyone. Paranoid bureaucrats, businessmen and Machiavelli aspirants, everyone, they took most of the world's conspiracy theories and rolled them into one all-inclusive monstrosity. The magnitude of it was staggering, yet they were just as leery of acting overtly as covertly. Until the "Hero/Rogue Equation" could be balanced, the Malta Group Directors were going to stay just as scared as they always have been.

It was because they were scared that they'd sent this dimwit to keep tabs on the goings-on of the Sky Raiders, and by extension, the Air Guard. It doesn't matter that the second group is still small, the Directors need their intel on every little detail on the planet so they could sleep cozy in their beds.

"Sergeant Michaels," he growled into the mostly barren engineering bay, "You requested to see me?"

The sergeant turned from the engine he was working on and raised his pistol at the captain. However, he found that Carter already had a pistol leveled at him.

"Let's make this quick, shall we?" the former Gunslinger growled, "I've got to dispatch Lieutenant Holland, too. Nemesis wormed a guy in from the Raiders."

"What gave me away?" the sergeant asked.

"Enough people talking about you putting in long hours, yet others saying that they always seem behind on schedule. There was more stuff, but you really weren't doing a good job with your sabotage. Did you think that since this is a -lower your weapon- this is a smaller operation, you could get creative? I said, lower your weapon."

"Sergeant Michaels" lowered his pistol. He was young. This was probably his first mission.

"If you'd just stuck with what you were taught, you probably could have strung this out for another few weeks, months even. You probably could have done some real damage, but you were hoping to make an impression. Now, you're caught, and I have to decide what to do with you. Frankly, I'm inclined to put a round in your head and not even bother with telling Lieutenant Holland how he messed up. Here's a hint, a steam-powered cellular phone is not a hobby item."

"You have to tell your commander about me!" Michaels nearly shouted, "You have to-"

"I don't have to do anything, I'm counterintelligence for this little endeavor," a red light emitted from under the barrel of Carter's pistol, shining a dot on the infiltrator's forehead, "When I find one of you guys, I decide what happens in the end."

Michaels didn't wait. He raised his pistol to fire, only to be put down by the veteran marksman. Carter shook his head sadly, and called on his radio.

"O.O.D., send whoever's on duty with you to clean up a mess in Engineering Bay Three. Sergeant Michaels was a bit of an accident."

"Sir?"

"Just send Lugo, Jamieson, Austin and Houston over- oh, here they are. Don't worry, the situation's well-in-hand. I'll have a situational report done up for you by morning."

The four Guardsmen, young men who'd come to the Air Guard fresh out of high school, stepped into the engineering bay and looked worriedly at the corpse and the bloody floor. Carter regarded them. Each had his own histories with violence. They were not strangers to death. They'd come here to get away from their pasts, or those in their pasts who would haunt them unless they learned how to protect themselves.

Here, they were going to learn their first lesson.

"Disposal," Carter growled, "It is the one thing that will trip you up. The legal system of any and every nation is mired with those who committed to their vengeance but did not follow through on making sure nobody knew it was them. Some deserved their fates. Others... Not so much. The world has a deep distrust of vengeance. Fortunately, I'm not teaching you vengeance, I'm teaching you how to cover your tracks should you ever have to resort to what I'm doing now. I'm just using vengeance as an analogue to better coincide with the most likely paths your life will turn. If the psychobabble is confusing, I apologize, but it's the only way to help most people get through this next part. If you've never butchered an animal before, the rest of this process can be quite disconcerting."

The guardsmen looked to each other worriedly and turned back to Carter, who was pulling the body aside. Austin started to step forward to help, but the captain waved him aside.

"That will be the next lesson. Don't worry, it will happen within a couple hours."

"Sir, this seems a little..."

"Underhanded, I know. It's hard to dispose of a body secretly in front of everybody. Once we're done here, we can toss him over the side, smash a whiskey bottle with his fingerprints on the floor, and suddenly we find out why the engineers are behind on schedule despite the good sergeant spending nearly all night every night in here. He was depressed, an alcoholic, and in his inebriated state, fell over the side."

"But, the blood?" Houston asked.

Houston was an interesting one. A brute's body with a tactician's mind (albeit unrefined), he was the leader of this small group. Jamieson was similarly brute-like and much taller than his friend, but he had a spiritual core that rivaled some of the most pious of monks.

Austin and Lugo were devoted. Where others would turn tail and run, they held the line. Whether to cover their friends or just to simply avoid giving up, they were consistently the last ones out of a fight. In several simulations they'd run, the two had been the last on the field, standing amongst a group of repeatedly painted opponents while only suffering a few "nonlethal" hits themselves.

It was amazing they'd never met before coming to the Air Guard. The four complimented each other well, and soon, they would make up what Carter needed to ensure the organization's safety from other, less noble organizations.

"It only has to be explained if you don't clean it up properly. Get a tarp. There's more to come."

----------

Rachek looked over the report Carter handed him. It was the truthful account about what had happened the night prior, and not the one handed to the Officer on Duty. Now, two infiltrators were dead, their implanted recording devices removed from their corpses (not gently, either), and the bodies dumped over the side of the base into the ocean below. The devices were turned over to the engineers with instructions to find out where they were transmitting to.

"Did you know him?" the older man asked as he set the folder down, "The one who called himself Michaels."

"No. I don't know, I might have. He didn't look familiar, though."

"Think there are more?"

Carter sighed, "If there aren't, there will be. If not my old friends, then Nemesis assuredly. It's not like the Arachnos and Freedom Corps agents I'm keeping tabs on. Oh, by the way, we need to get ready for an Arachnos envoy in the next couple weeks. It depends on how busy Ghost Widow is."

"Holy..." this put the Air Guard commander at a loss, "Well, I guess I have to prepare for that... She's not gonna be happy to see me again."

"I thought not. I have a suggestion, though I don't know quite how well it will work."

"Oh?"

Carter pulled a cigarette from the pack carried in his shoulder pocket and placed it in his mouth.

"You ever hear of Veluta Lunata?" he asked before lighting the cancer stick with a wooden match.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 04-22-2008 07:12 PM

The black Arachnos Flier landed to five platoons of Guardsmen leveling their weapons on the vessel. Captain Rachek took a deep breath as the door slowly opened and looked to Captain Carter at his side. The former Special Qualification Marksman stared coldly to the derrick's uninvited guests and thumbed the grips of his pistols.

"You really think this is going to work?" the commander growled.

"I've heard some bad things, but I made sure Lunata understood that I would be back if this didn't work. She may be confident that she's bullying a ghost army into doing her bidding, but she knows she's got nothing that can stop someone like me."

The older man nodded and resumed watching the Fortunatas exit the machine. It was a very deliberate procession, with the agents of the ghostly villainess maintaining perfect symmetry from each other and the access hatch of the Flier. The Guardsmen grew nervous, a sensation that hung in the air over the troops. They were in a lot of trouble, and the calm disregard these assassin women were treating them to only highlighted the dread sensation.

Then she appeared. Her outfit as black as shadow, yet somehow shiny like oil, it was trimmed with white bone magically shaped to form-fit around her upper body. Despite the fact that there was no breeze (an odd thing for the mid-Atlantic), her hair flowed to the side like a river, as if it had a mind of its own or was being tugged into the dark void beyond the veil. Her face, beautiful in a soft way, yet cold and hardened by years of dark deeds, stared impassively ahead as she strode confidently to the center of the Guardsmen formations, right up to the old man and his protege.

Her voice was hollow, yet full of strength and contempt as she asked her single question, "What do you think you're doing?"

It was simple. Arachnos had heard enough noise about this upstart group (namely, the fact that they had a cruiser-class flying warship) that it warranted Recluse's concern. Of course, the Spider King had sent his most trusted assassin to deal with the group in the swiftest manner possible. One step in the wrong direction, and the entire operation would be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Ghost Widow must have had a clear calendar. If they were ill-prepared, she could wipe out all of the Air Guard bases with little trouble, save AG-04.

Rachek thanked whatever gods were watching over the world that they were prepared with at least something.

"Well, ma'am," Rachek growled, "Right now, we're running a mercenary security outfit. We're an offshoot of the Sky Raiders who don't gel with the Duray's ideals. Doubtless, it's his information that's telling you we're some kind of vigilante group like the ones you find in Paragon."

"Aren't you?"

"While our forces are dedicated to more... Law-abiding causes, we don't actively seek out criminals and try to foil their schemes. We're not Longbow or Wyvern."

Ghost Widow stared mutely at him. Carter fingered his pistols again, knowing full-well the evil woman was taking note of their every move.

"You currently command a high-powered warship..."

"Experimental, unique, and expensive..." the commander replied in his usual, calm rasp.

"Yet you used it to fight Rikti and even assault Fort Cerberus, my fortress!"

"Ah, so you do remember me..."

"Yes," Ghost Widow's eyes narrowed, "I remember you. You won't have a pile of garbage or a small nuclear device to save you if I don't like what I hear! So far... I am not filled with confidence."

"That's funny," Rachek lied, "because I'm brimming with it."

"If you and your troops intend to survive the day, I suggest you change your tone!"

"Hang on, hang on, hang on... Let's make this simple. What will it take to get you out of my [frig]ing house without you making a scene?"

"For starters, you can swear fealty to Arachnos..."

The Dark lady actually started to smile. It was a thin, tight-lipped and chilling grin. She extended her hand lightly, with her palm facing down and a peculiar ring on her finger. It had a glowing red insignia of Arachnos upon it.

"...In order to begin your service, you may kiss my ring."

"How archaic," Rachek stared at the device and tsked agitatedly, "Well, when faced with the options, service as you suggest and annihilation as you imply, I have only one recourse..."

He knew what awaited him at the end of that ring. He didn't know much about magic, but his cousin had taught him enough about the concept of a Geas, and this would be the most opportune moment to place someone under one. The only problem was that the victim had to submit to it, they just didn't have to know what they were submitting to. Too bad for Ghost Widow, Captain Anthony Rachek didn't submit to anybody, not anymore.

The former Marine drew his pistol. Ghost Widow barely shook her head as he pressed the muzzle to the ring and squeezed the trigger.

She expected to be shot at some point. She expected to have to go through the same old, tired trope of shrugging off the bullet and draining the life out of the poor dumb idiot who thought such a simple trick, even with most mystical ammunition, would be effective against a creature such as she. In the normal world, Anthony Rachek would be a dried out husk lying at her feet as the remaining Guardsmen scrambled frantically to assemble their last futile defense before she and her entourage tore the base apart. With one shot, Rachek sealed the fate of the Air Guard.

However, what she didn't expect was the extreme, white-hot pain that shocked through her very being when the round made contact with her spectral hand. It shouldn't have felt that way, but it did. She glared angrily as her blurred vision cleared and Rachek stared back impassively, his pistol leveled on the center of her chest.

"I choose option three," the grizzled old man growled, "I shoot your hand off, it takes longer to reform than you're used to, and you realize that you and your friends are wearing a Hell of a lot more red than you remember."

The villainess stared at the stump that used to be her hand. It was wreathed in a gray mist that was slowly pulling itself back together, and every second was agony. Then she noticed the bright dot on her forearm. There were more on her torso. Looking back, she noticed more resting on her Night Widows and a few on the Fortunatas that shined a little because of the angle. Rachek continued his explanation of the third option.

"You go back to Recluse with a message. We're not going to mess with him, that's not our job, not yet. But when we do, because at some point, one of you is going to [frig] up just like this, we're gonna have to have us reckoning and don't you think for a second we're going into it unprepared!"

He was shouting now, and the shift in the air, from cold dread to confident defiance had a peculiar effect on Ghost Widow. She was loathe to admit it, but she had been feeding somewhat from that fear, it gave her confidence and pride, and the fact that it disappeared so quickly was a shock, not only because her advantage had vanished but because there was the possibility it had all been an act.

The third possibility, that Rachek's sudden outburst of rage and contempt had galvanized his troops, crossed her mind for a moment, but it was brushed aside. It wasn't discarded because it wasn't plausible, it was because it sent a chill through her very being.

"Get off my lawn," the gray-haired man shouted as the Arachnos agents backed cautiously into their Flier, "and take your goons with you."

Carter made a beckoning motion with his left hand and two of his proteges, Guardsmen Houston and Jamieson, dragged a cluster of unarmed former Guardsmen and current Arachnos spies to the Flier.

