Chapter 1
Temporary Racial Guide - to have art commissioned in its place.
Nostromos -Bear like.
Polar - Fuustromos
Brown - Goustromos
Black - Vimstroms
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Ri'k -Bird like wings come out of the back, separate from arms.
Hawk\Predetory - Ma'k
Crows\Scavangers - Swi'k
Owls - Hae'k
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Kanines - Aedra
Predetors - Myraed
Scavengers - Fraed.
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Felines - Savrays
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Ieduhm - Reptile\Scally\Amphibians
Aquatic - Iewherehm
Desert - Iephrehm
Jungle/Forests - Ieleryehm
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Rodants - Reihn
Mice/Feild Dwelling -Dellar Reihn
Rats - Jella Reihn
Squirels/Tree Dweling - Krep Reihn
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Elephant - Trux
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And finally, Humans - Humans.
Chapter 1
Our Heroes, Assailed by hate.
Martin's eyes opened to the black interior of the transport vehicle. He jarred himself upright and patted around his position to find his rifle. The ringing in his ear made him aware he couldn't hear what he was feeling beneath his gloved hands. M.R.E's or maybe medical bandages? He squinted to get his eyes to dilate to the low light, remembering a low-toned whistle, an impact forcing the hasher sideways and then waking up. It motivated him to clamor to his feet to search for the other four members. Another impact. He still couldn't hear it, but he felt it convert the surrounding air into a dense thump. "JOHAUN!? ESTER!" he shouted. He wasn't confident it was even worth it since his own hearing wasn't back. With no reply, he waded through the hasher's scattered contents. Digging with his hands, hoping to find someone, anyone. His gloves pat down onto something.
A third round hit. The pound from this blast was like a loud subwoofer compared to the pillow hit from the other. "Must have been further this time." He thought. He stroked the odd object; it was padded like a thick carpet. About an inch or two long and flexible, probably fur. "It's Johaun." Martin thought. After uncovering Johaun, Martin rolled him over to get him on his back to check his vitals from Johaun's intelligence pad. Martin, being human and less than half of a Fustramos size, had to use a fair amount of effort to roll Johaun over.
Martin could hear the crinkling and cracking of whatever Johaun was rolling onto. This was a good sign. It meant his hearing was back. He pulled Johaun's right arm up and placed it on his chest. Feeling around, he managed to accidentally tap the screen to bring the I.P out of its sleep mode to look at his vitals, which were stable. "So that's good you're alive." He grabbed Johaun's head and shook it, hoping to wake him up. After two shakes, Martin escalated and gave Johaun a good, hardy slap in the face. A low grumble came from the white furred body. "Ow, I'm here... I'm here." Rustling came from further down the hasher.
Instinctively, Martin pulled his I.P arm up and turned on his flashlight toward the noise. "Johaun that you? Anyone else up?" The voice and rustling came from Sargent Macanaw, who was shielding his eyes from the light. Macanaw was a dark-skinned human, much darker than Martin. He maintained a fit body and strong posture. Even now in the dark interior of the rolled vehicle he was standing up, back strait, chest out. Like he was taunting whatever happened to happen again. His coarse dry voice was easily recognizable among the group, and his volume cut through the minor deafness most of them had. "I am. Johaun just came to." "I'm up too, Mac." The second voice came from Snix, an Iephrehm. A few bandages had clung to the spiked scales on his elbow. "I've got Ester here." Snix said, pulling Ester out from under the pile. A whiny moan came from Ester. "Uh, Wha?" Ester was a Swi'k, black feathered with long black strait beak. Taller than Snix, but much less body mass.
A faint, low tone whistle broke everyone's focus. The only thing they had time to do was close their eyes and tensed every muscle. Its impact reminded the others why they woke up with impaired hearing. The hasher didn't shift from the impact. Dirt thrown into the air hit the armor of the vehicle. "How many is that?" Sargent Macanaw yelled. Martin raised his voice to counter the slight hearing loss. "Four. The one that flipped us and the others when I got up. No idea how many in between.". "Okay, well. There's more coming. If they stick with tradition, that is. Let's get our weapons and get out of this can before they get lucky... or smarter." Digging in the dark for their guns, while being shot, was not something most of the team had training for. Despite the stress, Martin, Ester and Johaun grabbed their guns and joined Snix and Macanaw, who already had their riffles and were waiting at the exit ramp. "Sir, no power, Ramp won't open." Ester said as he repeatedly pressed the button as proof of his statement. "Of course it ain't gonna open! Do you see anything with power in here? Snix, show him how to force that open. Martin ge-" A fifth round cut through the air.
