Between the Shadows.

[Freynk Porkins]

[SIZE=72pt]Between [/SIZE]​

[SIZE=72pt]The[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=72pt]Shadows: [/SIZE]​

​

[SIZE=72pt]Sixer’s War.[/SIZE]​

 

[Freynk Porkins]

[SIZE=10pt]Dramatis Persona [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Sixer: Human Male, 36, Pilot/ Spec Ops Team leader. Real name unknown. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Tank: Human Male, 26, heavy weapons/ demolitions specialist. Real name Bendak Ginn. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Henna: Human Female, 21, lock breaking and breaking and Entry specialist. Real name Henna Yotoro. Is in love with Sixer[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Simmons: Human female, 25, Medic/engineer. Real name: Mira Simmons. Has tense relationship with Sixer[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Kalous: Cyborg male, 36, Spec ops/ Slicer. Real name Unknown. Oldest friend of Sixer and only one who knows his past. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Mr. Johnson: Corporate Executive and Force user who Hired Sixer and his crew. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10pt]Lone Star: independent Corporate security force often hired to protect lives and property of major corporations. [/SIZE]

 

[Freynk Porkins]

[SIZE=26pt]Chapter 1[/SIZE]​

[SIZE=26pt]Locked[/SIZE]​

The barrel of a blaster pressed in the back of my head hard as I sat there on the permacrete wondering what had gone wrong. It had been textbook, absolutely textbook, but then, that should have been my first clue something was not right. I sat there, looked up at the security team that had caught me and half my team, and had one of those moments where old advice comes to mind just a little too late.

“Never make a deal with a Forcer.” I said to the security person from behind my fibreplast mask, my tech goggles pulled up on my forehead.

The guy who was kitted out not much different than I was except with a Lone Star logo on his shoulder had the look of ex-military, but then most of Lone Star was ex-military. On my right was our bruiser, Tank, best heavy weapons guy around and a regular wiz with explosives. He had once taken a hit from a frag grenade and now could barely form a sentence, but he knew his stuff. On my left was Henna, our B and E specialist, there wasn’t a lock made that could keep her out, she prided herself on being able to get in to anything and so far I’d never seen her fail not once. Our other two were MIA and for all our sakes I hoped it would stay that way. Simmons our doc/weapons technician and one of the naturally prettiest women you could ever meet and Kalous our well…he was a special case. He was almost more machine than man now days, he, and I worked together in the old days back when we were corporate security for NovaTech industries.

Overall, that made our chances against eight Lone Star Security specialists about as good as getting a speeder through the eye of a needle.

“Hands behind your heads.” The guy who looked at me said. He held a carbine that looked as if it had seen use more than once and a gleam in his eye that said he would love the chance to use it again. I meet his eyes with out a single thought of seeing the light of day again when the vault we were all sitting in closed.
“What the!” the obvious ranking officer said as he looked at the door, “Get a link and open that door!”

“Sir the vault is too thick we can’t get a signal out.” One of the others replied.

“Blow it open!” the came the reply from the officer.

“Won’t work.” I said calmly as I could manage, “the vault is 60 centimeters of pure Alusteel. Why do you think we didn’t blow it?”

Tank nodded as he looked at them.

“Yall, gots ‘nough H.E. ta tickle it ‘bout all.” He said from behind his own mask with respirator.

“We didn’t ask you, churl,” said the guy behind me just before he cracked me in the back of the head with the side of his rifle butt. I hit the ground faster than a rich guy spends creds with an oof and I felt something warm start to run down my neck. I was about to get up when the vault lights went out and I knew Simmons and Kalous were behind it. Between the two of them any computer system was about as safe as a tree in a furnace. It was actually a bit scary at times.

I reached up and pulled my goggles down and they came active. Tank was already up and scraping while Henna had managed to disarm not one but two guards and was already firing. I reached for my Ares Predator IV and got off two shots before I saw Tank be hit in the neck and he went down. They had night vision too, why would not they. I took down the shooter with two shot as I looked up and saw a green cloud coming from the vents at the bottom of the vault that I had not seen before.

“Gas Gas Gas.” I said as I pulled up my respirator and sealed it. It didn’t take long at all for the Lone Star people to start dropping. Beams of energy filled the air filling the vault with smoke. Henna took down two more as they fumbled to get their mask on. The leader moved on me and I dropped to the deck and fired at his legs. My old Ares slug thrower tore open his thighs and shins quickly enough. He went down hard and I looked around. They were all down, either bleeding life or just out of action.

