CHAPTER 4: BEGIN
Ichor Base, 1:00 PM, Day 5
The ships of the Rebellion slowly drifted onto the surface of Ichor. Along the way, Ish had commanded the remaining rebels to meet him there, so there were other ships already there when they arrived. Ish got out of his vehicle and walked into the underground meeting hall quickly, and faster than nearly all of his companions. He then walked across the circular table and to the head of the room where a board lay.
Soon came the others, filling up the table and standing around it, waiting for Ish's words. The majority of them were Tribals, but there were scattered humans and others.
"Rebels, this is urgent." he said, reaching for a small pen-like object that was held on a sill underneath the board he stood next to. Clutching it in his hand, he wrote the words, "Project One Bullet Short," on the board by merely clicking a button on it and moving the laser it spat out to the board. "This was found on a computer screen in the 'spaceship' an enemy vessel. We received reports of dangerous activity from another, but when we approached there were no signs of life except this." he cleared his throat, and then wrote on the board a list.
'Spaceship'
'The Peak'
'The Palace'
'Spawn ship'
'Rith Essa'
'Eschebone'
'Cerulean'
'55 Anubis'
'Sekhmet'
"These are all the drone bases currently deactivated. Now, the Rebel Neonis and his partner were assigned to deactivate The Peak before moving onto the Spaceship, where they sent a distress call. That means that they should have deactivated The Peak first. If I know Neonis, he should have deactivated it like he was told. But by evaluating what little information I've been given, I can tell you it's still running right now."
Quickly murmurs of confusion spread through the audience before him. One person from it bravely called out, "What's that spose'd to mean?"
"It means that these supposedly out-for-the-count strongholds are becoming active somehow. But how?" he asked rhetorically, and then pointed with his hand to what he had written before: 'Project One Bullet Short'. "To this day we have not seen a single drone. But we have found out that the Spaceship has power on it, and Neonis has been captured somehow."
"Should we have left the Spaceship when it had power on?" another called out.
"Ah, but you're missing the point. These bases are supposed to be dead. They're—"he let out a sigh, then tried again. "Let's say I shot you in the head. One would assume you were dead, correct?" he earnestly waited for an answer, but the other was a bit too shocked with his choice of analogy to reply. "Well, that's what happened to these bases. They were wiped out. Neonis was only there to check them out, just for safekeeping. I'll have you know that some people have been surgically brought back to life after a shot in the body. But not only did we find out that these places were running, Neonis was taken out while there. No matter what we were to do, it would simply be beyond our control." he paused for a moment, remembering the warning he was given. He dared not to mention it, for only he had seen it, but he hadn't dismissed it. Oh, no, he was going to take it completely seriously.
"Now, this is my idea. If we split up again, there will be unexplained casualties, I can guarantee you that. We must stick together if we want to get to the answer of this. We're going to go to the palace."
"Why there?"
"Because that's where they are."
Unknown Space Vessel, Time Unknown, Day Unknown
Neonis didn't know how long he had been sleeping. For days, he supposed. But he already knew what was going on the second his eyes opened. He knew exactly what had happened to him, and what was going to happen. He just had to make it happen. As his eyes opened, he realized he was in a dark cell with no sign of light. "How can I get outside from this...?" he thought in aggravation. He felt around for a bit and felt the cold cement he was laying on, and how his head lay uncomfortably against its hard surface. He made a low noise close to a growl in aggravation.
"Shine! Shine, you there?" he spoke in the tone of a whisper, although loud enough to be heard from a considerable distance.
"Who's there?"
Neonis nearly jumped at the surprise of the reply, but he knew it wasn't Shine. It was a male voice—possibly human. "Did you see it?"
"See...what?"
Neonis shook his head to himself. Of course he didn't. "I'm Neonis of the Rebellion. And you are...?"
"Ah, the rebellion. I'm Juno."
"From the Gemini Team?!" he said in a loud voice, then gritting his teeth in regret for being so loud.
"Yeah, from the Gemini team."
Neonis's head began to swim. Finally he remembered, "That's right, the drones attacked the Gemini team." and his mind grinded to a halt. "How long have you been here?"
"I can't tell. I suppose two or three days, assuming they've been giving me three meals a day." his voice was surprisingly young, Neonis thought at first.
Neonis began looking around the cell as soon as his eyes became suited to the darkness and he could see the cement walls. He would need a way to get out of here if he was going to make everything work out. He clumsily felt for his belt, which had been stripped of anything dangerous. He began to un-strap it, and pulled it from his waist.
