A/N:
Hello!
I'm back!
Much as I tried to avoid it being so long, there is something of a... Massive, update after the chapter's over and done with. I'd suggest reading it, it'll let you guys know what's been going on the last six months. A past/present/future type deal, I tried to keep it concise, explanatory, and informative.
Without further ado:
We're off!
Chapter 22
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."
― G.K. Chestertton
April 23rd , 2216
This was it.
Everything John S2-15 had learned in his seven years of Hell had led up to this very point, he stood in his Mk. V Orbital Insertion Vehicle, thinking about that single fact. For seven years, he had been trained in the art of war. His hands, his feet, his head, every single part of his body was trained to be perfect for battle. He had been drilled for combat for so long and so many times that fighting in and of itself was an instinctual act, and his body was augmented to be as perfect as genetics could make it, in preparation for the cybernetic augmentations to bring him to a stage of existence that was beyond Human. His muscles were stronger, his bones nigh-indestructible, his health pristine, and his healing abilities accelerated. His biotics were stronger than ever.
In short, he was as ready as he could possibly be.
John closed his eyes as the drop pod locked in to position and was fired from the ship. As he was hurtling down towards the surface of an alien world with the intent to kill, he found himself in a serene state, thinking of - of all things - a coursing river. He could envision it perfectly, the water flowing freely and peacefully through the three bends that made an 'S' shape. There were pebbles at the riverbed, forming a solid ground as opposed to the shifting dirt of other rivers. He went to stand over the river, and saw his reflection in the water.
At first, there was no reflection, but when the water calmed, it showed John himself just as he was when he was younger, before he had joined the SIGMA II Program. He saw his rounded, child-like features, without a single hint of of the rugged, toned musculature he had now. His dark green eyes held none of the killing intent they had now, instead filled with an innocence he almost didn't recognize. Without warning, his younger visage vanished like runny, oil paint, now fast-forwarding to just a few days earlier, after he'd been augmented. His features were far practically adult now, he was much taller, more muscularly developed, and the innocence of his younger self had vanished, replaced now with a sharpness that took in all details available. Another flash forward, now he was in the Optimized Titan Armor, with the golden visor of the gas-mask/helmet.
The OIV shook violently as it soared into the cloud barrier. John opened his eyes. Their objective was simple, perfect for their first mission, perfect for 'new' SIGMAs. Planet Siler had been a very tough nut to crack, it seemed, it had provided far more resistance than had been expected. When combined with the napalm strikes, the nuclear bombardment, and the Batarian Hunters' presence, SIGMA Intervention was needed, and was subsequently authorized.
So all over the planet, as the Alliance Forces retreated to their bases to lick their wounds and count their dead, the Alliance's Augmented Elite were dropping in from orbit to unleash Augmented Death upon the Batarians. Six hundred six SIGMA II's equated to two hundred two squads, and while some squads – John's Alpha Squad included – had been paired up with a few others to assault higher-value targets, no more than five squads were placed together for one assault, allowing the Alliance to spread the SIGMA II's all over the planet, to strike at the heart of Siler's military resistance. If the planet was still able to put up an organized resistance by the end of the next Alliance Standard Day, the II's wouldn't have done their job right.
"Alpha Two-Fifteen to Delta One-One, Two-One, and Three-One." John said into his communicator, as the drop pods came within five kilometers from the ground.
"Delta One-One, Tag Two-Six, responding."
"Delta Two-One, Tag Two-Thirty Two, responding."
"Delta Three-One, Tag Two-Twenty, Responding."
"Pass out the orders to your squads. On landfall, make a stealth insertion at points A, B, C, and D. To reiterate, we're setting up a targeting beacon for an Alliance HOG Strike." John ordered, "secondary objectives include freeing any Prisoners of War and/or non-hostile slaves. Human and Quarian casualties are not permitted." He stated firmly, with no room for argument; as the ground came ever closer, he made his final orders. "Once our objectives have been completed, we will move on to Rally Point Bravo and spearhead a joint N7/Force Recon assault on a hardened structure believed to house the majority of the planet's Hunters."
"Understood." Came the responses of all three squad-leaders, before they relayed the orders to their squads.
John took the last few seconds he had before impact to survey the surroundings from this bird's eye view. The landing zone was in the middle of the forest, but several hundred meters to the north there was a clearing, and a long ways past that he could see the lights of a military base. The terrain was perfect for a stealth insertion, which was exactly what the SIGMA II's were going for.
John and the Alpha Squad hit the ground first, the OIV's rockets flared briefly to slow their descent to speeds that wouldn't dig their own graves, and moments after impact, they were followed by Delta Squads One, Two, and Three. The door to his OIV opened and John immediately sprung forth, his rifle hand, scanning the treelines. He saw nothing with the naked eye, and a quick flip through his HUD's various vision modes showed nothing else; regardless, he kept his guard up, rumors had spread through the Army about Siler's nasty animal population.
"We're clear, Two-Fifteen." Came Craig's voice, "checked thermals and motion trackers, only things here are us."
John nodded, "check your gear. We move in thirty seconds." He said, reaching into the OIV and grabbing what he couldn't have strapped on to him. The one and only downside to orbital drops that had never been fixed with time and technology was the damage that could be done to the equipment stored in the drop pods, it was very common for OD3's to carry spares of just about everything that could break - some went so far as to take empty magazines along in case they shattered inside the pod and spilled ammunition everywhere. Fortunately for John, the worst of the damage had gone to the drop pod's outer casing, nothing inside had been damaged outside of being shaken up. Extra ammunition went in his black tactical vest, smoke and fragmentation grenades were clipped to it before they were joined by two flares. These flares were designed to be seen both by passing aircraft, and radars on Alliance Ships, if he set one off, a cavalry the size of several hundred OD3's would come immediately to assist him and his squadmates, he hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he had to take all precautions. His only regret was that he'd been denied the ability to take one of the prototype explosives the carrier had been outfitted with - understandably so, it was incredibly risky to drop a SIGMA Operative from outer orbit with a grenade capable of exploding with a kiloton of force.
After donning everything he brought with him, John surveyed his surroundings, and saw George heft his massive machine gun onto his back. Said cannon was ill-purposed for stealth missions, and though he had brought a suppressed rifle like John and Craig, he had insisted on bringing the Machine Gun, just in case. Craig, on the other hand, was equipping himself with his Sniper Rifle; it was a marvel of modern military technology, it fired anti-material rounds just as loudly as a rat would squeak. Of course, its unsuppressed cousin was about as loud as a Wet Navy's Railgun, but still, the fact remained that the geniuses that ran R&D found a way to make the hand-held cannon as silent as a whisper.