Before I had half a chance to think, the lights came back on and blinded me for a second before I got the goggles back up and moved to help Tank.

“Henna, Tank is hit.” I called still fighting floating blind spots from the abrupt light. “Grab everything you can while I deal with it.” I tossed my pack to her as I pulled out Tank’s medkit and began tending the wound. It was not as bad as it could have been but it was not as good as it could be either. His heavy hand applied pressure but even then, it was clear he would not last long with out help. The kit had trauma patches and an injector to help stabilize him but he would need help. Just as Henna got the first bag filled and tossed it to me the vault started to open and I grabbed a lone star SMG and trained it on the door. A half metal hand stuck through the opening and wiggled it’s fingers before I relaxed a little and watched as Kalous and Simmons moved in.

“Took you long enough.” I said. It was not nearly true but I had never been good at niceties.

“Pfft,” was Kalous’s response as he moved like a panther into the vault with his vibrokatana and silenced pistol. He took no time at all locking in on the still breathing Lone Star people and moved to end their life signs. There was a time that I would have stopped him and we would have fought again, but it had been a little while since my moral compass had done anything like point north. However, when he went for the lead guy I had to stop him.

“No!” I said quickly as he lifted his sword.

“Why the frak not!” Kalous responded his cybereyes refocused on me as the red light of the pupils pointed my way.

“He’s the lead and I want answers.” I said as Simmons took over on Tank and gave me a look. “When we get answers we’ll take care of him.”

The guy moaned as Kalous kicked him in the side of the head and knocked him out. He bound the guy who was almost tank’s size and started filling his bag with datacards and flimsy sheets. That was our deal. We stole information, plans, specs and anything we were hired to do, although the last few months had been a lot more wet work than we had ever done before. Simmons hated it; Tank did too but nearly never brought it up. I wish I could say I did but it didn’t bother me as much as it would have years ago, I don’t know if that scared me or just made me wish I had charged more for it.

Simmons was helping tank to his feet when Kalous shook his bag and tossed in onto his back.

“Got the package.” He said as he lifted the Lone Star guy over a shoulder in to a fireman carry, while Henna began spraying chemicals on the blood that had spilled on the floor.

“Alright,” I said taking Tank’s bag and filling it with whatever I could from various safe deposit boxes. I found some old star maps and took them quickly before I found on lockbox we hadn’t hit. It was old, older than anything else in the vault was as far as he could tell and had sat behind another box in what seemed to be a hidden compartment.

“Let’s go Six!” Henna said as she finished with spraying the other bodies and stood at the door.

“Alright, alright.” I sad as I stuffed the whole box into the bag and tossed it over my shoulder as I holstered my Predator and picked up the silenced assault rifle I had come in with. I flicked on an old lighter and tossed it behind me as I walked out igniting the chemspray and closed the vault. The airtight vault would burn for a while and then create a vacuum inside the vault. Getting it opened again would be fun for the next guy.

We walked up to the roof and back out the way we had come in. The Lone Star Swat van sat beside ours and I watched Kalous and Simmons climb into our speeder with the Security team leader and Tank.

“See you guys back at the house.” I said as I headed to the Lone Star speeder.

“I’ll come with you.” Henna said as she skipped over like a schoolgirl.

“Alright get in.” I said gruffly. I knew my deep voice and abrasive attitude did not bother her but to be honest if there was a girl I wanted with me it was Simmons and Henna knew it. In fact, that is probably why she did everything she could to stick close. She hated the fact that I was a lock she could not break.

“Yay.” She said in her mouse like voice as she looked at me with those almond shaped blue eyes, the hints of her too bright pink bangs showing in the eye slot of her mask. Kalous and Tank gave me a quick salute while Simmons gave me another of her famous “we need to talk” looks as they took off. The sound of sirens hadn’t shown up yet but it wouldn’t take long for Lone Star dispatch to send a team when their boys didn’t check in.

“See you at base Sixer.” Kalous said over the comm. “Stay alive.”

“You too, Kal.” I said as I lifted off and headed the opposite way. Neither of us would be going back directly. We were not that green. Someone would have seen the speeders and that meant someone would remember them. That would lead to more trouble than we had already drawn, which led back to the issue that had been nagging at him this whole time.

“Henna, are you sure we didn’t trip anything?” I asked as I dipped the speeder out of the main lane and headed to ground level.

“Honey, we didn’t even send a sound wave out of that place.” She said as she put her hand on my thigh.

