Paratrooper knife repro

Real deal paratrooper knife?

2024.05.18 22:11 oldtaco123 Real deal paratrooper knife?

So I was out and about I ran into a surplus store which they had a couple of these but shop owner told me theirs were repop. Well I showed him picture of mine and he was pretty sure mine was the real deal.also said it's worth a pretty penny. What is reddits verdict?

submitted by oldtaco123 to Militariacollecting [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 05:47 erazerr7 [WTS][ON][GTA] Various guns and gear

For sale - guns
Scorpion EVO3 SMG AEG with a Leviathan MOSFET installed. Comes with 4 mid-cap mags, a 11.1v LIPO battery, an EVO3 18mm to 14 mm thread adapter, a repro Surefire XH35 with strobe function and pressure switch (new!), two fore-grips and a repro holographic sight. - SOLD
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/82kQdRS
Comes with no box, so would strongly prefer local pickup in the GTA.
ASG AUG A2 Carbine. Heavily modified - Gearbox fully redone with SHS internals including 13:1 gears. Perun AUG mosfet (goodbye squishy trigger!), 3D-printed safe/semi/auto selector plate, reinforced aluminum feed nipple and ZCI inner barrel installed. Comes with a metal hop-up housing, not yet installed. 2 midcaps, 1 highcap. ACOG repro optic can be included. A supreme AUG - SOLD
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/LLV3nvV
Same deal, no box. Local pickup strongly preferred.
For sale - gear
(new) FMA Caiman helmet, FG size M/L - SOLD
(new) Agilite K13 replica build, RG. Pieces from IDOGEAR, DMGEAR and TactiLeopard. Neck piece can be removed. Amazing quality for a replica. Cost nearly 300$ to build + shipping, letting it go for less - SOLD
(used) Matrix SDEU vest, OD. Fielded a dozen times, slightly worn as a consequence - 50$
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/BJhHzS2
Random pieces of equipment, can be bundled with the guns or equipment above
(used, pictured on AUG above) AceTech Brighter C tracer unit - 50$
(used) MOLLE belt with internal Velcro for fitment to BDU trousers. Comes with pistol mag pouch and kydex holster for G17 - 50$
(used) Mechanix gloves - 10$
(used) Shemag or Condor multiwrap - 5$
(new) Repro earpro - 10$
(used) ESS Striker XT eyepro, ANSI Z87.1 - 30$
(new) OneTigris balaclava with mask - 10$
(used) Condor elbow pads - 15$
(used) Cold Steel training knife - 10$
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/0bhpc94
All gear pieces can be shipped nationwide. Ship cost on buyer, PayPal goods and services payment only.

submitted by erazerr7 to airsoftmarketcanada [link] [comments]

2024.05.10 16:49 sadhungryandalone Its only green, but those 5 lines are perfect

My best finding yet, 5 lines wit no need to reroll

submitted by sadhungryandalone to Dominations [link] [comments]

2024.05.08 09:53 ElwisPL Macv Sog airsoft loadout

Hi there, I put together some gear, some period, some postwar, some repros for my SOG outfit. Based on many different photos. I’m not portraying any specific RT or it’s Member.
TCU - repro, black spray painted stripes Boonie - repro, cut of portion of brim and spray painted Jungle boots - Panama early 80's Leggings - dismounted olive (no contract visible) Heavy duty gloves - 80s, cut off fingertips Chestrig - chineese made in 1965 Stabo harness - self made with some postwar parts, m56 gear - belt, 5 canteen covers, 1 ammo pouch (1st type), Survival knife - Repro, painted black Gas mask pouch 2 olive triangular bandage - head, neck some repro grenades Cyma xm177e2, retro scope Army armament 1911

submitted by ElwisPL to airsoft [link] [comments]

2024.04.24 03:16 MYSFITS_OFFICIAL Children of Sol 55

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Anglestan
Julius 24, 1923 A.V
Jacobs Residence, Liverlake
Mark Jacobs
The group stood silently in a mournful state. Olivia wiped her blood tears as she shook her head and tried not to sob again. The captain hadn’t said a word since what happened, and said a soft prayer to Helena, hoping that his mother’s soul would be safe in Sol’s light. He took a deep breath and shook his head slowly.
“Sir, how will we get to Mancheston?” Emma asked, clearing her throat. Mark turned to her with a deadpan look, betraying no emotion at all. “We’re taking a tram. I’m driving us there,” he said. He bent down by his mother’s body and took her hand, kissing it softly. “I’ll avenge you, Mom. I’ll end this war myself.”
He slowly set her hand down, and quietly walked away, leaving Louis to guard her body. The other three followed him out back into the road, trekking down the street until they found a tram that was still functional. He silently got on, and broke open the control panel, hotwiring the transport.
“Get in. I’ll make sure the Crescent bastards die here tonight."
Olivia, Phineas, and Emma hopped into the tram, while Mark started up the engine. It whirred to life, and he wasted no time getting it to speed. He was already cranking it to the highest setting, the wheels spinning as fast as they could. They could hear sparks of electricity from the wires above, and the friction on the tracks below. They held on to their seats. Dominas ready. They watched on as the carnage around them started to fade into more stable structures with less damage. Ten minutes, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty. They had passed the city border of Liverlake and entered into Mancheston.
Carnage had welcomed them again. Just as he predicted, Liverlake was just to divert attention, while the Crescent set out to take their true target. There were people running around, fleeing from the small army of strigoi that had landed on the city. Paratroopers maybe, something similar to the Icarus squads. He looked up to see a single Skyship overhead. It was smaller than the dreadnaught class that invaded New Lundun. Much smaller. It looked like it could only fit a single platoon of soldiers, and not the hundreds that a dreadnaught can. It was also flying a lot faster than the New Lundun invasion force, lightly armored, with few weapons. A transport ship. Infantry fighting vehicle, perhaps? Whatever it is, it sent their men down, and they were here to do business.
“Just as I thought. They’re after Facility 9.”
“How are you sure, sir?” Emma questioned.
“There’s no other valuable military installation here,” Mark replied. “I doubt the Crescent would do such a risky operation just for the fun of it. They’re not that stupid. The tram is going to circle back soon, we get off at the next stop and hoof it to Facility 9. That skyship should be right above it, and the people are running away from that direction. We need to be quick. Who knows what the fuck the Crescent are doing. If they are going after Six, then Henry’s sacrifice would mean nothing. I’m not going to let them tarnish my friend’s memory.”
As soon as the group reached the final stop, Mark switched off the tram and they got back on the ground, running towards the direction of the skyship. They were getting closer. He could feel his heart burn with rage with each step. It pounded in his chest, threatening to jump out of his ribcage.
I’ll make them pay. I’ll kill every single one of them. Not one leech fuck survives tonight.
They were getting closer, hearing the sound of domifire from the guards defending the facility. It was deep inside a fort, from the sound of it, the Crescent had broken through with ambush tactics and sheer brute force. “There! I see it!” Phineas said, pointing towards the fort in the distance. There were a few dead bodies scattered nearby. Strigoi, human, and even some civilian casualties. Mark gritted his teeth and pushed himself even more, pumping his legs as much as he could. He went over to one of the human bodies and snagged a rifled domina, before getting one for himself. He tossed it over to Phineas, who caught it in the air.
“Scope. We need eyes.”
“Yes, sir,” said Phineas, moving away from the group and heading for one of the nearby buildings.
He nodded and signaled for his other two companions to follow him inside. The strigoi had broken in and there was blood everywhere. Men and women lay dead, human and strigoi holding weapons in their cold lifeless hands. He paid no mind to them, only motioning for Emma and Olivia to take the dominas of the fallen.
“We move in. The facility is up ahead,” he said.
“It’s like they took each other out…” Olivia muttered under her breath.
“The men had the numerical advantage, but the Crescent came in with a large number too. Considering the size of the skyship above us, I estimate about fifty to a hundred strigoi at most. Even if this base was ours, that many strigoi with the strength advantage, would have turned this into a more even fight.”
“Could they wipe out the entire base?”
“This isn’t exactly a big fort, and Facility 9 was kept away from prying eyes as much as possible. There mustn't have been a lot of staff stationed here tonight. The Crescent planned for this well. Which means…”
“There’s a mole?”
“Or they found our mole. I’ve seen it in the enlistment brochure, they had an espionage recruitment thing going on. If what I think happened, did happen, that means our intelligence has been compromised. We need to tell Thatcher.”
“I hear something,” Olivia whispered.
Mark crouched down low, keeping his domina ready. They were at the facility’s door, listening in for any movement inside. “There’s people, I hear it too,” Emma said. The captain nodded and stood up to his feet. He kicked down the door and went inside, keeping his weapon up. He checked every corner he came across, keeping a firm grip on the underside of his domina. His feet barely made a sound as he shuffled through the corridors. Quick and snappy movements, yet they were refined with a controlled and practiced discipline. The other two followed his example, trailing right behind him.
They turned a corner, spotting a Crescent soldier. Mark gritted his teeth as the two of them met eyes. He fired two shots straight into the strigoi’s chest without hesitation. The soldier didn’t even have enough time to react or run away. His body fell with a thud, only for Mark to quickly run up toward him and fire another shot into his skull.
“Clear the rooms. We split,” he spat, kicking the dead body.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ambush left, Huntress go right. I’ll take the center hall. If you hear any of us call for backup, we run to their position immediately. Good luck, and happy hunting.”
With that, the group split up into three, taking the separate hallways leading into more rooms. Mark continued his crusade. His purge. Another corner, another strigoi, another body. His hands moved with practiced precision. His feet stood firm, directing him where to go with barely any input. They moved almost automatically, relying on the killer instinct that all humans had deep inside, pushed to the very recesses of their brains.
He tapped into it. The power. The adrenaline flowed through his veins. Fire. One shot. Two shots. Heart. Head.
He eventually encountered a group of three that tried to overwhelm him. He shot and killed one before the other two jumped him, and wrestled him to the ground. He gnashed his teeth, almost letting out an animalistic growl. He used all his strength to slam the butt of his domina into one of his attackers, surprising them and making them bleed.
“You want some of me?! I’ve got fuckin’ plenty, you bastards!”
He pulled out a safety knife he kept in his back pocket and stabbed it right through the underside of the stigoi’s jaw. Mark impaled it further by smacking his hand against it, thrusting the knife right through the soldier’s skull. The other one tried to bite at him, but he held them by the throat at arm’s reach. “You want to bite me? Huh?!”
He turned his head to the side and let go of the strigoi’s neck. Their momentum threw them off, missing Mark by a hair. The captain then used this opportunity to smash his elbow into the back of the Crescent’s skull. He pushed them off and kicked himself away from them. “C’mon! Get up!”
The pissed strigoi went for the predictable. Something Mark was betting on. The strigoi soldier lunged at him, to which Mark responded with a single flick of his wrist and grabbed the handheld domina he kept in his holster. Five shots were emptied into the strigoi soldier.
“Eat that, leech.”
He let out a deep breath and stood up. Taking his rifle, he walked back into the corridors, following his clean sweep. His mind seemed to blur, and the thoughts disappeared. It was like those training simulations he’d do back at the academy. Clearing out buildings and watching every possible angle the enemy might come from. Strike first, strike fast, strike hard. The words repeated in his head as he glided through every room. He was death made manifest. The anger, the rage, the pain. It fueled him to go further; even longer than before. He held on to every bit of adrenaline in his body, keeping it pumping through his veins. At the moment, he was nearly on par with any strigoi.
He moved to one corner when he suddenly heard some thrashing in the room next to him. “Restrain her! We need to sedate her, lest she causes trouble on the way back.” Six. They must have gotten to her! You get your filthy paws off of that girl! He hissed, slamming his body through a door. “Let her go!”
“What the fuck?! I thought you said that was the last of the guards?!” The Crescent bickered among themselves.
“T-that was! He must’ve come from somewhere else!”
“I don’t care! Kill him!”
Mark’s eyes scanned the room. There were only six strigoi left. Clearing out the whole facility must have done a number on them. Three were trying to restrain the young girl in their grasp. Six. She looked at him with scared, pleading eyes. It only angered him more. The other three had their weapons trained on him, ready to fire.
The captain spat, aiming his weapon at the girl, surprising everyone in the room. “Make one move and I shoot the girl. Then you won’t have anything left to take, and this mission is lost.”
Six stared at him with teary eyes, closing them shut.
“Whoa, whoa! Don’t!” One of the strigoi hissed, motioning for his men to stand down.
“One move, and I pull the trigger. You can try to close the distance, but by that time I’d have shot her already, and it would all be for nothing. Don’t even fucking think of blocking it with your bodies. The bullet will still go straight into her chest after it's finished ripping through yours.”
“Alright! You’ve made your point, human. What do you want, a deal?”
“Yeah. Sure. You let her go, and I let her, and all of you live. Then we all get to hold hands and sing kumbaya, happily ever after. What do you say?”
“Ah, but we can’t do that. Kaiser and Rexus would have our heads if we left empty-handed. Especially after so many losses. So it seems we’re at an impasse here, right? Human?” the strigoi snickered.
“So it seems.”
“Tell you what. You walk away, you don’t hurt the girl, and we promise not to turn around and rip you to shreds. Sounds like a fair deal? C’mon. You lose a single strigoi hybrid, and you get to keep your life. Isn’t that good enough of a deal to you, human?”
Mark’s eyes darted to the side of the room. He was sure the ruckus had attracted the other two by now. There was a barely open door on the other side, but he could just barely make out Olivia’s silhouette on the other side, waiting for him to give a signal to go.
He grinned and looked the strigoi in the eye. “No.”
He lifted his domina, prompting the soldiers to lunge after him, while two others jumped in front to protect Six. He fired, killing two. The other two that lunged at him, tackled him to the ground. Olivia and Emma came out of the door, firing their weapons at Mark’s attackers. The last two strigoi quickly bolted away, carrying Six under their grip. “Huntress! After them!” The captain commanded.
Emma dropped her domina and went after the ones trying to escape. Olivia helped Mark up, and they gave chase as well. The Crescent soldiers ran outside, still holding Six tightly, tossing the girl over their shoulders. “Call the ship! Call for them to lay down the rope, now!”
Huntress burst right out of the door and threw herself at one of the soldiers, leaping across several feet and pouncing on them. Her nails grew into talons and she thrust them into the soldier’s neck, separating his neck from his body. “Don’t come any closer!” The last soldier hissed.
He placed his handheld domina to Six’s head. “I don’t care anymore. If I’m going to die, I’ll make sure none of you get her either! I know she’s just as important to you as she is to us. So don’t try it!”
Olivia and Mark suddenly burst through the doors as well.
“Hey! Hey! That goes for all of you!” The soldier growled deeply.
Mark instantly placed his hands in the air, understanding the depth of the situation. “Alright,” he sighed. “I’m sure you know the predicament you’re in right now. You’re going to die if you kill her, and you’re going to die if you try to escape. It’s three against one, nothing you can do about it. You’re also going to die, or I assume you will if you return empty-handed. So here’s the deal. You hand her over to us, and you surrender, and we make up the story that your entire unit was wiped out. We’ll keep you prisoner, but we’ll treat you well, and you get to live.”
“Ha! As if I’d fall for that.”
“It’s a reasonable condition. Unlike you Crescent fucks, humanity is willing to treat prisoners humanely, given that they’re cooperative. Something that you leeches might not grasp, but it’s true.”
Mark glanced upwards at one of the nearby buildings. He could barely make it out, but up at the top of one, was Phineas ready with his rifle. He nodded and looked at Six, gazing into her eyes. He nodded at her as well.
“Well?” The captain asked. “What do you say, leech?”
“Bite me!”
Mark let out a grin, and looked right at Six again, giving her a wink.
The strigoi hissed, trying to think of a way out. Just then, Six opened her mouth wide and bit down hard on the soldier’s arm, putting as much force as she could. The strigoi screamed, making him throw the girl to the side on instinct. “Now!” Mark yelled.
Emma dove for Six, quickly grabbing her and taking her away. Olivia ran to tackle the soldier, but she paused in her steps. Her eyes widened and immediately ran back, diving in front of Mark. The Crescent soldier had aimed his domina at the head of the young captain and fired. Phineas fired a shot at the same time, sniping the Crescent soldier— but it was already too late.
The bullet had already left the barrel of the strigoi’s domina, pushed by the hot gasses. It flew through the air, zipping across and closing the distance in less than a fraction of a second. Olivia had jumped to shield Mark at the last second, blocking its path. The bullet impacted, burying itself into the duskwalker’s arm— but it wasn’t enough. The bullet burst out the other end, creating a gaping exit wound, and still carried enough momentum to finish its journey. It went straight through and kept traveling in Mark’s direction.
For a moment, he saw its approach. His brain had barely enough time to register what was happening. He saw his mother’s face. Olivia, Emma, Phineas, Charles, Louis, Zach, Henry, August, Tommy, James, and Jason. It flashed before his very eyes for a second. All the things he’s said. All the things he’s done. For a second. But only for a second. Then, it ended.
The bullet reached its destination, burying itself in his right eye socket. The impact was strong enough to make his head tilt backward. Then his body followed. Crashing into the ground with a loud thud. Blood began flowing from where his eye had been. He could hear Olivia screaming, trying to shake him, but it wasn’t registering properly in his head. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t see. Everything was turning dark. I’m sorry Olivia, I love you.
“Mark! Mark, no please don’t go!”
There was no response. “Mark! Mar—!”
Explosions suddenly rocked the skyship above them. Followed by the sounds of aquillas zipping through the air. It launched rocket-powered bombs that traveled through the air and struck the Crescent skyship, setting it ablaze. It didn’t take more than a minute before it began to crash down to the ground in a fiery haze.
Emma went over to Olivia with Six holding her hand. “M-Mark!” She covered her mouth.
“E-Emma please, help me. We need to carry him out of here! I-I can’t lose him!”
She hissed and helped Olivia carry Mark on their shoulders. Lifting the captain and almost dragging him out of the camp as the skyship came down on the facility. The heat was intense enough that it felt like the two dantenites would burst into flames just by sheer proximity. They pushed forward, finally getting out of the burning camp.
There were even more aquillas flying through the sky, patrolling around. This time, they had Anglestan’s colors. Infantrymen were running toward them, their dominas at the ready. The two set Mark down on the ground, far enough from the camp. They raised their hands in the air, with Six following their lead as well.
“Help! H-he needs help, please!” Olivia pleaded with the men as soon as they got close. “We’re not Crescent, please! T-this is our squad leader, Mark Jacobs. He needs medical attention now!” The men trained their dominas at them. “Ma’am, we’re going to need identification, now!”
“Olivia Harker, callsign Ambush, Hemo-1 from the Hemolites division. Please, you have to help him!”
“Emma Hollands, callsign Huntress, Hemo-1, Hemolites division. This is our squad captain, Mark Jacobs.”
“H-he’s in critical condition! You need to give him medical attention!”
“Who’s the girl?! We can’t tell if you’re telling the truth if you didn’t notice the fucking Crescent skyship earlier!”
“Look, I don’t give a fuck! But you’re letting him die!” Olvia hissed, holding Mark’s hand. “Just skip the bullshit already, and call the paramedics, or drive him to the damn hospital right now!”
“We’re going to need to take you all in. We can’t just trust—!”
“Fine! Then take us all in! I surrender! Just get this man to a fucking hospital!” she growled, scowling at the human soldier. “Please. I can’t… lose him. We’re willing to cooperate, as long as you get him help, now.”
The soldier nodded letting out a sigh. “Stand down,” he said to his group. He then turned around, calling for a medical team. The rest of the men carried Mark’s body and carried him to an armored walker. Olivia’s lips quivered as they took him away, blood tears flowing down her cheeks.
“We’ll make sure he lives and gets the help he needs,” The soldier said. “But until then, you’re under our supervision. Hemolites aren’t formally recognized by the rest of the military yet. They’re an experimental joint project. But we’ll make sure you’re treated well. Who’s the girl?”
“She’s Six, she’s a subject in Facility 9, o-one of the assets we were tasked with bringi—”
“Ma’am. If she’s from Facility 9, we’re also taking her into custody. We can’t confirm your identities at the moment, the chain of command is—”
“Camryn Thatcher! We’re under Colonel Thatcher.”
The soldier slowly shook his head. “That’s the problem, ma’am,” he said. “Colonel Camryn Thatcher is dead.”

submitted by MYSFITS_OFFICIAL to HFY [link] [comments]

2024.04.22 17:32 PaddysMiniatures84 “Herr Cutty Knife”

So turns out that Marks Mr cutty knife is actually a German paratroopers knife, Pantographic I believe? either a replica or the real deal so Mr Patel is dealing in some naughty items

submitted by PaddysMiniatures84 to MitchellAndWebb [link] [comments]

2024.04.20 03:55 wannabehealthnut22 It’s Friday night, let’s hear some good old stories

I’ll start with a story of a soldier that I went to AIT with. This young high speed paratrooper brought down a criminal in Fayetteville NC. It was a lonely Fall of 2008 for this young man, so he decided he will enlist the services of a woman of the night. As he drove down Bragg Boulevard he found the rarest of prostitution, a pregnant hooker. They come to an agreement for payment and services. This young paratrooper took his new friend for hire and went to a near by parking lot.
Unknown to this young high speed, Fayetteville PD was witness the exchange of good and services and followed his truck to the parking lot. Once the new couple arrived in their spot, the pregnant prostitute took out a gun and demanded all his money. In a panic, he grabs the gun with one hand. Takes out his pocket knife with the other and begins stabbing the ever loving shit out of the pregnant prostitute. In a panic and severe bleeding from multiple stab wounds the women of hire exits the vehicle.
This is where Fayetteville PD springs into action. They arrest the prostitute for attempted armed robbery. Unknown to this high speed private is that he picked up a criminal that the local PD was hunting. This pregnant woman of the night was robbing her clients at gun point and Fayetteville’s finest were going to bring her down. A criminal was brought to justice and this young paratrooper failed his secret mission successfully. No actions were taken against this young hero from his chain of command.

submitted by wannabehealthnut22 to army [link] [comments]

2024.04.18 22:40 trakslt Paratrooper Knife real or fake

I’m sorry I made a post about this knife is real or fake, but forgot to add pictures

submitted by trakslt to Militariacollecting [link] [comments]

2024.04.06 07:17 Count-Daring243 Best Budget Pocket Knife

https://preview.redd.it/xko5ag8mmssc1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84ae5d104d53dbcd6d49757746e29a9e92414d90
If you're looking for a reliable pocket knife that won't leave you broke, you're in luck. In this article, we've rounded up a collection of top-quality budget pocket knives that offer excellent performance and value for money. From everyday carry knives to multi-purpose tools, we've got you covered with our curated selection. Get ready to discover the perfect pocket knife for your needs without breaking the bank.