"Ready." Said George.
"Ready." Said Craig.
"We move." Said John.
The SIGMA II's moved like a well oiled machine. Not a single movement of any part of their body was wasted, each one had their rifle raised and each one was committed to scanning their sector. John got the front right, George the front left, and Craig the rear. In spite of their seven foot frames and powered armor, they moved as silently as a snake, and though their optimized armor couldn't afford them a tactical cloak, they didn't need it, in the dead of night with only the moon to illuminate their surroundings, they may very well have been ghosts.
It took them fifteen minutes to get to the crest of the hill that was the clearing that lay beyond the forest of their landing zone. Here they crouched down low, they had a perfect view of the base in front of them. John could, thanks to his HUD, see his squad and the other squads' position in the Virtual Reality overlay, they all were faint blue outlines in the distance, and they all were in position.
The base itself was regulation by Batarian standards, at least until one really looked at it. John could tell immediately that everyone inside was paranoid, and their standard operating procedure had been largely thrown out the window in favor of 'we're at war shoot the first thing that moves'. There were spotlights running all around its perimeter, scanning the grass, looking for the shimmer of the cloaks the N7 and SIGMA I's used and the movement of the grass that was too artificial to be caused by the wind. Other spotlights scanned the skies, looking for the Alliance's Air and Space Force's stealth planes, or unmanned drones. The Batarians, while they had definitely won back some territory, and had defended more of it, were most definitely on the back foot.
"Craig, set up a Sniper's nest right here." John ordered, he received an acknowledgment from the SIGMA as he opened up comm-channels. "Delta Squads, set up your marksman if you've got them. We move on my mark." More acknowledgments came as some of Humanity's next-generation Augmented Elite prepared for their first siege.
A deep breath flowed into John's lungs, and just as deep an exhale flowed outwards. "Three." He knew that this insertion would have to be perfect, they would have to traverse the three hundred meter distance in an absolute maximum of fifteen seconds, before they began climbing the walls. "Two." After scaling the walls they would have to execute the nearest threats, John would fire left, George right, just as they had drilled and practiced endlessly during their training on Sparta. "One..." One of the shortest, most powerful words in Alliance Standard English was just an instant from being uttered, the second John did so, lives would be saved and ended, by the barrel of his gun, and the twitch of his finger.
The lack of hesitation as he said the word 'go' was born from over seven years of constant military indoctrination and training drills.
John and George leapt to their feet and sprinted down the hill. John's bio-chemically augmented legs propelled him at great speeds, and the mechanical assistance stemming from the muscle suit underneath the plate-metal propelled him even faster. The two could feel the chest-high, poorly cut and maintained grass slapping against them as they ran, but they ignored it entirely, even if it had hurt, the feeling in and of itself was insignificant. They were as swift as a river and as fast as a clap of thunder, in eleven seconds they had traversed the three hundred meter silent kill-zone and were at the Batarian base's wall.
"SSV Sol's Fury, this is SIGMA Two-Fifteen."
"Go ahead Two-Fifteen." Came the voice of the Admiral who captained the Alliance Flagship.
"We are beginning insertion." Said John as he activated the Spider Gloves.
The differences between the SIGMAs and the N7, when compared to the OD3's, were far more than how they were deployed. OD3's were far more frequently used as an immediate reaction force for any battle, be it assault, or defense, as befitting of their Airborne roots. Despite the OD3's being considered Special Forces, their near constant use in Alliance Warfare had given them of a reputation of being 'Immediate Marines', an immediate reaction force. The OD3's were used for shock-and-awe, for large-scale enemy casualties and asset destruction, 'stealth' was very far from the commonly used words of any OD3. The N7 and the SIGMAs, on the other hand, were Special Forces on the same coin as the OD3, but a different side altogether. They were the stealth to the OD3's brutality, and though the SIGMAs could play any role required of them, they much preferred the quiet route, thus, their armor and equipment called for more specialized gadgetry and optimizations.
Spider Gloves were among said specialized gadgetry, they were designed for stealth-entries that the SIGMA Armor's Jump Packs were too overt for, and micro-explosives or laser cutters couldn't be used for. Essentially, they used billions of sharp, nanoscale metal fibers on the glove to grab the wall and cling to it. By utilizing the raw static friction of the threads and the wall, plus the magnetized hold the threads had on each other, the user was able to literally scale walls like a real-life Spiderman. The only downside to this was that the geometric shape and thus available surface area of armored combat boots couldn't equal enough constant tractive surface to reliably incorporate the same technology, and thus, the Spider Gloves entirely upon the operator's upper body strength to work. This wasn't an issue for SIGMA II's, whose augmented muscles gave them the required strength in spades, the upper-body strength wasn't a limiting factor.
"Understood Two-Fifteen. Prepping HOG strike. Sol's Fury out." Said Admiral Griebun, before the connection was cut.
The wall was ten meters tall, and George and John scaled it in two minutes, moving slowly so as to avoid any unnecessary noise. "Freeze!" Came the sudden orders from their marksman, "two contacts, right above you." He advised, seeing them approach through his rifle's thermal sight.
John confirmed the hostile presence with his motion tracker, and heard the Batarians speak just a moment later. "Gods damn those Humans..." One of them complained.
"Just come from the cell room?" Asked the second Batarian.
"Yes!" Said the first, "one of them told me he'd tear my throat out if he ever got out of there... Violent things, they are... And stupid, too." One said, "I mean, how does he expect to get out of there? We've disarmed him, does he expect to chew through the bars?"
"I heard their SIGMA Operatives have acidic saliva... They could do that." Two mentioned.
"Firstly, you're an idiot. They'd have to completely rework their DNA in order to do that, secondly -"
"Craig, these guys aren't moving. You take Tweedledee -" John marked One on his HUD, "I'll take Tweedledum." He marked Two, ever so slowly crawling up the wall as he did so.
"On your mark." Craig said, activating his Line Of Sight marker, which appeared in John's HUD as a blue line, showing exactly where Craig was aiming.
John unhinged his right hand from the wall, and unsheathed his knife. In order to do this, he knew, he would need his biotics. He slipped into that mindset, and took two deep breaths before his body was wrapped in the dark, flaming aura.
"Mark!" And on that word Craig's anti-material round few straight into the chest of Tweedle-Dee, soaring through it messily and burying itself into the concrete walkway.
