The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

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DarkPhoenix141
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The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Sun Jun 07, 2015 8:42 pm

Three months.

Three long months.

Three months since the drone incursion occurred, they were still picking up the pieces.

Three months since Leon's mercenaries showed their faces.

Three months, of nothing.

There was nothing going on. Nothing at all. A constant state of preserved status quo, and action far beyond the spectrum of Phoenix or his comrades. Nothing for any of them to do. It ate at Phoenix's psyche, ate at his being, ate at his soul. Here, nothing made sense. He hated sleeping in the Citadel or his bunk, not caring about the world and knowing his universe was safe in it's entirety. He hated living a civilian life. How could people live in such a state of boredom? Who would want to live in a world where you had no chance of improving yourself, and kept living the same monotonous life? A constant state of perpetual nothing. Who, who in the millions could stand that.
He thought it was kinda funny, when he was out there, he wanted nothing more than to be back here. And back here, he wanted to be back out there. Out there, in the field, he understood things. Here, things were out of his element. He felt like a beast, trapped in his body. Waiting for the right moment, stuck wallowing in his failures and emptiness without the thrill of battle and warfare. He was nothing without fighting for his country, without fighting for something at least. The galaxy was shifting, right in front of his eyes. He could see it, all of it, and was forced to watch it intently. While he detested the boredom and monotony of civilian life, his wife thought differently. For somewhat obvious reasons, she loved having him at home. Where he wasn't at risk of getting shot, or stabbed, or tortured, or some other horrific death. Somehow, for some reason, she loved his company. She couldn't help but be curious about him and his people. So many questions, so few answers. Phoenix did what he did with Sarah, he answered and ignored her prodding. Phoenix and his people were human, but something was different. Something... off. Like they just didn't, or couldn't care. Maybe all the blood seeped into their heads, and they were so used to it they didn't care anymore. Nihilism, stoicism, cynicism and skepticism all combined into one person, loathing in self hatred and disgust of others.

8 AM: Wake up, eat breakfast.
9 AM: Morning prayer.
10 AM: Military council meeting.
11 AM: Civil council meeting.
12 AM: Lunch.
1 PM: Afternoon prayer.
2 PM: Weapon training.
3 PM: Melee training.
4 PM: Fleetmaster report.
5 PM: Quartermaster report.
6 PM: Nightly prayer.
7 PM: Dinner.
8 PM: Sleep.
Repeat.
And meanwhile, sectors away, Leon was bombing a hair-gel manufacturer on an industrial world soon to be conquered by the rebels, while his small family laughed.
So Phoenix read, read about himself and his history. The history on his people.
It taught him much in the past.

The United Phoenix Federation was formed in 2060, originally Xendra Prime. The planet, on the fringes of Federation space was beautiful, exotic and welcoming to human life. The Federation placed down 3 colonies on the planet. Leviathan, Invictus, and Phoenix. Leviathan to the west, Invictus to the east, and Phoenix in the middle. However, a great nebular storm hit the planet. They were stuck, alone and without assistance. People died, either from the virulent plague that ran rampant through their planet, or starvation, or in the brutal wars that followed for resources. But, in 2100. This grand civil war ended. Phoenix's father lead his colony to victory and named his son after his home colony. This lead to the creation of the United Phoenix Federation, between the colonies and several nearby moons. The nearest moons and even planets were militarized, held as strategic defensive points in place of a large defensive fleet. The UPF had three fleets, large hive fleets with massive flagships as the center of attention. Consisting of 20 battlegroups of 500 ships each. Those fleets being Leviathan, Sentinel and Invictus.
Phoenix was an interesting boy, and his father knew it. When he was 6, he caught the plague and self quarantined himself inside the library, reading. He beat the plague that claimed many, many lives. Much of the day he was unaccounted for, only to be found in the courtyard behind the Citadel, often beating on children who approached him. He was quiet, introverted, and all around favoring of the company of the Citadel Guard (Who he considered husks of people) to anyone. A legend among the troops states that Phoenix was left in the desert wastes of Xendra for several months of his life, and survived against all odds.
But when his father was assassinated, everything changed.
Phoenix was already their leader, but now he had a challenge of dealing with the distrust of his generals. Many of whom retreated into the wastes. He didn't do himself a favor when many religious leaders and their followers (Who disagreed with Phoenix's new religion) also fled there. Phoenix created the Civil Council, a group of five ordered to control the civilian population while Phoenix was at war. And soon those wastes were a haven to rogues and pirates. Or anyone fleeing the will of the Federation. So Phoenix lead his first war, and attacked the rogue settlements. Burned them to the ground, and pushed the rogues off of the planet. Phoenix brought Anna back to his planet as this conflict was happening, and she took note of the soldiers and their behavior while fighting their former brothers. As this battle finished, their second war began. The Federation was not happy with the UPF's independence and dispatched a force to conquer the planet back. The conflict ended (While the Federation was winning, no less), when orders from High Command came down to return back to Federation space to defend against a growing rebel incursion. This incursion grew into the rebellion we know today, as any denizen of the Federation would know. The rebel fleet was hunting a traitor, who held information about them they needed kept silent. And could secure a win for the Federation if it reached the last organized fleet of the Federation. A voice from the pits of Hell whispered poisonous words into the ears of the Rebels. Those words, were orders to invade the UPF. Shock and awe. The conflict ended 72 hours after it began, and claimed a great many lives on both sides. The invasion failed, but only because the rebels were redirected back to Federation space. Following this, a great few months of peace, of nothing. The UPF took it's time to recruit and spread itself all over the galaxy. However, then the Engi rebelled. It was a grand genocide, many lives and ships were lost. As with most of the planetary-based infantry forces.
Those who survived became Phoenix's Dark Marines.
But the result was the same, Phoenix and his people were homeless. He lead his people to a new homeworld, but the growing instability took it's toll.

Phoenix sat in his seat, his head slumped onto his fist, which sat on the arm of the chair. The bridge of the Sentinel. The walls broke away into glass windows, showing the everlasting beauty of space. In the center, a large holographic display. Showing everything from fleet composition, to their new home planet. Phoenix stared at it, absent minded. Waiting for a familiar pair of arms to wrap around his neck, and a soothing familiar voice to ask him what he was doing. And he would drearily answer that he was doing nothing at all. Those familiar arms never showed themselves, not before the holographic globe flickered. And a voice recorder showing the name of the person on the line and the waves of the sound they were making. The speaker was a Tyker (A Citadel tech manager) named Varius. "Greetings commander" He said in his metallic monotone voice. "What do you want?" Phoenix said drearily. "We have recently analyzed our comm relays and channels and found some recordings on an abandoned relay that may be of interest to you. Dated around our assault on the rebel controlled island in Federation space" The Tyker replied. "Who sent them?" The commander asked, sitting up in his seat. The Tyker spoke up "Unknown, however the relays are directed at the terrorist Leon, and sent to an anonymous channel using Federation comm relays" The Tyker could be heard fiddling with his metallic enhancements "It seems we have a traitor in our midst". Phoenix swallowed some spit and then spoke "How many recordings are there? And when are they dated?". The Tyker's microphone whirred "Three of them. Dated during your captivity inside Leon's base". "Play the first one" Phoenix ordered. "This one is dated shortly before our attack on the rebel base where we found Leon, the speaker is unknown and he modified his voice". The hologram blinked off then on again, two recorders for voices this time. One marked "HARTLEY, LEON" and the other marked "UNIDENTIFIED".
Leon could be heard swallowing before he spoke, collected "Report." The unidentified man took a second to speak, beeping of a device heard in the background. "I'm here Leon."

"Do the others suspect your presence as a traitor?"
"Negative"
"Good, then you can relay some information to me. What are they doing now?"
"I'm on the Shadow of Retribution, along with two other ships en-route to your current position"
"Wait what?!"
"Sorry, I couldn't get the Council to put a damn leash on Phoenix."
"Fuck. Now what?"
"Ready your forces"
"Wait a second!"
"Hmm?"
"This a perfect opportunity-"
"To kill Phoenix?"
"No, I don't want him dead. I want him captured"
"I hope you know how bad an idea that is"
"Reprisals are expected, they always are. I'll be fine."
"Leon, you need to do what needs to be done. For god's sake he's out to murder you!"
"He won't, I know him."
"Fine, sir. Out."

Then the recording cut out. The holograms were replaced with large red text stating the recording ended. Then the second recording began to play. The unidentified speaker began speaking in surprise and urgency, Leon could be heard tired and groaning groggily, having just woken. Explosions and faint gunfire could be heard in the distance. Slightly muffled by the talking of familiar friends. Leon was at his house here, when Phoenix was assaulting the island on an old rebel occupied planet.

"Leon are you awake?" Said the unidentified man, a hint of surprise in his voice.
"Ugh n-no..." Leon moaned, clearly stirred from his nap.
"Look, Phoenix is moving on your position as we speak. He's breached the outer perimeter and he's moving into the residential district. You need to move, NOW!"
"F-fuck. Look I'll-" Leon's voice cut out for a second.
"... Leon you there?"
His voice returned, now awake and a devious tone in his words. "This is our chance."
"Y-you sure?"
"I'll get my friends and family off world. And I can use this opportunity to grab him."
"... Can I help."
"Where is he now?"
"He'll be there in 15 minutes, tops."
"Alright, I have a plan."
"Right, bye."

The red text appeared with a metallic beep. A short countdown to the second recording, Leon's voice stated in outright, clear contentment over the speakers. As usual.

"Report."
"I junked up the relay, finding these recordings should be a lot more difficult now"
"Good job, we have Phoenix in custody here. I've got my two best men on interrogation duty"
"You need to get out of there. ASAP"
"What?! Why?!"
"Briggs has us charging about the sector on the Retribution."
"You need to get the council to put a leash on him! Before both of us are blown."
"I will not be the only one discovered if it comes to that"
"Are we screwed then?"
"No, not exactly. If I get the council to hold Briggs back for a day or so, he'll hold himself here fighting the bureaucratic resistance. I'll get my contact to contact one of the council members."
"Who's your contact?"
"You know why I can't say that"
"... Fine. Get on that. We need some answers goddammit."
"You won't get anything out of him, stop being a sadist."
"Not my department man. Not my department."
"Heh. Signing off."

The red text flared again, no more recordings. Phoenix took a second to interpret this information, and also deciding where he should begin in his search for this traitor. His own group? Maybe. Then, those familiar pair of arms pulled him back onto his chair and wrapped around his neck. He looked up, Anna was smiling down on him. "You look like you weren't expecting me." She said "What's wrong?". Phoenix sighed and squeezed her hand, then looked back up at the hologram before it disappeared. "I... can't tell you right now. S-sorry." Phoenix stuttered, taking a deep breath as Anna looked on, baffled. She smiled and rubbed his shoulder "Alright then" she said "See ya". Phoenix slumped back into his chair, part of him happy he'd finally get some action. A bigger part of him not exactly pleased someone among his was a traitor. He needed to know where to start. So, with the press of a few buttons on the arm of his chair, Varius' channel appeared. "Yes commander?" He asked, pleased to be of service. "Varius, which relays were used in the recordings?" Phoenix asked, feeling a headache forming. The Tyker's metallic whirring could be heard, followed by beeping. "Unknown" He said in his monotone, metallic voice, "However locating the relay should not be difficult. The PDF keeps it's communications in an office within the Vein Military Barracks, south of New Legion.". Phoenix took a second to think, humming to himself. He closed the channel and stood up, and headed out to his bunk in the Sentinel. He walked to the stairs, as technicians and soldiers ran about, maintaining the giant ship. At the top of the stairs however, was a man dressed in modified rebel garb standing next to a large German Shepard. The man had a variety of burn marks running across his face, and looked at Phoenix a sense of begrudging respect. Standing next to him was a man dressed in full red rebel uniform, who looked at Phoenix snidely if anything. The dog barked happily as Phoenix approached, remembering this man (But not his friend) slightly. Then, Phoenix remembered. He was the rebel that he had Briggs rescue when they attacked the rebel flagship yard, the man next to him was an unknown variable however. The first man, with the burn marks, had darker skin and a suave complexion, looking like a soldier who spent a fair amount of time picking up bimbos at the bar in his meantime. The man next to him was smiling sarcastically, like life was a joke to him, and was significantly paler with much lighter eyes. Looking almost like a man who you'd let into your house but then he'd stab you in the throat and do weird things with your corpse. Phoenix could tell he was going to be friends with these two. "You Phoenix?" Asked the first man "Yes." Phoenix greeted, eyes shifting between the two "Do I know you?". The man cracked a slight smile as Phoenix looked on, he could tell Phoenix was acting naive. "The nice nurse lady told me where to find Briggs and now here you are, figured I'd get introduced to the man who saved my life" He said. The dog barked, panting happily as the second man tapped her belly playfully. "Well, let me introduce us. This is Todd and I'm Mark." The man continued, a hint of laziness in his voice "I took him from the rebels after you rescued me. Figured we may be of use.". Todd smiled and waved, acting nice in a sort of serial killer sort of way. "I'm a good shot" Todd said snidely, a hint of suspicion but also playful but cruel enjoyment. "He is, I'm was an engineer." Mark said, his voice deep and deliberate "I'm not a technician, but I'm the next best thing". Todd adjusted the strap holding his rifle onto his back while Mark took a second to lean back onto the wall "Well good to meet you, head to the armory and get some new uniforms. I don't want any fratricide out on the field." Phoenix said, the calm and soft voice fading into a commanding growl. The two ran off to do as ordered, and Phoenix headed down the stairs. Only to be greeted by another familiar face, Katie looking up at him. She had switched outfits from her white Federation uniform into a hood, looking way too similar to Anna. She had slightly long brown hair, a soft complexion of a woman who was a few years away from gaining the grit of your average soldier, losing the look that said "I'm not to be messed with". Her soft, dark green eyes however said a mix of "Can we be friends?" and "Don't shoot" to where there were mixed feelings all around. She looked less like a protective mother and more like a playful sister. Her stature looked like a deadly beautiful, like a woman standing in a dress holding a gun ready to shoot someone. Her face was slightly less pale than Anna, but still looked soft and almost affectionate in comparison to the rest of her hard-ass complexion and stature. Her outfit was clearly built for function over slight fashion. The "fabric" was like body armor in itself, and it was formfitting and a mix between grey and tan, in comparison to the light brown hood. "So, you're... in charge around here?" She asked, a hint of sarcasm and pretentiousness in her voice. "Yup. Got a problem with that sweetie?" Phoenix said, responding to sarcasm with sarcasm. She shook her head "No, but it seemed... off. You don't look like an official, or commander, or general, or leader. You look like a soldier." She said, curiosity tracing itself into her lips, she gestured at Phoenix clothing. "Cuz I am. I'm a little bit of everything. We don't tolerate lazy assholes in the Phoenix Federation" Phoenix wondered if she saw through the trace of altruism and sense of community and uniform duty and realized that Phoenix never wanted to be a soldier, but never regretted becoming one. She crossed her arms "Hmm, is that so?" She did "Well, where do you need me" Phoenix could tell that question brought her into trouble before, and she was hiding her true feelings behind her hard-ass demeanor. "Go to the armory and talk to Mark, and try not to turn too many heads." Phoenix stated, firmly holding his ground against the hard exterior shell Katie had. It was clear she wasn't amazing under pressure, and didn't get along with people. The demeanor faded, and she playfully waved at him, and turned away. Phoenix sighed, then looked behind him, the dog was standing there. Panting contently. Phoenix was tempted to push her away and carry on with his life, but opted to pet her on the head and rub her neck hair instead. And then moved on, ignoring the jingling of the dog's collar as he went to his bunk corner. A few of his team was conversing outside Burden's room, while he stood in the doorway dressed in his sleeping wear. A olive green t-shirt and baggy camo fatigues and boots. The rest of the team stood in the appropriate field clothing, which looked threadbare despite being entirely functional. Phoenix walking over turned heads, Burden suddenly looked combat functional and everyone else turned to face him. "What were you talking about?" Phoenix asked, wanting any treachery to be revealed and soon. "Nothin much" Briggs said, arms crossed. Phoenix shot a stern look about the group. Adrian and Burden both began sweating, respect turning into to fear quickly. A bead of sweat moving down Briggs' face, wondering what the consequences would be if he lied or didn't answer. Griffin wasn't scared of dying, but was still slightly shocked and scared as Phoenix shot his deadly gaze at him. "Well I guess... W-we're... worried about you." Briggs wasn't lying, the conversation was about Phoenix and his slow descent into darkness, and if something was gonna happen when he hit the bottom of the cold dark void. Everyone stopped sweating, even Phoenix could tell he wasn't lying. "Well then finish up and get moving to the armory. We'll meet in the briefing room." Phoenix stated, before moving over toward his room at the end. At the center of the end of the hall was a pillar of names, crew members lost in the Engi rebellion, Phoenix felt like sleeping feet from it wasn't healthy. He knocked onto the door and yelled inside "Anna meet me in the briefing room, hit the armory if you need to gear up!" before he himself headed off into the briefing room. The room was silent, a gathering of people around a planning table, staring into a single large monitor, Phoenix and Harper (The new ECRT commander in wake of Grave's burial) flanking the monitor. Phoenix broke the tense silence (and beating of the giant spider in the ducts) "People, I don't know how to tell you this but... someone is leaking information about us to Leon.". A murmur of questioning about the room, only Harper remained silent. "A Tyker named Varius has a briefing for an opportunity to reveal this traitor." Phoenix continued, flicking on the monitor. The Tyker's metallic voice came over the speakers. "The traitor is using our comm relays and channels to communicate information to Leon, and likely to lure our forces into ambushes if given the opportunity. The Planetary Defense Force located here manages these relays out of Vein Military Barracks, part barracks part apex of training for local forces. If we can gain access to these relays, we can pinpoint the one our traitor is using, old or new, to funnel his calls." The Tyker took a second, and began showing blueprints and orders onto the screen. Briggs raised his hand and asked a question. "So how do we go about revealing this traitor?" He asked, leaning into his chair. "Doing this will be a 3 part operation, none of it will be particularly easy." He said "First, we must locate the relays the traitor is using the funnel these calls to Leon and access the recordings, then decode the encryption on these messages, then we must find a logic drive and trace these relays to their source hub that is transmitting the signals. Finally, we must capture the traitor and question him.". Harper spoke up in a bark "Any questions?". Then Todd raised his hand "Whats the meaning of life sir?", and Griffin chuckled. The team then prepared for the actual briefing. Todd suddenly looking a lot less like a serial killer, went up to Phoenix and asked "Whats the score boss?". Phoenix stepped up to look at the monitor and clicked on new images. "Plan A: We ask. We see any bureaucratic resistance, we fight it and get our records." Phoenix stated stoically "Plan B: Crash and grab the records. Briggs, Burden and I will do the crashing, Katie, Anna, Todd and Adrian will do the grabbing. We play the rest by ear. Let's move people, we have borrowed time here.".

