Chapter 1: The Job

The Job

Sweat, metal, gas, and other smells overwhelmed me as I sat in the confined space that was the HALO jumping bay of the warship. I checked my weapons, they were still primed with the energy cells cooled and ready on a moments notice. I looked around the small space my squad was doing much the same. I counted them once more to make sure all were present. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, wait where's Tess? I looked around to see the girl was no where to be seen.

I'm right here. I felt a weight on my shoulders after the voice in my mind spoke. I turned my head to see a pair of bright teal eyes and a lot of white hair. Tessa the Siren, your not so average girl. At a close proximity of my age, 100 something, Tess was a bit older than me by how much, who cares, she was a 6"1 gung ho recon troop, she had long matted down white hair and almost shining teal eyes to match. Her body was more built and elegant than most human women, but then again me and her aren't 100% human. Allow me to explain, both me and Tess are human mutant hybrids, meaning we both have DNA combined with that of various mutant DNA strands, how the bio-weapon branch of our science department got permission to alter human DNA and craft artificial human bodies for us, I'll never know. Quick fact is that we don't have parents so don't ask, both me and Tess are artificial our bodies were grown like plants without the use of a fertilized egg, we are often called homunculus after the ancient Latin myths of man made people.

My name and/or lable is d04 "The Stalker" I am a human made genetic breed of hybrid that is capable of changing it's skin color to camouflage. I'm 6'3 tall, my skin is pitch black and made from a biological mix that is tougher than steel the result being thick yet flexible carapace in place of my skin. I have the strength of 5 fully grown men due to artificial enhancements, and the speed of an F1 race car, I can also mutate my hands into single talons making the perfect pair of CQB weapons. Tess is a unique c15 "Siren" she can change the pitch, volume, etc of her voice enabling her to stun and even kill anything that hears her voice, it's always funny to see a walkers head burst into bloody bits from this, she is also fast but not as fast as me naturally, she wants to she can use sound waves to make herself move faster.

You ready? She asked, I nodded, I walked to the door of the jump bay and faced the others.

"Attention Recon Squad personal, we're HALO jumping in 10 minutes, everyone fall in and prep your wings." Since regular humans and some hybrids lack the ability of flight, special suits like ours had wings which were given thrust by small pulse batteries. Everyone had a special mask and wrist HUD which they used to activate their wings.

"Captain, before we jump what are we up against this time." I turned back to see who asked, I spotted the younger man who looked to be in his early 20's.

"Private Henderson, today your gonna see something that will leave any lesser man a quivering wreck. Today were up against a small pack, 3, Advance Stage Colossus." Everyone stopped what they were doing.

"Advance! Sir with all due respect we are not prepared to fight a single AC much less three!" Henderson shouted everyone else agreed.

"Private calm down, you aren't going to be on the ground. Only me and First Lieutenant Tess are going to be fighting these abominations head on." I called back, the squad still seemed unsure but carried on none the less.

A voice came over the inter com. "Attention all personnel in bay 1 prepare for HALO jump. Remember all hostile forces are to be dealt with and disposed before return, good luck."  As soon as the message cut off the bay doors opened.

Outside lay the remnants of the worlds once greatest city, New York. Skyscrapers lay broken and fallen, the city was stretched for miles around. Mutants sat upon roof tops looking for easy prey. I could see the sun in the distance the toxic air casting a red glow across the ruined city.

"Masks on!" I called over the wind." Me and Tess were immune to the effects of the toxic clouds that hung over the city but the others if exposed were not.

"Ready!" They called back,

I counted down in my head, I was given the drop location and the jump needed to be perfect if the squad was to stay airborne. "Alright men this is it! Go go go!" I waved them out, one after another they jumped their wings catching the air and sending them off.

I saw Tess run up and pecked me on the cheek. "Try and keep up." She teased before jumping off, without missing a beat I jumped after her. I felt the wind rushing against my mask and combat suit, switching the batteries on I shot forward through the toxic cloud covering the city. Quickly I took point in front of my squad.

"Fall in!" I barked into my mic, Tess and Henderson took my left and right side the other fell in behind them. I switched my HUD to thermal, looking below I saw the targets. Three hulking masses were charging down the main road cars were flung out of their path trucks were smashed.

