The Fastest Man Alive - Chapter 87

The Fastest Man Alive

Fast 87

By: BigToFu

SPACE

SOL SYSTEM BORDER

Pirate Captain P’yke

 Sitting in his Captain's chair, P’yke grinned a snaggle tooth grin as his younger brother hit the maneuvering thrusters and took them into the rich new hunting ground that would be the Sol system. Looking down at his armrest, P’yke transferred the credits to the Ravager that had clued him into the new hunting ground. 

All it took was some Galnarr ale to get the Ravager to loosen his lips on the so called new galactic power. P’yke snorted, these jumped up Terrans finally able to leave their gravity well. Even if this was a backwater system, P’yke was not about to get caught with his pants down. That’s why he had sent probes before making this trip. 

What he found made P’yke want to laugh his Kree heart out, these foolish terran’s had stations but no patrolling ships, foolish. All he could find out in the system when he got his probe data back was drones that just floated around and pinged at incremental moments. The probe had recorded the timings to the pings and that was why they were slowly floating into the system on a trajectory to slingshot around one of the systems furthest planetoids since it had no stations or probes and would allow them to increase their speed without the engines. 

Leaning back in his chair, P’yke watched as his brother eased them behind the planetoid to hide from the sensor drone, then put them on a slingshot course that would throw them out towards Saturn. From there they would slingshot once more to Dirt, no that planet was called Earth and Mars. 

Easing back into his seat, P’yke could already see the credits rolling in after he sells the exotic terran’s he planned to pick up. If he was lucky enough, he just might pick up a pretty mutantor to keep for himself. That Ravager had told him all about the exotic mutantors on Earth. It was far too easy to see that they would go for a pretty penny on the open market. P’yke would need to get in and make his money before the big Empires caught wind and decided to slave out the planet. 

And he knew just who to sell the mutantor to, but after he got himself a taste first. 

BORDER STATION SIGMA

Lyle McGregor

Border Patrol 

Bap! Bap!

Shift, shift…

Bap! Bap! Bap!

Step back, let the heavy bag swing and take a breath. 

Flexing his hands for a moment, Lyle was about to move back in for a combo against the heavy bag but stopped as he caught a glance of the clock. The clock had just rolled over to 0645 and he still needed a shower and hit the chow hall before hitting his duty station at 0800. He looked at the time and then looked at the heavy bag before letting out a sigh. He hated that feeling he got when leaving the gym and feeling like his workouts weren’t finished. 

He pushed that from his mind though with the rumbling of his stomach because bacon was clearly in his future. 

o.O.o

Stuffing the last of the bacon into his mouth as he ran out of the chow hall, Lyle took a left and made it into the Patrol Operators' room with five minutes to spare. With a smile on his face, Lyle clocked in and then turned to head for the armory when he paused in his steps. Looking around, he found the reason why he was feeling unease, it was silent, too silent. Looking around, Lyle found everyone looking at the massive screen down in the operations room. On the screen, there was a ping at the edge of the system near Pluto, fuck. 

From what he was looking at, that was clearly a ghost ping. The pings ranged from minor stuff to major stuff, but it was the ghost pings that everyone found to be problems. All pings were treated seriously, but it was the ghost pings that were notoriously hated by everyone equally. From hunting down the reason for the ping to hoping and praying that you didn’t run into space parasites that could eat through your armor like what happened to the Purple Team. 

Lyle shivered at the memories from that video footage, then he saw his name on the active roster. He couldn’t lie and say that his heart didn’t start to hammer inside his chest. Lyle watched as the squids received another ping trail heading towards Pluto and then received nothing about a crash site or ion trail. Okay, that was definitely cause for investigation, it was time to nut up or shut up. 

“Stop gawking around McGregor, go suit up.” 

Snapping to and turning on the spot, Lyle never looked back towards the Staff Sergeant as he was already thinking about the gear he wanted to carry. It was clear that shit was going to hit the fan and that meant he wasn’t about to go running around without overwhelming firepower. Walking into the locker room, Lyle was greeted with the muted chatter of his fire team prepping for what was to come. 

He walked past two aisles until he got to the third, then walked in and stopped before the fifth locker. Lyle pressed his hands to the palm reader and then gave a grim smile as he got a double beep of confirmation. When the locker opened, Lyle didn’t even look towards his Spartan armor, no, his attention was drawn to the heavy bolter that he would be carrying along with the plasma sword and shredder rifle that shot out exploding tungsten drilling rounds.  

Ohh yeah, ain’t no kill like overkill baby, and whatever that ghost ping was, it decided to fuck around, and it was about to find out how badly it had fucked up. 

With that thought in mind, Lyle gave his undersuit a quick once over to make sure that everything was clear before placing his hand on the activation plate. The armor plating inside of the locker transformed into memory liquid metal, then flowed over his form before reforming into his spartan armor plating as the undersuit sent out the activation key and the proper protocol handshakes were shared. Shifting a little to feel out the additional weight, Lyle went through the motions as the active sensor system went to work and synced up his movements with the micro-servos inside of his armor. 

He wiggled one way then he wiggled the other as the combat boots shifted around his feet and the armor harness settled into place over his shoulders. Once he was comfortable with the weight, Lyle activated his helm, checked his HUD and then ran his basic systems check. When the three green checks across his HUD flashed all clear, Lyle then reached for the bolter and his shredder riffle. 

The internal mechanisms to the bolter went through its motions as he double-checked to make sure that the weapon was unloaded then Lyle performed the same check with the shredder. Once he was certain of the all-clear, Lyle placed the bolter on his hip with a satisfying clunk and then the shredder rifle on its magnetic clamp on the back of his harness. With everything ready, Lyle had his helm retract before turning and leaving the armory, it was time to get this show on the road. 

o.O.o

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

“Talk to me Galnarr, how much longer,” P’yke grunted down towards his brother before dropping into his captain’s chair. 