Tweedle-Dum didn't have time to react, because John hurled himself up and over the wall. His biotics helped him briefly decrease his body's relative mass so that he could perform the feat much easier, and because of this, he was able to slam both of his armored feet onto the chest of the Batarian, who slammed into the ground with an audible 'hoof!'. John wasted no time, the second the Batarian hit the ground, John crouched down low and plunged his knife into the alien's throat with his right hand, and covered his ugly, yellow-skinned mouth with his left. In five seconds the Batarian was dead, his eyes went still, the imprint of fear and anger forever etched upon them.
"Come up, Two-Sixty Six." John ordered, as he sheathed his knife and scanned the perimeter with his rifle.
George ambled up and over the wall and almost immediately had his rifle in hand. He joined John at the chest-high wall the II was using for cover, they had a perfect view of the courtyard. John peered over the wall and scanned the courtyard, his Squad specifically had been told to rescue Prisoners of War, the others were seeing to the Laser Targeters, leaving the Alphas free to conduct their mission.
The courtyard was filled with Batarian soldiers, a good portion of them were drunk and stumbling around, and others were patrolling the perimeter. There was a ring of buildings on the Base's west side that had a lot more guards, so John assumed it was either the base's CIC, or where they were hiding the POW's.
"Two-Eighty Two, marking location on HUD. Need a thermal scan." John said, marking the building on his HUD.
"On it, give me thirty seconds."
John spent the thirty seconds looking over the rest of the base. The walkways that were on the wall were all empty, having been cleared by the other Delta Squads who were just now beginning to move to set up their targetters. John couldn't help but see something interesting in the center of the base, it looked like a gate of some kind. It was large, circular, and looked strikingly familiar to the child soldier, but he couldn't place it.
John snapped a few pictures with his helmet as Craig reported in. "Two-Fifteen, I can see a few dozen heat signatures in the marked building. They're all huddled together and close to the ground. That's where the POW's are being stored."
"Got it, Two-Eighty Two. Two-Fifteen out." John clicked his communicator and nodded to George, signaling for him to move.
"John, what do you think that gate is?" George inquired softly, as they moved to the western side of the perimeter.
"Experimental tech most likely." John assumed, "if I had to guess... Maybe some kind of instant communications device that doesn't rely on Comm Buoys."
"What if it is what it looks like?"
"A Gate?"
"A troop transport device."
This gave John pause, as they stopped on the walkway just over the POW Camp. "Only TTD that'd fit that description would be..." He looked at the device again, alarmedly, before he keyed his communicator. "Delta Three."
"Two-Twenty."
"We have a possible fix on enemy Warp Tech." John said, "confidence is high, say again: Confidence is high. Can you set up a laser beacon on the marked position?" John marked the Gate on the team-map. "We need to get it destroyed before they activate it." They all knew how big of a boom even the smallest warp-drives made, a quick estimate from John put that gate's explosive force at around ten megatons.
There was a pause as Two-Twenty weighed his options, "I'll get it done." Two-Twenty didn't sound confident, but he said he'd get it done, so John believed him.
"Understood. Stay alive. Out." He looked to George. "Stealth breech." He said, tapping his foot. "Roof, or door?"
"Door."
"Get ready." John said.
He lowered himself onto the concrete roof, and crouch-walked as quickly but silently as he could to the edge. John activated the combination night vision, infrared, and thermal vision mode on his helmet with a gesture-sensitive nodding motion. There were three guards at the door, and two more on both sides of the building. John marked two targets for George, two for him, and one for Craig. With a few twitches of his fingers, he set up the countdown timer, and lifted his rifle. He needed to hit them directly on the cluster of nerves near the back of their skull, the lower left portion, that was where their speech centers were located primarily, if John hit that, they'd die silently.
"Three." John's finger rested on the trigger
"Two." he got green flag from both Craig and George, both were ready.
"One." John inhaled deeply, and exhaled.
"Go!" He pulled the trigger, a three round burst tore through the first Batarian's helmet and into its brains. John wasted no time, and the Batarian's buddy didn't utter so much as utter an alarmed 'what?' before its head too was turned to hamburger meat.
"Targets down." Said George.
"Clear." Craig advised them.
"Hide the bodies." John ordered George.
The two dropped down from the roof, making an almost inaudible thumping noise, and immediately got to work hiding the bodies. Much of the courtyard was cast in the golden-orange lights of the Batarian base as it tried in vain to fight the surrounding darkness, but behind the POW Building there was a pitch-black void of detailless dark, which John and George had all the bodies moved to in twenty eight seconds.
John and George stacked up on the entrance to the POW Building. John counted to three quickly, and opened the door slowly. George grabbed a tight hold of John's armor, ready to yank him back on a moment's notice, both completely aware that they had to move fast, because one stray look and they'd be made instantly. John did a quick HUD scan of the inside and had George pull him back. One hand sign was all it took to confirm the safety inside, so the two snuck inside the building, rifles raised.
The dull gray glow that was cast upon the room from inside John's helmet, brought everything in the truly pitch-black, windowless building into painfully clear detail. He could see twenty eight poor souls in the room, and from first glance, only five had the correct anatomical details to be called Human or Quarian. John knew he could definitely get away with only extracting the Alliance-men and he would not be questioned, but he also knew that the Alliance had promised the galaxy that they would rescue all slaves within their power, and he was a SIGMA, it was in his power.
So John made the decision, put his rifle on his back, drew his suppressed pistol, and activated his HardLight blade, which cut through the darkness with a radiating white glow. George was a moment from questioning him when John slagged one of the cells' locks. Slowly the figures within began rousing, many shielded their eyes from John's bright white blade. When he opened the third cell, everyone in the cramped building was awake. The Humans in the room – at least, those who still retained their sanity – immediately bade everyone else quiet, and though all of the aliens' instincts told them to shout with glee, they did as they were told. John and George broke the locks on all five cells, and all the Slaves were corralled in the middle cell, with John and George against the concrete wall.
"Well... Who are you?" A Turian slave asked.
"I told you about them, Jun. They're SIGMA, you can't get better than them!" A Quarian informed the Turian.
"Shh!" John shushed, before he slammed his Hard-Light blade into the wall. It sank about six inches into the concrete, he made a cut large enough to accommodate someone of the size of a Krogan, but wasn't able to saw through the entire wall's thickness. "Two-Sixty Six." John indicated the bright red ring he'd cut in the rock.
George got the idea and huffed twice, before he slammed his shoulder into the rock as hard, but also as quietly as he could. His bio-chemical augmentations and his armor worked wonders for him, and on his second tackle, the wall was now sporting an eight foot tall circular hole, George almost missed his opportunity to catch the slab he'd made, but was able to do so, and therefore, set it on the ground quietly.
"Two Fifteen!" It was Delta Three's voice. "You need to evacuate!"
