| [_private/left.htm]
|
(Dreadnaut in armor)
"Desperation" Earth: 2115 A.D, Colonial Defense Core, New World Island (New Jersey) "Damn, can you believe this junky assignment we got from the Core?" Mumbled Cool Breeze as he walked down the bleak white hallway to the administration office of the Colonial Defense Core, a.k.a., the Dreadnaut core or space marines. "No, we've lost contact with the home base on Oasis a billion times. Why do we get called to go a hundred thousand light years into space to check on some two-dollar space colony?" groaned Streak. Just two halls left to the administration office he thought. "Ya know why we got this crack head assignment, because we are the outcasts of the Core. They think we are an insult to them just because we hijacked the Lander for a joy ride…" A wide smile swept across Judd's face. It was my idea Judd thought. The Lander is a four-person light armor transport for short space travel and landing on other planets. It was totally funny to see Captain's face as we kicked Lander into low speed (approximately two hundred miles per hour) and shot over the bunks at three a.m. People came running out in their bunk clothes with pulse rifles at shot stance! What a riot, until Captain gave us three months in the mine. "Remember the mine?" Judd said "Who can forget the mine." Streak said with more than just a tinge of resentment. "Who ever can, has one screwed up mind, brother!" Typical Cool Breeze response, short and extremely correct thought Streak. How could I ever have gotten myself into that mess…? Anyway the mine, just think of it as torture. It is just like a concentration camp, only you are on a barren planet like Mars with an atmosphere. You are with all the prisoners of Earth, and people in the Dreadnaut Core who start a riot. Three months did not sound like much, but damn, it wears on you like acid on cement. No stopping when you are mining. The guards are NOT human! They are like some brainwashed weight lifters with automatic pulse cannons. I saw some dude get blasted off his plateau for putting down his shovel for three seconds. I ran over to him, his whole front side was torn to pieces! I'll never forget that stupid mine. "Well, lucky us, here is Captain Grouch Allots room (real name, Captain Grunds). Shall we knock or place a proximity mine near the door?" Judd said. Every one laughed except our Captain who was there the whole time. "Nice going retard." Streak said. Man, does he ever loosen up, what's got him so uptight thought Judd. "Listen up you little punks, and listen well if you value your existence!" Capt.Grunds said. "Ha, you call this Core an existence?" Watch it Judd, Cool Breeze thought. Don't push him! That dudes got more screws loose than the transport that took us to the mine! The thing was literally falling apart as we sat in it. "The reason you are here is because…" "You love us so much that you are gonna put us all in a Lander and send us to Oasis with an empty tank of fuel so we get dumped somewhere out in space" Said Judd interrupting Captains sentence. "Listen son, I've had just enough out of you" Said Capt. "Alright, all I know is that you want us to go to Oasis to check how the colony is doing because we lost contact with them." Streak interjected. "Ha, the whole lot of you are really dumb, do you really think we are going to send you to Oasis? On average we loose contact with it maybe, three times a week." Streak started mocking Captain Grunds; it's the first time I ever saw Streak mock someone thought Cool Breeze. All of a sudden the Captain's face became stern and stressed like he was about to say something he really didn't want to. "The reason you are here is because… because… you are the best in each field of the Core." "You Cool Breeze, are the best sniper in the Core" "You Judd, are the best with close range fights." "You Streak are the best with reconostrike and mines." "You three are chosen to be sent to Anubis 02 to stop an invasion on earth." "An unlimited arsenal of weaponry is at your disposal. You will be able to choose from five suits of High-Tec armor, but be advised you can only have one of each suit because they are extremely heavy with the jet packs and glider wings. Also in the cargo hold of your ship you will have twenty-one patch kits and twenty-one med. kits. Use them wisely, that's all you can get! " Follow me kids, I'm taking you all to the launch pad for preparation and weapon selection!" No one talked as they walked down a hall to the right of Captain's room. All of the Marines were extremely surprised that a ship and fifteen of the worlds' most High-Tec pieces of armory were at their usage. The Captain stopped and on a small keypad typed in a few numbers. The floor shook as the piece of concrete beneath our feet began to slowly descend into darkness. A couple of seconds later the floor stopped and a wall slid open in front of the Marines. A vast cavern filled with Landers and weapon racks, suit racks and kit racks opened in front of them. The room was empty except for the three Marines and their Captain. "All right boys, this is like a big Toys R Us shopping spree, say what you want and you get it!" "I'll take one of every suit," said each Marine. All of a sudden three big mechanical arms folded out of the ceiling, the arms came down and each took one of every suit! The arms then went over to the closest Lander, which was called "Blast ‘em dead" and laid the suits on the loading ramp. "Wow!" Streak said to himself under his breath. Dude, this is totally beyond awesome, here we are