The Terror of The Inferno

2851 AD. Planet Earth, Sol System.

Thunder crashed over the dark and desolate wasteland that was once one of Earth's most striking cities. Dark alleyways intersected the abandoned roads as crumbling buildings, haunted by neglect and abandonment rose high in to the eerie night sky. They stood as shadows of their once proud stature, representations that seemed no more than specters of a once sprawling opulence.

The stale night air was filled with the unmistakable stench of human waste, rotting bodies and various other smells that had mixed into a fetid aroma.

Irregularly placed streetlights burned on low, glowing a pale yellow light into the dark streets. Almost all of them were weary from lack of maintenance as they flickered on and off, adding to the already ghostly landscape.

Every once in a while an individual would scurry about, ambling the dark alleyways, careful to avoid the light. There were things and individuals far more fearsome than the dark. But such was life in Sector 9 of The Inferno.

Its dark streets held secrets of unknown depths, but humans being humans had adapted. Its inhabitants came to The Inferno by various means, more often than not; they didn't come of their own free will.

Those who could remember the outside world lived a more oppressive sort of hell, for they had once seen the pleasure to be had outside The Inferno.

But one thing was clear to all, no body escaped The Inferno.

Manmade monsters lingered in dark corners, forever on the watch, looking for prey. Diseased body's lay wherever they had taken their last breath. Even among the living disease ran rampant, food was scarce and in the concrete jungle many called home, only the strong survived.

The dark clouds hovered like a bad omen as six fully armed individuals casually walked across a road towards a crumbling down building. Only three of the four original walls now stood.

The façade of the building was a glass curtain type entrance that extended from the ground floor. It stood twenty or so feet before, breaking off in a haphazard manner that showed the building must have toppled sideways.

The materials of the building showed wear and tear, it was a miracle it still stood after so long. There were many indicators that the construction had most likely been an early twenty first century urban dwelling. The most obvious thing being the steel skeleton frame, which was now an obsolete form of construction.

The fourth floor's three walls didn't even reach their full height and showed the construction had toppled sideways, the other twenty or so stories that would have stood now lay in ruins on top of other neighboring buildings.

Jagged broken glass littered the entrance, but the glass wall was mainly still intact. Its door was nowhere in sight, and beyond the threshold was nothing but an unnatural gloom.

________________________________________

Maxwell Camden stood to one side of the threshold that led into the antique dwelling; weapon gripped in his Exo clad hands and silently told his Embedded Suit Computer to switch to night vision.

He lifted his head and looked behind him; he could see his team in the cloud covered gloom. Behind him stood two Exo clad agents, he couldn't tell who was who but that didn't bother him.

On his other side stood another three agents.

He lifted his hand and gestured for the agent in front of him to go ahead. The agent held a plasma flash grenade, and with a flick of his wrist the ball flew right into the gloom and disappeared. A beat passed, before an unnatural white light exploded in to the room.

Max wasted no time as he jumped into the light, keeping his finger ready on the trigger as he powered his way into the blinding light.

His visor quickly adjusted to the extreme light as he swiveled his head left, right, keeping his assault rifle trained in front of him he continued into the light, confident his team would follow him in. Seeing no immediate threats, he lowered his plasma rifle and turned around to face his team.

The light of the flash grenade slowly dwindled to a working level. Max looked around his environment, ugly, old, decrepit but antique. They were in some sort of lobby, the area was large-the next level a good fifteen feet above them. The winding stairs standing to each side were a testament to its twenty first century architecture.

Thanks to the flash grenade, the lobby was no longer covered in an impenetrable layer of darkness, and he could see the large slabs of concrete that had fallen from the upper floor and lay in a haphazard manner. The room was covered in wooden tables, chairs and all sorts of furniture.

Although his team was protected in their Powered Exoskeleton Combat Suits, to Max the jumble of stone they had entered felt alive. The environment was harsh and he felt as though he could almost feel the heavy concentrated air bearing down upon him.

