This was a project of mine from years ago. I am sad to say that I have abandoned it, with next to no intention to continue it, so i am sorry if you wish me too.

Im finally getting around to uploading for TerinasTiger's Stocking Stuffer 2022, and I am a little nervous about it as I have not done anything like this before.
link to journal here --> ( https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10383750 )

and for Terinas, this falls under the "Nice" category.
This will be chapters 2-5.

But anyways lets get into it eh?

Chapter 2: Prep and Payments.


"So," I stated as I handed him a drink," is it going to be your usual price or a bit higher because of the extra hassle it was getting it back to town?"

"Uhh I think something a little more than a bit, how does 20% more sound like?" he replied as he sat down with his drink in hand.

"well your usual price for a haul this size is about 5,000 quips, so you want 6,000 quips for it?"

"that's about right sir."

I sat down in my chair and crossed my arms thinking. 6,000 isn't a lot but can still get you a decent bit of stuff here. I know that I still got millions left in my account so I don't know why I'm hesitating. maybe because I don't know what I'm going to be releasing when I open that pod. could be a protogen designed to kill with no remorse or care, or one designed to be a medic. So maybe I'm hesitating because it's a lottery role when it comes to protogens. you know what we can always try to reprogram so screw it.

"ok I accept your terms, now let me go get your money," I said as I stood up to shake his hand.

I stood in my garage, a few hours later, staring at the pod in front of me after determining it was, in fact, a protogen, wondering how the others were going to react when I bring this into the techs. and I noticed something after running a more thorough check on the pod exterior I noticed a broken data cable on the back of the pod.
which might mean that it was getting data transferred when the satellite crashed.

I left the garage and shut and locked the door behind me, and turned outwards to gaze at the sky and town that had been my home for twenty-some years. I stared down at the hangers where I have left my AX-12 shuttle when I retired after finishing my last mission. I started the walk down towards the hangers, lost in thought, I wondered how they were going to react. Maybe they are going to react badly, maybe good, I'm taking a huge gamble in doing this.

I nodded a hello to the hanger owner that I was renting space from and turned towards the door to hanger 3. I set my hand down on the computer interface to open the passageway. I stepped through and over the threshold, which triggered the sensors and activated the lights. I gazed at my ship and relived memories that I'd had with it.

so many memories some good some bad. Diving through clouds emerging onto a warzone, its shield being put to the test. Laughing with the other people in my troop as we partied inside of it after our hardest mission was completed and we did nothing anyone had done before. And finally, me, crying as I was the only one alive to escape from the target offensive area in the last run before I retired.

I walked up to it and ran my hand over its side feeling the numerous scars of battle that years of running a mercenary mission had left. I pressed a button on the side panel to open the door to the inside and took a step into the interior of my ship. I took a deep breath as I turned in a circle and more memories hit me.

The first time I and my team completed the first job we had stood laughing in the personal zone of the shuttle. Crying with the others as we stood around our captain's cot where he was laying after getting shot. laughing with my co-pilot as we approached the dropzone for this job. Maneuvering through the ground to air gunfire as I swept in to pick them up from a lasting job. sitting around a small lantern in the cargo space of my shuttle playing Ranshek cards with the rest of my crew. Me mourning my crew's loss in the last job I had done.

I snapped back to the present and I moved to the cockpit of the ship where I could run diagnostics to see if the years of no use had done anything to the ship.

"Welcome back CAPTAIN," the bridge chirped at me as I entered," it has been 15 years since your last check-in would you like to run a diagnostic scan?"

I pressed my pointer finger down on the yes button and sat down in the pilot chair staring out the windshield of the shuttle, listening to the clicks and whirs of the ship as it ran the diagnostic scan. I glanced over my shoulder and locked eyes on the box that hung over the doorway, I Stood up, strode over to the box, unlatched it, and took out the gun that was sitting inside. it was the Df-6G I used in each of my missions, a good gun that could be modded for faster rates of fire making it an SMG or much longer range making it a sniper.

the console beeped as it finished the diagnostic scan and I set my gun back in the box and latched it shut. I flopped down onto the pilot's chair and pressed a button on the console to pull up the diagnostic scan. some dust clogging the exhaust pipeline, primary cannons failed to load, and railgun turret power failure. Nothing too hard to fix just some dusting and rewiring, really good for 15 years without use.

I grabbed the notepad I kept in my back pocket and wrote down what needed to be fixed and stood up. after I exited the ship and gave the list of stuff to be fixed plus the cost of repairs to the hangar owner, I turned and headed towards the market to buy a hover transport for the pod because I am not lugging that pod through town and into my ship.

I walked through the market till I found a shop that sells stuff for cargo transport, even way out here you can find cargo shops. I browsed the hover transports until I found the one that I would need to transport the pod. Walking over to the counter I was greeted by the cashier.

