"Hello, partner," said La Roux. She was lying on the top bunk of a bunk bed, opposite an armoury unit. The bunk bed was very simple in design; a collection of thin, steel beams supported the rather thin looking mattresses. No pillows, no blankets. The bare minimum for space flight. This particular ship is built for travelling short distances quickly so if you had enough time to sleep, you were doing so temporarily.
"And how might you be helping on this mission?" asked Ogilvy.
"I'm the one who the techie lets on first and scouts the joint for enemies," La Roux states. "Of course, I could kill everyone on the ship quickly and quietly, but then that makes you useless and I know how you absolutely must be part of the action so…"
"Right," Ogilvy says. Having spent as little time as necessary to meet the fourth ally, Ogilvy left the room and returned to the cockpit with the others. The shield that surrounded the ship was patterned with random orange polygons, almost like shattered glass. Every once in a while, the shield generators would send a surge through the shields and the pattern would brighten up into visibility all across the cockpit window. The control panel in front of Carpenter was lit the same colour as the shield by all the buttons. Each button and knob projected its name as a hologram when Carpenter's hands got close enough to them. The ship was an interceptor, and included a laser-drill system that would allow the ship to drill into larger shuttles and enter without setting off many alarms or producing a lot of noise that would alert anyone lingering around the point of entry. Ships of this kind were known as "Injectors" among Federal pilots, as they were made en masse and were meant to be deployed in large groups, entering enemy ships from multiple locations and deploying infantry rapidly. When deployed alone, however, was perfect for stealthy entrances to space stations or any large off-world structures.
Ogilvy sat on the seat against the wall nearest Aahmiah and looked out the window while the shuttle ascended through the atmosphere. "Did you found out who the other squad mate is?" asked Aahmiah.
"It's La Roux," replied Ogilvy. Aahmiah gave a light chuckle.
"Did you know that's not her real name?" said Aahmiah. "I only just found out when I was speaking to the Commander earlier today. I'd only heard anyone else refer to her as that."
"So you know she was coming with us?"
"Yeah. I thought you'd enjoy finding out on your own."
"I'm gonna slap you one of these days." Aahmiah laughed again and face forward. The ship was almost in space. The artificial gravity was so lifelike that Ogilvy would not have known that the ship was moving in the first place had he not looked out a window. Ten minutes of silence, besides the sound of the engines running and the occasional zap of the shield surging, and the shuttle was in space. Carpenter brought up a screen on the front screen and hammered his fingers on a few buttons. He got up from his chair and faced his crewmates.
"I am going to be in the utility room fine tuning my tools," he said. "Autopilot has taken over flight controls. I will return when we have reached our destination."
"Ciao," said Aahmiah nonchalantly while giving Carpenter a small wave. He disappeared behind the automatic doors, leaving Ogilvy and Aahmiah alone with each other. The screen said that an estimated time of arrival was approximately a little over one hour. Maybe five minutes and, as mature as the Federal agents wanted to be, they both were overcome with boredom. Aahmiah turned his seat around to face Ogilvy while doing a stereotypical evil genius hand gesture. "What's with you and La Roux anyway?" he asked. "You never give me the whole story and as far as asking Pilkins went, all he did was tell me he thinks she likes you."
"We've got an hour to kill, so I'll talk," said Ogilvy. "During her first assignment to New Eden HQ, she needed someone to show her around. Commander made me in charge of her for the day. I showed her all the rooms in the building, introduced her to Pilkins and I wanted to introduce her to you but you were dispatched at the time. Ever since then, she's made sure to say hello every time she's in the building. How it got to being annoying, I'll never know."
"You didn't mention what happened after the tour," said a feminine voice from the darkness. La Roux uncloaked herself and faded into view. She was sitting between the duo the whole time, legs crossed with her back straight. "You were at Neoncohol slamming down shots of Derezin when you spotted me off-duty. You didn't recognise me without my tracker gear on and asked to buy me a drink." Aahmiah started giving Ogilvy strange looks. He swore that Ogilvy could not stomach Derezin. "I took you up on the offer and told you that I'll see you the next day. The next day, I hear you talking about 'the girl you bought a drink' and how pretty she was and that 'you wouldn't mind storing your shotgun on a rack like that'." At this point, Ogilvy had his hand over his eyes in embarrassment. "Now that I know you aren't all serious business like you acted during the tour, I've been playful around you."
"What a touching story," Aahmiah said in a teasing voice. "Smooth Oggy strikes again."
"Shut up," snapped Ogilvy. This made the others laugh.
"Relax," said La Roux. "We're all friends here."
"Yeah, 'Gilvy," agreed Aahmiah. "You've been less fun since that Archie fella from the beginning of the investigation."