Ghost Widow's hand reformed and she glowered at the terrified soldiers. With a dismissive wave of her hand, the nearest two were stripped of their souls and their bodies fell lifelessly to the deck without even a scream or a sigh. The remaining operatives steeled themselves from moving closer to the patron, and she gazed coldly to Captain Rachek.

"We don't keep failures in our ranks."

"You keep puttin' people in here, expect to lose a lot of spies," Carter replied.

The door closed behind the villainess and the Flier lifted off a moment later. The Guardsmen kept their weapons trained on it and the missile turrets tracked it until it was out of range.

"That had every chance of going badly," Rachek gasped as his concentration broke, "[Cripes], if that round hadn't worked as advertised..."

"But it did," Carter countered, "And we know where to get more spectral ammunition. All you have to concentrate on now is making sure we don't go under financially."

"After all that crap we pulled from that Bricker ship, that's not a problem at the moment. But I don't think that's all I have to worry about from Arachnos."

"If there's something I can't handle, I'll let you know, Boss."

"Sir?" Guardsman Houston asked the two officers as he and Jamieson pulled the remaining operatives with them, "What do we do with these guys?"

"Pitch 'em overboard?" Carter asked.

"Nah," Rachek didn't know if the other captain was joking or not, "Call Freedom Corps, tell 'em we've got people they'll want to talk to."

He rounded on the operatives and made sure he had their attention with a couple quick cuffs against a couple faces.

"You boys better get this straight! As far as Arachnos cares, you're dead men! They see you, you're dead! It would behoove you to turn over as much information as you know to the authorities that take you into custody. Maybe if you're friendly, they'll be friendly too, and you'll wind up in a high grade witness protection program."

"You can't tell us what to do," the nearest one spat, "We're not traitors!"

"Soon enough, you'll change your tune. When you feel the sharp steel of a Blood Widow spike pressing into your back and it's somebody like me or the red-and-white spandex-clad F.C. guard that saves your life, you'll know how much you really matter to your 'lord.' Until the Corps get here, lock 'em up, boys."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 06-17-2008 08:24 PM

Agent Wolfers clicked his radar a couple times. Ever since his Chaser had come back from the shop, that damn sensor had been wonky, and it was really bad right now. Finally, there was a blip and the Chaser pilot clicked on his radio.

"Commander, I need to request another trip to the shop for my vessel."

"What's wrong this time, Jester-5?"

"It's my radar, Ma'am. There were a few twitches in the test flights, but the whole thing's shorting out now... And it's game time, now."

The Red Jesters. They weren't necessarily the best of the Longbow Chaser Squadrons, but they were one of the few that had been able to take down an Arachnos Flyer, and they seemed to have perfected a harrying tactic they called "the Dancing Fencer," which had taken down numerous villainous rogues, even brutes.

A few hours ago, their Carrier, the USFC Cujo, was tasked with locating a Flyer that had been detected moving about a set of uncharted Etoile Isles. The islands themselves were not very far from the Nerva Archipelago, but they weren't the location of any major power spikes, nor did any intelligence indicate that any organizations had any operations in the area.

That made it odd that this particular operation was happening.

"Alright, boys, we need to be Wolfers' eyes out there..." Agent Thomson, Jester-1 announced, "Keep your systems running and keep him pointed in the right direction."

"Thanks, boss," Wolfers replied as he fell in at the rear of the formation.

They moved into the heavily forested island slowly. In standard aircraft, like the kinds the U.S. Air Force utilized, they'd be roaring over the tops of the trees and likely miss their target. That was the beauty of the short-range stunt fighters like the Sky Skiffs and the Chasers, they could keep their altitude, fight like helicopters, move like jet fighters, and a number of other exceptional advantages. However, their main drawback, especially for the Chasers, was the lighter armor.

Bullets impacted on Jester-3's hull. Jester-4 and Jester-6 rounded about and highlighted the offending Arachnos troops. They were a pair of Crab Spiders, and they were functioning as a sort of impromptu mobile anti-aircraft artillery.

Unfortunately for the spiders, the Chasers were well-designed for taking down such opponents. Even worse for them, the Red Jesters knew how to fight.

Channelgun blasts scored through the sky, but the "bike-jets" bobbed, weaved and jinked out of the way. All the while, they returned fire and slowly blasted the Arachnos troops into submission, which required shooting them repeatedly in the legs.

After the soldiers fell and lied still, two Chasers descended, Jester-5 and Jester-3, and the pilots disembarked their vehicles to interrogate the men. One of the Crab Spiders extended a channelgun to shoot one of the approaching agents, but Wolfers drew his pistol and put a round into the weapon, stopping it from firing.

"Congratulations," he grunted as he and Jester-3 (Agent Wilson) removed the mechanized spider leg weapons and armor from the injured troops, "You guys have the dubious honor of telling us what the Hell you're doing out here."

"We're not telling you vigilantes nothin'!" the bigger man growled, "Besides... You'll know soon enough..."

The Longbow agents looked to each other and shrugged. Without further-ado, they pulled out their "taggers" and jabbed the two soldiers to the jail cells on the Cujo.

"No word, Commander," Wilson reported, "We..."

There was a rustling in the bushes nearby and the two agents looked back. What approached them was a large man in a suit of medieval armor. His swords were curved, wicked, and slicked with a dark red substance that was very likely blood, but it seemed to be a different consistency. The red stuff on the blades (indeed, it also seemed to be painted onto the black armor in a sharp-edged tribal pattern) appeared to flow and ripple across the surfaces it coated. A pair of red eyes glowered at the two pilots as the brute started approaching.

"We've got a villain... brute-class," Wolfers announced glibly, "Lock on and fire, boss."

"Roger that," Agent Thomson replied, then shouted into the squadron's channel, "you heard the man, boys, cut the monster open!"

The Red Jesters covered their two fellow pilots as they returned to their vehicles. Unfortunately, this newcomer, this monstrous brute, was not bothered by the ammunition being deployed upon him.

Hearing the heavy footsteps getting closer, Wolfers whirled around and fired his sidearm into the approaching brute. The bullets spanged off the villain's helmet and upper torso armor. The pilot cursed, ducked a swipe from his rampaging assailant and rolled away.

As the villain corrected his momentum and started stomping toward the recovering Wolfers, Agent Wilson reached his Chaser and drew his assault rifle from behind his seat. As rapidly as he could, he turned about and blazed a burst into the brute, causing the monster to face him heft one of his blades, and hurl it at the pilot.

Wilson ducked just in time to avoid getting stapled to his Chaser's windshield. He cocked the grenade launcher of his rifle and launched a bomb at the brute as it closed the distance between them. The explosion knocked him off his feet, but the villain didn't even slow as it charged through the assault and crashed into the vessel, rocking it slightly, and wrenched its thrown sword free of the machine.

"I'm gonna need a little help!" Agent Wilson shouted as the brute loomed threateningly overhead, "Somebody!"

There was a loud whine as a dark shape descended. The brute looked up in just enough time to be smacked against his head and knocked over. Agents Wilson and Wolfers had to shield their eyes as dust was kicked up by a sudden repulsor-lift blast that was keeping their guardian angel aloft.

When the dust cleared, and the agents were able to look to see which of their fellow Red Jesters had saved them, they were surprised to see an unusual, "Y"-shaped aircraft hovering over Agent Wilson's comparably-sized Chaser. It was painted gray and blue, with a set of red stripes slashed across its wings.

"Howdy there," Captain Sonnethavilay announced on his loudspeaker, "My boys and I were in the area... Thought we'd offer some assistance."

Before any further discussion could be had, the brute roared and started charging for the newcomer. Sonny shouted something about "lousy sang-" and the rest of his words were drowned out by his own chainguns unleashing a volley simultaneously with the rest of the Red Jesters. After that onslaught, the brute stopped, slumped to its knees, and disappeared in a haze of red energy.

"Okay," Wolfers gasped as things seemed to settle down and the newcomer's jet (for lack of a better word) landed, "What's going on?"

"That's a good question," Sonny replied as he removed his helmet and took a breath of fresh air, "Cripes, I already miss the air conditioning."

"You're with that Air Guard outfit, huh?"

"Captain Sonny at your service. My boys and I were testing the stealth capabilities of our new Warbirds... It's not necessarily the sanctioned term we're using, but I like the sound of it."

"Stealth capabilities?" Agent Wilson asked.

The rest of the Air Guard Red Squadron appeared, suddenly, hovering over the Red Jester Chasers. Agent Wolfers' communicator warbled as Agent Thomson cursed into the still-open channel.

"You mind giving us a little more warning next time?" he asked irritatedly.

"Sorry," Sonnethavilay chuckled, "we're still working bugs out, like the apparent time-limit... We were out here because we figured Arachnos wouldn't notice us, and it wouldn't hurt to scope out a new location for an intel post..."

"Well, I guess you can scratch that," Thomson announced through Wolfers' communicator, "Arachnos sent a Flier out here for you. We were sent in to cut it down because it was close to our carrier... And if they're getting that close..."

"Right... Right..." Sonny stroked his chin, "Well, it sounds to me like we have a bit of a conundrum... How about we pool our resources and smite these lousy spiders?"

"I don't know," Thomson's words were negative, but his tone was tickled, "I might have to get permission from my superiors... File some paperwork..."

"If we walk away from this landing, I'll buy you all a round of beers at Pocket D."

"Deal!"

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 06-23-2008 10:08 AM

The Chasers and Warbirds were flying in a pair of staggered "V" formations, with the Air Guard fighters above but trailing the Chasers. They were patrolling around the tropical island at a leisurely pace, with the commanders chatting. For the most part, they talked about the aspects of their vehicles, from how they were similar to how they were different.

While they Chasers probably had a better short-range speed, the Warbirds were definitely capable of getting across long distances much easier with their more powerful afterburner thrusters. Their weapons systems were roughly comparable, though the Warbirds stuck more to the hard-hitting weapons as opposed to the Chaser's preference for incendiary armaments. The major difference between the two types of vessels was the armor. The Warbirds had a thicker hull, possibly causing the decreased stunt speed, but enabled the machines to take much more punishment than the Chasers. Of course, the Chasers had a theoratically easier time of getting out of the way of incoming assaults.

"So," Sonny looked to his gauges as he talked, "How much longer can you guys push your jets?"

"Chasers can fly almost indefinitely," Thomson replied, "But their performance starts to suffer after eight hours or so. We've still got a couple hours left in us. You?"

"Meh, much the same. The power plant inside this baby's got enough for a few more hours, so we should be able to keep up."

"So, tell me something, Sonny," Thomson's tone shifted from the neutral tone for the technical conversation to a more personal tone, "Why is it you guys are still way out there? Freedom Corps could definitely benefit from the collected experience of your group. I'm sure the military would be willing to bring you guys back in, too."

"Yeah, they probably would," Sonny sighed, "Frankly, I don't know why we stuck with the Guard. For some, it's probably personal. We did some bad things as Sky Raiders, and if we didn't do the dirty deeds, we at least helped facilitate them. We have a lot to atone for, and I think a lot of us want to do it on our terms."

"Yeah, but you can probably do that with Freedom Corps... Longbow's surprisingly cooperative when it comes to personal vendettas against known villains."

"See, and that's what I didn't like about Longbow. It's like a pack of vigilantes backed by the U.S. government. If you guys succeed, it's a victory for Truth, Justice and the American Way. if you fail, well, you were a rogue group of Longbow, anyway, and Freedom Corps hemorrhages some scapegoats. We don't see that in the Air Guard."

"It doesn't quite work like that," Thomson sighed, "but I get what you mean about sponsored vigilantes. Of course, you make it sound almost like being a super-powered private security company in the service of Big Oil."

"From what I hear, that's someone else. In any case, if we break the Guard up, we're probably more likely to join Vanguard than anyone else. I mean, we are contracted by the U.N. at the moment, so they'll probably look to absorbing us at some point if we prove to be enough of an asset."

"Sounds-!"

Agent Thomson wasn't able to finish. A red glow suddenly emitted from the depths of the forest to their starboard and the jets turned to face the threat. Captain Sonnethavilay looked to his sensors and noticed that the radar wasn't picking up anything.

