NationStates Jolt Archive

Eleven years ago, Terren Military leaders approved two new R&D projects that promised to strethen the Terren Military. The first was Project Spartan, who's goal was to create 'superhumans' to rival the Klingons in physical combat. The second was Project Mobius, which attempted to create a type of bio-tech creature to fight the Klingons. After three years of trying, Mobius only had 4 successful examples, three of which were combat tested. Spartan, however, had 53 successful soilders, and promised many more. So Terren Command shut down Mobius, and had its 4 successes placed in cryo-storage, and the whole project was forgotten. Until now...

General! Incoming subspace message!
"Put it through," said General Togtman as he turned to the display on his desk. "This is General Togtman..."
Sir! We have a major problem! Our storage facility at Outpost 51 Delta was attacked!
"Attacked? By who?"
We don't know sir. Control received an automated message from the station's computer at 07:25 hours. An unknown force broke into the facility and took most of the equipment stored there.
"What did they get?" asked Togtman.
Various types of stored parts and equipment. However, they also took the leftovers from Project 9077.
"Wait," said Togtman. "You mean, Mobius?!"
Yes sir.
"What did they get?"
All of the research equipment, including the DNA Replicator and Bio-form Gernerator.
"What about the cryo-tubes?"
They're stored at a different facility.
"Do we have any information on the raider?"
Negative. Other then the distress signal and inventory report, no other signal was recieved. The comm system may be damaged, but the sensor logs should still be intact. We need to send a team out right away.
"But if we send an Intel team, Admiral Romano will know that something is going on," replied Togtman. "We can't allow him to find out about Mobius."
What do you want to do?
"I need someone that won't be noticed," Togtman said. "Someone who won't attrack attention."
In that case sir, I have an idea...


[OOC] This is an open thread. Looking for someone to join in as the "bad guy" who raided the storage depot, located on an asteroid. I'm hoping this will lead to a FT "superhero" story. Feel free to join as a hero or villian.

bump

ooc: What are you looking for in a 'Bad Guy'?
Any objections to a pirate type org?

ooc: I will introduce a 'hero' charactor, and need a 'villian' to fight. Anything, from madman to pirates, works for me. I want to see what we can come up with a create a cool FT story.

ooc: Unless you don't have an objection, I'd like to take the villian role, and will get a post up soon.

ooc: go ahead. the thread is open to anyone! you can be the force that broke into the base and stole the Mobius hardware.

The various raider ships had returned to thier base, a salvaged and much customised cruise ship, after leaving thier latest target a smoking ruin stripped bear of valuables. As the collection of vessels docked, they got down to the buisness of unloading for the bookies, technists and other nerds to sort throught, so they could return to life as usual consisting of drink, dinner and dames.

After getting throught about two thirds of the loot, they came to the remenants of the Mobius Project. "Hey, Bio, come here and check this out, it looks like your department." One of the unpackers called over as he looked over the collection of research materials and machinery.

Bio aptly renamed, as he was a former biologist who'd been on his ways to the gallows for various illegal expiraments on all sorts of live subjects before being recruited into the freebooter crew, came over and started looking at the goods. "Interesting. Leave the boxs marked with this Project 9077 alone for now." He ordered before heading up to the Commodore's chambers.

A young lady, attractive, slightly pale with raven hair answered the door wearing a flimsy black negligee with a black robe around her shoulders answered the door. "Hello Death, is he recieving visitors?"
"Yes, go on in." She replied as she stepped out of the way so he could enter.

**************************

In an opulent, almost obscenely so, room a young, highly muscled man with hair a mix of glacial ice and crimson fire lay on a bed bigger than most peoples dinning rooms. "So what do you have for me today?" He asked as he watched a selection of nubile young girls dance and gyrate provcatively. After Bio explained, he waved negligently. "Sure go ahead with your expiraments, but make sure to use the lab ship and take the usual precautions."

The scientist nodded as he left the Commodore to his entertainments while he could begin his research and expiramentations.

General Togtman stood next to Sargent Mendez and watched the three technicians working on the cryo-tube in the center of the room.
"Are you sure about this?" asked the Sargent.
"Yes," replied Togtman. "He is the only one we can send out unnoticed. Romano keeps a close eye on my operations. My troopers would be missed."
"If you say so sir," Mendez said.
The lead tech turned to the officers. "He's hot! Pulling the pins in five!"
"The tube began to release steam as the hatch opened. All five men in the room stood back in amazement and the tube's occupant stepped out. He looked around, then, in a dark, commanding voice, asked, "How long?"
"Seven years," replied Mendez. "General Togtman, may I introduce our best covert agent. Protoform R. Codename: Demon (http://i61.photobucket.com/albums/h52/nx9100/Demon.jpg)."
"General," Demon said. "I assume that you thawed me for an important mission."
"That is correct," replied the General. "This could mean the safety of the Confederation."
Demon walked up to stand in front of the General. "Tell me."

