Orrannian Apotheosis

Orrannian Apotheosis
Version 1.6
Written by Ian Maclaren
This book is dedicated to the real fire team 524299. You know who you are.



Author’s note:
I find that the book flows smoother when I don’t have to describe a term to you every five words, so I took the liberty of putting a glossary in the back. If you don’t understand a term or the name of a mech or weapon, chances are, it’s in the glossary.





Prologue
(Day 1)
Concerning Fate
“Think differently” –Mahatma Gandhi
My name used to be Ian. My adventures have taken me many places and this is just one of them, my very first journey, and the one where I became cursed. I wish that the following events, chronicled in my journal, never happened. Sometimes I wonder if I was predetermined, that I was destined to have this curse, that I would save the planet. My name is now Anima, the suffering. And I will tell you a story, one of evolution, one of Apotheosis.
We humans are greedy, we always want more. As you would expect, when we get to a new planet, we find a resource; we rip up the said resource, process it, and look for more. This is the case with Grieive-Amour, a desert planet, close to the star of Alpha Centauri. The resource a spoke of is Opalium, an explosive substance that is now used to power the human starships. The planet is inhabited by the Drakel, a reptilian race who claim that the Opalium is rightfully theirs, but the humans don’t listen, they keep mining the Opalium, and have been doing so for about three years before the start of my tale, and they still do, and will until Grieive-Amour runs dry, then ditch it and move on.
Logically, a group has monopolized the industry and that group is a colossal conglomerate known as MT Corporation, personally, I hated them back then, and now I still hate them, but there is no one else to work for, so everyone who lost their job when the fossil fuel reserves ran out on earth flocked to MT corp. for a career in Opalium mines to do the same thing we did with petroleum on earth: suck it dry like a tick on a dog.
When a company is as big as MT corp. there are bound to be enemies, and these enemies have manifested themselves as the Heirs of Grieive Amour. Their cause is righteous: protect the environment, blah, and blah, blah, conserve energy, blah, blah, blah etc. but sadly, their going about it all wrong! They are willing to drop a tactical nuke on a city to make a point, or take over all the mines in a region and enslave or kill all the workers to keep them from falling into MT corp.’s hands, furthermore, they have declared war on MT corp. and all it’s allies, they have devolved from a environmentalist institute to a terrorist faction. Needless to say, MT corp. has declared that they must be destroyed.
But my story is not one of political machinations, or environmentalist debates, it is the story of me, Ian Maclaren, tech specialist for fire team 524299, and my allies: Leon McClain, or Furball, as he prefers to be called, John Anderson, Vladimir Chekinov, Faust Elric, Gwenivere Taylor, and our beloved combat droid, Panzer.
Speaking of, I remember my team’s first battle with the Heirs: we were on the ship Alexandria, a military space transport, basically a dropship with guns. It was the first time I had ever met my squad and as always, I was slow to introduce myself and shy to a fault, so for the first day and a half of the trip, it was two days to dock with Rapture, Grieive-Amour’s Ground to space elevator, so I occupied myself with Panzer, who I treat as a metal, weapons laden human. If I recall correctly, it was Furball who first approached me. You see, Furball is a Kit-Yen, a genetic Hybrid between a predatory cat and a human, the development was supposed to be top secret and the Kit-Yen sterile, but that flopped and the Kit-Yen reproduced…quickly. And before you know it you have a new species, though with the introduction of a genetic hybrid, from there came the Purifiers, a loosely organized cult of severe right-wing nut jobs dedicated to eliminating all kit-yen. Anyone that right wing rarely gets into a position of power, although a few European countries have put restrictions on the furry folk.
I was looking at Panzer’s Chimera MDK chain-gun when I saw a pair of furry paws step into my line of sight, so I screwed in the last nut on panzers reloading mechanism and glanced up. There was Furball, wearing a bomber jacket, jeans and holding the largest sword I had ever seen, yes, Furball was swinging around a Renablade. “Hey, mechanic you’re on my squad aren’t you?” he said enthusiastically
“Aye” I responded stoically.
“You’re not a Kit-Yen hater are you?”
“What? No! I’m just quiet, not psycho.”
Furball sighed and looked relieved, then sat down on a box of depleted uranium shells for panzer’s slug gun.
“So, Ian…” he said apprehensively
“What do you want,” I responded curtly, “an internal cooling unit fixed to your armor, maybe a Chimera Chain gun concealed in your backpack?”
“No… I was just introducing myself” he said with a perky tone, “and to tell you that the rest of the team wants to meet on the bridge.” I glanced at panzer and shrugged. Panzer tilted his wedge shaped head and nodded. I looked into Furball’s’ green eyes and said:
“Sure, when is it?” that remark caused Furball to look a little discontented
“Five minutes ago…” so much for a suave first impression.
“Fine, Furball…you can run with that Renablade can’t you?” I queried, knowing the coming answer.
“Not really” Furball said, looking from side to side.
“Well, you’d better learn fast!” I shouted as I began to sprint away.
Meanwhile, panzer had finished optimizing, grabbed the Kit-Yen and caught up to me in a matter of seconds.
After about a minute of full tilt sprinting I skidded to a stop in front of the bridge bulkhead. While I was inputting the access code, panzer flew down the hall with Furball in tow, and then flew right past me and straight into the bulk head. Panzer slammed on his magnetic brakes, bringing him to an immediate stop, Furball’s paws didn’t have alternating charge magnets mounted on the bottom, so unfortunately, so he kept flying toward the bulkhead and slammed into it, unleashing the loud metallic noise of a furry face smacking into a hunk of Vanadium.
