A new set of knees
It was an interrogation room
plain and simple, and like I had seen on to many episodes of NCIS I sat there
and waited, my head resting on the metal table while I waited for the Special
Agent in charge to enter. Finally I heard the steps in the hallway, a door open
beyond the mirror, muffled voices, and then the door beyond the mirror closed.
More footsteps and I raised my head as the doorknob started to turn my ears
twitching with the sound. “So Lance Corporal Bostwick,” the Special Agent said
stepping into the interrogation room. “I have spoken with the other people you
brought back with you and our medical examiner is reviewing the Fen’s autopsy
of your friend. Why don’t you walk me through what happened that took you off
of our radar for two weeks solid.”
“Well,” I started, standing
up and allowing my tail to wag behind me. “The initial idea was to get the
ligaments in my knees replaced with bio-modded replacements. That way I could
come back to mother Corps,” At that the agent nodded, understanding that I had
protested and fought my discharge tooth and nail. “But then, things didn’t
happen the way I figured, and I ended up getting a good friend of mine killed
getting us all out of a bad situation.”
“That matches what we know of
the time between your discharge and your disappearance, how about what happened
when you woke after your “surgery”” the agent prompted.
I woke up one morning to find
myself in a cage, to say that it was a little disconcerting would be putting it
mildly. The taste I found residing in my mouth that morning was worse however,
as was the pounding headache that resounded in my skull. Squinting I looked
around the room the cage was in and figured it had to either be a warehouse or
a cargo hold of some kind, otherwise you
just didn’t get the kind of room to stash four dozen chain link cages with room
to walk around blocks of four of the eight by eight cells. This wasn’t supposed
to be the way things worked, and if this was post op, me and that surgeon were
going to have a few words about his medical license. Then the lights came up
and I could really see, of course that was after they stopped stinging and
adjusted to the new brightness of florescent light.
Two men carrying MP5’s
pistols and combat knives walked in one of them yelling in an almost unintelligible
brogue. “Alright you beasties, on your feet and no funny business or we blow
your heads off.” It was at this point I noticed the collar around my neck and
around the necks of the others in the cages, shape charge wed-locks.
“Well frag me with a fish
fork.” I muttered as I stood up. The other thing I had noticed was the fur that
surrounded me. Oh I don’t mean my just my companions, I had to include myself
in that. We were about half and half catgirls and wolfmen. Ok, maybe not
wolves, but definitely canids, I swear one guy had ears like a basset hound,
and considering I did not have an impressive set of female assets, well, I
figured for the time that I must be one of the latter.
Once we were all standing one
of the guards walked just around the corner and hit a button causing the doors
on all the cages to open up. “Alright, everyone out of the cages and line up in
the doorway” the one with the brogue yelled and as I started forward I heard a
quiet little snick as a lock released. I was one of the first ones to step out
of the cages and as my feet hit the rock beneath them I attacked.
I wish I could say it was
something graceful and serene like what you would watch on a kung fu movie, but
it wasn’t. It was short, brutal and bloody. “Take them!” I called as I surged
toward the one with the brogue, the collar falling to the floor behind me. I
could tell that my body wouldn’t respond for the hand to hand combat that I had
spent so many years training in, the bones in my hands couldn’t be strong
enough I figured, so I put my shoulder into his diaphragm and drew his combat
knife to finish the job while he was doubled over.
The brogue finished by my
cutting his throat, I drew the pistol at his side as well and turned to handle
the other guard if he hadn’t been already. “Took you long enough, James.” I
heard a catgirl say as she lowered the other one to the ground dead with a
broken neck.
“Lawless?” I asked,
recognizing the voice.
“Let’s blow this joint.” She
responded grabbing the guard’s sub machine gun.
“So you fought your way out?”
the agent said sitting in the chair opposite me at the table.
“Yes,” I answered a hint of
dryness in my voice.
“And that’s when Sergeant
Lawler took the hit?”
“Yes,” I replied just as
dryly.
“Tell me about it?” he asked.
