SSF Rebirth preview (pre, ch 1, part of 2)

Prelude




The quiet family night is something very serine and peaceful. There are many things that a family may do, they may sit around the TV and watch something they all enjoy, they could play a game, or they could all read a story together. These are just some of the many things that a family could do together. This was the Harms family for a long time, they used to sit around their TV and watch old re-runs of sitcoms that played 15 years ago, they used to eat dinner on their trays while sitting together in their living room, rather than at their table. The Harms family used to do these things together. It was until the children grew up, that things started to fall out of place. The eldest child, Lyra, started working, the youngest son, Hartley, started working on his art more.
Hartley was a special child, he was born with these strange blue marks around his body, and his family never seemed to question why they were there, not even anyone else who had seen them (which were very few people). He wasn’t off, or strange, he was really perfectly normal, the only difference that set him apart from other children was that he was much more conditioned, he could run for hours without tiring, any bit of physical activity was a piece of cake for him. Not only were his athletics well rounded, his mind was too; he always seemed to be able to concentrate on whatever he was working on, he never got distracted, he was overall a good worker.
The parents, Karen and Tate, would spend more time together, alone. The family grew apart, more and more each day it seemed. Lyra would spend more time working, Hartley would spend more time in his room planning his next art piece and talking with boys he had met, and their parents would read in their bed. It was only at dinner times that they would be close and interact with each other. This was not a dysfunctional family, they all love each other and they all enjoyed the time they spent together, the only thing was there wasn’t much time together as their used to be. There often would be more and more discussion of events at the dinner table, and soon, milestones in their lives would be missed by each other, until they were brought up. This changed when Hartley suffered a major break up, it tore him up. He had felt so sad for so long, unable to tell his parents what he was going through. Until Lyra finally came to his aid, and soon after, his parents did as well. The family grew closer together, remembering how nice it was to be a family again. They started doing things together again as they once did when the children were young, they started watching TV together again, they ate dinner in the living room again, they went out again. It was a revival for the family. It was a long time since they were all together again. And they all loved it; they never wanted it to end. Lyra started taking leave more often, Hartley would take more breaks from his art, and Karen and Tate would spend more time with their children.
But not every family can stay like this. The family would soon be torn apart again, but not from the inside, not by the members. This event would shape them forever.

“Good, a commercial,” Tate said getting up from the couch and walking to the kitchen, “would anyone want something to drink?” He asked.
“Can you get me a glass of water dad?” Lyra said, waving her hand around in the air.
“Water, comin’ right up!” Tate said swinging the cabinet door open and taking two glasses out. He placed them on the hard marble counter top and went to grab their water jug from the refrigerator. Once he had filled the glasses with water, he popped the jug back into the fridge and returned to his seat on the couch. Tate looked out the window after sitting down. It was just getting into the evening; it was warm out, so they had the window open. A nice breeze wandered in from outside.
An ad for some prescription drug was playing on the TV, it was an allergy medication, but it had the worst side effects. “Who has ever used this,” Karen asked gesturing to the TV, everyone turned to listen to her “I mean jeez it has just the worst effects, and just to get you to stop sneezing?” She chuckled a bit and everyone returned to the show.
The family heard the sound of a truck pull up to their house. Hartley followed the sound of footsteps from the truck to their front door, and not long after, a knock came. Everyone turned to the door and looked intently at it. A second knock came, and a third. Tate rose from his seat carefully. Karen moved to get up as well, but Tate motioned for her to sit back down. Tate looked through the peep hole on the door to see two men at the door, they were wearing camouflage jackets and both had pistols at their sides. Tate reluctantly opens the door, but just a crack open.
“What do you want?” Tate asked in a tone not normal to his cheery upbeat attitude.
The two men looked at each other, then back to Tate. “We need to talk with you; it’s something important regarding your son.” The man on the left said, he was a tall burley man, he seemed to be an Ursus, he was heavy in stature. He dwarfed his partner was a short Canis.
Tate turned back to his family and told Lyra to take Hartley up to her room and wait for them. He then turns back to the men at the door and opens it wider. “Look,” he said in a concise tone, “I don’t know who you are, or what you want with my son.” Lyra put her hand behind Hartley’s shoulder and they went up the stairs to her room. Karin now stood up and joined her husband at the door. “Now what do you want?” He asks glaring at the two men.
