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Chris's eyes opened slowly, blinking as he sat up in his bunk - the room was still dark, since the ship had a natural day-night cycle with its interior lighting, alternating between artificial sunlight and darkness. Checking his wrist watch, he found that the time was only twenty three zero four. He'd gone to sleep at twenty one hundred after setting his closing in his dresser, his weapon and armour more neatly in the closet, arranging his shower stall the way he wanted it, and setting up his gaming terminal on the desk that he'd found pulled out of the bookshelf.

But something had woken him up, something that normally didn't happen - he was naturally a very deep sleeper, even in new places. Standing up, he looked around cautiously, and took his heavy field knife out from under his pillow - he didn't feel safe in this room yet, especially with all the strange people he'd met so far.

And then the knock on his door nearly gave him a heart attack as he whirled around to face it, already dropping down into a combat stance. He relaxed and approached though as he realized what had happened, hiding the knife along his side as he opened the door.

He nearly fell backwards in shock at the sight of the big, fully armoured human-like figure standing outside of his room - the same style of armour he had just been issued, and what Tech had been wearing, but with a full-face armoured helmet as well, the visor lit from within by dull green readouts. By the style of the armour, and especially the helmet and legs, this guy was human. Too sturdy to be an Elden, too tall for a Kazuran. Definitely human.

"Hey, good morning, new guy. Sorry to wake you, but I wasn't really given a choice. Name's Stalker, squad's second in command. Get suited up and grab your gun, Tech's already got some ammo and a sidearm ready, so you can go ahead and put that knife away as a backup." He said calmly, his voice filtered with some static from his helmet's voicebox. "And then I'll show you to the briefing room when you're all ready to go. We've got a mission that's come up."

Still a little blurry from sleep, it took a few moments for Christ to process any of this, but he eventually managed to nod and step back inside, closing the door behind him and tossing his knife onto his bunk. He ran over to his closet, opening it up to get access to his gear.

Surprisingly, it took only a few minutes for him to get into his new combat uniform and the armour to go with it, admiring the feel of the heavy black plated armour, slinging the old Mark III rifle over his shoulder and rushing out, glancing over at the silent form of Stalker leaning idly against the wall. "Alright, then, I'm ready to go." He said proudly.

"Not bad, rookie. Not bad." The corporal said with a low, clicking laugh, nodding his head for Chris to follow. "Come on, then."

One short elevator ride and a quick walk down the hallway of the upper living quarters later, the pair finally arrived through a door into one of the more impressive sights of his short military career - the Meerkat's briefing room.

The room was dark, but he could tell it was large and circular, with tiers of seats leading down to a holographic display, like an ancient ampitheatre of some kind. Eight of those seats were filled, with a ninth person - Sleek - standing up by the display.

As he approached, with Stalker leading the way, he got his first real glimpse at the rest of the team he'd be working with.

Stalker took one of the seats, lounging back beside a sturdy, more modern rifle than the one Chris was carrying, his corporal's insignia and the inverse-trident symbol of the Rogue Kingdoms picked out in gold on his black chest plate.

Seated next to him was Tech, looking as annoyed as ever, with a heavy-looking grey duffel bag under her chair and a heavy holster on her hip. A specially made canine-muzzled helmet was sat in her lap, dead green visor-slit eyes staring out at the holographic display.

One of the dwarf-like Kazurans sat in the next chair, squat and powerful-looking, dressed in the same armour as Stalker, with a similar helmet clamped to his thigh. His skin was a dark, sun-lined tan, and his bald head reflected the holograph, while a long, thick black beard covered the lower half of his face. There was a slightly disturbing, manic look in his slate-grey eyes. His belt was absolutely lined with explosives, and he was examining an SMG.

Next, he saw Doc, also dressed in her combat armour, but also with her helmet cradled in her lap, and an enormous medical device attached to her right forearm, including an armour-cutter, laser scalpel, scanner, injector, and various other medical instrumets, and a machine pistol was mag-clamped to her left thigh.

