This is a complete re-write of the first part of The Retribution Chronicles. The original posts are here and at the end of each thread there is a link to the next chapter. However, the posts will all exist in this same post.
The reason for this re-write is the first version was spratic and chaotic because of where it was written: The desert. Also, this gives those who missed the chance to read Part one the first time another chance to catch up on the story of Leo.
My vision swam, faded in and out. Shifted...changed. I couldn't see much when I sat up. My eyes were too far out of focus to see anything. I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I groaned in pain when I tried to stand up. My entire body felt like it had been beaten to a pulp and my head felt like I'd been being punched in the face continuously.
As my vision cleared, I got the first real look at my surroundings. The room was a clean yet boring room, surrounded by steel walls and a large force field guarding the entrance. Turrets faced my room along with a couple of armed guards that looked like they were prepared to take on an entire army. Two people walked towards my cell.
One was a large bald man who looked like he was having a bad day, and looked like he was having a bad life. The other was a smaller woman with blonde hair, she looked the same, like she was having a bad life. She dismissed the guard and entered in a code on the force field. She stepped into the cell and her arms were crossed while staring at me.
"Are you ready to talk now, Leo?" she asked. I remained silent while looking at her. I snorted a little bit for some reason, starting a laugh but stopping. She sighed and walked around the cell, her bodyguard stayed still. "I'm getting tired of these games, Leo. Just tell us what we want to know, and you will be free to go."
"You think I believe that?" I asked, stalling for time until maybe I could remember something. I stood up slowly, using my back against the wall for support. When I rose to my full height, the body guard came up and socked me in the face, sending me sprawling back to my bed. I clambered back to my feet quickly after being knocked down. The guard pulled his fist back again shortly after I stood back up.
"Worthless piece of sh*t." said the gruff voice as I was hit again. I fell to the floor, blood spattering on the floor, its crimson color a striking contrast to the pale grey of the steel. When I tried rising to my feet for a third time I fell back down after his boot dug into my back.
"Let him up." said a woman's voice. "I think he gets the hint. Maybe he'll finally talk." I stared at her laughing like a maniac. I only stared at her, laughing. Her cold eyes dug into my head, searching for whatever secret she so desperately wanted. I stopped laughing and only stared at her.
"You going to talk boy?" she asked, advancing towards me. I started laughing again, exposing my blood stained teeth. She grabbed my hair and slammed my face into the ground again, I kept laughing through it all. "You going to talk?" she asked again. I turned towards her slowly and spit a large wad of saliva and blood which splattered on her face. She took out a handkerchief and wiped it off shortly before tucking it back in her pocket.
"You'll get answers from my cold dead body, bitch." I replied. "There, I talked." I started laughing again, the walls echoing the sound. Disgusted they turned around and left for the night. I chuckled to myself as I curled up on the floor, morning came early and more torture came with it. I didn't remember the day they brought me here, only bits and pieces, I was sure there was some kind of brain damage tied into the fact that I couldn't remember much. Every day they came in and beat me to a pulp, after the fourth or fifth day, the nerves in my face and body had given up. I couldn't feel anything anymore.
For a second, I dozed off, and then I awoke to a loud noise: an explosion. Fighting and yelling too. I tried to rise to my feet but realized that I was weaker than I had originally thought. I grabbed the ledge on the wall and hoisted myself up to my feet and walked slowly over to the force field, using the wall as support. I couldn't believe what I saw.
There were dead bodies amassing all over the hallways. Fighting was occurring at almost every post, there was a gaping hole in the wall, exposing a mass of wires and electronics. Around the wires I could make out another hallway on the other side, with a window to the outside showing space.
"...even if."
I shook my head.
"Hang on, we'll get you out of here." someone said at the other side of the force field.
I stood away from the field and two loud pops echoed around the hallway and field instantly dropped without so much as a push. The man looked me up and down quickly, sizing me up. He nodded and smiled. "Come on, follow me."
