Corporate Secret Holding Pen, Perfection, Class Three World
Group Captain Caboth
The whole planet was in chaos with the events at the Penitentiary grabbing news headlines, but it was the events in the facility he defended that had Group Captain Caboth with his hands full, and given that Throaxians had six of them that took quite a bit of doing.
The security forces became aware of the Gaoian prisoner’s escape far too late, and Caboth was learning that the Gaoian species possessed a sense of cunning and warfare that rivalled that of the best galactic races. This one, however, was making use of those skills to cause an enormous mess here, and not only had he slaughtered a number of unsuspecting base personnel but he’d managed to release the human female and send out an unencrypted broadcast requesting help from the near-mythical Adrian Saunders.
Needless to say, the prospect of encountering the one known as the Human Disaster wasn’t doing much to improve Caboth’s mood, and the ensuing communications lockdown was making it impossible to effectively coordinate. Ultimately he had decided to allow the Gaoian to remain in the Surgery ward until the situation with the Human Disaster had been resolved, one way or the other. That meant he had left a minor force to keep the Gaoian and the human female from leaving that ward, while the mainstay of his forces had been called up to the surface to make a single, powerful stand against any invaders.
To that end he had brought out the most dangerous weapons in his armory, including the combat harnesses normally reserved for military operations, along with anti-tank kinetic rifles, plasma guns, Irbzrkian stunguns, and of course the handful of terrifying nerve-jammers they had in stock. And that wasn’t all; if worst came to worst he’d use a trick he’d learned years ago on Helictor-4 from the first human he’d ever known of – the same human who had first turned dropships into artillery – and with all of the ships outside under his remote control he was certain that even Adrian Saunders would have no chance of escape.
Realistically, all of those things should have made him feel safe, or at least safer, but he only found himself wondering how the Human Disaster would set about dismantling each layer of their defense. He had to keep reminding himself that Adrian Saunders was merely a single sapient being and, while being exceptionally dangerous even for a human, was neither infallible nor indestructible.
“Listen, everybody,” Caboth said to his troops as they arranged themselves in the entrance corridor. “Records of this human state that he prefers cunning over direct action, but here we only give him one way to come at us. We’re set back further than normal due to the human’s speed, but remember that he first needs to get through the outer blast door.”
Caboth surveyed the worried faces of his soldiers. “Remember that the human’s priorities are to seize the escaped Gaoian and human female. All you need to do is point your weapons in that direction and shoot when you see him coming at you. Simple orders, everyone!”
No sooner had Caboth stopped talking than the response of his troops was drowned out by what seemed to be the whole world coming to an end. A sound, so very much like orbital firepower, exploded against the blast door and mangled it before massive kinetic forces tore the door away. On Caboth’s datapad the vessels outside went offline in quick succession as the roar of twisting metal continued.
When it finally ended, the silence was welcome and, at the same time, terrifying.
Caboth took a steadying breath as he tried to recover from the horrific experience, and shouted a hoarse order to everyone still capable of hearing. “Get ready… he’s coming! This is what we’ve planned for!”
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Some kind of secret base, Perfection, Class Three World
Adrian Saunders
“Holy fecking shit,” Darragh exclaimed in disbelief as they stepped out onto the landing pad, carefully nursing his sole remaining stungun after having made it quite clear that he wasn’t going to be handing this one over in a hurry. “You’ve crushed those ships like a fecking paper cup! That kind of entrance has got to have them shitting their largely metaphorical pants.”
Adrian looked over the remains of the enemy vessels – largely a collection of sub-light transport craft, but including a handful of small passenger ships – and affected nonchalance. “Spot has a lot of power, and more than the standard kinetic generators,” he explained, honestly somewhat surprised by just how effective that had been. “It probably wouldn’t work quite a fucking well against a bigger ship.”
“Was anybody inside those?” Darragh wondered as they strolled past the first of the wreckages.
“No,” Adrian said with confidence as he looked greedily at all the parts he might have reclaimed if only he’d had the time. The ships were ruined, there was no doubt of that with all of the buckling and contortion they’d just experienced, but there would be parts he could have pulled out of them if the Perfection Guard weren’t on his heels. “Well, if they were then they were hiding their life-signs, and it’s their own fucking fault.”
