Telltale writings

[Thorondor]

After reading all the fanfic posted on this board (and nagging the authors some too ) I thought it only fitting to set myself up for a return clobbering.

 

This thread's initial purpose, though, is the storage of the bits of fanfic I've written over time at the official UFO: A boards. There isn't much of it to speak of, but I think this is a good place to collect them.

 

Each of the following three posts are "it".

 

::

 

And, maybe sometime in the future I'll find enough inspiration to add some new... Telltale writings

[Thorondor]

Test Case: 12185.1

Subject Matter: Tactical AI

Test Program: Aftermath Beta v0.01

Sensorial Feedback Type: Cortical

 

Screened transcript

:: Segment 1 ::

- Unavailable -

 

:: Segment 2 ::

"After the sound of the blast died off, and the glass shards had stopped their stinging spray, the blackness returned ominously. I had proven myself right in bringing the goggles with the rest of the load. Still, I couldn't believe we were well into the fifth hour, mission time.

 

At length, I caught wind of the distant tapping sound - running. Then a faint thud. Quickly, I exited the lounge area, and further on, spotted a bulky weapon abandoned on the floor. Then it hit me: last round, out of explosives, so he dumped the load for speed. Paused and hurriedly checked the clips. One full on the H&K, no replacements. Just this one more bastard and the nightmare would be over. Easy pickings.

 

Left here. Took the stairs. Where to now ?

 

Silence... Too many options. Think ahead ! Where was the wretch going ? Paused to consider it. Did he want to exit the building or was he going to play hide and seek. Something wasn't quite clicking.

 

Down; five flights of stairs to the main entrance, tight turn. At the last second, registered the corpse lying on the steps and jumped over it to avoid tripping. There were shots. He plummeted and stopped forcefully against the wall, in a heap, limbs awkwardly bent.

 

Careless mind. Dead body.

 

The camera held locked at the scene, but as if perched from above, at an angle. Colour fled the image, from the outskirts and then inwards, to the centre, like a ripple of stillness. And the sight lingered there, two, three seconds. Somehow this wasn't over ? A moment later, I understood. An alien donning a skin-deep black combat suit, came into view, arm extended to full length. Gazed upon the soldier's body for a while, and then let his limb swing downwards to rest limply alongside his torso.

 

Still in his grip, I noticed, was a human sub-machine gun. Fade to black."

 

- End of sensorial feedback -

[Thorondor]

:: Segment 1 ::

 

Location: Sydney, former Australia.

Time: 5:12 p.m.

 

It was the light that brought us in to investigate in the first place. The halogen lighting, scattered sparsely throughout, splayed the floor of the long basement; mocking in its sickening artificiality. The skyscraper had a generator of its own, it seemed.

 

The underground parking lot was damp and stale with darkened walls that hinted at a time of cars and exhaust pipes. Quick hand-signs were exchanged and we broke into a 3-3-1 standard deployment with Jimmy at the point, two out of each three watching the rear.

 

Probing the darker areas, the focused beams of weapon-mounted lights showed the pervading emptiness without reassurance. The ceiling lights flickered on and off intermittently, reluctant to bring clarity to a world long lost to shadows. The silence was suddenly broken as a reverberating humming started to rise all around, augmented by the acoustics of the place, bringing us to brisk, instant readiness. But it was just the ventilation coming online...

 

We were making steady progress, closing the access to the upper floor when the, now familiar, noise died off. The thing worked at timed intervals, we realised, but, nevertheless, the ensuing silence felt more oppressive than before. Trailing Jimmy at about 50 yards we didn't notice at first. It came, out of nowhere, where it hovered in waiting, and attached itself to the back of Jimmy's right thigh. An alien mine. He cried out upon impact and fell down to one knee, transfixed as he gazed blankly ahead. He knew what it was even without looking.

 

It hadn't gone off immediately, like the things used to do. Everybody froze where they stood. It just stayed there as the seconds dripped by: ten seconds... There was a change in Jimmy then, he seemed to relax, got up, and started limping erratically moving in the vicinity, doubling back at times. Nobody moved, even at such a puzzling sight. But the doubt insinuated itself seethingly. Fifteen seconds. Did it malfunction ? He continued through his motions until, at last, it dawned on us. Twenty seconds. Heavy silence. We stood at attention, right hands stiffened and bordering our temples in salute. Thirty seconds. He had come back down the stairs and stopped to look at us. Thirty three. Jimmy had cleared the path for us in his last seconds of life.

 

We all watched it, just like they had intended.

