RPG 1- "The Milk Run"

[Omra]

After an hour of intense struggling the feline soldier collapsed inside his armor exhausted, he simply could not get any leverage. He was pinned too tightly inside the trap, and trying to use his arms only caused the walls to collapse and bury him with dirt and rock. And his legs were at an awkward angle and trying to move them caused agonizing pain, strained the hydraulics and did little to better his situation. This was going from an embarrassment to downright dangerous, it was getting harder to breathe every time more dirt fell on top of him, and heat was building up in his suit as it found it harder to vent it.

If he could only get his legs unpinned he could use the jump jets to blow his way out of the hole. He lay looking up at the alien sky and pondered his bizarre situation; they never covered this in my training… He watched a bird circling overhead when a large collection of rocks began raining down on his armored suit. What? They were being tossed down into the hole, large rocks, HEAVY ROCKS! The natives, it must be the local peoples here… Damn them!

He struggled to unpin his arms to try and throw them back out, but to no avail. And—they —just —kept —coming. And then once the rocks finally stopped falling,the slurry started pouring in, he watched it with wide eyed horror. The wet thick viscous grey fluid began pouring down into the hole, it must be some kind of cement… His breathing quickened, “This is no way for a warrior to die!”? his brain screamed. To fall on the field of battle is the honorable way for a Kher’hon warrior to die, not entombed by local villagers on some unknown planet far from my clan. No… No, no… This is not right…

Panic began to set in as the fluid began to rise higher and higher, it began to cover his faceplate and soon he was plunged into darkness. I never even got to see my enemy… He tried to move so he could set off his scuttling charge, it would be a quicker death and maybe he could take these bastards with him. But he could not move any of his limbs at all now, and the heat from the quick setting mixture was starting to bake him inside his suit. Air was running out inside the suit, but without access to the control panel on his wrist he could not activate the internal supply for EVA missions or bio warfare. And after all?€? did he really want to prolong his suffering?

Breath became shallow and tainted with smells of the suit, physical exertion and his own fear. There… Is… No… Honor… In… Thiiiiiiisssssssssssssss.

The first casualty of the battle for Vega 4 lay in a concrete tomb on the forest floor, far from Betwixt and the mayhem yet to come.

[Shalashaskka]

Today was indeed a day just full of surprises, and for Barney there seemed to be no end to them. After entering through the rear entrance the deputy found Senior Deputy Roderick Eferand’s unconscious form sprawled on the floor face first. His antique Desert Eagle lay beside him, a ridiculously oversized weapon for such a small man. Many a joke about ‘compensating’ had been made because of that firearm.

After stepping around the uniform clad lump Barney’s next surprise awaited him behind the desk which used to belong to Sheriff Bo Riggens. A tall and grey haired Native American stood behind the desk, he looked up from the pile of opened files cluttering the desk and smiled, “Ahhh, you must be Deputy Tane…” his pearly white teeth were a stark contrast to his dark and weathered skin, “and who are these fine people you have brought with you?” The old man’s presence was so strong that Barney completely forgot about the unconscious and drooling hemorrhoid lying on the floor but a few feet away, “Ah, these are,” he gestured to the mercs, “crew from the combat vessel in orbit, they have requested maps, militia, information and weapons to help defend the colony.”

The rustically garbed Hopi beamed, “Excellent timing, please assist these restless souls in anyway you can. I will be occupied …elsewhere,” he slowly moved his calloused right hand palm down across the desk mere inches above its surface, “I shall be gathering allies from the outer reaches of the colony,” his hand stopped and his smile widened as an eyebrow peaked. He reached under the desk, a loud ripping sound could be heard and when his hand reappeared from beneath the desk it held a large key ring with a length of duct tape still dangling from it like a puppy refusing to release a toy, “I believe these will be of help to you,” he casually tossed the ring to Barney who looked from them to the buckskin adorned Marshall with a dumbfounded expression on his face. The Marshall looked to the young lady in fatigues, “I believe you will find the armory downstairs…”

“Excellent.” Christie said. She was just about to grab the keys from Barney when he jerked his hand back and used the opposite one to maintain distance between Christie and the keys. “Wait a minute,” he said as he turned to the Marshall, “I’m sure theres no need for them to go to the armoury on their own. Why don’t we run some weapons up for them?” Christie knocked the arm in front of her away and grabbed Barney’s collar. She gave it a tight jerk and Barney found himself face to face with her. “Look, buddy. I understand that you are the law around here, but we are dealing with a situation which is potentially over your heads. We have military experience and, quite frankly, we are your only hope. Now, if you please…” Jayke took a step towards Barney and took the keys from the seemingly frozen Barney before heading towards the turbolift.

When they got into the turbolift, Jayke looked at Christie, admiring her “charisma.” “Where did you learn to negotiate like that?” he asked. She smiled. “We’ve been spending too much time together,” she answered without looking at him.

The old Hopi leaned back against the bookcase of unread law books, “When this mayhem is all over I will be back to discuss with you two the murder of Sheriff Riggens.” Barney’s jaw dropped, “Mur- what?” He stammered and then glared at Rodericks inert form, “He told me it was an accident,” he looked back at the amused Marshall, “what, who… makes you?” The old Hopi seemed to study Barney’s reaction to the news, but seemed even more interested in the air around him. As if he was inspecting something unseen around Barneys head and shoulders, and then as if satisfied by what he seen he rose and matter of factly asked, “Is there someone in town who deals with the Boones? It would save me time in contacting them…”

Barney collected his thoughts, “Sure, Shamus trades with them. He owns the tavern at the northernmost part of town, the ‘Wee Bit’ though the sign out front only says… PUB.” The Marshall tilted his sun beaten and sweat stained hat, “Thank you, I think I can find it… Keep your head down and your powder dry.” And with that he disappeared out the back door humming some tune Barney could not identify. The deputy began gathering maps and making notations on them.

Jayke and Christie came entered the room, pushing what looked like a hand cart filled with weapons, most of them antique slugthrowers. Barney looked up at them. “Don’t you have anything a bit more…modern?” Jayke asked him. Barney gave what seemed like a half sigh before responding, “We really haven’t had too much of a need for laser weapons. Most instances here are resolved with slugthrowers.” Christie left the cart next to the desk, when suddenly Barney snapped his fingers. “Wait. There is a storage with laser weapons. But it’s barley ever accessed. I’m not sure, but I think you need a special clearance code.” Just then, the deputy approached the group, and placed a map down on the desk in front of Barney. “I’ve got the charts you asked for,” he told him. Barney picked it up and scanned it for a bit, than placed it back down after drawing something on it with the marker in his shirt pocket.

He showed the two a map with bright red circles drawn on it, “There are only two main roads running into town, which will make it easy to defend against any vehicles they may bring.” He tapped the largest circle in the middle, “This is where we can set up base camp, and I will bring the militia to you there. You can hand out the weapons there and then we can begin erecting barricades and such.”

“Seems like a decent plan,” Christie said. She looked up at Jayke. “Well?” she asked. Jayke said nothing, than placed his finger on the map, drawing a line between the two red circles. He was silent for a few moments. “I’ll work.” he said. “Do you have a better plan?” Barney asked in a sincere tone. “Not with our resources.” Jayke answered. Barney nodded. “I’m going to go upstairs and get in touch with the local militia leaders, have them mobilize. You two keep gathering weapons and bring them to the check point.” He darted towards the stairs. “How long will that take?” Christie asked him. He began ascending the stairs and called back to them, “I will see you there in a half hour or so…” He then resumed his climb, he needed to get on the address system to rally the militia. Barney was soon out of sight.

“What about that clearance code?” Christie asked out loud. The deputy said nothing, blankly staring at Jayke and Christie. “I’m…just a deputy…” he said, even managing to sound half affable saying it. Jayke sighed and started moving towards the turbolifts. Christie ran up to catch up to him. They said nothing during the decent. When the doors opened up, they headed to the open vault of weapons where they were before.

After rummaging through the assortment of mostly ancient weapons, they returned to the upstairs level and began to leave the building. “Well, this is going to be a pain in the ass.” Jayke said in his usual, bassy growl. “What is?” Christie asked. Jakye pointed to the weapons. “Walking to the checkpoint.” Christie sighed and looked at the floor, where she noticed a Desert Eagle laying on the floor. “I don’t remember finding one of these in the vaults…” she said.

Christie crouched down and picked up the Israeli made weapon, as she inspected it Roderick began to stir. She looked at him studying his features, her eyebrows knitted together, “Hey isn’t this the douche bag that gave you such a hard time at the Spaceport?” Jayke bent down to get a closer look at Roderick’s face.“Well I’ll be damned…” Christie turned the weapon around and smacked the Senior Deputy across the back of the head with the handle of the pistol, the little man stopped stirring and went inert once more. She smiled, “Now that is my type of Kharma!” She helped herself to his extra magazines and stuffed them into her plentiful pockets, and then shoved the pistol into her belt.

She was about to rise when Jayke cleared his throat loudly, she looked up at him. He pointed to the small key chain on the deputy’s belt; she snapped it off and tossed it to Jayke. He held up the largest and shiniest of the keys and looked at it intently, you could almost hear the smile on his face, “I do believe I will feel much safer in this aircar!” Christie chuckled and slapped the top of the deputy’s bruised head, “Funny how the universe works, ey ‘Chuckles’?”

[Omra]

The ‘Zephyr’ blew past and vanished not unlike its namesake, leaving one to wonder if it had ever truly been there at all. Leaving a somewhat less than enthusiastic Korridan alone in his cramped prototype Katana fighter in the cold and unforgiving vacuum of space. Well not entirely alone; he did have the Yuki AI for company, if you could truly even call her that… She was really so much more than that, something that some of the crew had silently grown uncomfortable about. While no one openly condemned his electronic ghost or the emotional bond he had with it, no one exactly condoned it either. They seemed to understand and respect his emotional attachment to the personality matrix which made up his adopted daughter. But seemed to only tolerate her, maybe it was what she represented… Who could truly say?

As he maneuvered the ‘Onryo’ (Japanese for Vengeful Spirit) to a pre plotted points to deposit the first of their load of gravity mines, his mind began to wander back to how he had first met her Father. Korridan had been sent to the Skunk Works shipyard near Vesper 4 to help test pilot an experimental fighter, which would utilize a neural link with the pilot. While neural links were nothing new, they had been proven overwhelming to pilots in the past, too much information at once and very disorienting for most. AI’s were needed to filter out the extraneous information and deal with the minor workings of the vessel so as to allow the pilot to concentrate on piloting alone. This new fighter was supposed to avoid that particular problem.

