Insipient Universe
Chapter 1:
0820 hours, January 28, 2156
HX-118 "Neruma", Marine Special Operations Battalion (MSOB), Team Code Name: Scorpion, Blue squad
The titanium cage of the airbourne reentry vehicle (ARV) rattled as four small pods hit the inner atmosphere and raced towards the ground. "Cage" was a misnomer. The ARV was passive which means it had no thrusters or controls at all. It was meant to be dropped from orbit or high altitudes and deliver its prescious troop cargo safely to the ground. The only problem was, it wasen't that safe. AA fire, parachute deployment malfunction and not to mention that even a small breach could cost the person inside their lives. In fact, if one looked at the ARV in its entirety they began to see a striking resemblance to a coffin. No one knew if this design was intentional as a psych out for any enemies seeing a bunch of coffins from space or if it was accidental. Airborne had an inside joke that the reason it was shaped like a coffin was just in case you died in reentry, then they wouldn't have to waste money on a proper casket for you. Indeed, the thing was a death trap. The coffin shaped trinium entry cage was resistant to heat and small arms, however an ARV that was immune to anti air fire was far off in research and development land, not to mention it would probabally by economically unviable. If the ARV survived reentry radar absorbing chemicals worked to reduce anti air fire and, at a preset altitude, it deployed its main parachute at a low altitude in an attempt to lessen manually aimed anti air. The ARV would hit the ground hard, a layer of hard foam bubbling up around the person inside in an effort to lessen the damage to personel and equipment. Inside one of the cage's Cayn took the downtime before it landed to review the mission on the HUD of his Future Warrior battle system. His squad, squad blue was to proceed to destroy the fusion power station. This part of the planet HX-118, known coloquoily as "Neruma", was in constant turmoil. Apparently a select faction of the population was not happy under the democratic rule of the United Countries Security Council and wished to revolt. Shutting off the power would not only mentally mess with them as most people have an inborn fear of the dark, but it would also allow for a larger invasion force to come in, relatively unnoticed, and quell the rebellion. That was "Scorpion" teams job, to get in first, recon and harass the enemy with guerilla warfare tactics.
BOOM!
Though Cayn could not see it a small sun came into exsistence meters away from his craft, disappearing as quickly as it came. Inside his metal coffin Cayn's body rattled against the side. "Wow you guys sure know how to make an enterance! Scrambling radar and creating ghost images. Good luck guys." A com clicked, almost as if it was angry, at Vision, their NCO flyboy. "Oh, I'm sorry. Good luck to the girl too." Cayn clicked his com on. "You heard the man! Prepare for a hard landing in a swarming LZ. Proceed to find cover and regroup and if we get seperated make your way to the objective, we have a job to do. I expect radio silence. " Three status lights winked in and out of exsistence telling Cayn that his orders were understood.
Cayn felt a jolt as his parachute deployed, causing him to involuntarily crouch, his knees hitting the metal in front of him. His body automatically corrected itself as a cool sensation played against the little exposed skin he had as foam ejected from all over, pefectly fitting his form and the weapon he clutched to his side. The ARV hit the ground with a sickening thud. Cayn closed his eyes, took a breath and kicked off the door which flew five feet away before landing, weakened by the imapact of hitting the ground. He stepped out of the ARV, weapon at the ready as he scanned the LZ. Around him he could see the three other pods of his squad mates opening. They had touched down in a town square like area of the city where they were surrounded by buildings. Cayn put two fingers pointing to his eyes and pointed at one of the emerging figures and then pointing up. Wordlessly the figure climed the rain gutter of the nearest building, unslinging its MS-4 sniper rifle from his back. Silently he pointed to the rest of his team to get moving. They moved as shadows, blending into the darkness like the Shinobi of legend. Cayn saw two people ahead of him, one of them smoking a cigarette. As the person on the right smoked his cigarette the lit cylinder gave off an eerie glow, illuminating his partners upper bicep which had the broken chain patch which identified him as a member of the resistance. Before he could give the signal for his team to stop he heard two puffs of air as the bodies slumped to the floor. Marque, sniper of squad A, hefted his sniper rifle and continued on, lazily hopping from building to building.
They moved in a triangle formation, Cayn taking point as the remaining two members of Scorpion squad Blue proceeding to cover his six with Marque the sniper hopping from building to building, taking out targets before the rest of Blue team could even see them.
The team stopped to survey the territory. Although they were trying to stay on the outskirts of town something wasen't right. According to intel the entire town was resistance! Where was everyone? Cayn began to ponder this as he quickly got his answer.
BOOM!
Cayn instinctively dove back from the tremendous sound and overwhelming flash of light that had exploded like a mini sun right at his feet, the rest of blue team doing the same. Cayn didn't think, he didn't have to. His DI had always said "Drill it till it becomes you. In battle you have less then a split second to react, so train it so its automatic." The bright flash caused an after image in his retina's, a snap shot picture of the world before it errupted in light and sound played upon even his now closed eyes. All he could do, now that he was blind and deaf was to concentrate on one thing: Moving. Cayn hit the ground with a soft *thud* as he bounced off his right elbow and collapsed on the ground, automatically rolling to avoid any incoming projectiles. A burst of bullets peppered the ground to his right, kicking up dirt and debris as he tried to concentrate despite the ringing in his ears. He groped for his belt, reaching for smoke grenade and not finding it. He almost cursed but then kept himself in check, cursing would do nothing but make him more frustrated and screw up his focus. He needed cover and quickly. The after image cleared as he forced his eyes open to survey the scene. They protested against the brightness of many flashlights being shone in his area yet he forced them open anyway. He took a quick tactical inventory of his situation. He was on a city street, he couldn't hear the soft puffs Marque's silenced MS-4 emitted so that meant he was either dead, captured or has some amazing strategy that Cayn could not figure out at the moment. Jumping back again he groped around his chest area to reach for his duo "showstopper". On one hand it was your standard assault rifle, firing a 30 round clip of 5.56 rounds, usually kinetic. Over it, however, was the reason it was called the showstopper. Another rifle and barrel fit over it, a 18 inch titanium barrel leading to a solid stock fitting perfectly over the rifle module. In the back, toward the stock, was the slot for another clip. The clip held eight 25 MM High explosive (HE) rounds. This gave the Duo the ability to do everything from breach a hole in a wall to shoot down a low flying air craft to unentrenching an enemy. Above the 18 inch titanium barrel was a combo 8 x scope, video camera, laser range finder and had the ability to see in infrared. With it one could wave his rifle past a corner, send the data to HICOM and request air strikes or reinforcements or even artillery.