Galnarr shrugged, “I say another half-day give or take. We picked up enough speed from that last maneuver, but I would rather leave multiple trails in case they can somehow pick up our dilithium signature from the thrusters.”

“Impossible,” P’yke replied with a roll of his eyes, “We came into the system with no main engines, we have zero radio emissions and from all the passive scans it's clear that they put all of their main ships at the borders, so stop talking shit.” 

Tsk, “We still need to talk about how the warm bodies are going to get split.” K’Tarr spoke up from his position leaning against the bulkhead. 

With that, P’yke grunted and looked over his shoulder. “No feasting, we gotta sell these on Knowhere.” 

Tsk, “Fine but the guys are at least in need of something to help with the long trip to Knowhere.” K’tarr replied with a hard stare. 

P’yke shrugged his shoulders, “No one said we couldn’t space a few once they stopped being warm holes.”

K’tarr stared and flipped the blade in his hand once, twice, three times before giving a nod and leaving the bridge of the ship. Shaking his head, P’yke leaned back into his seat as he took in the sight of this solar system's sixth planet. 

o.O.o

[ Four Hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds earlier… ]

Pelican Echo Four One Zero

Captain Frost

“Echo four one zero, this is echo two one two on your six by five,” Captain Cortez of the second pelican to launch on this patrol mission spoke and Frost nodded along since it matched today's flight logs. “We’ll be providing back up for you along with overwatch for any runners that might occur.”

“Sounds good Echo two one two, let's have a clean mission and first rounds are on me when we get back,” Captain Frost replied over the radio. 

“Sounds good Echo two,” Captain Frost replied before increasing the power to the antigravity engines. On the dash a hologram popped up with the way point showing the drone that reported the ghost ping. Alongside that was a red line that pointed towards Pluto but carried no definitive proof of anything.

Luckily there were three other drones along the line that were retasked to take a look and report any findings. With a heading and destination picked out, Frost smiled as the ten minute mark started to rapidly shrink. 

While he was piloting the pelican, Frost had his co-pilot run over the data that the drone was projecting. This was so both drone and pelican could meet in the same location, the others that were along the trail line were also sent to patrol and scan the area for data sharing. Shifting to pull around on the yoke and shift the pelican around, Captain Frost eased them into a nice glide alongside the drone. One of the drones' mechanical appendages connected to the side of the pelican, both systems sharing a stronger connection and a wider array of sensors.

Data flowed across the ops station and the oni officer that was at the controls leaned over the station, nose only inches from the hologram. The clink of mechanical keys rang throughout the bridge as the oni officer did his work.

“Captain Frost, I found something.” The oni officer called out and then his hands made some rapid gestures before what was on his screen was projected for the small bridge of the pelican to see. 

Over a black backdrop a blurry image appeared, three of them to be exact, and from what the scans were showing. The blurry image was dilithium exhaust, the burn wasn’t enough to be from engines and it could have been ignored if this wasn’t a ghost ping protocol. It was three short bursts and from the rate and angle, the sensor image was showing that something was out there and it was clearly man made. Anything that came from nature wouldn’t have clear distinct changes of trajectory.

With his mind made up, Captain Frost disconnected the drone, then had his ensign upload the data so the other pelican could also take a look at it. The same data was also sent to the patrol station as Frost turned around in his seat. A flick of the switch opened communications to LT. Andrew and Captain Frost spoke. “something was found heading in the direction of Pluto and the other drones, we are in pursuit.”

“Read you five by five Captain, just get us there in one piece and my spartans will handle the rest.” LT. Andrew replied and Frost could almost hear the anticipation in his voice.

o.O.o

Leaning back into his seat, LT Andrew listened to the sweet music of his Spartans putting in work, weapons were getting double and triple checked, the beautiful fragrance of gunpowder and plasma tickled his nostrils and he even smiled at the odd prayer or two towards their great Emperor, Benjamin Blake. Today he was going to be in charge of the ground operations and from what he could tell after going over the data, it was definitive proof that they were going to see some action, it wasn’t a matter of if, it was just a matter of when. 

And it was clear that someone was out there lurking in the dark and LT Andrew knew that it was up to him to smoke them out or hunt them down. 

PING!

Heads snapped around at the sound, the bay of the pelican going silent as a grave. With a grunt, LT Andrew got up from his seat, walked over to the panel and placed his palm on the surface of the biometric reader. Three beets rang out before the hologram interface sprang to life and showed Andrew some very good news. They found definitive proof that someone was not only using thrusters to adjust themselves but them putting in a course around Pluto that should just be plain impossible.

The squid drones had done their work and had sniffed out the trail, but those in charge were scratching their heads at the data. If it was done correctly, the adjustments would bring them close to the planet and spit them out on the other side with three times the speed, but if it was done incorrectly, they would have no chance to even send a mayday message out. Everyone was scratching their heads on the situation until one of the Oni officers suggested running a simulation model with the engines turned off and only boosters. That was when things were made more clear. 

The reason for the engines being off was to drop off the radar but also to help mitigate the G-forces generated from the maneuver. It was a brilliant move since the only way to sneak into the SOL system would need the ship completely powered down so that they didn’t trip any border sensors. 

Andrew watched the screen as things went from just two pelicans investigating to one of the Infinity class supercarriers getting detailed to help. From the spacing of the thruster trails, acceleration and direction were swiftly understood for a pelican to pull off the maneuver outside of simulation and that was when they really found the course of travel. 

 The slingshot would spit them out hard and fast towards Saturn's rings. The Infinity would hang back, but for the pelicans and his Spartans, the hunt was on. 

o.O.o

[ Sixth Planet from the Sun… ]

Lyle McGregor, Spartan Border Patrol 

Standing around the hologram table with his brothers, Lyle listened as Staff Sergeant Gomez pointed out locations to secure on the ship they had found hiding around the ice asteroids that made up Saturn’s ring. The massive pirate ship was easily over five hundred feet long, seven stories tall. She was a big bitch and chock full of pirate scum.