"I'm in no shape to walk. I've been in here for God knows how long, all I've been eating is rats that wonder into my cell, and there isn't even much meat on them."
He made a grunt noise and looked around. "Ok, come with me then. Put your arm around my shoulder and we'll get you out of here." I did as he said and he started walking down the hall, firing at enemies as he went. A stray bullet clipped his other shoulder and he grunted in pain, but kept moving. He handed me a gun from his other belt. "Help me take these suckers out as we go." I nodded silently and helped him take out the enemies that we happened to see off hand. Another bullet grazed his leg and he fell to the ground, me along with him. "Damnit!" he screamed.
A grenade rolled off his belt loop and immediately something took over. I reached for the grenade, pulled the pin and threw it over the top of an overturned table. Screams echoed followed by a resonating explosion and silence. I grappled with the wall and stood back up with the wall as my support.
"Go!" he was screaming, holding off the enemies coming down the other hall, blasting them with his assault rifle.
"Leo's making a run for it! Get him!"
I ran down the hallway, towards the airlock at the end of the hall, bullets bouncing off the metal flooring. My legs were in no shape to be running, but the adrenaline was allowing me to ignore that for the time being. As I dove through the door, I looked back at the man who had saved my life, and sacrificing his own to do so...
"Thank you..." I said, and passed out in the airlock.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
I strained to open my eyes and sat up a little, looking around at my surroundings. There was a lot of medical staff running around trying to help everyone out with their injuries. I was obviously in a sickbay of some sort. I spun around and placed my legs tenderly on the ground. I winced as I stood up briefly to test my balance and found that it wasnt nearly as bad as I thought it was.
"Hey! Hey! - No, lay back down. You are in no shape to be walking right now." said a doctor walking over to me. I shook my head and shoved her away from me, still walking slowly towards a glass of water sitting on the counter. I quickly drank the glass and sat it back down, gasping for air as I did. "Sir, please...at least tell us your name?"
I thought hard. I remember bits and pieces of who I was.
"Leo?" I said gruffly and realized how sore my throat was. I started coughing hard sending my body in to spasms.
"Alright alright, enough. You need to lie back down."
"No. No. I need to stand, I can't stand laying down like that. I have to move around."
I immediately started checking the sidelines of the ship. Liberty design, more than likely a cruiser of some sort. Maybe a assault carrier that was converted for usage of helping sick passengers. How did I know this? How did I know that the bridge was more than likely located four decks above me and slightly to the right of my current location. How did I know I was located in the front left section of the ship near the ship launch bay?
"Well, Im your doctor and-"
"The hell you are." I said raising my voice. "I don't even know who the hell you are, where I am, why I'm here. I demand some damn answers."
I started checking the equipment in the sickbay. Standard equipment for doctors lab. There was a straight line to the exit, however. I memorized the layout of the sickbay and turned back to the doctor. All this within a few seconds as I looked back at her.
"Well, wecan't give you any then, Leo. We were alerted to the presence of a slave liner near Liberty space and were brought here to investigate the claims. When we got here, the ship opened fire on us the second we came into range. We disabled it's defenses and came onboard trying to save anyone we could. That's when we discovered that they were doing research on peopleterrible thingswe have no answers because as soon as we found you, all hell broke loose."
"...me?" I replied.
"Yes, you. You're important to them for some reason, and we plan on taking you back to Liberty to find out exactly what that is. Do you remember what was happening there?"
"Lady, I don't remember anything other than my name right now. Your guess is as good as mine."
She sighed and looked out the window into space then nodded her head slowly.
"Ok. We'll be in New York in a few hours. I suggest you get some rest, theres going to be a lot going on in the next few hours, so you're going to need it."
"I think I'll stay up, thank you." I replied glaring at her.
"Suit yourself, but don't say I didnt warn you."
