| Author |
The Things We Sacrifice For (Working Title) |
Lupino
Cadet
Joined: March 23, 2002
Posts: 359
|  Posted: 2004-02-07 00:39
(Serious, multi-chapter effort on my part, to please tell me if it's worth my time! ^____^  )
Prologue
Unconsciousness. Like a great black veil it covered all of his senses, blocking out the reality of the world around him so that he only had his thoughts. He could not see the various devices that had been used on him; could not smell his own dried crusty blood covering his shirt or taste the large amount of it coming from his mouth. Could not hear the low growling that came from his interrogators, and most thankfully of all, could not feel the pain that covered his entire body like wet clothes.
But that was not what they wanted, they wanted the information that he knew, they wanted to know about who he knew and where they were hiding. So they brought out more medical devices and injected him with chemicals of all sorts, so that the black veil slowly lifted until his senses returned to him. He could hear and taste and see again, but the pain had been deadened, it was not as intense as it was before. So, they still need me alive.
He viewed his surroundings again, so familiar to him that it had the feeling of a second home. Peering out of the brilliant light shinning on his face, he could tell that the walls were battleship grey, nondescript except for a break in the patter at the doorway, where the black steel door gave a feeling of staring into the abyss. The white linoleum table in front of him was bolted to the floor, covered in papers and transcripts written in alien tongues, while an unoccupied chair stood there opposite of his “seat”. Whatever the device he was strapped to he could not make out its design or appearance, except that it was able to move and bend to add to the pain applied by his torturers.
They made a point to stand out of the illumination beam coming from the ceiling, as if they were creatures of the night afraid of sunlight. They moved about the shadows like specters, what few words he could hear above their low mumbling beyond his understanding. Meanwhile they brought in through the door new instruments of agony with what seemed like childish glee, as if ready to test a new invention on a living guienne pig. Suddenly the flurry of movement stopped, and through the door came another individual, shorter then the others, but apparently regarded with great respect. The light was focused intensely on the prisoner so that he could not see the figure take a seat at the table, shuffling through several of the various papers and plastic read-outs.
“So, how are we doing today, Mr. Winston? I trust our staff here took excellent care of you during the night.” The tone of sarcasm had not changed since the last thirty times he said those lines, and Mr. Winston’s reply was still the same obscenity, only this time gurgled by the blood running from his mouth (caused by the fact he was missing several teeth now, he realized).
“Well, I suppose we should start from the beginning again…”
The beginning Mr. Winston thought. He could still remember the beginning through the haze of time and intense head trauma. Back when he could look up and still see the blue sky overhead…
_________________
"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!"
[ This Message was edited by: Lupino on 2004-02-07 00:40 ]
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\"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!\"
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Lupino
Cadet
Joined: March 23, 2002
Posts: 359
| Posted: 2004-03-24 17:21
Chapter One
He could remember the day this whole mess began like it had only happened yesterday, crystal-clear in his mind like an undisturbed pond. Had he known just what was in store for him on that day and every day afterwards, he might have spent his first waking hours trying to get a flight on the first transport off of that ball of rock and dirt, or at least warn the others to what was about to happen. But unfortunately Charles J. Winston was no fortune teller and would never guess that on such a beautiful Sunday something so much wrong could happen to him or this place.
The pleasant ringing tone emanating from the front of the shop signaled that someone had entered Winston’s New & Used Goods Pawn Shop, and only one person ever came regularly at 11:35 on a Sunday. He made his way past the aisles of toys, books, musical instruments, machine parts, and various odds and ends collecting dust on the shelves to the back of the store. Charlie was back there behind the counter, engrossed with the book he was reading by some psycho going on about the natural order of the universe, when old Jacob Goldman dropped a big metal box on the counter with a crash. “Charlie my boy,” he said in that quaint backwater-type accent, “Have I got a deal for you!”
“How about we save some time and I just give you ten bucks for it. That’s what I always give you for all the junk you try to con me into buying, old man,” replied Charlie, not bothering to look up from his book.
