Two hours passed.
Elysia started the countdown to something.
The beacon started to beep, and then all of a sudden, the large cylinder shuttle, which is about 3 meters tall and 5 meters in radius, appeared out of thin air. It was sent by a shifter on the station. The door opens, and with an interior red-light, casing the shadows of many lines up in stacks; they step out, the infantrymen of RHA.
Clad their faces behind a 20-mm titanium visor and a gas mask. Arms with a 6.8x100mm case telescope bullpup rifle, enhance their strength with exoskeletons and are heavily protected by 4 cm of composite body armor, but this modification has a cost of 120 kg of total weight.
Soldiers jumped out of the stairs, hit the ground hard.
"Out, out, out!" the lieutenant shouted.
They form a circle around the area and cover every corner of the grassy terrain.
"Pleased to meet you, captain." The lieutenant's voice echoed from the mask.
"Just in time, pal." Jackals hand out for a shake.
While the lieutenant shook hands with the captain, he glanced at the women who wore hoods full of mud, hand-tied by thick rope.
"Quick question, sir," the lieutenant asked with a straight face.
"Speak," Jackals said.
"What is that?" The lieutenant was confused by the creature before his eyes.
"She is native. We talked a lot, but mostly she threatened to bite my dick off." Jackals speak without any worries.
After some small talk, the platoon soon started to construct the FOB immediately after the lieutenant's order. They lifted the tools and shifted the materials out of their shuttle: tent poles, shovels, pickaxes, et cetera; they have it all. The medium FOB finished less than an hour by the sweat of fifty men.
The simple and reliable pattern they've made: an air ventilation system for fresh air, a dormitory tent for soldiers to get some sleep, a briefing tent to keep the tradition, a cafeteria to serve warm welcome meals, and a medical tent just in case, all connected by air lock corridors, and lastly, a finishing touch.
"Jareth, Johnny, sent your men go cut some grass; we can't see when shit is coming, rog?!" The lieutenant commands two of the sergeants.
Jackals, as the highest rank in the FOB, got his own private room, a briefing room, because somehow the tents were not enough for everyone, but on the bright side, Jackals, after dismissing the lieutenant, walked to the woman and dragged her inside that room.
Jackals walked behind her and unwrapped the rope around her wrists. She looked tired and exhausted from resisting earlier.
"Take a seat." Jackals pulled the chair off the table.
She looked up, silence between the two. For a moment, she launches into Jackals with a sharp razor blade. He flinched backwards and tried to grab her hand and control the razor. His hand slipped, but it was still on her wrists. She straddled his chest.
She, with her blood dripping from her hand, aims to poke Jackals' carotid artery. Jackals switches on his hand to grab her by the throat and yank her across the room. She landed on her back and coughed up the spit.
Jackals quickly got up on his two, catching up his breath, his hand out in the front, in the defensive pose. "You had enough?"
She remained silent.
He slowly moved up to her. She looked short of breath, laying still with a desperate face, like she saw her life flash before her eyes. The shadow kept coming closer and closer; it's the end for her. She closed her eyes.
[Clank]
She looked to her right. A glass of cold water with Jackals standing beside her.
"If we could have a word or two, it would be grateful." He looked down on her and lifted up his visor.
She hesitated yet finally said, "Caelix...The name is Caelix."
"Mine is Jackals; Nice to meet you. How 'bout we settled this at the table?" He got up.
"Better than the floor." She gave him a skeptical look.
"Well, welcome to our humble picnic camp-" He didn't finish the speech; Caelix outspoke him.
"The fireball in the sky, is that you?" She leans on the table.
He being silence for a moment, "yes."
"Where are you from? What are you? Why are you here?" She fired a burst of questions and stood up, as if she were interrogating him instead.
"Wait, wait, wait, calm down a bit, kay?" And then he replies,
"Alright, I'll tell." Then he changed his sitting.
"We are Regulators of Humanity Advancement; we are all from space; we are here because we are short on food and supplies for our own people."
She looked at him skeptically, again.
"What's space?"
Jackals, after hearing that question, is struggling to find a word. He pointed to the ceiling. "Above the sky."
She looked at him and did not believe in his words. How can a man come from the sky? He didn't have a wing.
"What's that look in your eyes?" Jackals speaks with a concern.
[Stare~~]
"Liar."
"I'm not."
"No, you are a liar." She still didn't change her mind, or perhaps she was trying to get on his nerves. She is still resistant.
Jackals, after thinking for a second. He pulled out his foot-long pistol and placed it on the table.
"You know what this is? Does it look familiar?" His voice slowly turned cold. He might want to get straight to the point.
She carefully examined the bricks of metal before her eyes, her ears twisting out of curiosity?
"Is it a crossbow? Mind if I pick it up?" She asked. He give her look, then picks it up, detaches the magazine, clears the chamber, and dry-fires it.
[Click]
He handed the gun to Caelix. She took it with caution; her hand dropped a bit after cause of the weight she didn't expect. She tried to pull the slide, but it stuck.
"The safe is on; you can't pull it like I do." He speaks with a calmer voice.
"Too bad," she replied.
Then, after she finished, she put the gun down.
"What kind of ferrum did you use? It is unfamiliar." She still didn't sit down.
"Where you think I get it from?" His fingers entwined, as the thing went as planned.
"Not in Aureus, nor in Silvagon, maybe even outside the continent." She suggested.
He finally got his answers.
"Quick question. What will the Silvagon be like?" He tries to squeeze more.
She hesitated.
"Look, if you're being a good girl, I'll let you go." He tried to convince her.
"Is that a promise?" She trying to be sure.
"It's a guarantee." He looked into her eyes with golden irises and a slight smile.
"Here. We are in the Silvagon, nothing but wildness." She sighs out. "Will you let me go now?" She said it confidently. It looks like she didn't expect much from now on. She might be held for a ransom after all.
"Sure."
After she heard the word, her eyes widened up out of surprise.
"Are you for real?!" Just to be sure, she asked twice.
"Yeah, I mean...There's no need for you to be here, and keeping you as a prisoner would be such a burden, and killing you would be a waste, so yeah, you can go." This sentence makes her more relieved.
"But-" her relief got disrupted.
"Before you go, just, uh... take this as my apology." Jackals hands her a necklace that hangs a little black stone in the middle, kind of like Obsidian but more glossy. She takes it while her tail wiggles like a dog.
"I'm not thanking you for that." She said it with an irritated look, still with her tail wagging like crazy.
"Nah, no need, and your stuff is on the wall." He spoke with a smile and a glaze at her ankle, which he shot at two hours ago. They are still wounded.
"You need a bandage or something?" He concern again.
"No, don't come bother." She walked to the airlock door, realizing she didn't know how to open it. So she was just standing there in front of the olive green door. Jackals knows the message behind her raging eyes. What are you waiting for? Open it for me.
"Ha, alright." He escorted her, passing tent by tent, until she was outside. He stood at the entrance and waited for her to leave. She, after being outside, trots back into the bushes.
.
.
.
RHA's Forward Operation Base is a pressurized tent filled with the same air as the ring world, but by the simple yet very organized pattern of the base, it can individually fill certain rooms with a certain mixture of gas. That's why Caelix didn't suffocate in the tent.
The base can also provide a high amount of electricity as well as artificial heat. If there's a shortage in food or supply, this base comes with a water recycling system as well as a calorie bar processor, or soldiers like to call it "Shit bars maker". It is just a machine that simply sorts out non-bionic matter as well as bionic matter from any material and compresses it into an edible bar of something like feces, insects, dirt, etc.