"Damn, that Flier's got some sort of ECM," he shouted, "Lock and load, boys! Engage pattern Delta!"

The Warbirds seemed to scatter in all directions as the Chasers fell out of the way of the Flier's energy cannon barrage. The big black machine then tore out of the treeline and occupied the space the two squadrons had once been occupying.

"Hit it hard and hit it fast, boys!" Sonny's command reverberated through the Red Squadron and the Warbird guns started blazing metal death at the Arachnos VTOL.

The Flier whirled around and launched a flurry of missiles with strange iridescent trails. The missiles largely missed, but the explosions battered the assaulting vessels about. If it weren't for the lift thrusters stabilizing them, the Warbirds would have fallen out of the sky.

The Flier's main turret leveled on the lead Warbird. Just as the gunner was about to squeeze the trigger, a gout of flame obscured his vision. The Longbow Chasers had flown a little away from the battle before performing a coordinated formation half barrel roll back into a Flying-V attack formation. As they passed over the Flier, they hit it with their incendiary solutions, covering the machine in flames when Agent Wolfers "bumped" the top of the craft and ignited the solution with his thrusters.

The Air Guard vessels then hit it with their own missile barrage and strafed past. Apparently, the pilot of the Arachnos vessel decided it was time to get out of there, so the black machine started making for the open waters and back for Grandville. Needless to say, neither the Air Guard nor the Longbow Squadrons intended for the transport to make it.

Immediately, the chase was on. As the smaller vessels swarmed about the larger fleeing machine, peppering it with bullets and missiles, the Arachnos Flier responded with flurry after flurry of missiles.

The battle was not going well for the Flier, so they attempted a desperate maneuver. The side hatch popped open and the pursuing heroes and Guardsmen were prepared for anything but what they faced. What emerged from the hatch was not some desperate Wolf or Bane Spider, firing an assault rifle or a Nullifier Mace at the pursuers, but the Sanguimancer, the large dual-wielding knight that had given them such trouble earlier.

The brute let out a monstrous roar. Despite having once been human, the Sanguimancer was now truly a beast among villains, and he reveled in it. After the deafening roar, the monster leaped from his perch at the hatch of the Flier and dove for Captain MacAuliffe's Warbird.

Most pilots would have tried to shoot the brute out of the sky. The thought even crossed Mac's mind, too. However, another thought struck him, and, laughing, he pulled back on his control stick and caused his Warbird to pitch back and almost stop suddenly in mid-air. His squadron passed him by, but he could catch up.

The important thing was the Sanguimancer, who expected him to be at a certain point in the air when he jumped. Mac's Warbird was not there and the brute fell to the drink below.

"Look at the idiot flail!" the captain announced through his squadron channel, "I think he's-WOAH!"

A curved blade flew into the air past his Warbird and the vessel was jarred a little.

"Holy crap, there was a wake on that! Nyah-hah! You missed me!"

The sword came back and stabbed into the canopy. MacAuliffe screamed and leaned back and to the right in his seat. The sword seemed to shake, wobble and push deeper into the cockpit after him. The Guardsman drew his sidearm, pressed the muzzle against the glass of the windscreen at the point where he could see the sword's hilt, and squeezed off a round. The glass broke out some more and the sword was sent flying away into the distance before it abruptly stopped and dropped faster than a stone to its wielder.

"That was some freaky [dreck]!" he shouted, "His sword came after me! I repeat, his [freaking] sword came after me!"

"Well then get out of there," Sonny replied, "Get back in the formation, Mac, we need you!"

The pilot made sure his flight mask was strapped on tight and kicked on his afterburners. Below, the Sanguimancer swam futilely as it tried to keep up.

---

A pair of rockets struck home on the Flier's port hover pod and the vessel started to fall.

"The first shell hit the Bismarck," Agent Thomson sang, "They knew she couldn't last!"

"That mighty German battleship," Mac chimed in as his Warbird came screaming into the fight, "Is just a memory!"

His missiles were loosed and the starboard hover pod was decimated. The Flier started falling faster and the squadrons gave a cheer. Almost in response to the jubilation, the Flier started flooding the skies with missiles. However, the Chasers and Warbirds simply had to fly out of range and the weapons were already zipping around erratically. They watched as the machine plummeted, smoking, to the sea.

"Call in your carrier," Captain Sonnethavilay said to Agent Thomson, "This was your assignment. We were just along for the ride."

"Thanks," Thomson replied, "It was a pleasure working with the Red Squadron."

"It was a pleasure working with the Red Jesters."

"Funny, that..." Thomson chuckled before radioing in to his ship's captain that they'd located and disabled the Flier.

---

The Sanguimancer reached where the Flier had crashed but only a few bits of floating debris remained. Looking about confusedly, he felt something grip his ankle. Reaching down (and sinking into the water), he gripped the puny little fish man that knew it was making a mistake before he even got to it. The Coralax Hybrid made some bubbles as it screamed and the big beast yanked it closer by the wrist.

Gripping the pathetic creature by the head and the ankles, he twisted and broke several vertebrae, in the neck and the back. Thinking he had sank enough, the Sanguimancer returned to the surface, leaving the fish-man's body to float back to its friends as a warning.

A bright red light appeared in the sky as the brute's head broke the surface. A second Flier descended to him and the hatch opened up. A pair of Mu Mystics emerged and floated beside the opening as a Blood Widow reached out a hand for him.

"Sanguimancer," she announced, "My name is Shadeheart... Our Mistress has assigned me to recover you. I trust you remember our Mistress?"

The Sanguimancer quietly treading water was the response she got. The brute was a monster, but Ghost Widow was exceptionally adept at reigning monsters in. He grasped her hand and she was surprisingly able to pull him up out of the water. The Mu Mystics electrified the water as they left and a blue-tinged Coralax Hybrid emerged, screaming, from the depths. A few other bodies, some blue-skinned, most green, ascended from the depths as well.

"Disgusting," one of the mystics growled before returning to the vessel's belly.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 06-25-2008 05:38 PM

"Hello, Mr. Carter," General Aarons said as he met the business suit-clad man in the corridors of the Atlas Park Vanguard DPO, "I trust your trip was uneventful."

"And that in itself is an event, considering the world we live in," the Air Guard Intelligence Coordinator replied, "And it's Captain, by the way."

"Not in any recognized military. However, I'll do you one better than I normally do, and I'll just call you Carter, that fine?"

"Carter's fine."

They walked down the corridors, a team of six bodyguards flanking them. The general hadn't explained why he wanted Carter to come down to Vanguard, but since he had some paperwork to fill out with other Vanguard administrative offices in regards to some jurisdiction clap-trap, so he decided to indulge the old man.

The conversation remained decidedly neutral. Sure, it seemed like General Z was interested in the progress of the Air Guard's growth and its training practices (not a steady climb on recruiting, but Carter was able to really improve things with a set of training exercises that involved actually shooting at his students with rubber rounds, which was giving them a real appreciation for tactical strategy), but there was a decided undercurrent of distraction and anticipation. Carter answered the questions guardedly, and took note of the paces and turns through the halls and corridors.

They reached an elevator that needed to be opened by a key, a hand print, and an eye scan. General Aarons had clearance for all three and his credentials opened the doors. He selected two guards and beckoned them and his guest to follow him in before dismissing the rest of the entourage.

"What's going on?" Carter asked as the doors closed and the car started to descend, "It's fairly obvious you don't want me here to talk."

"There's a situation," Aarons replied, and said no more.

When the car reached its destination, the appearance of the corridors changed to a sort of metallic corridor that most groups looking for a "Sterile Progress" aesthetic that a lot of groups were doing to death. They stepped out of the car and made their way down this new set of corridors until they reached a peculiar chamber.

Inside sat a set of Rikti on one side, the Lady Grey, a pair of heroes and a couple negotiators on the other. Carter arched his eyebrow at this and looked to the General.

"Again I ask, what is going on?"

"I want you to be on the security detail," Aarons replied, "I think we're finally going to get this to work."

"Why aren't you in there?"

"Aliens said my gruff demeanor put them off a little, so I'm going to review the negotiations after the session and advise Ms. Grey where to go from here. Just go on in, don't say anything and keep an eye on what's going on."

"Why do you want me in on this?"

The general and his guards simply walked away and Carter was left with the option of walking into the negotiations chamber and assuming a guard post. It was odd, indeed, but he was far from ill-prepared.

The door opened quietly. Lady Grey took note of him with a glance and immediately went back to reviewing the paperwork and murmuring with her negotiations adviser. The Rikti looked to him, but despite all of his experience, he still could not read their expressions.

The last time something like this happened, the Nemesis Army arrived to spoil the fun. The negotiations fell apart and it was up to a group of rag-tag heroes and rogues to save the day. Perhaps the negotiators thought that being deeper in the city would protect them, but Carter had assisted with enough Nemesis cells when he worked for the Malta Group to know the fallacy of that logic.

Still, they once-again had Faultline and Fusionette. Perhaps this time the heroes would stick to the task of defending the proceedings instead of wandering off for Gods-knew what reason.

An aide walked in through a door on the opposite side of the room from the one Carter entered and approached the human negotiators. She took up a stack of papers Grey's assistant handed her and started walking to the Rikti negotiators. As she passed Carter, he got a whiff of her perfume. It smelled heavily of lilac and honey, but had an undercurrent he was familiar with.

Too familiar.

The doors opened at once and more aides started streaming in. Unfortunately for them, Carter was already moving. He flicked his left hand out and a small hold-out pistol slid into his palm. He snaked his right arm forward and a peculiar looking gun with a thick barrel extended into his grasp.

The aides were just starting to draw their own weapons when he fired to his left and in front of him. The smell had been lubricant, a type that was similar to the cleansing solution used on weapons.

The aide to his left staggered as "she" was struck, her movements suddenly turning jerky as her mechanical nature revealed itself. Carter squeezed a few more rounds into her as he dropped his right-hand weapon, which had just fired a blast of tungsten buckshot that tore the barrel to pieces and rendered it useless, but the buckshot tore clean through the two automatons in front of him and ripped them to pieces before they could get a shot off.

He was jsut reaching into his jacket when everything went chaotic. The guards started scrambling, the Rikti revealed their own weapons and started defending themselves, even the heroes and Lady Grey stood up to smash into the assailants.

Then the room seemed to disintegrate and Carter found himself standing in the middle of an empty metal room, save his discarded weapon and the ammunition he'd fired scattered all over the floor. There was a slight hum in the air that was eventually cut off before one of the doors opened and General Aarons and his guards calmly strode into the room.

"How did you get weapons into the DPO?"

"Even if you guys were running your metal detectors," Carter started buttoning up his suit jacket again, "You never would have registered my weapons. I use ceramics and non-magnetic metals for my guns. You'd be surprised how capable these guns are."

"And what the Hell was that?" one of the guards almost shouted, "It looked like a shotgun..."

"I'm wondering about this simulation," Carter avoided the question, "That was a surprisingly realistic representation... I could smell them!"

"Heh, yeah," Aarons clapped the trainer on his shoulder, "I wanted to see what a real instructor would have to say about this. We based this trial on the original event, but with a few tweaks to make it more plausible."

"My first hint was that you brought me into it so willingly without an explanation," Carter smirked, "Were I still with the Group, there are any number of things I could have done just now."

"Like what you did," the General replied smugly.

"True, but I was a cog in the great machine. I probably would have shot Lady Grey, the Rikti Ambassador, and tried to port out. Failing that, I would have shot my way out. They do train Special Qualification Marksmen to do just that sort of thing, fully expecting them to die in the process, but also teaching them to not care."

"I bet that's a tough sale," the general smirked.

"It's all for the Greater Good," Carter shrugged, "What they don't tell them is what that Greater Good really is."

"Indeed. So... Do you have any pointers on how we can improve this?"

"Well, I'd have to know how you're doing it, first..." the Intelligence Officer replied, "Might I suggest we discuss this over a drink? Getting worked up like that made me thirsty."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 06-30-2008 02:34 PM

It was a quiet night at AG-01, so when the flash of light on the horizon appeared, it only sparked the interest of the Guardsmen on patrol. The troops gathered on the main deck as the light came closer. With every passing second, there was a permeating sensation of dread that grew more foreboding.

Captain Rachek peered through a night vision scope at the approaching object and cursed. Guardsmen asked him what was going on, but he waved them off without explanation. The troops readied their weapons anyway.

