Chapter 1: Vampune
I hope I don't frighten you kids with a tale straight out of a novel. What I am about to tell you may seem fantastical. But I can assure you that every word is true. So pull up a chair or find a comfy spot on your bed, and join me and my rowdy crew on an odyssey through time and space. You may be wondering who I am. My name is Jason DarkSky, and this is my Story.
(Jason's P.O.V.)
I could hear and feel the hum of the Vertibird's twin turbine engines. My hand shot out as I instinctively reached for the titanium bar next to me. The vertibird pitched again as the pilot evaded enemy fire from the ground. I rolled a 288MM round between my thumb and forefinger for a few seconds and then slid it into the magazine, my hand already reaching for the next round as the soft click told me the first round was set in place. I knew each individual round as well as I knew my wife's own body. The practice of unloading and reloading our magazines was as engrained into us as the very precise set of skills that were pounded into us by the loving hands of our instructors at the Federation of Planets Military Academy. The Bastards.
I observed the other four members of my well trained and battle hardened team as we patiently watched the red jump indicator light intently, waiting for it to flip from red to green, announcing the inevitable. They say as I did, feet planted apart and occasionally grabbing the identical bars next to them as we pitched and rolled like food in a blender. My gaze flicked once again to the blinking indicator light above the cargo doors. I could hear the low tap of metal on metal as our Orbital Drop Suits swayed with the rhythm of the Vertibird as our pilot avoided the incoming missiles and anti-air guns.
The Vibranium suits, painted in various shades of navy blue and gold were designed to take impact with the ground as we literally dropped to the surface. The thought of falling through the sky into a warzone seemed suicidal, but this is what we do. We go to planets under extremely bad circumstances and make the citizens wish they had decided against pissing off the Federation. Our current mission is to eliminate the threat here. Here, being the planet Vampune. Originally apart of the first colonized planets when we humans evacuated Earth before the fall, Vampune was a catastrophe waiting to happen at that point. We never saw it coming, the sun in its twenty planet system, died. Vampune, being the last in the chain, got the best possible outcome, or the worst, depending on how you look at it. The colonists had to adapt to a complete darkness and a winter with no chance of that frozen hell ever ending. They became something else. A myth straight out of legend. Vampires. The Vampires knew only one thing and wanted only one thing. Blood, and they will do anything to get it. We lost trade ships first, then federation investigators we're next. Now it's war. Unlike the myth, the Vampires didn't develop the speed or any of that supernatural junk. They were crazed with bloodlust, mated like rabbits and bred like rats. So many died before we knew what was happening. Countless lives lost the the Vampires.
The hull of the Vertibird tweaked and groaned from the turbulence, bringing me back to the present and away from the depressing thoughts that brought us here. Instead I focused on my team.
There were two women. The smallest one, sat cross legged in the middle of the aisle, she stripped and cleaned a high powered rifle with an infrared scope that looked nothing like the Standard rifle provided by the Federation. Except for two others, we all have a Colt M228, a 29.75 inch rifle with an extended stock, making it 33 inches if extended. The weight of it felt good in my hands. All 7.75 pounds of it. Her rifle had a bulkier barrel, the design reminded me of an plasma rifle, the stock was also a modified version of what our standard rifles had. The Receiver was not for an M228, It appeared to be similar to the Historical AA-12 in mass but slightly thinner, it was like her rifle was more violent than mine. She was also checking the many variations of explosives she was carrying. Her fingers lovingly traced each brick of CXV4 and plasma grenades in her bag like a lover would. I caught a glimpse of both Mag-grenades and incendiary rounds for her rifle as she closed the bag of ordinance. Mag-grenades, melt titanium and any unlucky fool wearing it. The incendiary rounds were pretty obvious. The rifle wasn't designed to take 288MM rounds, but high explosive charges instead.
Moving on,
the sniper counted her rounds over and over again, as she did, her fingers traced the notches on the synthetic leather stock of her MAG rifle, a single load, bolt action .50 caliber, the liquid nitrogen insulator on the barrel and the Magnetic pulsar receiver are highly classified technology, even the top levels of the federation have no clue as to how it is made. The stock was reinforced to support the heavier weight of modified receiver and barrel. Every single one of her confirmed kills were carved lovingly into it with her own MAG Blade. A carbon steel blade that is connected to a MAG Puslar, causing the blade to hum when drawn. The thin blade was so sharp we have to be careful or we could end up cutting off fingers. The Federation came up with the MAG Rifle when trying to build a better assault rifle, the Reaping, as it was so aptly named, a single shot could delete a head at 10 miles. Only one person can double that, and she is sitting next to me.
