But do not read this if you have just finshed eatting.
Trust me on that LT.Hit-Man’s Journal Honor Bound 2
Death Reawakened
LT.HIT-MAN strode into the thick of the battle, tossing Fed
defenders left and right with both the Force and his mighty strength,
in some cases actually snapping bones and dismembering limbs. Finally,
he came to the holding cells where the Imperial prisoners were being
held. Igniting his light saber, he thrust it through the control panel,
short- circuiting command pathways and energy conduits and dropping the
field around the cells. The prisoners poured out, taking weapons from
dead or dying defenders, and blasted their way out along with LT.HIT-
MAN.
"I want this area secured now!" LT.HIT-MAN yelled to a
stormtrooper on his right as he cut down a Federation security officer
with his crackling black light saber as the Imperial ground forces over
ran the Federation prison complex. He wanted the complex as a new base
of operations for the occupation forces that would put Bajor under the
boots of the Empire once and for all.
"Damn, this is the most fun I have had in the last few years,"
LT.HIT- MAN thought to himself as he ducked out of the way of a phaser
blast that would have turned him into ashes had he been a second
slower. Then he used a force leap to catapult himself into the middle
of a group of Fed and Bajoran troops. As they got over the shock of
seeing him fly almost fifteen meters into the air and land on a Bajoran
and crushing her skull, he lashed out with his light saber in a
blindingly fast three- sixty spin that cleaved six of the twelve in
half.
"Now if I live though this it be even more fun." LT.HIT-MAN
thought as he jump up into a spinning round house kick that knocked the Fed
ground pounder's head clean off as his armored cybernetic foot slammed
into the Fed's face.
Once he had finished off the last of the group that he dropped in
on there was a low whistling scream that grew louder with each passing
second.
"INCOMING!" someone yelled over the tac-net before there was a
low rumble followed by a flash of flames that slagged fifteen good men.
"Re-" a panicking stormtrooper was starting to call for the
ground forces to fall back but he was forever silenced by a blaster
bolt to the back of his head from LT.HIT-MAN's E-11.
"No one quits, no one runs. Is that understood?" LT.HIT-MAN said
over the tac-net as he stood over the headless stormtrooper, heedless of
the criss-crossing of blaster bolts and phaser fire that sought to end
someone's life.
The rest of the stormtroopers that had seen the battlefield
execution of the luckless stormtrooper nodded their heads, regretting
the day they were born.
"Give me cover fire at the ridge." LT.HIT-MAN yelled, pointing to
a spot on the ridge line that ringed the gully battlefield that they
were +in. He had used the zoom option on his cybernetic eye to find the
mortar that the Feds had been setting up and saw that it was one of
theirs that had been stolen when the Feds retook Bajor.
Without another word, LT.HIT-MAN started running towards the
ridge line as the firefight became a storm of blaster bolts, phasers and
heavy weapons fire.
"Hey, who the fuck is that?" Ensign Jones yelled as he saw one of
the stormtroopers start running towards the cave where he and the few
other Federation personnel, along with forty Bajorans, had set up their
base when the Empire had returned.
"How the hell should I know? Maybe we should lay down our weapons
and invite whoever that is up there for some spring wine and hasperat,"
Olvora Tesan spat as she heaved her captured E-11 to her shoulder to
pick off the lone stormtrooper who was heading their way.
Jones muttered something under his breath as he put his phaser
rifle to his should and began to fire. He hated the Empire's weapons,
even though they where better then the Federation weapons; they were
far too messy. The sight of someone with their guts blasted out of them
made him sick; at least with a Federation phaser when you killed
someone they where vaporized, nice, neat and clean, the way a war
should be fought.
"Hey, where the hell did he go? " Grom Devnruck yelled as he
started to fire blindly at the spot where the lone stormtrooper had
been a few seconds ago. "Don't worry, he's in for a nasty surprise,"
Olvroa said as a cold smile crept across her scarred face. Jones saw
that smile and he was chilled to the bone. There was a loud explosion.
LT.HIT-MAN was running as fast as the Force-boosted speed would
let him as the defenders in the cave on the ridge tried to nail him in
a cross fire.
He was a good ten feet away from the edge of the ridge when he
felt a disturbance in the Force; a mental image of him being ripped in
two. "OH KRIFF!" he thought as he realized that the resistance had set
up a minefield around the ridge and that he was moving too fast to
stop.
There was only one thing he could do. He jumped, but he was
caught in the edge of the blast radius of the proximity mine and
slammed into the ridge wall with a sickening thud and it was lights
out.
"LT.HIT-MAN is down, I repeat: LT.HIT-MAN is down," was the call
over the tac-net. Sergeant Holdar looked out over the battlefield and
saw that there was no way for the ground forces to get anywhere near
the cave on the ridge as mortar fire started to rain down on them like
a monsoon. "Fall back," Sergeant Holdar ordered as he ducked to avoid
having his head taken off by the E-web that the resistance forces had
set up along with the mortar.
"What about the LT.? " A stormtrooper asked as he let off a burst
from his E-11. Sergeant Holdar took one last look at the crumpled form
that was once LT.HIT-MAN, heaped up on the edge of the ridge wall.
"Forget it, he's gone." Even though none of the ground forces really
cared about LT.HIT-MAN, they respected him. He would not have them do
anything that he was not willing to do himself and he had always been
in the thick of the fighting instead of sitting back and ordering them
to march out to their deaths while he played it safe.
"We'll be back." Sergeant Holdar said over the tac-net as he
choked down his rage and within a few minutes what was left of the
Imperial ground forces retreated to the prison complex that was now
serving as a forward command post.
-----
On Coruscant, the Emperor was attending to matters of the Empire
when he stopped talking and just sat still. The courtiers that where
there felt the icy cold hand of fear; never had there master acted like
this and when he told them to leave they just stood there for a few
seconds in shock.
When the Emperor told them to leave a second time, there was no mistaking
the malevolence in his voice and the ran for there lives.
After they where gone Palpatine reached out with the Force to see
what had caused the disturbance in the Force that had hit him like a
slap in the face.
-----
Grand Admiral Lowe was reading over his reports on the campaign
in Federation space and all was going well, but there were some minor
logistical problems that had to be attended to. "I hate paper work," he
thought as he started to read over another data pad as a scared comm
officer walked up to his bridge station.
"There's a message on the holonet for you, sir, " the comm
officer told him
"Tell who ever it is to call back later. I have a battle to run,"
Grand Admiral Lowe spat at the comm officer as his headache started to
flare up. The comm officer had a look on his face like some had kicked
him in the nuts. "B-B-B-but it's the Emperor, and he demands that you
make contact with him," the comm officer stammered, wishing he were
someplace else.
For a moment there was dead silence on the bridge, suddenly
broken by the sound of the data pads hitting the floor.
"Oh hell! " Lowe thought to himself. He had barely gotten away
with his life after the Emperor had called him out last time and when
the Emperor called for someone it was usually lights out for that poor
son of a bitch; namely, the Emperor using the Force to fry the said
s.o.b. or he would have Vader come and deal with that person. Either
way, this was not going to be pleasant.