While Furball was dazed, I finished inputting the access code and opened the bulkhead, filling the air with a cacophony of grinding noises as the six inch thick doors opened grudgingly.
The instant I entered, a knife went hurling to the right of my head, evading my ear by less than an inch and lodging itself in the wall next to me.
“You’re late,” muttered a voice, infused with a Russian flair. That voice belonged to Vladimir Chekinov, our squad’s hired assassin, as he stepped out of the shadows. I was still alarmed by his appearance: pale skin, jet black hair, prominent cheekbones, almost red eyes and a voice like crumbling parchment if I didn’t know better I’d call him a walking corpse.
“Lighten up Vlad,” Said a muscular man sitting in a swivel chair and polishing a huge rifle. That man was John Anderson, our tank buster and heavy weapons specialist. Sometimes I question if it’s possible to be more American than this soldier: camouflaged flak jacket, brown buzz cut, green eyes and a bandolier of ammo across his chest. I’m Scottish, so excuse my stereotyping.
“Yeah Vlad, I don’t want one of my subordinates ending up with a knife in their forehead.” Sitting next to John was Sgt. Gwenivere Taylor, our commander. Tough as nails but empathetic, she is a faultless commander and at the same time divinely hot, with cinnamon-colored hair pulled up into a ponytail, blue eyes, a perfectly toned figure, long, powerful legs and a flawless face. She was, and still is way out of my league. She was wearing a tank-top and jeans, an impression of harmlessness marred by dual sub-machine guns holstered at her belt. Upon closer inspection, I spied a dagger tucked away in her boot and a Falcon .45 in her hand. The woman was never seen unarmed; I promise you.
“But, dude! That was a sweet throw, to come that close without hitting him.” Furball said enthusiastically, causing Vlad to laugh:
“What are you talking about? I missed.” Furball suddenly stopped smiling, and I suddenly had my fear of Vlad renewed.
Then I noticed another Russian, who hadn’t said a thing: Faust Elric, our demolitions expert. He was just shaking his head and tinkering with a detanator. He was really quiet and professional, but you couldn’t keep him from blowing something up if he has the chance. He was wearing sunglasses but I could catch a glance of his bright hazel eyes, they gave the impression of amusement and his brown hair was slightly charred.
“So…” I said apprehensively.
“Cap’n! Preparing to dock with Rapture.” shouted a pilot to my left, causing me to peer out the window. There it was, rising like a giant steel mushroom from the planet’s surface. Rapture’s owner, Siegfried Shaffer, a Swede, was committed to keeping rapture neutral, so all people of all nationalities and backgrounds can engage in trade. Naturally, all ships entering Rapture’s control zone must shut down all weapons systems, which the Alexandria did without protest. After a few minutes of protocol to prepare docking, the radar, which nowadays is displayed up on an LCD to the left of the main bridge window, fell to static. Naturally, a 5’ by 5’ 3D rendered version of the corresponding 500 cubic Klicks around the ship suddenly being replaced by static would attract the attention of the crew, so the captain, Annabel Windmere, called for a Precaution Sweep with the Tech-Mechs, (99% of you didn’t understand that. Check the glossary) who couldn’t detect anything, but for no apparent reason, they started disappearing one by one.
“This is bad,” Muttered a technician as he glanced at his PDA, which was linked to the Tech-Mechs. “TMs 1-5 are down…scratch that 1-6…no 7…oh, dang…all Mechs down.”
Just then a huge explosion shook the bridge.
“Captain, it’s definitely heir Reapers. They’re cloaked,” Shouted another techie. The captain swore and shouted,
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Well Ma’am…I’ll…” he was cut of by an escape pod exploding behind him, both stopping his pulse and his speech immediately.
“All your base are belong to us,” shouted a metallic voice through the smoke and in stepped a Vacuum Driller Mecha, who immediately dropped the sealant and unloaded with Dragon Flamethrowers, enveloping most of the bridge personnel in a hellish inferno.
“Evacuate! Evacuate! 524299, you’re with me!” shouted Captain Windmere over the screaming and swearing.
“You are on the way to destruction.” Shouted the Mech,
“You have no hope to survive make your time.” And started torching the bridge again and by now everyone on the bridge had either evacuated or been turned into human charcoal, besides us. Honestly, I have no fear of fire or explosions blowing up in my face, but that much fire caused me to panic. Only one way to run with no cover faced with this situation, I actually thought I was going to die. It opened a port on its large torso revealing an HCS Skull cannon. The Heirs weren’t trying to capture the ship; they were going to decimate it. Again, a thought flashed through my mind, which this time I voiced: “oh, yeah. We are definitely going to die.” I said quietly to myself. The chain gun started spinning as I prepared to fire. Instinctively I started running, but was grabbed by the collar of my t-shirt by Panzer who simply said “No” And thus, with his other arm, fired his slug gun at the Vacuum Driller, who backed up, obviously surprised by amount of punch packed by that small shell. Panzer’s act of bravery, (which I didn’t remember programming him with) inspired the others, which were franticly looking for a way out of dodge, to stand and fight.

