Tales Told Around the Glowlamp: A collection of short stories from Urban Warriors

1# The Combat Synthetic

Daniel ran with all of his remaining strength to make for cover as enemy laser and solid weapons-fire tore past him, only to fall three feet from his intended destination with a disturbingly numb feeling surrounding his left ankle.

He decided to gain a footing once more to close the final distance, finding that his left foot seemed to sink under him before the deadly volley caught him in the shoulder as he tried to stand.
His girlfriend had taken refuge across the wide street from him, trying desperately to tend to a wound on her brother’s upper-right arm and whimpering as the bullets and focused light whipped through her hair as it was caught by the swift wind that tore from the enemy’s position; Jessica finally realized Daniel’s fate as he quickly bled, she leapt to her feet in a foolish desperation to save his life but made it only a third the way…

Jessica’s brother James let loose a raucous howl at the loss of both his frind and only sibling, hefting the heavy rifle with his good arm up and over his makeshift protection; a metal bench-table overturned from a watchmaker’s shop.

James screamed harder and with enraged conviction as he forced his twisted and torn limb to take command of the weapon’s grip, opening up with the high-caliber machinegun and tearing into their ‘sudden’ opponents.

They had been tailing a suspected crime-lord in the attempts to stop an intricate drug-ring, the facts that people neglected to tell his group was that this man had both military connections and a near-endless bank account that could only result in one major thing…

Combat synthetics; an advanced Cyborg weapon that is disguised completely as a human with first-class AI processing capabilities, they were rated as the ultimate weapon as their entire chassis was solid Tritanium, able to completely absorb all but the heaviest of weapons fire and ordinance.

James himself had first encountered one of them as he left a small café to follow the suspect’s transport; she was a girl appearing around seventeen with a friendly personality, saying simply to him in a perfectly-imitated tone of a real human her age “I’m sorry but I need to advise you to stay away from that vehicle; only death awaits you!”

James ignored her, not really knowing or even caring why she had said that…

He realized it too late and was at the moment pumping .45 caliber rounds into the girl, shredding the artificial skin and revealing the sleek construct underneath that was barely hindered by his offensive as it advanced slowly and returned fire, it’s hand outstretched and plasma-fluctuations emanated from it’s fingertips and catapulted the liquid-energy in his direction.

He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to their fourth party-member, Carmen; she was a heavy-weapons expert and loved to stock plenty of major-ordinance that would be perfect for a situation like this…

Sure enough, the wind brought to his ears the sound of her super-heavy rifle, the deafening explosion of the eighty-five caliber shells impacting the Cyborg girl and ‘dismantling’ her pelvis within a blink-space.

James got up and cautiously made his way over to the machine, kicking it over to stare into the half-torn face that still remained of the synthetic skin only to see fear…

“I thought you bots couldn’t feel emotion?” he asked with smug pride at her impending demise.

“It’s more or less a self-protection protocol…” it answered, the synthesized sound of it’s breath enhancing to simulate panic as her words were squealed out both from her damaged vocal-box and the pre-programmed fear response, “You may think of me as a machine but I am fully self-aware… I don’t want to die!” she moaned, artificial tears welled in it’s eyes as it tried to drag the brutalized chassis along the ground and away from him.

“Well that’s just too bad; you took my sister and his boyfriend so don’t expect your little fake existence to last for much longer!” he snarled, dropping the machinegun by his side and reaching for the hilt of his sidearm.

“Please, I was ordered to attack; once an official does so I have no choice in the matter, please don’t kill me!” it screamed, closing it’s one remaining crystal-blue eye to emphasize the emotion.

“How can we kill that which was never alive…” Carmen said behind him suddenly, she had her massive weapon strapped-ready under her arm before decapitating the prosthetic mercilessly with a single shot, “More are bound to come; we better get out of here!”

“What about Jess and Daniel’s bodies, you mean just leave them?” he asked weakly as his thoughts returned to that fact.
“What are you crying about? Jess just took a shot to=her thigh and she managed to just barely revive Daniel; we’re all set to go!”

2# The Wall

A harsh buzzing shriek cut through the air, the bed sheets twitched and rolled as it’s occupant writhed back into consciousness by the literal alarming sound.