“Today Spartans, we have the wonderful job of securing the bridge while Echo two secures engineering,” Staff Sergeant Gomez was saying with hand motions that highlighted spots on the hologram. “From there, we disable any self-destruct and secure the rest of the pirates for questioning.”

A spartan raised their hands, “What’s the ROE?”

“Seals secured at all times, be mindful around the terminals, and we need to at least capture the captain and his second mate alive, if they don’t surrender, just be careful of what you put holes into.” The staff Sergeant grunted and shared a look all around, “Ain’t nobody want to be out here all day to fish your ass out from the vacuum, that goes without saying. You fuck up bad enough to end up in the vacuum, I’ll PT you to death, revive your fucking corpse, and PT you till death all over a gain, clear?”

“Crystal, Sir!”

“Alright, alright, now mount up, we’re dropping in sixty!” With that said, Staff Sergeant Gomez turned on his heel and grabbed his helm from his chair. The lights went out and the red warning started to flash, Staff Sergeant Gomez walked to the drop door, turned around, and activated his loudspeaker. The count down slowly lowered and Staff Sargent Gomez started to pound on his chest, as he did that, feet’s pounded the floor of the pelican.

“WHAT ARE WE!” Staff Sargent Gomez yelled loud, a fist pounding on his chest.

“SPARTANS!” Lyle and his brothers yelled back loud and proud.

Staff Sargent Gomez prowled from one side of the cargo bay to the other, “AND WHAT DO SPARTANS DO!”

“FEET FIRST INTO HELL!!”

“AND WHEN THE DEVIL TELLS US TO GET OUT, WHAT DO WE TELL’EM!!”

“WE TELL THE DEVIL TO FUCK HIMSELF!!”

Crew chief made his signal by the bay doors, his hands in the air for all to see.

Drop-in five…

“AND WHAT DO SPARTANS DRINK!!!”

Four… Three… Two… One…

“Blood! Blood!! Blood!!!”

That was all it took for the Spartans to be unleashed like the dogs of war. Lyle took off at a sprint along with his brothers then jumped from the back of the pelican and out into open space. He had no time to be disoriented by the lack of gravity. Aiming his left gauntlet at the forward end of the ship, Lyle smiled inside of his helm as the little indicator inside of his HUD flashed green for a good clamp. His wrist vibrated slightly as the spool went into action and pull him along with his brothers towards the pirate ship.

Some of his brothers gave out whoops of joys, but Lyle wasn’t here to enjoy the suck, no, Lyle was here to make sure that these pirate scumbags never make it to Earth or Pandora. He had a family to get back to and this wasn’t about to be his last deployment, he was a lifer and these damn pirates were about to find out what that meant.

Getting into position, Lyle crouched down on the hull of the pirate ship, pulled the rectangular device from his back, and then pulled it apart. Between the two parts a shimmering phase-field appeared, then he gave his squad mates a nod as they prepped to board the ship with extreme prejudice.

Holding the device over the hull of the ship, Lyle’s hands hovered until he got the double tap on his shoulders. Leaning forward, he pressed the device down in front of him and then pulled out the sides and he made a stretching motion. The area in front of him went from the metallic green of the ship's hull, then into that of a brightly lit interior, dirty walls, and a lot of wires, but they were in luck since there was a walkway right below.

No words even needed to be shared as his spartan brothers moved like a well-oiled machine. Staff Sargent Gomez was the first on through the hole followed by two Spartans. They took the left-most direction as LT Andrew took the right along with a squad of Spartans. Once he was certain that the matter phase shifter was secure, Corporal Lyle jumped through the hole right after his brothers.

Pulling his shredder rifle from his back, Lyle stacked himself behind his brothers and waited for the sign from Staff Sargent Gomez. Everyone shifted a bit and Lyle made sure to check his field of fire, once he was certain, he sent a green notification, and then they all moved out. His job along with his brothers was to lock down that bridge.

The LT job was to secure what looked like the CIC on the hologram and the other two spartan teams would secure the armory and the engine room. Hugging the wall properly and making sure to keep his elbow down, Lyle did not want to be that guy chicken-wing his way down the hall. That was good and all, but they were halfway down the corridor before the alarms started ringing. Everyone paused reflexively, then all at once they kicked it into high gear as they started to jog down spaceship corridor.

They made it around the bend in time to watch as the bulkhead doors that led to the bridge were already in the process of closing. There was a blur following two of his brothers sprinting forward, one went left as the other went right. There was a bang and whirr sound as his brother grabbed each side of the bulkhead doors.

“SHOOT THAT YAT’KARR!”

Spartans posted up at the side of the bulkhead doors as a mass fire started to pepper the corridor and hit the far walls. Giving his weapon a quick once over, Lyle lined himself up with the Staff Sargent lined up on the other side of the bulkhead doors. His shredder riffle was loaded, so now it was time to get some.

 Smoke came from the bulkhead doors released some smoke even as Lyle lined himself up against the side ready to breach the bridge. The loud speaker on his helmet activated, the translator kicking in.

“BORDER PATROL, LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS!”

“YOU YAT’ Karr’s come here onto my ship!”

“SIR, THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!”

“P’YKE TAKES NO WARNINGS, P’YKE IS THE ONE WHO WARNS!!!”

That was all he said before more laser fire started to come from the bridge. Then he heard it, that fucking whistle. There was a whistle that that fucking whistle, scared the hell out of Lyle because he read the files and knew exactly what that was. Punching a hand into the ground to shrink his profile, Lyle activated armor lock, his shields flared even more as the additional power super charged them even as he screamed into his coms.

“ARROW!!!, YAKKA ARROW IN THE FIELD!”

The call of yakking arrow rang out across the coms, followed by a whistle as the arrow pierced through a bulkhead plating and slamming into Lyle’s kinetic shields. Then all he heard was ding! Ding! Ding! As the arrow peppered everyone in the squad with swift hits trying to pierce through any gap that might be available. 

