by Noah Barnett
Monty caught up along with Jen, Tobias, and Remy holding tickets of their own. Charlie set Fara down and turned to them.
"Why don't we take the time to register as a clan?" He asked.
"Secondhand Whor—" Remy started to say.
"I was thinking, Misfits," Charlie interrupted quickly. He'd tried hard to find a name that suited them. It may not have been perfect, but none could think of one better. He led the way upstairs and approached a console. Then he navigated the menu until Charlie found the option he wanted.
"Create Clan?" The console asked, and he selected, 'Yes.' It required ten thousand credits to register which he undoubtedly had. He entered the name and each member stepped forward to put their hands on the screen.
"Take a picture?" The console asked next. Why not? He selected ‘Yes,’ again.
They were directed to a photo booth. A kind of small room with a digital camera. Remy pulled three grenades out, and started to juggle them. Tobias knelt next to his Angel while she held his two-handed sword. Monty turned grace around in her southern dress in a slow waltz. Jen had her boy toys hoist her up between them. Charlie slowly walked back into the shot with his arms raised, as if to say, these losers are all mine.
Unfortunately, he wasn't watching where he stepped. His arm caught Remy as she continued to juggle. Her hand slipped, and one of the grenades went sailing into the air. Everyone but Charlie saw it's majestic arc, and oblivious to the destruction about to happen, he smiled into the camera.
There was a brilliant flash and a concussive slap against Charlie's back.
"Thank god that was only a flashbang," Remy said in a grateful sigh. Monty and Jen laughed as they climbed to their feet. Tobias appeared from a nearby respawn tube with a confused look on his face. Gadreel rushed to him and hugged him in apology. Remy sheepishly put her bloody grenades away, and they moved together back to the console to see what had happened.
"Oh my god, you are not using that picture," Jen said.
"I think its perfect," Charlie said seeing the image.
Charlie was in the foreground smiling like a doofus, and framed the picture with his arms. Tobias had been trying to save his Angel from the explosion. She'd been attempting to anoint him as a knight. The result was a two-handed sword cutting off the crusader's head. Monty's hand had slipped at the worst time. Grace's breasts were in full view as he accidentally tore her dress front clean off. Remy was scrambling forward to catch her grenade while panic was written on her face. Jen, still dressed as a succubus, had fallen and was pinned between two of her weapons. Sebastian held her parted knees as her legs wrapped around his waist in a desperate attempt to keep from crashing to the ground. Yohan clung to her neck as her face was pressed into the crotch of his pants.
"Hey!" Remy said pointing to the screen. "It totally looks like Jen's getting spit roasted in the background. She knows just where to put her hands too. That took me forever to learn."
"You are not using that," Jen repeated in a firmer voice. Her cheeks started to turn scarlet from embarrassment.
"I completely agree," Monty insisted.
"I think this is the perfect clan picture. We are the Misfits." He said accepting the clan photo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Shuttle Launch
Five days later, Fara slid out of the Mustang, and her eyes genuinely twinkled as she stepped toward him. Charlie smiled seeing that warmth. Today she wore bright green eyeshadow, and her lipstick tasted of mint chocolate when she bounced up to kiss him. As Fara pressed her body to his, he ran his fingers through her dyed hair and grabbed a handful. She forced a tongue into his mouth, and they fought briefly. The bite marks and scratches were a testament to Fara’s savage lovemaking last night, though not all the blood spilled had been his. Elva slipped under his other arm dressed in a new business skirt and matching jacket.
Saturday brought with it a busy Competition Center. Just outside the entrance, he found the ‘Misfits’ already waiting for him. Jennifer and Tobias were describing their exploits during the Roth Invasion to an enraptured Montgomery. Remy was back to doodling on her grenades.
"I'm glad everyone is here," Charlie said approaching the group.
"You only messaged us three times about it last night," Jennifer replied dryly.
"What can I say, this event smells even more special than usual."
"There are about two hours left, but we might as well go inside," Monty said with an equal level of enthusiasm.
The Competition Center was packed with new and old players. Each one eager to discover what today held, and the air was abuzz with speculation. When Charlie neared a console with his golden ticket, the screen activated. "Event debriefing begins in 1 hour, please enter lobby one."
They walked as a group to the elevators and went down, but it wasn't the lobby Charlie remembered. This morning it was plain without any couches or consoles. A crowd was gathered, and frankly, most of the players looked like high level gamers. In fact, a few famous clans were in attendance, so the Misfits stood out like a bunch of jokers.
Jen settled against the wall as her hunky harem took up positions nearby. "I have good news, not that you would really care."
"What is it?" Charlie asked.
"Stephan is dead," she said with an expression of smug satisfaction.
"Can't say I'm surprised. The asshole played with his power too much and got burned. Did you get to say anything to him?"