This blast was on the opposite side of the previous impact and closer. This time, the entire body of the vehicle vibrated. "Forget it, Martin. Snix!" The command barely pushed past the deafened ringing. Snix drudged over to Ester. He gave a grunt as he pulled the manual lever for the rear loading ramp. When hashers were upright, the lever was normally easy to pull, but for reasons he didn't care to explore, it was giving him trouble. He put more force into it, but the ramp stopped moving after a gap of four feet. "It's as far as it'll go Mac!" Snix said, matching Macanaw's volume. Snix could now see the reason for the difficulty. An enormous boulder was blocking the ramp from fully opening. More than likely the reason the Hasher was sideways now. Again, a round struck near the hasher.
The blast was more concussive, with the ramp open. The dust cloud it injected into the hasher was the bigger hindrance. Now it was clouded and hard to breathe. The velocity of the gravel that was launched inward would have cut up the human members' pretty good. But Snix scaley body endured. The dust wasn't the only thing to reach inside the hasher, the warm savanna air too. "Just remember I offered to shave you." Snix playfully said back to Johaun, as he pulled himself through the gap. Ester next, then Johaun. But Macanaw had to give him a push to get him to fit. Then was Martin and, after, Macanaw. Out of the hasher with rifles drawn, they peered over the area.
"Rifles up, watch your firing zones! No flipping around or dropping your weapons to point with your hands." Macanaw said. "What if they are in the grass? It's tall enough for even me to hide in." Johaun's whispers were low grumblings over the radio. "Let's cut the chatter until we're-" A round slammed the dirt eighteen meters east side of the hasher. "Well. Until we're not here!" Snix, however, gave his attention to a short mountain range to the South-East. He skimmed the mountain range through his scope attached to his rifle. Based on his experience, whatever was firing at them had no desire to risk a fire fight, even against infantry. Thinking about the impacts, their sound and the little explosive effect meant it was a more than likely a simple ballistic round. Like from a small tank.
"Found it." Snix said on the fire team's comms. "Axihm brazer... Stationary." Macanaw had looked over to a dried river. It was narrow and deep enough that Johaun could walk in. Even if he had to walk with his head tucked down toward his chest. "Every one in!" With no hesitation, everyone scrambled. The bank of the trench had a soft slope, making it easy to slide into. "We head-" Macanaw's orders, cut off again by a third round that hit the ground on the North-West side of the hasher. "We head west. Keep your head below the bank, Johaun." Johaun crouched further down. He looked to both his left and right, checking to see if he was actually under the bank line. "Head that way!" Macanaw pointed westward down the river and spotted Martin watching Snix who was still above but now running along the river to pass them. "Don't worry about him get goin!"
During their trek down the river, the Axihm brazer shot another two shots at the crash site. "Sir, you said something about tradition? What did you mean?" Ester asked. Macanaw turns his body so he could walk down the trench but also keep pace. "Well, ever since Axihm has been sending their convoys to us to blow up, their border patrols have done the same thing every time. They fire one accurate shot. Now if the hasher's co-driver is not paying attention to radars, and the driver is not pushing the pedal to get you out of there. Then you're going to get hit. I would guess our self driving coffin back there wasn't doing either. Once you get hit, the Axihm brazer will shoot additional shots around the Hasher, hoping to kill anyone who could get out or just force them out of the area. They want the hasher 'cause they salvage it." "And the military just lets them?" "Depends on man power. Most cases a tumbler just flies over and blasts a few rounds at the brazer, then a team comes out to drag the hasher home. Only been a few times they just leave 'em. Last one I know about was toward the end of the gang wars when the border was hot." "What happens to us? Are we... we're not camping out here, are we?" "Is that going to be a problem?" Macanaw followed his snark with a subtle smile. "No. I just mean, what is it we do now?" "We call it in and get a ride back. I fill out some extra paperwork and you all get the day off early."
For a while now, Johaun had stopped paying attention to whether his head was hidden and used his height advantage to keep an eye out. The beacon, the massive dome on the north pole that emitted light for all of Myrn, had transitioned its color to mark evening and signal the approach of night. With it came a drop in temperature and less visibility of the area. Kygerstav's Savannah was an entirely different place when the heat of the day subsided. Flying insects silently buzzed past the fire team. Only the occasional tespial or ophelsh would inspect their faces after seeing the heat they were giving off. "Let's keep an ear out for anything in the grass." Macanaw said "I don't need someone going down because of a Cang attack."