Luckily everyone had heard the call and had activated their armor locks in time to prevent from racking up their own death toll. A hand motion pulled his attention and Lyle watched as Gomez pulled a banger from his belt, did a three count and then tossed it onto the bridge.

FLASH!!

Lyle moved and with fluid motions, his boots pounded down the gantry way into the bridge, two sharp cracks went into the guy clutching his face by the communications station. Another two shots when into the pilot. And one shot went into the knee of the flamboyant-looking blue bastard that was screaming to high hell.

Something moved and Lyle barley had time to dodge and roll out of the way as a massive blue hand went through the floor at where he was standing not seconds ago.

“WARRRGHHHH!!!”

A three-round burst was fired from his riffle and that was when Lyle registered that his brothers were also shooting at the same thing and it wasn’t being phased at all. This was a shook, since the tungsten rounds were hitting with enough energy to pierce four inches of steel armor. A giant foot covered the light and Lyle found himself rolling out of the way to avoid the monster crushing him like a bug. Lyle rolled away and found himself rolling over what had to have been the ship captain, grabbing him, Lyle pulled them both behind cover as his spartan brothers distracted the monster.

As he was going through his options to bring the beast down, he heard a whistle. Eyes wide, his head snapped to the side, and saw the nasty grin on the Kree-looking bastard's face. His fist lashed out once, then twice smashing the bastard’s nose and knocking a few teeth loose with swift hits.

Stowing his shredder riffle, Lyle pulled the bolter out, did a quick three count, and then stood from cover. Stance firm, eyes on target, and Bolter coming up and tracking his target. The round fired rocked his wrist slightly, but his shot was on target as the miniaturized rocket turned bullet shot from the chamber and blue the monster's head clean off its shoulders.

“Shit, McGregor if you were carrying a damn bolter, you should have opened with it.” One of the Spartans called after prying the giant monster’s hand from around his midsection.

That spartan got smacked upside the back of his helmet, “Think stupid, if he had opened that the bridge would have ventilated.”

Lyle sighed and walked over to the giant thing that was obviously a person. Staff Sargent Gomez walked up beside the monster and they both went to checking it over and found a broken needle, clear evidence of them shooting himself up with something. That was placed in an evidence bag and given to the medic who was trying not to salivate in their helmet at the possibility of medical discoveries that might be around.

He shared a look with the Staff Sargent and then they both turned around and went to who could only be labeled as the captain. At the side, Lyle noticed that one of his brothers were packing away the yakka arrow while another had his M6D type magnum trained on the whistler with a smashed nose.

Staff Sargent Gomez walked over, hit the control panel a few times then said fuck it. And then ordered over one of the Spartans to put the ship into formation with the pelicans. The Staff Sargent then walked up beside Lyle and made a hand motion.

“He said anything yet?”

“Nope,” Lyle replied with a shrug, “Was going to ask what was in the cargo hold, but I can wait until the techs tear it apart of the LT gives the command.”

Staff Sargent Gomez gave a grunt, “Sounds about right…”

His words were interrupted as green fire spang to life on the back of the captured captain, a symbol on the side of his neck burning itself out.

[ EARTH… ]

Leaning against the wall of the balcony in the vampire nightclub, I read over the report and skimmed the video of the altercation that happened earlier today. From what I could see my Spartans had tracked down some would-be pirates and really put in some work by kicking all of that ass. They even brought back some prisoners to interrogate for the how and why of their reasons.

Chuckling at the rousing speech, I leaned over to let Frank watch after rewinding the video a bit. Frank of course liked the video and made a comment about him going on the next patrol to bag him some pirate action. He wasn’t very happy about my suggestion though of him taking the lead in that sphere even though everyone had portal access when they are off duty so they could go home on the weekends.

After the video was finished, I went back to my section of the perch over the balcony looking down over the rest of the partying vampires. Everything was good and then the next second it wasn’t and I couldn’t put my finger on what the issue was until I caught a slight whiff of sewage, that was when it clicked for me.

The reason why these new vampire types couldn’t be found was because they were using the underground tunnels for transportation. It was also how they were able to hit multiple vampire clubs and people being none the wiser. Proper drainage was a must if you wanted to open up a vampire night club because of all the evidence needing somewhere to go.

With a little focus the speed force was pushed into my eyes allowing me to instantly find who and what I was looking for. Tall grey and ugly was slinking along the back wall and behind him were four of those other abominations.

With swift movement of my fingers across my omni-tool, my scooter activated and pinged the group. Frank being the closest shifted for a better look once his own system alerted him before clueing him into the pinged targets. Before Frank could jump over the railing, I held a hand out to stop him.

“Let’s wait, it looks like the Blood Pack found them also,” I stated nonchalantly as I watched the so-called Preacher try and sneak up behind the abomination. The others of the Blood Pack vanished to follow their own targets and I shook my head at the fact they didn’t even use the radios to alert us.

I know, I know, pot meets kettle, but I at least was the big gun and Frank made sure to carry his own big gun.

I watched as the fucking morons tried to case up the new variant vampires and how they didn’t even draw their weapons at all. Frank shook his head and grunted at the sight, nodding at him, I offered my chips because why not.

Shit was going to go off the rails in the most colossal way and I couldn’t wait. 

o.O.o

Edge Of Known Space

HEAD OF A DEAD CELESTIAL…. KNOWHERE

Sitting in a bar at the edge of Knowhere a man in Ravager colors chuckled to himself as he closed his data slate.

 “Well, that was informative.”

With that said he got up from his seat and waved his hand over the table, a green shimmer leaving behind credits to pay for his drink. Walking out of the bar, the only thing the patrons could see if they were looking in his direction was a wave of green washing over the man’s body removing the ravager colors while also changing his shape. The old man was now a gentleman in his youth with a devilish grin placed on his face.

