Special Branch: The Chasing of Wild Geese.
POSTED BY: seryn
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 13:25
VIEWED: 17628
PAGE 7 of 9
OOC: I'm back 
...
Citizen finished his drink and stalked slowly to the back of the bar. When he was sure no one was watching he slipped into a back room and made his way to the far back. Against one wall sat a large Blue Sun vending machine, proudly embossed with the words “Live life with Blue Sun!” The thing was in a pretty unhealthy state of disrepair, covered with grime scratches and graffiti, including a white logo with a five pronged star which is exactly what he was looking for. He located the selection number pad and typed in a five digit number followed by a hash and hit the select button, after a momentary pause the vending machine hiss and the front fascia fanned open to reveal,
racks of aging Blue Sun cola.
He pulled a can from one dispenser tray and replaced it in another, pushing the trays back into place he was met by a satisfying click and the racks sprang forward just an inch allowing him to pull them aside like a door. Behind was a roughly hewn hole in the wall, its edges adorned with roughly broken crumbling bricks leading to a short dark tunnel, terminated by a heavy metal door adorned with rivets and a large metal wheel. Making his way inside the vending machine façade fanned shut behind him, plunging the room into momentary darkness before an ancient strip light farted itself into existence drowning the room in a soft white glow. He spun the wheel open and with a heavy sigh of trapped air the door whined open. He stepped inside guiding the door closed behind him and spun the wheel back to place.
The Alliance could try all they liked, they could infiltrate the tunnels and blow up buildings but the resistance tunnel network that had grown from the Independents defence tunnels after the war was just too widespread and well hidden to be destroyed completely. It was also a hell of a lot better organised than the Alliance would like to think. They weren’t terrorists, they were guerrillas and they were growing in strength, preparing to hit the Alliance military where it hurt.
At least that was the plan, unfortunately the Alliance military spent a lot of it’s time in Cruisers, and it’s awfully hard to drive a bomb truck into a cruiser.
But where there’s a will there’s a way, and the Alliance military may be better armed better equipped and better manned, but the resistance had,
‘A network of rat infested tunnels’ he thought as his foot fall brought about an agonised shriek from one of the many rodents that scampered beneath him.
But if you’re going to track down what’s left of the Boros militia the best and probably only place to start is the underground, literally. He’d wandered into an original part of the tunnel network, a communications tunnel running between an old Independents barracks hole and HQ centre. Back during the war this tunnel would have most likely been crammed with ammunition and soldiers moving from the barracks to HQ or one of the exit points to bolster one of the many front lines. Now it was still crammed but with the stinking bodies of under fed rodents.
There might be a supply dump or even a barracks along here and if not you can’t wander around the Boros undergrounds secret tunnels without someone stopping you.
At least he hoped you can’t.
After sometime of winding tunnels all look more like the last he met what must have been the old HQ. A large blast door dominated the end of the passage way with heaps of cabling disappearing into the walls either side. He pushed through the double blast doors and into the room proper. It was a hive of smashed and broken equipment; obviously it hadn’t been touched since the end of the war.
At least he knew he was in the right place, he lamented as the metal bar applied roughly to the back of his head compelled him to unconsciousness.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Ghost cried out as she was awoken by the shifting of the mule as the concussion grenade fell. She didn’t know how long she had been hiding in the compartment. Then light exploded in front of her eyes as the trunk was open and daylight (ooc: it is daylight right eh I can always edit later) flooded her vision. She gave out another cry as the light cleared and she felt herself being pulled roughly out of the mule.
Blinking she looked around and whimpered again.
She was in Town…
She wasn’t allowed in Town Mr. Carson said so.
Town was where the scary men came from, Town was where Mr. Carson came back from smelling funny and hitting. Town was where adults lived.
She’d never been inside Town before, when they had dropped Mr. Fish at the hospital Truth had left her and Shadow in the woods.
She was surrounded by adults now.
Fear, Pain, and Panic set in and soon the she felt unconscious take hold. Then she felt nothing.
“What should we do with her?”
“Put her with the others”
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The Jail was made of cold steel. From the road driving in All that could be seen was a huge concrete wall blocking out the horizon. The facility was only two stories high in a series of mismatched buildings within the security perimeter fortifications.