He reached up but hesitated firing it lest he hit a friend. Quickly he heard a thud, a scream, a snap then another thud, another scream and a crack, all in quick succession. On the pirephrey of his vision, now cleared, he saw a blur of movement and then silence. His eyes cleared all the way and he saw a tall figured dressed in all black standing in front of them, the figures chest barely moving. On the floor Cayn could see four armed resistance members down. The first man he saw had reverse pressure placed on his arm, causing the bone to break at the elbow and protrude through the skin. He would not be firing his weapon any time soon. The other three were just as grizley. The second man had his nose smeared on face, blood pouring from the unsupported orifice. The third man had his leg kicked in at the knee, once again causing the bone to protrude. The last man was looking 180 degrees in the wrong direction, his neck snapped. "Well well blue team, what took you guys so long?" Cayn knew who it was long before the figure spoke. He fought back his initial urge to salute, saluting a commanding officer in a warzone was prohibited by military law, it gave snipers a good target. Instead he inclined his head at Arumo, their CO. "Well this city is just so beautiful at night and theres just so much to do! I mean theres this wonderful little bistro right down the street that . . ." "Cut the chatter, I come bearing orders from HICOM." Cayn winced. HICOM stood for high command, the intelligence center that ordered them around. A direct command in the middle of a mission meant one thing: Recall. "Before you do that ma'am I have one team member missing." Marque's status light winked green, a signal he was fine. Cayn looked up at the line of buildings and tried to get a bead on where he was but it was impossible, Marque was a virtual ghost when sniping. The other two members of alpha squad stood behind Cayn. "Whats the order's ma'am?" It was the seldom heard voice of Kealieh, the squads heavy gunner. She was extremely serious, especially on a mission. Her conversation was always focused on one thing: The mission. Personally Cayn thought she would be cute if she ever smiled but, alas, she never did. "HICOM has sent you guys down a higher priority mission." "But what about the mission?" "You know regs, you know that a recall means get back to base stat." She was right and Cayn put his head down. He hated defeat in any form and right now he felt defeated. "Besides," A smile played over Arumo's lips.
BOOM!
Somewhere in the distance a ball of fire errupted. "Red team already took care of the mission." DAMNIT! Cayn hated being outdone as much or more then he hated being defeated. Arumo playfully pushed him. "Hey, at least no one got hurt." Cayn pointed his eyes at the caranage and groaning men on the floor. "Ok, at least no one got hurt on your team. Better?" Cayn lifted his head up. It was better.
Chapter 2:
0455 hours, January 28, 2156
Classified Expiremental Physics Research Laboratory, Code Name: Genesis, Control Room,
Joshua forced his eyes closed and pressed on his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. He had been working a long time to make this run through happen and he would be damned if he slacked off now that he was so close to his goal. He and his teams have been trying to push through the expirement but they were meeting a lot of resistance in the forms of lawyers and environmental protocol. For the past two nights Joshua Reach had not slept, ate or even paused to breathe as he checked and rechecked the numbers. His team had a window of a week for the super collider and the clock was ticking. They had one shot at this, they couldn't afford any mistakes.
Joshua stared into his novelty over sized coffee mug which was given to him by his grad students as a gag gift, their way of subtly telling him that he needed to get a life outside all the molecules and particles and atoms that was his life. He could not even begin to count how many trips to the coffee pot that had saved him. "What do you think will happen?" The voice came from behind him. Without even turning around he knew who was talking. Only the new guy would ask such an assasinine question, only the new guy would come up behind him and only the new guy would dare interrupt him while he was thinking. Lucky for the new guy, Joshua was much to tired to utterly destroy his confidence at the present moment but made a mental note to do it at a later date. "We are dealing with pure vacuum, Eric, a part of the universe so strange it causes random particles to appear out of nowhere for no reason. For all I know when we flip rick on a life sized bust of Cesar that is made of pillows will suddenly appear."
"Rick" was what they called the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The machine was a large, three mile ring which worked by accelerating matter so that it stripped it of its ions, having the individual atoms collide in an intersecting part of the ring. It was used to study the origins of the universe and the nature of protons. It was any physiscists wet dream.
Joshua had been granted leadership over detector team ARGOS. Out of the four detector teams, they were the only one who was assigned the study of the colliding of super charged uranium 235 instead of the usual use of Au, the element that makes up gold. The idea was to understand how a radioactive isotope would react when stripped of its electrons.
Joshua put the hard copy of the figures in a manilla envelope and handed it to Eric. "Here, make yourself useful and send this up to the admin." He got up and dragged his feet to the nearest coffee pot and refilled his cup. His hand brushed against the creamer and sugar. "I only drink it black." he remarked to no one in particular. The sleep depervation was definitely taking a toll on him. He dragged his feet over to the console and let his fingers brush against the plastic squares that would make his dream a reality.
Chapter 3:
0943 hours, January 25th, 2156
Fort Terra, Luna, PSYOPS section three, Classroom and office building
The secure door hissed open as two Private First Class' snapped to attention. They stood ramrod straight, knowing better then to mess with the man walking through. He was a member of PSYOPS, a special forces group which used persuasion, psychology and mental warfare to achieve their goals. A properly trained PSYOPS soldier is trained to weaken enemy morale, strengthen unit morale, wage psychological warfare, negotiate with aboriginal forces and just all around mess with an enemies mind. It is rumored that a PSYOP soldier can literally destroy someones mind by use of psychology alone. It was also rumored that PSYOPS was branching into psychic energy, though any talk of such was highly classified.
Mirek pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he confidently walked down the hall, stopping for no one. He moved with purpose, his large, muscular frame staying still, his shoulders swaying as he walked. His eyes penetrated deeply into whoever gazed upon them, staring past and through things as if he were looking at someting far off in the distance. On his chest, past the insignia of a Corporal, was a horse piece from chess with a grey, white and black striped background with the words "Persuade Change Influence" on it. He entered a long hallway in which he took a left in to reach a metal door. As he stood in front the sensor activated and the door moved to the side with the sound of well oiled metal gliding along a lineoleum floor. The room was a large audience hall, usually reserved for bright eyed PFC's (private first class) to study and learn from the officers about mental manipulation and persuasion. Right now, however, it was virtually empty, save one person. They both snapped off a lazy salute at each other and then approached each other, their body language cautious and turned to the side to seem as small and as least threatening as possible. "Its good to see you again Mica." "You too corp." Mirek sat down on a nearby chair, careful to lean back until she had piqued and thus earned his intrest.