Consequently he knew his agents in their Exo's couldn't really complain, because they obviously had advantages over the natives. For one thing he was sure that breathing would be damn near impossible. The dense air in front him danced with large dust particles that most likely would cause long term damage to those who breathed it in.

The heat mixed with the putrid humid air to produce a tense calm, the overhead clouds covered everything like a dense blanket that weighed down on the mood like a ton of moon rocks.

Coming out of his musings he looked back at his team and held his hand up.

"Enter Intuitive Network."

The I.N. in Max's opinion was quite useful, having been developed only five years earlier, it worked quite simply by linking a soldier's system into a network with the other soldiers in his unit; these units were, in turn, networked to each other and up the chain of command.

In his helmet, his HUD brought up a list of some of the features that had previously been off for power preservation as they come online.

Maxwell sometimes wondered why he was given command of the STRK Team Prodigy, he still felt that they needed more training.

Max's STRK Agents were still fairly new to the whole concept of covert and military operations given to a semi-civilian force. But becoming Strikers took hard work, brains, and guts and his Strikers certainly had all those traits in abundance.

All his team members were just what their name stated; prodigy's in their own field, but he still had misgivings about some other factors that his commanders most likely wouldn't have taken into account.

He shook his head and smiled inwardly, they were a great lot and they would do just great on this, their first mission, after 12 training ops on different planets, colonies and satellites.

Due to the I.N. when he looked at one of the agents he 'intuitively' knew that in the Steel Battalion X-09 Mark VII combat armor was the blocky faced pilot Damien Grey, the gentle giant who could fly any space vessel.

Next to him stood the smaller, but just as competent, scout and stealth expert Alvin Zillion, who had on BioCorp Elite Legion III armor.

Close to the stairs stood their three female members, their medic Kelly Jacobson, the electronic engineer Delaney Smith and the rookie Veronica Felton who specialized in everything foreign and was their diplomat.

The three females, along with Max himself, all wore the prototype Vulcan Space Centurion IV combat armor.

Their other skills notwithstanding, they could all handle all sorts of rifles and were all versed in all types of combat skills and were all avid tacticians. And after 12 training ops S.T.R.K Team Prodigy was a go. Except for Veronica all his agents had some sort of experience with combat, all in all the entire outlook for the first mission was good.

Max opened the communications on the I.N. to his team's links. "Listen up."

The agents shifted slightly to acknowledge that they were listening but continued to hold their positions.

"For now we'll stay on Audio-Link via I.N., in a few minutes I will establish contact with Firestorm Control and they will be monitoring the mission as usual." Though they couldn't see his eyes behind his visor he rotated his head to look at each of them.

"This is a relatively routine op. We're not the first team to venture into the Inferno, but remember to expect the unexpected."

"Spread out, identify and neutralize any dangers in the vicinity. Teams of two, Grey and Felton setup Hermes on the fourth floor. Smith and Jacobson with the third, Zillion stand guard on the second, I will be setting up the turrets for our perimeter guard."

"Synch in five minutes." He commanded the system, looking at his wrist a small screen appeared at -4:58.

"Move out!"

________________________________________

Veronica Felton was an avid fan of Antique Space-Era fiction, but walking a dark ASE corridor was not one of the highest moments of her life.

Maneuvering the empty broken down twenty first century building was a feat akin to watching it on a holo-vid. Except this was more real, had more substance and was absolutely terrifying for the rookie.

She moved in unhurried motions as best as she could, looking around into the gloomy corners where the light couldn't penetrate. Her breathing spiked as she watched the unnatural darkness that looked like thick shifting mist at various points in the room.

She knew once the Captain was in contact with CRV Firestorm, mission control would be able to tell by her vitals that she was anxious, and wouldn't that just make her day. She could bloody well picture Hunter teasing her, he would let it out to everybody they know that 'V the rookie' was terrified of the most pitiful place in Known Space.

And it really was a pitiful place, she thought, as she looked around, no lights, no technology, not even the simplest of worker-drones in sight. Following that logic should mean no assault weaponry, laser mines, or god forbid armored mercs, right? Right.