A feral smile spread across her lips as she replied, "I did. I reminded Stephan that making me an enemy had not been wise. He called me a bitch just before he crumbled into dust. Not the most intelligent of final words."
"Are you going back to Blood and Pride now that he's dead?"
"Yes, but I certainly won't be investing as much energy or time. I've grown to enjoy the straightforward nature of Gun Meister. It's refreshing."
"Glad to hear it."
Monty quietly played pinochle with Grace and Elva. Charlie found himself losing hand after hand to Elva’s keen ability to track numbers. Together the squad waited for the event to begin.
[Event Starting]
They were transported to an underground missile silo. Charlie stood at the entrance to a tunnel mouth while electric vehicles zipped past with work crews. Stretching almost two hundred meters above them was a massive missile surrounded in scaffolding. About ten thousand people were crammed close to a podium with a middle aged women, wearing the familiar grey military tunic. She tapped the microphone with a clear lacquered fingernail and a nearby speakers squealed in protest.
"Please wait for the meeting to start." She paused, expecting everyone to settle down for her. "For your convenience, this debriefing will not be muted. However, you will be respectful and remain quiet. This is your only warning. The commander will arrive shortly."
From behind them a bulky suit of armor advanced. It was about eight feet tall and broad around the shoulders. The servos whined as it walked stiffly past the crowd, toward the podium, and mounted the steps. The gray armor turned toward them. There was a loud hiss of escaping air, and it’s back opened. Colonel William Blake pulled free like a moth emerging from a cocoon. The female assistant stepped forward with a small officers cap to cover his sweaty hair. He approached the microphone and straightened his military jacket.
"I gotta say, that feels like walking around in a tuna can. Smells like it too." He said taking a drink of water. For a few seconds, he continued to arrange his rumpled uniform before starting.
"Humanity has not been idle since the Roth arrived. What you see behind me is the Mark One Power Armor. Sadly we don't have an endless supply of them, which is why only a few golden tickets were awarded. Ugly as they are the suits will prove necessary in the coming mission. We also finished work on the Titan X," he said and gestured back toward a gassing space rocket. Near the bottom, two red armored dropships clung on either side. Tiny men in coveralls were visible working on the ship with spot welders and tools.
"It looks like
a giant cock with leeches stuck to the sides," Remy called. There was a ripple of laughter through the crowd.
"That it does. We haven't the time to make it pretty either. Hell, we barely had the time to make it functional, but the Roth have been a nasty leech attached to mankind's cock for too long. It's about time we burn them off." The old man cleared his throat and squared his shoulders.
"I believe most of you have developed a relatively complete picture of recent events, so I’ll skip the lecture.” The colonel paused for almost a minute as if he were battling the memories of his past. Finally, he cleared his throat.
"I lied when I said that capturing a dropship was our only small victory. It was dramatic but incorrect. The reason you're all here is because you and your weapons saved something we needed. It may have been a research facility, a stockpile of resources, or the evacuation of key personnel." He said scanning the crowd.
"For years we hunkered underground, waiting, praying, and struggling to survive. The eggheads got to work cracking open the secrets to the cloning bays. The engineers started expanding the underground facilities like the one we are standing in. Many more had the dirty, and heartbreaking job of collecting DNA samples. If the cloning technology proved viable, we might be able to bring them back. Not with memories intact, but they'd be reborn. Which spared the ladies from having to debase themselves to repopulating the world."
"You can imagine their relief," he said glancing back at his attendant. She gave a small smile.
"In the years that followed we created this simulated space. As many of you have guessed, firearms don't transform, and they certainly don't crawl into bed with you in the real world. All of us are standing in a digital reconstruction within this universe. Outside, it's a crumbling ruin, and a statement to mankind's fall from the evolutionary ladder."
"The Roth stayed for six months. Mostly just to hunt down the scattered survivors. After the Roth finished kicking our corpse, they departed the solar system but left some insurance. They built an outpost on Mars and left a single carrier to keep guard. The satellites in orbit were just to watch over what remained of humanity."
"You all witnessed first hand the Roth's return. We fought them that first day, and once again humanity tasted their wrath. This time though, we also watched and took notes."
"The Roth are not omnipotent, nor are they that superior as warriors. On average they are slightly stronger, and a bit tougher to kill, but they have some glaring faults. Their society appears to be built on acquiring glory. They need it like a man needs air. The young Roth are especially susceptible, which is why so many of those vainglorious children rushed into battle."
"We also dissected a few bodies as well. They breathe a combination of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and inert noble gases. If the Roth had arrived on earth a few millennia ago, they might have found the planet very pleasant."
"After we learned our enemies do in fact bleed, we counter-attacked. Men and women around the world rose up to capture one or more dropships. We would need them if we hoped to ever strike back at the Roth. We had hoped for four vessels, and you delivered six. China—the first to attack—captured two of them. France and London managed one while America captured two."