"Hello sir," He said to me joyfully "How may I help you today?"

"yes hello," I responded, "I'm looking to purchase a 7 by 4 transport."

"Would you like it delivered or would you like to take it yourself?"

"Yes, I will take it myself, please, and thank you."

He reached under the counter and pulled out the box which would expand into the transport. He handed it to me and said,

"that will be 5 quips, sir."

I sighed and reached into my pocket pulling out a jumble of quips. Tossing them to him I said,

"keep the change."

Chapter 3: No Longer Safe

I shut the door from my house into my garage and tossed the box onto the ground and pressed the button on the top causing it to expand and unfold till it was full size and prepared to startup. I walked over to the side of the garage where I had left the pod. I stared down at the pod in front of me, was I really gonna bring a find like this to HQ? there is no knowing what they will do with it or even if they will let it take part in training to become a mercenary.

I put my hands on the pod to start moving it onto the transport, and my hand brushed something jutting out of the side of the pod. rubbing off what I could of the rust I saw a nameplate on the side of the pod. It read Subject_Hinerich, which must be the name of the protogen inside. I put my hand on a different part of the pod and forced it onto the transport.

how did Roland get it through and over the sand to his tractor, well actually it's probably easier for him being younger than me by a lot.

I straightened out and slapped the button on the side to start up the transport. I turned to the garage doors and moved to the control panel for them. Hitting the open button I turned towards the wall that the panel sat on, and my eyes settled on where I hung the armor that I would use during jobs. I moved to the wall and took the armor off of the hang-stand and run my hands over the marks and wounds on it. I felt the mark of the Blacklash armor smiths over the heart piece. Put my fingers through the hole left by a sniper round in the right thigh plate. rubbed my fingers over the slashes, cracks, and flecks left over from years of intense battle.

I picked up the personal shield generator I had sitting on my back during each job where I had the risk of getting shot. The shield would fold down over the exposed areas, shrinking to fit the shape of the body. It would fit the bottom of the chest plate and would link up with the leg armor providing full cover for the vital organs.

I put my armor and shield generator in a box on top of the pod before I left and shut the garage. Walking back pushing the transport I got a few odd looks, maybe one or two hostile glances, but nothing serious. I walked into the hangar and stopped dead in my tracks. No this couldn't be happening, it could NOT be happening, but they were right there. A group of XE-D bots, standing over the corpse of the hangar owner. One of the bots turned its head toward me and said in a synthesized voice,

"Gibalh V. Yid you are under arrest for the mass murder of the Kyltch clan and for multiple transgressions of galactic law. Your fate has already been decided, your punishment for your transgressions is death."

At the end of that sentence, each other bot turned towards me and slung the plasma rifle off of their backs. I knew I had about 15 seconds as the rifles charged up before they started to fire at me.
I grabbed the box containing my armor from on top of the transport and dove for cover so that I could have the time I need to put it on and start up the shield. I heard the rifles whir and finish heating up as I just finished getting on my legs and chest plate armor. Their metal feet clanking towards me I rushed just trying to get the rest of my armor on. With a click, my helmet set down onto the neck plate and started up.

I sprinted from cover so I could get the rest of the time I would need to get my armor running to fight the XE-D bots. Hot, searing, burning pain in my left hand as one of the bolts hit my hand. I clutched my hand in towards my chest as I ran out and towards the Bazar where I could disappear into the crowds until I was ready to fight them. I heard the tearing of metal and I wove my way through the crowds and realized that without fingerprints they had to rip open the door, not good for me, they have extra strength.

I turned into an alleyway and hid behind a trashcan so I could get my shield generator set up along with the minuter gauss cannons I had mixed with the armor. My shield generator hissing I peeked over the can and saw the robots pass outside the alleyway. One of them peeked into the alley and stared directly at me. I fell down back behind the dumpster glancing at the shield generator, not good for a few more minutes till it was ready. I jumped as the robots tossed the garbage can to the side and reached for me. I threw my eyes around the alleyway looking for anything I could use as a weapon on till the shield generator can finish starting up.

My eyes landed on a loose brick a couple of meters away at the end of the alleyway. I rolled to the side to avoid their grasp and flipped onto my feet breaking into a run. Another blast of searing hot pain as a plasma bolt hit my left shoulder. Stumbling with blurry vision from the pain I reached the wall and pried the loose brick out, I don't know how it's gonna be helpful but it's better than nothing. I pulled my good arm back to smash it against the head of the first bot that came within reach, one more step closer... wait for it... wait for it... NOW! I brought the brick down with as much force as I possibly could on the top of one of the bots hoping that at least the bot would be stunned by the impact. The brick shattered apart from the impact and the bot just soldered on pining me onto the ground.

I struggled against the bot as much as I could kicking and punching it anywhere I could reach, but it just took the hits as it continued to hold me to the ground. I stared up into the sky as the bot picked me up off the ground and leveled its plasma rifle at my stomach.