“We were given orders to take your son into custody.” The shorter man said
“And whose authority did this come from?” Tate asked with an annoyed tone.
The Ursus pulls out his pistol “That is none of your concern,” he said as Tate puts his hands up. Karen steps back a few feet. “Our orders are none of your concern.” He repeated stepping into the doorway. Hartley hears the pistol cock and he rushes back to the stairs.
The Canis looks up to Hartley and moves to the stairs. Tate steps into his way stopping him. “Step aside.” The Canis asks politely whilst reaching for his own gun. Lyra catches Hartley and pulls him back, but stops to see what was going on. The argument gets more and more heated as both parties start raising their voices. Hartley starts down the stairs and makes his way to his father. Karen then pulls him back as Tate yells at the Ursus some more.
“If you refuse to hand over the boy, then we will take him by force!” The Ursus yelled out. He then proceeded to pull the trigger on Tate then moving to Karen. He shoots her as well.
Shocked, Hartley’s knees buckle and he falls to the floor shaking his parents’ bodies. Lyra then jumps over the rail of the stairs and down to the floor below. The Ursus grabs Hartley’s arm with great force and yanks him up and away from his parents.  Hartley, with a flash of anger, starts to growl at the Ursus. He shakes Hartley around a bit. That was the tipping point for him, Hartley lashes out at the Ursus, his eyes glowing bright blue, as the marks on his body start to glow as well. Surprised, the Ursus drops Hartley and backs away drawing his pistol once again. Lyra stood in shock of what had and was happening as she watched her brother leap out at the Ursus and slash his neck with his razor sharp claws. Hartley, still fueled by his rage, leaps out at the scrawny Canis and takes his head in his hand and smacks it into the door jam, killing him instantly. He begins to calm as his marks start to lose their glow. He turns back to his parents and nuzzles them, crying as he does it.
Lyra jumps back off of the floor, and takes her brother by the wrist, pulling him out to their garage and into her car. Still in shock, they sit in the car, both in fear of what was happening. Lyra starts the engine and opens the garage door. Hastily she backs out to find another man in the back of the truck waiting, and growing impatient with how long it was taking to grab Hartley. Lyra reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a pistol, she rolls down the window and shoots the man in the truck and drives off.
“What the hell is going on?” Hartley asks, sobbing.
“Those men,” Lyra says turning to her brother,” they were looking for you, I… I don’t know why” she said.
“Well… what’s going to happen now?” Hartley asked getting hysterical, “Mom and dad are dead! What do we do now?
Lyra sighs, thinking of what to do next. She turns back to her brother, and then pulls over. She reaches over and hugs her brother tightly. “I’m going to keep you safe,” she says, tearing up, “I promise you I’ll keep you safe.”
“Can you tell me where we are headed?” Hartley asks, calming down.
“I’m going to take you to where I work, the Sircan Special Forces office, here in Episemon. They’ll get things sorted out.” She says as she makes a U turn and heads the opposite direction, back to the SSF office. “The people there can be trusted, you can count on that, and they’ll help us.” She continues. Then under her breath, she mutters “They’ll have to.” The two continue into the night. Hartley tolls his window down to let the cool night breeze in. He sticks his hand out through it and remembers how their family used to go on road trips through Sirca, they won’t any more.










Chapter 1: Wanted




The two finally reach a small building on the top of a large hill, they pull into a parking space in front and step out into the cool night, Hartley and Lyra both stretch out, and they have been driving for quite a while. Hartley looks into the doors of the SSF office and sees a woman at what seems to be a front desk. She waves him in, and the two enter the office.
The room was very bright, lit by fluorescent bulbs, the long ones, the kind you would find in an office building, covered by the plastic reflector strip that goes over them. There was a small plant on the woman’s desk, and two larger spider plants on either end of the doorway. The woman wore a knit green shirt and wore glasses. She was reading a book when she waved them in, it seemed to Hartley to be one of those cheesy romance novels with the muscular main character and the dashing dame. The woman spoke with a very light tone, she was very quiet, but got her point across none the less.
“What is it you need LtCmdr. Harms?” The woman asked, putting down her book.
“I need to speak with Norric,” She said with confidence, “is he here?
“He is; would you like me to send him up here?” She asked putting her hand over black plastic telephone on her desk.
