Fragment 16-08-2012

The two Petharian mercenaries crowded the small freight flyer to its capacity. Marco was at the controls. He was a spy and a worked for Kermac Intelligence for almost thirty years now and had been on Green Hell almost as long. He was not a Greenie but he knew the stories were anything but exaggerated. He had seen what happened to the last Pertharians that went out.

Yes, true the others did not wear Armageddon Suits, but as fancy as the name was for those tin suits, these were civilian legal export approved suits. Yes good SII technology but at least two tech levels below the current stuff.

Marco contemplated leaving Green Hell right after he dropped the Petharians.

He was against this sledgehammer method. Too much could go wrong and thirty years of careful planning could be destroyed, not to mention him ending on the end of a rope.

Ever since the Peace Hawk debacle, Union Officials dealt with spies very harshly and swift.

The owner of Green Hell Slide Belt Service Company, was a genuine Kermac, surgically altered and a member of the Ministry of Information also didn’t like the sudden urgency and speed. GH SBS Inc. was a success and a careful hatched plan to obtain the secret of Translocator Cannons was taking shape and with patience they would find that Saresii ship. The Old Saresii working for them had combed the jungles for 300 years. It was that Saresii who had found the old Log book element in the first place and started the whole thing.

The log book contained a detailed manifest of what the ship had in its hold. Among other things four crated Seenian Transpatial AntiMatter Cannons, or in other words the lost Saresii ship from the First Age of Knowledge carried the same stuff Stahl brought back with the Devastator, the same weapons that virtually guaranteed the stellar rise of the Union. The secret of Translocator Cannons.

Excavating a ship wreck direct under the noses of the Union would have been tricky anywhere, but here on Green Hell it was nearly impossible.

The prize however meant the end of Union predominance and the Kermac once again taking their rightful place as rulers of the Galaxy.

Marco was not a Kermac but a genuine Union Citizen and he was simply a traitor for very mundane reasons at first.

He sighed and put the armored flier down at a wide pebble beach called razor fish bay, because the water of the lake was quite shallow and the big Snakes generally preferred the deeper areas. This area was almost exactly on the opposite site of the lake from Ma Swanson’s. That would give the Petharians an additional 150 miles to cover but hey they were really tough and here no one would see them.”

The two Petharians bent the exit hatch as they squeezed their battle frames through into the open.

The Air lock hatch did not seal and unknown to Marco an angry patch of Killer Moss agitated because half of its organism was crushed by an armor suit boot; squeezed itself through before Marco lifted off to return to town.

--

Leris laughed as his left armor fist spewed plasma fire in an arc clearing a wide path into the dense underbrush. “This is going to be even more fun that I expected. There is nothing out here that could stop us in these suits.”

Choler was already a little less confident and he said. “Conserve your energy, we still have to cover 300 klicks and we don’t want to show up on any sensors either,”

“There aren’t any sensors! We are deep in Union Space, nothing in Orbit. He kicked a tall stomp like structure and didn’t see the swarms of Ants that crawled out the broken nest and up his legs.

Choler brushed a drop shaped cocoon of Buzzsaws aside as he stepped into the smoking breach his partner created with his gatling.

They were about twenty meters inside the Jungle when Leris stumbled and fell over, his left leg armor failing.

Choler wanted to help him and see why his friend fell, stumbling was nearly impossible in these marvels of technology as the computroinic assisting, would compensate automatically.

As he saw the tough material of the Armageddon melt away like butter from the legs of his partner, all the stories they heard about Green Hell no longer felt so ridiculous. “Activate your force field!” He yelled as he activated his. “

Leris yelled back. “There is something inside my suit. I can feel it crawl all over!”

Choler wondered what it could be, as Leris should not be able to feel anyhting as long as his outer Petharian skin was intact. Then he saw tiny dots. Crawling inside the rim of his helmet.

Leris managed to get back on his feet and fired his weapon in all directions, even hitting Choler. His shields protested and flickered.

Choler decided o go back to the shore and call the human back. They had managed to walk about two kilometers

, this sort distance now seemed like 1000 light year. To his horror he noticed green plants moving over the charred ashes of their slash and burn apporach.

