BEYOND GOOD & EVIL 2

Jamie "Wolf" Driscoll

"The battle is won, but the war is far from over" the first words of the Alpha Sections Occupation Force as they stormed Hillys, mere months after the death's of their General and Priest. To live on Hillys now is to know the terror and oppression of a militaristic occupation. The Alphas kill all who stand in their way, the resistance is splintered, 2 million Hillyians are dead and the flagpoles of Hillys are one again flying the flag of the Alpha Sections. The Hillyians have been beaten into submission; the resistance is capable only of making futile and ineffective shows of defiance. To make matters worse, the people's hero, Jade has vanished and only she holds the key to finding the salvation of a universe…

Chapter 1: The Shadows of Dawn

"Purpose defines us"-Agent Smith, The Matrix

SYSTEM 4-HILLYS-Seaview-Akuda Bar-26/7/2435

Sev sat in the near pitch-black shadows of the Akuda Bar's corner table covered in a thick brown cloak with a hood that obscured his entire face, save his mouth and neat, faint beard. Watching the crowd while sipping at his drink. Just then a short a guy, medium build, short black hair and green eyes walked and spoke to Mo, the enormous bull who ran the bar. After an inaudible conversation Mo pointed in Sev's direction and the young stranger walked over and sat down opposite Sev. He looked up at the stranger.

"What?" Sev asked in a growl tinged with an English accent, a relic of a refined past.

"You Sev?" Nino asked. 'This better be the guy everyone was talking about' he thought.

"Who wants to know?" Sev replied he realized he'd given a yes answer without knowing.

"I hope you've been reading the local news, have you heard of a reporter by the name of Jade?" Nino asked, he hoped he could get this over with; this guy gave him the creeps.

"Yeah, what about it?" Sev asked, making a dismal failure of sounding nonchalant, he was intrigued as to where this was going.

"Well, she used to live in the lighthouse out there, until last night."

"What lighthouse?" Sev asked.

"Yeah, we did a flyover earlier today, its been blown to pieces and there are high level energy reading around the island. We don't know what they are but no one is willing to go have a look."

"And you want me to go instead." Sev said, finishing his latest employer's sentence.

"Here are some photos of the people you'll want to look for." Nino handed Sev some photos, Sev glanced at them, memorized each one and slipped them into his jacket pocket. Nino looked like he was trying to think of another subject to talk about.

"Now, about my payment." Sev prompted.

"Ah, yes about your payment, we can offer you 5K" Nino delivered his offer.

'5K, I could fix Icarus with that, not bad, not bad at all' Sev thought, "Okay, I'll do it, have the money ready when I return." Sev said 'If I return' He had a bad feeling about this.

Nino stood up and went to walk up, as Sev stood up to his considerable height Nino remembered, "Where's your ship docked?" He asked

'Local Spaceport, bay 4"

"Right, well send him around, good luck."

"Send who around? Hey! Hey!"

"His name is Hub, ask him about Double H!"

Sev stood still, scowling at where Nino had just disappeared.

SEAVIEW SPACEPORT-Bay 4

Sev made it to the durasteel wall of bay 4 without incident; he looked up at the massive, brownish-yellow doors, towering over him. He located the console next to the door, laughably insignificant yet the only way to manipulate the giant doors. Sev punched in his code and stepped back. The massive doors slowly rumbled open.

"Hello, you Sev?" came a voice from right behind him. Sev stifled a yelp and spun around, a tall man was standing right behind him, Sev hadn't noticed him. The man was taller than Sev by a good portion, wearing Hillyan regular army armour. He had a large head, thick eyebrows, fairly short hair and green eyes. Sev's hand went straight to his sword's hilt, hidden by his cloak. "There's no need, I'm with Nino, name's Hub." Hub held out his gloved hand. Sev remained rigid, not moving, Hub lowered his hand and scratched the back of his neck.

"Your friend, he told me ask you about, Double H?" Sev inquired.

"Yeah, my old codename, I used it when I was working as an agent for Iris, it was…patrol!" Hub looked right, sure enough a trio of Alpha Section guards were marching their way down towards Bay 4.

"Move" Sev hissed at Hub, no time to double check this guy; he didn't want to get tangled up with Alphas. They walked quickly over to Sev's ship, Icarus, a Mercadi Stiletto class yacht, Sev usually stopped to admire his ship, a bullet like fuselage with two wide delta wings, green-on-black monochrome paint, slung under the wings were two long barreled G-565 autocannons the body terminated in a trio of large thruster tubes fed by twin Ruhr Mark VIIs, the whole thing was polished to shine bright enough to shave in. Sev quickly shoved Hub into the ship and closed the boarding ramp. Hub looked about in admiration, Sev moved past him to the cockpit, which sat in the transparisteel nose of the ship. It was an elaborate affair. One seat right at the front surrounded by a semicircle of monitors and three more chairs further back each of which having their own monitors. Sev quickly brought the ship online. "Strap in, I've got a loose AP valve somewhere so takeoffs are starting to get a little shaky." Sev shouted over the rumbling engines. Once he was satisfied that Hub was securely in place he pulled up ion the control pod and the yacht lifted lazily into the air, did a nose stand, spluttered and automatically righted itself. "See what I mean?" Sev pointed out "You can get out now." Hub did so and staggered over to the pilot's chair, looking a little green. "Where to?" Hub pointed out the island, Sev gave the yacht some throttle and pulled the ship into a shallow dive towards the island and the smoking ruins it played host to.