David sat down on the edge of the track, a long and winding oval shape that PDF soldiers and local forces used to train in their meantime. At the end of the track, a large office building with an omega symbol on the entrance. Large glass windows making up the majority of the opening lobby. A young soldier, dressed in blue PDF uniform, took a second out of his run and fell next to David, drawing his eye from the massive office. "You okay bro?" He asked, shaking the soldier "Y-yeah I'm fine..." The young boy stuttered, lifting himself off the ground, and picking his glasses out of the sand. He sat down next to David, sweat running down his face. "You training with the PDF?" David asked, breaking the awkward silence "Yeah, wanted to prove my sister wrong-" he stopped mid sentence, touching his gloves. "She bad for you?" David asked, rubbing the young one's back. He began to talk but only air came out of his mouth, then just nodded. David rubbed his back "Don't risk your life for her man, she's not worth it." He comforted "I-it's not just that I mean..." the soldier started, drifting off. "What about you? You here with the PDF cuz... drill sarge is gonna have your ASS for not wearing the right uniform" The soldier joked, smiling, watching as David jokingly rejected the claim. "Nah, nah I'm with one of the fleet forces, up in orbit. Stationed here for the time being." David said, trying not to brag at the young one. "Wait you go out?! With Commander Phoenix?? Holy shit man!" The young boy yelled, ecstatically excited. "I'm Evan, by the way." The soldier outstretched his gloved hand, David shook it. The two laughed, both continuing to go on about how awful their jobs were and how bad the people they associated themselves were. Chuckling and laughing, united in misery. David only stopped when he saw a truck, with three hooded occupants pull up behind him. "Eh look at that." He said, secretly and pointing at the team of three. "Huh, who are they?" Evan asked, peering over David's white armor to get a look "Dark Marines?". David took a second look at the occupants, one took off their hood and ran over to the building at the other end of the track. "Nnnnnooopppe" David said, putting a bit of humor into the situation. They continued looking, one of the two remaining at the truck took out a PDA and began fiddling with it, while the other held a rifle and checked the sights appropriately. David couldn't help but feel in danger. "Who are these assholes?" He murmured to himself, just loud enough for Evan to hear. Evans also looked, he couldn't make out any of their faces, they had masks on. Before long the other guy ran back to the truck. Said something to the guys at the truck, and entered the vehicle. Then the other two got in as well, and revved up the engines. Evans broke the silence "What the fuck are they doing?" He asked, his eyes fixed on the vehicle. Then, in an instant, the vehicle shot off into the distance and rammed itself into the windows of the omega building. David and Evans looked on, wide eyed, sound of breaking glass could be heard across the barracks. "HOLY SHIT MAN!" Evans yelled, standing up "Shit bro you got a gun or somethin?!" Dave checked his holster, and saw the old engraved pistol his father had given him. "S-should we or...?" Evans started before his companion shushed him and began moving toward across the field. A stoic look of professionalism on his face. The trio's truck breached the windows and created a new entrance. The three hooded men exited their vehicle and readied their weapons. "BURDEN HACK INTO THEIR SYSTEM AND CRASH IT, NOW!" Yelled one "Copy that!" yelled another. The hooded man with the PDA ran over to the computer behind the desk where the nice lady who greeted officers sat, and began working the computer. Briggs and Phoenix began aiming on the few hostages they had. Phoenix touched his ear piece "Adrian the thing went to shit, plan b it is." he said, lowering his weapon for a second. Burden spoke up in the tense room "This isn't the computer!" he yelled urgently. "No shit!" Phoenix barked "It's probably in the back ya goof! Go look there" Burden grabbed his shotgun and moved around the wall and into the back, kicked in the glass to the mainframe room and began working the system. "Crashing in 5 seconds, get bravo team on the line and tell them to get ready!" Burden yelled from the back room. On the roof, the four waited for the signal. Adrian looked down, seemingly wanting to end it all, Katie and Anna shared a seat on a makeshift bench, and Todd sat looking at the two on a chair the janitor would use to sit down and question his life decisions. "So... either of you single?" He asked, figuring it was worth a shot. The two girls looked at each other, Anna looked at the obviously full of himself man staring at her with lusty eyes "No, I'm married" she said defensively, a slight growl in her voice. The woman next to her shrugged and smiled at the creepy man playing with empty shell casings in front of her, but said nothing. Suddenly, Adrian stood straight up and put a finger to his ear, listening to his orders. Then he turned to his compatriots on the roof "That's us, get your masks on meet me there" he stated, stoically calm despite the situation and alarms blaring below him. Adrian proceeded to pull up the mask on his neck, and grabbed onto the ropes before jumping down into a window. Following this, Todd put on his bandanna and followed, Katie put on her balaclava mask and followed and Anna (reluctantly mind you) put on her gas mask and followed. Before long, the entire group was united three floors down. Adrian's calm and focused voice broke the tension of the operation "We're looking for system backups, should be on the far eastern side." He briefed "Watch for security and techies, no bodies, not now.". The team then raised their respective weapons and began moving forward, navigating the maze of hallways and cubicles, until they found themselves at a door titled "SYS BACKUPS", Todd kicked it in and Adrian ran in, grabbing a large data stick before he ran out of the room at Olympic runner speeds. "Got the drive!" Adrian yelled as he barreled down the stairs, running into the truck with all due haste. The rest of the team quickly followed, and they drove off. Leaving David and Evan in the dust as they approached.