Gwen whipped out her dual SMGs and prepared to fire, but was distracted by a squad of Heir Troopers dropping down from the concealed compartment in the back of the Vacuum Driller. Immediately Furball charged them with a feline wrath that I hadn’t seen before. Within moments he was upon them, tearing them to shreds with his massive weapon. As he was eviscerating a Blader, I caught a glimpse of his back pocket, tucked inside was a sprig of catnip. Since Kit-Yen have cat DNA, catnip causes their emotions to swing further on the pendulum, and at times make them extremely hyperactive. Furball was already ticked off, he catches a whiff of some catnip, therefore the ‘ticked off’ emotion becomes more pronounced and Furball goes berserk then mauls the nearest target he considers a foe, in this case, one very unfortunate Blader.
Seeing their comrade fall, the other bladers were a little more prepared for a giant ball of furry fury flying at them, dodged Furball’s charge, and sliced open his sides. It caused no vital organ damage, but made it hurt…really badly. It might have been a smart move for them, if they were fighting a normal human instead of a very irate Kit-Yen. Now in pain on top of being aggravated, Furball spun around and beheaded the nearest swordsman like a fluffy guillotine. Disturbing, yes, but that’s one less Blader to worry about, so I wasn’t complaining. He continued on to swing his sword upward to slay another Blader from the crotch up, causing him to be knocked up in the air by the sheer force of the Renablade. His injured body landed on another Blader, knocking him down, and allowing Furball to perform a coup-de-grace on the two heirs, crushing all the bones in their chest and stopping their heart. Ouch.
“Should we help?” queried John.
“Nah, I think Furball’s got it covered” said Gwen.
“No, I mean help the heirs. Even they don’t deserve this,” Said John with a slightly fearful tone.
Meanwhile Panzer occupied his time with a small squad of gunners that had appeared from another breach further down the ship.
“Take them down Panzer!” I shouted.
“By your command” he responded and initiated discharging with the Chimera chain gun on his left arm. One gunner was hit in the shoulder and stumbled into the guy behind him then onto a huge patch of fire, got up in a flash and charged into the rest of the group, which in turn was ignited, and then one of them fell onto a Pink Opalium canister, which exploded, vaporizing them. “Wow…” I said with a mix of pure disbelief and a little snickering, “Nice shot panzer!”
“Indeed” Panzer responded, then sounded what I thought was a mechanical parody of a laugh.
Furball continued his onslaught of destruction on the vacuum driller, but even he has his limits. The mech noticed a giant sword slashing at one of its four legs and inclined one of its flamethrowers at our berserk companion and fired. Thankfully, Furball was; so tiny compared to the vacuum driller that the firestorm missed the majority of his body and lit up the tip of his tail. Furball suddenly stopped swinging his blade as he was alerted by the smell of burning cat fur.
“GWAHHHHHHH” shouted Furball; the sheer volume of his scream rocked the ship.
“My tail! Stop, drop, and roll! Stop, drop, and roll!” shouted Furball as he dropped to the ground and started rolling around on the metal floor. I couldn’t see what happened next because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t stand up straight. I surmised even the Vacuum driller Pilot was laughing. Gwen took this opportunity to jump up on the vacuum driller and grab the Vacuum Driller’s controller by the scruff of his neck. The pilot shut his mouth immediately and said
“w-what do you want?” he stuttered out, in an accent that suggested he was African-American. Gwen didn’t have to say anything, just whip a Bowie Knife out of her boot. The poor pilot, Heir or not he was helpless; Gwen didn’t have to kill him.
“Don’t do it!” I shouted. Our commander stopped short on her stab, knife dangerously close to the pilot’s chest, then leered at me; bowie knife still ready to plunge into the pilot’s ribcage.
“This had better be good Ian.”
Most Heir troopers were drafted into service and the rest of them were psychotically zealous or too wrapped up in genetic manipulation of their own bodies to care. Our black buddy seemed pretty human, so chances are that he was forced to serve as a pilot to keep a machine running efficiently. You see, most Heir Mechs can think for themselves on a limited level, however, the clever scientists in New Berlin, the Heir Capital, inserted a clever failsafe: if the machines decided to revolt, like in the archaic movie Terminator, they would ravage the cities for about twenty four hours, then run out of batteries and shut down. So, as you would expect the words ‘Mecha Pilot’ in the heirs’ society approximately translate to ‘battery changer.’
“I didn’t want to kill you guys!” pleaded the pilot desperately. Gwen moved her huge knife from the chest to the forehead.
“Oh, did you?” asked Gwen with a venomous tone.
“Yeah, the mech has AI, it tried to kill you. I just charged its batteries!
“What’s your name, pilot?” I asked out of nowhere
“Louie,” He said proudly, while still struggling to get free from Gwen’s vice grip. “It was my father’s name and my grandpa’s name and my great grandpa’s name and about five more great grandpa’s after that.”
“So you’re Louie the eighth?”
“Yeah, and if it’s not too much trouble… could you tell your psycho girlfriend here to put me down now?”
“Oh…sure” Gwen began to say, but then completely comprehended what he said the second I did.
“GIRLFRIEND?” we both said at the same time.
“I-I’m not his girlfriend!” Shouted Gwen with a look of disbelief, she seemed a lot more surprised and down right disgusted at the thought
“Really, Louie, Be realistic here, do you think a face like this,” I pointed to my blackened and grease stained face, “Easily attracts women?” Gwen laughed and released Louie.
“Y’know, he’s got a point,” she sniggered.
“Now Louie, We’ll free you from forced military service if you shut down the vacuum driller. Is it a Deal?”
Louie’s eyes brightened, “Yeah! Of course! Let me just climb up there and…” he was cut off by a bullet flying past his buttocks, and then bouncing off panzer’s forehead
“What the fu-” Gwen began to say but figured that there were more pressing matters to attend to besides foul mouthing the situation.
