Oh, and I hope you enjoy the short story. It takes place not too long before the team get's thrown in the System Failure storyline.
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An Unexpected Visitor
by
Scott Harders
and
Sam Bachman-Williams
Tarislar, The Spire; September 15th 2064 - 0900
A freak winter storm was still raging against Seattle. The snow changed to sleet and back to snow often, keeping Seattle in a perpetual state of white and gray. In Tarislar, the early winter was hitting the residents hard. Heating was a serious issue for some homes where electricity or even heaters were in short supply. All of Seattle was hitting the power grid a lot more than usual for this time of year, causing more than a few rolling brownouts. Actually, winter had been a harsh mistress all over the world, with various areas getting pummeled with early storms.
The Tarislar council mobilized quickly into action when it looked like there was no end to the storm. They used part of the city budget to get as many people as possible extra clothes, blankets and heavy drapes. So far, the plan was a success, and most of the people were happy with the additional help. Reaver was able to find a large shipment of military surplus butane heaters and had them shipped in. While there was not enough for everyone, they were rotated on a daily basis, allowing everyone to have a little more heat here and there.
As another truckload of clothes and blankets left the spire, a lone woman walked from her Ford Americar up to the elevator and pushed the button. She was dressed in military style winter clothing, typical arctic colors, with a bulky coat and facemask. The hood was pulled taught over her head to further aid in keeping body heat insulated. The glass elevator came down and the doors silently slid open. She stepped in and pressed the button for the Spires only other floor.
The elevator was slightly warmer, especially with the walls cutting out any wind chill. She removed the hood as the car made its ascent and then her facemask. The elevator made the familiar ring of a bell right before the doors opened.
Two rangers were on duty and looked her direction. One of them came to attention and stopped her as she stepped out of the elevator. “Can I help you ma’am?”
“I’m here to talk to Reaver,” she replied with an air of authority. “If he has time?”
He looked at her, obviously not recognizing her. “Your name?”
“Sister. I’m a friend of Gatts,” was her quick reply.
He gave her a confused look. “Please wait here ma’am?”
She gave a silent nod and waited as the ranger disappeared around the corner. She watched the weather through the windows, barely being able to see any of Tarislar through the thick sleet outside. It was about two minutes before he came back.
“Mr. Elsdragon will see you,” the Ranger spoke. “Follow me,” he said. It sounded more like an order than a question.
She nodded and gestured for him to lead the way. The ranger led her around the corner and to the office that Reaver and Andi shared. He opened the door to allow her in. She nodded to him politely and entered the office.
Reaver was sitting in his chair, behind his desk with his legs propped up on the desktop. He was wearing a long coat, partly draped over one leg. His desk was cluttered with a combination of papers and data pads. On one thick stack of papers sat a rather large revolver, obviously within easy reach for him. He gestured for the young lady to sit down at the chair in front of his desk.
She walked forward, with military precision and sat in the chair, straight as a board. As she sat down, the door closed behind her. She took her coat off, folded it with obvious military habit and draped it over the arm of the chair.
Reaver sized the woman before him up and down. She was five foot, ten inches tall. She was definitely young, yet her eyes carried seemingly ages of combat experience. She was obviously well toned. She had black hair, cropped short, with dark brown eyes. She was very tan in skin tone, almost to the point of possibly being African-American. Her facial features were apparently Elvin nature. She had human ears, however. He knew who she was, having been told about her by Ice. He’d also heard small snippets about her from reports about Gatts. Best they could figure, the two were lovers, but Reaver wasn’t ruling anything out until he was told.
“So,” Reaver said with a predatory smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice with such little reference,” she replied, obviously not fazed by Reaver’s smile. “What I’m really here to see you about is that I find myself ill suited to shadow running. I also wouldn’t fit in with a normal work force either. I was wondering if you had an opening somewhere for someone with my talents.”
Reaver’s smile continued unabated. “I don’t know. What talents are we discussing?”
“I’m not sure if you have heard of the Warband of the Hawk, but I was the second in command of that outfit. I commanded four thousand men from the time I was twelve!” Her tone was proud and confident.
Reaver’s smile went from predatory to wry. “Kid, I’m not sure if you have heard, but I was the fifth Beatle, the tenth member of the Fellowship of the Ring, and I wrote the Bible. Your point is?”