John held his hand up to freeze the soon-to-be former slaves, and bade George to go to the back of the group, closest to the door, just in case.
"Sitrep."
"Suspicions confirmed, the enemy is in possession of Warp Tech and is in the process of activating it!"
"How soon until it is functional? Can we drop the Rods from God?"
"Negative, they're turning it on right now!." While hushed, the SIGMA was clearly hurried.
"We need to extract, get the VIP's off-world before we can drop the Rods." John surmised.
"Delta One, here, objective complete."
"Delta Two, same."
"Alpha Two-Fifteen, what are your orders?" Despite the fact that no SIGMA II yet held any true rank aside from 'squad leader', the Alphas were universally looked up to, so it fell to John to make the decision.
If they left the base and dropped the Rods from God, as planned, the Batarian Warp Tech would detonate, and would create a minimum-ten megaton explosion. If they extracted to LZ Alpha, they could get the slaves off-world and then drop the Rods, but that had a 50/50 chance of succeeding, their Warp Gate could easily be missed or buried instead of being blown to atoms. They could also move to LZ Bravo, which was twice the distance away, but could give them more time to successfully extract and let the satellite have more time to aim.
John shook his head, they needed an immediate extraction, they couldn't risk the Slaves dying of exposure to the harsh Siler cold. "All Squads, extract to Rally Point Bravo -" He knew Craig wouldn't have to move, he was RP Bravo "- upon regroup we move to Landing Zone Alpha and call for extraction, mission parameters have changed." He got the acknowledgments he needed, and cut the radio.
"John, how do we plan on getting out of here?" George asked from his position behind the group, he indicated the solid stone wall behind John, that formed the outer perimeter of the military base. "I can't cut through -" He was cut short, John heard it first and was already moving.
Craig warned them just a fraction of a second after John started shoving his way through the slaves and George whirled around, the slaves parted to make way for him, obviously wary that something was happening.
"Dahkens I don't care how pretty the Asari is, you can't make your men abandon their post for -" The Batarian who entered the POW Building froze when he saw the hole in the wall, the broken cells, and the SIGMA II rushing for him.
By some extreme stroke of luck, the Batarian slammed the door on John just before the child soldier reached him. John slammed through the wooden door, and managed to tackle the Batarian to the ground, but the damage was done. The Batarian's rifle went off, due to the distance - or lack thereof - between the rifle and John's armor, the three rounds bypassed his shields entirely and soared straight for his gut, before slamming into the armor plating and shattering the already miniscule rounds into even smaller pieces, the kinetic transfer leaving John winded, his armor scratched.
The air was silent for all of two seconds, before base-wide alarms started going off.
"We've been made!" John proclaimed, retreating back inside the POW Building.
"Sniper Support ready." Came Craig, as he and the repositioned SIGMA II's began unleashing long-ranged death upon the Batarians.
"Weapon's free!" John ordered, as George barreled through the small building to get to him.
"What do we do?" George roared over the increasingly loud sounds of gunfire.
"Do we have any C-Seven?"
"Negative!"
"Two-Fifteen, I'm calling the OD -" Came the voice of one of the Delta Squad-leaders.
"Negative!" John interrupted him, looking outside and seeing the Warp Gate begin whirring to life. "Objectives changed, we need to take this base!"
"John, we're only twelve men." Craig informed him, over the whispers of his sniper rifle.
"Twelve SIGMAs!" John reiterated, as the Gate's center ring began gathering a small blue-white orb of energy. "Two Six, HUD says you've a laser targeter still in your possession!"
"Affirmative Two-Fifteen." Said S2-6.
"Alright, we're going to walk these people out of here, get to the extraction zone and make sure they get out."
"How do we plan to do this?"
"Who remembers history class?"
General Tsal Daa was fuming angry, he was literally growling at his situation. He had come here under the impression that this base was safe, secure, and most importantly, hidden. The skies were constantly scanned for drones and satellites, the base was swept for bugs every twelve standard hours, and the guards had implants that would kill them instantly if they spoke of the base's location to anyone but those with proper clearance.
He had been told that the secret to Human travel technology had been cracked and was ready for large-scale troop transport from the Mercenary Base. Where he had been expecting the key to winning the war against Humanity, and by proxy securing Batarian dominance in the galaxy, let alone the Council, he had instead gotten a surprise assault from the Alliance's beyond special forces, the accursed, gods-damned, infuriating, demonic, SIGMA Operatives.
"I want that gate open NOW!" He roared to an enslaved-Salarian, who was hurriedly typing away at the terminal to the left of the Gate.
"I am working as fast as I can, master!" The Salarian shouted over the gunfire, before he ducked his head at the sound of a sniper round slamming to his right. The fearful Salarian worked twice as hard, not just fearing for his life if he failed, but fearing for his existence if the Humans won. He had heard of them from the Masters, they were brutes who killed everyone in their wake, worse than the angriest Krogan.
This Warp Gate, as the Masters had told him to call it, was simple in its design. It incorporated a vast amount of the scavenged technology from the Human vessels, that was deemed too worthless to be used in the Pratr Ships. The Salarian knew little of where the Exit Point was, but he had heard rumors that the Batarians had hired a paramilitary corporation to come and bolster their numbers. Rumor had it that the PMC's were one of the few corporations that existed outside of Human territory, that solely relied upon Human technology. Bullets, Human Armor and Kinetic/Energy barriers, some rumors even floated about that their ships used Rail Guns. The mercenaries – Spartecs, they called themselves – had told the Hegemony that they would fight for free, in exchange for all of their secrets on Human Travel technology.
Of course, the High Chancellor had responded positively, anything that could be used to defeat the Humans was something he wanted. But, the unfortunate part was, they were only sending in five of the Spartecs in, as their test. What good would five mercenaries do?
The Salarian shook his head, but widened his eyes in awe as the Warp Gate activated, successfully. The pale, void of detail hole in space/time expanded to the edges of the gate and halted. There was no sound, outside of the gunshots, as it produced no sound, no wavering energy, no heat, it seemed unnatural. How had the Humans made this machine, which seemed an affront to the natural order of space travel? The 'cosmic speed limit' was meant to be transcended and broken, not ignored.
What was worse, was what came out of it.
He did not honestly know what he had expected, but this wasn't it. There were five Turians, but they did not wear armor, rather, the exact opposite. They wore baggy clothing, which looked quite thick, and made of some odd material that he couldn't identify. Their shirts had hoods – a feature the Salarian had never seen on Turian clothing – and they all wore baggy masks that concealed their faces. If it had not been for the body structure of the Turians, the Salarian honestly would not have recognized them, for even their eyes and their mandibles all were covered, though he thought he could see the dim light of the uniquely Turian Heads Up Display devices, Humans called them 'Monocle HUDs'.
