RPG 1- "The Milk Run"

[Omra]

Barney sat at the well worn counter and absent mindedly picked at his breakfast with little enthusiasm, it was not because there was anything particularly anything wrong with it; he simply was dragging the morning ritual out. And, he was not exactly looking forward to work.

He was about to take another half hearted bite of a lingonberry crepe when his communicator went off sending the theme to ‘Dragnet’ wafting across the bar. Barney groaned and rolled his eyes, causing Shamus to laugh at the deputy’s anguish. Barney snapped the communicator off of his right epilate, set the accursed object on ‘vibrate’. and tossed it on the counter with a look of utter disgust. Shamus watched the communicator dance on the counter as if it were auditioning for the next installment of ‘Sweating to the Oldies’ while tis-tisking like a concerned parent.

Shamus’ smirk grew into a mischievous grin, “What is that now? Three times this mornin’? What ave ya done to piss em off this time?” Barney raised an eyebrow as he gnawed on a piece of grease laden bacon, “Nothing for a change, he is just worked into a lather is all. The Ralph Thorson dropped in last night.”? Shamus perked up, “The Papa?” Barney thought to ask him if he knew anyone on the notorious ship but decided to let it go, “Yeah, so this morning a shuttle got clearance from HV to sent down a shuttle of their crew for some R&R.” Shamus’ smile grew; he knew where this was going…

Barney inspected the sausage impaled on his fork as he spoke; as if it somehow might hold within its fleshy folds the answer to his dilemma. “So now there is a contingent of people here who actually know how to use a weapon, and don’t simply wear them as a fashion accessory.” Shamus snickered at the image of Roderick cowering in his office, peeking through the blinds afraid to step outside.

Shamus’ laughter snapped the law officer out of his Zen like state, and he decided that contemplating anything that comes out of Shamus’ kitchen for too long is a bad idea, better to simply eat and pray. He has already been nervous about the colony ship coming; a ship full of naive colonists always attracts pick pockets and con artists. Then on top of that the new ‘Law Dog’, Barney made ‘air quotes’ as he said the two imposing words, is supposed to arrive on the same ship."

That drew Shamus’ attention, “any idea who that might be?” Barney looked up from his crepe, “Worried?” Shamus cooly answered, “Always know who you are dealing with.” Barney shrugged, “Smart. Anyways yeah… Diz thinks she has it figured out.” Shamus smiled, “Good old Diz, she is a wealth of information. Always sniffing around for the latest news and gossip.” He poured some more syrup on his crepe, “She has been monitoring the comm. Traffic from the ship, and sniffed out some packets heading toward the core. They were on a priority channel…”? Shamus raised an eyebrow at that, “Like a lawman would use.”? Barney nodded, “Yep, the messages were addressed to a Satinka and a Monaw.”?

The communicator finally stopped dancing, which caused a moment of disbelief and silence. Shamus broke it after a moment, “What kind of names are those?”? Barney looked at the red headed bar owner, "Hopi, a Native American tribe from Earth, old Earth. The names mean ‘magical dancer’ and ‘bear’? Shamus rolled the new information around in his head as Barney continued, “Diz searched around and found out that a certain Colonial Marshall has a son and daughter with those names.”? Shamus’ eyebrows knitted together with concentration, when he still hadn’t come up with anything after another few more bites Barney dropped the name, “Cheveyo Blackcloud.”?

Shamus straightened up as if his Mother had just appeared behind Barney wielding a rolling pin and a disapproving scowl, “Cheveyo? Sh*t, that ain’t good… He only goes where strange and f#@ked up stuff is going down.”? The two looked at each other in morose silence until the communicator began dancing again; they both stared at it for awhile as it skittered across the uneven and marred surface.

Shamus grabbed it before it fell off the counter and plopped it into a bowl of peanuts to keep it quiet, and to keep it from trying to jump off the counter like a shiny metallic lemming. Shamus looked Barney squarely in the eyes, “You better get going before ‘Hot Rod’ has an aneurism…?Besides… She”, he tilted his head toward the front door that Barney had been glancing every ten minutes for the entire morning, “is going to be very late this morning, I asked her to pick up some supplies on the way to work.”? Barney almost choked on his Irish coffee, “Wha, who, who are you talking about?”? Shamus laughed heartily, “You damned well who I am talking about, the reason you come in here every morning before work. It sure as Hell isn’t for my cooking.”? He leaned closer savoring Barney’s embarrassment, “Every morning you drag in here as if you are on your way to the gallows, but after a few minutes of pleasant conversation with my beautiful barkeep you leave here shining like a newborn sun.”?

Barney’s eyes dropped to his plate of cold food, “It’s that obvious?”? Shamus groaned, “It is bloody embarrassing, I am just glad nobody else is ever around to see it. I have a reputation to uphold, it is a pub after all.” Seeing you two together is so damned saccharine I am surprised you haven’t turned me Diabetic, good God man; I have to go and brush my teeth every time after you leave."?

Shamus sighed watching the dejected deputy fishing his communicator out of the bowl, “Look don’t get me wrong, it is nice seeing someone treating her like a person for a change, Instead of a piece of ***.” Barney quickly raised his hands up in a ‘Whoa!’ gesture. Shamus sighed and shook his head while looking toward the floor, “Sorry… I…”? But when he looked back up Barney was already heading out the front door with strong strides, trying to blow salt out of the crevices and niches of his annoying communicator.

Shamus threw his towel down in frustration and muttered through clenched teeth, “Smooth Shamus, real smooth.”?

---

[Omra]

Meditation is difficult aboard a spaceship, there are rarely any Earth elements to bond with and establish a connection. And spirit travel is extremely dangerous when your corporeal body is in a tiny fast moving ship traveling through an enormous void, instead of resting upon an enormous slow moving and easy to find rock. Cheveyo was a seasoned traveler and could tell by the harmonics of the engines and the vibration of the hull that something was wrong long before he reached out beyond the hull with his senses. Feeling the lines of energy constantly shifting, and the nearly random transitions in speed and direction merely confirmed what he had suspected. After bringing himself back into his body he dressed, pulled his long graying hair into a pony tail and secured it with a decorative clasp. After gathering together his gear he exited his cabin, as he headed toward the front of the massive vessel it became clear that the colonists were completely unaware that anything was wrong. They played with their children, exchanged gossip and gathered together for their bible studies as if nothing were wrong. He was not surprised, they had probably never traveled by ship before and the pilot was masterful at masking the course changes and drive shifts. They more than likely thought the subtle changes were nothing more than ‘space turbulence’.

He made his way to the bridge flashing his credentials and using his famously colloquial charm to get past the crew members that tried to bar his way. When he finally reached the bridge he could noticeably feel the tension and panic in the dimly lit room, he ignored the frantic young men who were scurrying around the multi leveled room and headed right for the one calm man in the front, the pilot. The Marshall addressed the pilot with his usual disarming charm, “Hey old man why are we so far off course? You haven’t been drinking have you? I thought all that stuff about pilots was just urban legend.”? The pilot was clearly older than the rest of the crew but not OLD, he looked sideways at the weathered features of the law man and smiled. “Old? Have you looked in a mirror lately?”? The Marshall smiled back and retorted, “Don’t you know us ‘Indians’ are afraid of mirrors? They might steal our souls!”? They both chuckled for awhile and the laughter seemed to ease the tension in the room, though the pilot suspected it had something more to do with the presence of the wise looking old man.

The pilot pointed to a screen which showed the trajectory of an incoming object, the Hopi Truth Seeker leaned closer and tried to digest the display after a moment his brown eyes wandered to some of the other monitors before settling back on the intense persona of the pilot. “It is too small for a pirate vessel and traveling far too fast.”? The pilot looked impressed with the analysis, “Exactly, pirates never burn fuel unnecessarily. And pirates would never do such an intense burn to reach a vessel that they are not absolutely certain would have enough valuable cargo aboard to justify such an expense.”? The pilot gestured around him, “And there is nothing of value aboard this ship to justify that,” pointing back to the display showing the flashing icon, “kind of an interception.”? The Marshall nodded, “Usually they would herd you toward an ambush point using multiple small vessels doing low burns to keep the expenditure of their limited resources down,”?he glanced again at the navigational charts and pulled a face, “we are way off the usual shipping routes… Where did you encounter it?”?

A young man at a work station spoke up, “Actually there two vessels, the larger one stayed behind to work on some kind of array.”? When Cheveyo looked over at him the young man dropped his gaze like a young wolf acknowledging an Alpha, “Can you show me where they were at?”? The man perked up seemingly eager to please the wizened old Marshall, “Yeah sure,”? his hands flew across the controls and an image came up showing three obscure objects."? Cheveyo had the nervous lad show the location in relation to where their ship had been at the time of the discovery and then their original flight path before the pursuit. As he digested the information he had just seen, the long haired man made a slow circuit of the bridge stopping beside each young crew member just long enough to smile and nod to them, by the time he came back around to the front of the bridge beside the veteran pilot, the room was noticeably calmer. The pilot looked from his crew to the old man impressed, there indeed was something magical about his presence, and all of their eyes were on him now instead of on the pilot. Cheveyo turned to the pilot with wry grin, “That is some very creative navigation Captain.”? The pilot returned the grin and saluted flamboyantly, “Greene, or as they used to call me in the Navy, ‘Jiggy’.”? The Marshall bowed slightly, “Well Jiggy, your shortcut caused you and your crew to witness something you were not meant to see, and they,”? pointing to the display showing the ship which doggedly pursued them, “mean to prevent you from telling anyone what you saw.”?

