Preview:
The Thealus flew over a huge wreckage, old and decrepit, the Thealus shined its lights looking around the abandoned mining station.
“Gives me the creeps” said Weira
“That makes two of us” Dylan answered scanning through the wreckage.
“Isn’t this
Dylan
shrugged “
“And then it was abandoned cause of the cost to maintain the base. I know you’re not the only historian in this ship, Dylan” said Alyona sticking her tongue out. Everyone laughed.
Kanya moved drove the ship for a landing at an old port.
Dylan’s mind kept scanning through the old buildings hopping to find a trace of his sister. The ship landed with a hard thud as the landing gear detached and attached itself to the landing pad securing the Thealus firmly to the pad.
“Kanya, stay with the ship, Jovan, Johnson, Alyona and Weira come.” Dylan ordered softly. They all nodded and get up their seats to get armed and ready.
Dylan
walked out of the bridge and to the cargo area. Please be here, sis.
Dylan said in his mind as he started equipping himself. Dylan readied himself with a dark cameo suit for stealth, a silenced machine gun, his Katana and two pistols. He didn’t notice Alyona coming up behind him.
“Ho” she said in her soft Russian accent.
“Ho” Dylan said absently still getting his stuff ready. “You’re all ready?”
“I am, the others are still scanning through the old maps of this place.”
“Oh” Dylan finished and faced Alyona.
“Something wrong, Dylan?”
“No”
“Oh, well all right”
Dylan put a hand on Alyona’s shoulder and then walked off.
--
The airlock slide open, the air was breathable, but it was stale and old.
“All right team lets go” said Dylan as he climbed out and slid down the ladder. The others followed close behind. Dylan scanned the pad with his eye piece and then slid it to the side of his head and looked around.
“Looks clear to me captain” said Johnson
“Okay down to the next level”
The team slid down the next set of ladders and scanned the place until they were at the bottom of the landing pad, an eerie feeling setting in Dylan’s mind. He glanced at high control tower.
“Alyona” said Dylan “Try to get up there and monitor our position from there.
“Roger”
“The rest come move on” Dylan waved his hand forward.
Alyona left the group and climbed up the tower, she looked around before she pushed herself up and into the top, the controls were very old and dusty, she sneezed and shook her head. Alyona quickly started working at the old controls, there was no power circulating. The generators must be down she thought to herself as she flicked a few switches, nothing came on, she shook her head and clicked on her radio.
“Power’s out, they must’ve shut the whole system down when they abandoned the place”
“No way to turn it back on?” Dylan replied over the radio.
“Nope”
“Okay just give us some cover from up there; we’ll try to find the generator”
“Roger” Alyona confirmed as she positioned her sniper rifle on the rim of the control tower. She pointed her scope to watch over the small squad as they waltzed over and around the facility.
--
Rogan shivered as she sat in front of one of the computers the cold woman supplied her with, it was pointless since she could do nothing but look on the nets but she couldn’t do anything either than that, it was all locked down completely plus the fact there was that guard following her wherever she went, annoying as it was she couldn’t do anything about it. She browsed the nets looking around for any sign of her brother; the little brawl at command school was all over the news. She sighed, leaned back and glanced at the guard leaning on a support pole drinking coffee. She quirked a wary eyebrow, started typing to try and find a good weakness in the computer lockdown careful to act casual. With some luck her computer classes helped her; she found a small crack in the locks she could bypass with simple binary. Carefully she typed quickly and silently, she set a small message on the Venus public forum, being careful she had to code it. Then right before she could press the send, a cold hand wrapped around her hand, she felt her blood drain from her face; she said nothing, not daring to look.
“So what have you been doing here?” asked the woman
How the hell can she be that silent Rogan said in her mind with fear.
“Answer me” the woman said demandingly
Rogan gulped and turned her head slowly, the woman’s eyes were emotionless cold, it gave her an eerie feeling to be around her, let alone her touching her.
