-1 Month Until Earth's Destruction-
The receptionist looked up from her work station to glance at the exceptionally handsome man standing before her that had just entered the room. The man was easily six-five and stood at a rigid stand still as he retrived his mail. The man had semi-length hair that swept down over his left eye. Despite the man's hair length he was fairly muscular and always seemed to have an intimidating look about him that the receptionist thought was somewhat charming. The man walked up to the reception desk and gave a brisk smile and looked directly at her.
"Any updates today Jenny?" the man asked.
Jenny stared deeply into his penitrating green eyes wondering how a man like this could possibly be so ruthless. Jenny heard the man cough, and blushed finally with the realization of his question setting in. She glanced at her computer screen to see two new messages titled For Your Eyes Only.
"You have two important messages today Commander Gear" she finally replied.
"Good send them to my office at once" said Gear tucking his mail under his arm and picked up a copy of the Mars Tribune glanceing at the title.
"At once sir" Jenny replied turning back to her won work while trying to keep thoughts of the Commander from her head, besides the Commander was someone you didn't want to get involved with.
After all Commander Gear's past was certintaly a colorful one. According to the databases Commander Gear had recieved two medals of honor, one in WWIII and the other in the Baltic War of 2131. Recived top honors at West Point and graduated highest in his class. Recieved a POW medal, and serveral purple hearts, and to say the least his military career was quiet impressive. But strangely no information existed on the Commander before his entrance into West Point, and there was a brief period missing inbetween WWIII and the Baltic War.
As for events after the Baltic War it was more or less cut and dry, recommended as Commander of Mars by the current Commander of Neptune, and had ventured on many ops missions with his own highly trained squad. But Jenny wasn't interested in the Commander's childhood history, but more intriqued with the missing data inbetween the end of WWIII in 2127 and the start of the Baltic War in 2131. She decided she would do some digging to see what she could find otu when a message flashed on her display screen. She glanced up from her desk to see the Commander shaking his head still reading the newspaper.
"Umm...sir, a man named Admiral Grind is waiting for you in you office" said Jenny.
The Commander looked at her blankly and cocked one eyebrow, "Thank you Jenny" said Gear heading toward his office.
Jenny turned back toward her display screen and pulled up the military mainframe as the Commander stopped at his office door, "You know what I hate Jenny?" asked Gear turning toward her desk.
"Sir?" replied Jenny in a quizical tone.
"I hate those old ghosts that never seem to die, don't you?" said Gear.
"Umm...yes sir" replied Jenny not quite knowing how to respond to such a strange question.
The Commander then merely nodded and entered his office, as Jenny turned back to her digging.
Jenny pulled the military mainframe back up and began hacking into the mainframe like the Commander had thought her during the Baltic War. The many firewalls were enough of a challenge but she knew some backroots that most military personal didn't even know about and soon found herself scrolling down through the restricted files looking for Commander Gear's profile. It was at the bottom of the list of course along with the other Commander's of each colony. She quickly bypassed the first firewall, but as she did several more popped up as well as someone running a trace on her signal.
Jenny's fingers quickly tapped over her keyboard quickly setting up an alternate proxy to divert the tracker's trace. She raised her eyebrows and smiled, she had definately hit something the military didn't particualy want public and she was going to find out what. Her finger's danced across her keyboard by-passing several firewalls at a time, finally reaching her goal. Scrolling down the the Commander's list of missions she found five op mission that peaked her intrest each of which had a specific human target as the objective.
Most of them were highly respected military captians or admirals and each cause of death was listed as an accident, the accident she guess was a 9mm through the head. She scrolled down the list of names that Gear had taken out and doubled back to look at the fourth name on the list. Her eyes widened in shock and fear at the name of Admiral Grind, she had let an imposter into the Commander's office and now the Commander was in grave danger.
Gear knew something was wrong as soon as he walked into the complex, when he noticed the two different guards at the entrance gate, but decided it was best if he kept it to himself for the itme being. But as soon as he heard Jenny say Admiral Grind's name he knew something was indeed ery wrong and that the man sitting in the chair in front of his desk was an imposter. He casually walked in back of his desk, set down and started rummageing through his desk for two glasses and his favorite brandy.