The primary monitor flashed on and Yuki’s perky image smiled as she addressed him, “Otoosan, since we are only allowed to maneuver on thrusters. The placement of these mines will be long and tedious, I can perform this minor duty for you if you wish to rest and prepare…” He thinly smiled as he thought, “Prepare, prepare indeed.” He knew what she was referring to, the eventual meld. She knew he was nervous about it; it had been a long time since they had shared minds. And it was a deeply intimate experience, and not to be taken lightly or frivolously. The very fact that she was addressing him from the console as a mere avatar, and not forcing herself into his mind showed just how much she had matured over the years. He was very proud of her for showing so much self control and respect for his feelings; he knew she missed the bond they shared. While she enjoyed the freedom and interactivity of being a force field reinforced hologram onboard the ship, the ‘bond’ was very special to her. And to him as well, but it could be… intense.

He bowed his head slightly, “Thank you musume that would be appreciated.” She inclined her head and disappeared from the monitor, they needed to keep their power signature as low and indeterminate as possible. So the incoming enemy task force would not detect them and possibly alter their course to avoid the trap they were setting. He closed his eyes and relaxed, listening to the resonances along the hull as small bursts from the maneuvering thrusters moved the oddly shaped stealth fighter to drop yet another mine.

Hiro Yamamato had been his name, a small unintimidating and humble man with a huge intellect, and an even larger heart. He needed funding to continue his personal project, and so had agreed to help the military create a much more refined neural net and an AI which could learn to anticipate its pilots needs. Hiro had no love of the military, and did not trust them… But he needed the money and resources that it offered, but he did trust me. I never realized why until later, until it was too late.

We were both Fathers, we shared painful pasts and had been scarred by them, we had both lost our families to tragedy. That why was when the base came under attack and he was pinned under fallen debris and dying, he entrusted me with his greatest treasure… The ‘Kwaidan Device’, I did not know what Kwaidan meant, or what it was he had entrusted to me, until much later. I had just assumed it was some kind of weaponized AI he did not want the Skall to possess. Was I ever wrong…

Kwaidan is Japanese for ghost, and that was what I rescued from the Skall. The ghost of his dead daughter Yuki, not literally of course, but damned near. He had been working on developing an AI which could learn to adapt from its interactions with its environment and humans, and eventually have a personally to make it more interactive with its users. Yuki had been part of that project before the tragic event had taken her from him; she had been hooked up to a positronic matrix for months helping to develop a personality template for him to work off of.

After her death his grief drove him in another direction, he began construction of a device which would allow grievers to say goodbye to their loved ones after death. The neural link would tap into their memories and project an interactive image of their loved one, they could touch it, talk to it. And say their goodbyes, and it would respond in kind using an adaptive personality matrix, allowing that much needed closure to the user. It was a beautiful idea and a touching testament to great man. Grief has driven men to do far less noble endeavors, many of which are usually self destructive; I should know…

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he sensed Yuki restlessly waiting to enter his mind, like a puppy sniffing beneath a bedroom door when it hears its master starting to wake up. Yuki was the same age as his own daughter when she had died, and while he knew that Yuki was not really his adopted daughter it had helped to heal an old and painful wound in his heart. And in some strange way he felt that acting as her Father had helped with her own growth and development as an artificial life form.

She had first appeared to him as she had been designed to, using his own neural pathways to appear before him. And even allowing him to feel her touch or hear her voice, even her breath when she whispers in his ear. It had been a shocking and unerving reveal, one he had not been prepared for. After some time it became second nature to him, and he no longer thought he was going insane. But to converse with someone that no one else can see or hear is very disturbing to those in the room with you, which is why the members of ASP had requested he install holo emitters on the ship so they could also interact with her.

This turned out to be a two edged sword, allowing a thirteen year old to appear and disappear at will has its down side as one could well imagine. He snorted lightly in laughter as he fondly remembered some of her antics aboard the Zephyr. “Dear Hiro, what have done to me?” he silently mused. You sly dog, you knew that as a Father I would never allow anything to happen to her, which is why you had asked the brass to assign me to your project. You had read my docket and believed that if I should ever discover your little side project I would not divulge it, and Hell; maybe even help you with it. You knew I would understand your pain, sympathize with your loss… And you were right.

Thank you Hiro, I will always cherish your gift and I shall protect her with my life. Just as a good Father should, just as you did. You would be so proud of what she has become.

[Omra]

With the final mine put in place the AI began moving the stealth fighter toward a safe location, Korridan zipped up his insulated flight suit and began donning his gloves. It was going to get cold inside once he dialed down the life support, no one was sure just how sensitive the enemy sensors were, and so it was best to keep their energy signature as low as possible. He switched on the heating unit in his suit and set the cockpit’s canopy to opaque; when he felt the ship settle into position after a short series of staccato thruster bursts he pulled the keyboard from his bag.

He could feel Yuki’s excitement at the appearance of the keyboard, even though the link had not yet been established. Yuki loved to sing, much like Korridan’s late daughter had. Korridan had learned to play the keyboard in his youth, and had kept in practice throughout most of his life. Music had proven to be the most efficient means by which to meld their minds, and he had to admit… There was a certain elegance and beauty to it also, a fact that had gone neither unnoticed nor unappreciated to the tired old veteran.

He began playing a song he knew Yuki liked, and tried to relax his mind and allow the walls and barriers to drop. His thoughts moved to the music, focusing on the notes and the melody, allowing his mind to ride the waves of sound. Soon Yuki’s voice joined in and blended with the music, and created a counter melody and added an additional emotional component. As the music built in intensity he could feel their spheres of consciousness beginning to overlap.

Not long after memories began to enter; the music caused visions to appear in his mind. The sounds and sights of the bustling and crowded streets of Osaka filled his mind’s eye. The colorful dancing lights punctuated the night sky; digital Geisha girls blew kisses from the sides of buildings as ornately decorated and lit Dekotora drove by. Holographic anime characters and monsters danced and fought for spectator’s attention overhead while they promoted products and movies, and in the distance the Mitsubishi Space Elevator stabbed skyward like a modern tower of Babel. Korridan could even smell the aromas of the street vendors food stands, the steamed Nikuman, the roasted Ishiyakimmo. And the sweet smells of the Taiyaki and Imagawayaki, and even though he had never eaten any of them, he knew how they tasted.

He relaxed and allowed some of his own memories to be shared in return, as the music drifted toward a tune more familiar to him his thoughts turned toward his former home. Unlike Yuki his home had been on a sparsely populated colony world, rural and untamed by Earth standards. He shared memories of playing the piano at temple, and nervously stealing glances at the childhood sweetheart in the choir that would one day become his wife. And of how years latter they became married within those same walls, and in front of those same close friends. Of how he gazed into her deep green eyes as he uttered his vow and of how his hand shook when he slid on her ring. These memories used to cause pain and sorrow, but after the years of sharing them with his new ghost daughter. The tears he could feel slowly trickling down his cold cheeks were of a different kind.

His heart skipped when the faces of Yuki’s classmates came to him, he had never met them and yet he knew so much about them. And could feel so such emotion and camaraderie about them, Yuki and the others were climbing atop a store’s front porch to get a better view of the Tenjin Matsuri as it slowly and gracefully moved past. Young eyes drank in the site of colorfully garbed Palanquins as they carried the ornate Mikoshi Shrines through the streets. The sounds of pipes, drums and gongs reverberate off of the buildings, and the traditional music send shivers up the young girls spines as they feel a connection with something ancient and wondrous. Korridan smiled, he had always found the Japanese people such a curious contradiction. They greedily gobbled up anything new and cutting edge, and yet held a deep and spiritual connection to their traditions and history.

He shared the first time he held his baby girl in his arms; she seemed so tiny and fragile. He had been terrified he would hurt her if he held her too tight, and yet he seemed mesmerized by tiny little fingers as they moved and appeared to be grasping for him. It was as if though her eyes were closed she could sense him, he put a finger near her tiny hand, and she grasped it. His breathing stopped, time itself stopped as that magical connection was made for the first time. He remembered what his wife had said from her hospital bed, “You should see your face…”

The familiar dance continued for hours, Yuki riding the space elevator with her class on a field trip, Korridan teaching his daughter how to ride a horse. Yuki’s visiting an ancient shrine at night by dragon boat, for the Harvest Moon festival. And watching the tide come in and devour the footpath to Miyajima Island, and leaving the Miyajima Torii to appear as if it were floating above the water and glowing like a heavenly vision in the night. Hiking with his family along the pristine hillside and picnicking atop the bluff overlooking their ranch and property. The night he proposed to his wife out on the lake and beneath two full moons, she cried so much he feared she would sink their tiny boat. And the day they had the christening ceremony for little Amber at the temple, she looked up at him with eyes as green as her Mother’s as the priest blessed her. She never cried during the ceremony, not once, she just stared at him with a look of utter bliss.

When Korridan saw snowflakes dancing in the cherry blossom perfumed air he knew the exercise was coming to an end, she always ended with this night. It was her most memorable night, as well as her last… He used to dread this vision, it was so sad. But just as he had moved past the sorrow of revisiting his past, so had she. He relaxed and welcomed the sensation, the cold night air stung her rosy cheeks but she refused to stop running. There were 5000 illuminated trees in Kakuzan Koen Park and she wanted to see them all before Mother called for them to leave. The adults smile and move out of their way as Yuki and her friends run pell mell through the park giggling and singing, the aroma of cherry blossoms fill her nearly frozen nose. It is heady and exhilarating, her legs are tired yet still they ran. Up the ramparts of Tsuyama Castle they go, their sneakered feet echoing on the ancient stones, the way the castle is lit makes them feel like they are visiting the ghost of a long forgotten fortress. So much to see, so little time…

Korridan sighed; it was almost as if she had known what was to come. He shared the memory of a10 year old Amber competing in a gymnastics tournament at school and receiving a silver medal for second place, and the pride he had felt that night. Amber standing tall on the staggered pedestal with the medal hanging from her neck, and her eyes ever searching the crowd for her Mother and Father. After sharing the memory of watching his wide eyed and smiling daughter standing in a snow covered field feeding deer from her hand, he tried not to fight what he knew would be coming next.

Yuki cradled in her Mothers arms, in the front seat of the car on their way home from the park. The warm air from the dashboard helping to drive the cold from her limbs, and her Mother humming to the radio as she wistfully swept stray hairs from Yuki’s face. And then they shared a moment, a precious moment. When they simply looked into each others eyes, it is a blessed look. A look that was reminiscent of what he had seen in his own daughters eyes that day at the christening. A deep look of utter contentment, a look of; happiness.

