| Subject: Mars Assignment |
Author:
Grenade Man
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Date Posted: 12:35:04 06/05/01 Tue
Zero's perspective:
Saber Wolf and I took the ship I borrowed, and set in orbit around Mars. Mars had been settled by Reploids, mostly because humans needed specially conditioned living quarters, or EVAC suits to walk on the surface. Reploids don't breathe per se, but we do take in air as a means of cooling our internal systems. Coolant is applied internally, but the air intake helps also to vent the heat from our systems. It also makes us look decidedly more human, and I think it helps real humans to accept us to some extent. We appear less mechanical to them. Though I've never understood humans much myself, I have come to be friends with quite a few of them. The most famous, being Doctor Cain.
The shuttle was cleared, and we were able to find a place to land in a small outpost. Mars has an independant military garrison stationed in various colonies. Now, even though Reploids don't need to breathe, I still get a funny feeling everytime I walk around where there's no breatheable atmosphere. The gravity also feels different on Mars. Wolf got a bit disoriented, but seemed to recover, and even get used to it after only a short while.
Mars was to the eye, about as exciting as watching Duracreet harden. A barren red, windswept, boulder strewn plain that stretched out for miles in every direction. We were no closer to finding Sigma's base here than we were when we left Earth, but at least we were making progress. Sources indicated that the Mavericks had bored a chunk out of Olympus Mons, the highest mountain peak on Mars, but that was on the other side of the planet from where we landed. Off in the immediate horizon, small bubble domed structures dotted the landscape. A Reploid driver emerged from a small hover car. He was wearing what looked to be a breath mask, but no other protection.
"Hi, names Bolt.", he said though the mask. He was about as tall as X was, and looked very much like him, were it not for the fact that he was all yellow. The atmosphere made a dull red glow on his face, and body. He handed us breath masks.
"Don't try to speak until you put these on. Reploids are usually used to breathing Earth's atmosphere. Mars has an entirely diferent atmosphere. Lots of dust here, and if you breathe it in, it could corrode or break down your insides."
We accepted the masks, and put them on. "My name is Ze- Uh....Zeon." I said. I was reminded of an experimental prototype chip that had just been invented. Very unstable, and very expensive. I thought the better of using my real name, since I was something of a famous war hero on Earth. Wolf had talked me into donning my black camoflage. Wolf stepped forward to greet him. "My name's Wolf. Cyber Wolf."
His idea of an alias came from an insult Bolt Kraken threw at him over the comm-link.
We both knew that our names were not so clever that they wouldn't attract attention, in fact, we hoped that we wouldn't be here any longer than we needed, but for now, the cover would do. Bolt took us to one of the domes so we could rest. As he drove his hover car over the barren landscape, he asked us why we came to Mars. I was about to make something up, but Wolf stepped up with a convenient cover story. One that hit close to home. "We are here looking for mining rights to a certain piece of property. I have a claim to dispute, and my business partner here has decided to investigat the property, and the claim. That woked well enough. The driver bought the story, and allowed us from saying anything further. This wasn't the usual type of mission I'd gone on. Undercover Ops seemed to be a thing of the past, that was...until Double showed up some time ago. We were using the Mavericks own strategy against them. Stealth, and cunning!
The plan was simple enough. We needed to gather information about Maverick activity before we could strike. Wolf actually had been able to get some cargo to make our trip to Mars legit, and we were able to sell it for cash that we could use to buy for transit, and information. As a Hunter, I'd never done much detective work, I usually left that for the Recon teams. We'd been on Mars for two whole days, and managed to find out more than enough information. Most of it came from paying off the right people. Humans, though there wern't alot of them here, were very eager to indulge us with information about the Mavericks doings. One such man told us of how he escaped a Maverick raid on his colony. We took a third day to gether this information, and compare it with our previous findings. Our mission window was a week on Mars, and we needed a whole day to make our trip to the mountain where the base was. We also needed to make a fast getaway from the base, once the thing went up in flames, but our only means of escape was the shuttle we had brought down, and it would be a day's journey away by even the fastest hover car! We had more details to work out, but soon, the time would come to strike! (to be continued)
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