The Uncovering Ch. 01

"You know, I have this friend that I think would be just perfect for you."

I move through the darkness on fast feet. Should you look I'd hardly be more than a shadow by the time your eyes adjust.

"Do I even need to answer?"

"Come on, you need to come out of your convent at some point."

Gaps between the buildings are nothing more than light jumps for my agile form. Ahead I see how the rooftop is lost in space. As I pass the door to the stairwell I turn and my tail swish like a whiplash behind me and I jump yet another gap, the alley lights momentarily lighting my form.

"I have no wish to indulge myself. I'm not in a convent because of that."

"Are you even listening to yourself? Who the Hell says 'indulge myself'?"

I momentarily look down and see Proce jump onto a lower building and run along its edge before dissappearing in another alley.

"You continue running in the alleys like that and you'll blow our cover."

"Relax. I only choose dark ones, check them first and should anyone still see me they wouldn't mention it. Out of fear..."

She said that last sentence with a exaggerated tremor in her voice, and a silent chuckle. I've always hated how she could take every mission so lightly, not to mention her narcisistic attitude, but this time it was extra bad.

Every time I jumped the sling of my rifle would lightly click against the metal, curtesy of cheap illegal stealth fire arms. I suddenly felt a small trickle hit my eye and it slid along the scale covering. Rain has never bothered me despite my reptilian corpus.

"I'm closing in on the sniping point, get to your objective point."

"Said and done."

I thrust out of the darkness and my monstrous body revel in the sudden light from the alley. My green scales glisten in the orange light and my strong legs tense in preperation for the landing. My blue slit pupil eyes glare despite the darkness of my hood and the crescent light of my fangs make them seem fresh from a kill before I disappear in the darkness again.

I land in a sprint stance and twist my body to the side and slide along the rooftop, pulling the rifle from my back as I do so. I slide the pump-action handgrip towards me and the bipod mount silently swish out from the stock as the safety is removed and the projectile is loaded. I stop, resting the rifle against the rooftop and I assume a sniping position.

"I'm at the sniping point."

"Affirmative. I'm at the objective point. Awaiting some action."

Proce may be my best friend, but her inability to take missions seriously gives her a bit tangy taste, though at the same time it gives her a certain charm, and when it comes to missions like this that can be a bit of a advantage.

A humongous building appeared in my scope, or the lenseless plastic pipe that passed for a scope - while my vision was uncomparable it was easier to concentrate when everything else was sealed off. The bilding was marked with a sign saying "Metaware" - a supposedly legal company producing various forms of custom- and standard alloys. Our target was a professor Mizouri, who two days ago presented a product which would generate extreme magnetic fields with a very small current. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that it's an alloy not to be found on a world as under developed as Earth.

My contact had a guy in the ruling government of Earth and that's how we found out about the leak. As for why not just arrest him and question him, it would just make us look like kidnappers, which are searched for alot harder than rogues when it comes to high level interplanetary affairs. Breaking protocole, going rogue and sedate a ambassador of a foreign planet is a high level project, but at the moment boring as a orbiting planet. As the minutes started to drag the rain started to fall and I pulled up the hood that had fallen off during my landing. My hair covered the left side of my face and formed a natural visor so that I could aim without interference. It was an unusually hard rain and it made it difficult to pick up any vibrations from the ground, should anyone try to sneak up on me.

"So..."

Proce was the first one to speak up.

"So, what?"

"So about that friend of mine..."

My eyes wandered to the sky and back as she started this conversation again.

"I already said 'no'."

Proce would not be deterred though. She never was.

"Would you please give him a chance? He's called QuaQuí, his corpus is a reptile, like ours, he's got an intelect of 135, is well built... Hell, had I not been swinging the other way I'd be all over him."

Proce was a lesbian and proud over it. She openly bragged about her liaisons with every form of corpus known to unikind and was not intimidated by things such as wayward and visual displays of affection.

"Not interested."

Suddenly I felt that familiar feeling in my loins and sighed.

"I will lower my eye from the scope for a few seconds. Report everything unusual."

"It's not like you need to tell me, I know what you're up to."