The General noticed this too, for he took one look at the Turians and demanded to know what they were wearing.
The Spartec simply said, "Benzahn." Before he moved to what was important, "what is the situation?" His squad-mates had already raised their rifles and fanned out, surrounding their squad leader, the Warp Gate, and the General.
"Two Fifteen, are you serious right now?!" Demanded 2-32.
"It will work!"
"It puts each and every single one of us at risk!" The Squad Leader argued.
"It will work!"
"It's a damn Phalanx, John! That stuff would get you killed in any war after 1803!" 2-32 argued, even as 2-6 moved to set up the laser targeter.
"But people after 1803 didn't have Titan Armor and HardLight Shields! It will work! We can walk them out of here!" John protested, before he broke cover to send a few rounds downrange. Whatever the Batarians were doing with the Warp Gate, it had worked, they had gotten reinforcements, but why so few, John didn't know.
"When they start lobbing grenades and bringing out the Heavy MACs, the kinetic energy alone will shatter our bones!"
"That's why we got them augmented!" John stated, "I know it will work! Two-Six, Two-Twenty and Two-Eighty Two are already moving to position, and without you we can't make it work!" He said, as George ripped off the heavy machine gun from his back and began laying down suppressive fire.
He heard the shout of anger from Two-Thirty Two's mic, "if we die in this, I'm going to wring your neck!"
John grinned, "Two-Six, sitrep."
"We've set the target designator and have regrouped at your designated RV Point, awaiting instructions."
"Hammer Down."
John's plan was simple, but guerrilla. He had drawn inspiration from the Romans and the Greeks, who conducted Warfare with the Phalanx formation. The long and short of it was the knights would line up in a tight, rank-and-file formation and lock their shields together, forming a nigh-impenetrable ring around them to block enemy soldiers, so the Romans could come in with spears and end them. When faced with arrows, the Romans would simply raise their shields to the sky. John had just successfully argued that if they could do that then, why not do it now? Countless risks were posed by even trying to attempt this, given no practice at all in the maneuver, but technology solved nearly all of the risks. Where the Batarians could attempt to overwhelm them with gunfire, the SIGMAs would hold firm with their HardLight shields, where they would attempt air-strikes and mortar bombardments, the Humans still had their barriers; and, with the gaps in between their shields, the SIGMAs could aim their weapons and fire, essentially forming a modern-day phalanx. John knew, of course, that there were finer details of the 'true' Phalanx that he'd missed, but it was his best comparison and he knew it would work, it had to, otherwise they would have to call down an orbital strike that would result in a ten megaton detonation killing them all.
"Light- HOG Round incoming." Far above the battlefield, a Human Weaponized Satellite, known as the 'Hand of God', unleashed its payload. Whereas, before, they were going to use larger tungsten 'Rods from God', to facilitate more destruction, the SIGMAs had called in a smaller, more precise strike, therefore limiting the possibility of damaging the active Batarian Warp Gate.
In three seconds, the Rod slammed into the ground behind the prison. The ground shook with the force of the explosion, and John immediately sprung into action.
"George! Suppressive fire for five seconds!"
"Five Seconds, move!" The Big Man responded, before his Machine Gun bucked and barked as it spat hot death all across the stunned battlefield.
John moved back to the cowering crowd, silently praying his strategy would work as well as he thought it would. "Okay, everyone up!" He said, clamping his rifle to his back and withdrawing a pistol. "You all need to stay together, keep your hands on each others shoulders!"
"What are we doing, sir?!" A Human called out, as everyone got to their feet.
"We're walking out of here!" John said, as George's MG stopped firing and he came to head up the rear of the pack.
John activated the bright blue HardLight shield. He held it aloft with his left hand and held his pistol with his right hand. George did the same, but he held his Assault Rifle in his left hand, intending to see if he was, indeed, strong enough to fire it one-handed. John ordered the forward-march as the Batarians started getting curious and they advanced on the prison. The back-entrance they had carved earlier was now clouded in smoke, had it not been for John switching to T/NV/IR Vision, he wouldn't have been able to see one inch in front of his face. He felt a hand on his shoulder and whipped around, nearly pistol-whipping an Asari slave who was leading the pack.
"I -" She had a look of panic on her face, but John nodded.
"Good." John said clippedly, before turning back around, he understood why the woman did it, but her hesitant delay in doing so nearly got her killed.
They made it just past the outer wall before the bullets started flying. John sensed the Civilian's desire to shriek, separate, and run, but his fellow II's came in at just the right moment, descending the hill and providing suppressing fire. Several Batarians died as they set themselves up.
"Phalanx, ten seconds!"
"Sir, I'm hit!"
John turned around and saw the Asari from before holding her side, in pain. He silently withdrew a vial of Cell Fluid. "It's temporary, but it'll keep you on your feet." He stated after he jammed it into the area just above the wound, with a nod, as the bright blue shields interlocked both around their perimeter and above them. It wasn't necessarily designed for use with aliens, but that was what its adaptive programming was for - it was kept in something of a 'neutral' state until it felt contact with biological material; it scanned the body it was invading, detected the wounds, and chose the best course for healing, while keeping the body as alive and healthy as possible.
It was a tight fit, with the Civilians in the middle and the twelve SIGMAs surrounding them. Nine of the SIGMAs were used to erect the Shield Wall, and this showed, as there were several gaps in their defense that could be pierced by a skilled sniper, or a lucky Guided Missile. John shook his head and exhaled through his nose, before he made the order to move.
"In formation!" He ordered, keeping his shield aloft, "move!" And with that, the SIGMAs began moving.
The Civilians took it hard, it was difficult for them to keep up with the SIGMAs, who were moving at what their muscle-memory dictated as a light step, but to the Civilians was little less than a frantic jog.
From the base came the relentless assault of the Batarian military, every weapon they had was being brought to bear and a wall of ammunition was rushing forward at hundreds of thousands of meters every second to meet their wall of immovable physical light. A few lucky rounds made it through the gaps in their impromptu shield wall, but none of those rounds hit the cowering civilians, who moved low and fast as they kept up with the SIGMAs constant movements.
George said it succinctly, putting everyone's thoughts to word. "Jesus Christ, John, it's working!"
"Spartec- 6-3 are you in position?"
They had sprinted for the entire five minutes since the Human Orbital Strike, to make this position, it was perfect for an ambush, and in the trees they had a perfect sniping vantage point.