They speedily walked to the briefing room, Adrian handed the stick off to a techie who took it to Vairus. They were curious where getting the logic drive would come in, or if this operation was going to be as simple as foreseen. Varius' comm channel appeared on the monitor to the briefing room. "Welcome sir, congratulations on a successful mission." He chirped "While the recovery of the comm link records assists our efforts, we've run into several problems.". His voice began to lower into a moderately depressed modified tone "For one, we cannot retrieve the records from these relays remotely. Our traitor has bounced and copied his recordings off many relays. Tracing these relays will be difficult in itself. Secondly, the only logic drive capable of decrypting and tracing the relays is locked on the Federation homeworld of Earth, finding a suitable port to lock the drive into may be impossible." The room fell silent. Not a peep among the group. Everyone looked at each other, 25% self loathing, 25% curiosity, 50% fear. Anyone (Except Phoenix) could be a traitor now. Everyone's life was in his hands. If there was even a shadow of doubt, if their loyalty was called into question for a second, they could be killed. If Phoenix was wrong, there would be nothing other than bloodshed for a long, long time. The hum of air conditioning was the only sound, those outside were silent. "Now what?" Briggs asked, depressed "We can't just shoot people until we find our guilty party.". Todd nodded, a smirk on his face. "Varius can we trace the relays manually?" Phoenix asked, standing from his seat. The Tyker could be heard roaring to life from his dark corner "Yes..." he schemed "We'll be able to recover more recordings and plans. This will help. However, it will take time.". The team nodded and Harper shut down the screen, then they departed from the room. The flood of bodies from the door gathered in a circle in the hall, a look of distrust among them all. Briggs placed a firm but shaky hand on his weapon, Anna felt her chest for her knife. Everyone went off their separate ways, looking of their shoulders. Phoenix brushed off heading to his room and instead went over to the bridge, the vastness endlessness of space provided some form of comfort, he couldn't help but feel like he was more at home there. He slumped into the captain's chair and waited for something, looking up at the open windows. "Sir, a there has been a new civil development on our planet, the council wishes the speak to you." Said Spyglass's deep, monotone and calm voice. Spyglass was the AI on board the ship, when Phoenix wasn't around he had to be in charge. So he was smart, and informed. Phoenix groggily entered the small frigate he used for transit to a planet, and tried to nap as he entered atmosphere. He landed close to the massive council building, on a specified tarmac for politicians to land in the event of an emergency. He looked up the to the building, it was up a set of massive stairs. Thousands of stairs, the building looked small in the distance. Phoenix quickly ran up these stairs, knowing it could take him all day to get there. Finally he reached the summit, the massive and ornate structure held the council of five who ran the United Phoenix Federation. The structure had two large starkly colored pillars on the edge holding large golden ravens. The door was massive, barely able to be opened by a human. The building itself was made of white painted metal or quartz or some strange native stone alongside gold. In contrast to the bland grey of the previous buildings from long ago or the rest of the residential sector nearby. Phoenix pushed the large wooden door out of his way and walked through the short entrance hall past several guards and into the large and technological center of the building. The council of five sat in their seats in a half oval shape around the room. all of their faces darkened, all of them looking at Phoenix. He moved toward the chair and table set up for his arrival, and sat down. An eerie silence filled the room. "We welcome you commander" Said the councilman in the center of the five "We have several pressing issues to bring to your attention, however, before that..." the councilman's voice trailed off as a local assistant and intern gave Phoenix a letter. Phoenix unraveled the small scroll "We were instructed not to give you the actual letter, we suggest you head to the Citadel after this." said a different council member. Phoenix nodded to himself and hid the scroll. "Now what requires my attention?" Phoenix growled impatiently, looking up at the shadowy faces. One of those from the left spoke up first "There are riots in the streets due to a massive food shortage on the western districts. The PDF is already taking losses in these sectors" He said "We will need to ration our food until our trade convoys arrive". The councilman in the center spoke up next "The plague has followed us, containment units are already failing in many districts. We will have a massive epidemic soon if we cannot contain it soon." Phoenix nodded, this was news. But he had a plan. He extended his hand, signalling for the council to wait for his answer. Then, nodding and looked up, his finger on his lip and a thoughtful look on his face. "I got it..." He started, nodding and looking around "We take those still not infected and move them to the central districts and ration food there, the rest will just have to make do. Have a set of our military devoted to raiding rebel trade and supply convoys, they have to be supplying the ground forces from somewhere". "That brings us to the next issue..." Said a councilman from the group "The rebels... are becoming a problem. They're scaring the populous.". Phoenix looked up, slightly, a look of sadness, helplessness and determination in his eyes. He grabbed the scroll and went to leave, pointing deliberately. The council knew he was going to handle that problem on his own. As he reached for the closed door, he felt a surging headache, and dropped to the ground. He awoke in his chair in the council's chamber. In front of him, five figures. All of which shaded in varying lights. The only recognizable figure was the one in the center, looking happily at him. The entire room was basked in blood. "Ah, you've arrived. I was told you'd be here." Said the figure in the center, Phoenix identified him quickly. Leon. He wanted to growl, but nothing other than air came out. His view shifted to the figure on the far left, Anna. "You alright? You seem tense." She said "Stress isn't good for your mind, it clouds your judgement." His view shifted slightly right, another figure he recognized, his... father? "Her words have no merit, ignore them." He said "You were born for this dammit, this is a burden you can handle.". His view dodged Leon and headed the figure at his right, Briggs. "Hey man are you listening? We need you now! Your mind has to be clear! Our lives are in your hands dammit." He growled. Then his view shifted further right, Graves. "Their doubt casts a shadow on your mind, you will be judged by your own merits when the time comes. I trust you." He comforted. Then his view shifted finally on the right, Phoenix was staring into a mirror, he was sitting in that chair across from him. Phoenix felt the entire world shudder for a second. The mirror of himself remained silent, before it disappeared and reappeared, this time bloody and mangled. "You shouldn't stress yourself, really, we'll be fine" Said Anna's apparition, before she appeared as a corpse, lying bloody in her seat. His father nodded, before he fell onto the ground, a bullet wound in his face. Graves smiled and sarcastically huffed, then slumped over in his seat, leaking blood. Phoenix awoke falling down the massive stairs to the council building. What was that vision about? He had no idea. He continued falling, eventually he hit the bottom, blood and dirt on his face. He gathered himself off the ground and huffed, then looked into the distance. The Citadel. Phoenix decided that's where he needed to go next. He walked that way, walked as it grew bigger. Silent, to nothing but his thoughts. Eventually the Citadel appeared to him. He felt slightly more at home here, but still felt out of place. He walked up the small stairs and into the building, and read the scroll, it said there was a message for him at the bottom of the Citadel's catacombs. He held the scroll to the guard and entered, walked all the way to the end. There, at the end, was a massive room. In it, a dagger and a note. Phoenix walked in and picked up the note, curiously reading it. My dear son Phoenix, if you are reading this, I am dead. I am sorry for leaving you, I know how many strange and odd feelings you are having now and that's okay. I knew from your birth there was something... off about you. You are destined to greatness, I trust this. However, to apologize for my passing. I give you two more gifts when you come of age. Graves is instructed to give this note to you once you are mature enough, he will be your father now. Love, your father. Phoenix picked up the dagger and slowly removed it from it's sheathe. The small dagger was ornate, holding many ancient runic letters on the blade. One side read I am wrath, I am fire, I am the vengeance of Revenants. The other side read I am resurrection, I am steel, I am the golden wings of the Phoenix. Phoenix nodded and waited for the second gift to show itself. He looked up from the dagger. And there was a robed and hooded figure, bearing a blue metal mask with red ruby eyes. The man was wearing an ornate red and gold robe, with hands that looked boney and pale, he stood looking at Phoenix with a hunched back and extended his hand forward. "Hello..." He moaned in a metallic voice clearly not his own "You are the son of... a man that brought greatness to this land... and now it is your own. He wanted me to see into your soul... tell you what needed to be said and speak the words of Xera herself!" he preached, Xera was one of the many gods in Phoenix's religion. The goddess of wisdom and restraint, and adviser to the god of fire and war: Phox. Phoenix nodded as the old man put his ancient hand onto his chest, chanting and whispering to himself. "You..." He started "... are..." he couldn't quite finish as he shuddered "... the GODS have a plan for you boy! You... must... cleanse... the impurity." Phoenix stepped half backwards, what did he mean. "A cancer... a true test of your will. The plague of Acolytes, the bane of crusaders, blade of heresy and evil." He moaned, straining each word. "You are haunted... by things past and things future... you do not feel human... you are not at home" His words were true. "Cleanse the cancer... from your body... with a trial" He pointed a boney finger into his center chest. Phoenix raised the dagger and placed the pointed blade onto his chest. Sighing and breathing deeply, acute pain in the center of his chest where the pointed blade was placed. He took a deep breath and plunged the knife into his chest, cutting and tearing with the dagger as blood was sprayed across the room, into his eyes, onto the Oracle, onto his face, onto the table, the walls, everywhere. He continued cutting, lower and deeper. His vision fading in and out, blood welling into his eyes. The Oracle held up his hand and Phoenix stopped. More hooded Acolytes swarmed around him, wearing ornate gas masks with horns and spikes. Like a germophobic satanist ritual. One of them hit Phoenix with a syringe, he felt the pain fade slightly. "You have cut it from your body, but your heart still beats. Your future remains bleak." Groaned the Oracle in his monotone, almost robotic voice. "One of your friends will throw you to a wolf in a dire situation, who will show you no mercy." He preached "Many people will not look to the truth, and you will answer their prayers and forsake your gods.". Finally, in a hearty breath "The King you will face will outmatch you, victory will occur only with great loss." and then, as the Acolytes crouched onto the ground in prayer, the Oracle spoke once more "Your burden will cause you to miss the traitor and heretic in your ranks until it is too late, and you will suffer as a result.". Phoenix then felt an amazing headache, and collapsed.

He awoke outside the Citadel, Corvis praying with a black obsidian sword at his feet. "Ah, you're awake" He greeted, smiling "I thought you were lost to the void for a second.". Phoenix rose and thanked him, then went back to the Sentinel. Not wanting to talk to anyone about the incident. He didn't know if he should trust the Oracle's judgement. Phoenix went over into his room, and collapsed onto the bed. Ignoring Anna as she read her book, who smiled as she saw him. She moved her legs out onto the end of the bed and rubbed his back, smiling. "You had a long day didn't you?" She inquired, even though she already knew the answer, Phoenix groaned in response. She warmly rubbed his shoulders, Phoenix closed his eyes, trying to relax. "W-why is there blood in your eyes?" Anna stuttered, seeing dry red splotches on Phoenix's face and body, touching them with the tips of her soft finger. "I-I'm fine." Phoenix comforted, a slight hesitation in his voice. Anna could tell something happened, she rolled him over and snuggled up next to him. Smiling and rubbing his chest (and feeling the gash he sustained previously in the process). Phoenix was still concerned. He wondered if she was the traitor, and this was an elaborate ploy to fool him. All to gain info to tell Leon. Curiosity is dangerous, it reveals things held secret all for the sake of greater knowledge. Phoenix thought about it as she rubbed and cuddled him. She was sheltered, born and raised on Earth, her experience in combat was equivalent to that of a soldier but she was still weak of mind when it came to violence, she wasn't from the UPF and so had no motives to see them thrive and she was with Phoenix for quite a while. She couldn't be it. Maybe he was in denial however, he needed more evidence. And fast. For now, he he wanted to relax. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, releasing any tension in his shoulders and snuggling up with Anna. Then Briggs burst in. "Phoenix we got somethin" He said, part of him amused he caught Phoenix cuddling with his girl, for reasons obvious but not.
The man was dressed in rebel garb, not Todd, found by someone. He was scared and shivering, watching as the two hooded men entered the basement on the ship. He had no idea where he was. He looked about, feeling a minor headache and a major feeling of stress. The two hooded men walked in front of his chair, the table behind them holding an endless supply of torture devices. Some looking extremely sadistic, others classic. "We're gonna ask you one question and we want an answer: Where's Leon?" Said the figure on the left, his arms crossed. The man began stuttering, confused. He knew who Leon was, he was well aware, but answering this would be suicide. He blubbered over his words, confused as to what he should do. Then the man on the right threw a punch, that landed on his nose. The man on the left turned back and grabbed a large dagger from the endless weapons. "Briggs you like knives don't you?" He said, fiddling with his knives, the man on the right chuckled and took one of the knives, before plunging it deep into the man's hand and twisting it. The man screeched, terrible pain all at once, then the man on the left turned away again. "One more time." He offered, picking out a pan from the torture selection "Where is he?". Phoenix turned back, holding the pan of boiling water in his hand. He walked over to the rebel and took his boots off, and placed his feet in the boiling hot water as smoke rose from the bottom of his feet. "OH MY GOD THE PAIN!" The main yelled, slightly muffled by his screams of agony. Phoenix decided to let his inner sadist run free and poured the remaining water over the man's chest and head, watching as smoke gathered in the room. Phoenix sighed, part of him wanting to create an act so the man would be all the more terrified and another part legitimately sad he had to hurt the man. The first part overwhelmed the second part, and he kicked the man's chair onto the ground, and grabbed a plastic water jug from the selection of tools. The jug held a green-yellow fluid. Acid. It would burn skin like hot fire, in liquid form. He nodded and Briggs removed the soldier's fatigues, showing his chest while Phoenix poured the hot acid onto him as smoke rose from the burning flesh. "ERGGHH" The man groaned, nearly passing out from pain as acid spread over his body, stopping only for a second as the jug began to empty. The smoke subsided, the man relaxed, his breathing visibly faster. "Who are you, where is Leon?" Phoenix asked, calm in the face of torture. "I-I... Leon moves often, he changes place every other day. I got no idea where he goes I'm just a grunt man!" The man stuttered, trying to give his torturers something of value. Phoenix nodded "Not good enough, give me something else." he growled. The man thought of something to give his torturers while they moved to grab hooks to hang him from. "W-wait a minute!" He said "You know the traitor? T-the guy leakin your shit to Leon? Yeah well he used an ancient Federation comm relay in Lanius space to transmit his last few messages." The man smiled and cheered to himself. Phoenix nodded and told Briggs to lock the man up in case they needed more info, and walked up the rickety wooden stairs back to the main section of the ship. He was greeted by Anna at the top "W-what was that about?" she inquired, partially already knowing what happened "Nothing." Phoenix lied, trying to put on a straight face as Briggs walked a burnt man screaming about a Lanius conspiracy to a cell. Phoenix walked back to the Bridge, accompanied by Anna and (to his surprise) Burden, who trailed behind. He collapsed into his bridge chair, ready for some action. "Varius, we need a trip to Lanius space for a relay hunt, good idea or no?" Phoenix asked, already imputing calculations into the computers. "A trip to Lanius space is easy, however finding our specific sector, beacon and planet will be hard." Varius assured, his voice shifting with mechanical whirs. "Can't we trace the relay?" Burden asked, his brow raised "A broad search at least, we go with it." Phoenix said, sending the orders to Spyglass to relay the orders to the Shadow of Retribution, and to requisition 3 squads of soldiers. Phoenix wandered to his psychiatrist's office (Such people made a killing treating PTSD ridden UPF soldiers), and slowly opened the door. He waited for the man to finish his cigarette and printing the latest psych evaluations before Phoenix went in. He entered, the giant chair was turned away to the desk, the man could not be scene behind the chair. "Doc...?" Phoenix asked, knocking on the door once more as he laid on the therapy couch. The desk turned, and on it was a similarly familiar face, Sarah. Her short blonde hair and brown coat and pants with a black belt were far too familiar, she smiled at Phoenix. He raised himself from his chair before he was pushed down and shushed by her "Relax..." she soothed, holding him down. She gingerly touched his shoulder and rubbed his chest, watching the stress in his shoulders visibly fade. Then she slowly removed his short cape and set it around his arms, rubbing his shoulders. "Ssssh..." she shushed, then Phoenix raised a brow, was this a dream? The room suddenly flickered between covered in blood, dark and normal, then returned to normal. Phoenix smiled back at Sarah, who touched the leatherette couch and nodded as Phoenix adjusted himself on the cold leatherette couch. "So... whatcha want to know?" Phoenix asked, moving his head despite the randomness and strangeness of this event. "Everything you know, if there hasn't been any new developments you've made excellent progress." She stated, grabbing her notepad and leaning back into her chair. "Did I tell you about Derrickson?" Phoenix started before shifting his arms as she stood up and started rubbing his chest "... if not then... nope. Nothing. I'm going out into the field again today." the rubbing stopped, her un-gloved hand was the beginning to meld into his flesh, or so it felt. It was hard like stone. Phoenix rose as the psych evaluation clicked and finished, then left the room, and collapsed as he exited. "W-what... the fuck? The hell is going on?" He whispered to himself, as the edges of the room faded to darkness, then it returned the normal. Something wasn't right. He walked over to the Shadow of Retribution, his breathing increasing as time went on. He quickly moved into the transit pod and entered the Shadow of Retribution, his team and people all there. The Shadow looked slightly similar to the Rebel's Flagship if any Federation soldier saw the plans. The "beak" was extended further from the rest of the hull, and wings were broader and slanted (though still forward facing somehow) and the tail was broad and stumped due to it's double focus as a cargo lift. Phoenix entered the comfortable ship, the three squads of soldiers already there, his team resting around the small and empty space in the cockpit. Phoenix decided the rest directly under it. He yawned "Plot a course for Lanius space, m'kay? m'kay" and then he napped on the warm bed. Lanius space was hauntingly beautiful, the nature of the universe only slightly disturbed by humanity was in it's own way beautiful, but seeing the same thing but a feeling of passive aggressiveness (the wrecks and remnants of destroyed ships didn't help that) was horrifying. Space was normally calm and beautiful, nothing going on at any point and the extensiveness and colorful beauty was all overwhelming. Here it felt like they were watching and going to be butchered at any point. The first planet, a green and lush jungle planet seemed like a good start, Phoenix rose from his crawl space and bumped the pilot "Hit the closest planet, we start there." he ordered as he headed to the cargo bay where everyone was prepping gear. Briggs could be seen napping blissfully (dreaming about relaxing with a girl in a nice meadow on the edges of the galaxy or any galaxy. Everyone, Anna, Burden, Griffin, Todd, Katie, Mark, Sasha, David and the soldiers were all relaxing, sitting on gear and making fun while they had it. Occasionally stumbling as the ship entered atmosphere, until the ship could be felt stopping. "We're here!" the pilot yelled from the cockpit over the intercom as the cargo bay dropped onto the ground. The ship landed on a sandy beach, with calm winds, blue water, an open bar with a sort of tropical tiki theme going on and nearby an empty diner. This planet was abandoned, but it was a tourist world for people on vacation. Everyone smiled a little. Briggs awoke groggily and exited the small bunk, "Anyone here?" he asked the empty room, not even the pilot answered, he walked to the cargo bay. The door was down, so he curiously exited and walked down. The chattering and sounds of waves and things of the like were not just in his head, nope, they were on a tropical world. One squad of soldiers were fishing drinks as the pilot furiously mixed with a smile on his face, another squad was playing poker (a set of loaded on the table just in case) and another squad resting on boxes of ammo drinking bottles of beer. Of his own team, Burden and Griffin were cleaning their weapons (A laser LMG and a plasma shotgun respectively) and talking heartily, Anna was staring at Phoenix and her book under a nice palm umbrella on a glass table. Phoenix was relaxing on his pack of gear, his cape wrapped on his arms, his scarf, mask and hood all used as pillows, his boots were tossed aside and allowed his feet to be dipped into the water as it washed onto him, his sleeves rolled up and revealed his arms, and sunglasses were on his face. Briggs ignored Anna and Phoenix (and they ignored him) and walked over to Briggs and Griffin "Eh! He's awake!" Burden laughed "C'mere take a seat, clean something." Griffin remarked, pulling up a chair over. Briggs began disassembling his weapon and cleaning the various parts, occasionally peering over his head and looking at Anna, who's gaze shifting between her book, Phoenix and the three men. Part of her wanted to the take a blanket from the supply (the soldiers would be too busy gazing at her to care, and too drunk to do anything) and curl up next to Phoenix and relax. She stared at her book, then looked up again, a part of her wanted to lay under Phoenix and see if her arms would be more welcome than the soft fabric of the cape. She imagined it in her head, a loving atmosphere between the two, her pale face would blush and she's snuggle into his back, and fall asleep. She quickly darted back to her book, only moving her eyes toward him. She didn't want to draw attention to herself. No that wasn't helping, she just read her book. She read fast, extremely fast, then stopped and sighed. Was this shame? No no it couldn't be. What was there to be ashamed about? She let out a heavy breath and kept reading, she wasn't helping herself, the butterflies in her stomach weren't helping her at all. Briggs stopped looking over his shoulder, started cleaning again, and then looked over again, then returned to cleaning. "You got a crush on her or somethin?" Burden said, chewing a piece of lemon gum. Briggs began feverishly cleaning his firing mechanism faster, the other two men smiled at each other. Drama was stirring. Powerful drama. Dangerous drama. Relevant drama. Phoenix kept resting in the burning sun, and reached for a carton of cigarettes, and popped one in his mouth, and lit it with his old lighter. It had been through hell with him, there was symbolism there. Briggs looked over his shoulder and decided to shift the conversation to something less friendship destroying. "So..." Briggs started "Any of you got plans" Burden and Griffin looked up, Anna peered from her book, "Once we're done here, with Leon with... all of this, what are you gonna do?" Briggs asked, leaning onto the table. "I'm gonna stay in the army till I die." Griffin stated, shrugging. "Well, I'm gonna leave and settle down with Maria or something." Burden remarked, trying to decide on something "You sure you can settle down? We saw what happened to Phoenix man." Briggs said, looking at Phoenix (who removed his glasses as a few clouds moved overhead). Burden nodded "I'll be fine, I'm not a sociopathic ass." He remarked as Phoenix muttered unintelligible curses at him. "Anna?" Briggs asked, turning around. She moved her dark blonde hair from her eyes "Well..." she started blushing "Whatever Phoenix does, I'll be there.". Briggs remarked for a second and looked at Phoenix "Any plans Commander?" he asked him, Phoenix nodded. "N-no. I'd love to settle down on some abandoned winter planet out in the boonies, with a family, and put this whole life behind me." He stuttered "Hopefully at least, hopefully. Things never go the way you want, and I don't think I can... take being without some action in my life.". The conversation abruptly ended. Griffin rose from his seat "Well, I don't know about you but I need a drink, Phoenix you gonna send Brian's squad to check the forest for that damn ship or not?" He yelled toward Phoenix, who sighed "Fine, BRIAN!" he yelled to the soldiers at the bar. Their fireteam leader moved over to the relaxing commander "You called me sir?" he confirmed "I need you and your unit to check the forest for that damn relay, watch your asses" Phoenix ordered, lighting another cigarette in his mouth. David sat on a stool, chatting with his squadmates as the pilot mixed drinks with the fury of a god, and then their commander came back "Pack your shit and get yourself ready, we're moving out." he said "Heading into the jungle.". Everyone sighed and shuffled their gear so it felt normal and burdensome, and moved toward the endless and everlasting tropical jungle ahead, how deep and empty it was.