The two remaining team members were both male, they conversed softly, rolling their shoulders to ease the tension as they talked. One of them was very hard to miss. A Mountain of flesh and bone. The Massive GAU-8/A Avenger on his back is a modified version of the ones mounted on the Vertibird. The folks over in RnD designed it for him. A hand held, belt fed bunk buster from hell. He is now the only living soul in the Federation to posses a Mini GAU-8. It has belt fed Sabot rounds. these puppies make soup out of people and put holes in tanks. The man was ready for business with that thing.
The last member was surprisingly normal compared to the other three. He used the same Colt M288 I did, no fancy modifications. He was a little shorter that me and the rank on his Navy blue uniform was for a pilot. He seemed very out of place on my team, but what the heck, I wasn't going to say no to an extra body.
The mission was supposed to be simple. Get into the base, make it to the communication tower, take down their commander, and shut down the communicators. Easy, right. "All right boys and girls let's go over it again." I pulled up the holograms of the compound. The compound in question was built in a circular grid pattern, the tower at its center acted as a beacon for the vampire to communicate with their troops on the front line. Our scout teams worked overtime to prepare us for this mission. Brass wants it completed by my elites, even though any basic team could have been enough. I would almost bet Patterson had a hand in this. The man hates me and my crew, don't know why, he just does. "92, set up in the building opposite of the tower." I indicated on the holo which building, it would be ideal for an overwatch. The building was of equal height to the one we were supposed to be climbing. Esqueezeme nodded to me, understanding her role better than if I spelled it out. I shifted my attention to Musaki and Hellfire. "93, 95 go in the front door. Make some noise and draw attention. 94 and I will go in the back door and make our way up the tower. 92, you got my back."
"Copy that, 91." 92 flexed her fingers as she spoke, itching to carve some new marks in the stock of her rifle. My Sniper, Second Leftenant Esqueezeme. "Hold up, how do we draw a crowd of Vamps to us? I can't get that loud." 95 raised his shoulders in defeat. Master Gunnery Sergeant HelFire, the biggest man on my team, the man could demolish a building with just his bare hands. "I have a few ideas about that." 93 chuckled to herself as she adjusted her bag. First Leftenant Musaki, she could easily be the deadliest member of our team. Not only did we both attend the same Military Academy, but she is also my best friend. She and I were both forcefully admitted into the Academy at the age of 11, our training was brutal. Ripped from our parents at such a young age, we bonded fairly quickly with each other. It wasn't until we both became adults that I realized how much we relied upon on one another, her sadistic tendencies made her unstoppable. Where I master every form of weapon and took on leadership training, she excelled with explosives training and close quarters combat. I tried not to think too hard on the hell she put our class through. She terrorized our group once by learning how to make explosives in our bunkhouse, the building exploded and we had to sleep out in the open. It was winter.
Where Musaki was the smallest, Hellfire was by far the biggest. His muscles were visible even in the Orbital drop suit we each wore. The suit was specifically designed for his massive frame, his suit doesn't have sleeves or a lot of the bulky shock absorbers we have, it was basically a dumbed down version of our suits. He didn't need any of the impact absorption or armor. The man was a walking disaster when pissed. Calling a member of the Hellfire race a 'Man' was a bit of a stretch. He barely fit on the Vertibird. Making those two the decoy seemed the obvious choice.
We hammered out the finer details and began discussing strategy as we suited up for the coming drop. Musaki and Hellfire would land in the middle of the heaviest fighting and blow the front door, drawing enemy fire. Musaki suggested cutting the chutes at 300 feet to create a splash zone on the enemy lines, making the fear factor that much more intense. Esqueezeme would set up on the top floor of the designated building and take care of anything that posed a threat to me and 94, Sergeant NewWind, effectively clearing a path up the tower to the control room. My job was to take out their commander and blow up the main computer. Musaki handed me a wrapped explosive charge. "This is my version of the EMP, it will fry every circuit in that room. Make sure you exit the room before detonation. Otherwise, you will lose your communication with us and any tech in your possession. it has a delay of one minute, be fast." Well, that took care of the main computer. I could handle their commander easily. I nodded to Musaki, and HelFire. "Make it loud."
