Starting Over Chapter 1
Ch1: New Mission
Planet: Alterra
Location: FortBradley Military Base in Western Hemisphere
Time: Midday
Date: 1st of July 2010
Corporal Samantha Williams, a black feline thrope was a soldier with the Alliance Armed Forces, known to most as the AAF. The AAF was the military of three races that had formed an alliance with each other not so long ago and mostly dealt with small time terrorist forces who thought that the threeraces shouldn't be mixed together. The three races were the Alterrans, race of people who look like mammalic creatures, cats, dogs, rabbits etc, the Virans, who were reptilian in appearance and the Birarins, whose appearance was that of birds.
She was a rifleman and communications expert in her squad of five. Corporal Alison Monroe, a light brown rabbit, was the squad's medic, she was friendly once you got to know her but cautious around strangers. Sergeant Lucas Matthews was a black wolf and the squad leader; he was level headed and no matter the situation seemed absolutely calm. Private First Class Thomas Hawkins, a dark brown bear and the squad's heavy weapons and explosives expert was the exact opposite, quick to anger and usually carrying a chip on his shoulder for some reason or another, both of these resulting in his low rank.
Today he had good reason, their original sniper, Private Graham Weston, an arctic fox and a good friend of the entire squad had been hit on their last mission and either had to retire or be stuck teaching the next group of would-be snipers at basic. It was that mission however that had led to the squad getting their latest and, according to the higher ups, most important mission they'd ever get.
"I don't see why he had to quit," Thomas said on their way to be briefed on their upcoming mission," it was a tiny piece of shrapnel that hit him."
"Yeah, but you saw how he couldn't steady his left arm because of it. Face it his sniping days are done." replied Alison
"I'm just glad he took the job teaching those new recruits, with him teaching them how to snipe we'll have some of the best in the world" said Lucas
"It's still bullshit" Thomas muttered under his breath, "When do we get to meet the little shit who's taking his place anyway?"
"At the briefing." Samantha piped in as they were walking down the hall of the current military base that they were staying at. Samantha hadn't bothered to learn the name since they were going to be sent out on this mission soon.
"I hear he's just as good as Graham." She said as they arrived outside the briefing room.
Upon entering the room the squad immediately recognized Colonel James Stewart, an old lynx who has seen his fair share of combat, and all of them snapped into a salute.
"At ease", the Colonel said after returning the salute and gesturing to four empty seats on one side of the briefing table.As
As the squad sat down they all looked across the table at the two figures, the one on the left a leopard and the one on the right a rottweiler, wearing suits and to the front of their side at a navy bluish Raptor looking lizard who was wearing the same kind of fatigues as the squad was. Even before they got comfortable Colonel Stewart said, "The two men across from you are Special agent Harris, the leopard, and Special Agent Martin, the rottweiler and they're both from the Office of Interplanetary Actions. The man at the head of your row is Private Allen Hernandez."
After the introduction Special Agent Harris stood and said, "Thank you Colonel, we'll take it from here."
The Colonel nodded and took a seat next to where Harris had been sitting a moment ago. Meanwhile Harris made his way to the front of the room and activated a small projector on the table. When the image flickered to life it showed a planet with seven continents and covered mostly by water.
"Does anyone know what planet this is?" Harris asked
"Planet Earth, home of the Human race" Samantha replied, paused briefly and then asked, "Is that where we are being sent sir?"
When the Alliance had formed the technology of the Alliance had been at the same point as the humans. The Alliance's technology, however, advanced faster then that of the humans and their first space flight was a full 20 years before the first human space flight. When the technology had been developed a great many probes were sent to the far reaches of the space system and one found Earth. As time went by many saw the human's way of life was easier and began to follow it resulting in normal sounding names and their calendar system being used throughout the three races.
"Yes" the reply came from Agent Martin that time.
"Care if I ask why?" Lucas asked
"Well to be honest" Agent Martin began, "the humans have always had much activity bouncing off their orbiting satellites and our department has noticed that there has been no such activity for some time and some have actually been allowed to crash into each other with no response from the humans so we fear that the Humans have wiped themselves out and we need a squad to investigate."
"To minimize the number of captures in case this is a rouse?" this time it was Private Hernandez, who spoke for the first time, asked
"Correct" came the simple reply from Martin