“Yes, thank you Miss Anderson.” Lyra says, reaching for a candy that was in the jar on the counter. Lyra takes her brother and they sit on the chairs next to the front door. Miss Anderson gets off the phone with Norric, and tells Lyra that he will be up shortly. She then looks over to Hartley and smiles as most adults do when they see people much younger than them.
The two waited for quite a while before Norric came out of the elevator. He was a taller thinner man; he must have been a Lepus Vulpes.  He had red fur and black hair; such colors were rare to find in a capital city like Episemon, where the primary color is blue.  He wore the SSF Officer jacket, it was green with broad pointed shoulders, on the top of the shoulders, were his rank tags, they both had the silver symbol of Commander. His sleeves were rolled up, as most of the jackets are, and on both arms, he wore the SSF Emblem patch. Along with the jacket, he wore the SSF standard shin guards, they were grey and full of scratches he had gotten from battle, and both were laced tightly around his shins. A small necklace hung around his neck, the small piece of it was a Beta symbol, and the small chain was slung through the holes in the letter.  He walked swiftly, the ends of his jacket fluttered up and down as he caught the draft from the ceiling. Lyra stood up as Norric grew closer to them; she reached out and shook his hand.
“Anderson told me that you wanted to talk,” He said in a strong voice, “what is it about?” He asked.
Lyra sighed and composed herself, she hadn’t spoken much since the incident “There’s been a problem, I… I don’t know how else to put it.”
“Well what was it?” Norric asked eagerly.
She inhaled, preparing to tell her CO of the dreadful news “Our parents have been murdered.” She blurted out. As she said that, Norric’s expression changed from a worried one to a sympathetic one. “A group of men came to our door demanding we give them Hartley.”
Norric then looked down to him; he put his hand on Hartley’s shoulder and turned back to Lyra. “Do you have any idea who did this?” She asked getting more serious.
Hartley speaks up, “They were wearing camo jackets and carried pistols, and I have one of the ones they were carrying.” He pulls the gun out from his belt and from under his shirt. When he did this, Lyra looked over to him very surprised; she had not noticed that her brother had taken the gun before they left.
The gun was a very heavy pistol; it had a red dot marker below the barrel, and had a silencer. Hartley hands it to Norric to let him inspect it. Norric steps to the right and under the light. He turns it back and forth, inspecting every detail. “It doesn’t have a serial number, so it wasn’t purchased commercially, and it doesn’t have a make or model.” Norric said looking at the bottom of the gun. He releases the magazine and hands the empty gun back to Hartley. He pops out the bullet on the top and looks at that closely. “Ah, here we are,” He said handing the bullet to Lyra, “we have the ammunition supplier; all we need to do is investigate the supplier to find who bought these bullets.”
“And if we find the supplier, we find whoever was in charge of those men.” Hartley says interrupting Norric.
“Exactly.” Norric says nodding to him, “Let’s take this to the lab for an analysis, and then we can start an investigation. We’ll have to cover the story up to keep the media off of this, anyone have any suggestions?” He asked.
“We can say that it was just a random act of violence, and that the killer escaped.” Lyra says, “But we’ll have to have someone clean up the bodies that my brother left, and take care of the truck that was outside.”
“I’ll get a team on that.” Norric says pointing to Miss Anderson, she nods and dials the phone to call in a stationed squad for the cleanup.
The three of them walk over to the elevator that was to the left of them when they entered the building. It was cramped and tight, the walls were covered with some sort of wood look-alike board, and in other words, it wasn't real. There were metal hand holds that were covered in stains from people grabbing on to them, and from people never cleaning them. The elevator itself smelled like air freshener, like it was trying to cover something up.
On the way down, Norric turns to Hartley, “You okay?” he asks, looking sympathetic.
Hartley, who had been staring intently at the gun, looked back up to Norric, “I… I want revenge, I know I killed those men, but I want to end everyone they were associated to.” He said coldly.
Norric sighed, “Look, trying to settle some personal vendetta is only going to bring you more pain, because when you do finally get what you want, it won’t be really what you though it would be.”
Hartley looked up to him and started to tear up. Norric then puts his arm around him and hugs him. Hartley felt something when this happened, he felt like he knew that Norric knew what he was going through, to lose his loved ones.