On each of the bases four corners was a reinforced security tower with a turret on top of each. Floodlights bathed the landscape for around half a mile around so even in the pitch dead of night the ground was fully illuminated. The wildlife around the entire area was badly disturbed from the lack of darkness and constant noise.
The real spirit of the base was underground. A vast system of cells were sealed in concrete making escape impossible. The lifts went to the cells and the cells had no other door or window.
Vixen was lying on the steel bed staring at the same patch of concrete as she had been doing for at least a week now. Was it longer??
There was no concept of time down here. Lights varied on and off for a few hours at a time. No clocks were anywhere to be seen. Meals were always the same rations and they arrived at odd intervals. It was an environment designed to destroy the soul. The Helo facility was reserved for high risk and politcal prisoners. Mass murderers and such were given bare cells like Vixen and were left to go mad. Political enemies had more conmfortable surroundings but escape was equally futile. Rumors circulated that there were several high profile members of the independance that had been locked up since the war.
Vixen spent here time thinking. It was the only thing she could do and she needed to do something. Her thoughts went out to Wisp mainly. His crumpled and battered corpse lying in a thicket of the river somewhere.
She'd scoured the room fully for any sign of escape and found nothing. There was a black semisphere in the roof of the room that she asumed had a camera and microphone in it. Shed tried to prize it off but to no avail. Shed settled down after that and was still in the same positon.
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Earlier:
Their reunion cut short by the untimely arrival of the Alliance, Safe and the others found themselves pinned down.
Safe hunkered behind the mule, trying to buy some time to think… and reload. ‘Keep ‘em talking’ he thought. “Maybe they’ll give us some clue as to who is after us and how they found us.’ This was a well put together trap. The Alliance had info on where they would be. It would only be a matter of time before the snip…
Seryn cried out.
Safe looked over in time to see her crumple to the ground. She had surprised him again with her ballzy attack on the commander earlier. He couldn’t afford to grow too attached to the people around him. It made him sloppy.
He cursed himself for just that when “the kid” dropped to the ground. Head shot, hopefully only a graze.
Safe scanned the building tops for the sniper.
There!!
Safe rolled to one end of the mule and popped up, gun coming to bear… But couldn't pull the trigger. He looked down in confusion to find himself sitting on the ground. ‘How’d he get there, and why wouldn’t his hand work?’ That’s when he noticed the blood. “Hunh…” He managed, more in resignation than question.
Soul spun past, his black coat sounding disturbingly to Safe like the wings of descending ravens.
Soul was wreaking havoc, and Safe felt foolish sitting on the ground. He tried to stand, when the ground shook causing him to collapse. Who was left?? Needy!! Safe looked up in hope, his vision swimming to see Needy still sitting in the mule.
‘Aw, crap.’ The thumping in Safe’s ears grew louder and the sky darkened. He imagined that the Alliance had somehow created giants to get them.
Rough hands grabbed him.
“…hey… easy on the threads mr. giant…. can’t you see… I’m a captai…” Safe mumbled as blackness took him.
OOC: Sorry WSYB, To Safe, Wisp is a kid. It's not derogatory.
Safeat2nd, Chief Handyman of Destiny
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Seryn lay on the ground, her veiw was restriceted, to her left, concrete and paving flags stretched away to be lost in the bright glare of sunlight. On her right, the world was curtained by a thick fall of white cotton, and a few strands of hair, the tips reddened by the sun. She tried to stand up, she'd managed to rais herself enough to watch helplessly as the others went down, attempts to crawl for her weapons where they sat on the mule resulted in nothing more than an awful lot of pain.
Purplebellies crawled on the paving wall like flys scurring to and fro. She was vaguely aware of a red heat coming from her leg, she wasn't sure which one. She'd had a notion that it was the left, but then some guy had come over, and while she'd been distracted by the sight of Safe being hauled up and tethered, he'd stuck something in her, and now she couldn't make senese of anything she could feel.
She'd hoped that she'd be left as she was, but the guy had rolled her over again, and now she couldn't tell what was going on. It was quiet, that couldn't be a good thing.
Safe was still alive, it was his arm, just like hers was only a leg. He was much better at injuries than she was. Wasn't hard to be.