The Pertarian evaded a large spider thing and doing so his forcefield entangled with an almost invisible spider net. Blue energies sizzled and his suit reported strong electric discharges.

As he stepped back he lost the fooding and started to sink into a mud bog. Scaled coils of something large appeared only for a moment. His shields strained now trying to burn tons of water and soil and the suit recommended to deactivate the shields so Arti Grav could be activated, energy reserves for both were already limited.

Leris saw his friend run and leave him alone. His legs failed again, this time it was his own, not the suit. He felt a burning sensation as if dipped in liquid lava from his hips on down. He hit the emergency release struggled out of the suit. He needed to get rid of those insects that crawled all over him and whatever they secreted disolved the tough Alloy of the suit and his own Petharian skin with equal ease.

He stumbled forward as a dozen Razor Bush branches slashed across his face gouging one of his eyes, his left arm stuck in a yellow substance covering a tree. The oozing yellow sap was stickier than anything he knew.

Trapper Palm crawlers and ants competed against each other over the now helpless Petharian. The last thing he saw was the rest of his armor suit swallowed by the ground and a human woman in a green dress.

Choler was now to his shoulders in the mud and he opened the Comm Link. “Marco, come back. Get us out of here! Everything is true, we are dying!”

Choler managed to divert enough energy to his Arti Grav and slowly rose from the muck. If he could gain altitude he might make it. There was hope as he kept rising and almost reached the tree tops when he noticed a large inflated thing hovering in the dark sky. The next heartbeat he fell, back to the ground, after a terrible bolt of lightning had vanquised the last remnants of his suit shields. He crashed hard on the Jungle floor. The fall was high enough to hurt him, but he barley felt the pain of the fall, the tiny dots in his helmet now gathered all over his mouth and in his eyes and nostrils. He could feel them crawl inside, the cursed suit didn't let him reach his own mouth. He had four arms and yet he could not reach his own mouth. In utter panic he opened his helmet not noticing he was brushing a plant with little red pods showering his face with a fine white powder.

The effect was instant, he felt no pain, the crawling things in his mouth didn;t matter no more. He suddenly felt as if his mind was opened and no longer attached to his body. He could feel the last dying thoughts of his friend. He could feel the hatred of everything living around him. Every plant, everything alive in these jungles hated him!Then it was as if he could feel the many minds of Ant Hill. Like a chorus of many thousand voices all talking at once.

Through all this chaos and his certain knowledge of his impeding death a human female face appeared, framed by long greenish hair. She had Saresii features but did not look like the Saresii of today. She said to him. “Perish and fade away!”

--

Ranger Salomon was not pleased as he stood in the workshop of Green Hell Slide Belt Service Inc. He had promissed his wife a nice evening out, courtesy of the Masters and now he had to investigate the death of Marco Adams. It was completely unclear why he was flying a cargo flyer with a broken Air Seal Lock at night. There weren’t any Slide belts outside Ant Hill anywhere.

The owner of the small business looked distressed and looked very pale. “I can’t tell you why Marco went out after hours using our company flyer.”

Solomon had his PDD in dictation mode and said looking up. “Mr. Keltony Why do you have a freight flyer in the first place? All your customers should be right here in town.”

The Slide belt technician shrugged. “Our main Office on Blue Moon thought we need one and send one. We never used it and that is how we never noticed the damaged seal I guess.”

“He had to touch down and land for getting a patch of Killer Moss inside. The poison killed him and he crashed into the upper receiving Garage.”

“We will of course pay for the damage done.” The pale man said. “He did mention a few times that he wanted to check out the surface of Green Hell, before he was transferred.”

It was all more or less routine. Things like that happened before on Green Hell and would happen again. What bugged Salomon wsthe fact, that Marco Adams was no new commer but had been on Green Hell for twenty years. He closed the PDD and said. “There will be a formal inquery and the council will decide on further actions. As for my part and the Ranger Department the case is closed.”

The altered Kermac acted very distressed and  sad with a thankful tone. “Thank you Ranger. I will of course contact the Adams relative and make all arrangements.”

Ranger Salomon tipped his fingers to his brow and left.

The Kermac closed the gate returned to his office and established a secure link to Desolate and conferenced the Employer along. Neither of them knew who he was and that he was the one behindit al;l