The woman before him was a dazzling example of terran beauty, the kind of girl you would expect to see on an old magazine cover with the headlines "Things you don't know that hurt your relationships". She had blonde hair cut exactly to regulation except at the sides where it seemed to creep over her perfectly oval shaped head. Her deep, blue eyes seemed to plead with you for your attention, beg for it even. It promised rewards beyond your wildest dreams if you could only see beyond those hypnotic eyes and figure out how the brain behind it worked. She wore the "Army Blue" dress uniform which included a white dress shirt, a black neck tie, a blue blazer with insignias and rank identifiers and a pleated skirt that she hitched up WAY past regs. The officers let it go. Not only was the eye candy good for morale but part of any good PSIOP soldiers training was in the art of seduction, seeing as seduction was merely a specialized form of persuasion. "You know, your a cool guy for meeting me here Mirek." She took a second to pause. "Well, cool for a corporal I guess." She imperceptibly shrugged but Mirek, who was trained to read body language, caught it. Mirek mentally giggled. Was she really trying this psych 101 stuff on him? He was better trained at it then she was! "And your a cool girl. For a, what is it now, a private first class? Or did the field promotion not go through yet?" She stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Specialist to you, buster." "Buster, sir." He corrected her. Out of all the girls in PSIOPS he considered her his mental equivalent. They regularly flirted like this, however he did not want a relationship with her or any other girl there for that matter. He had been with a PSIOP girl before. Imagine a regular girl with all their intuition and suspsions, now give them intimate knowledge of how to seduce a male, psychology and specialized training to get people to do what they want. I'm not going through that gauntlet again. "I assume you didn't call me here to talk, right?" "Awww, all that training and you just figured that out?" Mirek scowled at her. Normally he was not that expressive, however, with her he could feel himself just let go and be himself without the facade he had implemented as part of his successful extracurricular PSIOPS training. I guess that meant she was good at what she does.
"I just wanted you to be the first to know that I've been transferred." Mirek stopped leaning back in his chair, put his feet on the floor and faced Mica. "What?" He wasen't sure if she was testing him or not, at least not yet. "I'm being transferred. The orbital reseach and military instilation ARGONAUT put in a request for a PSIOP non com and the brass here though I'd be suited for the job. I leave at 1200 hours." Mirek scaned her eyes for any signs of lying, and, not satisfied at not finding any, he scanned the rest of her body for signs. There were none. "Wow." Mirek sat there, dumb struck. He could negotiate an enemy out of a fortified position when they had the upper hand in a battle yet now he was at a loss for words. "You will be sorely missed, Mica." Mirek stood up and attempted to shake her hand but she stopped him. "Put that away." She ran up and hugged him closely, burying her face in his shoulder. Mirek fought to control his body as her warm embrace sent a shiver up his spine, causing his entire body to shake somewhat. She removed her face from his dress blues, her eyes looking crystalized from the tears as she snapped off a weak salute, turned and briskly left Mirek standing there, his eyes looking off into some far off future.
Chapter 4:
0624 hours, January 28, 2156
Classified Expiremental Physics Research Laboratory, Code Name: Genesis, Control Room,
Joshua shambled toward the coffee pot wielding only his oversized mug which he quickly refilled. The pot had not been turned off in two days and the metal was hot from the overuse. As he removed his mug a few drips of coffee fell into the heating tray quickly sizzling and evaporating into nothingness. He stared at the wisps of smoke as they evaporated in the air. "I hope the expirement goes better." This was it, final countdown. His detector team was the main team working on this project as random members of other teams mulled around and waited for the show.
The flourescent lights flickered and hummed to life, casting the metallic control panel in sickly yellow light. "Sarah, go through initiation protocols." The perky young woman nodded her head. "Initiation sequence started, going through warm up protocols Josh." She had a somewhat annoying habit of repeating peoples names whenever she said something. This quick was ignored, seeing as she was not only the cutest member of the team but also the most high energy, something that was usually in short supply when grant proposals and dead lines were part in parcel of the job. "Has the sample been delivered Eric?" He turned to look at Eric who was sitting at a console, looking at Joshusa for leadership and a clue of what to do next. "Yeah, its in place and ready to go." "Check fire protection protocol." Eric began to cycle through the different fire systems on the ring as he tyed with two fingers. Why do I put up with him? "Sir, you might want to come over here." Joshua shambled over to his console. "What went wrong now?" "I'm not sure if its anything, sir, but a few of the fire protocols arent booting up." On the quirk heirarch of the team Eric was at the end of the ladder. No matter how many times Joshua had told him to call him Josh he continued to call him sir, and it wasen't only him. He called everyone either sir or ma'am. The favorite theory of the team was that he had a horrible accident and lost the use of the part of his brain that remember names. At times Joshua questioned if that theory was true, or if he had lost use of a lot more parts of his brain then the original theory let on. "Which ones?" "Sector four." "Damnit!" Expensive science usually always was a catch 22. You needed grant money to perform the expirements but you usually don't get enough to keep your equipment working properly, therefore losing use of them and not being able to complete the expirement thus losing the grant money. "Do we abort, Joshua?" Sarah sat there with a happy grin despite the bad news. "No, no, we need to get this done and we need to get this done now. Lock down that sectors fire controls and keep and eye on it. Sarah, you prep the La Grange accelerator and bring generator to full. After release the safety locks and cycle the X8 linear accelerator."
"Genesis to bridge, Genesis to brige, operation is a go." "Roger that genesis. We will send you down data as we get it." "Roger." Eric's eyes searched the posted sign which held the frequency to all major areas of operation. He didn't want to mess up, at least not as long as Joshua was right behind him, downing enough caffiene to kill a grizzly. The caffiene kept him edgy, maybe thats why he was always pissed? He tuned into data collection department."Start taking data now, expirement will commence shortly."