“I’ll say! They have been jamming our communications,”? one of the bridge crew said. The others nodded vigorously as another spoke, “They must have one Hell of an ECM package to be able to black us out from that range.”? “And we are going to be coming in hot and have no way to warn anyone,”? another chimed in. Jiggy looked at the oddly dressed Marshall, “And we will going to be coming in from a direction of which no one will looking nor monitoring,”? he ran fingers through his salt and pepper hair, “it is a good thing that it is such an obscure location that we are going to, traffic should be all but non existent.”? Cheveyo asked, “How far ahead of schedule are we?”? One of the bridge crew turned and checked a screen, ?€œWe were going to be only two days ahead thanks to Jiggy’s new route, but now with the engines maxed out it looks like we will be a full week ahead of schedule."?

Cheveyo blew out a breath, “Whew, that is good!”? Jiggy looked at him askance, “How so?”? The beaded and buckskinned Marshall explained, “It means that we will be arriving ahead of all the merchants and riff raff that always show up when a colony ship docks,”? he absentmindedly toyed with his sweat stained old hat, “they usually arrive two to three days ahead to set up shop.”? Jiggy leaned back in his chair, “I see, so the lanes should be clear when we burst into normal space unexpectedly.”? Cheveyo looked back at the flashing icon of the incoming ship, “Any idea whose it is?”? One of the kid’s voices almost cracked when he offered, “Nothing in any of our ship profiles match, and its drive signature comes back as unknown.”? He looked back at the veteran pilot, “Are we going to make it?”? Jiggy nodded, “I got some of the boys reconfiguring survey drones into decoys and wild weasels, they may buy us just enough time to reach Vega 4. But it will be close, damned close.”?

All eyes were on the out of place Native American as he calmly asked, “Anything I can do to help?”? Jiggy smiled, “There sure is, I need someone with a strong and soothing personality who can herd those colonists into their landing pods, without causing a panic.”? Cheveyo nodded and watched as the salt and peppered pilot scratched his chin and smirked, “And I also have an idea that just might save our butts once we drop into normal space, you and some of these oompa loompas could help with that too!”?

[Omra]

Jenkins reclined at his workstation happily writing code on his personal data assistant, humming to himself as he composed another counterfeit game to sneak into the ships library. Another string of curses escaped Twitch’s alcove, which caused Jenkins to smile and chuckle he took a short break from his hobby and watched the Angels gracefully move the fueling hoses to another node, the Papa was so old that they could not use the automated refueling station in orbit. Their fuel connectors were an older generation so the Angels had to bring a trawler over to refuel them manually, they were amazing to watch.

Another eruption from Twitch’s alcove snapped Jenkins from his trance, “What?!! I have to wash my hands again??!! What kind of f*&king game is this??!!” The navigator tried not to laugh too loud, otherwise the gunner might catch on to the fact that his game was a counterfeit. He had been playing it for an hour and still had not caught on…

"AAAArrrgggh!”Twitch slammed his PDA into the wall, “What the Hell? I thought HALO games were supposed to be First Person Shooters…” He strode out of his alcove rubbing his temples, “It was more like some kind of sick and twisted puzzle game, rearranging furniture, organizing books, and constant cleaning.” He blew out a loud breath, “That was just weird… What a waste of time!” He leaned against the window and watched the Angels coupling a fuel line. Jenkins shook his head and thought, “What a Dumbass, he played for an hour and never thought to recheck his game queue. He would have seen that he was playing HALO OCD, instead of ODST… What a putz.”

Twitch watched the Angels attach safety lines as he asked, “We’re on the next rotation right?” Jenkins nodded as he wrote code, “Yeah when the first group gets back tomorrow we get to go down and stretch our legs.” The kid began to pace, “I can’t wait, it is going to be one long and boring ass trip escorting a colony ship out to the far end of nowhere. I hope it isn’t a Conestoga Class, those things are reeeeeaallly slow…” Jenkins was about to open his mouth to answer when a bright flash stopped him.

Twitch rubbed his eyes and blinked; when his eyes readjusted he instinctively backpedaled at what he saw. The massive hull of the converted terraforming vessel filled the windows of the bridge, it seemed almost close enough to reach out and touch. And it was moving fast, its close proximity exaggerated its speed but it was still ridiculously fast. The Gunnery Chief shouted, “What the Hell?!” Jenkins jumped up and silenced the blaring proximity alarms, and checked to see the registry of the dangerously close vessel. Twitch moved to another window to continue watching the ship as it moved away from them and continued to hurtle dangerously close to the planet, “Who is that lunatic?”

The bizarre behavior of the ship got even worse; it began ejecting cargo containers rapidly. The space behind the ship became so littered with containers that it soon obscured Twitch’s view of the ship, he ran to his tactical display so he could better observe the ships eccentric behavior. His display flickered to life and soon showed that landing pods were ejecting from the bottom of the ship and heading planet side, but their approach vectors were strange. It took a moment for him to realize what they were doing; they were using the cargo containers as a shield to hide them from… what? It was as if they were expecting-.

Another flash! And the ship shook from the turbulence of the close pass of another vessel, the wake was intense. It must either be massive or moving even faster than that insane colony ship. The Papa listed and was pulled along for a ways by the furious drive wash from the passing vessel. The men quickly fastened themselves into their seats and began waking Papa’s systems up, something strange was happening and they needed to be ready for whatever it was.

The new ship was of an unknown drive signature and design, destroyer class size and it was humping hard! Jenkins hit the alarm for battle stations; Twitch cursed and punched the console when only a third of the Papa’s guns showed a ready light beside them. Half the ship was in tear down; this was supposed to be a ‘Milk Run’. The destroyer’s front thrusters flared as it tried to decelerate but it rammed right into the cargo containers the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang had dumped in its path.

Behind them Shaver came running up stairs to the bridge his face filled with rage, “This had better not be a drill! Or I swear to God I will gouge out your eyes and Skull F&k you!” He plopped himself into his pilots seat and strapped in, when looked to the right and saw the alien craft he did a double take, “Holy sht!” When the destroyer began blasting the cargo containers out of its way Shaver began maneuvering the Papa into an optimal firing position. He yelled at Twitch, “What do we have to throw at it?”

Twitch growled back, “Not much that will make a dent in those shields, and most of the targeting systems for our good stuff is down for upgrades and maintenance anyways, we would both have to be sitting still for me to hit them” Jenkins piped up, “I don’t get it, we are three times their size they should have bugged out by now.” Shaver smiled, “Maybe they got cut off by the colony ship, you know… road rage?”

The debris cleared, missile ports opened up on the destroyer. Twitch muttered, “Oh sh*t I hope everyone is out of that thing…” Jenkins shook his head, “No, the main drives just powered up… But I have never seen power curves like this before, it is like they are out of sync or something.” The destroyer launched six missiles, three would have been enough. The colony ship launched two drones along its heading, sped on ahead and powered up. Jenkins got a puzzled look on his face, “They launched decoys… But they are not between the missiles and themselves, what good are they going to do?”

The colony ship began to shimmer and blur, and soon it looked like there were multiple colony ships blinking in and out of existence, but none of them full materialized, more like… phantoms. The missiles lost their lock and began to fish back and forth on a search pattern trying to reestablish a lock. They sensed the decoys and sped off after them passing right through the phantom colony ships. The decoys exploded with a brilliant flash and the colony ship shimmered and fell back into normal space its engines flickering and venting plasma. Shaver smiled, “Damn he’s good!” Jenkins gaped, “What just happened?” Shaver explained, “He ‘jigged’, feathered his drives, never staying in any one place for more than a microsecond. It is almost like phasing, hovering between normal and subspace. I have seen it done with fighters, but never, ever with something as massive as a colony ship. I am surprised civilian engines could even pull it off.”

Motion outside of his window caught his eye, and idea came to him. He slapped the quick release on his harness and bolted to a nearby station while yelling at Twitch, “Get ready to fire!” Shaver manned the tractor beam controls and locked on to his target, it fought him but they were no match for military grade tractor beams. Twitch asked, “What do you need?” Almost there… Shaver answered, “Hull piercing followed up by incendiary rounds.” “Online, but it is going to be manual.” “I trust your aim Twitch, here it comes… Shoot it!”

Twitch’s eyes went wide, “The fuel trawler? But there are civilians aboard, I can’t…” Shaver and Jenkins booth roared, “F&^king shoot it!” He winced, but followed orders.

The trawler had been placed right beside the destroyers engines, when it exploded it took the engines with it. The dual fireballs were as impressive as they were deadly. The front half of the vessel was propelled ahead of the explosion leaving a trail of debris and bodies behind it. The remaining hull amazingly stabilized itself and remained powered, hangers opened on it and shuttles and dropships began exiting. Assault pods soon followed, Twitch tried to target the rapidly descending craft but on manual it was all but impossible, once all of the available targets were out of range he focused on the remaining hull. He destroyed it, but not before it launched a message drone. The drone speed past them and went into subspace as soon as it left the planets gravity well.

The gunnery chief looked wearily over at his Captain, “I think Haradian-Vangelus is going to want to have a word with you…” Captain Euleclides looked smugly over at the chief, “Hey, we are alive aren’t we? And so are the people on that colony ship.” He smiled mischievously, “Besides, you’re the one who shot that trawler, not me.” Jenkins burst out laughing. Twitch looked back and forth between them as if they were mad, “F$#k you both, gallows humor… I don’t know if I will ever get used to it.”

So much for the milk run.