I laid back down and closed my eyes...but I didn't fall asleep...no...that would be after I escaped the ship, and made my way to freedom. Only then could I start trying to figure out who I truly was.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
I felt the ship touch down gently on whatever platform it was landing on and I slowly opened my eyes to get a look around the ship bay. There wasn't anyone around and the room was pitch black dark. I quietly rolled over and off the side of the table, landing gently on my feet on the other side. Walking hunched over, I made my way slowly for the door and stopped when I heard voices just on the other side.
"Now, we've kept him in here for the entire flight." said the doctor. "However, he's a bit shaken up."
"Where did you say you found this man?" said a man's voice.
"On the slave liner that we intercepted in the borderworlds. He's in pretty bad shape at the moment. I'm not sure what else to do with him. He has no memory of who he is or what he was doing there. The only thing he has to go on is that his first name is Leo, short for Leonardo I'm assuming."
"Possibly a nickname?" said the man.
"Maybe, I'm not sure."
"Where's Andrew?"
"He...I'm sorry sir. He didn't make it off the liner."
The man grew quiet for a moment. I felt a change in the mood for a moment before it changed immediately back.
"It's...alright. I'll have to tell his mother...however, he gave his life for Liberty."
My head throbbed just after the man said the word "Liberty" in that tone. I'd heard it before somewhere.
"Giving your...in the name...of Liberty"
I started shaking, blood falling to the floor from my nose. I quietly cleared my throat as I shook my head to clear the thought from my mind.
"...great thing...die...worry..."
"Sh*t" I whispered to myself as I wiped the back of my hand across my top lip.
"Should we go in?" said the man.
I knew that voice.
"Yes, he should be on the table at the far end."
The door opened and I moved backwards slightly as they walked right past my hiding spot towards the table. Just before the door closed I caught it quietly and slipped out into the hallway. I could hear them make the way over to the table where I was laying before.
"Where is he?" the man said as the door swung closed. I quickly made my way down the hallway. The bright lights disoriented me for a moment but the hallway cleared quickly. I made my way down the hallway and into the elevator at the end of the hall...I was navigating this hallway like I had been on one of these ships before. I made my way into the elevator and just as the door was closing I saw the man make it to the door and beat on it as it closed. I saw his face...
"...pay for...travesty..."
I heard the voice in the back of my head.
"You know," I said aloud to no one in particular "...you're probably right."
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
The elevator doors opened with a ding and the military men came in looking around for me. But just before the elevator had reached this floor, something in the back of my mind had told me that they would do exactly that, and I climbed out the top of the elevator and stood atop it. They looked around for me but no sign was found.
"Sir, we've checked the elevator, he's not inside it."
"Then check the elevator shaft itself, it's likely he climbed out the top of it."
"At the speed that this elevator moves, sir? He'd lose his grip from the top and fall to his-"
"Obviously, you forget who we're dealing with, ensign."
Who they were dealing with?
I looked up and saw a ventilation shaft and lept through it as quickly as I would without making any sign of noise, a lot more difficult than you might think for a fully grown adult. I shifted back a little as he opened the top of the elevator to look around.
"He's not up here, sir."
"Damnit. Copy that. Return to base. We'll spread out a little further to try to find the SOB. Good work men.
The elevator top snapped back shut and the elevator resumed it's movement, shooting back upwards at impossible speeds. I moved back outwards into the elevator shaft and looked down...no end in sight. However, the door to the elevator shaft itself had a small ledge of metal allowing the elevator to connect to it. I moved quickly but silently again out of the duct and hung down, allowing myself to drop to the small ledge. I put my fingers in-between the metal and forced the doors open and slipped through into the hallway.
There, in front of me, was my freedom. The ship's doors were open and a ramp was aimed downwards at the landing pad with a building at the opposite end. I looked behind me to make sure no one was following and quickly moved for my freedom, but no sooner than I had made it onto the pad, weapons fire lit up around me. Cursing I ran back behind the ship, the hull taking fire from whomever was in the window. Marines came running down the ramp behind me and fired shots back up into the building. Obviously, it wasn't anyone of their men.