“Fair ’nuff,” Darragh mumbled, frowning. “How’re we going to find Chir in a place like this anyway?”
“Well,” Adrian said, “I figured we’d try going through that door and see what happens.”
He pointed ahead in the direction they were already going and brought a pile of destroyed metal to Darragh’s attention. “That’s what happens when you combine a well-placed coil-bolt with kinetics.”
“It looks like you’ve ripped the fecking door right off!” Darragh observed, staring at the shredded steel. It was thick, clearly intended to survive significant damage but nothing quite as damaging as what had just befallen it. “But… that’s exactly what you’ve done, isn’t it?”
Adrian nodded with a wicked smile. “I figure if we make enough noise, Chir will find us, and we’ll have the added bonus of having killed all the motherfuckers between him and us. Still, best to be fucking quick about it.”
The remains of the entrance were in ruin and full of debris, but were not impassable. If anything they offered significantly more cover than they’d have otherwise done, and that allowed Adrian to take up position without making himself known and to motion to Darragh to do likewise. This was, he figured, the most likely place that the enemy would put their first line of defenses, and a simple peek proved him corrected.
“Shit,” he hissed, ducking back behind cover before anybody noticed. “There’s a fucking army in there.”
Darragh stared at him in disbelief, and Adrian only barely managed to stop him before he stuck his own damned head up to get shot off. “Stay the fuck down!”
“What’s out there?” Darragh hissed back.
“Fucking everything, mate,” Adrian told him. “Fucking robot suits, plasma guns, anti-fucking-tank guns, and of course those fucking stunguns you love so much.”
Darragh frowned, like he was trying to figure out some kind of fucking puzzle. “But… there’s no way that even you could get through something like that, right?”
“No shit,” Adrian replied. “I’m not a fucking idiot, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.”
“So what are you planning to do?” Darragh asked, still glancing towards the vantage point where he’d get his head shot off. “Have you got a fecking grenade or something up your sleeve? Because I doubt there’s a way around them and it sounds like they’re filling up the whole fecking corridor.”
Adrian grimaced, thinking it over for a change and coming up with a decent answer – maybe that was the Yoga working – and a diabolical grin slowly spread itself across his face. “Yeah, mate,” he said in a voice that said all it needed to about the impending fortunes of the army set against them, “they are, and I’ve just had a bit of an idea.”
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Corporate Secret Holding Pen, Perfection, Class Three World
Group Captain Caboth
The mood was tense amongst the men; everyone was waiting for the one moment when they’d have a chance of facing down the Human Disaster and actually winning. It was possible that the human known as Adrian Saunders was less fearsome than his reputation suggested, but given what Caboth had learned about the recent incident at Perfection Penitentiary he wasn’t willing to take the chance. Either way, the goal was to have the human dead, and the only difference was how many of his men would see the end of the day in making it happen.
“The human is right outside,” Caboth informed his men quietly over their personal communicator links. He didn’t want to shout, that would tip the human off and stop him from simply barging straight in and finding his death, and in any case it was far easier to whisper urgently into a microphone than it was to shout orders to a crowd. “All of you ensure that you’re ready to fire upon the target area as soon as he attempts ingress!”
The plan was simple: an unsurvivable barrage of plasma, kinetics, stunguns, and – if absolutely necessary – nerve jammers. Humans were tough, but even Adrian Saunders would die if he was exposed to even half of what Caboth had waiting for him.
The human’s voice was the first thing to pass through the opening, a demand of sorts for Caboth to name himself as leader, and the first indication that the human already knew that they were there. “Hey anal-orifices, which one of you sexual-activities is in charge?”
There was no going back now, Caboth decided; the Human Disaster knew they were there and were waiting for him, but there was still a chance that he could be goaded into exposing himself to deadly gunfire. Caboth just needed to be clever enough to get Adrian Saunders that angry, which shouldn’t be that hard since by all reports ‘angry’ was the Human Disaster’s default setting. “I am Group Captain Caboth,” he called back, cursing the weakness of his voice compared to the booming cadence of the human. “You cannot hope to get past us! Run and hide, human!”