But the fates of the others were unknown.
Fabric was bunched somewhere, along with the detail of the weave in her coat, that point was crystal clear. she figured i meant things were riding up elsewhere, but couldn't get her hands together to check. That seemed to be the main issue here, her mind was perfectly awake, but her body was shutting down around her.
Whatever it was the alliance had used could be very useful. She must remember to take some with her on their way out.
Two guys approached, and the changing in the view let her know that she'd been lifted - the wall disappeared and became a ceiling, from which the mule hung suspended by invisible wires. Safe was lifted as she watched and the guards holding him seemed to want to follow her. Behind them, she could see Wisp, kneeling, hands tied at the wrist behind his back, Blood ran from his forhead, and he seemed to be fighting the urge to keel over, but other than that he looked whole. That was a relief. A huddle of guards behind the mule told her that was where Soul possibly was. Guards approached the mule two began to harass Needy, still seated, calm as may be. She wondered if he had slipped back, but figured his catatonic states were probably his biggest protection about now. The other guards broke away and began digging about in it, he seemed to pause, then go directly for the storage. A high pitched scream rent the air, and Seryns eyes began to close.
She figured it must have been a dream, nothing else could explain the little girls appearence on this planet of neverending trouble, not when she herself had left the two of them Safe and sound, enjoying their new dresses, on the Tree.
By the time she awoke to the cold steel ceilings and walls of wherever they were bieng held. The possibility of Ghost being hidden on that Mule had been filed away under 'wierd anecdote to tell when with friends'.
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The team werent sent to The helo Facility because of the time it would have taken to get there and the injuries they had sustained. The hospital quarantine however was just as secure and there they could get medical attention while the Crimson Squad arrived.
The Crimson Squad were a top secret branch of the alliance. During the war they developed and used weapons of mass destruction. They were also involved in spying, sabotage, and torture. They were interested in where the group had come from. The galactic hiccup was the reason the team were here. The Crimson Squad thought the crew were responsible and wanted the technology.
Wisp had been ear marked for the Crimson Squad at the alliance military academy so he was suspected first. Soul also had been suspected as his record was littered with events the Crimson Squad were interested in. Safe had a record but nothing this serious. Seryn was suspected of leading the troupe due to her performance in the firefight.
Needy was a mystery. He barely spoke and when he did it was incoherent. The most intesting part was that none of the medical instruments worked on him. and syringes bent and crumpled off his skin. They would all be interrogated thoroughly.
The Quarantine room was a white room 10 metres square. A one way mirror encircled the room across the middle band of each wall. The floor and the rest of the walls were sparkling white. There were 8 beds in the room with two of them standing empty. One bed however was conspicuously missing. Above each bed was a door in the celing there were no doors in the room. The beds were suspended at the foor corners so the could be pulled to the floor above easily.
Seryn awoke very groggily. She tried to move but found it difficult. Her leg throbbed in a dull ache. She tried to look down but her body resisted causing her to wince.
"Hey hey easy now" she couldnt see the source of the voice but recognised it as Wisp "just a minuite ill sit you up"
Wisp pressed a button on the bed and Seryn was moved into a sitting position. She could now see her surroundings. Wisp was stood next to her while tetherd loosley to the bed beside her. His head was heavily bandaged with a red stain around his right temple He wore a cream hospital smock that dangled across his shoulders. On the two beds opposite Safe was trying to console a small child. And to her right was a missing space and Needy sat cross legged muttering to himself.
"You really know how to throw a welcome back party" Wisp said with his cheeky grin across his face.
"Well..." she tried for a humourous response but her thoughts failed her due to the concoction of sedatives she had been given. "Wheres Soul???"
"He dissappeared into the roof a few hours back. He was the first one to go"
Seryn rolled back to face the celing. She tried to lift her arms but found a collar attached to her left wrist pipes attached to it. He right hand came round to caress it.
"Its for drugs n stuff. Its also a restrainment device, when i tried to pull the wires out of my bed they knocked me out for an hour"
"So what do we do now???"
"Im working on it just get some rest" Seryn responded by falling back into a deep slumber
I figured everyone could write theyre own interogations so they could throw in character background n stuff
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Ghost sat silently on the bed in the strange room she had found herself in. She had awoken well before the adults surrounding her.