He was dressed in what was clearly high quality green and gold clothing. On the back of his clothes was a motif of a rack of horns to match the golden horn crown he wore on his head. It might take a little planning, but breaking his brothers toys was always so much fun.

Author Note’s : 

In the infamous voice of Admiral Ackbar - It’s a trap!!! -

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The Fastest Man Alive Fast 87 By: BigToFu SPACE SOL SYSTEM BORDER Pirate Captain P'yke Sitting in his Captain's chair, P'yke grinned a snaggle tooth grin as his younger brother hit the maneuvering thrusters and took them into the rich new hunting ground that would be the Sol system. Looking down at his armrest, P'yke transferred the credits to the Ravager that had clued him into the new hunting ground. All it took was some Galnarr ale to get the Ravager to loosen his lips on the so called new galactic power. P'yke snorted, these jumped up Terrans finally able to leave their gravity well. Even if this was a backwater system, P'yke was not about to get caught with his pants down. That's why he had sent probes before making this trip. What he found made P'yke want to laugh his Kree heart out, these foolish terran's had stations but no patrolling ships, foolish. All he could find out in the system when he got his probe data back was drones that just floated around and pinged at incremental moments. The probe had recorded the timings to the pings and that was why they were slowly floating into the system on a trajectory to slingshot around one of the systems furthest planetoids since it had no stations or probes and would allow them to increase their speed without the engines. Leaning back in his chair, P'yke watched as his brother eased them behind the planetoid to hide from the sensor drone, then put them on a slingshot course that would throw them out towards Saturn. From there they would slingshot once more to Dirt, no that planet was called Earth and Mars. Easing back into his seat, P'yke could already see the credits rolling in after he sells the exotic terran's he planned to pick up. If he was lucky enough, he just might pick up a pretty mutantor to keep for himself. That Ravager had told him all about the exotic mutantors on Earth. It was far too easy to see that they would go for a pretty penny on the open market. P'yke would need to get in and make his money before the big Empires caught wind and decided to slave out the planet. And he knew just who to sell the mutantor to, but after he got himself a taste first. BORDER STATION SIGMA Lyle McGregor Border Patrol Bap! Bap! Shift, shift Bap! Bap! Bap! Step back, let the heavy bag swing and take a breath. Flexing his hands for a moment, Lyle was about to move back in for a combo against the heavy bag but stopped as he caught a glance of the clock. The clock had just rolled over to 0645 and he still needed a shower and hit the chow hall before hitting his duty station at 0800. He looked at the time and then looked at the heavy bag before letting out a sigh. He hated that feeling he got when leaving the gym and feeling like his workouts weren't finished. He pushed that from his mind though with the rumbling of his stomach because bacon was clearly in his future. o.O.o Stuffing the last of the bacon into his mouth as he ran out of the chow hall, Lyle took a left and made it into the Patrol Operators' room with five minutes to spare. With a smile on his face, Lyle clocked in and then turned to head for the armory when he paused in his steps. Looking around, he found the reason why he was feeling unease, it was silent, too silent. Looking around, Lyle found everyone looking at the massive screen down in the operations room. On the screen, there was a ping at the edge of the system near Pluto, fuck. From what he was looking at, that was clearly a ghost ping. The pings ranged from minor stuff to major stuff, but it was the ghost pings that everyone found to be problems. All pings were treated seriously, but it was the ghost pings that were notoriously hated by everyone equally. From hunting down the reason for the ping to hoping and praying that you didn't run into space parasites that could eat through your armor like what happened to the Purple Team. Lyle shivered at the memories from that video footage, then he saw his name on the active roster. He couldn't lie and say that his heart didn't start to hammer inside his chest. Lyle watched as the squids received another ping trail heading towards Pluto and then received nothing about a crash site or ion trail. Okay, that was definitely cause for investigation, it was time to nut up or shut up. Stop gawking around McGregor, go suit up. Snapping to and turning on the spot, Lyle never looked back towards the Staff Sergeant as he was already thinking about the gear he wanted to carry. It was clear that shit was going to hit the fan and that meant he wasn't about to go running around without overwhelming firepower. Walking into the locker room, Lyle was greeted with the muted chatter of his fire team prepping for what was to come. He walked past two aisles until he got to the third, then walked in and stopped before the fifth locker. Lyle pressed his hands to the palm reader and then gave a grim smile as he got a double beep of confirmation. When the locker opened, Lyle didn't even look towards his Spartan armor, no, his attention was drawn to the heavy bolter that he would be carrying along with the plasma sword and shredder rifle that shot out exploding tungsten drilling rounds. Ohh yeah, ain't no kill like overkill baby, and whatever that ghost ping was, it decided to fuck around, and it was about to find out how badly it had fucked up. With that thought in mind, Lyle gave his undersuit a quick once over to make sure that everything was clear before placing his hand on the activation plate. The armor plating inside of the locker transformed into memory liquid metal, then flowed over his form before reforming into his spartan armor plating as the undersuit sent out the activation key and the proper protocol handshakes were shared. Shifting a little to feel out the additional weight, Lyle went through the motions as the active sensor system went to work and synced up his movements with the micro-servos inside of his armor. He wiggled one way then he wiggled the other as the combat boots shifted around his feet and the armor harness settled into place over his shoulders. Once he was comfortable with the weight, Lyle activated his helm, checked his HUD and then ran his basic systems check. When the three green checks across his HUD flashed all clear, Lyle then reached for the bolter and his shredder riffle. The internal mechanisms to the bolter went through its motions as he double-checked to make sure that the weapon was unloaded then Lyle performed the same check with the shredder. Once he was certain of the all-clear, Lyle placed the bolter on his hip with a satisfying clunk and then the shredder rifle on its magnetic clamp on the back of his harness. With everything ready, Lyle had his helm retract before turning and leaving the armory, it was time to get this show on the