NationStates Jolt Archive

The year is 2108, and humanity numbers in the hundreds of billions. Earth is massively overpopulated, with the Martian and Lunar colonies following suit. The moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and even the planet Pluto have been colonized to find room for the mounting numbers of humans. In the year 2018, extended space travel became possible through the final unraveling of the Rosewell UFO's propulsion systems, sparking a second age of exploration that spanned the known universe. Three solar systems in all were discovered, all deslolate and devoid of life.

These new systems were soon colonized, named Alpha, Beta, and Delta. System Alpha was very small, four planets close to the sun, all dry and arid. Three colonies were established on the second, third, and fourth planets, but contact was quickly lost with all three, and over seventy-five-thousand people are presumed dead. A rescue expedition has been slow in mounting with the exploration of the other two systems.

System Beta was found to be extremely compatible with human needs. Water, and most importantly oxygen, were quite abundant. Another colonization force of 75,000 people was dispatched to colonize the seven planets of the new solar system. Planet three was one of the most promising, with the colony doing quite well by the third year, and reaching self-sustainment by the 5th. The other six colonizes did not thrive as the third, but still met acceptable life/death ratios to prompt further colonization. Three days after the next 75,000 people left for Beta System, colony three was late for its monthly status report. The escort detachment from the second colonization force found the colonization site in shattered ruins, with mangled corpses and blood-spattered walls. Of eleven-thousand colonists, fifteen-hundred corpses were unaccounted for, and no survivors were found.

Delta System was found to be the exact opposite of Alpha System. All three planets were too far from the weak sun to generate any sort of life-giving heat, and all were coated thickly with permafrost. Surprisingly, the three colonies thrived under the economic direction and supplies provided by the Merchants' Union, a commerce guild formed at the beginning of the exploration period. While life was good for some of the more wealthy colonists, the working-class on planet three, also known as Tundra, the miners who extracted gold, uranium, and scandium became fed up with the endless price hikes and oppressive law enforcement. Tensions flared, and revolts ignited. Merchant Union enforcers put down the riots with extreme force, and the revolters were driven out into the frigid wastes outside of the heated inhabitation domes.

Little attention was paid to a group of disgruntled miners carving out a living in the wastes until MU Supply Crawlers, massive tracked supply vehicles that brought supplies to outlying mining stations from the main colony and its spaceport, got hit by several of the former revolters. Supplies and weapons were stolen, and MU assault teams were dispatched to locate and destroy the attackers...

Footsteps echoed like thunder within the confines of the icy valley, black rock encased in bluish ice. The chatter of an automatic weapon deafened the seven people, four men and three women, as they moved. The man in the rear's head exploded, showering the others with brain matter and skull fragments as the body slumped forward and released his death-grip on his armload of supplies. The man behind him returned fire with a small automatic pistol, hitting one of the pursuers, but he was quickly gunned down as well. The remaining members fled, but a grenade launched from an underslung launcher finished them off quickly.

Their mission completed, the MU assault team headed back for the warmth of their vehicle and began their return trip to the inhabitation dome...

"You scan the ID chips?"

"Yeah, those fucks were Yan, Mitchell, Sanders, Jackson, Henderson, Lowell, and Grouse. Melrose caught a twenty-five in the throat, he's in the trunk. Let's get back the HQ..."

The oversized snow-mobile sped back to the inhabitation dome, passing under an incoming starship, a passenger ship by the look of it. It touched down on the landing pad as the assault team's snow-scooter parked at MU planetary headquarters. The ship's door opened, allowing a man of roughly six feet in height to disembark the craft. He was well-built, and carried himself like a soldier. His brown hair was cut short, hidden under a balaclava he'd pulled up on top of his head like a sock-hat. A black snowboard and .223 carbine hung across his back, resting on a padded arctic assault vest studded with magazine pouches. A 9mm automatic sat on his thigh, in front of a survival knife. Red-lensed goggles hung about his neck, polarized to filter out the artic glare.

The insulated boots on his feet were military issue, much like his gloves. He had a duffel bag over his left shoulder, dark blue in color, which contained spare clothing and a few other items he figured he might need, other than what he carried on his survival belt. The MU HG was his destination, he was looking for his brother, a miner with the Union, who told him he might be able to land his brother a job in the security division. The reception desk was the first stop...

"Can I help you?"

The receptionist was a pretty brunette, pretty typical for her line of work...

"I'm looking for my brother, Matt Jackson. My name is Taylor. I think he sent work that I'd be arriving and looking for a security position..."

"Your qualifications?"

"Ten years with Earth's Special Forces, Hostile Environment Division. I'm certified as an expert in small arms and cold-weather survival..."

Her expression darkened...

"Mr. Jackson, I'm sorry but your brother keeps coming up listed as 'Dead'. He was killed somewhere out in the wastes after attacking a supply crawler. The body was never recovered..."

Taylor's expression went from indifferent to falt-out angry. He slid a small GPS screen towards the worman...

"Mark where he was killed at, I'll recover the body..."

Somewhat startled and frightened by his sudden modd swing, she marked a location on his map. Angry, Jackson swiped the screen away from her and headed for the airlock that led to the frigid outside. While the atmosphere was breatheable, it was still minus fifteen degrees during the day. The snowboard came off his back and onto his booted feet, the balaclava went over his face and the goggles came up over his eyes, coloring the white landscape a red hue. Grimly, he started off across the wastes towards the location on his map.

