Neisa was riding Baldric passionately on the bed in her all-in-one room. The night before, after returning from a search and capture mission, she had gone out with him for drinks and one thing had led to another. Besides being active, Neisa was a beautiful and attractive woman, so she usually had no trouble finding someone willing to have a pleasurable time with her. Neisa loved having sex with all kinds of men and women regardless of their race or social status. The only thing she looked for in a sexual partner was that they had something that attracted her.
Baldric grabbed her buttocks and thrust into her passionately again and again while spanking her ass. He knew that one of the things she enjoyed most were the slaps on her fleshy, perfect behind.
Suddenly, someone knocked on the metal door of the room, but neither of them paid attention. Shortly after, the intercom rang several times.
"Damn it! Who the hell is it?" Baldric said angrily.
"I don't care. Who said you should stop?" asked Neisa. Today was her day off, and she wasn't planning to waste a single minute.
The intercom rang again and then a voice accompanied it.
"Neisa! It's me, André!"
"Get lost, idiot!" shouted Baldric, throwing whatever he found on the floor at the door.
"Did you see the message they sent to our cybertables? Apparently, we've been assigned a last-minute mission. We have to meet Sergeant Raed at the vehicle park in forty-five minutes."
Both André and she belonged to the State Exploration and Support Regiment of Anlova, also known as the Fierce Stewards; one of the many regiments of the Army that were part of the Anlova Brigade, which was how the group of regiments hosted by the homonymous State was referred to. These types of regiments were created during the initial depopulation of towns and cities, and were intensified after the Ninth Savage Wave, which was the trigger for the Royal Decree of Population Restructuring of the United States of Ibelir on August 5, 630 N.M, by which all civilian populations of the different states were grouped into a limited number of cities. Currently, all the States and even some City-States of Ibelir had their own exploration and support regiment. These typically operated within the boundaries of their State and among their functions were exploration, transportation of goods or passengers between cities, and the search and capture or elimination of targets.
"It can't be..." Neisa said quietly and stopped moving. She got up and grabbed the cybertable from the small desk next to the bed.
"What are you doing? Ignore that fool."
"Damn... Today was my day off," she said after checking the alert on her cybertable. She sighed and raised her voice. "Okay, André. I'll be right there. See you there."
Neisa thought she heard something, but couldn't quite make it out.
"You should make it clear to that loser that he'll never get anything from you," said Baldric as he pleased himself with the sound of the shower and Neisa's naked body. "He must be dying of envy."
Neisa wrapped part of her body in a towel and stepped out of the shower.
"He's my childhood friend, Baldric. He's like a brother to me. Besides, he and I have different views, and if we had sex, it would ruin our relationship."
"Ha! That's what all of you say when you don't want something with someone you know."
"That's not true... Plus let me tell you that if I had to save one of the two, I'd choose him over you."
"Yeah, but you're sleeping with me, not him," he said and smacked her on the butt.
"Clown..."
Neisa dressed in the military uniform of the regiment and pulled her long chestnut hair back into a ponytail. She then pressed a button and the sliding door of the tiny all-in-one room slid aside. As she stepped out, she found her childhood friend leaning against the corridor wall with his arms crossed. His dark brown eyes looked at her disapprovingly.
"What are you doing there?" asked Neisa. "You didn’t have to wait for me."
"I don’t know how you can sleep with that idiot." The words came out of André's mouth like sharp blades. Sometimes, Neisa didn't know if he said it out of jealousy or because he genuinely cared.
"André, don’t start this again..."
"I just can't wrap my head around it," he said, spreading his arms.
"André!" Neisa raised her voice, beginning to get nervous.
"Never mind, forget it," said André defensively. "Do you want to eat something before we meet with the sergeant?"
Neisa sighed.
"Alright, let's go. I could use a strong coffee and some toast or something."
The two soldiers went down to the second floor of their regiment's building in search of the dining hall. Normally each regiment tended to have its own building within the military complex, although depending on the number of personnel it housed, a regiment could have more than one, or, on the contrary, share a building with another.