The object was later revealed to be a fireball of some sort, moving at rapid velocity toward the base. The Guardsmen assumed positions and set their sights. However, the automated defenses were never activated.

"You're not going to be able to defeat this thing with guns or knives," announced a voice over the intercom, "Stand down... Let one who is more capable handle it."

The Guardsmen withdrew with trepidation . They didn't like backing down from a fight, especially one that had been brought to their home and the very base of their operations. However, they held a lot of respect for the man that had advised them, even if they didn't worship his faith.

The fireball landed on the platform and coalesced into the figure of a massive, winged, bull-headed fire-wreathed humanoid. It was a demon in the classic sense at the very least, possibly a "Villain" at worst. It drew a pair of icy blades (a painful contradiction) and shouted out a challenge.

"The preacher is here! Bring me Father Morgan!"

"There's no need for that," the dark-dressed man replied as he exited the command structure and approached the demon, "Save your strength, cousin, you have a conflict ahead of you."

He walked calmly, purposefully, one foot descending precisely before the other. He held his right arm behind him in a way that seemed almost servile, as a butler would, but there was a determination to his gait that clashed against such posture.

Eventually, he stood not ten feet from the demon. While Guardsmen thrice the distance away were sweating from the heat coming off the monster's flames, Father Morgan was as dry as he could be.

"You dare to condescend? You dare to profess some form of relationship between me and your pathetic, putrid flesh? You dare not lay prostrate before me?"

"I don't necessarily dare anything," the priest replied calmly as he pulled his arm from behind his back and a shining sword was revealed to be grasped firmly in his right hand, "You and I were created by the same force, if by different means and leading to different ends. By that logic, you and I are connected at the very fabric of our being. I don't condescend, I merely converse. Finally, I don't have much compulsion to lie prostrate before you, as you haven't really done anything to impress me."

The demon gestured to its wings, fiery aura, and it's head. Father Morgan shrugged.

"I trust you've heard of the Circle of Thorns?"

"Yes... Those contract breakers..." the demon growled a few obscenities to itself, "They've made my job so much harder... I used to be able to inspire hardened soldiers into [wetting] themselves. Now, I look at these babes... They should be mewling, but they remain steadfast and resolute. How disgusting and discouraging..."

"But you're still here for me?"

"Yes. Morgan. My brethren have instructed me to bring your soul screaming into the depths. As a soldier of the war, your soul holds no special protection upon death... I can claim you once we're done here!"

"I know the terms."

The priest was still maddeningly calm. It wasn't just unnerving the demon, it was having an effect on the entire detail of Guardsmen bearing witness. Only Captain Rachek seemed to be watching impassively from his vantage point in the command deck, though he was keeping a pretty firm grip on his machete.

"Enough posturing!" the demon shouted, "It is time to end your life!"

"It is time to fight, yes," Morgan knelt down and pressed his left hand to the deck, "But I am not quite through with living, yet. I want you to understand, this will be a difficult battle for you, and I will not go quietly into the night..."

"I get it now," the demon smiled and waved its two ice blades menacingly, "This is how you beg. You just don't know it!"

"...I rage... Rage on against the dying of the light," Morgan finished the bit of poem and a bright flash erupted from his left hand.

Bars of light stretched from his deck-bound palm and traced along the edges of the grid-like panels that he and the demon stood upon. Eventually, they reached a certain distance and created a twenty foot square that trapped the two enemies within it.

"And what was that supposed to do?" the demon asked, "Now you just can't escape my wrath!"

"Nor can you escape me," Morgan replied, the calm in his voice replaced with a sharp edge and he stood with his sword set at an offensive stance, "Are you ready?"

"I was born-"

Morgan charged forward. The demon barked in surprise and angrily deflected the blade. It wasn't as simple a deflection as the monster expected to make, but his follow-through was precise and prompt. The demon just didn't expect the priest's hand to stop the blade.

"How?"

"My faith is my armor, simple as that," Morgan replied.

The demon roared and started hacking wildly at the priest. Morgan deflected, ducked, dove, rolled and twisted to escape the monster's rush. The demon got too close at one point, however, and Morgan lunged close, stabbing into the beast's belly with his blade.

Despite whatever blessings the weapon had, it did little to stop the demon. Laughing, he set one of his swords aside and pulled the broadsword out by the hand guard. Morgan deftly fell away as the monster gloated.

"This thing barely tickles! I'm almost inspired to use it against you... However, I've fought enough agents of the Host to know how notoriously useless their weapons are against them, so..."

He threw the sword into the barrier keeping the two warriors from escaping the fight and it hung there as if it were held fast by some sort of ethereal glue. The wall it was stuck to glowed gold.

"And now to end this," the demon laughed as he picked his discarded sword back up, "You may commence whimpering."

"I shall do no such thing," Father Morgan stood proudly and brushed himself off casually, "I still have my faith, demon, and that is not some trinket that can be so easily discarded."

With a roar, the demon reared back, preparing to bring both blades crashing down on the wayward priest's head. Morgan didn't even flinch, though he did place one foot behind himself so as to better brace for what he intended to do. The blades came down and the man brought his forearms up. With a quick swipe, he smashed through the icy weapons, then dove his fists into the monster's abdomen.

The demon howled in agony this time. Morgan's hands had actually stabbed into the monster's torso and he was trying to pull something out. The demon grabbed the priest by the shoulder and attempted to shove him away, but this only caused further pain.

Finally, one of Morgan's hands withdrew and he had something grasped. It looked like a golden filament of some kind, and the more he withdrew, the more the demon howled. Eventually, he kicked against the monstrosity and yanked hard on the cord. There was a deafening boom and the two were thrown apart.

Morgan shook his head clear and realized his back was leaning against the barrier. There were Guardsmen shouting, but he could barely hear them. He was more concerned with the thing coiling around his arm, struggling to survive.

"What have you done?" the demon asked as it tried vainly to pull it's wound shut, "What... What is that?"

"It's a heart string," the priest replied as he pushed himself up, "Or it's at least the best term I can come up with for it. Everyone has them, usually in groupings of seven or divisible by seven. Gods and the highest echelons of their hosts usually have more, lesser beings often have less. They come in brands of Mortal and Immortal. Yours are Immortal, meaning you can live for hundreds of years and never know the effects of time."

"But..."

"It simply means you're harder to kill, in the end."

The demon staggered back to his feet and lurched to attack. His ice blades returned, rapidly, but not instantaneously as before. He made a few more steps, but his target was moving now.

The demon made some swipes. He felt sluggish. He felt like a large part of his very being had just been ripped out of him. Worse, that hole in his side was not closing. What had the preacher done?

He made another slash and scored into the deck. Morgan ran up his arm, looped the glowing strand around the demon's neck, corkscrewed through the air, and planted his feet into the monster's back. Standing on the bases of the wings, he kept them in the way of the choking beast's flailing swords.

"Your flames are just decoration to me," he growled, "And I don't have the time to rip out your other six strands... I'll just choke you o death with this one."

The beast collapsed to the ground, wondering at all the strange images from his past suddenly getting recalled to memory While the preacher pulled and cut off... Something. Whatever it was that the spiritual garrote was cutting off, it was important. The edges of his vision was getting hazy.

"I truly hope you wind up in a better circumstance. It is unfortunate that they sent you to fight me."

"You..." the strangled words came out from the demon's muzzle, "...Want... Know? Orders? Sent?"

"No. I don't care who sent you. They'll send someone who knows what they're doing next time, and it will have to be someone who knows more than you do. Go to sleep. Goodbye."

The demon's eyes closed, the swords melted, and the body faded away, leaving naught but a scorch mark on the deck. The cube of energy that had caged the two in their duel faded as if it had never been and Morgan's sword clattered on the derrick's surface.

"You'll have to tell me about some of those tricks you just pulled," Captain Rachek growled to his cousin, "I hope this situation of yours with that demon won't be repeated often."

"No, it shouldn't repeat, not like that anyway," Morgan replied as he inspected his blade, "I should have a lot more warning next time, and plenty of opportunity to take the conflict away from your facilities. This was just a foot soldier... An exceptional foot soldier, but a foot soldier nonetheless. The next one will likely be a competent assassin of the infernal pits."

"Really, or just another Circle of Thorns moron?"

"Possibly. The Circle does have some monsters of comparable power in their employ."

The Air Guard commander stared at his cousin for a moment. There hadn't really been anything in the younger man's history to make him a meta human... Nothing except the church...

"What happened to you?" Rachek asked, looking at the priest in a new light, "The church turn you into some kind of demon-killing hero?"

"No, the church had nothing to do with my capabilities," Morgan replied as he looked over the cuts and slashes across his black uniform, "They wish they did. It's why I'm excommunicated."

"What?"

"Well, not officially. I've done nothing that really upsets my superiors in the Vatican. However, they don't like the power I have now... They feel that it is some form of affront against them and have convoluted that opinion into being an affront against God. I've had to fend off agents of theirs as well... It's why I was at that mission you sent those heroes to help. They got tired of trying to get rid of me, so they found me a place to stay out of sight. I think they were hoping I'd get eaten by a lion."

"And what's going on now?" Rachek's brows furrowed in consternation, "Why'd this thing come after you?"

"Rumblings through the universe. Battles across Creation. Forces of Light, Darkness, Good and Evil are aligning and conflicting. This was one such incident. Be glad it was so... Simple. It wasn't a Malefactor, for instance. Those things tend to drive people insane."

"I'll bet," the Captain grunted and turned away, "Now, come on. You've got a lot to explain to me, and I don't plan on sitting out here to listen to it. I don't care if you want to wait it out, I want to know what's happening in my world."

Father Morgan grinned at his cousin's retreating back.

"I thought after all you've seen in your life, you'd know that what's happening in this world is anything anyone can dream up."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 08-08-2008 01:59 PM

"Sir?"

Captain Rachek didn't look up from his paperwork. Ever since the stunt Aarons tried to pull with Carter, Vanguard had demanded (though the polite term used was "requested") strict overwatch on the mercenary group. Aarons wanted to show Vanguard was worth the money the U.N. was spending on them. Carter had proven that fancy armor and tricked out weapons didn't stand up against vigilance and preparedness.

"Vigilance," he muttered, "Interesting..."

"Sir?" the Guardsman asked again.

"What is it, Private?"

"Sir, a report from A.G. Zero Two."

Rachek took the folder and dismissed the Guardsman. He thumbed through it before buzzing his intercom for Captain Anderson and Captain Macnamara. In a few short moments, the first man arrived and gave the perfunctory greeting.

"We're the same rank, Gary," Rachek grunted, "Cut the crap."

"Anderson being a dumb-[butt]?" Cpatain MacNamara asked as he walked in and gave his counterpart a light jab to the ribs.

"No more than usual. Sit down, you two."

The captains sat and Rachek explained to them the contents of the folder he'd just received. It turned out that some of their old friends among the Sky Raiders really still were friendly.

"Commander Oldenburg has just informed us that repairs on the Megaburst are almost complete. The Andrew isn't far behind."

"Well, we should send the Nimbus and a squadron of those new jets... The uh... Uh..." Captain Anderson stammered.

"I think Warbird is a fitting name for them," Rachek finished for him, "We'll run it by Engineering, see if they'll finalize it. And no, we can't do that. The liaison has made it abundantly clear that we are not to utilize such 'sensitive' equipment in our own personal vendetta. We do what the U.N. tells us, nothing more."

"Damn it," Anderson slapped his armrest and leaned into his other palm in consternation, "Well, that settles it. Duray and Florio are gonna waltz right over and blast us out of the water."

"Not necessarily," MacNamara replied, "What have you got planned, Tony?"

Rachek leaned back in his chair and sighed. He had a plan, but it was a real long shot.

"Call this number," he said as he handed Captain Anderson a piece fo paper with a phone number on it, "I know it's more than any phone number on earth, but it was e-mailed to me by a guy with certain 'capabilities.' He's also associated with our old friends, the B.W.O. Tell him I want to speak with him and let me know what he says."

Anderson looked skeptically at the paper and shrugged. They were in some hot water now, but it wasn't like their situation could get much worse.

