A-C
An Unusual Day at the Office - A Deadzone Story, Asterians - Silent and Deadly - A Deadzone Story, Asterian Black Talon, Asterian Cypher with Fission Beam, Asterian Weapon Drone with Energy Cannon/Shield Generator, Bjarg Starnafall, Blaine, Convict Mercenary, Boomer, Marauder Grenadier, Chief Radgrad, Marauder Character, Chovar Mercenary, Codename Oberon, Nameless Mercenary, Crossed Paths - A Deadzone Story.
D-M can be found here, N-Z can be found here.
An Unusual Day at the Office - A Deadzone Story.
Radchik sat quietly behind his blaster-proof neodurium desk, watching his reflection in the polished obsidian walls of the Councillor’s antechamber. He was smiling slightly, though there was no-one else in the room to see it. Surveillance might notice, of course, though they would be unlikely to even recognise the emotion. They were a dour lot. Still, Radchik was pleased with himself. In his own, quiet way, he had much to smile about.
It had been five years exactly since he was promoted to the position of Conciliary Aide First Class. Five years since he had met the Councillor and first been inspected by the steady gaze of those dangerously unemotive black eyes. He had held the gaze without looking away, and suspected that this was what had earned him the right to work here, at the pinnacle of Corporation government.
It was a lonely job in many ways. He had no living colleagues – security required that there be only robots handling such sensitive documentation. Many of the Councillors had no living aides at all. At least, that’s what he guessed from the names on the memoranda and the way they were produced. There was no inter-office banter, no gossip around the coffee machine, no office parties, and so Radchik knew today would be like any other in the last five years.
The fact that he was here at all was merely a foible of the Councillor who preferred to deal with life forms rather than constructs. This put Radchik at a disadvantage when it came to speed of processing, though he was used to dealing with the various layers of internal politics by now. Mostly that just meant keeping his head down, ignoring the sniping and getting on with things. If he needed defending the Councillor could do that for him better than anyone else. As long as he was worth keeping.
There would be no doubt that the Councillor would replace him if he was found wanting. He strove, above all else, to be brutally efficient and was a man of few emotions. In all the time he had served the Councillor, Radchik had never seen the old man ruffled. “The Old Man”. Radchik smiled again at the thought. He never said the words out loud, but in his head that was how he thought of the Councillor. Old, wise, fatherly almost. Caring for the uncountable billions of the Corporation’s citizens without glory or recognition. The sense of responsibility must be enormous.
Radchik saw the problems as they came into the Councillor’s office, sorted through them and prioritised what should be presented to the Councillor himself and what could be safely delegated to the automated systems below. That was quite enough responsibility for Radchik. Thinking about this reminded Radchik that it was high time he began this process. He began by sifting through the accumulated comms from the overnight traffic. The Corporation never slept, though some of its operatives still had to pause every now and again. There was the usual round of petitions, trade agreements, minor security issues, and so on. A promotion here, a commendation there, punitive measures for cowardice in the face of…. All usual stuff. As they appeared on his screen, Radchik swept them into the appropriate file, mainly following the AI assisted recommendations, but not always. After five years Radchik had learned a lot about the Councillor’s preferences for dealing with certain aspects and leaving others to subordinates, regardless of the official protocol the AI was trained for. By the time the Councillor arrived there would be an accurate and up to the minute itinerary for his day waiting. That’s how he liked it.
Today there were probably only two items that needed the Councillor’s personal intervention: a supposedly minor rebellion on Drentil IV, and a trade embargo of the Snavan sector. Neither looked like much, and it was only because Radchik knew the background and the Councillor’s personal interest in these matters that he raised their priority. The AI would have delegated both.
Radchik had started to collate the complex background information on the various companies involved in the embargo when an alert sound made him jump. Not a fire or a security breach, just a discrete alert, but an unfamiliar one. He checked the screen. It was a visitor.
