Chrome Symphony - Chapter 3

Renk regained consciousness and tried to stand up. His powered exoskeleton was completely immobile and unresponsive.

Renk slowly climbed out of the powered suit and removed his helmet and visor. He was dizzy and could smell the stench of burned electronics. Looking over at the other guard, Hans, he slowly stood up.

"You okay, Hans?" he asked. Hans removed his exoskeleton and visor. "Yeah, my suit's totally fried, though," he replied.

Renk looked around. Next to the door he and Hans were guarding, the power cables had been cut. The last thing Renk could remember was a quickly moving green light moving toward him from over the steep drop off overlooking the dam.

Renk checked the door. The lock had been destroyed and the door was ajar. "Looks like we got attacked," he told Hans.

"Yeah, from the looks of it, they took out the backup power and everything," Hans replied.

Renk walked inside the door and went to the storage room to get something to drink. "I'm getting something to drink. Do you want anything," he asked Hans as he walked inside.

"No, thanks. Call in a report that we got ambushed," Hans said.

"Will do," Renk yelled back at him as he entered the storage room. This will be a good opportunity to contact Duncan, now that I'm alone for a moment,' he thought. As soon as Renk looked, he noticed that his belongings were missing. Dammit, did they confiscate my stuff? Even my pistol? What the Hell?

After being questioned earlier that afternoon, Renk had been notified that he would be demoted to guard duty. Although Renk had a particular distrust of General Mulhauser, he wanted to keep a low profile and carry out his duties for the time being. Of course, with all of Renk's experience and ability, he wasn't prepared for a sudden blindside while performing simple guard duty.

Renk walked back outside with a soda. "Hans, all my stuff's missing from the storage room. Did you see anyone go in there?"

Hans nodded. "The general was in there this morning. I don't know why he'd decide to take your things, though."

Renk thought for a moment. If they trust me with a machine gun, the general wouldn't think it necessary to take my other gun, he reasoned. "Whomever it was who knocked us out must have decided to pilfer the storage room, but why would they only take my stuff and nothing else from in there?"

Renk didn't want to let on that the communication device was something Duncan had given him, and not an official military comm unit. Until now, he hadn't had an opportunity to privately use the device to contact Duncan.

Renk looked at the wooded area in front of them. He saw four pairs of footprints in the mud, which appeared to be two males and two females. One of the males and one of the females were wearing specialized footwear common to cyborgs.

Hans took out his communicator and called in the report. "We've been hit by some intruders," he said. "They knocked us out and disrupted the backup power supply in our section."

Renk walked toward the woods. "Hans," he said, "I'm going to investigate. I won't be long. Please hold down the fort."

Who would attack us here, Renk wondered.

Jess had left behind the communicator that Duncan had supplied her. Not wanting to be tracked for the time being, she left it on the seat and ran across the field into a nearby wooded area.

She sat on a rock, staring at her sword. I'm sure they'll be fine, she thought. Jess had not thought of the implications of her strategy back at the hydroelectric facility. Surely that shock wasn't enough to kill them, although anything that stops the heart temporarily could stop it permanently. Jess was no doctor.

After a few minutes, Jess got up and walked back to the house. Duncan, Shell, and Atlas were outside, looking around. She waved at them and walked over to them.

"I just needed some time to clear my head," she said to Duncan. "Mr. Sorenson, I'd like to request that we return to that facility."

"What? It might be dangerous now with them on alert," Duncan replied.

Jess was silent for a moment and looked at the ground. "Just drop me off near where we were before and stand by. I can go alone. All I want to do is check on things."

"That would be much too dangerous with going alone," replied Duncan. "Also, given the circumstances, please don't run off on your own like that."

Jess said nothing.

"We can't proceed without Lt. Renk, so a second attempt at finding him would be in our best interest. It's going to be much more dangerous than before but it's either that or we have to find another way into space."

Duncan checked the time.

"Oh, and our original option involving the cargo shuttle and a weapons shipment has now expired, so we can no longer fall back to that plan," said Duncan.

Duncan walked over to the car and began cleaning some of the mud off of the floor mats with a small, portable vacuum. "Want to give the mission another try?" he asked, looking at Shell, Atlas, and Jess.

