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Contract Killers by Havok
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Contract Killers
Date: 6 October 2003, 3:34 AM
I'm way too busy with college applications to continue with HBO as i have in the past. its a shame, but facts of life i guess. here are the parts of a story i was working on a while ago. make of it what you will
Contract Killers (Part I)
The Raven walked along a dimly lit alleyway in Old Washington. Leaves and bits of trash littered the ground, tire tracks and old blood stains. People seldom came to these dark alleys, and when they did, it was either to pick up drugs or settle a score.
Raven was here to settle a score. He slowly made his way along the darkest side of the street, pistols out and ready. Extra clips were strapped to a black combat belt, ready to reload his guns. A variation of the M6D modified by him personally. Extended clips, virtually impossible to jam, laser sight. They also had silencers threaded on for this occasion.
He had run into a jam on his last job. Quite a bad jam, at that. It seems his employer had turned on him. Well that was what went with the territory. He sighed. He liked Toby. It was too bad he was going to have to kill him.
As he neared the end of the alleyway, a man appeared, hands on something under his coat. Most likely a gun.
"Raven." The man said. It wasnt a question.
"Why, Toby?" asked Raven, voice gravelly and even, devoid of emotion. He knew what was coming.
"I had to do what I had to do. You were taking too much of the market, and I got an offer I couldn't refuse." The man=s hands came away from his coat, revealing a large automatic weapon.
"An offer you couldn't refuse. Well I guess that explains it." Raven stepped back against the wall. "How much?"
"They were offering two hundred thousand credits." The man smiled. "Enough to keep me happy for quite a while."
"I thought you were one of the few who could not be sold out." Raven said, letting a little desperation seep into his voice.
"Well, times change, kid. The Covenant are going to destroy this place sooner rather than later, and I want to go out with a bang." Toby chuckled.
"Times might change, but I never will, Toby." Raven said, grim determination in his voice.
"No, you wont Raven. Because I have to fulfill my contract. I'm sorry." And with that he raised his weapon.
Just then an engine roared to life at the other end of the alley. Toby turned to face this new sound, and when he did, Raven raised his pistols, quick as lightning, and two shots rang out. Toby cried out in pain and dropped his assault rifle, no longer able to hold it because of the holes in his hands.
He sank to the ground, fear on his face. "You wouldn't kill me would you, Raven?"
Raven, his face stoic and devoid of emotion, walked to where he lay on the ground. "You know I dont want to. I really dont. But you betrayed me. And you must pay."
The single shot was muffled in the dark alley, but it rang loud and clear inside Ravens mind.
___________________________________________________________
Raven strode back to the car at the end of the alley. He pushed the subcutaneous switch on his palm again, and the engine revved and the car door opened. He looked once more at his former employer, and got in the car, forever shutting this incident out of his mind.
The car was a highly modified relic of the late twentieth century. He had found it rusting at the city=s old impound. A 2001 Chevy Blazer. He had called in a favor and got it lifted out of the impound and flown to his base of operations. Once there he had spent over six months refitting the hell out of it.
The back of the vehicle was lined with gun racks, each holding a deadly weapon of some sort. Inset into the floor were ammo containers holding tens of thousands of rounds for each weapon. He would never be short of weapons while he has his trusty car. He has pulled the original seats out because they were all dry rotted and found some old Warthog seats that fit perfectly. He ripped out the old radio and glove box but left the CD player. In place of the glove box he put his TAC computer which downloaded all his email and job offers, as well as constantly updated maps of any area in the world.
In place of the old radio he put a mesh container to hold various things, namely his cigarettes. He had found hundreds of CDs over the years, and those were stacked in cases on the passenger side of the car. It was mostly heavy metal, and some of that new age crap people called techno. The former owner of this car had put in a hell of a sound system, and Raven was not going to let that go to waste.
And finally, grafted to almost every surface of the car was Titanium A battle plate he had salvaged from a downed UNSC ship. This car was damn near invincible, and that made Raven almost feel safe driving it.
