HardClone
#1 of HardClone
All chars/story/ies mine...
Any body wanna draw this for me?
Thanks...
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I.
Three bipedal troopers bounded into the kill zone, their jack-legged loping carrying them lithely over the bodies and debris. A fourth trooper stalked into the demolished ante-chamber; his thick jack-legs stepping surely, heavily in the few spots the floor showed through the jumble of bodies and pieces of furnishings. He carried a seven barreled heavy pulse blaster. His hard encounter helmet brushed the ruined remains of the chandelier as he stepped forward. He swung his aim up and around, the barrel rack spinning with a low pitched whirr; the red laser targeting spots spinning a circle on the center of the fixture. One of the first troopers let loose a warning snarl to the others. As one they lept back to crouched guard positions against the walls.
The large trooper reached up, and with a casual tug, pulled down the remains of what had been a two metre wagon wheel. It made an obscene crash with dust and genuine plaster and chunks of the real wood support beam following it to the floor. He turned to the others and lifted his helm's visor. His deep voice was a hard sound in the charnel.
"You could have told me about that."
The thickest of the other troopers opened her visor and smiled a soft growl-laugh up at him.
"That's half'metre 'bove our heads. Ri'chat your eye level. We figgered you'd see it, dear."
His stern grey face frowned down at her.
"Have the boss grow you longer legs."
A lithe, pure strain human delicately picked her way through the shattered, blasted bodies and pools of blood, oblivious of the carnage.
"T'Chall!"
The big grey skinned trooper turned to look at the new presence as the female trooper called out.
"The area's not secured yet, T'Chall." He said to her as she came closer.
T'Chall cocked her head at the two troopers.
"With you two chattering like magpies it must be safe. Any living enemy would have shot you from sheer annoyance."
The grey trooper's lips turned down even more as the female trooper smirked and shrugged.
"Where is he?" T'Chall asked.
"Over th'ere" The female trooper jerked her stubby thumb over her shoulder. "He's gone white as ghost an'guts all silver from the nanites coverin' his wounds. His Beacon says he's alive. Best call t'boss?"
"I'm right here." A big human growled at them as he stomped into the room kicking aside lumps and chunks of gore. "You call this a military unit? You haven't even closed off the perimeter. Clyde and Annie are two klicks apart. I walked right in here. And now you stand there skwakin' an' don't even have the area secured yet."
The female trooper smirked long lips up at the big human. He had already had his visor open before he had even come in. His deep copper red beard caught a last ray of the setting sun. His deep brown eyes frowned back at her.
"An' you call yourself a military commander, walkin' int'here before we give you the all clear?"
T'Chall frowned at the female trooper and moved to check the body.
The big man glared down at the young anthromorph trooper.
"You mess with me, little girl, an' I'll devolve your vocal cords, chain you in the yard an' feed you Alpo."
The trooper cocked her head at him.
"Sound's good. Long as I don't have t'play fetch." She lifted an eye brow at him.
He frowned harder and let out a 'hrpht'
"T'Chall?" He called as he stomped over to her at the body.
"The cyber says it used more than a litre of nanites just to seal the wounds. The remainder was used for blood replacers but at a much reduced level. There may be some brain damage."
"Right. Bring'im back."
T'Chall's porcelain skinned moon shaped face looked up at him calmly.
"He needs to be put in ICU and brought back slowly."
"No time. Charge him up."
"That won't bring him back. He's too far gone."
The big man nodded. "Pump him full of Red and charge him."
T'Chall's soft almond eyes tightened, then, relaxed. She set her jaw.
"Hai."
*My brain screams as the Red burns through. My body jerks from the shock charger. I don't open my eyes. Hell, I don't even breath. It's a hard lesson to learn. Never come up too quickly from being dead. Always check the situation first. I ran the self diagnostic and came up with some very depressing info. I'd been hurt bad. The jolt from the charger flashed through me again. My lungs began to ache. My Oxy units had been depleted during the raid. My blood was mostly gone and the nanites were too thin to provide oxygen to my ravaged body.
I felt another dose of Red shoot into me. My hearts cramped from the artificial adrenaline-speed and screamed for oxygen. My mechanical blood pushers took up the slack. My lungs right out hurt like a bastard. My targeting systems were on line and ready. I read two live bodies over me and four more in the room. It was Mad Jack and the recovery team. I faked it for a little while maybe they'd give up and put me in cryo. I could use the break. No. My lungs couldn't last any longer.*
The big human combat clone trooper came awake gasping for air, mouth wide as a fish dying on shore.
"Don't you ever get tired of dying?" The big man sneered down at his own combat clone.
"It's the only way I get any sleep." The clone trooper gasped back.
"Lie still.", T'Chall said to the wounded man.
*I take another quick gasp, but this from the beauty of the angel that tends me. T'Chall always effects me that way. She's from a line of Yakuza protected pure strain families. Her porcelain geisha face perfect; her eyes possessed of the soul of a shark. If hell exists, then she is indeed the best candidate for succubus that I've ever seen.*
"Yeah." The big man says, "So what'd you find out? And hurry We don't have much time. The Alvian fleet is just outside of the elliptical."
*I glare up at this man who looks so like me. For vanity and sanity I tell myself that He is the clone and I'm the leader of the Tactical Assessment Operations Company, but then, I'm the one always looking up at him after I've been brought back from the dead...Yet again.*
"You know, Jack, I'm gettin' awful tired of you and your pushy attitude." The clone frowned up at the big man.
Jack's eyes tightened. He frowned for a second, then took a deep breath.
"Fine. You can have the rest of the month off. But we do need to hurry. Lives are in danger."
The clone frowned a bit.
"Innocent people's lives." Jack tilted his head at the clone.
The clone's eyes tightened and he let out a breath.
*Bastard.*
"The General Litho-Ardekka has subversives in place." The clone said finally. "I don't know the details, but his troops won't respond to the Commissar's orders." The clone pointed to a broken battered corpse. "That's the dear General's son inlaw. Everything was going fine. I had him under the Pentothol-Beta serum and he was just starting to get to his version of the truth when his goons broke in and began blasting. I got, like twenty or so but they got me." The clone shrugged as he lay in T'Chall's arms.
"Anything else?" Jack said quietly.
"Yeah, he said somthin' 'bout the General's going to kill him. Coulda been the residual from the drug?"
"Gretchen?" Jack turned to the thick female trooper.
"Reading it now, Boss." She said squatting over a few ravaged corpses scanning them with her 'Corder.
"Yeah, Boss, too obvious. All the cybers in these guys have a Pashett-Ardekka IFF code in them. Their cybers are supos'ta be royal troops. They look like the real thing."
"Lemme guess," Jack sighed. "Their gene codes are royals too?"
"Bingo. T'Chall? Wha's this mean?"
T'Chall turned to one of the bodies and she began to scan it with her medical 'Corder.
"It's a registered clone. He's a real royal, but..." She moved to another body, then to the body that Gretchen was at. "Yes, they are all the same clone but they have the look of cheap quickies. They were burned out of the vats fast. They wouldn't have lasted long anyway."
*I wonder at how long I'm going to last...*
"So these are just the result of the General tiing up loose ends." Jack nodded.
The clone sighed, "So what now?"
Jack's smile was a bit flat. "We tell her Majesty what we found and let the royals handle it as they will. They have enough mercs to cover the holes that taking out the General's troops will cause. We've done our job."
"OUR job!?" The clone spat out.