"What is thy bidding, my master," Lowe said as he knelt before
the floating head of the Emperor and took all of his will power to keep
his fear from spilling over into his voice.
"There has been a disturbance in the Force. You will take Bajor
intact; no base-delta-zero operations, no biological weapons, and no
heavy weaponry. Just light ground forces," The Emperor ordered, and
waited for Lowe to reply, enjoying the sweet scent of fear that was
radiating off of Lowe like the light of a sun.
"Yes, my master, it will be done," Lowe said, wondering what had
brought his Bajoran campaign to the Emperor's attention, and he
summoned up all of his rage and asked the Emperor why he wanted Bajor
taken with the use of minimal force.
"Because I said so. Do not fail me this time; I want that planet,
not excuses," was the Emperor's last words before his image faded into
nothingness.
Grand Admiral Lowe got up and leaned against the wall. He felt
like he was going to puke, but he took a few minutes to compose himself
before he walked out to the bridge. He saw the same comm officer who
had told him that the Emperor was calling standing there with a data
pad in his hand and strange look of fear and sadness in his eyes.
"Now what!" Grand Admiral Lowe snarled and waited for the comm
officer to speak up, but the comm officer just handed him the data pad
and waited.
Grand Admiral Lowe read it and then he slowly looked up at the
comm officer with a stunned look in his eyes. "Get Lt. Colonel Tierce
on the line now, or you'll be chewing vacuum, understood?!"
The comm officer did not waste any time with words and within a
few agonizingly long minutes he had Lt. Colonel Tierce on the line.
"Lt. Colonel Tierce. You are hereby refrained from the use of any
chemical or biological weapons. AT-ATs and heavy weapons are similarly
banned. You are hereby ordered to use light ground forces only. Is that
understood?" Lowe snapped.
"Excuse me sir?" Tierce replied incredulously. "Are you on spice
or something? Did you just say that Bajor was to be taken by light
ground forces? No AT-ATs, chem or bio weapons?" Lt.Colonel Tierce was
shocked.
After all, Bajor was just some backwater world on the ass end
of Federation space, so what would be the big deal if he blasted the
planet a few times to bring the fighting to an end? These orders where
just plain stupid.
Lowe just stood there for a few shocked seconds, then lost it on
Tierce. "You listen to me, I just got a call for the EMPEROR for
kriff's sakes! If you screw up on this I will personal shoot you; no,
on second thought, I'll have you stripped naked and hog tied and I'll
put a bow on your head and deliver you to the Emperor personally! Is
that understood?!" Lowe thundered and the bridge crew of the Baron
started praying that Grand Admiral Lowe would pay them no mind as they
worked at their tasks.
Lt. Colonel Tierce let out a fearful gasp when he heard that it
was the Emperor who had given the outlandish orders. When he heard what
Lowe had planned for him if the Sith hit the fan, he knew that he only
had a few seconds to live. "ALL GUNNERY CREWS STAND DOWN! I REPEAT
STAND DOWN FOR KRIFF'S SAKE!" Tierce screamed into the comm system,
hoping that he orders got out in time.
A few tense minutes passed before all gunnery stations reported
that they where standing by. Tierce let out a ragged and relieved
breath and when he felt that he could speak without his voice
trembling, he got back the line with Lowe. "OK, I have the gunnery
crews standing by; I'll get a hold of you on the private line," Tierce
told Lowe as he walked to the ready room.
Grand Admiral Lowe was sitting in his own ready room having
himself a drink; the call from the Emperor had really rattled him. But
when he called Tierce and told him of his new orders, he had seen the
look of total panic for a few brief seconds before he got it under
control. Knowing that he wanted to talk to him in private confirmed his
suspicions that Tierce was about to lay down some serious weaponry on
Bajor.
"I'm getting to old for this shit," Lowe thought to himself as he
considered taking an early retirement as soon as he could. There was a
ping from his comm panel and with a trembling hand Lowe opened the link
and saw Tierce with a glass of something that looked like Corellian
brandy, the fear on his face gone but replaced by a somber look. "How
close?" Lowe asked as he took a slug from his drink.
Tierce took a shot from his drink and told him that they had just
finished calculating the firing solution to take out a heavily
fortified resistance stronghold when the call had come in and informed
him of the Emperor's wishes. Lowe let out a low whistle. "You know
what, as soon as we're done here, I'm retiring. I've had enough of
this," he said to Tierce who just nodded his head knowingly. "I have
some news from the Bajoran front," Tierce said as he finished his
drink.
"What now?" Lowe said as he finished his drink and poured himself
another. From the blank look on Tierce's face, he decided to make it a
strong one.
"It is my sad duty to inform you that, as of 1830 Imperial
standard hours, LT.HIT-MAN was killed in the line of duty," Tierce told
him in a cold blank voice, to match the cold blank look on his face.
"What?" Lowe said as his mind locked up on him; only when he felt
the wetness of the Gromorling moonshine spill over his hand as he
overfilled his tall glass did he snap back to reality. "H-H how did it
happen?" Lowe asked in a husky voice as he cleaned up the spilled
hooch.
Tierce finished pouring himself another drink and took a long
look at his glass before he replied. "It was confirmed, by multiple
witnesses, that LT.HIT-MAN was killed by a proximity mine while
storming a heavily fortified resistance stronghold that was bombarding
our forces as he was leading the rescue effort to free our captured
personnel."
Lowe felt strange. He was glad that LT.HIT-MAN was gone; quite
frankly, he had been terrified of the loony Lieutenant and his gift of
Ezri to him to vent off some steam seemed to have failed. He had been
informed of LT.HIT-MAN's actions after he and Ezri had returned to his
quarters.
Yet he felt as if something vital had been lost, and a strange
feeling of guilt washed over him. He had sent LT.HIT-MAN on the mission
to retake Bajor to get him off of his ship after he had found out what
LT.HIT-MAN had done to the comm officer, and he quickly crushed that
feeling down but it would not leave him.
After a long silence Lowe asked Tierce what the status of the
Bajoran campaign was as he downed his drink.
"Our forces are holed up in the prison complex and they are
waiting for orders. Resistance has died off; it seems to be a
stalemate," Tierce told him as he started to take a long pull at his
drink as well.
"What's the morale of our forces on Bajor?" Lowe asked as he
started to think up of a plan to take Bajor once and for all.
Tierce had a look on his face like someone had jammed a lemon in
his mouth and forced his jaw shut on it. "Troop morale is low; we've
take a lot of losses to enemy ground fire. It looks like the resistance
force got a hold of some of our support weapons and have set themselves
in a cave system on a ridge line overlooking the prison complex. They
have not yet shelled the complex as it is out of range of their
weapons."
"Kriff! This is all we need," Lowe said to Tierce, who looked
like he had something else to say... something that was not going to be
pleasant. "What's on your mind, Tierce?" Lowe asked as he killed the
bottle, Tierce doing likewise.
"Do you think the Emperor knows that LT.HIT-MAN has bought the
farm?" Tierce asked as he sat back in his chair trying to relax.