Johaun glimpsed something move through a thin area of bush as he scanned the area. When he looked back, he saw Snix emerge, walking casually, with no concern about his surroundings. In a single, effortless motion, he slid down the bank of the river and stood in front of Macanaw. "Heavy's gone, nothing around us for six miles. Not even wild life. Outside the six miles, wildlife." "Good. Then we'll make the call now." Macanaw tapped on his I.P and changed its function to call out to the patrol headquarters. "Dispatch, this is proctor one, five, nine three. Our hasher was hit. All members are status green. We left everything in the hasher but our gear." There was no pause after he spoke. "Proctor?! Glad to finally hear from you." It was Milli's voice. Even over a low-quality radio signal, her voice had a naturally soothing tone. It always put Macanaw at ease to hear her. "You've been silent for fifty minutes. The officers were just about to discuss sending a bleak tank." "You can tell them to call off the search party. While you're at it, tell them to cancel their order for those automated hashers. Thing almost got us killed. And another thi-" "Proctor, your day's getting a lot worse. Mission update being sent." Every ones I.P's sent a chirp to their headsets.
Looking at their I.P screens, they read the missions update in silence. "Sarge? Did you know?" Ester let the words burst out. Macanaw slowly turns his head. "Understood Mili." His expression started shocked and appalled look which morphed into the look a man gives another man to tell him to tread carefully. "Kinda wish I had known. I'd shoot it myself just to save me from your stupid questions." Macanaw's voice was slow and aggressive as he glared at Ester. Snix walked through the center of the scolding to walk back down the trench toward the hasher. He pat Ester on the shoulder as he passed him. Ester froze in locked eye contact with Macanaw. He'd never been in a position where shooting off his mouth was met with hostility. Justified hostility, but hostility none the less. Macanaw was right, but the way he was looking at him made Ester think he was being tested. Macanaw, keeping eye contact, spoke calmly "There's going to be a scavenging crew at the crash site by the time we get there. Every one open your maps." Snix paused and waited for Macanaw to hand out orders. Macanaw broke eye contact to focus on his I.P.
The mission update gave Macanaw and Snix access to a wider range of tools to use. The first tool Macanaw went to was the live telescopic feed of the crash site. He linked every ones I.P's to the imaging and placed a marker representing each member surrounding the hasher. "Around 100 meters from the crash site, we'll crawl out of the river. We're going to move in quietly and slowly. Pretty obvious, I know. I'll put I.P's into dark mode and will be the only one able to use the comms. You will tap your screen once for yes and twice for no. Questions?" "Do we sh-" Macanaw interrupted Ester. "If I don't tell you to. Don't do it." Macanaw lets three seconds go by in silence, then nods to the group and uses a hand signal to tell them all to get moving. Ester looked at the others without moving his head. He wasn't interested in whether anyone had questions. He wanted to know if there was an attitude lingering regarding him being scolded. But every one was moving into a line to go back down the trench. Snix moved a head of the group without orders to do so. Martin watched Snix climb out of the river and vanish into the grass, but to his left he saw Johaun standing where they had been giving orders. He turned to get Macanaw's attention, but Macanaw was already passing by him to get to Johaun. "You two keep moving, we'll catch up." Johaun glanced at Macanaw, but waited for the others to gain some distance before talking.
"Sargent Macanaw." "Johaun?" "Shouldn't we be talking about what we will be doing after we repossess the weapon?" "Normally? Yes." Macanaw motioned for them to walk as they talked. He positioned himself so Johaun wouldn't notice his hand resting on his sidearm just in case the conversation went in the wrong direction. "You ever work with a young ri'ik before?" Johaun shook his head. "They're smart, but it's not often they're put into occupations where their smarts don't do 'em any good. That's when they get impulsive and then over compensate with over analysis, more than most. Fortunately for us, Esters impulse is to shoot his mouth. So for the rest of the mission. I'd rather move fast and not give him time to overthink. I think he's got good instincts, but the brain usually shuts those down. Not just for the ri'ik." "What is 'the rest of the mission'?" Macanaw knew what Johaun was fishing for and was in the middle of constructing the perfect answer before Johaun requested the conversation over the I.P's. "We can't let whoever planted that weapon to get it back." Johaun nodded his head in agreement. "There's too many steps from here until the weapon is destroyed and we just have to be ready for any of those to be the wrong one. That's when it gets interesting." "But you told me? Why?" "Yah kinda forced my hand Johaun. I was going to worry about all this once we had the weapon in hand."