They finally reached the bottom floor, the doors opened and revealed a sleek shiny hallway, the walls were shiny white, and there were large windows that spanned from about halfway from the bottom of the floor, to the ceiling. The ceiling was at a moderate height, it wasn’t tall like some depot store, and it wasn’t short like a service tunnel.
The three walked down the hallway, Norric and Lyra took point, for Hartley didn’t know where everything was. Norric and Lyra turned down another long hallway. They reached the door that was three from the turn, on the left. In it were about three people looking at different things, one person was sitting at a computer looking up transactions, another was looking at a file, and the third was picking around a small metal box. Norric took the magazine from the pistol, and placed it on the table “Get to it,” He said, “Find out who owned these bullets, I want names, affiliates, addresses.” With that, he walked out. Lyra turned to her brother and shrugged, then followed her CO.
Hartley caught up to Norric, “Now what?” he asked “We have people looking at the bullets, what happens when we find out who made them?”
“Well when the researchers are done, they’ll tell me everything about the people who bought the bullets, along with the suppliers, if there is no address to the people who bought the rounds, we go after the supplier.” Norric said while not looking at Hartley, continuing down the hall.
“Who’s we?” Hartley asked annoyingly.
“Us, you, me, Lyra.” Norric said now turning to Hartley, he was smiling, and it was an odd reaction for Hartley, something he didn’t expect.
Norric turns into one of the rooms near the corner of the next intersection. “Wait here.” He said as he starts rummaging through some things in the room. He returns with three green jackets, all on coat hangers. “What size do you wear?” He asked.
“I wear an XL,” He said, “What’s this for?”
Norric handed him one of the jackets and went to put the others back. He then called for the two outside to come in. Lyra looked at her brother in disbelief, still not aware that Norric had just recruited her brother into the SSF, Hartley still didn’t know himself. They step in and Norric motions to a set of boxes. Hartley approaches one of them; he opens it, and found that they were all black fingerless gloves of varying sizes. “Just find your size and move on to the next one. Hartley found a pair that fit him, and then he moved to the next box, these had the same shin guards that Norric had. He had gotten a pair out of that one that fit him as well. Once he had collected everything, Norric led them out of the room.
“Go ahead, put it on.” He tells Hartley.
He slips into the jacket, keeping the sleeves rolled down, he then pops the collar up like Norric’s, the only difference is that Hartley’s doesn’t have the same fur around his collar.
“Come on, I’ll show you to the quarters.” Norric says while he walks back to the elevator.
“Wait, so this means I’m in the SSF too? That was pretty easy.” Hartley says catching up to Norric.
“Easy for you, you’re a legacy, your father used to be a part of this group, and his father too. You’re bound to have inherited the skills they had. Of course you can’t just jump into things right away, I’ll put you through basic, and then I’ll mentor you personally.” He said confidently.
Lyra leans in close to Hartley, “Norric is a very skilled combatant; despite his stature, he’s trained both Fi’la and Shi’a.”
They all reach the elevator and enter back into the scented box. They ride it up about three levels to the dormitory area. The doors open to reveal a hallway that wasn’t as shiny as the last floor, the walls were grey and chalky, the lights were turned off, and the only light that was visible were the lights from which were turned on in some of the quarters. It had cold hard floors, and they too, like the walls, were chalky.
“We’ll get you a room to sleep in, we have doubles so you can be with your sister, usually the officers don’t stay in the campus quarters, but given your circumstances, you probably wouldn’t want to be sleeping in some motel with your sister while a team of scary people with guns are after you.” Norric said as he walks them to a room at the end of the hall. “You two get some rest, you’ve had a rough night, and we need you focused tomorrow.” Norric pats Hartley’s shoulder as he walks into the dorm.
It was a lot bigger than the others that were there along the hall, Lyra and Hartley had seen some rooms that were open, those were small, one bed, a desk, and a lamp. This one was much larger; there were two separate beds, two desks, a closet space, a living area, and even a private bathroom. It was like a small apartment under the SSF base.
“This one must be one of the suites.” Lyra said as she flicked on the lights.
“Well I don’t know about you,” Hartley said, “but I’m getting some sleep.”
“Good idea, we both have had a pretty rough day.” Lyra said as she hopped into her bed.