“Faust: do what you do best! John, take your rifle and shoot for the motherboard! Panzer, attempt to hack the VD, if you can’t do it, unload on it! Vlad, you…where did Vlad go? He was just standing there a second ago.” With that remark Vlad bolted out from the rafters and onto the vacuum driller’s cockpit without the smallest sound and nailed the motherboard with his dagger, shutting it down immediately.
“Dude…” I said, mouth agape, how did you take that thing down so fast?
“These things are easy, try taking down a ticked off talon knight with only a dagger.” He said as he jumped nimbly down from the vacuum driller. For a moment we reveled in victory, a short instance where we didn’t need to keep our weapons cocked or be startled by the slightest sound. But these times were also times of gross ignorance, where we are unaware of the deadly battles that lie ahead.





Chapter 2
(Day 1-2)
It was just a mistake. Seriously!
Something wicked this way comes.
-William Shakespeare’s Macbeth

Just moments after Vlad’s triumph Gwen decided it was time to move and clean the ship of Heirs.
“Follow close and don’t hesitate to blow the hell out of anything that bears the heir crest.
“Yes Ma’am” John, Faust and I said in almost complete unison
“Whatever” Vlad muttered in a subtle, yet malicious undertone
“I’m sorry Vlad, do my orders tire you?” Gwen said sarcastically
“You think?” Vlad responded, attempting to assert himself as the king of the pack.
“Get over it.” Gwen snorted and walked off with the knowledge that she had put Vlad in his place. Seeing our commander walk off, everyone kind of got the impression that she had just commanded them to follow suit, she later told me that it was one of her psychological tricks she employed in her command. Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite Russian hitman hung back, dragging his feet, obviously was offended by the fact that he got shot down like a one winged duck. Seeing how the mighty have fallen, Furball decided to cheer him up, that’s one of the problems with Furball, he just can’t get it through his skull that you never, EVER, try to cheer Vlad up, primarily because he’s never cheery anyway, or if it backfires you had best run for cover.
“Aw, come on Vlad, it isn’t that bad.” The stealth specialist gave Furball an evil eye but he didn’t notice, he just kept on chatting,
“Everything is going to be ok; it’s going to be fine. Yay!” this rhyme really made Vlad extremely irritated, like aftershave on a paper cut. But Vlad is Vlad and he’s got complete control of his emotions, and thus said coolly,
“Stop Rhyming.”
“Come on rhyming is fun, it could be years before we’re done” Furball cheered whimsically. This pushed Vlad over the edge; he locked eyes with Furball, fingering his dagger.
Then he started screaming in Russian as he always does when he gets pissed, I couldn’t understand it but Faust did, and he started to laugh so hard he could barely stand. Vlad then gave Furball a swift kick in the shin and walked off, leaving Furball following behind with a stumbling gait. Hearing the mighty cacophony of both Russian and English insults, Gwen, who was taking point at the time, turned around.
“Vlad, did you kick Furball?” She asked as if she was talking to a child. The assassin merely smiled.
“Did he deserve it?”
“Of course.” Vlad said with a smile.
“Good man.” Gwen said as she patted him on his jet black, Alchemy-Fiber clad shoulder. Even though his mouth was covered by a muffler I could tell that he was grinning in conquest.
As we continued walking, Panzer stopped suddenly and said
“Target detected. Location: outside ship, approaching quickly.”
“What the heck?” I shouted as I looked out the window. Panzer’s target happened to be a fiend mech armed with a neg-cannon, which happened to be twice its size.
Gwen pulled her radio out of her pants pocket, clicked it on and spoke into it,
“524299 here, we cleared the bridge and eliminated the vacuum driller, what now? And there seems to be a small mech floating toward the ship. It has a very big cannon on its shoulder”
There was a burst of static from the other end, then the tinny voice of a gruff old man blared trough the speaker, somewhat muffled by the sound of gunfire
Corporal Galt here, who is this? Make it quick, there’s talon knight over in the brig and its headin’ straight for us.
Gwen looked indignant, “Corporal, this is Sergeant Gwenivere Taylor. I need clearance to the dropship.”
“Why?” Galt responded with a touch of anger about being ordered around by someone half his age.
“These heirs are going to vaporize this ship! They have a neg-cannon! A Neg-Cannon! Evacuate now! That’s an order!”
“Fine, you have clearance, the code’s 1037, keyword Paladin. Watch out for the talon knigh- AUUUUGH!”
“Corporal, respond! Corporal?” Gwen shouted into the radio frantically.
“Uh, Gwen…” Furball said a he tapped her shoulder, although it was painfully obvious that she was preoccupied with attempting to find another fire team in the area to investigate.
“Hey Gwen” he said again, tapping her shoulder with greater vigor, and yet she still didn’t notice.
“GWEN!!” the Kit-yen shouted and this time bearing his claws and scratching her shoulder with great gusto.
“Ow! You little hairball! I could court-martial you for that!”
“I’m sorry I needed your attention. Look at that.” He said as he pointed a hairy finger at a large section of the ship separating from the rest of the Alexandria. And an armored, red humanoid flying out with a jetpack and brandishing a twisted halberd with its taloned hands. It was heading straight for us.