road. o.O.o Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Talk to me Galnarr, how much longer, P'yke grunted down towards his brother before dropping into his captain's chair. Galnarr shrugged, I say another half-day give or take. We picked up enough speed from that last maneuver, but I would rather leave multiple trails in case they can somehow pick up our dilithium signature from the thrusters. Impossible, P'yke replied with a roll of his eyes, We came into the system with no main engines, we have zero radio emissions and from all the passive scans it's clear that they put all of their main ships at the borders, so stop talking shit. Tsk, We still need to talk about how the warm bodies are going to get split. K'Tarr spoke up from his position leaning against the bulkhead. With that, P'yke grunted and looked over his shoulder. No feasting, we gotta sell these on Knowhere. Tsk, Fine but the guys are at least in need of something to help with the long trip to Knowhere. K'tarr replied with a hard stare. P'yke shrugged his shoulders, No one said we couldn't space a few once they stopped being warm holes. K'tarr stared and flipped the blade in his hand once, twice, three times before giving a nod and leaving the bridge of the ship. Shaking his head, P'yke leaned back into his seat as he took in the sight of this solar system's sixth planet. o.O.o Four Hours, sixteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds earlier Pelican Echo Four One Zero Captain Frost Echo four one zero, this is echo two one two on your six by five, Captain Cortez of the second pelican to launch on this patrol mission spoke and Frost nodded along since it matched today's flight logs. We'll be providing back up for you along with overwatch for any runners that might occur. Sounds good Echo two one two, let's have a clean mission and first rounds are on me when we get back, Captain Frost replied over the radio. Sounds good Echo two, Captain Frost replied before increasing the power to the antigravity engines. On the dash a hologram popped up with the way point showing the drone that reported the ghost ping. Alongside that was a red line that pointed towards Pluto but carried no definitive proof of anything. Luckily there were three other drones along the line that were retasked to take a look and report any findings. With a heading and destination picked out, Frost smiled as the ten minute mark started to rapidly shrink. While he was piloting the pelican, Frost had his co-pilot run over the data that the drone was projecting. This was so both drone and pelican could meet in the same location, the others that were along the trail line were also sent to patrol and scan the area for data sharing. Shifting to pull around on the yoke and shift the pelican around, Captain Frost eased them into a nice glide alongside the drone. One of the drones' mechanical appendages connected to the side of the pelican, both systems sharing a stronger connection and a wider array of sensors. Data flowed across the ops station and the oni officer that was at the controls leaned over the station, nose only inches from the hologram. The clink of mechanical keys rang throughout the bridge as the oni officer did his work. Captain Frost, I found something. The oni officer called out and then his hands made some rapid gestures before what was on his screen was projected for the small bridge of the pelican to see. Over a black backdrop a blurry image appeared, three of them to be exact, and from what the scans were showing. The blurry image was dilithium exhaust, the burn wasn't enough to be from engines and it could have been ignored if this wasn't a ghost ping protocol. It was three short bursts and from the rate and angle, the sensor image was showing that something was out there and it was clearly man made. Anything that came from nature wouldn't have clear distinct changes of trajectory. With his mind made up, Captain Frost disconnected the drone, then had his ensign upload the data so the other pelican could also take a look at it. The same data was also sent to the patrol station as Frost turned around in his seat. A flick of the switch opened communications to LT. Andrew and Captain Frost spoke. something was found heading in the direction of Pluto and the other drones, we are in pursuit. Read you five by five Captain, just get us there in one piece and my spartans will handle the rest. LT. Andrew replied and Frost could almost hear the anticipation in his voice. o.O.o Leaning back into his seat, LT Andrew listened to the sweet music of his Spartans putting in work, weapons were getting double and triple checked, the beautiful fragrance of gunpowder and plasma tickled his nostrils and he even smiled at the odd prayer or two towards their great Emperor, Benjamin Blake. Today he was going to be in charge of the ground operations and from what he could tell after going over the data, it was definitive proof that they were going to see some action, it wasn't a matter of if, it was just a matter of when. And it was clear that someone was out there lurking in the dark and LT Andrew knew that it was up to him to smoke them out or hunt them down. PING! Heads snapped around at the sound, the bay of the pelican going silent as a grave. With a grunt, LT Andrew got up from his seat, walked over to the panel and placed his palm on the surface of the biometric reader. Three beets rang out before the hologram interface sprang to life and showed Andrew some very good news. They found definitive proof that someone was not only using thrusters to adjust themselves but them putting in a course around Pluto that should just be plain impossible. The squid drones had done their work and had sniffed out the trail, but those in charge were scratching their heads at the data. If it was done correctly, the adjustments would bring them close to the planet and spit them out on the other side with three times the speed, but if it was done incorrectly, they would have no chance to even send a mayday message out. Everyone was scratching their heads on the situation until one of the Oni officers suggested running a simulation model with the engines turned off and only boosters. That was when things were made more clear. The reason for the engines being off was to drop off the radar but also to help mitigate the G-forces generated from the maneuver. It was a brilliant move since the only way to sneak into the SOL system would need the ship completely powered down so that they didn't trip any border sensors. Andrew watched the screen as things went from just two pelicans investigating to one of the Infinity class supercarriers getting detailed to help. From the spacing of the thruster trails, acceleration and direction were swiftly understood for a pelican to pull off the maneuver outside of simulation and that was when they really found the course of travel. The slingshot would spit them out hard and fast towards Saturn's rings. The Infinity would hang back, but for the pelicans and his Spartans, the hunt was on. o.O.o Sixth Planet from the Sun Lyle McGregor, Spartan Border Patrol Standing around the hologram table with his brothers, Lyle listened as Staff Sergeant Gomez pointed out locations to