Welcome to the jungle.
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING
agigabyte
Posts: 551
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Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby agigabyte » Sun Jun 07, 2015 8:53 pm

Very Good. Glad you are continuing (I am too, and am almost ready to post the first chapter of Gemini).
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DarkPhoenix141
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:43 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:32 am

Chapter 2: We All Fall Down

They were moving about the jungle in a line, aiming about cautiously and waiting for something to pop out and shoot them. David was among them, Brian was taking point, then they stopped as they came to a clearing. "Clearing, twelve." Said one soldier, everyone copied "Seems like a trap." David suggested "No way, we push on, safeties off." Brian ordered, signalling for the team to move into the clearing. They grouped up in the clearing, then someone fired randomly, and continually into the brush. "HOLY SHIT!" Yelled the frightened soldier "SOMETHIN'S IN THE BUSHES WE GOTTA MOVE!". He fired several more bursts into the jungle, screeching like a banshee before David took the gun away from him. "THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" David screamed at him, the man shuddering "YOU JUST WOKE THE ENTIRE FUCKING JUNGLE UP!". "David, give him his weapon, Mark don't have an outburst like that again." Brian ordered before turning around, only to see a large steel bird staring him in the face. Lanius. The marks on the large alien's beak indicated it was an interpreter and translator. Several more appeared out of the brush. "We.... welcome.... you...." The Interpreter groaned in his metallic and alien moan. The troops gathered together, back to back, gathered and looked about the jungle, ignoring the winds moving toward the creatures that was taking breath from their lungs. "Stalker 2 to stalker 3, you seein this?" Brian whispered into his radio "We copy sergeant, birds in sight" whispered the soldier on the other end of the line. "What... is... this..." The Interpreter groaned hostilely, more shapes were seen moving in the brush. "Stalker 3, watch yourself." Brian ordered into his microphone "Copy" replied Stalker Three. From the jungles a roar of gunfire erupted, Brian opened fire on the Interpreter, killing him instantly, and then the remaining soldiers fired into the jungle. The spikey alien birds retreated into the jungle, defeated but not demoralized. "Stalker Actual this is Stalker unit, we just got jumped by Lanius, you copy Briggs?" David yelled into his radio, kicking the metallic corpse of one of the aliens. "Copy, regroup in the clearing northeast of your position, we're seeing something." Briggs replied professionally. Gunfire cut him off, almost appropriately timed to spook the squads of soldiers gathering around in the clearing. "David turn that off, now" Brian commanded, pointing at his soldier. "Now what sir?" Asked a second soldier, who's name is lost to history "We're fucked aren't we?". Brian stared into the jungle, the soldier repeated his question. "Sir?" Inquired a third soldier, echoed by several others as Brian continually stared into the dark jungle. "Uh, uh, w-what?" Brian replied, stunned at the sudden bombardment of inquiries. Brian remained silent for a moment, thinking and plotting. "We push on" He concluded "Can't be too far, let's go.". They trudged on. Through the brush, the trees, the endless darkness and shapeless figures. It took several hours, hours they failed to count as the walking blended together in their heads, before they reached gunfire. It stood in a clearing, the ship they were hunting, large and broken. Jutting from the ground. Turrets mangled, leaking smoke and occasionally gunfire ricocheted off with a spark. The soldiers moved up to the edge of the clearing, permitting them a view of Briggs and company firing from the brush into the faces of Lanius attackers. With a nod and a grunt Brian signaled his team to mobilize into the clearing, up to a door on the far left side of the ship. Their only entryway. "We're moving to the ship, watch your fire!" Briggs shouted as his team moved up (Phoenix notably absent), running and shooting toward the far right side of the relay vessel.

David pried the door open with his knife "Ladies first everyone" he uttered, snickering slightly as his compatriots crouched under his blade and arm and moved into the dark hallways of the ship. "Dark" is a bit much, they were lit with dim blue emergency lights, providing a creepy haze of just visible-ness that made the situation all the more terrifying. The squads crammed themselves into the narrow hallway, a giant hunk of men of that behaved almost like a gelatin goo monster but with more "This is totally awkward" looks passed about. They pushed forward, spreading throughout various terminals inside rooms, weapons raised at all times before they finally regrouped in front of a service elevator. Five soldiers in the main room, 3 in the hallway behind, 2 covering the rear. "What now oh fearless leader?" Asked an operator "We regroup in the mainframe hall and- what the fuck was that?" Brian replied before turning to face the service elevator. From the vents, other halls, maintenance tunnels and even the walls, Lanius emerged. The soldiers in the rear were quickly picked off by a singular skilled scavenger who decapitated one and slit the throat of another. The 3 in the hallway were pulled into the vents and walls and slaughtered in their own gruesome ways. And, in the confusing, 2 of the soldiers in the main room by the elevator were killed. David, a nameless soldier and Brian were all that remained, staring at the blood that surrounded them as the various targets fled into the crevices they came from, their weapons still smoking. "What. The. Hell." David uttered, staring at the remnants of the chaotic scene, blood from one of the soldiers splattered over his body armor, shell casings at his feet and the smell of smoke in his nose. Everyone remained silent, the sound of dripping blood and distant echoes of gunfire were all that could be heard if one were inside the ship. Not a word spoken. No commands issued. Nothing. Absolute silence aside from those specific sounds, so repetitive as to become essentially meaningless to each individual trooper. With a simplistic nod and a few hand gestures taken straight from muscle memory, Brian ordered his remaining team to open the locked shut elevator doors that would permit them to continue pressing onward. Cold silence and empty stares amidst the soldiers as David pried the door open with brute force, and they were in. The distant gunfire was muffled as the door locked shut once again as it did for gods know how long. The careful, mechanical and steady hum of the elevator revving upwards was muffled by the groans and angered yelps of Lanius in their own foreign tongue. The soldiers looked about, taking deep breaths into the now hollow atmosphere. They put on respirators. Twenty minutes of atmosphere should be enough to sustain them until they could reach the damnable relay housing room. And then they could haul collective ass out of the ship and into the clean air and preferably home. In any case, they proceeded forward. A "tactical hustle" more than fitting their alert and prepared run as they moved and ducked through hallways. They finally, finally reached the room. A beautiful 10 minutes of O2 remaining in their respirators. "David, open the door" Brian ordered. "What? No way! Some giant fucking bird monster will eat me.", Brian groaned "Just open the fucking door.". David opened the door as ordered, keeping watch for any giant bird monsters with a hunger for his flesh. Inside was a blue cylinder, cooled by the temperature of the room and glowing neon blue as it's internal ring rotated inside the upper casing. David removed the two pieces slowly, handing the crucial log drive off to Brian and keeping the less than useful logic disc on his back. Nothing except exact transmission locations lost if he loses the disc, information lost if Brian bit it. It killed him inside but he would have to keep Brian alive, at least for the time being. No more rivalries, people depending on them. "I'll take point" He uttered, checking his magazine to ensure there was ammo. And then proceeding to open the door. Amidst the sounds of breathing with the respirators, there was a haunting beauty. Now with a chance to enjoy the scenery, David look around. Years old casings, blood dried black with age, bullet holes where internal hull insulation used to be, fixtures and broken sheets of metal from the gunfire about. The effects were not to be exaggerated, high caliber rounds intended to rip and tear through armor and flesh tore through certain parts of the hull, the large casings could attest to that. David pondered how the crew had died, and where their corpses had gone. If they were hanging skeletons in the vent, mummified and long forgotten, or if they survived and left the ship. Living their lives waiting for rescue that may never come. Maybe they were still here, fighting for control of segments of the ship day and night. Rationing food and fighting back the hostile creatures that took over the ship in hope of one day signaling for rescue. These thoughts faded, back to the present, back to work. He ran for the service elevator, and clicked the button awaiting for it to open.
In a high pitched flash, the door exploded. The elevator's mini-generator went critical, and a minor explosion sent David flying backwards, his headgear (barring respirator fortunately) tattered and sent off his head. Shrapnel cutting into him, he was barely able to move. "Fuck David's down!" Said the soldier who's name is unfortunately lost to history. "We have to leave him, let's go, out the service exit!" Brian responded, eagerly, before grabbing a clip of ammo off David's stationary body and running for the exit. David blacked out, when he awoke Briggs was grabbing him by the front of his shirt that was under his armor, they barely left the ship until burst into flames, and the shock-wave knocked them both to the ground. They scuttled the ship, everyone was gathered not far from the wreckage in the clearing, Anna holding him down and trying to tend to his wounds, Brian passing on the data to another soldier and Briggs radioing in the successful retrieval. Dave looked up "... What the hell happened?" He asked "Nothing, you're okay. Bit roughed up but you'll live" Anna replied, holding him down. "Sentinel this is Stalker, got data, heading home." Briggs said into his radio "Stalker this is Sentinel we read ya, dock's ready head home when you feel like it" the radio operator on the other end replied. Griffin picked the immobile David off the ground and followed with the rest of the soldiers. Mission accomplished. They reached the beach, faster this time, without incident... of course until they reached the beach itself. Phoenix was lying where he was, holding his rifle which smoked as if it had been fired. Two Lanius laid dead near him, along with 2 bottles of painkillers, 3 empty adrenaline syringes, a variety of combat syringes, some obvious Zoltan blood trickling from his nose and a variety of stuff getting progressively more and more exotic. Nearby four of the metal cases that held his cigarettes lied, the remnants all over the place. "Heeeey, look who's back!" Phoenix groaned cheerfully, before going on a rambling rant about the philosophical implications of butterflies and weasels, Briggs interrupted this rant "Productive as ever Phoenix" before grabbing him and bringing him back to the shuttle. Under two hours later, they finally reached the Sentinel and Phoenix's hearty drug trip ended to his own discontent. He sat in his Admiral's chair (despite being quite above the rank) and boringly tapped the pilot in his shoulder, and they began the long trip home.