The machine buzzed to life as, one by one, the sections of the 3 mile long circular rings were illuminated. The humming of the generator could be heard as electricity charged up in its respective capacitators and brought deadened machinery to life. "Sample reaching La grange accelerator, speeding up, Josh." "Eric, readings." "All is within safe boundaries and holding steady." All was tense for a minute. "Reaching the X8 linear accelerator, its at 99.995% the speed of light. The accelerator is now in vaccum conditions, as all was before the big bang, sir" Joshua didn't need the phyics lesson but let it slide. Thats two I owe him for later
The sample was proprolled along the 1,740 superconducting magnets and collided with the second sample which created a large spark. Joshua stared at the screen situated on the intersecting part of the ring where the spark occured, his mouth hanging open and his grip losening on his mug. "ERIC REPORT!" Eric stared at the screen. "Sir, I don't know what these numbers mean." Eric was worried that the usually stoic Joshua was worried. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Joshua grabbed the back of Erics rolling seat and flung it out of the way as he positioned himself in front of the console. His eyes scanned the data. "Sarah, get the data coming in from the bridge." His voice lowered due to the shock of what he was seeing. She ran to the printer at the right and ripped it off, handing it to Joshua before even looking at it herself. As he brought it up to his eyes another spark followed by a voice caught his atention. "Team ARGOS, report whats going on down there!! We are sensing gravitational anamolies coming from within the station!" "Sir, I don't . . . " He was stopped midsentence from the now worried, honey sweet voice of a much less perky and much more terrified team member. "Im detetcing molecular anamolies. Fires are starting in sectors 1, 5, and 7-10, Josh" "Shut it down." Joshua was shaking all over as Sarah typed in the abort code. "Its not working Josh." "SHUT IT DOWN!" She reeled back from his yell and tried again. The monitor showed another spark and then a small globe appeared where the spark had been. "What the . . . " "ARGOS, REPORT!" Joshua stood to his full height and placed his hand on the monitor, trying to feel what he was seeing as if that would make it any more real. "Sir, whats that?" "A particle . . . " "We have lost fire control Josh and the abort code isnt working." "ARGOS TEAM THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. I DEMAND THAT YOU REPORT NOW DAMNIT!" On the monitor more and more random masses of particles began appearing out of the artificial vaccum. "Sir, whats going to happen?" Eric was quivering at this point." "I don't know Eric. I don't . . . " A white light filled Joshua's eyes as he saw no more.
Chapter 5:
1300, January 28th, 2156
Fort Terra, Luna base, Marine Special Operation Battalion (MSOB) Team Code Name: "Scorpion", Dining commons
Cayn tapped the metal hull of the ship to get the mans attention. He stood at 5'11 and weighed around 225, his tan skin perfectly draping his frame. "Whats frosty marine?" The mans voice belied his training and his mentality. He had a soft, compassionate voice, the voice one would associate with a nurse or a cop who actually cares about the people he's protecting. "Nothin much. Just chowing down on some rations." He shuddered. "I swear, if battle doesn't kill me the food will." His friends name was Rafiel, leader of the red squad in Scorpion team. Cayn sat down and began cleaning his duo, taking apart every module and cleaning it with various oils and lubrications. They were the marines contribution to the special forces arena. Their specialty was deep recon, direct assault, counter terrorism and unconventional warfare. Scorpion team was unique as that they were the among the first successful results of selective breeding. Earlier two projects at selective breeding were tried. The first project was shaky. It consisted of taking the best DNA and combining it, everything from super intellect to super strength and cloning a child. Of course, at the time cloning was rather new which led to many deaths and "unuseable" canidates. The second project happened fifty three years earlier where all armed forces personell were catologued and then cross referenced, finding which matches would bring the highet rate of a genetically superior child. The child would then be raised as a soldier, knowing no other life, being trained from birth. The matches were then given the choice of persuing the mission or not. Even though it was purely voluntarily, the backlash of basically forcing sex was tremendous and the project was officially cancelled. Officially, was the operative word.
Behind the scenes "Project Raven" was created. The idea was to recruit for a secret subcell of the intelligence community. The idea was to take men and train them in the art of seduction. Project Raven was revived from Cold war times when the Soviet Union used women to seduce men into defecting of giving them information or spying for them, dubbed project "Black Widow". The Project Raven voulnteers were matched with the women they had the highest genetic match with and then seduced them. The child, when born, was taken, the mother being told that the child had died. The child was then trained in secret from the time it was born. It was bred for combat, later going through genetic therapy to increase everything from its muscle growth and how far it could see to strength and speed and intelligence. The first 3 generations were washouts. The gene therapy had ill side effects, killing many, while training, suicide and outright defiance took care of the rest. Him and his teammates were some of the first, and only, "lucky ones". They had been friends since they were children. Cayn and Rafiel both led the two squads of scorpion team, a team made for heavy recon. Technically, their purpose was for "First contact scenario's" but that was more of an in joke that anything. Some old guy at congress watches a sci fi movie, gets scared and immediately begins demanding protocol be drawn up for a scenario where we first run in contact with alien life force. The thing these government beurecrats didn't understand is that it just isn't possible! How can you train someone for something no one knows anything about! It would be like if Cayn tried to teach himself calculus without a book. They were usually a recon team, sent in before to report on enemy infrastructure and troop movements and, if plausible, engage in guerilla warfare. Each squad was four men strong, the seargant leading both squads was Sgt. Arumo, their drill instructor from when they were children. She acted as a battlefield commander and as surrogate mother, caring and treating them as if they were her own. That didn't mean she took it easy on them, in fact it was quite the opposite. Her will for them to survive and thrive in such a dangerous enviornment made her want to train them that much harder. "I have to say you really slowed down this last op." Cayn just smiled. "Its easy to get there first when Arumo is squad sitting you." "Oh, do I hear a challenge for a race?" Cayn smiled an evil smile. "Bring it." "Ok, first to finish the next op wins. Loser takes the winners latrine detail for the week." "Deal." "Hey, ladies, are we going to talk all night or are we going to be briefed?" It was the gravely voice that belonged to Chanda, the squads demo expert. Chanda was usually a cool guy, no more social then any recruit. Chanda's main attribute was his temperature that exploded as devestatingly as the explosives he regularly used and practiced on. Good thing he rarely got angry.
