Strike Force Mercenary

[Retiax]

I always do this. Start a story and stop and retell it a little better because I missed a detail that would have made it that much better. Oh well. (By the way, this story is where I steal my user name from)

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Prologue
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He rolls over to his back, basking in the warm sunlight. He adjusts his towel, brushing some sand off. A refreshing ocean breeze comes in with the soothing sound of tide. His cell phone rings. Once. Twice.

"Don't answer it, Xaiter," a voice says. A third ring.

"Might as well," Xaiter says, snatching up the phone without even opening his eyes. He puts the receiver to his ear and grunts into the phone. A few moments later, he closes the phone and sits up.

“For fuck's sake. We're on vacation,” the other man sits up straight and stares at Xaiter. Xaiter musses his short black hair in response and makes eye contact.

“Too bad, Jax. We have to take everything we can get, while we can get it,” Xaiter sighs, standing up. A well built man, standing only inches short of 6'. He bends over to collect his towel. Jax rises, his colossal figure looming nearly a foot over Xaiter. Well developed muscles and a shaved head stare down at Xaiter, obviously displeased with his decision.

“Jesus Christ, let's get it over with then,” he complains, violently snatching up his towel. He marches with Xaiter away from the ocean. A few yards later, they both look back at the tranquility and beauty of the scene and release a heavy sigh. Xaiter's arm extends behind him and touches an invisible barrier. He feels around for a moment.

“Why... do they make door part... of the... goddamn panel?” he turns his full attention to the invisible wall. Beyond it the beach stretches on for as far as the eye can see. His hand feels around randomly until it bumps into a latch. He lifts it and a door appears in the invisible wall as the LCD turns off. He opens it and steps through into a cold, dingy, concrete hallway. Lamps overhead poorly illuminate the hallway, occasionally flickering.

“Someday, I'm gonna visit a real beach,” Jax says, closing the door behind them.

“Yeah, sure,” Xaiter's cynical voice echoes as he throws his towel over his should and starts moving down the hallway.

[Saffron]

This is a very nice half of the first chapter, but there's not enough information to make this interesting enough for me to want to read further. When you take away the descriptions, it's basically "guy on vacation gets a phonecall, has to cut short his R&R, and his friend's not too happy".

While details are good, I feel that there's a bit that you can cut away without jeopardising the integrity of the story, for example the towels are mentioned at least three times if I'm not mistaken. Are they special towels? Are they significant to the storyline?

Instead of focusing on detailing every movement they make, focus instead on the characters and their motivation, or even things like why the door is a part of the panel, why the friend wants to go to a real beach, how the two protagonists met up etc.

I get that this is a teaser chapter, and if I know a bit more about where you're trying to go I'd be interested to read further.

[Gonissa]

I disagree with Saffron. Your use of detail is well done, without being overplayed. I like it, even with the towel mentions, because it feels real, and like the reader can experience it. My only beef was that it was too short. Great introduction though, and don't skimp out on detail, because far too many noobs do that. If you go extreme (which you aren't right now) go for too much detail rather than too little. That way, if you have a good enough plot and characters, you can be like J.R.R. Tolkien (who did go a bit crazy on details).

[Retiax]

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Chapter I - "What's left, anyway"
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Xaiter changes from his beachwear to 'street' clothes, as he so fondly calls them. Both his shirt and pants are plain solid colors, dark blue and black respectively, made from a polyester-like material it would seem. His reasoning for calling them 'street' clothes was not because he wore them on the street. Instead, he chose to wear them on the street because of a micro-layer of flexible nano-Kevlar. Certainly not enough to stop an extraordinarily heavy round from rupturing organs or provide any protection his head, but some protection was better than none. He snatched his belongings and left the dingy locker room, following Jax back to the equally dingy hall. They fell into stride, side by side, taking up nearly the entire width of the passage.

"So. Who, what, where, and how much?" Jax's deep, booming voice tried to be as quiet as it could.

"Cruek, shipment, on route to New China." Xaiter said in a monotonous tone.

"Doesn't pay worth a shit, huh."

"250 grand."

"What? The fuck are they paying that much for this one?"

"No more talking here. It can wait until we're on the Tattva."

Jax paused for a moment, "Vicky?", he asked.

"Probably at the Nightshade already. You can go prep the ship, I'll nab her." Xaiter offered, letting a smirk crawl on to his face. Jax huffed, "Gladly," returning a genuine smirk while holding the door open as they reached the end of the hall, ushering Xaiter out into the streets.