The Comm. Station lit up like the bastard child of Osaka and Vegas, Shaver looked over his shoulder at it and muttered, “Let me guess… Christie is planetside?” Jenkins piped up, “Yeah lucky her… I guess the light show was visible from the surface” The Captain jerked a thumb at the Comm Station, “Jerky get over there and fill everyone in on the situation, and then contact all of the smucks who happened to be indoors at the time.”

He leaned on the console and looked out of the window at the descending craft, “And God help anyone who disobeyed my orders and shut off their communicators, if they did they are in for one Hell of a surprise. They are about to receive visitors!”

[NCTibby]

“I’m on my way out, Mama,” Dana shouted as she scrambled to tie back her hair and gather her things en route to the front door. “Do you need anything before I go?”

A slight cough was the only response. She sighed and entered her mother’s bedroom, where Mrs. McKenna was still lying huddled beneath blankets. She sat down gently on an unoccupied area of mattress and held her hand against her mother’s forehead. “You still have a fever. I’ll ask Mr. O’Connell to send over some ice–”

“Don’t want anything from that man,” she protested, quietly but firmly.

Dana rolled her eyes and reached over to retrieve a damp cloth from a bowl on the bedside table. “That man has been very kind to us when no one else would,” she reminded, placing the cloth on her mother’s forehead. “And I know you don’t like charity, but there’s a difference between being stubborn and being practical. Out here, practical keeps us alive.”

“The man’s a criminal,” she continued.

“And a thief and a liar, I know,” Dana recited. “But he has the ice that we need. He also expects me to pick up supplies.” She got to her feet and smoothed out her uniform. “I asked Doc Caudill to visit you on his way in; please be civil. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

She left the bedroom and headed for the door, trying to put aside her worries and focus on work. Thanks to O’Connell’s connections, the pub where she poured pints usually didn’t hurt for supplies. All the better for the hungry and thirsty masses that staffed the nearby refinery and distribution port. But things seemed to be getting more difficult these days. The transport ship was several days behind schedule and rations were starting to wear thin, as were tempers. Word had it that the skirmishes between the Hooters and Crocketts were becoming more frequent, more violent. Which was bad for business as the two odd but efficient communities were the main suppliers of meat and produce to the town of Betwixt.

As Dana entered the darkened interior of Shamus’ Pub, giving her eyes a few moments to adjust, she hoped that her employer would be in a good mood. She hated to ask for a favor if he wasn’t. “Morning, Shamus,” she said with a warm smile, discerning his familiar figure behind the bar.

She crossed the room, hefting several packages and bags up onto the bar. “Now, I apologize in advance if I didn’t get the right kind of coffee. They didn’t have much to choose from. And it took a lot of haggling but I did manage to get some fresh venison. Well, fresh-ish. And I’m pretty sure that Dunivant is overcharging for potatoes but you can feel free to discuss that with him…”

Dana realized that she was still talking, uninterrupted. Shamus usually never let her irrelevant ramblings go on this long. So she paused to look at his face. “What’s wrong? Not another surprise health inspection?” she inquired.

[Omra]

The crudely hewn pub lay silent for an awkward moment, the petite woman watched Shamus with a puzzled expression. He glowered at the dirty flatware on the counter, as if it had offended him in someway, absently rubbing his chin in deep thought. It was not until she hefted her heavy burden onto the counter beside him that his trance broke, he glanced at the bags of groceries as if they had materialized from thin air. When she peeked from behind the wall of supplies he blinked until recognition set in, “Ah, hello luv. Sorry.” He pointed to the empty place setting, “Your friend dumped some rather bad news on me…” But he failed to elaborate further.

He picked through the heaping piles of supplies surveying the produce, spices and meats with a practiced eye. Without even acknowledging the impressive feat of having carried such a load by her self he fished out the receipts and began going over them, studying them item by item. He groaned and pushed one aside, “Saints preserve me…” He looked up from the second receipt and glared at his faithful helper. She merely swept a stray strand of hair from her face and looked at him with a look of utter innocence. Defeated he blew a breath out, it was like trying to scold a puppy. So he settled for snapping his fingers and pointing to the bags; as if to say, “Shouldn’t you be doing something?” She began putting away the supplies.

Satisfied by her hurried movements he returned to analyzing the receipts. The simple yet homey business remained quiet for some time, its silence only broken by the sounds of the young ladies efficient movement. Shamus got to the fourth receipt and let out a painful groan, she looked to see if he was actually injured. He angrily waved the receipt in the air “Jesus on a Segway, did they 'old a gun t’ yer head?!” Dana was about to answer but their attentions were drawn elsewhere.

The sounds of people shouting drew their eyes to the windows. People were pointing skyward and talking with awe and excitement. And as they moved closer to the window they could see others leaving their businesses to step outside and look up to see what all the commotion was about.

[Shalashaskka]

"Let me guess,"Jayke Kryger said in a deep bass tone which was slightly distorted by the microphones in his helmet. He was looking at a bloodied face laying in the dirt on the side of the road out of town.“You didn’t think I was gonna be around so you and your compadre here,” Kryger pointed to another man who was in, more or less, the same predicament.“Decided to go ahead and drink this, despite the fact I said you two in particular weren’t allowed. Especially after what happened last time.” Kryger threw the empty bottle at the head of the farther one, bouncing off with a loud thunk. Sure, maybe Kryger didn’t NEED to beat them both unconscious after finding them outside of town, hungover with bottles of Lugarian ale, HIS Lugarian ale, littered around their bodies, but he figured this way, they’d listen this time. Out of nowhere, there was a loud bang. Kryger looked up and saw a large explosion outside of the planet’s orbit. Just as soon as that had happened, his comlink in his helmet buzzed to life.
“Jayke? Jayke are you there? It’s Christie.” He pressed a button on the side of his helmet and he received a visual communication.“What can I do for you sweetheart?”
"There was an explosion…
“Yeah, yeah.” Kryger cut her off.“I saw it.”
“Really? Where the hell are you?”
She sounded almost nervous. Kryger looked down at the bodies of the two crewmen, one of whom was now stirring.
“Taking out some trash. Don’t tell me you were looking for me; normally your communicator is turned off.”
“I know, but this might be important. Is there somewhere we can rendezvous?”
“There was a bar in town I was planning on going to, but I was tied up.”
“Let me guess, McMahon and Wissington got into your ale.”
“Let’s just say they won’t do that again.”
Christie chuckled, and Kryger could see her loosen up slightly. “Where is this bar?”
“In the middle of town. You can’t miss it.”
“What’s it called?”
"The sign just says “Bar.”
“I’ll contact everyone else.” With that, she disappeared from Kryger’s helmet view. He frowned and started walking down the road into town, kicking Wissington’s ribs as he walked by him.

[Omra]

Barney was trying to calm down some of the local shopkeepers which were nervous and understandably leery about the mercenaries when it happened. The street which was usually filled with the sounds of commerce and transient conversations had gone unnaturally quiet. Barney and the shopkeepers had noticed the heavy silence and cast their eyes about them; everyone was looking up at the sky. They followed the gazes upward and saw the explosion; it must be enormous if it could be seen from down here.

Once the initial awe was over people began excitedly speculating as to what it must be, the conversations turned into a roar within moments as others spilled into the streets to see what was going on.

By the time small objects began to appear in the distant sky communicators began going off in the crowd. Soon mercs began spilling out of clubs and restaurants, some of them holding their communicators up to their ears. When the locals saw the mercenaries looking at one another and nodding as they were updated by their communicators they became nervous. When the mercenaries took off at a dead run for the spaceport that nervousness soon escalated to panic.

The crowd turned to Barney for answers, pleading and prodding. He waved his hands and pleaded for quiet and calm as he unfastened his communicator. He dialed up the HV communications coordinator, when she answered he barked, “Diz, what the Hell is happening up there?”

[Omra]

The department heads sat around the briefing room table which was cluttered by PDA’s, snack wrappers, drink cans and flimsies. The Captain addressed the room, “We have to assume the message drone alerted whoever is out there about what happened, and they will be coming here looking for payback at the very least.”? There were a few mutterings but no dissents. “We are a licensed and bonded Unit and by law we are obligated by our charter to protect any United System worlds that require our help.”? Again the room was unhappy but nodded agreement. The Captain pointed to Chip who was filling in now for Christie on the Comm station, “What do we have nearby that can help us out?”?

Chip thumbed through his flimsies and pulled one out, “There is an I.S. cutter on contract with Haradian Vangelis which patrols the shipping lanes for their freighters, it is fast, at least in normal space; and heavily armed but it is an old mercury class and uses jump engines.”? Some of the room groaned, they knew what that meant. He continued once the room died down, “They have been contacted and are on their way, but it will take at least two days for them to get here.”? He looked further down the sheet, “The station here has two light gunships, but they are just for their security forces and, they are non atmospheric so we cannot use them for ground support.”?

The Captain leaned forward, “That’s it? No U.S. ships? Or colonial peace-keeping vessels?”? Chip shook his head, “Nah, we are too far out from any of the major trade hubs. And there are no major shipping lanes nearby or Starbases to be guarded.”? One of the others spoke, “What about other merc units? By charter they would be law-bound to help us out.”? The Engineering dept head looked doubtful, “Most of the inner planetary conflicts and civil wars are in the Beta Quadrant, I doubt anybody would be out this far.”? Shaver looked at Chip with narrowed eyes, ?€œWell? Are there any?"?