As she rolled over she swung her arm out wide to hit the ‘snooze’ button…

There was no arm to swing…

She leapt up and whimpered in shock as she completed her reunion with consciousness; feeling for the missing limb that was her left arm, only to look to the bedside cabinet to see it laying neatly and quite still, calming her nerves with the familiar sight as she had thought someone had taken it but finally remembered…

Prosthetics weren’t cheap, she was quite protective of it and for a good reason but now remembered she had removed the dark-metal arm before going to sleep after a sixteen-straight-hour shift on the wall…

Karia reached out with her natural arm and grasped the shoulder-joint, pulling it back and adeptly inserting the nerve-cables with a shudder, Goosebumps flourishing before finishing by snapping the Uni-Lat. bolt into her shoulder; once more gaining full control of her second limb.

She ran a trained-routine of the operating sequences as the ligament became active, taking all the power it needed via the natural electrical impulses sent through the body; the Heads-Up-Display came into vision across her right bionic eye, searching wearily for any error-feedback as she let loose a wide yawn.

TAC Operations Check Complete; All systems at 96% the digital message read in small font green letters, “one percent decrease…” she muttered to herself, “…time for a service after the next shift.”

She craned her neck to the side to gaze up at the rising gaseous-giant that the small moon orbited; it’s gray-green face glowed slightly as if it were the moon that orbited them whilst dominating the entire horizon.

Another yawn twisted the features of her face with a slight moan; scratching her abdomen incoherently and looking down…

The only cover on her body was the blankets draped around her from the waist down, scanning the room for any sign of the spare clothes she kept in her room but only to find them discarded on the other side of the ruined apartment space, one of many rooms that housed the National Guard such as herself.

As she finished draping loosely the wrinkled casual uniform she looked back at the bed; once again covering the bed with the sheet she had in hand to cover the snoring man that lay there, he too without any coverings until the light material was replaced.

“My next shift’s on… see you tonight…” she whispered to him softly, placing a light kiss on his cheek.

With a resounding yell he pounced from his prone position and locked his arms harshly around her shoulders, knowing that her firm build could handle the abuse before he pulled her into a warm embrace with him on top and she laying on her back, giggling madly before he kissed her profoundly on the mouth.

As their lips parted, Karia whipped her legs up and kicked him off her and over the end of the bed. She crawled up to the edge and looked innocently down at his moaning form as the floor was mainly shattered hardwood, “Told you I’ll get you back…” she whispered pleasantly before leaping off the bed again and whipping he sheets back off the bed to cover him, turning finally to the door with the shattered lock, destroyed some time ago with a direct shotgun shell.

Outside and into the packed hallway, not by people but laundry baskets piled up on top of each other and nearly every door, be they closed or not emanated loudly with resounding snores; she was the one of two women in the fifty-man section that traded places on the wall in monthly intervals.

The wall was the simple nickname for the twenty-foot high edge of a six-square kilometer ‘hole-n-the-ground’ or ‘refugee-pit’ as dubbed by the guards: many people had fled from the main city that was the majority of the minute-moon’s suface, too scared to live under the reign of the crime-bosses and the drug lords but most of them were from the poorer sections of society, forced to live in far-worse-than cripplingly uninhabitable conditions.

Here in the pit they were safe; no risk of forced-prostitution for children, working sewage systems and all of which were fed at no cost, needless to say it was a huge drain on the planet’s economy and the many bosses wanted to get their hands on the inhabitants of the pit and use the open land.

It was well known that every now and then some of the wall’s guards would be paid off to allow these nefarious peoples to smuggle drugs in and take the odd slave here and there; as usual of you were caught talking about it you got an immediate transfer and were never heard of again.

Karia joined the Guard in a feeble attempt at helping the former mining colony become a real place to live, not just some glorified cesspool of inescapable corruption; some of her colleagues saw her as an idealist, and that was quote a bad thing in this kind of society…

It made her sick to watch the trucks come and go, dropping off ‘supplies’ and leaving with a few ‘volunteers’; all of whom bound and gagged for the trip back to the main central districts of hell-incarnate.