Jess nodded. "At the very least, we could do some reconnaissance."

It was around 5 pm, with the mission starting in just four hours. Everyone entered Duncan's rental car and it hovered back into the sky, taking off in the direction of the hydroelectric facility a few miles away.

Near the facility, the car flew low over the tree tops to avoid radar. Jess looked out the window, down at the woods, and saw something. Someone was walking around on the trails.

"May I borrow those binoculars again," Jess asked Atlas. Jess took a look through the binoculars at the person below in the woods.

It was Renk.

"It's him!" shouted Jess. "Renk must have escaped earlier. I see him down there!"

Duncan took the car down into the woods, near Renk. Renk noticed the car and stood there, carefully watching it come in. He then walked up to the car, with his machine gun in hand.

Atlas jumped out and waved at Renk. "Hey!" he said to Renk.

[OOC: I'm going to write for Renk in this post, since SirAuron's dropped out and Kyler isn't able to play him right now. This is going to be quite a long post in order to get us to a more... playable state in the RP.]

Renk looked surprised to see Atlas and the rest of the crew.

"What are you guys doing here," Renk asked, somewhat confused.

"We were going to come get you for that mission at the EMA facility," replied Atlas.

Renk paused for a moment and then responded, "I don't think that's going to happen. We were just attacked and I've been investigating to find clues regarding the whereabouts of the people who got past us back at the facility."

Duncan looked around the area. "If you were attacked, I don't think the culprits would have gotten very far on foot."

Renk shook his head. "From what I can tell, there were four people. Two cyborgs, two humans. A male and female each. Their tracks led to a clearing in the woods close to here and then stopped. Must have had a flying vehicle..."

There was an awkward silence. Duncan had caught on to what had actually happened: Renk had been one of the "cyborgs" they had attacked!

Jess turned very pale. "R..R..Ronald..."

Renk clenched his fists. "That's RENK! Miss Price, it's RENK!"

"R..Right...," replied Jess.

Duncan carefully asked Renk, "Is everyone okay from that attack? We thought you might have been held for questioning or detained."

Renk shrugged. "Well, we both got knocked out from a nasty electrical shock but we're okay. We just need to secure the area. Have you seen anyone else in the woods here? I assume you tracked me down to help me, if you thought I had been in some kind of trouble. Unfortunately, the intruders seem to have stolen my personal effects so I no longer have that communicator."

Duncan quickly shoved the communicator and Renk's gun under the car seat.

"Oh... oh my. Well, I have plenty more comm units where that came from," replied Duncan, now as nervous as everyone else. "Lt. Renk, we really cannot perform this mission without you; is there any way at all you could sneak away just for the evening?"

Renk shook his head. "I'm very sorry. I know I agreed to help, but I hadn't expected to be called back to duty quite so soon. Normally I'd be willing to freelance but, honestly, I have to stay here and perform my duties. I'm already on thin ice with the General right now."

Duncan sighed. "Understood. I'm glad you're okay. I'll have to tell Camay that we will have to make due with just the four of us."

Atlas saluted Renk and the car took off back into the sky.

Duncan spoke to the others inside the car as they headed toward the EMA facility at the coordinates that Camay had supplied.

"Listen, everyone... We couldn't ask Renk to abandon his post. He would have certainly been punished if he had. Not only that..."

Atlas grabbed Renk's belongings from under Duncan's seat.

Duncan continued, "If Renk saw that we had that stuff, we could have also gotten into a lot of trouble very quickly."

Duncan sent Camay a message:

Lt. Renk is not able to join us on the mission.  
It turned out he was not a prisoner but rather 
performing guard duty and he could not abandon 
his post.  We will have to continue the mission 
without him.

I must also inform you that Elise has disappeared, 
so we will not have her on our team, either.  

As the situation stands, we will attempt the mission 
anyway unless it is deemed unacceptable to do so.

"Ok, everyone, if it's okay with all of you, we'll go ahead with this extraction with just the four of us. It might be very dangerous but this seems to be our only chance of getting into space and rescuing Mr. Price," Duncan told the group.

The car continued en route to the EMA facility.