“Ah, but you haven’t even seen what I got!” He reached into his box, rummaging through old magazines and pre-packaged meats decaying in their containers until he yelled out and pulled up a shiny round object. It easily fit in the palm of the old man’s hand, a hole punctured through the center of the object, and on one side light from the ceiling lamps was easily reflected. “This thing is before you or I was ever conceived to have existed, all the way to the Dark Age of Earth. They called it a ‘Compact Disk’ and used it to store information. I’ll sell it to you for only a couple thousand, just because I like ya Charlie.”
Charles, still reading the collection of toilet paper he had wasted five dollars on, reached under his counter and pulled out a small plastic container, setting it next to Goldman’s box. In it were at least several dozen CDs of the same type Goldman held in his hand, many of them with visible finger smudges or cracks. “I use them as target practice in my spare time, and I’ll pay you a dollar for that one if only because I’m in a good mood.”
Charles looked up from his book and the two men stared at each other for a minute before breaking out laughing. It was an old joke they began playing shortly after Charles first set up shop a year ago, and the two had become good friends since. Goldman was in his late 60s, his graying hair and sagging skin hiding a very healthy and humorous mental capacity, would wear a big floppy hat to keep the sun off of his bald head and rarely worn anything other then a t-shirt and shorts, unless it got too cold outside. Charles was half his age, slick black hair combed back and a muscular physique, and a past mysterious even to his good friend Jacob.
Charles decided to take an early lunch break, and after locking the front door and placing the OUT TO LUNCH-BACK IN 15 in the window, the duo took off down the street towards 5th and Walcott. It was a pleasant clear day, the navy blue of the sky above obstructed by Neosteel skyscrapers and flying machines. Across the city of New Madrid hundreds of others were leaving their places of business on lunch breaks so that the streets and skies were busy with people and vehicles. New Madrid, population 1.4 million, the only city on the distant planet Santiago, named after its discoverer and founder Mercedes Santiago.
Santiago orbited the distant star of Sigma 987, far away from the civil war now waged between the Earth-based United Galactic Trade Organization and the collection of outer colonies known as the Interstellar Culture Confederation, with many neutral worlds caught up in the middle. Mrs. Santiago was tired of the constant war, and together with like-minded people they left known Human space five years ago and founded the Republic of Santiago on the Terran-type world in 2268. Not wishing to get caught up in the politics of the war, the colony kept its location as secret as possible, so that even the dreaded Pirate families that roamed the outer edges of the Sol Quadrant would be hard pressed to find the planet. Yet something as large as a planet cannot hide forever, and soon smugglers found the planet the perfect hiding place for themselves and their illicit cargo. The government on Santiago tolerated their presence, as long as they paid in tradable goods, news from the outside and guaranteed the planet’s secrecy.
The two men had only food on their minds as they rounded the corner and came to Jill’s Diner, a small mom-and-pop’s business you’d expect to find in the distant past then on some alien world. Jill Lancaster’s food was considered the best in this part of town, considering she used real food instead of the processed stuff that came out of the automated hydro farms, although this came at the cost of having to deal with smugglers and their “moderate” prices. As Charles opened the door for his old friend, the aroma of deep-fried chicken and hot gravy hit him like a summer’s breeze, and his mouth began to salivate instinctively like Pavlov’s dog.
Entering the small restaurant the two men took their usual seats, a window-side booth whose worn upholstery was less torn then other booths and didn’t smell of baked beans. Charles observed his surroundings for the familiar regularity; the usual lunchtime crowd was here, a moderate sized group as Jill in her grease-stained apron busily moving from one customer to another, her husband Phil working in the kitchen while some indistinguishable music group played over the humming speakers.
“So, what’s on your mind Chuck,” asked Jacob, breaking the uneasy silence as they waited for their order to be taken. “Anything you want to talk about?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You sure? You’ve been acting funny these past couple of days, and don’t tell me you haven’t. I can read you like the back of my palm.”
