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Captain Victor Tarau in The Varangian had responded to the call for aid. The local Uskoks were not up to the task of dealing with local insurgents, apparently. “It’s what happens when you let the first generation emigres run things.” Replied Victor’s aide. It was Oleksandr Kjaro, a man fairly recently demoted to Sergeant according to a quick check through his part of the noosphere. Truth was, given the efficient running of CCN operations he was still more or less fresh from Sol and his crew was all new to him. Kjaro, now that was a name that rung a bell. “Oleksandr Kjaro, Sergeant. You were in the Zionist police action, yes?”
“Indeed, Sir.”
Yes, that explained a lot. This was the fellow who lost his Captaincy a few decades back, brutality being the reasoning. A rather strange reason, given the brutality of all Councillary troops. Yet, he must have done something particularly heinous for the Overseer-Militant to actually go down and strip a man of rank. Yet, his skills must also have been quite something if he was not taken in for processing. “Well, then. Tell me, can we descend soon?”
“Yes, and no, Sir. The issue is the Uskoks have had interference with their vessels, some sort of nonsense interfering with their scanning, comms, the works. Governor’s not lying about that, at least. They seem to have most things under control, though, albeit no thanks to the Uskok troops. Locals snitched on the rebels, caught them early.”
A screen activated, the face of Governor Josefina Clarlyle before the command-bridge. “Ah, Governor, how good of you to join us in our discussion.”
“Indeed. I’m sure you’ve been debriefed of most of what you need to know but I felt there’s one thing they likely didn’t mention. Spending on the world increased almost threefold several months back, when our patrols started. But not immediately after, that was a twofold increase. All this in spite a three percent reduction in productivity. Somebody is pumping money here, Captain, and all this talk of rebellion just… I don’t know. I just think you should be careful. LZ is prepared, I have a unit of local auxilia prepared. We’ve traced the disturbance to a town, it’s called Uracao. Some Uskoks will be with you too, I recommend you just send your crack troops. The governor needs this done fast. Over and out.” She was the governor from the perspective from the CCN, but internationally, the world was de jure independent.
“Bitch.” Kjaro said, having wanted to say something before the line was closed off.
“You really don’t like the outdateds, nor the stains. I understand that, though not to the degree you do of course. But you seem to despise anything to do with them. Anything to say?”
“I’ll tell you another time, boy. I lost much to those… those things.” The Sergeant replied, encompassing all non-Neohumans with a single word. “History, and all. But everything I do is for a reason.”
“Right, then. To the lander.” Kjaro was very human for a Neohuman, at least externally. Supposedly his brain was mostly untouched, and all else he had was sub-dermal, at least for machine parts. But he was also very cold, unforgiving, one could almost call him the spitting image of a Neohuman except for the overdose of his fury and grim cynicism.
Troops were handpicked, and perhaps arrogantly for Victor’s first mission as Captain he decided he would go along with Oleksandr and the rest of the men.
The Uskoks were along with some of the local auxilia in a grand truck, with much more of the local troops walking along either side in a column. After about an hour of marching towards this town of Uracao, they caught sight of it through the dust and early morning mist of the day. The town hall was distinctive, and the two rows of buildings in front of it but most important was the great pillar of blue light coming from the centre. “Interesting.” The Sergeant remarked, his helmet unsealing momentarily so he could spit.
They moved into it, slowing down with apprehension and gradually slowing down — a mistake. A hail of missiles flew at the truck, and the vehicle understandable exploded. Automatic weapons uponed up on the column making the auxilia either duck for cover or try return fire. It was quite admirable how none of them ran, Victor noted.
“There, there!” Kjaro shouted, pointing to a trench it seemed the enemy combatants had dug before instead making defences at the entrance to the town instead. The Reislaufers ran towards it, jumping into it as one.
Bullets and lasers whizzed over the ditch, a rather silly thing but not surprising given the nature of the "rebels", as they declared themselves. People fed a lot of ideologue nonsense given confidence by a gun, they could shoot but they missed when doing so.