“Then how did Lone Star know exactly where we were and just when we would be busy enough for them to jump us.” I said as I pushed her hand away.

“Aww.” She said as she sat back in her seat, crossed her arms, and pouted. “How should I know? Maybe we got set up.”

“Yeah I think that is just what happened.” I said as I pulled the speeder into an alley and set it down.

“She doesn’t want you, ya know.” She said as she looked out the side viewport. “I am just as much a woman as she is.”

“Drop it, Henn.” I said as I pulled out the box and handed it to her before I got out of the speeder and cross-wired the computer to the power coupling frying it out. “It’s locked see if you can get in.”

“Your heart or the box.” She mumbled already turning the thing over in her hands.

“The Box…” I said as I pulled of my goggles, mask, and stuffed them away. “My heart is none of anyone’s business.”

She removed her mask and goggles as I had letting her pink ponytail drop onto her shoulders and pursed her full red lips. She was a looker, no doubt, but I had nearly 15 years on her and needed to be mixed up with someone like I needed a new hole in the head. We walk through the alley and I uncovered my scorpion speeder bike that I had stashed there nearly a month ago then climbed onto the seat.

“Jump on we’ll take the tunnels.” I said. She smiled and put the box in the bike storage compartment then kicked a long leg over the back of it behind me. She made extra sure to rub her thigh across my back before settling in tight against me, the thought of giving her a go did more than cross my mind as I turned on the bike and passed a closed face helmet back to her.

“Hang on.” I said as she put on the helmet.

“Oh sugar, I intend to.” She replied as she snaked her arms under mine and pulled herself close to me again. “But I may not let go.”

The speeder bike roared as I gunned it and took off from zero to 90 kilometers per hour in maybe 2 seconds. She barely budged as we raced along straight for the abandoned tunnels.

 

[Freynk Porkins]

Chapter 2​

Tunnels​

The tunnels were one of those places that used to be something but now no one thought of, at least no one above the dregs of society. They used to be the main thoroughfare for commercial traffic and wage-slaves, now the only ones who came here were the people society at large preferred to forget existed. My speeder’s front light showed in the dense darkness and the lights of occasional squatters and hobo camps could be seen as we streaked passed. I had not been this way for some time. The last time was six months prior while we were on world meeting Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson was the name we used for clients. They were all Johnsons. We were a group that made it a point of not asking what we did not need to know. No names, no titles, no “Who do you work for’s”. We dealt with people that did not want to be linked to the job and they generally paid top cred for the work.

The sound of another speeder reached me via my ear-bud enhanced hearing. My thoughts were still on Johnson as Henna leaned her cheek against my back. This Johnson had been different though, he maybe did not know, but Kalous’ cybereyes had picked up the small hand sized cylinder in his inside coat pocket, either that or he knew and made a point of having it where it could be scanned. It did not take a genius to figure out what that meant, Force User. I had not thought of it at the time but with all the saber jockeys that had been running around I figured it was just a matter of time before the Corps started getting their grips on some. Rumor was that a Forcer ran ManTec, at least at the top. Then again, it seemed Forcers were running many corporations lately. There was a time that running into a Forcer was a rare occurrence, but now a days it seemed there was one on every corner. The scorpion speeder roared beneath us as I skimmed the surface of the tunnel pushing for speed.

“I think we’ve been followed.” Henna said looking over her shoulder.

“The frak you talking about Hen.”

“We’ve got two inbound speeder bikes coming in hot.” She replied.

“Hold on we’’ll lose them in the Iron cross.” I shouted as I hit the thrusters on the bike and pulled toward the right.


The Iron cross was a section of the tunnels that acted as a intersection of probably twelve side tunnels leading all over the sprawl. The twisting spiraling tunnels were used for races and swoop gang initiations. You had to be crazy or desperate to go over 40 kilometers per hour in the cross. The first shot whizzed by my head and nearly took off my ear as the full auto energy rifle opened up on us.

“Mercs?” I called to Henna over the sound of the engine and the shots. There were nearly no street gangs or squatters with enough hard cred to afford energy weapons and even fewer that could get a full auto repeater.

“I think their TH Corporate Security!” She called back as she pulled my MT-14 from my thigh holster.

“Tion?” I said and the feeling of worry I felt was not far from my voice. “Feth me.”

I pulled my goggles from my H-harness and quickly pulled them on while I killed the flood light and running lights.

“What are you doing?!” Henna shouted at me.

