A few months later…
"Are you ready to do this Violent?" Volt asked as he strapped protective plating over his vulnerable points.
"Always Volt… you should have seen what I used to do…." Violent's voice trailed off not wanting the painful memories to return before their big operation.
"I know… don't ask," he said helping Violent into her armor which was significantly thicker than his.
"You know that you don't have to do that…" she muttered as they clamped the plasma resistant breastplate in place.
"What's wrong with me helping you get ready for the op? The sooner we're ready the better," he said as he clasped one of the clasps closer to her shoulder, "Besides, we're partners, and we look out for each other."
"Well it just seems that you want it to be a little more than just a traditional partnership Volt," she said adjusting how the breast and now back plates rested on her torso, "Unless I'm mistaken… But given that you've been looking at me with somewhat longing eyes makes me think that you want our relationship to be more than purely business."
Volt almost jumped out of his skin realizing that she knew how he had come to feel about her over the last year and a half. Sure it had started out as pure business but now, he thought, it had become far more than that. Volt knew that she relied on him as much as he did on her and he had also figured out that he would do anything to protect Violent.
Violent… no Rogue… her name is Rogue and no matter how much I try to get close to her she'll always pushes me away, he thought, there is only one man that she truly loves… and it's that Gambit fellow that she used to talk so much about.
"Something wrong Volt?" Violent asked as she strapped on her gauntlets.
He had to take a deep breath before answering. He knew what was wrong… he had fallen in love with her, a forbidden act among the officers especially when it was one's partner.
"Would you say something?" Violent asked snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Sorry Rogue…" Volt said not noticing that he used her original name.
"What did you call me?" she asked surprised herself at Volt's slip up.
"Huh?" Volt stated then realized what he had said, "FUCK! I'm sorry Violent… I didn't even know that that had slipped out."
"It's been a year and a half sense I've heard anyone call me that…" Violent muttered as she finished strapping down her armor and adjusted her gloves, "Do me a favor Volt…. Don't call me that, the woman who had that name is dead."
Volt's eyes went wide when she said that, was she actually accepting that her beloved Gambit may in fact be dead? If so was she willing to accept Volt into the place that had belonged to that man? Even more important though was the burning question of could he live with that fact?
Snapping him back to reality Violent broke the momentary silence, "She may be dead but I'm sure that Gambit isn't…. and I'm sure that he's looking for his love. As he put it, Rogue was his queen of hearts and his river rat… I wonder if she'll wake up if he ever shows up…"
Not sure how to respond to her revelation he said the only thing that came to mind, "Well, let's get this operation started."
"Right," she said with a curt nod and they walked towards the small unmarked cruiser that had a platoon of combat drones waiting for them.
Inside command base zero tack one primary base of the colony marines…
A caravan of five cruisers to runner class ships, all unmarked, reverted to real space in complete unison. Inside the base a proximity alert went off letting the colony marines inside know that these ships were on a direct course for the base.
"Unidentified craft, disengage your drives and send your access codes… this is a restricted area," a colony marine said over the communications relay.
There was nothing but static over the relay. Either all of their communications suites were malfunctioning or they were planning on attacking the well fortified base.
"Unidentified craft, please respond!" the marine stated again over the relay and listened to the static again.
"There is no answer from the crafts is there private?" another marine asked, he was tall and his short black hair was slicked back with the rank insignia of a sergeant emblazoned on his shoulder.
"No Sergeant," the private said looking up at him, "should I send out the call to scramble the fighters?"
The 4000 mile proximity alert sounded, too close for comfort for this base.
"Scramble them now," the sergeant said calmly though inside he was getting nervous.
In orbit around the base…
"Sir, they are scrambling their fighters," the pilot of the lead cruiser stated over the intercom into the passenger bay to Volt and Violent.
"Shields full power, don't attack unless attacked," Volt told him, "We want them to think that we are just protecting ourselves."
"Yes sir," the pilot stated as he powered up the primary and secondary shields creating an invisible barrier between their vessels and the oncoming fighters.
The fighters came in hot but just fell into an escort pattern as they attempted to make a transmission get through to at least one of the encroaching ships.