The Top 18 Best Budget Pocket Knife

Budget-Friendly Full Tang Fixed Blade Knife for Outdoor Adventures - Swiss+Tech's Stahlern knife combines strength, efficiency, and versatility with its titanium-coated AUS-8 steel blade, Canvas Micarta handle, and built-in ferro rod, all safely secured in a sleek fiberglass-infused nylon sheath.
Affordable Multi-Tool Pocket Knife with Advanced Features - Introducing the SmartKnife+, a versatile budget pocket knife with a 2.375-inch black oxidized blade and a multi-tool handle offering various driver bits, files, wire strippers, rulers, wrenches, pry bars, bottle openers, and more in one compact package.
Durable Bone-Handled Knife with Sheepsfoot Blades - Rough Rider RR053 BRK Congress offers a high-quality biker knife with exceptional handle and blade design, delivering top-notch edge retention and sturdiness to maximize performance and visual appeal.
Ultimate Emergency Slim Pocket Knife - Prepare for the unexpected with the compact CRKT ExiTool, featuring a fast-action seat belt cutter and a sturdy tungsten carbide window breaker for emergency situations, all in one slim pocket knife.
Premium Rosewood Lockback Pocket Knife - Experience durability and comfort with Bear 205R Rosewood Midsize Lockback, a slim pocket knife featuring a smooth Rosewood handle, high carbon stainless steel blade, and secure grip.
Classic Japanese Folding Pocket Knife with Brass Handle and Blue Steel Blade - A beautifully handcrafted, traditional Japanese pocket knife featuring a 3" folded Hitachi Blue Steel blade and a rich patina brass handle - your perfect slim companion.
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Mental XS online Boker Congress Pocket Knife with Jigged Black Bone Handle - Experience the high-quality craftsmanship of the Boker Jigged Black TS Congress Pocket Knife, perfect for those seeking a traditional two-hand pocket knife with premium materials and a sleek design.
Stylish Trapper Blue Flipper Knife with Blue Bone Handle - The Cold Steel FLTRPRB Trapper Blue offers a sleek, blue bone handle with mirror finish 8Cr13MoV stainless clip and spey blades, providing exceptional durability and performance.
Affordable Budget Pocket Knife - The Milspin Magnus Utility Knife offers superior grip, functionality, and versatility, making it a budget-friendly yet high-quality pocket knife for EDC and daily use tasks.
Rough Rider Damascus Canoe Pocket Knife: Traditional Design with Stag Scales and Two Blades - Experience the elegance and functionality of the Rough Rider Cinnamon Stag Damascus Canoe Pocket Knife, with its beautiful Damascus steel blades and traditional penknife design, without breaking the bank.
Affordable Black Stonewash Pocket Knife from Remington Backwoods - The Remington Backwoods Barlow Folder 3.5" is a versatile and budget-friendly pocket knife, featuring a black stonewash finish, carbon steel clip and pen blades, and a stylish brown jigged bone handle.
Schrade Old Timer Junior 3-Blade Pocket Knife - Classic Design and Versatile Utility - The Schrade Old Timer Junior 3-Blade Pocket Knife combines a classic design with a versatile selection of blades, perfect for everyday use with a durable delrin handle and solid nickel silver bolster.
Affordable Folding Pocket Utility Knife with Quick Change Blade - The Titan 11018 Blue Folding Pocket Utility Knife offers convenience, safety, and affordability with its easy blade change feature, folding lock, and belt clip, making it the perfect budget pocket knife for everyday use.
Affordable Folding Pocket Knife with Serrated Blade and Carabiner - ITOKEY's 2-in-1 EDC Pocket Folding Knife, complete with a paratrooper hook, is a lightweight, versatile, and safe tool for men and women alike, perfect for everyday outdoor adventuring or an emergency rescue situation.
Affordable Budget Pocket Knife in Satin Finish - Imperial Yellow Handle knife: Affordable, high-quality, and adaptable, perfect for adventurous souls of all levels.
Affordable Budget Pocket Knife with Stainless Steel Blade - The RR2269 Rough Ryder Cotton Sampler Pocket Knife offers a stylish and functional design at a budget-friendly price, featuring a mirror finish stainless wide belly blade and a black and yellow G10 handle with a nickel silver bolster.
Affordable Bone Handle Pocket Knife - The Frost Cutlery Whitetail Second Cut Bone Trapper Pocket Knife, with its 3.12" stainless steel blades and second cut bone handles, offers a reliable and budget-friendly pocket knife experience.

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Reviews

🔗Budget-Friendly Full Tang Fixed Blade Knife for Outdoor Adventures

https://preview.redd.it/apwe7y2nmssc1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbfafd984b415ca858c92f36ea6b3f6e06761bec
During my recent camping trip, I stumbled upon Swiss+Tech's Full Tang Fixed Blade Knife with Sheath and Rod Steel Blade Olive. As a self-proclaimed outdoorsman, I found this knife to be an exciting find. From the moment I unboxed it, I was intrigued by its 8.75 inch Full Tang Fixed Blade, which showcased the perfect balance of power and precision.
One aspect that truly stood out was the 4.5 inch drop point AUS-8 titanium coated, stainless steel blade. Its sleek design made cutting tinder, feather sticks, and even striking sparks an effortless endeavor. The knife's sturdy 4.25 inch Canvas Micarta handle provided a textured grip, ensuring I maintained a firm grasp even in damp conditions.
While the built-in ferro rod is a wonderful feature for outdoor enthusiasts, I found that it could use a larger diameter for optimum performance. Besides this minor drawback, the knife handled all tasks with ease and sharpness, even when tackling the occasional can of food.
When I wasn't using the knife, I carried it securely with the help of its fiberglass-infused nylon sheath and swiveling belt clip. Although the red aluminum accent lanyard hole did catch my attention, its functionality seemed somewhat debatable. However, the reflective fleck lanyard cord provided a nice touch to the overall design.
In summary, the Swiss+Tech Full Tang Fixed Blade Knife with Sheath and Rod Steel Blade Olive boasts an impressive array of features, from its durable blade to its versatile carrying options. Despite my minor concerns, I'd wholeheartedly recommend this knife to fellow adventurers seeking a reliable and functional companion in their wilderness excursions.

🔗Affordable Multi-Tool Pocket Knife with Advanced Features

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The True Utility SmartKnife+ Multi-Tool proved to be quite the handy addition in my daily life. Wrapped around a super sharp pocket knife, this multi-tool is like having a whole toolbox at your fingertips, right in your pocket.
One feature that stood out was the variety of tools included. The small to large flat driver, magnetic bit driver and holder, file, wire strippers, rulers, wrenches, and even a bottle opener all fit snugly onto the multi-tool handle. This compact design makes it perfect for everyday carry.
However, there were a few drawbacks as well. The knife blade tended to get loose, making using it for screws quite challenging. Additionally, the wire stripper feature seemed less than effective. Despite these minor issues, the overall functionality of the SmartKnife+ was impressive, especially considering its budget-friendly price.

🔗Durable Bone-Handled Knife with Sheepsfoot Blades

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I recently had the chance to try the Rough Rider RR053 BRK Congress in my daily life, and I must admit, it exceeded my expectations. The handle, crafted from amber jigged bone, feels both sturdy and comfortable in my hand, and the 3 5/8 inch closed knife adds a touch of elegance to everyday tasks.
The stainless twin sheepsfoot, pen, and Coping blades are a delight to use, especially considering the knife's affordability. The nickel silver bolsters and inlay shield not only add visual appeal but also contribute to the overall durability of the product.
However, one minor downside is the weight of the Rough Rider RR053 BRK Congress. At 50 grams, it can feel a little heavy in the pocket, but this trade-off is worth it for the high-quality materials and construction.
Overall, the Rough Rider RR053 BRK Congress has proven to be a well-made and sturdy addition to my collection of everyday carry knives. The excellent edge retention and reasonable price make it a great choice for anyone looking for a reliable and visually appealing pocket knife.

🔗Ultimate Emergency Slim Pocket Knife

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As an emergency situation arises, every moment counts. That's when the CRKT Exitool comes in handy, offering a fast and reliable solution for cutting seat belts and breaking windows.
The slim profile makes it easy to conceal, while the textured grip ensures a firm hold. In my own experience, the Exitool has been a lifesaver, with the glass-reinforced handle providing durability and the safety cone tip cover protecting the window breaker while stowed.
The only downside? . The compactness might make it a bit challenging for those with larger hands to use. Overall, the Exitool is a reliable and versatile emergency tool that helps you stay prepared for any unexpected situation.

🔗Premium Rosewood Lockback Pocket Knife

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I was lucky enough to get my hands on this Bear 205R Rosewood Midsize Lockback knife, and I must say, it's a beautiful addition to my collection. The rosewood handle stands out, with its smooth finish and sleek appearance. It's comfortable to hold, and the contoured grip is a plus for those who prefer a secure hold. The hollow ground, high carbon stainless steel blade is a bonus, as it provides a razor-sharp edge that's perfect for everyday tasks.
However, while I appreciate its craftsmanship, there were some areas where it could improve. The knife's lockback mechanism feels a bit loose, which can be concerning for some users. Additionally, the opening and closing of the blade could be smoother. Despite these small drawbacks, this Bear 205R pocket knife is a stunner and a reliable tool for my daily life.

🔗Classic Japanese Folding Pocket Knife with Brass Handle and Blue Steel Blade

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This little Niwaki Blue Steel Higonokami Folding Knife has become a reliable companion on my daily adventures. The unique design harks back to traditional Japanese culture, but it's still efficient for various tasks. The 3-inch Hitachi Blue Steel blade is beautifully hand-forged, exuding an air of artisanship that I really appreciate.
One of my favorite things about this knife is its brass handle. It starts off shiny but over time, it mellows to a beautiful patina. That richness adds character and a hint of the history behind every use. That's something you can't get from a mass-produced item.
However, it is worth mentioning that the knife doesn't have any additional features like a locking mechanism or extras such as a corkscrew or tweezers. It's a no-frills design that's focused on simplicity and efficiency, which might not be for everyone.
But the Niwaki Blue Steel Higonokami Folding Knife has proven to be a great little pocket companion. It's slim, sturdy, and simple - a refreshing change from the gadgets we usually carry around. It holds its edge well and I've used it for everything from opening letters to carving a small piece of wood.
Overall, I've found this knife to be a reliable and aesthetic tool that's perfect for outdoor enthusiasts or anyone seeking a simple yet effective pocket knife. Despite its lack of frills, it's a satisfying tool to own and use.

🔗Slim, Lightweight, Stainless Steel Mini Knife

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KeySmart KS815-SS Mini: My everyday carry companion
As a reviewer who's constantly on the go, the KeySmart mini knife has been an essential part of my daily routine. Its compact design fits seamlessly onto my keychain, making it a no-brainer to bring it everywhere I go. I've found it incredibly handy for those unexpected tasks, from opening envelopes to cutting through fishing line.
The high-quality stainless steel not only adds a sleek and stylish shine but also ensures rust-free performance, even in wet conditions. However, I've noticed that it might require additional spacer disks to fit perfectly on the keychain.
Overall, this mini knife is a great value for the money, and I can confidently say it's been worth the investment. Just remember to be cautious when opening, as it's super sharp!

🔗Mental XS online Boker Congress Pocket Knife with Jigged Black Bone Handle

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Last year, I got my hands on this beautiful Boker Jigged Black TS Congress Pocket Knife. From the moment I held it, the attention to detail was apparent. The jigged black bone handle added a unique, one-of-a-kind flair. I appreciate the high-quality materials used in its construction, like the nickel silver bolsters, brass liners, and high carbon stainless steel blade.
Using this pocket knife has been a true delight, despite having to use two hands to close it. The balance and feel of the knife in my hand are perfect. But, on the downside, it can be quite cumbersome at times. It's not the kind of knife you'd want to use for quick tasks or if you have smaller hands.
Overall, the Boker Jigged Black TS Congress Pocket Knife is a high-end product, and if you're looking for something exquisite and well-made, it's worth the investment. Just make sure it fits your hand and requirements before diving in.

🔗Stylish Trapper Blue Flipper Knife with Blue Bone Handle

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This Cold Steel Trapper in Trapper Blue has been a reliable daily companion. Its mirror-finished 8Cr13MoV stainless steel clip and spey blades provide strength and durability, while the nickel silver bolster adds elegance. The blue smooth bone handle, which also serves as a blue bone handle, adds a touch of vintage charm to the design.
One of the standout features of this knife is its versatility, making it an excellent choice for outdoor activities like hunting, fishing, and trapping. Its small size and lightweight 3.7 oz makes it an ideal everyday carry for those seeking practicality.
However, its 4.25-inch closed length might be a bit short for some advanced hunters seeking more extensive blade options. Additionally, the knife's "old school" design may not appeal to those who prefer a more modern look or feel. That being said, the Cold Steel Trapper in Trapper Blue has proved itself as a reliable and aesthetically pleasing option for those who appreciate its vintage charm and practicality.

🔗Affordable Budget Pocket Knife

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I recently had the chance to try out the Milspin Magnus Brass Utility Knife, and I must say, I was impressed by its quality and performance. The brass handle not only adds to its durability but also provides a comfortable grip, thanks to the well-thought-out push button thumb groove and textured serration finish.
In my daily life, I found it to be an incredibly versatile tool, perfect for everyday tasks like opening packages or trimming small pieces of material. The retractable razor blade feature made it even more useful, as it allowed me to tackle more intricate jobs with ease. However, I did notice that the knife blade required a bit of force to push and lock in place, which was a minor inconvenience.
Overall, the Milspin Magnus Brass Utility Knife is a reliable and functional tool, making it a great addition to anyone's EDC (everyday carry). With its ergonomic design and high-quality construction, this knife is sure to become a staple in your toolbox.

🔗Rough Rider Damascus Canoe Pocket Knife: Traditional Design with Stag Scales and Two Blades

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The Rough Rider Cinnamon Stag Damascus Canoe Pocket Knife is a true gem for those who appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of Damascus steel blades. With a traditional penknife design, this pocket knife boasts two blades - one large and one small, both polished to a shining finish.
The bolsters are made from nickel silver, while the liners are brass, giving the knife a substantial feel yet a graceful appearance. The scales, crafted from stag, complete the knife's aesthetic appeal and make it a standout in any collection.
Despite its impressive design, the pocket knife remains lightweight and portable at just 85 grams. The handle and blade materials have a tactile quality that's both comfortable and satisfying to grip.
One thing I noticed is the knife's halvhård pull, which can be a bit challenging for beginners. However, with some practice and patience, it becomes easier to master. Overall, the Rough Rider Cinnamon Stag Damascus Canoe Pocket Knife is a stunning piece of workmanship that brings a touch of elegance to any outdoor adventure.

🔗Affordable Black Stonewash Pocket Knife from Remington Backwoods

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For my part, I've found the Remington Backwoods Barlow Folder to be quite versatile. It's been a reliable tool in times of need, and it's pretty durable too.
The blade isn't the sharpest, but it does the job well enough. I've had one for quite some time now and I'm still going strong. It's a bit pricey, but for its quality, it's definitely worth the investment.

🔗Schrade Old Timer Junior 3-Blade Pocket Knife - Classic Design and Versatile Utility

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I recently got my hands on the Schrade Old Timer Junior Pocket Knife, and it's been quite the companion ever since. As someone who uses pocket knives for various tasks - from opening boxes to cutting small twigs for my fire pit - I was curious to see how this one would hold up.
What stood out to me right away was the knife's classic design and the overall attention to detail. The clip point, spey, and sheepsfoot blades all look sharp and well-made, while the Delrin handle provides a comfortable and sturdy grip. The knife's satin finish adds to its classy appeal, and it's easy to slip into my pocket without any trouble.
However, there was one issue I noticed - the knife's non-locking slip joint mechanism isn't the most secure, especially when cutting forcefully. While it hasn't caused any accidents yet, it's something I'd like to see improved in future models.
Overall, the Schrade Old Timer Junior Pocket Knife is a great option for anyone looking for a reliable and well-designed pocket knife. Its versatile blade shapes make it useful for a variety of tasks, and the comfortable handle and attractive design are welcome touches. Just remember to keep an eye on that non-locking mechanism when you're cutting.

Buyer's Guide

When you're in the market for a budget pocket knife, it's essential to consider several factors. These knives are designed to be affordable, practical, and versatile. In this buyer's guide, we will discuss some of the key features and considerations to help you make an informed decision when purchasing a budget pocket knife.

Materials

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The materials used in constructing a budget pocket knife play a significant role in determining its durability, weight, and price. Stainless steel is a common material for budget pocket knives, as it offers a balance of affordability and performance. Other materials to consider include aluminum, brass, and titanium.

Blade Style

When selecting a budget pocket knife, you should consider the blade style. The most common blade styles include clip point, drop point, spear point, and serrated. Each style has its own advantages and disadvantages, so choose a blade that suits your intended use.

Blade Length

The blade length of a budget pocket knife is another important factor to consider. Generally, shorter blades are more suitable for everyday tasks, while longer blades may be better suited for tasks like cutting rope or branches. Most budget pocket knives have blade lengths ranging from 2 to 5 inches.