The woman planted a hand on her shoulder and gave a violent swing; Rogan toppled over the chair and hit her head on the hard cement floor. It left her dazed and a wave of pain cycled through her mind. She heard the woman sneer as the woman laid her foot on Rogan’s hand and pressed down. Rogan screeched in pain.
“Stupid bitch, I should break your arms!” said the woman coldly
Rogan could barely hear the woman, she was holding her head, she was bleeding from her head. “What?”
“You were trying to make contact, weren’t you?” the woman shouted.
“So what, at least I have the heart to write”
The woman kicked her, hard, in the ribs, she groaned. Rogan winced hard and looks up at the woman blankly. “You’re the bitch”
The woman kicked her again even harder.
Rogan moaned and curled up. I can’t let her do this. Rogan stood up lowly and bashed at the keyboard pressing some stray keys and the send button, the message was sent. She was kicked in the gut; she fell back down and breathed slowly as she faded from consciousness.
--
“Anything?” said Dylan over the radio.
“No, everything’s clear” said Alyona over the com.
“I found it” said Johnson
“What?”
“The generator”
Dylan turned around at Johnson examining the huge turbines. “Turn it on”
“Roger” Johnson hooked on his computer and hacked into the generator’s locks.
Dylan looked around at the tall buildings wondering what’s happening to his sister, grieving the fact she might be hurt, or worse, dead. But he just couldn’t think that way; he would not give up hope for her. Don’t die… don’t die…
“Got it” said Johnson the lights suddenly flickering on, the sounds of machines cranking up and gears running.
Dylan shook his head of thinking and came back to life. “Good”
“I’ve got power” said Alyona through the radio. “Um…”
“What?” asked Dylan coarsely
“I’m detection some unknown activations” Alyona said nervously through the radio. “I see them, their transport trucks … their carrying soldiers in them! Their heading your way”
“Damnit! Everyone lock and load, this wont be pretty” Dylan ordered clicking the safety off his gun.
The truck drove in into the night; the squad barreled away from each other and took cover behind the nearby parked trucks, shots fired and flared. Dylan peered out and let out a spread of fire at the truck the occupants still pouring out of the vehicle, Dylan could see clearly there was a machine gun onto of the transport keeping everyone down. Dylan ducked back down and reloaded his gun, then he took his anti-tank grenade, in his hand and pulled off the clip.
“Fire in the hoe!” Dylan yelled as he threw the grenade with all his might at the transport. The night lit up as a huge vertical explosion lifted the transport’s side tipping it over and neutralizing the heavy machine gun’s threat.
Shouts came out of the dead night, shots fired. Dylan peered out and fired his gun at a group of enemy soldiers, they fell taking the hard blows.
“Heads up another transport.” Said Alyona through the com “Don’t worry I got it”
Dylan scanned seeing the other transport, then a loud shot emanated as the front window shattered off the transport killing the driver, then the transport stopped dead in its tracks. Another hard shot came and pierced the transport’s hood, and fire lit up under the hood, several cries were heard, then the transport blew up into a fiery wreckage killing most of its occupants.
“Good work” Dylan said in the radio to the rest of the squad. “Finish em off”
Dylan rose up seeing all the dead soldiers and shook his head.
First Contact
--
Rogan woke up slowly, her head was aching horribly after what happened, and her ribs ached even more. She sat up in her cell and scanned the room; Thitaya was sleeping on the other bunk above her.
“What did you do this time?” Rogan heard Thitaya say tiredly; apparently she wasn’t sleeping at all.
“You’re awake?” said Rogan
“Of course” Thitaya answered “you can’t expect me to sleep all the time”
“Oh … I just assumed-“
“You assumed nothing, darlin’” Thitaya blurted out calmly, she opened her eyes and looked down at her in mate. “I heard some bad noises out there”
Rogan sighed and laid back on her bunk staring up, Thitaya hung her head down upside down looking at her. “I tried to get a message out”
“Let me guess you got caught”
“Yeah …”
“She’s cold isn’t she?”