We had found their vehicle
park, a few different cars that were low-slung and fast just sitting there, and
an old Volvo prison bus that was obviously meant for moving their victims when
it happened, shots ringing out from behind us and the answering staccato of a
controlled sub machine gun burst. “Everyone on the bus,” I yelled at the civs
grabbing all the keys off the peg board next to the door. As the civs started
loading I heard the chatter of gunfire behind us and ran back after Lawler. She
had gotten all the victims clear of the hallway just as the bad guys came
around a corner and just opened fire at us.
“How did she take the round?”
the agent asked.
“By being stupid brave and
leaning around our corner a little too far, allowing one of them to get a clean
shot on her.” At this point I shook my head. “Lean hades, she practically
stepped out into the hallway and sprayed it down before we retreated to the
bus. One of them must have been faster than the rest though because as she was
following me onto the bus, me sliding into the driver’s seat, she pitched
forward, shot in the back by one of the bastada. A which point I closed the
door, hit the gas and shoved the bus into gear, building enough speed to crash
through their garage door airlock and probably depressurize the hole bloody
place.”
“And you got here on the
bus?” the agent asked, I just nodded in response. “Describe to me what happened
when you got close to Earth.” I started out just giving him the eye, an eye
that had made privates and PFC’s run for cover and hide, after a moment though
I continued the story.
“Well to begin with they
obviously hadn’t had time to fuel the bloody thing, cause it only had a quarter
tank when we crashed the gate. Thankfully one of the cat girls was an astronomy
student and I knew that the best way for us to spot anything was to get out of
the plane of the elliptic. So a short trip up and then after putting us on a
course that we figured would intersect Earth, we would shut down the engine and
drift ballistically until the air got soupy before starting the engine again.
That thankfully stretched the fuel, and between that and the solar gravity well
we were able to get near Earth, the fun part started then.”
“Any station on this net this
is Volvo alpha four three charlie, we are bingo fuel and declaring mayday,
please respond.” James called for the third time into the radio.
This time he got a response,
"Four three Charlie, this is Korolev tower, what is your position?"
“Korelov, four three,” James
responded. “Position unknown, I can see earth and the moon; we're coming in
from out system and above the eliptic. We are ballistic with I think a good
chance of hitting earths gravity well, and we wont survive if we do.”
"Understood, Four Three
Charlie. We will dispatch a tug to your location; switch your main transponder
to seven-four-one megahertz and stand by; we'll home in on that signal."
“Korelov, I don’t think this
thing has a transponder,” James answered, “we just broke out of a reaver
holding facility and hotwired the first transport that could handle the forty
of us.
"('Well, this is going
to be fucking fun.' 'Sshh!') ... All right, Four Three Charlie, set your radio
to channel ten and hit the squawk button as hard as you can. We're waking up
rescue at Kirby, Port Luna and the Watchtower. Hang tight, Four Three Charlie,
we're coming to get you."
“I was born to hang Korelov; it’s
the others we're worried about, complying however." With that James
switched the channel on the waved CB and pushed the squawk button in the
standard, DIT DIT DIT, DASH DASH DASH signal pattern of an SOS.
Within twenty minutes someone
had pulled up and was towing them toward the moon, a base and for the 38 civs
that they had been able to get out of there, safety. “I swear Lawless,” James
said to the catgirl’s corpse beside him. “I swear, I’m gonna make it to where
they can’t do this to anyone ever again. I’m sure someone over here has a clue,
and if they don’t. I’m gonnna give them one.”
The Special agent nodded. "Alright Lance Corporal, everything else checks out, this should be considered more of a debrief than an interrogation so I wish you luck in your new life."
I shrugged, "Thank you special agent?"
"Gibbs," he answered leading me out of the room and into the main concourse of Stellvia Station. "Semper Fidelis marine." he finished shaking my hand and turning away.
"Ooh Rah gunny." I whispered and turned away. Now all i needed to do was find out who was in charge of fighting these "Boskones", and how to join. I figured the best place for that would be a bar, "Now where's a bar?" I asked myself outloud.
