The coffee steamed away on the dirty table. It was a dark brown color with hints of red thrown in for good measure. Overseer 2 nursed it in his freezing hands and wondered how he'd gotten to this particular spaceport. One moment he was aboard his new, classy F.E.A.R. cruiser he'd blatantly stolen from Rajan, preparing to launch a major attack on the capital city of Javion, over a thousand light-blox away. The next, here he was in a spaceport in the middle of nowhere.
He felt arond on the top of his head for his lightning-bolt crown. All he felt instead was his mop of tangled brown hair. There was also an inexplicable injury on the side of his head. Where had that come from? He ripped a bit of cloth off the cheap fabric covering the bench seat he was sitting in and wrapped it around his head. It was then he noticed what was outside the window of the spaceport. A sleek, blue cruiser sat on some scaffolding, with a team of workers right now loading in a massive red crystal container. Inside was what seemed to be gasoline, although as Overseer inspected a moment later it wasn't gas but something else all together.
The barista walked over to him and asked whether he would like a scone. Overseer quickly paid the tab and stormed off. Crossing to a crowd of armed security guards, he amiably asked what the ship was for.
"It's a new project," the guard said gruffly. "Move on." Overseer uppercutted the guard. There was a snap, and the guard's head came off. Lasers flew over Overseer's head, but he'd ducked just in time. There was a small BZZXZZXXZ sort of noise, followed by a few gurgles and a thud.
"Intruder in area! Intruder in a-" the remaining security guard yelled into his walkie-talkie before he got a kick in the stomach.
The jetpacking figures ceased their travel at a platform of some sort, hewn into the rock.
"Okayyyy, this is the hangar," Max said as Grean and Blackrose descended in, followed by an upside-down Ketsuban. "We store all the big mining ships here. Some o' these babies can weigh up to two times the weight of Venezia itself. They actually used to be old Venezian freighters until F.E.A.R. left on some harebrained mission to find the undead, and Vortex Security came in. Looted the place clean of everything except these mines and these ships."
"What is Vortex Security?" Grean asked.
"Oh, it's one of them superclans," Max said, waving his hand. "But really, it's HUGE! F.E.A.R. used to be the biggest group in the known universe. Now that all the noobs are disbandin', Vortex is now at the very top. A big game of king of the hill, and Vortex used an escalator." Max sighed. "I remember when there was no such thing as a group or clan. Everyone used to get along so well."
A security guard came in at that moment, looking panicked. "R3D!" Max looked at the guard and idly waved his hand again. The guard slunk back, looking terrified.
Grean chose that moment to ask the question that was nagging at the back of his mind: "Why us, and not some other person? Why are you showing us this?" Max grinned.
"No reason whatsoever."
The security guard came up to Max again, only this time he had eleven others with him. They all looked determined.
"Mister R3d," the man who looked like the captain proclaimed. His voice was rough and grizzled, as if he'd had his throat put in upside-down. On his wrist he wore a gold band with a silver V embroidered in metal on it.
"Yeah?," Max said.
"I'm afraid we'll handle the situation from here," the man said. Two hazmat-suited people dashed out of the door of a large yellow and gray ship, sitting right in front of the hangar doors. The captain made a slight gesture. Flames spat out of their hands.
"AAAAAAA," the four screamed. They all ducked and weaved around the pillars of fire created by these hazmat soldiers. Grean felt the tips of his hair singe, and wondered if they would survive this.
Just then, a loud hum of ten engine shafts warming up stopped everyone in their tracks.
"Well, that devolved quickly," Ketsuban said out of the corner of his mouth, before swiping Blackrose's XLR and proceeding to shoot every one of the hazmat troops in the legs.
The sleek sapphire ship's ascent from the scaffolding was undisturbed by either the asteroids or the security hoverdrones. Overseer simply smashed through all of them.
As a rather ugly drone slammed against the front windscreen and broke apart into twelve and a half different pieces, Overseer saw four specks below. These did not look like security guards. In fact, he recognized the one to the foremost of the four. Grean! Cursing, he took off, obliterating a small noob house in the process with his hugely powerful retro thrusters.
Almost as an afterthought, he left a pair of Megabombs behind as a present for whoever would be still left on board the mining station.