“Jacob, you couldn’t even read the menu if you didn’t have your glasses on.” Jill was standing by their table, notepad and pen in hand and a smile on her big face. “I suppose you characters want the usual today, eh?”
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jacob. “Any news from the outside world? This little bubble we live in can get very boring.”
Jill leaned in closer, putting on as serious of a face as she could, and whispered “Well, you didn’t hear from me, but one of your smuggler friends was in the other day, talked about aliens that went around in living ships and could disappear at will. Swore on his mother’s grave, the mongrel, that he saw one of them up close, that they had big teeth and could swallow you whole.”
“And I suppose he also told you that they could shoot lightning from their eyes and fireballs from their arses.” Charles could hardly hold in a chuckle at Jacob’s quip, and a very grumpy Jill stormed away to make sure Phil made their meal extra greasy.
Again there was silence as the two ate their lunch, Jacob picking at the lump of meat on his plate while Charles stared out the window at the world passing by. He used to spend much of his time just saying nothing when he first came to Santiago a year ago, a man with no past coming in on a smuggler’s transport. The locals barely stood the smugglers as it was, the fact that someone from out there came to live in here of all places, their peaceful corner of the galaxy, made them angry. They didn’t want others moving in, taking their space and making it known just where Santiago was so the ICC and UGTO would fight each other for it, damaging the planet in the process like the other neutral worlds. Jacob had been Charles’ only friend since he set up shop, and it didn’t surprise Charles one bit when he left Jill’s to find spray paint all over his storefront window: “YOU’RE NOT WANTED”.
“A year it’s been, and still people hate you,” commented Jacob, shaking his head at the message written in poor English. “Damn kids, you’d think they’d stop writing with numbers and just use plain old letters. You gonna need a hand with this?”
“No, I got it. I’ll see you tomorrow, Jacob.”
“You too, Charles.” The old man walked off back towards his house, a light skip in his old feet, and before he saw him turn the corner Charles would hear him whistling that old tune of his. He forgot his box of stuff again; I’ll just give it back tomorrow. He turned his attention back to the window, seeing in its reflection the passing crowd staring with him and wondering which cleaning solution it was that got the last message off his glass, when the klaxons sounded.
The nearest one was on top of the Versatech Corp. skyscraper a few blocks away, the building and its speakers visible from where Charles stood. They were only used in an emergency, a violent storm or meteors or anything dangerous to the city. The still-clear sky told Charles it wasn’t anything weather related, and the monthly drill wasn’t for several days. Suddenly he could see: in the sky, faint at first but growing stronger, hundreds of tiny red dots appeared, giving the appearance of a meteor shower. But something was wrong; they were not erratic like normal meteors and looked as if to be moving in…formation? Suddenly it all became clear when Charles saw the objects slow down and their basic uniform shape became clear. These are not meteors...they’re invasion pods!
_________________
"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!"
[small][ This Message was edited by: Lupino on 2004-05-05 15:27 ][/small]
[ This Message was edited by: Lupino on 2004-05-05 15:32 ]
_________________
\"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!\"
|
Lupino
Cadet
Joined: March 23, 2002
Posts: 359
| Posted: 2004-05-05 15:27
Chapter Two
The rest of the crowd stood and looked up with Charles at the incoming objects, some not yet realizing just how much danger they were in. Charles’ instincts told him to run, seek shelter, anything but just stand there like a dope; but he couldn’t help himself, these were not normal invasion pods, they looked too…organic, none of the grey dullness of the ICC nor the white decorative markings of the UGTO. He had to know just whose they were, and was just one in the crowd who looked up at their impending doom.
The objects were within several miles of the ground when they began splitting up and headed off in groups for different parts of the city. He could tell they were heading for the power plants, the communication center, City Hall, the local defense base, but others seemed to go to random parts of the city, towards no target of strategic importance Charles could recognize. Suddenly he could see one of the objects of a group flying overhead broke off from the rest and flew down towards his street; in fact it was heading right towards him!