standing in a chamber only accessible to troops in a time of war! Wow, just think I've gone from class goon who wasn't even allowed in the private mess hall to someone who is standing in a Top- Secret room! If I live to get back, I'll tell everyone about this! Thought Judd. "All right boys, your ship is all ready to go, the suits are in with all the weapons and kits, I just want to say, IF YOU DARE SCREW THIS UP FOR EARTH I WILL PERSONALLY FIND YOU IN THE AFTER- LIFE AND MAKE ALL ETERNITY A LIVING HELL FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. So move it before the aliens wipe out this planet!" One thing is missing from this, thought Streak. "Hey Captain, I really love you man, give me a hug." said Judd. "No" said Capt. "C'mon" "No way" "Please give me a hug" " Beat it before I break your head!" Later on in the Blast ‘em Dead Control Room "Ha ha, boy I really had him going for a minute there didn't I?" asked Judd between fairly long bouts of laughter. "Dude, I knew something was missing. That was a real Kodak moment! Did you see his face? He was about to take a pulse rifle off a rack and smash it over your head! That was pure genius." Cool Breeze said. Cool Breeze and Judd were getting up to go to the galley for some food. "Yo, Streak, want some food? "Nah man, just gonna stay here, ya know, watch the instruments, make sure nothing malfunctions." said Streak with a very distant tone in his voice. "Alright dude, if ya change your mind we can always nuke up some frozen chow and coffee." Streak did not respond; he just looked out the window into total bleakness, a few large planets zipped by and he fell asleep wondering if he'll ever get back home. "Buup, buup, buup, buup, buup, buup, buup!" "Damn! I thought you said you were watching the ship's panels! Retard, we're about to crash into Anubis 02! Secure everything, get ready for a bumpy ride!" Said Cool Breeze. "Get off it man, I am sorry!" shot Streak "You better be or I'll feed you to the skulls!" (Common name for the arachnid creatures of the Anubis system) replied Cool Breeze hotly. "Dude, don't get Streak started" warned Judd. Judd slid slowly into his pod and the glass covering slid into place and locked. There was a moment of silence besides the creaking of the hull undergoing pressure change. "Damn you!" screamed Streak as he lunged at Cool Breeze knocking him over the control panel to the grating below. Judd was locked in his re-entry pod (a tall cylinder with life support, a truly unbreakable glass wall, straps to hold the soldier in place and microphones so they could talk in re- entry) and his straps were jammed. He kept screaming and punching the wall, probably to get them to stop fighting, but the pods are sound proof. Streak and Cool Breeze got up and started to beat the junk out of each other. Meanwhile, Anubis 02 kept on getting bigger in the view port window. There was a giant lurch as Blast ‘em dead was sucked into Anubis 02's atmosphere. The lurch was so forceful that both Streak and Cool Breeze literally flew into the view port and were knocked unconscious. Blast ‘em Dead: Orbit around Anubis 02 Judd struggled with the straps screaming at the microphone. "You stupid computer, let me loose, we're not crashing any more, let me out!" The straps finally let go and the door slid up. Streak and cool Breeze were lying down near the view port, blood coming from their heads and mouths. Slowly Judd lifted Cool Breeze and laid him in his re-entry pod. The straps flew around him, the door closed as a laser swept over his body repairing him. Judd also did the same for Streak. In about one uneventful hour, both Streak and Cool Breeze were awake, fighting verbally through the microphones. Judd was sitting at the control panel listening to them and laughing to him self. Judd tapped in the command for a relaxant to be injected into them and then let them out of their pods. When they came out they were swaying and falling. Both were wobbling around the room cursing at each other, but couldn't manage to walk close enough to fight. Finally Streak sat down cursing under his breath and said in a drunken drawl, " Whud happen, I thought I was beating Cool Breeb ub? Did you by any chance tranquilize me? I feel like I've been drunk for the past like, three months." "Yeah man, I got a hangover too, but thanks for saving Streak's butt, I wasn't gonna be merciful." said Cool Breeze speaking more normally then Streak had. " You know how much bull that is? I totally had the upper hand; I was about to crush you man." said Streak regaining a normal braggish tone. " The both of you, shut up, we've got a war to fight morons!" snapped Judd. He continued, " We've been burdened with the responsibility of saving Earth! Not to forget, we also have to wipe out a totally established species on Anubis! There are about ten thousand skulls that must be terminated by us, no turning back; it's up to us! Have you got any brains, or did you pummel them out of each other? Be serious, the skulls are walking missile launchers!" "Whoa Judd, calm down we're just a little drugged, you didn't do the best job in calculating our relaxant." said Cool Breeze. " I know, it'll be at least ten hours until I can see straight again!" said Streak rubbing his eyes. He continued " I'll be serious, I don't know about my little pummeled friend. Fill me in, I kinda lost track of things when I was beating Cool Breeze up." Cool Breeze was about to parry Streaks account when Judd put his hand up and said " No Cool Breeze, all right, while you two were in your pods, I