Slev Torrent – Cormag One – Not Kansas

Slev dove over the fence after Chitters, but it was pointless; the little mantis was a flash of purple and green skittering toward the nearest Seldune hound. Slev looked up helplessly from his armored heap in the bush he had landed in. He was waiting for the carnage that was sure to ruin whatever goodwill he had earned from Carl.

Chitters gracefully launched himself over the stunned hound and through an open window into the home.

Slev threw himself out of the bush in a frantic clawing scramble. “Oh shit,” he sprinted to the front door, watched all the way by the Seldune hounds, slamming an armored gauntlet into the front door twice.

“Hey! Its Slev! Don’t uh. Don't shoot it, it's my pet!” There was a poignant moment of silence inside, followed by nothing. Then the sound of footsteps approaching the front door.

A solidly built woman in her 50's with pronounced laugh lines and a grandmas smile, pulled open the door. Her free arm had chitters tucked under it like an unruly chicken. He was holding a pan in his grasping hands, his head covered in bacon grease.

“Little bastard got ma bacon!” Martha stated with a laugh. "Oh, don't just stand there looking so befuddled, come on in. Carl told me you were coming." She turned on her heels and headed back into the cozy home with Chitters still under her arm.

Slev walked in after Martha staring daggers at Chitters, who looked far too pleased with himself, gnawing on the pan. “Really sorry about that. Not a very good introduction. The little glutton there is Chitters."The mantis warbled happily and poked at Martha’s hair.

"Oh, it's fine, lord knows, I know a thing or two about problametic pets.” She looked meaningfully out at the lizards, now all staring at the front door, unmoving. “I see you out there, Mr. get your fuzzy self on inside." She waved at Otto commandingly.

“I got a phone call from Agatha about you, she was positively fawning over your single-minded interest in pie.” Otto climbed over the fence and quickly made his way to the door at the mention of pie.

Martha watched incredulously. “We have a gate, yall... Never mind, get yourselves comfortable, and let me make yall some vittles, oh, here, this is yours."Martha handed Slev Chitters and pried the pan from his hands after a short struggle.

Slev, Otto, and Chitters all awkwardly sat in the dining room, looking around at the slightly peeling flowered wallpaper and listening to the soft country music flowing throughout the home.

Martha broke the silence. "Alright, boys, got some homeade goopta fruit pie, still warm!” She set down the masterfully crafted golden brown pie, slighty red fruit seeping from the seems.

Otto reacted before anyone else, reverently taking the extraction tool in one tentacle. He hefted out two slices and placed them on the plate in front of himself. All of his eyes focused in as he used a fork to cut off a large, still-steaming piece of the human treasure. He ate the first bite. Otto's eyes dialated in happiness, and he made a noise best compared to a goose before taking the next slice in his tentacles and stuffing it all in, in one bite.

Slev facepalmed “Jesus Christ man.”

Martha beamed "Oh, I'm so glad you like it!”

Otto reached over toward the pie tin with anticipation, his second slice still being chewed.

“No!” Slev batted his tentacle away, pulling the pie towards himself and scooping a piece before Otto could eat the whole fucking pie. “You are going to make yourself sicker than shit Otto, pie has a lot of sugar.”

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“Nectar of the gods.” Otto mumbled, pulling the remaining half of the pie back across the table for himself.

Slev looked at Martha, apologetic. She was laughing hard into her apron, with the mirth of someone who's cooking was properly appreciated. Waving off his concerns, she went back into the kitchen to start making some more food. Eventually Carl made his way home, and he and Slev had a great time reminiscing about the weird things they had discovered living among aliens. Otto spent most of the evening partially comatose, still at the dining room table covered in crumbs and pie filling, struggling desperately to finish off the last slice.

Overall, it was an enjoyable and much-needed social recharge for Slev. Carl had even filled him in on the pirate situation from the valuable perspective of a local. They were a fucking problem. There was no unified government for this system. The three main corporations that had interests here had agreed to a loose set of rules to avoid a corprate war. They also zealously guarded their own holdings and any cities, like Saxum, that they depended on for trade. But beyond that, they did not give a single fuck.

Not Kanasas had fended off dozens of small pirate raids, mainly on mining veins that were farther out from the city and not under the immediate weapons umbrella of the city itself. For the most part, that had gone extremely poorly for the pirates. Everyone who lived in this settlement was armed with Terran weapons, and a disproportionately large portion of the populace were veterans of the last Colony Wars.