"Affirmative."
This move by the Hegemony had come as a blindside to them and their brethren, but it served as a perfect opportunity to get what their sponsors needed. No amount of technology stolen from the Human Rebels had amounted to anything entirely useful, Benzahn not included. The Batarians had – in some stroke of brilliance no-doubt afforded to them by their gods – somehow reverse engineered Human travel technology, and had rebuilt it using materials and devices available to the Citadel Council. Should this be brought into the right hands, say, of the Turian Hierarchy, the inevitable Alliance-Council war would be far less one-sided.
This was why the Spartecs were here, barring their own deaths, they had to get the Batarian Warp Technology. They had a lot of breathing room on this mission, the Hierarchy had 'hired' them and subsequently afforded them every available asset just short of a full-scale incursion on Siler, and the Hegemony had all but promised them they would give them anything and everything they needed, just so long as they helped them win. This meant that the Spartecs had to get the technology, and in order to do that, they had to eat their morals.
In all honesty, no one in Citadel-Space – or, at least, a vast majority – appreciated the Batarians and supported their slaving attempts. The Alliance was receiving almost routine support for their efforts here, but the simple fact was the Spartecs' cover was that of a mercenary squadron, and in order to keep it, they had to prevent the escape of dozens of slaves. It made 6-1 wonder just who had the moral high-ground here, the Humans, or the Turians? The Humans were wronged, and were righting that wrong, but before then, the Turians had been wronged, and by preventing Human success here, they were one step closer to righting their own wrongs.
Right?
"I have a visual." The four words removed all of the treasonous thoughts from Spartec 6-1's mind faster than the round of a Council Dreadnought would.
"What do you see?"
"Synching HUD."
6-1 saw in his monocle-HUD the feed from 6-3's Sniper Rifle. He saw the bright blue 'dome' the Humans had made with their shielding technology. There were several holes, and upon ordering 6-3 to switch to Thermal, he saw the opening he needed.
"Load ESP Rounds, fire on the marked target. Shoot to kill." ESP, or Energy Shield Piercing, rounds were a frighteningly new invention for the Turian War Machine. They worked by shaving off large sections of the ammo block and rocketing them off at breakneck speeds, only to have their relative mass increased exponentially just before impact, causing their kinetic energy to skyrocket, and in effect, creating a one-hit kill for Human Energy Shields, with enough of the Heat Sink cool enough to fire off an armor piercing shot.
"Target Acquired." A pause, "firing." The effect was immediate, the SIGMA Human's shields burst like glass, but 6-1 was amazed at his allies' reactions. Instead of halting their odd little formation, or rushing to protect him and making more openings, they shifted positions with such fluidity and grace that he wondered if they had seen it coming and had rehearsed the act beforehand. Literally the entire shield wall began rotating around the mass of slaves in their center, and 6-1 saw another opening, through 6-3's scope, at the same time the Human Marksman who had intentionally placed himself in a newly opened gap fired thrice, turning 6-3 and his rifle into a bloody mess.
"6-2 -"
"Suppressing."
"6-4, 6-5, with me." 6-1 got to his feet and ran with his allies. These Humans were different, more befitting of their reputation than their OD3's had been, so simply picking them off wouldn't work, not fast enough. So 6-1 decided on an impulse that they would fight by attrition, they would separate some facets of the shield wall and take them out, slowly whittling down the Human defenses. This put the Spartecs at risk, but he was confident in their ability.
The Spartecs hurtled across the grounds, their feet carrying them across the dirt as fast as was possible for a Turian of so much experience. It took them two minutes to cross the distance, and in that two minutes the SIGMAs had moved several meters. This move on the SIGMAs' end had obviously been in anticipation of a melee brawl coming from the Spartecs, and 6-1 gave them a little credit, they were good.
But when the Spartec threw all of his body-weight at an opening in between the shields, and tackled one of the SIGMAs away from his allies, he knew that they and their tactics were better.
John-S2-15 needed only an instant to recover when he and the Mercenary hit the ground and started tumbling. He deactivated his HardLight shield and dug his armored hand into the ground, slowing his slide down the steep hill as the Turian did the same using his talons. John got to his feet first and he raised his rifle, the Turian raised his own and the two strafed each other, firing wildly while doing so. John felt his shields shatter and a few rounds tear past his arm, his leg, and into his abdomen, but the Smart Skin immediately began growing into the wound and sealing it from the outside world. John's rifle clicked on empty just as the Turian's rifle overheated and began venting, the two moved in perfect synchronization, with John clamping his rifle to his back and the Turian tossing his rifle away.
John's knife flew into his hand through use of his Biotics. Immediately the Turian shifted combat stances, but John knew what to do with this, he needed to grab the Turian, they were the same size, if he could do that, he would win. But the Turian looked prepared for any assault, so John – thinking as impulsively as Humans characteristically did – simply leapt at the Turian with the full power of his augmented and assisted muscles. John's gamble paid off, and the Turian took one instant too many to realize what the SIGMA II was doing. John slammed the Turian into the ground and threw his knife repeatedly into the Turian's chest, the right side, as his left arm locked the Turian's arm to his. The Turian was wearing some sort of cloth-like armor, that reminded John of Kevlar, that hardened just before impact, but an appropriate application of mass-increasing biotics to John's knife pierced the bastardized kevlar shirt like a hot knife would cut through butter, and John felt his knife sink into the Turian's heart.
The Turian, however, would not go down easy. Using whatever limited time it knew it had left, the Turian actually dislocated its arm in an attempt to wrench it from John's grip. But the master of Vi-Contactus had trained for situations exactly like the one the Turian was attempting to create, and in response, John tightened the lock on the Turian's arm and kneed the knife. The knife was ripped out of the Turian's chest just as John's biotically increased right palm slammed into its neck, snapping it like a twig.
John took no time to marvel at his handiwork – though he did put significant effort into tearing off a section of the alien Kevlar so he could send it to Alliance Intelligence – he grabbed his knife and sheathed it as he leapt to his feet. John reached the crest of the hill to find his fellow II's reaching the forest to his left, to his right, rapidly approaching, were the Batarian forces, and directly in front of him, were the Turian mercenaries, similarly garbed in Alien Kevlar.
John felt a sniper round bounce off of his shields and immediately leapt to the ground. His rifle was in his hands and after he reloaded he took down one of the Turians, the other didn't even allow himself to be distracted before he too crouched down behind whatever cover he could manage.
"Two-Fifteen!" He heard George call out.
"Two-Eighty Six, you're at the forest. I want everyone to stack up, that's our line and no one crosses it!" John ordered into the microphone, as he dodged another shot from the elusive sniper. "Two-Eighty Six, I want you to round up the civilians and get them to evac!"
