Velcoran Wars: The Story of Kraft Squadron

I figured I'd put this here too. For those of you who don't know, Velcoran Wars is my sci-fi action/adventure story. I know it doesn't seem very adventurous so far, but you'll have to wait until the plot unfolds further.


Chapter I

“Vulture, how far are we from our destination?” Mack, a darkish green-scaled Talranden Lieutenant asked.
“Just a few klicks, Lieutenant,” said Vulture, whose real name was Tarrek. Tarrek, a turquoise-colored Talranden pilot, wore a white jumpsuit and helmet with a black flight vest.
“Right,” Mack said. His slight Australian accent was quite familiar with the group. “Crow, get those C4 charges ready. Eagle, get ready to give us cover fire if we need it. Falcon, Sparrow, remember the plan,” he yelled over the roar of the helicopter’s propellers.
Mack and Ace (a Second Lieutenant whose codename was Eagle), both wore standard Ardenian combat uniforms - a black jumpsuit with a utility vest and black gloves, black knee-high boots, and white shoulder/knee pads with a white form-fitting helmet. Shiela, a Private First Class codenamed Sparrow, was a dark brown-furred Colf and wore the same gear as Mack and Ace. They all had their rank insignia on the back of their helmets.
“You sure this’ll work, Hawk? This isn’t another suicide mission, is it?” Dalleph questioned Mack. His codename was Falcon; Hawk was Mack’s.
“Well, we made it through those suicide missions, didn’t we?” Mack said, showing his sarcastic personality as usual.
The one codenamed Crow was named Karten. He and Dalleph were both Humans, unlike the rest of the group who were either lizard-like Talrandens or wolf-like Colf. These Humans were Duklevvian soldiers; the others were Ardenian. Thus, their uniforms varied from the others. Dalleph and Karten wore black jackets and pants with white armor breastplates and different helmets. Dalleph’s breastplate had three red stripes across the chest, designating his rank as sergeant.
“Hawk, we’re at the drop point,” Tarrek yelled from the cockpit into the passenger bay of his helicopter where the five others sat. The helicopter began to descend towards the ground.
“Rendezvous with us at way point Delta in forty minutes, Vulture. If we’re not there in an hour, call for support.”
The sandy, rock-littered ground was difficult to land on, so Tarrek made the helicopter hover a couple feet above the ground. Ace slid open the large door on the helicopter’s side. One by one, they jumped out of the helicopter and onto the ground. A cloud of dust that had been picked up by the helicopter’s twirling propellers surrounded them. When they all had exited the helicopter, Mack slid the door shut and gave Tarrek a thumbs-up. Tarrek gave Mack a quick salute and the helicopter began to rise into the dark midnight sky.
This elite group was Kraft Squadron, a group of airborne commandos in the Ardenian Air Force; one of the best first-strike teams in the whole alliance between the Ardenian Republic and Duklevvian Empire. They were led by Mack, a kind fellow with quite a bit of military experience. Ace, Mack’s best friend, was his assistant leader and a heavy weapons specialist. Tarrek was their pilot as well as Mack’s cousin, and Shiela, Ace’s sister, was their hand-to-hand combat expert and medic. Dalleph served as their saboteur. Karten, a bulky fellow with a strong Russian accent was their combat engineer. All of them differed in personality and talents, but the group shared one common goal- to defeat their oppressive enemies and bring peace back to the Velcor solar system. The Dart Freedom Alliance, a renegade army of mercenaries, assassins, and rebels of all kinds had allied with the Sissoans and declared war on the Arden-Duklev alliance.