"Because this is a serious investigation," replied Ogilvy. "We're treading on Secreta ordeals and I'd rather not be fighting a bunch of swordsmen with guns who get back up from being shot in the head."
"So they're a little harder to kill," said Aahmiah, "Big deal. Just use a Depezador and the wall piercing pellets will get through their armour and do irreversible damage."
"Better yet," La Roux spoke out, "use your blade to hit the small, unprotected spots of their armour and watch them bleed too heavily to function."
"No way," exclaimed Ogilvy. "Secreta are known for wielding katanas or whatever swords they can get their hands on. They'll slaughter me if I get within arm's reach."
"He's got a point there," says Aahmiah. He looks at La Roux. "We all know you've never even seen a Secreta agent. Ogilvy here has killed not just a Secreta soldier, but a Secreta agent in the E.Y.E division. If the Federation actually comprehended how big of a deal E.Y.E agents are, he'd be the commanding one here."
"Instead the bastard's armour self-destructed and I couldn't confirm the kill," said Ogilvy in a disheartened tone.
"Whatever," said La Roux. "You two can sit here and enjoy the big black nothing that is space and I'll go listen to music."
"What music?" asked Aahmiah.
"My headgear comes with a music player. Bye now." She got up and went back to the private quarters. The duo looked at each other.
"…Her armour comes with a music player?" asked Aahmiah in a confused tone.
"Why can't we have nice things like that?" replied Ogilvy. The pair faced the window in front of them. Forty minutes until arrival, the screen says. Times passes slowly but eventually the ship is almost ready to fire up the laser drills. Carpenter reappears and takes his seat once again. The two claws sticking out from the sides of the shuttle begin to rotate, gaining speed exponentially. Eventually the claws light up bright blue and almost appear still. Carpenter reduces the ships speed and slowly enters through one of the afterburners, insuring a more difficult getaway should the Secreta vessel decide to make a break for it. The drills make very short work of the afterburners and the shuttle has drilled through in no time.
The interior of vessel is very colourful. Back-up lights are dim but enough to light up the room. The walls are plates of silver with golden etchings of dragons and other mythical creatures lining the support beams and the corners of the rooms. The room the Injector drilled into appears to be the engine room. The engines are silent and still; inactive. The doors to the shuttle open and the squad piles out. La Roux busts open a nearby ventilation shaft and slithers away. The three remaining investigate the room a little bit. The inactive engines are cold to the touch. They have not been functioning in a very long time. Aahmiah readies his 444K and Ogilvy follows suit; he removes his Depezador from his back plate holster and pulls back the foregrip to check the chamber. When he sees the chamber is empty, he pulls the foregrip further and chambers a shell. Carpenter approaches the door that leads out of the engine room. No power means the door needs something to pry it open. A metal rod with a hook at the end extends from his right wrist guard. He inserts the hook just underneath the door and rotates his arm so his hand reaches upwards. His arm clicks into place and he slowly slides the door up and out of the way. Once the door is high enough to lift without a hook, he pulls his arm away and the metal rod flips into its original position and retracts. The door leads to a hallway of sorts. There were two doors on the left and right walls and one at the end. On the floor laid a Culter helmet, a crude hole dead in the centre of the forehead.
The doors along the walls had power running to them so the three could split up and search each one. Ogilvy took the one on the immediate left, Aahmiah the one on the immediate right and Carpenter the furthest left door. Ogilvy opened the door, Depezador ready, but only found a clean and empty room with a bed, armoury unit and a shower. Aahmiah found much of the same in his room. Carpenter also came up short. He turned around and checked the door opposite him. All rooms were clean and devoid of anything besides the furniture. It was like the rooms were vacant the whole time the vessel was in use. As the three regrouped around the final door, Carpenter ordered the others to stand still with a hand signal. He looked at his right wrist for a few seconds and then showed it to the duo. There was a patch of heat in the area ahead, in the shape of someone lying down against the wall. Ogilvy and Aahmiah quickly positioned themselves next to the door, ready to breach. Carpenter opened the door and they all ran in, weapons out. The walls that surrounded them were covered in blood, the cockpit had dead bodies in each of the seats and bullet casings were scattered all over the floor.
The source of the heat was a Culter soldier, lying on the floor, his head resting on the wall. He looked up at the intruders and did not react. He simply sat there, staring. There was a hole in his helmet on his forehead; bloody, torn flesh exposed. Ogilvy got closer, aiming his Depezador at the soldier. As he got closer, the soldier began to reach out to him. He eventually began making small groans. From the state of the soldier's helmet and his behaviour, Ogilvy concluded that he had been shot in the head and his resurrector activated. His brain was in a condition only good enough that he could be reanimated, but with severe brain damage. So severe, the soldier had no control in the lower half of his body. Resurrectors are such horrid things, thought Ogilvy. He put his shotgun on the floor next to him and loaded his Motra. He shot the half-alive soldier through the heart, the silent shot putting him to rest. Unknown to Ogilvy, Aahmiah was behind him the whole time, visibly upset by what he saw. Secreta or not, no one deserves pain like that.