Raven pulled out of the alleyway and slowly made his way downtown. He needed to fill up the gas tank and get some more cigarettes. As he pulled onto the main street, his TAC computer beeped. He glanced over to see the incoming message. It was an audio, so he turned the volume up.
"Hey Raven, whats up. If you are hearing this now, it means you got around to taking care of Toby. He told me about that contract, and I almost killed him on the spot. Only problem was he wasn=t actually in the room with me. He called me and told me he had to take care of you, and that he would be looking for another hit man soon. He offered me the job, and I told him that if he managed to take care of you, I would come back and kill him." he paused and Raven smiled, recognizing the voice of Sims, one of the only people he trusted with his life.
"Well I just got this contract from one of my people. Its a juicy one. I told them Id need another ops guy, since I usually work with a partner." A chuckle. "They told me to get whoever I needed. Well, I need you, and I know you always want the money. And this one is hot. So come on over and Ill give ya the specifics."
The audio cut out and the message was automatically deleted. Raven smiled as he pulled in to the gas station. He really did need another job, and he always enjoyed working with Sims. He would check this one out.
Contract Killers (Part II)
Date: 8 October 2003, 1:24 AM
Contract Killers (Part II)
Gravel crunched under the blazer's massive off road tires as Raven pulled into Sims' hideaway. Well, calling it a hideaway was an understatement. Miles away from any traffic, Sims had made his base out of an abandoned military bunker. A massive bunker. Tunnels and accesses to other hidden rooms honeycombed the hillside, making it a huge easily defendable underground mansion.
Sims had furnished the insides lavishly from his many clandestine runs into the city, where he stole just about anything he needed. Not to say he was poor. He had saved his blood money in a huge safe bolted to the floor of the deepest room in the place. Sims, needless to say, was good to go. He was prepared for just about anything short of a full nuclear attack on his house.
Sims came out and met Raven in the driveway. Raven jumped out of his truck and ran up and hugged his old friend. It had been too long. Sims released Raven and the two contract killers walked into the bunker.
The host showed his guest to the main computer room. Seven monitors and three monstrous hard drives took up the far corner, with real leather lazy boy chairs in front of the computer stations. Sims sat down in front of the largest screen, a 27 inch plasma screen hi def monitor. He called up his secure email and played the bid for Raven.
The man on the screen was tall and around his mid fifties. His grizzled gray beard almost concealed his mouth, but his words were loud and clear.
"Sims, I have quite an important job for you this time. As you no doubt have heard, things are heating up between the Covenant and human forces in Africa and South America. Those slimy bastards have already taken Antarctica, and it looks like Egypt is about to fall."
"What you probably haven't heard is that our government, in all its wisdom, is attempting to sing a cease fire with the Covenant forces." His already serious face took on a grim determined look. "Sims, the second they do that, it's as good as over for us. The Covenant will not go back on their religion and stop their genocidal invasion. I can't believe the government could be so stupid as to try something like this."
A picture flashed up onto the screen, replacing the old man. "This is special envoy Charles Dupont. He is heading up negotiations with the Covenant leadership." The picture revealed a well built man, with slicked back black hair and sharp brown eyes. In the picture, he was flanked by phalanx of security personnel. He apparently wasn't real well liked by the public. "This is the target. If you take him down, and make sure people know it was a hit, the government will hopefully rethink its blundering and extremely foolhardy tactics."
"My colleagues and I are offering 500,000credits to each hit man involved in this operation. You are free to choose whoever you need to successfully complete this mission. I will be waiting for your reply." The video feed cut off, revealing a secure email reply address.
"So what do ya think?" Sims asked.
Raven thought for a minute. "I say lets go for it. It seems to be pretty much straightforward, and we don't have to cover up the hit like we usually do." He eyed Sims. "It's just gonna be you and me?"
"That's right. You're the only one I can trust to cover my back and im the only one you feel the same way about. Hell, if we pull this off okay, why not merge our operations? God knows the market is getting way to dangerous for one man operations, and I think your recent encounter with Toby proves that hands down."
