Bravo Unit

((This story technically begins in a previous thread called "Feyde to Black" . If you're not already familiar with that story, this one may leave you a little lost. Enjoy the reading!))

January 27, 29481
Omni-Trans

Feyde sits at a desk, his belongings piled in a box sitting in a corner. He rubs his hands together, a little nervous about the upcoming conversation. He was always better with battle tactics than conversational tactics. Letting out a small sigh, he tapped into his comm to speak with Mrs. Cross (aka Cylie), head of Human Resources and former Director of Omni-Trans.

Cylie answered her video comm, giving one of her newborns a bottle to feed on. "Hello, Feyde"

"Ma'am, do you have a moment to speak with me?" a little nervousness still in his voice. Omni-Trans had been his home for a while now, and he enjoyed the company of his fellow employees and respected them.

"Of course." she said.

Feyde took a deep breath. "Ma'am, with recent events regarding Red Freedom and the Dust Brigade, it has left me feeling somewhat useless in the bigger picture." He paused, thinking about what he'd just said. "That is... not to say that Omni-Trans or it's employees are in any way responsible for that... but ..." This wasn't getting any easier, and beating around the bush didn't seem to be working. "...ma'am, I've been offered a position within Omni-AF to lead one of their units and I think I may be usefull there."

Cylie was a bit surprised by the news. "Is that so... hrmm" She laid the baby down in his crib. "Well, that is a great opportunity for you. I think they could utilize your skills and knowledge much more than we can... although I must say you do a great job. You have been a tremendous help to me when I was in office as Director."

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I don't want to put Omni-Trans in harm's way by stepping down. Perhaps Blackice could take my position as head of security. Of course, that choice would be up to you." Blackice had been in Omni-Trans for longer than Feyde, and had additional respect from upper management there.

"I appreciate everything you have done for Omni Trans. And if this is what you want I'll support you 100%. Yes, Blackice will most likely take the position up."

Feyde hated leaving his new family, but he also understood a soldier's duty to respond to any threat from outside forces, so that his family could remain safe. "I appreciate your understanding, and I hope you will pass along this information to Mr. Mahoney. My decision has nothing to do with a failure on Omni-Trans' part or its employees."

"I will do that."

"Applicants have already begun signing up for this new unit, so... I've got some things I need to train them on, but if you ever need us for anything please just let me know." his mind wandering onto future business to attend to.

"Thank you, Feyde. I appreciate that. Same goes for you too. If you need anything, just let us know."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sure I'll take you up on that at some point." he chuckled.

Cylie giggled.

Feyde gave her a wave, and turned the comm off. He picked up the box from the corner and gave the view from his office one last look. He could see most of the field office facilities, with pilots and engineers hurrying back and forth with their duties. Guards around the perimeter methodically going about their patrols.

Feyde bowed his head a moment and closed his eyes tight. Change... you can't stop it. It seemed he just got settled here a short time ago. All you can do is adjust to the changes the best you know how. He took a deep breath as he opened his eyes, pulled his clearance pass out of his cloak pocket and dropped it on the desk. Box under his arm, he left the room closing the door behind him.

((Very nice little slice of life there :) ))

February 9, 29481
Omni-Entertainment, Rompa Bar

Feyde sat in a corner booth, scrolling through information in his datapad. The place was fairly quiet, with the exception of the music groove playing throughout the venue. It wasn't odd for the place to be quiet though, since it was merely mid-afternoon on a weekday and most people were still at their offices before they could enjoy some nightlife out on the town. Feyde paid little attention to the atmosphere though while going over some new, relatively unimportant information about the Shadowlands.

A shapely woman walked towards him out of the shadows of the dimly lit room, and into the light provided at the booth. "Hello, Feyde." She looked down at him with a smirk and removed her sunglasses.

"A little dark in here for sunglasses, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, you know me. I prefer a sense of style over function sometimes." She sat down in the booth, and slid around the table until she was fairly close to Feyde without looking overly involved with him. "Speaking of which... this place is a little swanky for your taste isn't it?"

"Function over form. Just a meeting place until I find somewhere more suitable for business. Good amount of seating, beverages, and music that's not blasting in your ears." He paused for a moment. "Glad you could make it."