It mercifully stopped there; she had shown him the rest once. Back when they were both still scarred by their pasts, back when Korridan had clung to the memories of his family for all the wrong reasons. Not to honor their lives, but to fuel his hate, to use it as a weapon in his quest for vengeance against the Skall.

He knew what that light coming through the side window was from; it was from the headlights of the drunk driver that killed her and her Mother. But Yuki had learned to focus on what was important, not on what had happened to her Mother. But on what they had shared before she was taken. Such wisdom from one so young…

He stopped playing on the keyboard, he no longer needed it, they were now in sync. He could access any song he desired from his memory; their pasts were now a playground. Free for them to explore together, an amalgam of experiences and emotions. A refuge for them until the enemy task force arrived. A haven of neurons and synapses, blended with a neural network and the personality matrix of a dead teenager. In a tiny fighter floating in the cold void of space.

[Omra]

After switching off the Public Address System Barney rubbed his temples and sighed, making the announcement to the populous about the arriving invaders and calling for a gathering of the local militia had been more stressful and emotionally draining than he had thought it would be. Barney had never been one to desire a leadership role, too much responsibility, he preferred to follow. Something his former in-laws had loved to carp about, as well as his ex-wife… “Aaaargh,” he growled and got up angrily and headed for the stairs, now he was going to need an aspirin. The stress had been bad enough but his ex had always caused headaches, even light-years away she could cause him grief, now there’s talent for you.

Back on the first floor he rummaged around in the station’s refrigerator for a bottle of water, finding one he closed the door and froze in shock when he saw the reflection on the shiny door’s surface. He was being intently watched by a fox like creature sitting on the Sheriff’s desk; it was studying him with frighteningly intelligent eyes and a look of curious bemusement? They stared indirectly at each other by way of the curio magnet covered fridge door for a moment, what was even stranger than its presence was the fact it was not even an animal indigenous to this world. Its bushy tail began to wag playfully like a dogs, this gave Barney the courage to turn and face it. Only when he did so it was not there, he shook his head in wonderment and turned back around to get a pain killer from the med-kit, what was that all about? He froze once more, there it was again in the doors reflection. Smiling at him, as if it were laughing at his puzzlement. He glared at it, sort of… It looked down at some papers on the desk as if pointing, and then looked purposefully back up at him, it smiled disarmingly and then faded away. The water bottle slipped from his fingers and hit the floor about the same time his jaw did.

He turned around and shakily walked toward the desk, the papers were all still as the Marshall had left them before he left, and he had clearly been looking into the affairs of the Sheriff by the look of things. He walked to the other side and looked at the file the fox like thing had pointed at with its narrow snout, he opened it up and saw that the Marshall had circled some numbers in the Sheriff’s personnel file. His birth date, badge number, and SSN. Hmmmm, why? He suppressed a shudder and looked around for inspiration and noticed the wall panel next to the large area maps was pushed in; he slid it out of the way and found a large safe with a numeric lock. He looked at the file and back at the lock; this was getting more bizarre by the minute. Did he interrupt the Marshall before he opened the safe? Or did he leave these clues for me to find? He tried a few combinations of the numbers and finally got the safe to open with the Month and Day of the birth date and the Sheriff’s badge number. Inside he found a military grade plasma rifle with three power packs, a K-Field Sniper Rifle, 5 ledgers and a book full of everyone’s dirty little secrets. Jesus Mary and Joseph! Bo, what the Hell had you been up to? No wonder you were murdered.

The sound of dog like toenails clicking on the floor snapped him out of his daze; he looked around but saw no animal inside. When the ghostlike sound went out the back door and faded into the chaotic sounds outside, he quickly put the incriminating books back into the safe, locked it and hid it with the wall panel. This would have to wait; he had people to protect and a duty to uphold. He grabbed the weapons and headed to his dilapidated aircar, the huge plasma rifle made him feel he might actually survive the upcoming skirmish after all. If of course he could figure out how to operate it…

[Omra]

Cheveyo slowly maneuvered his borrowed shuttlecraft over toward Shamus’ pub, below him the inhabitants of the slapped together town scrambled to lock up their businesses and join the militia to defend their town. As he neared the outskirts of town he saw a stream of children being herded into the forest by mothers and what he imagined must be teachers, he tried not to think about how the lives of these simple people were going to be affected by open warfare. If his suspicions were correct he might be able to bring powerful forces to bear and turn the tide in the colonists favor, he needed to stay focused.

When he had flown over some of the farming community he had seen powerful magic at work there, and not the clumsy or heavy handed magic he was used to seeing by people who were dabbling with it, or had stumbled upon a hereditary ability. This was either an ancient and powerful magic that had already been here before the Hooters had settled there, or they had one Hell of a secret. The magic was so harmonious and in sync with the natural manna and the ley lines that it would have been easy to miss, if you weren’t an old shaman.

But that was only one of the players, digging through the Sheriffs notes and logs made the old Navajo even more convinced that the Boones were not what they seemed. He had sensed it as soon as he had stepped off the shuttle when he first arrived, they could become a powerful ally if he could convince them to join the fight, however convincing them would be difficult.

He spotted the notorious tavern and set the ‘Harley Quinn’ down beside the other parked shuttle behind the establishment. When he stepped out of the wildly painted shuttle he took a look at the nearby tree line, it was as he had thought, the closer he came to their hunting ground the stronger the feeling became. He smiled and entered the eclectic building; it was dark inside and smelled of spirits, tobacco and greasy food. An attractive woman was outside closing and securing the storm shutters, a voice scarred by unhealthy living assaulted him, “We’re closed bub, there’s a war going on iff’in ya haven’t heard!” Cheveyo turned toward the unpleasant man; it was a red headed fellow short of stature but full of fire and wild nefarious schemes. He was busy cleaning a black and pitted flat top grill and not even looking at the Marshall; Cheveyo shook his head and walked to the counter. He pulled out a stool; he allowed it to drag slowly across the uneven floor to make the maximum amount of noise possible and then sat in it. The Irishman growled and threw down the grill scrapper, he turned and was about to shout at the Marshall when he saw the rather unusual uniform and the calm demeanor of the man wearing it. He froze in shock, his finger violently jabbing out at the Navajo and a curse on his clenched lips. The Marshall smiled disarmingly, “I understand you do business with the Boones.”

The scrappy little owner relaxed a bit, “Yeah, so, what about it?” The Marshall seemed to be studying him as he spoke, “I would like to speak with them, and I was hoping that you could introduce me to one of their Alphas.” The owners face screwed up with puzzlement, “Wha?” He wiped his hands with a towel nervously, “Ain’t ever heard em use that title fer any of dem.” The Marshall watched him with piercing eyes as the man fidgeted, “Look some of them used to come into town do business with Schlesinger, the guy who owns the General Store? Anyways he started gouging them on prices and tacking on fees and those fellas ain’t got no patience for that kind of stuff.” The Marshall chuckled at that, Shamus relaxed a little. “So one of them came to me and asked if ‘I’ could be their ‘go between’, so now I purchase all of their ‘staples’ for them and market their furs and such.” The Marshall added, “For a fee of course.” The owner winced at that, “Sure, but I aint stupid like Schlesinger. I keep my fees low, and make a lower profit but a steady one…” The Navajo leaned closer, “Who do you deal with?” Shamus shrugged, “Just some local guy, looks pretty low on the ‘totem pole’ if you ask me…” Shamus balked when he realized what he had said.

Cheveyo smiled a pearly white grin, letting him know that no offense had been taken, Shamus relaxed again. The Marshall asked, “Where could I find this fellow?” Shamus pointed toward the rear of his pub, “Out the back and into the woods a ways, just look for the smoke. He smokes and cures the meats for my place out there, his name is Ezekiel.” The Marshall tipped his hat, “Thank you my friend, and please keep yourself and the little lady safe. I hope to see you again soon.” As the lawman strode for the back door Shamus said, “You sure picked a Hell of a time to show up…” Just before he closed the door the Marshall replied, “Indeed, interesting how that seems to always be the case.” Shamus returned to his grill and sarcastically grumbled, “That made me feel a whole Hell of a lot better.”

Cheveyo looked to the tree line and saw the small plumes of white smoke Shamus had spoken of. He had studied the crafty little hustler’s aura as he had spoken with him; Shamus had spoken truthfully and clearly had no idea who he has been dealing with. He thinks he is dealing with simple trappers and mountain men. Cheveyo checked his pockets to be sure he had all of his charms and totems in place before setting off, once satisfied he began his hike toward the woods. He sang a little prayer in preparation for the inevitable confrontation.

[Shalashaskka]

Jayke took a step out of the aircar onto the dusty ground. From here, and with the help of the sensory visor in his helmet, he could see the two roads going into town in the far distance. Christy walked up to him and gave him a nudge on his arm. “What are you looking at?”
Jayke hit a button on the side of his helmet and slid the visor up. “This may be a little more complicated than we thought.” Christy shot him a quizzical look and pulled out a small pair of microbinoculars. Jayke turned away and started to unload the weapons from the car when he heard a heavy sigh from her. “So you saw it, huh?” What she saw was that, for some reason, the maps that they had didn’t outline that the roads going into town were on an incline, rising as they left town.
“We can still compensate for it.”
“Unlikely. The militia isn’t experienced enough to set up a half-decent ambush, and I don’t think I have to outline the tactical fallacy of fighting downhill. Nevermind the fact that we’re defending.” Christy turned to help unload the car. She pulled out a roll steel mesh and placed it next to the growing pile of weapons. Looking at it, she couldn’t help but start to wonder about something. She looked at Jayke, who had been too busy to have noticed her. Ignoring her thoughts, she continued to work. Jayke turned around with an armful of shotguns and put it down next to the steel mesh. He then stood up suddenly and looked at the mesh. “Zippy? Where did you get that?” She glanced at the mesh. “It was in the trunk of the car.” “The trunk of the car?” “Yeah. I thought we could either find something useful in there or we could store the guns there.” Kryger looked at her like a confused dog. “You know,” she said, “So the dust doesn’t enter the chamber and cause any damage to the weapons.” Kryger kept the dumb look on his face. “Guns do that?” She rolled her eyes. “Well, maybe not on Lugaria, but…” Jayke held up a hand. “Regardless, I think you may have just solved our little tactical problem.” It was Christy’s turn to have a dumb look on her face. She looked at the metal wire, then looked up at Jayke with a big smile on her face. “You know something, Chuckles,” she said as she picked up the mesh, “Sometimes you’re actually useful to have around.”