Chapter 1:
0820 hours, January 28, 2156
HX-118 "Neruma", Marine Special Operations Battalion (MSOB), Team Code Name: Scorpion, Blue squad
The titanium cage of the airbourne reentry vehicle (ARV) rattled as four small pods hit the inner atmosphere and raced towards the ground. "Cage" was a misnomer. The ARV was passive which means it had no thrusters or controls at all. It was meant to be dropped from orbit or high altitudes and deliver its prescious troop cargo safely to the ground. The only problem was, it wasen't that safe. AA fire, parachute deployment malfunction and not to mention that even a small breach could cost the person inside their lives. In fact, if one looked at the ARV in its entirety they began to see a striking resemblance to a coffin. No one knew if this design was intentional as a psych out for any enemies seeing a bunch of coffins from space or if it was accidental. Airborne had an inside joke that the reason it was shaped like a coffin was just in case you died in reentry, then they wouldn't have to waste money on a proper casket for you. Indeed, the thing was a death trap. The coffin shaped trinium entry cage was resistant to heat and small arms, however an ARV that was immune to anti air fire was far off in research and development land, not to mention it would probabally by economically unviable. If the ARV survived reentry radar absorbing chemicals worked to reduce anti air fire and, at a preset altitude, it deployed its main parachute at a low altitude in an attempt to lessen manually aimed anti air. The ARV would hit the ground hard, a layer of hard foam bubbling up around the person inside in an effort to lessen the damage to personel and equipment. Inside one of the cage's Cayn took the downtime before it landed to review the mission on the HUD of his Future Warrior battle system. His squad, squad blue was to proceed to destroy the fusion power station. This part of the planet HX-118, known coloquoily as "Neruma", was in constant turmoil. Apparently a select faction of the population was not happy under the democratic rule of the United Countries Security Council and wished to revolt. Shutting off the power would not only mentally mess with them as most people have an inborn fear of the dark, but it would also allow for a larger invasion force to come in, relatively unnoticed, and quell the rebellion. That was "Scorpion" teams job, to get in first, recon and harass the enemy with guerilla warfare tactics.
BOOM!
Though Cayn could not see it a small sun came into exsistence meters away from his craft, disappearing as quickly as it came. Inside his metal coffin Cayn's body rattled against the side. "Wow you guys sure know how to make an enterance! Scrambling radar and creating ghost images. Good luck guys." A com clicked, almost as if it was angry, at Vision, their NCO flyboy. "Oh, I'm sorry. Good luck to the girl too." Cayn clicked his com on. "You heard the man! Prepare for a hard landing in a swarming LZ. Proceed to find cover and regroup and if we get seperated make your way to the objective, we have a job to do. I expect radio silence. " Three status lights winked in and out of exsistence telling Cayn that his orders were understood.
Cayn felt a jolt as his parachute deployed, causing him to involuntarily crouch, his knees hitting the metal in front of him. His body automatically corrected itself as a cool sensation played against the little exposed skin he had as foam ejected from all over, pefectly fitting his form and the weapon he clutched to his side. The ARV hit the ground with a sickening thud. Cayn closed his eyes, took a breath and kicked off the door which flew five feet away before landing, weakened by the imapact of hitting the ground. He stepped out of the ARV, weapon at the ready as he scanned the LZ. Around him he could see the three other pods of his squad mates opening. They had touched down in a town square like area of the city where they were surrounded by buildings. Cayn put two fingers pointing to his eyes and pointed at one of the emerging figures and then pointing up. Wordlessly the figure climed the rain gutter of the nearest building, unslinging its MS-4 sniper rifle from his back. Silently he pointed to the rest of his team to get moving. They moved as shadows, blending into the darkness like the Shinobi of legend. Cayn saw two people ahead of him, one of them smoking a cigarette. As the person on the right smoked his cigarette the lit cylinder gave off an eerie glow, illuminating his partners upper bicep which had the broken chain patch which identified him as a member of the resistance. Before he could give the signal for his team to stop he heard two puffs of air as the bodies slumped to the floor. Marque, sniper of squad A, hefted his sniper rifle and continued on, lazily hopping from building to building.
They moved in a triangle formation, Cayn taking point as the remaining two members of Scorpion squad Blue proceeding to cover his six with Marque the sniper hopping from building to building, taking out targets before the rest of Blue team could even see them.
The team stopped to survey the territory. Although they were trying to stay on the outskirts of town something wasen't right. According to intel the entire town was resistance! Where was everyone? Cayn began to ponder this as he quickly got his answer.
BOOM!
Cayn instinctively dove back from the tremendous sound and overwhelming flash of light that had exploded like a mini sun right at his feet, the rest of blue team doing the same. Cayn didn't think, he didn't have to. His DI had always said "Drill it till it becomes you. In battle you have less then a split second to react, so train it so its automatic." The bright flash caused an after image in his retina's, a snap shot picture of the world before it errupted in light and sound played upon even his now closed eyes. All he could do, now that he was blind and deaf was to concentrate on one thing: Moving. Cayn hit the ground with a soft *thud* as he bounced off his right elbow and collapsed on the ground, automatically rolling to avoid any incoming projectiles. A burst of bullets peppered the ground to his right, kicking up dirt and debris as he tried to concentrate despite the ringing in his ears. He groped for his belt, reaching for smoke grenade and not finding it. He almost cursed but then kept himself in check, cursing would do nothing but make him more frustrated and screw up his focus. He needed cover and quickly. The after image cleared as he forced his eyes open to survey the scene. They protested against the brightness of many flashlights being shone in his area yet he forced them open anyway. He took a quick tactical inventory of his situation. He was on a city street, he couldn't hear the soft puffs Marque's silenced MS-4 emitted so that meant he was either dead, captured or has some amazing strategy that Cayn could not figure out at the moment. Jumping back again he groped around his chest area to reach for his duo "showstopper". On one hand it was your standard assault rifle, firing a 30 round clip of 5.56 rounds, usually kinetic. Over it, however, was the reason it was called the showstopper. Another rifle and barrel fit over it, a 18 inch titanium barrel leading to a solid stock fitting perfectly over the rifle module. In the back, toward the stock, was the slot for another clip. The clip held eight 25 MM High explosive (HE) rounds. This gave the Duo the ability to do everything from breach a hole in a wall to shoot down a low flying air craft to unentrenching an enemy. Above the 18 inch titanium barrel was a combo 8 x scope, video camera, laser range finder and had the ability to see in infrared. With it one could wave his rifle past a corner, send the data to HICOM and request air strikes or reinforcements or even artillery.