Macanaw slid his hand off his side arm after no further objections and a quickened pace to rejoin the others calmed a hand full of Macanaw's worries. Johaun's worries seemed to just begin. Macanaw didn't seem to be lying. "He didn't seem." he thought. He returned to peeking over the dried river bank, knowing he had no choice but to wait and see if Macanaw was actually going to keep his word. Ester wasted no time to whisper to Johaun once they rejoined him and Martin. "What's up?" Ester asked. "It is not proper to ask that, Ester. But there is no reason to worry." Thirty minutes into the return trip, Snix's voice broadcast into everyone's ear piece. "Three fraed and a trux. They just arrived. Holding position." Macanaw responded over the comms. "Looks like they're short handed boys. Things may be going our way after all."
At the 100 meter mark, Macanaw sent the order to crawl out of the river. Johaun took the most time. Being the largest member and having bathed regularly, his white fur was, in his mind, a bright light in the grass. It didn't matter how tall or thick the grass was, it couldn't ease Johaun's mind. Ester was in a similar predicament. It was incredibly difficult for a ri'ik to crawl. It was even harder to keep his wings tucked in close enough so the grass didn't spread out further. Martin was the second to get in position, Snix being the first, Ester third and Johaun last. Each pulled out their silencers, attached them to their rifle barrels, and waited for orders.
Macanaw whispered into the comms. "Slow and steady, move closer to the new waypoint. Ester, first shot, center Fraed. Johaun the left and Martin follow up." One by one, the members gave their I.P's a single tap. Martin could finally see the wrecked hasher through the grass. "No contacts. Wait. One. Two. Three. Okay. Here." thinking to himself while looking into his scope. He forces his breaths to lengthen and shallow. The green dot in his scope settles on the speckled canine face of his target fraed. The center fraed falls. Martin squeezed his trigger until the smooth but sudden recoil of the gun combined with the light "Pfft" sound came from his gun. The remaining two fell to the ground. They didn't move. An enormous figure emerged from the rear of the Hasher. It was the trux. Its enormous figure had to be about twelve feet tall. Probably weighing close to eight hundred pounds. One of its tusks looked as if it had broken off a long time ago. "Hold your fire. We need him alive. Every one up and move in slowly."
One by one, each member emerged from the grass, standing, rifles to shoulders, locked onto the trux and taking cautious steps closer. "Toss the gun, hands up. You know how this works." Macanaw commanded loudly but calmly, with a touch of pride. The trux posture shifts as it realizes what's happening. It threw its rifle to the ground and, as instructed, the trux crept, his hands above his head. "Okay, on your knees." Before Macanaw could take another step, veins of energy danced over the trux's hands as he thrust his arms down and outward to both sides. When both arms became fully extended, the energy rushed out from the trux to the fire team.
Snix moved his arms to cover his face, leaving his rifle to fall on its sling to his side and creating a layer of energy to protect him from the trux attack. The blast covered the others, forcing them to fall to the ground. The energy dissipated rapidly, but Snix remained at his feet. He pulled his rifle off, dropped it, and in a full sprint ran at the Trux. Snix lept fifteen feet into the air, raising his hands over his head, clasping them together to form a ball. He gathered as much electrical energy onto his hands as he could without passing out. The pure white light over took the orange evening light from the beacon. The buzz and crackles from Snix gathered energy caused the trux to look up to Snix, then to the ground, wincing and recoiling. To counter Snix attack, he focused his remain energy to the top of his head where he thought Snix would impact. In Snix decent on the trux, he thrust his balled hands downward onto the trux head. The two energies connected, creating a blast of light, washing out color and darkening the shadows cast to black. Snix was thrown four meters away, and the trux folded to the ground. Macanaw was the first to get to his feet. Then Ester, Johaun, and finally Martin.
"Snix?" Ester called out with no response. He flew into the air. Circling the crash site, he was looking for... what exactly? Iephrehm had the benefit of blending into this type of terrain. Here, at this moment, it was a curse. But Snix was still wearing a short-sleeved, military issued shirt, utility vest and pants. On the edge of where the grass had flattened, there was a wisp of smoke. "There he is." Snix was laying face down in the grass. Ester dove to Snix. After a hard landing immediately started assessing his condition. "SARGE!" Macanaw was already mid sprint over to him. "He's got really severe burns. We need to get him help. The med-gel will only stop the bleeding on the edges of the worst burned areas." "Alright....alright." Macanaw reached for his I.P to broadcast. "Dispatch, this is proctor. We have a soldier down. I repeat, soldier down. Area clear, mission objective recovered." "Roger that, proctor. Hasher and escort in bound, two hours out." It wasn't Mili's voice. It was some man's voice. Macanaw's focus darted from what that could mean to giving Ester and Snix his full attention.