"So what's up? I heard you're filling some new boots these days."

A waitress appeared, placing a glass of ice water in front of both of them... meeting their eyes briefly and then returning back towards the bar.

"Exactly what I wanted to speak with you about. Omni-AF has given me leadership of a new unit called Bravo Unit. We report directly to Lieutenant General Rosuma. Right now, the functioning unit has not been assigned but we're taking applicants and putting them through some training." Feyde handed her his datapad and showed her some of the plans displaying potential targets and training involved. "I know your work already, Tawane, and would welcome you to put in your application as well."

Tawane's actions turned attentive as she looked over the information from the datapad, realizing this was not intended to be any type of simple social call. "AF, huh? That's a nice step up." She looked up from the datapad at Feyde. "OT has offered me access to the Shadowlands as well, so I think that's going to set me back in my training for a bit. I may need to get my feet wet there before I can commit to something like that." Pausing "What kind of success are you having so far?"

"Applicants have been signing up since I began the recruiting process a couple of weeks ago. My recruiting datapad went on the blitz for about a week, so it wouldn't send any relevant information to OT. I had engineering look at the problem, and they've managed to get it operational again as of yesterday." He typed up information on his datapad, which responded with a personnel profile that he showed to Tawane. "This was one of our new applicants yesterday. He's a fixer by the name of Horne. Two days ago he was a neutral, but has since signed up as an OT employee and applied for Bravo Unit."

Her eyes returned to the datapad and looked over the applicants summary. "Wow... bringing interest even from the neutral community, eh? Do you think that's wise though... I mean... how do you know who you can trust?" She said, pushing the datapad across the table towards Feyde.

"Based on the information that I've seen, Horne is legit. Everything I've seen so far has led me to believe he's one of the more capable applicants we've received thus far. There's also a waiting period for all applicants, so it gives us time to weed out people who may not be right for Bravo Unit after all. Some of the others show potential as well, although I'm sure that further training will help get everyone on the same page." Feyde picked up the datapad and turned off the display.

Tawane took a sip of her water, looking down at the table. "It certainly sounds like it has potential, and you know I trust working with you." She took another sip of her water, scooted herself around to the end of the table and stood up. "Let me see how much work I need to do in the Shadowlands before I commit. I fully expect that I will apply though, when I feel ready enough to do so."

"Understood. I look forward to working with you again."

"Likewise." she stated. She put her sunglasses back on and walked into the shadows of the bar once again as she headed towards the exit.

February 10, 29481
Rome Green, Highrise 3

Faint morning light seeped through the seams between the window shade and the wall of the room. It wasn’t yet bright enough to show much of a difference between the blue tint of the cloudy morning and the dim lights of the apartment building a couple of streets away. Tawane lay comfortably asleep on her stomach, not yet aware of the existence of light outside of her dreamstate. Her arm draped over the side of the bed to the floor, her fingers nearly touching her throwing knives under the edge of the bed. Her skill with knives had never been great, but she was good enough to hit an intruder at least someplace… even if it hit him with the butt of the knife instead.

* BEEP * BEEP * BEEP * BEEP * Her wake-up alarm sounded, and she flinched at the break in the silence... and then rolled over in frustration at the interruption. The shades opened halfway to allow in some of the natural light, and the light in her bathroom turned on automatically. “Ugh… computer… remind me again why I’m waking up at this ungodly hour.”

“You said you were going to start cooking breakfast for yourself, ma’am.”

“Yeah, breakfast …not a midnight snack! Who in their right mind eats breakfast at o’six-hundred?” She rolled onto her stomach again, burying her head in her pillow and trying to block out any light from her eyes.

“People with day jobs, ma’am.” came the response.

She turned to look out the window. “Yeah, well aren’t we glad I don’t have one of those? Wouldn’t be able to enjoy the comforts of SLEEPING IN if I got paid what some of those blue-collar boys make at the office. Shut it down, and don’t even think about waking me up again until ten-thirty.” She pulled the covers over her bare skin as she rolled away from the window’s light, and made an effort to get comfortable again.

“…Ma’am?” the computer continued.

“What?!?” Tawane sighed loudly in frustration, looking up at the ceiling.