After her first few weeks working the wall, she leaned to put up with it and suck it in, nothing was going to change at this rate and there was no hope for the future well-being of anyone not born with already-stocked bank accounts.

This was Inolion, where the impossible may happen…
Or such was the tourism slogans; the real impossibilities were good deeds and people willing to do so…

The first one was sort of weird but the second part THe Wall sounds like some kind of Tom CLancy in progress. Sounds good.

#3 Another Barkeep!

Same old routine…
Day in…
Day out…

Ask,
Glass,
Pour,
Mix,
Shake,
Stir and charge.

Oh how he disliked being a bartender, what he wouldn’t do to get off the miserable and ever-corrupt moon of Inolion. The fact was; he only did the depressing job to keep himself off the street and save up enough of his meager wage to fulfill his dream of returning to Terra, mother Earth as was his true home until two years ago when he was enticed by the wonderful advertising boards that stated ‘Inolion was the place for tomorrow’s people!’.

He strongly believed that they should add; ‘You’ll love it so much you’ll never leave even if you tried!’

To get off of Inolion you needed money…
Piles upon piles of credits were required to purchase for yourself a one-way trip offworld as the crime-syndicates would buy the already expensive tickets and multiply the price tenfold; the worst factor was that cheap one-way tickets to Inolion were quite common, trapping those foolish enough via the hope of an inexpensive holiday…

Once again, he fixed a distinguished customer with a drink of his choice; the man was labeled distinguished because he was the chief of police, a virtual pocket book keeper for the mob.

“So what’s the score so far eh?” the sly and obnoxious man asked in a mocked curious tone.

“’Scuse me sir… I have no idea what you mean…”

The chief’s expression suddenly shifted from maniacally sarcastic to plain maniacal, “I should have a word to Kyle about this… His prized barkeeper doesn’t even know the goings-on around here, isn’t that the job of a man in your position?”

”S-sorry sir, it’s just that… well it’s been rather quiet today and I’ve heard nothing out of the ordinary… uh, sir…” his voice strayed and strained, displeasing a man of his standing was a death-warrant.

“Fair enough!” the grotesque man announced suddenly after downing his alcohol with one swift stroke, “Another barkeep!”

“Right away… sir…” the barman sighed heavily; the chief of police was easily swayed by the consumption of booze even when talking discreetly about women he liked…

After another three shots of his chosen drink, the man drew his sidearm and leveled it at the man behind the bar, cocking back the hammer with his thumb and issuing a dull click that indicated that the TAC special revolver was fully loaded.

“Another drink, s-sir?” he asked as his heart threatened to leap from his chest.

“I was exaggerating when I said you were Kyle’s prized ‘tender, I’ve had quite enough of you and your thick skull; no skills as a bartender whatsoever!”

“Wait please, I have a family on Earth… Please don't…” his feeble whimper was drowned out but the raucous shout of a high-caliber round as it catapulted itself from the barrel of the weapon and flew perfectly into his right eye socket, the only sounds that broke the sudden and eery silence were his body slumping to the floor and the odd whimper from one of Kyle’s many girls there.

The Police Chief took hold of the bottle of alcohol and poured himself one as there was obviously no one to do so for him, “You’re family won’t even know what happened to you… I’ll make sure of that!”

He took out his wallet and dropped a few credit-chips on his lifeless body, “For the drinks my friend… Seeya!”

The setting of Inolion is staring to sound like a retro-Trigun setting!

4# A Cat Called Katt

The ship vibrated harmoniously as the onboard inertial dampers went to work, almost completely nullifying the intense G-forces of the ion-reverse thrusters, slowing it down from near-light speed to a maintainable pace.

“How’s our cargo?” the pilot asked idly, his copilot was getting sick of it as he had asked the same thing seven times…

“You could ask one of the others to do it” the man groaned, crossing his arms defiantly to emphasize his point.

The pilot just looked at him strangely, shaking his head, “Jaclyn is currently trying to secure us a safe landing zone and Terry is negotiating with the authorities about our cargo rights; all lies of course…”

His assistant hushed him and told him to listen closely for any signs of Jaclyn… he could hear stifled giggling.