The Captain peered over the edge of the earthworks, examining the foe's barricade. Jeers and warcries cycled between its defendants, most notable an occasional "¡No Pasaran!" in a chorus of voices. He took stock of the fighters by his side, counting a total nineteen with poor Legionnaire Cyril just a few metres short of the trench. He was still alive, but he'd be out of commission for almost a month as his cybernetics, organs and limbs were replaced. The entirety of the local auxilia was of course dead. Some of the Uskoks had returned fire, but apart from one who ran away - to presumably report all of this back - all got torn apart by the enemy small arms.
They largely didn’t worry about most of the foe, they knew they could more than give what they got from them. But there were two autocannons they had set up in the entrance to the town and they’d tear through the armour, cybernetics and flesh of the Neohumans.
“Sergeant.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Did we bring along the experimentals?”
“Yes, Sir. It’s on your display.”
“Of course, Sergeant. But it’s a lot better when I start announcing things like this."
"Yes Sir."
"Platoon! Prepare grenades. Go!"
With a word a series of the little jet black cylinders flew as though shot from a launcher into the first line of the rebels. A black smoke emerged from them, but they were apparently prepared enough to not panic and run. Their mistake. They breathed, and one by one fell down with their nerves giving way. It was an odourless gas that kept the foe alive, but effectively paralyzed for an hour.
The Neohumans stepped out of their cover, walking slowly with a rather unprofessional leisure to the barricades that put oh so much dread into the men of Uracao. They stepped over the barricades, walking deeper into the town, until the Sergeant turned around at a feint voice. "No… Pasaran." a woman hissed, eliciting a low, almost monstrous laughter from Sergeant Kjaro. He squatted by her, the Reislaufer still almost as tall as an ordinary man in this state. His deep grey eyes narrowed, and a humoured smile came on his face that could almost fool a person believing this to be a face of mercy. "Hemos y Pasado." he stated, before in a flash his fist flew at her head, going straight through it in a puff of red and hitting the metal crate behind her, a great dent forming in the thing. A much higher pitched, noticeably sadistic laugh came from Kjaro as he noticed the fearful tremble of the outdateds present. Their best efforts only letting them shake and whine as the man motioned with his head for the rest of the Reislaufers to move on, him alone of them not stepping over the people and instead walking on as if they weren't there in spite of the crunches and squelches underfoot.
Victor sighed. This was Kjaro without any great activation of aggression protocols, this was the natural state of the man. He wouldn't be in the eternal limbo of promotion and demotion from Sergeant to Lieutenant if not for this, he'd have long since been a Captain of his own ship. "Loose formation, squad restructuring inbound." the retinal displays of all Legionnaires informed them of the Sergeant allotting a particular eleven men to himself and another eleven to the Captain. Kjaro took the left side of the town, with Victor the right. The first building on either side was empty, save for a few men taken out of action by the gas. The next one was similar, but Kjaro's team came upon two men huddling by an autocannons with hands over their heads. "Don't." The Captain ordered, just as Kjaro's finger hovered over the trigger. He growled, motioning for another soldier to subdue them with his arc rifle.
In the next building the Captain breached a door, to find a mass of children, elderly and other unarmed people with but a single man holding a rifle. "Drop it." Victor demanded. The man held onto his weapon, in spite of now seven Legionnaires training very big laser rifles upon him. "You can't win this, just put it down." the Captain tried again.
"Why, so you can then just take us all away? I'm not stupid, I don't have a bunch of your damn robot parts but guess what? That means I know when people demand bullshit of me."
"I do not know what you are talking about. Please put it down, I would really rather not have to end you."
"Bullshit."
The man pulled his trigger, and the Captain threw himself forward to grab one of the children to shield with his body. He made sure to catch a bullet in his body to make it more convincing, for he knew the man wouldn't have hit the civilians but all the same Victor knew he had to give himself a heroic appearance for the others present.
With his body shielding the little outdated he raised his pistol and with one shot to the chest ended the man. Placing down the kid, he looked at him and asked "Are you alright?" the little boy was clearly top frightened to speak, and so the Captain motioned to a Reislaufer who walked over to momentarily scan the child. "No external damage."