Chip folded out a screen from the table surface and accessed the ships computer, “Nobody we know… The only thing in this sector is a group called ASP, they are licensed. So we can reel them in using the charter, but they are only a single ship strength unit. Independently operated, not Corporately or Foundationally sponsored like us.”? Shaver asked, “Anybody know anything about these guys?”?

A few of the group tossed out tidbits, “They do small contracts, nothing major like us.”? “They are a special forces unit, infiltration, surgical strikes. Stuff like that.”? “They are survivors of the Human-Skall war, they operated behind enemy lines. They were trapped there when we finally pulled out, poor bastards had to fight and infiltrate their way back into human space.”? The room grew quiet after that.

The Captain asked, “What do they have?”? Chip scrolled through the very limited file on them, “A modified Valkyrie Corvette, flechette longboat, Palidan class dropship, and a Katana+ fighter.”? The Captain scowled, “That’s it?”? The others laughed, “He said small!”? “We could use a fighter,”? one of the engineers offered. Another nodded, “Yeah and I hear that it was a stealth prototype of some type, which would be good for recon and harassing operations.”? The Captain shrugged, “Well a little help is better than no help, a corvette isn’t going to be able to stand toe to toe in a capital ship slugfest. But then again in our condition neither are we.”?

The Captain sighed and then said unenthusiastically, “Give them the bad news Chip, how long until they can get here?”? Chip checked their flight plan, “They are en route to New Akihabara… Let’s see, ah, they have upgraded their engines to ‘Slipstream’ they could be here by tomorrow easily.”? He pulled a face when his eyes went lower on the page, “One small problem. They are mostly made up of non humans.”?

Half of the eyes around the table went to the ‘Butterbar’ sitting by himself on the starboard side, the burley and scarred man merely shrugged and said, “I don’t see that as a problem, if they are trained to operate as a small fast moving unit it is best to let them stay that way. Let them operate freely from our forces and we will get better results, our men are used to operating at divisional strength.”? The First Lieutenant looked around and saw no disagreement so continued, “Our real problem is going to be getting our own limited grunts to think differently, and retrained to fight guerilla style.”?

Shaver nodded and asked the representatives of the flight crew, “What do we have available?”? The two women looked sheepishly at their notes, “Four dropships, but they were in the middle of teardown for maintenance, it will take 6 hours at least to get them flight ready.”? The Leiutenant representing the infantry winced at the news; he did not like leaving his men on the planet without ground support for so long.

The Captain drummed his fingers on the table, “What about our fighters?”? The women looked at each other nervously and then one sheepishly answered, “They were all contracted out by the Foundation to help defray the expense of this trip, we only have one left onboard.”? The other woman finished for her, “But in order to get all of the other fighter’s flight ready we had to cannibalize it for parts.”? The first woman continued again, “And even if we had a fully operational fighter all of the pilots were contracted out.”? The Captain glared at them, the women dropped their eyes. He shook his head and cursed, “I can’t believe those suits sent us out on an escort mission with no fighter craft, what were we supposed to do if we ran into a squadron of pirates?”? One of the women offered, “We were hoping that the spaceport might have the parts we need.”? He slammed an open palm on the table, the women jumped at the unexpected outburst. “Then maybe you should go and find out before the next wave of ships arrives!”? They both scrambled out of the room bumping into chairs and each other as they fled from him.

The eldest of the Engineers scolded him, “That was uncalled for, it isn’t their fault the suits dry-humped us. Or that brass didn’t watch our backs when the bean counters sliced up our unit and sent them on Bullsh*t contracts to balance their books.”? None of the others looked at Shaver but it was clear they felt the same way, he was about to apologize when his table displays interface chirped with an update. He muttered, “Now what,”? and touched the screen to see what it was. The colony ship was pulling alongside and the crew were asking to come aboard, when he saw the name of the Captain and his companion he grinned a cruel smile and laughed, he called the bridge and told them to authorize the transfer.

He looked back at the men gathered around the table, “Good news, if we can get that bird operational we have a pilot available,”? he tapped the screen happily; some of the others opened their displays to see the name. Some of the older crewmembers smiled when they saw the name, “He is still alive?”? Shaver leaned closer, “And that is not all… There is a Colonial Marshall with him, which means we may be able to commandeer civilian vessels to our cause.”? The First Lieutenant nodded, “And he may be helpful in rounding up a militia too, they may not be worth sh*t in a fight but they will know the terrain and will be invaluable in keeping the locals in line.”?

He sent the lead engineers to meet the crew of the colony ship to see if there were any useful parts onboard they could use, and the rest were rushed down to get the dropships ready. He walked with the groundpounder for a ways discussing tactics and what weapondry loadouts might be best for the landing but since they had never met this enemy before they realized it was really a crap shoot.

He finally gave up and simply told the man to do his best before they parted ways, he was going to have to trust the mans instincts and years of fighting experience.

Now, time to go meet Jiggy and this Marshall.

[NCTibby]

“Not watching the show?” Tobey asked, as he eagerly shuffled down the stairs into the stern’s starboard engine room, where logistics officer Evelyn Grayson was holding a clipboard and closely monitoring the fuel tanks.

“Not interested,” she replied in a detached tone.

“Those Angels…they sure are strange-lookin’. Pretty but strange.”

“They creep the hell outta’ me,” she muttered. She activated the comm link in her ear and announced, “Fuel tank 2 complete. Movin’ on to 3.” She tucked the clipboard under her arm and strode over to another wall of dials and gauges.

Tobey followed along like an eager puppy. “Cap says they used to be people,” he countered.

“Yeah, used to be. ‘People’ ain’t the word for what they are now. But they keep our Papa runnin’ so praise be to the Angels,” she added with an ironic smile. “Did you check on those aft stabilizers like I asked?”

Tobey opened his mouth to answer but before he could do so, a sudden and violent wave shuddered through the ship, tossing them both against the wall. Hazard lights bathed the room in an urgent red as proximity alarms blared. “What the hell was that?!” he tried to shout above the noise.

“Don’t know, kid,” she replied, standing with an indignant grunt. “Not supposed to be anyone here but us and the gas can.” She touched her ear to switch to another channel on the comm link. “Grayson to Bridge…Grayson to Bridge, can anyone hear me?” But there was only static.

The alarms were silenced but confusion still filled the air. Evie placed her hand on Tobey’s shoulder. “Get topside, see what you can find out,” she instructed in an even tone. “I’ll put a hold on refueling till we know what’s going on. Don’t want any sparks flyin’.”

“Yes, sir…er, ma’am,” he answered quickly before running for the stairs. A second, more violent shockwave hit the ship and it felt like the whole structure was about to do a barrel roll. Evie braced herself against the wall while Tobey clung desperately to the railing until the shaking subsided. He looked back to the officer with wide eyes, as a monitor alerted them to the missile system being brought online.

“Okay, Plan B,” Evie declared. “Lock down the lower decks, assess the hull for any perimeter breach, and find out what the hell they’re shooting at.”

He wordlessly nodded and continued his climb up the stairs.

“And tell those rocket jockeys if they break my ship, they buy it,” she shouted after him.

[Shalashaskka]

Kryger rummaged through the crowd gathering outside of the streets, pushing some people out of the way. They were too preoccupied with the fireworks taking place in orbit to pay much attention to a man wearing combat armour. He finally managed to push his way into the tavern. Upon entering, he noticed that Christie was there, as well as a few other mercenaries from Papa’s crew who were on shore leave. A few were standing around, others were sitting. One of the lieutenants, a fellow by the name of John “Backhand” Bateman approached him.
“Ladies and gents, look who decides to grace us with his presence.”
Kryger eyed the 2nd lieutenant before stepping by him, saying nothing. Bateman wasn’t his favourite member of the crew; he was disliked far more than everyone else, which left maybe two or three people there that Kryger could stand, the comm officer Christie being one of them. All of his personal dealings were done through her, which seemed to fly with the COs since he wasn’t a permanent member anyways.
Christie approached him and gave him a quick glance.
“Are we missing anyone?” she asked.
“Isn’t that your job?” Kryger responded.
Batemen stepped in. “Don’t talk to her like that, you jackass. Everyone knows you’re the watchdog here. Which I don’t approve of since I don’t like some freshman rookie telling the rest of us how we handle ourselves. You’re just lucky you’re in Euleclides’ good books.”
Kryger looked at Bateman’s face. He saw a scar run down his right eye, blinding him. Rumour was he got his nickname from his blatant misogyny, which, rumour also has it, was the cause of of his now useless right eye. Kryger’s face was masked by his visor, creating an aura of mystery that Batemen couldn’t see through.
“How much do you treasure your sight, Bateman?” he growled at the lieutenant.
Christie jumped in between the two men. “Knock it off! Both of you!” She held her forearms on each man’s chest, keeping them pressed apart. “We have bigger problems right now. The explosion means that Papa either fired or was fired upon. We don’t need a testosterone filled cock fight right now.” Bateman frowned and turned away from Kryger, leaning against the wall.
“Has there been a call from Papa yet?” Kryger asked Christie.
“None yet. We’re waiting for that.” She frowned and released her arm from Kryger’s chest. “For now, all we can do is wait and make sure we’re all accounted for. As soon as we get a comm signal, we can act.” She turned and faced Bateman. “Any more outbursts like that, and I’ll personally make sure of it that you get thrown in the brig for the remainder of this mission. I’m in charge of everyone on shore leave. Got it?”
Bateman spat at the floor, grudgingly forcing himself to reply “Yes, sir.”
Another mercenary, a woman, approached Christie. “We’re still missing Wissington and McMahon. Shall I comm them?”
“They won’t be here for a while.” Kryger responded. The woman eyed him curiously, before Christie gave her a nod.
“I hate long waits. I’m getting a drink.” Kryger slipped his visor up and headed to the bar. What am I going to do with him? Christie thought as she sat down at the table and began to figure out their situation.