"Get us out of here! Keep looking for Leo! He's on this ship somewhere and I want him found!" screamed the radio. The marines walked back into the ship in a prone form as the bay door shut and the ship took off, leaving me exposed once again. I ran quickly into the building under the cover of the ship's engines blasting the pad.
So, I was free but right back in the same situation that I had been in before. There was someone in the building who had it out for me. I had to find him and disable him before he tried to kill me again. Immediately, the instinct of survival had kicked in again, just as it had in the sickbay before. I looked for the exits on the bottom floor, searching for a way out if needed. I scoped the interior of the building, seeing every possible angle possible and the way up to the other floors. After that was completed, I began my ascend to the upper floors, and towards my goal.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
I moved up the stairwell silently. The hotel was old, more than likely a few decades worth of care had been neglected on it. I knew that the man onboard that ship was certainly not a Liberty officer after seeing this place. The ship had landed here, planetside, next to an old worn down hotel that hadn't seen any love in several years. That meant that either the man was a contractor, or an assassin...or that wasn't a Liberty ship at all.
Three clicks, 200 meters ahead and slightly to the right side of the stairwell. Shallow clicks, echoing off the ceiling. A sight adjustment for a SMG rifle. I stopped in my tracks and moved to the right as I heard a "twang" sound echo from upstairs. Grenade, cluster. The grenade fell down the stairs and I pulled my head down and covered with my head. The explosion rocked the staircase but didn't knock it down. Footsteps approached, rapidly. I as he neared my location in the smoke, I brought my left hand up just under his jaw quickly and fast.
Caught off guard, he grunted and lost his footing, losing his grip on his rifle and slipping down the stairs all the way to the bottom. I ripped the gun from his hand and aimed at the bottom of the stairs as I approached his motionless body. His eyes still open and his breathing shallow. His neck was at an awkward angle and his eyes were wide.
"It's not over, Leo...it's...never...over..." he breathed one last breath and died there on the floor.
Click, click. Another sight adjustment, I rolled quickly to my right as weapons fire tore up the wall where I was just standing. Footsteps running quickly down the stairs, I brought the gun up quickly into the stairwell opening and hit the other gunner directly in the face. A muffled scream as he slipped and landed square on his ass and looked up at me with his gun pointed directly at my face, the gun I had aquired pointed directly at his.
"Draw?" he said.
"Depends. Who do you work for?"
"Myself, you?"
"Myself."
"This was nasty guy you just killed, 20 million bounty on his head, you know."
"That's nice. Now, why don't you do me a favor by taking whatever you need off him to prove it and get the hell out of here?"
"Sounds like a good plan." he said, my gun still aimed directly at his face, his directly at mine. "You going to lower your gun?"
"Are you going to lower yours?" I replied.
We stayed there for a while in silence, our guns pointed at one another.
"You're not buying this are you, Leo?" he said,
"Nope." I replied.
"So, how do we fix it?"
I fired two shots into his head and he laid still, his gun falling from his hand.
"Like that." I said picking up the other gun and walking up the stairs in silence once again.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
I cleared the building and found no one else, save for a few homeless people. The building used to be a hotel from several years back from what I could tell and something happened that closed it down, maybe financial problems? Who knows.
I went back down to the floor where the two bodies were and searched them for anything of use. On the first man, I found a datapad that was locked. I pocketed it and continued to look on his person closely, he'd called me by my name, like he had once known me, that means he had to have known something. He told me it never ends...whatever that means. I found nothing else of importance on him. I went to the other man.
I found a ton of stuff on him that I could use. Knives, weapons, armor, all sorts of stuff. I stripped the armor off of him along with all his weapons and gear. I equipped it myself and moved quickly through the hotel looking for another exit just in case the exit from where I came in was being watched. Eventually, I found a hidden staircase leading downwards into a basement and discovered where one of the two men had been living, I guessed the hunter. It was clean, spic, and span, as if he had OCD or something. I looked around for anything of value and found nothing.