He reached up but hesitated firing it lest he hit a friend. Quickly he heard a thud, a scream, a snap then another thud, another scream and a crack, all in quick succession. On the pirephrey of his vision, now cleared, he saw a blur of movement and then silence. His eyes cleared all the way and he saw a tall figured dressed in all black standing in front of them, the figures chest barely moving. On the floor Cayn could see four armed resistance members down. The first man he saw had reverse pressure placed on his arm, causing the bone to break at the elbow and protrude through the skin. He would not be firing his weapon any time soon. The other three were just as grizley. The second man had his nose smeared on face, blood pouring from the unsupported orifice. The third man had his leg kicked in at the knee, once again causing the bone to protrude. The last man was looking 180 degrees in the wrong direction, his neck snapped. "Well well blue team, what took you guys so long?" Cayn knew who it was long before the figure spoke. He fought back his initial urge to salute, saluting a commanding officer in a warzone was prohibited by military law, it gave snipers a good target. Instead he inclined his head at Arumo, their CO. "Well this city is just so beautiful at night and theres just so much to do! I mean theres this wonderful little bistro right down the street that . . ." "Cut the chatter, I come bearing orders from HICOM." Cayn winced. HICOM stood for high command, the intelligence center that ordered them around. A direct command in the middle of a mission meant one thing: Recall. "Before you do that ma'am I have one team member missing." Marque's status light winked green, a signal he was fine. Cayn looked up at the line of buildings and tried to get a bead on where he was but it was impossible, Marque was a virtual ghost when sniping. The other two members of alpha squad stood behind Cayn. "Whats the order's ma'am?" It was the seldom heard voice of Kealieh, the squads heavy gunner. She was extremely serious, especially on a mission. Her conversation was always focused on one thing: The mission. Personally Cayn thought she would be cute if she ever smiled but, alas, she never did. "HICOM has sent you guys down a higher priority mission." "But what about the mission?" "You know regs, you know that a recall means get back to base stat." She was right and Cayn put his head down. He hated defeat in any form and right now he felt defeated. "Besides," A smile played over Arumo's lips.
BOOM!
Somewhere in the distance a ball of fire errupted. "Red team already took care of the mission." DAMNIT! Cayn hated being outdone as much or more then he hated being defeated. Arumo playfully pushed him. "Hey, at least no one got hurt." Cayn pointed his eyes at the caranage and groaning men on the floor. "Ok, at least no one got hurt on your team. Better?" Cayn lifted his head up. It was better.
Chapter 2:
0455 hours, January 28, 2156
Classified Expiremental Physics Research Laboratory, Code Name: Genesis, Control Room,
Joshua forced his eyes closed and pressed on his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. He had been working a long time to make this run through happen and he would be damned if he slacked off now that he was so close to his goal. He and his teams have been trying to push through the expirement but they were meeting a lot of resistance in the forms of lawyers and environmental protocol. For the past two nights Joshua Reach had not slept, ate or even paused to breathe as he checked and rechecked the numbers. His team had a window of a week for the super collider and the clock was ticking. They had one shot at this, they couldn't afford any mistakes.
Joshua stared into his novelty over sized coffee mug which was given to him by his grad students as a gag gift, their way of subtly telling him that he needed to get a life outside all the molecules and particles and atoms that was his life. He could not even begin to count how many trips to the coffee pot that had saved him. "What do you think will happen?" The voice came from behind him. Without even turning around he knew who was talking. Only the new guy would ask such an assasinine question, only the new guy would come up behind him and only the new guy would dare interrupt him while he was thinking. Lucky for the new guy, Joshua was much to tired to utterly destroy his confidence at the present moment but made a mental note to do it at a later date. "We are dealing with pure vacuum, Eric, a part of the universe so strange it causes random particles to appear out of nowhere for no reason. For all I know when we flip rick on a life sized bust of Cesar that is made of pillows will suddenly appear."
"Rick" was what they called the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The machine was a large, three mile ring which worked by accelerating matter so that it stripped it of its ions, having the individual atoms collide in an intersecting part of the ring. It was used to study the origins of the universe and the nature of protons. It was any physiscists wet dream.
Joshua had been granted leadership over detector team ARGOS. Out of the four detector teams, they were the only one who was assigned the study of the colliding of super charged uranium 235 instead of the usual use of Au, the element that makes up gold. The idea was to understand how a radioactive isotope would react when stripped of its electrons.
Joshua put the hard copy of the figures in a manilla envelope and handed it to Eric. "Here, make yourself useful and send this up to the admin." He got up and dragged his feet to the nearest coffee pot and refilled his cup. His hand brushed against the creamer and sugar. "I only drink it black." he remarked to no one in particular. The sleep depervation was definitely taking a toll on him. He dragged his feet over to the console and let his fingers brush against the plastic squares that would make his dream a reality.
Chapter 3:
0943 hours, January 25th, 2156
Fort Terra, Luna, PSYOPS section three, Classroom and office building
The secure door hissed open as two Private First Class' snapped to attention. They stood ramrod straight, knowing better then to mess with the man walking through. He was a member of PSYOPS, a special forces group which used persuasion, psychology and mental warfare to achieve their goals. A properly trained PSYOPS soldier is trained to weaken enemy morale, strengthen unit morale, wage psychological warfare, negotiate with aboriginal forces and just all around mess with an enemies mind. It is rumored that a PSYOP soldier can literally destroy someones mind by use of psychology alone. It was also rumored that PSYOPS was branching into psychic energy, though any talk of such was highly classified.
Mirek pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he confidently walked down the hall, stopping for no one. He moved with purpose, his large, muscular frame staying still, his shoulders swaying as he walked. His eyes penetrated deeply into whoever gazed upon them, staring past and through things as if he were looking at someting far off in the distance. On his chest, past the insignia of a Corporal, was a horse piece from chess with a grey, white and black striped background with the words "Persuade Change Influence" on it. He entered a long hallway in which he took a left in to reach a metal door. As he stood in front the sensor activated and the door moved to the side with the sound of well oiled metal gliding along a lineoleum floor. The room was a large audience hall, usually reserved for bright eyed PFC's (private first class) to study and learn from the officers about mental manipulation and persuasion. Right now, however, it was virtually empty, save one person. They both snapped off a lazy salute at each other and then approached each other, their body language cautious and turned to the side to seem as small and as least threatening as possible. "Its good to see you again Mica." "You too corp." Mirek sat down on a nearby chair, careful to lean back until she had piqued and thus earned his intrest.