Still she was uneasy; this place just chilled her to the bone. But her performance was to be monitored, meaning she had to get her overactive imagination under control, calm her racing pulse, and stop her heart's erratic behavior.

Tensely she moved forward, to confront her fears and dispel her worries, she went from corner to corner illuminating them, searching for anything that shouldn't be there. She looked to her left and saw Kelly Jacobson signal her that they were ready.

She sighed, turned around and hurriedly moved to take up position in front of their escort, with her gun at the ready; she began ascending the stairs slowly. Damien was right behind her as Veronica cautiously lead them into the dark using night vision. At the end of the stairs they came upon a large swing door that was operated by hand.

Stopping on the opposite side of the entrance facing Damien, who had taken the door handle in his large fist, they waited for Alvin to proceed. Squatting down lower Alvin lowered his weapon as he removed an ionized plasma flash grenade hanging on his side.

With sure movements and a deft hand he threw it into the dark through the small opening that Damien had opened. As fast as he could he moved into the room, Veronica and Damien followed him in, moving independently to cover the whole room.

"Clear!" came Alvin's disembodied voice over the I.N.

The floor was plain and had some large slabs missing as they now lay on the first floor. Damien moved towards the stairs as they were being followed by Kelly and Delaney.

They cautiously crept up the stairs, expecting anything in the dark. Everything had an eerie green glow to it, to Veronica night vision wasn't a very comfortable visual to use, but until they had lights it was all they had.

This time Kelly knelt in front of the door, ready to throw the plasma flash grenade. Damien put his large metallic palm on the door as they prepared.

"3...2...1..."

"Go!"

In a flurry of movement, Damien pushed the door in, Kelly rolled into the room with Delaney trailing her, taking less than a second between each action.

Just as Damien and Veronica burst in to the room, two voices called "Clear!" on the I.N.

Bright light emanated from the middle of the room as V proceeded into it, in her peripheral she could see Kelly and Delaney moving down the walls into opposite corners so that they were clear of the fields of fire of the next person coming in the door, while covering the whole room with intersecting fields of fire.

The floor, like the previous one, had three walls only and V could see the eerie skyline in the distance.

Having cleared the third floor Veronica preceded Damien to the door. She looked over her shoulder and saw Damien ready to go. Moving up the stairs the quickly arrived at the door. Crouching she picked and pressed the compartment on her waist that ejected a small ball.

She threw the ball in and waited a beat, when bright light flashed in her HUD she fluidly ran across the entrance just, straitening up cautiously she surveyed the area for any threats.

"Clear!" she stated in a relatively calm tone. Damien moved closer to the source of bright white light as it slowly dwindled to a safer level where they could see their surroundings.

________________________________________

Looking around him Damien Grey couldn't help but release a sigh of amazement, beyond the dwelling

they were standing on, the skyline was under a dark blanket that was only periodically broken by low flickering lights.

Sometimes he still couldn't comprehend this place, many agents he knew thought it was a disgusting place, but to him it broadened the experience of a soldier and challenged their perspective.

Shaking his head at his musings he looked left and saw that V was caught in the same hold as he was.

He discarded his thoughts and went about his assigned task, moving slowly he extracted the small metallic box from his heavily armored back. Placing it beside him he turned his wrist and entered a sequence of codes.

The box released a sharp metallic hiss as it separated itself into two halves. The Comm box had inside itself a small device about a foot long with three small legs. Removing the tripod from its encasement he separated the legs and placed the device down on the floor.

He stepped back and looked at his wrist unit and entered the mission pass code manually, using voiced commands would have been faster but that was out of the question. A latch slid open and he slipped his armored hand into the hole.

The machine entered the I.N. via his suit, after verifying his identity.

The three legs sprouted, slowly extending the unit to about three feet off the ground. From its body slowly appeared a long antenna that had a strobe light at the top.

Turning his wrist he quickly entered another set of codes that established a connection between the team's Comm Links to the HRMs X02 Antenna over the I.N.

The antenna was a portable subspace closed-communications device that jammed other signals and protected their own signals. It would then send the team's communications to the Frigate Firestorm, which was currently hidden within the Asteroid Belt of the Solar system.