That question woke Lowe up from his deep thoughts with a nasty
start. "I hope the hell not. If so, I think we're in for a world of
hurt."
The rumor mill had it that LT.HIT-MAN, Vader and the Emperor were
friends, with the Emperor as the master and Vader and LT.HIT-MAN as his
pet attack dogs. If the Emperor was annoyed that one of his favorite
pets had been killed, then they had good reason to fear for their
lives. An annoyed Emperor was a death sentence. That much was known for
sure and Lowe shuddered with fear as the image of an angry Emperor came
to mind.
"If that's true, and the Emperor is angry, may the Force help us
all," Lowe said as he killed the com link. The look on Tierce's face
sent him into a deep sea of dread as he sat back and began to think of
a way to end this mess and save his ass as well.
-----
Trooper Drzic, operating number TYK-34528, was looking over the
wounded stormtroopers that had gotten bushwhacked by the Feds, and he
felt like his world was coming apart. He walked over to one trooper who
had his armor fused to his skin by the heat from the trilthane warheads
that were in the mortar shells dropped by the Feds. He was not expected
to live for very long, but there was no way they could remove the armor
to get at the fragments that where buried deep within his guts without
ripping all of his flesh away.
"Kriff. Where's LT.HIT-MAN when you need him?" Drzic muttered to
himself as he walked past the rows of dead and dying Troopers.
"Ain't you heard?" A trooper who had his leg shoot off said to
him as he fought off the pain and sat up to speak to him.
"Heard what?" Drzic said to the one legged trooper as he sat down
beside him.
The maimed trooped leaned back against the wall and Drzic handed
him his canteen. After the trooper took a long pull from it, he said to
Drzic, "LT.HIT-MAN got wasted by a proxy mine." Drzic felt as if
someone had shot him in the guts as despair ravaged his soul. "What?"
he rasped as he finished taking a swig from his canteen and the hooch
that was in it burned it's way down his parched throat.
"He was charging the resistance stronghold on the ridge where the
resistance had set up a mortar and an E-web that they stole from us,"
the trooper said as he lit up a smoke.
"Aw hell, why did he go and do that for?" Drzic asked as he got a
smoke from the trooper
"We were getting wasted out there and one trooper was going to
call for a retreat, but good old LT.HIT-MAN shot him down like the dog
he was. Then he ordered us to lay down some cover fire while he took
out the stronghold," trooper Davion, operating number BK-9071 said as
he fought off the pain to finish what he had to say.
Drzic took out his E-11 and just looked at it. A lot of good
friends got toasted trying to retake this Sith forsaken world and now
LT.HIT-MAN, the guy who had saved his sorry ass when he and his unit
got bushwhacked by the rebel scum on Bogar XII, was gone and he wanted
to end it all.
Trooper Davion saw what was going through the troop's mind and he
reached out and took the E-11 away from him. "Don't do it. Don't give
in. Save it for the scumbags out there," he hissed, half in pain and
half in rage and quickly added, "As soon as I can I'm going out there
and I'm going to make each and every one of those assholes pay. I owe
that much to LT.HIT-MAN."
Drzic was surprised that this trooper had served with LT.HIT-MAN
as well; Davion told him stories of how the Lieutenant had came in and
wiped out the Rebels that had pinned his unit down in a bombed-out
office building on Yorta IV. "Man, the way he butchered them with that
light saber of his..." he reminisced.
Drzic had a wan smile on his haggard face as he nodded his head.
LT.HIT- MAN had scared the shit out of him but he had always brought
them home. It was a well know fact that if you had to work with LT.HIT-
MAN you just might end up getting dead, seeing as how LT.HIT-MAN always
got the hardest missions, and he'd more than likely kill you than look
at you. But, he always made sure that no one got left behind and he was
always there for his men when the shit hit the fan.
After a few minutes, Davion closed his eyes as the drugs the med
droid pumped him full with started to work its mojo on him, leaving
Drzic alone with his thoughts. He looked out a blasted-out hole in the
wall at the ridge where LT.HIT-MAN bought the farm. "You will be
avenged, you miserable old bastard," Drzic swore as he stared talking with
some of the other troopers. Within about ten minutes, forty troopers
grabbed their gear and made there way to the ridge line, even though
they had been ordered to sit tight by the brass asses.
-----
Ensign Jones was out with about sixty other resistance personnel
who where looting the bodies out in the blood bowl, the aptly named
valley where the fighting had taken place. They were getting low on
supplies so it was necessary to rob the dead for their gear; like they
were going to need it anytime soon.
Jones saw a stormtrooper crumpled along the ridge wall, his armor
cracked and splintered along the back and legs and the body oozing
blood from numerous punctures, lacerations and other injuries. "I'm
glad you're dead, you son of a bitch," he snarled as he saw that the
trooper had stepped on a mine they had set up around the ridge; but
there was something that was sitting right with him. The body should
have been more mangled then it was.
Jones kicked the body in a fit rage and fear. He wanted to be
sure that this stormtrooper was dead but when his foot slammed into the
smashed ribs of the messed up stormtrooper there was a low moan from
the stormtrooper and Jones jumped back from the prone form.
"He's dead, so quit fucking around and grab his stuff," a
Federation lieutenant said as he came over to see why Jones was
pointing his phaser rifle at the dead stormtrooper.
"Umm, sir, I don't think this stormtrooper's quite dead yet," he
said, and to prove the point Jones kicked the semi-living trooper and
this time the trooper let out a loud gasp as a few more of his ribs
snapped. "OK, back off, let me looked this trooper over," the Starfleet
Lieutenant told Jones, who was itching to vape the downed trooper. He
backed off as the Lieutenant started to take some readings with his
tricorder, but Jones kept his phaser rifle pointed at the stormtrooper.
The Lieutenant looked from the fallen stormtrooper with a wicked
grin that set Jones's nerves on edge. "Help get this stormtrooper off
the ground; it looks like we have a POW," the Lieutenant said as he
picked up a strange cylinder that was in the stormtrooper's hand,
grabbing a burnt arm and yanking him to his feet.
Jones slung his phaser rifle over his shoulder and put the
stormtrooper's other arm over his shoulder, and together the Lieutenant
and Jones dragged the wounded stormtrooper back to their base in the
heart of the caves the resistance was holed up in. Each of them vowed
that when they finished questioning the stormtrooper he was going to
wish he had never been born.
-----
Ezri was scratching at her nipples. The material that the bra
that LT.HIT-MAN had given her was making her itch like crazy but the
rest of her new Imperial uniform wasn't, and for that she was thankful.
After LT.HIT-MAN had come back from the training mission on Travlieshan 7
he found Ezri sitting on her cot, her naked body wrapped in a heavy blanket
and her mind and soul wrapped in a heaver cloak of despair and fear.
LT.Hit-Man drank deeply of the self loathing that Ezri was feeling as she put
on the uniform of the enemy.
It was that or spend the rest of days clad only in the cold air of the
_Baron_ and the leering gaze of all who saw her.