I reached into the pocket of my jacket arm and pulled out a thin container. It was a small, flat jar, containing what looked like crystaline sweetener.

"I still don't understand why you keep eating those things. Seriously, what good do you expect to come from it?"

"None of your damn business."

"It's my duty as a good friend to ask. To not get a good fuck every week is one thing, but to hold yourself until your age for no reason whatsoever isn't healthy. Look at me, I follow my neither urges like a slave and I'm as happy as a child!"

When Proce first started to try and convince me to be more like her she could tip me off pretty easily, but after hearing her nagging for this long, like my libido, I've learned to ignore it.

"Neptune, there's nothing wrong with not being a nympho."

She chuckled at this. Proce had since we reached maturity done little other than to brag about her conquerings. Neptune was her nickname as we were on this world - better to use fake names than to let whoever might wish know.

"Nor is it to be one. Besides, I've known you since before we arose...since we were kids and I've not seen you interested in a guy once. You do know half the guys in our unit thinks you don't leave the uminet unless the mission requires you to?"

"Big frickin deal."

"Oh, come on Protheron, the half that don't think you're a netter thinks you dive my muff. You know, we could try that sometime! I know that...She would gladly welcome a guest."

Neither one of us thought about giving Proces girlfriend a nickname, but I still knew who she meant when she said 'She'. I also knew that she found me attractive, but this was the first time she'd made a pass at me though.

"That's a even bigger no than usual."

"Moh... Just imagine it. A soft hand slowly massaging your shoulders in total darkness, slowly moving down over your shoulder blades."

This was a old trick of hers. She'd start telling intimate details and pull it out till she hoped that my pills were wearing off. It never worked, but we both realised how good it was and so she kept doing it.

"They move forward, tracing slow...agonizingly slow circles over your flesh, making their way to beneath your chest. She presses herself against your back, gripping you close, but not tightly. She breaths over your shoulder, nudging against your neck, pushing your head upwards with the bridge of her nose. She kisses your neck, your jaw line, you moan as her hands slowly cups your breasts, tentativily...softly...kneading them carefully like a pigeon in its nest."

She tells it slowly, like she was saying it in utlrarapid. I hear at her voice that while it does nothing for me, Proces luscious description is starting to affect her a bit. Her breathing's harder and she's started to swallow between the sentences.

"You moan as she bites your ear, lightly pulling and licking your lobe. She's started to put more force into your breasts aswell, slowly increasing the pressure and capturing your nipples between her fore- and middle fingers and lightly pinching them, applying more force into every pinch. She traces your jaw line with her tongue, lapping at your skin without leaving anything uncared for until she reaches your lips and kisses you fickedly."

I almost chuckle as I hear her ragged breathing getting more ragged and her swallows has been replaced with her silent whimpering.

"Her right hand has begun to descend, petting your belly back and fro, in slow, warming motions, going further and further down until she reaches your pubis. You're whimpering in surprise and pleasure as a second pair of lips join hers at your lips and you think you're about to faint from the pleasing ministrations of these two loving friends."

She has started to moan and I wonder if she's working on herself in the alley. Maybe her hands are kneading her breasts or perhaps she follows in her story? Had our mencoms allowed outside noises to be heard, had I heard the fingers gliding in and out of her? I surprised myself with thus line of thought.

"Your new partners hands join with the others and massage your breasts hard, your nipples like small diamonds now, and the hand between your legs teasing you. It moves up and down along your lips, yet never touching them, making you pore. They momentarily leave the sides of your womanhood and join again beneath it, right where your petals join, without touching them, rubbing harshly right there."

Now I'm positive she's fingering herself in the darkness. Her moans have turned into low guttural laments of aroused suffering. She's torturing herself, moving close but never quite touching, making herself crave it, need it. Her breathing's stuttered and she's started to swallow again.

"Your whimpering turns into troubled, lustful moans and the smell of sex has grown strong in the darkness. The mystery pair of lips has left yours and your first lover has returned to your neck and clavicle. I let my left hand join the other at your womanly flower and spread you wide, torturously teasing you. "Beg...beg for it" I silently...lustily whisper in your ear and beg you do. Through your whimper we hear "Please...please don't...stop...Don't...", suddenly cut short by a orgasmic scream as She thrusts her tongue in you, thrashing, licking, sucking at your clit..."