Damien stood back and glanced about, for a broken down building the fourth floor was fairly clear of rubble. Leaving a crouching Veronica, he took the other half of the original box and pressed a pressure sensitive hatch.

More hissing and groaning ensued from the machine. The mechanical box turned into four smaller parts. Grabbing two small ones he looked at Veronica on the other side and tossed them to her.

Veronica caught them with ease and place them about two meters apart, doing the same Damien then stood back and activated the security.

"Activating Cage."

Looking at Veronica he got a slight nod of the helmet in return and looked at his wrist and pushed the button. With an explosive hiss each cube separated into two parts, each upper hemisphere propelled about ten feet into the air via an anti-grav unit; together they created the eight corners of a virtual cube. Anybody getting in between them cubes would get electrocuted with enough voltage to melt bones.

He stood back and activated his HUD to display statistics of the cubes.

"Keeps out the devil's minions."

"The devil's minions?" V's voice asked over Comm.

"Yea," Damien gave a low chuckle. "Those who live in the inferno." he continued.

"How do people live down here?" was her baffled reply.

From what little Damien knew about her, she hailed from the planet Valcres on the outer reaches of the Varlorian stellar neighborhood.

Just about the most pristine, calm and unexciting place in Known Space. The height of technology and society Valcres was sure different from this Tellurian dive.

When Damien didn't reply fast enough Veronica queried "Where is everybody anyway?"

"This place thrives as a market for just about anything illegal, in the day the streets crawl with wares from places as far as Alcrium, but at night, there are things that even hardened marines wouldn't be foolish enough to cross."

His voice had taken an ominous tone and despite his own warnings about not getting her scared, he'd done just that.

"Aww...come on, there's are no boogeyman that we couldn't handle."

Veronica's head turned to the building across them and looked at the sixth floor.

Damien had to zoom his HUD to see the dull sheen of James Orion's High Velocity Sniper Rifle, just under the window opening at the higher vantage point.

"Well then we don't have anything to worry about with you watching us Hunter." V replied cheekily.

"Damn right, babe!" Hunter quipped over the static.

"Let's get to it guys, the faster we do this the quicker we'll be in the shuttle watching Hard Ball". Alvin interrupted.

"Grey, your team's going down!" Hunter continued.

"Nah...we'll see who's talkin' trash when your creds are mine." Damien chuckled, and continued to Max "Hermes is up and sending to CRV Firestorm sir."

"Roger that Grey. Prodigy return to ground floor, time is running."

________________________________________

"Opening a secure subspace audio channel." Max's deep baritone voice rumbled over the I.N. The

team was standing in their original positions on the ground floor. Veronica stood at the door with Damien slightly behind her keeping vigil.

She gazed into the dark streets trying to discern objects and features around them.

The monotone voice of the Firestorm Mainframe came online, the automated voice was calm, and modulated as it talked over the crackling static.

"Secure Audio-link established. Team Prodigy you are now connected with Firestorm Control."

Veronica caught a flicker of movement in her vision. She simultaneously stiffened her posture and abruptly brought her gun up, shifting to find a better position as she quickly put her back to the right side of the door.

Damien had moved and was standing gun in hand on the opposite side of her.

In front of her she saw her team already behind various forms of cover.

"I'm not sure, but I think I saw movement. I have to take another look." She whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" Hunter whispered back over the I.N.

Veronica closed her eyes, she'd forgotten that she could converse in combat over the I.N. with no fear of being intercepted.

"Hunter, do you see anything out there?" She said back still in a whisper.

"Nothin V, but I only have IR and NV scope with a couple meters penetration."

"I hate to say I told ya Hunter but Kelly did say it'd be better if you wore an Exo." Delaney joined the conversation in a similar whisper.

"Nah. Too unco—"

"Guys shut it." Max growled silently, thankfully they immediately shut up, he turned his helmet in Veronicas direction and nodded.

Taking a deep breath she shifted again and looked out the large door. Switching from night vision to infrared she concentrated on where she'd last seen the movement.