was doing my homework like a good Marine. There's an area of land with little or no skulls. We are gonna land there." Cool Breeze said " Whoa, who gave you permission to land this thing where you wanted to? For all Streak and I know, you may be landing us on the highest concentration of skulls. You only know how to do a surface scan, I only know how to do a heat scan and Streak only knows how to do a sonar scan. You've done your part of the work. Now let us do ours." Cool Breeze walked over to the control panel and sat down. He put his hands on the I.D. scan pad and then started to type in commands. The area of land Judd was looking at was recalled and then a green bar swept up and down the screen forming the shapes of hot objects. A closer look revealed that the shapes were vents for the core of Anubis. "Heat scan looks clear to me." said Cool Breeze as he got up to let Streak sit down. Judd had a look on his face that could kill. The look a child has when he or she gets corrected; only this was a whole lot meaner. Streak sat down and placed his hand on the pad. He then typed in the command for an ultra sonar ping to be fired at the coordinates. Nothing showed up on the ping so he turned off the view port window. Then the three marines set off toward the cargo hold to prepare for landing. Blast ‘em Dead: Cargo Hold " All right guys." said Judd. "We need to take the lightest suit possible so we can check out the area. So we'll take the scout, and don't forget to equip it with the jet packs and glider wings. These suits don't have hard points so choose a good weapon! I suggest for a secondary rifle attachment that you use either the gauss cannon or the flechette cannon. So… suit up!" " Man, do you think every things gonna be cool down there? I mean, we have the weakest suit possible, besides the infantry suit, and to top it all off, we don't have hard points for grenades or missiles!" " I don't know Streak… We should be alright." said Cool Breeze At the end of the sentence his voice faltered. There was something doubtful in the way he spoke thought Streak. As the Marines suited up in the dark chamber, each person's head was spinning with questions, images of warfare and carnage. Not a single one of the Marines were confident about the outcome of the mission. They suited up silently, double and triple checking their rifles, jetpacks, glider wings, head glasses, and enviro-sheild seam vacuums. Judd was the first one done so he went to get the rifles. Cool Breeze finished next and Streak finished last. When Judd returned with all the guns, he laid them down on the floor. There was an auto pulse cannon, a flame-thrower, a gauss cannon and a flechette cannon. Judd told them to select a weapon. "I'll take the flechette cannon." said Cool Breeze. Cool Breeze then picked up the weapon and nearly dropped it. " Damn this is heavy, what'd you do to it?" " That's a flechette cannon moron. Do you know what a flechette cannon fires?" asked Streak. " Uh… hmmm… no…?" said Cool Breeze with an expression of pure blankness on his face. " Well, they fire billions of armor piercing shards of metal for one thing, and it also has twenty one rounds of these projectiles onboard." Explained Streak with a forced British accent. His posture straitened up and he gained a snobbish air about him, and then gave them the teacher's version of the "evil eye". Both Judd and Cool Breeze laughed. Streak's antics made them all forget about the mission and just as suddenly as the happiness came it was gone, and it was replaced by a dark cloud of fear and sadness. All were quiet; eyes looking to the ground each said a prayer for the lives of the expedition. And without saying a word to each other they walked to the control room. Blast 'em Dead: Control Room: Streak sat in the gunman chair and squirmed in his suit at the sight of the planet. In his mind he named it "the red devil," and cursed his self-pride and self-assurance as he suddenly realized again that this mission may be his last. He looked at Judd and Cool Breeze and realized they were thinking the same thing, they were scared out of their suits also. Kind of hard not to be when you are rushing at a planet full of angry walking missile launchers with a decidedly bad fetish for human flesh. Streak nervously laughed and said, " We are big hamburgers in cardboard boxes flying around." He laughed again and when he saw their reaction, turned around and shut up. In his mind, Cool Breeze was turning this thought over and over in his mind. Its true, he thought. But, we've got the suits! We are impenetrable! Indestructible! The more he tried to re-assure himself, the more he believed what Streak had said. It was true, not three, or four, ten thousand or more! Ten thousand hungry cannibal rioters with missile launchers, to give you an idea; and us would be the three riot control police with Plexiglas shields. That would be the twin scenario, only for Earth. "Damn, there is no winning this, is there?" asked Cool Breeze. Judd shrugged his shoulders as Streak thought back to his younger days. "I am gonna join the Core, Mommy" the young Streak had said to his mother. "Don't you dare! They just murder and get murdered! I will not stand for it! Not in this house will a boy raised by me join the Core! Horrible death trap that wretched place is! I am surprised at you. I thought you were intelligent. You of all people should know better! I am ashamed at how you've grown up to think!" said his mom in a soft but warning tone. The innocent young Streak looked at his plas-teq