----------

--St. Martial--

Power Breaker emerged from his shower and was toweling off when the call came in. The spikes on his head buzzed and the nanites displayed a message over his eyes indicating the direct transmission. Somebody had called his head phone, not his apartment's phone. It wasn't Scirocco, either. Harris had that number memorized.

"Hello?" he asked when the nanites indicated that he'd picked up, "Who is this?"

"Uh, sir, this is Captain Anderson..."

"Sky Raiders?"

"Uh... No..."

"Oh! The other guys! Oh, cool. What's up?"

"Well... I think we might have a job for you..."

Harris listened to the situation calmly. His nanites ran calculations. By what he'd seen in reports and what he could estimate from Sky Raider engineering capabilities, factored in with their supposed ties to Nemesis, he estimated that they were roughly within two weeks of having both ships operational. If it were to happen, bad things were most certainly in store for the Air Guard.

"Alright," he finally answered Anderson, "Inform your captain I'll come. I just need to procure some surreptitious transportation and I'll be there."

"Thank you," the captain on the other end replied with relief evident in his voice, "I hope you arrive within the week."

"Oh, yeah. The B.W.O. usually gets people where they're going within days. It's not as fast as it used to be, but you get the idea."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 08-15-2008 09:34 PM

"So, yeah," Solo muttered over his beer as Power Breaker smiled at their involvement, "Back Alley Brawler hired us for a job to cart him and a team to tour the Amazon. So, while Ringo, Draven and Matt do that with him, a bunch of us'll be free to help you."

The veteran hero had been glaring at the brute for a while, but shrugged when Breaker smiled and waved at him. He went back to discuss strategy with his team.

As the Guardsmen had explained to the Brute, he was to be deployed at the Sky Raider base run by Captain Oldenburg. While the man wasn't necessarily working for the Air Guard, he didn't want to see his friends get killed if Colonel Duray finished his own sky ships. As things stood, there was an uneasy truce, and he didn't want to see that disappear in a blaze of fire.

As the Captured Dream drew closer to Oldenburg's base, the Brutal Warriors ushered the hero team back into the passenger cabins. Back Alley Brawler stayed on deck, but the Sky Raiders weren't really dumb enough to take a pot shot at a hero like him.

Oldenburg, a tall, fit man with a shiny-shaven head and wide green eyes, greeted them personally with a small entourage of Wing Raiders. Though they were slightly startled by the veteran's presence, there wasn't an incident and the brute was able to bring his specially selected team aboard the station.

It was a derrick, similar to many of the bases that dotted the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. However, it was quite new, having been constructed when the Air Guard formed. Oldenburg explained that they got a short push in equipment because of the schism, but since the Air Guard focused its efforts in patrolling for Rikti, African Aid missions and north Atlantic situations, it seemed Colonel Duray was willing to let the newer bases stagnate until the ships were completed.

"So, yeah, I get a boost out of this, too," he explained to Power Breaker, "You guys bust up one or both of the ships some more, and Duray might decide to send more Skiffs my way. I know it's a bit selfish of me to have that as a tertiary goal, but hey, we gotta be selfish somewhere."

"So you really don't want to see your groups go to war, huh?" Dale Simms asked in between tweaking his armor.

"Right. There are good men involved here, in both groups, and it would be such a shame if we all wound up killing each other over something as stupid as ideological differences... I mean, I remember the teachers trying to tell me conflict over stuff like that was dumb when I was in school... Am I making any sense?"

"Conflict itself is dumb," Breaker concurred, "But people fight. Eventually, everybody gets selfish and just doesn't feel like compromising in any way. Heck, I've got moments like that, too. Thankfully, the incidents always involved pitchers of beer."

The base captain escorted the group to a small submersible. It looked to be a patchwork from a lot of other vessels, especially the kinds favored by Arachnos. Oldenburg explained that every so often, they recovered wrecks and he figured it would be a good project for his engineers to piece one together.

"I don't know how well you can trust the hull," he grimaced, "You can go under the water a little ways, I think a couple hundred feet, but I have no idea what the beast's critical depth is. Frankly, I'd just try to sail into the base under the cover of night, plant charges on the lift pods, and detonate from a distance."

"Sounds easy," Breaker grunted, "Where's the fun in that?"

When the Sky Raiders left them alone, he took stock of his crew. Dale Simms, the Kingdale Referee, had a new-and-improved suit and he'd be providing the crew with shield-like force fields. Project Whirlwind, the guy looked like a popular video game's thunder god, but he was formidable with his command over local weather. Finally, for more of a punch, he had the mercenary, Mark Shadow. Shadow's devices would be a boon and his trigger finger was far from rusty.

"Alright, you guys want to get started or should we wait and have dinner with these guys?"

"I'm ready to go," Dale shrugged.

"We brought lunches with us," Whirlwind nodded.

"Let's get this over with and get the Hell out of here," Shadow muttered as he wiped an oiled rag across his assault rifle, "I hate being out in the ocean with this thing. The salt's always eating at it."

"Just one thing," Power Breaker stopped them, "Do any of you know how to pilot one of these things?"

They all shook their heads and the brute sighed.

"Fine. I'll need a couple minutes to download the instructions from somewhere..."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Little_Cuddles · 08-16-2008 05:23 PM

I like it so far. nice.

Mr_Grey · 08-18-2008 01:56 PM

The trip took longer than Power breaker expected. According to the schematics he'd pulled from the global networks, a vessel of that size should have been able to pull a maximum speed of at least thirty knots due to its smaller size, exceptional power plant (well, for scrap parts it was exceptional) and light cargo load. However, he could only really move the little beast at around twenty-three knots. Apparently there was some kind of drag, so the machine's performance suffered.

The vessel's depth capabilities had a lot to be desired, too. It wasn't that they needed to go very deep, but they only went a few hundred feet down before the submersible's hull started to groan. They didn't know if that was normal, so they would surface a little to avoid any real damage.

Power Breaker used his own personal tracking system to determine their location at all times. It was really handy to know where they were headed and if they were really on course. If there were any engine troubles, he could have Dale Simms, "the Referee," look at it. The armored hero would usually adjust a dial or plug a few numbers into a computer and before long the system's errors would be corrected.

Eventually, they were in sight of the base. Breaker put the ship into a dive so they looked like some rogue whale or dolphin disappearing under the depths at the horizon. He knew most Sky Raider bases didn't have such long-range surveillance, but this was a base designed to build and maintain two sky ships. It was a massive complex, too, as it stretched for a mile, end-to-end.

On each side of the base was a sky ship. The Andrew waited to the south of the base, the Megaburst was to the north. The rogues and heroes had to cripple the repair efforts of both ships before they were done. Both ships were a lot bigger than their submersible, and they were only five moderately powerful meta humans.

"This looks tough," Breaker chuckled as they drew the map out, "But, fortunately, we have those nifty little bombs to-"

He stared, horrified at a corner where nothing was. He could have sworn he'd checked the ship for the charges Oldenburg suggested they use. He wouldn't have left without them, would he?

"Crap, crap, CRAP!" he shouted, "Where are the explosives?"

"I thought you got them," Dale replied, his face wrinkling up with disbelief and worry, "Didn't you?"

"I don't remember... And my idytic memory's all for [dreck] because the nanites in my brain are still busy trying to translate the Malleus Mundi..."

"The Malleus..." Project Whirlwind almost shouted, "Ray... Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah, yeah... Hammer of the World, major mystical artifact... I held the damn thing in my hands once."

"What did you do with it?"

"I gave it to Scirocco. I told him he shouldn't use it, then Daos sent a crew to kick the tar out of him. The book disappeared after that."

"You were with the crew, I take it?" Mark asked.

"No. I like to think of Scirocco as a brother I never had," Breaker sighed, "Or maybe an uncle. In any case, I couldn't go after him like that, and when the events played out, he was beaten and the book was gone again. However, it's not quite gone... Before I gave him the book, I flipped through it. What I didn't realize was that the nanites I mentioned earlier had flash-copied every single page. In an instant, I became a walking Malleus Mundi..."

He tapped his head.

"It's all just locked inside here, and I probably have figured out about the equivalent of a drop in an ocean of what's inside."

"Atlantic or Pacific?" Whirlwind asked with wonder.

"I'd lean more toward the Pacific..."

"So you can't remember if we had bombs or not?" Mark asked, his voice showing signs of exasperation and fatigue.

"No. My normal brain can't remember because I've been so focused on getting us here."

"Okay, so, we're operating without bombs... What do we have?"

"We've got our own capabilities," Dale tapped his chest plate, "I think I know how we can do some damage with the power plant and my sonic assault unit."

"Alright, that's one idea... Weaken the hull, let gravity tear the machine apart," Breaker nodded, "But I'm thinking that all of us personally wrecking the ships, bit-by-bit, is going to take more than a couple hours... In fact, it's gonna take more than a couple days..."

"And in that time," Mark agreed, "the Raiders aren't going to be sitting around, they'll be trying to kill us."

"Look, guys," Breaker explained, "if worse comes to worse, you can escape without me. I'll be able to hold the Raiders off, and we're close enough to the isles that I can be sure my med-porter beacon will get me home. Dale's been working with me to pilot this thing, and I'm sure he's got the instructions saved onto his suit somewhere..."

"It's funny that this sub has keys," Dale chuckled back.

"I say we wait till nightfall, we head in, and we do what damage we can. It'll give the Air Guard at least enough time to make a convincing argument to the U.N. about the threat, and it'll make the Sky Raiders think twice about messing with 'em. What do you guys say?"

"Sounds reasonable," Dale muttered, "Frankly, I'm itching to see what this suit can really do."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 08-19-2008 08:37 PM

Power Breaker personally pushed the submersible the mile and a half to the wet dock. It was a bit of a strain for him, flying slightly above the water as he pushed and Mark Shadow and Project Whirlwind steered. However, they had to keep the power plant at a minimum output so as not to arouse suspicion.

While his compatriots navigated the vessel around the spotlights of the gun turrets, Dale remained below decks, uploading a particular sound frequency into his suit's memory. He'd learned about various frequencies and their resonance, even if they occurred below the human auditory reception. As such, he took something akin to a "dog whistle," and blew into it next to the microphone. The frequency meter registered the noise and he looped it in his player.

They pulled up next to the Megaburst, its starboard bow lift thruster loomed overhead like some impossibly sheer cliff. Dale emerged from the below decks to look over the situation. With a sigh, he plugged the power cord into his suit.

"Ready guys?" he asked.

"Ready," Power breaker cracked his knuckles and took to the sky; he was barely missed by another set of spotlights.

"I hope he doesn't get us killed," Mark grumbled.

"You've lost your humor," Project Whirlwind commented as he checked his artifacts, "I seem to be in proper order. Let's begin."

Dale prssed a button on his wristpad and the submersible's power plant came to life. He adjusted the ring surrounding the hole on his chestplate that served as the muzzle for his acoustic weaponry and nodded. He pressed another button on his wrist and assumed a pose that made it look like he was preparing for a wrestling match.

At first, there was no change. For several minutes, the trio just sat there. Whenever Whirlwind or Shadow made to move, however, Dale stopped them.

"You don't want to get hit by this..."

"By what?" Mark whispered, "You're not doing anything, you just look like you're going to take a dump... Into the sub, no less..."

"Wait for it..."

There was the sound of metal straining, then a metallic "pop" before something splashed into the water. From there, Dale started aiming his weapon around, his targeting system helping him follow the seams.

"Hard part's over," he chuckled, "Now, it'll pop apart like it's being unzipped."

There were the sounds of more rivets plunking into the water. After another couple minutes of this, Dale tapped his helmet and said one word.

"Ready."

Power Breaker, floating above the thruster pod, grinned and cut the energy flow that held him aloft. As he dropped from the sky, he pulled his arms back and balled up his hands into a double hammerfist. When he smashed into the center of teh turbine blades, there was a resounding "gong" sound followed by rent metal.

In the water below, the other members of the little party held on tight as they watched the massive hunk of metal tear away from the body of the Megaburst and plunge into the ocean.

The gun turrets swiveled around to follow the progress of their destroyed charge. Pieces of the thruster were dropping out the bottom of the housing before the whole mess made contact and started to sink below the surface. Before the top lip of the pod dunked under, however, Power Breaker suddenly erupted from the wreckage and took to the sky. The turrets fired upon him, but the bullets were mostly deflected from the brute's body by the energy field that surrounded him. Those that weren't didn't make much progress in harming him, as a secondary field seemed to dampen the impact.