[Omra]

Jerrod gave the signal to try the avionics test again, this time all of the cockpits instruments booted at the same time and remained stable. He gave the thumbs up sign and all of the tool pushers cheered, it had been a real bear installing the avionics package from the commandeered diplomatic courier but it was worth it. With the ECM these invaders were throwing up the old ‘Copperhead’s’ instruments would simply black out and he would be flying blind. The Copperhead had been one Hell of a fighter back in her day; of course that day had been 50 years ago. But by the time this crew was done with her she could probably go toe to toe with a Black Mamba fighter.

Evie had not been real crazy about him showing up unannounced on her flight deck and taking command of the Copperhead’s refit, but when she realized it would allow her to spend more time getting the dropships flight ready she warmed up to him a bit. And once she saw he was making real progress she actually became down right friendly, in a dry sarcastic sort of way, some things in the military never change…

The government of ‘We-landed-where?’ was not going to be real happy about the ‘Ralph Thorson’s’ crew tearing apart their diplomatic courier, but if things went well he was sure they would spin it into a ‘donation’ to the Veggies planetary defense. Politics were kinda like that ya know. They hooked up the flight computer for a diagnostic test and he activated the newly installed front canards to see if the software had installed properly, another donation from the courier vessel, if they worked properly it would make the nose more stable during atmospheric flight. Copperheads were one of the few space launched fighters that could enter an atmosphere but they tended to depend on missiles during a dogfight, and with the enemies ECM that would not be an option. If the new canards worked properly he would have a stable gun platform that would make him deadly in a close up ‘furball’. He watched the feedback from the test program, so far so good.

Evie climbed up to the cockpit and peered in, “Well Jiggy, how far along are you?” He looked over at her with a satisfied grin on his face, “I think we will ready for a test flight in an hour.” She raised an eyebrow, “Really?” She looked back to the engines with all the cowls removed, “And the new engines?” He nodded, “The engines we took from the courier were a lot smaller than the fighter’s original engines, but they actually have higher performance capabilities than the older fighter’s engines.” She looked back at him, “Sure, on paper they do, but I doubt anyone expected them to be put through a battle.” He shrugged, “Yeah well, we did not have a lot of candidates now did we?” She smirked, “True, well… They only need to hold out for a few flights anyways and their lighter weight will probably benefit you in an atomo fight.”

He turned to her, “What about your birds?” She smiled a lopsided grin, “We’re buttoning them up right now and we are going to run some pressure tests on them to make sure they don’t have any leaks. If they pass they should be loaded and fueled for drop in two hours.” Jiggy grinned, “So maybe my crew will beat yours after all?” Evie gave him a bemused look as she climbed down, “I did not realize this was race.” He tried to look innocent, “Competition is always good for performance and morale, besides how do you think I got these people to work so hard?” She crossed her arms in front or her chest and her voice grew cold, “I suppose survival might have had a lot to do with it…” There was awkward pause after that, mercifully Evie finally broke the silence, “Thank you for your help, take good care of my fighter, and I hope you are as good as they say.” He patted the fuselage, “I will, and we couldn’t have done it without your wonderful fabrication department, they worked miracles.”

She bit back an icy retort and finally settled for, “In the Military you learned to make do with what you had out of necessity, because it could take months to get parts, or for replacements for your lost ships to arrive. As a Mercenary it is a matter of survival. Governments in the middle of a civil war are notoriously unreliable in making their payments, and performance bonuses tend to be withheld until the end of a war. And what if you happen to be on the side that loses? All bets are off, and you are often left with your dick in the dirt and a bad taste in your mouth. Some of the smaller Mercenary groups will steal everything in sight and even kidnap people to sell them as slaves to try and lessen their losses.” Her face hardened, “But not us, we have a proud and honorable reputation to uphold. It is because of this reputation that we can ask for the exorbitant prices we do for our services.” Her body began to shake; it was clear that she proud and passionate about her crew and their history. He must have inadvertently touched a nerve within her.

She quickly recovered and combed some stray hairs from her face, “I am sorry, you did not deserve that…” She straightened her uniform and cleared her throat, “I shall pass your compliments on to my people in ‘Fabrication’, good luck on your flight." Jiggy watched her leave the hanger area, once out of sight he realized he had held his breath during the entire speech. He exhaled and then relaxed a bit, a hand patted his shoulder he looked over and saw one of the twins grinning at him. She laughed, “Congratulations you are almost family now.” Her sister shoved her aside and added, “Yeah, all of us ex military types got that speech at some point.” Her sister shoved back and continued, “Yeah, but only if she thinks you are worth it, you must have impressed her.” Laverne shoved back again, “You impressed me,” and she winked. Shirley elbowed her, “Hands off bitch he’s mine!” And they both burst out laughing and playfully wrestled. He finally joined in on the laughter and after awhile the tension had left the hanger bay. He said, “Thanks, I needed that…”

In unison they said, “No prob.” He fidgeted with his harness, “I guess it really is a different world, and the sooner I realize that the safer we all will be.” They nodded and looked at each other, “He’s a sharp one, I like that.” The status lights were now all green and the main computer was chiming that all of the diagnostic tests were completed.” He reached under the dashboard and removed the diagnostic leads, “She’s ready for a test run ladies, lets button her up and I’ll run her around the block.” When he looked back up the two were grinning like twin Cheshire cats, it made him nervous. He asked, “What?” They said in unison, “You haven’t said which one of us you prefer…” He did a double take and stammered nervously, “I… I… I.” The more nervous he got the bigger their grins grew. “I can’t even tell the two of you apart,” he offered nervously and then he smiled and added, “at least,… not; in uniform.” The twins howled like sorority girls on spring break, they giggled and high fived each other, and as they descended the fighter they said to each other, “He’s going to fit in just fine.”

As they unhooked the fighter from feeds and diagnostic gear he looked along the length of the fuselage and admired its lines. But when he looked near the nose and saw the name on it he frowned, in bold red and black letters it said- ‘Ex Wife’. That had to go, he was sure there was a history behind it but he was afraid to ask. Besides, it was his fighter now. Time for a new name, something a little more appropriate.

[Omra]

The Kher’Hon Commander tore his eyes from the screen when he heard one of his lieutenants coming up the boarding ramp, though he could tell by the gait it was one of his more ‘trusted’ officers you never knew when some uppity officer would seek a promotion by killing you. The young officer wore a worried expression, “Sir we can find no sign of the villagers at all, and since there have been no attempts at retaking their territory in the last two hours I have dispatched four squads on sweeps into the countryside.” The Commander’s whiskers twitched in amusement, “You seek to draw them out by offering easy targets for them to ambush, clever…” The lieutenant smiled, “I am gratified you approve sir.” His eyes moved warily to the numerous displays within the drop ship’s command center, “How do the other insertions fare?” The Commander pulled up a map on the largest screen, “The assault on the Desalination Plant goes well, there is much resistance but our forces greatly outnumber them and they are making consistent progress.” The lieutenant looked pensive, “The humans will no doubt sabotage the facility, to keep us from using it.” The Commander nodded, “True but it will only be a small delay, the main objective is to cut off the water supply to our other objectives, doing so should shorten the amount of time any of our other targets can hold out.”

The map moved to the refinery, “The refinery is falling quickly and a contingent is moving to secure the mining operation.” One of the dots moving toward the Space Elevator began to flash indicating it was landing, “The Space Elevator will be one of the hardest to secure because we want to cause the least amount of damage to it.” The lieutenant nodded, “And it will be the most susceptible to sabotage, and pretty much useless to us until a ship arrives to capture the other end of it.” The truth of the young officer’s words caused a low growl to escape the Commander’s throat; the officer took a casual step to the side to stay out of strike range of the seated Commander’s claws. Once the growling settled the Commander pointed to the two remaining dots, “These two should be in position to land in about 15 minutes; the Spaceport is of vital importance but the little town is not, it sits on an important road but other than that…” He waved his claw dismissively.

The lieutenant crossed his arms across his chest, “The town could be a good source of slaves, and we will need a number of them if we wish to repair some of these structures and roads.” The Commander turned his chair back to face the young officer, “I suppose so, but I am a military leader and not a regional governor,” he eyed the officer carefully, “now, what is it that is troubling you?” The lieutenant’s tail twitched nervously, “It is these humans, we were told by our clan leaders that they were weak, they were farmers and builders, not warriors. That they lacked fangs and claws and were helpless without their technology to fight for them, and that if we deprived them of their technology they would be powerless to stop us. And yet two thirds of this continent have scattered settlements of humans which have no measurable technology at all.” The Commander laughed heartily and said, “So the young naïve officer is surprised that politicians lie? It is their nature to do so, to do otherwise would could the universe to unravel and implode in confusion.” The officer paced in frustration miffed by his superior’s cavalier attitude. The Commander watched the pacing with barely veiled amusement, “Is there anything else?” The lieutenant stopped and faced him, “Yes a number of our troops have grown nervous about something they found, I ordered them to silence on the matter lest the other units find out.” The Commander’s right eyebrow rose in curiosity, “About what dare I ask…” He looked around to make sure they were not being overheard, “The unit we dispatched to hunt down the evacuees from the colony vessel? They found the pods abandoned, along with all of their technology. As if they knew we could track them by it, the unit followed the trail they left behind them to a circle of stones.” He paused and looked around again nervously. The Commander’s voice was tinged with anger, “And?” The nervous officer shrugged, “There was no sign of them, it was as if they had vanished. There were hundreds of them; the trail was heavily beaten down by their passage and then it just stopped at the circle of stones. No trace of them having scattered, no hidden tunnels, nothing.” The Commander steepled his fingers and fell into deep thought. Feeling vindicated the lieutenant continued, “You see there is another such circle outside of this village, and I am beginning to think that is perhaps how the population of this village escaped so easily. Though by what means is still a mystery, and the resemblance of these stones to certain ancient relics found on other worlds have caused an uneasiness among the troops.” The Commander looked up at the officer with cold yellow eyes, “I am tired of sitting here watching dots and listening to reports, take me to this circle of stones, and maybe it will cure me of my boredom.”

---

Jiggy was securing his flight suit when Laverne smacked him on the shoulder; he looked over at her and her mirthful eyes darted to his left, he looked in the direction indicated and saw Captain Eulclides and Evie heading their way. She spoke with a soft and playful voice, “I ain’t never seen the Captain come down here before, you must be special.” This caused a hint of a smile to flicker across his face; he shot her a reproachful look before turning to the Captain and offering a salute. The Captain casually waved it away and spoke, “I hear you are ready for your test run.” Jiggy nodded, “Yes sir, I was just suiting up for it now.” The Captain’s eyes grew serious, “I need you to do something for me, I would like you to go a little deeper into the atmosphere than you had planned.” Jiggy’s face grew perplexed, “Sir?” Evie spoke up, “We are beginning the load-outs for the drop ships, and we need a better understanding of the enemies anti air capabilities.” Realization hit him, “You want me to draw some fire from them.” The Captain nodded, “Exactly, three of the ships will be carrying armored vehicles, which will severely limit the amount of ordinance and countermeasures they can carry.” Jiggy nodded, “And it will seriously affect their range if you overload them.” Sean added, “And it could hamper their ability as ground support if we load them out improperly.” Jiggy smiled, “Consider it done; I will get that intel for you right away sir. I know you want to get help down to your boys as soon as possible.” Sean slapped him on the shoulder, “Thanks, I knew I could count on you Jiggy,” he turned and hurried off the flight deck, on to other important matters.