Kraft Squadron dashed towards a large rock outcropping a few meters away and crouched behind it. From here, they could see their objective. It was a large Sissoan armory housing hundreds of ballistic missiles. The building was crude and quickly built on the planet Tyronia, the capitol planet of the Ardenian Republic. This was a major threat to the Ardenian homeland and therefore had to be destroyed immediately.
The entrance to the armory was, as Mack guessed, about a quarter kilometer away. It would take a lot of stealth to get there without being noticed by Sissoan sentries on the roof of the building. The Lieutenant signaled for Karten to follow him. They kept low while moving to the next outcropping. The two crouched behind it and waited a few seconds before moving up farther. Mack and Karten repeated this process until they reached the armory’s big metal door, while Ace, Shiela, and Dalleph stayed behind and watched the roof for Sissoans.
Mack held his assault rifle at ready and motioned to Karten to place the explosives. He pulled out three C4 charges, each the size of half a loaf of bread. They were already primed for detonation. Karten then pulled out a roll of tape and attached the explosives to the door near its hinges and lock. When they were in place, he and Mack ran back to the nearest rock pile. Mack signaled the rest of the group to move up with them, then to Karten to detonate.
The explosion shook the ground and ripped the door off its hinges. Mack didn’t wait for the smoke to clear; he ran straight through the cloud and into the building. The rest of Kraft Squadron followed him.
The interior of the building was made of concrete and covered in filth; Sissoans weren’t much for cleaning up. They found themselves in an empty narrow hallway. Mack led them down the hall and into another. He knew that the Sissoans would be all over the place searching for them soon, so the group would have to get their work done fast.
As they rounded another corner, a Sissoan soldier entered the other end of the hallway. The Sissoans were nasty, human sized insect-like creatures. They were rather dumb when it came down to it. Their tactics in battle were severely lacking, even with their quite good supply of weapons and ordnance, and they usually never used more than three-word phrases. The only thing that made the Sissoans a formidable enemy was their massive numbers. There were billions of them, while the small yet extremely well trained Ardenian forces numbered less than a million and the armies of the Duklevvian Empire only a bit larger than the Ardenian military.
The soldier yelled something in the Sissoan language which Mack, being a linguist, translated as “Intruders!” He quickly fired a burst of gunfire at the Sissoan before he could run.
The intensity of their situation had just doubled. Now their enemies knew they were there, and they had to finish their mission twice as fast. Luckily, the hallway they were currently in led to the main storage room in the building. They lined up on either side of the small maintenance door. Ace got ready to open it, while the others prepared to enter and open fire. Mack nodded and Ace turned the handle and swung the door open. The others followed Mack into the room. There were missiles stacked on at least twenty racks of six throughout the huge room. There were only a few Sissoans inside this room; most had left to investigate the explosion.
They worked their way around the long rows of missiles, locking all doors and carefully shooting any Sissoans still in the room. Of course, they had to be extremely careful not to shoot near the warheads of the missiles.
“Okay, hurry up and set the charges Crow.” Mack said once the room was secured. “It won’t be long until they find us here.”