[Kirokai]

“Aww crap,” Said a booming voice coming from two feet sticking out of the rear access panel, “We just fried out the motivator in the aft fire control again.”

“Once we translate back into n-space and get the rust bucket back on to Veggie, we’ll pull it apart and take a look at it.” Said Mel as she looked back at the mass of wires, tools and body parts that belonged to her partner, Graeme, “It’s not as if we are dropping into pirate space or anything, just boring old Vega.”

‘We didn’t have to go through that asteroid field, Mel.” He muttered out loud before grumbling under his breath about ‘getting too old’, ‘unnecessary risks’, and ‘hot shot pilots’.

“That asteroid field just shaved three days off our trip,” She smiled as his mass of fluffy white hair poked itself out of the panel. “You’ll thank me later. We’re coming up on the edge of Veggie. Get strapped in, translation into n-space in 1 minute.”

As Graeme sat and buckled in, he looked over at Melanie and smiled. He’d met her 10 years ago on merchant ship heading towards the outer rim colonies. They we’re both part timers and gypsies then. Getting whatever jobs they could to survive and always trying to stay one step ahead of local colony law enforcement. She was the first alien he’s ever met – and almost his last, remembering her temper and the wallop she gave him for asking too many questions about her past. Over the years they stuck together, and their once prickly business relationship had evolved into an easy friendship.

“Veggie isn’t so bad is it?” he looked at her, “We are semi-respectable. We have a good side business there. The law leaves us alone - hell! Most of them are our best customers!” He laughed. “Yeah so it’s boring, but eh, I’ll take boring over dead any day,”

“You really want to stay here, Grammy?” Mel looked over at him. “We sell black market medical supplies and I am a glorified mail delivery person. No excitement, no honor. Domesticated. Boring.” She spat out the last word like it was something foul.

He chuckled. “God forbid if Warrior Princess gets bored.”

She screwed up her face in mock indignation. ‘Shut up. We’re translating…now”

The view outside shimmered for a few seconds, then cleared. Both Melanie and Graeme stared in disbelief at what they saw outside.

“What in God’s name-!” Mel choked out.

“Pirates?” he asked as he scurried out of his seat and started locking things down around the cabin. He punched a button and part of the deck floor opened. “Do you think they spotted us?’

“Depends on if they were looking in our direction. There is a lot of debris out there; it could be helping to mask our signal.” Mel thought for a second. “We have the sun at our back. That should also help us, at least for a minute or two. What’s the status on that gorram stealth drive?”

His white furry head popped out of the floor. His face was even whiter. “I need time, when the aft fire control went, it shorted the drive.”

“We don’t have time. Graeme, get your vac suit on.” Mel said.

“Alright, but first I need to-“

“NOW Graeme!” Mel ordered as she pulled her own on. “The only shot we have is if we look like part of the debris field. I have to shut everything down, even life support. I’ll burn our thrusters enough to bump us in the right direction before shutdown."

“And then what, Mel?”

"After that, we pray.”

[Omra]

(Joint Post- Omra & Shalashaska)

The interior of the ‘Wee Bit’ was quiet and full of tension as some of Kryger’s squad paced anxiously wanting to know what was going on up above. Jayke munched on stale nuts and was on his second tankard of what passed for ‘spirits’ on the backward rock when his helmets comm. went off, “Kryger, you better have that damned suit on!” He touched the stud to authorize two way communication, “What? You’re interrupting my gourmet meal.” The tavern owner took offense to his snide comment, “Hey!” But the charming lady beside him calmed him down before any violence broke out.

Bowman snickered, “Figures, you practically shower in that thing…” Jayke could make out some laughter and crude comments in the background, one of them sounded like, “ah Sarge have you been peeking again?” He ignored the hecklers and continued, “Where is your team at?” Kryger glanced about with a bemused look, “Some dump where the owner is too cheap to put up a real sign…” Shamus did not appreciate that, “HEY!” Dana had to hold the feisty owner back; she gave the armored man a scathing look as she tried to calm Shamus down. Kryger merely turned around and peered out the windows to get his bearings, “It is on the north side of this town, if you can call it that…”

Bowman answered, “I think I know the one you mean, it is near the outer edge right? Near a cluster of trees?” Jayke strode to a side window and looked past the rear of the building, “Affirmative, what’s the sitrep?” “Bowman grumbled, “Don’t know much, Chip was talking to us about a unknown class of ship which appeared and fired on a colony ship, but then the signal began to break up. When some of my men looked up they saw craft descending, they must be jamming Papa’s signal. Christie is with you I hope!”

Kryger smiled, “Who else would she be with?” Bowman sighed, “It must be your winning personality… Anyways if anybody can get a signal to the Papa it would be her.” Kryger mused, “She is good, but what is she going to use?” “The shuttle,” Bowman spit out, “we are en route now, ping your beacon for a sec so this ‘wingnut’ beside me lands behind the right shack.” Kryger complied and talked as he made his way to the back door which read- EMPLOYEES ONLY-, “You got them to authorize free transit?” Bowman laughed, “With exploding ships and incoming bad guys it wasn’t too hard.” As he exited the back of the tavern he heard behind him in a angry brogue, “Who the Hell does he think he is?! That he can just walk through my kitchen and storeroom like that?!” He looked up and could see the glint of the shuttle in the distance, “What about our weapons?”

He could hear a lot of laughter in the background as Bowman answered, “We ‘convinced’ H.V. Security to relinquish our impounded weapons, and we even got them to ‘volunteer’ some of their own hardware to helping in our ‘cause’.” Jayke shook his head, “How, cooperative of them… I am sure ‘Tank’ helped them to make that wise discussion.” Bowman’s smile could be heard if such a thing were possible, “He can be most persuasive, talk to you after we touch down, Bowman out.”

As he watched the shuttle grow steadily closer he remembered his unpleasant experience at the starport, the security personnel insisted that the mercs relinquish their weapons. After some intense discussion the Sarge got the HV ren-ta-cops to agree to allow them to keep their sidearms or blades. But no rifles or explosives! Jayke had been on the verge of popping one of the little men’s heads like a zit when Christie stepped in and convinced the nasty little fellow that Jayke’s armor was an environmental suit, and that he would die without it.

After awhile he realized Christie was standing beside him, he looked down at her questioning eyes. “Find out anything?” she asked. “Not much I am afraid,” he offered a crooked smile, “but hopefully you can fix that.”

[NCTibby]

(Joint Post - Omra and Tibs)

Shaver stopped before he got to the main concourse and slapped his personal communicator into a communications junction to send its signal to the nearest port near its recipient. Rather than bouncing all around the interior of the ship and never reaching the lower decks. “Evie, stop beating Tobey and get over here!”

She wrestled another blown steam valve into submission with her wrench before answering the comm. “Yeah, Cap’n,” she began. “You boys decide to have a party and not invite me?”

“More like uninvited guests crashing our party,” he replied. “Two aircraft poppin’ outta’ subspace a little too close for comfort.”

“Hostile?”

“Don’t know yet. But we need to find out before the general populace of Veggie does.”

“Well, your boys know where the exit is,” she said, firing up a diagnostics check on deck 23. “Tell ‘em to lock the back door on their way out.”

“Evie—“

“What, Shaver?” she huffed. She knew that tone, that unspoken ‘it’s best for everyone if you do what I say’ declaration. Annoying, but also true. “I’ve got a ship to fix. And she ain’t exactly fresh outta’ the dock. You told me this colonial escort would be a walk in the park.”

“Well, never said walks in the park couldn’t get interesting all of a sudden,” he countered with a wry smile. Grayson was an officer, first and foremost, and he knew she’d follow orders. Even if she incessantly grumbled about it while doing so. “I need my people to go planetside and I need you to help me make that happen. Look, I know it is a lot to ask but I need someone with a cool head to keep these kids in line.”

Shaver preferred to do these kinds of things face to face but he was in a hurry. He leaned closer to the communicator, exhaling a lungful of air. “These people are under a lot of pressure to get those ships flight-ready, and I need someone to keep the infantry commanders off their backs so they can work. And to make sure that the mechanics in their hurry to finish don’t forget any essential parts.”

“You want me to babysit a bunch of grease-monkeys?” she clarified. “Isn’t that a little below my pay grade?”

“It would be slightly embarrassing to have our only two dropships explode before they hit atmo. And as everyone knows, any ship on your watch don’t crash,” he added. Appeal to her pride, suggest a blemish on that otherwise spotless record….

She huffed in resignation. Of course, she’d have to make the dropships Malkavian and Toreador flight-ready. And the Ex-Wife fighter battle-ready, in addition to the hundred other things on her to-do list. That was the job, and it certainly couldn’t be entrusted to anyone else. “Fine, I’ll be at the landing bay as soon as these scans are done.”

“Sooner would be better, Evie.”

“Do you want optimal oxygen levels or not?” she barked.

“I suppose,” he agreed. “Keep an eye on Laverne and Shirley. I may have scared them a little too much…”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

“Make sure they don’t put the guns in backwards…”

She grinned into the comm. “I’ll be sure to show ‘em which end the bullets come out of, sir.”

“Thanks, I’ll leave you to herd the kittens. Shaver out!”