Which left Evie, she picked up the helmet that Jerrod had set on the table while gearing up and looked at it distractedly, “I suppose since you have lived to the ripe old age that you have, I shouldn’t even have to say this,” she looked up at him, “but I am a professional, and it would be a shirking of my duty not to say it.” She shoved the helmet into his stomach so hard it caused him to lose breath, “Don’t be a hero!” She walked away leaving him holding the helmet and struggling for breath. Laverne laughed, “Damn son, she likes you… Welcome to the party!” Shirley growled from underneath the fighter, “I suppose this means we need to fit her with a countermeasures package now!?” Laverne slapped the wing, “Yep, and I suppose a ‘peekaboo’ would be a good idea too.” Jiggy staggered, “What does she do if she dosn’t like you?” Laverne just smiled, “She wouldn’t say anything, ever, she would just let you go off and get killed. Saving her the trouble of having to deal with your sorry ass.” Shirley added from under the fighter, “Yeah, before the whole passive aggressive thing it used be messier. But the Captain doesn’t let her carry a gun anymore, or let her mess with the airlocks.” Jiggy just glared at them unsure if they were messing with him or not, which just caused them to break out in laughter as they worked. Well if nothing else his life wasn’t boring anymore.

[Omra]

The Security Chief watched the massive vessel moving over the tree tops; it looked ugly as sin and dangerous as Hell. It was coming in low to avoid being a target for long range missiles; he had hoped that by keeping their energy signature low and the sensor grid offline that it might fool them into coming in higher, thereby making them an easier target. But they weren’t falling for it, playing dead was not going to fool these people. As they became more visible his optical viewer started to act up, he looked at it with disdain and set it down, they must be throwing up interference to cover their approach. He walked over to the railgun platform and spoke to the gunner sitting in the command seat, “Can you hit it on manual?” The kid looked down from his perch, “Sure, if I can see it I can hit it. The trajectory is so flat I doubt I could miss, why?” The Chief explained, “They are throwing up a lot of interference, I doubt your tracking system will work.” The gunner nodded, “Oh, well there are some unpowered optics on this baby I can use those.” He flipped the electronics package down and brought up the optics, he leaned forward to look through the sight and began working the cranks to move the gun without any power assist, “Oh oh…” The Chief looked up, “What?” “It is slowing down, I think it is going to land, you better juice me up so I can get a shot off before it drops below the tree line.” The Chief scrambled for the junction box and threw the switch, the gun hummed to life and green lights began to wink on indicating the magnetic coils were powered. The gunner chambered the first round from the magazine, armed the gun and pressed the pip. The supersonic slug struck with such force it caused the ship to jolt and turn hard to the right, and as other rounds struck the now exposed left side the ship it seemed to fold in on itself and lost all momentum, it smoldered and plummeted below the tree line. Fire and smoke rose above the trees but no secondary explosions followed, that was not a good sign.

The gunner cursed and turned off the gun, it was no longer of use. The starport’s weapons were designed to deal with incoming and outgoing spacecraft, not with a ground invasion. Their only hope was that by shooting down their ship the occupants were too heavily wounded to mount an attack for awhile, and maybe that their heavy equipment was damaged as well. They watched the fire spread into the surrounding area, but within an hour it had all been extinguished, that meant survivors. Two hours latter birds began fleeing the area as well as small game animals, which meant troop movement. Unwelcome guests were coming to the Spaceport.

---

It had taken longer than he had thought to get used to the controls, the modifications to the old copperhead made it far more responsive than even he or the ladies had imagined. He had to be careful and not overcorrect during maneuvers, but after about a half hour he felt confident enough to take it into the atmosphere. After some serious buffeting the fighter emerged into the blue skies of Veggie undamaged and with naught but scorch marks to show for it. He extended his weapons and pods from their protective housings and started a slow casual banked turn toward the dropship which had been in position the longest. It should have all of its defenses up and running by now, it should give a good show for the Captain.

Once in range he activated the peekaboo pod so it could begin gathering intelligence, it did not take long for some of the alarms to begin going off in his cockpit. They had spotted him and had a lock on his position; he gained altitude to give himself plenty of maneuvering room and to get above the clouds just in case they had beam weapons; water vapor would not stop a really powerful beam weapon but it helped. And since it was not a capitol ship he doubted they had anything real powerful, another alarm sounded and a visual came up on a display, a projectile seemed to have been launched. A projectile? He dove and banked sharply, something was not right about- The sky to his right flared as the engine aboard the projectile came to life and it veered toward him, causing another alarm to go off, it had a lock on him. His flight suit fought to feed blood to his head as he pulled massive g’s banking and turning to break the lock, the AI begun dumping countermeasures out of the back of his fighter. But every time the lock broke the dropship took over the missile’s control and redirected it toward him again until it locked once more. Jiggy was getting really pissed at that damned dropship! He dove toward the ground gaining speed and for short while out distancing the missile, another alarm sounded and lines appeared on his display as particle beams tried to connect with his fighter craft but the ECM seemed to be keeping them from establishing a permanent lock, he skimmed the tree line and headed directly for the dropship the missile following like an angry dog nipping at his heels. The trees gave way to simple houses and farmland, soldiers scattered as he fired short bursts at the ground, it prevented them from being able to point their guns at him before he blurred past them. He barely dodged a windmill as he fought to bring the dropship into line with his cannons; he ordered the computer to fire the rear phalanx gun as he fought for control of the nearly stalling craft. The phalanx cannons chewed up the guidance system on the missile and caused the housing to split and tumble toward the ground spilling fuel and explosives on the soldiers trying to arm their shoulder launched anti-air weapons. He activated the grav coils allowing the fighter to breifly hover as he fired a long burst on the dropship, the depleted uranium rounds tore through the weapon mounts and caused numerous secondary explosions. He pushed the throttle forward and regained momentum, and just to really twist the knife he dumped one of his external fuel tanks on the burning ship as he left. He could not help but smile as he took a long banking turn to view the carnage below, sure he had disobeyed Evie’s ‘don’t be a Hero’ but it was the enemies fault, they shouldn’t have pissed him off so bad.

With his fuel too low to return to the Ralph Thorson he headed for the Spaceport instead, he could refuel there.

[Omra]

Jiggy’s muscles ached as he left the Cafeteria’s restroom; the flight suit had done a real number on his body during the last sortie. But, it had kept him conscious during his maneuvering so he had no room to complain. It was the price you paid for flying beyond a normal human’s endurance. He waved back to the kitchen staff in thanks for the wonderful meal as he left the heavenly smelling building and stiffly walked back toward the paddock where he had parked his fighter. He was sorely tempted to hit the yellow button on his suit and dispense some painkillers into his aching body, but he had never liked the loopy feeling they gave you and he wanted to stay sharp, there were enemy units just outside the Space dock and they were no doubt going to take a few shots at him as he left in retaliation. He had wreaked havoc on them as he came toward the Space Dock, but with only the nose guns at his disposal he had been unable to do a thorough job of it.

A deck hand ran up and handed him an updated PADD, “The Ralph Thorson sent confirmation of the data from your ‘Peekaboo’ and they are retrieving the information you requested, there is a personal message for you on here.” The young man ran off to continue loading up the fighter with confiscated munitions from smugglers ships, and to patch a few holes among other things. He stared at the blinking icon on the PADD and was hesitant to tap it and read what the message said, he found a place to sit and once comfortable he tapped the envelope looking symbol.

Evie’s pretty yet clearly annoyed face appeared on the screen, “It’s about time Baron Von Richtofen, did I interrupt your ‘afternoon tea’? He set his latte down and looked around him for a camera, seeing none he turned the PADD over and over trying to figure out how she was viewing him, “Stop it,” the PADD complained, “you’re making me dizzy you putz.” He looked into the screen again his ears still stinging from her sarcastic tone, “How are you?” She smiled, “I am called the ‘Goddess of Engineering’ for a reason,” her face grew serious again, “now why are you asking for all these spec’s on my dropships?” He smiled a sly grin, “Because the boys here at the Space Port have given me a buttload of ‘Doppelgangers’ that they confiscated from a group of smugglers.” Realization lit her handsome features, “AAhh, I see… Good work, I will send those down in a sec, those missiles of theirs had me pretty worried. Doppelgangers will be just the ticket for getting our boys past them…”

He asked her, “How did they get so much range out of them?” Her eyes narrowed, “They appear to launch them using a magnetic coil system, like a milder version of a rail gun. And then once airborne they ignite their engines, saves a Hellava lotta fuel. Very clever, more than doubles their range…” He grimaced, “So I noticed…” Her face pinched in a cute yet chilling fashion, “So, just what the Hell were you thinking anyways, going after that command ship?” He shrugged, “It was the only way I could think of to prevent them from remotely reestablishing the lock," he lapsed into a scholarly voice and quoted, "‘battle is a fluid and ever changing thing, one must learn to adapt to its*’” She cut him off, “Whatever Sun Tzu… Try not to give me heart attack next time, Sean will alert you when the dropships are ready to launch so you can get up to altitude and escort them in.” Jiggy was about to say something clever when she killed the connection, he sipped his latte and inspected the PADD again trying to figure out how she had done that, “That was clever,” he smirked, “and a little creepy…”

[Omra]

When Barney landed his aircar at the rally point it was abuzz with activity, maps were laid out on tables and mercs were making notations on them and establishing ‘kill zones’ and marking where to plant mining charges. Makeshift barricades were already taking shape between buildings and wagons and vehicles were being parked to block roadways into town. A pair of mercs were showing townsfolk how to operate the scatterguns Jayke and Chrissy had brought over from the Armory, Militia members who were more proficient with weapons were issued the better weapons and ordered to defensive positions. Volunteers with high powered hunting rifles were sent to the roof tops of buildings to be used as snipers, while unskilled volunteers dug trenches and helped bury mining charges around the perimeter.