"Unidentified craft, you are in a restricted space zone… please respond," the leader said over a universal frequency, "Please respond or we will be forced to take defensive measures."
"Pilot, patch me through," Volt said as he picked up a transmitter on the counsel in front of him and once he was patched through he finally answered the fighter, "Sorry, we've been having problems with our transponder ever sense we passed by that star cluster… We are refugees from the Ioga Sector… our fuel, water, and food is low, and our sub light drivers are starting to overheat… We need a place to dock and replenish our supplies. We're sorry for the inconvenience but this is the only place on the route that isn't being plagued by solar flares right now…"
"Hang on a moment…" the leader said as he changed frequencies, "Did you get the whole thing sergeant? What do you think?"
After a moment the sergeant answered, "Let them dock, it sound legit… besides, if they really are running low on supplies I don't think that they will make it to the next planet."
After the communications relayed the message to the fighters the fighters escorted the small convoy to their docking bay where they were instructed to wait to be searched for weapons.
Inside the docking bay of the base…
Fifty disguised drones stood behind Volt and Violent as they waited to be searched. They knew that they all of them except Violent would ping for artificial body parts but that didn't bother them. The drones and Volt had weapons hidden in compartments that wouldn't be discovered on a scan and Violent didn't carry weapons… period. They stood calmly waiting for the colony marine that would come and inspect them. The drones had to act to seem human thusly they stood in ragged lines talking about nothing in particular while Volt held Violent's hand so it would seem that they were married.
Finally, half an hour after they landed the inspection team walked into the bay. Volt rubbed Violent's shoulder, leaned close and kissed her cheek in reassurance that everything would be ok then stepped forward to speak to the sergeant that was obviously in charge of the scan.
"Names please," the sergeant said without so much as a greeting, he was not amused that he had to scan lost refugees and wished that they could just leave them on their ships until they were resupplied and ready to depart.
"I'm Antonio Rogue and she," he said pointing at Violent, "is my wife, Miranda Rogue though she prefers to be called Rogue for some odd reason."
"So Mr. Rogue, are you in charge of all these refugees?" the sergeant asked entering everything into a p.d.p. or projection data pad.
"Yes, we came from the Ioga Sector, Planet Iroga," Volt said, "the planet's rotation is so out of whack that we had to leave… We're sorry to be a burden."
The sergeant simply nodded as he entered the data checking to be sure that it all checked out. However, there was one thing that caused the sergeant's eyebrows to furrow, Iroga was a desert planet, and nothing could live there not even the most common of desert insects.
"Your story checks out except for one thing…" the sergeant said as he tapped his stylus on the edge of the projection data pad, "Iroga is uninhabitable… there is no way that you could possibly be refugees from that planet when there are no people who live on that planet to begin with."
"Very good sergeant…" Volt said as he punched the marine in the gut and two of the drones shot the other two he had come in with, "We're with the Corgolani Empire and you… are dead." With that, Volt thrust his fingertips into the sergeant's chest, breaking the sternum and grabbing his heart. With a cruel smile, Volt crushed the man's heart killing him instantly.
"Humans are so fragile," Volt said as he pulled his bloody hand out of the man's chest while dropping the limp body and looking at his bloody hand, "At least the rest of us don't need to worry about something like this… well maybe you do Violent but you're one of us so you're safe."
"I know…" Violent muttered as she cracked her knuckles, "Well… shall we get started?"
The drones split into four groups of twelve or thirteen while Volt and Violent went off in a completely separate direction. Their primary objective was to sow as much confusion and destruction as possible, kill any that got in their way and destroy as much sensitive equipment as possible. Each of the teams of drones where to go to the barracks areas and kill any that they found while Violent and Volt went to kill the commanding officers and higher ranking officials though they knew that they would be well protected.
In the command wing of the base…
"Are you ready for this?" Volt asked as pulled out a shrinkable pulse plasma rifle that had been customized to have a grenade launcher above the primary barrel for plasma and flash grenades.
"Aren't I always?" she asked back smiling slightly as she got ready for whatever was behind the door they had come up to.
"Lock, cock and load," Volt said as he loaded a plasma grenade into the grenade launcher and fired it at the sealed blast doors.