Breaker arced around and shoulder-rammed the north-most turret off its mount. The weapon fell into the ocean and the brute continued to the next, punching it off the side as well. The next he punched across the deck of the Megaburst before the floodlights kicked on and the whole base was in an uproar.

The next turret was smashed off its mount and pushed into the next, and the next, and the next and so on until Power Breaker was pushing a large, burning metal ball. He cheered happily as the wreckage toppled across the bridge and prevented Raiders from coming out of the main facility, but the ones on patrol across the Megaburst still had to be dealt with.

Without further ado, he dove for the hole he helped tear into the side of the ship and into vessel's interior. The exterior he left to his compatriots...

---

As the shouting continued, Dale's friends leaped and flew to the deck, leaving Dale to float along, popping rivets from the hull. They landed in the middle of a ring of Sky Raiders and commenced to attack.

Mark Deployed a shield generator and Whirlwind raised a mystical fog. In the fog, the corrupter-class rogue deployed a mortar and a small spherical orb in case things got hairy. The magician tapped the gem inside his robe to summon a small tornado that wrapped around him and would hold any attackers back, but not Mark and his gadgets.

"Time to be distracting," Mark grunted once they were set.

He drew a pair of small, disc-like objects and threw them at the first group of Raiders that took an interest in their setup and the resulting flash blinded most of the nearby bandits. From there, Mark drew his assault rifle and started firing into the ranks. Whirlwind joined the attack with lightning in the opposite direction.

The Raiders weren't standing idly by, though. However, their attacks, which were largely bullets, met with severe resistance in the combined efforts of the shield generator and the mist. What bullets got through the shield hit the steam and were slowed enough to dampen the effect severely.

"Why'd these guys load their guns with BBs?" Mark chuckled as another of his targets disappeared to wherever Raiders were teleported when they went into shock or flatlined, "Don't they know to bring real bullets to a gun fight?"

"Mind your Karma, Mark," Whirlwind gasped as a pair of Raiders, machetes drawn, were thrown back by the swirling air around them, "There are a lot more of them than us..."

"Karma? When'd you start believing in Karma, Mike?"

"When we started getting involved in crap like this..."

---

Across the deck, a figure watched the battle. He couldn't believe this night had gone so badly. It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out operation. he would find out how far along the Raiders were on their repairs and report back.

"States is gonna blame me for this," he muttered, "In fact..."

He found a safe place where he was certain he wouldn't be found and keyed on his communicator. He knew his boss would still be awake, it was his night to be on watch.

"States... Yeah, it's me. Did you send a crew of idiots to interfere with this?"

"Justin, what are you talking about?"

"There are these guys, and they're shooting up the place, they're throwing lightning... The Raiders are going to pull out all sorts of legal mumbo-jumbo over this, you know?"

"That's precisely why I didn't want you to blow anything up... Justing... What happened?"

"So far? Not much..."

---

Inside, Power Breaker was slamming Raiders into rafters and girders. He was in the steerage and he was doing what he could to make things more difficult for the engineers down the road. Whenever he ran across a large group, he just engaged the lightning Scirocco taught him to utilize and would electrocute the whole mess of morons. Whenever he felt tired, he would press into another large mass and siphon the energy out of the soldiers who wound up inside the blue sphere his body emitted.

They couldn't stop him. He was like a force of nature. This was why he was so surprised when something finally did.

There was a sound like a thousand attack dogs barking and Breaker was thrown over the rail of the maintenance walkway. It felt like a nest of bees had stung his arm, hips and head. He knew that was the dampening effect he relied on stopping bullets, but it was a heavy caliber!

As he recovered on a catwalk below the first walkway, he looked up to see Captain Florio standing before him, a large machine gun held deftly in his hands.

"You think I'm going to let you wreck my ship? You think I'm going to let you embarrass me like that? Brute, I am Captain Florio! I am the captain of the Megaburst! I had to fight and claw my way to this position..."

There was an electric sound as the darkened steerage section was suddenly lit up, and a large number of Sky Raiders were revealed on neighboring walkways, leveling high-powered rifles at the rogue.

"Heh..." he chuckled, "I was thinking it was getting too easy."

"Fire!" Florio shouted as he squeezed the trigger of his machinegun and the sound of thousands of attack dogs barking was accompanied by the high-toned whistle of the rifle rounds.

When the smoke cleared, however, Power Breaker still stood there. His eyes continued to glow a dark purple and his face was stretched back with a wide grin.

"It's kind of hard to hurt me when my shields are overloading," he said quietly as the raiders reloaded, "Now... It's my turn."

With that, he charged Florio. He felt his muscles bulge a little as excess power was pumped into them and he pulled his arms back. Florio had slid the next box of ammunition into his M240-G machinegun when Breaker crashed into him, bringing his glowing fists smashing against the captain's upper arms. The man screamed, but Breaker wasn't finished with that. He pressed his palm against Florio's chest and released a bolt of red lightning.

What he didn't expect was the current traveling along the belts of ammunition draped across Florio's torso would ignite the primers of each bullet and cause them to fire erratically.

The captain stood there, screaming loudly as the ammunition exploded from his body, the rounds spanging off Breaker's shields and smashing into his fellow Raiders. As the last of the bullets fired, Florio collapsed to his knees and leaned back. A trail of smoke curled from his lips. He had so many things he wanted to say, but no words would form.

"Wow, that's definitely the definition of friendly fire," the brute grunted, "Now..."

Flrio tried to scream as Breaker hopped into the air and brought his fists crashing down on his shoulders. Finally, his body went into shock and his emergency medical teleporter made him disappear in a flash of red energy, but not before the brute got one more hit across the man's jaw that caused the energy field to break apart as the head of it struck the railing.

Still, there was no body that remained.

"Damn," Power Breaker muttered to himself, "Well, I've got a few minutes left... I may as well go wreck the power core..."

-----

They had been fighting for a solid twenty minutes. The waves of Sky Raiders never seemed to end. Mark was running out of bullets, even though he could snag magazines from the Raiders in a pinch. His Triage Beacon was running out of juice and Whirlwind was sweating something fierce. Something had to happen and quick.

Suddenly, there was a loud rending sound and the deck shuddered. Everyone, the two adventurers and the Raiders, collectively stumbled to the ground. Mark took advantage of the new, more stabilized, position and shot a lieutenant in the knee.

This prompted the Raiders to push themselves up even faster and start rushing the two. Many drew their machetes, but even more just decided to use their assault rifles. Despite the shield and the mystical fog, the two young men were about to face a very painful end.

At least, they would have, if Mark's poison gas bomb hadn't gone off. The Raiders backed away choking, and Shadow reached out and snagged some more magazines.

"Holy crap, man," Whirlwind muttered as he filtered the air he breathed in with a small incantation a wizard had taught him, "Next time, warn me!"

"That gave us a reprieve," Mark chuckled, "But we need to get out of here!"

There was a metallic "thunk" as something large and heavy landed between the two adventurers. They looked back to each other to view the newcomer as the gasses cleared to find their errant companion, the Kingdale Referee, standing there, facing the thickest of the mob of Sky Raiders.

"Well, this is quite a pickle," he muttered, "So, are we ready to go?"

"I guess we have to..." Mark hoisted his depleted triage beacon onto his shoulder and prepared to jump.

"Hang on," Dale held him fast, "We gotta wait for the sub to be in position..."

"What?" Whirlwind growled, "How is that possible?"

"You'll see," Dale replied, "For now... We've got a grand send-off to accomplish... Whirly, get your most powerful spell ready. Mark, get another bomb ready..."

"All I've got left are these," the mercenary held up another set of disc-like objects, "They'll make a lot of noise and stun a couple of 'em, but that's pretty much it."

"It'll have to do," the Referee keyed a switch on his suit and another shield combined its power with the one emitted by the drone, "Get ready, here they come..."

The Raiders charged, now all of them holding machetes at the ready. Some even flew in their Raptor Packs and had both their machetes and their rifles at the ready.

They drew close enough, and Mark threw the Seekers. Whirlwind erupted in an orb of electricity. It wasn't as powerful as the one that he'd used against the Lusca a year before, but it was decent. However, the most devastating effect was Dale's shield. When enough Raiders crossed the threshold of the shields, he showed them why it was a bad idea to do such a thing.

Without a word, he flicked another switch and the shields switched frequency. Now, they weren't just deflecting bullets and blades, they were pushing the enemies back. With as close as the Raiders had come, they found themselves thrown, screaming, overboard and into the night.

----------

"You seeing this?" Manticore asked as he watched a Wing Raider's Raptor Pack lose a wing and a rocket as it clipped a scaffolding, "If you didn't plan this, who did?"

"Well, it certainly isn't in the Freedom Corps files," Statesman replied over the intercom, "Citadel just ran a third check, and there's nothing on it. There were some concerns about the Sky Ships, but they had too much on their plates to deal with it right now... Hence my sending you there to scope it out and see what we had to... Look forward to..."

"Well, it looks like we'll only have to deal with one... I better go introduce myself..."

"Why?"

"Because I need a ride out of here. Those guys they pitched over the side probably found my stealth outboard."

Despite the protests of his patriot-themed boss, Manticore shut off his communicator and approached the rogues. Sure, they'd botched a delicate operation, but who was he to judge? They'd just saved the heroes of Paragon a lot of effort, even if they would have done better just quietly planting explosives and not-so-quietly blasting the damn vessels from afar.

At least fighting one flying warship was better than fighting two.

"Ahoy there," he said as he shut down his stealth unit, "That was some fancy work there!"

The one with the assault rifle and the gizmos whirled around and leveled his weapon at the scarlet-clad hero. Manticore had his bow at the ready and an arrow nocked, but it wasn't drawn back.

"Relax, guys, I'm not here to arrest you. In fact, I'd mention that you ruined my surveillance, but you did such good work, I'd rather we all just get the Hell out of here and dispense with pleasantries later. I trust you all know who I am?"

"No," Power Breaker rasped haggardly as he landed behind Paragon City's most accomplished archer, "You should enlighten us... Say something witty."

Justin Sinclair turned around to the Brute and recognized him as one of Vanguard's more successful agents. He'd been so successful, in fact, that a lot of his crimes against Paragon City had been pardoned. Of course, what crimes Power Breaker had done were negligible, anyway.

"Well, my fellow," Manticore rubbed the feather of the arrow and the broadhead point started to glow, "This here is a fire arrow. Now, I know your type, the energy field brute, the kind with protection similar to what that armored fellow can dish out, but with a little more resilience. Now, I happen to know you guys have a particular dislike for elemental effects... Fire, Ice, Energy... While you have a field to deflect such attacks, you lack any real resistance to it... Now... That's a formidable shield, don't get me wrong..."

The hero started tracing a swirling pattern across Power Breaker's chest.

"...But I'm a pretty good shot, and I can really make you get a nasty burn."

The brute smiled and a throaty chuckle issued through his clenched teeth.

"Alright, I believe you. It's not your fancy speech, mind you. It's that you don't smell like oil. Instead, you smell like some sort of cheap cologne..." he paused to make a "tsk-tsk" noise, "I always figured the woman you married had better taste."

"Hey, it drives her wild," Manticore deactivated his arrow and slid it back into his quiver, "I see more action than you do, anyway."

"Hey, the meat doctors love the spikes."

"Guys, I appreciate that we're all bonding and everything," Mark interrupted, "But we should get going! They've got the Skiffs headed this way!"

As the searchlights of the Sky Skiffs reached the deck of the Megaburst, the group was gone. The submersible was right where Dale said it would be, and the power plant was running.

"Holy crap!" Breaker grunted, "Dude, you've left it running all this time?"

"Who built this thing?" Manticore asked suddenly.

"Sky Raiders," Mark replied, "And they gave it to us. It's... It's a bit of a complex story."

"I guess so," Justin arched an eyebrow at the rogue, then looked past him, "So, who's this guy?"

"Solo Stryker," Daren Simms emerged from the shadows and extended his hand to shake the hero's, "Stalker-class, though I like to think of myself more as a 'scout.'"

"Where the Hell did he come from?" Breaker shouted as he pushed the sub into a dive, "Wait, that makes some of the drag make sense..."