He pressed the metal piece down onto the cement floor and scraped it. It let out a grinding squeal that made Neonis winch and hesitate, but after a few tries he managed to make a cut through the cement. "Now to put this to the test..." he thought as he scooted over to a sidewall in the direction Juno had been speaking and began clawing with his belt. He couldn't allow himself to be trapped here for much longer...
Mizar's Palace, 9:00 AM, Day 6
The rebels had spent the night at Ichor, getting ready for the day ahead of them. Ish broke them into squads that would each have a certain job incase they were to run into drones. But Ish had no idea what they were facing at the abandoned castle...
Ish stood at the foot of the crumbled pyramid, waiting for the others to gather. All in all, there were forty or so...drones could outnumber them, but Mizar's typical goon was only armed with a pistol and had no bullet proof clothing, unlike the rebels. The last of the ships began to land as Ish started breathing deeply, realizing the magnitude of what he was doing and what he might be going against.
"All right, rebels." he announced. "This mission is going to be—dangerous, to say the least. We need to scan this building and recover lost rebels. We will probably run into enemy forces here, so you best be prepared." his hand instinctively moved across the smooth metal on his plasma shot gun. "We're going to be investigating the lobby first, then the chasm." he began to walk, and then motioned the rebels. Although he hadn't issued any orders at that moment, they were already following him in their assigned groups.
There were exactly 42 of them, so Ish assigned them to six squads of seven. One squad included him and six others, and were all armed with plasma shot guns. Another with machine guns, one with homing missiles, one with shockers, one with sniper rifles, yet another with flamethrowers, and the final one with pistols. This was so that they all could react to the same situation in seven different ways. Not only that, but each squad had a leader, one equipped with a wrist watch similar to the one Ish wore, so that they could keep in contact in the emergency that they were separated.
They approached the end of the clearing in the middle of the palace, and began walking into the tunnels. They, of course, were roofless, but the walls were high enough that it blocked out a good portion of light. Ish, who stood at the front, was the first to come into a room with a ceiling and see it.
There was slaughter. Blood was everywhere. Green and red blood mingled everywhere in the room. Ish and his comrades let out moans of disgust and horror as soon as they entered. Green blood, that of the drones, was found just as much as red blood, the blood of tribals and humans. Ish had guessed it was Flames and his crew, but the others hadn't been given the mysterious tip, so they wouldn't know better.
But the weirdest thing about this carnage was that it was fresh. Ish knelt down to where green blood was spilled savagely, and hesitantly dipped a finger in it. His finger was soon covered in a thick green goop that made his face let out an expression of disgust. He flicked his finger to the side, allowing the slime to splash off of it. He got back up, still confused. This had taught him nothing but that the message he was given had been correct; Flames was under attack. But when, and what had happened?
His thoughts were once again interrupted by a noise from outside. It was the explosion of a grenade and the squeal of drones. Ish pulled out his gun, and a split second later so had all the others. They moved from the doorway to Ish, once more, and waited what was to come. Another explosion, somewhat closer, caused them stumble. Then the final one that Ish heard sounded right on top of them...but he couldn't see anything.
Ish woke on the cold dirt floor of Mizar's palace. Where he was and what had happened, he didn't know. Instantly he activated his wristwatch and tried to contact the others. To his dismay, only four were operating.
"Sir?"
Ish blinked in surprise.
"Sir?"
"Um, yes," he replied. "What's going on, Rebel?"
"Truthfully, I don't know. The drones were on us only too fast to recount, sir. Then we were all separated. The drones scattered us, and the squads split—it was the best thing to do at the moment—"
"How many were there?"
"I don't know. It happened so fast..."
"How many squads are still operational?"
"After the third explosion, you passed out, sir. The others in your squad carried you off and the rest scattered. There are still two others that I can contact, but I haven't an idea about the others."
"Huh. Then I wonder how I got separated from the others..." Ish thought aloud and into his watch. "A-alright, rebel. Where are you?"
"We're in the dark rooms of the Chasm right now, sir. No casualties as of yet..."
Without saying anything else, Ish deactivated his wristwatch. "Now the drones have the advantage..." he thought. If this entire fleet were to go down, there wasn't much defense left but the union, which would be easy work for them. The Union had no clue what was happening, giving the drones the perfect opportunity to take everything that was left. And in the way they were doing things now, they were probably capable of that. Ish considered a key battle for the fate of the universe, as he knew it.
Ish rubbed the back of his head, brushing dust from his hair. He would need to find another squad before drones found them...or worse yet, found him.
CHAPTER 4: END