The grenade exploded against the door in a brilliant splatter of yellow-green light which ate through the door as if the plasma was pure acid. As the melted metal pooled at the bottom of the arch that the plasma had created in the blast door Violent took the opportunity to charge through and in before plasma bolts started to fly. Violent stepped up to the colony marines with hand to hand combat and a form of fighting that they had never seen before. Volt stood in the arch and fired his own plasma rifle into the fray ensuring Violent's safety, killing any enemy that brought a pistol or rifle to bear on her. They heard an alarm go off but didn't think anything of it; they knew that they were the ones who caused it.
CMS Legacy….
"LET'S GO MARINES LOCK AND LOAD! THIS ISN'T A DRILL!" a burly gunnery sergeant yelled at a platoon as they armored up, among them was a young lance corporal that had just joined the unit his short black hair bristled as it had been cut just the other day.
"LET'S GO! WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY! ZERO-ONE HAS JUST BEEN HIT SO MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVEIT!" he continued as the lance corporal grabbed his rifle and slung it over his head.
"Are you ready for this Zan?" a voice asked from behind the young colony marine, "your first mission! Killing imperials, taking names, hell maybe we'll get to square off against an officer… what do you think?"
"I think I'm scared shitless Mulligan…" Zan answered softly as he dropped into the seat that he had been assigned.
"NOW KEEP YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES MARINES!" the gunnery sergeant yelled in the hold as he held a plasma minigun in his right hand as if it was nothing, "I KNOW THAT SOME OF YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED THE CORGALANI IMPIRIALS BEFORE BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU GET TO BE STUPID…KEEP YOUR EYES SHARP AND YOUR WHITS SHARPER! THIS DRONES WHERE BUILT SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS MISSION AND THEY WILL NOT SHOW MERCY SO DON'T SHOW ANY!"
"YES GUNNERY SERGEANT!" the platoon yelled in unison as the ship shuttered to go to the aid of its attacked base.
In the base…….
Chaos continued to ensue on the bridge. Violent knocked officers and officials into Volt's range of fire if she didn't take off their heads or beat them to death with their own limbs first. Some of the people against the Colony Marines would come to say that it was a work of art that could not be duplicated.
Violent worked to keep from allowing Rogue's morality from getting to her. The retched woman that she once was could not be allowed to intervene, Violent knew how exactly to keep the other woman from stepping in. Rogue, what was left of her inside the woman that was now known as Violent fought hard to get the body that once was hers to stop. No matter what she tried she couldn't even get her pinky finger to obey her commands. How could it have come ta this? Rogue asked herself as she was forced to watch the mass murder of all of these innocent warriors, Ah didn't ask for this… Why can't ah stop this? That's enough! Stop! Ya can't do this they didn't do anything ta ya! Rogue begged the other woman in her head but the only thing that she got back from the woman, Violent, was the thought "I must follow orders at all cost, no matter how high."
Rogue couldn't bear to watch as this woman used her strength, her power, her body to commit these acts. She just couldn't deal with it. The woman that Rogue once was now was buried under this monster of a woman… this monster that dared to call herself Violent Rogue. This woman was a sick parody of herself, but in a way Rogue realized, was her at the same time and that was what hurt more. That this woman very well could be her and that is what stung the most.
"Are you alright in there Violent?" Volt yelled as he dispatched another of the Colony Marines as they charged at her.
"Huh? Oh, yeah I'm just fine!" Violent responded as she whipped around sending another marine into Volt's line of fire.
"Are you sure? You stalled there for a moment…" he asked again as he shot the marine flying across his field of vision.
"Would you stop asking me if I'm alright and worry about these marines popping out of the welding plates?" Violent responded as three marines tackled her.
Violent spun around and with a look seeing that she hadn't dislodged her charges took to slamming them against the bulkheads, overheads, decks and any counsels that happened to be in the path. Luckily, that dislodged two of them but the third on her back was persistent.
"It isn't worth it," the marine whispered in her ear, "Is this who you really are? A slave to the emperor? You know that all of his warriors and officers started out normal humans right? They all started out fighting against him… He brainwashed them… he confused them with words and promises that he will never keep and eventually they forget why they decided to fight for him in the first place and the promises that he made them."