"Hostiles spotted!" I called, everyone drew their weapons form their SD's. (Storage Deck)

"Corporal James you and your section take the skies above and keep lesser mutants of us, copy!" I called, he saluted and broke off with the others.

"Come on big boy let's move." Tess called dive bombing the mutants.  While Tess may be older I was of a higher rank due to the fact she had a thing for disobeying any orders that weren't from a personal friend. I flew beside her my LMG in hand, the colossus leading the trio was much bigger than I had first thought. The three behind it were only a slightly smaller.

"Tess do you know what these are!?" I asked, these colossus were not Advance type I knew that.

"Arch Colossus!" Tess called back, both of us ascended a few more feet. There are four stages in mutant variations, proto being very weak and easy to kill, normal being well normal, advance being about as strong as me and Tess, and last Arch type which are much more lethal than the previous three combined.

"I don't know about you but I don't have enough firepower for this shit, tell the squad to pull back!" I ordered, Tess shook her head and reached into her SD.

"We can't return to Haven until the job is done, so I packed a bit of back up." From her SD she pulled something that could have her court marshaled.

"Tess those are Ion Charges!" I flew next to her grabbing for them but only to have her fly higher.

"Hunter," I thought I told her not to use that nickname. "you heard the higher ups, this is a priority 1 mission and we can't return until it's done." She said, flying back down. I looked at the minor weapons of mass destruction before nodding.

"Alright fine! But if the Major gives me shit it's out of my hands from there." Tess grinned and motioned me to follow.

We flew a few yards ahead of the mutants into what looked to be their path, we each hid 2 charges onto shipping container and flew above. The mutants were just moments away from death.

"I hope this works." Tess said innocently, I give her a deadpan look.

"Yeah me to." Looking back I see they crossed the detonation area. There was a high pitched whine as the proximity detonators were triggered.

To any curious the massive shock wave and pure unrelenting power of particle destroying matter plowing into you at the speed of light is almost enough to kill me... almost. But for what was only seconds feeling like hours I was thrown down the abandon road and into a collapsed parking garage.

"*Cough* Holy shit," I groaned, "now that's a fucking bomb." I tossed a slab of concrete of my chest, shakily I got to my feet and stood. I looked over the carnage, chunks of mutant, metal, and other things were scattered around the street and what use to be the floor level of old buildings. "Tess!" I called out, looking for signs of movement.

"Hunter I'm down here!" I looked for the voice to see a large hole in the center of the street, walking over I saw it lead into a sort of tunnel. I wasn't a sewer because it had no waste and looked as if it had once been used as an VIP tunnel.

"Tess you okay!?" I called down, Tess was sitting in a pile of scrap.

"Minus a little bleeding nothing my regeneration won't fix." She said dusting herself off. "Where are the others?" She asked looking to the sky to see it was empty. I was surprised not to see our squad but even more shocked at the lack of Leapers, they're usually the first to react to loud sounds.

"Squad come in, this is Captain d04, come in!" I waited for a response over my headset but none came. I tried a couple more times but only was meet with static. "Shit. Tess can you get in contact with any of the others?" I asked, Tess closed her eyes her breath slowing down. I readied my LMG not want to get jumped by anything, I could hear a few things moving from inside the tunnel. Standing over Tess I looked down the hall, I could hearing something small or light moving around but I couldn't see anything not even a heat signature.

"Sorry Hunter the others are out of my reach." Tess said rubbing her head, I looked once again down the hall but the noises had stopped.

"Come on we have to get out of here, we need to find a place to stay before it gets dark." Me and Tess climbed from the tunnel back to the main street. The sun was barely visible over the buildings and flooded the area with shadows. "Hurry!" Me and Tess ran a a jogging pace weapons primed and eyes searching.

While mutants don't attack other mutants unprovoked there is one strain of the mutations that will. As a result of not finding food the virus had evolved in certain strains of DNA, these special mutants are called Gulas or Gula which means gluttony. The name may lead you to think these creatures are big and bloated but it's actually the opposite. A Gula is what appears to a be a human skeleton, it is held together by nothing but what looks like muscle. These mutants are incredibly sensitive to UV light, it burns the muscle clean off killing them. But the sun is the only thing that kills them, even Ion bombs can only break them apart allowing them to reform. As a result of this adaption they hunt in packs and in the dark, they also eat other mutants us included.