They were finally back in orbit around their newest homeworld several hours later, Phoenix spent more time then healthy sitting in his chair awaiting Varius to state how the drive was decrypted and they could proceed. People stared, he did not move and barely blinked, short of Anna taking him by the shoulders and pulling him back onto his chair he refused to budge willingly. Finally, after many more hours of waiting, Varius' comm channel appeared on the holographic representation. Finally! "Sire we have finished unlocking the information within the drive, and it is revealed that our traitor did make contact with the Council. Our next step should be to interrogate them for further information as to who our traitor might be". Phoenix sighed, his team appeared behind him. "Doing that might be trouble, the PDF is keeping shit on lockdown" Burden noted "... This could mean a civil war". Phoenix nodded sadly, and then stood. "Worth the risk, if it's hostile you kill it." He said, walking past his team and into the armory. They followed him and gathered at the door as he picked out weapons of choice "We can't just shoot our way in, barge into the Council's chambers and just pray nobody cares... right?" Anna asked, looking about at her friends. "We don't have a choice" Phoenix replied "Briggs I want your team up and ready for fire support, Spyglass I want secondary teams and backup ready in case this escalates. The PDF will be forced into submission if that's what it takes.". They proceeded to grab weapons and headed into the Raven, set and prepped for what was about to happen. "We're gonna drop you off in front of the chamber steps, from there you'll have to fight your way up. We'll be on standby to extract." The pilot said as they approached the landing zone. They leaped out of the small ship and and readied themselves. With nods and the clicks of rifles loading, they moved up. Two PDF guards stood at the steps, ready and able "Sir, you'll need to kindly piss off" said one. Phoenix pressed on, the guards followed him. "Sir, you can't go up there", they raised weapons. "Stop. Now." they ordered. Phoenix pulled out his sidearm and shot the one on his left, Anna proceeded to shoot the second one in the back of the head, looking away as she pulled the trigger. Time to go loud. They pulled out rifles and stormed up the steps, shooting at several more PDF soldiers who appeared from the decorative pillars on the sides of the massive stairs. Phoenix provided cover fire as they moved from column to column, cover to cover, until near one of the flat structural areas, four or five vehicles had gathered. Along with some soldiers using deploy-able cover nearby. They fired on the team who promptly ducked behind the columns and got as low as possible. "Raven team we need a strike on the targets north of us, see em?" Briggs asked into his commlink "Yessir, firing." said one of the operatives on Raven team, who was stationed nearby with mortars and fast moving vehicles as backup. The mortars fired various shells, high explosive, fragmentation and incendiary. Deciding high explosive would be best, they fired the shells. Several seconds later, they landed near the transports with mounted MGs and detonated, sending many of them flying along with other soldiers. The team pressed on.
There were small patches of fire, burning soldiers, a few trapped inside burning wreckage or under dead wreckage, the people inside several vehicles were turned to sorry, bloody, messes. Some soldiers were without limbs, set alight by the stream of gasoline from the Jerry cans on the sides of the transports. "This... this was too much" Burden said, looking at the remains and bloody corpses, one was sitting with his guts hanging out, shrapnel inside his jaw, he looked up at Phoenix and then died. Phoenix growled and continued. Paying little attention to the remnants of a protective platoon behind him. They readied at the door to the chamber. Phoenix loaded his rifle, Anna readied her pistol, Griffin reached for his machine gun, Burden prepared his shotgun, Briggs trained his rifle on the door in case there was a few soldiers ready to surprise them. "We good?" Phoenix asked, his voice low and stoic, professional and calm despite the repercussions of what they were about to do. They burst straight into the chambers, the councilmen surprised at their intrusions. "What are you doing here, commander?" Asked one. "Who is the traitor who visited you What's his name?" Phoenix demanded, raising his weapon. "Traitor?" Asked another "We know nothing of this traitor, take your military affairs to high command and stop assaulting us please". Phoenix shot the councilman in the chest with his pistol. "WHO?!". He coughed "We... do not... know" Phoenix grabbed the councilman by his throat and put him on the end of his pistol's barrel. "Who visited you?". The councilman grunted and coughed "Captain Harper... Briggs, the Tyker Varius, the PDF General Zeke, Derrickson, Griffin, Burden and the Federation commander, Sinvet." and then the councilman bled out and died. Phoenix studied this new revelation in his mind. That narrowed it down... slightly. Briggs was ruled out already because of the recordings, Anna didn't go to the council so it ruled her out, that left Griffin, Derrickson, Harper and Zeke. Zeke wasn't aboard the Sentinel usually, so it ruled him out too. "WE'VE GOT COMPANY!" Briggs ordered, looking out the door. Right, no time to ponder, time to leave. The Raven hovered above the summit of the steps while a large PDF response force fired on them, lasers, plasma and bullets impacting around them. Anna, Burden and Briggs boarded the vessel before a rocket impacted the cockpit, sending it spiraling briefly before it flew off. "LZ IS HOT! REPEAT! THE LZ IS HOT!" Yelled the pilot as he flew off. "I'll try to make another round in ten, you're on your own until then.". Griffin and Phoenix ducked behind pillars, taking shots at any runners who attempted to climb the large set of stairs. "THEY GOT US OUTNUMBERED AND OUTGUNNED!" Phoenix yelled amidst the gunfire "THE POOR BASTARDS!" Griffin replied, smiling as he shot down another runner. He checked his clip and reloaded, while Phoenix fired to compensate. Such tactics were elementary, taught by most but still the hardest to adapt to. Following an order of yelling "Topping off!" then allowing your partner to fire until he needed to reload, then firing to compensate. The never ending stream of bullets down on the squadrons of attacking PDF troopers. "Hold tight I'm reloading!" Griffin shouted, picking out a new box of laser shells for him to fire. Phoenix exited cover "Roger, compensating".

There was a loud pang of a sniper shot.

Griffin looked up, and Phoenix was on the ground, bleeding from his throat. And within seconds there was no doubt.

Phoenix was dead.
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING
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DarkPhoenix141
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Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Thu Jul 30, 2015 7:11 am

Chapter 3: Darkest Heart

Griffin rushed from his piece of cover, amidst the nigh literal hail of gunfire. Small pieces of dust and remnants of concrete flew from the locations of shots that hit close to their mark. Tearing away at the side columns and even the steps themselves. He paused mid-strafe and fired on the closer assault troopers that made their way up the steps. "Phoenix!" He yelled, grabbing the injured man by the collar of his shirt. The wound now much more visible, a large hole in Phoenix's throat. One could probably stuff their entire fist into the large injury if they pleased. The exit wound much smaller, relative to the size of one's ring finger where the sniper's round exited. Blood flooded from the wound and down his shirt, from the exit wound a much smaller trickle. Griffin stared into the maw of blood, and could see something faintly, something glinting in the sunlight. A piece of lead. The bullet fragmented in his throat. The body itself was limp, barely clutching his rifle anymore, eyes open and rolled back, pupils barely visible, and dark red blood still in his mouth. Griffin touched Phoenix's chest, no heartbeat. He touched the remains of his throat, no pulse. He stared at his stomach, not breathing. "Phoenix! Talk to me!" Griffin shouted, shaking the corpse. Wits returned to him "Briggs!" he yelled into his radio "We have a problem, I need you back here FAST!". Griffin grabbed his own weapon and rushed back to cover. Waiting. Gunfire landing around him. Before long the Raven returned, the trademark PLUP of a handheld Artemis Launcher being fired. "Raven here, comin' to solve you're-" He was cut off by an explosion next to the cockpit, the rocket hit it's mark. There was an audible scream from the pilot as the side of the helm was set alight, and it flew in a downward arc over Griffin. To no one's surprise, the team jumped out. Ropes flowing from the cargo hold an indication of their methods. "We're here, need a sit-rep" Briggs said professionally, pulling out his rifle and noting the bloodied body of Phoenix (Probably an injury, right?) nearby. The team began firing, killing no less then five of the assaulting PDF troopers. Another sniper shot, this one missed it's mark. Griffin grunted "We need some backup 'ere, Briggs, fast!", a shot landed close. The sniper wasn't giving up. "On it!" Briggs replied "Raven Unit this is Raven Actual, your presence would be appreciated.". "Roger dodger, reinforcements inbound." Said the radio operator on the other end.

Vahnisk was a sniper. Assigned to the PDF. A dead-eye, humble, intelligent rookie that knew exactly what he had to do when he had to do it. He was ordered, today, to fire on his superior officers. Not just his superior officers, but his rulers. A person, and his command team, intended to lead the people. In a time where they NEEDED leading. He had his doubts, and contemplated disobeying and refusing to fire. But he was loyal, and knew that if his leaders turned on his people more lives were at stake. The council lead the people more then Commander (Emperor seemed more fitting but wasn't his title) Phoenix ever tried. So he loaded a his rifle, readied the small piece of chalk he used to count kills. Mostly looters, plague ridden souls violating the quarantine and the occasional unlucky scout or fleeing prisoner. "Should I?" Was the first thought that passed his mind. Followed quickly by "Can I?", no doubt the internal conflict did nothing to his physical concentration. Quickly placing a two sets of clips, one with standard hollow points and another with explosive plasma shells, on the edge of the building. He stabilized his rifle, aimed down the scope intently, and pulled back the hammer revealing the small slot where he should load the bullet if he so desired. He placed a hollow point in the slot, and pushed the hammer back into place before quickly clicking the safety off. He aimed down the scope at the hooded figure on the left which fired down at his comrades in the street. And squeezed. The figure fell back, a non-visible hole in it's neck. Down. "Sir, Private Vahnisk Reporting, target terminated, can you identify?" He reported into the radio which fed a line directly to General Zeke. "Outstanding! Spotters confirm, Commander Phoenix was just killed by a lucky shot. That's a uh, mighty big coincidence." The General responded, following it up with a hearty, jolly laugh "I'm just kiddin' ya, good job son fall back for debrief.". Vahnisk gathered his equipment, not before firing another shot of course, and left the building. Mission accomplished, specifics were of no import to him. End results not his concern. He was a soldier, after all.
Just a soldier.
Just a soldier...
Just. A. Soldier...

In 4 vehicles, coming from the left and the right, the reinforcements arrived. Storming in vehicles built for fast, strafing attacks. The larger PDF transports detonated from rocket fire. The remaining hostiles quickly picked off by Raven team and the exo-suited accompanying force. The battle was over. But the war was not. No, the war was just beginning.
This was not on their mind. They gathered around Phoenix's corpse. No words spoken, nothing. Absolute silence. Anna felt something, emotions that transcended anger, fear, sadness, or whatever else. She stared at his bloodied body, pangs of headaches occasionally passing and going. He was dead... he was really dead. Oddly enough (A fit of insanity and cognitive dissonance?), she still felt a... presence. Like he was still around, somewhere. She peaked around, looking. Then her gaze returned to the corpse. No tears, no begging for him to wake up, nothing expected of her in this situation. Her feelings went far, far beyond sadness, they transformed into malice, anger and malevolence. She morphed from hauntingly quiet yet obviously disturbed to visibly angry. Briggs placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her away from the body. A look in his eyes said "Calm down" where his mouth needed to retain leadership and stoicism. "We need to go." He uttered "We'll come back for the body.". He pulled her away as she kept on staring at the corpse. Nobody followed them, looks of betrayal shared among the remaining team. Adrian let out a low, quiet grunt and followed. Griffin muttered a curse about Briggs in his native tongue and followed, Burden's eyes narrowed and he spoke a prayer before he followed as well. Though nobody knew it, not even Anna herself, a tear ran down her face and dropped on the concrete. She was visibly shaking. Quivering in her breath, her hands unable to keep a pistol steady, rocking in place when she sat in the seat of the one empty truck brought along for extraction. "Where to?" Asked Burden as he took the wheel "... Wherever." Anna spoke up softly, a creeping sense of calm in her voice. Even though her breath was audibly shaking. Briggs wrapped an arm around her and tugged her close to him, whispering "It's okay, you're okay" over and over, drawing a dirty look from Adrian and Griffin. He shrugged and kept whispering to her as the vehicle bounced over rubble. All out war, gunfire in the distance, rubble, destroyed buildings... civilian casualties. Anna seemed to forget about all of that, just allowing herself to be held by Briggs for once. Her breathing calmed as they passed a library detailing ancient history. "You okay now?" Briggs asked keeping his voice low and steady "Y-yeah" Anna stuttered, regaining her confidence, "I'm okay.". Briggs resisted the temptation to kiss her, for two reasons: one, kissing her would be in bad taste with Phoenix being dead, two, a gunshot pinged off the hood of their vehicle. The smallest bit of shrapnel launched off the hood hitting Adrian and piercing the shoulder. The swerved to dodge the wall of gunfire, turning the vehicle over onto it's side. Hostilities were open now, time to lock and load. The team fell from the vehicle (As the vehicle itself crashed into a building) in the chaos of the ambush. "Shit! Get down!" Adrian yelled, picking Briggs from the ground and moving him close to sideways car blocking the doorway, where the rest of the team resided. Briggs grunted and touched his head, a small drop of blood on his glove, more so trickling down his cheek. Head injuries never killed anyone right? Right. He moved closer to his teammates. "Status?" He asked "Status is fucked sir." Griffin replied "We can't move up without getting slaughtered, reinforcements are getting fucked over there, bloody car blocked our only way into the building.". Adrian thought, then he shoved against the truck. Nothing, not going anywhere, it was definitely stuck. He thought once more, then settled on a plan "We can climb up into the windows, time it right and they won't hear shit." he said. Briggs nodded and stood back, then promptly ran forward and leaped up far enough to grab the window. He chuckled to himself at how amazing he felt right then, before hoisting himself into the building. He checked the clip on his rifle, 32 bullets, nice. Then proceeded to move up and take a left up the stairs, hearing the gunfire from the ambushing getting increasingly louder. He took a left, into another empty room, and then slowly moved up to the next doorway. He took a left, 5 soldiers caught his eye. With the quickest of bursts, down went one, before the others could react he fired another short burst into two more troopers. Shocked, the survivors scattered, one met with an end at the hands of continued fire from the intruder's rifle, the other stabbed as he lunged at the attacker. Boom, done, homeward bound. He leaped out the window and (somewhat safely) onto the ground, the 2 vehicles worth of soldiers left their cover to greet him. They were hiding using the armor of their vehicles and lying down in a very small embankment made of concrete. Minor deformity. "Where's the thir-" Briggs started before he was interrupted by the sounds of sizzling... flesh? He looked to the left and saw a vehicle, troops still inside, burning. Mouths agape, some attempting to flee the wreckage in their final moments, dog tags melded to their necks, metal sidearms melted, plasma batteries on fallback pistols detonated in their holsters leaving massive holes in legs and hips where they were mounted. Horrifying sight, but he needed to stay focused. As he gathered the men, the front half of the driver's body (A young one, no older then 20) fell on the ground sideways. Ash flying where it landed before settling on and around the body. People stared, everyone did at it. It was hard not to. Morbid curiosity was the breeding ground for blind, merciless fury. A fact of life in soldiering, both in the Federation and in the UPF. Vengeance clouds the mind, time to keep moving. "We need to leave." Briggs said stoically, signalling for his team to move up and follow him with his left hand. The soldiers somberly nodded, and pressed on, following him.