“Oh for crying out… WILL YOU TWO DO YOUR JOBS AND GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF EACHOTHER!” the captain bellowed down the narrow corridor to his associates he couldn’t see whilst steering the ship, they reappeared momentarily, readjusting their clothes as they went down the back end of the small craft.

“Can you please check on the girls now?” the captain asked, more or less a demand than a request.

He finally gave in and followed after the giggling little boy and girl, spotting them duck quickly off to the right and wrap around each other within a heartbeat; he followed them and poked his head through the hanging material that covered the comm. room, they stared suddenly as if caught during a horrible crime, like the one they were committing with their ‘cargo’.

There was a brief moment when all three of them just stared, they with wide-eyes and him with a vicious snarl. “Carry on…” he whispered as the snarl failed and a mischievous grin poked through.

As soon as his head was removed from the small room and immediately the sounds returned, growing gradually quieter as he made his way down the narrow lengths of the small but long ship.

The cargo bay was between the engine-room and the rest of the ship, divided by a vacuum-sealed door as pirates would often attack so fast that the cargo bay would be empty and gone before they were even detected.

The thought of which dredged up some nasty memories, “Damn Dreld scum…”

With a slight hiss the door unsealed and allowed him into the until room, the air-recyclers pumped dank and humid oxygen accompanied by a dreadful smell of enriched lubricants and leaking coolant.

“Lights on…” he mumbled, no response…
One of his most hated enemies was an auto-response system that didn’t work properly…
“LIGHTS!” he screamed, the room seemed to shift but not from the vibrations of his mighty roar before the lights blinked on simultaneously.

“Two, four, six…” he counted idly…

Lined up orderly and neatly sorted by color-coding and age…

A huge fresh batch of the latest breeds, all trained and ready for work; Felis Sapien slaves squinted and whimpered at the sudden influx of light blinded their acute eyes, those that managed to focus so far looked pleadingly at him.

By all means and aesthetic purposes they were human, save for the curling-slender tails, protruding ears from the near-top of the skull that sometimes twitch and the slightly enlarged but subtle canines.

Ronald, or ‘Ran’ as was his nickname leant over and inspected each one’s restraints; most of the females cowered by his closing presence, the males just sat there quietly and obediently.

In a way he was jealous that they were naturally athletic but slight of build; he glared into the eyes of any that dared to look back at him before slapping them brutally in numerous amounts.

After inspecting just half their number, their cowering moans were silenced and all eyes on the floor that they sat upon.

“That’s right; I’m human, you’re freaks created by us for us; never think any different!” he lectured the enslaved souls, as no law included their new race and that those who dared to try were either bribed or ‘removed’ from their position; the slaves would remain that…

They were sold for ridiculously-high prices to rich men and women too lazy to hire a maid or butler, the newly dubbed ‘Katts’ were trained to replace such positions and most usually treated far worse than their transporters.

The more family-oriented 'fat-cats' would also quite often purchase them as pets for their children; diabolically discarding them when they reached puberty, which they were genetically altered to reach around the age of eight, becoming fully matured at thirteen or fourteen.

The sex-slave trade reveled the constant influx of these poor people as they were becoming more and more popular among the crowds with rather disturbing tastes in such acts.

Their current cargo were all aged past fifteen and destined for the rich and famous of Inolion; at the time it was a developing city that covered nearly half the moon’s surface, the depression had not occurred and wouldn’t occur for another seventy years, ninety-something years behind the current date.

Ram finished checking the fastenings that held them down and right at the end of the cargo bay, directly in front of the engine bay.

He looked the back wall next to the door he stood in front and noticed a set of empty chains, claw-marks on the door release mechanism to the engine-bay.
Out of pure habit, he took hold of his TAC 116 sidearm and activated the bayonet-torch whilst inching to the side and activating the door release; the room was eerily dark, it was on the same system as the cargo bay, “Lights” he said clearly, the ceiling merely sparking and popping as it tried to accommodate his request without a working light that had been smashed brutally.

For the first time in a long while, his throat developed a lump that he couldn’t swallow and his heart upped the tempo as he took a few steps into the room.