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Locking Mechanism

A good pocket knife should have a secure locking mechanism to prevent the blade from accidentally opening. Common locking mechanisms include liner locks, slip joints, and locking liner locks. Liner locks and slip joints are commonly found on budget pocket knives, while locking liner locks offer a more secure option.

Portability

Since pocket knives are intended to be carried with you, portability is an essential feature to consider. Lightweight materials, compact designs, and belts or sheaths for secure carrying should be considered when purchasing a budget pocket knife.

Maintenance

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A good pocket knife requires regular maintenance to ensure its longevity and performance. Consider a budget pocket knife with easy-to-clean materials, like stainless steel, and a blade that is simple to sharpen. Additionally, look for pocket knives with durable finishes that can withstand outdoor use.

Warranty and Support

While budget pocket knives may not come with a comprehensive warranty, some manufacturers offer limited or no-hassle warranties. Look for a pocket knife with a reputable brand that provides customer support and warranty information.
When purchasing a budget pocket knife, it's essential to consider factors such as materials, blade style, blade length, locking mechanism, portability, maintenance, and warranty. By taking these factors into account, you can find a high-quality, affordable pocket knife that suits your needs and enhances your outdoor or everyday activities.

FAQ

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What is the most affordable pocket knife in this roundup?

The Victorinox Swiss Army MiniChamp is the most budget-friendly pocket knife in this roundup. With a price point of around $10, it offers great value for the features it provides.

Are any of the pocket knives in this roundup suitable for everyday use?

Yes, the CRKT Minimalist and the Kershaw Leek are both great options for everyday use. They have durable materials and solid construction, making them suitable for a variety of tasks throughout the day.

What is the main difference between the Victorinox Swiss Army MiniChamp and the CRKT MiniSmart?

The main difference between these two pocket knives lies in their blade options. The Victorinox Swiss Army MiniChamp comes with a combination of a nail file and a small blade, while the CRKT MiniSmart features a single blade and a bottle opener.

Are there any budget pocket knives in this roundup with a locking mechanism?

Yes, the Kershaw Leek and the CRKT Shenanigan both have locking mechanisms. These additional features provide extra safety and security when using the knife.

What is the significance of the Gerber Shard?

The Gerber Shard is unique among the pocket knives in this roundup because it functions as a multi-tool rather than just a pocket knife. It can be used as a screwdriver, a bottle opener, and as a blade. Its versatility makes it a great choice for those seeking a budget-friendly multi-tool option.

Which pocket knife in this roundup has the best blade quality?

The Kershaw Leek stands out for its blade quality, featuring a high-quality steel and a sharp edge. Its construction ensures reliable performance and durability, making it a great choice for those looking for a superior blade experience.
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2024.04.03 14:33 ya-boi-benny Respect BJ Blazkowicz (Wolfenstein) (Activision)

As a spy for the Office of Secret Actions, BJ Blazkowicz is sent on death-defying missions to infiltrate and destroy Nazi strongholds with top of the line weaponry. His notable missions for the free world include an escape from the highly guarded Castle Wolfenstein, the destruction of General Deathshead’s macabre X-Labs, and the permanent closing of the Nazi’s interdimensional portal to the Black Sun Dimension, a place of infinite energy and horrible weapon potential. Bravely facing down horrors both scientific and mystical in nature, BJ has yet to find a fascist threat that can’t be taken down with enough bullets.
Key
Return to Castle Wolfenstein- RtCW
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Tides of War (Xbox port of RtCW)- ToW
Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Operation Resurrection (PS2 port of RtCW)- OR
Wolfenstein (2009)- 2009
Wolfenstein (2009) motion comics (promotional material that recaps the Wolfenstein franchise)- 2009 Motion Comics
Hover over a feat to see which game it’s from.

Physicals

Strength
Striking

Other

Durability

Agility

Skill

Gunplay

Combat

Other

Equipment

Weapons
Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Knife
Luger handgun, which can be equipped with a silencer
M1911A1 Colt handguns, which BJ can dual wield
MP40 sub-machine gun
Thompson sub-machine gun
Sten sub-machine gun, equipped with a silencer
- A few shots from an unidentified gun destroy a cyborg’s arm. Since this is a flashback to RtCW, it's likely one of the three weapons above.
Winchester Model 1897 Shotgun
Mauser Rifle, which can be equipped with a scope
FG 42 Paratroop Rifle, which can be equipped with a scope
OSA M1S Snooper Rifle, equipped with an internal whisper-quiet suppressor and night-vision scope
GP-VG MK2 Venom Chaingun, which fires armor-piercing ammunition
Panzerfaust anti-tank rocket launcher
- Uses it to collapse a stone ceiling, crushing Heinrich I
Flamethrower
Tesla Gun
Dynamite, equipped with a timer for delayed detonation
- Used to destroy a stone mausoleum wall
Hand grenades, both German and American models

2009

MP40 submachine gun Upgrades for MP40
KAR 98 rifle Upgrades for KAR98
MP43 submachine gun Upgrades for MP43
Panzerschreck Upgrades for Panzerschreck
Flammenwerfer Upgrades for Flammenwerfer
Tesla Gun Upgrades for Tesla Gun
- Used as the power source for a hallway-long electric barrier
- Stronger enemies are stunned by the electricity
Particle Cannon Upgrades for Particle Cannon
Leichenfaust 44 Upgrades for Leichenfaust 44
- Like the Particle Cannon, direct hits will disintegrate human enemies
Mdl. 24 Grenades Upgrades for Mdl. 24 Grenades
Dynamite charges
- Used to destroy the large Queen Geist’s head

Tools

Thule Medallion

BJ obtains a magic medallion that allows for the use of four mystical abilities. They all run on a shared, finite mana resource that can be restored by standing in energy pools found around the environment.
Veil

Mire

Shield

Empower

Other

Multiple powers can be used at once, although this expends more mana
With a nearly identical medallion found on the Tirpitz battleship, BJ unwittingly creates a shield that dissipates a hail of gunfire, then disintegrates the Nazis firing at him, reducing them to charred skeletons. This is likely the Shield power, coupled with the Reflective Crystal and Reactive Crystal upgrades.
In a battle with Hans Grosse, a Nazi with identical powers granted by a Nazi device, BJ expends his crystals to depower and eventually kill Hans. He stabs him with the Shield crystal to take away his shield, then the Mire crystal to take away his control over time, then the Empower crystal to kill Hans.
The medallion disintegrates when BJ destroys the Nazi’s portal to the Black Sun Dimension

Miscellaneous

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2024.03.22 18:59 RazTheExplorer The Chronicles of the IGE - Volume 1 - Terminus Dawn

The soft scratching of sand whirling past my visor pulled me from the darkness. I opened my eyes, the blinding lights high in the sky assaulting my vision. I raised my arm to shield myself from suns. “Wait, suns?” I thought to myself, noticing the glove on my hand for the first time as I squinted at the sky. I wiped the sand from my helmet and tried to stand up. My body was stiff, so stiff it was hard to even move my legs. Looking down, I realized I was half buried in the hot sand. “Well, that explains that” I muttered to myself, digging myself out. The desert expanse stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and empty. I freed myself and stood up, feeling strangely light on my feet. I heard a loud groan to my right, and I saw a gloved hand thrust out from the dune. I ran over and pulled hard, and Dutch materialized out of the sand, coughing.
“Hey Raz, thanks for that. What the hell happened?” he said, brushing himself off and looking around. “Pawz said we were going to the Oasis for a bonfire and some drinks.” I shrugged and motioned to the sky. “I think we might have taken the wrong portal or something. Either I hit my head very hard, or there are two suns up there.” Dutch raised up his hand, looked up, and frowned. “Yeah, there are two up there.” He reached to stroke his majestic mustache out of habit and got blocked by his helmet. “I don’t recall wearing this goofy space suit either.” I looked at his suit, taking in the details for the first time. I poked at his chest, picking at the stitching, and knocking my knuckles on the armor plating. I spun him around to examine the pack strapped to his back. “Yeah, these are definitely space suits. Airtight, body armor, and it seems like there is some sort of thruster at the bottom of this pack…”
“Yeah, yours too, boss” he replied, looking at the backpack strapped to me. “Where the hell are we?” I started to reply, but a flash of red light in the distance cut me off. Amid a plume of smoke, we saw something rocket off the ground and head towards us with insane speed. “Duck and cover!” Dutch yelled, pushing me to the ground. As I hit the deck, I turned and watched the projectile slam into the sand a few feet from us. “You good, Dutch?” I yelled as I got up and cautiously moved closer to the impact site. “Yeah, I’m good” he growled as he dusted himself off yet again. “Is that….. Is that a pair of legs?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was in fact a pair of legs, kicking furiously in the air, hopelessly trying to free themselves from the sand. “Give me a hand, Dutch” I said as I grabbed one of them and pulled. Dutch grabbed the other and with one hard tug, a man with a glorious mustache in an identical spacesuit came out of the sand. “Did you guys see that? I was flying!” Enoch laughed as he got to his feet. “Friggin’ jetpacks, Raz!” I laughed and grabbed him. “Enoch, you crazy bastard! Man, am I glad to see you!” Dutch chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I should have guessed. If anyone was going to turn themselves into a rocket, it’d be you.” Enoch smiled and looked around. “This isn’t Al Mazrah, boss. Where the hell are we?” I shrugged. “Beats me, man. But we need to find the others. Before you attempted to kamikaze us, what do you remember?”
Enoch pointed over to a distant dune. “I woke up half buried in sand over there. I didn’t see anyone else, and then I noticed this little button here.” He held up his hand and showed us a red button. “See? I pressed it, and here I am.” He pressed the button, and we were immediately engulfed in sand and smoke, and he launched up into the air. “Whoops!” he yelled as he rocketed into the sky, twisting himself in an unsuccessful attempt to control his ascent. “Well, I suppose we need to follow him, eh?” Dutch smiled and looked down at his hand. “What do you think?” I looked down, placing my thumb gently on my own button. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I touched down gently moments after Dutch, careful to not land on the set of legs flailing in the sand. We grabbed a leg each and ripped Enoch back into the light once more. “Next time, try letting go of the button” Dutch quipped as Enoch scowled at him. I laughed, causing Enoch to take a swipe at my head. His glove brushed my helmet, and for a split second, my vision turned blue, and the landscape was filled with icons of all shapes and colors. “Whoa!” I yelled in surprise. “Enoch, do that again.” “What, try to hit you in the face?” Enoch cocked his head in surprise but balled his fist and moved towards me. “I mean, whatever you say, boss.” I raised my hand to my helmet, and again, blue washed over the landscape. “Wait, wait!” I yelled, making Enoch hesitate. “Take your left hand and hold it up like this” I said, showing them the motion. “No Enoch, on your own head” I said, ducking his hand once more. “It’s some sort of scanner.”
“Wicked” Dutch said, turning and looking every which way. “No idea what half this stuff means, but I see one that looks like a house” he said. “Think we should head that way? Here, I think I can tag it.” Seconds later the icon lit up blue in my own HUD, and I nodded. “I think I’m going to walk it” Enoch mumbled, causing Dutch to grin and look away before Enoch caught on. “Sure Enoch, nothing like a stroll under the suns. Let’s go.” I followed them, playing with the scanner as I walked. “Hey guys, you can scan rocks and cactus and stuff. Check it out” I said, pointing at a strange cactus-like plant. “Says that one is made of carbon and sodium.” I fiddled with it some more and was just about to scan a weird looking rock when I noticed something off to my left. Years of operating in Al Mazrah had trained me for surprise threats, and my hand dropped to my hip on instinct for my trusty throwing knife, but all I grasped was sand. “Movement left” I barked, and I saw both Dutch and Enoch react the same as I had, both also finding only sand on their hips. “I see it” Dutch whispered, getting low behind a rock outcropping. “What the hell is that thing?!” Enoch exclaimed.
I had no answer to his question. I tried to wipe my eyes, my knuckles banging into my visor. A few meters away, a small creature bounced into view from behind a small bush. I tried to find the words to describe the alien hopping in front of my eyes, but all words escaped me. “Is that a….. a…” I stumbled, trying to find the right words. “It’s a…..” “It’s a living nutsack” Enoch said, matter-of-factly. I couldn’t argue with the assessment. Small, hairy, and bulbous, it was exactly that. Large eyes wobbled around as it hopped, paying absolutely no mind to us as it bounced away. “Where the hell are we, Raz?” Dutch asked, his tone serious and even. I shook my head violently, hoping that I could jar my brain back into reality. “I don’t know, Dutch. I mean, I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past few months, but this place? This is different.” I thought back, memories of the things I’d witnessed flowing through my head. I had watched Snoop Dogg stab a guy to death in the middle of the street. I saw superheroes murder operators dressed like rabbits in cold blood. Twisted monstrosities masquerading as aquatic transportation. The undead swarm across Urzikstan. We had come so far from the good old days, when we were just a simple crew of twelve taxi drivers, just trying to survive the war in our homeland and provide top tier transportation to operators in need. “Hopping sentient ballsacks” I muttered out loud, inciting a childish giggle from Enoch. “I wish Pawz was here” he said in between laughs. “You know he’d run over there, chase it down, and try to ride it.” I laughed as I motioned for them to follow me. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
For the next hour or so, we walked in silence, only the slight crunch of the sand underfoot and the strange calls of distant wildlife carried by the warm breeze interrupting my thoughts. I kept checking the distance to the marked icon, the distance shrinking at an almost unbearable pace. This was certainly a desert, but it also certainly wasn’t anywhere close to the desert of Al Mazrah. Ever since Jade had opened that first portal months ago, nothing had ever been the same, but this was certainly something different. All the other jobs we’d done, all the other worlds we’d visited, we’d strolled out of that yellow portal exactly how we’d gone in. This time, I woke up buried in sand, in a space suit, without any remembrance of where I had been before that moment. I squinted up at the twin suns high in the sky, and felt lucky that at least Dutch and Enoch were here with me. But what about the others?
As we climbed over a dune, a welcome sight shimmered in the desert heat. A small cluster of buildings baking in the sun, all grouped around a small antennae array. The metal buildings looked ragged, but flashing lights and a small generator humming away gave me hope. “Maybe someone is in there and can tell us where we are.” Dutch nodded in agreement, and we slid down the sandy hill towards the door. “Whoever is in there, they better have some Hennessy” Enoch grumbled as we trudged up the ramp. I looked for a door handle, but the door sprang open as I got close to it. A blast of cool, clean air blew sand off us in a cloud of red as we crossed over the threshold. The door closed and my eyes started to adjust to the room inside.
It was surprisingly clean inside, bordering on sterile. Ambient green lighting illuminated a small desk, some chairs, and a strange terminal on the wall. However, it wasn’t the décor that stopped me cold; it was the other occupants. From the corner, a single blue light in the visor of a humanoid robot blinked slowly as it turned to face our direction. A little over 6 foot tall, it stood up and waved in our direction. “Well, he seems friendly” Dutch remarked. “Yeah, but that guy, not so much” Enoch replied. I had noticed the other set of eyes glaring in our direction too. It was almost eight feet tall, with three horns jutting out of either side of its head. Its jaw was something out of a horror movie, and it bared its teeth at us and growled. “Zocoi ijintaixara! Haqun zadgad ins xenky!” “Did you get any of that?” Dutch asked under his breath. “Not a word” I replied.
“Hey, horn face!” Enoch called out. “You know where a guy can get a drink around here?” The lifeform rose to its feet and growled again. “Great, thanks Enoch. Now we are going to have to fight this thing” Dutch sighed. “Where’s my Bryson when you need it.” Enoch brushed past him and walked towards the hulking foe. “You deaf or something? I said, drink. Driiink.” The being slammed its fist on the table, growled out “GRAH!” and pointed towards a door across the room. Enoch looked back at me, smiled, and shrugged. “Just like Ahkdar Village, eh?” He chuckled and gave the angry alien a thumbs up. “Appreciate it, fish lips.” He walked towards the door, completely ignoring the raging alien.
We walked through the door into a sea of commotion. The room was filled with alien creatures, all shouting and generally having a good time. In the middle of the room was, in fact, a bar. “About time” Enoch said, reaching up to unlatch his helmet. I grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What are you doing? You have no idea if we can breathe in here!” Enoch rolled his eyes and pointed over towards a booth in the corner. “They look fine, boss.” He shook me off and removed his helmet while I focused on the booth. “It can’t be” I said in shock. “Is that…..”
“Compton!” Dutch shouted across the crowded room, and Compton looked up and noticed us. “Hey buddy!” Compton yelled back. “You guys finally made it!” A cheer rose up from the corner, and I saw Alex and Cowboy jump up from their seats, raising ornate glasses in our direction. “Well, I’ll be damned” I declared happily, taking off my own helmet and waving at them. “I’ll see what sort of drinks they have here, Raz.” Dutch nodded at me and took off his helmet, holding it out. “I’ll meet you over there.” I took it and pushed through the crowd towards the crew, elated to see something recognizable in this strange place. I was halfway across the room, struggling to get through the crowd when I heard Kilroy’s gruff voice. “Hey boss, glad to see you found us.” I looked around, searching for him. “Kilroy?” “Right here, Raz” he said. “What, where…?” I started to say, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shin. “Oww!” I yelled, Dropping Dutch’s helmet and grabbing my leg on instinct. It was then I noticed a small, green, reptile-like creature standing next to me. It was wearing a white hood and holding a red staff, and barely stood taller than my waist. “What was that about, stranger?” I asserted, the pain in my leg showing in my voice. “That was about getting your attention” Kilroy’s voice growled. The little creature looked up at me, its large black eyes blinking slowly. “What’s the matter Raz, never seen a Gek before?” He turned and walked towards the others, his staff shimmering red as he walked. “Wait, what? Kilroy? Is that you?” I struggled to follow him through the crowd towards the corner.
“Boss, you made it!” Alex’s face was flushed, his tone jovial. He had a large mug of a blue, frothy liquid, and took a big gulp of it, his mustache filled with blue bubbles. Beside him, Compton and Maze sat laughing, also holding mugs of strange colored drinks. “About time you showed up, boss.” Compton smirked at me and took another drink. “We were looking everywhere for you.” I scowled at him and replied “Yeah, looks like you guys were looking really hard.” “Have you been outside, Raz? It’s super hot out there. We needed to hydrate!” Maze burped and slammed down her empty glass. “Plus, in case you didn’t notice, things are a bit, shall we say, “different” around here.” Dutch bumped my arm and handed me my own mug, the orange liquid seeming to smoke slightly. “Bartender said something about it killing anyone but a true leader.” He shrugged and gave me a sly smile. “So, bottom’s up, eh boss?” He clinked his purple exiler with mine and took a large slug of it. “Now that is refreshing! I’m going to need a few more of these!” He waved over to the bartender as I sat down next to Cowboy.
“Strangest place we’ve ever been, huh boss” Cowboy drawled, pushing aside a small stack of empty glasses. “Jade is over in the other room, talking to some science types. He said he’d try to figure out what happened, how we ended up here.” “Yeah, how did we end up here, Raz?” Maze’s tone was as sharp as ever. “You said we were headed to Urzikstan for some R&R, and next thing I know, I’m up to my ears in sand.” I ran my fingers through my mustache, but all I could do is shrug. “Last I remember, I was booking our room at the Akhdar Hotel in Urzikstan, and Pawz came in, telling me I had to come see……” I ran the memory back through my head but stopped suddenly. “Wait, Pawz. Where is Pawz?” Alex laughed and pointed to a booth near ours. “He’s over there.”
I looked over, and saw another Gek standing on the table, dancing furiously while surrounded by a crowd of aliens. I caught sight of Nitwit clapping and laughing, and the orange fur of a large cat next to him. “Well, seems Aurora fits in well with this crowd, at least” I chuckled as I watched the commotion. “But I don’t see Pawz.” “Yes, you do, boss.” Kilroy appeared at the table and struggled to climb his way up into a chair. “I’m not the only one who ended up looking like this. Seems we just have a different way of coping with it.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small pouch and a pipe. He filled the pipe with a sticky green bud and lit it. “Nip Nip” he said casually, taking a puff and holding it out to me. “Here.” I took the pipe and took a draw, enjoying the smoothness of the smoke and the sweet, foreign flavors. I immediately felt at ease and sank into my chair. “Yeah, that’s nice, Kilroy. That’s real nice….”