After he had given her the uniform he handed her a stack
of data pads and told her to study them and when he returned he would
be questioning her on what she had learned.
The first data pad was a primer on the standard Imperial
language, Aurebesh, that she picked up on fairly easily and it took her
two days to get a good handle on the language.
The next data pad was on Imperial military protocol. Now that was
a bastard to learn but she had nothing but time on her hands.
As Ezri was nibbling on some kind meat dinner that she had gotten
after standing in line at the mess hall, she was rereading the data pad
on military protocol. LT.HIT-MAN had programmed the collar to allow her
to leave their quarters and allow her to go to the mess hall, the med-
lab and the ship's stores. He had also set up a large fifty thousand
credit line for her so she could get whatever she need from the ship's
supply rooms.
When she walked into the mess hall everyone that had seen her
stopped eating, talking or whatever they where doing and looked her
over before they went back to their meals. A few of the officers were
talking about how they'd like to get her alone and kriff her until she
could not stand up but LT.HIT-MAN's dire warning was in the back of
their minds so she was safe, at least for the time being.
Ezri put down the data pad and took a long sip of her water, when
there were a few footsteps behind her and she froze as she heard a
rough voice say, "You're lucky that you belong to LT.HIT-MAN;
otherwise, your ass would be mine." Ezri fought down her fear and
slowly stood up, turning to face whoever had spoken to her and seeing
four officers standing there: two Lieutenants, one Sergeant and a
Captain.
"Well, too bad for you, isn't it," she said to them in a calm
voice as she felt the smoldering embers of anger starting to burn with
in her. She was not too pleased that she was being treated like a
whore.
"Maybe, but then again, maybe not," the captain said as he leered
at her and Ezri saw that they where drunk, so she told them that she
did not have the time to be bothered by them and that LT.HIT-MAN was
expecting her to finish her studies.
Captain Fortio had been in a bad mood. He was in charge of
turbo laser gunnery crew that had failed in their timed fire exercise
over Travlieshan 7. To make matters worse, Grand Admiral Lowe had been
watching them as he yelled and cajoled his gunnery crew to finish off
their drill in the time that was excessive to them but had failed.
Grand Admiral Lowe had dressed him down in front of his men and the
other gunnery crews along with the bridge crew.
To make matters worse, Lowe had fined him five thousand credits
and revoked his four weeks of shore leave. Fortio wanted to argue with
Lowe, but he saw the look on his face and knew that Lowe was in a
really bad mood and that his objections would be silenced in a
extremely painful way, so once Lowe had finished with him he cut loose
on his gunnery crew. For the next four days he had been a terror to
behold to his underlings. To make matters even worse than they already
were, he had also been hitting the bottle quite hard.
After four days of making everyone else's life a living hell, he
was still angry. He had planned to spend his four weeks of shore leave
drinking until he had to be dragged into a med-lab for an emergency de-
tox. Then, putting his skills with the cards to good use as he gambled
to make up for the credits he had spent on his drinking binge and whore
hunting. After all it had been a good year and a half since he last
spend in the company of female companionship; questionable, but still
female, companionship.
Needless to say, Captain Fortio was not a happy man, to say the
least, and now he was looking for someone to take out his fury on. Fury
at having lost all that he had worked for in the last year and a half.
His hunger for the touch and taste of fine feminine flesh, and Ezri was
one of only six women about the ship, the other five spoken for by his
superiors and that meant they were off limits. But as for LT.HIT-MAN,
he knew that his rank would keep the loony LT.HIT-MAN off of his back,
had he still been alive.
Word of LT.HIT-MAN's final throw of the dice of fate that had
come up snakes eyes had spread like wildfire thought out the entire
Imperial task force.
"Ya, well, I don't think you need to worry about that. I have
other plans for you, bitch!" Captain Fortio said as his alcohol-fueled
lust started to get the better of him. Ezri could see the smiles on
their faces and she fought down the urge to rip said faces off. LT.HIT-
MAN may be a certifiable lunatic, but he had shown her a certain amount
of respect. Yes, he had been strict with her but for the most part he
had been up front with her and civilized. However, she could see that
she was in some serious trouble from this man and she was sure that no
one in the mess hall was going to come to her aid.
Ezri pick her data pad and was starting to leave when the Captain
grabbed her arm. "Where do you think you're going, you alien slut!" he
slurred as he spun her towards him. Ezri let the data pad fall to the
floor as she brought up her right fist, using her momentum to knock the
captain on his ass with a solid upper cut that would have made LT.HIT-
MAN proud. Everyone in the mess hall gathered around to watch the
action, the bets starting to really fly when the Captain got to his
feet and savagely backhanded Ezri. She fell to the ground with a split
lip.
Captain Fortio grabbed the stinking bitch by her hair and jerked
her head up. "Now you're going to pay for that! You thought LT.HIT-MAN
was bad; wait and see what I do to you next, you bitch!" he screamed as
he savagely kicked her in the ribs. There was a loud snapping sound as
two of Ezri's ribs crumpled like wet cardboard when the Captain's foot
nailed her and the collar began to pump her full of bacta to heal the
damage done to her.
The Captain grabbed her by the front of her pale gray uniform and
slammed her down on the table she had been sitting at as the onlookers
in the mess hall began to cheer. Ezri was now terrified out of her wits
and she fought as best as she could, but the Captain was too strong and
he pinned her down on the table and punched her in the face, stunning
her.
With an evil smile and encouragement from the frenzied cheers of
the mob in the mess hall Captain Fortio started to reach for the front
of Ezri's rumpled uniform.
-----
"Oh hell," LT.HIT-MAN thought to himself as he tried to open his
eye, but the light was too bright and for some reason his cybernetic
eye was not rebooting as it should have. Then the pain started, and it
took all of his willpower not to scream as he felt like a rancor had
stepped on him and was tap dancing of his chest.
He was tired and sleep seemed like a good idea, and with a weak
sigh he let himself drift towards a nice, long respite. "Hey asshole,
wake up!" a voice screamed. "Hun... what?" LT.HIT-MAN muttered before
something slammed in to his kidney. He let out a strangled gasp as he
started to cough up blood. He heard another voice say, "Hey, don't kill
him, we need him alive," and he fought down the urge to puke as he
realized where he was. Well, he did not know for sure but he had a damn
good idea. "This is going to fun," LT.HIT-MAN thought acidly as
realized that if he was right about where he was, he was in for a long,
painful day.
As the voice started talking he tried to take a few deep breaths
and calmed himself. Then, with all of his willpower he opened his human
eye.
-----
Ensign Timothy Jones had been watching over their prisoner when
the stormtrooper began to mutter. He called Jovicen Erva to bring the
first aid kit and he smiled as the images for what had been planned for
him by his fellow resistance member came to mind. At last there was
going to be some payback.
"What the hell is this thing?" Jovicen said as she ran the
tricorder over the semi-conscious stormtrooper trying to make head or
tails of what she was seeing. "Why, what have you got?" Fredricks
Alester asked as he walked over to the prisoner, fighting down the urge
to seriously kick the fuck of it. He had been fighting hard for the
last few days and he had lost a lot of good friends, and just yesterday
his brother had gotten his head blown off right in front of him.