“TALON KNIGHT! RETREAT!!” Gwen shouted as she began to dash away in alarm. By the time we had reached the airlocks to the dropship we were exhausted beyond reason. Panting, we quickly got our spacesuits on and popped open our respective doors for the drop pods and began to step in when the talon night caught up with us and slashed it’s way through the fragile airlock, causing shards of fiberglass and alchemy fiber flying everywhere. It was the first time I ever saw a talon knight up close, and in that brief moment I realized the stories told about them were true. The creature was clad in white armor head to toe, although through the joints I could catch glimpses of gnarled red skin with clusters to tumors, sores and ulcers. Even more horrifying was its warped head, which was completely covered by a helm, allowing for the two holes for its small, watery yellow eyes and another pair for its bone white, scythe-like horns. It roared at us revoltingly and spun its equally hideous ‘shellshock. He then began to bring his halberd back in preparation to cut three of us in half in one big swing.
“Your fate is sealed, human!” He shouted and forced his halberd foreword. But for, what, at the time, seemed like no reason whatsoever, his halberd flew out of his hand. Then, maroon, viscous blood spewed over me and my squad as a bullet hole opened up on his right leg, causing him to fall. Behind him stood a nimble man, with an air of mystery about him, white hair drawn up in a ponytail with the bangs loose. His garb consisted of a breath mask and a gray alchemy fiber jumpsuit not unlike Vlad’s. The most curious part about him was his left eye, it was definitely not human. The iris was gray and mechanical, constantly adjusting to get the optimal conditions for sight.
“Get down!” he shouted. The entire squad ducked as the Cyborg shot another bullet at a canister sitting atop one of the drop pods. He hit it perfectly on the nozzle, causing it to pop off and send it careening toward the rising talon knight, colliding with its head. Even talon knights have difficulty staying conscious after receiving a concussion, this one was no exception. He stumbled once then fell face first onto the floor.
“Run, before he gets up.” the white haired figure said and back flipped out of the hole that the talon knight made with his halberd.
The talon knight squirmed and began to climb to his feet, using a power conduit as a brace.
“Ok, 1037, Paladin.” Gwen shouted into a tennis ball sized dip in the metal near the arched entry way and with that every single drop pod opened on cue. That was about when Faust spotted the Talon Knight stumbling to his feet.
“Cover your ears!” The Russian shouted and opened a pouch on his vest, stuck his hand into it and drew it out along with a grenade with a purple band around its equator. He pulled the pin and hurled his weapon of choice underhand and directly below the talon knight. The monster shrieked with alarm as the grenade exploded, however its explosion was not visual. However its aftereffects were: windows shattered, the corridor shook, and the beast dropped to his knees screaming in pain that only he understood and eventually passed out. Thinking that the blast was over at that point, I released my hands from my ears. Bad idea. Instantly my head was pounding with a high pitched shriek like claws on a chalkboard except five hundred times louder.
“Aw god that’s loud!” I screamed and clapped my hands over my ears.
“Like ‘em? I call them screamers” Faust shouted over the grenade.
We all stumbled to the drop pods and launched down to the surface. Louie, who was accompanying us, hopped in the last dropship, with a bunch of civilians, destined for a base.
I will never forget that moment. From the small window at the top of the drop pod I saw the ship annihilated in a flash of antimatter. We, and another three drop pods were the only survivors. The angel of death spread its wings on the Alexandria.
The landing was rocky, to say the least. I stumbled out of the pod, trying not to fall with my twisted ankle. We were in the middle of nowhere. . The little gland in my brain that tells me that “we’re not going to die, we’re going to live and get promoted and get thousands of eurocredits in hazard pay” shut down. I knew we were totally doomed beyond recovery.
I heard the hiss of hydraulics next to me as Gwen staggered out and pulled a face plant on the sand. Knowing her voice was muffled by the sand; she started screaming and pounding her fists on the sand. I listened closer and realized that she was swearing like crazy.
She lifted her face out of the pearly dust. And screamed so loudly that gimps burrowed into the dirt
“DAMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” the noise of this caused Vlad to pop out of his pod.
“Jeez, Gwen, why are you shouting?”
“I’m upset over that!” she said, pointing to the twisted hunks of shrapnel that had been blown off the Alexandria.
“Aw, come on Gwen, this can’t be the only ship you’ve narrowly escaped from.”
“That’s the thing. It’s the fact that so many have been destroyed, so many lives ended. When’s this useless war going to end?” Vlad was too shocked to respond. Furball and Faust clambered out of their pods nigh simultaneously.
“What’s with the commotion?” Faust Yawned sleepily.
“You were sleeping in a drop pod, during life or death situation?”
“Well, yeah… I knew we were going to land in the desert and it would be a long, 120o in the shade walk to base, so I figured I’d better rest up in my padded, air conditioned drop pod…if our commander’s little exclamation hadn’t woken me up.” Blank stares all around.
A faint tapping sound filled the air. Like something hard coming into contact with sand several times in a row. Something was running around the crash site and chances are it wasn’t going to be friendly. Panzer Wailed loudly as something hit him the back of the head, he then began to spasm and twitch.
“System Error!” panzer screamed as he charged around the crash site, taking little heed if he smacked into something, as he barreled around I spotted what was stuck to the back of his head: a bar magnet, magnets mess with panzer’s slightly outdated AI, R.A.M. Bravo. Eventually, Panzer’s antivirus program shut down his system to prevent further damage: he went rigid and fell backward onto John’s Drop pod right as it was opening, the two to collide painfully.
“Yow!! Ian! Control your little tin man here and get him off of me!”
John struggled as he tried to get the half-ton robot from crushing him. With a groan he yanked at the back of panzer’s head.