When they got off the elevator, they walked down the hallway and entered one of the doors leading to the dining hall. It was square-shaped and occupied the entire outer part of the floor with stairs and elevators on the inner part. They approached one of the furniture pieces with trays and then got in one of the self-service lines. One of the positive things about being in the military was that all food (except what one ate in private life) was free. André served himself some baked potato, bacon, a couple of slices of black bread, and powdered milk coffee. Neisa chose a juice made from powdered concentrate, a long coffee with milk, and a couple of toasts with oil and salt.
"Look, there's Burmac and Miriam," said André, pointing to a half-empty table. Like them, they were humans and belonged to the second company of the Fierce Stewards.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"Let's go."
"Hopefully that will keep you from bringing up Baldric again."
"Hey, can we join you?" asked the soldier as she arrived.
"Of course, sit down," replied Burmac.
Neisa noticed his blue eyes and smiled sweetly. They were her favorites.
"Sure," said Miriam.
"Thanks," both friends said at the same time. Neisa winked at Burmac.
"They've called you guys in too, right?" asked Miriam.
"Yeah, and it was my day off…" said Neisa, somewhat frustrated.
"Yeah, it sucks. But look on the bright side, you'll get an extra day off next time."
"So, does anyone know what it's about?" Burmac chimed in.
"Nope," Neisa shook her head. "Nervous?"
"Eh? No. Well yes. A bit," admitted Burmac. "I’m still not used to it."
"How long have you been in the regiment? I hadn't seen you around here."
"Just a month. This will be my second mission."
"No wonder I didn’t recognize you. It's a pity we hadn't met earlier."
"So, you're a recent grad, huh?" asked Neisa. "Which military base were you at? Asro?"
"Yes," answered Burmac. "Light infantry class A708-1."
"The same as us," said Nesia pointing to André and herself. "Class A705-2. I don’t know if Morick is still an instructor."
"No, I think not."
"Better," said Neisa. "That guy was a real jerk."
"Well, back to the topic," intervened André. "Estrek told me something about going to the Tagrei rune-electric power plant."
"To the auxiliary plant? For what?" asked Miriam. "To transport something?"
"No idea," answered Neisa.
"Do you think someone might have attacked it?" said Burmac.
"I don’t know, but being an auxiliary plant, it doesn’t really make sense, to be honest," replied André. "Though, with the Savages, I believe anything is possible."
"Don't worry," Neisa put one of her hands on Burmac's shoulder and winked at him. "I'm sure Miriam is right, and it’s just to transport some important engineer or something."
"Thanks…"
"Well, I think I need another coffee," added Neisa. "Anyone want one?"
André walked into the regiment's vehicle park alongside Neisa. On one side of the hangar, mechanics from the Anlova Engineering and Mechanics Regiment were making final checks on the vehicles of the convoy, which consisted of four V4WDT vehicles and a light I43 tank positioned in the middle. All the vehicles bore the regiment's emblem on one side and the country's and state's flags on the other.
The V4WDT, commonly referred to as the V4, was an armored 4x4 vehicle used for exploration and combat. It was equipped with a top-mounted platform for machine guns, missile launchers, or other auxiliary weapons. The I43, on the other hand, was a wheeled tank primarily used in low-intensity conflicts, as it combined speed with good armor and sufficient firepower to penetrate medium armors and decimate infantry. It was equipped with a cannon and an auxiliary machine gun.
Set slightly apart from the convoy was Sergeant Raed, a human in his early forties with a stern face, a cybernetic eye, and several scars. André hadn't been with the Fierce Stewards long, but he knew Raed was a soldier forged in battle who preferred receiving orders to giving them. According to Neisa, the sergeant had enough medals and commendations to have made captain, but he had always refused.
Standing in front of him were two corporals listening to their superior's words. One was Corporal Chelne, a human with dark skin, defined muscles, and a jovial face from which positivity usually emanated. The other was Corporal Dragen, a drauo with dark, obsidian-like skin and mineral scales in shades of dark red, white, and green that ran across his face and body. He had a scar on his right eyebrow and another on his nose. His personality could be summed up in two words: aggression and a sense of duty.