"I don't know, but it's not totally human," Jovicen said as she
bit her lip then added as she started to take some more readings,
"Whatever this is, it's a partial cyborg."
"WHAT?!?" Jones screamed as he whipped up his phaser rifle. "Y-Y-
Y-you mean this is one of the Borg?" he whimpered. His mother had died
at the battle of Wolf 359 and ever since that day he vowed that if he
ever came across a Borg he'd shoot first and to hell with the
questions.
"No, I don't think this is a Borg." Jovicen said. She had read up
on the Borg, but what she was reading from the tricorder did not match
up with what she had studied. "No...this is some kind of a cyborg, not
a Borg," she said as she reached out to remove the stormtrooper's
helmet.
"Well, that's good to know," Fredricks drawled as he started to
eat a ration bar. Jovicen finished removing the helmet and when she got
a good long and suddenly unwanted look at the scarred face of for the
cyborg stormtrooper, she recoiled in horror as she tried to fight down
the urge to wet herself. Luckily, she won that fight, but it had been a
close thing.
"Ugly son of a bitch, isn't it." Dolom Bortok, a Bowlen, said as
he brought a med-kit over to Jovicen who managed to get her wits about
her and was thinking of a way to stabilize the prisoner's condition.
The prisoner moaned and started to stir. Fredricks walked over to the
prisoner and yelled, "Hey, asshole, wake up!" and lashed out with a
vicious kick to the kidneys and the cyborg began to puke up a lot of
blood.
"Hey, don't kill him, we need him alive," Jovicen yelled at
Fredricks, who finished off his ration bar then sat down and started to
clean his purloined E-11 as she tried to keep the prisoner alive. Then,
after a few tense minutes, the prisoner stopped puking up his guts then
without warning it opened up his organic eye and they felt the cold
hand of death as the cyborg looked at them, it's scarred face with it's
shattered cybernetic eye as blank and cold as marble.
"Maybe the Borg would have been better," Jones thought as he
tightened his grip on his phaser rifle.
-----
LT.HIT-MAN saw that there were four people in the cavern he was
in, and in the distance he could hear voices, lots of them, as well as
machinery.
Fredricks looked at cyborg and got up from his seat. "You will
answer our questions or you will suffer as you have never suffered
before," he said in a menacing, deadly whisper.
LT.HIT-MAN just looked at the guy who was trying to play this
heavy- handed game with him for a few seconds, then he start to giggle
and within a few seconds was laughing. This guy was about as dangerous
as a quadriplegic Ewok in a coma.
Fredricks looked at the rest of his friends and was about to
bitch slap the prisoner, and as sudden as he started to laugh the
prisoner stopped laughing and had that empty, soulless look on his
scarred face again. "You'll surrender, and you might live to see
another day. Unlikely, but your deaths will be quick and clean," the
prisoner said in a calm cool voice that was devoid of any feelings
whatsoever.
Jones was shocked by the prisoner's bold attitude and decided to
do something about it. He walked up to the seated and restrained
prisoner.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" he snarled as he smashed the butt of his
phaser rifle into the prisoner's face, breaking his nose in three
places in a spray of blood.
LT.HIT-MAN knew what was going to happen, so he just waited for a
few seconds after the weasly looking Fed finished rearranging his face
and he slowly looked at the guy. "I am LT.HIT-MAN, operating number VX-
101 and know that your deaths will be horrors that will live on in
infamy," he said to them in a voice so cold and evil that they started
to tremble in fear.
After a few agonizingly silent minutes Fredricks got up from his
seat and walked out of the cavern. Within a few minutes he returned
with a covered cart and stood in front of him with an evil smile on his
face. "You're going to wish you had never been born when I'm though
with you," he said, pulling back the canvas that had been covering the
cart to reveal an assortment of wicked looking tools. Among them were
plasma cutters, hypersonic drills, laser welders, knives of all kinds,
pneumatic devices, a Klingon pain stick and a lot of nasty-looking
chemicals.
Fredricks was smiling, just imagining the look of terror that
would be on this arrogant son of a bitch's face when he flashed the
hardware, but his jaw hit the floor when he saw LT.HIT-MAN look at the
cart and then look at him and smiled.
"You have got to be kidding me," LT.HIT-MAN said. Who the hell
was he trying to scare with this pre-school shit? He was insulted.
Sure, this was all fine and well if you wanted to put the sake down on
a Jawa, but trying to intimidate him with this shit...well, now he was
annoyed.
"Are you some kind of sick twisted pain freak?" Jovicen asked
LT.HIT-MAN as she started to lay down some of the scant medical
supplies they had. As much as she hated to see any being suffer, this
was war and she knew that the resistance was going to need the info
that the prisoner possessed and they could not have him dying on them
as he was being questioned.
LT.HIT-MAN looked over to the Bajoran woman and with a rogue's
grin he spoke to her, turning his head so she could get a good look at
his ruined cybernetic eye. "I sure as shit did not get this from eating
pussy," he said as a mental image formed of him with his head between
Ezri's legs, her legs wrapped around his neck, his tongue buried as
deeply as it could be in her hot wet snatch. From the sickened look on
the woman's face he guessed that she had a similar but not as pleasant
mental image as well.
"I've had enough of this shit. You have any last words before I
get right medieval on your sorry ass?" Fredricks snarled as he picked
up an ion pulse prod and slowly began to reach out towards the grinning
LT.HIT-MAN.
"None you'd want to hear, you miserable whining bitch,"
LT.HIT-MAN said in an as shockingly pleasant voice as he thought, "Oh
hell, this could be worse."
Fredricks was pissed off. He took LT.HIT-MAN's human hand by the
wrist and put the ion pulse prod to his pointer finger and watched as
the flesh began to burn away in a oily smoking cloud. "Now we can do
this the easy way, or we could do this the hard way. The choice is up
to you," Fredricks said as he let the prisoner get a good look at the
charred stump that was once his trigger finger.
LT.HIT-MAN just shook his head. "Do your worst, wise guy, but know this, your day is done.
None of you are going to walk out of here alive. I personally guarantee
it," he said in his most evil voice, shaking the resistance members to
the very core of their sorry souls.
Jones was starting to shake in fear as he saw Fredricks cut off
all of LT.HIT-MAN's fingers with the ion pulse prod. That was nasty in
itself, but the thing that really freaked him out was that the prisoner
was giving Fredricks advice on how to torture him.
"No, no, no, you take the prod and slowly scrape away from the
body towards the tip of the finger stump. This is so that the goes
grates against the grain of the bone to make a louder sizzling sound,"
LT.HIT-MAN said to Fredricks in the most annoyed and nagging voice he
could muster, using the Dark Side to block out the pain. Well, as much
of it as he could but it was getting more and more difficult with each
passing second to keep himself from crying out in agony.