“Hm?”
“Irika” answered Thitaya
“That’s her name?”
“Sure is”
Rogan turned her head at Thitaya. “How did you know?”
“They talk don’t they?”
“Yeah, but they always call her Lieutenant”
“One of them seems to be her closest friend, she calls her Irika” Thitaya said sighing and laying down on her own bunk.
“Who’s she?” asked Rogan
“They call her Lieutenant Harlin, never heard her first name, she seems to be their communications officer.”
“I don’t see how anyone could be friends with that hard ass girl…” Rogan blurted with disgust.”
--
It had been long and hard for the team above, finding no trace of their objective.
“I’m getting tired” said Weira
“We’re not made for this … I know” Dylan said with a sigh leaning on a wall. The others had gone off. Weira took a sigh of her own and leaned beside him.
“I know it’s hard …” said Weira
“I won’t give up on her”
“I know you won’t” Weira sighed again just as the radio lit up with Kanya’s voice. “Hey Dylan, its Kanya”
Dylan clicked on his radio. “What is it?”
“There’s a big brawl back at Venouslea” the Thai pilot responded. “Seems the locals received an encoded message on the public forums by someone unknown”
“Why the brawl then?” said Dylan
“They managed to decipher the last bit of the message”
“And?”
“It was initialed R.T”
Dylan felt his heart jump with joy that his sister might have been alive. “What’s everyone’s status?”
“Jovan’s up in the tower with Alyona, Johnson’s back here trying to decipher that message.” Kanya reported.
“Okay tell them to get back to ship”
“Roger” the radio beeped as Kanya went off.
Weira looked up at Dylan; he was staring into the sky with content. “Hey”
“Hm? Oh sorry” Dylan said absently turning around to face his companion.
Weira giggled and nudged him “Come on” Weira headed off, Dylan took one last look and then joined his companion.
As they were walking Dylan heard a faint sound of footsteps shuffling around through his ear piece, he blinked and looked around. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked Weira,
A loud thud echoed in the alley behind them, they both turned and aimed their weapons in the same direction, nothing had been there.
“We should get out of here” suggested Weira
“Good idea” they both turned around and almost jumped seeing a dark figure in the shadows before them, it had one blood red light as it’s eye.
By instinct they both trained their weapons on the person.
“Identify your self!” demanded Dylan “Now”
A feline chuckle came from the figure, it was a woman, she stepped forward just a little bit out of the shadows but only a faint outline highlighted her. “You Venusarians, you’re all the same” she spoke in a strong British accent.
Dylan cringed. “Who the hell are you?”
The woman only laughed and hissed then she rushed forward and leaped at the two operatives.
Dylan and Weira both rolled the opposite way and started firing at the woman after she had passed them. A sling of a blade called in the night as the bullets shot in all directions.
Dylan was dazed and finally got his balance he looked behind them to the woman, the light illuminated her completely now, a young woman in a stealth suite covering her whole face, she had drawn a sword and deflected their assaults. A ninja?
Dylan set down his gun and slid out his katana from his back and charged at the woman. She just jumped calmly backward and took out a pistol and fired at Dylan.
By reaction Dylan’s eyepiece reacted as his stimulus, immediately his arm and sword deflected the incoming bullets with ease.
The woman leaped at his with a slash, Dylan and the woman sword fought continuously, their slashes only inches apart from fatal damage.
Dylan rolled under on her thrusts and tackled upward; she stumbled back and almost fell. Dylan took a chance and went to stab her while she was down. It failed horribly as the woman slickly rolled to the side and kicked his back leg; Dylan fell forward and jumped back up again before her own down stab could have ended his life for sure. One thing had been for sure, she was no amateur.
Dylan thrusted his sword forward, the woman strafed left and thwacked his sword out of his hand.
Dylan stumbled back as Weira screamed “Dylan!” he saw the tip of a sword thrusting directly at his face.
Continued…