"But I can't leave -"
"George, when you get to the hangar bay, you will realize exactly why I told you to evac! Now GO!" John ordered his friend, as he suppressed the brave Turian, who tried to score a shot off of him. "The rest of you, hold the line! Once the civilians are off world, advance!" He ordered, "snipers, set up in the trees! Be aware of a Turian Sniper in an unknown northerly position." John marked the Sniper's general position in their shared Heads Up Displays.
John received several acknowledgments, and the battle continued.
For the first five minutes, though it may have been longer or shorter, given the distortion effect that was caused by his cerebral enhancements and the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the fight was largely stacked against the II's. They had a line they couldn't let the enemy cross, they had eleven men, and they were largely immobile - retreating meant putting the civilians yet-to-be-evacuated at risk, whereas the enemy had numbers far greater than one hundred, twice as many weapons, and had no desire to hold the line - much the opposite, they wanted to press and break the line as hard as they could. In short, the II's found themselves on the bad end of every possible advantage, save for two - they had their armor, optimized as it may be, and they had their training. It wasn't an opinion, it was fact - Alliance technology was more advanced than Citadel tech, certainly Citadel tech had its own advantages, but on the whole, the Humans had invented nearly everything the Council had stolen from their alien predecessors, far better than they had copied it. This led to the SIGMA II's spreading their numbers dangerously thin along their line and utilizing any and all advantages they could create, first came the smoke grenades, then the sniper fire, and the indirect support from the various heavy-weapons specialists, and the biotic artillery of the three biotics John had found himself with, he himself included.
After that first five minutes, the advancing Batarians had been halted entirely, and though John had taken a few rounds for his troubles, he ignored the pain and continued fighting. It would be after ten minutes that the II's, beaten and bruised though they may have been, went on the offensive, as George called in the all-clear: The Civilians were getting off-world, the II's had nothing holding them back. It went slow, at first, their progress hampered more by the distant Turian mercenaries than by the Batarian soldiers, but after John threw a miniature drone into the air and located them, their marksmen took them down with little delay, and with their wild card gone, the Batarians soon fell on the defensive, retreating as the SIGMA II trainees slowly pressed their advantage.
The II's weren't without their own injuries, but their pain tolerance had been built through almost a decade of training to destroy and defeat the SIGMA I's, whereas the Batarian's paltry excuse for training and experience came from badgering slaves and civilians on their various colonies. Where the II's took injuries, the Batarians took casualties.
It was only now, after such a long firefight, that John felt his heart rate begin to truly climb as high as it had been on Mindoir. He knew his life was in danger - perhaps more danger than it had ever been before, bar none - and the thought excited him. He was finally able to prove that seven years searching for vengeance and purpose hadn't been a waste - his merciless, ruthless slaughter of the Batarians proved that he hadn't been in vain, that it had been all worthwhile.
If there is an afterlife, I wonder what she thinks of me. John considered, as his rifle barked and bucked against his shoulder. His mother had been the original reason he'd even wanted to fight, the second - arguably current - reason being the Quarian from Mindoir. One would assume these thoughts would spark a moral battle of such white-hot intensity that the largest, brightest star in the universe couldn't outshine it, but his train of thought had begun and ended with those few words flitting through his mind, he had more important things to worry about - such as the sudden appearance of a blindingly bright orange fireball hurtling towards the ground far beyond terminal velocity.
George must have found the jet John had hoped he would. None of the II's had any vehicular training yet, so George had either commandeered an AI or forced an A/SF pilot to fly it, but the means didn't at all matter for the end-result: The SIGMAs had air support now, and the Batarian's didn't.
There was only one thing left for John to do, an end-all, last-resort contingency plan. He hated going against Ducard like this, but he would face the music when the time came - he needed it just in case he had to do what he feared he might. The Batarians were stupid, and they were playing with toys they didn't even remotely comprehend, if he couldn't turn off the Warp Gate, he'd have to go through and destroy it, and lacking any C7 explosives, he had to call in the next best thing.
"SSV Sol's Fury, this is Alpha Two-Fifteen, I need package Kilo Oscar delivered to nav-beacon Alpha ASAP!" He called out as the II's moved forward, with the help of the jets above and the guns below.
"Understood, Alpha Two-Fifteen, package on the way." The Fury's Captain responded, before he decided not to mention how he'd have to let Ducard know what John just did - they both were well aware that Ducard would have to be notified of John's skirting around command.
With his contingencies set and his bases covered, John joined his brothers' assault in full, pushing the Batarians back as they hurtled forward, relentlessly pummeling the aliens as the child soldiers did exactly what they were raised for, and fought.
A/N:
Hey folks!
9,500 (or near enough) words of almost non-stop action with a bit of plot advancement sprinkled throughout.
I think that's a good way to break a hiatus, no?
So, I bet you're wondering just where the hell I've been for six months... Well, I've been doing a lot.
I'll give you the condensed version here, but if you check out the 5/29/15 update on my Profile, you'll get the full story - and I do mean full, though there will be information in here that wasn't covered, or even available, back then.
Simply put, I spent the time stockpiling chapters, searching, hunting, and (once or twice) begging for a job, and keeping my grades up to graduate highschool.
Well, suffice to say, all three of those objectives have been accomplished. I've got my driver's license, I've graduated highschool (let me say that again - I graduated highschool!), I've got a job, and I've got chapters saved up for all of my in-progress stories.
Well, kind of - I've still got to get to work really stockpiling the THW chapters, but I've got a gameplan and something of an outline to work with, so that process should run by smoothly.
Right now, on my Google Docs, I've got chapters up to 39 of this story drafted, and up to 31 edited and ready to go.
One a week (the new update schedule), every week, means seventeen weeks straight of updates, at least. That's four months and change of weekly content.
I came with my guns loaded, folks.
Now, you might be wondering, why - other than to more closely reflect my height in TFW - would I switch to a weekly update schedule?
Well, buckle in, folks. I'll try to keep it short, because I think you've heard this little bit a dozen times now:
I've gotten many reviews saying that this story, while good, doesn't quite match up to TFW in terms of quality. And while the fact that it is much greater in scale should be mentioned, I do actually agree. As it stands right now, I think you're all getting jipped on the quality side of things. I think I'm unintentionally misleading you all as to what this story is.
The way it reads right now, the title, 'The Saltorian War' suggests a story about an(other) unknown race making an explosive entrance onto the galactic scale, and waging a never-ending war against two military juggernauts.