JUST OUTSIDE SEAVIEW-Lighthouse Island

Sev put the yacht down just outside the entrance to the island's cave. "We'll need to take the skimmer" Sev announced. The skimmer was Sev's other pride and joy, a Dyler GSX-350 turbobike; powered by twin turbofans on its underside the bike was a small version of a skybike. Sev and Hub jumped on, Hub with some difficulty due to his armour. Sev fired up the bike, which made a deep, animalistic rumbling, he hit a button on the wall and the lower doors of the yacht opened, dropping the bike into the ocean. Or rather dropping it onto the ocean, the bike skimmed the crests of the waves before rising about half a meter above the water. Sev pressed on the throttle; the bike tipped forward, much to Hub's discomfort, Sev guided the bike into the cave.

It was just like Hub remembered, only just. The dock was now strewn with wreckage, whoever had come here had torn the place apart, there were bits of machinery every where, the obvious marks of an attack. The mysterious Sev, still with his cloak on landed the turbobike on the jetty, blowing away small pieces of smashed machinery as the bike shuddered earth-wards. Hub leapt off and immediately started for the passageway up to the surface. Sev had just dismounted when the first laser bolt struck Hub square in the back.

"Look out!" Sev shouted, throwing of his cloak. Hub was surprised at how remarkably like Jade this young man looked, same vivid green eyes, same shoulder length hair, even similar jacket, though Sev was wearing a black sweatshirt that displayed his thick chest, cream trousers with neon purple lightning bolts and brown combat boots. Sev drew his weapon from its sheath on his back, a long, incredibly beautiful, ornately wrought sword. Hub checked out their attackers, they were small Alpha robots called Sentinels, roughly T shaped in appearance, they were simply a thin body with a laser dangling between two gas-turbine engines used mainly to police areas where the Alphas themselves wouldn't go. Sentinels monitored conversations and were programmed to kill anyone at the discretion of its onboard TES (Threat. Evaluation. System). Which was what the Alphas claimed, though more accurately a Sentinel was also programmed to carry out random on-the-spot executions as a means of terrorizing the public. While these flying spies might have given ordinary people nightmares, the small drones' simple battle strategies and basic construction would be little challenge to two seasoned warriors. Hub drew his T-Hammer from its hidden compartment and joined Sev, who had already taken down several droids with his elegant, finely tuned weapon and style of combat.

Though Sev fought, his graceful style making mincemeat of the drones, his thoughts were elsewhere, back to the time when he had first held the very blade he used now, back to a time of innocence, before the whirlwind hand of fate touched him, a peaceful time on Furia

"Focus young Sev" Father told me as I stood facing him in the courtyard of our manor, The long blade awkward and oversized in my nine-year-old hands. I strained and raised my guard, the better part of the long blade wavering dangerously in the air. My father came in and, using little more than a wooden stick, defeated my defenses and swiped my feet out from underneath me. "Stop fighting the weapon Sev. Let it become an extension of your arm, let your weapon become a part of you…"

I was fifteen, though I didn't know it then, the next five and a half years would play host to my darkest hour. Back then I was like all people my age, convinced of my own immortality. Five years in the Border Worlds soon had me seeing my life in a different life. I had stopped fighting my weapon. My appearance set the stage for my current one, my hair was long and I had the starting of a beard. My physique was in absolute top shape. I was dueling with my father, again out on the courtyard under the starry sky. We took a break and stared up at the stars "You'll be up there one day son" my father said "And I know you will make me both proud and humbled to have raised you". We stood side by side and watched a small green streak in the sky. At first I dismissed it as a ship, but as the streak became larger, more started to appear, Father was hustling me inside just as the teardrop shaped ball of green flame smashed into our courtyard with a blinding flash of light and a deafening blast….

The laser bolt had streaked so close to Sev's eyes that it left smears on his vision. Sev shook his head to clear away the afterimage burned on his retina and found the drone that left him the souvenir, he gave the droid a souvenir of its own a X-shaped double slash across its body. Behind him Hub swatted the last drone into a wall where it exploded.

"Well, now we know what those energy signatures were" Hub observed, examining the destruction he and Sev had wrought on their attackers.