He could make its details out more clearly now, the whole vessel was painted a weird red-yellowy mix of colors, and from its blunt head two stubby “wings” extended towards the back of the vessel. As it came closer to the street it turned to face its belly downwards and from the wings two spurts of flame shot out, slowing it down considerably. As it neared secondary engines around the bottom of the craft stabilized it until it stopped moving entirely mere feet above the ground. Now the red-yellowy paint covering the hull didn’t look like paint anymore, it looked like something alive.
The craft hovered there in the middle of the street like a giant mutated Dragonfly as its engines continued to emanate the high-pitch whine. The assembled crowd of onlookers stood there, flabbergasted into silence, until they saw movement happening on the vehicle. A hatch at the rear of the vessel started opening with a sibilant sound, and though at first nothing could be seen from its gaping maw, with a sudden rush out jumped a terrible creature, the likes of which no one on that street had ever seen.
It landed on two feet and stood up to its full length, and though it was of obvious man height and shape it boasted four arms, each hand having four reptilian-like fingers and what skin could be seen seemed like scales. Most of its body was covered in armor, including its head from which two slanted red eyes beamed with unblinking ferocity. In its two upper-hands it grasped a long pole arm, as tall as the creature and tipped at the end with a large stabbing blade, while his lower-right hand was fitted into a sleek deadly-looking weapon also armed with a short stabbing bayonet, the gun being supported by its lower-left hand. It threw back its head and gave out a terrible cry, as if it were some crazed wild beast that has seen its prey, and more creatures began jumping out from the transport.
Charles was back in his shop by the time the crowd, finally shaking off their lethargy, went into a panic and ran in every direction like mice from a cat. He ran through the store, leaping over the register counter and slamming open the back door to the storage room. The room was an unorganized mess, old decaying magazines and paperback books keeping the dust off of broken machine parts and ancient glassware, all of it heaped into piles on the floor or laid out on the few rickety shelves and furniture pieces. A metallic sliding door stood on the south wall, its reflective face leading out into a back alley and possible escape, while the grey Neocrete walls seemed to suck the color out of the room. Charles made his way to the other side of the room, past a stack of paper calendars and TV Guide books dated back to 2260 but smelling far older, and stopped at the wall. Come on, where can it be? He ran his hands over the rough colorless surface until he felt the right spot and pressed in hard.
Below his waist a section of the wall slid away and a large metal container popped up like bread in a toaster. The open-top box would have been long and deep enough to fit two people lying down if it was not for the neat rows of individual hooks, each one holding in place a part of Charles’ private arms collection. Firearms were illegal on a world “dedicated to peace and neutrality” but Charles was not so naïve as to trust his security to uncertainties, and besides, procuring many of these weapons was not too difficult. He didn’t have the time to assemble any large artillery, what with alien invaders outside his door, and couldn’t carry too much or he’d be too slow to do anything. With body armor over his torso, he took one of his prized possessions, a military-grade ICC Marine Corps Rail rifle he bought from one of the local smugglers. Supporting a 30-round clip and x2 optical scope, it fired a 10mm solid slug at supersonic speeds that could go through even light vehicle armor. Charles only hoped it would be enough.
Charles locked in the rifle’s clip as the now-ominous ringing tune signaled someone was in the store. A flickering view screen hung from the ceiling, connected to a security camera, showed three of the invaders moving down the aisles towards the storage room. They walked in a manor befitting a natural predator stalking its prey, hunched over with weapons drawn, heads moving back and forth as if following a scent. Two of them were much larger then the third and were more muscular, their upper hands holding no weapons but for their incredibly long, sharp-looking claws; they looked like they could tear a man to pieces in one swipe.
Time to go. Now! He kicked the weapons locker back into the wall and quickly made his way for the exit. The thought of setting one of the explosives in the locker to go off made him pause for a second, and saved his life. A destructive yellow beam filled the space where his head would’ve been; it had melted its way through the store-side wall and gave off a strange electric cackling sound as it continued through the back wall. Charles heard one of the aliens give out that terrible yell again, and sprinted to the door as more destructive beams pierced the storage room, coming dangerously close to hitting him.