That should do it, if the reports were correct. Any moment now the Human Disaster would spring from cover with a monstrous snarl, and earn death for its haste. Any moment now…
“Have you got Chir there with you?” Adrian Saunders demanded instead of leaping out and being slaughtered like he ought to have done. “Or is it just you posterior-sexual-activities?”
Caboth puzzled that one out and frowned as he realised he and his men were being insulted. He’d heard of the disgusting way the Human Disaster was said to communicate, with far too many references to sexual-activities, but it was somewhat difficult to differentiate those references from pointed insults being directed at him. Caboth ground his teeth together in anger at how casually the Human Disaster chose to insult the men who would undoubtedly kill him this day; the least he could do was be respectful to those who would valiantly slay him. Caboth decided that some counter-insulting was in order. “The ugly Gaoian is in our custody, you muck-licking glom-guzzler! You will never see that lom-grabber ever again!”
“So…” the human replied with greater uncertainty, no doubt unsettled by the torrent of curses being hurled against him and his Gaoian comrade. Caboth had even surprised himself with how readily the words had sprung to mind, and some of his men looked at him in nothing short of pure disgust. “So… not with you, then?”
“The filth-covered Gaoian is deep in this facility,” Caboth continued, confused as to why the Human Disaster, a being known for destroying everything in a crazed rage, had not yet thrown itself in front of his weapons. “I shall lay a blurn in his rations, to remind him of you.”
That was sure to make the human angry! Even some of Caboth’s own men were stifling a retch after that line, and Caboth himself felt dirty simply saying it; the prospect of having to actually mix a blurn in with food made his stomach turn just thinking about it.
Why this wasn’t working against the Human Disaster he wasn’t entirely certain, although it was possible that even Adrian Saunders was so overcome with disgust that he could not bring himself to make an attack. Was it possible that Caboth’s own words were even more disgusting than those of the Human Disaster?
“Nerve-jammers,” he whispered into his communicator, “get into position. He must be almost ready to strike.”
“Sexual-activities Awesome,” Adrian Saunders replied. “Bad day to be you.”
Bad day to be Caboth? More bravado from the Human Disaster, and besides the way he had landed his vessel there’d been nothing else to impress Caboth; it was clear he was a coward and once the Nerve-Jammers were in position he’d surely die screaming for his-
The thing about underground facilities is the entrances are frequently long tunnels that offer easy defense against an insurgence of troops, and in spite of having been constructed by corporate interests rather than military this one was no different. These corridors themselves were always constructed to be large enough to transport goods into the facility from the landing pad outside, and while that was significant room for base personnel it wasn’t exactly enormous when compared to the bulk of the modified Hunter vessel that now appeared just outside the entrance.
Everybody stared without comprehension. Everybody except for Caboth.
Caboth’s species were not the most intelligent, but they were far from stupid, and Caboth was more than clever enough to piece a few very important facts together in the space of the two heartbeats he had left in this world. First of all, that was the ship that had just shattered their own vessels with massive kinetic force, and second of all there were absolutely nowhere in this long, easily defensible corridor to hide from a weapon like that.
The third thing, the only good news if you could call it good, was that there would be absolutely no time to feel any pain when the end came.
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Some kind of secret base, Perfection, Class Three World
Darragh Houston
The thing about Kinetic cannons is that they’re mostly silent, and all Darragh really heard of the whole ‘small army’ situation being resolved was a distant, and very decisive crunch. A brief visual inspection revealed the entire force that had been set against them was now crushed into a chunky paste on the far wall.
“That looks like it would have hurt,” he observed distastefully, unable to keep his eyes from the slowly oozing organic sludge that was sliding down the wall. “Although given how quick it all happened… maybe not.”
“Makes you glad you can’t smell it though,” Adrian replied as he stepped forth into the corridor and looked about for anyone else in dire need of a bad ending. “Tell me why they aren’t doing this sort of thing on the battlefield, Trix?”
“The war with the Celzi is the first major conflict in the history of the Dominion,” she replied over the communications link. “The escalation in weaponry and strategy was progressing slowly until humanity started accelerating it.”
“Makes you wonder where it’ll end,” Darragh reflected, keeping in step with Adrian. “Do you think we’ll be building a ‘Death Star’ any time soon?”
