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« on: November 30, 2008, 10:33:36 am »
I'm jumping on the band wagon and posting a historical story for you all to read, anyway, this one has some releavance to a recent R.P, even tough it is my small side of it.
Dark Streets: A Dramatisation of the Southern Fringe conflicts in the second union war.
Chapter 1: Civil’s Bloody Hand
The young child cowered in the corner of the desolate room sobbing gently, the wallpaper was torn, and the floor was bare and old, she could barely see for the heavy clouds of nox gas, and was nursing a burnt arm. Her father gave her a towel to put over her face and bandaged her arm with a mucky cloth. It was only a few minutes ago that they’d began clearing the complex, firing into the building and launching riot control grenades. A gloomy crack in the ceiling was enough for Seriah to see the High Command civil agent’s heavy boots, he walked lightly into the filthy kitchen and retrieved his ex-service rifle from one of the broken cupboards and he slipped a knife into a belt loop. They where clearing the place from the top down landing on the roof and covering the street outside, shooting potential escapees on site, not that it mattered when they got shot.
Seriah heard the familiar sound of another a gun firing, the last one, he’d meticulously counted as they rang out, they’d cleared the floor above.
“Shhhh, Kheli, and don‘t look” he whispered to his daughter . The heavy footsteps began outside and Seriah put his back up against the wall next to the door, first shudder, second, and then the flimsy wooden door shattered, Seriah kept still, as they rushed in towards Kheli, he timed it perfectly, silently driving the knife into the back of the first and then shooting the one at the front leaning over Kheli, the last one turned but it was too late, Seriah let out a sigh of relief as the HC lackey fell and retrieved the bloody knife from his victim’s temple,
“Sankash Imperial Special Service ****ers,” he laughed, he looked over at Kheli,
“No baby, keep your eyes closed.”
He picked up the radio from the body of one of the agents,
“ What’s the problem up there,”
“ Nothing sir, we just ran into a bit of an upstart, we got it sorted though, continuing sweep, over.”
The corpses were bundled into empty cupboards and the blood cleared with a bucket of mucky water, Seriah had slipped into the portly Arkibal’s “traitor” uniform , and had just enough room to fit Kehli in too,
“Just hug daddy and don’t move,” he loved his daughter too much sometimes, and the only reason he was escaping the civil agency now was for her, his wife had died when High Command first came to power on this insignificant colony world. The deranged Yunimuis governor, had exaggerated delusions of power that made Seriah sick, and now he’d ordered a cleansing of these slums, as he was assured there was an informant here, in this neighbourhood, for the approaching Arkibal navy ships moving up to help the Old Union Loyalist forces near Vii-Deux, and didn’t trust the inhabitants to stay faithful to his cause.
Seriah was worried but he didn’t show it, he had an air of charisma, was tall even for an Arkibal, visibly strong and his tough dark green skin was covered with the scars of his exiting existence. He was tough like the streets he’s lived in all his life and had been gnarled by several past wars for the Empire, but he kept his sensitive side for his daughter, so she’d have someone who cared, Seriah still hated never having that, and the feeling stayed with him even as he left middle age behind and retired from the Imperial Service he’d loved so much, he’d hoped for a quiet retirement, this awful apartment was all he could afford, but it wasn’t that bad, at least not until High Command showed up.
He hid his service rifle inside his newly acquired suit and equipped himself with some civil agent weaponry, a neuro-baton, a class 89 electro-plasma pistol, and a couple of riot grenades, he’d easily pass for a CA troop, it was just how he’d get away from the building alone, and keep Kehli safe. The comm link on his suit buzzed into life,
“we’re sending a team in from the bottom, over,” Seriah had to head for the roof, after climbing up a few flights of stairs, Seriah reached the roof, there were two guards stood outside the grav copter’s doors he bypassed them with a wave, inside he silenced the pilot and took the small gunship up, the two agents below scrambled away from the dangerous magnetic field below the chopper and took a few futile shots with their pistols when they noticed what had happened, Seriah put Kehli into the co-pilots seat and began flying north towards the forests.
