The Hunted (A companion to Battle at the White Abyss)

A Seaportian BlackOps team hunts down a group of Cortalan terrorists on the frozen, backwater planet of Kandalash.

The Hunted

Chapter One: Chaos Team

Cortal, birthplace of the human race.

Hundreds of countries living in peace.

Then began the Great Expansion, the sadistic empire of Cortal, named after their planet, began an aggressive campaign to annihilate their competition, the great country Seaport.

After conquering dozens of countries and drafting hundreds of millions of soldiers, they attacked. With over a billion warriors behind them and the belief God was with them, they overran Seaportian defenses through sheer numbers within days. Moving as quickly as possible, Seaport fled on a fleet of ships, escaping with faster-than-light engines and abandoning planet Cortal to its fate.

With the Seaportians, the only power capable of opposing the Cortalan soldiers, gone, the rest of the planet quickly followed, swallowed up by the growing armies of the sadistic nation.

Three hundred years later, Cortal was dying. Given advanced technology by the mysterious Ticki-Tickalie race, they built a powerful empire that stretched their solar system, crowding every planetary body with cities and stripping the asteroid belts to create massive fleets of ships. But with a corrupt and outdated government system, the planet was falling apart. The massive cities blanketing the world were killing it, soon it would not be able to support life.

In an attempt to help ensure their survival, they made an alliance with the Drish Command, a greedy alien race battling the Seaportian Confederation, which after fleeing Cortal had bloomed into a massive and powerful galactic government. Seaport, already hard pressed by the Drish, was alarmed by the possibility of fighting two different empires at once. So in a desperate attempt, an armada jumped out of JumpSpace just outside Cortal, and before anything could be done, set the atmosphere aflame with energy weapons. As the world burned below, the two massive fleets slaughtered each other in orbit. The Seaportians finally retreated after suffering and giving heavy casualties.

Almost all of the Cortalans died that day. The only survivors were a few hundred warships, and one hundred thousand colonists who had fled before the destruction, rebelling against their government and seeking a new life, free from oppression. However Seaport did not see them that way, they saw them as renegade super-soldiers and deemed them a massive threat which had to be exterminated. In the following months, Seaportian Special Forces hunter down and exterminated the colonists, one by one.

The planet Kandalash hung in space, a white marble hung by an invisible wire. It was a lovely sight, a brilliant white ball defying the eternal blackness of space, like a flashlight in a dark room. Likewise hanging as if by an invisible wire was the Cyroni, a small Seaportian ship. Hanging in low orbit, just skimming the outer reaches of the atmosphere, it blended into its environment, photo reactive paneling which adorned the ship’s hull shifted and melted, matching the colors of the surrounding environment like a giant bizarre form of chameleon.

Aboard the ship in full armour minus the helmets, were three soldiers. Dressed in black combat armour, Chaos Team stood. Chaos Team was an experiment, a new prototype of soldier that was being field tested in a battle to wipe out the Cortalan terrorists who had spread out far and wide after the destruction of their homeworld. So far, Chaos Team had performed very well, neutralizing and effectively destroying every colony they came into contact with.

Now they had one last challenge, one last task to perform, one last mission to win before they would be fully proven in combat. They stood around a hologram in front of them, armoured arms crossed over their shoulders. They were covered in the scale-like black armour from toes up, except for their heads. Their helmets were a few feet away, resting with their own weapons, ready to go. There was complete silence, the only sound was the gentle humming of the hologram projector. There was no movement except for the gentle rotation of the projected planet.

Then, one of them spoke, breaking the silence.

“So, that’s the target?” The one in the center with streaks of silver adorning his armour, replied without moving.

“Yep.”

“Rechels?”

“Yep.”

“Danger close?”

“Yep.” There was another moment of silence, before the same soldier asked again.

“So, what’s the whole deal on what we got here?” This time the leader broke his position, hanging his hands at his sides and turned his rather thick head to face his comrade as he answered.