“What’s a ‘Death Star’,” Trycrur asked over the link. “It sounds very large and very deadly.”
“It’s from this… story of sorts,” Darragh told her. “It’s essentially a fecking big sphere that can blow up planets with a giant laser. Hopefully that’s entirely impossible, though.”
At that Adrian turned to look at him with an expression that suggested Darragh was out of his mind, but quite worrisomely not in the way that suggested he was talking nonsense like he usually did. “That’d be a bit of a fucking escalation, don’t you think? The V’Straki – the Dino-guys – they’d taken their war to the point where they were wiping whole fucking planets clean, and they got some asteroids shoved up their arseholes in return.”
“Sounds like they had it coming, though,” Darragh replied.
Adrian shook his head sadly and released a sigh. “Hard to label any side as good in a mutually genocidal war, mate.”
That was reasonable enough, and Darragh didn’t need to look sixty-five million years into the past to be able to see it that way; human history was full of examples of what happened when two sides couldn’t co-exist. “So they had a ‘Death Star’, then?” he asked. “Is that what you used to kill the Hunters?”
“I’m not telling you what I used to kill the Hunters, mate,” he replied grimly, “because that thing quite frankly scares the fucking shit out of me. I set a bomb to blow the fucking thing to bits after I used it against the Hunters, and since nobody has been destroying planets lately I guess it worked.”
Darragh didn’t press further, doubting that Adrian would tell him or that he’d like the answers if he did. There was one last question he needed to get off his chest, though, even if it didn’t get him a reply. “So… does that mean you know how to build whatever that was? Chir and Trycrur said you were the one spending the most time looking over that ship’s systems, and that you had some sort of weird rapport with the ship itself.”
“Let’s just say a lot of secrets are going to die with me, mate,” Adrian answered in a flat tone that cautioned against further questions. “My point about escalations stands. We’ve already given these poor fucking idiots so many ideas about how to kill each other and us, I don’t think they need any more help. Don’t you think they’ve got their top minds looking over everything we’ve fucking got, our weapons, defenses and strategies?”
“Probably,” Darragh admitted, finding himself somewhat discomforted by the idea. “Unlimited access to Wikipedia and all that, it’d only make sense. Does that mean we’ll be seeing more Earth-style weapons out here?”
“It’s inevitable, but we’ve got the advantage of being really fucked up so we’re always going to come up with the more dangerous stuff,” Adrian replied. “Fucking hooray for us.”
Darragh arched an eyebrow. “Christ… bitter much?”
Adrian sighed again, as bitter as Darragh had ever known. “Just getting really fucking tired of facing ever more dangerous weapons, mate. You try spending as much of your time in fucking brown-trousers territory and tell me if you don’t get a bit sick of it.”
They came to a final corridor, having spent their conversation moving forward, and discovered an elevator that was coming up to meet them. Darragh and Adrian shared a glance, primed their weapons, and pointed them at the door.
“Maybe it’s PTSD,” Darragh suggested. “My Da’ was ‘involved’ in the Troubles, and he was always talking about having the feckin’ PTSDs. Usually when it’d get him out of doing something he didn’t really want to do.”
Adrian grimaced and paused for long enough that Darragh wasn’t sure that he was actually going to reply. “No jokes, mate, because there’s a very fucking real possibility that that’s what it is,” he finally admitted. “I never had that sort of problem over in the fucking Middle East, but I wasn’t exactly dodging fucking black holes or evil fucking organisations with armies of death robots while I was there. Didn’t have fuck-knows-what running through my blood then, either.”
The elevator tracker showed the slow progress it was making towards them, and Darragh was beginning to feel a bit stupid standing there waiting. “So… do you want a hug or something?”
Adrian looked at him with disapproval. “I’m not really the hugging type, mate…” he said, and turned back to focus on the elevator doors. “I’ve been doing some Yoga. It helps clear the mind, so shut up.”
Darragh wasn’t going to say anything much about that; he’d done Yoga in school once and had quite enjoyed the experience, but he did what he was told and remained quiet while the elevator finished it’s interminable journey.