The Vein that they had lost, however, was almost 100 miles from the city, nestled into a canyon, and the pirates had come prepared with antigravity vehicles, heavy weapons, and at least two turret drones. That was more than enough to drive out the half-dozen workers there. Slev wondered if they were part of the disconcertingly put-together group he had scrapped with in the asteroid belt. Any group large enough to operate a small fleet like that could easily have the resources to put those kinds of boots on the ground.

The next day, Slev got to work. Otto stayed behind, still incapacitated by his excessive pie consumption. Slev took the Human Instinct and Chitters and flew out a few miles from the canyon that held the occupied mine. The terrain here had lost much of its softer, dusty features and was now a wicked, twisted stone wasteland. Predatory birds circled above ominously, and the blue sun cast a dire-looking pallor across the inhospitable terrain.

Slev looked at Chitters. “I really need a hoverbike or something this hike is gonna suck.” Slev carefully stepped off the ramp over a piece of obsidian-like stone formed into a hooked claw shape.

"Chitters, buddy, you stay! I don’t know if one of them might spot the ship and try to grab it.” Slev looked at the disappointed mantis as he warbled grumpily and climbed into a vent. "Uh, if anyone breaks in, you can eat them?” Chitters seemed to perk up at that.

“We really need to get his fucking intelligence tested,” Slev grumbled to himself, sealing the door shut after he secured his armament for today’s mission.

“It's probably above yours, sir!” Reaper blurted

Slev almost tripped. “Christ, warn a man before you start shouting pithy insults.”

"Well, sir, you have had me MUTED for several days now! I didn't exactly appreciate it!” Reaper sounded pissed.

Slev stumbled his way across a few more potentially deadly rock spikes. "Oh, quit your bitching, we are about to go kill some folks.”

It took Slev almost two hours to pick his way across the stony slopes and crags before he got to a good vantage point, looking straight down into the mouth of the valley from a few hundred meters out. The dirty, rough-hewn entrance to the mine was littered with bullet holes and scorch marks. Piles of rocks had been assembled into cover positions on the valley floor, and overlooking it from the rim. Below, he could see three men alert and in cover keeping watch. One man was mostly hidden in a sniper's nest across from him on the rim. Patrolling in a circular pattern was one turret drone; thankfully, it was one of the smaller kinds. Roughly shaped like a human-sized Frisbee, with a laser of some kind oscillating from a mount beneath.

“My god, actual scouting this time you can learn!” Reaper quipped as he marked all the hostiles on Slev's HUD with very red outlines.

“Prick” Slev slowly and carefully unslung his Rail-rifle from his back. Taking the time to put the bipod down. He stayed there for five minutes, practicing tracking from one target to the next. The species on array here were indistinguishable, being fully armored in patchwork red and black. Slev was pushed into action as the sniper across the ravine started looking far too intently in his direction.

“Nope, me first,” Slev whispered. He focused on the collarbone of the distant figure and squeezed the trigger. The rail round screamed through the length of the sniper's body instantaneously.

Slev swung the barrel to his second target just as the sonic boom retort echoed throughout the valley. Two shots scrapped the gun drone from above before it could even bring its weapons to bare. Slev kept the barrel moving. One shot through a pile of rocks, the piece of cover exploded as his shot hit the man's grenades. Red-flashing laser fire probed out aimlessly from the second makeshift fortification. Slev shot through it at its center in a violent explosion of rock shrapnel, and the laser fire immediately stopped. The final guard was already running from cover towards the mines.

“Sorry man” Slev lined up the shot and fired the last round in his magazine. It punched through his upper back and ricocheted multiple times farther into the mines.

Slev pulled out a spare magazine and reloaded. He swung back to the gun drone and put one more round into its smoldering form, right where the weapon met the propulsion, just to be damn sure. Everything was silent for a few minutes as Slev scanned the area, really hoping the pirates would be dumb enough to rush out and see what had happened. Unfortunately, almost 10 minutes later, Slev saw a tiny surveillance drone float out of the cave entrance.

Slev shot the drone out of the sky out of spite. “Looks like we get to practice close-quarter combat,” Reaper happily chimed.

Slev grumbled and made his way from cover to cover, sliding down into the valley. He was stowing his long arm just as he saw the plume of a small ship overhead. It veered off from the canyon, however, and went straight for the very exposed Human Instinct.

Slev winced “I hope Chitters will be alright.”

“I would be more concerned about the cleanup required.” Reaper assured him.