"You done?"

I interrupt her before she can continue appearantly, because while I was waiting for the squeal from her orgasm she regained her composure pretty quickly and while her breathing was still ragged she was more alert at her surroundings again.

"I see the target - moving along the window on the seventh floor, heading towards the elevator. Prepare to run."

It took a while before she answered through her hard breathing.

"Understood, commander Erotophope."

The target was about to get into the glass elevator when he took something out of his pocket. He put it to hir ear and started to talk to it, so I guessed it was some form of comunications device. I haven't been on this world long enough to know what it was called. He seemed distressed suddeny. Guess he was recieving some bad news. He turned towards the window and it seemed he tried to find something behind the reflection in the darkness, before he turned so fast it almost seemed panicked.

"Neptune, come in."

"What is it?"

"Something's up."

I started to nervously slither my tail over the ground behind me.

"What's happening? Talk to me."

"The target picked up some communications device and suddenly it seemed panicked, like something was hunting it."

"Something it knew?"

"Dunno, but it looked outwards momentarily."

Proce may be questioned due to her lack of inhibitions, but she's smart enough to know what I was getting at. Part of the reason as to why I chose to tell her of this mission and part of the reason why I let her come along is because of her instantanious insight. If a target knows it's hunted it'll probably choose less risky possibilities, and if it knows who it is the moment of surprise is likely lost.

"Should we abort?"

It was Proce who suggested it. I considered this. If the target knew of our presence it meant that the group had managed to track us down, but for it to find us this fast was very unlikely. On the other hand it was possible that the watchers of Earth had found us, but had that happened they still wouldn't know who our target was.

My train of thought was aborted as the target put down the comm and headed for the elevator. It still seemed nervous, but not even the dumbest vi would walk into the mouth of a pilré.

"Negative, we're still on. Prepare to move."

The elevator doors slid shut and time seemed to stop. I've heard that unlike me some mercenaries turns calm when they're about to perform a hit. Before the target was even near the kill zone I was always tighter than the Viala-Kildon intraplan. The elevator was dragging itself across the fifth floor now. It's not the best of qualities for a shooter to feeze up from stress when the time to shoot approaches, but for me it's more than just freezing up. It was finally passing the third floor. I'm scared every time I'm going to pull the trigger, my heart racing at the speed of light, but it's a good thing. I can, for lack of a better word, control it. It was about to cross the second floor. I react within the microsecond, right when it's time to pull the trigger, able to pick off a flea at a hundred yards. The problem with sniping isn't the range of the scope but how fast you react when the bead cross over the target, how well you can percieve your surroundings, how well you can mentally map the trajectory, speed, offset of target and projectile, not to mention potential blockages such as armor, or ricochets.

First floor. I put my finger on the trigger, pulling it back, readying to shoot.

...OOM!

The blast could hardly be called a explosion, more like a sudden bass boom, like all other sound was silenced and we heard it through water. I looked up and in the sky what looked like a small star had appeared, slowly sinking towards the earth, bathing everything in a cold white light. The second later buzzing and interferences rang in my head, and I crawled up, hugging my tail in the sudden shock and pain. Trying to ignore it I turned back to the scope, and was just in time to see the top of the elevator dissappear into the ground.

The interferences continued, but I could hear Proce speaking, trying to speak. Trying to percieve something else I put my tail back on the ground, and if possible my heart grew colder than it already was. The ground was vibrating. Humming like a beehive, erasing all possibilites of hearing anything. The light seemed to disturb the light spectrum aswell, for I looked at my arm and I was glowing like a neon sign while all other light seemed dimmed.

Now I was really scared. 'How were we found?!' I momentarily screamed in my head when I heard something, not through our link or the vibrations in the ground, but my 'real' hearing. I heard pounces, screeches, and metal hitting pavement in the alley. I was already raising my right leg to pounce into the air, to Proce, when I managed to filter something out from the patternless buzzing and wheezing of the mencom.

"...it's a trap!"