Heart pounding, adrenaline flowing, Charles could not remember opening the back door, nor diving out onto a pile of garbage bags, only that he found himself alone in the deserted alley. There was no time to pause and reflect on the sounds of battle around him, the billowing smoke rising off in the distance, or the massive hole exposing several floors of the Versatech Corp. building and the wreckage of a shot-down alien transport still sticking out of it; the fact that they were still shooting through the wall at him got Charles up on his feet and running again.
He could have run off, find a nice quiet place and sulked in some dank, dark hole while these aliens invaded, conquered, killed and did other mean nasty things, but that would have been the smart thing to do. Charles was never known to be very smart, and so kept running down the alley, but with a purpose. The local police station was near-by, with any luck unscathed after the initial landings, and there he hoped he could be of some use to this community he had called home…
_________________
\"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!\"
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Jamesbond
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: February 05, 2003
Posts: 146
From: Venice Florida
| Posted: 2004-05-05 19:14
[quote]
On 2004-03-24 17:21, Lupino wrote:
Chapter One
“And I suppose he also told you that they could shoot lightning from their eyes and fireballs from their arses.” Charles could
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Lol i think this is just a tad bit of a rip off from Braveheart =P but it is an excellent story so keep it coming
-James
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Grand Admiral of the GTN Fleet.
One Creed, One Bond, One FLEET
GTN: HONOR IS ALL!
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Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2004-05-07 02:06
lol didnt even clue into that.
i like it........... now FInish it! =)
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Lupino
Cadet
Joined: March 23, 2002
Posts: 359
| Posted: 2004-06-24 13:38
Chapter 3
The 34th Precinct HQ had always been an odd building: built between two parallel roads running east-west, the building itself was an unattractive dull block of Neocrete, with tiny slits for windows facing out onto either street, and its roof was lined with battlements like some Medieval keep. Its adjacent parking lot was walled-in as well, complete with ramparts to give the feeling that the whole complex was a futuristic mote and bailey. The ancient fortifications had been recently renovate with barbed wire running the length of the wall and armored barricades, supplemented by disabled vehicles and building rubble, were set up as road blocks every thirty meters along either road.
The officers manning the road blocks were literally shaking in their riot gear, and jumpy enough that one almost shot Charles as he attempted to approach it. After convincing them that, no, he wasn’t an alien in disguise, they allowed him to pass through and continue on to the structure. Charles passed through the south gate of the parking lot to find the area packed with huddled civilians, crouched down under wreckage or in the corners of the lot, flinching at every explosion, as police officers ran to and fro from the headquarters, carrying ammo and wounded comrades.
“Charles? Charles Winston? What the hell are you doing here?” Charles turned around to see whose voice it was, and found himself face to face with Police Chief Nader. The pot-bellied middle age man looked uncomfortably tight in his riot gear outfit, clutching a battered riot shield in one hand and a pistol in the other, but he still had that hard-ass look on his face like he could chew you up and spit you out in one move, and was the only other person to know about Charles’ background. Pointing at Charles’ illegal firearm, he continued, “And where the hell did you get that?”
“We can talk about this little infraction later when there aren’t alien invaders running around, Chief. Right now it seems you and your boys could use some help.”
“Aye, you’re damn right we could,” replied Nader, removing his riot helmet to scratch at his thin grey hair. “Damn things came out of nowhere; the defense base didn’t pick up any ships until the buggers were practically on top of us. They’re hitting us all across the city, no way to organize an effective defense, so we’re holding up here for now.” He sighed heavily, hardly acknowledging a near-by explosion that nearly knocked Charles off his feet. “My boys aren’t trained for this kind of thing, we have nothing to counter their vehicles and even their bloody body armor repels our assault rifle rounds. I would’ve packed up and left by now if it wasn’t for them,” he said, motioning to the huddled mass of civilians occupying the lot.