secure on the ship they had found hiding around the ice asteroids that made up Saturn's ring. The massive pirate ship was easily over five hundred feet long, seven stories tall. She was a big bitch and chock full of pirate scum. Today Spartans, we have the wonderful job of securing the bridge while Echo two secures engineering, Staff Sergeant Gomez was saying with hand motions that highlighted spots on the hologram. From there, we disable any self-destruct and secure the rest of the pirates for questioning. A spartan raised their hands, What's the ROE? Seals secured at all times, be mindful around the terminals, and we need to at least capture the captain and his second mate alive, if they don't surrender, just be careful of what you put holes into. The staff Sergeant grunted and shared a look all around, Ain't nobody want to be out here all day to fish your ass out from the vacuum, that goes without saying. You fuck up bad enough to end up in the vacuum, I'll PT you to death, revive your fucking corpse, and PT you till death all over a gain, clear? Crystal, Sir! Alright, alright, now mount up, we're dropping in sixty! With that said, Staff Sergeant Gomez turned on his heel and grabbed his helm from his chair. The lights went out and the red warning started to flash, Staff Sergeant Gomez walked to the drop door, turned around, and activated his loudspeaker. The count down slowly lowered and Staff Sargent Gomez started to pound on his chest, as he did that, feet's pounded the floor of the pelican. WHAT ARE WE! Staff Sargent Gomez yelled loud, a fist pounding on his chest. SPARTANS! Lyle and his brothers yelled back loud and proud. Staff Sargent Gomez prowled from one side of the cargo bay to the other, AND WHAT DO SPARTANS DO! FEET FIRST INTO HELL!! AND WHEN THE DEVIL TELLS US TO GET OUT, WHAT DO WE TELL'EM!! WE TELL THE DEVIL TO FUCK HIMSELF!! Crew chief made his signal by the bay doors, his hands in the air for all to see. Drop-in five AND WHAT DO SPARTANS DRINK!!! Four Three Two One Blood! Blood!! Blood!!! That was all it took for the Spartans to be unleashed like the dogs of war. Lyle took off at a sprint along with his brothers then jumped from the back of the pelican and out into open space. He had no time to be disoriented by the lack of gravity. Aiming his left gauntlet at the forward end of the ship, Lyle smiled inside of his helm as the little indicator inside of his HUD flashed green for a good clamp. His wrist vibrated slightly as the spool went into action and pull him along with his brothers towards the pirate ship. Some of his brothers gave out whoops of joys, but Lyle wasn't here to enjoy the suck, no, Lyle was here to make sure that these pirate scumbags never make it to Earth or Pandora. He had a family to get back to and this wasn't about to be his last deployment, he was a lifer and these damn pirates were about to find out what that meant. Getting into position, Lyle crouched down on the hull of the pirate ship, pulled the rectangular device from his back, and then pulled it apart. Between the two parts a shimmering phase-field appeared, then he gave his squad mates a nod as they prepped to board the ship with extreme prejudice. Holding the device over the hull of the ship, Lyle's hands hovered until he got the double tap on his shoulders. Leaning forward, he pressed the device down in front of him and then pulled out the sides and he made a stretching motion. The area in front of him went from the metallic green of the ship's hull, then into that of a brightly lit interior, dirty walls, and a lot of wires, but they were in luck since there was a walkway right below. No words even needed to be shared as his spartan brothers moved like a well-oiled machine. Staff Sargent Gomez was the first on through the hole followed by two Spartans. They took the left-most direction as LT Andrew took the right along with a squad of Spartans. Once he was certain that the matter phase shifter was secure, Corporal Lyle jumped through the hole right after his brothers. Pulling his shredder rifle from his back, Lyle stacked himself behind his brothers and waited for the sign from Staff Sargent Gomez. Everyone shifted a bit and Lyle made sure to check his field of fire, once he was certain, he sent a green notification, and then they all moved out. His job along with his brothers was to lock down that bridge. The LT job was to secure what looked like the CIC on the hologram and the other two spartan teams would secure the armory and the engine room. Hugging the wall properly and making sure to keep his elbow down, Lyle did not want to be that guy chicken-wing his way down the hall. That was good and all, but they were halfway down the corridor before the alarms started ringing. Everyone paused reflexively, then all at once they kicked it into high gear as they started to jog down spaceship corridor. They made it around the bend in time to watch as the bulkhead doors that led to the bridge were already in the process of closing. There was a blur following two of his brothers sprinting forward, one went left as the other went right. There was a bang and whirr sound as his brother grabbed each side of the bulkhead doors. SHOOT THAT YAT'KARR! Spartans posted up at the side of the bulkhead doors as a mass fire started to pepper the corridor and hit the far walls. Giving his weapon a quick once over, Lyle lined himself up with the Staff Sargent lined up on the other side of the bulkhead doors. His shredder riffle was loaded, so now it was time to get some. Smoke came from the bulkhead doors released some smoke even as Lyle lined himself up against the side ready to breach the bridge. The loud speaker on his helmet activated, the translator kicking in. BORDER PATROL, LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS! YOU YAT' Karr's come here onto my ship! SIR, THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING! P'YKE TAKES NO WARNINGS, P'YKE IS THE ONE WHO WARNS!!! That was all he said before more laser fire started to come from the bridge. Then he heard it, that fucking whistle. There was a whistle that that fucking whistle, scared the hell out of Lyle because he read the files and knew exactly what that was. Punching a hand into the ground to shrink his profile, Lyle activated armor lock, his shields flared even more as the additional power super charged them even as he screamed into his coms. ARROW!!!, YAKKA ARROW IN THE FIELD! The call of yakking arrow rang out across the coms, followed by a whistle as the arrow pierced through a bulkhead plating and slamming into Lyle's kinetic shields. Then all he heard was ding! Ding! Ding! As the arrow peppered everyone in the squad with swift hits trying to pierce through any gap that might be available. Luckily everyone had heard the call and had activated their armor locks in time to prevent from racking up their own death toll. A hand motion pulled his attention and Lyle watched as Gomez pulled a banger from his belt, did a three count and then tossed it onto the bridge. FLASH!! Lyle moved and with fluid motions, his boots pounded down the gantry way into the bridge, two sharp cracks went into the guy clutching his face by the communications