Beside Doc, an absolutely hulking draconic creature (a Dalynther, it looked like) in heavy battle armour sat, slowly leaning the exterior of an LMG that dwarfed every other weapon in the room. His scales were a gleaming crimson, with polished bone horns sweeping back to give him a fearsome visage. One of his eyes was bright gold, the other hidden behind a high-tech targeter.

After that monstrosity of a warrior came an unsettling figure - small, lithe, and graceful, very agile-looking. An Elden male, in light battle regalia, with thigh thermal-night vision goggles covering his eyes and giving him an almost insectoid look. A silenced SMG was strapped to his leg, and he sat almost unnoticed among everyone else.

After him came a big, strong, tomboyish-looking shark woman with smooth grey skin and red hair, eyes hidden by a unique double-eyed targeting visor, lit up bright green by the tactical readouts on the inside of it. She was dressed in the team's lightweight battle armour, with a long, customized marksman's rifle settled against her leg.

Sitting next to her in the circle was a big, brutish-looking tiger male. His armour wasn't quite as heavy as the Dalynther's, but still more durable than the standard, and he looked much faster than the dragon was. His fur was a rusty orange, striped with midnight black and tinted white on the bottom of his muzzle and going down the front of his neck. The combat shotgun and enormous knife latched to his belt seemed to mark him as an assault trooper.

And finally, the last seated figure caught the most of his attention - at first, due to her height, he thought she'd been standing in front of her chair, but she really did tower over the others that much that, even sitting, she was the height of a standing person. She was a maned wolf, one of those rare, shy creatures that almost never poked their head up in the galaxy at large. And not just any maned wolf - she was an albino at that, pristine white fur and red eyes to go with her eight feet tall, lanky form. Her limbes were long and slender, encased in the same uniform as almost all of the others had, but tailored to her sheer size, and the rifle strapped to her back was just as big.

And, of course, there was Sleek himself, standing now in full wargear, thick black plates over his crimson uniform, with his mechanical eye glaring out at the assembly. A brutal energy sword hung deactivated at his left side, with a holstered heavy pistol on the right side... he looked much more imposing now than he had when they'd first met.

"Glad you could finally join us, Masterson." The squad leader said calmly. "You've already met Stalker, Doc, and Tech, if I'm correct, but the Kazuran here is Boom, the Elden is Whisper, the Dalynther is Breaker, the shark girl there is Creep, our hefty tiger friend is Smash, and this little puppy over here is Ghost." He motioned to each member of the team in turn, only realizing once he got to Ghost that she'd disappeared, finally pointing to the back of the room. "There she is."

He then took a deep breath. "Now that introductions are over, we have a job to do." He turned towars the console controlling the holograph, tapping a few buttons and changing the floating Rogue Kingdoms symbol to that of a planet in full colour, but mostly bright red with deep azure seas.

"This is Furvan. It is currently abandoned after an attempt by our government to colonise it for its various resources - copious amounts of minerals, fertile soil, and open space, perfect for a colony. In addition to that, there are several ruined sites believed to be pre-Elden ruins from some ancient civilization."

Just as Chris started to wonder why they were being told any of this, what this information had to do with their mission, the gryphon sergeant continued to speak.

"But that's not our purpose here. Not yet, anyway." He corrected himself. "That colonization attempt was a good twenty five years ago, yet that's the thing. During that time period, one of the colony ships we sent out went missing, and was believed lost to the solar storms in the area. As of yesterday, however, some of the deep space scanners at Port Andale started detecting a ship in the orbit of Furvan, and it was broadcasting Rogue Kingdoms ciphers. It's an older class of ship, of a kind we don't use any more. No distress signal, just the standard identification, but given the lack of power in most systems the analysts said not to expect survivors. Our job is to move in and secure the ship, find out what happened to it, and report in for a salvage team if necessary."

There was silence for a moment as the team processed the information that they' just been given, but eventually Stalker raised his hand.

"Conditions, chief?" He asked when Sleek nodded over at him.