[Omra]

When Shaver arrived at the lounge which sat beside the receiving area, Jiggy and the Marshall were already there waiting for him. The other younger crew members were heading back along the gangway, returning to their ship alongside the engineers which had been assigned the duty of finding salvageable parts for the Papa. Jerrod ‘Jiggy’ Greene looked just like the picture Shaver had seen in flight school, only older of course… And with the same haunted look that most vets have who have seen death far too many times.

The Marshall on the other hand was not what he had expected, he wore a suit and pants made of natural leathers. It was masterfully crafted and decorated with polished semi precious stones, bone and fine bead work. The hat had seen better days, as had the hats wearer.

The steward seemed relieved to see the Captain arrive, no doubt happy to no longer have to stall and entertain them. He dismissed him with a nod and the young man scrambled away, there seemed to be a lot of that today…

“Sorry to keep you waiting, I had a lot of preparations to make,” he looked at the two men trying to size them up, “I doubt that ship was all alone out here and I need to get this ship ready for its friend’s arrival.” Jiggy cocked his head, “Yeah, sorry about that…” Captain Euleclides looked at him, “So what did you do to piss them off enough to chase you here?” Jiggy was about to answer when the Marshall spoke up, “We saw something they did not want us to report,” he snapped a data stick into a receiver on the wall, and a picture came up on the large screen.

The Captain studied it intently, “An array of some kind, either a sensor or communications… Or it could be meant to mask something on the other side, like an approaching fleet.” He looked at the Marshall, “Sorry I did not introduce myself, Captain Sean Euleclides,” he held out his hand. The old Hopi smiled and shook it, “Marshall Cheveyo Blackcloud.” Shaver was impressed by the old mans grip and was relieved when he let go, he turned to the seated pilot, “You I know from Flight School, your Jiggy Greene,” he pointed at the stunned man. He raised an eyebrow, “They still have my picture on the wall?” They chuckled for a bit.

Cheveyo asked, “What help can we expect?” The Captain glumly replied, “A cutter, it is two days out. And a merc vessel, which should arrive tomorrow.” Jiggy seemed surprised, “That is all?” “There has been a pattern of redeployment for the last few months,” Cheveyo coolly stated, “I had suspected that is was do to a Skall buildup, that perhaps they were threatening another push into out our territory.” He turned to the screen, “But perhaps this,” he pointed to the array on the screen, “is the real reason, we may have a new enemy…”

They mulled that over for a moment before Shaver spoke, “They seemed awfully undisciplined to me at first, the way they ignored us and went after you,” his hands began mimicking the movement of the ships, “and then the way they blew away the debris you deployed. It made no sense, why expend ordnance on a debris field? Just drop below it and find a new lock on your target.”

“But then when we blew their engines,” he shrugged, “the whole ship should have blown, but they stopped the cascade and salvaged the second half of their ship.” Jiggy shook his head, “That was due to ingenious design, not anything they did. Remember how the ship had a wasp-waist?” He drew a silhouette in the air, “It prevented a surge up to the main hull, the narrow connection blows out and decouples the rest of the ship.”

The Captain rubbed his chin as he mulled it over, “Hmm I see what you mean, but still. They deployed their craft awfully quickly after our attack, which shows preplanning and good execution. A complete Juxtaposition to their other behavior…”

Cheveyo smiled, “I believe it is a cultural problem rather than a command or discipline problem.” They both looked at him with curiosity and interest as he continues, “The ferocity of the attack, and the single minded focus of the ship. At the expense of all else leads me to believe we are looking at an enemy which has the mindset of a predator.”

Cheveyo looked at the Captain, “We are a long way from any corporate or colonial struggle which I know of and yet you said there was a merc vessel nearby.” Shaver nodded. Cheveyo tilted his head, “It wouldn’t be a group named ASP by any chance?” Shaver perked up, “Well yes, it is. How did you know?” The Marshall smiled, “They are mostly non humans and therefore banned from the core worlds, they are well known out here along the outer rim.”

He pulled out the data stick and inserted another, it showed a close up of the hull on the alien vessel. He looked at the Captain, “There are two Phen’rell on that ship, when they arrive ask them to look at the ship design and especially these markings,” he zoomed in on the picture and pointed to some unusual script and a crest of some sort. “They may be able to offer some insight as to whom our enemy might be, or at the very least how they might think.”

As the two stared at the wall screen Cheveyo set down the PDA he had been using and asked, “May I please borrow a shuttle? I need to go down and rally the locals and seek out allies.” The Captain thought for a second, “I have a shuttle, but I can’t spare any pilots…” The Marshall smiled disarmingly, “That is fine; I am perfectly capable of piloting a shuttle.” The Captain doubted there was little the strange man couldn’t do, “Very well, lower decks, follow the maps on the wall screens. Tell the tool pushers I said it is OK, and to call me if they don’t believe you.”

After the darkly tanned law officer strode from the lounge Captain Euleclides turned to the salt and pepper haired pilot, “I would like for you to meet ‘The Ex’, she’s waiting for you down below.” The man looked at him as if he had sprouted another eye, “Excuse me?” Shaver grinned, “It’s the name of the fighter we are putting back together, and she needs a pilot. And I understand you did a lot of hands-on work with your own bird back in the day too.” The vet nodded, “Sure, my mechanic was injured by a catapult malfunction and I had to work on her myself for a number of weeks. I think all pilots could benefit from learning what it is like to do the work yourself, makes you appreciate all the hard work that goes into keeping them flight ready.”

Shaver crossed his arms across his chest, “Good Evie could use your help getting ‘The Ex’ ready. She already has her hands full getting our dropships ready for insertion, and having you there would help to put me back in her good graces.” The pilot stood up and saluted, “Sure thing Cap, it would be nice to sit in a fighter again. Do I even want to know how she got her name?” Shaver thought about it for a bit, “Probably not…”

[Omra]

The officer sat in his landing pod listening for a recall signal and sweeping the skies with the pods scanners, no recall signal had come. No one really had expected one, especially after the huge explosion they had witnessed while in descent. The pods had all landed safely in a farmer’s field and their occupants had disgorged shortly thereafter milling about and jabbering amongst themselves wondering what to do next.

What worried him was the fact that the local constabulary had not contacted them, and sent a retrieval team. In fact he was bothered by the fact that all comm traffic had abruptly ceased shortly after they landed. So here he sat with nearly a thousand colonists stomping around in a wheat field, and no place to send them; at least the minister was keeping them calm while he tried to figure out what to do next.

By now at least some curious neighbors should be flying over to see what had happened, then again this is Veggie, any neighbors nearby may be coming by horse drawn cart. He tied all of the pods sensors together into a stronger and more penetrating active scan, he had been told by Captain Greene to use only passive sensors for fear that any enemy that came looking for them might follow an active sensor sweep right back to them. But he had a bad feeling about their situation and wanted to check something out, the board showed the arrays were in sync and so he scanned back along their route of descent. And sure enough there was a blip; it was a fairly large one too. It was coming down along the exact same path their pods had taken…

He killed the sensors and powered down the pods, he climbed up the side of his control pod and stood on top of it. He pointed his hand held optical unit toward the incoming ship, and his worst fear was vindicated. It was a ship unlike any he had ever seen.

It was not sleek for atmospheric entry like any of the dropships he had seen before. It looked more like a?€? tuber, it was covered with growths and blisters and pods. He assumed they were mission specific packages that could be added to the ships before flight. It did not have the grace or elegance of a ship designed to fly through an atmosphere, it seemed to arrogantly defy the atmosphere to bring it down. It did not knife its way through the wind and sky, it bludgeoned its way through.

He hastefully scrambled down the pod and hurried to the mass of distraught colonists, “Everyone gather your gear, hurry!”? They looked at him with a mixture of fear and disbelief, he looked for the minister, he could muster them together. He implored them, “Please we must hurry, there is a ship inbound for this location and it is not friendly.”? Panic broke out, parents screamed for their children, others dropped to their knees and began praying, and the deacons began badgering him with questions.

Finally the baritone voice of the minister cut through the chaotic storm of noise, “My good people, I ask for calm. Do as this man asks, gather your belongings and your families, we must leave this place and head for shelter. Quickly now, time is short but fear not for the Lord shall protect us!”? The flock quieted down and began to organize their belongings, but the quiet was soon shattered by a powerful voice.

“I do not know about your God,” the man on horseback shouted, “but I can lead you to refuge from your pursuers.”? Everyone’s eyes turned to the modesty dressed and bearded man, his clothes had the look of homespun cloth and he had the appearance of a man who had worked long and hard hours outside his entire life. The congregation looked on with stunned silence, unsure of their new visitor. He removed his wide brimmed hat and lightly bowed in greeting, “My Brothers and Sisters offer you sanctuary, but you must cast away all technology. That is our only request, and it is not negotiable.”?

The Officer spoke up, “You heard the man, throw away your PDA’s, lights, communicators and other tech. We must respect their culture and lifestyle, please everyone hurry!”? The man on horseback smiles, “Brother it is not entirely because of our culture we request this,”?he smiled, “it is because we believe your enemy may be able to track any item with a power source.”?

[Omra]

(-Joint Post- Shalashaskka/Omra)

While many of the squad began off loading weapons from the shuttle and checking their readiness, Bowman watched Christie working her magic from the shuttles communication station, “Whatcha doin?” She smirked as her fingers flew across the panel, “I am routing our signal through the Space Elevators comm. System, using it as a hardwire/ antenna. And from there sending a signal to the PAPA, there will be a little delay and degradation but at least we will be able to get answers.”