The alert stopped while Radchik stared at the word glowing quietly on his screen. Visitor? Nobody came to visit. Not in person. Not here. In five years he had never seen another living creature in the office apart from the Councillor. If he had any friends or family they were well separated from his work, as were Radchik’s. No matter how dire the situation, departments communicated digitally. What could be so important that it could not even be trusted to the multiply-redundant security of the council’s own comms system? What could be so dire that it could only be communicated in person? Perhaps it wasn’t dire at all. For a moment Radchik wondered if it had something to do with him, with his five years’ service. In his youth he had worked in offices where there would be cakes and presents for such a thing, but surely not here. It must be something else. He pondered for a moment the many threats and disasters that had crossed his desk and the more he remembered, the colder he felt. If assassination, rebellion, and planet-wide natural disasters were all things you could send a memo about, what was this?
Moments later, on the stroke of 7am standard, the Councillor strode into the office, on time as always. Radchik immediately rose to his feet. The Councillor still looked the same as when Radchik had first met him. If anything, even younger. With unlimited credits at his disposal, the possibilities of rejuvenating medicine were almost endless. He could be almost any age, though presumably chose this early fifties appearance with the salt and pepper hair to impart a sense of wisdom and experience. It worked.
“Good morning, Sir” said Radchik as the Councillor approached.
“Five years” was all the Councillor said as he passed Radchik’s desk, and for a moment Radchik thought he saw the glimmer of a smile on his face too. That was possibly the most emotion he had ever seen him show. Today was turning out quite dramatically, and it had barely begun.
As the Councillor went into his inner office, Radchik sat down again and turned his attention back to the screen and its peculiar alert. It showed that whoever the mysterious visitor was they had passed security and were approaching the Councillor’s offices. Radchik felt the first flutter of alarm. He had expected security to hold the visitor until he was summoned, but he was on his way. There was no time to do a background check and find out what this was about. All Radchik could do is hope that the unprecedented intrusion would not reflect too badly on him. He tried to reassure himself. It couldn’t be an assassin or anything like that - he’d passed security. What to do? There was no protocol for this. It never happened. “Still”, Radchik thought to himself, “it is happening. Best deal with it.” He rose from his chair once more and checked his reflection again in the polished obsidian wall. He was smart and well groomed, as one would expect from a Conciliary Aide First Class. He was ready.
The woman that stepped into the room was as nondescript as she could be. Medium height, plain grey suit, mid-brown hair raked back into a tight bun and bland features. She wore no badges or rank markings. She could have been anyone, from anywhere. She had to be 8th Directorate. Radchik’s blood ran cold.
Ignoring Radchik entirely, the woman strode briskly past and opened the door into the Councillor’s inner office. Radchik blinked and unfroze, dashing round this desk to apologise for the intrusion. But when he entered the office he just stopped. The woman had approached the Councillor’s desk and was standing there, waiting. She had moved so quietly that the Councillor hadn’t even looked up from his screen, and it was only the noise of Radchik’s hasty entrance that caught the Councillor’s attention. He looked up, and for the first time saw the grey suited woman. All the colour drained from the Councillor’s face. “You”, he said.
There was clearly no need for introductions. Radchik, afraid of compounding his mistakes simply stood as quietly as he could, hoping not to be noticed. To leave now would only draw attention to himself, and that would not be good. Whatever was happening here was obviously way above his pay grade.
It seemed like a long pause, but it was probably only a heartbeat. Then the woman spoke. “It’s happened”, she said. “Your area. Nexus Psi”. Her voice was even, uninflected by any emotion. The Councillor, started to rise. “I thought we had… ”
“So did we. Apparently we were wrong.” That seemed to settle things. There was another pause, and then the woman simply turned and left without another word. Radchik stood stunned, watching the Councillor.
Forgetting his position for a moment, Radchik spoke. “Sir?” he said. “Who was that?” The Councillor met Radchik’s gaze with his cold, black eyes. “8th Directorate messenger. I haven’t seen one in over seven years. You won’t see them often, but they’re easy to spot as they’re all identical and all have an overinflated self-importance about them. It’s not your fault she came barging in. They always do that. Bloody robots.”
“She was a robot?”