"Any last words?" it asked me with no warmth in its voice.

"No no-," I was saying as I dropped my eyes from the sky to look into its cameras before I was interrupted by my shield generator powering up" actually yes I do have some last words."

"what are they?"

"good luck."

With a smirk on my face, I twisted my body so I could kick the plasma rifle from its grip up into the air, where I caught it and blasted the AI core of the bot. I landed on my feet, blasting another bot hopefully hitting its AI core as well, and dashed out of the alleyway. I heard metal feet clanking as I ran blindly through the streets waiting for my vision to return to normal. Screams started to erupt when the bots started to fire on me because with every missed shot they killed a person on the street. My vision started to clear as I turned into another alleyway by accident and I was cornered by the bots. I turned to face them, rifle up, and aimed, but I saw nothing there. Wandering out onto the street I saw a person standing over the dead husks of the other XE-D bots.

I approached them slowly with my hands up.

"Who are you and why did you help me?"

They turned around and stared at me through the eye slits of a face mask, their voice sounding from a garbled speaker on their chest.

"You saved me years ago, now we're even."

They turned, tossed something over their shoulder which open a portal-looking thing, and walked over the carcasses into the portal. I just stood there dumbfounded at what just happened before me I gathered myself and headed back towards the hangar.

Chapter 4: Transport

Up outside of the gravitational pull from the planet, I turned the ship around so I could gaze one last time at the wonderful world that had been my home for the last 15 years. Sighing, I turned the ship back around outwards space priming the hyperdrive.

"Coordinates?" The ship asked?

"Blacklash HQ," I responded, with a flat voice.

"Accepted prepare for the jump to hyperspeed."

The stars bent and distorted as the hyperdrive activated shooting us to light speed.

"We will reach the target destination in four hours." The onboard AI chimed at me,

I stood up from the cockpit chair and lumbered over to the bedrooms so I could get some sleep before I arrived at the HQ. I laid down in the bed and pulled the blanket up over my shoulders covering the entirety of my body. I stared up at the ceiling feeling myself slowly lose the feeling of adrenaline from getting chased. My eyelids felt heavier and heavier as my body worked at repairing the wound on my hand from the plasma rifle bolt. I let myself succumb to sleep and fell into a void of blackness till the onboard computer roused me from my sleep.

"We will arrive at the destination in thirty minutes."

"Yeah Yeah," I grumbled to myself grumpy at being woken up " I'm up."

I stood up, gave a little stretch, and wandered through the ship getting myself ready. I was getting up from breakfast when the computer alerted me to an incoming transmission. I sat down in the pilot chair putting on the transmission headphones.

"Incoming craft please identify yourself." a voice spoke over the radio interference of space.

"My name is Gibalh V. Yid, I am a retired mercenary of the group Blacklash, and I wish to land at headquarters."

"Hold position."

"Roger."

I sat waiting inside the cockpit looking out at the asteroid belt that Hq is located inside of.

"You are cleared for landing prepare to receive the course through the asteroids to HQ."

"Roger that."

The navigation display lit up and I set my hands down on the controls of the ship. The engines started to fire up when I heard another voice come over the radio.

"Giblah is that you!?" the voice proclaimed mystified.

"Hello, Colonel," I responded in a dead flat voice," years been treating you well?"

"you have a lot to answer for once you get here," he bellowed through the radio" you left and we lost one of our best operators!"

"Well, maybe not shove me immediately onto another team and into a hot drop zone!'

"What were we supposed to do! Commissions were coming in and we try to get as many done as fast as possible with the same level of cleanness! the only way for that team to meet the requirements was to put you on it, And you abandoned them in the drop zone and let them be slaughtered!"

I slammed my fist down onto the armrest to avoid saying something I might regret.

"Listen we can talk later, right now I'm coming in and I want the best engineers out on the runway to help with something."

"What makes you have the right to do something like that?"

"go get the head and tell them this 'You want me to come back, get the techs on the runway by the time I land and I will now run along."

I cut the radio off before he could say anything else and set my hands down on the controls, throttling the engine up. I maneuvered around asteroids, broken ship debris, and dodging trash collector drones.
Within 30 minutes the asteroid formations started to look similar, and there it was Blacklash Hq.

The headquarters is a full-size military installment dug into a
monumentally sized asteroid with bits sticking out inside a cave where the runway was located behind a magnetic shielding barrier. I could see people out on the runway buzzing about. I pulled the joystick and throttle back so I could land on the runway. I stood up from my chair and walked into the cargo hold where the pod was sitting, hitting the button on the side of the carrier I turned and opened the cargo bay doors.