The woman before him was a dazzling example of terran beauty, the kind of girl you would expect to see on an old magazine cover with the headlines "Things you don't know that hurt your relationships". She had blonde hair cut exactly to regulation except at the sides where it seemed to creep over her perfectly oval shaped head. Her deep, blue eyes seemed to plead with you for your attention, beg for it even. It promised rewards beyond your wildest dreams if you could only see beyond those hypnotic eyes and figure out how the brain behind it worked. She wore the "Army Blue" dress uniform which included a white dress shirt, a black neck tie, a blue blazer with insignias and rank identifiers and a pleated skirt that she hitched up WAY past regs. The officers let it go. Not only was the eye candy good for morale but part of any good PSIOP soldiers training was in the art of seduction, seeing as seduction was merely a specialized form of persuasion. "You know, your a cool guy for meeting me here Mirek." She took a second to pause. "Well, cool for a corporal I guess." She imperceptibly shrugged but Mirek, who was trained to read body language, caught it. Mirek mentally giggled. Was she really trying this psych 101 stuff on him? He was better trained at it then she was! "And your a cool girl. For a, what is it now, a private first class? Or did the field promotion not go through yet?" She stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Specialist to you, buster." "Buster, sir." He corrected her. Out of all the girls in PSIOPS he considered her his mental equivalent. They regularly flirted like this, however he did not want a relationship with her or any other girl there for that matter. He had been with a PSIOP girl before. Imagine a regular girl with all their intuition and suspsions, now give them intimate knowledge of how to seduce a male, psychology and specialized training to get people to do what they want. I'm not going through that gauntlet again. "I assume you didn't call me here to talk, right?" "Awww, all that training and you just figured that out?" Mirek scowled at her. Normally he was not that expressive, however, with her he could feel himself just let go and be himself without the facade he had implemented as part of his successful extracurricular PSIOPS training. I guess that meant she was good at what she does.
"I just wanted you to be the first to know that I've been transferred." Mirek stopped leaning back in his chair, put his feet on the floor and faced Mica. "What?" He wasen't sure if she was testing him or not, at least not yet. "I'm being transferred. The orbital reseach and military instilation ARGONAUT put in a request for a PSIOP non com and the brass here though I'd be suited for the job. I leave at 1200 hours." Mirek scaned her eyes for any signs of lying, and, not satisfied at not finding any, he scanned the rest of her body for signs. There were none. "Wow." Mirek sat there, dumb struck. He could negotiate an enemy out of a fortified position when they had the upper hand in a battle yet now he was at a loss for words. "You will be sorely missed, Mica." Mirek stood up and attempted to shake her hand but she stopped him. "Put that away." She ran up and hugged him closely, burying her face in his shoulder. Mirek fought to control his body as her warm embrace sent a shiver up his spine, causing his entire body to shake somewhat. She removed her face from his dress blues, her eyes looking crystalized from the tears as she snapped off a weak salute, turned and briskly left Mirek standing there, his eyes looking off into some far off future.
Chapter 4:
0624 hours, January 28, 2156
Classified Expiremental Physics Research Laboratory, Code Name: Genesis, Control Room,
Joshua shambled toward the coffee pot wielding only his oversized mug which he quickly refilled. The pot had not been turned off in two days and the metal was hot from the overuse. As he removed his mug a few drips of coffee fell into the heating tray quickly sizzling and evaporating into nothingness. He stared at the wisps of smoke as they evaporated in the air. "I hope the expirement goes better." This was it, final countdown. His detector team was the main team working on this project as random members of other teams mulled around and waited for the show.
The flourescent lights flickered and hummed to life, casting the metallic control panel in sickly yellow light. "Sarah, go through initiation protocols." The perky young woman nodded her head. "Initiation sequence started, going through warm up protocols Josh." She had a somewhat annoying habit of repeating peoples names whenever she said something. This quick was ignored, seeing as she was not only the cutest member of the team but also the most high energy, something that was usually in short supply when grant proposals and dead lines were part in parcel of the job. "Has the sample been delivered Eric?" He turned to look at Eric who was sitting at a console, looking at Joshusa for leadership and a clue of what to do next. "Yeah, its in place and ready to go." "Check fire protection protocol." Eric began to cycle through the different fire systems on the ring as he tyed with two fingers. Why do I put up with him? "Sir, you might want to come over here." Joshua shambled over to his console. "What went wrong now?" "I'm not sure if its anything, sir, but a few of the fire protocols arent booting up." On the quirk heirarch of the team Eric was at the end of the ladder. No matter how many times Joshua had told him to call him Josh he continued to call him sir, and it wasen't only him. He called everyone either sir or ma'am. The favorite theory of the team was that he had a horrible accident and lost the use of the part of his brain that remember names. At times Joshua questioned if that theory was true, or if he had lost use of a lot more parts of his brain then the original theory let on. "Which ones?" "Sector four." "Damnit!" Expensive science usually always was a catch 22. You needed grant money to perform the expirements but you usually don't get enough to keep your equipment working properly, therefore losing use of them and not being able to complete the expirement thus losing the grant money. "Do we abort, Joshua?" Sarah sat there with a happy grin despite the bad news. "No, no, we need to get this done and we need to get this done now. Lock down that sectors fire controls and keep and eye on it. Sarah, you prep the La Grange accelerator and bring generator to full. After release the safety locks and cycle the X8 linear accelerator."
"Genesis to bridge, Genesis to brige, operation is a go." "Roger that genesis. We will send you down data as we get it." "Roger." Eric's eyes searched the posted sign which held the frequency to all major areas of operation. He didn't want to mess up, at least not as long as Joshua was right behind him, downing enough caffiene to kill a grizzly. The caffiene kept him edgy, maybe thats why he was always pissed? He tuned into data collection department."Start taking data now, expirement will commence shortly."