“Chief, Chief!” The crackling sound came from the comm link hanging off the side of Nader’s belt. “We’ve got more attackers coming in from the east along Jefferson. There’s too many-”
Before Chief Nader had time to respond Charles had already taken off, heading east along Jefferson road towards the beleaguered officers. He passed by two unmanned roadblocks before coming upon the third, watching as the outnumbered police officers huddled behind their barricades and took pot shots at the methodically advancing aliens. Even thou the shots that did connect bounced off with a resounding *ping*, the aliens still took cover behind vehicles and within doorways and crevices, advancing in a decidedly military manor. The yellow disruptor beams that spewed from their weapons slagged anything they touched and penetrated any defense, one effortlessly slicing length-wise through a hover van to get at the officer taking cover behind it.
Charles counted twenty of them, probably divided into two squads and led by the two red-armored aliens from the rear, both squad leaders carrying a large polearm as opposed to the smaller melee weapons carried by the others. There were also four of the much larger aliens, not bothering with cover as they advanced towards the roadblock in the open, firing recklessly at the road block. Charles couldn’t let them reach the officers.
Charles brought the rifle up to his shoulder, flicking the safety switch off and peering through the optical scope at the lead brute, which conveniently paused to let off a roar. Charles let off a single shot with the depleted uranium sabot aimed squarely at the alien’s breastplate; even if the shot didn’t penetrate the kinetic energy was bound to seriously screw around with the thing’s innards. Thankfully the sabot round went clean through the body armor and the alien, continued a dozen meters back through the engine block of a hovercar, finally embedding itself in the Neocrete wall of an apartment building a few steps from the exploding vehicle. Perhaps setting the round’s velocity to maximum was a little overkill he thought.
The aliens were on the alert now and quickly pinpointed Charles still standing in the middle of the street. Charles ducked for cover within an apartment doorway as yellow beams pierced the air around him. He dove back out into the streets behind a hovercar as the disruptors tore into his previous cover, quickly getting off a three-round burst that fell another of the large brutes. He peeked his head out to motion to the policemen, “Fall back! I’ll cover you!”
The officers didn’t need to be told a second time and broke out from their cover in a full sprint, still spraying the area behind them with rifle fire. Charles got burst off before had to fall back behind another hovercar as the yellow beams lacerated the previous vehicle. One of the ordinary soldiers activated a small rod-shaped object in his hands and tossed it in an arch towards Charles; he barely had enough time to jump away before the antimatter grenade exploded in a blinding blue-white light. Everything within a ten meter radius of where the grenade went off was vaporized, the car included, and an even larger crater would have been formed if the grenade had gone off next to the ground.
**** this. Charles took off in a sprint back towards HQ, catching up to the retreating officers who simply ran past the two unscratched barricades. Suddenly he heard the roar of engines scream above his head, and saw as several small alien craft buzzed several hundred feet overhead. They appeared to be fighter craft, each fighter’s four wings arrayed in a forward-pointing X as the craft flew in a similar pattern. As both humans and aliens neared the police HQ, one of the craft broke off from formation and started to dive down upon the distant building. Charles saw it launch a shimmering bluish-white orb and quickly arched up as antimatter torpedo disappeared from Charles’ viewpoint and exploded, releasing a violent explosion that sent rubble raining down on Charles and the officers.
The men continued forward as fast as they could until they stopped where the police HQ should have been. In its place was a charred desolate crater; the explosion had vaporized everything, and no one, not even the helpless civilians huddled together with their friends and loved ones, was spared. But there would have to be another time to morn the fallen, as Charles saw a giant alien hovertank flanked by troops advancing from the west down Jefferson towards the former 34th Precinct building. Charles quickly shook the police officers from their shock and the five people swiftly ducked into a near-by alley, hoping that the darkness would hide them as they ran from cover, their world now at the mercy of these alien overlords…
_________________
"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!"
[ This Message was edited by: Lupino on 2004-06-24 13:39 ]
_________________
\"Time is the best teacher; Unfortunately, it kills all its students!\"
|
Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2004-06-24 17:06
ooooooo....
more moremoremroemormeormeomroere
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