“Selincia called while you were asleep. She’d like to meet you at Reet’s Retreat this evening for some drinks and entertainment.”

“Well, let’s see… nothing to do this afternoon, and this evening… well… more nothing! Call her and tell her yes. I’ll call her later to setup a time.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The shades closed once again with a barely audible motor noise, and the light from the bathroom went off. Tawane’s thoughts about her friend, and their long history together, went from one tangent into another until her thoughts blended into dreams, and once again… silence.

Somewhere aboard an alien mothership...

Heavy automatic gunfire slightly deafens the two, before a couple of more aliens drop to the floor. The only thing that interrupts the seriousness of their work is the occassional chatter on Bravo Unit comm channel, as Nicklaus and Feyde continue further into the alien vessel.

[MrWortman]: Hello.
[Feyde]: Hello, Wortman.
[Nicklaus]: Hey.
[Mrwortman]: How is everyone?
[Omniguard07]: I'm dead.
[Mrwortman]: Did you ever defeat that Clan agent, Omniguard?
[Omniguard07]: Ya.
[Mrwortman]: Congratulations.

Feyde gives the two of them a healing buff, as well as rebuffs his nano capabilities for damage amplification and an attack booster. They enter the main room where the alien leader on the ship is, with one of his lackeys. "Same tactic?" Feyde inquires.

Nicklaus doesn't take his eyes off of the targets at the far side of the room. "Same as last time. You take the small one, I'll hit the big guy and don't stop firing till both of 'em are dead."

"Copy. I'm glad one of us has done this before. These alien ships are all new to me." Feyde raises his blaster and aims at the ensign. "Targeting Ensign - Ilari'Uri." The gunfire started again, and the ensign came running towards Feyde in response. The soldier fired a burst into the alien, and then turned full auto... emptying the rest of his clip at the alien. The alien returned fire as Feyde tried to dodge for what little cover there was available to reload. Feyde fired back until the alien could no longer stand on his own, and collapsed to the floor.

Horne, aka "Nicklaus", had already begun to engage what some referred to as the "Master of Time and Space" and was doing a good job of keeping him busy. Feyde joined in as soon as the ensign was down. "Looks like a cake walk from here. Should be done with this mission in no time." He continued to pelt the alien leader with energy ammo, and then saw a flash of light. The alien leader had transported Feyde to within a couple of feet of itself, and activated the alien defense system to assist with the fight.

"This can't be good." A little distance between a person and their target is always preferred, especially when firing multiple rounds of high-speed ammunition. Nose to nose gun battles didn't leave much room for error... if you wanna call that alien thing a nose. Feyde had lost sight of Nicklaus after he was transported up close and personal to the alien, but wasn't about to stop firing to find out his status until the area was secured. The alien began to beat Feyde with his limbs, creating radiation and chemical damage to Feyde's armor. Feyde threw in a couple of quick heal buffs, hoping that Nicklaus was benefiting from at least one of them if he was close enough to get it. No such luck.

"Alien Defense System forces your NCU to run Locked and Loaded..." his combat suit notified him. Feyde managed to add additional suppressive fire with Nicklaus, who he could hear somewhere not far from where he was. "Alien Defense System forces your NCU to run Locked and Loaded..." the suit repeated. At that point everything turned white in a barrage of fire attacks from the alien defense system.

...

A minute passed, and Feyde found himself standing near the insurance terminal in Biomare... feeling a little nauseous. He kneeled down on the ground, propping himself up with his weapon as he tried to steady himself.

Nicklaus came crackling over the comm link... "Holy hell, the entire ship exploded!" Notification came from OT HQ, "Mission accomplished. Good work."

Feyde chuckled a little, which turned into a cough as he tried to recover. "Hahaha... I guess we went out with a bang. Well that was definitely an interesting way to go. I've died plenty of times, but that was a first for me. Mission accomplished though, even if we did sacrifice ourselves." He could hear Nicklaus coughing over the comm as he tried to recover as well. "Well, I'm gonna get some R&R. Been good working with you, Horne."

"Likewise boss. Let me know if you need me." Nicklaus replied.

"Will do."

Just then, another voice came over Feyde's comm "Feyde, this is nurse Skerrit with Omni-Med."

"Go ahead, Skerrit."