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Fredricks screamed as he threw
down the ion pulse prod. He could not believe what he was hearing. This
guy should have been screaming for mercy after the first few fingers
had been burnt away. LT.HIT-MAN was enjoying himself. He knew that it
was only a matter of time before this guy who was trying torturing him
lost his nerve.
"Look, if your going to interrogate me, do it right or step off
and let someone who knows what they're doing take over," he
said to Fredricks in his most condescending voice and smiled as he saw
Fredricks's eyes bug out of his skull.
Fredricks let out a strangled scream and grabbed the Klingon pain
stick, cranking it up to full power.
"YESSS...use all of your hate, all of your rage...strike me down
and your journey to the Dark Side will be complete," LT.HIT-MAN hissed.
He could feel the hate, rage and the most sweetest of all feelings,
fear, pouring off of Fredricks like sweat on a hot day after a forty
mile run.
Fredricks was about to smash the pain stick straight down on
LT.HIT- MAN's skull when Jovicen grabbed him by the arm. "Don't do it,
man, he's fucking with your mind," she said as Fredricks started to
calm down.
"Perhaps you can do better?" LT.HIT-MAN said to her, making his
voice sound like he was bored. "Shut up or I'll shut you up," she
snarled at him. "This too good," LT.HIT-MAN thought to himself and
decided to slip the Bajoran woman the nastiest dig he could think of.
" Well, if you sat on my face, that might work for about two or
three minutes before I gagged to death from the stench of rotting
fish," and he smiled as he saw the look of pure hate and disgust twist
her somewhat lovely face into a mask of rage.
Jovicen lost her cool, took a plasma cutter from the cart and
flicked it on; ran the flame down the side of LT.HIT-MAN's scarred
face. "Well, at least I won't have to worry about shaving," LT.HIT-MAN
rasped as the last of his Force powers gave out on him. It had taken
every ounce of his willpower not scream as the plasma flame charred and
blistered his skin before turning it into ashes.
Jones could not take it any more. He ran out of the side cavern
to try and keep himself from puking out his guts, but he failed, and
ended up tossing the cookies in front of the rest of the resistance who
decided to see what was cooking in the side cavern.
When the rest of the resistance walked into the side cavern, they
saw what had happened as Jovicen finished with the plasma cutter. About
half of them turned around and walked out, forever haunted by what they
saw. The rest of them just stood there, shocked senseless when they
heard the prisoner yell, "Is that all you've got!" Then the prisoner
looked at them.
"Right on! The more the merrier," he quipped as each of
them picked up something from the cart. Then they all went to work on
LT.HIT- MAN, who braced himself for the worse as best as he could.
-----
Ezri opened her eyes, not knowing how long she had been knocked
senseless, and saw that the Captain was starting to rip off her uniform
top and she started to scream as the top came off and her pear shape
breast were laid out for everyone to see. She let out one final scream
and fainted as her terror overwhelmed her.
-----
LT.HIT-MAN knew that it was game over for him. The resistance had
done a number on him after they had popped his human eye like a grape.
He began to doubt that he would live thought this but at least he would die
knowing that he did not break and the honor of the Empire would live
on. Just as he was about to let himself go and become one with the
Force, he felt someone calling out to him in terror. He tried to focus
in on this terrified voice but all he could see was Ezri screaming in
pure horror; then it was gone. "NO! NO! NOT THIS TIME!" he snarled as
he relived the horror of his wife and unborn son being cut down by a
rebel bombing. He threw back his head and let out a roar so pain-filled
that even the pa' wraiths cringed in horror as he fought to come back
to the land of the living.
-----
Emperor Palpatine was fast asleep when he was awakened by the
darkest feelings of death, terror and pain that he had ever felt
through the Force. He sat up in a cold sweat. Somewhere and in some way
someone was living or dying in ultimate suffering. He could not tell
who or what it was and for the first time in his reign he felt pity.
-----
Jones was sitting down in the main cavern. He was badly shaken up
by what had happened with the prisoner, but even though he was dead,
Jones could not shake the feeling that death was all around them,
waiting to strike like an assassin in the night.
"Hey, are you going to be OK?" Drake Murdoc, his friend for the
academy, asked as he sat down beside him. Jones just mumbled something.
Drake handed him a ration bar. "Look, I don't know what to say about
what's happened, but I know that we have to put this behind us," he
said to Jones as he took out a strange looking cylinder and started to
look it over.
"I know, but I don't think I am ever going to sleep again, not
after that," Jones said as he started to nibble at the ration bar.
Drake understood that he was having trouble putting the images of all
of the killing, death and pain that he had seen and been a part of in
this war behind him. This thing with the prisoner was the last straw
for him. He was about to ask Jones what he thought about the strange
cylinder in his hand as he tried to forget about the prisoner, but he
never had the chance, for there was a low moaning sound that rapidly
became a nightmarish scream of the damned that seemed to go on forever.
Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and slowly, ever so slowly,
they turned to the cavern where the prisoner's body was. Something was
forcing them look as a part of them was screaming for them run.
Standing there was the maimed LT.HIT-MAN, and for a split second
everyone there could have sworn that there was black fire in the eye
sockets of the prisoner before they soiled themselves and the long
dying began.
LT.HIT-MAN could not see anything with his human eye or his
smashed cybernetic eye, but the Dark Side allowed him to see things
more clearly then he had ever seen in his life. He allowed every bit of
his rage, pain and fear build up within him, then let it all go with
one final howl as he became one with the Dark Side.
Drake let the strange cylinder fall from his numb hand, but it
never hit the ground for it suddenly flew to the outstretched
cybernetic hand of LT.HIT-MAN. Once he had his light saber back, he
ignited it with a snap- hiss and the inky black blade sprang to life.
He became a whirlwind of living death as he jumped up into the air and
bought the blade straight down on Fredricks's head, cleaving him in
two.
Then LT.HIT-MAN used the jagged, bony stubs that where once his
human fingers to puncture Jovicen's throat, leaving her to drown in her
own blood. Using the Dark Side to lock on to everyone's fear like a
laser- guided missile, he proceeded to massacre the resistance, using
the Force choke hold on one of the Federation personnel with such rage
that his head exploded in a spray of blood, shattered bone and pulped
brains. Then he used his teeth to rip out the throat of some Bajoran,
reveling in the rich coppery taste of his fear-laden blood. Within a
few scant minutes the caverns with plastered with the gory remains of
once living beings that had the misfortune of running into LT.HIT-MAN
when he was pissed off.
Jones and Drake just stood there, their minds unable to
comprehend the furious onslaught that was unfolding around them. Then,
as suddenly as it started, it was over, leaving Drake and Jones to face
the unholy terror that was LT.HIT-MAN.
LT.HIT-MAN could sense that there was only two of the resistance
left. One of them, he knew, the other, he did not, so he reached out
with the dark side and probed the mind of one of the one soon to be
corpses that was familiar to him. He knew it was the one who had
smashed his face with his phaser rifle. "Good, I'm going to save you
for last!" LT.HIT- MAN thought savagely, raising the stump of his human
hand and, taking a lesson from his master, sending a ball of crackling
black lighting screaming towards the other person. When it hit, Drake
was turned into a Roman candle, his flesh flash fried from his body,
his blood boiled until the pressure was too much for what was left of
his body to handle, and he exploded in a red mist. His bones cracked
before they where reduced to ashes.