Meanwhile, farther away, David and several platoons of UPF soldiers (Along with their more elite assault special forces) were encircled. Taking cover in the middle of two road blocks and a building with a whole brigade of PDF forces attacking from both directions. Spec Ops forces were supposed to scare the remaining PDF forces out, permitting the Command Team enough time to extract. Nothing ever goes according to plan though. The spec ops forces were a no-show, and there were more PDF brigades within the designated area of operations. 10 or so 5000 men brigades, and more on the way. Gunfire landed around David as he activated the Surface to Orbit Commlink, created for situations like this. "Delta 2-3 to Overlord, where the hell is the new extraction point?!" He screamed into the radio. "Overlord to all ground units, new extraction points go as follows: Hollow District Park, Auburn Medical Hospital, Blackfoot Asylum, Perseus Incident Memorial and the roof of the New Prime Museum. Proceed there with all due haste the first round of evac dropships will be leaving in 10 minutes, acknowledge?" Replied the mission overseer on the other end of the communications line. Then the line was cut, shit. "How close are we to the Perseus Incident Memorial?" David asked the nearest soldier, who was crouching behind the roadblock as makeshift cover. He paused for a moment then replied "Half a mile, through the enemy reinforcements though!". David sighed, then signaled for the platoons to follow him. It would a gambit. But they could make it to the alleyway near the end of the street in front of him, hopefully not get shot from behind or from the troops moving up from that position. They would likely get torn to pieces, but they were running out of options with the second. "Fire and maneuver, cover us." David said as he walked up and tapped the shoulders of 6 or so soldiers "Everyone else, cover us! We're moving for the busted APC! Watch yourselves people!". He gathered his makeshift squad on the left, ignoring the many shots that landed around him "On 3, we move for the busted APC! Don't fire, just run, fast as you fucking can." he ordered before shouting "THREE!". They charged from their cover, running as fast as their legs would allow. The shocked looks on the straggler soldiers firing on them was enough for David to know, it was working. Just keep running, just keep running, just keep running, don't stop moving, stop and you're dead. He plopped against the wall the oddly colored metal hull of the APC. What was the stringing sensation in his leg? He looked down, he was bleeding. Ah well, if you can walk it doesn't matter. "Men!" He shouted amidst clenched teeth and a rain of hot steel "Covering fire!".

Anna was lagging behind, a headache slowed her down. Her knees wobbled, her arms shook, she was constantly out of breath, quivered with each inhalation and unable to run due to a pain in her stomach. Thoughts in her mind perplexed her, visions, hallucinations, apparitions, voices. Things she couldn't understand. Briggs stayed behind her, placing a firm hand on her shoulder and occasionally nudging her forward so she could keep up with the pack. "Keep moving" He'd say, and she'd stumble forward a couple steps while holding the side of her head. Something was wrong, something was happening. As they moved on the sidewalk, she looked to her right and into a small alleyway. It fed off into small square open area separating several buildings, and in the center of it was a fenced off tree. Green, slick, grass surrounded a small circle of gravel with fed around it's apparently burned trunk. Orange-red leaves shook and quivered with the wind none of them fell or left. Ash was falling around the square fence, deliberately and for seemingly no reason at all, padding like soft snow or dust. She stared at it for a moment until Briggs came over "What do you see?". The headaches stopped briefly. "It's Harper" She said "He did it, all of it" and she dropped her pistol then fell to the ground. Briggs stood confused, "What?" he uttered "What do you mean?". The wind turned, the ash blew over her and Briggs, who was baffled at the sight. He groaned and picked her off the sidewalk "Y-you okay?" he stuttered, still baffled, she was visibly trembling now. "Harper..." She started "Talk to him... now", she felt herself about to vomit, sore and sick. Briggs sat her down against a wall as ash, some black some grey, violently flushed out of the alleyway. He sat next to her and pulled her onto his chest, blocking the sight from view. "Harper, it's Briggs, talk to use you said you'd be here." He said into the radio, there was a bit of static and some indecipherable speaking before he replied "Y-y-yeah? Go ahead, Briggs.". Anna suddenly calmed and looked up at the radio, listening intently, "Where are you?" Briggs asked. There was no reply, his voice was elsewhere, static and a voice could be heard lightly in the background, Briggs cut the line and sighed angrily. "We need to go" He stated, picking her off the ground and handing her the pistol she dropped, she nodded and followed at a normal speed. "She seems to be doing better..." Briggs thought to himself as he followed, staying behind everyone else to cover their back. They pressed on, moving across the road into the alleyway. And then a shot ran out. Burden collapsed on the ground "SHIT!" someone yelled "SNIPER!". Everyone ducked behind cover, Burden, Griffin and Adrian on the other side of the road in the alleyway, Anna and Briggs on the side where they were before. Another shot, this time against the concrete of the building Briggs used as cover, he inched toward the edge of his cover, Anna close beside him. "HE'S AT THE END OF THE ROAD, THE DATA CENTER, FOURTH FLOOR!" Burden cried out as a third shot impacted the road near the alleyway causing Adrian to curse and duck. The ground shook briefly "The hell is that?" Griffin asked out loud as some loose rubble fell from the tops of the buildings, obviously disturbed by the shaking. A tank. A gods-damn tank. Armored, two barrels, obviously using plasma shells, twelve men as a support squad. The tank fired, a large plasma shell flew threw the road, and exploded on the buildings at the end of the road, sending rubble flying at least 20 feet. The smaller MGs aboard the tank and rifles held by accompanying soldiers opened fire, endless steel impacted the edges of the buildings the split up group used as cover. Adrian blindly fired around the corner, Burden and Griffin accompanying him in suppressing fire, the soldiers fell back into whatever cover they could find in the empty street. Anna growled to herself, and looked at her pistol, she couldn't just sit around while this happened could she? Briggs shook her "We need to get the fuck outta here!" he yelled as the tank fired again, this time hitting the side of the building, sending more rubble around. Anna took a deep breath, anger visible in her eyes and Briggs using one hand to hold her back and against the wall. She pushed him off and ran out of cover, the soldiers nearby too shocked to care, one unlucky soul shot in the side of the throat as Anna ran up the front of the tank. Surprised, the soldiers failed to notice Briggs picking many of them off which left the survivors to book it and run away. Anna, now on top of the turret, shot the crew member who heard the commotion and pulled a grenade off her belt. She took a second deep breath, and tossed it down into the tank from the upper hatch, then she ran off the back. It detonated behind her, first the grenade itself, then the fuel, then the standard ammo, then the plasma shells. The crew inside basically liquefied, pieces of metal curved and bent and malformed, part of one of the barrels hanging off and the entire wreckage on fire. Anna was on her back, the explosion launched her and SHOULD have killed her. She landed square on her neck, upside down, back hunched in a way backs should not be hunched until she allowed herself to fall onto her back. "Hooooly shit." Griffin chirped "Who the hell did that?". Anna meekly raised her hand, a few of the team stood more than dumbfounded, Briggs included. She rolled over and got up, her headaches returning all of a sudden. "We need to keep moving, let's go, where this tank came from there are bound to be more" Briggs said stoically "We can take a shortcut through the data center, maybe get that damn sniper". They ran straight down the street and stacked up on the wall "Adrian, Burden, take point will ya?" Briggs ordered, watching as they both groaned in response. He bashed the door in, they ran inside, watching each other's blind spots. Because the last thing you want is a damnable rookie hiding in the corner to fire his pulse weapon on full auto into the backs of your entire team. Clear and clear, nothing to report, nothing to shoot at you. But worst of all, nothing to loot or steal or even eat. The data center was a meek base camp, clearly. Radios, laptops, maps, ammo boxes, even some auto turrets. Hastily planned, set up, constructed and now abandoned, it was clear the PDF were expecting a full blown civil war. "Anna, guard the front door, everyone else look around" Briggs commanded, gesturing and pointing. Anna walked outside, and looked to her right, the red leaves from earlier were blowing out from the alleyway, she walked over. No tree this time, just empty alleyway, she leaned against one side of the alleyway and sighed. What did all this mean? What could it possibly mean? She looked startled as Briggs came over, weapon on his back and hood and bandanna lowered "Hey" he uttered, vaguely sheepish. He leaned against the other side of the alley, Anna stood and moved closer to him "... Sorry about Phoenix" Briggs continued. "He was nice... and he loved you. Make no mistake." He said "Y'know... I'm sure you'll find someone else... not someone as good but... someone." Anna merely sneered in response, and leaned back. Briggs took a deep breath, and looked away for a moment, foot tapping the ground to the tune of a song unknown. He lunged forward, and kissed her, pushing her back against the wall. She was confused, her left hand bounding the corner trying to stay upright and her right hand pushing gently on his chest, he stopped. Anna snickered for a moment and then uttered "No.", a smile on her face and her hand still pushing on his chest. Briggs sighed and gave her his sad eyes "Maybe?", she giggled in response "... Maybe, later, but not right now. Still grieving.", Briggs danced a jig in his mind to celebrate victory. Now he just needed to not die, at least for the next few hours. Phoenix's death was tragic, very tragic, but something good of note may come of it. He remembered Anna's statement earlier and checked comms "Harper it's Briggs, respond we are en route to your position" he said into his wrist communicator, nothing but static. Harper wasn't far, not far at all. "Get everyone, he's just up the road, in the storage building up ahead" He said to Anna, making an excuse to stare at her. She noted this, giggled, and went back inside, Briggs waited.

David and his team ran, ran like their lives depended on it (Because they did depend on it), they were running to the alleyway, fire coming from all directions. The Sentinel arrived in atmosphere, signalling air-support covered evacuations were about to begin. After 3 minutes of watching people drop dead, vehicles explode and chaos escalate rapidly around him, he finally got into the alleyway. 30 or so men crammed into the area and they were easy bait for any lucky goof with a grenade and common sense, but who cares? He was alive, for now at least, and that means planning his next move. That was fairly simple, to the left was the open area they just abandoned with at least 15,000 PDF troopers waiting to saw them all in half with bullets and lasers. To the right, something that WASN'T that. He headed right, signalling for the team to follow him. The alleyway fed off into another road, an empty road, he headed forward, down another alleyway, and into a... less empty road. A road with many corpses, a burning tank and a variety of other things. Down the road, a data center, and at the front of the tank several craters where it clearly fired and impacted. Hot, liquefied remains below where the turret should be. A boiling, bloody, pot of guts, skin, muscles and uniforms which occasionally bubbled and moaned as if someone was alive inside. Soldiers vomited at the sight "This... this was too much" David uttered, as a malformed teddy bear rose to the surface of the burning hot blood pool. David hopped down from the burning tank, and nearly threw up himself. Who the hell would do that? Enemies or not, they were brethren. He concluded that the people who did this weren't soldiers, at least on their side. The higher ups never really cared for the cannon fodder on the bottom, brethren or not. On the ground, near the tank, was a fallen PDF soldier. David stared at the corpse, it was Evan from earlier. "H-holy... mother of gods... spare us all..." He stuttered under his breath, staring at the bloodied corpse of his friend.
"Gods save us all"

Briggs and the team pressed on, moving closer to Harper's location "Harper, it's Briggs, respond. The Sentinel shouldn't be in atmosphere right now." Briggs said into his wrist "Harper respond". They moved closer, he was hiding in an alleyway. They spotted him at last, crouched, staring into a green communicator projecting an image of Leon. "The Sentinel is in atmosphere, everything according to plan" Harper said "No, not at all, I've received word on the ground that Phoenix is dead." Leon replied, causing Harper to groan in response "Do they know where your true loyalty lies?". "Negative sir, the corruption within the UPF will come to an end. One way or another, Phoenix was collateral damage. Apologies." Harper uttered proudly, whispering among distant gunfire and explosions. Anna's loud growls alerted him to the team's presence, all 20 people. "COLLATERAL?!" She growled, the look alone able to kill. Harper stuttered, trying to explain. Before he quickly gave that up and ran, only to be shot in the kneecap by Anna's pistol. The remaining soldiers lowering their weapons and staring. She shot him again "'COLLATERAL. DAMAGE.'" Anna growled again, before shooting him once more as he begged. "P-PLEASE! DON'T! I have intel! I can tell you what Leon's planning! I can tell you everything!" Harper begged, hands raised to block any blows she may toss at him. Anna bashed him over the head with her pistol "Hey... maybe we should hear him out." Briggs speculated, putting a hand on Anna's shoulder and pulling her off of Harper. She growled and took a knife of his belt. "N-NO PLEASE.. DON'T!" Harper pleaded as he attempted to crawl away, but it was of no use, Anna stabbed him through the bottom of his jaw, the tip of the knife breaching the top of his skull. Harper was dead, the traitor was dead.

But there was still a civil war to fight.
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING
agigabyte
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Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby agigabyte » Wed Aug 05, 2015 3:00 pm

Dark as per usual.
User avatar
DarkPhoenix141
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:43 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Thu Aug 06, 2015 2:01 am

agigabyte wrote:Dark as per usual.

My name is relevant!
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING
agigabyte
Posts: 551
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 1:59 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby agigabyte » Thu Aug 06, 2015 1:48 pm

DarkPhoenix141 wrote:
agigabyte wrote:Dark as per usual.

My name is relevant!


You mean Sergeant Burden? Variance? Variant Burden? Any other names you use? (Seriously, you're worse than I am.)
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DarkPhoenix141
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:43 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Thu Aug 06, 2015 6:24 pm

agigabyte wrote:
DarkPhoenix141 wrote:
agigabyte wrote:Dark as per usual.

My name is relevant!


You mean Sergeant Burden? Variance? Variant Burden? Any other names you use? (Seriously, you're worse than I am.)

