At the same time Sarge, Hilt, Grip and Katana were boarding their Booster Rocket, unbeknown to them, a vast photonic space probe called Charon was being awakened after a thousand year hibernation beyond the deadness of Pluto. It shook, de-iced and swung round to face the Sun like a creature born in Hell, which is, in fact, exactly what it had become.
Lost from the minds of men, Charon had traversed the Universe for a Millennium, soaking up unimaginable stores of lethal dark energy like a titanic Stygian tumour. Project SWORD Main Mission's radio transmissions had inadvertently woken it, now a harbinger of total chaos: immortal, inhuman, unchangeable and catastrophic.
Charon headed for the place it came from, the Blue Planet: Earth.
It would destroy every world on the way.
Sarge and his crew knew nothing of these cosmic events. They were busy dispatching a SWORD drone down to the Hot Zone to check out the 'Jects and 'Wals [as they called rejects and casuals] giving SWORD outposts much grief of late.
"Damn 'Jects" he growled. "making us hawl our hairy arses way out here, acting all big and bad". Sarge flipped the drone doors and Katana, nudging his battered joystick, eased it from the Booster Rocket's cargo bay and along the smoking Lancastrian coast .
The drone cruised along miles of burping lava outflows and belches of sulphuric mud spattered its undercarriage. Sarge and Hilt lazily watched the live feed for any signs of human activity, slurping mugs of steaming coffee. Suddenly, about 10 miles out, a SWORD Scramble Bug snaked into view making Sarge spill his drink on his lap. "Bollocks!" he growled! "Kat, stay on that bug! Hilt, prep the Scouts, Grip, man the comm, we got trouble!"
The Scramble Bug roared over cold walls of ejecta between the younger plumes. Piloted by a single person, it was an incredibly effective ATV and had been clearly filched from SWORD by the Reject-Casual cell operating in the area.
Sarge and Hilt careered down the shattered marsh in Scouts 1 and 2. The Bug arched into view and Sarge could clearly see the pilot in the clear domed cockpit.
It was a woman. It was his daughter Roxanne!
....to be continued
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