He was beginning to feel like a fifth wheel when some of the residents began running up to him to ask where they should move the occupants of the homes being taken over by the defenders. As he was giving orders one of the mercs spotted the sniper rifle in his back seat, “Sweet, I know somebody who could use this,” he picked it up along with the ammo pouch. He winked at Barney, "Thanks bub, this will come in handy,"and walked off. Barney organized some of the wives into groups and had them forage supplies from some of the homes along the perimeter and to have them housed where they could be accessed by the refugees holding up in the school. Once done delegating he looked around for a merc who wasn’t busy, he spotted a lady getting a coffee at one of the picnic tables. He asked her, “Excuse me, but do you know anything about plasma rifles?”? She snickered as she stirred in some powdered creamer into her coffee, “Yeah you could say that, I am a ‘Red Hat’,”?when she tapped the coffee off of her stir stick she glanced up at him and saw the blank look on his face. She shook her head and smiled, “It means I am a weapons specialist, I train recruits on how to use our standard weapons. And teach our vets on the latest upgrades and mods for our light and heavy weapons, even some artillery and hand held missile launchers.”? He smiled and asked, “Got a sec?” She nodded and sipped her coffee.

He led her back to the aircar and unwrapped the plasma rifle in his trunk, “Could you show me how to use this?”?Her eyes widened, “That is a sweet hunk of hardware you have there, that looks like a civilian version of our heavy plasma rifle. Probably SWAT issue.”? She patiently walked him through the loading and priming of the weapon, simple problem solving of issues. And them how to interpret the information on the visual display, power settings for use against light and armored infantry and anti vehicle settings. She plugged the headset into the aircar to charge, and explained how the headset could be used as a HUD. Since it was his first use of the weapon she explained he may wish to avoid it, too much information and too many choices can cause hesitation and therefore death on the battle field. She suggested he find and use a simple but effective all purpose setting and just leave it there, if it meant hitting the target with more shots… so be it. Keep it simple, latter on he could play with the bells and whistles it offered, and even use the HUD to peer and shoot around corners using the camera in the gun. He thanked her for her help and as she left, he hefted the weapon and felt a sense of power, and even more importantly… hope.

[Omra]

Four heavily loaded dropships disgorged themselves from the Ralph Thorson and knifed into Veggie’s atmosphere, they gently glided under minimal power to conserve fuel. Only making minor course corrections so they were sure to make their rendezvous with their fighter escort, while their power signature was low to avoid early detection their glowing hulls were visible for miles while they traversed Veggie’s night side. Once deeper into the atmosphere they met up with Jiggy in his refitted copperhead fighter, “‘Golden Oldie’ this is the ‘Malkavian’ I understand you have some friends you would like us to meet.” Jiggy’s chuckling voice answered, “Indeed, as you break your formation I will pair you up with them, who is first?” The pilot of the ‘Toreador’ spoke up, “I have the closest drop zone I’ll go first.” He pulled away from the other three and Jiggy slid in behind him and slaved two of the doppelgangers to the dropship, powered up their drives and launched them. They flew up and joined into an escort formation slightly to the rear of the ‘Toreador’, the three of them slowly moved away and changed their vector to land near the desalination plant.

This same procedure was performed for the remaining three dropships, ‘Tremere’, ‘Ventrue’ and ‘Malkavian’. Jiggy then slaved the remaining two doppelgangers to his own ship and dove to get ahead of the dropships to wreak as much havoc as possible before their arrival. He wanted to create as much chaos as he could and to get them to commit as many missiles as he could before the slower moving targets made themselves known, it would make it harder for them to reallocate or reprioritize their active missiles.

---

Dana hurried along the empty streets to her Mother’s house; this side of town was mostly deserted now. The Militia and the Mercenaries considered the other two intact dropships a greater threat than the crippled one at the space port, and so they had committed what few defenders they had to the other side of town. What few people Dana saw flitting between buildings were all heading the other direction; she was the only one heading toward danger. She could not leave her Mother alone and defenseless, if she was well enough to be moved she could put her Mother into a cart and wheel her to safety. If not? Well, she would deal with that too. McKenna’s are a hearty bunch who faces challenges with their chins high and their spirits higher. She took shortcuts that she would avoid during normal times, but with even the unseemly element gone she saw no need. The residential area was not monitored as well as the business district and—. She saw movement down an alley; it was Billy he was running as if the Devil were after him. He saw her and changed direction and began running toward her instead as he neared to shouting distance he breathlessly spat out, “They are at the edge of town, they are wounded and in a frenzy! They are killing anything in sight; you got to get out of here!” She looked past him her neck craning, “But, but, my Mother?” His eyes went from wild to tearful, “Oh dear God, I’ I haven’t seen her, surely someone must have helped her evacuate.” She started to push past him, “I have to be sure.” He grabbed her, his eyes pleaded with her, “It is too dangerous lass, please.” She looked down at his grasping hand a spoke through clenched teeth, “Either come with me, or let me go!” A scream tore through the cold air, his head whipped around in its direction; his eyes had gone back to wide and fearful. She used the distraction to tear free from his grasp; she blew out a heavy breath as steeled herself for the trip ahead and continued towards home. Once the scream had died the only sound Dana could hear were Billie’s quickly retreating footsteps, she pulled her shawl close and walked as quietly as she could and prayed that she would find her Mother alive and unharmed.

---

Cheveyo followed the trail to a clearing which held not only a number of smokehouses and storage units but also large number of brewing vats and stills, he smiled and thought, “I guess the stills just happened to slip Shamus’ mind.” He walked around a small spartanly furnished cabin and found an outdoor rest area with tables an open pit barbeque and wood burning stove. He found a herb garden and a well too, it was nice little setup, the outhouse was even near a composting heap which was efficient in a way he preferred not to think of. He was about to give up and start shouting when he heard some one dropping firewood back in the area where the vats were, he headed back and tried to look as harmless as he could. He found a man adding hops too a vat and stirring it in carefully, behind him was the spirit of a man which bore a striking resemblance to him watching the process intently. When the younger man reached for a cup of honey to add to the vat the spirit rolled his eyes and shook his head in obvious disapproval. Cheveyo chuckled, “Your friend does not share your taste in beer.” Both the living and the dead turned to look at him, the spirit seemed amused at the comment. The younger man finished scrapping the honey out and muttered, “Yeah the old man always preferred his**,” realization finally hit him and he looked at Cheveyo again. His eyes started to turn golden and his hands started to stretch and turn claw like as a low growl escaped his throat, Chevey held his hands up to show they were empty and smiled as benignly as he could. "Easy friend, I am not a skinwalker you have nothing to fear from me,? he continued to hold his hands up and held them steady lest the man think he was making a magical gesture, “I am merely an old Shaman, which is how I could see your familial spirit.”

The mans hands began to return to normal and his eyes dimmed and returned to human, ?Hmmm, you must be the Colonial Marshall the packs often speak of," there was a hint of awe and respect in his voice as he returned to tending his vat, “I suppose you are here about Bo’s death.” The spirit watched Cheveyo with interst as he removed his hat and dabbed his forehead with a cloth, “Initially yes, but as I am sure you now know,? he replaced his hat and nodded to the spirit with a smile, ?there are new and far more immediate concerns.” The man replaced the lid on the vat and tossed the stirrer in a bucket, “Sure, for the humans, not for us.” The spirit glared at younger man, clearly displeased with his cavalier attitude. Cheveyo had feared this might be their attitude, “I know your history with humans has not always been a good one, but surely you must know your fates are intertwined.” The man wiped his hands with a rag and threw it down, “Fine whatever, look. What is it you want from me anyways?” Cheveyo’s eyes turned steely and fierce, “I want to speak to your Alpha.”

The young man froze in shock, and the spirit beside him grinned widely.

[Omra]

The alarm sounded in the small cold cockpit of the Onryu, Korridan’s senses shifted via the link to his fighter’s sensors, he could feel the mines powering up and creating massive gravity and erratic wells. They shot off their bomblets of exotic matter and began bleeding plasma into the surrounding area; soon the mined region became a light show of flowing illuminated gasses and electrical discharges. It would make a very convincing and dificult to read anomaly when the enemy ships were forced to drop out of subspace because of the new uncharted, and quite unexpected gravity wells. Yuki began warming up the engines and rechecking the warp pods and munitions. The sensors adjusted for the interference and the passive arrays were unshielded and activated, the cabin slowly warmed and Korridan rubbed his hands together to try and bring feeling back into them.

A series of bright bursts deposited ships into the phony space anomaly; the two large capitol ships were off keel and drifting at unusual vectors when they abruptly fell from subspace. The smaller escort vessels however seemed unphased by the event and maintained an organized protective perimeter around the enormous capitol ships. The other three ships stalled and almost tumbled after their ungraceful drop into normal space, the com traffic from them was frantic and unproffesional. The amount of time it took for the largest of the ships to right itself and then build forward momentum encouraged Korridan, it indicated that the ship must have suffered damage during the sudden deceleration and drop from subspace.

The lead escort moved ahead and scouted for a safe path from the anomaly while two of the outer escorts broke formation and actively scanned for threats, Korridan watched the escorts carefully but kept his warp pods offline and his engines primed but inactive. The noise of the anomaly seemed to work in his favor as the nearest escort leisurely slid by at half speed and never spotted him; he allowed himself a victory smile. The task force finally began to crawl forward and follow the lead escorts path, he waited and watched as the escort on the port side slowly made its way overhead and then past him, he was now inside their protective perimeter.

The trick now was to stay inside it as long as possible without becoming detected, Yuki compiled and collected data on all of the vessels while Korridan carefully maneuvered his craft using thrusters only. He eased his ship into the path of the upcoming supply ship, it should have the poorest sensor array of them all, and the least calibrated engines too. He should be able to use his engines at a low burn within the cargo vessels shadow and not draw attention to himself, he slid beneath it and once near the engines he engaged his own engines at low power. He watched the picket ships and saw no change in their formation and Yuki picked up no increased chatter between them, success!

The task forced seemed comprised of a Carrier, a Heavy Battlecruiser, a Tender, Cargo ship and a Medical ship along with six escort vessels. The carrier was the one that seemed to be limping, that was good, because it would take very little effort to make it even more so. The cargo ship above him was an easy target, he could attach a pair of limpet mines to its engines and it would be history. The Tender would be the second priority target, without its fuel, parts and mobile dry dock the ships would find it harder to effect repairs. The main target of course would be the carrier; it was the biggest threat to Veggie. With all of the craft it carried within it, it could maintain control over a large volume of space and dominate it. Depriving it of fuel by destroying the tender would help, but it had to be stopped if possible, at the very least crippled. Its defenses were down, it was moving at a very slow rate of speed, and it would never be more vulnerable than it was right now.