“Oh yes. One of a group that share a hive mind. They make ideal messengers as they simply dump the information onto another one of the group if they’re threatened and then self destruct. You can’t make them talk or bribe them. It really is a secure way to transfer news. And it’s always bad news. The worst. They’re probably all you’ll ever see of the 8th Directorate. At least, all you’ll ever see that you know belongs to them. Not my favourite department, but they have their uses. Unfortunately, this is one of them.”
Radchik was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed by his ignorance. Best to slip back into something more familiar. Following orders, for example. “Do we need to deploy a strike force, Sir, or is it a fleet action?”
“Neither. Containment protocol, Nexus Psi. Flash message to Senior Strike Leader Yemenkov. Immediate deployment.”
There was a pause. “I’m very sorry, Sir. I’m still not sure which sub-protocol we need to invoke.”
The Councillor said only one word. “Plague.”
Asterians - Silent and Deadly - A Deadzone Story.
I am a product of the greatest military programme in the history of the human race.
Standing alone I am a one-man army. With my squad by my side there is nothing we cannot overcome.
I am briefed on all forms of combat, and every enemy known to the Sphere.
My training did not leave room for emotions like fear, or hatred, or revenge.
That is why, as I sprint across the wreckage that used to be a motor pool or a mech depot or maybe a transit site, the only thing on my mind is a situational re-evaluation.
My heart rate is elevated beyond acceptable levels. This is understandable, given the loss of my right forearm. Subsequent loss of my assault blade gives a significant reduction in melee capability, but nothing I cannot work around. My uplink was scrambled by the first shot that was fired, and I cannot contact my squad. Beyond that, I am at full capability.
The enemy were strong, and they were fast. I have studied the Aster report, but we did were not given the opportunity to deploy recommended countertactics. I did not see the unit that fired the opening shot, but damage spread and aftereffect suggests a heavy drone unit. I saw 09 and 13 taken down by the shot. The rest of my squad took firing positions in response while I advanced with 07 and 10. I sighted three combat drones and made for them while 03 and 05 provided covering fire. Either the drones did not display the extent of their capabilities at Aster, or these ones were differently equipped; in any case, the report did not prepare us for their ability to capture our munitions from mid-air and propel them back. 04 was taken down with a burst of fire that, I believe, originated from 03’s rifle. Seeing that we could not necessarily match them at range, I advanced at speed. This was an error, as 07 and 10 had clearly realised as they broke off to take cover. My uplink was malfunctioning by this point but I imagine my squadmates were urging me to reconsider my actions.
As I approached the first drone, I caught sight of their leader. The alien was in fully-enclosed armour, almost mirroring our own. It directed the drones with hand movements and sweeps of its staff. Its motion was strange; too fluid; nonsensical. Under the creature’s direction, four drones raised their rifles and fired as one, aiming – I can only assume – at the members of my squad that were providing fire support.
This distraction may have been what caused my first strike to go wide. My target stepped aside almost indifferently. Furthermore, the three shots I fired at its supposed weak spots were less effective than I had expected. It grasped my overextended right arm and, with the care and precision of a surgeon, severed it at the elbow joint. The ease with which it neutralised my primary weapon was troubling.
I rolled aside from its return blow, noticing that its two allies had moved past me and were now engaging 07 and 10. In both cases, my squadmates seemed outmatched. It was clear at this point that disengaging had become a priority. On a positive note, the drone’s weapon had cauterised the stump of my arm, so blood loss was not a concern.
I ducked past its second strike and kicked out at its knee joint. It gave slightly, just enough to give me an opening. Without looking back, I broke into a sprint.
It is not often that an enemy takes us by surprise. Standard procedure in this unlikely instance is to scatter and regroup. The remainder of my squad will break away. I will circle around to the rally point. I will trade my sidearm for a rifle. We will reconsider and re-engage with the enemy.
We will not take revenge, for that is not our purpose. We will simply obliterate them.
-----
Among the Corporation troopers “Asterian” is a byword for treachery and underhanded dealings. They are sly and cunning and never to be trusted. Their every action betrays the fact that they obviously know more than they are telling – probably because they are responsible for the disaster in the first place.