"Volt! Get this monkey off mah back would ya?" Violent yelled tears streaming down her face though she didn't realize it.
"Hang on! I can't get to you right now!" Volt yelled as he sputter fired at the small mob of marines that were swarming him.
"Get offa meh!" Violent screamed as she grabbed the marine's neck and yanked.
The marine's head came clear off as well as his neck, the rest of his body fell off or her back as she threw the head of the decapitated marine at one off his fellows. The head came to rest in a young marine's hands on top of his plasma rifle, the young marine dropped the rifle and the head as he realized it was one of his buddies. The marine turned around and charged at Violent who strait finger jabbed the marine just below the sternum, breaking through the armor and went all the way through his body till she came to his spine. Grabbing the spine she smiled with tears still running down her face.
"This should teach ya ta mess with an officah," she spat at the stunned marine who coughed up some blood.
Without a second thought or word she pulled on the spine, hard, one crack was heard as she broke the spine from the pelvis and she pulled it through the hole. There were several other cracks as the ribs broke off of the spine as well as the shoulder blades and finally the skull. Using the spine as a makeshift whip she spun it around and hit several other marines across the side of the head or the neck with it. There were several satisfying crunches she heard from other marine's necks as she hit them.
With Violent's new "weapon" it didn't take them long to finish off the reinforcements that had somehow bypassed the drones. Neither of them had taken much damage and so didn't mind what little they had.
"Drone detachment one, report status," Volt said into a communications unit on his wrist.
"Drone detachment one reporting in, zone clear and casualties minimal sir," the drone responded mechanically.
"Good, drone detachment two, report status," Volt responded then moved on.
"Drone detachment two reporting in, zone ninety percent clear with moderate casualties sir," the next drone responded.
"Understood, carry on. Drone detachment three report in," Volt said with a nod.
"Drone detachment three reporting in, zone clear, casualties moderate," the following drone responded.
"Very well, drone detachment four report in," Volt said licking his lips.
There was no answer from the detachment even after Volt signaled to them again to report in.
"Detachment four come in!" Volt screamed into the unit on his wrist.
"Detachment four defeated," a dying mechanical voice said over the communications unit, "reinforcements from colony marine vessel caused defeat."
"We've done our job," Violent said coolly as she turned towards Volt.
"Let these reinforcements figure out what happened here," he answered as he opened the comm to all channels, "All surviving drones return to the ships we take off as soon as Violent and I get there."
"Understood," the remaining voices said in unison.
"Let's go," Violent said as they moved towards the door.
In the docking bay…
The drones ran towards the vessels with all speed as Volt and Violent ran in. The reinforcements that had come too late tried to pick them off but managed to mostly do damage to their own base. One lucky shot earlier on had immobilized Volt's right arm, having severed several wires, but beyond that they had suffered no real casualties.
"Get these birds offa da ground!" Violent yelled as she strapped Volt and herself down.
It didn't take them much to get away from the vessel. What fighters the new capital ship sent out at them didn't stand much of a chance against their pilots. As they jumped into hyperspace Violent started to tend to Volt's arm.
On the bridge of the base…
"Gunnery sergeant… we found the visual records of what happened here in the only counsel still functional," Zan said as he stood at a modified parade rest making sure that he had he kept his plasma rifle at a low ready.
"Let me see…" the gunnery sergeant said solemnly knowing that they should have gotten there earlier, realized that something was wrong sooner, anything to stop what had happened to their primary base from happening again but that was one thing that they had no control over.
Zan set the playback function and watched with his higher up along with several others as to what happened there.
The gunnery sergeant paused the feed, "Who's that?" he asked pointing at an image of Violent.
"The computer names her as Rogue, gunnery sergeant," Zan answered as he pulled up the information in the data base.
"Zan, send a damage report to General Castrillon, he'll be most interested in hearing about this," the gunnery sergeant said, "Everyone else, I need to you to search the base and see if there are any survivors what so ever, if there are transfer them over to the Legacy as soon as possible, am I understood?"
"Yes, gunnery sergeant!" the unit yelled out, as they scurried along their way.