Abrubtly halted.

[El_Phil]

Another random tale of life in the Ocelot Republic

We apologise for the delay in your regular story. Until then we return you to intermission

O'Neill sat back and pulled on his hip flask. At times like this life was good and it would be a crime not to drink. His happy mood was not shared by his companions. The exo-biologist Strasbar wished he was out on Haven while the surveyor Johnston wished she was somewhere that wasn't here.
'Here' was a three person exploration team on Hope, doing the on the ground investigations you couldn't do from orbit or from a plane.
"Nothing on the motion sensor or the IR. Again." Strasbar was doing her level best to ruin O'Neill's good mood.
"Well the survey scans picked up some life signs in this region, so you'd better keep on checking." O'Neill showed no sign of letting Strasbar get to him.
'Why did he get to be boss?' Strasbar asked himself rhetorically. Truth be told he already knew, but didn't like the answer. O'Neill had been one of the last bushmen from Ocelot before joining CREST command and the bosses thought that all that experience should be transferable. If it wasn't bad enough being stuck miles from all the big developments out on Haven he also had to cope with an unbearable boss.
Johnston also wanted to be somewhere else; she couldn't stand life in the colonies, she missed the big cities. She'd joined up to see different worlds and experience a new way of life, sadly she'd found she didn't like this new way of life. Stuck into a long term contract she truly believed life couldn't get any worse than being in a Colonial Recon, Exploration and Search Team.
O'Neill was aware that the rest of his team weren't exactly happy campers, but there wasn't a lot he could do about it. They had a job to do and he intended to do it. Besides he couldn't really understand the problem, Hope was a beautiful planet and if you couldn't appreciative the majesty of the plains on a day like this you had no soul. It sure beat working for a living.
"We're getting a large blip on the motion sensors!" Strasbar yelled out
"Told you so. Where from?" O'Neill replied
"Close, real close. In fact it's getting nearer." The excitement was fading from Strasbar's voice and concern was creeping in. Their job was to assess the area before building work began and chase up some rouge life form readings the survey ship hadn't been able to track down. Strasbar was remembering that there was a missing link in the local food chain, right at the top in fact, and he may just have found it.
"Johnston get back here. Now!"
"I can't see it on the IR! What kind of creature is it!" Strasbar had accelerated through concern, bypassed worry and then raced straight into panic. O'Neill just sighed.
"It's late afternoon and so the convection currents are playing hell with the infra red. If that was a decent military grade model it would filter it, it's not so we get awful resolution. Calm down."
As Johnston arrived back and climbed into the Panther O'Neill hit the accelerator and headed towards the signal on the motion scanner. As he filled in Johnston on the details he checked his rifle was within reaching distance. The survey ship shouldn't have missed anything big and the big six wheeled Panther was a tough vehicle, but you never knew...
As the Panther crested the last slope before the unidentified blip O'Neill slowed the vehicle to a stop. He checked the map, it didn't look good: The creature was somewhere in a small opening in the copse. Of course it could be a co-incidence that the unknown xeno just happened to have run off into the perfect place for an ambush. And women might want an honest answer when they ask if their bums look big.
Still as neither the on-board cameras nor the IR were getting a solid lock on it they'd have to go outside. With that thought O'Neill reached for his shotgun and made to get out.
"What do you think your doing?" Johnston asked "It's crazy to go out, there could be anything out there!"
O'Neill turned to her "Look someone is going to have to get a decent scan of this thing. Surely you want a close look at this thing Gregor?" Gregor Starsbar really didn't want a look and said as much. "Just me then." O'Neill said with a grin.
'I don't believe it! He's actually enjoying this. Is he crazy?' Strasbar could barely believe his ears.
As O'Neill headed towards the centre of the clearing he realised that he was probably breaking dozens of CREST command regulations. He also realised he didn't care; he hadn't felt this alive for years. With all the environmental and conservationists all over the Yettari desert they destroyed one of the very elements they were trying to save. The frontier feel where every day was an adventure waiting to happen. As he walked along, stalking the unknown creature, he knew his forefathers must have felt just like this when they had walked the bush.
"It's getting closer; it's almost on top of him." Johnston was watching the on-board map which was overlaying O'Neills transponder signal and the motion sensors tracking.
"We've got to warn him!"
Just as she reached for the door the creature leapt out of the bushes and charged O'Neill hoping to catch this strange new prey unawares. However you've got to get up pretty early to surprise a Yettari bushman and sadly for the creature it was almost dusk. The Alvis 'Alpaca' desert shotgun was the peak of decades of engineering and refinement. The rapid load system had been copied by the military almost before the first gun went on sale and the seals used to keep sand out of the workings had originally been developed for medical bio-waste containment. Truly a technological marvel, it was no more or less than a desert proof, man portable depleted uranium cannon. In fact if the creature would probably have been honoured to be killed with such a weapon, had it not been a brainless 8ft long, ten limbed killing machine.

In the aftermath the creature was named the O'Neill Chimera and the entire region was sealed off by the government while it investigated. Serious questions were asked of the survey ship as to how they managed to miss such a dangerous creature. The discovery of the Chimera was hailed as the biggest exo-biological find ever. No creature had been found with more than six fully articulated limbs and Hope CREST assignments became the hottest exo-biologist posting in the Republic.

Gregor Strasbar did get his much desired transfer to Haven where he ended up in a lab cataloguing weed samples. So far all his requests for a transfer have been refused.
Sue Johnston was sent to Gobi to do surveying work for a mine expansion project. She is currently one of the 3,764 women on the 38 million population planet and has no plans to leave.
Peter O'Neill was promoted to head up the Chimera investigation team. He also received a lucrative contract to front the latest Alvis Weapons promotional campaign. He plans to retire on Hope and head back into the bush as soon as the government re-opens the region.