Jones stood rooted to his spot as the bloody monster known as
LT.HIT-MAN walked up to him and stood towering over him. "Run, bitch!"
LT.HIT-MAN snarled, his voice sounding like a cross between a blender
full of sand and a low rumble of thunder.
Jones looked at LT.HIT-MAN, and, for a second, he had to stand
there and think about LT.HIT-MAN's words, then he turned and ran his
sorry ass off.
Jones was just about to make it out of the caves on the ridge.
He could see the sun that calling to him, to leave that darkness in the
caves. The fresh air was like a heady drug that almost drowned out the
stench of death and horror but there was a sudden pain just above his
knees and he found himself falling. His last thought was, "So close, I
was so close," as fear and despair crush the hope he had a few seconds
ago before he slammed into the floor of the cave and was knocked out.
LT.HIT-MAN smiled as his light saber flew back to his cybernetic
hand like a trained preybird returning to its master after a successful
hunt.
LT.HIT-MAN was about to slowly walk towards the Fed he had cut
down and finish him off when something happened.
-----
As Captain Fortio finished ripping off Ezri's bra, he took a look
at her and started to lick her neck when there was a single blaster
shot that brought everything to a stand still. Slowly, everyone in the
mess hall turned to see Grand Admiral Lowe and four stormtroopers
standing in the mess hall doorway.
"WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE SITH IS GOING HERE!" Lowe yelled as the
mob slowly back away from him to reveal Captain Fortio straddling the
unconscious Ezri. When Lowe saw this he just about shot Fortio right
then and there, but he had something else planned for him instead. "GET
OFF OF HER, YOU KRIFFING ANIMAL!" he snarled as he slammed the rifle
stock of the E-11 into Captain Fortio's face and smiling savagely as
his nose was pulped and a few of his teeth where snapped off. Lowe then
began to lay the boots to Captain Fortio and only when Captain Fortio
was lying curled up in a ball and bled from his ears did Lowe stop
kicking Captain Fortio.
"Get this piece of shit out of here." Lowe said to one of the
stormtroopers, who grabbed Captain Fortio by a foot and dragged him out
of the mess hall and to a med-lab. Lowe then looked at the mob, who
where just standing there in shocked silence. "Chow time's over, get
back to your posts. I'll be expecting a report on this incident by 1530
hours. Understood?" Lowe said in a low whisper as he pointed the E-11
at the mob and they slowly filed out of the mess hall, thankful that
they where still alive.
Lowe then took off his uniform jacket and placed it over Ezri,
who was starting to wake up for the dark abyss that she was in. "It's
OK, no one is going to hurt you. I've seen to that," Lowe said in a
calm voice as he saw the look of panic on Ezri's face. He had no love
for the ex- Federation alien, and even less love for the late LT.HIT-
MAN, but he owed it to LT.HIT-MAN to see that Ezri was taken care of
and he did not relish what he had to do next.
Once Ezri was calmed down, he handed her a drink. After she
downed it, he told her to follow him, the other stormtroopers falling
in line with them: one ahead and the other two flanking them as they
made their way back to LT.HIT-MAN's quarters.
"I'm so sorry about that. That low-down son of a bitch will be
dealt with. There may be war between us and the Federation, but I can
not and will not condone rape. I will not let the honor of the Empire
be tarnished that way," he said to Ezri, who was just walking, not
really paying any attention to him as her scared and shocked mind tried
to deal with what had happened to her.
Once they reached LT.HIT-MAN's quarters, he ordered the
stormtroopers to wait outside for him as he opened the door and lead
Ezri to her cot at the foot of LT.HIT-MAN's cot and sat her down. "I
have some news for you," he said in the most gentle voice he could
muster. He was not sure how Ezri was going to take the news of LT.HIT-
MAN's death but he knew that it was no going to be good.
" W--W-What news?" Ezri said to him, her voice was cold and
lifeless and Lowe took a deep breath and said to her, "As of 1830 hours
Imperial standard time LT.HIT-MAN was killed in action," Lowe felt like
shit, even though he was used to have men die under his command. All of
the times he went into battle he never got used to breaking the bad
news to loved ones that their sons, brothers and, sometimes, fathers
had died in the defense of the Empire.
Ezri felt as if her heart had been ripped out and shoved into a
warp coil when she heard what Lowe had said to her. "H-H-H-How did it
happen?" she rasped as her mind struggled to comprehend the fact that
LT.HIT-MAN was a corpse on some God-forsaken world. After what she had
seen, heard and experienced with LT.HIT-MAN, she was sure that nothing
could kill him.
"He was killed by a proximity mine as he was charging a heavily
fortified stronghold on the planet. He was leading the rescue effort to
free our captured men," he told her, not caring that he had given her
vital information on their war effort in this galaxy. There was no way
she could get off of the _Baron_ to give out that bit of information,
and she was in no shape to try that or anything else for that matter.
Ezri felt her tears starting to flow as her feelings of love,
love for her lost friends and lover played out in her mind and heart.
Her feelings of loss, and oddly enough she felt a profound sense of
loss for LT.HIT-MAN. Her hate, hate for the Empire who had come and
turned her life upside down.
Her hate for the man who had violated her as well as her hate for everyone
had stood there laughing and cheering as the Captain tried to cock block her
on the mess hall table.
Her shame, shame for being so weak and unable to defend herself from that
Captain but strangely enough she did not feel any shame for being weak
in the presence of LT.HIT-MAN, nor when he made her his slave.
Lowe knew that Ezri need some time to herself and asked her for
his uniform jacket back. When Ezri handed him back his jacket he saw
that Ezri was in a bad off way, so after he left he posted two
stormtroopers to stand guard outside of Ezri's quarters and check in
every ten minutes to see that she was all right.
Ezri curled up on her cot, and when Lowe was gone she let out
such a soul wrenching cry of tortured agony that it echoed all the way
up the hall. The two stormtroopers just stood there, not feeling a
thing. After all, they had heard that scream of excruciating pain so
many times before as they razed countless worlds.
After untold hours Ezri fell into an exhausted sleep that bought
nightmare after horrifying nightmare as the cold hard realization that
she was truly all alone in the cold black night hit her like a photon
torpedo.
-----
Trooper Drzic help up his hand and told his squad to get under
what cover they could find in the wasteland of the gully they were in
as they came up to the ridge line.
"Crastor, pop a grenade over and let's wake these assholes up!"
Drzic said with a smile. Yes, the resistance was going to get their
sorry asses nailed to the wall by LT.HIT-MAN's Hell-Hounds. That was
what he was calling his rouge squad and his men agreed with that name
whole- heartedly.