As I was looking, the datapad made a noise that there was an incoming message. I looked down and opened it.
"Burns Square. 4pm. Don't be late."
I smiled and closed the datapad cover.
"Oh, I won't." I said and exited the back door into the night.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
The square was more of a boardwalk, with one of the main rivers snaking through the city. The drop to the river was about 100 feet or so with railing protecting people from falling into the river by accident. Just off the boardwalk was a square with a fountain in the center. The area was very busy as people were just getting off of work.
Sixteen hours later, I was above the square looking down at the crowds of people walking around, busy about their day. There were the workers, who were slumped over. There was business men, of whom walked with their backs up right and their communicators to their head. Then there were the government officials, of whom walked around with a constant air of suspicion of everyone around them. I watched each of these people hustle around the square, looking for anyone out of the ordinary.
Then, right when I thought the message was a hoax, there was a woman, blonde standing next to a lamppost looking around at everyone as they passed. I glared at her from the rooftop trying to get a sight on her face, but she was too far away. I casually walked to the stairs and trotted down to the street level and looked in the direction of the lamppost...
She was gone.
Just as this realization dawned on me a ship came up just on the other side of the fence and aimed its weapons at me. My eyes grew wide as I heard the weapons systems powering up. I immediately tore into a sprint across the square. The weapons ripped up the brick as easily as it was snow on a sidewalk. I dove through the window of one of the shops and lowered myself to as low of a profile as I could on the other side. I knew the ship design, somehow: a Raven's Talon. A popular ship used by Merc's, Freelancers, and many others. I concluded that I was currently being hunted by a Merc. I looked at the datapad and cursed myself. It was probably a setup, they sent that Merc to die so I could get his datapad to lure me here into the open.
The ship was more than likely shielded from any kind of projectile or hand blaster technology. There was no point in trying to shoot at it with what I had. My weapons would do nothing and a grenade would just bounce off the hull. I had to find another way to take it out before it took ME out. I slowly peeked around the corner to get a look at the square. The men and women had all but ran off, a few hadn't been so lucky and got caught in the cross fire, their bodies reduced to smoldering slag. Others were hiding behind objects left in the square.
The ship was hovering in the plaza now, its weapons targeting every angle possible. They were waiting for me to re-emerge. I ducked back into the store and hugged the left wall away from the door and climbed into the back. The shop owner was cowering in a corner, hiding his face.
"Please don't kill me!" he screamed "Take whatever you want!!"
"I don't want anything." I replied. "Do you know of anything that can take that ship out? Anything around your shop."
The man looked at me; he stopped shaking but still had his hands up in defense. "There's an old mech near here, it's been in operational for years though. It's two stores open in the old surplus store."
"That'll work, thank you." I said opening the back door to the shop and into the alley way behind the plaza. As soon as I did, I hear the ships engines raise the ship above the building and start moving towards the alley. S*** I thought, they're hacked into the city mainframe. They can see every move I make on the outdoors.
I sprinted two stores down to the surplus back entrance, shot the lock off the door, and ripped it open. The welcoming party wasn't as friendly as I thought it would be, though, I should have thought about this before opening the door. This was a military surplus store...the owners had weapons. As I opened the door I got a blast to the armor plating from a shotgun, knocking me all the way back out the door into the wall on the opposite side of the alley.
"Take that!" yelled the man, and I heard the shotgun reloading. I raised my assault rifle and pointed it at his face, turning off the safety. The whine of the energy charging up in the weapon broke the silence.
"I have in my hand a very powerful assault rifle; you have an outdated shotgun that I can probably take several more shots to the chest with. I'm not your enemy. I'm the one who is being hunted. Let me in before the find me. I am not your enemy."