With haste me and Tess took shelter inside an abandoned convenience store. Inside we were meet with dim lighting from ancient but somehow still functioning lights. I placed fallen shelves against the front windows blocking the only entrance.

So much for upgraded radios. I cursed the techies that had given us our HUD's. I gave the store a quick once over, the shelves lay bare goods that had once stocked them either gone or decayed. Tess was sitting on a fallen cooler doing something with her HUD.  I walked to the stores counter looking for anything useful.

Bobby pin, scrap, fungus, dead rat, faded playboy mag, broken cell phone. I searched a few more cabinets but was only rewarded by dead rodents. Took a seat by Tess and began cleaning my weapon.

"Any luck getting contact with Haven?" I asked, she just shook her head. "How about the rest of the squad?" Tapping a few things into her arm ban an image flashed up.

"Oh... well shit." In front of me was the status of my entire squad.

Sgt. Shaun Tucker

Age: 21

Status: KIA

Cause of Death: Multiple stab and laceration wounds signs indicate a proto D-class specimen was the mutant responsible.

With the killer being a D class meant that this man had been killed by a Stalker like me. This could be bad if I'm blamed to be the once who killed him. I moved to the next update.

Pvt. Danial Barry

Age: 19

Status: KIA

Cause of Death: Decapitation and removal of all limbs and internal organs, no known specimen can be confirmed as of yet.

I've never heard of any type of mutant completely and specifically dismembering and disemboweling someone before. The rest of the squad had only been marked as MIA meaning their corpses haven't been found or they to were lost. Either way this whole mission had been one big shit storm from the beginning. I collapsed the image to see Tess looking at her feet grief covering her features. I took a seat next to her and put my arm over her she didn't even move.

"How can they all be dead?" She asked her voice monotone. "I knew this mission wouldn't be easy, but the others were prepared to fight almost anything with or without us. How did a proto manage to kill Shaun, and what monster would do something like that to Barry?" Those were questions I also wanted to know, the way Danial's autopsy photo looked made the cuts seem as though they had been done with surgeon like accuracy. I also knew Shaun would never been killed by something as weak as a proto stage mutant.

"I don't know the answers to your questions, all I do know is we need to get some rest and start our way back to Haven." As simple as that sounded it would most likely be far more difficult than it seems. Many types of mutants live in packs and are incredibly territorial. I brought an image from a our nations VSAT, I mentally groaned seeing the distance we had to walk on foot. Not wanting to frustrate myself even more I looked for a comfy spot to lay down. In the end I just gathered some old bits of cardboard and fell onto it. A few moment later I felt Tess lay next to me wrapping her self around my arm.

While both me and Tess are some of the strongest soldiers the Haven Military has to offer we both suffer from mental disabilities. Tess ever since we were young had slept next to me, she suffered from night terrors and i incredibly bipolar. I am schizophrenic by currently housing 1 very annoying voice in my head, I also have severe anger issues leading to mental instability. These defects where the result of our brains not being made to have been mixed and code with mutated DNA.

With Tess asleep my thoughts turned to the rest of the troops. If the two bodies had been recovered already than that meant HQ had already sent people searching for us. I wondered how long me and Tess had been knocked out after the blast, also what was in that tunnel under the city streets. When I had checked the VSAT no tunnels where labeled to be there meaning it wasn't suppose to be seen by the common officer or civilian. Feeling worn I closed my eyes and let consciousness slip away.

--Planet Equis Time 11:26 PM Location Unknown--

"Planetary alignment and targeting systems read 100% charge and accuracy." A mare said using her magic to further calibrate the machine.

"Wonderful, soon we will know if we are alone in this universe or if we have company." A large pitch black stallion said his grey main disheveled from long nights of work. "Has the "Eye" located any planets that may sustain life?" The stallion asked another scientist.

"Yes sir, 5 astral units from our star system is a planet not to different from ours. While the planet itself may hold life said life seems to live inside a toxic gas filled atmosphere." Said the scientist.

"We are only observing the planets surface to find life, not bringing it to us." The stallion said. "Power up the Eye!" He ordered, with haste the scientist scattered through the room began their work.

Unknown by them, their work would change the course of their planets future.