From the Asterians’ point of view, things look very different. The Corporation seems to have an unending ability to stir up hornets’ nests of violence and disorder and the Plague is just the latest in a long line of calamities. Quite how a race can become so ungainly and inelegant is beyond the average Asterian who is horrified by the way that humanity rampages across the stars leaving nothing but carnage in its wake.
Asterian units within a Deadzone could be on a number of missions. Most are scientific to a degree, though all are also very well armed and protected. On Plague infested planets the Asterians are not so foolish as to risk their lives needlessly and only the commander of a force of Cyphers will be a living being. The Cyphers he commands are no longer living as such, and because of this their loss is felt less keenly should they fall in battle.
Asterian Black Talon.
Asterians employ a range of specially equipped Cypher-units on the battlefield, each controlled by an operator aboard a cloaked Starship. Lithe and dextrous, only the most capable Asterian pilots command a Black Talon unit, a nimble jet-pack equipped Cypher. Like vultures they circle the battlefield, committing to deadly strafing runs with their rapid-fire Flux Rifles at the call of their commander.
Asterian Cypher with Fission Beam.
Each Cypher is piloted manually from orbit during a mission, although they do have rudimentary artificial intelligence that can take control if the signal is lost for any reason. They are armed with a high-powered flux rifle that explosively destabilizes the target’s molecular structure. Some even carry Fission Beams that fire concentrated streams of blue, crackling energy.
Asterian Weapon Drone with Energy Cannon/Shield Generator.
The Asterians’ dependence on light units can lead to them being outclassed when coming up against heavily-armed opponents; the Support Drone is the standard response. They can be fitted with shield generators to protect those around them; Fission Beams, which mirror the flux rifle in tearing its target apart at a subatomic level, or the Force Cannon, which fires destructive blasts of concussive energy.
Bjarg Starnafall.
From the press release:
“Designed specifically as the premier equipment for the discerning modern scout, Hammerfist orbital drop armour is a fully enclosed, self-powered, autonomous survival suit. Its main use is to protect the wearer from serious environmental dangers including (but not limited to) exposure to hard vacuum, micrometeorite strikes and solar radiation – all common workplace hazards for the lead scout/prospector in today’s competitive resource-farming industry.
A secondary function of the Hammerfist design is to protect the wearer from indigenous life forms whilst performing his prospecting duties in the field. The inbuilt mining laser doubles as both a robust core-sampling tool and accurate ranged weapon with both burst and duration selectors as standard. Easily controlled manoeuvring engines allow the wearer to navigate in zero gravity or planetside with equal ease, with a duration in standard use of up to 4 days (depending on onboard supplies).
The Hammerfist has been tested under the most rigorous of conditions and the widest of environments without any reported structural or mechanical failures. Reliability is 100% and every suit comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Bjarg Starnafall says ‘I’m never without my trusty Hammerfist’.”
Blaine, Convict Mercenary.
It’s been said that Blaine has a face that only a mother could love, though in his case even that seems doubtful. According to the legends surrounding him, his first crime was to murder his family and burn down the family home. Certainly nobody claims him as kin. That’s just asking for trouble.
Whether this is true or not is anyone’s guess as he has surgically changed his appearance a number of times and the Blaine you see now is as much a result of reconstructive medicine as nature. Even his true race is the subject of some debate.
One of Blaine’s many peculiarities is his DNA: he’s got more than one profile. This isn’t possible naturally, which implies that Blaine has had more than cosmetic surgery done to alter his appearance. Certainly reports of his combat abilities and the arrest report of those who finally captured him on Deskin 4 support the idea that he has some inbuilt enhancements. Those that have seen the security vid of his breakout are even more sure. Unfortunately all the actual witnesses died in the escape and all we have is degraded and partly jammed video files. That was the last confirmed sighting.
He has since been reported in a wide variety of places, fighting alongside any number of different factions. None of these sightings have been reliably corroborated and he always slips away in the confusion of combat, invariably leaving a bloody wake of maimed and dead in his path. He seems to prefer the close kill and the fact that he manages this against even highly sophisticated enemies such as Forge Fathers and Enforcers is a testament to his extraordinary skills of stealth and evasion.