"Good." with that they moved on. Most buildings had token resistance, a mine and ambush taking three Neohumans out of action. Now either group was on opposite sides of the town, looking to the town hall. Peering through the windows it was clear the time the Reislaufers spent was not wasted by the rebels. Snipers were on the roof of the town's centre, machine guns were set up at windows and an autocannon at the entrance. The Legionnaires made half hearted attempts to fire at the foe but it was clear in any attempt at a shooting match the rebels would win, their firepower far too great.
"What about the other experimentals, Captain?"
Victor cursed, expecting this very thing from the Sergeant. But looking on to the great beam of skyward light, he knew Kjaro was right. The enemy was in eagerness already taking pot shots, and it was a non-option to try wait them out. The trick with the gas wouldn't work again, and even if it did the men here seemed better equipped, helmets and rebreathers with them.
"Alright then. Reislaufers, blades ready, we'll give them what for. Legio, aeterna, aeterna, victrix!”
All of the Reislaufers pressed the activation studs on their new chainblades, some had them attached to their rifles as bayonets, some like the Captain had taken theirs as a Sword, whilst Sergeant Kjaro had opted for two large chainaxes in either hand. They repeated the cry, and with an ear-piercing roar they smashed through the walls of their respective buildings. There was a moment of panic for the enemy, but they quickly rallied as someone ordered them to fire. A hail of lasers, bullets and even plasma rained upon the charging Reislaufers. The men at either side of Victor dropped, and a bullet took his right eye. The autocannon was about to fire tearing the Reislaufers apart but the Sergeant threw one of his axes to bisect its operator. The Legionnaires returned fire while running, aiming to suppress rather than kill as more of them dropped. A burst of plasma separated a Legionnaire from his legs, but lying on the ground he effectively returned fire as long as he could until a machine gun took him out for good.
After a few moments they reached the entrance, Kjaro first to ascend its steps with a mad scream. "TIME TO DIE ANIMALS!" he activated his implanted sonic emanator, the words thus making the ears of the humans manning the entrance's barricade bleed. With laughter he swung his axe, maniacally turning the present rebels into a pile of dismembered limbs. There was indeed very little left for the rest, but a few people surrendering or spraying in panic to be cut down. He picked up the previously thrown chain-blade, before running inside the building.
Victor cursed, knowing that one by one Kjaro was activating rage protocols. His brain was now swimming in chemicals quadrupling his aggression and while they didn't reduce his skill, they did reduce the damn sense in him. They didn't know the environment, they should have slowly proceeded through the building clearing enemies as a team rather than quite literally charging in head first. Victor thought it was a really strange first assignment as Captain, as he saw a railgun bearing sniper blow off the hand of Kjaro who proceeded to impale the offending rebel on the stump.
The Captain was quickly thrown out of his thinking as an elevator door opened on the far end of the floor, a heavy gun poking out of its end that tore apart the first few Legionnaires that followed their officers through the entrance. Victor raised his pistol and let off a hail of his own fire at the gunner, Sergeant Kjaro clearly far too engaged in ripping through the men taking cover behind the various furnishings of the hall. As they progressed further into the building getting past offices and other amenities it seemed they were getting more and more well armed professionals. A fellow donning a beret ducked out of a pillar's cover, almost melting the Sergeant with a blast from a plasma shotgun. Kjaro ducked however, kicking the man in his right leg to get him off balance before repeatedly bringing down his axe on the fellow leaving nothing but a red slurry.
It was truly a madness - even if an arguably admirable one - that overcame the Sergeant, but it seemed to be doing well. They reached the stairwell, deciding not to use the death trap that was the elevator. They went to the second floor, and opening the door was in this case a mistake given the prepared EMP at it instantly deactivating three of the Neohumans nearest to it. Screams following a thrown sonic emanator revealed this to be little more than well armed rabble, however. A quick peek revealed nothing there to be the source of the skyward light. They went to the third floor, nothing initially greeting them. The Neohumans stepped forwards cautiously, until one of the Legionnaires pointed starting to shout "Over th-" before being interrupted with a burst of plasma vapourizing his head.