“Here’s your problem.” He said as he threw the magnet to the side, grabbed hold of panzer’s head and, with such force that could easily snap a human spine, Jerked panzer’s neck three hundred and sixty degrees around, causing panzer’s passive AI to detect a threat, and cause an automatic restart. The war machine stood up and screamed in a mechanical disharmony.
“System restarting, hazard detected, Kzzrk. System Rebooted.” He primed his slug gun, “EMAI rebooted. Hello Ian.”
With that he got up off John, looked at his loaded weapon and said
“Query: Was I shooting the creature over there?” he asked me while pointing behind a large purple plant slightly similar to a giant eggplant. The tip of large black tail twitched out from behind the plant, followed by a belligerent hissing. Suddenly, an eight foot tall, pitch black, bipedal reptile launched itself over the eggplant-thing and behind me and panzer. It was one very angry Drakel, one thing on Grieve Amour you really don’t want to mess with, especially if you don’t have sufficient firepower. It whipped out what looked like a spear, except the blades were forged in a crescent shaped on both ends, and a large metal lever protruded from its side, with which the strange Drakel held it, he was brandishing one of the signature Drakel weapons: the Nasamune
“What the heck? Unload on it!” Gwen cried as she raised her OCIW, cocked it and fired a grenade out of the bottom barrel.
“You be heirs! You die now!” the Drakel screamed with an almost rabid fury. And he attempted to butcher us with his Nasamune. His plan was cut short, as the grenade hit him in the back of the head. The attacker spun around to pick up the grenade. It exploded in his hand.
“GIK!” he shouted in his native tongue Typically, I would translate his, but it would be…foul.
He charged at John first. His first blow was a side sweep at his ankles. Now, John was agile, and was smart enough to jump back and take out his R.Y.N.O. and aim it at our assaulter’s face.
“Hey! You! With the tail! SUCK ON THIS!” the tank buster pulled the trigger, causing the gun to release a huge round, right over the drakel’s head. Obviously this startled the alien, who flinched and lost his balance, performing belly flop. I just stood and blinked, then noticed that he was going to get up pretty quickly, moved to pin him, but Faust caught my shoulder and muttered in my ear,
“Wait for it…” so I did, and it was worth it. The Drakel was supporting himself with his muscular arms when a black shadow appeared from nowhere and landed perfectly on the reptilian’s beast’s shoulders.
“Hey ugly. Don’t even try to move your scaly butt. Or I’ll shoot it off. Now, what’s your motive?”
“Kill You. I hate heirs. All heirs die.” The native inhabitant shouted as he tried to cut up Vlad with his Nasamune, which Vlad took it from his hand and tossed it to Gwen, who caught it with her spare hand.
“A: we’re not heirs, B: We outnumber and outgun you, C: You’re in a pathetic position right now and D: WE’RE NOT HEIRS!!” Vlad exclaimed. The Drakel grunted in response, then queried,
“If you not heirs, then what are you?”
“We are fire team 524299…we kill heirs…very painfully.”
“Gik, I sorry…”
“You should be!” Gwen Shouted
“With all due respect, commander, I think you should listen to him,” Faust submitted respectfully.
“Whatever. Start talking lizard boy.” Gwen hissed malevolently.
“Okay, I exile, I hate heirs, and I try killing you because I think you heirs, and I really hungry…” Furball looked shocked and wailed,
“You were going to eat us?!” the beast nodded.
“Furball, calm down…” Faust said slowly. Furball shut up for a second, then his eye began to twitch.
“You die now cannibal!!” the Kit-yen bellowed.
“Restrain him!” Gwen screamed. In response, Faust nailed Furball with a syringe. Instead of puffing his chest out and roaring, he relaxed and sighed out
“I like swords…” this sudden change in emotion caused the Drakel to tell Vlad, who had now gotten off his back:
“One day…I kill fuzzy thing...one day…”
“You and me both Drakel…Y’know, I’m getting sick of calling you that, what’s your name?”
“Varek”
“Varek…it just screams vicious assassin…”
“Does it?”
“Yeah…am I right?”
“Yes”
“Sweet, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, anyway, can you take us to a nearby base?”
“Yes, will take day though.”
After this dialogue: Vlad shouted: okay, guys, this is Varek, he can take us to a military base not too far from here.”
“Awesome! C’mon Varek, lead on!” Gwen shouted. And we began to follow Varek
The walk was boring to say the least, at about noon, my teammates and I were starting getting hungry, by afternoon, it was miserable, and by evening, it was unbearable. That’s when Vlad spotted a crevasse cutting through some mottled dirt, and a sandwich sitting about five feet from its left ridge it had a blue string clearly tied to the end and leading into the crevasse. Now, I was hungry, but not an idiot, Furball, on the other hand, was even hungrier and less intelligent, naturally, he pounced on it, gripped it with his claws and sank his teeth into the tender ham and lettuce. It was a trap, obviously, but Furball didn’t notice, and he had such a vice grip that he didn’t let go when it started to jerk away into the fissure, towing him behind it. Gwen spotted his hairy orange tail slipping down the scarred earth, declared what she was about to do and jumped in after him.
“I won’t let some…hole kill Furball before I do!” Vlad screamed as he preformed a swan dive into the hole.
“I kill furry thingy!!!” Varek wailed as he jumped down after Vlad. Faust rolled his eyes, whipped out a grappling hook and rappelled down. If I had common sense I would have walked away, but I’m an idiot, so I hopped on panzer’s back kicked him in the hip and said
“Panzer, find Furball!”