Before he could bring his weapon to bear, the escaped Felis quite literally pounced and brought his powerful legs to bear and kicked off of Ram’s chest; the Katt’s powerful hind-muscles snapped three of his ribs and knocked him clean off of his feet.

As he tried to recover the male jumped again and sunk it’s teeth into his neck, biting repetitively and leaning heavily on his chest, adding to the fire of pain.

Ram brought his fist up and wiped the creature off of him with a single blow and trying to rise again and go for the discarded weapon, only to fall with a bellow as his chest screamed in defiance, a resounding cough brought nothing but blood and more pain.

The black-eared male managed to recover from the mighty blow and simply got to his feet and stood on the injured man’s back as he crawled to his weapon, crouching down and centering his weight directly opposite to the area that seemed to be granting the large human great agony.

He tried to find the words that best suited how he felt, having never been able to speak unless ordered to; his voice was distorted and full of rage, “Hurt… I hurt you… you need pain… I am your owner now; and I say DIE!” he hissed sharply and stood straight again, bringing his foot up and down again with all of his might, snapping Ram’s spine with a sickening crunch.

He leant down again and sniffed the body, poking him primitively with his nose to ensure the kill.

The eyes of the captives in the cargo bay had witnessed the entire event, most of whom were frightened by the very possibility of freedom; it was never even a possible dream for even the most imaginative of their young species.

The light caught the glossy shell of the weapon that the human had so desperately wanted back, he didn’t even know what it was but still took it in his hand to imitate the way Ram had held it, almost literally jumping from his skin as he squeezed the trigger and fired a found accidentally into his former captor’s body.

He didn’t know of even care as he figured how to use the keys he had now to free his people, the far door leading to the rest of the ship was closed and vacuumed-sealed, preventing the sound of the shot fired from reaching the rest of the crew’s ears…

The Felis Sapiens moved so quickly and quietly that the crew never even knew what killed them, though sadly only about half the ‘cargo’ survived as there was no one left to pilot the ship and prevent it from crashing upon the surface of Inolion and out in the uninhabited wastes.

Back inside the crashed ship, just a few meters from were Ram’s limp body lay were the chains of the Back-eared Katt…

The collar read ‘Kyle’…

((Oh man, that last one was typed so fast there are heaps of typos; And Ran's name changed to Ram halfway through, and it says he fired a 'found' into his dead body... I only just realized AFTER the edit deadline for KMC))

((Hope you liked it anyway; the next one is under construction...))

5# A Sniper’s Pride… Or Guilt?

Karia felt that sick feeling again as on of the dreaded trucks was admitted past the gates and into the pit, they were here with a phenomenal among of crate this time; she had heard rumors that they were experimenting with a new drug and the The Wall was a perfect place for it’s testing grounds.

Children in the past had been known to kill one another over drugs there, she tried to hold it back but a hot tear of pure grief for these people rolled down her cheek.

“What you fallin’ apart for?” corporal Patricia Toriiens, a half-Elden beauty and good friend of Karia’s asked her curiously, but right now she wasn’t in the mood…

“That’s Lieutenant or ma’am Pat…” she said sternly with a malicious glare, Patricia had known her for a while and knew she could get like this; they still remained friends.
“Forgive me, ma’am…” she corrected herself politely before pressing on, “I have noticed that you seem either agitated of just depressed when the trucks show, Lieutenant…”

Karia slumped her shoulders and let slip another tear, “I-I’m sorry but I-I hate just sitting here and being forced to witness them experiment on innocent people, I mean how can you trade drugs for human livestock… the worst thing is that the refugees in the pit are the ones who trade their family members for drugs that they have become addicted to; it is absolutely indescribable…”

Pat opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to devise words to cheer her ailing friend, but failing miserably.

She walked to the edge and covered her mouth as she could see the distributors chaining people up in trade from the narcotics; mostly children screamed and cursed for their need of the life-destroying substance, only to be forcibly beaten back by the gate guards.

One man among them broke through and began to hurl crates overhead to his needing fellow-addicts, only to be shot in the chest three times and another two for measure when on the ground; his clothes were quickly stripped from his body and someone actually tried to barter his dead body for a crate of the substance.