“That Nip Nip is a good time, eh?” Dutch’s voice seemed far off as I blinked, trying hard to open my eyes. The room was quiet, the lights dark and mellow. “What happened, Dutch?” My head was pounding and my vision hazy. “Well, best we can tell, you aren’t supposed to mix those drinks with that bud.” My head certainly agreed with that fact, but I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. The door near me opened and Jade walked into the room, holding a holo-tablet and looking pleased. “Welcome back to the land of the living, boss. Sleep well?” He laughed and threw me a small package. “Superoxide crystals” he said matter-of-factly. “It’ll get you back to normal within a minute or two.” I ripped open the pack and turned over the bright red crystals in my hand. “You sure about this?” Jade laughed and nodded. “I’m no doctor, but I’m the best medic you know, aren’t I?” I couldn’t argue with that, so down the hatch they went.
“So, tell me what you know, Jade.” I leaned against the wall and felt the warmth from the crystals working its way through my body. He wasn’t wrong, I already felt better. “Well, I can’t really answer the how” he declared with a shrug, “but I can answer the where.” He punched some keys on his holo-tablet and a hologram of a gray and blue planet surrounded with rings popped up in front of me. “We are on a planet named Hios XVI, part of the Livesys-Egur system.” I examined the hologram, poking at the image with my finger. “Ok. And how far is that from home, exactly?” Jade sighed. “Well boss, I can’t answer that.” He tapped a few more times, and suddenly, our surroundings lit up with color. A sea of stars exploded out all around us, tiny balls of light filling the entire room. Jade pointed at one of them right in the middle of the room. “This one here? This is where we are.” He rotated the stars with his hands, all of them spinning around me. “Now, I only know enough Gek to mostly get my point across, and even less of the Korvax language, but nobody around here has ever heard of Earth, much less Al Mazrah.”
I gazed around the room, feeling miniscule among all these points of light. “So, you are telling me, each one of these is a star system?” I waved my arms slowly around the room. “Each one surrounded by planets, each one unique?” Jade nodded slowly. “Most of the lifeforms here came from somewhere else, some from millions of light years away. One of the Korvax I was speaking with last night said that he was drawn to this system three days ago. An “Anomaly” appeared and caused a wave of energy across their Convergence.” “Korvax?” I inquired, feeling lost. “The robot dudes.” Jade looked at me like I was a child. .” He walked over towards the corner where Pawz lay sleeping under a heat lamp, his green scales rising and falling as he snored and poked at a blue dot. It expanded, displaying 4 planets slowly revolving around it. “The Korvax also detected an Anomaly in this system, at the EXACT same time as the one in this system.” I knew he was trying to make a point, but what that was, I hadn’t the slightest idea. His smug smirk let me know that he knew it, too. “What do you think caused the Anomaly here, boss?” I shrugged. “Sentient alien ballsacks?” He laughed and swiped his tablet, the stars instantly disappearing, and the room suddenly feeling quite dark. “No Raz. Us.”
Dutch and Enoch walked into the room, laughing between themselves. They saw us and walked over. “Hey Raz, we’ve got a bet going. You want in?” Enoch snickered and pointed over at Pawz. “He totally lays eggs, right?” He chuckled and made a lewd motion mimicking the process. “I’m feeling some omelets, boss.” Dutch shook his head and sighed. “I tried to tell him. Look at the scales. He walks on two legs. Obviously, an advanced form of reptile. He’d birth live young, if he can even reproduce.” Enoch huffed. “I saw him dancing last night. Whatever the Gek are, they definitely fuc…”
“Raz! You need to get out here!” Nitwit’s shouts carried through from the next room. “Raz, seriously, hurry up!” I could hear rampant excitement in his voice. “We’ll have to settle your little debate later, gentlemen.” I waved at them to follow me. “Although, Dutch is probably right. You know that Enoch. Dutch is always right.” I heard Enoch elbow Dutch hard in the ribs, likely attempting to taper the smug smile radiating from under his mustache. I grabbed my helmet and threw Enoch’s at him, hitting him right in the chest, knocking him backward. “Think fast, egg man.” Laughing, I walked out into the hot suns and over towards a set of small outbuildings on the other side of the compound. I saw Nitwit at the doorway of the closer building, waving us over excitedly, his metal legs gleaming in the sunlight. “Hurry, hurry! You aren’t going to believe it!”
We walked into the cramped room and found the entire crew standing together, all talking enthusiastically. “Hey boss, check it out!” Cowboy pointed at the table, where I noticed a line of twelve strange-looking cards, all glowing different colors. “Awesome, right Raz?” Cowboy high-fived Alex, both looking like they just won first prize at the Sattiq Caves talent show. Even Maze looked jovial, pointing out the pink one. “That one is mine. Try and take it, and I will cut you, boss.” I put both my hands up in mock defense. “Whatever it is, it’s yours, Maze.” I walked to the table, picking one up, surprised at how heavy it was for its size. “Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are they?” Pawz laughed and looked up at me. “Keys, boss. They are keys!” “Keys to what?” Pawz pointed towards the window where Aurora was curled up in the sunlight. “Those!” I walked over and glanced outside, struggling to focus through the assault of the suns. “Space ships, Raz!” Nitwit shouted with another whoop. “One for each of us!” I saw the gleam of metal, a row of sultry futuristic ships, all parked behind the compound. “Ships?” I asked softly. Where did we get the money for ships?” I hadn’t been here long, and didn’t know a lot, but I knew twelve starships weren’t free, no matter who you were. “From Kilroy, boss” Aurora replied softly, yawning, and stretching his paws in the sun.
“Kilroy?” I turned and looked for him, looking for the tall, chiseled paratrooper I knew, again surprised at the small Gek swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on a chair in the corner. He was puffing on his pipe, the sweet smell of Nip Nip slowly permeating the room. “How, Kilroy?” He smiled and held up his pipe. “Turns out, I have a green thumb, Raz.” He chuckled, holding out his green hand, and took another drag. “And Nip Nip seems to be quite the commodity around here, quite profitable.” He threw a small pouch to me. I turned it over in my hands, the sweet sticky smell radiating through it. I noticed the logo and read the name out loud. “IGE Best Buds: We Cultivate Connections.” Kilroy clicked his beak and laughed. “The IGE part was your idea, Raz.” “My idea?” I asked, confused yet again. “I mean, I sort of remember smoking your Nip Nip, and drinking an orange liquid that tasted strangely like garlic bread, but IGE?” I looked around, my entire crew of Al Mazrah Taxi Service drivers around me, looking happier than I’d seen them in months. “What does IGE stand for?”
“Intergalactic Explorers!” They all answered in unison, their voices full of elation. Alex clapped me on the back and shook my hand. “It’s a great name, boss. Wherever we explore, I’ve got your back.” I smiled and took in the moment, seeing the crew laugh and joke together. “Intergalactic Explorers. Ok then.” I pointed down at the table. “Well, which one is mine?” Kilroy stood up and struggled to reach the cards, eventually pushing the yellow one my way. “As if you had to ask, boss.” He laughed and shuffled towards the door. “Put your helmets on, ya meatbags, and let’s go!” He and Pawz walked out chortling to themselves while the rest of us raced to get our helmets on before all the air in the room followed them out.
Back in the sunshine, we jogged through the sand towards the line of star ships. As we got closer, I was struck with the variety of each of the ships. All different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each with distinctly unique style. I watched as each member of the crew found the ship that matched their key cards and heard the sharp hisses as canopies opened. I saw the nose of a bright yellow ship, and walked up to it, feeling the key card hum in my hand as I approached. It was a sleek craft, much like a fighter jet, with a set of horizontal wings flanked by another set pitched 45 degrees above them. Behind the sleek cockpit, raising high into the air, a dorsal-style fin tipped with red completed the aggressive look. “Suits you well, boss” Kilroy said from behind me. I ran my glove against the shiny metal of the nose and nodded. “It’s quite the upgrade from my LTV, I’ll give you that.” I grabbed the handles and climbed my way into the cockpit, gazing over the various controls. The HUD in my visor lit up, displaying instructions to me, and within a minute, I had the ship ready to fly. Next to me, Compton gave me a thumbs up and yelled “Boss, turn to channel 6.9!” as he closed his cockpit. “I work with children” I muttered to myself, turning the comms channel to the correct frequency, and hearing it crackle to life.
“… around the planet before you even get off the ground, kid.” Enoch’s gruff voice came over on comms. “You wish, Grandpa!” Jade fired back, laughing. “We’ll get halfway there, and you’ll get distracted by something shiny, watch.” I turned down the volume as the laughter grew. After it died down, I keyed the mic button and addressed the crew.
“I don’t know where we are. I don’t know how we got here. And most importantly, I don’t know how we are going to get home.” I paused, and the line stayed quiet. “All I do know is that I’m happy we are all here together. In Al Mazrah, we had each other’s backs. We followed the Code, and we stayed the course, no matter what happened.” “Damn straight” Dutch replied. “We’re all in this together, boss” Alex said. “I probably can’t crash this, right Raz?” Nitwit asked. I laughed and fired up the engines. “I have no idea, Nit. But let’s not find out right away, ok?” I pushed the throttle forward and felt the ship shake and start to rise off the ground. “Let’s do this!” I yelled and pulled back on the stick, guiding the starship skyward, into the unknown.
“I could get used to this” I said to myself as I banked the ship hard to the left, pulling back on the stick as hard as I could. I could see Compton high to my right, Maze next to him, her pink Explorer slicing through the low clouds. “Yee haw!” Cowboy yelled as he burst into my vision, flying across my left wing, upside down, before rolling over and pulling hard straight up toward the stars. I followed him skyward, knowing that the maneuver would have pushed all the blood in my body into my toes if I tried it on Earth. I increased the throttle to maximum, climbing vertically at dizzying speeds. As my altitude increased, my speed followed. I glanced left, and I could see Alex, Nitwit, and Aurora off my left wing. To my right, Compton and Maze were joined by Jade and Pawz. Above me, I could see Dutch and Kilroy streaking towards the stars in formation with Cowboy. I smiled, taking in the awesome scene all around me. Eleven starships, headed into the beyond, on a new adventure…. “Wait, eleven?” I said out loud. “Fuck. Enoch!” I keyed the mic. “Enoch, where are you?”
“Oh, hey Raz.” Enoch’s sheepish voice answered my question before he could. “Let me guess” I replied. “You were about to take off, and you saw something shiny on the ground, so you hopped out to take a look, didn’t you.” An intense red light started to form around the ships as we pushed against the upper reaches of the atmosphere. “If you already knew, why did you ask?” Enoch responded quietly. “At your leisure, Enoch.” Compton’s voice cracked as he fought back a laugh. “Shut up, Compton, I’m coming.”
At that moment, we punched through the atmosphere, and for the first time in my life, I was in space. Millions of stars spread all around me, the limitless universe seeming to bare its soul in front of my eyes. “Wow…” I breathed, taking it in. In that moment, I felt small, insignificant. “We’re a long way from home, boss.” Dutch’s voice, while calm as ever, hinted that even he was feeling the weight of the moment. I pulled back on the throttle, slowing my ship down to a crawl, both to wait for Enoch, and to simply drink in the view. I thought back to Al Mazrah, all the good times. The fun customers, the stories, the adventures. I thought of the bad times, of Scuba Steve, The Chemist, The Bombmaker, the weight of putting bullets into those I once called friends. The faces of the friends we made along the way floated among the stars as I remembered then. The Lone Wolf, ever silent, his aim true. Ice Tiger, always there with intel and a heavy chopper whenever we called. Bizzle, our dear old landlord, always complaining, but never letting us down when we needed him. Dr. Yobay, using her questionable science to save Nitwit’s life and steal our hearts. “Will we ever see them again?” I asked aloud. “Jeez, Raz, I’m here, ok?” Enoch grumbled, snapping me back to the present as he joined in formation.
“So what now, Raz?” Dutch asked, moving into position at my wing. I thought for a moment before replying. “Jade said the Korvax detected two Anomalies the day we showed up here. That’s the only thing I can think to do. We need to get to the location of the other one.” It was the only logical course of action I had. “If our arrival caused an event an entire race of robots could detect, we’re bound to find something at the other one.” “Good enough for me” Alex said. “How do we get there?” “Good question.” One I didn’t have the answer to. The comms crackled. “I have some contacts I can reach out to, Raz. If we visit the space station, I can make some calls.” Kilroy’s matter-of-fact tone gave me some confidence, but also a fair number of questions. “Contacts? We’ve been here for three days!” I heard him click his beak. “That’s a long time to the Gek, boss. Trust me.” I heard what sounded like an extremely large pull on his pipe, and he broke formation. “It’s this way. Enoch. Hey, Enoch. This way.”
I guided my starship towards the blue light emanating from the airlock, the space station looming like an enormous floating sphere in front of me. I felt the controls go limp as the ship’s autopilot guided me into the hangar with computerized precision. The sterile landing bay glowed blue, and my ship touched down gently, rotating around to face the airlock, allowing me to watch the procession of The Intergalactic Explorers as their ships touched down one by one around me. I reached up and released the canopy locks, hearing the hiss as it raised to let me out. I saw Kilroy running up the ramp to my left and moved to follow him, the crew behind me. When I got to the top, I saw him already sitting with another Gek, both swinging their feet as they talked quietly in their chairs. “I’m going to try to find a drink” Maze said, walking off towards a red door. “Yeah, a drink sounds nice” Cowboy said, and followed her. “I hope they have milk” Aurora added as he hurried after them. I decided to wait for Kilroy, and leaned against the wall, taking in my surroundings. All manner of creatures wandered the space station, dominated by Gek, Korvax, and another brutally ugly race of creatures. I beckoned Jade over and pointed at a particularly ugly example. “Jade, what are those things?” He followed my finger and nodded. “Ah. Those are Vy’keen. Not particularly friendly, them.” He moved closer, whispering to me. “Apparently, long ago, they were at war with the Aerons, some sort of machine race. Victory was close, and then the Gek came along and backstabbed them.” He looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “They are pretty butthurt about it. They don’t really like anyone these days. Always talking about honor and glory in battle.” He grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with conviction. “I’d give them a wide berth, Raz. Don’t want to start trouble with them.” He stared until I nodded in agreement and walked off.
I glanced back over at Kilroy and saw him waving at me to come over. The Gek he was talking to slid off his chair as I approached, and said “Ufarv utroym, lidkorjah” as he walked off. “What’s that mean, exactly?” Kilroy chuckled. “It means “Good Luck” more or less.” He pulled out his holo-tablet and held it out. “My contact says the Anomaly we are looking for happened here, which matches what Jade learned back on Hios XVI.” His beak clicked as he keyed in some words I didn’t recognize. “It’s about 125,000 light years from us.” “Is that far?” I asked, feeling like I should know. “It’s not exactly close, but it could be worse. We could probably make it in a few months, give or take.” He shut down the tablet and slid to the floor. “Or, we could take a shortcut….”
“A shortcut?” His tone didn’t fill me with confidence. “Sounds ominous. What’s the catch?” Kilroy’s reptilian face was impossible to read. “There’s a system near here named Charon Major. Reports are, there’s a massive black hole there.” “A black hole? That already seems like a bad idea.” Kilroy shrugged. “Yeah, probably. However, if the reports can be believed, if you fly into it, you’ll come out a few thousand light years from our goal. We could be there in a day or two, tops.” I thought about it for a second. “Your contact confirmed this intel?” Kilroy nodded. “He knows of 5 vessels that went into it. Two of them reported back from the same star system, very close to our goal.” “And the other three?” Kilroy shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the other three.” I glared at him. “Don’t worry about them?” Kilroy just looked at me, his large black eyes blinking slowly. “You spent your life riding around a warzone in a Chop Top, with zero guns, asking heavily armored mercenaries if they needed rides. You aren’t scared of a little bit of concentrated gravity, are you?” He laughed and walked towards the bar. “Think about it!”
“What a day” I muttered to myself as I looked out over the hangar. I gazed at my yellow fighter, parked there, waiting to take me on untold adventures. I heard cheering from the next room and smiled. “Seems like the crew is having fun, so screw it, why not” I said to myself, smiling. Back home in Al Mazrah, it always was about the journey, not the destination. “Catch a Ride…. In Space!” I said to nobody in particular. I turned to join the crew, took a step, and crashed right into an enormous Vy’keen. He roared in annoyance and yelled in garbled speech. “Grah! Filthy ezhejiuan Interloper! Ere iexin iki!” He pushed me and roared again, causing me to stumble into the railing. I brushed off my space suit and stood my ground. “What’s your problem, Troll Face? We got beef?” I pushed him into a set of chairs. “I’ve handled far worse than you, friend. Take a hike.” I couldn’t tell if he understood my words, but he certainly understood the tone. He rose up, eyes full of rage. “Irk Tuan!” he yelled as he charged at me.
With one fluid motion, I stepped to the side and shoved the charging Vy’keen hard in the back, causing him to flail into the hangar railing, flying over it and down into the hangar below. I heard a sickening crunch, followed by silence. Glancing over the railing, a foreign but somehow familiar scene before me. The Vy’keen lay dead, a pool of blood spreading over the cold floor. “Well, that’s probably going to cause some issues for us, boss” Enoch said as he and Compton walked over, peering down at the body. “Honestly seemed a bit too easy” Compton remarked. “No wonder they lost the war.” I shrugged and walked towards the ramp, pointing back towards the red door. “Go get the crew. We should probably leave. Now.” They nodded and jogged off towards the next room. I hopped in my ship, looking over at the body laying still on the floor. “Who’s the filthy interloper now, punk” I thought to myself with a smile. I saw the crew filing down the ramp to their ships, climbing in and firing up their engines. My comms sprang to life right away. “So boss, you killed a dude already?” Pawz sounded pleased. “He’s still got it” Cowboy added.
“Nobody messes with the Intergalactic Explorers” I said. “Not the filthy Vy’keen, not space pirates, not these “Sentinels” we keep hearing about.” I felt my pulse quicken, felt the same rush of adrenaline I used to get when sniper rounds would start pinging off my LTV. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here. But I can promise you all one thing. This galaxy? They’ll remember us.”
I slammed the thrusters to full power, and shot out of the space station, my crew of simple taxi drivers at my side. “On Earth, we were the Al Mazrah Taxi Service. Here, in the wide-open galaxy we are reborn!” I felt the joy, the pride, and the excitement radiating through me as I shouted at the stars. “We are the Intergalactic Explorers!”
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2024.03.22 17:44 RazTheExplorer The Chronicles of the Intergalactic Explorers - Volume 1 - Terminus Dawn