Chapter 2: Commandant’s Orders
After dodging the heavy AA fire from the city’s restrictive outer rim defences, the grav copter had suffered some crippling blows, and when Seriah saw the cadre of heavy attack craft behind him he knew he wouldn’t of seen the end of them until he reached the compound, agency choppers were lighter and faster than military class, and Seriah could fly, well. He swooped below the tree line, and the military copters dared to follow. He dislodged one of the front windows hastily with his knife, and pushed it away, bringing the copter extremely low, he waited for an opening. There was a clearing ahead, he steered dangerously close to a nearby tree and set it slow and to auto pilot, he grabbed Kehli and jumped for a nearby branch, he made it and narrowly avoided the attention of the pilots in pursuit of him. As he jumped down the copter sped into a tree, the blast knocked out one of the military grav ships, which careened of into another, he sat behind the tree breathing heavily and hugging his daughter.
One of the grav copters landed beside the wrecks, an officer dismounted and surveyed the crash sites purposefully, he was Forthi, unusual to see in high ranks, and he was visibly proud, he wore a peaked cap and medals on his chest. He seemed un-phased that six of his comrades had just been killed,
“Corporal, survey that agency vehicle, shoot any survivors,”
“Yes Commandant Vesof,” the grunts walked off and began kicking about bits of burning scrap metal and looking around the place. The commandant snarled and turned, he poured himself some strong spirit from a hip flask into a shot-glass he kept on his belt. Vesof was classy, but bitter, he was a fortress of a man and always carried the same expression of angry indifference, and talked down to everyone except his superiors, who he clearly despised. His eyes wandered across the frosted landscape darting from tree to tree, he took a sip from his glass,
“Nothing like Deux Brandy to warm the gut” he uttered to himself through his hard lips and rugged beard , he heard quickening boot steps , and turned to see the Corporal’s worried face behind him,
“What do you want” Vesof talked in a slow and disturbing way, he was calm, but menacing, he lengthened the space between words to add emphasis to everything he said,
“err, sir, bad news.. n n no survivors, no bodies e e either,” Vesof kept exactly the same expression, but that just worried the Corporal more, he took another sip of his brandy,
“don’t stutter at me boy, how’d you even become a Corporal anyway,”
“err”
“don’t answer,” the Corporal shut up and stepped away,
“must of got away into the woods, call up some more men, we’ll find these swine.”
***
Seriah dragged his feet in the frost to cover his tracks, he’d stolen the GPS from the grav copters dash board and knew where he was headed, when he arrived he smashed it against a rock, they‘d be able to track him by it if they noticed it was missing.
His old friend Merik, a jolly old Urshan merchant, had set up an underground resistance bunker out in the woods after RedStar put him out of business in the first union war, the old place came back into use when HC took over and Merik moved back out there. For a resistance group they didn’t do much resisting, they mainly smuggled people out of the city and further south into the Arkibal’s welcoming arms, they we’re one of the few places that sent refugees that way most went into urshan space but sending them all the way up there from the southern fringe was too dangerous. But Seriah knew they were well armed and most were ex-soldiers.
Seriah could see the gates they seemed to surround little more than a shed and a power generator, he could hear shouting, he guessed a few miles away but still too close. Gate swung open and Seriah shut it behind Kehli. He opened up a box in the shed, revealing a little comms box, it was rusty and disused but Seriah dusted it off and pressed a button below the screen, a fuzzy display popped up and a familiar face was looking up.
The control room looked almost primitive, planks of wood lined the walls with patches of bare earth showing through, heavy timber supports kept the roof up, and the floor was just dirt. The air was heavy with dust and the whole compound creaked, the place was bustling with activity, rebel technicians wandered between the hap-hazard yet amazing improvised technology scattering the place, massive comms structures, command node computers, and mile after mile of wiring. The big screen at the back of the place now showed a massive image of Seriah’s face, Merik stood in front of it, wearing the odd combination of combat trousers an eye-patch and a bright red knitted jumper,
“Oh Seriah, fancy seeing you here, I haven’t seen you in years, you’ve got to come in and have a chat, oh and I see you‘ve brought along Kehli, how delightful” he had the gruff tone of an old man, but it was innately happy,
“Damn, I’m so glad I found you, you eccentric old fool, I’ve got some bad news I’m afraid, but I’ve also got some good news, I’ll tell you when I get inside, it’s freezing out here.”
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