The streets of Prague, once proud and renowned for it's fine entertainment and culture was now reduced to a melting pot for lowlife. Anything and everything went to the lowest bidder. This much was obvious by the utter decay found in its formerly glorious buildings and streets - and the hodgepodge of techniques used to attempt repairs. It had become a city where no one knew anyone, unless you knew someone who knew everyone. The perfect place to lie low when you don't want to be found - Las Vegas of the 21st century would be envious of the city's ability to just allow someone to 'vanish' then reappear months, or even years later. Pending they could afford it. The concrete and cobblestone and gravel street was sparsely populated as far as Prague could go with the term. While not packed elbow to elbow as lunch hour, there was still barely room for a more fleet of foot person to dodge in and out of traffic. Xaiter casually did so with a grace only the most observant would note. He strode past buildings that had once stood as fine Czech and Italian architecture now reduced to mere dwarfs of what they once were. Some with the difference in their stature still lying in pieces around the base, hobbled into fences or walls, providing the pleasant illusion of security.

Xaiter came to a halt a in front of a building single story building in better condition than the usual, not so much as to stand out in the neighborhood. He pounded on the steel door twice, and waited impatiently, staring at the slot, waiting for the metal cover to slide away and a pair of cold eyes to scan him. It was only a few moments, then a click and a mechanical hiss as the door cracked open enough for him to slip inside.

"Good to see you again, Drake. Vicky's at her usual spot," a slightly rough, but cheery voice said, closing the greeting with a firm slap on the shoulder.

"Right. Thanks," Xaiter responded letting his voice trail off as he began to descend a staircase.

[Retiax]

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Chapter 2 - "Public Transportation"
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The last step deposited Xaiter in a dimly lit high-ceilinged room, many feet below the surface. The faint smell of incense, tobacco, and 'other' chemicals hung in the air. A jazz quartet occupied a stage elevated only a few feet. A slew small tables and chairs crowded around it, making a jagged, staggering path to the stairs and bar on the far side of the room. Only a few people dotted the room, never more than one to a table. Xaiter spotted a woman leaning back in her chair against a table behind her, watching the stage and fidgeting something in her fingers. Xaiter navigated to her table, pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. She wasn't ugly - nor beautiful - by any standard. Straight pitch black hair to her shoulders, a small but not feeble stature. She glanced at him briefly, then spoke.

"We have work, then," her Russian accent rolled out coldly.

"Now what makes you say that," Xaiter smiled, looking at the stage, but watching her.

The bass kept a slow and steady beat, he violin hummed the bottom of it's range consistently, the piano carefully plucked each note as if they were a rare commodity, and the sax slid the melody gently. Together, they created cool and nearly somber tune. Xaiter would classified it as Ice Jazz - a recent jazz revolution as far as history goes.

"I can't imagine anything but work that could pull you from that little simulated beach," Vicky quipped, pulling the string she had been fidgeting with taught.

"Better than sitting down here at least," Xaiter replied, turning to her before finishing, "I'll see you on the ship."

Xaiter slipped through the streets again finally stopping at a ledge with four others, overlooking a massive drop to the lower city. Lower Prague was once actually the higher part of the city - now a crater occupied by the lowest of the low. A tram line hung above their heads - just off the ledge. Xaiter pulled his cell phone from his pocket for the time. 3:22 am. He waited a bit, looking over lower Prague for no particular reason. He checked his phone again - 3:23 am. Finally, a rolling sound. A tram came to the ledge and stopped. Its doors opened with a hiss while the driver eyed his passengers. Xaiter boarded last, staying close to the exit. A hiss as the doors closed, then the a quake as the tram took off.

Peering out the window, the shell was clearly in sight, less than quarter mile above them. The difference in lighting at the street gave the illusion of a perpetually dark sky. From here, it was obvious the sky was no where to be seen - a giant steel dome covered it. But dome is such a depressing term - people called it a shell. Their protection from the nearly uninhabitable world outside. Thousands of machine embedded in it hummed away, recirculating air, absorbing light and catching wind for electricity, collecting rain and funneling it for electricity then purifying it for use.


Xaiter pulled the rope over his head - signaling the driver to stop at the upcoming platform. Xaiter stepped off the platform, through another bit of winding streets to an airlock connecting to a separate shell. The airlock was not active at the moment - no ships were taking off, so no reason to seal off this docking shell. Not that it mattered, each platform in the shell had its own airlock. It was more of a precaution in the event of some catastrophic failure. But in such a case, Xaiter reasoned, that airlock would not save anyone.

The docking shell was more like a massive catalog - a person simply had to punch in their dock number, a a lift would carry them through the maze of machinery to platform where they had landed. Once there, the pilot would request permission for take off, their platform would be sealed and the hatch opened. Some larger docking shells were complexes, requiring the pilot to navigate through a series of halls before finally reaching the sky. Smaller ones, such as this, simply had hatches built into the surface of the shell for each individual platform. Xaiter stepped off the lift onto the platform. His ship, the Tattva, sat before him. A simple, small cargo ship - probably used for running packages, some might believe. But Xaiter and his crew knew better.