A few weeks after the raid on what had turned out to be a research storehouse, the Commodore called Bio back to his chamber. "So what kind of progress have you made?" He asked after Bio had been admitted, not by Death as he had last time, but by Desire.
"I've figured out the basics of what they were doing. Whoever was behind the expiraments were working on creating bio-weapons in the form of weaponized organisms."
"Evaluation on the profitability of using the research for our purposes as oppose to selling it to any of the countless warmongering nations out there."
"I'll need to get a few proto-types functioning prior to being able to provide a proper analysis. On that note, it appears that there have been a few successes but they were appearently stored elsewhere."
"Gotcha, now get back to work." The Commodore replied before dismissing the scientist as he went back to planning the next raid.

Demon stood up from the aft console where he was reviewing the sensor logs from Outpost 51 Delta. He walked to the front of the cabin and sat at the helm. "Computer: Begin new log entry."
Ready
"Hedgehog 1 to Control. I have left the outpost. It is completly empty. I was able to retrieve the sensor logs, and have found the raiders ion trail and power signature. Begining pursuit. Next contact at 0930 hours. Out."
"Computer: Encript and transmit," he ordered.
Transmission complete
"Set new course: heading 255.46, warp 5."

The Delta-class (http://www.startrek-voyager.nl/wallpapers/Voyager%20-%20Delta%20Flyer%202.jpg) shuttle then jumped to warp in pursuit of the unknown raiders...

===========================

"Bridge to Admiral Romano."
"Go ahead."
"Sir, we intercepted an automated message from Outpost 51 Delta. It was attacked by an unknown force. Do you want to investigate?"
"Yes. Set course, warp 8."
"Eye, sir."
Admiral Romano put down his book. Could this be the Klingons? he thought. Then he stood up and left his quarters for the bridge...

The duty officer, a captain of one of the raiding ships, sat on the captain's chair of the former cruise ship that served as the pirates base of opperation. He was a massively hulking speciman of humanity, a good seven feet in height and nearly that in width, he was a solid wall of muscle, concealing a clever mind.

The long-range sensors picked up a small craft, which meant an investigation with the potential for destruction. Afterall, it wouldn't do for a scout to find and follow the base when it jumped.

It was one of the tactics the Commodore used to stay three steps of fellow pirates and goverments that had pirate-hunting on the brain.

Unidentified craft, please state your reasons for being in the area. This is the Cruise Ship Tongo. The call sign was thought lost but it would register if a pilot was not on the ball to realize that the vessel had disappeared years prior. It also served as a trap for ambitious pirates who could provide competition as a cruise ship where usually fairly easy targets.

Target within visual range
The computer's voice brought Demon to alert. "On screen," he ordered. The small viewscreen to his left activated to show a view of the unknown ship. "Identify."
Alien craft is not in database
"So, a new contact," he thought outloud. "Full sca-"
Incoming transmission
Demon halted midword. "Show me."

Unidentified craft, please state your reasons for being in the area. This is the Cruise Ship Tongo.

"Full scan," he said. "Compare the ion trail and power signiture with File 3A."
Target vessel does not match. Power signature is detected within target vessel
"Alright," Demon said. "Let's do it the hard way. Engage cloak and stealth mode!"
The cabin lights dimned as the ship's cloak activated. Stealth masking systems masked the impulse drive emissions and the warp core shut down. As far as anyone could tel, the ship had vanished...

"Odd, it appears that it may have been a sensor ghost. Be that as it may be, it needs reporting." The giant commented to himself as he turned the bridge over to the second, but not before flicking the internal alert to ready.

After explaining the situation to the Commodore, he headed back to the bridge. Meanwhile the leader of the pirates initiated the yellow alert as well as taking the precaution of shutting down the external hatches and bays, just in case.

"So they saw me. That's fine," Demon said. "I'll say in their impulse wake and wait for the right moment to beam over.."

(ooc: time for some sleep...)

The cruise ship suddenly took off as it began the jump to another local to serve as a convient site for the next raid, on a convoy of precious metals being shipped from a penal mining colony to a much more developed world.

Demon's shuttle followed the raiders ship, remaining cloaked and in their engine wake...



========


Meanwhile, Admiral Romano's flagship, the Challenger, had arrived at Outpost 51 Delta.
"Begin transport," ordered Romano.
"Transporting teams now sir."
"I want to know what happened here," the Admiral said. "Get a full report on my desk by 1800 hours."