Karten knelt near one of the large missile racks in the center of the room. He sat his backpack in front of him and pulled out several more blocks of C4 and a remote controlled detonator for each. He carefully began to attach each explosive to the warheads of several different missiles.
Suddenly, several Sissoan soldiers burst through the door they had entered from.
“Oh God,” Mack thought. He knew they were about to die either by Sissoan gunfire or by Sissoan gunfire hitting one of the missiles. The Sissoans began running down the long row of missiles towards them. Kraft Squadron began running in the opposite direction, but Karten stayed by the missile rack, hurrying to place the explosives.
“Forget the explosives, damnit!” Mack yelled at Karten, whom the Sissoans were bearing down upon.
Karten looked up and saw the Sissoans approaching. He dropped the C4 and picked up his rifle. He then ran as fast as he could to catch up with the others. Their pursuers opened fire just as Kraft Squadron got to the end of the row; the bullets barely missed them and the missiles. They began towards the nearest exit. Luckily, it led straight out to the desert landscape of Tyronia.
Unluckily, however, the Sissoans were right behind them. They had no time to turn and fire back, so they kept running as fast as they could.
“Dalleph, grenade,” Ace hollered. Dalleph pulled a grenade off his belt and tossed it to Ace, who pulled the pin and threw it behind them. They simultaneously dove behind a rock pile. The grenade exploded. Without anything to protect them, the Sissoans were caught in the spray of fragmentation Kraft Squadron quickly shot them both several times to make sure they were dead.
“Okay, we’ve got to get to Delta before more Sissoans come this way,” Mack said, out of breath from all the running. He wasn’t much for stamina, but he could usually hold out pretty well.
“What about missiles?” Karten asked.
“Well, how many did you get placed before those damned bugs showed up?” said Ace.
“Three,” Karten replied.
“That’ll blow it up easily,” Mack said, starting to catch his breath. He checked his watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes, c’mon!”
They all started jogging towards way point Delta. About twelve minutes later, they had arrived. Way point Delta was designated by the ruins of an old stone guard tower in the middle of the valley between two dunes of sand.
“Alright Karten, go ahead and detonate,” Mack said. He knew that the Sissoans, being as unintelligent as they were, would be running around the base like ants instead of
Karten grinned big and pulled out the detonator switch. “Is my pleasure,” he said, once again with his heavy Russian accent. He took off the safety and flipped the switch. The whole armory exploded, making a huge fireball that illuminated the night sky. A faint heat wave hit them, along with a bit of ash and such.
“That was a bit close,” Ace said, sitting down on the ground. He was the strongest in the group, but that didn’t keep him from getting tired.
Dalleph and Karten gave each other a high-five.
Shiela sat next to Ace, and being his sister, she hugged him. “Another successful misson,” she said.
“What about me? Don’t I get any congratulations?” Mack said with one of his sarcastic smiles.
Shiela jumped up and hugged Mack tightly. Mack patted her on the back, then Dalleph gave him a high-five.
Tarrek was approaching in his helicopter by then. He landed on top of one of the dunes flanking the group. Kraft Squadron made their way up the dune and to the helicopter. Ace slid the door open, and they began to climb in.
“Nice to see you still in one piece Lieutenant,” Tarrek said to Mack.
“Nice to see you remembered the way point this time Tarrek,” replied Mack. He slapped Tarrek on the back of his head. He then closed the door behind them and took his seat in the passenger bay. “Take us home.”