As one the Legionnaires turned to see shimmers of light, at which Victor pointed. "Laser fire!" he called out, prompting the Legionnaires to fire fully automatically. Many of the shots didn't hit, but they reflected off of the stealth suits guiding the next, more accurate shots. Perhaps more importantly the reflections made it easy for Kjaro to rush in and commit butchery. Two low "thwup" sounds made Victor turn, noticing a corresponding amount of his soldiers fall dead. He dropped to the ground narrowly avoiding the bullet with his name on it, though the soldier beside him did not have such luck. Victor turned, following where the hole of the bullet that missed him now embedded in the wall must have come from with his remaining eye. He took two breaths, before standing and letting off three laser bolts. He didn't hit his target but he hit his pistol, and that was good enough. He tried to shoot again, but his pistol was out of charge.
The foe was no fool and took advantage of this, rushing forth with a gargantuan survival knife drawn. The Captain parried and attempted a riposte, which was dodged. A swing was made, a third and a forth until Victor had overextended himself letting the man go ahead with his own strike. He narrowly protected his face with his hand, losing three fingers for his trouble but he made us of the man's momentum to pull at his arm, getting him off balance. A punch to the head took the warrior out of action.
With this there were only five Legionnaires left including the officers, all in varying conditions of injury.
"We can't go on like this, Captain."
"I know. We'll skip the next two floors, go to the top. It's a gamble but I reckon whatever is making that disruption, what that light nonsense comes from is up there."
"I hear you and obey Sir." Kjaro replied, rushing off up the stairs. The rest followed, seeing Kjaro fall down upon entered to the old "wait by the entrance and get them as you hear their steps" trick. But he reacted quickly rolling over to stab the soldier at the door with his stump arm, getting up and yet again rushing into the fray. A machine gun kept the rest of the Legionnaires pinned by the door, until a rad grenade was thrown prompting the fire to be silenced. Rushing through, another railgun armed sniper fired and with one shot took two Reislaufers lives. He was about to fire at the Sergeant, but thinking quick he spat in the man's eyes. It was only a moment of relief but a moment was all Kjaro needed to behead the outdated. Victor's life was narrowly saved by his comrade who fired full auto at another sniper he noticed, but he couldn't save himself.
He dropped, and Victor with him to look at the impact and exit wound. Out of his own grenades Victor unclipped those of the fallen Legionnaire, throwing a three in the general area of the marksman to the sound of convulsions on the ground which meant he hit his mark. Victor and Kjaro were the only ones left, and they knew it. They reached a doorway, and with a nod to each other breached it. A grenade was waiting for them, the blast from which sent Victor airborne with his head getting smashed against a wall, whilst taking a leg off of Kjaro. “Tis but a scratch!” the Sergeant roared, hopping on with only a leg to propel him as if he still had both. He brought his axe down on one of the rebels, whilst a shotgun slug ripped his jaw off. Sergeant Kjaro punished the man with death, before hopping over to help up Victor. “I think this is where I take a break, Sir.” He said - or rather tried to with his missing jaw - before falling down.
“Mad bastard.” Victor said, getting himself upright. He gave a kick to the fallen Sergeant, the man even sans consciousness growling at the offence. Well, he’d done solo missions before, right? This was no different! Of course he hadn’t lost an eye and fingers then, but he was a lot more experienced now to compensate. Hopefully that would even things out….