The man looked down at his gun, to mine, to me, back to his gun, and then he lowered it.
"Alright." He said. "Hurry, get inside."
I got up and clambered through the door. The owner looked out real quick before shutting and locking the it.
"What'd you do?" he asked. "Hunters aren't normally this determined around Manhattan."
"Honestly, I don't know. I don't remember anything before yesterday. You have an old worn down mech in here?"
"Well, yeah, but it's been down for almost a decade, how are you planning on getting it working?"
I smiled.
"I'm not."
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
The mech powered on but didn't move from its spot on the floor. The heads up display continued to flash warning signs about hydraulics and errors in the software. Cursing, I managed to get one of the legs to move forward, and then the other...slowly I made my way towards the front of the store. The owner stood back in awe as I managed to make the mech move forward to the front of the store.
Shields were completely offline, but I had armor and I had some shielding from weapons fire, not a lot, but enough to take some damage from weapons fire. From what I could tell the targeting systems barely functioned. I would have to do come creative shooting to land some shots.
I forced the mech through the front of the shop, shattering the glass and wood. As soon as I crossed, there was no turning back. The ship turned to aim directly towards where I stood. As soon as it turned, I fired two EMP missiles from either side of the mech. They snaked their way up too quickly for him to hit countermeasures and the shields on the ship faded to nothing. I pushed the mech to its limits and ran away from the photon weapons fire that scarred the ground behind me as I ran. Two shots landed on the right leg of the mech and melted the metal, causing me to crash to the ground. As I fell, I turned and fired an antimatter burst of weapons fire at the ship, rupturing the mox tank. Just as I hit the ground, I fired one burst of ammo at the ship. The bullets passed the shields threshold just as they came back online and ignited the mox fuel. In a righteous explosion, the ship split in half and crashed to the ground.
The mech was, at this rate, completely toast and wasn't going to be getting back up any time soon. In the center of the square the ships remains burnt. I climbed out of the mech and limped over to the remains of the cockpit and busted out the glass but was met with a handgun that shot two bursts into my shoulder. I screamed and pain and fell back, rolling around the frame of the ship to protect me from any more weapons fire. The man climbed in the ship kicked out the canopy of the ship and moved quickly to the other side of the ship and spun around to my location just around the corner. I reacted quickly and ducked down low as he swung with the underside of his pistol attempting to knock me unconscious.
As I swung low, I delivered a shot to his groin and he grunted in pain as he fell back away from me. He brought up his pistol and tried to fire, but only got a click. He swore and threw the gun aside, coming at me with his bare hands. I smiled and knew I had the upper hand. He swung and I faded back dodging his swing. He came at me again and I snapped my left hand up grabbing his wrist and using his momentum against him, forcibly extending his arm and popping his elbow with the palm of my hand. It hyper extended and dislocated his arm. He screamed and leaned over. As he did I jumped up and kneed him in his kidney, dropping him to his good hand. I then punched him in the shoulder blade and caused him to fall the rest of the way to the ground.
"Who are you?!" I screamed. "Who do you work for?"
He gasped for air. "The same people you work for, idiot!"
I shook my head. "I work for no one."
"That's what you said last time, but they got you back all the same. They won't give up, Leo, I'm only the first of many..."
"Name them. Who are they?"
The man only started laughing. "They didn't give you any memories back...they left you a shell." he started laughing and soon began foaming at the mouth until he lay on the ground dead. I reached into his mouth and found a broken tooth with some kind of substance leaking out of it, more than likely some kind of suicide ploy.
Sirens sounded in the distance and I decided it was time to get the hell out of there. Shop owners were coming out of their buildings slowly to see if it was safe. They all looked to me questioningly as I limped away, pulling up my small hood and making myself as invisible as possible.
You fear oblivion. Yet you forget. The universe remembers every atom of your being. Even dust hums your name in the dark. Roleplay is dead. Long live Powertraders and PvP I guess.