Sorry for the double post, but the first one was too big with Chapter 2.


Chapter II

It was late on their second night of R&R. Kraft Squadron had been running missions like the one two days ago almost nonstop for two weeks and Brigadier General Reffk, leader of the 87th Ardenian Airborne Division, had granted them a few days of rest and relaxation.
Kraft Squadron was lounging in their quarters, which they had dubbed the ‘Kraft Squadron Suite’, at the base. They were just hanging out like the group of friends they were. Mack reclined on a couch next to Shiela, tuning his guitar. Shiela was busy sketching in a small notebook. Ace worked on his laptop at the table, and Dalleph sat in a nearby chair while reading a book. Tarrek had already gone to bed. Karten had fallen asleep also, but in a chair near Dalleph’s.
All was quiet, except for the plucking of strings on Mack’s guitar, Ace’s typing, and Karten’s snoring. After a while, Ace closed his laptop and folded his arms over it.
“Getting late,” he said, trying to break the silence. He looked out the window at the dark night sky which had settled over the Tyronian desert.
“Yeah,” Mack said. He sat his guitar down on the couch between him and Shiela.
Ace walked over to the refrigerator. “You want something to drink, Mack? Dalleph?”
“Nah, I’m good,” Dalleph said, closing his book and standing up. “I think I’m gonna turn in now,” he yawned. He walked past the couch and to his bedroom.
“I’ll take something,” Mack said. He stood up and went to the table where Ace had been sitting.
“What would you like?” Ace stuck his head in the refrigerator.
“Whatever we’ve got in there. There wasn’t much last time I checked.” He sat down in one of the chairs.
“You’re right,” Ace said. He pulled two cans out of the back of the fridge and sat one on the table in front of Mack. “How much longer do you think this war will last?” He asked, sitting opposite of Mack.
“You never know. But I don’t want to think about it right now. We’re off-duty,” Mack said as he opened his can and took a drink. “Why don’t you join us, Shiela?”
Without hesitating, Shiela put down her notepad and took a seat with the others at the table.
“So Ace, Shiela, how are your parents doing? If I remember correctly, yesterday was their anniversary.” Mack took another drink.
“They’re great. I just talked to them earlier today.” Ace took a drink and scratched his neck. “How about your mom and dad, Mack? You don’t talk about them much.”
“Don’t you remember?” Mack said, his voice slightly less joyful.
“Remember what?”
“They’re dead.” Mack took another drink and looked away, keeping a straight face to not embarrass his friend.
Ace felt his face grow hot. “Oh, sorry, I-”
“Ah, it’s okay. I never knew them well anyway.”
“What happened to them, Mack?” Shiela asked. She hoped the question wouldn’t offend him.
“Well, my mother died giving birth to me. I lived alone with my father, and when I was five, he died in a terrorist attack. I wound up living with my uncle after that,” Mack replied.
“Terrorist attack? By who?” Ace asked, a bit surprised.
“Oh, it was some little group. They were all killed off or arrested or something a year or so later.”
“Wow, I never knew that,” Shiela said. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
Mack glanced at the clock. “I’m heading to bed now, guys. Good night.”
The next afternoon, Tarrek rushed into the Suite. “Mack, General Reffk wants to see us in the briefing room pronto,” he said.
“Well, I was expecting a couple more days of R&R, but okay,” Mack said as he stood up. “Everyone get in their dress uniforms and meet me outside in five minutes.”
Upon receiving Mack’s order, the members of Kraft Squadron split up and headed to their separate bedrooms. Everyone put on their dress uniforms as quickly as possible- A khaki shirt and pants with a red beret, all decorated with their division and rank insignia. Black leather boots and a belt topped off the outfit. When everyone was ready, Mack began leading them to the briefing room.
They navigated several long hallways and finally across one of the walkways above a large helicopter hangar located within their Ardenian Air Force base. The hangar’s large steel doors were open, revealing the vast desert landscape of the planet. A warm wind blew inside the massive room. The sounds of mechanics working on machinery filled the air. Three attack helicopters were parked next to each other, and several people were arming the helicopters’ missiles. On the other side of the hangar, a medium Delta-class transport helicopter was having some of the armor panels on its sides replaced; the old armor panels sat nearby the ground, riddled with bullet holes.
The group continued across the walkway and into another maze of hallways. Officers, technicians, and other soldiers and staff scurried about the hallways. Eventually they reached their destination.
Brigadier General Reffk, an old grey-furred Colf, and Senior Captain Delcir, a bluish-green Talranden intelligence officer whom Mack was fairly good friends with, were waiting in the room with several other officers from different divisions of the Ardenian military who grouped around several map tables in the room.
“Nice to see you, Lieutenant,” Reffk said with a faint smile. “We’ve got an important mission for you, as usual.”
“Intelligence reports say that the Dart Freedom Army has been smuggling weapons into our solar system and selling them to the Sissoans. According to the information we have acquired, they have a smuggling base on the outer rim planet Rachl, and they’ve been transporting weapons there to a large cache on planet Sisso.”
“That explains the ballistic missiles we destroyed a few days ago,” Mack suggested.
“Exactly. If the Sissoans get hold of more weapons like those, I fear they may become a far more formidable enemy,” Reffk said. “Your Squadron will be sent to a small Jeno airbase. The Jeno on Rachl are neutral in this war, but they have agreed to allow us use of the airfield. From there, you will find transport to the smuggling base approximately three kilometers northwest. But be careful- We don’t know how heavily defended it is.” The General paused to let the information sink in. “You will have to sneak aboard one of their ships and wait for it to take you to Sisso. Once you arrive, you will sabotage the weaponry stockpiled there. If possible, you will take the same ship back here.”
“If you can’t fly the ship for whatever reason, we’ll have a small backup transport waiting right outside Sisso’s atmosphere to pick you up,” Delcir added.
Mack glanced back at his group, then turned back to Reffk. He saluted, and Kraft Squadron followed suit.
“Dismissed, Lieutenant,” the General said. “Good luck.”