Boomer, Marauder Grenadier.
Boomer’s odious habits and utter lack of personal hygiene skills are gaggingly obvious from several metres away. Few would socialise with him voluntarily without some pressing incentive for his undoubted skills with explosives and encyclopaedic knowledge of grenades. What’s also obvious from the briefest of encounters with him is that he is completely insane, and whilst somewhat worrying in an explosives specialist most commanders assume that one follows from the other fairly naturally and so accept his foibles to have his skills.
In terms of who he is and where he came from, nobody’s asked. Boomer probably had a real name at one point; probably had a family, clan or other group to which he felt allegiance. Maybe people even liked him. Who can tell? These days he is nothing more nor less than an expendable asset who hires his not inconsiderable skills out to anyone who can pay the exorbitant fees (and stand his presence for more than five minutes). He has quite a few takers.
Chief Radgrad, Marauder Character.
Zrakan let rip with another massive burst of fire, his grinning green face shuddering with the fierce recoil. “Raaaagh!” he shouted out of pure excitement. “Eat that!” He fired again and again, pausing only to shout abuse and reload. The mutant bodies were stacked high now, but still they kept on coming, clambering over the shattered corpses of their fallen comrades to get down the narrow alley to the Orx’ position.
The click of another empty magazine and Zrakan was looking around for more ammo. Only one clip left. Where were those reinforcements? The enemy certainly didn’t seem to be running out. Things might be getting interesting pretty soon.
Slapping the last mag into the weapon, Zrakan aimed down the alley once more, but before he could pull the trigger he noticed that the attackers had paused. Saving his ammo Zrakan watched and waited for the next surge that was sure to come. Then, without warning, a body flew through the air, smacking into the alley wall. Another mutant was smashed against the others and several went down in a tangle of limbs. From the shadows a massive figure crashed into the horde, slashing this way and that with buzz-saws and blades, tearing into them with point blank fire from a dozen guns that ripped great holes in their ranks. In mere moments the blood-spattered figure had smashed through the broken attackers to stand in the alley entrance, gore dripping from his blades and armour.
“Oh Radgrad”, said Zrakan “there you are.”
Chovar Mercenary.
The Chovar are among the strangest sentient creatures encountered by the GCPS, intensely telepathic creatures that bear a striking resemblance to the jellyfish of Old Earth. They exist in a shared consciousness, but despite this (or possibly because of it) they are fiercely individualistic and consequently keen to seek out new cultures and technologies. They are traditionally employed by corporations to witness important contracts, but are often sent to scientific outposts on frontier worlds where their mind-networks are capable of astounding computational feats.
A multi-tendril alien capable of computing immense calculations in seconds, having the Chovar in your ranks can only lend your squad a tactical advantage.
Codename Oberon, Nameless Mercenary.
The DreadBall MVP known as John Doe is not the only one of his kind within the Corporation, though they are rare. Like John Doe, Codename Oberon has been given a name that his human superiors can pronounce easily, though the irony is that Oberon himself cannot. Still, he is a creature of few words at the best of times. And this isn’t the best of times.
Someone has affronted Oberon’s masters, and though they try to remain in the shadows those masters are plain to all those who care to look. He is one of the Council of Seven’s fixers, able to slip invisibly through official security screens and go where he pleases, containment protocol or not. The fact that he is here at all does show one thing clearly though: someone important is about to die.
Crossed Paths - A Deadzone Story.
Darkness, Ogrut knew, was relative. His unit’s last contract had taken them to Draven, a planet at the edge of the Arklyte cluster, where the sun hardly graced the sky. They’d carved through Corporation Army and Secessionist troops alike for six days straight as they made for their objective, all under cover of total darkness. Now they found themselves bound to a new contract, this one on Nexus Psi, where midnight didn’t look much different to dusk. It made their job more challenging, but if there was one thing Orx were good at it was overcoming long odds.