The doors slid open and, in a blind panic, Darragh pulled the trigger. He soon processed the fact that Adrian had knocked the gun aside so that his shot hit the wall instead, and that the elevator contained the familiar faces of Chir and Keffa, and the less familiar features of Keffa’s undressed body.
Darragh’s eyes roamed of their own free will, at least until he realised she was either drunk or drugged and that this was no time to be doing such thing.
“Mate,” Adrian said softly, “we really need to sort out some proper trousers for you quick smart.”
Cheeks burning hot, Darragh cleared his throat and turned to the Gaoian with his stungun neatly obscuring what he didn’t want to put on display. “Chir! It’s good to see you’re alive, but what’ve they done to Keff?”
“Some form of anaesthesia,” Chir replied. “I believe she’ll be fine, but it is fortunate that you were still around to answer my call for help. I imagine I have Adrian to thank for terrifying my attackers with his brazen entrance? You have not lost your flair for the dramatic.”
“You should have seen what he did to my prison,” said Darragh. “Totally destroyed.”
“Few deaths, though. It was fucking precision annihilation,” Adrian protested as he helped Keffa from the elevator. She stumbled forward, too wobbly to walk, and ended up simply being thrown over Adrian’s shoulder like some sort of senseless cavewoman.
Adrian simply shook his head. “What the fuck is it with naked people today?”
“They stripped my clothes off as well,” Darragh explained at Chir’s inquiring glance. “So far I’m admittedly finding this planet’s name to be a bit of a misnomer. It’ll be good to put it behind us.”
Chir had other ideas. “We can’t leave yet!” he declared. “Layla… she betrayed us. She betrayed me! She is on the planet, and I must ensure my cub will be safe! She has threatened to terminate it if I don’t do what I have told, and thus far I can’t say that I’ve been doing that.”
Darragh began to shake his head; there wouldn’t be long before the Perfection Guard were here and then there’d be a lot more fighting than they wanted to have. “We’ve really got to-“
Adrian cut him off. “Do you know where she is?”
“I know the building,” Chir immediately replied. “I can show you where it is on the map.”
“Good enough,” Adrian said. “But I think we better hurry.
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Cundleign Hotel, Perfection, Class Three World
Layla
Everything was in chaos. The streets outside the hotel were filled with crowds of people acting in blind panic, half-deafened by the thundering voice that few would have recognised and utterly confused about what was going on. Unfortunately for Layla, being informed didn’t seem to be much of an improvement.
Then there was the broadcast that Chir had sent, and she’d been completely unable to contact the secret corporate site ever since. That did not bode well for her children, and it wasn’t looking good for her either. There was a strong possibility that the corporation would terminate her children over Chir’s colossal betrayal, and it was near certainty that the Gaoian strategist would be personally coming after her.
If he had escaped, with or without the help of Adrian Saunders, it would undoubtedly mean that he knew exactly where she was, and against that sort of menace there was no choice but to flee immediately. Already she had packed her belongings, and was readying to leave her room.
She was half-expecting to find him already in the hotel, or working his way through the crowded streets, ready to set upon her with his male fury. She did not expect the window in her room to suddenly explode outwards, nor for a modified Hunter vessel to suddenly appear in what she’d assumed to be completely empty space.
The airlock opened to reveal the Gaoian she had been waiting for, along with the heavily armed human friend she’d asked him to betray. Apparently, and this should have been evident from his attitude to his own government, Chir had a very difficult time doing what he was told.
“Don’t try and run, we’ll only catch you,” Adrian Saunders announced bleakly. He was carrying a weapon of a type unfamiliar to Layla, but from the way it matched him she assumed it to be Earth technology. That meant it was intended for use on humans, and was therefore drastically overpowered for use on her.
“You’re coming with us, Layla,” Chir told her, his voice nearly a snarl, and even from this distance she could see that any trace of what he’d once felt for her had been replaced with loathing.
Maybe if she tried the truth for a change? “Chir,” she said, her voice shaking, “I had to do what they told me to do! They have my children! But I am not carrying your child; that was also a lie.”
He studied her with eyes full of burning hatred. “I cannot tell if you’re lying, you wretched female, but I know somebody who can.”
Layla stared at them without understanding until the human answered the unspoken question. “Like the man says, we’ve got an appointment with a doctor.”