Drauos, averaging one meter and fifty-seven centimeters in height, were slightly shorter than the Savage tralfs, but their muscle mass and breadth were superior to that of humans. The color of their tough skin varied similarly to rocks, and their hair was mostly dark. Rocky scales of different colors and shapes ran across their bodies like tribal tattoos. Their eyes, proportionally smaller compared to their heads and with rhomboid pupils, were typically blue, amber, brown, green, or reddish-orange. They had irregular ears with numerous points, and their faces looked like sculpted rocks.
Behind them, Miriam, Burmac, and other soldiers of the platoon had already gathered there. Almost all members of the Fierce Stewards were human, but the ranks included many races. All were equipped with an HK52 assault rifle with bayonet, an IK20 semi-automatic pistol, hand grenades, and a knife, and were protected with ABA-L armor, which consisted of a tactical helmet, a breastplate, shoulder pads, and thigh guards. All the armor protectors were made from reinforced synthetic fibers and Akro plates, a moldable composite of steel and ceramic to withstand the impact of bullets and the blows of bladed weapons.
"Did they bring an I43 for the mission?" Neisa remarked as she looked at the light tank. "Either we're transporting something very important, or maybe they did attack the auxiliary plant."
"Yeah, that's what worries me," said André.
The childhood friends moved through the hangar and saw a fair-skinned human female corporal with chestnut hair, and two soldiers from the regiment's armored light cavalry unit approaching the tank from one side. When they reached the other soldiers, the voice of the chestnut-haired woman reached their ears.
"How's the little one?"
"Great, Corporal Eko," answered the soldier from the engineering and mechanics regiment. "But I hope this time you do not think you are using a heavy tank."
"I'll try. But I promise nothing," she said with a laugh.
Suddenly, a sense of discomfort overtook André. He turned and saw an aehul combat mage slowly crossing the hangar toward the sergeant. He had pale skin, and his irregularly shaped dark hair almost reached his shoulders. He was protected by a bulletproof synthetic fiber undergarment and armor like that of the regiment's soldiers. The trench coat bearing the emblem of the Anlova Magical Brigade fluttered as he walked
A feeling of repulsion and fear threatened to take hold of André as he felt those ice-cold blue eyes piercing his own. Even though it had been over a year since he went to Tarefor with his former regiment to quell the rebellion, the mere presence of those vile beings made his body relive all the atrocities they had committed there.
Neisa, noticing his discomfort, wrapped one of her arms around the back of his neck and smiled at him.
"Hey, relax, it's okay."
André returned the smile, feeling his body calm down. But as he was about to thank her, he pictured Neisa sleeping with that jerk Baldric, and this time it was jealousy that almost took over. Despite everything he had done for her, she had never reciprocated. He had even joined the Armed Forces simply because she said it would be great to fight together for the country. But of course, that had just been another time Neisa had used his feelings for her to get him to do what she wanted.
"Leave me alone," André said abruptly, pulling away her arm.
Neisa looked at him with concern, but he ignored her and looked away.
"It's all your fault."
"Soldiers, line up!" shouted Sergeant Raed.
André's worries vanished in an instant, and within seconds, he aligned with the rest of the soldiers.
The sergeant began pacing back and forth, examining the faces of his subordinates. His gray hair must have been the result of the continuous and overwhelming stress that the Fierce Stewards faced. Life outside the cities was a constant danger.
"Early yesterday morning, the Tagrei rune-electric auxiliary plant stopped supplying power for no apparent reason," the sergeant began. "The operators at the Catlon central have tried to contact them to find out the reason, but there has been no response, only a strange message containing the word 'attack', so it is most likely that the plant has been assaulted by savages or raiders. While other possibilities are not ruled out, our mission is to find out what happened and try to restore the supply." The sergeant shifted his gaze to the soldiers who were not part of the Fierce Stewards and the mage. "For this, we will have the assistance of Combat Mage Isen, Soldier Ordwulf from the Sappers Regiment, and Soldier Jorge from the Communications Regiment."
"Could it really have been attacked by savages?" André thought, feeling fear begin to form inside him. The savages were fierce and ruthless, and confrontations with them often ended in real bloodbaths.
"Alright, now I will announce the vehicle assignments," the sergeant continued. "Neisa, André, Elen, you will go with me and Combat Mage Isen in V4-1."
"Great... just what I needed today."