It was such an unfortunate loss in funding. Being booted to this galaxy would prove to be the greatest challenge the Free Directorate of Izeran would face in its reconstruction. However, that didn’t preclude unique opportunities arising from these circumstances. Every door in the past had been slammed shut in the FDI’s face, but many more had been opened. And the beginning of these unique opportunities would be presented by the Alaaxi Restorative.
Strange beings these Alaaxi were, thought Harvell of the “Acquisitions Group,” a subset of the medical wing of the Izerani government. Such bizarre anatomies would make the eggheads happy. How many did they request…
Harvell reached into a box on his back, containing equipment of all varieties. Inside was a physical paper scrap, various EMP charges, a small pistol using hopelessly barbaric chemical ammunition, various pieces of communications equipment, and a truly ridiculous amount of rations. He, himself, was clad in a radiation-resistant suit, cobalt blue like the warships, with a tinted visor blocking any onlooking viewers from seeing his face. And it was all so heavy, one soldier was never intended to carry this much gear. He was supposed to get 3 other men with him, but the Military Block had plucked them out under “emergency policing duties,” as if there was a need for them on the colony ships they had access to. No civilians were going to be able to use, let alone acquire, a weapon of any use against the soldiers of the FDI, but that fact conveniently was ignored.
He would pull out that scrap of paper, truly a bizarre sight at the best of times for most of the Izerani, and begin reading the request, the dimming of twilight on the Alaaxi planet making it challenging to read the paper scrap.
Scrawled onto it was a short, brusque, and straightforward mission – “Obtain 3-4 Alaaxi cores for further study. Physical damage is strictly off the table. An exoatmospheric transport will be waiting for your signal - use the communications equipment in your supplies to indicate when the mission is complete. Time is a factor. You are not to be discovered, we will not assist if you are captured.”
“Whatever the scientists wanted would have to wait for a little while.” Harvell murmured to himself, crumpling the paper and shoving it back into the box. If nothing else, they at least managed to stock proper non-lethals for this mission.
As the star’s light waned over the planet’s surface, casting a beautiful bluish hue onto the surface and sky, Harvell would begin his operation, stalking the outskirts of this town, its mismatched housing styles revealing the obvious disparity in the society of the Alaaxi. Housing made of a physical form of light itself was common enough to see, and on the outskirts of the town it was the norm – however, as Harvell approached inwardly, a radical change was noticed, with the housing taking on a more and more permanent and structured form as the distance to the town’s center decreased.
However, disguising himself would prove to be the most challenging part of the mission – his humanoid form would not match ANYTHING the Alaaxi would be accustomed to seeing, and if he stood out, what he was planning on doing would bring suspicion to him and the FDI above all other powers. Given the absolute disparity in biology and construction of the two species…
Harvell would think on this issue for most of his waking hours, constantly hiding between the traditional housing in the shade of the day, sleeping behind the houses. At night, he would stalk out the poorer among the Alaaxi. Strange creatures, they were. Very vaguely humanoid, but not quite right in any aspect. And their housing too…hard light was common enough to find in Izerani military service, but to think it could possibly be what one’s home was made out of? How did it maintain its structure? Questions raced through his head about just what these things were.
After many days of observation and recording, it seemed like Harvell would finally pick out his target – a poorer clique of the Alaaxi on the outskirts of town.
“No one would miss a couple replaceable factory workers.” he wrote in his own account of this mission, which he was writing down in order to keep an account of the events for the FDI.
With yet another setting star over the horizon, allowing the planet to bask in its blue glow, Harvell decided to watch it. Such a beautiful sight, unfortunately impossible to see on the colony ships of the FDI. However, now was not the time for reflection and sentimentality. He noted down the beautiful blue sunset, making note that perhaps this planet would make for a good place to settle if it weren’t for those already there.
After the star dipped below the horizon, the time had come for the operation to begin in earnest. Harvell would consume one of his rations, enjoying it despite the terrible taste and questionable nutritional content, he would then rise from his ramshackle encampment and begin to make his way into town. His targets were right on the edge of city limits, as it were, so a quick in-and-out job would be feasible.
As he approached, he shuffled through his bag for the EMP charges. They were all excessively strong for their purpose, so instead of knocking out one house or family it might knock out the entire neighborhood. Little issue, though, if only a couple randomly chosen people were missing and no one saw the Boogeyman.
Walking the empty night-time streets, Harvell placed the EMP charges right around the house, four in total. One on each outer “wall.” He had been slow, deliberate, and quiet above all else. Tension pounded in his head, running through the hundreds of ways this could go wrong. From what he was told, the Alaaxi cores were heavy and quite bulky, so he’d have to ditch something in order to carry them. However, it seemed this part of this town was desolate at night. As expected of a residential area.
Harvell steadied his nerves, his finger shaking above the primer, before taking a deep breath and clicking it.
At once, the lights all cut out in a quite large area, and Harvell wasted little time in entering the house, frantically searching every room for an Alaaxi core. In the mass bedroom, he found about twenty cores, seemingly in a form of sleep mode or short-circuited for the time being. Three, three, three were enough. Harvell grabbed three cores and bolted from the room, throwing the Alaaxi cores inside his box. Quickly, he slung the box over his shoulder to the floor, opening it and throwing out every other ration he had and every piece of unneeded equipment as well, replacing it in the box with a core for these beings.
His job was done, it was time for extraction. Rushing out of the house, he began to make a straight line for his encampment out of town, quite far away. It would not take especially long for any local forces to respond to this apparent terrorist attack, and time was of the essence. He threw down the box with as much force as he had before, taking out the Alaaxi cores and attaching an inhibitor to them to keep them asleep until it was time to experiment on them.
The communications beacon was collapsible, so it was able to fit inside the box. He threw it out and planted it on the ground, and at once it began to emit a pulse signal to the exoatmospheric transport, having been riding the edge of space, conserving fuel all the while waiting for the signal. Once those unmistakable pulses began, it dropped itself into the atmosphere slowly at first, zeroing in on Harvell’s location.
Harvell had been observing the goings-on in the town, having been dangerously close to being discovered several times before his evac came.
“Took you idiots long enough.” he told the crew as he boarded the craft, placing the box in the cargo hold. “Get me the hell out of here.”
Scarcely a minute had passed before they began their ascent out of the atmosphere of the planet, the operation having gone off without a hitch. The techies back onboard Forlorn Hope were going to have a field day with the Alaaxi, be it for better or worse.