"Feyde, I was told that I should contact you about this woman we have in ER. We don't have an ID on her at the moment; administration didn't seem very willing to help. All I can tell you is that we picked her up after a call from Reet's Retreat, and administration said I should speak with you. She was carrying a katana with her, not that it seemed to do her much good. She's in really bad shape." Skerrit said, trying not to sound too grave.

Feyde brought himself back to his feet, and regained his composure after the rezz sickness. "Copy that, Skerrit. I'm on my way."

February 11, 29481
3rd Floor, Room 348A
Omni-Med Facilities, Rome

Feyde walked slowly through the halls of Omni-Med, looking a little lost. He was still dressed in his full combat uniform, having just come off of an alien offensive with his second-in-command from Bravo Unit. He was carrying his helmet under his left arm, and his weapon in his right.

One of the nurses approached him. “Sir, you can’t bring that thing in here,” she said pointing at his weapon. “It’s against hospital regulations.”

“It’s ok, I’m with OTAF. I’m just looking for a friend.” he responded.

The nurse’s response seemed to change. “Are you Feyde?”

Feyde nodded.

“I’m nurse Skerrit. I spoke with you a little while ago on your comm. Your friend is this way.” She turned and began walking down the hall and around the corner as Feyde followed. “Your friend is in bad shape, Mr. Wolfgang.”

“Call me Feyde.” he interrupted.

“Feyde… right…” she glanced back at him, giving a half-smile not knowing if he was correcting some mistake she’d made or trying to make things more informal. He looked back at her with an all-business sternness, so she gathered that he wasn’t flirting with her. “Your friend here was brought in by another woman, but she wouldn’t give her name. Shoulder-length straight black hair, maybe 5’10… pretty lady. Ring any bells?”

Feyde had a pretty good idea of who she meant, but shook his head no in response.

“At any rate… she disappeared after your injured friend was taken into emergency, so we’re not even sure of this person’s name.” She pushed the door open to one of the rooms. It was fairly dark in the room, as the hospital had already turned down most of the lights for the evening.

Feyde stepped into the room, and his eyes adjusted quickly noticing two people in the room. The bed directly in front of the door held the person he was expecting, although a little harder to recognize with the swelling and hospital instruments connected to her. He glanced to the left and saw another opifex woman in the next bed closer to the window… also seemingly asleep, but in a lot better shape physically. He looked back at Skerrit and pointed at the opifex “Who’s that?”

“Just another patient. She arrived a few days ago, and is a mystery herself. She’s simply sharing this room because we’re a bit crowded at the moment.” Skerrit returned her attention to the one who they came to see. “This one has had some serious damage done to her. Best we can tell, she has multiple broken bones and blunt force trauma that would have killed most people instantly. This one has hung on so far, but her situation is critical and she may not last through the night. Can you tell me who she is?”

“No.” Feyde responded dryly. “I know who she is, and that’s all you need to know.”

“You’re about as helpful as Omni-Admin,” she said with a smile, which she choked down as soon as she realized Feyde wasn’t returning her amusement. “Right… um… we’ve been trying to determine if she has insurance because if she does her stay in the hospital could be significantly shortened if we removed our machines from assisting her. It’s difficult to track someone when you don’t know their name though.”

Feyde squeezed the patient’s hand a little. “I’ll take care of it. You just take care of her until I get an answer.”

Skerrit cleared her throat. “Yes sir. We’ll do our best.”

Feyde picked up his helmet and weapon again from the end of the bed, and headed out into the halls and eventually a more secluded area outside. He patched in his comm…. “Paul… I need you to patch into our database and see if you can find an insurance claim for one asian looking female solitus by the name of ‘Selincia’. I need to know if she has insurance ASAP.”

“Can do, mate. It may take me a little bit though. There was some sort of glitch in the system, and I’m still trying to…. OW! Bloody hell!… sorry… I’m still trying to figure out where the problem is. Seems there might be a hardware problem, so that’s what I’m checking right now. I can call you back soon though once we boot up again. OW!… bye.” Vandrico replied.

Feyde tapped his comm. again and a droid picked up the call. “Where’s Tawane?”

“May I ask who’s calling please?”

“This is Feyde, dammit… answer the question.”