“This is getting out of hand, I think…” Patricia began, looking back at her felloe guard to see her clutching her heart and close to loosing her stomach, “…another attack? You seem to come closer and closer each time they come…”

With a violently shaking hand Karia unscrewed the cap from her canteen and tried to calm her nerves with the ice-cold water, leaning on her .45 cal rifle for support.
Pat left the edge of the tower’s peak and went to comfort her, feeling through Karia’s broad semi- shoulders that her breathing was dangerously shallow and erratic.

A buzz of static came from their minute earpieces, “Tower three, tower three! Where is your support; It’s a riot down here, we need suppressive fire with non-lethals!”

Karia always had her faithful rifle loaded with non-lethals, basically rubber rounds designed not to penetrate even the weakest of targets as she truly believed that no one in the pit deserved to die.

Suddenly she was steady; she could do something without any deaths this time because she knew the influx of drugs was inevitable.
Hefting the large rifle with ease and onto the lip of the tower’s railings, she used the specially designed bipod to steady her slightly-shaking aim before lining her eye two inches behind the scope so she wouldn’t poke herself in the eye; it was mainly out of habit as her left eye was an augmented implant as she had lost it with her arm.

The ringleader of the rebelling mob was clearly apparent, the distant raucous cry of the mob below was drowned out by the thunderous shout of her massively-barreled rifle, picking off key targets among them and paralyzing them with the crippling soft rubber bullets.

Three shots broke them apart and temporary order was restored, the radio crackled its thanks for the support.

But something had happened as they broke apart; in the havoc two refugees had secured weapons from a fallen guard and were now firing randomly into the crowd, obviously mad for their lust towards the infectious goods.

Once again their commander yelled over the buzzing system for immediate elimination as their men were pinned down, the innocent were getting mowed down by the one man who had even turned on his own accomplice.

“I guess he doesn’t class as innocent now, eh?” Patricia asked honestly as Karia removed the pacifistic ammunition and reluctantly replaced it with .45 hollow point rounds for increased range.

No one else in their entire division could make such a shot, none daring enough nor skilled enough with a rifle to take this man out, “Even the innocent do not remain as…” She muttered as the man’s head came into the center of her crosshair, exhaling before squeezing the soft-trigger mechanism; the familiar kickback rolling back into her remaining natural shoulder before the man’s body landed swiftly on the ground, his head fifteen feet from it…

Fancy posting mine up, Aliies?

"Hmm..." Aliies strokes his chin thoughtfully, though as a positve gesture somewhere along the lines as a 'secretive' yes...

6# Saren Telyd; Introduction by Trickster.

Saren hurried through the darkness. Now was not the time to take a stand. Close to thirty of his pupils had died, and he had not a clue as to the fate of the others. He was livid at the infinitesimal chance that had led to the collapse of his plans about his ears. Saren hesitated for a moment, stretching his senses for signs of the enemy. They had stormed into the submerged coastal palace that was his home, over a thousand heavily armed ground troops, the majority in the colours of the Third Order. Though not as powerful as the psychics that had accompanied the soldiers, Saren had long planned for eventualities such as this.

Escaping through a specially hewn tunnel, blast doors closing behind him as he abandoned the Rino Family to their grisly fate, he turned his attention to the things ahead. The tunnel led to a closed sewer, only accessible by warehouse at the other end and several chosen houses. Resting in the sewage would be a dated but still functionable powerboat, and Saren would pilot it personally against the current to the warehouse. Once there, he would make his way to a colleague, who would already know of what had transpired at the Rino estate. Giving this man a few instructions to relay to the other parts of the network, Saren would leave. Eventually, he would find himself on a truck travelling through the Wall, where he would lie low until the hunt for him died down.

That had been two years ago. The hunt, outside the Wall, was still on. The last contact he'd had from outside, six months ago, had been in the form of a bribed guard giving him the message he'd been dreading: that The Starling was dead and still the Order hunted for Saren. Now the length of his stay within the Wall's confines was undetermined once again, and he needed to find companions, for with The Starling's death the Order could finally direct their searchers to the one place it was known Saren hated, and where he was now. All the psychic hoped, as he crouched in the light of his glowlamp in the two room hovel he had won for himself, was that their collective power had still not discovered his name.