The beds there were fairly comfortable; they were nice in the way that when you laid on them, you sink in a bit, like memory foam. The down blankets were expectedly warm, they needed to be, the rooms and housing were deep underground.
The night was very short, most of it was spent driving around Episemon, and ending with the siblings in the SSF base. The two slept for about three hours before Norric came and woke them.
“Rise and shine,” he said with a very down-to-earth attitude, “the research team has been hard at work the last few hours looking for the bullets makers.”
Lyra, who was still rubbing her eyes asked, “Have there been any leads?”
“A few, the best one we have leads to a mercenary group here in Episemon.” Norric said as he leaned up against the door jam, “The group’s called Talon.”
“Who are they?” He asked.
“They’re just a two bit militant merc group who just recently became a three bit one, they just have a new manager, and they are just as cliché as ever.” Lyra said as she sat up. “Though they are just hired cronies, they still are not to be trifled with.”
“I didn’t know I was one to trifle in other people’s affairs.” Hartley said cleverly.
“Remarks like that are just gonna’’ get you a punch in the face kid,” Norric said as he started towards Hartley. “Now get up, it’s time to start basic, like the rest of the newbies here.” Norric then pulls the blankets off of the half asleep boy. Hartley flailed his arms around, but realized that resisting it was useless; Norric was far stranger than him.
The day consisted of: Hartley getting started with basic, which included many drills, conditioning, and more drills; all of which were simple for him. He had always been good with physical activity.
Hartley’s time in basic was a strange change for him, usually in school, the students would just piss around and wait for the day to be over, the recruits in basic were motivated, and determined to better themselves. Hartley took great care to watch the others as they did their personal drills; he watched them as they improved technique. Often times he would have to leave the group to train with Norric, and those sessions would be focused on Hartley’s fighting, all mele. They worked with a variety of weapons, they worked with spears, and swords, daggers, but the attention grabber for Hartley was these two tanto. He described them to Norric as being perfect weapons for him, which he could utilize his speed and ferocity into flurries of attacks, rendering an opponent dazed and confused on what attacks were hitting and from what angle. Norric asked him if he would want to spar and practice with them. “Of course, I would love to show you what I’ve learned from Lyra and what I learned today.” He said with great confidence in his abilities.
“A warrior must not brag of his power, because there will always be someone just a bit better at it than you.” Norric said as he readied himself.
The fight began! Hartley started out dashing forward, he leapt around Norric to try to confuse him, to his avail, and Norric stood completely still, waiting for Hartley’s first real attack. Hartley attempted to strike Norric, but his mentor just stepped out of the way of the slice.
“Never think of your opponent as a lesser man.” He said as he parried Hartley’s attacks, “Always expect everything,” he continued, “even if they are as small as me!” he yelled as he grabbed Hartley’s arm as he tried to cut Norric, and put him into an arm bar.
Grunting, Hartley stopped. “You have much to learn, but you’re coming along better than you were this morning.” Norric said as he released his apprentice. “Come on, I’ll teach you some techniques with those, let’s get you using those correctly.” For the rest of the day, Norric and Hartley traded off the tanto, Norric would demonstrate an attack, and Hartley would replicate it. They got this down to a science, even to the point where Norric would show Hartley something once, and he would pick it up immediately.
It was getting close to the evening, and Hartley was starting to get tired, Norric who was panting heavily asked, “How do you keep at this? How do you have so much energy, I was getting winded about three hours ago, and you are just getting tired?”
“I’ve always been this conditioned, and I never really had to work for it.” Hartley replied as he stretched out his shoulder.
“Well, now that today’s training is done, let’s get you fitted for a sheath for those tanto. It’ll be a good look for you.” Norric said as he pulled his shirt off to replace it with something more airy and breathable.
The two went back down to visit R&D to see how things have been going with the Talon research, where Lyra was hard at work looking through data bases.
“So, how have things been down here?” Norric asked while leaning on the desk she was working on. He swung around to look at the computer monitor Lyra was watching, his eyes darted across the screen, looking at different information she had dug up. “Good job, have you found where the Episemon records location is?”
“I have, it’s about a two hour drive from here, it’s located at the base of a large cliff, a small safe house that high ranked Talon leaders would stay at if they were in trouble, along with that, there are the records of every transaction the Talon have ever made, so we should be able to find out exactly who ordered this kidnapping.” Lyra explained with great confidence and pride in her work.
