D’ngar Janik shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  The hum of the photon accelerated projector modules filled his ears as he tried to relax about his next mission.  Sitting next to him was a slender man in his late twenties, an unshaven face staring intensely into a laptop.  D’ngar opened the top flask on his Pneumatic Assault Rifle and checked the calibration of the clip.  Everything is fine, he told himself.  Don’t be so nervous.  You’ve completed dozens of missions simpler than this before.
 
          “What am I supposed to do once we get inside?” the man next to him asked, not letting his strained eyes veer from his laptop.

           “They haven’t briefed you yet?” D’ngar asked, slightly surprised.

           “I didn’t pay attention.  I was too busy rewriting the hexadecimal code for this security system so I could bypass …”

           “Shut up,” D’ngar said rudely.

           The man with the laptop, the “hacker”, as D’ngar called him in his mind, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and placed one in his mouth.  D’ngar knew that it wasn’t PC to use outdated 20th century terms like “hacker” anymore, but he really didn’t care.

           “Smoking isn’t allowed on this shuttle,” D’ngar informed the hacker.

           “Like I care,” the hacker said smiling, as he lit his cigarette, still not looking away from the screen.  The glow gave his haggled face an eerie quality.

           D’ngar snatched the cigarette out of the hacker’s mouth, simultaneously stomping it out as he crushed the rest of the pack.

           “Anyway, once I’ve secured the outer perimeter of the facility, it’s your job to access the main terminal.  They want you to copy all the information on the development of their new missile, transfer it to our network, and the delete all their files,” D’ngar informed him coldly.

           “Child’s play,” the hacker sneered.  “Why do they even waste my time?”

* * *

           The transport carrier glided down to a grassy field like a bird returning to its nest.  The shuttle doors opened and D’ngar and the hacker stepped out into the pale, red, sunset.  D’ngar barely had time to strap his NAR to his arm before the shuttle took off, as stealthily as it had arrived.

           “You’re my only escort?” the hacker shouted in disbelief.

           “Any more than the necessary two would make us more obvious,” D’ngar informed him.  “Besides, I’m all the protection you need.

           D’ngar led the hacker through a ventilation duct through the side of the facility.  They stopped to hold their breath as they heard guards talking below them, and then moved on with careful precision.  D’ngar stopped above a grate, checking his holo-map.  It showed that the hallway below them would lead to the terminal they needed.  Noticing the solitary guard below, he unsheathed his xylo blade, and removed the grating.  With the silence of a cat stalking it’s prey, D’ngar dropped down behind, the guard, quickly feeding his wrist around his neck.  A quick twist of his wrist deprived the guard of the one-inch of space he needed to breath.  The guard twitched once as the xylo blade entered his abdomen, tearing apart soft tissue.  The poison entered his cerebral cortex almost immediately, leaving him dead on the tiled floor within seconds.

           Using an inhuman strength aided by the steroids injected through his veins periodically, D’ngar lifted the body into the duct to hide it, much to the hacker’s disgust.  They both dropped down into the hallway this time, and continued on.  D’ngar signaled to the hacker to switch on his Sound Wave Frequency Re-distributor.  

          It was discovered during the late 20th Century that sound waves could not be destroyed, but could be nullified by creating a wave exactly opposite to the one being made, creating silence.  It was a practical stealth tool for about twenty years until device’s that would reverse that process, rendering attempts to nullify sound waves useless for soldiers.  Using the SWFR, they could be redirected from the outside environment into the user’s eardrums.  The result was a horrifyingly loud thumping of feet falling on tiled floor and heavy breathing for D’ngar and the hacker’s eardrums.  This created complete silence for all others.  The effects of the SWFR could drive any normal civilian insane, possibly kill them, but D’ngar and the hacker were trained for the effects of this highly useful but dangerous device.

          D’ngar checked his holo-map once more, seeing that the terminal was but a few short rooms away from their current position.  Grabbing the hacker’s dirty uniform and yanking him close to the wall, D’ngar crept down the hall towards the destination point.

* * *

          The cool, metallic, sound of the doors sliding opened made the five scientists in the terminal room glance toward the door for a seconded.  Most expected to see the guards making their routine checks coming in, but unfortunately for them, it was the Para Military Trooper D’ngar.  With pure silence, his PAR unloaded a spray of shrapnel and hollow point bullets on the west corner of the room.  Two scientist’s bodies spun violently as the searing hot metal tore away at their tender flesh, underused muscle falling to the floor in bloody clumps.  Their bodies lay on the floor, still twitching, but D’ngar’s precise and trained aim left all the delicate equipment untouched.

          Two of the remaining scientists made a dash for the rear door.  A thin blade connected to a razor sharp wire sprang forward from the gauntlet on D’ngar’s right arm like a cobra striking at its prey.  The scientist didn’t even feel the bones in his face shatter against the wall.  Detaching the wire from his gauntlet and leaving the poor scientist splattered against the wall, the deadly whine of the PAR charging up led the second scientist to wet his pants before his upper half flew three feet in front of his path to the exit.  