 

But now we had been tipped off: this was like a trip-wire warning. There were aliens in the building.

 

-- End of Transcript --

[Thorondor]

"UFO #0243", Part I

********************************************

 

Time: twenty three oh five

Place: Chinhook #0055

Crew: nine; Connor, Capland, IC, Jimmy, Junior, Klaus, Wong (+ Pilot, Co-Pilot)

Destination: UFO #0243 crash site

ETA: 13 minutes

 

Shooting stars would never be seen the same way again.

En route to the latest UFO crash site, that was the farthest thing from the minds of people in that helicopter. The unconscious was playing its tricks freely, just rimming the defenceless numbness of the body. Those moments of continuous vibration and repetitive sound were some of the best relief they ever got these days. Nobody could afford being awake. On the cockpit, pilot and co-pilot chatted the night away, amidst regular reports to and from base. Sometimes they switched to the regular band to listen to the real traffic. There was always too much going on and they didn't hang around for long. Signing on for special detail was the best thing they ever did. No more thirty six hour shifts, no more synthesised food, no more human carnage. And they got to cruise around with the elite. Most could only dream of putting aliens in the meat locker the way these people did. Knowing the ones who could do it was a privilege... but one they had to keep to themselves.

- ...south by Southwest. We'll be there in about thirteen flat, over...

- * static * ...

- ...roger that, Rubber Duck. You're clear. * static * Eagle's Nest out.

In this modified chopper there were no cockpit windows. A 270 degree computer screen showed everything the pilot needed to know by taking advantage of the most advanced airborne computer system and sensor array anywhere on Earth. The endless tree-line below was crispy clear; you wouldn't see better during the day if you poked your head out of the heli. Compared to the rag-tag instrumentation on most other air transports, this was as hand-picked a rig as there was. A tech geek's Nirvana.

The custom-made compartment on the back was specially designed by a hazmat team for the purpose of live alien containment; even if there wasn't a whole lot of a motivation to bring the filthy things alive. But, the orders came from the top and operatives only had to spare newcomers (never before seen aberrations).

Around the edges, the floor was littered with equipment of all sorts, from heavy weaponry to k-rations. Seven lockers held the combat suits and respective electronic and nano accessories, personalised to the point where no-one else could even put them on. Any new addition to the select outfit meant two things: someone had died or was on extended downtime, and, a new suit had to be tailor made - none of those was trivial.

Long, cushioned (!) benches, that ran along each of the sides of the craft, a latched on table, weapon racks, a large potable water deposit, air recycling equipment, a big touch-screen for briefings, geowatching, E-net access, and a small toilet room, were the other available commodities on board.

Wong was snoring lightly, his head angled backwards. It was peculiar how he managed to keep it from slipping to either side. To his right, sitting on a crate of ammo for extra height, bulky arms resting across his chest, Junior seemed to be muttering. Opposite to him, IC had an unusual, rather peaceful, expression while holding the (extra) long barrelled rifle as if hugging it, the weapon's butt standing atop the seat.

Barely visible in the dimmed light, a reptile perused the inside of Jimmy's open backpack. Had he been awake, an outburst of disgust would surely ensue, which, most certainly, Connor was only too glad to fuel. Klaus sank a bit more on his seat as his left leg twitched spasmodically, bringing his long hair cascading to his face. The only other occupant, Capland, made a slight wheezing sound then, but remained undisturbed.

- ...bank left 5 degrees. Auto-levelling, on...

* on-board computer voice, female *:

- * Confirmed. Banking left 5 degrees. Adjusting. *

- Zoom in on reference Omega

- * Zooming *

- Go stealth

- * Silent speed in 3 seconds, counter-measures activated *

- Maximum zoom

- * Maxing. Silent speed effective. *

- There it is...

- Scan for tracking

- * In progress *

- Looks hot, doesn't it ?

- Err... salvageable ?

- Maybe.

- * Completed. No tracking detected. *

- How nice of them. Maybe they lost main power.

- You wish...

- All right, time to shoo the Sandman and take the kids out to play.

On-board computer, Eva, was built entirely for natural language interfacing, but still accepted manual input and override through the touch-sensitive screen. A nice finishing touch was it's own graphical representation, a talking head with randomly changing hair style and the occasional (hacked) bubble-gum chewing. Of course, for a 100.000.000.000 teraflop/sec nano-processing speed, that was just icing on the cake. As far as Eva was concerned, though, the co-pilot was just the pilot's redundancy and backup system.

 

 

[to be continued...]