While that's not entirely wrong, it's not all that right, either. No spoilers, but right now the cover isn't properly reflecting the book.
So, how do I solve this?
Well, simple: I rebrand it.
Not a reboot, but a rebranding. I change the name, to better reflect the story itself. Yeah, 'The Saltorian War' has a good ring to it, and it fits with the three-word-title thing I started with TFW, but it doesn't reflect the story itself.
To not re-iterate what this is for the thousandth time, I'll just go ahead and tell you guys that, effective next update, the story's title will change from TSW to a slightly more grandiose, but more reflective (and, importantly, subtle) title:
Mass Effect: The New Face of War
A bit long, yeah, but I like it. It suggests a lot, and helps identify itself with the WarVerse I started with TFW.
This rebranding, coupled with the weekly release schedule, should hopefully help you all see the method to my madness a lot faster than it would have been earlier.
I ask all of you that have kept up to keep keeping up, because this story is big and it's important - might be the most important in the WarVerse series as a whole, and I ask those who are dubious to stick with me, because there is a method to my madness, but I like to play the long game. Sometimes things won't make sense right away, but I like it when there's suspense and hype built up, and then there's big pay-off at the end, and when you go back, you realize how much you missed thanks to this one reveal.
To give you all a hint as to what I mean, this entire story - and even in the remastered chapters of TFW - I've slowly and subtly been building up a tension between the Alliance and the United Nations [Earth's governing body], and the Alliance and Sparta - the home base of the SIGMA Program. This is all meant to build up and boil over in the third (and final) in the 'Prequel War' trilogy, as I've taken to calling it, which itself will lead directly into the Reaper saga.
What's this story called?
... Eh... Telling the title would spoil it, but I need to make the point anyways, it's called 'The Civil War'.
Armed with that, I challenge you all to go back and search for the hints and subtleties I've sprinkled throughout the series thus far, that may lead up to that, and then ask yourself - what ELSE is hiding, right there, in front of your eyes?
Folks, you would be fucking amazed. ;)
So, that covers the past and the present, with a few hints to the future.
But, you may be asking yourself, what about me specifically? What about your friendly-neighborhood Professor of Gaseous Hamburger Meat? I mean, I've graduated, I'm street-legal, and I'm employed. What's next?
Well... It's not that glamorous. Right now I'm working thirty hours a week, minimum wage, at a (not so) local Subway. It's not bad money, but it's money, and I need such things.
I've no plans for college yet, but I do plan on educating myself - I've been speaking with my contact in my (definitely not) local fire department, and because I've been interning there for four years now, I'm being afforded the opportunity to go through EMT - Emergency Medical Technician - classes for free.
That's a loooot of money I don't have to spend for a very marketable skill, folks. I take that class and pass, and then join the fire department, that's $40K a year working one day on, and two off.
Again, not bad money, but it's money, it's a damn good bit better than minimum wage, and, rationed correctly, would be enough to live off of.
But, I bet you're thinking something along the lines of, 'well, that's fine and dandy, but I follow you to read your stuff! What'll you be doing with THAT?!'
Well, I'll give you the short version - as I addressed this in the 5/29/15 update too.
Simple put, folks, the success of... Well, all of my Fanfiction exploits (both on this profile and on an other), has given me a massive confidence boost, and has inspired me to make a significant investment in my craft. I truly think that this may take me somewhere, some day.
I mean, just think of it this way - at the time of this writing, if TFW were an actual book, each copy sold for two dollars, and the views for the first chapter counted as one copy sold, that would be just a little shy of $280 thousand dollars.
If this story sold under the same conditions, that'd be another $115 thousand, if the same thing went for THW, that'd be a little over $76 thousand; HtC? Another $42 thousand.
That's over half of a million dollars; and would be just under it after taxes.
That's a lot of money, and while it wouldn't be indefinite, that would be enough to live off of, if I was smart, kept my job, and didn't burn it all impulsively.
This realization was mind boggling for me.
So, my plan is to start branching out. I'll keep focus on the WarVerse series and THW, over here on FFN, but I can't make money off of Fanfiction. I could try some kind of crowd-funding type deal, like or GoFundMe, but I'll explain my (extremely tentative) plans for that in a second.
So, while I keep working on the TW-Verse and THW, I plan to branch out to other creative writing websites, to host an OC trilogy I call 'Terra's Sol'. When I say OC, I mean it - this would be your first peak into my Original Canon, that which I took from (and admittedly ripped apart and generalized) to make The WarVerse; I like to think of it like this - the WarVerse, on the scale of originality, weighs in somewhere around 4.5; My UNiverse weighs in around 8.5 or even a solid 9, and it's had just as much - if not, much much more - effort put into it as the TW-Verse.
So I plan to publish, piece by piece, chapter by chapter, Terra's Sol. I don't know what website yet - I've got my eyes set on DeviantArt, but I've got a few other websites I'm thinking of - but it will be somewhere central to my Original Canon; a hub, if you will. At the completion of each part of the trilogy, I'll go through it with a fine-toothed comb, update the hell out of every little bit and piece of detail, and then package the whole deal and throw it onto the Amazon Kindle-store for the low-low-price of Nada. (Why charge for something on the Kindle Store, that someone could go onto DA to get for free? I need money, but I'm not that dickish.)
Doing that, I get to introduce people to my own universe and canon, I get to generate some interest and credit for myself as an original author, and I get my name out there for critiques and reviews from a much, much wider audience. And hopefully, this interest would be able to allow me to attempt to create something of a supplemental income from my writing, through such crowd-funding avenues such as , GoFundMe, or Kickstarter, things of that nature.
Now, as to those kinds of things, I'm not going to rely on, or even plan for, those kinds of avenues, that would be unwise. All I'm doing now is researching such avenues, figuring out the logistics and such, and before I even think about going down that path, I want to speak to a few trusted confidants, and then get all of your opinions on whether or not that would be a good idea (read: whether or not you'd be willing to give me your money.). And even if I do end up going through with this - which is as likely as it is not - it would be totally voluntary. It'd be awesome if you did donate, but I wouldn't expect nor demand it of any of you, you would have no obligation to do so.
Though, if I do go down that route, I'm going all out, my best food forward, as I do with all things. Who knows? I might make a 'Who I Am and What I Do' video to introduce myself, and you'd all get to see the ugly mug and terrifying voice that spawned Chris McGraw.
So that's past, present, and future. It's a brief(er), but still as important version of the 5/29/15 update on my profile.
Thank you all for sticking with me so far, and I invite you to continue sticking with me to the future.
'Till next time,
-PFB
("I'm not stupid, I'm smart from the other direction!")