There were twelve of them currently planetside, but only four on this patrol. Five, if you counted Yagh, the vicious mawbeast Khurza insisted on taking everywhere he went. To the creature’s credit, she could hunt with the best of them. Khurza had raised her from a pup, and Ogrut suspected he prized her almost as highly as the battered flame unit he carried.
Now Yagh led the group, padding along silently next to her handler as they stalked through the deserted streets of Outpost T9. Ogrut followed them, and behind him came Ragnak, hands held loosely at his sides. Countless enemies had taken the Sergeant’s relaxed posture as a sign of weakness, but Ogrut knew that he could draw his blades in less than a heartbeat. Ragnak was a brawler at heart, despite his decades of military service, and was always happiest wielding nothing more high tech than a hrunka. Lurking at the back of the pack, turning to sweep his paired rifles behind them every few steps, was Morkul. The tall, broad warrior had parted ways with the unit some time ago and taken his chances on the professional DreadBall circuit, where his particular brand of deranged violence was much more appreciated than it had ever been on the battlefield. Ogrut didn’t know how Ragnak had tempted him back for this mission, but he suspected it had been financial. The payout for this mission would definitely have been big enough to grab his attention.
Ahead of him, Khurza ducked into the cover of an old storefront and raised a hand, signalling for the group to close up. Up ahead was their objective: an abandoned med-station. Mazon Labs were at the cutting edge of medical research, and it had come as no surprise to discover that they had a station all the way out here on the frontier, where regulations were a little less strict than the Core. Of course, the moment Containment Protocol was called, none of it mattered; anything on the surface was forfeit, to be written off as a loss by order of the Council. Officially, the corporations didn’t have any options, but that didn’t stop them hiring contractors to retrieve their valuables.
The outpost wasn’t much to look at from the outside. A squat building with frontier-standard Habtainer walls, it was hardly bigger than the shuttle they’d come down in. A lone watchtower loomed behind it, a common sight in the more isolated settlements, and it was flanked by taller buildings, probably warehouses or vehicle sheds. Ragnak made several sharp gestures with one hand, instructing Morkul to circle around towards the watchtower.
Less than a minute later three flashes came from the tower, signalling that their brother-in-arms had scaled it and found it clear. Ragnak drew his pistol and gave the signal to advance cautiously. They broke cover in a staggered line, Khurza on the left flank and Ragnak on the right. They were halfway across the open ground that stood between them and the station when an ungodly screech broke the silence.
Ogrut dropped into a crouch, rifle swinging up as he tried to see the source of the noise. He swung his head to the left just in time to see a winged creature drop onto Yagh, stabbing frantically at the beast’s flank with a heavy blade. Khurza roared in fury and raised his incinerator.
Before he could pull the trigger, a shot rang out. High calibre, suppressed, but still audible across the open plaza. Khurza’s head snapped back, dark blood spraying from a ragged hole at his temple. Ragnak shouted an order at Ogrut, and the two Orx threw themselves into the scant cover of an overturned supply pallet. Over to the left, they saw that Yagh was not out of the fight. Her winged attacker was scrabbling backwards, one arm dragging limply, trying to fend off the wounded beast with its knife as she lunged again and again.
From the other side of the plaza, they heard the satisfying tunk-tunk, tunk-tunk of Morkul’s rifles. Eager to make use of covering fire while it lasted, Ragnak clapped Ogrut on the arm, and they rose from cover to sprint for the med-station. They threw their backs up against the wall either side of the open door and paused to take stock of the situation. As they’d broken cover the twin flares of Morkul’s rifles had marking the sniper as somewhere in an elevated position off to the left, and the mawbeast was still pinning their other attacker. Of course, there could be any number of enemy inside the building, waiting in ambush, probably chasing the same objective they were.
Ragnak holstered his pistol and drew his knives. If they were going in, things were going to get messy very quickly…
D-M can be found here.
really handy this, thanks
ReplyDeleteYour welcome.
DeleteParts 2 and 3 will appear tomorrow and the day after respectively and I'll try and get some more appropriate pictures to liven it up a bit, lol.