"Good question, Stalker." The gryphon seemed to think about that before he answered, speaking slowly. "Well, I'm going to be honest here. We have no idea what we'll be running into here, since this just... well, it doesn't happen. But dead or not, this is a Rogue Kingdoms ship. So until we are directly threatened, safeties stay on, but keep your eyes and ears open. Any other questions? No Alright, good. Tech, get the new guy armed and meet us down in the shuttle bay, we'll get Talon Alpha prepared." With that said, he turned the holograph off, put the lights back to standard, and headed out the door with the rest of the team.

"Alright, kid, c'mere and get some ammo." Tech said grouchily, grabbing the duffel bag from beneath her chair and dragging it out, kicking it over his way. Opening it up, he found a light pistol sitting on top with a couple of spare magazines, which he holstered and pocketed, respectively. Beneath that he found a dozen twenty-round magazines for his rifle itself, which he went ahead and put into his chest pouches. Last of all came the grenades, two of them, standard fragmentation pattern. Those, he hooked onto his belt with their mag-locks. With the bag now empty, he handed it back to Tech and she slung it over one shoulder, giving him a little shove towards the door.

The walk over to the elevator was awkwardly quiet, but it was at least fast, and within a minute they were stepping out onto the first level hallway, where they continued down into the shuttle bay, and he found himself unintentionally admiring her smooth gait.

The sleek black shuttle waiting for them was an impressive beast, a unique model made specifically for Talon Squad - fast, but heavily armoured and carrying a big gun turret on the top, with multiple rockets slung on the miniature wings on the side - this was less a transport, and more of a gunship that could carry troops in its belly.

The engines were already running, and he realized that they must already be near their target, and he shrugged as he stepped on board. He blinked a little as he found a helmet being immediately pressed into his hands by Tech, who shrugged as well and motioned to the rack where she'd taken them from before slamming her own helmet on. Then Sleek, already wearing a full-face helmet of his own, explained this. "The ship doesn't have life support, so until we get that restored, we'll have to use rebreathers, and if we have to split up at all, this'll make it easier to keep track of each other."

Nodding slightly, Chris took the helmet and put it on, sealing it to his armour and turning on the power so that green readouts popped up on the visor's HUD. He noticed the rest of the team doing the same, and he found himself continually amazed at their smooth competence.

Then, without warning, they took off, the engines roaring even through the armour plating and his helmet, and he heard the voices of the crew sounding off.

"Sleek, go." The gryphon's commanding voice ordered.

"Stalker, check." The corporal signed in.

"Doc, check." Renson's cool, chilly voice reported.

"Boom, let's go!" A maniacal Kazuran voice chimed in.

"Whisper, here." A raspy Elden voice murmured.

"Breaker, here!" A loud, booming Dalynther call came through.

"Smash, check." A dull feline voice said.

"Creep, ready to kill." The shark woman said cockily.

"Tech, here." Tech's voice signed on.

"Ghost." A soft, quiet finish came to the squad's check-in.

"Uh, Masterson, check." He said as a bit of an afterthought.

"No, no. It's Shank. Your new name is Shank." Stalker said with a grin in his voice, and the team's rough laughter sounded off in his earpiece.. the corporal must've told the others about the incident with waking him up when they'd come down to the shuttle deck.

"Alright, people, cut the chatter. Get your game faces on, crazies. This could be bad." Sleek cut in with an air of vague annoyance. "Don't forget to do your pre-op checks, alright? I don't want anyone's shit giving out halfway through a firefight."

The pilot's voice suddenly came in over the intercom, speaking to Sleek but coming across the entire squad's network. "Talon Leader, this is Talon Alpha. Nest is telling me that the Meerkat will be on standby as our support, and I'll stay in this ship's landing bay waiting to pick you guys up. But do keep me informed if you need an extraction in a hurry."

"I've got you, Talon Alpha, we'll let you know if things get hairy in there." The squad leader responded.

"Roger, Talon Leader. ETA five minutes, I'll let you know if I see anything especially weird. Talon Alpha out." With that, he cut the link.