"That explains the heat source," said Carpenter. "No other unidentified signs of life detected on the ship. My scanners detect cyber activity upstairs. You two should investigate the bodies for evidence and I will investigate the activity upstairs. If I do not return in five minutes, seek me." Carpenter disappeared up the stairs to the left of the hallway entrance whilst Ogilvy and Aahmiah remained on the flight deck. Ogilvy checked the left body in the cockpit and Aahmiah checked the other one. So far, every dead body on the ship sustained a shot to the forehead in the exact same location. Whoever was responsible for these murders had immaculate accuracy. Judging from the positions of the bodies and the way the heads are angled, the pilot on the left was shot in the back of the head. The second pilot turned to face the gunshot but was shot just above the eyes before he could react.
Ogilvy heard a beeping coming from inside his helmet. He tapped on the right side of his head. "What do you need, Carpenter?" he asked.
"Come upstairs," Carpenter ordered. "You need to see this." Ogilvy looked at Aahmiah and nodded towards the stairway up. Upon reaching Carpenter, the duo saw him kneeling over another dead Culter. Unlike the rest of the bodies on the ship, this one had not been shot in the forehead, but the right temple. It was clearly suicide. "I inspected his weapon. It is a .222 revolver. The rounds match the hole in his head and the dearly departed over there." He pointed towards another body with a hole in the forehead.
"Everybody on the ship has been shot in the forehead except this one," said Ogilvy. "Maybe this guy had a little rampage before shooting himself in the head."
"Four kills, one suicide," continued Carpenter. "That would require five shots. Five shots are all the revolver can hold. He has spare ammo in his right leg compartment. He did not miss a single shot."
"That's cool," said Aahmiah. "Ogilvy and I will be searching the rest of this place for clues. You do what you need up here." Carpenter saluted before getting back to work. The duo went back downstairs and looked around. There were no signs of resistance from any of the bodies, almost like the killer very quickly shot and killed all four of his crewmates before shooting himself. A few minutes of investigation and Ogilvy was receiving another message.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Come upstairs," said La Roux. "Carpenter is having a fit and I don't want to get hit." Ogilvy lowered his hand from his helmet to his weapon and gestured at Aahmiah to follow. They could both hear the sound of metallic clicking as they ascended the stairs. What they saw when they arrived was very strange. Carpenter was holding his BK and was trying to fire into the vent on the wall. The gun was empty. He didn't react to Ogilvy and Aahmiah's appearance and was fully focused on firing his empty gun into the vent, where Ogilvy assumed La Roux was hiding.
"You alright, Carpenter?" asked Aahmiah. Carpenter's focus attention remained unbroken, his finger still pulling the trigger every second. Ogilvy slowly snuck closer to Carpenter to see if he could snap him out of his trance. When Ogilvy got just out of Carpenter's reach, Carpenter, in a very quick motion, looked right into his eyes and aimed his Bk towards his forehead, still pulling the trigger at a regular interval. There was clearly something wrong with him.
"We're bugging out," exclaimed Ogilvy. "Aahmiah, grab Carpenter and drag him back onto the ship. La Roux, quit screwing around in the vents and meet me at the ship." La Roux poked her head out of the vent and saluted before silently disappearing back in. Aahmiah approached Carpenter, who then started aiming at him. He grabbed Carpenter by the hand and dragged him with him, Carpenter's legs doing the bare minimum to keep him standing. Ogilvy looked at the body Carpenter was scanning. It must have some sort of special properties if it could make a highly trained technician like Carpenter act the way he is. Ogilvy grabbed the body and slung it over his shoulder. He followed Aahmiah close behind, observing the surroundings he was leaving behind. Dead bodies, walls splattered in blood, empty and unused private quarters, everything was wrong with this ship. Hopefully the Culter's ally group, the Jians, lived in better conditions.
-{Ogilvy Minorum: Monologue File #00033}
TIMESTAMP: 27/12/0014
I'm on a cruise back home. We didn't find any living witnesses but with Carpenter acting the way he is, we definitely found something. We were down one pilot, but lucky for us, Aahmiah knew how to activate a return trip function on the pilot's dashboard. I won't spoil a lot here just in case someone irrelevant to the mission gets in my files, but the Commander will most likely announce the findings to everyone anyway.
i love roxie she is so hot and perfect
{End Holonote}-