The scary people had left her alone so far, except to fix her arm in a sling.
She didn't know how long she was there till the other adults woke up.
(insert last post here)
As the adults talked Ghost watched them. Staying very still and very silent as not to attract attention. Most adults didn't like when you made noise or moved too much.
Soon, she hoped, Shadow and Truth would find her. She hoped they were ok.
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She woke up again to a veiw that hadn't much changed, Wisp paced, Needy was still seat ed, Safe sat with the little girl.
That was what had woken her.
"Ghost?"
The little girl looked up at the sound of her voice - startled scared expression on her face. She hand't seen that look in the her eyes since, well, since they'd first coe on board the Tree.
She twitched a little, but displayed no signs of recognition. Without thinking, Seryn threw out her arms in an invitation, but the girl didn't move.
"Ghost where your sister? Wheres Shadow? Is she still on the Tree or is she somewhere on the planet?" She dropped her arms "how did you get here?"
Ghost knew she had to say something, but she couldn't work out what to say? How did this lady know her? How had she met Shadow? Did she know the Carsons? Was she going to punish her for hiding?
But she didn't look like the sort of people the Carsons knew - she looked a bit wild, her hair was tangled and her cheek still showed bits of dirt, but she really wasn't the Carsons type. Ghost watcheda s the woman tried to get off the bed she was on, grimace, then give up. And when she motioned for the little girl to come over to her, Ghost felt a sudden moment of bravery.
Lifting the girl onto the bed Seryn was startled at how thin she was - even her few weeks on the Tree had brought her up to a normal weight for her age. A quick, low voiced conferenc established two startling facts - Ghost had no idea who they all were, and she had never been onboeard the Serenitree - she had never even left the planet they were on.
Again with out thinking Saryn embraced the fragile little figure, cradling her head against her shoulder, and looked over her head at Safe, confusion and alarm written over her features.
ooc- i should expleain that one, you are all free to remember Ghost or not - infact if some of you don't that would make it more interesting, but i though it would add more wrinkles to the space hiccup.
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Wisp Walked over to Safe who was now sat alone on his bed.
"How long has he been up there??" Wisp asked to Safe. He was holding himself against the bed in a casual way but he knew he could quite easily fall over without it. His head was swimming and his vision was still blurry.
"Dunno" Safe replied His arm was in a sling with heavy bandaging. "A few hours i think. Do you recognise the girl??"
"She was on the Tree i fink but she seems a little different now"
"Howd u mean??"
"No idea"
Wisp returned to his bed and sat down waiting for Soul to return so he could find out why they were here.
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A small figure pads into the darkness of the cargo compartment of the Epsilon. Its movements are absolutely silent, despite the bulky weight being carried.
“Ah, there it is!”
The figure moves up to the still form of Rosie, who has long since taken root in the soil that she brought on board. Rosie remains motionless, making no sign that she can sense the intruder.
“Let me remember. Hmmm… Torpor is a dangerous time for plant people, isn’t it?”
A small hand lightly brushes over the hard bark-like skin protecting Rosie’s abdomen. A head cranes back to take in all of Rosie.
“Wow, you’re tall, aren’t you? Taller than I remember. What was I saying? Oh, right! There are lots of things inside a plant person that people want. Medicines. Drugs. Tasty treats. You know, there is even a legend that the inner core of a plant person can bestow immortality! Some story, huh? Then again, there must be SOME reason that plant people have been hunted almost to extinction.”
Knuckles rap on the hard bark of Rosie’s abdomen.
“Of course, when plant people sleep like this, their skin gets very hard and thick, for protection against predators.”
Knuckles strike harder.
“Ow! Yeah, that’s pretty hard, all right. It’s so hard that I could never get in.”
The figure’s balance shifts as it grasps the bulky object in both hands.
“That is, I could never get in without THIS!”
The chainsaw roars to life.
“Now, where are the goodies hiding? Let’s try the arms first, shall we?”
Wood chips fly everywhere as the chainsaw bites into Rosie. The device’s vibrations cause the withered flowers that make up Rosie’s hair to start dropping to the deck, one by one.
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Angst? I can do angst!
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