Her eyes narrowed for a second, obviously not thrilled with his humor, before she continued. “I can take most mercs in hand to hand. I can take nine out of ten with a katana. And without bragging, I’m the best shot with an assault rifle.”
Reaver moved his right hand to the desk, perhaps a few inches from where the revolver sat and thrummed his fingers on the fake wood. He watched her reactions, testing to see if she’d flinch. She tensed slightly, but remained cool. “Very well. How’s about we put our money where our mouth is. Follow me.” He got up from his chair, revealing the other revolver he had hidden under his coat and stowed both weapons back in their holsters. He walked over to the door and opened it for her.
She nodded and proceeded out of the office. He followed out behind her and closed the door. The traffic in the Spire was light, with most of the rangers being out helping with the delivery of extra blankets, as well as extra patrol duty due to the hampered visibility. Reaver led her downstairs and into the armory.
Clatter, a dwarf in love with fully automatic weaponry, was performing duty when they walked in. Near by, he had an old M249 SAW broken down and was cleaning it. When Reaver came in, he put down the bolt and moved up to the clear Lexan wall, with small holes drilled in it to allow speaking.
“Greetings Reaver,” the dwarf replied in a deep tone. “How can I help you?”
Reaver smiled. “Well Clatter, it appears I have someone who claims to be all that and a box of Panther cannon shells.” Reaver’s voice had a playful tone to it. “Grab me two shinai please.”
Clatter nodded and walked towards one of the sections of shelving and grabbed two shinai from the racks and brought them back. “Here you go sir,” he replied as he handed the two bamboo swords over.
“Thanks Clatter,” Reaver replied and motioned her to follow. He led her into the practice area. It was currently set up to look like a living room or study. A couch and end table dominated the middle of the floor, with a lazy-boy at one end and a couple of book cases against the wall.
Reaver stepped in and tossed her one of the shinai. “By the way, what’s you’re name kid?”
“Caska,” she replied as she easily caught the sword and tested its balance.
Reaver smiled, obviously playfully. “You know your name has three syllables,” he asked and then lunged forward. He knew it didn’t, but he hoped the false question would catch her off guard.
While she was not entirely surprised by the lunge concealed behind the playful banter, she was caught slightly off guard as the shinai lunged forward with more speed than she thought him capable. She barely moved out of the blades way, tumbling backwards over the couch and onto her feet in a fluid motion. She declined to say anything in return.
Reaver smiled, dancing back and forth slightly. “Well, come on kid. I don’t got all day. Or is your plan to hide behind a couch this entire fight?” He winked playfully as he made the remark.
She immediately sprung over the couch, making a perfect swing at his collarbone. Reaver barely blocked the blow, her shinai taping his shoulder. She tumbled passed Reaver, coming up and turned to face Reaver, sword at the ready.
Reaver rotated his shoulder once and smiled as he turned to face her. “Not bad kid, not bad. Let’s see how you deal with this little slice.” Reaver snapped his fingers and with a blinding flash he was now six of himself.
Caska slipped into a different pose and waited for the incoming attack. Reaver quickly scanned the stance before moving in. He shifted back and forth as he moved forward, causing the images to switch places as well and then swung.
Caska easily deflected the sword swing by launching herself over the multiple attacks. Reaver watched her gracefully sail over. She landed just on the other side of the coffee table, pulling into a ready position.
Reaver nodded admirably as he turned about. “Good reflexes,” he replied and snapped his fingers again. The multiple images winked out of existence. “Well, come on,” he said, urging her to attack.
As she made her move, Reaver cast Chaotic World in the room. The spell distorted distance and created all manner of additional noises and flashes of light. The confusion caused her to stagger and stop and she started shaking like a leaf. Reaver developed a worried look and dropped the spell.
“You alright,” he asked with obvious concern as he placed his shinai on the couch to let her know playtime was over.
Her eyes darted about the room as she slowly relaxed. “It just surprised me,” she replied and then swallowed hard.
Reaver nodded. “Why don’t you take a minute or two,” he said as he pointed his head to the couch and held his hand out for the other shinai.
She handed him the sword and sat down. He took both of the bamboo swords and stepped out. After a minute, Reaver came back into the room; hands empty and closed the door. She was still shaking, but appeared to be more somewhere between embarrassed and angry.
“You sure you’re alright,” he asked as he leaned against the door. He knew it was time for a different kind of sparring match.