(Thoughts)
It was an interrogation room
plain and simple, and like I had seen on to many episodes of NCIS I sat there
and waited, my head resting on the metal table while I waited for the Special
Agent in charge to enter. Finally I heard the steps in the hallway, a door open
beyond the mirror, muffled voices, and then the door beyond the mirror closed.
More footsteps and I raised my head as the doorknob started to turn my ears
twitching with the sound. “So Lance Corporal Bostwick,” the Special Agent said
stepping into the interrogation room. “I have spoken with the other people you
brought back with you and our medical examiner is reviewing the Fen’s autopsy
of your friend. Why don’t you walk me through what happened that took you off
of our radar for two weeks solid.”
“Well,” I started, standing
up and allowing my tail to wag behind me. “The initial idea was to get the
ligaments in my knees replaced with bio-modded replacements. That way I could
come back to mother Corps,” At that the agent nodded, understanding that I had
protested and fought my discharge tooth and nail. “But then, things didn’t
happen the way I figured, and I ended up getting a good friend of mine killed
getting us all out of a bad situation.”
“That matches what we know of
the time between your discharge and your disappearance, how about what happened
when you woke after your “surgery”” the agent prompted.
I woke up one morning to find
myself in a cage, to say that it was a little disconcerting would be putting it
mildly. The taste I found residing in my mouth that morning was worse however,
as was the pounding headache that resounded in my skull. Squinting I looked
around the room the cage was in and figured it had to either be a warehouse or
a cargo hold of some kind, otherwise you
just didn’t get the kind of room to stash four dozen chain link cages with room
to walk around blocks of four of the eight by eight cells. This wasn’t supposed
to be the way things worked, and if this was post op, me and that surgeon were
going to have a few words about his medical license. Then the lights came up
and I could really see, of course that was after they stopped stinging and
adjusted to the new brightness of florescent light.
Two men carrying MP5’s
pistols and combat knives walked in one of them yelling in an almost unintelligible
brogue. “Alright you beasties, on your feet and no funny business or we blow
your heads off.” It was at this point I noticed the collar around my neck and
around the necks of the others in the cages, shape charge wed-locks.
“Well frag me with a fish
fork.” I muttered as I stood up. The other thing I had noticed was the fur that
surrounded me. Oh I don’t mean my just my companions, I had to include myself
in that. We were about half and half catgirls and wolfmen. Ok, maybe not
wolves, but definitely canids, I swear one guy had ears like a basset hound,
and considering I did not have an impressive set of female assets, well, I
figured for the time that I must be one of the latter.
Once we were all standing one
of the guards walked just around the corner and hit a button causing the doors
on all the cages to open up. “Alright, everyone out of the cages and line up in
the doorway” the one with the brogue yelled and as I started forward I heard a
quiet little snick as a lock released. I was one of the first ones to step out
of the cages and as my feet hit the rock beneath them I attacked.
I wish I could say it was
something graceful and serene like what you would watch on a kung fu movie, but
it wasn’t. It was short, brutal and bloody. “Take them!” I called as I surged
toward the one with the brogue, the collar falling to the floor behind me. I
could tell that my body wouldn’t respond for the hand to hand combat that I had
spent so many years training in, the bones in my hands couldn’t be strong
enough I figured, so I put my shoulder into his diaphragm and drew his combat
knife to finish the job while he was doubled over.
The brogue finished by my
cutting his throat, I drew the pistol at his side as well and turned to handle
the other guard if he hadn’t been already. “Took you long enough, James.” I
heard a catgirl say as she lowered the other one to the ground dead with a
broken neck.
“Lawless?” I asked,
recognizing the voice.
“Let’s blow this joint.” She
responded grabbing the guard’s sub machine gun.
“So you fought your way out?”
the agent said sitting in the chair opposite me at the table.
“Yes,” I answered a hint of
dryness in my voice.
“And that’s when Sergeant
Lawler took the hit?”
“Yes,” I replied just as
dryly.
“Tell me about it?” he asked.