It may seem narrow minded and...stupid in retrospect, but I really hadn't thought about that until now. It actually made me pause mid-stride. How had they found us? How had they known? How did they find out so early?! We'd been fucking set up! It was actually a stroke of luck that I didn't manage to go further than moving my leg, for right behind me I heard a footstep. A single, heavy footstep, with the dulled vibrations of Earth armor boots, and I froze.

They eased closer, almost creeping towards me. I went over the way the roof looked in my mind. Behind me was a door to a stairwell and a air duct, about five feet between one another, and I was somewhere in the middle. The constant thumping, buzzing, wheezing and screeching in my head made it hard to concentrate, but by the sound of it they were about ten, possibly nine feet away and making their way closer to me. I guessed that the human wasn't very used to seeing a humanoid parody of a lizard, and so it wanted to be close enough for a certain kill.

It was a guess, but I had very little else to go on, so I slowly slid my right hand forward, against what looked like a secondary pistolgrip, carved into the weapon. Through the vibrations the humans footsteps sounded about seven or eight feet away now. I had gone tense, and time seemed to slow again as my hand moved over the carving in the weapon. Now it was six feet away. My index finger dipped into the trigger guard and my thumb slid over a flat area near the back of the barrel assembly and the gun lay in my hand. Five feet away.

Time seemed to stand still as I twisted my arm backwards, towards the human. The rain reflected the glow in my skin and made it look like a minor universe, with me as the central star. My gaze met with the humans and I saw the shock in his eyes. He looked like a shadow thanks to the light from that strange interference device. He had risen his weapon but had no time to fire. I twisted and turned the weapon and fired. The homopolar coils transfered a two point eight megajoule current to the sixteen millimeter self combusting 'Firefly' round and accelerated it to three thousand two hundred and ten miles an hour, exiting in a concentrated plasma burst and leaving a brightly lit orange stroke of light in the sky and a smouldering tunnel through the soldiers skull.

The soldier fell down on the roof. Without thinking I reached out my tongue and tasted the air. It was instinct more than anything - I was completely capable of sensing smell with the two nostils in my face. The scent of scorched flesh mixed with the residual charge of the atmosphere in a nauseating aroma of sulfur. I loathed the smell as much as killing. Not wanting to linger I took a sprint over the body and dissappeared into the cleft seperating the buildings.

I spread my legs till my feet connected with the wall to slow my decent and my claws screeched from the friction. About twelve feet above the ground I let go of the walls and landed with a thud that seemed to shake the trash cans. Normally I would have hoped to get away with stealth, but something had happened to Proce. I couldn't hear her fighting anymore.

I sprang like a arrow from a strung bow, moving through the alley in a speed that seemed nothing short of ridiculous in this confined space. Mere feet away from the juction I put my feet on the right wall, pressed away from it, put my other foot on the upcoming wall, turning my body left in the junction as I did so, and landed again on the ground. I lost hardly any speed, but I heard and felt my tail swish into the wall hard enough to make small splinters fall off. I cursed and raised my speed even more.

The light from the 'star' shaded everything except me, and the deadened omnisonus made the happening nothing short of frightening. All I heard of my own footfalls was a muffled echo, and trash cans, walls, and reflections melded together in a black mass of obscurity. I was hardly able to see the alley to my right until it was too late. I twisted into the alley, using the left wall as a step in the same manner as before and I saw them.

They must've been wearing something that made them reflect light even less than the rest of the world, because shades was the only thing I could describe them as. They were nothing but sillhouettes against the darker alley, as if they were cut out from reality and I was looking down the void of Chaos itself, like ungods radiating with darkness, casting a shadow on darkness itself, and like a green sun in a universe of darkness, Proce lying unconscious beneath them..

Without thinking I threw myself towards them, a fit of rage incompareable to anything other than reptilian. I was going to kill them, tear them up, reach into their gut and strangle them with their intestines before they could even get into shock. I was. Then something hit me in the back. Involuntarily my entire body tightened up in pain, my muscles wrenching in every direction and I couldn't hold back a roar of fury and suffering. Unable to control my muscles I fell head first over myself in an angle that seemed like it was going to break my neck and landed on my side, not far from the dark figures in front of me, spasming like a fish on land.