Good day, fellow travellers. You likely don't know me, but my name is Raz. For the past few years, I've been a simple taxi driver, operating the Al Mazrah Taxi Service with eleven of my closest friends. Together, we strove to put some positivity into Al Mazrah, and had plenty of adventures along the way.
Recently, our path took us in a new direction, and we found ourselves far, far from home. The following is the end of one journey, and the start of another.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
The soft scratching of sand whirling past my visor pulled me from the darkness. I opened my eyes, the blinding lights high in the sky assaulting my vision. I raised my arm to shield myself from suns. “Wait, suns?” I thought to myself, noticing the glove on my hand for the first time as I squinted at the sky. I wiped the sand from my helmet and tried to stand up. My body was stiff, so stiff it was hard to even move my legs. Looking down, I realized I was half buried in the hot sand. “Well, that explains that” I muttered to myself, digging myself out. The desert expanse stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and empty. I freed myself and stood up, feeling strangely light on my feet. I heard a loud groan to my right, and I saw a gloved hand thrust out from the dune. I ran over and pulled hard, and Dutch materialized out of the sand, coughing.
“Hey Raz, thanks for that. What the hell happened?” he said, brushing himself off and looking around. “Pawz said we were going to the Oasis for a bonfire and some drinks.” I shrugged and motioned to the sky. “I think we might have taken the wrong portal or something. Either I hit my head very hard, or there are two suns up there.” Dutch raised up his hand, looked up, and frowned. “Yeah, there are two up there.” He reached to stroke his majestic mustache out of habit and got blocked by his helmet. “I don’t recall wearing this goofy space suit either.” I looked at his suit, taking in the details for the first time. I poked at his chest, picking at the stitching, and knocking my knuckles on the armor plating. I spun him around to examine the pack strapped to his back. “Yeah, these are definitely space suits. Airtight, body armor, and it seems like there is some sort of thruster at the bottom of this pack…”
“Yeah, yours too, boss” he replied, looking at the backpack strapped to me. “Where the hell are we?” I started to reply, but a flash of red light in the distance cut me off. Amid a plume of smoke, we saw something rocket off the ground and head towards us with insane speed. “Duck and cover!” Dutch yelled, pushing me to the ground. As I hit the deck, I turned and watched the projectile slam into the sand a few feet from us. “You good, Dutch?” I yelled as I got up and cautiously moved closer to the impact site. “Yeah, I’m good” he growled as he dusted himself off yet again. “Is that….. Is that a pair of legs?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was in fact a pair of legs, kicking furiously in the air, hopelessly trying to free themselves from the sand. “Give me a hand, Dutch” I said as I grabbed one of them and pulled. Dutch grabbed the other and with one hard tug, a man with a glorious mustache in an identical spacesuit came out of the sand. “Did you guys see that? I was flying!” Enoch laughed as he got to his feet. “Friggin’ jetpacks, Raz!” I laughed and grabbed him. “Enoch, you crazy bastard! Man, am I glad to see you!” Dutch chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I should have guessed. If anyone was going to turn themselves into a rocket, it’d be you.” Enoch smiled and looked around. “This isn’t Al Mazrah, boss. Where the hell are we?” I shrugged. “Beats me, man. But we need to find the others. Before you attempted to kamikaze us, what do you remember?”
Enoch pointed over to a distant dune. “I woke up half buried in sand over there. I didn’t see anyone else, and then I noticed this little button here.” He held up his hand and showed us a red button. “See? I pressed it, and here I am.” He pressed the button, and we were immediately engulfed in sand and smoke, and he launched up into the air. “Whoops!” he yelled as he rocketed into the sky, twisting himself in an unsuccessful attempt to control his ascent. “Well, I suppose we need to follow him, eh?” Dutch smiled and looked down at his hand. “What do you think?” I looked down, placing my thumb gently on my own button. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I touched down gently moments after Dutch, careful to not land on the set of legs flailing in the sand. We grabbed a leg each and ripped Enoch back into the light once more. “Next time, try letting go of the button” Dutch quipped as Enoch scowled at him. I laughed, causing Enoch to take a swipe at my head. His glove brushed my helmet, and for a split second, my vision turned blue, and the landscape was filled with icons of all shapes and colors. “Whoa!” I yelled in surprise. “Enoch, do that again.” “What, try to hit you in the face?” Enoch cocked his head in surprise but balled his fist and moved towards me. “I mean, whatever you say, boss.” I raised my hand to my helmet, and again, blue washed over the landscape. “Wait, wait!” I yelled, making Enoch hesitate. “Take your left hand and hold it up like this” I said, showing them the motion. “No Enoch, on your own head” I said, ducking his hand once more. “It’s some sort of scanner.”
“Wicked” Dutch said, turning and looking every which way. “No idea what half this stuff means, but I see one that looks like a house” he said. “Think we should head that way? Here, I think I can tag it.” Seconds later the icon lit up blue in my own HUD, and I nodded. “I think I’m going to walk it” Enoch mumbled, causing Dutch to grin and look away before Enoch caught on. “Sure Enoch, nothing like a stroll under the suns. Let’s go.” I followed them, playing with the scanner as I walked. “Hey guys, you can scan rocks and cactus and stuff. Check it out” I said, pointing at a strange cactus-like plant. “Says that one is made of carbon and sodium.” I fiddled with it some more and was just about to scan a weird looking rock when I noticed something off to my left. Years of operating in Al Mazrah had trained me for surprise threats, and my hand dropped to my hip on instinct for my trusty throwing knife, but all I grasped was sand. “Movement left” I barked, and I saw both Dutch and Enoch react the same as I had, both also finding only sand on their hips. “I see it” Dutch whispered, getting low behind a rock outcropping. “What the hell is that thing?!” Enoch exclaimed.
I had no answer to his question. I tried to wipe my eyes, my knuckles banging into my visor. A few meters away, a small creature bounced into view from behind a small bush. I tried to find the words to describe the alien hopping in front of my eyes, but all words escaped me. “Is that a….. a…” I stumbled, trying to find the right words. “It’s a…..” “It’s a living nutsack” Enoch said, matter-of-factly. I couldn’t argue with the assessment. Small, hairy, and bulbous, it was exactly that. Large eyes wobbled around as it hopped, paying absolutely no mind to us as it bounced away. “Where the hell are we, Raz?” Dutch asked, his tone serious and even. I shook my head violently, hoping that I could jar my brain back into reality. “I don’t know, Dutch. I mean, I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past few months, but this place? This is different.” I thought back, memories of the things I’d witnessed flowing through my head. I had watched Snoop Dogg stab a guy to death in the middle of the street. I saw superheroes murder operators dressed like rabbits in cold blood. Twisted monstrosities masquerading as aquatic transportation. The undead swarm across Urzikstan. We had come so far from the good old days, when we were just a simple crew of twelve taxi drivers, just trying to survive the war in our homeland and provide top tier transportation to operators in need. “Hopping sentient ballsacks” I muttered out loud, inciting a childish giggle from Enoch. “I wish Pawz was here” he said in between laughs. “You know he’d run over there, chase it down, and try to ride it.” I laughed as I motioned for them to follow me. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
For the next hour or so, we walked in silence, only the slight crunch of the sand underfoot and the strange calls of distant wildlife carried by the warm breeze interrupting my thoughts. I kept checking the distance to the marked icon, the distance shrinking at an almost unbearable pace. This was certainly a desert, but it also certainly wasn’t anywhere close to the desert of Al Mazrah. Ever since Jade had opened that first portal months ago, nothing had ever been the same, but this was certainly something different. All the other jobs we’d done, all the other worlds we’d visited, we’d strolled out of that yellow portal exactly how we’d gone in. This time, I woke up buried in sand, in a space suit, without any remembrance of where I had been before that moment. I squinted up at the twin suns high in the sky, and felt lucky that at least Dutch and Enoch were here with me. But what about the others?
As we climbed over a dune, a welcome sight shimmered in the desert heat. A small cluster of buildings baking in the sun, all grouped around a small antennae array. The metal buildings looked ragged, but flashing lights and a small generator humming away gave me hope. “Maybe someone is in there and can tell us where we are.” Dutch nodded in agreement, and we slid down the sandy hill towards the door. “Whoever is in there, they better have some Hennessy” Enoch grumbled as we trudged up the ramp. I looked for a door handle, but the door sprang open as I got close to it. A blast of cool, clean air blew sand off us in a cloud of red as we crossed over the threshold. The door closed and my eyes started to adjust to the room inside.
It was surprisingly clean inside, bordering on sterile. Ambient green lighting illuminated a small desk, some chairs, and a strange terminal on the wall. However, it wasn’t the décor that stopped me cold; it was the other occupants. From the corner, a single blue light in the visor of a humanoid robot blinked slowly as it turned to face our direction. A little over 6 foot tall, it stood up and waved in our direction. “Well, he seems friendly” Dutch remarked. “Yeah, but that guy, not so much” Enoch replied. I had noticed the other set of eyes glaring in our direction too. It was almost eight feet tall, with three horns jutting out of either side of its head. Its jaw was something out of a horror movie, and it bared its teeth at us and growled. “Zocoi ijintaixara! Haqun zadgad ins xenky!” “Did you get any of that?” Dutch asked under his breath. “Not a word” I replied.
“Hey, horn face!” Enoch called out. “You know where a guy can get a drink around here?” The lifeform rose to its feet and growled again. “Great, thanks Enoch. Now we are going to have to fight this thing” Dutch sighed. “Where’s my Bryson when you need it.” Enoch brushed past him and walked towards the hulking foe. “You deaf or something? I said, drink. Driiink.” The being slammed its fist on the table, growled out “GRAH!” and pointed towards a door across the room. Enoch looked back at me, smiled, and shrugged. “Just like Ahkdar Village, eh?” He chuckled and gave the angry alien a thumbs up. “Appreciate it, fish lips.” He walked towards the door, completely ignoring the raging alien.
We walked through the door into a sea of commotion. The room was filled with alien creatures, all shouting and generally having a good time. In the middle of the room was, in fact, a bar. “About time” Enoch said, reaching up to unlatch his helmet. I grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What are you doing? You have no idea if we can breathe in here!” Enoch rolled his eyes and pointed over towards a booth in the corner. “They look fine, boss.” He shook me off and removed his helmet while I focused on the booth. “It can’t be” I said in shock. “Is that…..”
“Compton!” Dutch shouted across the crowded room, and Compton looked up and noticed us. “Hey buddy!” Compton yelled back. “You guys finally made it!” A cheer rose up from the corner, and I saw Alex and Cowboy jump up from their seats, raising ornate glasses in our direction. “Well, I’ll be damned” I declared happily, taking off my own helmet and waving at them. “I’ll see what sort of drinks they have here, Raz.” Dutch nodded at me and took off his helmet, holding it out. “I’ll meet you over there.” I took it and pushed through the crowd towards the crew, elated to see something recognizable in this strange place. I was halfway across the room, struggling to get through the crowd when I heard Kilroy’s gruff voice. “Hey boss, glad to see you found us.” I looked around, searching for him. “Kilroy?” “Right here, Raz” he said. “What, where…?” I started to say, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shin. “Oww!” I yelled, Dropping Dutch’s helmet and grabbing my leg on instinct. It was then I noticed a small, green, reptile-like creature standing next to me. It was wearing a white hood and holding a red staff, and barely stood taller than my waist. “What was that about, stranger?” I asserted, the pain in my leg showing in my voice. “That was about getting your attention” Kilroy’s voice growled. The little creature looked up at me, its large black eyes blinking slowly. “What’s the matter Raz, never seen a Gek before?” He turned and walked towards the others, his staff shimmering red as he walked. “Wait, what? Kilroy? Is that you?” I struggled to follow him through the crowd towards the corner.
“Boss, you made it!” Alex’s face was flushed, his tone jovial. He had a large mug of a blue, frothy liquid, and took a big gulp of it, his mustache filled with blue bubbles. Beside him, Compton and Maze sat laughing, also holding mugs of strange colored drinks. “About time you showed up, boss.” Compton smirked at me and took another drink. “We were looking everywhere for you.” I scowled at him and replied “Yeah, looks like you guys were looking really hard.” “Have you been outside, Raz? It’s super hot out there. We needed to hydrate!” Maze burped and slammed down her empty glass. “Plus, in case you didn’t notice, things are a bit, shall we say, “different” around here.” Dutch bumped my arm and handed me my own mug, the orange liquid seeming to smoke slightly. “Bartender said something about it killing anyone but a true leader.” He shrugged and gave me a sly smile. “So, bottom’s up, eh boss?” He clinked his purple exiler with mine and took a large slug of it. “Now that is refreshing! I’m going to need a few more of these!” He waved over to the bartender as I sat down next to Cowboy.
“Strangest place we’ve ever been, huh boss” Cowboy drawled, pushing aside a small stack of empty glasses. “Jade is over in the other room, talking to some science types. He said he’d try to figure out what happened, how we ended up here.” “Yeah, how did we end up here, Raz?” Maze’s tone was as sharp as ever. “You said we were headed to Urzikstan for some R&R, and next thing I know, I’m up to my ears in sand.” I ran my fingers through my mustache, but all I could do is shrug. “Last I remember, I was booking our room at the Akhdar Hotel in Urzikstan, and Pawz came in, telling me I had to come see……” I ran the memory back through my head but stopped suddenly. “Wait, Pawz. Where is Pawz?” Alex laughed and pointed to a booth near ours. “He’s over there.”
I looked over, and saw another Gek standing on the table, dancing furiously while surrounded by a crowd of aliens. I caught sight of Nitwit clapping and laughing, and the orange fur of a large cat next to him. “Well, seems Aurora fits in well with this crowd, at least” I chuckled as I watched the commotion. “But I don’t see Pawz.” “Yes, you do, boss.” Kilroy appeared at the table and struggled to climb his way up into a chair. “I’m not the only one who ended up looking like this. Seems we just have a different way of coping with it.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small pouch and a pipe. He filled the pipe with a sticky green bud and lit it. “Nip Nip” he said casually, taking a puff and holding it out to me. “Here.” I took the pipe and took a draw, enjoying the smoothness of the smoke and the sweet, foreign flavors. I immediately felt at ease and sank into my chair. “Yeah, that’s nice, Kilroy. That’s real nice….”
_____
“That Nip Nip is a good time, eh?” Dutch’s voice seemed far off as I blinked, trying hard to open my eyes. The room was quiet, the lights dark and mellow. “What happened, Dutch?” My head was pounding and my vision hazy. “Well, best we can tell, you aren’t supposed to mix those drinks with that bud.” My head certainly agreed with that fact, but I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. The door near me opened and Jade walked into the room, holding a holo-tablet and looking pleased. “Welcome back to the land of the living, boss. Sleep well?” He laughed and threw me a small package. “Superoxide crystals” he said matter-of-factly. “It’ll get you back to normal within a minute or two.” I ripped open the pack and turned over the bright red crystals in my hand. “You sure about this?” Jade laughed and nodded. “I’m no doctor, but I’m the best medic you know, aren’t I?” I couldn’t argue with that, so down the hatch they went.
“So, tell me what you know, Jade.” I leaned against the wall and felt the warmth from the crystals working its way through my body. He wasn’t wrong, I already felt better. “Well, I can’t really answer the how” he declared with a shrug, “but I can answer the where.” He punched some keys on his holo-tablet and a hologram of a gray and blue planet surrounded with rings popped up in front of me. “We are on a planet named Hios XVI, part of the Livesys-Egur system.” I examined the hologram, poking at the image with my finger. “Ok. And how far is that from home, exactly?” Jade sighed. “Well boss, I can’t answer that.” He tapped a few more times, and suddenly, our surroundings lit up with color. A sea of stars exploded out all around us, tiny balls of light filling the entire room. Jade pointed at one of them right in the middle of the room. “This one here? This is where we are.” He rotated the stars with his hands, all of them spinning around me. “Now, I only know enough Gek to mostly get my point across, and even less of the Korvax language, but nobody around here has ever heard of Earth, much less Al Mazrah.”
I gazed around the room, feeling miniscule among all these points of light. “So, you are telling me, each one of these is a star system?” I waved my arms slowly around the room. “Each one surrounded by planets, each one unique?” Jade nodded slowly. “Most of the lifeforms here came from somewhere else, some from millions of light years away. One of the Korvax I was speaking with last night said that he was drawn to this system three days ago. An “Anomaly” appeared and caused a wave of energy across their Convergence.” “Korvax?” I inquired, feeling lost. “The robot dudes.” Jade looked at me like I was a child. .” He walked over towards the corner where Pawz lay sleeping under a heat lamp, his green scales rising and falling as he snored and poked at a blue dot. It expanded, displaying 4 planets slowly revolving around it. “The Korvax also detected an Anomaly in this system, at the EXACT same time as the one in this system.” I knew he was trying to make a point, but what that was, I hadn’t the slightest idea. His smug smirk let me know that he knew it, too. “What do you think caused the Anomaly here, boss?” I shrugged. “Sentient alien ballsacks?” He laughed and swiped his tablet, the stars instantly disappearing, and the room suddenly feeling quite dark. “No Raz. Us.”
Dutch and Enoch walked into the room, laughing between themselves. They saw us and walked over. “Hey Raz, we’ve got a bet going. You want in?” Enoch snickered and pointed over at Pawz. “He totally lays eggs, right?” He chuckled and made a lewd motion mimicking the process. “I’m feeling some omelets, boss.” Dutch shook his head and sighed. “I tried to tell him. Look at the scales. He walks on two legs. Obviously, an advanced form of reptile. He’d birth live young, if he can even reproduce.” Enoch huffed. “I saw him dancing last night. Whatever the Gek are, they definitely fuc…”
“Raz! You need to get out here!” Nitwit’s shouts carried through from the next room. “Raz, seriously, hurry up!” I could hear rampant excitement in his voice. “We’ll have to settle your little debate later, gentlemen.” I waved at them to follow me. “Although, Dutch is probably right. You know that Enoch. Dutch is always right.” I heard Enoch elbow Dutch hard in the ribs, likely attempting to taper the smug smile radiating from under his mustache. I grabbed my helmet and threw Enoch’s at him, hitting him right in the chest, knocking him backward. “Think fast, egg man.” Laughing, I walked out into the hot suns and over towards a set of small outbuildings on the other side of the compound. I saw Nitwit at the doorway of the closer building, waving us over excitedly, his metal legs gleaming in the sunlight. “Hurry, hurry! You aren’t going to believe it!”
We walked into the cramped room and found the entire crew standing together, all talking enthusiastically. “Hey boss, check it out!” Cowboy pointed at the table, where I noticed a line of twelve strange-looking cards, all glowing different colors. “Awesome, right Raz?” Cowboy high-fived Alex, both looking like they just won first prize at the Sattiq Caves talent show. Even Maze looked jovial, pointing out the pink one. “That one is mine. Try and take it, and I will cut you, boss.” I put both my hands up in mock defense. “Whatever it is, it’s yours, Maze.” I walked to the table, picking one up, surprised at how heavy it was for its size. “Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are they?” Pawz laughed and looked up at me. “Keys, boss. They are keys!” “Keys to what?” Pawz pointed towards the window where Aurora was curled up in the sunlight. “Those!” I walked over and glanced outside, struggling to focus through the assault of the suns. “Space ships, Raz!” Nitwit shouted with another whoop. “One for each of us!” I saw the gleam of metal, a row of sultry futuristic ships, all parked behind the compound. “Ships?” I asked softly. Where did we get the money for ships?” I hadn’t been here long, and didn’t know a lot, but I knew twelve starships weren’t free, no matter who you were. “From Kilroy, boss” Aurora replied softly, yawning, and stretching his paws in the sun.
“Kilroy?” I turned and looked for him, looking for the tall, chiseled paratrooper I knew, again surprised at the small Gek swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on a chair in the corner. He was puffing on his pipe, the sweet smell of Nip Nip slowly permeating the room. “How, Kilroy?” He smiled and held up his pipe. “Turns out, I have a green thumb, Raz.” He chuckled, holding out his green hand, and took another drag. “And Nip Nip seems to be quite the commodity around here, quite profitable.” He threw a small pouch to me. I turned it over in my hands, the sweet sticky smell radiating through it. I noticed the logo and read the name out loud. “IGE Best Buds: We Cultivate Connections.” Kilroy clicked his beak and laughed. “The IGE part was your idea, Raz.” “My idea?” I asked, confused yet again. “I mean, I sort of remember smoking your Nip Nip, and drinking an orange liquid that tasted strangely like garlic bread, but IGE?” I looked around, my entire crew of Al Mazrah Taxi Service drivers around me, looking happier than I’d seen them in months. “What does IGE stand for?”
“Intergalactic Explorers!” They all answered in unison, their voices full of elation. Alex clapped me on the back and shook my hand. “It’s a great name, boss. Wherever we explore, I’ve got your back.” I smiled and took in the moment, seeing the crew laugh and joke together. “Intergalactic Explorers. Ok then.” I pointed down at the table. “Well, which one is mine?” Kilroy stood up and struggled to reach the cards, eventually pushing the yellow one my way. “As if you had to ask, boss.” He laughed and shuffled towards the door. “Put your helmets on, ya meatbags, and let’s go!” He and Pawz walked out chortling to themselves while the rest of us raced to get our helmets on before all the air in the room followed them out.
Back in the sunshine, we jogged through the sand towards the line of star ships. As we got closer, I was struck with the variety of each of the ships. All different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each with distinctly unique style. I watched as each member of the crew found the ship that matched their key cards and heard the sharp hisses as canopies opened. I saw the nose of a bright yellow ship, and walked up to it, feeling the key card hum in my hand as I approached. It was a sleek craft, much like a fighter jet, with a set of horizontal wings flanked by another set pitched 45 degrees above them. Behind the sleek cockpit, raising high into the air, a dorsal-style fin tipped with red completed the aggressive look. “Suits you well, boss” Kilroy said from behind me. I ran my glove against the shiny metal of the nose and nodded. “It’s quite the upgrade from my LTV, I’ll give you that.” I grabbed the handles and climbed my way into the cockpit, gazing over the various controls. The HUD in my visor lit up, displaying instructions to me, and within a minute, I had the ship ready to fly. Next to me, Compton gave me a thumbs up and yelled “Boss, turn to channel 6.9!” as he closed his cockpit. “I work with children” I muttered to myself, turning the comms channel to the correct frequency, and hearing it crackle to life.
“… around the planet before you even get off the ground, kid.” Enoch’s gruff voice came over on comms. “You wish, Grandpa!” Jade fired back, laughing. “We’ll get halfway there, and you’ll get distracted by something shiny, watch.” I turned down the volume as the laughter grew. After it died down, I keyed the mic button and addressed the crew.
“I don’t know where we are. I don’t know how we got here. And most importantly, I don’t know how we are going to get home.” I paused, and the line stayed quiet. “All I do know is that I’m happy we are all here together. In Al Mazrah, we had each other’s backs. We followed the Code, and we stayed the course, no matter what happened.” “Damn straight” Dutch replied. “We’re all in this together, boss” Alex said. “I probably can’t crash this, right Raz?” Nitwit asked. I laughed and fired up the engines. “I have no idea, Nit. But let’s not find out right away, ok?” I pushed the throttle forward and felt the ship shake and start to rise off the ground. “Let’s do this!” I yelled and pulled back on the stick, guiding the starship skyward, into the unknown.
“I could get used to this” I said to myself as I banked the ship hard to the left, pulling back on the stick as hard as I could. I could see Compton high to my right, Maze next to him, her pink Explorer slicing through the low clouds. “Yee haw!” Cowboy yelled as he burst into my vision, flying across my left wing, upside down, before rolling over and pulling hard straight up toward the stars. I followed him skyward, knowing that the maneuver would have pushed all the blood in my body into my toes if I tried it on Earth. I increased the throttle to maximum, climbing vertically at dizzying speeds. As my altitude increased, my speed followed. I glanced left, and I could see Alex, Nitwit, and Aurora off my left wing. To my right, Compton and Maze were joined by Jade and Pawz. Above me, I could see Dutch and Kilroy streaking towards the stars in formation with Cowboy. I smiled, taking in the awesome scene all around me. Eleven starships, headed into the beyond, on a new adventure…. “Wait, eleven?” I said out loud. “Fuck. Enoch!” I keyed the mic. “Enoch, where are you?”
“Oh, hey Raz.” Enoch’s sheepish voice answered my question before he could. “Let me guess” I replied. “You were about to take off, and you saw something shiny on the ground, so you hopped out to take a look, didn’t you.” An intense red light started to form around the ships as we pushed against the upper reaches of the atmosphere. “If you already knew, why did you ask?” Enoch responded quietly. “At your leisure, Enoch.” Compton’s voice cracked as he fought back a laugh. “Shut up, Compton, I’m coming.”
At that moment, we punched through the atmosphere, and for the first time in my life, I was in space. Millions of stars spread all around me, the limitless universe seeming to bare its soul in front of my eyes. “Wow…” I breathed, taking it in. In that moment, I felt small, insignificant. “We’re a long way from home, boss.” Dutch’s voice, while calm as ever, hinted that even he was feeling the weight of the moment. I pulled back on the throttle, slowing my ship down to a crawl, both to wait for Enoch, and to simply drink in the view. I thought back to Al Mazrah, all the good times. The fun customers, the stories, the adventures. I thought of the bad times, of Scuba Steve, The Chemist, The Bombmaker, the weight of putting bullets into those I once called friends. The faces of the friends we made along the way floated among the stars as I remembered then. The Lone Wolf, ever silent, his aim true. Ice Tiger, always there with intel and a heavy chopper whenever we called. Bizzle, our dear old landlord, always complaining, but never letting us down when we needed him. Dr. Yobay, using her questionable science to save Nitwit’s life and steal our hearts. “Will we ever see them again?” I asked aloud. “Jeez, Raz, I’m here, ok?” Enoch grumbled, snapping me back to the present as he joined in formation.
“So what now, Raz?” Dutch asked, moving into position at my wing. I thought for a moment before replying. “Jade said the Korvax detected two Anomalies the day we showed up here. That’s the only thing I can think to do. We need to get to the location of the other one.” It was the only logical course of action I had. “If our arrival caused an event an entire race of robots could detect, we’re bound to find something at the other one.” “Good enough for me” Alex said. “How do we get there?” “Good question.” One I didn’t have the answer to. The comms crackled. “I have some contacts I can reach out to, Raz. If we visit the space station, I can make some calls.” Kilroy’s matter-of-fact tone gave me some confidence, but also a fair number of questions. “Contacts? We’ve been here for three days!” I heard him click his beak. “That’s a long time to the Gek, boss. Trust me.” I heard what sounded like an extremely large pull on his pipe, and he broke formation. “It’s this way. Enoch. Hey, Enoch. This way.”
I guided my starship towards the blue light emanating from the airlock, the space station looming like an enormous floating sphere in front of me. I felt the controls go limp as the ship’s autopilot guided me into the hangar with computerized precision. The sterile landing bay glowed blue, and my ship touched down gently, rotating around to face the airlock, allowing me to watch the procession of The Intergalactic Explorers as their ships touched down one by one around me. I reached up and released the canopy locks, hearing the hiss as it raised to let me out. I saw Kilroy running up the ramp to my left and moved to follow him, the crew behind me. When I got to the top, I saw him already sitting with another Gek, both swinging their feet as they talked quietly in their chairs. “I’m going to try to find a drink” Maze said, walking off towards a red door. “Yeah, a drink sounds nice” Cowboy said, and followed her. “I hope they have milk” Aurora added as he hurried after them. I decided to wait for Kilroy, and leaned against the wall, taking in my surroundings. All manner of creatures wandered the space station, dominated by Gek, Korvax, and another brutally ugly race of creatures. I beckoned Jade over and pointed at a particularly ugly example. “Jade, what are those things?” He followed my finger and nodded. “Ah. Those are Vy’keen. Not particularly friendly, them.” He moved closer, whispering to me. “Apparently, long ago, they were at war with the Aerons, some sort of machine race. Victory was close, and then the Gek came along and backstabbed them.” He looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “They are pretty butthurt about it. They don’t really like anyone these days. Always talking about honor and glory in battle.” He grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with conviction. “I’d give them a wide berth, Raz. Don’t want to start trouble with them.” He stared until I nodded in agreement and walked off.
I glanced back over at Kilroy and saw him waving at me to come over. The Gek he was talking to slid off his chair as I approached, and said “Ufarv utroym, lidkorjah” as he walked off. “What’s that mean, exactly?” Kilroy chuckled. “It means “Good Luck” more or less.” He pulled out his holo-tablet and held it out. “My contact says the Anomaly we are looking for happened here, which matches what Jade learned back on Hios XVI.” His beak clicked as he keyed in some words I didn’t recognize. “It’s about 125,000 light years from us.” “Is that far?” I asked, feeling like I should know. “It’s not exactly close, but it could be worse. We could probably make it in a few months, give or take.” He shut down the tablet and slid to the floor. “Or, we could take a shortcut….”
“A shortcut?” His tone didn’t fill me with confidence. “Sounds ominous. What’s the catch?” Kilroy’s reptilian face was impossible to read. “There’s a system near here named Charon Major. Reports are, there’s a massive black hole there.” “A black hole? That already seems like a bad idea.” Kilroy shrugged. “Yeah, probably. However, if the reports can be believed, if you fly into it, you’ll come out a few thousand light years from our goal. We could be there in a day or two, tops.” I thought about it for a second. “Your contact confirmed this intel?” Kilroy nodded. “He knows of 5 vessels that went into it. Two of them reported back from the same star system, very close to our goal.” “And the other three?” Kilroy shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the other three.” I glared at him. “Don’t worry about them?” Kilroy just looked at me, his large black eyes blinking slowly. “You spent your life riding around a warzone in a Chop Top, with zero guns, asking heavily armored mercenaries if they needed rides. You aren’t scared of a little bit of concentrated gravity, are you?” He laughed and walked towards the bar. “Think about it!”
“What a day” I muttered to myself as I looked out over the hangar. I gazed at my yellow fighter, parked there, waiting to take me on untold adventures. I heard cheering from the next room and smiled. “Seems like the crew is having fun, so screw it, why not” I said to myself, smiling. Back home in Al Mazrah, it always was about the journey, not the destination. “Catch a Ride…. In Space!” I said to nobody in particular. I turned to join the crew, took a step, and crashed right into an enormous Vy’keen. He roared in annoyance and yelled in garbled speech. “Grah! Filthy ezhejiuan Interloper! Ere iexin iki!” He pushed me and roared again, causing me to stumble into the railing. I brushed off my space suit and stood my ground. “What’s your problem, Troll Face? We got beef?” I pushed him into a set of chairs. “I’ve handled far worse than you, friend. Take a hike.” I couldn’t tell if he understood my words, but he certainly understood the tone. He rose up, eyes full of rage. “Irk Tuan!” he yelled as he charged at me.
With one fluid motion, I stepped to the side and shoved the charging Vy’keen hard in the back, causing him to flail into the hangar railing, flying over it and down into the hangar below. I heard a sickening crunch, followed by silence. Glancing over the railing, a foreign but somehow familiar scene before me. The Vy’keen lay dead, a pool of blood spreading over the cold floor. “Well, that’s probably going to cause some issues for us, boss” Enoch said as he and Compton walked over, peering down at the body. “Honestly seemed a bit too easy” Compton remarked. “No wonder they lost the war.” I shrugged and walked towards the ramp, pointing back towards the red door. “Go get the crew. We should probably leave. Now.” They nodded and jogged off towards the next room. I hopped in my ship, looking over at the body laying still on the floor. “Who’s the filthy interloper now, punk” I thought to myself with a smile. I saw the crew filing down the ramp to their ships, climbing in and firing up their engines. My comms sprang to life right away. “So boss, you killed a dude already?” Pawz sounded pleased. “He’s still got it” Cowboy added.
“Nobody messes with the Intergalactic Explorers” I said. “Not the filthy Vy’keen, not space pirates, not these “Sentinels” we keep hearing about.” I felt my pulse quicken, felt the same rush of adrenaline I used to get when sniper rounds would start pinging off my LTV. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here. But I can promise you all one thing. This galaxy? They’ll remember us.”
I slammed the thrusters to full power, and shot out of the space station, my crew of simple taxi drivers at my side. “On Earth, we were the Al Mazrah Taxi Service. Here, in the wide-open galaxy we are reborn!” I felt the joy, the pride, and the excitement radiating through me as I shouted at the stars. “We are the Intergalactic Explorers!”