"Yes, sir. Loud is what I do best." Musaki grinned, eager to set off whatever she came up with. HelFire flexed his muscles ready to go through men like a tank to a wall.
"On our final approach, we are opening cargo doors now. Good luck out there." The pilot spoke just before Tlthe alarm sounded like a buzzer. We stood up and stretched out our tense muscles, grabbing each other's safety rope, we ran to the opening doors at the back of the Vertibird. The idea was to do a formation drop, keeping together until we were above the compound. Then we would glide silently to our designated drop zone under the radar and in the middle of the battlefield. The room went green. We ran out of the plane and jumped off the Vertibird. The only sound that could be heard was the whistle of the wind as we glided past the front lines and split off to the west end of the battlefield. I split off from our group with NewWind and went straight to our post to wait for the signal.
(Shanie's P.O.V)
As Hellfire and I neared an optimal altitude. I angled my drop to intercept Hellfire on his left side. Hellfire reached out to me with his massive tree of an arm, wrapping it around my waist. I had a perfect seat on his shoulder as we dropped like a stone the rest of the 300 feet to the ground. We decided to make a splash as we dropped, give the Vampires something to fear. Hellfire took the impact as we hit the ground. A shock wave of debris and dirt expanded from our impact on the ground sending enemy troops backwards away from us and off their feet. The vampires screamed, obviously not accustomed to seeing an abnormally large man falling from the sky. It didn't help that their planet was in a near constant state of darkness, making the place a perpetual night. Hellfire sneered at them as they opened fire. I slid down to the ground and used Hellfire as a shield. The bullets seemed to just bounce off of him like a rubber ball to a wall. Captain was right to send us in the front door. I giggled to myself and whipped out from behind Hellfire, my rifle up, taking only seconds to kill a vampire and duck back behind Hellfire before they could get a bead on me. My bullets were special, not like the normal shit the Federation supplies, I made them myself. Each lead tip was hollow, I filled them with my own special brand of CXV4, my bullets detonate on impact with anything I open fire at. One bullet for each vampire was plenty for a simple kill. I shoved behind a crumbling titanium wall as Hellfire pulled his mini GAU from his back and swept it back and forth on our flank and rear. The gun was originally designed for the Vertibird, but as I mentioned, Corporal Hellfire isn't a normal sized man. I could hear the men on our side of the line cheering as we basically made meat-fette out of the vamps. As Hellfire pushed the enemy back, I motioned our troops to advance. Hellfire held the once mounted GAU-8 turret with one hand as we moved at a smooth, even pace towards the front doors of the tower our advance was slow and time consuming, but well worth the extra effort to take out more vamps. The troops behind us kept up with our steady pace easily since we were wiping the floor with the Vampire nation. I noticed as Hellfire paused long enough to pick something up and stuffed in his back pocket, then he continued on leading me and the platoon we accidentally rescued towards the doors. "How are we supposed to blow the doors, Leftenant?"
"It's easy for a demolition expert like me." My voice took on a girly pitch, it happens every time I blow something up. It's how Jason knew when he should start running. I pulled the modified CXV4 I carried from my ordinance bag, as Captain so aptly calls it, and placed it gently along the seam of the double doors. I carefully attached the detonator to the block I playfully gave a smiley face to and set the timer for one minute. "Move back, Gunny, I'll show you a beautiful piece of art." He walked back to stand behind a wall that was at one time another building. I started the timer and jogged to his position. "Oh what a beautiful day for some chaos." I sighed to myself. My smile became a little more sinister. Hellfire raised an eyebrow at me in question. "It is not Daytime, Leftenant, it is Night." I frowned, then looked up at the pitch black sky as explosions lit it like stars. "Is it? I haven't noticed."
(Princessa's P.O.V)
I leapt off the wall and let my leg connect with the neck of a vampire as I made my run up the service stairs to the roof of the building. The vamp died as I slid my blade along the exposed veins in his neck. "one." I whispered to myself. One more kill to carve into my rifle stock. The count would later be added to my records, proof that I was the best. I could hear Hellfire and Musaki as they made their drop into a splash zone. I had to admit that my father was wrong to eliminate the whole race, at this point there wasn't much to dwell on. I had a job to do. The captain needed me in position before the explosion went off. As it stands now, I will barely make it in time. I jumped up the next flight of stairs and shoved my desert eagle into the eye of the next vampire. I used his corpse as a cushion for my landing then I was up and moving again. As I burst through the door to the roof the Explosion went off. Shit. I ran the last steps to my position setting up my rifle as I slid home. "You go in 4 minutes. Give them time to get to 93 and 95." I whispered it into our communicators. I had the stair well covered. Using all of my skills as the best sniper in the Federation, I only spent 2 minutes on the stair well. taking everyone in it out. I used the remaining time to carve twenty seven new marks into my rifle. "Move, now."