          “Their going to need an industrial sized spatula to clean up this mess!” the hacker said.  He realized that D’ngar did not laugh because he could not hear the hacker due to the SWFR, but he wondered if that mattered anyway.

          The sole surviving scientists leaped for the alarm button on the console to his left.  He stared in horror as his hand levitated, inches from the button that would bring his rescue.  D’ngar slowly twisted the scientist’s wrist, shredding the forearm tendon, until it snapped like a twig.  His neck broke even easier.

          D’ngar and the hacker turned off their SWFR’s so that they could communicate.  D’ngar showed the hacker the terminal that corresponded to the one on his holo-map.  Within seconds, the hacker’s fingers flew across the keyboard, the prosthetics in his fingers giving him unfathomable speed.  As D’ngar peered down the hallways carefully, he noticed the hacker stop momentarily, stick his fingers down his throat, and then proceed to cough up a pack of cigarettes, free of stomach acid and bile.

          “What the hell are you doing?” D’ngar demanded

          “The Anti-Amino-Acid Peptide they gave us to ward of nausea allowed me to smuggle in a pack of smokes in my stomach,” the hacker smiled.  He lit the cigarette off of a small Zippo he pulled from his pocket.  “I get to tense if I don’t have my nicotine, you understand.  Can’t concentrate well without my cancer stick.”

          D’ngar dismissed him as he continued his observance of the two halls leading to the room that they were in.  There was no alert yet.  Thank god for SWFR’s, he thought to himself.  D’ngar glanced around the room, noticing all of the advanced machinery surrounding him, used for analysis of minerals and compounds used in the production of weapons.  Then he noticed something on the wall next to the door.  Something small, white, and square.  A sign.  On it was a red circle, with a line through it.  His heart began to pound and he saw the small, flaming, stick, pictured inside of the circle.  His heart sped up like a cheetah sprinting after its prey.  A "NO SMOKING" sign.

          “Put that cigarette out you moron!” D’ngar shouted at the hacker as he felt his adrenaline rise.  

          It was too late.  The smoke alarm went off, and the lights dimmed red as the sirens wailed throughout the base.  The intercom near the door crackled to life.

          “Team 12?” the intercom buzzed.  “Team 12, respond!  Put out that cigarette immediately, you’re endangering the specimens!”

          The hacker looked wildly at D’ngar, then at the intercom, and back again.  He threw the cigarette out on the ground and started to panic.

          “Team 12, we’re going to send a guard to find out why you’ve violated the no smoking rule, if you will not respond,” the intercom buzzed.

          “What should we do?” the hacker cried out.

          “Respond to them!” D’ngar ordered.

          “This is Team 12,” the hacker squeaked into the intercom.  “Everything’s fine here”

           “Who is this?” the intercom demanded.  “The scanner does not recognize your voice!  State your ID number, immediately!”

          D’ngar knew they were in deep trouble now.  The hacker mumbled something in response, but D’ngar was busy reloading his PAR.  A new alarm went off this time, obviously an emergency alarm.  The door flung open and the enemy poured in, firing at the hacker the second they saw the dead bodies scattered about.  The horrified look on the hacker’s face was only temporary before three quarter’s of his head burst violently onto the monitor behind him.  His brain left a gray streak as it slid down the screen.  

          D’ngar took cover behind some terminals, popping up to return fire every few seconds.  He could feel the computer’s that were shielding him start to give way under fire.  Suddenly, the gunfire halted and he thought he heard someone mention not damaging the equipment.  The next thing he heard was the clink of a small, steel, orb bouncing next to him.  The muscles in his legs sprang into action as he tried to roll out of the way.  He didn’t even hear the explosion.  

* * *

          Darkness.  Slowly, his eyes opened.  Darkness still.  D’ngar tried to move, but soon realized that he was in a very cramped space.  A concussion grenade, he thought to himself.  Didn’t do anything to the computers, but it knocked me into next week.  Then he noticed the smell.  The horrible, overpowering, stench surrounding him.  He felt something ooze past his face.  Something hot, and wet.  And sticky.  Blood.  He would have vomited if not for the Anti Amino Acid Peptides.  He realized with horror that he was in a cadaver pit.  A wide, deep, pit, filled to the top with rotting bodies.  Desperation and panic over took D’ngar.  Then he heard the whirring of the incinerator motors.  The bodies around him began to heat up.

          As the smell of dead, burning, flesh invaded his nose; D’ngar closed his eyes, and tried to whisper to himself.  Someone’s half rotted hand pressed against his mouth, however, so he decided against trying to speak to himself.  If only, he thought to himself, if only that stupid hacker hadn’t lit that stupid cigarette!  I’d be home by now, with my wife.  The flames began to lick at his back like whips.  The heat was oppressive and overwhelming.  He felt his own, still living, flesh start to sear with red-hot pain.  Dammit, he said to himself.  I really hope he enjoyed his nicot