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2024.03.22 17:35 RazTheExplorer The Chronicles of the AMTS - Terminus Dawn

The soft scratching of sand whirling past my visor pulled me from the darkness. I opened my eyes, the blinding lights high in the sky assaulting my vision. I raised my arm to shield myself from suns. “Wait, suns?” I thought to myself, noticing the glove on my hand for the first time as I squinted at the sky. I wiped the sand from my helmet and tried to stand up. My body was stiff, so stiff it was hard to even move my legs. Looking down, I realized I was half buried in the hot sand. “Well, that explains that” I muttered to myself, digging myself out. The desert expanse stretched endlessly in all directions, barren and empty. I freed myself and stood up, feeling strangely light on my feet. I heard a loud groan to my right, and I saw a gloved hand thrust out from the dune. I ran over and pulled hard, and Dutch materialized out of the sand, coughing.
“Hey Raz, thanks for that. What the hell happened?” he said, brushing himself off and looking around. “Pawz said we were going to the Oasis for a bonfire and some drinks.” I shrugged and motioned to the sky. “I think we might have taken the wrong portal or something. Either I hit my head very hard, or there are two suns up there.” Dutch raised up his hand, looked up, and frowned. “Yeah, there are two up there.” He reached to stroke his majestic mustache out of habit and got blocked by his helmet. “I don’t recall wearing this goofy space suit either.” I looked at his suit, taking in the details for the first time. I poked at his chest, picking at the stitching, and knocking my knuckles on the armor plating. I spun him around to examine the pack strapped to his back. “Yeah, these are definitely space suits. Airtight, body armor, and it seems like there is some sort of thruster at the bottom of this pack…”
“Yeah, yours too, boss” he replied, looking at the backpack strapped to me. “Where the hell are we?” I started to reply, but a flash of red light in the distance cut me off. Amid a plume of smoke, we saw something rocket off the ground and head towards us with insane speed. “Duck and cover!” Dutch yelled, pushing me to the ground. As I hit the deck, I turned and watched the projectile slam into the sand a few feet from us. “You good, Dutch?” I yelled as I got up and cautiously moved closer to the impact site. “Yeah, I’m good” he growled as he dusted himself off yet again. “Is that….. Is that a pair of legs?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was in fact a pair of legs, kicking furiously in the air, hopelessly trying to free themselves from the sand. “Give me a hand, Dutch” I said as I grabbed one of them and pulled. Dutch grabbed the other and with one hard tug, a man with a glorious mustache in an identical spacesuit came out of the sand. “Did you guys see that? I was flying!” Enoch laughed as he got to his feet. “Friggin’ jetpacks, Raz!” I laughed and grabbed him. “Enoch, you crazy bastard! Man, am I glad to see you!” Dutch chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “I should have guessed. If anyone was going to turn themselves into a rocket, it’d be you.” Enoch smiled and looked around. “This isn’t Al Mazrah, boss. Where the hell are we?” I shrugged. “Beats me, man. But we need to find the others. Before you attempted to kamikaze us, what do you remember?”
Enoch pointed over to a distant dune. “I woke up half buried in sand over there. I didn’t see anyone else, and then I noticed this little button here.” He held up his hand and showed us a red button. “See? I pressed it, and here I am.” He pressed the button, and we were immediately engulfed in sand and smoke, and he launched up into the air. “Whoops!” he yelled as he rocketed into the sky, twisting himself in an unsuccessful attempt to control his ascent. “Well, I suppose we need to follow him, eh?” Dutch smiled and looked down at his hand. “What do you think?” I looked down, placing my thumb gently on my own button. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
I touched down gently moments after Dutch, careful to not land on the set of legs flailing in the sand. We grabbed a leg each and ripped Enoch back into the light once more. “Next time, try letting go of the button” Dutch quipped as Enoch scowled at him. I laughed, causing Enoch to take a swipe at my head. His glove brushed my helmet, and for a split second, my vision turned blue, and the landscape was filled with icons of all shapes and colors. “Whoa!” I yelled in surprise. “Enoch, do that again.” “What, try to hit you in the face?” Enoch cocked his head in surprise but balled his fist and moved towards me. “I mean, whatever you say, boss.” I raised my hand to my helmet, and again, blue washed over the landscape. “Wait, wait!” I yelled, making Enoch hesitate. “Take your left hand and hold it up like this” I said, showing them the motion. “No Enoch, on your own head” I said, ducking his hand once more. “It’s some sort of scanner.”
“Wicked” Dutch said, turning and looking every which way. “No idea what half this stuff means, but I see one that looks like a house” he said. “Think we should head that way? Here, I think I can tag it.” Seconds later the icon lit up blue in my own HUD, and I nodded. “I think I’m going to walk it” Enoch mumbled, causing Dutch to grin and look away before Enoch caught on. “Sure Enoch, nothing like a stroll under the suns. Let’s go.” I followed them, playing with the scanner as I walked. “Hey guys, you can scan rocks and cactus and stuff. Check it out” I said, pointing at a strange cactus-like plant. “Says that one is made of carbon and sodium.” I fiddled with it some more and was just about to scan a weird looking rock when I noticed something off to my left. Years of operating in Al Mazrah had trained me for surprise threats, and my hand dropped to my hip on instinct for my trusty throwing knife, but all I grasped was sand. “Movement left” I barked, and I saw both Dutch and Enoch react the same as I had, both also finding only sand on their hips. “I see it” Dutch whispered, getting low behind a rock outcropping. “What the hell is that thing?!” Enoch exclaimed.
I had no answer to his question. I tried to wipe my eyes, my knuckles banging into my visor. A few meters away, a small creature bounced into view from behind a small bush. I tried to find the words to describe the alien hopping in front of my eyes, but all words escaped me. “Is that a….. a…” I stumbled, trying to find the right words. “It’s a…..” “It’s a living nutsack” Enoch said, matter-of-factly. I couldn’t argue with the assessment. Small, hairy, and bulbous, it was exactly that. Large eyes wobbled around as it hopped, paying absolutely no mind to us as it bounced away. “Where the hell are we, Raz?” Dutch asked, his tone serious and even. I shook my head violently, hoping that I could jar my brain back into reality. “I don’t know, Dutch. I mean, I’ve seen some weird stuff in the past few months, but this place? This is different.” I thought back, memories of the things I’d witnessed flowing through my head. I had watched Snoop Dogg stab a guy to death in the middle of the street. I saw superheroes murder operators dressed like rabbits in cold blood. Twisted monstrosities masquerading as aquatic transportation. The undead swarm across Urzikstan. We had come so far from the good old days, when we were just a simple crew of twelve taxi drivers, just trying to survive the war in our homeland and provide top tier transportation to operators in need. “Hopping sentient ballsacks” I muttered out loud, inciting a childish giggle from Enoch. “I wish Pawz was here” he said in between laughs. “You know he’d run over there, chase it down, and try to ride it.” I laughed as I motioned for them to follow me. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
For the next hour or so, we walked in silence, only the slight crunch of the sand underfoot and the strange calls of distant wildlife carried by the warm breeze interrupting my thoughts. I kept checking the distance to the marked icon, the distance shrinking at an almost unbearable pace. This was certainly a desert, but it also certainly wasn’t anywhere close to the desert of Al Mazrah. Ever since Jade had opened that first portal months ago, nothing had ever been the same, but this was certainly something different. All the other jobs we’d done, all the other worlds we’d visited, we’d strolled out of that yellow portal exactly how we’d gone in. This time, I woke up buried in sand, in a space suit, without any remembrance of where I had been before that moment. I squinted up at the twin suns high in the sky, and felt lucky that at least Dutch and Enoch were here with me. But what about the others?
As we climbed over a dune, a welcome sight shimmered in the desert heat. A small cluster of buildings baking in the sun, all grouped around a small antennae array. The metal buildings looked ragged, but flashing lights and a small generator humming away gave me hope. “Maybe someone is in there and can tell us where we are.” Dutch nodded in agreement, and we slid down the sandy hill towards the door. “Whoever is in there, they better have some Hennessy” Enoch grumbled as we trudged up the ramp. I looked for a door handle, but the door sprang open as I got close to it. A blast of cool, clean air blew sand off us in a cloud of red as we crossed over the threshold. The door closed and my eyes started to adjust to the room inside.
It was surprisingly clean inside, bordering on sterile. Ambient green lighting illuminated a small desk, some chairs, and a strange terminal on the wall. However, it wasn’t the décor that stopped me cold; it was the other occupants. From the corner, a single blue light in the visor of a humanoid robot blinked slowly as it turned to face our direction. A little over 6 foot tall, it stood up and waved in our direction. “Well, he seems friendly” Dutch remarked. “Yeah, but that guy, not so much” Enoch replied. I had noticed the other set of eyes glaring in our direction too. It was almost eight feet tall, with three horns jutting out of either side of its head. Its jaw was something out of a horror movie, and it bared its teeth at us and growled. “Zocoi ijintaixara! Haqun zadgad ins xenky!” “Did you get any of that?” Dutch asked under his breath. “Not a word” I replied.
“Hey, horn face!” Enoch called out. “You know where a guy can get a drink around here?” The lifeform rose to its feet and growled again. “Great, thanks Enoch. Now we are going to have to fight this thing” Dutch sighed. “Where’s my Bryson when you need it.” Enoch brushed past him and walked towards the hulking foe. “You deaf or something? I said, drink. Driiink.” The being slammed its fist on the table, growled out “GRAH!” and pointed towards a door across the room. Enoch looked back at me, smiled, and shrugged. “Just like Ahkdar Village, eh?” He chuckled and gave the angry alien a thumbs up. “Appreciate it, fish lips.” He walked towards the door, completely ignoring the raging alien.
We walked through the door into a sea of commotion. The room was filled with alien creatures, all shouting and generally having a good time. In the middle of the room was, in fact, a bar. “About time” Enoch said, reaching up to unlatch his helmet. I grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What are you doing? You have no idea if we can breathe in here!” Enoch rolled his eyes and pointed over towards a booth in the corner. “They look fine, boss.” He shook me off and removed his helmet while I focused on the booth. “It can’t be” I said in shock. “Is that…..”
“Compton!” Dutch shouted across the crowded room, and Compton looked up and noticed us. “Hey buddy!” Compton yelled back. “You guys finally made it!” A cheer rose up from the corner, and I saw Alex and Cowboy jump up from their seats, raising ornate glasses in our direction. “Well, I’ll be damned” I declared happily, taking off my own helmet and waving at them. “I’ll see what sort of drinks they have here, Raz.” Dutch nodded at me and took off his helmet, holding it out. “I’ll meet you over there.” I took it and pushed through the crowd towards the crew, elated to see something recognizable in this strange place. I was halfway across the room, struggling to get through the crowd when I heard Kilroy’s gruff voice. “Hey boss, glad to see you found us.” I looked around, searching for him. “Kilroy?” “Right here, Raz” he said. “What, where…?” I started to say, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in my shin. “Oww!” I yelled, Dropping Dutch’s helmet and grabbing my leg on instinct. It was then I noticed a small, green, reptile-like creature standing next to me. It was wearing a white hood and holding a red staff, and barely stood taller than my waist. “What was that about, stranger?” I asserted, the pain in my leg showing in my voice. “That was about getting your attention” Kilroy’s voice growled. The little creature looked up at me, its large black eyes blinking slowly. “What’s the matter Raz, never seen a Gek before?” He turned and walked towards the others, his staff shimmering red as he walked. “Wait, what? Kilroy? Is that you?” I struggled to follow him through the crowd towards the corner.
“Boss, you made it!” Alex’s face was flushed, his tone jovial. He had a large mug of a blue, frothy liquid, and took a big gulp of it, his mustache filled with blue bubbles. Beside him, Compton and Maze sat laughing, also holding mugs of strange colored drinks. “About time you showed up, boss.” Compton smirked at me and took another drink. “We were looking everywhere for you.” I scowled at him and replied “Yeah, looks like you guys were looking really hard.” “Have you been outside, Raz? It’s super hot out there. We needed to hydrate!” Maze burped and slammed down her empty glass. “Plus, in case you didn’t notice, things are a bit, shall we say, “different” around here.” Dutch bumped my arm and handed me my own mug, the orange liquid seeming to smoke slightly. “Bartender said something about it killing anyone but a true leader.” He shrugged and gave me a sly smile. “So, bottom’s up, eh boss?” He clinked his purple exiler with mine and took a large slug of it. “Now that is refreshing! I’m going to need a few more of these!” He waved over to the bartender as I sat down next to Cowboy.
“Strangest place we’ve ever been, huh boss” Cowboy drawled, pushing aside a small stack of empty glasses. “Jade is over in the other room, talking to some science types. He said he’d try to figure out what happened, how we ended up here.” “Yeah, how did we end up here, Raz?” Maze’s tone was as sharp as ever. “You said we were headed to Urzikstan for some R&R, and next thing I know, I’m up to my ears in sand.” I ran my fingers through my mustache, but all I could do is shrug. “Last I remember, I was booking our room at the Akhdar Hotel in Urzikstan, and Pawz came in, telling me I had to come see……” I ran the memory back through my head but stopped suddenly. “Wait, Pawz. Where is Pawz?” Alex laughed and pointed to a booth near ours. “He’s over there.”
I looked over, and saw another Gek standing on the table, dancing furiously while surrounded by a crowd of aliens. I caught sight of Nitwit clapping and laughing, and the orange fur of a large cat next to him. “Well, seems Aurora fits in well with this crowd, at least” I chuckled as I watched the commotion. “But I don’t see Pawz.” “Yes, you do, boss.” Kilroy appeared at the table and struggled to climb his way up into a chair. “I’m not the only one who ended up looking like this. Seems we just have a different way of coping with it.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small pouch and a pipe. He filled the pipe with a sticky green bud and lit it. “Nip Nip” he said casually, taking a puff and holding it out to me. “Here.” I took the pipe and took a draw, enjoying the smoothness of the smoke and the sweet, foreign flavors. I immediately felt at ease and sank into my chair. “Yeah, that’s nice, Kilroy. That’s real nice….”
______
“That Nip Nip is a good time, eh?” Dutch’s voice seemed far off as I blinked, trying hard to open my eyes. The room was quiet, the lights dark and mellow. “What happened, Dutch?” My head was pounding and my vision hazy. “Well, best we can tell, you aren’t supposed to mix those drinks with that bud.” My head certainly agreed with that fact, but I pulled myself to my feet and looked around. The door near me opened and Jade walked into the room, holding a holo-tablet and looking pleased. “Welcome back to the land of the living, boss. Sleep well?” He laughed and threw me a small package. “Superoxide crystals” he said matter-of-factly. “It’ll get you back to normal within a minute or two.” I ripped open the pack and turned over the bright red crystals in my hand. “You sure about this?” Jade laughed and nodded. “I’m no doctor, but I’m the best medic you know, aren’t I?” I couldn’t argue with that, so down the hatch they went.
“So, tell me what you know, Jade.” I leaned against the wall and felt the warmth from the crystals working its way through my body. He wasn’t wrong, I already felt better. “Well, I can’t really answer the how” he declared with a shrug, “but I can answer the where.” He punched some keys on his holo-tablet and a hologram of a gray and blue planet surrounded with rings popped up in front of me. “We are on a planet named Hios XVI, part of the Livesys-Egur system.” I examined the hologram, poking at the image with my finger. “Ok. And how far is that from home, exactly?” Jade sighed. “Well boss, I can’t answer that.” He tapped a few more times, and suddenly, our surroundings lit up with color. A sea of stars exploded out all around us, tiny balls of light filling the entire room. Jade pointed at one of them right in the middle of the room. “This one here? This is where we are.” He rotated the stars with his hands, all of them spinning around me. “Now, I only know enough Gek to mostly get my point across, and even less of the Korvax language, but nobody around here has ever heard of Earth, much less Al Mazrah.”
I gazed around the room, feeling miniscule among all these points of light. “So, you are telling me, each one of these is a star system?” I waved my arms slowly around the room. “Each one surrounded by planets, each one unique?” Jade nodded slowly. “Most of the lifeforms here came from somewhere else, some from millions of light years away. One of the Korvax I was speaking with last night said that he was drawn to this system three days ago. An “Anomaly” appeared and caused a wave of energy across their Convergence.” “Korvax?” I inquired, feeling lost. “The robot dudes.” Jade looked at me like I was a child. .” He walked over towards the corner where Pawz lay sleeping under a heat lamp, his green scales rising and falling as he snored and poked at a blue dot. It expanded, displaying 4 planets slowly revolving around it. “The Korvax also detected an Anomaly in this system, at the EXACT same time as the one in this system.” I knew he was trying to make a point, but what that was, I hadn’t the slightest idea. His smug smirk let me know that he knew it, too. “What do you think caused the Anomaly here, boss?” I shrugged. “Sentient alien ballsacks?” He laughed and swiped his tablet, the stars instantly disappearing, and the room suddenly feeling quite dark. “No Raz. Us.”