“Yeah, I guess I’m allowed to tell you both now. Josaf, you better listen up too ok?” The other soldier likewise broke his posture and moved forward, leaning against the holograms meter-wide circular projector. His blue eye flickered with curiosity, though his mouth stayed silent. Seeing he had his audience, the leader started talking. “Ok guys, this is the stick here. We have a band of Cortalan terrorists, mainly a collection of ex-Rechel troopers and some farmers and other non-combatants. Mission as the same is always. Go in hard and fast, and blow them all away.” As the two troopers began to grin, the leader interjected once more before they could say a thing. “And guys, make sure to not go so heavy on the explosives, we don’t want a repeat of a Teratikalin.” He was referring to the colony hiding on the planet of Teratikalin, Chaos team had been too careless with high-explosives and as a result some very valuable computer intel was lost, intel which could have held the locations of dozens of other colonies.

Josaf grinned rather sheepishly in recollection of his error at the planet before whipping it off his face as he listened for more data from the leader. But the chatty trooper nicknamed Pyro, or Chaos 2, beat his leader to it.

“So, anything else we should know? You know, the little details like target strength, LZ and backup plan? Not that I’m concerned mind you.” He said with a sly smirk. The leader, Jancy or Chaos 1, rolled his eyes before getting onto the important stuff.

“Sure I guess we may need that stuff sooner or later, so here it is. We have estimated there are about ten Rechel troopers on the planet, plus one Tobis, so we need to be careful here.” At this news both Pyro and Josaf exchanged glances. Tobis’s were the best of Cortal’s, forces, the last one they’d fought nearly killed Jancy before being taken down. They didn’t like meeting them face-to-face and didn’t look forward to this future encounter. Jancy continued, oblivious to their concern. “Our landing zone is right here on the map, and our emergency evac ship is over here.” He zoomed in the map to a mile off the ground, showing nothing but an empty white.

The other two soldiers shot a suspicious look to Jancy, like he was telling a riddle. Pyro then demanded,

“What the daje is this? This ain’t a map, looks more like a piece of paper.” Jancy replied in earnest.

“Actually it is a map, a very detailed one. You see, I was just getting to this; the entire planet is covered with white fungus which drapes ‘but sixteen meters or so up. This fungus covers almost everything and whatever isn’t blocked from view by the hanging fungus is covered by ground-level fungus. Oh, and since this fungus contains high quantities of metal, the entire planet is a faraday cage. No electronic signals get in our out, unless you have a portable FTL space communicator.”

“Which we don’t.” Josaf pointed out, speaking for the first time. “We don’t have one, and if we can’t use our COM systems, how do we organize ourselves? How do we communicate?” Jancy tossed a small oblong device at Josaf who quickly snatched it out of the air. Pyro likewise received one and both began examining it before Jancy explained their purpose.

“Since we can’t use our normal COM systems, we use these. Implant them in the back of your helmets, they send lasers between each other, sending information. We have to be in line-of-sight with each other to operate them. They can go through gaps in the fungus so we have to be careful to keep each other in sight whenever we can.” Josaf nodded. It was a little tight, but they could probably manage, they had so before.

Jancy saw Pyro’s mouth open in question, but he quickly spoke first, quickly shutting his friend’s mouth. “Now, you’re also going to have to make sure that your suits sealed up nice and tight, since the planet is rather far from the sun, and the fungus blocks most sunlight at ground level, the temperature is around -70 degrees, give or take a few. Oh, and no energy weapons.” This time both mouths opened in objection, but again Jancy shut them both up. “I know, I know you’re disappointed, but we can’t. The fungus also produces lots and lots of oil which the locals use as fuel, making it very, very flammable so the last thing we’re gonna do is go around blazing away with weapons based on the concept of burning things, my as well take a flamethrower to an oil well! We’ll be using ARG-20’s, no grenades, and sanamantium combat knives. We’ll be using peratalin-cosalind armour piercing rounds for the ARG’s, that’ll punch through any Rechel or Tobis armour. Now, any questions?”

He scanned the small room, looking for the previously open mouths. He didn’t see any until Josaf stood and said,

“Well, let’s go.”

Author's Note

While this is a companion to my story Battle at the White Abyss, it's the same stroy from the other side's perspective, it is a bit different as yo may notice.