The imposter sitting in front of his desk gave a slight cough and Gear abanded his search and looked up at the man as if noticeing him for the first time. He gave the man a curt nod and brought out the two glasses and bottle of brandy from his desk and poured the glasses half full.
"I'm sorry to keep you waiting Admiral" said Gear handing the imposter the other glass of brandy.
"It's no problem at all Commander" said the man wearily taking the brandy, "I'm sure you're a very busy man these days."
"Indeed" replied Gear taking a large swig of brandy, "Now how may I help you?"
The imposter if cousre then took a swig of the brandy for himself realizing it wasn't poison, "Well Commander I'd like you to persuade the politicians here to agree on destriying Earth so that we may be rid of the growing infestation" said the man, "And we would like your full cooporation on this matter."
Gear sensed that the man stressed the word full, and guessed that this man pretending to be Grind worked for Volus the Commander of Luna.
"I see and what would we gain from doing this besides reducing the risk of X-Humans ever breaching the ADD system?" asked Gear sternly, "Besides, I have no personal reason or interest on what the politicians are doing at this time."
The man just laughed and took another sip of brandy.
"Yes Commander I'm sure you don't, but if the X-Humans did somehow manage to escape past the containment field it would be on your consisous" said the man finishing off his brandy and placed the glass back on the desk, "Which in that case you would be know doubt stripped of your power and someone more competant would be put into your place."
Gear knew his last statement was to cause provocation and he knew better than to take the bait.
"If that is the case Admiral, I assure you that Mars's forces are more than adequate for the job" said Gear, "And I think your forgetting that it is Mars that has the largest military fleet in history."
Gear decided that this little sharade had gone on long enough, he knew the real reason whythis man was here and it wasn't to talk politics.
"Hmm I understand Commander" said the man standing up, "So i assume that we have your full cooporation?"
"As a matter of fact Admiral, you don't and frankly you never did" replied Gear leaning back in his chair, "And give Volus my reguards when you see him in hell."
A burst of anger flashed across the man's face and Gear could see the raging fire in his eyes.
"Why you little..." the man started to say before his words were cut off.
The man grabbed his chest in a paniced state his eyes fixated on the glass of brandy. Gear slowly got out of his chair as the man sunk to his knees eyes wide in fear, as Gear walked over to him.
"Ah you see" said Gear smiling down at him, "The brandy was exceptionally good, a 2055 chardoe I believe."
The man tryed to speak but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a sputter of blood.
"I admit there was poison inside the glass, but then again Volus's men aren't to bright" said Gear squatting down, "I mean at least try to impersonate someone that isn't already dead"
The man's eyes flashed of anger again as he reached inside his jacket and slowly pulled out a small pistol and aimed it at Gear, and tried to mutter something like go to hell but only more blood spat out as he pulled the trigger.
The two guards outside the gate were already dead and Gear's guards's were already inside and running up the stairs by the time the other shot went of as Jenny let out a horrifyed gasp and covered her mouth with her hands as tears started welling up in her eyes.
Gear watched with a calm curiosity as the man pulled the trigger, and coughed up a good size amount of blood ending his life. The bullet whizzed by Gear missing him by inches shattering the glass window behind him.
Gear gave a short laugh, "And you can't shoot worth a darn." Gear stood up as the door to his office burst open a three soldiers came bargeing in.
"Sir are you alright?" one of them asked.
Gear gave a short nod and sat back down in his chair.
"Send Jenny in please, and get this mess cleaned up" said Gear glancing at the newspaper title that read Still awaiting Mars' decision on Earth Defense Plan, Gear looked up and smilied, "And tell the High Council I've come to a decision"
The soldier gave a quick salute and replied, "Sir! Yes sir!" and left the room as the other two soldiers carried out the body of the man that he guessed Volus had sent to kill him.
Gear would deal with Volus later he was more concerned with how he would present his decision to the Neptunian Council and how they would react. Jenny tried to avoid looking at the pool of blood that was still on the floor and walked up to Gear's desk.
"U-Umm sir you wanted to see me?" said Jenny.
"Yes" said Gear walking over to his safe, "Alert my squad to meet me here in a half an hour, we have things to discuss" Gear typed in the last digit to his safe and scanned his fingerprint opening the safe, and pulled out a folder and a modifyed M-17 pistol and closed the safe.
"Yes sir" replied Jenny turning to do as she was told.