"I told you, a bunch of us would be free to help. I just didn't mention that I'd be shadowing you."

"What did you do?" Manticore asked as he tried to find a comfortable place to sit inside the cramped craft.

"I set the explosives on the other ship," the stalker replied, "I wanted to make sure the damn thing would split like a banana, so I packed it with bombs while these guys were keeping the Raiders busy on the other ship."

"So there were bombs!"

"Yeah, man. I expected to have to explain myself once you noticed, but, hey, you took care of th-"

There was a dull boom and the sub shuddered a little. The men looked at each other and Power Breaker surfaced the vessel. They couldn't pop the top hatch fast enough, and they saw that Solo Striker had indeed been very effective.

"Holy..." Dale breathed before being pushed out of the way.

"Oh man," Daren whispered, I didn't expect to take out half of the base..."

The wet dock was indeed half-destroyed. Portions of the main facility were hanging over the water, but it seemed most of the south end had sunk below the depths. It was now just a half-mile long base, and fire smoldered where the wreckage of the Andrew slowly drifted down.

"I hope I didn't kill anyone..." Daren mumbled somberly, "I hope they got zapped out of there..."

"It'll be alright, man," Breaker patted his shoulder, "Tell him, Dale."

"That was [freaking] crazy, Daren..."

"Thanks, Dale," Solo sighed, "You really aren't helping me."

"Let's get out of here," Manticore suggested, "In a short while, they'll be sending Skiffs further out to find us."

"Alright," Breaker nodded and started pushing his friends toward the hatch, "Let's go, boys."

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 09-09-2008 03:51 PM

--The Opposing Side--

It had been a little over a month, but the medics in the Sharkhead base called Colonel Duray in to inspect the work they had completed on Captain Florio. After sustaining such intense injuries, the man was never going to be the same. In fact, it was even a miracle that the man had survived the destruction of the wet docks.

"Well sir, we finally got him fully rehabilitated," the doctor intoned, "but... Well... He's not going to like how we patched him up."

Duray smirked and pulled back the curtain to see the captain lying on the bed, his eyes wide with shock and rage. His collar and shoulders weren't just fixed, as the doctor said, but they had been replaced with cybernetic implants. The medical personnel and mechanics had even gone so far as to replace Florio's arms with combat prosthetics.

"Fantastic," the colonel lauded, "You've done well, doc."

"Not by my reckoning!" Florio barked, "Look at me! I'm a freak!"

"Indeed. You look just like all of those meta humans we have to deal with on a daily basis. Consider this your penance for your failure."

The captain looked at his colonel, his anger and shock giving way to confusion. Duray simply extended his fist, and opened it, making a small sound with his exhaled breath that was similar to an explosion.

"You let the security at the wet docks grow lax. You were working exclusively on the repair of your ship, and because you neglected to remove the reactive portions of the fusion core from the Megaburst, both ships and the wet docks were lost."

"There's still enough to repair the Andrew," Florio coughed, "We just... We just..."

"Both ships were lost, Friendly Fire," Duray growled, "One damaged beyond repair, the other reduced to slag we're still dredging up from the ocean floor. We had to get in touch with the friends of our old Lockheart friends to help do that... You'd be amazed how well Warhulks can function underwater."

"But... What will we do?"

"We're going to build a new ship," Duray muttered, "But this time, our not-so-silent partner has decided he wants to be more involved."

Florio's eyes widened again and he rolled his head around in despair. It wasn't such a major secret anymore that the Nemesis Army had much to do with the Sky Raiders' break from the U.S. government, though the Raiders liked to think that they'd made their own improvements since Nemesis supplied them with the unusual technology they utilized in their Skiffs and shield generators.

Indeed, the Sky Ships themselves, experimental as they were, were a crowning achievement for the Raiders. They had built the immense vessels themselves, had tested them, had sent them against their enemies. They were all set to turn their might against West Libertalia when that foolish ambassador involved General Aarons and the U.S. government.

Considering what the Sky Raiders were able to develop in secret and what Duray knew about what the U.S. military had developed so far, he was far from eager for a conflict. At least, not until the full might of the vessels had been tested properly, and they currently had the major flaw of being able to be boarded, especially by super-powered beings, and then the battle was up to the Raiders themselves.

Now, Nemesis wanted in on the project. It was as Duray had warned Florio and Castillo about, that eventually the debts the Sky Raiders had incurred with the Brass King would be called, and he wanted that which was most precious to them.

"Rachek's bitten off more than he can chew, now," the purple-clad colonel growled, "He's involved powers he cannot possibly comprehend, and he's going to reap it."

"Sir," Captain Florio pushed himself out of his hospital bed, "Whatever I can do to redeem myself in your eyes and to the Sky Raiders, I will do it!"

The colonel turned to the doctors and the forms they were showing him and nodded. He had much in mind for his new super-freak to do, and he was glad the man was in fighting spirit.

"I bet you will, Captain. I bet you will."

----------

--Air Guard: AG-03--

"You said you've got something for me?" Rachek asked the engineers.

"Yes sir," Corporal Walters, a new member to the Engineering Corps (and cleared by Captain Carter), was shuffling papers and addressing some of the monitors that Rachek, for all his training, had only faintest grasp of the information displayed, "Well, we may have finally found a way around the shielding conundrum we've been running across. Whenever we tried to project a protective field around the Thunder Nimbus, we ran into an energy drain so severe, it would risk shorting out the ship and plummet the vessel to the deck..."

He used the word "deck," just as the American Marines and Navy use it for "floor," but in this case, it was meant to mean everything from the surface of the ocean to landmasses like islands, shorelines, even urban centers. Walters turned Rachek's attention to a chart showing a portable shield generator much like the ones deployed by the Raider Engineers.

"Now, we got to working with a young man, I believe you know of him, Dale Simms, a defender-class hero who specializes in Force Field technology. At first, we thought he was some kind of super genius, but it turned out that he had very little working knowledge when it came to developing new technologies. He referred to himself as a 'tinker,' a sort of innovator that takes devices and makes them do things they're not supposed to do..."

"As I understand it, the definitions are still up to debate," another engineer, Sergeant Rich, commented, "By that frame of mind, any Engineer is a tinker."

"Yes, but we have goals and purpose to our work," Walters countered, "Simms stumbled upon some old junk of another inventor and got it working... He then messed around with it to get it to do more than just make a bubble of energy. If I understand correctly, his current devices are the same stuff that old machine was, and his work has been entirely trial-and-error, where we have plans and blueprints and-"

"Will you get on with it?" Rachek growled impatiently, "I do have other concerns, and honestly, all this nerd-crap bores the Hell out of me."

"Sorry, sir," the corporal seemed a little glum, but perked right up as he found his place in the presentation, "Ah, yes! The shields... With a little work, we can shield the Thunder Nimbus!"

"I gathered that. How?"

"With our versions of the Force Field Generators..."

Walters produced a roughly basketball-sized device from under a tarp and presented it to the Captain. It looked similar to the planet-destroying space station out of that popular movie, Stellar Conflict; it even had little depressions where the green laser would have fired from, only a lot more of them and they were pretty evenly distributed, allowing for six depressions, three on the on the northern and southern hemispheres, on the device. Without saying anything, he let the machine go and it hovered in place and emitted an eerie green light from the "dips" that condensed into a protective field just like the Sky Raider version did.

"You guys finally built these, huh?"

"Not only that, sir, they have no steam-tech, nor do they suffer the limitations of our counterparts' generators... Watch!"

Sergeant Rich picked up a rock and threw it at the generator. Suddenly, the machine turned and a rad beam fired from the center of one of the depressions, destroying the rock.

"We'd initially tried to come up with a point-defense," the other engineer explained, "You know, to deflect missiles, but the tracking system is rather rugged. It can actually attack the source of the attacks, to-AUGH!"

The shield generator demonstrated the sergeant's point by firing at him. They weren't terribly powerful bursts, but the shot did leave Rich's arm singed.

"Alright, that's enough, Bob," Walters intoned as he picked up a remote control and shut down the weapons system, "Now, sir, the shield we have here is just as powerful as the ones the Sky Raiders have. Now, what Mr. Simms helped us with is a concept of deployment... He explained that we can dot these along the surface of the Thunder Nimbus and we'll have an effective-enough shield system. He said they were considering trying the same thing on their old warship until they found that their fusion core could handle shielding it without running into the power problems we run into."

"Intriguing," Rachek growled, "However, I still feel we're missing something if we don't have a ship-based shield system instead of this 'independent' system. But this might be a step in the right direction. Work on implementing this, but I want some brainstorming done on how we can come up with something that can be fielded by the Nimbus and repaired onboard. Last thing we need is the enemy finding our Achilles Heel to be whatever you set up to house these buggers and focusing their efforts at destroying them. For now, this might just give us an edge when dealing with the Rikti bombing runs, so get to work with Captains Daniels and Macnamara on setting it up."

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Rich barked as he made a casual salute to the captain and Corporal Walters nodded.

With a gentle shake of his head, Rachek went on to his other meetings. He had to see how the armored suits were coming along and what other hold-ups were keeping the Warbirds out of production.

He wished they could have done something with Oldenburg's submersible, but they had to hand it over to the BWO (or whatever they were, now, it was hard to tell with most of their bases destroyed or abandoned) and let that group work with it. It just wouldn't do to have the evidence on hand that indicated that they were involved in the destruction of the other two Sky Ships, nor would Oldenburg want to have the evidence with him, either.

Still, things were looking up for the Air Guard, and that was always good news. Captain Rachek allowed himself a smile as he considered the future of his organization.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 10-26-2008 01:59 AM

--Many Weeks Later ((Cripes, I need to keep at this one more...))--

Captain Richter sighed as the vessel came within sight of Peregrine Island. Keeping a wide berth of the "zone barrier" he had the helmsman hold the ship at a hover so as to observe the battle. The Rikti were bombing the city again, they seemed to do so every so often between the Rogue Isles and Paragon City. It was as if they were probing the world's greatest "meta powers" for their strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, they'd attacked other cities and dealt with the heavy artillery there, Europe's nations had proven quite capable at replenishing their military stockpiles and sent a few bombing runs hurtling into the ocean. However, heavy artillery wasn't allowed in most of the American cities, nor was it readily available or easily transported through the Etoiles.

Perhaps that was why the Air Guard was trying to build these ships. The Cyclone was one of the first prototypical "hover ships" designed by the Guard's engineers in conjunction with their other projects, such as the Exo Suits and the "Shields" system. This just happened to be one of the ones they actually got flying.

It utilized a largely aluminum hull, as well as ceramics and carbon fiber to reinforce the structure. The ship itself looked something like a bird's head, with a set of four thrusters arranged symmetrically around the ventral portion of the wider "base" of the ship. These helped keep the vessel aloft, and were some of the hardest things for the engineers to design.

However, the weaponry wasn't so difficult. For the Cyclone, most of the weaponry was based on the fusion core that kept the machine powered in the first place. With careful channeling, the weapons were able to utilize excess burnoff from the generator and direct powerful bursts of radiation into the crew's targets. However, the weapons often had to recharge, making them work surprisingly a lot like hero powers. Fortunately, there were a lot of weapons.

"It seems the attack is winding down, sir," the helmsman announced, pulling Captain Richter out of his reverie, "Shall we commence with an intercept course?"

"Do we have clearance?" the captain asked.

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Reed replied while showing him the display on her communicator, "The U.N. just sent us the go ahead."

Captain Richter took a deep breath. He wasn't certain how this was going to go. It was different when the Nimbus went on these attacks. It was mostly a foregone conclusion that a Rikti ship was going to be destroyed. With this experimental vessel, however, anything could happen.

"Try to cut off just one of their ships," Richter finally ordered, "You know, like the heroes did to us when we were Sky Raiders..."

Reed arched an eyebrow at him. She was never a Sky Raider, having joined the Air Guard after its inception after she'd completed her contract with the British Army, and it always gave her a little shock when a former Raider mentioned his prior affiliation. Still, it didn't change her behavior when they happened to be her superiors; she was still a professional.

The helmsman brought the ship around as the portals started appearing in the sky. In the distance, they could see the Rikti ships being harried by Statesman, Citadel, and they seemed to be getting assisted by a number of other flying heroes. While the two Phalanxers weren't suffering too much for their troubles (what with Statesman almost beating the ship he was following into the ocean and Citadel decimating his ship's weapons systems), the other heroes were definitely struggling to stay in the fight.

