Kappa Hunt

“You ever been on a type three hunt before?”

“No sir, I was just transferred from local protection in the green zone. Is that a problem?”

“For me, not particularly. For you… Here’s my sidearm. I suggest you put the barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. It’ll be better that way.”

“Now hold on a moment. I may be what you call the FNG here. But that doesn’t mean I’m some wet behind the ears liability. I’ve faced down plenty of type ones, alphas, and even some betas that got past you. I got a 87% on my marksmanship, can tag a headshot at 300 meters with an M-32 gauss, and completed advanced mobility training. As for you - I’ll admit you have years of experience, and I expect to learn a lot, but the powers that be still see you as expendable enough to be used for long range patrol work.”

“I like your attitude. You defiantly have a leg up over the FNG I shot last week after he got infected. So lets start with your first lesson. You know NOTHING. Type ones are just walking corpses, Alphas are old walking corpses that have managed to learn a few tricks. Type twos are what happens when someone had too much nano in his system upon death, and is a tougher type one. Betas are advanced type twos.”

“I know all that. Type threes are reanimates that had cybernetics grafted to them before they died. Advanced type threes are called kappas - though I’m pretty sure the next Latin letter would have been either gamma or lambda.”

“Its an in-joke based on the transcripts of the first soldier to encounter one. A list of obscenities three pages long - the only one that could be repeated in semi-pleasant company was crap - which became cap, and then kappa. Its said that three priests broke into tears and a nun had a miscarriage when that transmission was played back for the first time.”

“How could a nun…”

“It’s a joke. The only funny thing here because type threes are no laughing matter. Nano has no brains you see - it just builds what is in proximity to it. If its in the nervous system, it rebuilds nerves. That’s why we need to cremate or behead zombies. If you just shoot the brain, it regenerates and the thing gets back up in a few hours. If its in a machine, it rebuilds the machine.”

“And a type three is a man-machine hybrid…”

“Now you got it. Since the micro-robots are not working on a human template, it can make the reanimate better than new. A type three can take on a shrimp demon class power armor with its bare hands and win. A kappa might actually integrate sensors and weapons from that alien war machine into its body.”

“My g-d in heaven, have mercy on us.”

“Still want to go on patrol?”

“Yes sir! Though if you don’t mind, I’d like to hold on to this sidearm - just in case.”

“The FNG last week said that too.”