Gear spread the first piece of parchment across his desk revealing a galaxy map of the ADD system set up between Mars and Earth, with this he'd be able to navigate saftly between the scan points without being detected and most important without being blowed to bits. The other piece of parchment was far more valuable, it was a transponder graph just newly developed that showed the locations of all friendlies and ememies within a twenty-five mile radius. Which Gear and his squad would need in order not to cause any unwanted skirmishs with allies.
The meeting with the Neptunian Council would definately be a difficult one even though that Commander Siri and him were close friends, he still thought they would consider his actions as treacherous but he didn't care he didn't like how things were being handled with the X-Humans anyway, things were getting out of control to say the least.
Gear's comm pinged and he listened as Jenny's faltered voice filled the speakers evidently still suffering from the effects of what had happened, he wondered if she would be of any use to him in her current state.
"Sir your squad is here would you like me to send them in?" asked Jenny.
"Yes that will do" said Gear, "And Jenny please come in with them."
"Y-yes sir" replied Jenny faltering her words for a bit.
The door to Gear's office opened and in came Jenny leading Gear's most trusted soldiers, his squad, his team.
The last one in closed the door behind him, as they lined up side by side and saluted. Gear returned their salute and asked that they be seated. There were five of them plus Jenny, each elite soldiers each scoring highest or near the top in their respected field. He knew their names instinctively and owned each his life twice over and vise-versa.
Seated from left to right was Jenny his computer expert, her small hands twitching in nervousness and her long blonde hair strung back in a ponytail and her dark brown eyes almost looked black compared to her light skin.
Next was Bradly Owens, a man of medium height that had a German look to him, had jet black hair and was fairly muscular, but his dark sunken eyes is what made him stand out the most. Owens was extremely skilled with short range weapons such as the M-5 Storm shotgun or the E-190 Equalizer.
Next was Ken Ukizu, but most of the squad just called him Uki most of the time which didn't really bother him, made him sound like a girl he always joked. Ken was the shortest of the squad easily five-eight or less which was mainly due to his Japanese heritage and took great pride in his assault training and marksmanship with his own modifyed Z-7 automatic rifle.
Next in line was Jason Case, the only half cyborg in the group due to a recon-mission gone bad during a mission in WWIII. Case lost his whole left side of his body and right hand, he had a light-hearted personality even though he was constantly reminded of how he looked like Two-face from Batman. Case specialized in explosives, and had a knack for creating a bomb out of pretty much anything and always carried two T-73 Air Drones with him.
Next was the only girl in his squad besides Jenny and was one of the toughest soldiers that he knew, Vera Willams. Vera had also gone to West Point and was in Gear's class and scored second highest only loosing to him. She was excellent at senseing traps and somehow always managed to turn the traps against the ones that had planted them and was highly dependable with her AK-51 automatic rifle. Gear had seen her take serveral bullets before and barely got slowed down and she always accomplished her task no matter what the odds against her were.
In the final chair was Gear's most trusted friend and best soldier in the squad next to himself was DeMarcus Grave. DeMarcus was of African-American descent and had lost both his brothers in the Baltic War and considered Gear to be one of his brothers as did Gear toward him. Grave was a well rounded soldier capable of using any weapon, but prefered his C-19 sniper rifle above anything and also loved his modifyed Z-7 burst rifle with his own added scope for more accuracy. Grave also had more stamina than anyone Gear knew even more than what he himself had and was therefore able to carry more munition than everyone else.
"Does anyone not know why your here?" asked Gear as he looked at his squad. The resounding silence was the answer that Gear had hoped for, "Alright lets begin our discussion."
"As all of you know I have not reported to the Neptunian Council what my decision is reguarding Earth, which I will be giving them tomorrow" said Gear.
"So what's your answer Commander?" asked Uki.
"My decision is that we will not have any part of Earth's destruction...at least not yet" replied Gear.
"Not yet?" asked Vera confused, "Why is that your decision?"
"What I'm about to tell you stays between us, agreed?" asked Gear as his squad nodded in simultaneous agreement, "Good, a few days ago one of our moniter drones picked up a automated distress signal coming from a remote location somewhere in Colorado, the exact location is still being determined, and the drone picked up the following transmission."
Gear tapped the play button on his desk activating the holo display of the Mars scientists activating the replay on the drone.