“Hello, Feyde. I didn’t know your last name before. I’ll make a note of that, Mr. Dammit. Tawane was here very early this morning, but seemed rather distraught and picked up a few of her things. She left shortly thereafter. She said she’d contact me soon, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

“If you hear from her soon, I need to speak with her like yesterday.”

“Sir, pardon me… but how can you speak with her yesterday when it’s already tod..” Feyde hung up before the droid could finish his question.

Feb 12, 29481
3rd Floor, Room 348A
Omni-Med Facilities, Rome

Feyde sat near Selincia’s bed, keeping an eye on her. Out the window the suns were beginning to set in the south, and Feyde wondered how she’d do tonight. She’d had a rough time the night before and didn’t appear to be getting any better. Two guards were posted just outside the door, to keep any unauthorized people from entering and possibly finishing the job that they had started that put Selincia in this bed to begin with.

He sat in the corner of the room going over the workload from the day, when Selincia’s heart monitor skipped a beat or two. When it did, the opifex in the other bed shifted a little. Feyde got up from his chair, pulling a scanning device out of one of his pockets as he neared the mysterious woman. Maybe a facial recognition scan could pull up something from the OTAF computers…

Quote:

---

Breed: Opifex
Sex: Female
Age: Unknown
First Name: Unknown
Last Name: Crisralla
Handle: Unknown
Affiliation: Omni-Tek
Assignment: Unknown

---

“What are you doing?” Skerrit said as she entered the room. “What is that thing?”

“Facial recognition.” he said as he put the device back into his pocket. At least now he knew this opifex roommate was not a threat to Selincia. “Your friend here appears to be named ‘Crisralla’. Works for OT.”

“How do you know that?” Skerrit moved around Feyde in a protective manner to tuck her patient back in much the same way a mother would tuck in her child.

“I’ve got access to some things your computers don’t.” Feyde smirked.

“Well… regardless of whomever she may be, there’s little we can do for her at the moment except keep her body going. She seems in perfect health now, but we’ve gotten no response or movement from her since she arrived. It’s almost as if someone had just removed the lifeforce from her, and she just needs it to come back. I find it highly unlikely anything like that would happen, but if it did she might be up and about as soon as she got her muscles stretched again.”

Feyde was about to respond when he got a call on his comm. Vandrico's voice could be heard on the other end. “It’s Paul. I wanted to let you know that I’ve found Selincia’s insurance policy in the system. She last insured in Hope about a week ago.” Feyde looked at Skerrit, and then back at Selincia. “Feyde, you should know that insurance terminal in Hope is the one that’s fouled up. I’ve been working on it since yesterday and just about have it back to normal, but the machine looks like it was sabotaged at some point and I’m not really sure what they did yet. I’m hoping to have it up and running correctly soon.”

“Copy that, Paul.” Feyde tapped his comm. to disconnect and then looked at Skerrit. “She does have insurance,” he said pointing at Selincia “but there may be a problem. Do what you can for her to keep her going until we get it figured out. Hopefully it won’t take much longer.” He picked up his weapon and helmet from the corner next to the chair he’d been using. “I’ve got to head back to the office, so if you need anything you know where to find me.”

Skerrit nodded. “Thanks for the help with Cris… um… what’d you say her name was again?”

“Crisralla”

“Right. Thanks for the help with her.”

Feyde gave her a brief smile and headed out the door and down the hall.

Feb 18, 29481
Rome Green, Highrise 3

“…obviously trying to do was to sabotage the insurance policies of certain OT people, but they did such a bloody poor job at it that it could have done anything from from change what person is associated with what insurance policy, to putting that person in a totally different insurance terminal! To be frank with you Bastian, I don’t know if we’ll ever find out what problems it caused unless people file complaints about something that didn’t work like it was supposed to. But it’s working like it’s supposed to again, I can tell you that much.” Vandrico had been working hard the past few days at correcting a problem with one of the insurance terminals in Hope. The majority of it had been fixed days ago, but he had just put the finishing touches on repairing the machine and was giving his final report to Feyde. Although sabotage was not what you’d call a common occurance, certain basic attempts would be corrected by the safeguard system before any problems were ever noticed. Occassionally a good hacker would get into the system and really create a large problem, but they were still systematic about it. In this particular case, it might’ve made more sense if somebody had just taken an I-beam to the machine… but that didn’t appear to be what happened.