"Hey boss, what do you want me to wake 'em up with?" Trooper
Crastor said and he set up his grenade launcher and added, "I've got
cryo-ban grens to freeze their blood in fear; I've got some frags to
slice and dice their sorry asses." Trooper Crastor was having himself a
good old time as he was signing off about what he had in his goody bag,
the rest of the Hounds starting to really have a field day as they got
ready for the up and coming slaughter. "I've got me some Plank grenades
that give them a case of acid indigestion like you never seen before,
man!" Drzic was just shivering with a dark pleasure as images
chemically-scarred resistance personnel rolling on the ground screaming
horrified terror as there flesh was seared from there bones came to
mind.
"Hit 'em with that and let's see what we flush out," Drzic said
to Crastor as he scanned the cave opening with his helmet's multi-
optics gear as Crastor loaded his grenade launcher.
"Happy Holidays from LT.HIT-MAN'S Hell-Hounds, assholes!" Crastor
yelled merrily as the grenade launcher send the Plank grenade into the
cave opening with a dull but enjoyable thump, and after a few
exasperating minutes nothing happened.
"What the kriff?" Drzic thought to himself as he took another
look at the mouth of the cave and all he saw was a small amount of
Plank gas drifting out of it. Drzic did some thinking for a few seconds
then he called for one of his troopers. "Trooper Bivich, take out the
mines," he snapped as he fixed a bayonet on the end of his E-11.
"Consider it done, boss," Trooper Bivich said as he hosted his PLX-2M
to his shoulder and emptied the missile cartridge, setting off the
proxy mines in a storm of hellfire.
"BLOOD FOR BLOOD!" Drzic yelled as he charged the ridge line,
followed by his men. Then, within a few tense minutes they had scaled
the ridge and had surrounded the mouth of the cave, E-11s loaded and
ready to go. "What the hell?" Drzic said as he came across the first
body. It was of a human male with his head stuck into a hole in the
cave wall. Drzic moved to get a closer look at the body, then with a
nasty shock Drzic saw that there had been no hole in the cave wall. The
human's head had been rammed into it with such force that the impact of
the head had _made_ the hole in the wall. All that was holding the body
in the hole was the pulped remains of the human's head that acted like
a paste when the gory remains had dried.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Trooper Gorten said to Drzic
as he got a look at the body. Drzic glanced at the trooper. "You're not
the only one," he said as he backed away from the body, wondering what
had mangled the human so badly.
"Umm, sir, you better have a look at this," Trooper Yurving
called out to Drzic. He asked Yurving what was up and all Yurving could
do was tell Drzic to come and see for himself. Drzic started to get
really nervous at the tremor of fear in Yurving's voice. He walk over
to where Yurving was standing and stopped dead in his tracks as he
looked down a side passage. All Drzic could see down the long
passageway was the bloody mess of mangled bodies, eyeballs on the
ceiling, guts strewn about like party streamers and other horrors so
sickening that the mind could not comprehend them. This was not a
massacre; this was the Sith on Bajor (Hell on Earth).
Drzic told his squad to take five. He needed the time to fight
down the urge to puke his guts out and then puke some more.
"What do you think happened to the resistance scum?" Trooper
Wulouan asked his friend, Trooper Zxixon, who told him that he did not
have a clue. He suddenly started to regret coming here. Drzic told them
to pipe down or he'd quiet them down for good.
"OK, squad, we'll break up into four ten-man teams. You see
anything, and I mean anything, that looks dangerous, waste it and
forget about it," Drzic said to his men who where fidgeting with their
weapons. "We don't know what's happened here, so we are not taking any
chances, understood?" His men gave a grim nod and then split up and
began to search the dark caves that had suddenly become as cold as a
snowstorm on Hoth.
Drzic was walking into a storeroom when his helmet mike crackled
to life. "This is Trooper Bronson! We have a live one here, he's pretty
messed up and... BY THE FORCE!" the rest was one long scream that was
suddenly cut off. Within seconds, there were nine more screams that
suddenly died out one by one.
"SQUAD, WE HAVE HOSTILES! MOVE IT, MOVE IT, NOW!" Drzic yelled
into the helmet mike as he and his team double-timed it back to the
side cave where Trooper Bronson's team had gone. Slowly, they made
their way into the jaws of a hell that would haunt them for the rest of
their lives.
A few minutes after they started down the side cave they came
across the first trooper body. Drzic told his squad to cover him as he
pulled the trooper's body closer to him. He then took the dead
trooper's helmet off and recoiled in horror as he got a look at the
trooper's face. He had seen a lot of dead beings before but the look on
this dead trooper's face was one of such unrelenting terror that it
made his blood run cold.
They soon found the rest of the team with same look of fear
etched on their pale bloodless faces. Drzic and the rest of his squad
wanted to leave this damned place, but their smoldering rage at the
loss of LT.HIT-MAN was further strengthened by the loss of the luckless
ten-man team. Their hate was at war with there fear and after a few
hellish minutes there hate won out and proceeded down the cave,
promising the most darkest and evil vengeance on who or what had killed
Bronson and his team.
Drzic saw a legless Federation human and was about to take a
closer look, but when he saw the Fed's chest rise and fall and heard
his labored breath he stopped and had his men fan out, weapons at the
ready. Drzic slowly moved his field light over the bloody floor of the
cave and stopped when the light played over white combat foot armor
that was covered in blood and in some place was cracked and chipped to
reveal gleaming metal. Drzic stop and took a deep breath to steady his
trembling hand, then he moved the light up and was shocked to see a
bloody and battered set of stormtrooper armor. "What the kriff?" Drzic
thought as he tightened his grip on his E-11. The light landed on the
maimed and bloody face of LT.HIT-MAN, then the universe collapsed in on
itself.
-----
Grand Admiral Lowe was sitting on the bridge of the _Baron_
reading over the periodic field reports that Lt. Colonel Tierce had
sent over. Apparently, a few squads of stormtroopers had deserted their
posts. That really shook him up; stormtroopers were loyal to the Empire
unto death and never had there been a case where stormtroopers had
deserted, until now.
"So why did they desert their posts?" Lowe asked as he read over
the names and operating numbers of the treacherous deserters, a sinking
feeling in his guts. "Well, from what I have been able to ascertain
from the other troops in the prison complex, the rogues went out to
pound the kriff out of the resistance for the death of LT.HIT-MAN,"
Tierce told him as he read over something on a data pad.
Then he added, "Each of the rogues had served with LT.HIT-MAN before you sent him to
Bajor. They had told the other stormtroopers that LT.HIT-MAN had bailed
there asses out some really hellish missions and that they owed LT.HIT-
MAN their lives, and they also said that they where sick of just
sitting around while we brass asses were sitting on our thumbs."
Lowe let out an exasperated breath and was about to have Tierce
hunt down the rogues when a comm officer walked up to him. "Sir, I have
a priority one message from Bajor, but I can't understand what's being
said," the comm officer told him. From the look of confusion Lowe could
tell that this was not going to be good. Lowe told the comm officer to
pipe the message through and to link it up with Tierce down on Bajor.
"WENEEDAMEDEVACNOW!NOW!NOW!" a screaming voice blasted from the
speakers, and from the panic in that voice a cold wave of apprehension