Don't blow my cover man.
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING
agigabyte
Posts: 551
Joined: Fri May 31, 2013 1:59 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby agigabyte » Thu Aug 06, 2015 7:04 pm

Cover blown.
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DarkPhoenix141
Posts: 261
Joined: Sun Jan 26, 2014 1:43 am

Re: The Phoenix Chronicle Book 4: Shadow Among Shadows

Postby DarkPhoenix141 » Wed Sep 02, 2015 6:25 am

Chapter 4: Civil

Endless, hopeless darkness. A never ending void of blackness and cold. That is all Phoenix could see. He could see nothing, quite literally. The essence of nothing, the feeling of non-existence, yet somehow tethered to a mortal plane and retaining full consciousness. Phoenix felt... floaty, as if he still existed infinitely inside a single particle of matter. He could make sense of his surroundings, or lack thereof, and he could definitely still think. Was he dead? Definitely. He realized that though his body did not exist he could still feel it, receive and decipher information from it and "control" it in the loosest of sense. He could "move" his arm, and feel it float in the endless nothingness, he could talk to himself and he could move his eyes to make sense of the absolute emptiness. He closed his eyes, darkness within darkness, and tried to forget where he was. He'd wake up on the ground, battered and bruised, and it was be just another hallucination or dream. He prayed, he prayed to everything, he "shuddered" in the void, terrified of his fate. Then, he awoke. Lying on the ground, capable of sight. A tree behind him, the square and spiked fence that surrounded the tree and gravel collapsed perfectly. Around the tree were ashes, and the tree itself looked burned, and red leaves flew about... where was he? There was gunfire in the distance, his outfit restored to it's former glory, rifle and sword laid neatly toward the exit to the small area cordoned off. He grabbed his gear and fled. Where the hell was everyone? He turned right once outside and headed off, looking out into the road he saw a battered tank and a data storage center, along with the tank there was about 20 random soldiers, all clearly distressed. "Uh... troopers? Where the hell is everyone?" He asked, briefly forgetting his rank. The soldiers stood bewildered for a moment, all reports said Phoenix was dead, shot in the throat before bleeding out. People saw the body, there was confirmation, no one could recover from that injury. David poked him with the tip of his knife, prompting Phoenix to knock it away "What was that for?" he inquired, before the troopers stood at attention once more. "Sir... we thought you were dead." Said one soldier "Briggs... Briggs saw the body. EVERYONE saw the body!" Phoenix stood confused hearing this, then it returned to him. He died, for a second... it seemed like ages ago.
But it was true, he actually died. As he stood there, pondering his existence in his young age, one feeling returned to him in earnest.
Death feels absolutely divine.

Nobody could pull Anna off the corpse as she furiously kicked it. Bashing the traitor's body in a fit of anger for his transgressions against them, wishing for him to suffer beyond the grave. Briggs stared intently, his feelings for her not enough to cloud his anger "We coulda gotten more outta him!" he yelled "Petty revenge gets us nowhere!". She briefly halted her rage filled assault on the corpse, he was right. But she couldn't care less, he deserved to die, he deserved to suffer and die. Briggs tugged at her shoulder and pulled her off the bloodied corpse "We need to go. Now." he uttered, watching as she stared at the corpse and growled "Get OFF ME" she hissed, squirming in place and struggling to get out of his grip. He shoved her against a concrete wall "WE NEED TO MOVE! NOW! OR WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE!" Briggs yelled, shoving her pistol back into her hands. She blinked and nodded, quickly realizing the urgency of the situation "We need to get to the damn memorial or none of us are gonna make it" Burden said, motioning his head away from the body and toward the memorial. Anna nodded and followed the team forward down the road. A gunship hovered overhead "Command team this is Vulture Squadron, dispatched to provide cover fire for your extraction" said a man over the radio, who was assumed to be in the gunship. A rocket flew from nowhere and detonated on one of the gunship's engines, causing it to crash into the nearby building with a hail of mayday calls across the radio. It was an ambush. Another rocket was fired, this one flying closer to the team and impacting a random building somewhere behind them. "Shit!" Someone yelled among the group as the rocket flew through the pack, everyone ducked and laid on the ground. Another rocket detonated on the ground in front of some of the team, some of the concrete flying and hitting people. "WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?!" Adrian yelled at the top of his lung as he shook bits of concrete off himself "NO IDEA!" Burden replied, laughing slightly as he also shook some concrete off himself. Adrian snickered as well before he looked up and saw Anna, charging forward amidst gunfire from the enemy fire-teams and pistol in hand. A few shots clearly from her pistol, a few responding bursts from rifles interrupted by more pistol shots and then an explosion. "It's clear!" She yelled, in the eerie silence of a defeated ambush and eliminated hostile force. Griffin stood, mouth agape, eyes widened at the sight of the fairly brutalized hostile fireteam, no words to say except "How the bloody hell did you...". She cracked a smile as the smoke from her pistol changed directions, sending with it the smell of steel and gunpowder. 3 corpses, one of which she held in her right hand, were laid about, a 4th could be seen in the distance holding a rocket launcher and a 5th could be seen moaning and writhing on the ground in pain. She took a rifle from the ground "Need the upgrade, y'know?" she said before proceeding to snicker to herself, followed by Griffin and Burden giggling as well. She took a effortless shot at the moaning soldier, hitting her target and causing him to fall back, blood leaking from his mask and helmet "Let's go people, we need to get out of here..." Briggs stated professionally, barely under his breath. Everyone mumbled their agreement and carried on, staring at the bodies. Nothing needed to be done for them, time to keep moving.

Phoenix snapped out of his contemplative haze and looked at the confused group of 20 or so soldiers in front of him "Uh uh... where are we going, who's in charge?" he inquired confusedly. David raised his hand "Corporal Athagear sir, currently in command" and he saluted his superior, Phoenix returned the gesture "Where are we headed, Corporal?" he asked. He pointed to the Perseus Incident Memorial's Skyreach statue which extended beyond the buildings if only slightly. Phoenix nodded and signaled for the group to follow him before breaking off in that general direction, rifle in hand and prepared for a fight. The soldiers muttered about how either they were going crazy or he was crazy, or both, before they followed him begrudgingly. With that, they decided against going through the data center and decided that instead taking a left and heading around those hostile reinforcements might be better. A standard tactic within the UPF was avoid contact where contact was avoidable, with experienced human forces trained for combat outside their home planet being scarce such a tactic became unspoken law. A squad would receive posthumous punishments not for their actions, but for dying in the empire's time of need. It was a slightly longer trip, but it wasn't punctuated by endlessly fighting hostile forces. Only occasionally hiding from PDF gunships, until they reached a blockade. Not far from the memorial now, they stood staring at the blockade "No way of getting around it" David concluded, looking at the destroyed buildings surrounding the blockade. Then, as Phoenix was about to propose a method of getting around the rubble, the ground shook. A whirring of jets rang in their ears, growling and becoming rapidly louder. Behind them was a massive mechanized unit, a machine of pacification and destruction. Automated termination, created for the sole purpose of eliminating enemies of the empire. A massive, robotic, four-legged, weapons platform. The square, brown/tan camouflaged, main hull dwarfed the large street and nearby lines of buildings in itself. The 4 legs of the fortress penetrated several buildings to keep the bot stable. The bot was built for siege warfare, before the UPF was cut down to size all those years ago. During any invasion or purge or anything, they were the main event and the vanguard of any assault. A large laser built in the center to crush anything large, ten mounted Artemis missiles, four large cannons, six burst lasers, twenty machine guns and god knows what else. The center of the beast shifted and allowed the main assault laser to be seen, charging on a focused location. It was not four inches from Phoenix's right leg, and it he sweated it was so hot. Like a single concentrated bold of lightning focused on one spot. There was a loud metallic howl, and the hum of machinery "RUN! INTO THE BUILDING!" someone yelled, very clearly thinking on their feet. The many of them running into a single doorway, except two poor souls. The laser was no longer focus, it's red beam pressed forward as two soldiers attempted to run into the building. The one farther into the road, not scared by the laser, was turned into nothing other than soft, brittle ash and charred bone for the split second it was focused on him. The one closer, who was in the doorway, was set alight despite being barely close to the laser. "BACK UP BACK UP!" Phoenix shouted, standing in front of his troops and walking backward as the poor, burning, soul fell, fried alive. Outside, the laser pierced the roadblock and created scorch marks outside on both buildings, even melting the glass on some of the windows and setting some fires. There was a brief silence, respite, maybe the AI in the bot forgot about them after it's initial attack? Not yet, after five seconds of silence gunfire and the crackle of breaking glass broke any idea of rest and respite there was among the wicked men. Bullets tore through walls, glass, anything inside the small residential buildings. The soldiers needed no orders, and ran up a set of stairs and took a quick right over a makeshift bridge over an alleyway and into another set of buildings. The soldiers lost track of Phoenix as they gathered in a room, terrified of their fate. Phoenix was heading to the roof. He was greeted with a magnificent and equally terrifying sight, a leg of the robotic creature. Mounted with 3 guns in itself, it was capable of wasting them if it didn't crush them underfoot. In the distance, a gunship exploded, it drew his attention juuuuuuuust long enough for one of the turrets to open fire on him. Being the unlucky, plot relevant bastard that he is the bullet clearly hit him in the shoulder. He ducked behind an AC unit as bullets tore through the air (And AC unit, unluckily enough). He realized, that thing is about to move. It's going to crush his men, or worse him! That would be awful, both for his public relations and his wallet (Medical bills are fucking expensive!), so he ran over to the edge. Getting shot, oh so predictably in the leg, he used his robotic hand to plunge a knife into the roof and lower himself down. Allowing him to see the sad, sad faces of his men through one of the many windows. "THAT THING IS GONNA CRUSH YOU! MOVE YOU IDIOTS!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, the soldiers being oblivious bricks merely smiled (Under their headgear) and waved at him, caring little for the gunfire or angry metallic howling behind them. Phoenix sighed and growled, knowing full well this fact. And shot a quick burst through the windows, breaking them and allowing his screaming, disapproving voice to be heard. "THE FOOT OF THAT THING IS GONNA CRUSH YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!" He shouted to his now-deaf compatriots. They booked it out of the building, and Phoenix sighed in relief... until he realized that he was about to be crushed himself. He muttered a prayer, and let go of his knife. Plummeting down into the alleyway and (By a stroke of bad luck) landing on a small barrel fire. Just in time for his soldiers to see him and giggle before assisting him out of the oil barrel. "We need to run, now." David said, a hint of laughter in his voice.

Vahnisk sat outside a tent, amidst yelling and the roar of artillery fire. The PDF command camp, on the edge of town, buzzed with activity. Swarms of soldiers festered around, rushing to buildings, trucks, armored vehicles, radio posts and other things. Vahnisk thought for a moment, greatly confused with all this activity. Why weren't the PDF standing down? Why was this conflict still happening? What was General Zeke planning? A civil war would be a losing proposition, the UPF's orbital forces outclass PDF troops by miles. He sighed, watched as more troops swarmed around him, and walked inside. General Zeke was standing between two men, all of whom stared at a holographic map of the city, and blueprints of the Sentinel. Zeke himself was a short man with short hair, bulky build and a large jaw which wasn't far from a massive burning cigar. The man to his left a plainclothes civilian, the man to his right obviously a mercenary. "Ah, there ya are!" The general said in his rough, low, husky, but pleased voice. "Listen, we have a job for you. Pack your gear and head for the apartment building across the road from the Memorial, details will be given en route." The mercenary said, in his stoic and calm tone, despite the explosions and gunfire outside the tent. Vahnisk nodded and left, contemplating himself. He looked up into the air and saw the massive carrier, the Sentinel. It was drawing massive amounts of firepower, barely denting it's hull. Fighters ejected from it's side, dropships following. Not far from the massive ship was it's accompanying cruiser, the Colossus. It was higher up than the Sentinel, and acted almost like a shield, blocking fire which could kill the carrier against it's shields. UPF ships were always bigger and better, there was no doubt about that. He stormed off, heading to his designated location, as ordered. Just like soldiers do. He received orders via the radio pack on his back. It was simple: Hit the Sentinel's weak point, kill Briggs, destroy the evacuating dropships at the PIM. Then, head straight home, just in time to catch the midday news. Soon he was on the roof of the building, overlooking the Perseus Incident Memorial. Below him he saw combat, the few squads of soldiers encircled by PDF troopers, they hid behind barricades inside the memorial. The memorial itself was a grand sight, marble columns held up a large ornate steel ring that encircled most of the park side of the memorial which lead off into a massive spire at the far end of the half-circle shaped park. That spire was the actual memorial, inside it housed endless artifacts and museum pieces. The Perseus Incident itself was the Engi virus infection that happened all that time ago, and broke the UPF's dedicated superiority in the universe. And in a way, set into motion events that would shape the galaxy as we know it. Vahnisk looked at it all, and then at the bagged rocket launcher left for him, and then up at the Sentinel. So exposed, the Colossus couldn't shield it at this angle. He opened the black bag, inside was a static missile launcher. Computer and mounted system, it would handle most of the work for him. He sighed "... I'm actually doing this. Okay... I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.", Vahnisk programmed the system to hit the reactor shielding system, which would damage the nearby security system. Hopefully it would be enough to pull the Sentinel out of atmosphere for fear of losing the ship entirely. The dedicated PFRF (Planetary First Response Fleet) couldn't face down the orbital battle fleets, not with the Sentinel's air support. He finished up his calculations. The rocket was a modified variant of the Artemis system, it could launch a rocket at calculated locations and use short-range-low-power FTL drives to speed up the trip, designed specifically to pierce hulls and damage the systems underneath. He arched the rocket on his shoulder, facing the massive carrier, and pulled the small trigger. There was a back-blast so powerful it broke pieces of the roof, and the prew of low power FTL drives discharging, and then an explosion. A hit! Vahnisk threw his hands in the air in celebration, only to be shot in the hand by snipers mounted in the Spire. On the ground, bleeding, groaning, and laughing, the radio pinged and the general's voice came through. "Well done boy! Now wait for Briggs and those evac dropships, we ain't lettin em get away!" Zeke said enthusiastically, and then the radio pinged again signifying the channel closing. Vahnisk sighed and removed his hot mask, wiping sweat from his forehead with a bloody gloved hand. Blood from his wound dripping onto his forehead, doing nothing to the sweat. "Oh thank god" He whispered to nobody in particular, then proceeding to free his non-bloody hand from the glove and wipe the fluids off his head manually. Reminding himself to stay down at all times, those snipers were good at what they do. He kept snickering and getting the remaining laughs out of his system, as some more sweat trickled down his light brown hair and onto his forehead, then down onto his lips and into his mouth. Man, he was good at what he did.