station. Another two shots when into the pilot. And one shot went into the knee of the flamboyant-looking blue bastard that was screaming to high hell. Something moved and Lyle barley had time to dodge and roll out of the way as a massive blue hand went through the floor at where he was standing not seconds ago. WARRRGHHHH!!! A three-round burst was fired from his riffle and that was when Lyle registered that his brothers were also shooting at the same thing and it wasn't being phased at all. This was a shook, since the tungsten rounds were hitting with enough energy to pierce four inches of steel armor. A giant foot covered the light and Lyle found himself rolling out of the way to avoid the monster crushing him like a bug. Lyle rolled away and found himself rolling over what had to have been the ship captain, grabbing him, Lyle pulled them both behind cover as his spartan brothers distracted the monster. As he was going through his options to bring the beast down, he heard a whistle. Eyes wide, his head snapped to the side, and saw the nasty grin on the Kree-looking bastard's face. His fist lashed out once, then twice smashing the bastard's nose and knocking a few teeth loose with swift hits. Stowing his shredder riffle, Lyle pulled the bolter out, did a quick three count, and then stood from cover. Stance firm, eyes on target, and Bolter coming up and tracking his target. The round fired rocked his wrist slightly, but his shot was on target as the miniaturized rocket turned bullet shot from the chamber and blue the monster's head clean off its shoulders. Shit, McGregor if you were carrying a damn bolter, you should have opened with it. One of the Spartans called after prying the giant monster's hand from around his midsection. That spartan got smacked upside the back of his helmet, Think stupid, if he had opened that the bridge would have ventilated. Lyle sighed and walked over to the giant thing that was obviously a person. Staff Sargent Gomez walked up beside the monster and they both went to checking it over and found a broken needle, clear evidence of them shooting himself up with something. That was placed in an evidence bag and given to the medic who was trying not to salivate in their helmet at the possibility of medical discoveries that might be around. He shared a look with the Staff Sargent and then they both turned around and went to who could only be labeled as the captain. At the side, Lyle noticed that one of his brothers were packing away the yakka arrow while another had his M6D type magnum trained on the whistler with a smashed nose. Staff Sargent Gomez walked over, hit the control panel a few times then said fuck it. And then ordered over one of the Spartans to put the ship into formation with the pelicans. The Staff Sargent then walked up beside Lyle and made a hand motion. He said anything yet? Nope, Lyle replied with a shrug, Was going to ask what was in the cargo hold, but I can wait until the techs tear it apart of the LT gives the command. Staff Sargent Gomez gave a grunt, Sounds about right His words were interrupted as green fire spang to life on the back of the captured captain, a symbol on the side of his neck burning itself out. EARTH Leaning against the wall of the balcony in the vampire nightclub, I read over the report and skimmed the video of the altercation that happened earlier today. From what I could see my Spartans had tracked down some would-be pirates and really put in some work by kicking all of that ass. They even brought back some prisoners to interrogate for the how and why of their reasons. Chuckling at the rousing speech, I leaned over to let Frank watch after rewinding the video a bit. Frank of course liked the video and made a comment about him going on the next patrol to bag him some pirate action. He wasn't very happy about my suggestion though of him taking the lead in that sphere even though everyone had portal access when they are off duty so they could go home on the weekends. After the video was finished, I went back to my section of the perch over the balcony looking down over the rest of the partying vampires. Everything was good and then the next second it wasn't and I couldn't put my finger on what the issue was until I caught a slight whiff of sewage, that was when it clicked for me. The reason why these new vampire types couldn't be found was because they were using the underground tunnels for transportation. It was also how they were able to hit multiple vampire clubs and people being none the wiser. Proper drainage was a must if you wanted to open up a vampire night club because of all the evidence needing somewhere to go. With a little focus the speed force was pushed into my eyes allowing me to instantly find who and what I was looking for. Tall grey and ugly was slinking along the back wall and behind him were four of those other abominations. With swift movement of my fingers across my omni-tool, my scooter activated and pinged the group. Frank being the closest shifted for a better look once his own system alerted him before clueing him into the pinged targets. Before Frank could jump over the railing, I held a hand out to stop him. Let's wait, it looks like the Blood Pack found them also, I stated nonchalantly as I watched the so-called Preacher try and sneak up behind the abomination. The others of the Blood Pack vanished to follow their own targets and I shook my head at the fact they didn't even use the radios to alert us. I know, I know, pot meets kettle, but I at least was the big gun and Frank made sure to carry his own big gun. I watched as the fucking morons tried to case up the new variant vampires and how they didn't even draw their weapons at all. Frank shook his head and grunted at the sight, nodding at him, I offered my chips because why not. Shit was going to go off the rails in the most colossal way and I couldn't wait. o.O.o Edge Of Known Space HEAD OF A DEAD CELESTIAL. KNOWHERE Sitting in a bar at the edge of Knowhere a man in Ravager colors chuckled to himself as he closed his data slate. Well, that was informative. With that said he got up from his seat and waved his hand over the table, a green shimmer leaving behind credits to pay for his drink. Walking out of the bar, the only thing the patrons could see if they were looking in his direction was a wave of green washing over the man's body removing the ravager colors while also changing his shape. The old man was now a gentleman in his youth with a devilish grin placed on his face. He was dressed in what was clearly high quality green and gold clothing. On the back of his clothes was a motif of a rack of horns to match the golden horn crown he wore on his head. It might take a little planning, but breaking his brothers toys was always so much fun. Author Note's : In the infamous voice of Admiral Ackbar - It's a trap!!! - Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter. Let me know what you guys think about the chapter. Removes the - for the internet links If you are looking to get early chapters and read all the good stuff I haven't posted to the public yet, support with the link below. 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