Kryger stood by the rear door, overlooking Christie do what she did best. He turned his attention to the door frame, and noticed the burley tavern owner storm through it. Turning sharply upon exiting, he stared into Kryger’s eyes, unconcealed by his open visor. “Alright there, partner,” he said in a stern voice, “Those drinks that ye had. I expect some compensation for 'em!” Kryger looked at the bartender and then looked away, ignoring him. “No, ya don’t there!” the bartender barked back and moved again to face Kryger. “Money! Now!” Kryger let out a noise which sounded like a half sigh, half growl. “Bowie?” he called out. Bowman looked up at Kryger. “Oh no…” he began before being cut off.

“Pay the man.” he said as he walked in through the back door, not turning back to see Bowman’s face drop.

Static was heard from the comm station. Christie made a hand motion in an attempt to signal Bowman to remain silent. The static cleared and a voice was heard mid sentence. “…reading. Is…there? Ov-…” Christie pulled the microphone closer to her face. “This is lieutenant Christie Norman, contact Papa. Over?” Again there was static, but the receiving message was a lot more clear. “This is Chip…Christie its good…hear from you…situation?”
“Hang on, I’m going to move some backup power into the receiving dish.” She typed something into the computer.

“Chip? What’s your status up there?”

This time, Chip’s voice came in as clearly as though he was in the shuttle Christie was sending the communication from.
“A Destroyer-sized vessel attacked a colony ship in orbit; we blew the Mother up but not before it vomited out a bunch of dropships and assault pods. Chip continued with his update, “There was so much debris from the battle we do not have an exact count as to how many are coming your way, and because of their ECM we cannot track where they are going…” Everyone exchanged wary looks during the pause.

“It is going to be roughly six hours until we can send reinforcements down,” the speaker squawked, “so you people are on your own until then, good luck!” Chip cut off communications, the signal was not secure or encoded. So he was afraid to say more for fear it may be monitored. Christie shook her head, “Help is coming sooner than that I am sure, but because he thought we might be monitored he exaggerated.” Bowman grimaced, “But it is safer to assume the worst and plan for that.”

He shouted at some his squad, “Hey you three! Break up your little cluster-f*ck and get topside,” he pointed at some nearby roofs, “I need eyeballs up high looking for bad guys, MOVE IT!” He turned to Jayke, who by this point returned to the shuttle area, obviously bored from the bar interior. “Have you seen any law men nearby?”

Jayke crossed his arms.“The hell if I know. This planet’s so backwater you can’t tell the farmers from the security personnel.”

“Well see if you can find one, hopefully they have a volunteer militia,” Bowman scratched his head, “we need maps, people to help entrench and build barricades, and they will know the best defensible positions.” Kryger turned again to leave the area, when Christie chimed in: “I better go with him, he is not much of a diplomat…” Bowman smiled, “Good idea, he wasn’t hired for his charm.”

---

[Omra]

Drah’Vhen stepped out of the women’s locker room still drying her head from the nice hot shower she had taken, she could hear the tell tale delicate clickity-click of K’il’tik’s children coming down the corridor. She stopped and waited for them to pass for fear of stepping on one of them; she wiped her eyes with the towel and looked down. The shimmering crystalline like spiders scurried across the deck on their way to affect another repair; the little buggers each about the size of a guinea pig were always busy.

Drah’Vhen liked K’il’Tik, and was glad that Chirpee and Sundragon had found a way to circumvent what usually happens when her species gives birth. The children eat the birth parent, which is how the memories and knowledge of the parent is passed down to the young. Chirpee and Sundragon had used Memory RNA or something another to simulate that instead, a good thing too, so few of her kind are left it would have been a shame to lose her. Her inner reflection done she was about to step forward when she heard another one coming.

She waited and watched it race across the floor, but it looked different and she could hear singing. As it came closer she could see a tiny little cowgirl riding on its back, and she was singing the lyrics to ‘Rawhide’, well sort of… When the odd pair drew close enough she could recognize the rider, it was Yuki! Well a miniature version anyways… She looked up at Drah’Vhen and smiled, “Hi there Drah’Vhen! Yeee Haaaw!” And then went back to singing, “Rollin Rollin Rollin, though my ass is swollen, keep them doggies rollin…. Rawhiiiiiide!” Once the pair rounded the corner the Elloren’s head cowl flared widely making her look like a dark brown sexy triceratops, she strode over and angrily stabbed the computer access panel on the wall, “Computer, where is Korridan?” It dryly responded, “Chief Warrant Officer Korridan is in water reclamation on deck 3.” She hurried off to give the old man a piece of her mind.

She found him moments latter on all fours working on some plumbing, perfect! She took off her damp head towel and twirled in the air until it took on a deadly shape and….SNAP! “OW.” He jumped and almost hit his head on the nearby wall, “What the Hell?!” She jabbed a finger at him and growled through clenched teeth, “You have been installing Holo Emitters you bastard!” He rubbed his sore butt, “So? Yuki has been behaving herself; Chirpee said I could install more emitters so long as it does not interfere with ship duties.” She angrily paced and waved her arms as her head cowl flexed, “She is a menace, and you decided to reward her with more freedom?” He rolled his eyes, “That was a year ago, let it go… Look I haven’t just given her more freedom; she has had to earn it, emitter by emitter.” Drah’Vhen waved a finger in his face, “I swear to the Gods, if that mishevious little child materializes as one of those creepy Asian ghosts again I will purge her program from the core!” He was about to speak when Chirpee’s voice spoke to the entire crew in their heads.

“We have been summoned to appear at Vega 4 by Captain Euleclides of the Ralph Thorson,” his dry monotone voice droned on, “via our charter we are compelled to comply with his request…” They rolled their eyes as his emotionless voice actually recited the entire section of the charter verbatim. “Prepare for transition to slipstream, we will arrive in 8.15 standard hours at Vega 4, have your gear and ships ready by the time we arrive,” his telepathic voice left their minds. They both grabbed hand rails as the ship pivoted violently and then slipped from normal space, once they felt it safe to let go of the railing they looked at one another.

“I’ll talk to Yuki okay?” He looked at her with earnest eyes, “She knows she is on probation, and if she acts up she can lose her freedom.” Drah’Vhen’s face softened, “Fine, it was just a shock seeing her running lose on a deck I thought she was restricted from, just keep that teenage menace away from me.” The Elloren stormed off completely oblivious to the fact that her bathrobe had flown open halfway through the argument, until she ran into Leif Erickson further down the hallway. He whistled and smiled, “I like the new look!” She howled and hastily closed her flapping robe, and then snapped the grinning man with her damp towel.

When Korridan saw Leif emerge from around the corner he was rubbing his butt, Korridan laughed, “She got you too heh?” He looked at Korridan pleadingly, “It doesn’t matter the species, all women are freakin crazy!” Korridan chuckled and was about to answer when a tiny Yuki rounded the corner on her eight legged stead, they stopped beside him. She smiled and pushed up the brim of her hat to get a better view of the men, “Howdy pardner’s” Leif sighed and he pointed to Yuki, “See what I mean…”

Yuki’s almond shaped eyes narrowed in mock anger, she leaned down to talk to her mount, “You know girl, I do believe we have not branded that one yet.” Leif looked nervous as she unhooked her rope and began twirling her lasso. Yuki spurred her mount onward, “HeeYahh! Onward Lightening!” Leif took off running.

Korridan shook his head, “Kids.” He bent down to work on the plumbing again, “Well, so much for visiting the Maid Cafes at New Ahkihabara…”

[Omra]

The ‘Red Talons’ Infantry Commander watched with barely veiled disgust as his troops descended on the livestock and tore them apart with their teeth and claws, their bloodlust was out of control and he could not imagine how they could possibly find any honor or satisfaction in the butchering of defenseless prey. This only confirmed his fear of creating these… ‘Creche Warriors’, cloned troops raised on drugged meat to keep their predatory instincts in check, growth accelerated and artificially programmed with combat skills. It was unnatural and dangerous, these soldiers had never known the joy of a true hunt, never learned to control their ‘blood lust’ through discipline, meditation and years of experience. Most of the Military arm of the Kher’hon had voted against the idea of creating these abominations, but the King thought it was the only way for the race to live on and conquer new territory far from the encroaching Skall.

Drugs, what a stupid idea, what happens when the supply runs low? This! This is what happens… That stupid ship captain woke his troops too early, days early, and now they were almost impossible to control.

Bah! He deserved to die… Leaving the construction vessel unguarded to pursue glory for himself and the clan, wasting limited resources and risking exposure of our King’s plan, all to catch some stupid unarmed vessel that may not have even realized what it had stumbled upon. He turned from the frenzied blood fest in disgust; that inept fool woke these fur covered time bombs so they could board the human vessel, the very vessel that idiot lost track of. He chased after the drones by mistake, giving the slow moving civilian vessel the chance to reach this ball of rock. If his own bridge crew had not torn him apart for the disgrace he had heaped upon the Vore Clan, he gladly would have. Now the commander was stuck with soldiers that may prove to be every bit as dangerous to himself and his own staff as to the enemy, at least his command staff were real Kher’hon and not some genetic abominations.