On their way back to their rooms, Mack went over the mission in his head. “Easy enough,” he thought.
They retraced their path through the base, going back through all the same hallways, through the hangar, and to Kraft Squadron Suite.
“Stealth uniforms everyone,” Mack said.
Their stealth uniforms were all identical- a dark grey jacket, pants, and helmet with a black vest, boots, gloves, and a facemask. Suppressors were mounted on all weapons. They would decrease accuracy and velocity, but the stealth factor was much more important for this mission.
Finally, they were ready. The group met in the hangar by the loading door of the transport that would take them to Rachl. Everyone did a final gear check. When they were sure all their weapons were clean and all straps were tight, they boarded the ship and prepared for takeoff.

I'll read it on my free time, which will, sadly, be tomorrow if we get school off, or the weekend if school is on tomorrow because of no freezing rain. I can see, though, that, just by looking at it, you and I, we have very different writing styles.

I got a snow day today. Second snow of the year for us. And yes, we do have different writing styles.

Well, there was freezing rain today, so I'm happy, and was able to read it. Awesome, dude. I'm wondering, though. The RPG characters on your forum, are you gonna include any of them?

Thanks! To answer your question, probably not. I already have all the chracters I need, and the RPG takes place right at the begining of the war (the story is two years after it starts).

Cool anyway. Two seconds, two years, what's the difference? Don't answer that.

The difference is, like, 729.99 days.

Sorry for the double post, but Chapter 3 is done.

I wrote:

Their journey took about three hours. Rachl was just passing Tyronia in its orbit, so the trip was greatly decreased. The planet was covered in ice and blizzards because of its distance from the sun, and it was barely habited except for the Jeno that lived there. They were skinny human-like creatures with bluish-green skin like that of a dolphin, as well as elongated heads and large black eyes.
Kraft Squadron’s transport landed on a platform in the middle of a flat, snowy plain. The landing platform was raised ten feet above the ground to avoid being buried in the snow.
A small staircase was pushed to the personnel door and Kraft Squadron disembarked the ship. Mack glanced around at the crudely-built airbase they had arrived in. Corrugated metal formed most of the buildings, and there were few defenses. Next to one of the buildings were three snowmobiles.
“We’ll take those,” Mack said, pointing towards the vehicles. He began walking towards them, and the others followed.
Two Jeno stood near the snow mobiles. They both were armed with cheap shotguns, a sign of their lack of technology. As Kraft Squadron approached, the Jeno stepped towards them.
“If you’ll excuse us, we need to borrow these vehicles,” Mack said.
“Are you the Ardenians that are expected here?” one of the Jeno asked.
“Yes, we are. We’ll need these snow mobiles to get to the smuggling base we’re supposed to infiltrate,” Ace spoke up.
“Of course,” the other Jeno said. They stepped out of Kraft Squadron’s way.
“Thank you,” Mack said, nodding at them. He walked past them and sat on the seat of one of the vehicles. He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them up. Being a Talranden, he wasn’t used to cold weather. He had lived all of his life on a desert planet, and the low temperatures on Rachl bothered him. “Okay, who’s riding with who?”
“I’ll ride with Karten,” Dalleph said. He climbed onto the seat of one of the snow mobiles.
“Mind if I ride with you?” Shiela asked Mack.
“Of course not,” Mack said, smiling under his mask.
Ace shook his head and laughed a bit, then got on the last vehicle. “I guess you’re with me, Tarrek,” he said.
Tarrek climbed on with Ace, Karten with Dalleph, and Shiela sat behind Mack.
“Hold on, I don’t want you falling off,” Mack started the motor of his snow mobile.
Shiela leaned into Mack and put her arms around his stomach, grasping her hands together.
“Everyone ready?” Mack said, glancing back at Ace.
Ace nodded, and Dalleph did too.
Mack began driving towards the smuggling base with the others following. Snowy wind blew in their faces as they moved swiftly across the blizzard-ridden terrain of the planet. Shiela rested her head on Mack’s shoulder and closed her eyes, trying to enjoy the ride.
After a while, they had arrived at a series of hills. The D.F.A. smuggling base was just on the other side of the mound, so Kraft Squadron stopped and dismounted. They gathered at the base of the nearest hill and prepared their weapons.
Mack signaled for everyone to stay silent and then for Ace to take point. Ace hurried without a sound to the top of the hill, paused, then gave the rest of the group the “all clear” sign. The Lieutenant began leading the others up the silently.
When they arrived at the top, they all laid on their stomachs to make themselves harder to see. They could see now that the smuggling base wasn’t nearly as heavily guarded as they expected. The base consisted of a small warehouse full of crates, a couple small armored military vehicles, and one anti-aircraft gun. In between all of it was a small cargo ship. Only four people were visible. Two of them walked back and forth between the warehouse and the ship, loading large crates onboard. The third sat on the short sandbag wall surrounding the AA gun and the forth stood idly by the loading ramp of the ship.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Mack whispered. “We wait until they’re finished loading the weapons onboard. Then, at the last minute, we run down the hill and into the ship as quickly as possible. Hopefully, if any of them stay here, we can get by them without alerting the guys on the ship.”
“What if they find us?” Tarrek said quietly.
“Then we kill all of them and you’ll fly us to Sisso,” replied Mack.