As soon as the doors finished opening the techs rushed in and I stood there Looking at the Head of Blacklash Miss Mariana lee smith, I came to attention and saluted her. She returned my salute and her scowl turned into a smile with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

"Good to have you back soldier. I hope you have a good reason for abandoning them and then coming back 15 years later." She remarked."
"At ease soldier."

"Mam, I have no excuse for my actions. I know it cost the lives of my allies, and that I cannot make that up no matter what I do. " I reported to her. "But I do believe I have found a successor."

"And who would that be Soldier?"

"The protogen in that pod if their programming allows it."

"What is a protogen? I've never heard of them before."

"I only know of them from the scavengers on Shee who managed to get a database up and running, and thankfully it was in basic, though fragmented and mixed with an unknown language."

"You can finish your report in R&D now come"

I turned and looked out into space. before following I had a feeling its the last time I would see space for a while.

Chapter 5:

"So what you're telling me is. This. . . Protogen can replace you and assist in the training of the next generation of troops? to the same level of skill as you and perhaps even further?" She asked me," How can you be sure of that fact."

"I have no proof, only hope," I responded, "But even if it can't, I am certain that you can find a use for it."

"That's a big risk to take. I'm not sure I can allow that."

The lead scientist in R&D came up to the Captain and whispered something in her ear, which caused her eyebrows to twist in confusion.

The Captain whispered something back, and the scientist walked back to their station.

"If I do allow this to happen, if it goes haywire, you're dealing with it first, and if it fails, we will terminate it and you."

"Yes, mam, understood."

She walks to the door and turns around.

"Until the pod is opened, you will be detained in your quarters." Then, she pronounced with a cold stare in her eyes, "You did, after all, go awol and leave an entire squad to die."

I stared her in the eyes, shock all over my face; I thought I was going to get a much worse punishment. Others have defected or gone awol before, and when brought back years later, kicking and screaming, they were sentenced to instant execution. I watched that happen to someone I thought was my friend.

The security by the door grabbed my arm and escorted me through the halls. I kept my head down, staring at the ground to avoid seeing the looks of the others in the passageway. The guard shoved me into my quarters, and before he left, he gave me a disapproving look.

I walked around my room and stared at everything. Nothing had changed; it was almost as if I had just left on a mission yesterday. My Crystal-Spar posters were still hanging up on the wall. I ran my hand against the signatures of my original squad we carved into the wall.

I moved on toward the computer system in an alcove set into the wall. I put my hand on the computer interface, and it sprang to life, asking for a password. I input the password and spent hours going through the photo and video album I had stored. Then, with my legs and sides aching, I dragged myself over to my cot and passed out instantly.

I was awoken by a loud banging on the door and was greeted by a security guard staring at me from the doorway.

"Hey, get up. The Captain needs you in the lab," he shouted at me. "And why just why did you bring one of those inside the HQ?"

I quickly got up from my bed and walked over to him, where he grabbed my arm and escorted me through the halls back to the lab.

The guard quickly left after he pushed me through the door. The scientists were huddled in a corner far away from the open pod, whispering to each other. I started to walk toward the pod when the Captain stopped me. She shoved a display pad in my hands and went and joined the scientist in the corner.

"Ok, not good," I whispered to myself as I flicked through the logs on the pad.

Each entry was an encounter with a protogen, with the earliest being just after I went awol. It was a routine mission for hired help for a small intercontinental war on a small out of mainstream planet. The team was deployed into a hot landing zone as reinforcement for the division stationed there.

The leading soldier had been on the frontline engagement when several highly advanced pods had dropped out of the sky, and multiple protogen-like creatures crawled out. I glanced at the protogen on the open pod and compared it to the protogen in the video recording. It was different than the ones in the recording. They had extended limbs with exposed flesh and tubing. I watched as those things ran on all fours at the soldiers and flipped up onto their hind legs to grab and attack the soldiers on the sides.

The protogens were merciless in their attack, nothing a soldier did affected them. Not bullets, fire, or shrapnel slowed those monsters in their pursuit and assault of the complex. The soldier with the camera was mercilessly cut down like the rest, and all that could be heard were the sounds of screams and gunfire. Eventually, the battle calmed down, and then the dropship pilot came and retrieved the body.

I continued to scroll through the pad and watched in horror as they grew and evolved. They started with exposed muscles and tubing, but they quickly developed armor over the vitals. I saw a couple using their tail to attack and destroy, but that only lasted for a few logs.

The Captain came up to my side and took the pad from my hands. Inserting a remote with a single button in my hands instead.

"That button will activate the protogen," the Captain whispered," If you press the button, you will undertake the training and containment of that thing, along with the small batch of new arrivals. Am I understood?"

I stared long and hard at the remote in my hand, weighing the pros and cons of choice. If I didn't, what would they do to me? Lock me in a cell and take me out only to train the recruits? If I did . . . I don't know what id be getting into.

I pressed the button.




(this is out of the story but, fingers crossed everything works correctly.)