We had found their vehicle
park, a few different cars that were low-slung and fast just sitting there, and
an old Volvo prison bus that was obviously meant for moving their victims when
it happened, shots ringing out from behind us and the answering staccato of a
controlled sub machine gun burst. “Everyone on the bus,” I yelled at the civs
grabbing all the keys off the peg board next to the door. As the civs started
loading I heard the chatter of gunfire behind us and ran back after Lawler. She
had gotten all the victims clear of the hallway just as the bad guys came
around a corner and just opened fire at us.
“How did she take the round?”
the agent asked.
“By being stupid brave and
leaning around our corner a little too far, allowing one of them to get a clean
shot on her.” At this point I shook my head. “Lean hades, she practically
stepped out into the hallway and sprayed it down before we retreated to the
bus. One of them must have been faster than the rest though because as she was
following me onto the bus, me sliding into the driver’s seat, she pitched
forward, shot in the back by one of the bastada. A which point I closed the
door, hit the gas and shoved the bus into gear, building enough speed to crash
through their garage door airlock and probably depressurize the hole bloody
place.”
“And you got here on the
bus?” the agent asked, I just nodded in response. “Describe to me what happened
when you got close to Earth.” I started out just giving him the eye, an eye
that had made privates and PFC’s run for cover and hide, after a moment though
I continued the story.
“Well to begin with they
obviously hadn’t had time to fuel the bloody thing, cause it only had a quarter
tank when we crashed the gate. Thankfully one of the cat girls was an astronomy
student and I knew that the best way for us to spot anything was to get out of
the plane of the elliptic. So a short trip up and then after putting us on a
course that we figured would intersect Earth, we would shut down the engine and
drift ballistically until the air got soupy before starting the engine again.
That thankfully stretched the fuel, and between that and the solar gravity well
we were able to get near Earth, the fun part started then.”
“Any station on this net this
is Volvo alpha four three charlie, we are bingo fuel and declaring mayday,
please respond.” James called for the third time into the radio.
This time he got a response,
"Four three Charlie, this is Korolev tower, what is your position?"
“Korelov, four three,” James
responded. “Position unknown, I can see earth and the moon; we're coming in
from out system and above the eliptic. We are ballistic with I think a good
chance of hitting earths gravity well, and we wont survive if we do.”
"Understood, Four Three
Charlie. We will dispatch a tug to your location; switch your main transponder
to seven-four-one megahertz and stand by; we'll home in on that signal."
“Korelov, I don’t think this
thing has a transponder,” James answered, “we just broke out of a reaver
holding facility and hotwired the first transport that could handle the forty
of us.
"('Well, this is going
to be fucking fun.' 'Sshh!') ... All right, Four Three Charlie, set your radio
to channel ten and hit the squawk button as hard as you can. We're waking up
rescue at Kirby, Port Luna and the Watchtower. Hang tight, Four Three Charlie,
we're coming to get you."
“I was born to hang Korelov; it’s
the others we're worried about, complying however." With that James
switched the channel on the waved CB and pushed the squawk button in the
standard, DIT DIT DIT, DASH DASH DASH signal pattern of an SOS.
Within twenty minutes someone
had pulled up and was towing them toward the moon, a base and for the 38 civs
that they had been able to get out of there, safety. “I swear Lawless,” James
said to the catgirl’s corpse beside him. “I swear, I’m gonna make it to where
they can’t do this to anyone ever again. I’m sure someone over here has a clue,
and if they don’t. I’m gonnna give them one.”
The Special agent nodded. "Alright Lance Corporal, everything else checks out, this should be considered more of a debrief than an interrogation so I wish you luck in your new life."
I shrugged, "Thank you special agent?"
"Gibbs," he answered leading me out of the room and into the main concourse of Stellvia Station. "Semper Fidelis marine." he finished shaking my hand and turning away.
"Ooh Rah gunny." I whispered and turned away. Now all i needed to do was find out who was in charge of fighting these "Boskones", and how to join. I figured the best place for that would be a bar, "Now where's a bar?" I asked myself outloud.
(Thoughts)