Within a few minutes, the D.F.A. soldiers had finished loading the cargo on the transport. The two who had been loading the ship walked up the ramp and the engines started. The soldier by the AA gun didn’t get on, and the one who had been near the ramp walked behind the armored vehicles.
Mack signaled for everyone to move. They began running down the hill, trying not to slide on the snow. He kept his assault rifle trained on the soldier by the AA gun, who was still facing away from them. The ramp on the ship slowly began to close.
Suddenly, Tarrek slipped and began rolling down the hill. The soldier at the AA gun turned and saw Kraft Squadron coming in his direction and reached for his weapon. Without hesitating, Ace fired at the soldier. He opened his mouth to yell, but nothing came out. Mack fired a shot at him, and the soldier toppled over on the ground.
“Hurry!” Mack yelled, not realizing until now that the ramp was closing. Tarrek was still on the ground at the bottom of the hill, and Mack pulled him to his feet by the straps on his web gear as he ran by.
When they got to the ship, only a few feet were left between the ramp and the top of the opening. Mack waited for everyone to catch up and began helping them onboard. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and locked his hands together for the others to use as an extra step.
When everyone else was inside, Ace reached his hand out of the ship to Mack. Mack grabbed Ace’s hand and pulled himself up. He was barely able to squeeze himself through the remaining space with his tail and all of his gear.
The other D.F.A. soldier ran out from behind the vehicles right after Mack climbed inside. He saw the soldier lying by the AA gun and rushed over to him. He hadn’t heard the gunshots because they were silenced, and the sound of the ship’s engines drowned everything out.
When the ramp closed, everything went dark. Luckily, the visors on their helmets were equipped with night vision. Everyone switched theirs on.
Tarrek couldn’t help but feel guilty for almost ruining the mission. “Mack, I-” he began to say.
Mack put his hand over Tarrek’s mouth and put his finger up to his lips to make the ‘Shhh’ sign.
Tarrek nodded, now feeling more embarrassed.
They were standing in a small cargo room filled with crates and boxes of all sizes and materials. There was a door on the left wall of the room. Mack pulled out his sidearm and pulled back the slide. He then signaled to everyone to move behind a stack of crates in the corner of the room, where they would wait to arrive on Sisso. They would have to be as quiet as possible; the slightest mistake would ruin their plans.
The transport took off, and Kraft Squadron prepared themselves for whatever awaited them on Sisso. For some reason, Lieutenant Mack had a feeling that this mission was going to have a bad ending.

That's a lot of days. You seem to like to double post, don't you?

Well, I'll say the same here as I did at your forum: tomorrow.