“Great job,” Norric said as he pushed himself off of her desk, “Look I’m gonna’ take Hartley to get fitted for a sheath for his new weapons.”
“Oh, what did he pick?” She asked turning around in her chair.
“He chose the two tanto that nobody seemed to want.” Norric said, “Maybe it’s because they couldn’t use them correctly, your brother did pick up the techniques very quickly. I’m surprised at his retention and his ability to remember all of these moves.”
“He always was able to learn things really quickly.” Lyra said tapping her claw on the arm of her chair.
Hartley came out of the fitting room with a tight waist strap; on the back were two sheaths for his tanto. A technician came out after him, he was holding some sort of data pad and he was tapping away at it, “Custom fit, it’ll last you a while.” The tech said as he taps in some transaction information into a data pad he was holding, “If you need any repairs or replacements, just come back here.”
Hartley looked at his reflection in the glass window; he turned back and forth looking at his figure with the strap on his waist. “Why don’t you go and take a shower, it’s been a long day.” Lyra told her brother. He started towards the door, but Lyra caught his shoulder, “And don’t go shaking your ass in front of the other guys in the showers.” She whispered to him.






Chapter 2: Looking for Answers




Hartley had finished his shower, he returned to his dorm to change into some more comfortable cloths. When he entered, he found Lyra sitting on their couch reading. She looks up to him and says, “Norric says that the operation will be tomorrow.” She said in a calm tone.
“What operation?” Hartley asked as he went over to the closet in his room, and pulled off a hanger with a pair of pants and a shirt.
“The one I’ve been gathering information for since this morning!” Lyra said sounding irritated.
“Oh, right.” Hartley said as he pulled the shirt over his head. “Who’s going on that one?”
“Norric's going and so are you and I.” She said as she looked back to her book. Hartley looked up from pulling his pants up. He stepped out into the living room and looked at his sister.
“He thinks I’m ready?” Hartley asked.
“He knows you’re ready, but only for this one,” Lyra said as she looked up from her book, “Norric thinks you aren’t ready for the bigger more risky missions, not yet.”
Hartley smirked and went to sit next to his sister. He sits down gently as to not disturb Lyra, and then he leans his head on her shoulder. “What’s gonna happen,” He asked, “I mean with this whole SSF thing, what happens after we find who killed our parents?”
“I’m not sure,” Lyra said as she turned to look to her brother, “hopefully this will be over and done with.” She patted her brother on the arm, and then began to rub it up and down. This was something she did to calm him after his breakup. It always seemed to make him feel better, to know that his big sister was looking out for him.
He soon fell asleep, and when he did, Lyra noticed. She set her book down and picked up her little brother. She carried him over to his bed and covered him up. She turned to leave, but she stopped, she returned to her brother and rubbed the side of his neck a little. She then pulled up his covers a bit more, to try to justify coming back into his room, even though she needn’t any explanation as to why she came back to say good night.
The next morning came, again with Norric waking the two of them up. He was rambling on about how they needed to get geared up for their mission that night. He then walks into Hartley’s room and shakes him up.
“Hey, I wanted to give you this.”
“What is it?” Asked the boy, who was still half asleep.
“It’s the formal SSF patch,” Norric said as he placed the two patches on Hartley’s night stand. “And these too, congratulations, Sergeant.” He said as he placed two blue loops with three little silver lines crossing it at an angle (///). This was the SSF Sergeant rank symbol. Norric’s were an angled L with a shorter line going opposite to the L (/_\), that meant he was a Commander. Lyra’s were the same as Norric’s with the exception of the star (/_); this meant that Lyra was a Lieutenant Commander. Along with this, Lyra was also Norric’s Lieutenant.
Hartley sat up in his bed and picked up the two loops. He flicked on his desk lamp, and observed them in the light. The little symbols gleamed in the lamp’s light. He chuckled and went to put them on his jacket.
Lyra stumbled into her brother’s room, still half asleep. She saw Hartley carefully placing the Sergeant loops on his jacket shoulders.
“You gonna wear yours today?” She asked in a sleepy voice, “Then I’ll wear mine.” She left to her own room to fetch her jacket. She returned not moments later wearing almost the same as Hartley, the only major difference was that Lyra’s had a fur collar, a symbol of high authority in the SSF.