The next five minutes of the ride seemed to take forever, and Chris's anxiety levels kept going higher and higher at the thought of what may be his first combat operation, but was at the very least his first ever Talon Squad operation. As they rode, the squad passed out their more common supplies - rope, flashlights, a scanner, medical and repair items, a portable terminal, and similar items. As it was, he got a flashlight, and mag-locked it to the barrel of his rifle.

And then, just as he'd settled down into a dull, silent state, the intercom opened up again and he nearly jumped in nervous surprise as Talon Alpha reported back in. "Uh, Talon Leader, I've got visual contact on this ship and... well, h, you may want to see it. Shit's getting weird, chief."

"Roger that, Talon Alpha. Talon Leader out." With that brisk statement, he cut the link and turned towards the wall, where he opened one of the ship's viewports and stopped in shock.

The ship floating out in front of the armour-plated window definitely looked older than the twenty five years that it had been missing, corroded and rusted so that the red and gold heraldry was next to invisible, with the upside down black trident inscribed on the vast side. It was an immense old beast, floating out in the void with the blackness all around it lit by stars and the red of the planet visible behind it. The heavy landing ship was easily four times the size of the already large Meerkat, and it probably was the size of some dreadnoughts and battleships, though it lacked as many armaments. Strangely, despite its sheer size, and the level of decay that it was somehow in, there were no obvious signs of battle scars, which left the means for its shutdown unknown.

"What the hell...?" Tech whispered over the intercom, obvious confusion in her voice. "There is no way this has happened over twenty five years, the rust alone is... there's no way. It's in the void. Sleek, how old is this thing?"

"Twenty six years old. It was purpose-built for this expedition, it was meant to land and provide the basis for anything a city could need - food, water, shelter, and defenses. It was one of ten that were going to land and lay the groundwork for further expansion, but engine problems and increased cases of dementia on the colony ships forced the operation to be abandoned, and since then solar storms in the area have made the planet inaccessible from Rogue Kingdoms space." The gryphon replied in a slightly perturbed tone as he read the information off of a datapad.

"Increased cases of dementia?" Whisper cut into the conversation. "Nobody else thought that that might be a little odd?"

"And what do you think it is, twig? A curse?" Smash's harsh laugh echoed over the intercom until the Elden scout shot him a glare.

"There's strange things in this galaxy, cat. That's all I'm saying. The dementia cases and... this might be connected."

"That's enough, both of you." Sleek interrupted sharply before it could escalate further. "Talon Alpha, this is Talon Leader."

"Talon Alpha, go Talon Leader." The pilot's voice crackled back immediately, still obviously a little perturbed by what he'd seen of the ship.

"Alright, according to the schematics they gave me, there should be an open, force-shielded shuttle bay on the dorsal side of the ship, so let's see if we can angle up and land there, the superstructure looks mostly intact." The grphon ordered calmly.

"Sure thing, chief. I'll see what I can do. Talon Alpha out."

Not used to traveling space with an actual view, Chris expected there to be some sort of physical change of direction when they moved to the top of this derelict behemoth, passing entire weapon turrets the size of the vehicle they were traveling in, rusted to pieces - this ship really was intended to be a city, with heavy weapons and armour capable of sustaining most ground attacks. But instead of feeling a shift in motion, all he heard was the steady hum of the engines, and the view continued to change right before his eyes.

Finally, they saw the shuttle bay, an open pit in the ship's rusted metal exterior, the force shielding long since powered down. The decayed husk of an old, old shuttle sat on the metal deck plates, still surrounded by maintenance tools, as if a crew had just left in the middle of their work and never returned.

There was a dull crunch as the vessel settled down, and Sleek glanced around at his crew. "Tech, you and Breaker get the grav generator." He ordered, pointing at the big, clunky metal object stored at the back of the shuttle's cargo bay, the special gravity generator that they'd brought with for just such a situation as this. It projected a small forcefield around itself, and generated approximately standard Terran gravity within that area. It was commonly used by Rogue Kingdoms boarding parties for operations just like this.