OOC: I hope this is still open, if not, I'll be glad to delete this posting. If Theo doesn't mind, I'll come in from the perspective of the convoy he's about to raid.

IC:

Argonia, while a highly developed and modernized world, was mostly lush jungle and marshland outside of the pristine cities. That left much to be desired in terms of metallic resources. For that reason, mining of outlying asteroid belts around the edges of the system's four planets had begun. When the question of labor had arisen, the proposed solution had been simple. The small colony would be populated with prisoners of war and detained pirates captured during the campaigns of the 25th Space Marine Regiment. There were still bases hidden throughout the system, though, and raids still happened from time to time, especially around the most distant planet from the system's sun, Utopia.

While the name sounded nice, it was a complete misnomer. The planet was totally uninhabited, a large ball of gray ice orbiting slowly at the edge of Argonian space. The planet was cut off from the rest of the system by a mineral-rich belt of asteroids, then isolated from the rest of the galaxy from a second, larger ring around the entire system. Since the mining initiative was fairly new, only the inner-most ring had been harvested. The penal colony had been situated in the largest of the asteroids, nicknamed 'Solid Six', since it was one of the six largest in the belt and it was made mostly of hard iron ore.

This worked out well for the prison guards, since the iron ore couldn't be tunneled through as easily as the rest of the drifting rock unless a laser drill was used, and those items were kept under heavy guard. When one considered that the thing the prison was situated in was actually a large mass of rock drifting in the cold vaccum of space, it was considered perfectly escape-proof.

That was, until now. Tomorrow the monthly delivery of ore to the main planet was going out, and it would be carrying a special passenger to his final appeal hearing. Luckily for him, the Argonian people believed in a fair trial by a jury of one's peers, and that included a very generous appeal system. Unfortunately, the vast majority of his so-called peers reguarded his particular breed as cold-blooded killers and a general menace to society. Then again, they were correct about the first part. He'd been in the assassination business for some time now, close to three-hundred years, but he'd been knicked after his fighter had suffered a drastic failure after being hit by an ion cannon. It had been a huge victory for the 25th Regiment, another tally to add to their total of captured and killed pirates, murders, and general degenerates.

Jekel Slipstream had topped the most-wanted list since the Argonian people had immigrated to the planet some two-hundred years ago. It had been easy, as his particular breed lived indefinitely, barring untimely accidents or say, execution by firing squad, which he was going to expeirence if his appeal didn't go through, oddly enough. He hoped that his fighter was still in the impound yard back at the 25th's home base on the main continent on Argonia. He'd get there somehow, but first he'd need to get out of the electronic restraints binding his wrists and access the hand-made shank hidden inside his right workboot.

Prison dress code wasn't exactly strict, so Jekel had opted for the standard orange pants bloused into the issued workboots, and a black sleeveless undershirt that had faded to a color four shades lighter than his scales. Jekel had a perchant for knives, and the prison lifestyle had allowed him to garner a few favors by using the talents he'd perfected from his previous lifestyle to 'cull the herd' a bit. Since his arrival and during his two-year stay, four fellow prisoners and two guards had turned up dead. The cases were still pending on those six instances, but he'd been convicted on four counts of what the courts called 'contract murder', which was a violation of Argonian moral code was well as legislative law...

"Get up you!"

The roaring bellow of his cell-block's guard sergeant yanked Jekel from his silent contemplation. The sergeant's uniform was the standard gray fatigue style that all Argonian troops wore off-duty, but bore the patch of the 25th Space Marine Regiment on the left shoulder. A series of smaller patches stitched with representations of various medals the sergeant had won were also in evidence, above the right pocket. Unlike the guards under him, the block-sergeant carried only a hefty riot baton with a copper alloy core to conduct high-voltage electrical jolts and direct them into the target. He also didn't wear the body armor like the rest of his people. This little slice of the universe was his, and he had made that known every week, offering to go one-on-one with any inmate who wanted a piece. A few had tried, and their lifeless bodies had been ejected into the vaccum of space some five minutes afterwards. Sergeant Valus was king of cell block four, and no-one else had moved to challenge his throne in some four weeks...

"Wake up Slipsteam! Time to move..."

A pair of those damned electronic stun-cuffs landed next to him on the loose dirt floor of his small cell...

"Put 'em on, you've got five seconds before I stun the shit out of you and do it for you..."

Jekel obeyed slowly, barely making the five-second mark. He'd play along, for now...

"Alright sunshine, you're gonna stay over onboard the ore hauler overnight so we don't have to worry about carting your ass out there at 0-4-30 tomorrow morning..."