Briggs and his team were walking, and listening to those metallic howls in the distance. "There it is again!" Griffin would say, and the entire team would look around, and listen. They kept moving, down the road, closer to the PIM. Closer to the spire, closer to getting off of here and back into a warm bunk. In Briggs' case, it would make him happier if Anna would be willing to share Phoenix's old room with him. He was dreaming at that point though, she was still grieving. And clearly psychic, as soon as he thought "Phoenix's old-" she broke down, she outright collapsed. Shaking her head and dropping tears onto the ground, the sounds of crying and sadness soft and inaudible among distant gunfire and metallic howling. She was mumbling, things about Phoenix, and she touched the ornate gem ring on her right ring finger, the words "SOLDIER FOREVER" engraved on the inside. Briggs reached out his hand to her, but she glared and hissed at him. The entire team looked at him with curious, confused, and even angry looks. "What did you fucking do?!" They seemed to say, Briggs began stuttering over excuses for himself. They just stopped looking at him, dismissively, and Adrian picked Anna off the road. She was a psychologist, a therapist, a comforting person. She could barely do the mercenary work she did for a time, and she certainly couldn't cope with the death of a loved one. She started mumbling again as Briggs laid a hand on the back of her neck "I should have done more to that... FUCK" the word is sudden, sharp, angry, low, distressed. Unlike her in every way, her hands formed fists, one around the grip of her rifle the other trying to choke the air itself. "How bout we just shove her in the direction of the enemy and wait?" Burden joked, only to get a clever punch from Briggs and a displeased look from Griffin. "We're not doing that" Briggs uttered under his breath angrily, growling in Burden's direction as he rubbed his bruise, a confused look on his face. "Jeez man it was just a joke, gods..." Burden replied, trying to avoid a second punch. Quickly, his gaze diverted to Griffin who stared at Briggs with a cocky smile and a look that said "Oh I know now, I know for sure.", and Briggs saw it too. He growled at Griffin, snarling and baring his teeth, shortly before pointing his weapon at Griffin. The barrel of the rifle perched slightly under his chin, touching his neck before he finally spoke up "... you love her don't you?". Briggs bashed him with the stock of his rifle, shortly before Adrian grabbed him and shoved him to the ground and punched him, knocking him out. Griffin merely laughed and coughed, trying to regain his breath and giggle at the new-found truth and drama unfolding in the group. The metallic howl repeated itself once again, followed by some crashing and gunfire this time. Everyone looked up, even Adrian who was busy holding Briggs down, even Anna who was busy plotting how to destroy Harper's spirit. Adrian started a sentence then stopped it, shaking his head and then shaking Briggs. "Damn spider robots..." He uttered under his breath as Briggs got up drunkly. They all looked up, but this time not at the metallic howls, at the spire. They were close, really close. Too close. Then there was an explosion, they all instantly snapped to look at the Sentinel. Nearly giving some members of the team whiplash, the Sentinel had been hit. "Briggs we're at 75% hull integrity from that one shot! We need to get outta here NOW!" Said an operator aboard the Sentinel to Briggs' radio, it was loud enough for everyone to hear. "Negative Sentinel, finish up the next rounds of evacuations then get outta here. We have people here who need to get out." Briggs replied calmly, followed shortly by more screaming and explosions and the operator's voice "It was too close to the reactor! We need to go soon before we lose the whole ship, copy?!". Briggs tuned out the radio, and sighed. He motioned for his team to press on, and kept moving.

Phoenix and his team were still in danger from that damn robot. They only moved away from the problem but it was still very prevalent. "MOVE DOWN THE ALLEYWAY!" David shouted, Phoenix was still shaking ash off his clothing by the time the rest of the team was moving down the alleyway. And unfortunately, he paid for it. The laser of the bot hit the buildings and barred a path, separating the grunts and Phoenix. He stared at the newly formed barrier and sighed "If they were that close, they're dead already. I need to move" he thought to himself, and then he ran to the right. Bullets landing around him, the gunfire so loud that he couldn't hear his on breathing, he kept moving. He took another right and ran down the street, using the next line of buildings as cover. He peered to his left to see the spire... and then he stopped. There was an explosion in the sky, he looked up to see the Sentinel, fire from the detonation raining down on him. "Assholes..." He grunted under his breath as he kept moving, hearing the damn laser from the bot tearing through buildings. It hit the front of the street and right in front of Phoenix, clipping his nose and a bit of his arms and feet. He instantly turned right and dived into a building. Hiding, the fire propelled itself over him, gunfire too. Some bullets hit him, some didn't, some of the fire hit him too. A single explosion inside the shop he used as cover sent debris everywhere, into him, onto him, around him. It was enough to mask the infrared signature from the bot. Which promptly, moved on. He sighed and sat in the cover as he heard the voices of troops heading toward him. "Shiiiiit" He whispered to himself, he adjusted himself so his right, blue, eye could see outside the rubble, staring at the PDF troopers. "Why are we even here..." One uttered boringly, kicking some ash about and checking a few cars "Because Zeke wanted us here, shut up and watch your sector." Replied the squad leader, who pointed at his disobedient mate. Phoenix reached his robot arm around, attempting to find his rifle and pistol or even his sword, but finding nothing. He grunted and growled, but stopped as the PDF stared at his rubble. They stopped, and kept moving about. Checking for hostiles, doing what soldiers on patrol do, nothing special. Finally! His robotic arm, twitching and sparking due to injuries, found his rifle. He maneuvered his arm around to place the rifle barrel just outside the rubble hole, and unloaded a burst. And then another, another, another and one more. He listened... and they were dead. Clear, finally. He pulled himself out of the rubble and sighed again "Fuck everything in particular right now". He was close, just a little further and he'd be home free.

The wall collapsed on David's last soldier, the one trailing behind to make sure Phoenix didn't get abandoned. He sighed and stared at the squashed remains, and listened to the gunfire. Then grunted, "We have to go David!" A soldier yelled as he tugged at David's shoulder. Finally, he went along. The team rushed left through a building "Still heading to the memorial sir?" someone asked "Nope, we're getting outta this city and waiting for evac in the woods." replied a squad leader. They kept moving through the building. It was crowded, the 20 or so men attempting to fit inside a small apartment kitchen, it was prime for a lucky grenade to kill everyone in the room. No matter, someone else kicked out the side door and kept moving. Running through the alleyways, scanning the rooftops, listening for that metallic howling. And then there was an explosion, in the sky, everyone looked up to see the Sentinel, she had been hit by something. Everyone shouted profanity at their luck, David stared in awe at the explosion "We need to get out, this evac isn't gonna happen." he said to everyone, silencing the crowded alleyway in an instant. Everyone stared at him... he was right, they did need to keep moving. If they didn't get out of the city, they were all doomed. He pressed on through narrow passage ways between buildings, leading his men onward. The rest of the walk was uneventful, they kept pushing onward. Thinking, looking around, jumping at shadows. Running faster every time they heard that damnable howling from the spider bot. David pondered why Phoenix was still alive and breathing. What happened? Were they lied to? Was the intel so bad that they didn't know if Phoenix was alive or not? He kept this question in the back of his head as he moved about the mazes of roads, alleyways, back streets, buildings, parks, and such. People used to live here, the ghosts of the families haunted the soldiers' thoughts. Families, their families, tossed about. Evacuated, displaced, shot dead in the streets, killed in the crossfire. Who knows? Nobody, not until years later when all the casualties of this skirmish were accounted for. Be they random insurgents lost in the woods, PDF criminals hiding out or rogue generals plotting their next move. It would take years for them to undo the damage and pacify the forces as a result of this conflict. Finally, they reached a small crawl space in a data archive. "What do you see?" A soldier named Cooper asked David, as he peered through an opening in the massive windows with his binoculars. "Nothing much... looks like an outpost of some kind" David replied, scanning around. A short, stocky, husky man in general's attire walked out to meet a tall blonde figure. "Hey, Cooper can you give me the wireless audio receiver?" David requested, gesturing at his companion who promptly picked out a small device. David placed the microphone on the open slot in the giant window and next to it the computer device. With some quick technical skills he managed to lock onto the short man and the blonde haired figure, and placed the small ear piece in his ear. "Yeah, it's down, you're good to go." Said the short stocky man, the blonde figure laughed in reply. "Our plan is finally in motion" He stated, and they shook hands before the tall figure walked off. "... That's General Zeke... and that was-" Cooper started before Brian interrupted him "-Leon...". They glared angrily before Brian nodded, they were attacking this camp. They were clearing this camp. And then they were getting the hell out of this city. David booked it to the small group of soldiers hiding in the shadows to the left of the massive archive center. His team hiding there too. "Alright Athagear, listen up." Said one of the men, handing him a Magnetic Incendiary Grenade Launcher. "10 of the team are gonna act as a diversion right in front of us, the 5 of us are gonna use this shit to take em out, the other squad is gonna mop up the survivors. Got it?", David nodded and shot him a disapproving look, pawing at the grenade launcher. There was an explosion directly in front of them, followed by gunfire. A yell of "That's our cue!" from someone, and they ran out. David fired his grenade launcher once, hitting the command tent and piercing the thin armor on the roof. Cooper and Brian were part of the mop up squad, they took out a few stragglers. David fired his grenade launcher again, hitting a group of PDF troopers heading to attack the diversion team. He fired it three more times, hitting random buildings, squads and tents. There was a few more bursts of gunfire, and then silence (Aside from the crinkling of fire burning fabric). "Clear?" A soldier asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice as a few men and women shot the surviving hostiles. "Clear." David stoically replied, punctuating and clearly voicing the word. He repeated it in his mind a few more times... Clear.

Briggs and his team made a mistake. They were going straight through the enemy lines at the PIM to get inside the evacuation zone. Sane soldiers went around the back, they were far from sane. Briggs realized this a second too late, they ran through the back of the enemy lines. Transports slinging rocket shells at the troops inside the memorial, soldiers hiding behind makeshift cover and taking potshots. And now they saw Briggs. Taking a lesson from Phoenix's handbook (Lesson Number One: Explosives disorientate, distract, confuse, damage and kill people), Briggs ripped off his grenade belt and tore the pins off, then tossed it. The explosion didn't kill or injure anyone, or not too many people, but it did buy him enough time to run his crew through their lines. Shooting in all directions, they finally made it up the steps. "C'MON! GET IN!" A soldier manning the barricades yelled at the crew as they ran over. They were bloodied, Anna got shot in the collar bone, Briggs was shot multiple times in the chest and shoulder, Burden and Adrian both got shot in the arm, and Griffin got hit twice in the abdomen. But they were alive. "Fuck me... everyone okay?" Briggs asked his team, breathing heavily as he got nods across the board from his team. Albeit a few gasps and groans of pain and cringes of injuries as they double checked. A soldier clearly wasn't buying it "We got four more!" he yelled to his colleagues in the spire. The open marble park was now being used as a place to stock ammo and equipment, all placed closer to the spire. The area closer to the barricade was lined with the dead, patches of fire, maimed and injured soldiers and bullet holes. The middle ground was spotless, barring some muddy footprints. A few medics came over and dragged the team into the spire. Griffin had to be carried on a stretcher, he could barely walk. As Briggs neared the door to the spire, a shot rang out. He was hit in the chest, deafened by the noise of it hitting him, he didn't notice that the medic carrying him also collapsed. Briggs would live, the medic wouldn't. Another ran to grab him, shouting "SNIPER SNIPER GET INSIDE GET INSIDE!!" at the top of his lungs, then Briggs blacked out. The inside of the spire was a horror show, bodies lined against walls, injured placed in rooms of moaning and centralized agony. They were using the spire as a triage center. Medics ran about attempting to help the many wounded, corpses were lined against walls. The upper levels had civilians, even children, who had no idea what was happening. Blood was everywhere, it lined the halls, the walls, even some on the roof, bloody footprints followed everyone who entered. The highest levels were used by a small group of snipers. They were the main reason the enemy hadn't pierced the evac zone's defenses yet. And they were almost out of ammo. They placed the worst of the bunch in a small room alongside some other people, Anna and Burden were fine. Adrian decided to keep watch on the lower floors and wait it all out. On the upper floors, the man in command kept yelling at Spyglass over the communication channel. "Dammit Spyglass I need an ETA on those dropships! I have wounded men here!" He yelled, Spyglass' stoic and calm synthetic voice replied with "Negative, dropship evacuation en route. Recommend hold position and await the next round of evacuation procedures.". The man growled in frustration as Anna and Burden stumbled on the center. "Problems?" Anna asked, getting a snarky snarl from the commander "Tons! Those fucks are getting ground and that damn tin can won't give me an ETA on evacuations..." he replied. "... Can we help?" Burden inquired, shrugging slightly as a soldier dropped a large, dormant auto turret in front of him. "These, get these on the tops of the pillars and you can buy us a little more time. Can you do that?" The soldier stated, a clear English accent about him. Anna raised her hand and cocked her head to the side "We're pretty fast, I'm sure we can do this.". The man growled and went back to screaming at the radio and the soldier walked off, they both picked up a turret, shrugged at each other and dived out the window onto the marble ring that the pillars supported. They ran across the ring, bullets tearing at the side of the overhang, Anna took point, panting and sweating as bullets got closer and closer to her head. She pushed the thoughts of death out of her mind with a simple reminder: "Phoenix is dead", she sprinted slightly faster. Until she reached the front center of the overhang "Hold my hand." she growled at Burden, who reluctantly held her arm. She dropped off the ring, which made Burden fall to his knees as she drilled the turret into the bottom of the ring. Boom, placed. Her eye was quickly drawn to a figure down below, it looked like... Phoenix? No no, couldn't be. It dived into a store, she shook her head, "I'm seeing things..." she thought as Burden pulled her up. "What about min-" Burden started before he clumsily dropped the turret onto the ground, crushing a poor unlucky PDF trooper who was 2 days before his retirement. "... Never mind!" He continued, getting a happy giggle from Anna as he picked her up and they ran back across the ring. Happily they noticed something new, dropships in the sky. Heading their way, and fast. Quite a few of them too, hopefully enough to pull all the survivors out. They clambered back into the windows, a soldier slowly clapping. "Well. Done." The command applauded, smiling. "It gets better, dropships are on their way. We are almost outta here" Burden said happily, drawing attention from everyone in the room. It fell deathly silent. "Y-you're not kidding right?" Someone chirped, the duo shook their head. As they continued to smile at the grunts and shake their heads, there was the loud whir of jet engines. Behind them, the cockpit of a dropship was clearly visible. Small arms fire did nothing but scratch the paint of the right side, the pilot opened the crew compartment and gave the troopers a thumbs up, as fire ricocheted off the window. He opened the left side entrance and signaled for evacuations. "Romeo Squadron here, heard you needed to get the fuck out." Said the pilot, snickering slightly. Anna and Burden crowded into the ship, Adrian and Griffin followed, hauling Briggs with them. Many more troops crammed into the ship with them, attempting to anyways. Below them, in the courtyard, soldiers were cramming into ships. Wounded with wounded, everyone attempting to fit into these small ships. "Alright everyone!" The commander yelled over the intercom "We're finishing evac procedures, it's gonna be cramped but everyone's gonna get out this time". Then a rocket was launched, an explosion on the side of the spire. "SHIT! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!" The pilot screamed, but then there was another voice "WAIT FOR ME YOU SHITS!", and a figure leaped from the top of the ring onto the back cargo hatch, barely making it in before it closed. Anna stood in out right shock and disbelief for a moment.

"P-Phoenix...?"
This is no easy mission...

BUT YOU SON. YOU WERE BORN FOR IT.

And remember:

GODS WILL BE WATCHING