"Understood, Sleek, we've got you." She replied, a little bit of her antagonistic nature still stolen away by her confusion at this ship's condition. Turning the device on, she grasped one of the handles with her mechanical arm and hefted her side as Breaker lumbered over and took the other side in his oversized talons.

Then Sleek opened the hatch, and Talon Squad was on the move.

With only a thin forcefield overhead, Chris started to get a real appreciation for the sheer vastness of space, with the great red-and-blue planet visible one way, and an endless span of white-flecked black darkness visible everywhere but the rusted remains of the ship they were walking on... apart from that, there was no real concept of up and down, and he began to feel a bit distressed until he could focus on the bearings of the vessel around him.

"There's an airlock up ahead, Sleek, and the scanner's reading gravity drives inside are still fully operational, so we'll be able to save the generator's power for any other spacewalks we may need to do." Stalker's voice reported over the intercom, oddly ghost-like in the absolute silence of space. "But life support is out, so helmets have to stay on. Sorry, Creep, gotta keep that pretty face of yours hidden for now."

"Fuck you, Stalker." The shark sniper replied with a little laugh as most of the team stacked up on the airlock and Sleek went up to hit the console button locking it.

"Ah, my dear, you'd never go back to your hand." The corporal said with a dramatic sigh as they stepped into the airlock. It was just as rusty on the inside as the outside of the ship was, but the door on the other end of the airlock was showing much less corrosion, and the grey steel of the metal was still actually visible. Emblazoned on the door, barely visible, was the symbol of the Rogue Kingdoms, and a painted scroll with the name RNV Echosa, the name of the ship that had gone missing with all hands twenty five years prior.

"Smash, open the door, we're first in. Stalker, you and Ghost are next, keep that scanner of yours running. Tech, you and Breaker follow with the generator, get ready to drop it if something comes up. Doc, you're next, stay in the middle. Shank, you're after Doc, watch the flanks for any kind of movement and keep me posted. And Creep, you and Boom will hold the back. Whisper, you know what you're doing. But give me some updates." The squad leader organized his team quickly and efficiently, and they all moved into the proper order to obey.

Chris just stared for a second as he found himself in the middle of the sudden movement, right behind Doc who gave him last minute words of wisdom. "Stay alert, rookie." And then they were all lined up as Sleek gave his final instructions.

"Mission parameters have changed, people." He said softly. "I don't like this. Flashlights on, safeties off, but fingers off the trigger. We don't' know what's in here, if anything." He turned towards his feline companion and gave a brisk nod. "Smash, do it. Talon Alpha, this is Talon Leader, we are in and moving. Out." He then cut off the link to the pilot and kicked the energy blade on, the coruscating energy looking strange in the airless vacuum.

The airlock took what seemed forever to open up, but when it did it revealed a pitch-black hallway, showing some small signs of decay, but not nearly as much as outside. Two flashlights cut in, illuminating the hallway from Smash and Sleek as the team moved in.

"According to the schematics you got, we should be on something called the backup deck. We got an armoury, a security room, two anti-air decks, a fire control sector, a communications hub, and the secondary bridge. If we keep straight, the elevator to the other decks is up ahead." Tech said as she checked the data on her helmet's readouts.

"Where would be the fastest place to get the power and life support back on?" Sleek asked as he scanned the empty, silent corridor.

"Well, for power... best bet would be the engine room, obviously, but that's on the lowest deck, and I don't know how stable this rust bucket is. Life Support room would naturally seem to be the best place to, y'know, turn the life support on, but maybe that's just crazy talk. But we could, with any kind of luck at all, do both from the bridge." The engineer affirmed confidently.

"And what about the secondary bridge?" He continued, motioning for Stalker an Ghost to take his place in covering the hallway as he stepped back to confer with Tech.

"That'd be a no go, chief. It's locked down in case of an emergency, the only time it becomes active is when the main bridge is either destroyed or otherwise nonfunctional. So unless the main bridge is gone, secondary's a no go."

"Damn. Bridge it is, we'll see if we can find any signs of what happened here when we get there. Talon Squad, you know the drill. Let's move."