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Battle Cry: Chapter 1Battle Cry
Chapter One
- By Nighthawk
The giant thrusters of my vulture were kicking up the Clouds of dust. Flames of red, yellow, and blue made the fireball coming out of the engines. Korhals' three moons, and the countless numbers of stars in the sky lighted the night sky above me. The lost structures of New Nevada came into sight; the brunt out structures of buildings brings back memories of Mara Sara. My whole family was killed when those damn monsters attacked us, and since then I have devoted my entire life to killing those things.
I pulled into the town, and got the same sight I always got. The burnt out buildings gave out the message of death that had happened here. The black char and the buildings almost made the faces of people scream out in pain. How our creator could have let this happen is a mystery to me, and I have long since turned my back on God. He could have helped these people if he had tried, but he didn't, and for that reason I will never turn back to him.
I went to what used to be the city hall, which was once used by people to govern the town. I parked my bike inside the buildings brunt out shell, and walked back out to the front of the structure. I looked down the main street of this small town, but it was still the same as I had left three days ago, empty.
I sighed and walked towards the Large Statue of a Mythical God from Earth. I removed a block that was loose, and it revealed a small keypad. I hated having to remember the dumb codes we used for these damn things. They keep getting new passwords every week. Oh well, here goes what I think it is. "Two-Nine-Eighty Six," I pushed the buttons as I said them to myself. Suddenly a odd little machine popped out of the statue.
"Retinal Scan, please place your face in front of the scanner."
I slowly placed my head in front of the scanner. Two long red lines scanned my eye, one was horizontal, and the other was vertical. At any moment I felt like something would pop out and stab my eye, but instead a small door opened.
"Welcome to Outpost fourteen, Commander Sexton, have a pleasant stay.” The computer voice sounded like a man with his balls about to be cut off, and that didn't really make anyone fell pleasant.
I looked into the door hoping to see some sort of light, but the base was just as I had left it. The corridor leading underground was dark as normal, and I had to use some of my battery reserves to power my flashlight. I walked down the dark gray hallway and thought back to the day when hundreds of people must have rush down here to get away from the Confederacy's Nuclear attacks on this planet. The only thing this shelter was good for now was to serve as my command post. By now I would guess that my men knew I was coming down, and were in a hurry to clean up anything that was out of order. I was a hard ass to most new recruits, but I became friends with most of the people under my command. When you're only a squad of men, in a mercenary group, you have to be able to rely on one another. When we picked this spot for a outpost all we had in mind was being able to stay undetected. Since we had nothing to do, we mainly ran drills, and combat scenarios with our little laser shock guns. I never thought they could be so useful, but they are. Right now we make up 1/8 of the Legion, the mercenary group, and were also a fairly successful group.
I saw the shape of a door ahead of me and knew I was at the entrance. I slowly stepped into view of the one light, in the corridor, which was mounted on a camera. I pressed a button that got their attention back to the camera screen. I waved my hands in front of the camera, and the door opened. I slowly stepped into my base and saw the eyes of my men, my friends. "Hey boys, anything happen while I was gone?"
Harry, one of the older men, walked up to me, and just looked at me for some reason. "Commander, we got a message from Commander Adams, at outpost 3, he says he got a mission, but he needs some help from other parts of the Legion. He already has contacted Commander Grant and Patterson, and they're helping him out. He just needs to know if you will help him on this next mission. He also said we would get our normal pay, and maybe a little more if we do hazard work."
"When did he send this? Yesterday?" We hardly ever ask for help from other outpost unless were doing a big operation. Something about this made me kind of feel bad. My men and I normally only do small unit fighting, and I wouldn't want to have to charge a front line of some shit where I will most likely die. "Never mind, I'll contact him myself. You guys might as well go over your gear, but remember I'm not sure what this is about so don't get your hopes up that much."
As my men scattered to do there check on equipment, I went to the command room. I walked towards the first little hallway, which was only about three feet wide so I had to walk with my shoulders at an angel, thankfully the hallways inside our little compound had lights so I didn't have to worry about wasting energy on my flashlight. After walking about thirty feet I came upon the main command room, which I think was used as the mess hall during the confederacy's nuclear attacks.
I opened the door, and was greeted with glow of several computer screens that were mounted in several places. I walked into the center of the room and looked around till I found the main screen. I walked up to it, and sat down in the chair that was seated in front of the screen. The chair was a stationary metallic object that had computers on the back on a panel. I looked at the small screens at the ends of the armrests. I selected main inventory of the touch pad, and went through several subdirectories till I came upon "comm. addresses", and I selected Commander Adams' link. I looked up to the large screen to see a blinking message saying, "Call in Progress". The light coming off the screen caused a green tent to fill the room, but it made me fell comfortable. Even with the green light making me feel better it didn't quite help my gut feeling. Suddenly a picture of the Legions symbol came up with a waiting sign. After a few moment Commander Adams, head of the Legion, appeared on the screen.
"Ah, hello Sexton, I tried to contact you earlier but you weren't there."
"Yes one of my men told me, what can I help you with Commander?"
"Well Sexton its like this... we are going to do an operation which will require a large force, and don't worry. I already know your group doesn't specialize in that area, but we will need you to do something for us."
"What is it that you want?" Sexton asked a little intrigued.
"Well since the fall of the confederacy there have been many angered people, and one just happened to find us. He will pay every commander 100 million credits, to be distributed to his men, and the commander himself 25 million credits. However the place that we are to attack is, how should I say, more than we can take head on. Therefore we need you, and your team, to take out the palaces' outer defense generators, and-"
"Wait a second, a palace? Who's Palace?"
"It’s a former confederate General that was a trader to the confederacy. His names is General Duke, but we’re not after him. His palace security is headed by the ex-ghost program director. Our employer has had a grudge with this man, and he has hired us to kill him. However the security at the palace is well over 300 men, and 50 sentry guns. The sentry guns will be our main problem, but were hoping you can take out the energy generator. Since the security is spread out through the palace our main force can take out the basic small unit patrols, but that is only if you want to help us."
"I'll contact you in one standard colonial militia hour. See you in a while commander." After saying my good bye I flipped off the communication link, and pondered on what I should do...[an error occurred while processing this directive]./../alpha/footer.shtml"--> |