The machine buzzed to life as, one by one, the sections of the 3 mile long circular rings were illuminated. The humming of the generator could be heard as electricity charged up in its respective capacitators and brought deadened machinery to life. "Sample reaching La grange accelerator, speeding up, Josh." "Eric, readings." "All is within safe boundaries and holding steady." All was tense for a minute. "Reaching the X8 linear accelerator, its at 99.995% the speed of light. The accelerator is now in vaccum conditions, as all was before the big bang, sir" Joshua didn't need the phyics lesson but let it slide. Thats two I owe him for later
The sample was proprolled along the 1,740 superconducting magnets and collided with the second sample which created a large spark. Joshua stared at the screen situated on the intersecting part of the ring where the spark occured, his mouth hanging open and his grip losening on his mug. "ERIC REPORT!" Eric stared at the screen. "Sir, I don't know what these numbers mean." Eric was worried that the usually stoic Joshua was worried. "GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Joshua grabbed the back of Erics rolling seat and flung it out of the way as he positioned himself in front of the console. His eyes scanned the data. "Sarah, get the data coming in from the bridge." His voice lowered due to the shock of what he was seeing. She ran to the printer at the right and ripped it off, handing it to Joshua before even looking at it herself. As he brought it up to his eyes another spark followed by a voice caught his atention. "Team ARGOS, report whats going on down there!! We are sensing gravitational anamolies coming from within the station!" "Sir, I don't . . . " He was stopped midsentence from the now worried, honey sweet voice of a much less perky and much more terrified team member. "Im detetcing molecular anamolies. Fires are starting in sectors 1, 5, and 7-10, Josh" "Shut it down." Joshua was shaking all over as Sarah typed in the abort code. "Its not working Josh." "SHUT IT DOWN!" She reeled back from his yell and tried again. The monitor showed another spark and then a small globe appeared where the spark had been. "What the . . . " "ARGOS, REPORT!" Joshua stood to his full height and placed his hand on the monitor, trying to feel what he was seeing as if that would make it any more real. "Sir, whats that?" "A particle . . . " "We have lost fire control Josh and the abort code isnt working." "ARGOS TEAM THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. I DEMAND THAT YOU REPORT NOW DAMNIT!" On the monitor more and more random masses of particles began appearing out of the artificial vaccum. "Sir, whats going to happen?" Eric was quivering at this point." "I don't know Eric. I don't . . . " A white light filled Joshua's eyes as he saw no more.
Chapter 5:
1300, January 28th, 2156
Fort Terra, Luna base, Marine Special Operation Battalion (MSOB) Team Code Name: "Scorpion", Dining commons
Cayn tapped the metal hull of the ship to get the mans attention. He stood at 5'11 and weighed around 225, his tan skin perfectly draping his frame. "Whats frosty marine?" The mans voice belied his training and his mentality. He had a soft, compassionate voice, the voice one would associate with a nurse or a cop who actually cares about the people he's protecting. "Nothin much. Just chowing down on some rations." He shuddered. "I swear, if battle doesn't kill me the food will." His friends name was Rafiel, leader of the red squad in Scorpion team. Cayn sat down and began cleaning his duo, taking apart every module and cleaning it with various oils and lubrications. They were the marines contribution to the special forces arena. Their specialty was deep recon, direct assault, counter terrorism and unconventional warfare. Scorpion team was unique as that they were the among the first successful results of selective breeding. Earlier two projects at selective breeding were tried. The first project was shaky. It consisted of taking the best DNA and combining it, everything from super intellect to super strength and cloning a child. Of course, at the time cloning was rather new which led to many deaths and "unuseable" canidates. The second project happened fifty three years earlier where all armed forces personell were catologued and then cross referenced, finding which matches would bring the highet rate of a genetically superior child. The child would then be raised as a soldier, knowing no other life, being trained from birth. The matches were then given the choice of persuing the mission or not. Even though it was purely voluntarily, the backlash of basically forcing sex was tremendous and the project was officially cancelled. Officially, was the operative word.
Behind the scenes "Project Raven" was created. The idea was to recruit for a secret subcell of the intelligence community. The idea was to take men and train them in the art of seduction. Project Raven was revived from Cold war times when the Soviet Union used women to seduce men into defecting of giving them information or spying for them, dubbed project "Black Widow". The Project Raven voulnteers were matched with the women they had the highest genetic match with and then seduced them. The child, when born, was taken, the mother being told that the child had died. The child was then trained in secret from the time it was born. It was bred for combat, later going through genetic therapy to increase everything from its muscle growth and how far it could see to strength and speed and intelligence. The first 3 generations were washouts. The gene therapy had ill side effects, killing many, while training, suicide and outright defiance took care of the rest. Him and his teammates were some of the first, and only, "lucky ones". They had been friends since they were children. Cayn and Rafiel both led the two squads of scorpion team, a team made for heavy recon. Technically, their purpose was for "First contact scenario's" but that was more of an in joke that anything. Some old guy at congress watches a sci fi movie, gets scared and immediately begins demanding protocol be drawn up for a scenario where we first run in contact with alien life force. The thing these government beurecrats didn't understand is that it just isn't possible! How can you train someone for something no one knows anything about! It would be like if Cayn tried to teach himself calculus without a book. They were usually a recon team, sent in before to report on enemy infrastructure and troop movements and, if plausible, engage in guerilla warfare. Each squad was four men strong, the seargant leading both squads was Sgt. Arumo, their drill instructor from when they were children. She acted as a battlefield commander and as surrogate mother, caring and treating them as if they were her own. That didn't mean she took it easy on them, in fact it was quite the opposite. Her will for them to survive and thrive in such a dangerous enviornment made her want to train them that much harder. "I have to say you really slowed down this last op." Cayn just smiled. "Its easy to get there first when Arumo is squad sitting you." "Oh, do I hear a challenge for a race?" Cayn smiled an evil smile. "Bring it." "Ok, first to finish the next op wins. Loser takes the winners latrine detail for the week." "Deal." "Hey, ladies, are we going to talk all night or are we going to be briefed?" It was the gravely voice that belonged to Chanda, the squads demo expert. Chanda was usually a cool guy, no more social then any recruit. Chanda's main attribute was his temperature that exploded as devestatingly as the explosives he regularly used and practiced on. Good thing he rarely got angry.