A man's voice filled the room in a quicked yet calm state.
"This is Edy Rukk of the Texas......guard, any GM personel respond...........safe city...survivors......current location......Colorado......much time, transmission......out...send immedi...evac.........Rukk out..." said the voice from the drone.
"As you see some of the non-infected humans have set up a safe city somewhere in Colorado, and if we destroy thr planet now those humans that have fought to survive will die" said Gear, "And something needs to be done to save them"
"But what can we do?" asked Owens, "With the flight restrictions set up"
"I was hoping to present the council with the option of letting a team of commandos go to retrieve them" said Gear.
"And what if they said no?" asked Vera
"Why would the council say no?" siad Case, "If their are people alive on Earth in a safe city the council should be doing everyhting in their power to rescue them"
"It's not that simple," siad Grave speaking for the first time, " True enough the council should be trying to svae them, but the odds of the odds of the mutation spreading are to great for the council to ignore for just a handful fo survivors."
"But isn't there some way the council can set up some sort of decontamination are?" asked Case, "They have to do something!"
"They don't have to do anything" said Grave, "You only think they should becuase your brother is still on Earth"
Case rose form his chair so quickly the others barely had time to react. Using his robotic arm Case shoved Grave sending him flying across the room and crashed into the wall. But before Grave could stand Casewas on him again lifting him up by the neck into the air and getting ready to use his other robotic fist to punch him in the face.
"You bastard just becuase your brothers died in the Baltic War doesn't mean everyone elses brother has to die" yelled Case as he was getting ready to bring his arm forward.
Vera, Uki and Owens are standing in back of Case with theri pistole drawn and pointed at Case.
"Case stand down!" said Gear wlaking over to him , "That's an order soldier, I said stand down!" Case looked at Gear, then realesed his grasp on Grave and stepped back.
"Now I don't need my men fighting" siad Gear sternly, "I trust that there won't be anymore problems, agreed?"
"Agreed" said Grave and Case almost simultaneously and shook hands.
"Good, now back to the buiness at hand" said Gear retaking his seat, "If the council says no, we will have no choice but to do it ourselves"
Gears squad looked at one another in utter shock that Gear would even suggest such a thing. "But sir" said Owens, "If we do it won't that be grounds for disobeying one of the five laws?"
"On top of that each of us will be thrown in jail for fifteen years at least" said Vera, "And you would be charged for derliction of duty and loose your Comadership."
"Yes that is correct," said Gear, "If the council says no I'm not asking you to put your own careers on the line for this."
"I think that I speak for everyone Commander," said Uki standing up, "If you would be willing to risk your career than so would we, we're behind you one-hundred and ten percent Commander."
"Very well," said Gear, "Pending on the council's decision, we'll be leaving at 0200 the next day, squad dismissed."
His squad stood as one, saluted and made their way toward the door. "Grave I'd like to speak with you in private for a moment."
"Of course" said Grave curtly closing the door after everyone had left the room.
"Have a seat" said Gear gesturing toward a chair as he took a seat himself.
"Thank you sir," said Grave taking a seat, "I apologize for the incident that Case and I caused earlier, we were both out of line."
"Apology accepted, just try not to let it happen again" said Gear.
"Yes Sir!" replied Grave.
"Now I wanted to talk to you about where you think the safe city in Colorado is," said Gear clasping his hands togeteher, "Any ideas?"
"Well i can guarentee you that it sure as hell isn't Denver," said Grave looking over the map, "I'd say we should start at Colorado Springs and then work our way up to Fort Collins."
"That would be a good bet," replied Gear moving is finger along the selected path, "Do you think it's in that area somewhere?"
"Personally, I'd say it's Fort Collins," said Grave, "But I could be wrong and if we started at Colorado Springs, we'd be crossing the desert first instead of the ice fields if we started at Fort Collins."
"Good, then that will be our plan if the council says no," said Gear smiling, "And you'll be in charge of making sure that the rest of the squad is ready for anything that might happen."
"Yes Sir!" replied Grave standing to leave.
Grave stopped before he reached the door and turned back to face Gear. "Sir off the record, you know what the council's decision will be already don't you?"
Gear just gave a curt little laugh and replied, "Without a doubt soldier."
© 2008 |
Submission Name: New Planet: Mission Earth - Chapter 1