Hours later, he found the body. The skull was shattered by a bullet, probably a .308, like the kind carried by MU assault teams. It was clear what had transpired here, by the look of the scattered supply cartons. There was a trail of blood leading away from the gristly scene, which Taylor followed with his .223 out and at the low ready, his board returned to his back for ease of mobility. The trail led to a small ice cave, within Taylor found several huddled masses, people dressed in the thermal suits of MU miners. One was bleeding out, clearly wonded beyond repair as his blood froze on the outside of his uniform...

"Who the fuck are you people?"

Taylor growled, aiming his weapon at no-one in particular. One of the men stood, holding a twenty-five automatic in his left hand, the barrel crusted with frozen blood...

"MU threw us out after we protested their price hikes, now they hunt us down after we steal supplies from their crawlers... What else are we supposed to do? Starve?"

Taylor lowered the .223, pointing ou of the mouth of the cave at the valley it was in...

"My brother was one of you? Matt Jackson? Big guy, beard, didn't take shit lying down?"

The man with the pistol nodded, loosening his grip on his gun...

"You're Jackson's brother? Why'd you come all the way out here?"

"To get his body & ship it back to Earth so the family can bury it properly, but I think I'll file a complaint with the Union before I head home... Best of luck to you all..."

The rifle returned to his back, the board to his feet, and his brother's stiff body to his shoulders. He arrived back at the MU habitation dome faster than he'd left despite the added weight. He dragged the body into the reception hall, glaring at the woman behind the desk through his frost encrusted goggles...

"I'd like to file a complaint with your superiors and I'll also be filing one with the better buisness bearu when I get back to Earth. I bid you a fuckin' wonderful-ass day..."

Taylor turned to leave, but found his path blocked by two security goons...

"Move."

The two men were larger than Jackson, and the left one spoke...

"Can't do that sir, by letting you report your brother's death at the hands of our security forces to the Earth governments, you will compromise the profits the Union is earning in this sytems and prevent us from moving to the other two... If you'll come with us..."

The left hand grabbed Jackson's right bicep, then caught an elbow in the face from the Jackson's left arm, then found himself in a guillotine choke catching knees to the stomach. He was unconcious before the second man could get close enough to break the hold. Jackson released the first man, driving a punch to the throat from his left followed with an uppercut to the solar plexus from his right that left he man cutching his neck and allowed Jackson enough time to bolt out the door and into the city proper.

He ducked into a local cantina to lose himself in the crowd... Moments later MU security forces entered looking for him...

OOC: Now open to the literate RP crowd...

Twenty Years Ago

While humans had expanded far beyond the reaches of the solar system Largentians stayed right where they were. These new frontiers were of no interest to them. Between uprisings, hardships, and simple violence the idea of having citizens being thrown to uncivilized areas was simply unappealing.

However, Largent had no plans of being ignorant to occurences beyond their zone of influence, and comfort. Probes had been watching Tundra for some time. Intelligence agencies had watched it with mild interest but it just didn't seem to matter all that much. That was all about to change though.

Being cleared to travel to new colonies was a hard thing to do. Only the best and brightest were allowed on places like Mars, Mercury, Neptune, ectetera. This left many families, looking for a new start, behind. Now several towns were preparing to leave the sol. Something that hadn't been done in a very long time.

They were searching for any place to live. Being in the working class they were prepared to, well, work. They would also need a relatively undesirable place so that they could actually aford to live. That place would be Tundra.

Present Day

Empress Oronrá sat and shook her head. What a mess. Those damn peasants should never have been allowed to leave. Now they had either joined ranks with the MU or were being slaughtered by them. It was complete genocide out there.

She had had enough. Screw foreign policy and all that. It was time some special forces went in and get those idiots back. Anyone who joined the MU had lost all of Oronrá's sympathy and would be left in fate's hands. Still, such actions would take some serious finesse and most of all, secrecy.

Miles away, in the far reaches of Largent's Earth holdings the landscape was an icy wasteland. Perfect for the needed training. Teams were immediately sent out to be prepared for their mission.

Four figures moved swiftly across the horizon. Without the proper equiptment they would have been totally invisible to the trainers sitting in camp scrutinizing their every move.

Suddenly the team were met by hologramic foes which were swiftly eliminated before they even fired a shot. That made twenty teams that had successfully passed training. It was time.

Only days later eighty men were unloading their dropships and setting up camp. It would be one team to a hut, extremely uncomfortable, and then there would be communications huts and such. The entire camp would be hidden in next to and inside a glacier.

This would be an extremely hard mission considering a complete lack of orbital support, save food supplies which would arrive on occasion. Either way, it wasn't their job to worry about difficulties, it was their job to over come them.

Taylor's body was swiftly devowered by the crowd, hiding him within a sea of blue work jackets and navy security parkas. Evasion in congested areas was always easy, if he remembered correctly. Jackson kept his back to the split-up security force, turning to punch one in the side of the head as he passed. That made three left concious and still a threat to his well-being. A prostrate body on the floor wasn't an uncommon sight in the cantina, either from alcohol or the frequent brawls that went on, increasingly between security forces and the surly miners. Taylor was suddenly glad he hadn't gotten the job his brother had mentioned.

By using the natural milling motion of the gathered patrons, Taylor managed to slip out the front door un-noticed. Carefully making his way towards the airlock, Jackson once again set off towards the site of his brother's murder.

Maybe those poor sods out in the wastes could help him, or he them. Either way it would be easier than doding Merchants' Union private security within the city, facing chages of assault on at least three accounts.

The temperature was dropping rapidly, passing the below seventy-five mark. He'd need to reach some sort of shelter soon, or freeze to death on the open wastes...