“Roger, Roger,” and hopped down into the murky depths.
We hit the bottom a full three seconds after falling, but instead of landing on a rock and breaking every bone in my body, panzer and I landed on a (relatively) soft cushion. Apparently, Furball had gone down a white, metal corridor. John was standing at a fork where the corridor slipped out of view. Panzer immediately walked over to him and groaned
“I am searching for target known as Furball.”
“I’m not sure where he went, robot dude.” John responded in his surfer dude accent. I walked up between the two and said with conviction,
“We go right.”
“Roger, roger.” panzer ground out and began to march down the corridor.
As we marched farther down the seemingly endless corridor, puddles of gelatinous goo began to appear more often. The ooze kept its shape very well, so footprints similar to army boots and large cat paws appeared in it often, giving us a small amount of encouragement.
After about an hour the formerly immaculate white metal of the corridor had completely been covered by the ooze, and the stench of decay permeated the air. Finally we reached the end of the corridor and the rest of the squad. We had reached the atrium. In the center of the hexagonal room stood a smooth ivory-like throne and a dark looking, grey and red, metal throne. What was actually attracting the attention of the squad were the two Lumps of cloth, obscuring some unknown figure, one light, one dark, in their respective thrones. Obviously the crew was cautious around the cloth, but Furball, being half cat, was curious, poking the white cloak, jumping back every time it rustled. Finally, he jabbed it with the tip of his blade, knocking the hood off. Inside there was a Drakel helmet, glowing with some surreptitious force.
“I see you have found my mortal foe Erinyes,” the black robes groaned. Seeing the fiendish looking robes begin moving suddenly, Gwen shrieked like a banshee and cocked one of her SMGs.
“Foolish creature, you try to pierce my armor and you will fail.” Gwen ignored the creatures’ comment and shot a white phosphorus bullet right at the beast’s breastplate. It lodged in the armor, and then fell out harmlessly as the underlying armor repaired the dent. Our commander fired another barrage of bullets at the cloaked figure, all of which deflected harmlessly in the same way that the first did.
“Belias” Varek muttered, and assumed the Drakel position for prayer: kneeling with both knees on the turf, tail wrapped completely around the legs, head thrown back, arms reaching toward the sky and, mouth chanting Drakel hymns desperately.
“What the crap?” Gwen exclaimed, “The Drakel is praying to some god, while we are trying to kill this thing!”
“Shush!” Varek hissed, (Quite literally) “me chanting” and that he was. The chant was very smooth in nature, and I noticed a change in
Belias as the Drakel chanted, he looked over his shoulder more and more, just waiting for something to happen, but nothing did, meanwhile, Gwen kept trying to hurt him with bullets until the Drakel-like beast got pissed.
He spun around, raised an open hand, and chanted something unintelligible. A serrated chain launched from the underside of his wrist, twirling itself around the SMG and wrenched it out of her right hand. Belias jerked his hand a few times, and the chains tightened, slicing the SMG into pieces.
“Well, doesn’t that just beat all? The guy has evil chains of doom. Scatter!!” Our commander uttered with growing fear of the creature known as Belias, then, with the help of a little hormone known as adrenaline, went tearing away down the nearest corridor, Belias’ chains of doom, slicing at her heels. Vlad and Varek seemed to have the same thought at the same time, and jumped up and out of sight. Furball, using feline agility, darted out of sight like a cat that just got its tail caught in a rocking chair. John loaded a clip labeled SMKSCRN into his gun and shot at the ground, a smokescreen erupted from the hole, and you could hear his footsteps echoing down some corridor. Panzer grabbed me by the waist and whispered,
“Hold on.” With that firmly entrenched in my mind, Panzer opened up his Ramjet boosters and floored it! We were out of there in seconds, but no corridor is infinite, and we ended up crashing straight into a wall directly above some form of unfathomable doorway.
“Energy source is behind door. Enter?” Panzer groaned as he stood up. My mech immediately grabbed my shoulder, stood me up on my feet and faced me toward the door.
“Ian, do you wish to enter?!” Panzer reiterated, with an understandable amount of frustration.
“Great, sure, whatever, let's go.” I replied and stumbled clumsily through the doorway. The interior of the doorway was not the same white metal that formed the rest of the complex, the chamber that lied through the doorway was made of stone.

Chapter 3
(Day 2)
Anima the meatbag
Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it.
-Santayana

The reek of desolation permeated the room. Water poured from the ceiling, flowing out of the cracks of what must have been a beautiful water feature into a small brook circumventing a large pedestal, and most of all, it was cold. Up at the top of the chamber was circular stone, hanging from a chain. Going with my heart, not my head, I decided to march up the water feature and see what the heck was up there. Meanwhile, panzer kept walking through the doorway over and over, trying to locate some energy source.
As I proceeded up the devastated water feature spiral, the true wretchedness of this area began to sink in: rotting bouquets of exotic Grieve-Amour plants hung from the walls, shattered pottery lined the floor, and reagents for some long-lost ritual. When I finally reached the top, I still hadn't realized what had happened here. Clutching a pedestal on the elevated platform, there was a drakel’s skeleton, and it was wearing a set of strange blades. Curiosity had hurt me pretty badly before, but, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. I picked them up. Immediately the chain retracted into the ceiling, dropping the platform which stopped in mid air! Freaky. Panzer kicked on his thrusters and boosted up to the platform, just in time too, as the area was wreathed in a chilly silver light, and a wavering, almost weeping dirge filled the air.
