Arknights: Starsfall I

Chapter 6

"Rest and research"

Private James Ramirez
1st Battalion - 75th Ranger Regiment, now supplemented by the 3 BCTs of the 2nd Marine Division
October 31st, 2055
Liberty Hall, Philadelphia, PA - United States of America

"Well that's fucking disgusting," came the nasal'd voice of Dunn, which sounded slightly ridiculous as the rest of Hunter 2-1 laughed. It took em about till midnight began to rear around the corner to fully secure Liberty Hall. The hoods and masks in the building proved to be quite resilient and... annoying. A marine had to be CASEVAC'd as one of the bastards managed to get a lucky hit on him with the arrow based weaponry.

Ramirez shuddered hearing the poor man scream in agony from being hit with the arrow.

Dunn here, just for context, was looking at what appears to be an oversized black blob which smelled horrible. It seemed to be covered in the black crystals earlier, "Fucking slime.. what the hell man." He began to walk pass it, holding his nose as Foley was busy talking over his helmet radio to command.

"Command, we have the taken back Object Lima Hotel, our team right now is securing the perimeter, CEDA branches should be able to move in once everything cleans up and is stable," Foley reports, which is followed by command praising them all over the All-Channel Radio.

"Great job folks, we'll have CEDA teams in there in a while, in the mean time... sit back, go swap Biscuit Recipes or something." Command then went silent as the engines of vehicles outside died down, and doors began to open and close.

Ramirez sighed as he sets his rifle on Safe and began to sit down near his sister, who was sitting on a planter wall. "Hey sis," he says as he sits down and pulls out his tablet to do some systems checks on it, "Helluva strange op we have going on here."

With a scoff, his sister begins to clean her rifle, "You can say that right, makes ya what kind of shit happened here?" She sets the rifle down and now works on her Bayonet, "Like come on, the entire city of Philadelphia had to be evacuated? Over some hooligans with militant weapons?"

She stops and face palms, "It just sounds so stupid." James pats her on the back as he laughs, taking his AT-4 out and making sure the launcher was ready to go, "Well Sis, considering whatever magical bullshit that these idiots came out of, I'm sure they didn't expect a the good ol' Rangers to come in and show them how its done."

Conversation began to start up elsewhere, Buffalo 1 and its crew staying in the front compartment enjoying AC and the luxury of laying down in an Armored Vehicle. The Driver and TC deciding to take a nap, as the gunner had enough caffeine in her system to keep an ICBM Guard awake for a week.

She continuesly and softly shifted her camera around, the special RF-Pose mode activated as she just scanned, nothing to be seen. Rangers and Marines began to interact as marines came walking out of skyscrapers with more captive hoods.

A marine sets one down in front of the tank, as he began to kneel and laugh, "Now, lets try this again, this time you being surrounded by firepower." Just to add to the intimidation, Buffalo 1's tank turret automatically faced the hood. The man gulps, before finally breaking,

"You can go fuck yourself... Reunion will not fall to some Wannabe Columbians!" The marine raised. His eyebrow, as he pressed a button on his helmet, which recorded the last 30 second period and sent it to command, as she began to o activate his camera.

"Columbians? Bud," he said, steeling his gaze, "This ain't a struggling state to the south of us, we are the United States of America, get it right please?" he goes grabs some zip ties as he then ties one around his neck, "Now, tell me everything you know, or else." The marine threatened, toggling the zip tie, which got a little close for comfort for the hood. Close enough to make the poor man gag.

"F-Fine!" He began to speak and babble, every marine nearby who had interest began to listen to see what madness he was going on about, as Huey's come in to take prisoners away.

Although what he had talked about may seem like absolute utter nonsense to most people, to any ilitaries with a brain or strategic thinking in mind, would think that this "Reunion" and all of its members and operators must be an advanced insurgent shell.; Which is a prospect many present was not exactly keen on looking forward to.

The marine only stops recording when he no longer has things to say, as he takes out a knife and cuts the zip tie.

"I'm a man of my word, so here, I can grant you this luxury much. But don't expect the spooks to be as merciful," he remarks as the hooded man, masked man began to panic, while the hands of a uniformed agent grabs him and begins to take him away.

"Wait what?!"

Rangers and marines found the sight of these attackers being hauled off by the CIA to be amusing as they went kicking and screaming, literally in almost all of the cases. The 2 Ramirez's and Dunn laughed at the dumbassery of it all, while Foley just sat back and smirked.

"...give it to me straight Kal'tsit, what exactly are we looking at here." A man questions the white haired girl with highlighter green eyes and what appears to be the animal features of a lynx. The man himself seems to be in a hooded uniform with a supplementing hat beneath the hood.

Now named "Kal'tsit", she looks at the man who questioned her and began to explain, holding up a board.

"Well," she begins, "It's not unlike anything we have seen before, the technology is all new, and I'm having comparability problems trying to get our computer hooked up to it."

She shows him a picture of it when it was in pieces and she began to point to the parts. Most of which they don't even recognize. "The big problems lies here, I have no idea what each part is, does, or how it does what it does. I'll probably figure what they do in about 2 days minimum, but I won't be able to figure out how they work for atleast a couple of weeks." She apologized as the man sighs and nods,

"As long as we can get closer to figuring out what this is, the closer we can get to why it fell through our roof." He leaves, and with that, they left Kal'tsit to her own devices, trying to figure out and decrypt what she has before her.