He planted his charges on the supply ship and noticed the tender was moving toward the carrier, he needed to shadow that tender and use it to get close to the carrier. He just hoped he could get a strong enough burst of speed to glide unpowered to the tender without drawing attention.

[Omra]

After setting the timers on the mines he committed his burn and the Onryu glided toward its target, the unpredictable eddies and currents within the fake nebula slowed his craft and caused it to drift off course. He used his thrusters to correct his course and felt a chill as some of the escort vessels changed position, Yuki kept an eye on them as Korridan continued making minor corrections to their course. Keeping his thruster pulses uneven he hoped they would blend in with the background noise of the anomaly, the nearest escort perched above them like a bird of prey but did not strike. Korridan breathed easier once his fighter was beneath the Tender and out of sight of the escort, he latched his fighter to the hull and rode her toward the carrier.

They rode the Tender for over 20 minutes and excitement filled the cockpit as they entered within the point defense envelope of the carrier, any missiles fired from this point forward would be beyond the carriers ability to shoot down. Korridan was shook from his excitement as the Tender began a slow roll, “What the…?” The Tender began unfolding sections of its hull to expose the repair equipment within and the Onryu was sitting on one of those hull panels. Korridan sighed, “Well I guess our ride is over Yuki, we are going to be in plain sight in mere moments…” Korridan began powering up the fighter while Yuki began selecting choice targets for their weapons load and locking them into the targeting computer in order of priority, the Onryu shook as the hull plate it was riding locked onto place. The warp pods were spooled up and blinking green, and the panels concealing the fighters weapons from radar and standard scans were folded out of they way. Yuki alerted Korridan, “Comm traffic just shot way up! And the escort ship above us is on the move and powering up weapons!” Korridan gritted his teeth and released the clamps holding them to the Tender, “Time to leave this party, let’s do as much damage as we can while we depart, shall we?” Yuki’s voice held a smile, “Indeed Otoosan.”

The Onryu ducked behind the hull plate just as weapons sensor arrays were seeking hold them in their grasp, short range missiles snaked out from the small black fighter and raced toward their vulnerable targets within the Tenders now exposed belly. The fighter hugged close to the Tender as she streaked toward the carrier, the tender’s hull blocking most of the probing beams seeking her out. The escort ship had just dipped below the tender’s hull to try and flush them out when explosions and flying debris blocked them from Korridan’s view. Yuki giggled in his head, “That’s going to make them angry.” The black stealth fighter shot out from under the tender’s forward hull, no longer protected by it defensive automatic guns sought locks on them, Yuki scanned the wavelengths of the scanners and jammed them as Korridan disgorged missile after missile from his weapons bays. At this range it would take little if no time for them to reach their targets, he stayed close to the carrier’s hull which was dangerous but it would discourage any gunners on nearby vessels to take a shot at them, he searched for an exiting vector which would place the carrier between them and the battle cruiser. He found it and adjusted his course, once again the pursuing escort’s path was shrouded by explosions and hurtling debris, however the approaching escort from another direction had a free shot at them.

Korridan grimaced, “I hope their missiles use some of the spectrums you have already analyzed, otherwise we may not make it out!” Energy weapons lanced out at the twirling and darting ship as the escort tried to block the fighter’s escape route, missile launches appeared on the fighter’s indicators and Yuki sought to jam and confuse them. Korridan altered course to try and buy time for Yuki, he groaned as he noticed another escort was moving within weapons range. In the distance the carrier was racked by secondary explosions as the ships in some of her hangers exploded along with fuel and munitions, but Korridon was so busy he never got to enjoy the show, he was to focused on staying alive. He altered course again and sighed with relief when he heard the active lock alarm change tone, the six missiles which had been tracking them flew by blind and dumb. He accelerated to try and escape the incoming escort’s effective range while still fighting to escape the nebu-**. Korridan smiled a fierce grin, “Yuki are we near any of the gravity mines?” Alarms once again filled the cockpit as more missiles sought to destroy them, Yuki sounded annoyed, “I am a little busy right now Father!” The ‘Father’ parted seemingly spat out through gritted digital teeth, he heard her growl as two missles lost their lock on them but reacquired them again seconds later. He rolled his eyes as well as the fighter, “Just answer the question Yuki…” She put the mine grid on a display and indicated their position on it with a flashing dot, “There, happy now?” Yuki went back to jamming the missiles.

Korridan fought to read and digest the information on the display as he continued to move the fighter in an erratic and unpredictable course, he used his link to send the access code to the mines, a few were out of range because of the interference they were sending up. But he was able to contact most of them, we ordered them to surge the gravity generators to full power until their power cells were dry or the mines imploded. He pitched his craft hard and accelerated away from the mine nearest to him, a new alarm sounded as the mines changed from erratic and annoying gravity fluctuations to dangerous and potently deadly gravity wells. The closest escort pitched up on end fought and hard not to be dragged into the gravity well, the Onryu just managed to escape the edge of the gravity envelope before it had gone to full power. The task force deeper in the mine field fought for survival as the once troubling eddies and currents now became ship crushing gravity wells, of course the power cells were limited and one by one they burned out within a mere few minutes.

The final missile salvo burned out fighting the gravity well and tumbled toward the dying gravity mine, Yuki blew out an imaginary breath, “Whew, that was close…” The distraction had bought them time and wounded the task force as an added bonus, plus now with the nearest mines dead Korridan could use the warp pods slipstream drives to escape. He flew victoriously out the opening in the field and activated the slipstream drives, the tiny ship vanished in a flash leaving behind a number of damaged ships with epically pissed of crews. Yuki played one of Korridan’s playlists for their flight to Veggie, and Korridan watched the rear display to see if any of the escorts might pursue them in revenge. None appeared, they must fear that he had not acted alone, and that others might be lying in wait to pounce if they broke formation. He smiled and popped a beer, he had earned it.

[Omra]

Dana was within a block of her home when she caught a glimpse of one of the invaders, she had heard them growling and fighting amongst themselves for over a mile, but every time that she could, she had altered her course to try and avoid them. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, when she turned her head she saw what she thought was a brightly colored jungle cat leaping onto a nearby roof. Its back was to her and she took the opportunity to hide under the eaves of the house she was in front of, she watched the shadow it cast onto the street as it craned its neck and looked for prey. It moved with deadly grace as it crawled atop the chimney and perched itself for what felt like and eternity. She then held her breath as it leapt what seemed an impossible distance onto the roof of the house she was hiding under, she flattened herself to the wall as it stalked back and forth, its claws dislodging loose shingles which fell onto the sidewalk in front of her. It stopped and sniffed the air, and then froze. Her heart nearly stopped when its shadow on the street appeared in her mind to be looking right at her. But just as she thought she was about to become its next meal another catlike creature pounced on it and they tumbled together into the home’s backyard in a vicious furball of flashing and slashing teeth and claws.

She peered out and looked about for others, and listened for the sound of claws clicking or scratching. Hearing nothing but the two behind her fighting for… whatever reason, she darted across the street and hurried toward her home.

---

The Commander of the Red Talon Clan’s troops glared at his burning dropship with an anger as intense as the flames licking from it, troops scurried to pull wounded from the interior as others fought the flames. He barely listened to the reports coming in of the wounded and dead from the attack, and his eyes were clouded with a red haze as he watched two bodies being dragged from the rear ramp. The same ramp he had just left moments before…

He recognized one of the bodies being dragged out; when he saw it moving once they set it down beside some of the others a growl erupted from his throat. He stalked toward it with purposeful stride, his ears flattened and the claws on his hands slid out as if her were about to attack. Soldiers moved out of his way as they saw him coming and those who didn’t were dragged out of his way by those who had. He stood in front of the wounded crew member and glared, when the crewman saw him his eyes widened in terror. The Commander moved so fast the medic working on him was startled; his hand clutched the crewman’s throat with a deathgrip the crewman could not fight free of. The medic pleaded, “Sir, please… I need to tend his wounds!” The Commander leaned closer, “You were responsible for keeping our airspace clear of threats, you failed! These deaths and injuries are a result of your failure,” his free hand gestured to indicate the bodies around them, “you do not deserve treatment.” His hand tore out the throat of the crewman and he stood and glared at the Kher’hon medical officer, “Now then, why don’t you tend to the others, they deserve your care. Unlike this one…” The medic reluctantly ignored the gurgling sounds of the dying crewman and moved on to another wounded soldier.

[Omra]

The house was filled with the scent of herbal teas and potpourri, Dana locked the door behind her and asked in a hushed voice, “Mother?” She quietly padded through the house looking from room to room for her ailing Mother, she locked the windows and closed the curtains in each as she left them. She opened the master bedroom and stepped into the darkened room; it smelled of chest rub and humidifiers, and she could hear the even and steady sound of her Mothers labored and raspy breathing within. Dana set her basket down and went to her Mother’s side and gently shook her, and spoke in a tender tone, “Mother wake up, we need to go…” Her eyes began to open as Dana mopped the sweat from her fevered brow, a shaky voice asked, “Child, what are you doing here? It is too**” The sounds of scratching and growling made her stop, both sets of eyes followed the sound as they climbed up the side of the house and began treading upon the roof. Her mother began to ask a question but Dana clamped her hand over her mouth and held a finger up to her own lips to make the universal ‘shush’ sign. Claws clambered menacingly in a circle of impatience above them, they breathed shallowly as their eyes followed the pattern of its movements. It finally moved to one end of the roof and seemed to perch there, everything became so deathly quiet they could actually hear it sniff the air. She did not realize how badly she was shaking until her Mother held her hand and squeezed it to reassure her. They shared an unspoken look with one another and for some reason it helped, her heart began to slow and she relaxed a little, until they heard their dog barking outside.

They shared a look of fear for their poor dog, the beast atop their roof roared back at the puny challenge the dog offered. But it did not back down, its barks became even more fierce as it sought to defend it’s master’s home. The beast jumped down and charged, the sounds of a feral fight erupted in the backyard. Dana seized the opportunity and scooped up her Mother, and with a burst of adrenaline and pure fear carried her frail Mother and her basket toward the root cellar. The fight did not last long, but it lasted long enough for her to get themselves to safety, bolting the door could not keep out the sounds of their loyal dog’s dying squeals, a sound that would haunt her dreams for years to come. By the time she had barricaded the door tears blurred her vision; she slid down to the floor in exhaustion and covered her ears to try and shut out the sound of the alien creature eating their beloved pet. She sobbed into a pillow to smother the sounds of her sorrow and said a prayer of thanks for her dog’s sacrifice. Her Mother closed her eyes and prayed too, only her prayer was for the protection of her daughter, and to look over her when she passed on. She silently rocked as she caressed her rosary and muttered a silent, ‘Why have you burdened my poor daughter so oh Lord? What have I done that you must test her so? Take me and set her free, I have been a cross for her to bear, Please God take me not her.”