“They can’t hit what they can’t see.” I told her as the orange image of the area ahead of us came in clearly over the goggles. I had to admit, it was a strange coincidence. TH had not been the target and their territory was on the other side of the city. It made me nervous, and I hated being nervous. I pulled back on the handles as rose into the air as I headed for a top tunnel of the cross. The shots had not stopped but they had gotten less accurate as their lights stayed on. I went high and looped away as one speeder continued on and the other gave chase.

“Give them a show Hen.” I said as Henna lifted a leg over my head and spun in her. Seat to face backward. She put her ankles on my waist and the curiosity of just how flexible the woman was slid across my mind. She opened fore with my MT-14 and the red beam exploded out at the pursuing speeder. They wasted no time in returning fire and Henna fired back. A large light flashed behind us as something on the speeder blew and clattered away as I dodged abandoned speeder trucks and heavy ground haulers. The sound of the air rushing by and the trill of pursuit was completely lost on me as we rushed between a 20 meter gas hauler and the wall of the side tunnel and Henna fired at the old cargo.

Three shots burst from the weapon in her hand and one struck home. The tunnel behind us was filled with red and blue flames as the whole truck ignited. The wall of flames shot straight for us and was moving faster than any speeder. The flames closed, I could feel the heat as Henna once again turned and tossed a leg over my head and pulled tight to me. The light of an exit was just ahead as I veered toward it. The wall of gas fire licked at the tail of my scorpion speeder as we burst out of the tunnel and back into open air.

“That was too close.” Henna said as she looked back over her shoulder and I banked right to skim the outside of the tunnels that lead toward out base of operations for the job.

“How did they even know to chase us?” I said.

“I don’t know.” Hen replied sounding worried.
“I hate not knowing.” I said back as we slowed and turned toward a squatter village that was just between the tunnel to the spaceport and the tunnel toward the Eastside sprawl.

“Where are you going Six?” Henna said.

“To see a friend and get some answers.” I replied.


We dipped down and set the speeder bike down beside an old tramp freighter that had been refitted to serve as a market and trade hub. I got off the bike, took off my goggles, and slipped my MT-14 from Henna back into my tactical holster. The village had old barrel shaped droid chassis gutted out and filled with burning garbage for light and heat in front of various dwellings. Homes were made from everything from shipping crates to tents. People were dressed in everything from regular threadbare clothes to various forms of make shift armor that employed everything from droid pieces to old broken armor from the last war.

The place smelled of dirt, sweat, and unbreakable determination to survive. It was more than just the hard eyes on dirty faces that told said we won't give up. It was an air a sense you could feel in every scrap pile turned useful every piece of junk that was welded, bent or beaten into something that could be used. I had to admire the moxie they had but I knew better than most how hard someone would fight when they were on rock bottom and still digging.

We walked up the boarding ramp and I nodded to the human guard that looked like he was pushing wookie status and thw wookie who seemed to be aiming for herglic size. The two toughs were fixtures around this particular slum. Folks told different stories about where they came from and why they stayed around the joint but the fact that they were ex-commandos was never missing from any history given. They knew me from the old days 10-15 years ago when I was just a punk in a white plasteel uniform and waiting to he another statistic on a fraking expense report. We were on opposite sides back then but we did more than make up for it since.

"Sixer," the human said rolling his big shoulders as he adjusted the durasteel lined jacket that hung from him and likely hid his heavy blaster pistol and scatter gun.

"Dax, been a while. I see you and Charwa are still an item."

The man smiled and shook his head at my remark then raised his chin to point at Henna.

"I see you still play dumb to get ladies." Dax said as he yanked a hand from his unzipped pocket and held it out for the younger woman. Charwa droned out something low and rumbling that made Dax's grin expand to an amused smile as Henna reached out a graceful long fingered hand and curled her fingers around his meaty pae of a hand.

"A pleasure." she purred before sliding slightly closer to me and resting her hand on the back of my neck as if it was we were as close as any lovers could hope to be. I shrugged to discourage her and let the issue drop whem she didn't take the hint. It just wasn't the time to address the issue.

"Dax, Charwa, this is Henna. Henna, Dax and Charwa." i said getting the formality out of the way as quickly as possible before head butting the reason for coming square in the figurative face. "Is Mornhun here?"

"Yeah, just came from gods knows where. Creepy and poetic as ever." Dax replied, "He said something about hunting artifacts and went to his room."

"I have some quuestions for him." I said moving toward the door.

"That bad kid?" Dax said as Charwa reached over to open the hatch.

"Bad enough." I said as I reached up and scratched the huge wookies chin and got a unrestrained hug in return before we walked inside.