"You may recognize the ones behind us."
"The dropships have enough fuel to enter and exit the atmosphere, but on their own, they wouldn't be able to get to Mars. Among the things we were able to save, were blueprints for the Titan X missile used to send large loads into space. This, I'm told, would give us the needed escape velocity to reach the red planet."
"After capturing the dropships, we had to wait again. The alien carrier and the hundreds of fighters are still a threat in lunar orbit. They'd simply destroy anything we launched."
"Today, we detected movement. The Roth Carrier is accelerating on a trajectory that takes them toward Jupiter. We believe the Roth have built a fuel refining station in orbit over the gas giant. They need to make a pit stop before heading back to Mars. Fortunately for us, a thousand meters of steel isn't a sports car, and it accelerates like a snail on tar paper. It'll take more than a week for them to reach their destination, which will give us a window to launch our operation."
"Finally, we come to the mission." The colonel said and deliberately took a drink of water. He set the glass down and looked across the crowd with hard eyes.
"Extermination."
"Plain and simple, annihilation. Just as they did to us, we will destroy that outpost by any means. This is the last Roth event, and you will decide it’s outcome." The colonel said. A player in the crowd interrupted him with a raised hand. The old man paused and pointed to him.
"Why don't you just slam the ship into the outpost. You want it gone, right?"
"We have no idea what sort of defenses the Roth have on mars. I for one am not willing to risk our one chance on a Hail Mary. It's far better to approach the planet from the blind side.”
"The inside of the outpost is a mystery to us, but we assume you will find three things. Obviously, they will have a cloning center. The second will be a power facility, likely located near the center of the dome. The last thing will be the atmospheric generators."
"You will need to destroy two of the three objectives. Without power or clones, the Roth will slowly starve. Destroying the air mixers and reactor will bring a much faster end. It won't matter how many clones are made if the Roth can't breathe. Personally, I rather hope for this outcome. Call me a nasty old man, but I like the idea of them respawning and suffocating in their own poison over and over."
"Speaking of poison brings us full circle to the Mark One Power Armor. I have to warn you. The Powersuits will be your lifeline. Think of them less like armor, and more like a diving suit. It will contain roughly six hours worth of air. If you get shot, that air will dwindle to several minutes, and running into the alien outpost will not save you. Just as they cannot breathe our air, we cannot breathe theirs. There is no oxygen on Mars except what we bring."
"That isn't to say the armor is made of glass. You can take hits, quite a few actually. Just don't stand in front of a captain's laser cannon." He said scanning their faces.
"Any questions so far?"
"Are there going to be kids and stuff?" A woman asked.
"That question came up during our briefings. The Roth, by empirical evidence, don't suffer children kindly. The cloning technology lets them spit out new bodies as young adults. However, you will encounter civilians. I warn you, every Roth drinks and bathes in glory. Turning your back on an unarmed Roth is just as stupid as handing him your weapon."
"Can we capture one?"
"You can try, but we won't let you back on the dropships. Not with a Roth in your company." Blake said with some venom. The old man sucked in a ragged breath and gathered himself. "I apologize. There are few of us left that remember that day forty years ago. I watched the destruction of our world, and for years those memories festered into a pure crystalline form of hate. I could care less what you do to any Roth you find, but it's best to remember we are there to do a job."
"Any more questions?" He asked, but no one spoke.
"After the Roth Carrier departs, we will launch ourselves. It will take us almost twenty-two hours to reach Mars, which is fast, but you're all going to be twiddling your thumbs for a day. The actual mission will start on Sunday at roughly noon. Once there we will attack from three directions. The south side, we believe, has the most defenses. It's where the Roth landing pads are located. The Chinese will attack from the east side, while the French and English attack from the North. Our dropships will come in from the west and drop everyone off five kilometers from the dome."
"Your first job will be to force march to the habitat, breach it, and get inside. From there you must locate one of the objectives and destroy it. I'm sorry, but we don't have maps."
"I also have to state that there will be no respawns. The dropships have cloning bays, but we only managed to make so many suits of power armor. That's another
reason why we needed the best." Blake said scanning the faces of the assembled crowd. Charlie felt the old man's eyes pause briefly on him and his small clan. He didn't feel like the best, but they had earned the tickets.
"Get into your squads, and board a dropship. Your digital pattern will be uploaded into memory and your equipment added to storage. Other technicians will go over the workings of the armor. For this mission, you may make any change to your loadout free of charge."
"We launch in two hours."
"For better or worse, victory or defeat this is the last special event. Godspeed, and for all our sakes, good hunting." He said giving them a heartfelt but sloppy salute.
An electric golf cart pulled up, and the old man climbed down from the podium. A technician in the passenger seat ran up the stairs and crawled into the power armor. While this went on, the middle-aged woman moved to the podium.