[Omra]

With the Doppelgangers up and running it appeared on the enemies sensors that 9 fighters were inbound in a tight formation instead of the one that was really there. Jiggy sent one of his Doppelgangers to harass the dropship sitting beside the desalination plant, to try and get it to waste a lot of it’s weaponry on his decoy. With his remaining decoy he dove toward the space elevator presenting a tantalizing target, they launched a number of missiles in response. Jiggy pulled out of the dive and gained altitude allowing the imaginary cluster of inbound fighters to present a juicer target. Two missiles remained locked on Jiggy while the rest swerved toward the threatening cluster of false targets. Once fully committed to destroying their targets the Doppelganger began to reek havoc with their guidance systems, the false images began to split into more and more false reflections of themselves and then meld back together while dancing in an impossible dervish of activity. The ariel ‘3 card monty’ confused the guidence systems and caused the raising weapons to expend vast amounts of power on constant and wasteful course corrections. The gravity drive of the decoy began rapidly pulling back in what would be an impossible maneuver for a normal craft to execute, the missiles burned more and more fuel in a vain effort to reach the tantalizing targets. And by the time the operators on the ground realized the futility of the missiles effort it was too late to change their course, there was no way they could reach Jiggy before expending their remaining fuel.

He inverted and dove hard after firing off a cluster of countermeasures, and headed for the deck like a meteor. The two missiles which had fought for altitude to reach him now found themselves confused by the countermeasures and began fishing to re establish their previous lock. Knowing that the operators would attempt to establish control of the two missiles and guide them to him he fired two anti-radiation missiles at the dropship, they would home in on the signal from the defense array. They would have two choices, either guide the missiles and risk having his missiles fly right down their throats, or shut off their array to avoid being hit. After a tense few seconds they relucantly shut off their array, half of the alert lights went dark in his cockpit and he sighed in relief. His missiles began to stray since they no longer had a strong signal to follow, and then something strange happened. They turned on their anti-air cannons, alert’s sounded and flashed as the radar painted his craft, he instinctively popped chaff and started to vary his approach.

Sparks and popping sounds erupted across the front of his fighter, he cursed as the flight controls became sluggish and unresponsive his craft became harder and harder to maneuver. Chunks of his front canard began to fly off and the nose tried to pitch down and just as he thought he might lose control his two AR missiles struck the dropship, a bright explosion caused his cockpit canopy to darken and the warning lights and alert klaxons to shut off. The radar from the auto-cannons had been enough to re establish a lock for his two birds, he shook his head and thought, “F*cking stupid…” He was shot up bad but would be able to make it to the spaceport; the dropship from the Ralph Thorson would have an easy landing though, a decent trade off. He banked toward the spaceport and as he overflew the crops from the Hooter settlements he spotted large troop movements, he was in no shape to make any strafing runs, Hell he could barely keep her level much less play gunship. He fired off a few folding fin rockets just to shake them up, and to alert the boys in town something was up, just in case his communications array had become damaged too. The soldiers in town needed to know company was coming…

[Omra]

Barney heard the commotion by the school and went to investigate; panicked murmurs greeted his ears as he opened the gate. He was surprised to see so many people from the west side of town milling around the playground, they looked haggard and tired and the topic of many a conversation. After some prodding he found out they had fled their side of town when the aliens arrived, they were wounded and crazed, killing and eating everything in sight. He was on his way out after calming everyone down when he spotted Billy getting a drink of water, Barney walked up to him, “Billy, did you see anyone helping Dana’s Mother get out of there?” Billy shook his head and avoided eye contact, this made Barney very nervous he grabbed Billy and shook him, “Dana, did you see Dana?” Tears began to stain Billies dirty face, “I’m sorry, I tried to stop her, but, but,” he wiped his nose and sniffed, “you know how stubborn she can be…” Barney’s eyes flared, “Where?" Barneys voice became intense, "Where did you see her? Where was she going?” Barney already knew the answer to his question in his heart, but needed confirmation, Billy sputtered, “To her Mother’s, she was going to her Mother’s…” Barney headed for his aircar, his steps strong and purposeful. Behind him Billy sobbed his voice full of shame and regret, “I begged her to come with me Barney, really… I …I … I’m sorry.”

He was at his aircar when the explosions came, they were in the distance but it woke the town from its melancholy funk and made the alien threat real. Communicators sputtered to life and vomited information to their holders, and the main command center got a burst on their com set, “Be advised grunts, you have hostiles heading your way. I count upwards of two hundred light and heavy infantry 5 klicks from your position, Golden Oldie out!” Just then a smoking fighter flew over their heads wagging it’s wings in salute, the merc’s waved and cheered back. The Sarge began calling the sappers and engineers back into town and told the citizens to finish with the barricades because company was coming. Barney primed the aircar and his weapon for a fight, a merc walked up to the car, “Leaving the party?” Barney glared back, “Invaders have penetrated the west side, and I have civilians to protect! Besides you don’t need me here,” he pointed to the west, “they do!” The merc shrugged and patted the car, “Have fun.” The dogeared car rose and headed west its turbines howling.

---

The men in the desalination plant ran to their windows to see what the noise was, they craned to see what was going on. The massive enemy ship parked outside was firing skyward, its tubes and sensors maneuvering as it tracked targets and its small cannons belching fire at things the men could not see above them. They started to become excited and slapped each other on their backs, “Someone must be coming!” The com station crackled to life, “This is the insertion vessel Toreador, and we are coming to help. Please advise as to the number and nature of your hostiles, and your location of friendlies and status. And if you could harass that damned dropship we would be ever so grateful…” Cheers erupted within the complex, the foreman and plant manager began broadcasting as much information as they could to the incoming ship and a detachment of security personnel ran upstairs to get a bead on the dropship to see if they could damage the sensors and anti air weaponry.

[Omra]

The view from the airborne car was a grim one; Barney peered over the side and tilted the car for a better view as he followed the litter strewn street toward Dana’s house. The narrow and uneven streets were punctuated by the shredded remains of dogs, cats, livestock and people. People he probably had had drinks and laughed with at some point, people who had come here to get away from the crowded, polluted and uncaring cities on the core worlds and had sought a simpler life. Birds were feeding on what remained of them; it seemed the alien invaders were more interested in the joy of the hunt and the thrill of the kill, than the actual consumption of the prey. They only took the choice bits and left the rest for the carrion feeders, the only comfort Barney could take from the gruesome scenery was that he did not see a body wearing the same clothing that Dana had worn when he had last seen her. He spoke a silent prayer of hope, hope that he would find Dana safe and ****?? A streak of movement broke his line of thought and drew his wind worn eyes to a rooftop, he banked the car to get a better look and what he saw startled and frightened him. An eight foot catlike creature in the torn and bloodied remains of a uniform was looking at him with fierce yellow eyes, it smiled with long sharp teeth still stained by its last kill and swung up two automatic submachine guns like some kind of action hero. Barney reached up and killed the safeties on the aircar and jammed the throttle hard as he altered course, the turbines howled and the metal hull ringed with the sound of bullet strikes.

He slammed the repulsor coils to full and fought to stay conscious as the car surged upward at 5 gees, once out of range of the submachine guns he hit ‘autocorrect’ and the computer reoriented and stabilized the cars flight with a loud groan of metal and whining gyros. After clearing his head he swung back around to head for Dana’s home, he caught a few bright flashes as the creature fired off his remaining ammo. A few bullets found his incoming car but most went wild as he sluced the car from side to side, and those that did hit were at the outer edge of their effective range and did little damage. The angry feline threw down his empty weapons in disgust and charged across the rooftop toward Barney’s approaching aircar. The Deputy’s brow furrowed, “what the Hell does he think…?” By the time he realized what it intended to do it was too late, the front end pitched forward as new weight was added to it, he turned the safeties back on and the computer added more power to the forward repulsors to compensate for the new and unwanted passenger.

As the nose straightened up a hand appeared on the hood, claws dug into the metal and then a head appeared over the edge of the hood as it tried to pull itself up. It leered at him and grinned at Barney’s shocked expression; another hand came up and fought for purchase on the hood. Barney grimaced and slowed the aircar down to a stop, fine; let’s see just how good those claws really are. He put the repulsors on full and he sank into his seat as the car shoot straight upward at a violent speed, he smiled as the aliens claws slid slowly toward the edge leaving long gouges across his hood. But just it looked like he might shake his passenger the car slowed as it began to reach its operational envelope and then stopped. The alien glared at Barney with fierce eyes and he heard a low growl building in its throat, his mind raced with possibilities as they stared at one another, a plan formed in his mind but his body was frozen by fear. The sudden movement of the predator shook him out of his petrified state and he killed the repulsors.

For a moment it appeared they were frozen in time, hanging in mid air like pieces of a diorama. But in reality they were both falling and maintaining their relative positions to one another from the moment of incidence. The predator hung above Barney like bloodthirsty piñata, its claws outstretched reaching for him, it continued to hold the pose it had adopted from the moment it had leapt for him its prey to tantilizingly close yet unattainable. Barney remained in his seat, sort of; the harness kept him from flying out of it as the aircar fell. It took every ounce of self control for Barney not to try and regain control of the aircar, its plummeting toward the ground was ironically the only thing keeping him alive for the moment. The car began to tip onto its side as Barney had hoped his weight and the air pressure pushing against it would cause it to do; this took him even further out of the furious alien’s reach and provided a very impressive if not terrifying view of the rapidly approaching ground. And if the craft began to flip it would impose the car between him and the would be killer, the sound of scratching could be heard over the buffeting wind he turned away from the approaching landscape and toward the threatening noise. The damned creature was trying to grab a hold of the cars door and pull itself aboard, Barney could not wait any longer, he slapped the ‘autocorrect’ button and held his arms tightly to his frame to avoid any broken limbs as the car whipped around and righted its self. The contoured seat prevented Barney from snapping his neck, but just barely. The bloodthirsty alien solder plummeted past with vicous snarl and crashed through an awaiting roof to his death, the car was alive with warning lights lurched violently and then went into a controlled descent. The repulsor coils were overheated, the cars superstructure was twisted and the airframe was riddled with stress fractures, he could probably nurse a few miles out of it after it cooled off if he needed to, but only if he turned off all of the safety protocols and kept it at street level.

It looked like he was going to have to walk the rest of the way. He nervously watched the car descend and hoped to God the plasma rifle in the trunk was still intact after all of this nonsense.