His second approached him and offered a snappy salute, “Commander, no sign of the locals. It is as if they were snatched up by the Gods themselves, all of their equipment, food and work loads are all just lying there. As if they had vanished in mid step, it is rather unnerving.”? The commander exposed his sharp teeth as he snarled, “Don’t tell me you are superstitious, I thought your pride were better bred than that.”? The second’s ears flattened at the offense but he dared show no further aggression, “My Commander surely jests and tests my loyalty, I had thought we were beyond such petty games.”? The commander’s eyes narrowed and he purred, “Indeed, my anger got the better of me.” My frustration at our situation has me on edge, and is clouding my thoughts."? The second’s cat like eyes surveyed the chaos and mayhem befalling the farm and its quickly dying livestock, “What are we to do with them? Hurl them at the humans and hope half of them die? Most of our drugs were aboard the warship, we can only hope to control a quarter of them long term. The rest we will have to terminate using the suicide charges in their gear.”?

The Commanders tail lashed back and forth in mirth, “Funny how great minds think alike.”? Their laughter sounded like jungle cats offering challenges.

---

The assault pod blew the door free and attempted to disgorge its armored occupant, the crash padding deflated and the dazed Kher’hon commando tried to climb out. Servos whined as the powered suit exited the cramped pod, he stepped over to the access panel and blew the explosive bolts covering the payload housing. He was shocked to find no mission specific load out, just the standard weapon mounts that are preloaded with all pods. He grumbled and mounted the light weapons onto his forearms hard points, he looked around surveying his surroundings, he was in a forest.

Pods are supposed to land in urban environments, the commandos are supposed to work behind the enemy lines spreading chaos. Disrupting supply lines, sabotaging the cities infrastructure, cutting off power and communications, and to draw vital forces and resources away from the front lines to deal with the disruptions caused by the commandos. He tried to access his mission display, it was blank. No mission had been downloaded, he found no prioritized target list, or map. This was all wrong…

He tried to contact the satellite network, none had been seeded into orbit, this was bad. He broke protocol and tried to contact his ship for instructions, it did not exist. That explained why he had been launched without a mission, the ship had been fatally wounded and had launched him to the surface when the safety protocols had kicked in. Now how is he to decide if the planet was hostile or simply a refuge for the crew until rescue?

He broke protocol and used the pods communications package to find the location of the closest other pods, he could only find three near him. The others were obscured by a cloud of ECM, that could only mean one thing?€? the planets occupants were hostile! He began trekking off toward the closest pod to his location; if he could find enough other commandos perhaps they could mount an offensive. He powered the suit down to ‘marche mode’ to conserve energy, he began hiking down the face of the mountain and once he neared a clearing he could make out a small town in the distance. Hmmm how quaint…

Is that a trail up ahead? He headed toward it and snap he plummeted down into a pit. He lay in the bottom of the pit and cursed himself, “I can’t believe I fell into an ‘animal trap’, how humiliating!”? The walls were too narrow for him to move his arms, the armor had prevented him from breaking an ankle in the fall but he could barely move. Thank the Gods no one was around to see this.

[Shalashaskka]

Barney was trying to keep his face as neutral as possible while Diz gave him once piece of bad news after another. The crowd had begun to break up a bit, becoming frustrated with his lack of forthcoming answers. Many ran home to check on their families, some tried calling the spaceport for answers, others even ran off looking for Roderick thinking maybe he would have some answers. Boy are they in for a rude awakening…

And just when he thought things could not get any worse he noticed an armored form pushing its way through the crowd, it stopped in front of him. As it loomed over him it seemed to be appraising him, it did not seem impressed.

“I take it you pass for a law official on this planet?” he said in a grunt. Barney stared at the tall thing…which appeared to be a man. How he managed to get past the spaceport in the armour was beyond him, and was a little bit intimidating. “I am.” he managed to say. The armoured man pointed at him as though he was aiming a weapon. “Good. We’re gonna need your help. Grab your gear and let’s go.” Barney stared at him dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?” he asked. The armoured man leaned in towards Barney. “Let’s just say some guys that aren’t so friendly are gonna land planet-side and you’re gonna need us just as much as we’re gonna need you.”

The woman in fatigues beside him spoke, “I think what dark-and-foreboding means is we should join forces against this new threat. We need maps, information and a militia if you can drum one up… weapons wouldn’t hurt either.” She nudged the armored man beside her before he could say anything else; he finally just crossed his arms across his chest and sighed. Barney bit back a sarcastic reply, “Follow me, we can take an aircar to avoid the congestion. There are maps at the station, and I can use the address system there to rally the militia. We have some weapons and supplies there too, but not much… the bureaucrats did not think this little rock warranted it. I guess I will have to write a nasty letter about that once this is over.”

Before they left he noticed Dana looking out a window of the tavern, he caught her attention and signed ‘take care, and be safe’. She seemed to understand, and began to sign something back, but the bustling crowd swallowed up his view of her. When the armored man agitatedly cleared his throat, Barney reluctantly left.

They arrived to the aircar, which was in poor condition. The paint was peeling off and the plasma thrusters on the bottom seemed to be rusted. It was small and cramped, and it smelled of, to Jayke, like rotten vegetables. Christie climbed in and shot a glance to Jayke. “Well?” she ask in a brisk tone.
“I’m not getting in that thing.” he said sternly.
“You’re kidding me…” Christie said as she climbed out. She stood right in front of him, barley an inch apart. If it wasn’t for the visor that was down, she would’ve been able to see his face. Jayke said nothing.
“We don’t have time for this. Besides, how the hell else are we gonna get there?” she asked him.
Jayke pointed to his back, where a narrow rectangle seemed to bulge out of his back slightly.
“You have got to be kidding me! Are you an idiot? Do you really want the locals to see you flying after everything that has transpired here?”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like jetpacks are unknown here.”
“WE DON’T NEED THE EXTRA ATTENTION, YOU STUPID BASTARD!” she screamed at him. “And we both know that thing isn’t meant for long range flights. What excuse do you possibly have for not wanting to get in that thing?”
Jayke growled and crossed his arms.
Barney, who couldn’t help but overhear the commotion, watched the argument silently from the car. These truly were odd people. First, the armoured guy wants his help and now refuses transportation?
“Get in the car. NOW!” Christie screamed. Jayke walked over to it without saying a word and climbed in.
As they flew toward the station Barney tried to fill them in with what he knew from Diz, “Eight dropships made it to the surface, one is heading toward the Refinery, one to the mine. One to the Space Elevator, another to the Spaceport. One is on its way here, and another is heading to where the colony ship’s pods landed. One is looks like it is landing at the desalination plant along the shoreline, and another is landing in Hooterville, not sure why they would bother with them… I am thinking it may be they are setting up a command post there, just a theory.”

When they landed in the tiny lot behind the station Barney was greeted by another shock, sitting on the flat roof of the station was a bizarrely painted shuttle. Neatly nestled between the air conditioning system and the communications tower sat a shuttle craft painted with red, white and black diamonds. He stood scratching his head looking at it, Christie climbed out and stood beside him, “Hmm what is the Harley Quinn doing here?” Barney asked, “What is it doing on the roof?” Christie looked around and shrugged, “Well I don’t see any other place large enough for it to land…” Barney glanced at Roderick’s nice new aircar and thought, “A shame they couldn’t have parked on that!” Barney shook his head as he headed for the back door, he still could not figure out how a deputy could afford such a nice aircar on their salary.

[Omra]

“Have you Knuckle draggers gotten the APC ready yet?”? The Luey shouted, “It would be damned embarrassing if those tool-pushers got the drop ships flight ready before we had our ride pimped out for some truly epic ball-busting-action!”? After a flurry of assorted curses and dry laughter from the crew the eldest of the grunts answered, “We have done better than that you ROTC washout; we found a tank and a tank hunter back here ‘mothballed’ and forgotten in this rust buckets hold.”? The Luey grinned, “Well well, paint my nails and call me Lulu,”? he merrily clapped the man on his back affectionately; “you do say the sweetest things.”? The others laughed and joined in, “He does have a knack for finding things.” “Shit, I don’t think even the brass knew these things were back there.”?

The ‘butterbar’ followed the men back to their finds; two gleaming iridium machines perched on the floor of the cargo hold. Surrounded by busted wood and packing materials they sat proudly like monuments to mans ability to design deadly efficient death dealing weapons. He ran his hand along the tanks hull skirting, “It looks like they are ground effect craft.”? The Master Sergeant nodded, “Yeah, we won’t have worry about transmissions giving out going uphill, or wheels bogging down in mud.”? One of the privates spoke up, “We got the fusion bottles refilled and tested the fans, and they work fine.”? A corporal peeked out of a hatch, “I upgraded the firmware and tested the targeting, steering and loading mechanisms, it isn’t state of the art, and only God knows how long these things have sat here, but they’ll do in a pinch.”?

The Master Sergeant smiled a feral grin, “Their like me boss man, old but deadly. They may not be pretty but they were built well, and will give us one hell of a punch.”? The Lieutenant glanced over at the tank killer, “Just please tell me that,”? he pointed to the long barrel, “that is not a railgun.” The Corporal shook his head, “Nah, it is a powergun. An old tried and true technology. Simple, reliable and devastatingly deadly… nothing fancy.”? The Leiutenant sighed with relief, “Thank God, I hate railguns. They are great on aircraft and spacecraft, but are completely unreliable on the ground. Too fancy and too damned twitchy, a little dirt or shrapnel and they are worthless.”? “Sounds like Luke’s last girlfriend,”? the men chuckled dryly at Newman’s comment.

He patted the cold steel and looked up at the turret, “They just need one more thing, names!”? He walked from the cargo bay as he finished speaking, “I am sure if you put your heads together you can come up with something clever.”? He was grinning widely as he left; things were looking up for the ground pounders. The crew may be older than the usual batch he commanded but these men had a much broader skill set and far more experience, which made them …far more versatile; and lethal.