#21 Carnifex

Hayabusa

Ryuu Suginaga stood on the surface of Planet Honshu in silence. It was not just him that was silent; the silence pervaded the broken and toppled buildings around him, the debris from fighters that had crashed during battles over the city, the occasional dead body covered by shattered glass and pulverised building materials as though to be just another piece of scrap discarded on the ground. Ryuu was vaguely aware of a child in the distance scrounging in an ash pile. The child coughed on the acrid smoke from a smouldering building nearby, each cough piercing the silence like a delayed echo of the many munitions that had brought the city down. Not too far away down a nearby street he could see the ocean shore, black with pollution, ash and debris, slowly spewing forth the dead fish that had once filled it with life. He stared vacantly at the atrocity surrounding him. This was the Outcast’s way of making an example of those who stood up to them. Ryuu stood amongst that example outwardly unmoved.
He stood so long staring that he lost track of time and was eventually startled by a voice from behind him.
“Oi,” said the gruff voice. Ryuu turned slowly to find a very dirty Outcast, pointing a shotgun at his head, standing several meters away. It was an unsophisticated but reliable weapon in conditions such as these. The Outcast looked Ryuu over before lowering the gun just a little bit and walking over to him. Ryuu was shocked as the Outcast searched him nonchalantly as though he were just another corpse and took his emergency ration which had been in a pocket on the leg of his trousers. The Outcast patted Ryuu on the back as he walked away.
“Welcome home Blood Dragon,” the Outcast said happily.

As soon as the Outcast was out of sight Ryuu ran back to his fighter as fast as he could and into its cargo hold. He tried desperately to slow his breathing. He closed his eyes. He opened them again quickly and his breathing got worse. He clutched at his sword in its sheath as though looking for strength or means of escape from the reality that now filled every corner of his mind. He started to cry.



Ryuu had been assigned a patrol through the northern section of Kyushu. It did not go near Planet Kyushu however he’d been told to specifically look out for SDN pilots who might be making a break from the planet. The patrol passed without event but Ryuu’s mind was still trying to process the situation in Kusari. His wing reached the Tau 23 jump hole nearly at the extent of the patrol. On the edge of scanners the wing picked up some unidentified fighters exiting through the jump hole and Ryuu was selected to go through the jump hole to investigate.
When he reached the other end he found only the regularly large number of Outcast ships. Then his com system chirped to life.
“You can’t hide forever!” came a voice over a system wide channel that was distinctly that of an Outcast.
“Is there a problem ... sir,” piped in Ryuu, the last word scraping off his vocal cords with some effort.
“They have me trapped on Java Station!” came the frantic reply of another person, “They have the station pinned down, please help me escape!” Ryuu was taken aback. “I’m just a simple miner,” finished the voice.
“I’m not in much of a position to fight the Outcasts,” said Ryuu, “They have Kusari by the balls.” Ryuu looked around at the numerous Outcast fighters nearby and was a little surprised to get no response from them other then what he fancied were a few chuckles.
“Help me escape and we’ll be able to free Kusari!”
“Do you really think that a single samurai and a lone miner can make that much difference?!” Ryuu’s voice starting to get a bit loader then it probably should have. ‘I can’t believe I’m arguing with some random person hiding from the Outcasts on a station half way across the system’ Ryuu thought.
“Yes,” said the mysterious miner.
“A miner in a ship with missiles and torpedoes, HA!” cut in an Outcast
“A fighter... suggests you are not so simple.”
“I’ll pay you to help me,” the mysterious person had now found Ryuu’s private channel.
“And what of the Outcasts? Will you stand and die with me on Planet Honshu when they slaughter the remainder of the population in retribution for a blood dragon’s defiance?!”
“My resources and connections would make it possible to avoid that.”
“Then where were you?!” cried Ryuu into the private channel, “Where were you when they turned those gleaming cities to rubble?!”
“I wasn’t here then, I wasn’t prepared,” said the miner solemnly.
Ryuu breathed quietly for a moment. Switching to system wide again he said “I don’t have time to waste here. I need to get back to Kusari.”

Back on the other side of the jump hole Ryuu found himself alone, his patrol nowhere to be found. Strange as this was he continued the patrol on his own hoping that his compatriots would be further along the patrol path. As he cruised along alone a battle was fought in his mind, waged between the reality he now knew and the hope he could not push from his heart. Off in the distance he could see Planet Kyushu.

The ‘miner’, in fully equipped multi-role fighter, engaged both outcasts alone, a bounty hunter nearby having already fallen to concentrated fire. One of the Outcast fighters began to trail smoke and the miner looked hopeful of at least taking that fighter with him. Ryuu cruised in, cutting his engines and coasting into the firefight with his low refire Rheinland weapons, salvaged from a downed SDN fighter, chugging away. Down went the last sliver of shields the hurt outcast had and the next volley connected with the fighter, several Iron Fist projectiles eviscerating the nose and part of the starboard wing of the Outcast fighter. Flames burst from within the vessel and its pieces were lost to the void.
Together Ryuu and the miner finished off the last Outcast.
“Now I must flee!” yelled Ryuu not waiting for any response from the mysterious fighter he had just saved.


The SDN’s first strike had come finally. The evacuation had only been able to achieve so much though. What’s more, with all the reports going around in all the houses (and don’t even start on the Junkers) even Carnifex was having trouble figuring out exactly what the situation was surrounding the rescuees let along in Kusari. He was glad it wasn’t his job to do so.
Glancing back at the long-range scanner logs of Tau23 over the last 24 hours he contemplated the Outcast activity shown. It didn’t look like anything unusual but he noted mentally the areas that were too dangerous for patrols. The Outcasts and their cardimine were now the big threat of the year and, thought Carni, a threat that warranted more action from those able to resist.