“It’s just the last time the world went crazy like that, the entire company died.” Her face shown anger as she spoke, but her tone was calm.
Reaver nodded solemnly. “War is a terrible thing kid, although I get the feeling you already know that. There’s one thing you need to understand though. My people have to deal with the unexpected, sometimes constantly. We have to be able to balance on uneven ground.”
“I was still balanced,” she replied in an almost petulant tone.
Reaver shook his head and sighed. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering,” he replied in a slight smile.
“And it wasn’t war either.” Her tone was serious this time.
Reaver cocked his head. “Really? What was it then?”
Her eyes developed a look, almost like that of a mage looking into the astral. “The whole world went dark. The ground was nothing but red human skulls. Only the darkness had form. Every possible form of terror and destruction. Up on high were four beings who watched. And it wasn’t war, it was sacrifice.”
Reaver gave her a serious look in return. “It wasn’t a war, eh? So you didn’t fight them? There wasn’t any resistance? You just laid there and let them kill you?”
“Of course we fought,” she lashed back in a yell. “We shot and cut everything that wasn’t us! But it’s not fighting when the ground is trying to eat you.”
Reaver shook his head. “So, you’re telling me it was a conflict. There was your side and there was their side. Do you agree?”
“It wasn’t a side, it was an environment,” she replied seriously.
Reaver sighed again. “An environment has no intent, no thought process. It just is what it is. What you describe is something that willfully attacked you, no?”
She shook her head. “A war implies humans fighting each other. War implies different governments arguing over things. They had an intent, but it wasn’t anything human.”
Reaver couldn’t help it, he broke out in laughter. “Kid. War has nothing what-so-ever to do with just humans. Don’t be so vain in thinking that humans invented war. It is an entity all its own and it has an energy all its own. Every species in this universe knows what conflict is. Your conflict was no different. You had two sides, each fighting and killing for different reasons. I’d call that a war, wouldn’t you?”
She stopped and looked towards the floor, thinking hard about what he had just said. He waited. After a minute, she straightened back into a military posture. “Yes sir, I would.” Then she murmured, “Gatts is right. They made a mistake. They left us alive. And because of their mark, we can tell when they are coming.”
Reaver ignored the murmuring and smiled. “Rule thirty-five.”
She looked at him with confusion.
“That which does not kill you has made a tactical error,” he replied.
She nodded with a small, yet savage grin.
Reaver smiled, her psyche apparently restored. “Well kid, you do have skill and you’ve got heart. That’s something I can definitely use here. You’ll have to start at the bottom though, mostly grunt work to start. Respect is something that is earned, not given. Your past trails and tribulations don’t mean anything here.”
“I was doing grunt work when I was ten sir,” she replied with a confident smile.
Reaver nodded. “Alright. Why don’t you go home and get some rest. I’ll figure out what team to put you on and have you sorted out by tomorrow morning.” With that, he opened the door.
She nodded and got up. As she walked out the door he interrupted. “By the way, there’s two more things you need to know before you accept this.”
“Sir?”
“First off, it’s highly possible you may be assigned for a mission that will basically be a shadow run. It’s part of the deal.”
She nodded in agreement. “I trust your judgment in knowing which of those assignments I will fit in best with.”
Reaver developed a very serious look. “I trust you to be the best soldier you can be and adapt to any situation you’re thrown into.”
She came to a full attention and almost saluted in response.
Reaver nodded in agreement. “Number two, don’t call me sir… I work for a living. The name’s Reaver.” He held out his hand to shake hers.
She returned the shake firmly. “So long as you don’t turn into a demon sir, you’ve got my best.”
Reaver winced in response, but held his tongue, as well as his evil thought to activate the Mask of the Demon lock. “Yea. We’ll, uh, discuss that later. Go on and head home. Welcome to Tarislar Caska.”
She nodded, “Just so you know, Gatts and I were the only one’s to survive, but were not the only one’s still alive. Our commander’s new name is Femto.” With that, she left the armory. Once she was gone, Reaver walked out of the room.
“New recruit sir,” Clatter asked.
Reaver nodded. “Looks like it. She’ll probably be doing armory duty rather soon. Make sure to give her the crap work. I want to make sure she can handle it like she say’s she can.”
Clatter grinned. “No problem there sir.”
Reaver chuckled. “Have a good day,” Reaver replied with a casual wave and left the armory.