"Stay alert, there are probably more" Sev replied. But he was proved wrong. They exited the cave and crossed the short, devastated distance between the entrance to the hangar and the lighthouse. It was completely unrecognizable, what had once been a carpet of green grass was now a junkyard strewn with rubble and ruined machinery, most of which seemed to belong to the Alphas. In places the grass had been burned away, replaced with scorch marks from lasers and airship engines. Sev spotted a small, childlike hand underneath a girder. He rushed forward and pulled the girder away. He immediately wished he hadn't. Sev's breath caught in his throat he recoiled away from what he had, he couldn't breathe, at his feet was a little boy, about a dozen laser scorches burned into his chest, his hand still clutching a kitchen knife, in what had obviously been a futile attempt to defend his life.

"No, poor little Jarred, he was just starting to fit in" Hub commented Sev picked up the waver in his voice. The remark sounded detached but it wasn't hard to pick up the grief at this senseless act of violence. "How could they have killed him, he was only a…only a child" Hub asked, it was a question that could have no answer.

Sev climbed the stairs inside the lighthouse, he kicked a blackened piece of junk out of the way as he walked up, to consumed by shock to notice the small lens in the rubble until he was almost standing on it. Sev bent down and pulled away a slab of wood revealing, a camera. Sev picked it up and noticed that it had a note attached to it, it read

Whoever finds this,

produce of this film

it contains a photo of

an Mdisk hidden in the

room to your right,

find the Mdisk and play it

You will understand

-Jade

24/7/2435

Sev reread the message and then, as if on auto pilot went into the room indicated in the message, it took one look to figure that this was Jade's room it seemed the least damaged, though it was clear someone had been looking for something in it, the rooms contents were strewn every where on the floor and that person clearly hadn't found what they were looking for as they had smashed up the room in anger. Sev located what used to be a film-producing machine but was now a charred hulk perforated with laser blast marks. Then he saw a glint in the sunlight streaming in through the smashed window, he pulled the Mdisk out from under the cushion. Several photos came with it. Sev looked over the photos, they were not as he had hoped, evidence of who was responsible but a record of life at the lighthouse. The photos contained images of the inhabitants' lives before this disaster befell them, pictures of happier times. Sev looked through them until he found the last one, it was a sepia photo of Jade looking up at the camera from whatever she had been working on at the mahogany desk wearing an expression of half surprise-half amusement. Sev held the photo at eye level , then lowered it, the puzzle clicked into place. "Clever girl" Sev muttered, he walked over to the desk and looked at it, scratched onto the desk was a picture of a fish with a circle around it and a arrow pointing in the direction Sev had just come from. Sev looked carefully at the arrow, it was curved and attached to the circle 'like a fuse' the thought suddenly occurred, so Jade had left a trail, on that had led to what she wanted to be found, and then a little further, Sev smiled and walked out past the stained glass fish on the wall "Nice try" he said to the room. He collected the Mdisk from the couch and Hub on the way out "Lets go" he said.

SEAVIEW-Akuda Bar-Iris Den

Nino slid the Mdisk into the player; it clicked, whirred and began to play.

VIDEO RECORDING 20/7/2435

Jade stepped back from her camera and sat down. She sighed, pushed her hair back and then gave up attempting to put of the inevitable. "If you're watching this I hope you're not an Alpha. If your not, they're coming for me, I know it so this will probably be my last chance to record this before its too late, chances are they'll kill me." She straightened up and restarted, sounding more like the old Jade: tough and stubborn "Don't try to rescue me, what I have on this camera is worth more than my life, take it to the Galactic Council, give them the proof they need to deploy their armies against the Alphas. Find my camera and take it to the Council, its all that can be done to stop the Alphas and their DomZ masters." The recording crackled out and the image on screen was replaced with snow.

END VIDEO RECORDING 20/7/2435

"We've got to help her" an American voice said at once, Sev turned slowly to see that the voice belonged to a short, portly pig clad in a brown jacket, whit sweatshirt that did little to hide his great belly, blue jeans and a pair of odd looking boots. "Pey'j's the name, Ah'm Jade's uncle' Pey'j offered a three fingered hand for Sev, he shook it and returned to having his arms folded across his chest.

"Yeah, that's a great cause, Mr. Pey'j but it has two big problems with it."

"And they are?" Pey'j asked defensively, personally he couldn't see any problems with going to rescue Jade.

"One, we don't know where Jade is, or even if she's still alive. Frag, she could be in Andromeda" Sev rarely swore but when he did, it made up for the usual absence of colourful language, "Number two, even if we could find her the Alphas will have her locked down so tight a rat couldn't get with a parsec of her."

"With that I may be able to help" Nino announced to the group, he was sitting at a computer typing furiously, "I learned to hack over the past few months" he informed the group.

'You've got to be kidding, they expect to mount a rescue based on the information provided by a poster boy who learned hacking within the space of several months?' Sev thought 'I'm collecting my check and getting out of here, suicide runs aren't I my contract…'