Raven didn't even hesitate with his answer. He liked operating alone, the money was better and there were no witnesses if things went south, but this was the perfect opportunity to show what they were made of. "You're on"
"Excellent" Sims rubbed his hands together in anticipation. He cracked his knuckles and his fingers blurred over the keyboard as he sent a reply to his employer. The bid was accepted. A tap of the enter key and the message was shot into space, bounced off of five satellites, and downloaded to a remote location.
Minutes later another message shimmered onto Sims' screen. The subject was to be terminated in the next twenty four to forty eight hours, as he was delivering the final ultimatum to the Covenant leadership. His transport was leaving from Washington D.C. spaceport at 1600 hours the following evening, and was to dock with the Covenant Flagship Archangel three hours after that. He could not be allowed to reach the ship at any cost.
Raven saw their opportunity to strike. Once the transport was in the air, he could bring it down with a few of the Argent V missiles he has scrounged up for just such an occasion. He told Sims of his plan, and the techno wiz acknowledged the message. Then they got to work readying their supplies for the hit.
________________________________________________________________________
Contract Killers (Part III)
Date: 10 October 2003, 2:59 AM
Contract Killers (Part III)
The Chevy Blazer careened along the poorly maintained access road just outside of D.C. The spaceport was located on the outskirts of the sprawling city, close enough for easy transit to and from locations, but far enough away so the hazardous materials in use at the spaceport would not kill anyone in the case of an accident.
Raven parked his truck just out of line of sight of the spaceport on the other side of a low hill. Sims sat in the passenger seat riveted to his computer, which he was using to hack the spaceport's mainframe. Hardly a challenge for a skill as finely tuned as his.
He sliced into the security system and set the Patriot anti-missile systems on standby while they appeared to be active in the Defense Information Center. Now Raven's missiles would have a few precious second's time to intercept the transport before the systems automatically activated and shot down the airborne missiles.
After the Patriot systems were on standby, he hacked into the security camera network and searched for their subject using the mainframe's face recognition system. After a few seconds the camera view switched to a hallway, and their target strode past, security detail in tow. A few more typed commands and the camera angle followed the target to a private hangar where his transportation was waiting.
The transport was a specially modified government envoy shuttle. It had superior engines and upgraded armor, but it was nothing a few Argent V's couldn't handle. The shuttle began its warm up cycle as Dupont and his bodyguards entered and sealed the hatch. The hangar door opened and Sims gave Raven the signal to get ready.
Raven knelt just beneath the crest of the hill and raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder. Beside him lay three more tubes, each containing a liquid fueled rocket with a fifty pound Ultra High Energy Explosive shaped charge in the nosecone. He flipped out the targeting screen in front of his eye. He spotted the transport slowly exiting the hangar. He locked onto the left engine, waited a heartbeat, and then squeezed the trigger.
The missile whooshed into the air on a plume of fire and took off hot on the transport's tail. The shuttle began to twist and turn erratically, the pilots warned of the danger by the high pitched warble in their headphones signifying a lock. Not three second after the first missile, a second projectile flashed out of its tube.
The two missiles streaked toward their target, their speed quickly approaching mach five. The transport had a slight prayer of evading the missiles, as its top speed was a hair above mach three. The pilot was frantically clawing for altitude, squeezing every last ounce of power from his engines, when the first missile came within proximity range and detonated in a resounding shockwave and ball of hot white light. The fragments of the missile's nose cone and assembly tore through both engines, igniting a fire in the rear of the shuttle. The ship lost power and nosed over into a dive as the second missile slammed into the nose of the shuttle. The pilots disintegrated in their seats, their brains not having the time to contemplate the impact of the missile on their forward windscreen.
The entire forward section of the shuttle sheared off the body. The ship spiraled in a flat spin toward the ground, its important cargo intact in the reinforced passenger cabin. The transport slammed into a low hill, digging a deep furrow and shearing off the stubby wings as dirt and rocks splashed into the air.
