Chapter 1 - False Hope

   In the year 2132 Earth had launched its first colony ship to Mars and landed successfully on its surface, 5 years later the first mining rig on Mars went up as well and the colonists were gaining a slow profit over the tide of time as more and more mining rigs were built. During a scavenging operation on the northern ice cap of Mars a new mineral was found, research in a lab proved that it could be used as a power source for engines and power plants, and it was completely clean, soon after the research had concluded a corporation had risen up to mine this new mineral they called Thelium. After several years the corporation known as RavenCorp has been building facilities across several planets, mining for the Thelium where ever it could be found, building several power cores and power plants for their ships, vehicles, and facilities as an everlasting clean energy creator.

   Thirty years have passed since then and it is now 2167, RavenCorp is vast and powerful as ever as it spreads to the farthest corner in the galaxy of the Milky Way, and they try to make a sufficient drive to slipspace to another galaxy with their ships, but thus far, all their experiments have failed to succeed and their facilities that attempted to research these test drives have all vanished into debris with a giant smoke cloud. The RavenCorp General Director, Markus Ventus, urges everyone that everything is OK, but we know better. We are the Praesidium Alliance, a small team of rebels against RavenCorp and their lies. They tell us they are trying to help, but from what we all have seen, we know much better then to believe their stories. We see how they treated civilians, we see what they do to their so called volunteers. They are nothing but bullies and enemies to the human race. I am the officer in command of the Praesidium Alliance, my name is classified but I can tell you what I go by, my code name is Hammerhead, and my mission is to eliminate RavenCorp by all means necessary. As for the Praesidium Alliance, we are comprised of 3 divisions, The Shroud, The Sentinels, and The Saints. The Shroud all focus on stealth tactics, hit and run missions, as well as cargo capture, you need any information taken or a cargo crate located you go to The Shroud for that. The Sentinels, all of them are fierce and enjoy a good opposition, these are the general frontline assault guys, they take care of the majority of engagements on a battlefield at any given time, and they take pride in shooting down an enemy encampment. Last but not least, The Saints, generally the heavy guys, they enjoy explosives and watching things go boom, it’s all they ever do, even their ships and vehicles are equipped to make things go boom faster, these guys are fun to hang around with if you enjoy a good firework show.

   “Now enough of the introductions, it’s time we went over the mission of the day” Hammerhead said as he stood at a holo-table in front of him with new recruits sitting all around it watching as the 3D images flipped through one after another. A male recruit raised his hand and stood up briefly “Sir, how would one join up with one of the divisions?” Hammerhead looked blankly for a moment through his helmet visor at the recruit and shook his head giving off a chuckle “You don’t request to join one…” he stated changing the holo-tables image to a logo of each of the divisions “They request you to join them.” And the male recruit replied with a stern tone to his voice “But I’d love to see things explode sir!” the recruit exclaimed as Hammerhead slowly trudged over towards him “then you better get training for the division, impress them, and they’ll consider you, wow them, and they’ll request you” Hammerhead stated as he stood straight up looking at all the recruits and turned the holo-table off “Dismissed!” and all the recruits stood up and began walking off to the bunker nearby. Hammerhead stayed behind as Razor came by, quickly nodding his head Razor leaned against the holo-table and said “Well, bunch of bright sided recruits they are for sure” Hammerhead gave a laugh then looked back down at the dark brisk table “We’re training them just to send them into a dead zone, how can we prepare them for the journey ahead Razor?” He didn’t respond, instead he simply stood next to Hammerhead and told him “No one can be prepared for war, they can only suit up and give their enemy hell” Hammerhead gave a slight nod then swiftly pulled out his combat knife and stuck it into the table sparks came flying out for only a moment then stopped completely. Razor came up and said “well that’s another repair fee we’ll have to pay later” Hammerhead laugh “It can be paid for after we deal with RavenCorp” Razor nodded his head in agreement and said nothing else. An engineer came into the room holding a piece of paper and showed it to Hammerhead, he as well as Razor followed the engineer into the Garage where all the assault vehicles were stored until deployment and walked over to a blanket covered assault vehicle and said "We've done it, we've pulled it off commander" with a bright smile on his face full of excitement and pulled the blanket off the assault vehicle and it showed a large 6 wheeled beast with wheels double the size of an oil barrel and etched with rubber spikes for off-roading purposes on Mar's surface and can be refitted for civilian roads, it was a very sleek design not too curvy but it wasn't blocky either and on the top center was a rotary turret capable of 360 degrees of firing arc, but instead of the usual machine turret was instead a rail cannon, built for heavier targets and pinpoint accuracy but slow fire rate lined with blue lights to show activation, the engineer hopped atop and mounted the turret and yelled down to Hammerhead and Razor "I've got a target range set up outside, let's take it for a test drive huh?" Hammerhead and Razor both nodded to the engineer, Hammerhead sat in the driver seat and Razor sat in the passenger seat and drove outside where a crowd of  Saints recruits were lined up waiting for the magic to happen. and down what looked to be a runway for incoming cargo freights was a decommissioned RavenCorp tank outfitted with heavy armor close to current standards of a RavenCorp tank. the engineer hopped down off the rotary turret and let Razor get in and told him "Alright now what you're gonna do is..." Razor briefly interrupted and told the engineer "I've got this, I know how to operate dangerous equipment" and took aim with the rail cannon. Letting loose the first shell it whirled out of the elongated barrel and spun it's way leaving behind a blue trail where it went, hitting the side armor of the decommissioned tank it exploded in a blue blaze of plasma cloud. When the cloud faded down it left behind nothing where it had hit and left the interior completely defenseless for another round but Razor was too stunned looking at the beautiful mark it had made on the old tank "wow! that's some crazy fire power" he exclaimed and Hammerhead couldn't help but stare at the destruction as well. Looking to the engineer he told him "I think it's time we show RavenCorp what we got with these, start a factory line of them asap" and the engineer nodded running back into the garage. Razor dropped down into the cockpit of the assault vehicle "I think we're good to go with this thing" and Hammerhead replied with "We'll give em hell"