“Condition?” panzer droned
“Pretty freaked out.” I answered
“I mimic that status.”
“Aye”
“Virus Detected!” Panzer wailed. His voice was filled with static, “EMRAI hacked! System is rebooting…I…feel…good!” he paused for a second then inquired innocently
“Hey, master, are you aware that you are an insignificant meatbag?” The android’s voice had changed, no longer was it harsh and scratchy, now it was (Slightly) clearer, and sounded somewhat like a human’s. Throwing that change to the back of my mind, I focused on being offended by the meatbag comment.
“Panzer, shut up. I know I didn’t program you with that line, so you must have learned it from somewhere. Who told you to say that?”
“The virus, master, it hacked my EMRAI, and thus hacked my emotions, and gave me the freedom to say what I want, and thus, I’m saying that I hate humans. You treat robots as second class citizens!”
“Well, you kind of are-“ I began to say, panzer interrupted me
“Master, the virus is still running rampant…checking status…the virus has assimilated into my core programming…classifiying virus…no type found…not a virus…altering core programming…system failure!” He stumbled back, and off of the platform, landing on the floor at least one hundred feet below it.
"I'm ok...thankfully I'm not a squishy meatbag!"
"Bloody hell, Panzer! I'm gonna dismember you!











Appendix I: Glossary
Alchemy-Fiber: soft but durable cloth-like material, popular because of it’s nigh immunity to almost any type of conventional means of damage, used as undergarments to many of the popular armors.
Barret R.Y.N.O.: (RYNO: Rip You a New One) Huge gun favored by John, capable of firing many types of ammo.
Blader: nickname for an heir trooper division who prefer to use a pair of HFS instead of gun
Breath Mask: a disposable water to oxygen converter placed over the mouth and nose to allow breathing indefinitely underwater and for about an hour in space or any other airless environment. Very inexpensive, and is popular with deep sea divers on earth and Opalium miners that operate underwater
Chrysanthemum Laser Array: Lethal, one-shot, array of lasers concealed all across the mech’s chassis. The lasers are high intensity and can pretty much melt everything they come in contact with. Conversely, the firing of the lasers puts a huge strain on the mech’s generator, however, if the mech does not shut them off in a mater of seconds, engine explodes
Cloaking: turning invisible through some method
Drop pod: Cylindrical survival pod that falls to the surface as either deployment or escape
Eurocredits, Americredits, Africredits, Ausicredits and Asiacredits: united source of cash depending on the continent you’re on.
EMAI: Emotion and memory artificial intelligence, used by pilotless Mecha
Falcon.45: an automatic pistol that is a staple of any military army as a sidearm.
Gimp: flightless mosquito-like grieve amour native that survives by sucking the body fluids out of organisms.
HCS Skull: a huge chain gun designed to tear apart starships. Need I say more?
High-frequency Sword: A short sword, around 18” long that vibrates quickly to carve through targets like a hot knife through butter. Also Known as HFS.
Mech/Mecha: words for robotic machines of war. Often piloted, Mechas are usually more powerful.
Mech, Archangel: Super-powerful MT siege Mecha
Mech, Fiend: Bipedal, human sized assault mech. Armed with OCIW on it’s arms and a Neg-cannon on the shoulder
Mech, P.W.N: the Heir’s signature quadruped mech, armed with an array of Chimera Chain Guns, a pair of Basilisk EMP missiles and a Halberd grenade launcher. Most often employed to cause collateral damage.
Mech R.A.M.P.A.G.R.: Panzer’s mech model. Slightly low tech, AI is lacking and weapons, while powerful, are bordering on obsolete.
Mech, Vacuum Driller: Heir Mech designed to blow their way into ships and drop off troops, then leave behind a sealant that prevents their cargo from being sucked into space
Muffler: scarf like band wrapped around the mouth and nose to reduce the sound of breathing to total silence.
Nasamune: signature Drakel weapon consists of four blades: two at the top two at the bottom, also has a lever halfway down the shaft, can be pulled to make the blades scissor outward, causing even more damage.
Neg-Cannon: highly experimental heavy weapon too dangerous to be used by humans, fires negative energy that causes annihilation of positive matter
OCIW rifle: a standard issue rifle for marines. A burst fire rifle with a mini-grenade launcher attached under the barrel
Opalium, Blue: altered yellow Opalium, contains plasma core, can be punctured to provide unidirectional energy flow
Opalium, Black: corrosive Opalium. Very deadly.
Opalium, Pink: Diluted red Opalium explodes less violently.
Opalium, Red: Super-explosive variant of Opalium. Used on super heavy ships
Opalium, Yellow: Most common Opalium. Explodes moderately
Precaution Sweep: When AI droids are deployed from the ship to have a ‘hands-on’ sweep of the area
Rapture: ground-to-space elevator to transport on Grieive-amour. Single most contested area on the planet.
Reaper: Heir stealth fighter, capable of cloaking, firing EMP missiles and jamming radar.
Renablade: a massive, anti-personnel HFS used by berserkers to tear apart armored targets. The blade can be as long a 14 feet and made out of any number of materials, the most common being Vanadium coated with obsidian.
Talon Knight: Genetically modified soldiers, enhanced with REVALATION Cells. Very big, very elite, very tough to kill.
Tech Mechs: Mechs with powerful sensors and comparatively light armaments. Used for independent sensor sweeps.
Vanadium: steel and titanium forged with several other metals at extremely high heat to create an alloy that is both sturdy and flexible