Normally Vandrico wouldn’t call Feyde about an engineering issue, but since Feyde had contacted him a few days ago about this particular machine Vandrico was trying to be thorough in his final report. Selincia… Feyde didn’t know her for long, and had only worked with her on a handful of occasions… but he had grown to respect the lady’s willpower and was one of the neutrals Feyde was proud to know. Her body was laid to rest the day prior. It was a bit difficult for him because it’s not something you saw much anymore, especially from the younger generation. At this point, insurance was affordable to most anyone and so the few that actually did die were often people that were up there in years and their bodies just couldn’t support life anymore. The hospital had done everything they could, but in the end it was up to her insurance… which didn’t appear to help her after somebody worked over that particular insurance terminal.

It wasn’t long after Selincias body was taken from the hospital for burial preparations that her roommate there also vacated. Skerrit had called Feyde in a frantic tone. He didn't know who it was right off, because she first said it was Squiggz, and then corrected herself saying it was Nurse Skerrit. She wanted to know what if he’d seen “Crisra” when he’d come in earlier. He’d had a short chuckle at her expense, talking about how they couldn’t keep track of a patient that was unconscious and such…and asked if maybe one of the other doctors moved her to a different room or something. Skerrit couldn’t find any paperwork that said her patient was moved, transferred, or even discharged… so in the end Feyde sent a couple of men back to the hospital to see if they could turn up with anything.

His office was fairly dark, with just the desk lamp providing light in the room as he wrapped things up for the evening. Feyde was about to call Tawane’s apartment yet again to see if the droid had heard anything from her, when his office door opened and there she stood. He leaned back in his chair as she slowly entered the room, picked up a datapad off of his desk, punched a couple of things in and then signed it. She held it out across his desk for him to take it “Sign me up.” She looked as fresh and relaxed as she always did. Her voice didn’t even waver, but the tears in her eyes gave her away.

“Tawane… I’m glad to see you of course, but maybe you need some time t…” he didn’t even finish his sentence before she interrupted.

“Sign me up, dammit!”

He stopped… sighed… leaned forward in his chair as he took the pad from her, and authorized the application. She went to the couch across the room and sat down, putting her head in her hands. He watched her for a second before his comm. chimed again and he answered.

“Sir, we’ve looked in every corner of the hospital and followed every lead regarding that opifex lady.” Feyde continued to listen to the call as he got up and pulled a couple of beers from the fridge. “Skerrit said the only thing unusual she noticed at the time of her disappearance was that the window was open. There’s no way anyone could’ve gotten in or out that way though sir. There’s no fire escape out there… only a four-story drop to the ground and a couple of small pipes leading to the roof.”

Feyde walked a little slower back to Tawane and handed her one of the beers. “Say again, Private.”

“Er.. uh.. I said there’s no fire escape sir?”

“Right.” Feyde tucked his head down a little as he absorbed the information. “Wrap up anything else you need to do there and then return to base. Feyde, out.” He turned off his comm. and sat down on the couch across the table from Tawane. They tapped the necks of the beer bottles together in typical “Cheers” fashion. He stopped her before they took a swig. “I propose a toast…”

Tawane looked up at him, a slightly confused look on her face. “What are we toasting?”

Feyde paused… and looked her in the eyes. He smirked a little, and said… “… to the great escape.”

((This is the end of this story. Looking back on it, I should've named it something different but I can't change that once it's already out there. I'll make an attempt in the future to write my stories in full before posting any of it.

If the story didn't make sense to you, it's probably because you're not familiar with some of the backstory previous to this thread. It technically starts in "Feyde to Black" and continues here in "Bravo Unit."

Feel free to leave any comments and thanks for reading.))

((Bump.

This is Part 2 of the Feyde storyline. Part 1 was entitled "Feyde to Black". The next installment called "Live by the Sword..." will begin March 3, 2008! All three parts are related to each other, so it'll be easier to follow if you know the previous storylines.

I welcome any comments here on the storylines. Thanks for taking the time, and I hope you enjoy the reading!))