Jason's P.O.V
NewWind shifted his weight a couple of times and I felt the ground vibrate as a nearly white explosion went off, it made my eyes water. "You go in 4 minutes, give them time to get to 93 and 95." Esqueezeme whispered in my ear. I could hear the bark of her rifle in the distance. My hands itched to join the two up front. I bounced a little, waiting for the go ahead to begin our climb. I hated waiting, it was always the worst part of missions like this one. We had to have patience, a patience I didn't have at the moment as I heard the unmistakable whine of the mini GAU-8 the pinging song it made as the sabot rounds chew mercilessly through flesh. The bark of the reaper as Esqueezeme added to her already impressive kill count. "Move, now." We shot into the building and began climbing the stairs. Bodies lined the walls. Esqueezeme was busy. "You're clear all the way up, I'm helping the other two up front." Esqueezeme whispered and I heard the rifle again. "Copy that." NewWind and I shot up the tower fast. Now with no one in the way our job was faster. Once we reached the control room on the top floor in mere minutes as opposed to the hour of extra work Esqueezeme saved us from. NewWind peeked around the door, the commander was watching the monitors and wasn't paying attention to the door. He nodded to me. I set the charge just inside the door and we quickly and quietly ran down the stairs a little ways. I felt the static discharge run down my back. But, my equipment still worked. Shouts were heard in the room and we shot back up the stairs before they had a chance to leave. I hit the commander in between the eyes, taking him down quickly. NewWind took out the others. I pressed the switch on my comms. "Mission complete, begin extraction protocol."
"Incoming reinforcements, extraction impossible while we are in the line of fire." Musaki chirped over the line. I cursed and ran down the stairs as quickly as I could. NewWind was right behind me. "93, I need a solution, 92 take out their gunners, 95 keep them busy. I'm on my way." I could hear the gunfire as I neared their location. The feeling of racing against an enemy ship to the main lobby and the rest of my men, gave me an extra push to get there first. "I have an idea, but I need 95, and some cover fire."
"Copy that, 94 take the left flank. I'll take the right."
NewWind nodded to me and split left.
I rounded the corner as Musaki began putting together an explosive charge. I ducked behind a wall as bullets ripped through the weaker walls near me. Musaki attached a modified explosive to a rocket. "91, cover me. 95 shoot the enemy Vertibird with this." She tossed him the rocket. HelFire caught it and loaded it into the launcher he had somehow pulled from his back pocket. He took aim. "92, get out of the building, now!" I watched as Esqueezeme ran flat out from the front door of the building, barely clearing it as HelFire fired his launcher. The rocket connected with the Vertibird and an inferno swept out consuming all in its wake. Taking the building with it. "Oh shit, take cover!" I shouted and we ducked to escape the blaze. The fire went from red and orange to blue in seconds. The heat was intense. As the fire receded I breathed a sigh of relief. "Sound off."
"92."
"93."
"94."
"95."
"What the fuck, did you make?" I rounded on Musaki, glaring at her as she
had the nerve to giggle. "I combined a flash grenade and an incendiary with a C4 charge. I had to think of something to withstand the shot." I could only imagine what my superiors would say. I turned to 95, the question was burned into my mind. He looked up at the crumbling remains of the ceiling above is head, suddenly very interested in it. "How exactly did you pull a rocket launcher out of your ass?"
He shrugged "I linked it." HelFire said that with a straight face. Laughter bubbled up around me. Not knowing why that was so funny, it could have been the adrenaline wearing off.
Someone would definitely ask too.
{Author's Notes}
Hi everyone, thank you so much for the support and for reading our story. This is the brain child of me, Derpy-Chan, and DrPestilence. We hope you stick with us and enjoy the thrill ride. There will be a lot of editing as we go to help paint a better picture of Jason and his crew. Bare with us as we do.
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