space gun (plas-teq is a super strong form of plastic that is 100% recyclable.) "I am sorry Mom, but it seemed like a cool idea… I didn't know that you hated it that much." Said the young Streak. Tiny tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He tried his best to hold them back so his mom would not notice. She did not know, but Streaks dream had been lit aflame and tossed in kerosene. Streak was jolted out from his reverie with tears in his eyes, Judd looked at him and said, "Dude, are you alright?" Streak did not respond but just nodded. He now felt sorry for his actions and regretted having made his mother worry so much. He felt his mom was right for screaming at him, though part of him thought of what he would be missing if he did not join the Core. He stared at his friends, all of which had gone through hell with him. Then he gazed out at the bleak, barren planet that lay in front of him. He leaned over in his chair and typed in a command. A small screen folded out of the gun array panel. On it displayed the view of the rear cameras, a small heat ripple blurred the vision a bit, but the scene was un-mistakable. Big blue and green stars, swirling nova clusters, forming planets, empty space. It was frightening and comforting all at once. This scene definitely calmed his nerves and told him of what he would be missing if he decided to listen to his mother and not join the Core. Just to think, going to some small town High School (Nebula High) in the state of New York, to being a couple million light years from Earth, gliding between nebulas and star clusters. During his high school years he and his friends dreamed of making the Core cut. One of his friends made the cut. His alias for one week was PsychoJawa. He was very resilient and fast. The reason he did not make finals was that he tripped while carrying a rifle box. He was condemned a safety hazard and was rid of. Only Streak remained of his friends. Then came bunks. He was put in a bunk with three other people. The people were Streak, Cool Breeze, Judd and Bubba Joe Lee. They were all placed together because all were troublemakers. Bubba Joe lee was killed when a missile from a Lander exploded with him working on it; you know the stories of the rest. A silent voice came over his head tap. Blast ‘Em Dead: Control Room: "C' mon Streak, we've got work to do." Whined Judd's voice. Streak turned around and saw what he meant. The ships tail had been bent by an asteroid. Being suited up they stepped into the air lock. A whoosh of air, and they were outside. In orbit they were spinning and swayed as they approached the tail end of the ship. When they got there, they saw the extent of the damage. The bottom of the tail was ripped off neatly at the seam of the laser weld. There was about one inch of metal left, holding their ship in steady orbit. All bent over and studied it, bending and trying to make the seams meet so a weld could be made possible. " Streak, go to the hold and get some weld guns, okay?" asked Cool Breeze. "Unh. Sure." Said Streak as he turned to see an asteroid the size of a baseball whizzing at him. He was frozen in place, his eyes the size of golf balls. "Holy ****!" he screamed as it smashed into his stomach. His magnetic bonds with the ship were broken, and he was sent reeling into space. He was spinning head over heels until he hit another large asteroid that was barely moving. The baseball asteroid did not stop moving, it kept moving toward the back of the ship, and hit the tail. That was all it took to make the tail snap. The tail flung toward the large asteroid Streak was clinging to. The tail hit and stuck three inches from Streaks left arm. He turned and began to laugh. It hurt him like hell to laugh, but he did it anyway. Finally he let his steel grip off the asteroid, and grabbed the tail. He thought thrust, and his Jet- Pak roared to life and he and the tail left the sanctuary in space to return to ship. Thunk. He landed and dropped the tail, himself falling after it. Both Judd and Cool Breeze looked upon him, and were visibly worried. Streak laughed again and said: "Whoa, I am okay. My suit is intact and the tail is here. Someone get the welds for me, I need to lay down for a minute." With that Cool Breeze got up and went into the ship. Streak relayed the events over and over in his mind. Judd sat there, played with his Jet-Pak. Streak got up, and looked around. "Yo, Judd, want to blast some small asteroids?" "Yeah sure." Judd thought for a moment. They both picked up their guns and fired at the small and annoying asteroids whizzing past. Being that there is no sound in space, Cool Breeze never heard them shooting. "Hey, wanna blow up that big asteroid?" asked Judd. Streak didn't respond but just fired a charged blast at it. The impact sent the asteroid spinning toward Anubis 02. Flames formed around it as it hit the atmosphere. Judd laughed and said, "Now we're off to a great start!" He then fired another blast at an asteroid sending it toward Anubis. The asteroid hit another asteroid and both entered the atmosphere. This continued for a bit. They had successfully sent 10 small asteroids toward Anubis 02 when Cool Breeze came out of the air lock. Cool Breeze stood there dumbfounded. Finally, he said " What the hell are you two morons doing? Do you realize that you could have possibly given away the fact that we are here? Do you think the skulls are totally primitive." Both Streak and Judd stood there guilty with the realization that they could have jeopardized the whole mission.
|
|
|