Dutch and Enoch walked into the room, laughing between themselves. They saw us and walked over. “Hey Raz, we’ve got a bet going. You want in?” Enoch snickered and pointed over at Pawz. “He totally lays eggs, right?” He chuckled and made a lewd motion mimicking the process. “I’m feeling some omelets, boss.” Dutch shook his head and sighed. “I tried to tell him. Look at the scales. He walks on two legs. Obviously, an advanced form of reptile. He’d birth live young, if he can even reproduce.” Enoch huffed. “I saw him dancing last night. Whatever the Gek are, they definitely fuc…”
“Raz! You need to get out here!” Nitwit’s shouts carried through from the next room. “Raz, seriously, hurry up!” I could hear rampant excitement in his voice. “We’ll have to settle your little debate later, gentlemen.” I waved at them to follow me. “Although, Dutch is probably right. You know that Enoch. Dutch is always right.” I heard Enoch elbow Dutch hard in the ribs, likely attempting to taper the smug smile radiating from under his mustache. I grabbed my helmet and threw Enoch’s at him, hitting him right in the chest, knocking him backward. “Think fast, egg man.” Laughing, I walked out into the hot suns and over towards a set of small outbuildings on the other side of the compound. I saw Nitwit at the doorway of the closer building, waving us over excitedly, his metal legs gleaming in the sunlight. “Hurry, hurry! You aren’t going to believe it!”
We walked into the cramped room and found the entire crew standing together, all talking enthusiastically. “Hey boss, check it out!” Cowboy pointed at the table, where I noticed a line of twelve strange-looking cards, all glowing different colors. “Awesome, right Raz?” Cowboy high-fived Alex, both looking like they just won first prize at the Sattiq Caves talent show. Even Maze looked jovial, pointing out the pink one. “That one is mine. Try and take it, and I will cut you, boss.” I put both my hands up in mock defense. “Whatever it is, it’s yours, Maze.” I walked to the table, picking one up, surprised at how heavy it was for its size. “Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly are they?” Pawz laughed and looked up at me. “Keys, boss. They are keys!” “Keys to what?” Pawz pointed towards the window where Aurora was curled up in the sunlight. “Those!” I walked over and glanced outside, struggling to focus through the assault of the suns. “Space ships, Raz!” Nitwit shouted with another whoop. “One for each of us!” I saw the gleam of metal, a row of sultry futuristic ships, all parked behind the compound. “Ships?” I asked softly. Where did we get the money for ships?” I hadn’t been here long, and didn’t know a lot, but I knew twelve starships weren’t free, no matter who you were. “From Kilroy, boss” Aurora replied softly, yawning, and stretching his paws in the sun.
“Kilroy?” I turned and looked for him, looking for the tall, chiseled paratrooper I knew, again surprised at the small Gek swinging his legs back and forth as he sat on a chair in the corner. He was puffing on his pipe, the sweet smell of Nip Nip slowly permeating the room. “How, Kilroy?” He smiled and held up his pipe. “Turns out, I have a green thumb, Raz.” He chuckled, holding out his green hand, and took another drag. “And Nip Nip seems to be quite the commodity around here, quite profitable.” He threw a small pouch to me. I turned it over in my hands, the sweet sticky smell radiating through it. I noticed the logo and read the name out loud. “IGE Best Buds: We Cultivate Connections.” Kilroy clicked his beak and laughed. “The IGE part was your idea, Raz.” “My idea?” I asked, confused yet again. “I mean, I sort of remember smoking your Nip Nip, and drinking an orange liquid that tasted strangely like garlic bread, but IGE?” I looked around, my entire crew of Al Mazrah Taxi Service drivers around me, looking happier than I’d seen them in months. “What does IGE stand for?”
“Intergalactic Explorers!” They all answered in unison, their voices full of elation. Alex clapped me on the back and shook my hand. “It’s a great name, boss. Wherever we explore, I’ve got your back.” I smiled and took in the moment, seeing the crew laugh and joke together. “Intergalactic Explorers. Ok then.” I pointed down at the table. “Well, which one is mine?” Kilroy stood up and struggled to reach the cards, eventually pushing the yellow one my way. “As if you had to ask, boss.” He laughed and shuffled towards the door. “Put your helmets on, ya meatbags, and let’s go!” He and Pawz walked out chortling to themselves while the rest of us raced to get our helmets on before all the air in the room followed them out.
Back in the sunshine, we jogged through the sand towards the line of star ships. As we got closer, I was struck with the variety of each of the ships. All different colors, shapes, and sizes, and each with distinctly unique style. I watched as each member of the crew found the ship that matched their key cards and heard the sharp hisses as canopies opened. I saw the nose of a bright yellow ship, and walked up to it, feeling the key card hum in my hand as I approached. It was a sleek craft, much like a fighter jet, with a set of horizontal wings flanked by another set pitched 45 degrees above them. Behind the sleek cockpit, raising high into the air, a dorsal-style fin tipped with red completed the aggressive look. “Suits you well, boss” Kilroy said from behind me. I ran my glove against the shiny metal of the nose and nodded. “It’s quite the upgrade from my LTV, I’ll give you that.” I grabbed the handles and climbed my way into the cockpit, gazing over the various controls. The HUD in my visor lit up, displaying instructions to me, and within a minute, I had the ship ready to fly. Next to me, Compton gave me a thumbs up and yelled “Boss, turn to channel 6.9!” as he closed his cockpit. “I work with children” I muttered to myself, turning the comms channel to the correct frequency, and hearing it crackle to life.
“… around the planet before you even get off the ground, kid.” Enoch’s gruff voice came over on comms. “You wish, Grandpa!” Jade fired back, laughing. “We’ll get halfway there, and you’ll get distracted by something shiny, watch.” I turned down the volume as the laughter grew. After it died down, I keyed the mic button and addressed the crew.
“I don’t know where we are. I don’t know how we got here. And most importantly, I don’t know how we are going to get home.” I paused, and the line stayed quiet. “All I do know is that I’m happy we are all here together. In Al Mazrah, we had each other’s backs. We followed the Code, and we stayed the course, no matter what happened.” “Damn straight” Dutch replied. “We’re all in this together, boss” Alex said. “I probably can’t crash this, right Raz?” Nitwit asked. I laughed and fired up the engines. “I have no idea, Nit. But let’s not find out right away, ok?” I pushed the throttle forward and felt the ship shake and start to rise off the ground. “Let’s do this!” I yelled and pulled back on the stick, guiding the starship skyward, into the unknown.
“I could get used to this” I said to myself as I banked the ship hard to the left, pulling back on the stick as hard as I could. I could see Compton high to my right, Maze next to him, her pink Explorer slicing through the low clouds. “Yee haw!” Cowboy yelled as he burst into my vision, flying across my left wing, upside down, before rolling over and pulling hard straight up toward the stars. I followed him skyward, knowing that the maneuver would have pushed all the blood in my body into my toes if I tried it on Earth. I increased the throttle to maximum, climbing vertically at dizzying speeds. As my altitude increased, my speed followed. I glanced left, and I could see Alex, Nitwit, and Aurora off my left wing. To my right, Compton and Maze were joined by Jade and Pawz. Above me, I could see Dutch and Kilroy streaking towards the stars in formation with Cowboy. I smiled, taking in the awesome scene all around me. Eleven starships, headed into the beyond, on a new adventure…. “Wait, eleven?” I said out loud. “Fuck. Enoch!” I keyed the mic. “Enoch, where are you?”
“Oh, hey Raz.” Enoch’s sheepish voice answered my question before he could. “Let me guess” I replied. “You were about to take off, and you saw something shiny on the ground, so you hopped out to take a look, didn’t you.” An intense red light started to form around the ships as we pushed against the upper reaches of the atmosphere. “If you already knew, why did you ask?” Enoch responded quietly. “At your leisure, Enoch.” Compton’s voice cracked as he fought back a laugh. “Shut up, Compton, I’m coming.”
At that moment, we punched through the atmosphere, and for the first time in my life, I was in space. Millions of stars spread all around me, the limitless universe seeming to bare its soul in front of my eyes. “Wow…” I breathed, taking it in. In that moment, I felt small, insignificant. “We’re a long way from home, boss.” Dutch’s voice, while calm as ever, hinted that even he was feeling the weight of the moment. I pulled back on the throttle, slowing my ship down to a crawl, both to wait for Enoch, and to simply drink in the view. I thought back to Al Mazrah, all the good times. The fun customers, the stories, the adventures. I thought of the bad times, of Scuba Steve, The Chemist, The Bombmaker, the weight of putting bullets into those I once called friends. The faces of the friends we made along the way floated among the stars as I remembered then. The Lone Wolf, ever silent, his aim true. Ice Tiger, always there with intel and a heavy chopper whenever we called. Bizzle, our dear old landlord, always complaining, but never letting us down when we needed him. Dr. Yobay, using her questionable science to save Nitwit’s life and steal our hearts. “Will we ever see them again?” I asked aloud. “Jeez, Raz, I’m here, ok?” Enoch grumbled, snapping me back to the present as he joined in formation.
“So what now, Raz?” Dutch asked, moving into position at my wing. I thought for a moment before replying. “Jade said the Korvax detected two Anomalies the day we showed up here. That’s the only thing I can think to do. We need to get to the location of the other one.” It was the only logical course of action I had. “If our arrival caused an event an entire race of robots could detect, we’re bound to find something at the other one.” “Good enough for me” Alex said. “How do we get there?” “Good question.” One I didn’t have the answer to. The comms crackled. “I have some contacts I can reach out to, Raz. If we visit the space station, I can make some calls.” Kilroy’s matter-of-fact tone gave me some confidence, but also a fair number of questions. “Contacts? We’ve been here for three days!” I heard him click his beak. “That’s a long time to the Gek, boss. Trust me.” I heard what sounded like an extremely large pull on his pipe, and he broke formation. “It’s this way. Enoch. Hey, Enoch. This way.”
I guided my starship towards the blue light emanating from the airlock, the space station looming like an enormous floating sphere in front of me. I felt the controls go limp as the ship’s autopilot guided me into the hangar with computerized precision. The sterile landing bay glowed blue, and my ship touched down gently, rotating around to face the airlock, allowing me to watch the procession of The Intergalactic Explorers as their ships touched down one by one around me. I reached up and released the canopy locks, hearing the hiss as it raised to let me out. I saw Kilroy running up the ramp to my left and moved to follow him, the crew behind me. When I got to the top, I saw him already sitting with another Gek, both swinging their feet as they talked quietly in their chairs. “I’m going to try to find a drink” Maze said, walking off towards a red door. “Yeah, a drink sounds nice” Cowboy said, and followed her. “I hope they have milk” Aurora added as he hurried after them. I decided to wait for Kilroy, and leaned against the wall, taking in my surroundings. All manner of creatures wandered the space station, dominated by Gek, Korvax, and another brutally ugly race of creatures. I beckoned Jade over and pointed at a particularly ugly example. “Jade, what are those things?” He followed my finger and nodded. “Ah. Those are Vy’keen. Not particularly friendly, them.” He moved closer, whispering to me. “Apparently, long ago, they were at war with the Aerons, some sort of machine race. Victory was close, and then the Gek came along and backstabbed them.” He looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. “They are pretty butthurt about it. They don’t really like anyone these days. Always talking about honor and glory in battle.” He grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with conviction. “I’d give them a wide berth, Raz. Don’t want to start trouble with them.” He stared until I nodded in agreement and walked off.
I glanced back over at Kilroy and saw him waving at me to come over. The Gek he was talking to slid off his chair as I approached, and said “Ufarv utroym, lidkorjah” as he walked off. “What’s that mean, exactly?” Kilroy chuckled. “It means “Good Luck” more or less.” He pulled out his holo-tablet and held it out. “My contact says the Anomaly we are looking for happened here, which matches what Jade learned back on Hios XVI.” His beak clicked as he keyed in some words I didn’t recognize. “It’s about 125,000 light years from us.” “Is that far?” I asked, feeling like I should know. “It’s not exactly close, but it could be worse. We could probably make it in a few months, give or take.” He shut down the tablet and slid to the floor. “Or, we could take a shortcut….”
“A shortcut?” His tone didn’t fill me with confidence. “Sounds ominous. What’s the catch?” Kilroy’s reptilian face was impossible to read. “There’s a system near here named Charon Major. Reports are, there’s a massive black hole there.” “A black hole? That already seems like a bad idea.” Kilroy shrugged. “Yeah, probably. However, if the reports can be believed, if you fly into it, you’ll come out a few thousand light years from our goal. We could be there in a day or two, tops.” I thought about it for a second. “Your contact confirmed this intel?” Kilroy nodded. “He knows of 5 vessels that went into it. Two of them reported back from the same star system, very close to our goal.” “And the other three?” Kilroy shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the other three.” I glared at him. “Don’t worry about them?” Kilroy just looked at me, his large black eyes blinking slowly. “You spent your life riding around a warzone in a Chop Top, with zero guns, asking heavily armored mercenaries if they needed rides. You aren’t scared of a little bit of concentrated gravity, are you?” He laughed and walked towards the bar. “Think about it!”
“What a day” I muttered to myself as I looked out over the hangar. I gazed at my yellow fighter, parked there, waiting to take me on untold adventures. I heard cheering from the next room and smiled. “Seems like the crew is having fun, so screw it, why not” I said to myself, smiling. Back home in Al Mazrah, it always was about the journey, not the destination. “Catch a Ride…. In Space!” I said to nobody in particular. I turned to join the crew, took a step, and crashed right into an enormous Vy’keen. He roared in annoyance and yelled in garbled speech. “Grah! Filthy ezhejiuan Interloper! Ere iexin iki!” He pushed me and roared again, causing me to stumble into the railing. I brushed off my space suit and stood my ground. “What’s your problem, Troll Face? We got beef?” I pushed him into a set of chairs. “I’ve handled far worse than you, friend. Take a hike.” I couldn’t tell if he understood my words, but he certainly understood the tone. He rose up, eyes full of rage. “Irk Tuan!” he yelled as he charged at me.
With one fluid motion, I stepped to the side and shoved the charging Vy’keen hard in the back, causing him to flail into the hangar railing, flying over it and down into the hangar below. I heard a sickening crunch, followed by silence. Glancing over the railing, a foreign but somehow familiar scene before me. The Vy’keen lay dead, a pool of blood spreading over the cold floor. “Well, that’s probably going to cause some issues for us, boss” Enoch said as he and Compton walked over, peering down at the body. “Honestly seemed a bit too easy” Compton remarked. “No wonder they lost the war.” I shrugged and walked towards the ramp, pointing back towards the red door. “Go get the crew. We should probably leave. Now.” They nodded and jogged off towards the next room. I hopped in my ship, looking over at the body laying still on the floor. “Who’s the filthy interloper now, punk” I thought to myself with a smile. I saw the crew filing down the ramp to their ships, climbing in and firing up their engines. My comms sprang to life right away. “So boss, you killed a dude already?” Pawz sounded pleased. “He’s still got it” Cowboy added.
“Nobody messes with the Intergalactic Explorers” I said. “Not the filthy Vy’keen, not space pirates, not these “Sentinels” we keep hearing about.” I felt my pulse quicken, felt the same rush of adrenaline I used to get when sniper rounds would start pinging off my LTV. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here. But I can promise you all one thing. This galaxy? They’ll remember us.”
I slammed the thrusters to full power, and shot out of the space station, my crew of simple taxi drivers at my side. “On Earth, we were the Al Mazrah Taxi Service. Here, in the wide-open galaxy we are reborn!” I felt the joy, the pride, and the excitement radiating through me as I shouted at the stars. “We are the Intergalactic Explorers!”
______________________________________________________________
So long, and thanks for all the fish. Maybe I'll see you all in Al Mazrah again, someday.
-Raz
________________________________________________________________
Want more Al Mazrah Taxi Service content? You're in luck!
Visit this link for the COMPLETE Chronicles:
https://www.reddit.com/DMZ/comments/10xhp34/the_complete_chronicles_of_the_al_mazrah_taxi/?sort=new