The two guards with the sergeant made sure to check him with the metal detector, as well as a manual pat-down. They didn't check his boots, since they had metal supports in them anyway. Jekel had managed to work one of the metal strips out of the combat-styled boot and put a nice edge on it during his work detail with a diamond strip he'd pulled off of the grinding machine. Since then, it had been concealed in his boot like it had never been removed. The sergeant made a point to jab Jekel lightly in the small of his back with his stun baton, sending a wave of tingling numbness up his spine to the base of his neck and down it to the tip of his tail. Evolution hadn't kicked in in a while with the Argonian people, and despite the fact that they no-longer needed to swim as much as their ancestors did, but the tail still remained.

They marched slowly, staying two steps behind him in case he turned violent. The elevator was a different story, with the four of them crammed in tightly. If his hands had been free, he might have been able to eliminate all of them easily if he'd been able to get to the shank in his boot. The stun-cuffs prevented that, however. It was another long walk to the hangar bay, where Jekel was thrown unceremoniously into a small side hatch which led to a room of comparable size...

"Hope you enjoy the honeymoon suite, asshole..."

The massive Argonian threw his right elbow backwards, shattering the door controls on the bulkhead with a mighty blow. He left the room chuckling in his usual growling laugh, flanked by his two cronies and leaving Jekel sheathed in total darkness, save for the pathetic glow of a dying overhead lighting panel.

In the relative darkness, Jekel's bluish eyes narrowed in greedy anticipation of the carnage the next day would bring, and he too began to laugh, quietly at first, then somewhat louder as he stared forward, that familiar burning feeling in his gut as the gory images became more vivid in his mind.

Tomorrow, he would make history...

The cruise ship had launched a portion of it's garbage, unuseable packing crates, organic wastes and other items that couldn't be sold and took up space, into the wake of it's engines. In theory it provided a minute opening for a nigh-suicidal EVA run or a small craft.

Taking up a position that could nominally pass for sight-seeing, it's hanger opened disgorging the various raider vessels composed of a motly blend of fighters, a few corvettes, a tug-capable shuttle and a light strike ship.

**************

The raiding force arrived in advance of the expected arrival time of the convoy carrying the ores and precious metals that were the target. Settling into silent running mode, they awaited....

ooc: I have no problems with it.

A loud banging on the bulkhead alerted Jekel to the goings-on on the vessel. At first he figured it was one of the guards messing with him, trying to keep him from sleeping to make him easier to handle tomorrow morning. Then, again, he had no real memory of the space between the time when his eyelids had gotten heavy and the banging. It might actually be tomorrow.

The unfamiliar feeling of movement confirmed the latter, and the ore-hauler left the docking bay. Jekel figured he'd wait a half an hour until he actually attempted to break out of his cell, since Argonia was a good seven hours away at sub-light speeds that the short-range haulers travelled.

That time came sooner than expected, however. By backing up to the busted control panel, he was able to conduct a massive jolt of electricity through the stun-cuffs, overloading them. The electronic locks disengaged and the restraints fell from his wrists. The former assassin dug into the side of his boot for the makeshift knife he'd fashioned for himself. Weapon in hand, Jekel began trying to connect the electrical wires to open the bulkhead.

By this time, the convoy was well away from the penal colony and about halfway between their point of origin and their destination. Oddly, their usual escort was absent. Since pirate raids had become much less common after the 25th's sweep-and-clear missions, the escort had been deemed a waste of valuable military resources and had been done away with. That left the four ore-haulers on their own for the trip there and back. With the exception of the four guards assigned to keep Jekel in line, and their issued sidearms, there was little resistance. Jekel anticipated getting ahold of one of their weapons. He tried to recall the scematic he'd read on them so long ago, after they'd been standardized as sidearms for the Argonian Armed Forces...

Kerrich Arms Corporation Pistol Soldier Variant:
Sporting a four inch barrel, the weapon isn't much different from the Commander variant other than the lack of a second barrel for flares and specialty rounds...

... new pistol, like the new rifle, is chambered for a three milimeter depleted uranium pellet. The projectile is propelled through the barrel by means of electromagnets and exits the muzzle encased in an ionized plasma sheath the gives it penetrating power capable of punching through plastron armor plating...

Jekel could only recall small snippets, but that served him well enough. They things had triggers, and he knew how to operate pistol-like weapons, although he still preferred his model 21 Glock, an ancient piece of firearm technology when chemical propellants were still the norm...

The shuttle remained in the cruise ship's wake, avoiding the garbage dump. "Look's like they're waiting for someone," Demon thought outloud. "I'll wait for the target to arrive, them beam aboard."

(ooc: I'll be back tomorrow. This thread is still open to anyone who wants to join.)