Neither Raven nor Sims saw this. The second the first missile struck, they were careening down the hill in the Blazer, trying to follow the doomed ship. The truck was showered with falling fragments of the ship's heat shield and windscreen. Sims was furiously typing commands into his computer, delaying the reaction force by a good half hour as heavy blast doors hut all over the spaceport.
Raven was driving with one foot heavy on the gas, and one knee keeping the steering wheel relatively straight as he yanked his pistols from the harness strapped to the back of his seat. He shoved four extra clips into his waistband and slid the action on his two pistols. Almost as an afterthought, he dug into the hole in his dashboard and stuffed a cigarette into his mouth, found his Zippo, flipped it open and lit his cancer stick with practiced ease as the truck bounced and jumped across the uneven terrain.
He watched as the transport slammed into the hill to his left and burrowed into the ground. Raven yanked the wheel to the left; almost losing Sims out the open window as the truck threatened to roll over. They caught air over the next rise and Raven barely slammed on the brakes in time as the Chevy's grill came within a handbreadth of drilling an interesting design into a very large tree.
In a flash Sims had dumped the laptop in favor of a highly modified assault rifle he had propped between his knees. The two hit men leapt out of the Blazer and split up, circling around the wreckage of the Envoy shuttle. The rear hatch was partially fused shut from the rough landing, but was being forcefully wrenched and dented from the inside as the security detail tried to get out. Sims took cover behind a particularly advantageous boulder and Raven stood in the open, pistols at the ready, waiting for a target to appear.
The hatch flew open from a final powerful kick from one of the bodyguards. The man was huge, and might have been a successful linebacker in the NFL if it had still existed. The man's eyes focused on Raven and drew the obvious conclusion. With a snarl of rage, he lifted a very wicked looking sub machine gun and was about to blow Raven's brains all over the landscape when a single silenced rifle round caught him between the eyes, dropping him heavily to the ground.
Sims opened up on the three guards just emerging from the hatch and dropped them just like the first, single shots to the head. He might be a techno weenie, but that certainly didn't mean that he didn't know how to shoot a gun. Raven stepped to the entrance and squinted to adjust for the dim interior. His guns spat three times, killing two more guards. He disappeared inside and came out seconds later dragging Charles Dupont by his hair. The man was barely conscious, but apparently felt his hair being ripped out and took the time for a scream.
Sims took his place beside Raven as the man became more and more aware of his surroundings.
"Had a rough ride?" Sims inquired lightly as he produced a small video camera from a chest pocket
"Who are you? Where are my guards?" the man inquired. He apparently hadn't heard the silenced gunshots that had eliminated his security detachment.
"Oh don't worry; we took care of 'em." Sims replied as he switched on the camera, and focused on Dupont.
Sims zoomed in a little. "Why don't you tell us who you are and what happened."
"Im Charles Dupont, the political Envoy working on the treaty with the Covenant leadership." He squinted into the rising sun. "We just took off, then I think we were shot down." He looked at Raven. "Who are you?"
"Well, I don't really think that is relevant," Raven said in a sinister voice. "But since you asked, we were hired to assassinate you."
Charles froze and his eyes widened. "So what are you going to do with me now?" he blurted, fear apparent on his face.
"Well I think that much is obvious, mister Dupont. We can't just leave you here." Sims stated, a small smile on his face.
"What?" the man asked again, beginning to panic.
"We're gonna have to fulfill our contract, Charles. Good night." Raven said, and with that, knelt down, put the cold steel of the barrel against the man's temple. "This is for trying to screw mankind, mister Dupont." He pulled the trigger.
The contract killers cleaned up the place a little bit, lining up the bodies of the security guards. Raven felt a pang of sorrow for those men. They followed orders, no matter how wrong those orders may have been. They were good soldiers, and Raven did not relish killing men like them. Dupont, however, was a very different story.
Sims made a copy of the recording of the envoy's death, and left one tape in a bag on the body of the former political diplomat. The original he took with him as proof that the contract had been fulfilled. His employers would be very pleased.
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