submitted by RazTheExplorer to DMZ [link] [comments]

2024.03.12 21:20 A_A_Ron_A_A Benchmade 535-3 with receipt and 3 TwoSuns

*** Sold ***
Moving some steel since I live in a 3" knife law area :-/.
Price includes USPS shipping in U.S., ships from California.
https://imgur.com/gallery/6vy6LXe
~~• Benchmade 353-3 ; S-90v CF. $150~~
Carried a few times and resharpened to workout the Benchmade burn. - Never Dissembled. Action is a bit stiff, but I didn't mess with it or polish the washers. - Bought at a gun store in Redlands CA, receipt in photos.
Please disregard the TwoSuns, as a new poster I may only post one knife at a time. I'm new here but if anyone wants my Fedora Lounge or Styleforum handles, I've bought and sold a pile of high-end repro jackets and Viberg's.

submitted by A_A_Ron_A_A to Knife_Swap [link] [comments]

2024.03.08 19:08 diogenesepigone0031 Choose your cutting edge for the zombie apoc 🤣

submitted by diogenesepigone0031 to ZombieSurvivalTactics [link] [comments]

2024.02.26 07:02 AlexFerrana Punisher (live-action versions) vs. Alec Trevelyan (Agent 006/"Janus" from "GoldenEye" 1995 James Bond movie)

Synopsis: after his betrayal of James Bond, Agent 006 Alec Trevelyan fakes his death and quickly starts his terrorist career. Soon, Punisher notices that a man with a scarred face has plenty of criminal activities in New York City. After some detective work, Punisher decides to take him out. When Trevelyan wants to make a deal about an arms trafficking in NYC port, Punisher kills everyone but Trevelyan, who reacts quickly and takes cover, then draws a gun and the battle begins.
Rules: both has only a minor basic knowledge about each others (Punisher doesn't know about Trevelyan's past service in MI-6 and British paratroopers military, but knows how he looks and thinks that Trevelyan is a former military. Meanwhile, Trevelyan only heard about the Punisher, but he has no idea who it might be, only suggests that it could be a former military and war veteran). Fight to death. No additional help and no retreating.
Equipment: Punisher has a "Colt-Commando" assault carbine, Glock-17 pistol and Ka-Bar combat knife. He also has a body armor with his trademark skull logo. Alec Trevelyan has an AK-74 assault rifle, Browning BDA pistol and a combat knife.
Location: empty port in New York City, no innocent bystanders around. Nighttime.
Round 1: Punisher from 1989 movie starring Dolph Lundgren vs. Alec Trevelyan.
Round 2: Punisher from 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane vs. Alec Trevelyan.
Round 3: Punisher from the "Punisher. War Zone" 2008 movie starring Ray Stevenson vs. Alec Trevelyan.
Round 4: Punisher from Netflix/MCU (played by Jon Bernthal) vs. Alec Trevelyan.

submitted by AlexFerrana to whowouldwin [link] [comments]

2024.02.04 21:47 Falconaxe2 [WTS] WW2 US Gear & Loadout, Original M1943 Field Jacket, Magpul M-lok Foregrip, Digital Woodland Combat Shirt, Tan Vest, Bags of BBs & More

I no longer have much time for airsoft, so I am selling most of my WW2 M1943 Paratrooper kit and a few miscellaneous items. Many items are brand new or only fielded once or twice (details below). Please feel free to ask any questions or send a chat or DM. Prices do not include shipping, details at the end. Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/MPvsgcx
M1943 Field Jacket -- $125 – Original M1943 field jacket, not a reproduction. The jacket was fielded once by me. It has some small, noticeable stains on the sleeves and elsewhere. See pictures for more details. Size 34R, these tend to run a bit large because they were designed to allow room for layers. https://imgur.com/a/B0P7CZ6
M1943 Repro Paratrooper Trousers -- $75 – Size 28 x 34 brand new, never fielded. These are reproduced to look exactly like authentic WW2 M1943 trousers. They have large canvas pockets on each leg, and leg ties are also attached. https://imgur.com/a/MzEjZz6
WW2 Repro Combat Harness -- $15 – Great condition, only fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/xeinjYd
WW2 US Pistol Belt -- $15 – Great condition, fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/zOgbMVw
Thompson Sling -- $10 – Never fielded. Brand new reproduction Kerr canvas sling. https://imgur.com/a/652B1Es
Trouser Suspenders -- $15 – Reproduction, brand new. Adjustable length: 29 inches to 36 inches. https://imgur.com/a/jxhpuwz
WW2 Repro US Army Gaiters — $15 Used a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro Pistol Mag Pouches — $10 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro US Army Haversack — $30 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
Miscellaneous Items: https://imgur.com/a/KwhufNW
Tru-Spec Digital Woodland Combat Shirt -- $55 – Brand new with tags. Size small.
Digital Woodland Mesh Mask -- $15 – Never fielded.
Repro OD Green MICH Combat Helmet -- $30 – Fielded a few times, great condition. Includes original inner padding.
Magpul Black M-Lok Grip -- $ 25 – Brand new in original packaging.
(1x) .25g bbs(1x) .23g bbs & (1x) .20g bbs -- $15 each – Unopened bag of .20g 4000 bbs, opened bag of .23g bbs (about 3500-4000 remaining out of 4350) & .25g 1kg unopened bag (about 4000 bbs). https://imgur.com/a/1NbEOM4
Tan Combat Vest & Pouches -- $30 – Fielded a few times. Includes everything in the picture.
I can make some wiggle room for the prices, so everything is OBO. The prices do not include shipping or PayPal fees; please message me for a shipping & fee quote. Buyer pays shipping & fees unless another agreement is made. Available for local pickup in WV. I can bundle items together for a discount. PayPal G&S only. Feel free to message me with any questions at all!

submitted by Falconaxe2 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]

2024.01.28 00:07 Falconaxe2 [WTS] WW2 US Paratrooper Gear, Original M1943 Field Jacket, Magpul M-lok Foregrip, Digital Woodland Combat Shirt, Tan Vest, Bags of BBs & More

submitted by Falconaxe2 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]

2024.01.26 15:53 tyrannosauruswrx99 [WTS] [USA-PA] VFC Avalon w/ P* Kythera, WE glock w/ RMR project, Elcan spectre, dye i4 and more!

I'm getting married and between my obsession with backpacking and real life I just don't have time for the pew pew anymore.

All prices OBO/Do not include shipping. Paypal G+S only, no notes.
https://imgur.com/a/D02Ti4X
Any questions please ask away!

VFC Avalon Saber CQB w/ Polarstar Kythera and UGS- $950 with Spectre, lights, and PEQ/ $750 without
-Gonna miss this beauty. She is an absolute beast. Fully upgraded every which way
-VFC Avalon Saber
-R-hopped zci barrel with maxx hop up
-polarstar kythera
-Universal gas stock
-R3 Buttstock
-Tippman 13ci HPA tank
-Everything needed to revert the gun back to an AEG
-2x barrel sock
-Soft rifle case
-2x k120
-3x DE hex mag
-3x black hex mag
-5x shorty mags
-BFG Vickers Combat Application Sling
-Magpul MS4 sling
-triple double stack m4 pouch
-BFG 10 speed mag pouch

Sold sold sold WE G17 w/ RMR Boneyard Kit- $140 Sold sold sold
-Selling this partially completed project for parts, has everything you could need to make a sexy G17 Race gun
-RMR
-2 magazines
-upgraded barrel and hop
-trigger
-night sights
-SAI slide
-mag release
AND MORE!!
Elcan Spectre Repro- $140
-1-4x zoom
-Illuminated
Repro PEQ-15 and Light combo- $60
-Includes Pressure switches
-everything works (lights and red laser)
SOLD SOLD SOLDGenuine Streamlight Protac HL-X -$70SOLD SOLD SOLD
-Little Salty
-Works Great
Dye I4 Mask and Extra Lenses -$80
-Fairly worn
-Right cheek cut out to enable shouldering of weapon
-5 lenses (clear, amber, 3 mirror)
ODIN Speedloader with silicone silencer -$50
-Dark earth
-loaded but never used
-silencer included
EXfog- $50
-Headband included
-both manifolds included
-Never worn
Chronograph -$40
-E9800x Chrono
-used once or twice.
Velocity Systems BOSS Rugby T -$40
-Large
-Coyote
-Never Worn
Dummy Plates -$10- Or free with order
-M/L foam dummy plates
Box o' Springs -$10- Or free with order
-Box of assorted springs for V2 gearbox
SOLD SOLD SOLD Pile of stuff -$10- Or free with order SOLD SOLD SOLD
-Pretty much just a pile of stuff, there is a training knife in there, a PTT, some patches and pouches. Just nothing I need.

submitted by tyrannosauruswrx99 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]

2024.01.24 20:20 No_Cartoonist6359 Rattle can go brrr - LBE edition

Well, you degenerates have sent me down a spiraling deep hole of rattle canning mismatched ACU gear. I hope you feel good about yourselves.
The latest to get the treatment is my ACU LBE.
Using a belt I pilferred from a FLC and some repro m1967 H harness I built myself an LBE.
Far left and far right pouches are Tactical Tailor universal mag pouches. Along the back I have four canteen / GP pouches. There's a small gap on the left between mag pouches and canteen pouch for either an additional accessory or holster. On the right that gap is filled by a USAF survival knife. The survival knife isn't the most high speed piece of kit out there but it holds a special place in my heart.
After some rattle can, behold:

submitted by No_Cartoonist6359 to tacticalgear [link] [comments]

2024.01.18 16:25 Falconaxe2 [WTS] WW2 US Paratrooper Gear, Original M1943 Field Jacket, Magpul M-lok Foregrip, Digital Woodland Combat Shirt, Tan Vest, Bags of BBs & More

I no longer have much time for airsoft, so I am selling most of my WW2 M1943 Paratrooper kit and a few miscellaneous items. Many items are brand new or only fielded once or twice (details below). Please feel free to ask any questions or send a chat or DM. Prices do not include shipping, details at the end. Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/WigpwPG
M1943 Field Jacket -- $125 – Original M1943 field jacket, not a reproduction. The jacket was fielded once by me. It has some small, noticeable stains on the sleeves and elsewhere. See pictures for more details. Size 34R, these tend to run a bit large because they were designed to allow room for layers. https://imgur.com/a/B0P7CZ6
M1943 Repro Paratrooper Trousers -- $75 – Size 28 x 34 brand new, never fielded. These are reproduced to look exactly like authentic WW2 M1943 trousers. They have large canvas pockets on each leg, and leg ties are also attached. https://imgur.com/a/MzEjZz6
WW2 Repro Combat Harness -- $15 – Great condition, only fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/xeinjYd
WW2 US Pistol Belt -- $15 – Great condition, fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/zOgbMVw
Thompson Sling -- $10 – Never fielded. Brand new reproduction Kerr canvas sling. https://imgur.com/a/652B1Es
Trouser Suspenders -- $15 – Reproduction, brand new. Adjustable length: 29 inches to 36 inches. https://imgur.com/a/jxhpuwz
WW2 Repro US Army Gaiters — $15 Used a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro Pistol Mag Pouches — $10 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro US Army Haversack — $30 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
Miscellaneous Items: https://imgur.com/a/KwhufNW
Tru-Spec Digital Woodland Combat Shirt -- $55 – Brand new with tags. Size small.
Digital Woodland Mesh Mask -- $15 – Never fielded.
Repro OD Green MICH Combat Helmet -- $30 – Fielded a few times, great condition. Includes original inner padding.
Magpul Black M-Lok Grip -- $ 25 – Brand new in original packaging.
(1x) .25g bbs(1x) .23g bbs & (1x) .20g bbs -- $15 each – Unopened bag of .20g 4000 bbs, opened bag of .23g bbs (about 3500-4000 remaining out of 4350) & .25g 1kg unopened bag (about 4000 bbs). https://imgur.com/a/1NbEOM4
Tan Combat Vest & Pouches -- $30 – Fielded a few times. Includes everything in the picture.
I can make some wiggle room for the prices, so everything is OBO. The prices do not include shipping or PayPal fees; please message me for a shipping & fee quote. Buyer pays shipping & fees unless another agreement is made. Available for local pickup in WV. I can bundle items together for a discount. PayPal G&S only. Feel free to message me with any questions at all!

submitted by Falconaxe2 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]

2024.01.15 05:02 Falconaxe2 [WTS] WW2 US Paratrooper Gear, Original M1943 Field Jacket, Magpul M-lok Foregrip, Digital Woodland Combat Shirt, Tan Vest, BBs & More

I no longer have much time for airsoft, so I am selling most of my WW2 M1943 Paratrooper kit and a few miscellaneous items. Many items are brand new or only fielded once or twice (details below). Please feel free to ask any questions or send a chat or DM. Prices do not include shipping, details at the end. Timestamps: https://imgur.com/a/WigpwPG
M1943 Field Jacket -- $125 – Original M1943 field jacket, not a reproduction. The jacket was fielded once by me. It has some small, noticeable stains on the sleeves and elsewhere. See pictures for more details. Size 34R, these tend to run a bit large because they were designed to allow room for layers. https://imgur.com/a/B0P7CZ6
M1943 Repro Paratrooper Trousers -- $75 – Size 28 x 34 brand new, never fielded. These are reproduced to look exactly like authentic WW2 M1943 trousers. They have large canvas pockets on each leg, and leg ties are also attached. https://imgur.com/a/MzEjZz6
WW2 Repro Combat Harness -- $15 – Great condition, only fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/xeinjYd
WW2 US Pistol Belt -- $15 – Great condition, fielded once. https://imgur.com/a/zOgbMVw
Thompson Sling -- $10 – Never fielded. Brand new reproduction Kerr canvas sling. https://imgur.com/a/652B1Es
Trouser Suspenders -- $15 – Reproduction, brand new. Adjustable length: 29 inches to 36 inches. https://imgur.com/a/jxhpuwz
WW2 Repro US Army Gaiters — $15 Used a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro Pistol Mag Pouches — $10 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
WW2 Repro US Army Haversack — $30 Fielded a few times, great condition. https://imgur.com/a/szPqnrf
Miscellaneous Items: https://imgur.com/a/KwhufNW
Tru-Spec Digital Woodland Combat Shirt -- $55 – Brand new with tags. Size small.
Digital Woodland Mesh Mask -- $15 – Never fielded.
Repro OD Green MICH Combat Helmet -- $30 – Fielded a few times, great condition. Includes original inner padding.
Magpul Black M-Lok Grip -- $ 25 – Brand new in original packaging.
(1x) .25g bbs(1x) .23g bbs & (1x) .20g bbs -- $15 each – Unopened bag of .20g 4000 bbs, opened bag of .23g bbs (about 3500-4000 remaining out of 4350) & .25g 1kg unopened bag (about 4000 bbs). https://imgur.com/a/1NbEOM4
Tan Combat Vest & Pouches -- $30 – Fielded a few times. Includes everything in the picture.
I can make some wiggle room for the prices, so everything is OBO. The prices do not include shipping or PayPal fees; please message me for a shipping & fee quote. Buyer pays shipping & fees unless another agreement is made. Available for local pickup in WV. I can bundle items together for a discount. PayPal G&S only. Feel free to message me with any questions at all!

submitted by Falconaxe2 to airsoftmarket [link] [comments]

http://activeproperty.pl/