Fortunately, the heroes did manage to separate one of the ships from the rest of the group. Richter had his helmsman maneuver the Cyclone to the errant vessel's exit portal.

"Main gun, prepare to fire on my mark," Richter ordered to the gunner, "Target the portal."

As the Rikti ship drew closer to its exit, the heroes fell back. They couldn't possibly stop the vessel from escaping and they were getting tired of getting shot at. They maintained the vain hope that this would be the last time they would have to face the Rikti bombers, but they knew that just wasn't the case. The Lineage of War maintained a strong grip on their world, and Hro'Dtohz would keep sending his forces to Earth to batter the two cities that held the greatest threat to the next incursion.

Suddenly, there was a flash of bright yellow-green light, and the portal was gone. The Rikti ship slowed momentarily as its crew tried to determine what had just happened, and the Air Guard Hover Ship struck.

Four pods on the sides of the ship suddenly fired. Four thin beams of condensed radioactive energy streaked across the sky and laced into the Rikti ship's hull. They scored a few lines into the armor, but did little actual damage. This prompted the Rikti ship to start advancing on the Air Guard ship, its weapons already charging up for the first shot.

Citadel and Statesman ushered the other heroes back to Peregrine Island, but stayed hovering in the air to watch the battle. They hated to admit it, but it was often entertaining to watch these ships do battle.

"Statesman," Citadel pointed, "That's not the Thunder Nimbus."

"I know, Citadel," Paragon's champion replied, "If it were, I would have gone back with the others... I've seen that vessel in action enough times to know it would be able to handle this. I want to see how this new one fares."

"I really wish they'd give us a heads-up," the android continued, "We could be doing so much more for the world if we were all working together. Heroes, the military, Freedom Corps, Hero Corps, the police..."

"The whole world could be doing more if it worked together," Statesman sighed, "But we only seem to unite if there's a common enemy. We all have to be willing to fight something else, not build something new."

"Perhaps that's the true curse of Babel."

Statesman looked askance at the android, but didn't say anything. It was eerie getting into philosophical debates with an android.

The Rikti ship closed with the Cyclone, and the Air Guard ship fired upon it with more radiation attacks. Green orbs hurtled through the sky from launch tubes, crashing into the hull of the attacking vessel. The armor glowed visibly for a moment, but the ship pressed on.

When the Rikti came close enough to attack, they did. Twin beams fired from the prongs on the sides of the ship and crashed into a field surrounding the Cyclone.

On the deck of the Air Guard vessel, after the rocking and shaking subsided, there was a great cheer. The shield had held. Captain Richter ordered the gunner to fire the starboard missile array and the lieutenant complied rapidly.

A burst of Rikti Steel-laminated explosives launched out at the dropship. They slammed into the marauder vessel and exploding, leaving a number of gaping holes when the smoke cleared. Having made their pass, the ships started coming back around for another round.

"They're built to wage war with the ground," Richter smirked, "We're built to-"

Another twin-beam blast rocked the Cyclone and the captain cursed. He asked for a status report, and winced at the news.

Their aft force field generator had overloaded and detonated. It hadn't caused irreparable damage but they weren't protected back there anymore.

"Ensign, get this ship turned around!" Richter shouted at the helmsman, "Move us before they blast us out of the sky!"

The crew suddenly suffered a lurching sensation as the helmsman pushed the throttle. Most of the rest of the crew throughout the ship was suffering much the same thing, but the engineers were accommodating the deck crew as best they could because they knew their lives depended on it. As a result, the Cyclone spun about like its namesake and took another blast across its port, bow and starboard shields. Fortunately, none of them overloaded like the aft ones.

After the last blast, the helmsman swung the ship back around until the two vessels were squaring off again. The Rikti Ship seemed angled with its port section facing them more and it was trying to make another pass so it could get at their rear again. Knowing they wouldn't survive a hit, Captain Richter wracked his brain for options.

"Main gun's recharged, sir," the gunner announced.

"Fire!" the captain had gotten half out before the gunner pressed the button.

The underside of the Cyclone's nose started to glow brightly. Before the Rikti bomber could get out of the way, a volley of condensed protons were launched, three bursts in quick succession. The large spheres tore into the ship's hull and ripped its irradiated and weakened armor apart. A moment later, the ship exploded, scattering its pieces into the ocean surface.

The crew cheered, despite Rachek pointing to the gunner with a silent reprimand about acting before being ordered. Still, the importance of the battle wasn't lost. They could contend with Rikti technology.

"Now we just need to figure out how to make it cost effective," Reed breathed a sigh of relief, "Shall we start reporting back to A.G. Zero Three?"

"Yeah... Yeah..." Richter was just as breathless as his lieutenant as he sat down, "Just let me-AUGH!"

The enlarged face of Statesman was on the viewscreen. He was tapping the camera that enabled the crew to know what they were doing without actually being exposed to the world. While they did have a "wind screen" it was currently shielded behind a thick aluminum and carbon fiber shield.

"Permission to come aboard?" the hero asked.

"Uh..." the captain looked to the rest of the crew, but they were just as shocked as he was, "Okay... Um..."

He shrugged to Lieutenant Reed. He had no idea how to go about this, and neither did she. They'd never expected to meet a hero of any renown, much less Statesman, himself. Despite the honor involved, there was no protocol.

"I guess... I guess I'm giving you the bridge for the... the... 'time being?'," Richter finally decided, shrugging to Lieutenant Reed in confusion, "I'll go and let him in through the port hatch..."

"I think that works, sir," Reed replied, "Good luck."

----------

The port hatch opened and Citadel called Statesman over. The two heroes hovered next to the opening and looked perplexedly at the Guardsmen staring starstruck at them. To think, just a year ago, most of these men would have shot them on sight.

"Permission to come aboard?" Statesman asked again.

"Granted," said a Guardsman with captain's bars on, "Captain Michael Richter, at your service."

Statesman looked oddly at the young man, but said nothing. There was no way the captain of the vessel could be related to his foe, nor could he even know what Lord Recluse's real name was. It was just one of those odd coincidences of naming conventions, and it just so happened to take him by surprise this time.

((And no, Captain Richter is not named after Recluse. He's not intended to be related in any way, either. Again, he's named after somebody I knew in the Marines.))

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Mr_Grey · 11-21-2008 11:59 AM

--Months Later: West Libertalia--

Sergeant Johnston glared at the burned-out hole that used to be a bandit layer. Once again, they were helping the West Libertalians with their plights. As a beacon of democracy in the Third World, the U.N. was treating the small nation as a very favored child.

Captain Carter was already mining for information as to who had sent these particular thugs. It could have been anybody for any number of reasons. It could also have boiled down to the bandits being worried about the harsher penalties in the neighboring nations.

If theyd known theyd meet a firefight like this, they probably would have stayed wherever they came from, or quit.

Sergeant, the captain called from the hole, Im not gonna knock ya for clearing this den, but next time Id go with something less explosive.

We dont have tear gas, sir, Johnston replied, And flashbangs wont even begin to cut it.

Alright, well make do with the grenades then, Carter sighed, Youre doing good work out here. No need to look so nervous.

The sergeant nodded and went to check on his fire teams. Carter, however, pulled up the pieces of some maps and tried to puzzle them out. They were of the local area, to be sure, but that last fragmentation grenade had shredded just about everything in the den and killed anybody who could have told him what was going on. Still, from what he could see, things didnt seem to be shaping up too well.

It looks like the different bands planned out which regions they were going to hit beforehand, he muttered as he noted the different colored markings, This red one is where we are now Theres Red Sands Blue and green Havent heard about these areas getting hit yet Maybe this was a timetable

Sir!

He looked up from his musings to his agent, Special Corporal Houston. Rachek had chafed at the rank Carter had given his agents, but he allowed it because only four men throughout the Air Guard would receive the rank (unless things were worse than Carter already noted). The four young men had proven quite capable in matters of internal security. The one thing Carter wasnt able to fix was Jamiesons squeamishness to body disposal, but the others, especially Austin, more than made up for the loss in effort. Still, Carter recognized that the big man would do what was necessary when he absolutely needed to, so he didnt sweat the issue.

What have you got for me? he asked his second.

Weve got a working radio.

Are they talking?

Not right now, sir, but we caught a few phrases earlier

Houston repeated what he could remember. Carter recognized it as a severely broken Swahili mixed with some French and Portuguese. There was definitely an outside element involved, but he couldnt begin to be clear on what it was. The phrases themselves were gibberish, but it sounded like whoever it was had attempted to make contact with the bandits theyd just wiped out. They would probably try to contact them again, but it was exceedingly doubtful.

Alright, pack up everything and move. We have to get this stuff to our camp in Red Sands and hope we can figure out these fragments of map before its too late. Johnston!

The sergeant turned to the Captain and raised his head as a show that he was paying attention.

Form up and lets move! Were done here, unless youve got something else for me!

All clear! the dark-skinned man replied, You heard him, Corporals! Gather your fire teams and equipment and lets move out!

----------

Red Sands had proven to be a very gracious town to the Air Guard. After their previous work defending the village, the denizens were more than willing to let the group set up a base camp within their walls. The community itself had fortified with the materials from the destroyed camps and was now a powerful junk town that served as a hub for local trade. A few neighboring warlords eyed the community greedily, but now that it was not only watched over by the Libertalian government but was also a point of interest for the Air Guard and the United Nations, they steered well clear of it.

At least, they did. Carter didnt like what he figured hed puzzled out already. So far, it looked like somebody was orchestrating the regional bandits to make a concerted assault on the community. What would result would be a pitched battle, which would normally draw forces away from somewhere if the West Libertalian government was the only force involved out here.

At this point, his paranoia was going into overdrive, however. If they only expected the West Libertalians, then it had to be a local threat Possibly someone from East Libertalia. The neighboring nation was hardly stable, and any one of the warlords there was cunning enough to come up with a plan like this to raid the Wests military stores. However, if it were local, they would still expect Red Sands to call the Air Guard when things started to look fishy.

So it begged the question: Why would somebody want the Air Guard to come out here? If that was the aim, who would do it and what did they intend to accomplish? It couldnt be the Sky Raiders, they were still reeling from the loss of their Sky Ships and Nemesis was bearing down on them hard. However, Nemesis still had the resources to pull something like this. Still, Carter figured the Brass King had such a flair for the dramatic, hed wait until he had his own airship to blast the Thunder Nimbus out of the sky.

He considered the Malta Group or the Council. West Libertalia did have wealthy diamond reserves, and both groups could make great use of them. Still, the Council was never one to be this underhanded, preferring to work their own espionage so as to avoid mistakes or treacherous third parties. The Malta Group would simply send in their agents to assassinate key shareholders to replace with their own.

Ill have to wait until I have more information, he muttered as their seven-ton truck pulled into the village and stopped in front of their command tent, For now, Ill just shuffle these fragments into the cartography sensor and see what I can come up with.

He caught Sergeant Johnston and told him to make sure his men got all the rest they could. He didnt know when theyd be heading out, and it would probably be very soon. The sergeant nodded his agreement and instructed his men to fall out to the hotel once theyd checked their weapons to the armory tent.

The armory tent was a tent in name only. It was actually a titanium alloy bunker with Kevlar padding inside for shock absorption. Inside were several Kevlar-plated containers that held the weaponry they used from mission to mission. Staff Sergeant Hunter was a ruthlessly efficient armorer, and he ran a tight crew. When the Guardsmen had to fight, their weapons would work if Hunter had anything to do with it.

Some of the Guardsmen were still stoked from the fighting, so when Hunter informed them they had to clean their weapons before returning them, they took the opportunity to calm their nerves. Sergeant Johnston tried to remind the armorer that his troops needed rest, but the Staff Sergeant was quick to remind him and the other troops that theyd get just as much rest completing this relatively minor chore. In any case, he and his team wouldnt be able to clean all of their weapons for them, so they would be better off doing the work themselves.

Many hands make light work, as the saying went.

Carter, however, made his way to the Intelligence tent. He had to determine what the map fragments he held had to do with the local area. He delivered it to the Cartographers and they informed him that they would have something within the hour. He hoped it wouldnt be too late by then.

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.