Victor opened the next door, seeing something amazing. There were three people hovering around a great glow emanating from the floor, one that seemed to go through the roof. This, this was it. “Stop!” he demanded, firing his pistol at the people that were now quite clearly psychics. They had a shield of some sort by virtue of their power, and so he lowered the weapon. He revved the motor of his chainblade, before charging at the nearest one. About to bring the sword down on the psychic he was stopped, he quarry turning around to fling lightning from his fingertips. Victor’s head felt like it was imploding, warnings from every single system flashed in his display and flesh all over him was scorched. But he pushed through, he knew if he stepped back that was the end of him, the end of Kjaro, the end of his comrades. A wail of both fury and pain came from the Captain’s throat, before he took the last step and slashed the psionic man with the very tip of his weapon. It was still enough to diagonally split the man open, and give Victor just for a moment the same squeamish feeling his outdated ancestors got when seeing a still beating heart and smelling the insides of a split stomach. He raised his pistol to blow a perfect hole through the head of one of the psychics, but the last flung his pistol from his hands with a flick of her wrist. She stopped hovering, one hand having arcs of electricity coming from it whilst the second seemed to be holding something. If Victor concentrated, he could just about make out a transparent spear of some sort. “Damn.” He muttered ducking under an attempt to skewer him with it and lashing out with his sword. The woman before him battered the sword away with the weightless spear of psionics, sliding it forward in the same action to try stab the Captain whilst using the electricity from her other hand to make him lose his balance. He let himself fall, catching a gash across his shoulder but falling to her feet. Lashing out with one hand he got an ankle firmly in his grip and squeezed, a crunching noise followed by a shriek. She stayed upright stepping on his head with her good leg but this proved to have little effect on the Neohuman given it had just a simple shoe on it. He rolled aside getting her to finally fall, and both scrambled away before getting themselves upright. Again she tried to stab him but now conscious of the very material properties of the spear he went to grab it… only to have it take off yet another finger. In truth neither party was prepared for this, but Victor reacted quicker sending out his other hand bawled into a fest at the woman’s arm. Pulling it back he saw blood, but he failed to follow it up with another punch as his opponent’s psychic current struck him, and held him in place. She made use of this opportunity and threw the spear, the ethereal projectile leaving a very material hole in the man. He fell, closing his eyes in resignation. Then he opened them, in his periphery having caught sight of his pistol.
The weapon was raised with a joyous laugh from the Captain, training its sights right on the woman’s forehead. “End it.” she said, her head lowering in the resignation Victor felt moments ago. It was now he noticed she was a young lass, no more than seventeen though likely less. A local, not some specialist brought along by whatever commandos were here. “No.” Captain Tarau said. She raised her head, incomprehension all over her face. “No, I don’t think I will. Instead, how would you like it if I offered you a new life? A better one.”
“What?” she exclaimed, confusion all over her voice. “Exactly what I said.” He replied, a grin from cheek to cheek on his face. “Become one of us. A new life. No poverty, no illness, your skills would be used carefully, enhanced. You would be a pillar of society, not something to throw away in a hopeless little revolution.”: She opened her mouth, unable to frame a proper reply which signalled the Captain to continue. “All the other people in this building are dead or subdued. Don’t become one of them.” He said, waving his pistol about meaningfully.
“Okay.” She said, shrugging. Clearly the use of her powers had drained her and removed much of her will to resist; he could see it in the popping veins and paleness of her initially fairly tan skin. Victor laughed ecstatically, almost spasming from joy. “Good, good. My pistol was dry.” He said, and noticing the dilation of her pupils quickly slapped a new magazine in. Just in case.
“Good, yes. If you could then just stop all the glowy blue business?” he continued, motioning to the still present glow.
“Oh, err, yes.” The psychic replied, waving a hand to have the glow disappear. “Thank you.” She said, before collapsing.
With the light gone, Tarau was able to make contact with his ship and call for support, which in moments arrived. Two fighters gently glided down from the sky, and then upon the floors the Neohumans missed let loose a barrage of laser fire through the windows to end any resistance remaining. But Victor wasn’t done for today. He sprinted back to the first floor, looking amongst the fallen for a man he remembered wasn’t quite there yet. Another person with a beret- black and unmarked now he paid attention - was still breathing. He tapped him on the chin, before giving a slap to get him to consciousness. “Who are you.” He demanded. “What?” the man said, all in a state of delirium given by his blood loss that was in minutes going to be fatal. “Just let me die.” he muttered whilst shivering.
“I can’t do that.”
“Well that’s too bad, I’m not saying shit.”
Victor looked down at the hand of the man, before placing a super-heated nail upon one of the man’s nerves. He yelped, cursing before muttering something of compliance.
“Where do you come from.”
“Raygon.”
Victor paused, noticing the slightest tell in the man’s eyes. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t telling the whole truth.
“What citizenship do you hold.”
“Federation.”
“Who do you serve.”
“My home, and the people of this world.”
Victor was about to ask another question, but a feint smile on the man’s lips and movement of a hand prompted him to look down. The man had pulled a pin in a grenade, and while Victor got far enough away to not get any harm, he also got far enough away to get a nice free nap for a while. Well his first mission was done, and that was enough. He’d be going back to the periphery for a while, a good break from this shit.
