> Sorry I meant 100 points is wired to bravo, making 401 their grand total.

>>13218826

Walker read the message. Then he sat there with a confused look on his face. Then he re-read the message. And continued to sit there with an odd look on his face.

"Well, this is... good news," Walker said to nobody in particular. "I could have sworn Evergrad would chew my ass out..."

He shrugged, then stood up from the command chair.

"Well, I guess I better go round up the active members of Bravo and give them the good news."

Stepping out of the craft, Ghost begins heading out of the hangar before running across the Major. "All went well, I take it?"

>>13218977

"Better than expected, however my plans on making a Makarian farm would put me in more trouble than I plan to deal with. Oh, right, go tell the men who were in this OP to go get cleaned up, then meet me in the briefing room for debrief. And grab all the others who developed psionic powers as well. I've got news that concerns them too."

>>13219013
"Yes sir, I think many of them dozed off on the way back. I'll get them up." Going back into the extraction ship, Ghost begin shaking people awake. "RISE AND SHINE SOLDIERS! Go clean yourselves off and report to the briefing room, the Major has some news for us!"

((I am seriously behind on my Skirmish Quest-ery. Anything vital I need to go back and check on the general threads?))

Squeamish gagged and choked on the thick 'vat fluid. Another day, another gene-treatment. He understood that they were more or less re-coding his genome from scratch, but still, he wished the process would go a little bit quicker.

He glared at the tech on duty, who smiled back nervously. "Did you get it this time?" Squeamish asked.

"Erm... well, we're pretty sure the new skillwires will hold a little better. I mean, a few more of these and your brainstem should be back to 100%." the tech answered, sipping a cup of coffee.

"I certainly hope so. You better hope I don't flatline in a real combat situation, or I swear to god, the next clone in line is going to find you and flush you out an airlock," Squeamish grumbled, fighting a wave of nausea as he pulled himself from the vat. "Now, find me some goddamn pants."

>come no, where is everyone?

>>13219364

>Don't know; waiting for them to inform everyone of their success, rewards, and potential for future dickery.

You would think people would want to get in here and get their upgrades.

>>13219402

I know. I do believe Lost and perhaps Aberham were due for one, and I was going to promote someone else...

Also, open invitation for RPing the inevitable hijinks that come with obtaining psionic powers.

Warsaw roused himself as Ghost shouted for everyone to move to the briefing room. "No rest for the wicked,eh, Sargent?" He asked smiling grimly. In spite of Walker's advice, Warsaw couldn't help but ponder the event of the operation.

Squeamish staggered a little as he wandered into the briefing room, still a little damp and dressed in sweats. Vertigo. He knew enough of the medical textbook to know it was a common side effect to major neurological replacements. Something else to add to all the laundry list of problems on his plate.

Not the least of which being the whole combat thing.

Clean and in his regular uniform, Ghost entered the Breifing room and took a seat.

The Major walked into the debriefing room. He figured that his men would at least like to shower first. Maybe they thought he brought bad news? Well, they were in for a surprise.

"Okay, you did well in this last operation. And despite what I said on the return trip, that last operation didn't involve you murdering innocent children with some lethal genetic birth defect."

He paused, waiting for laughter. He didn't get any.

"... Right. ANYWAY, truth is, despite our inability to run an operation discretely, Overseer Evergrad has opted to NOT remote detonate half of our limbs simply because our actions led to severely crippling the Gurental Regime by preventing them from using the xeno as a weapon against us. Yeah, apparently the man really dislikes war atrocities."

"So congratulations, Bravo Force. You unknowingly stopped an evil, diabolical plot to weaponize those blasted xenoforms and use them against the Federation."

>>13219631

"Hey Squeamish. Good to see you up and about for a change," Warsaw said upon entering the briefing room and seeing the other medic. Warsaw took a seat next to the rather moist looking man. "You hear anything about how the Overseer reacted to the last mission?" he asked as he reclined into the chair.

>>13219756

"Sorry," Squeamish said, rubbing his temples, "I've been out cold since I flatlined at the VR training. Turns out that, along with everything else, I had a faulty datajack. They broke the mold when they cranked me out, let me tell you."

>>13219756
>>13219745

"Guess that answers that question," Warsaw said sounding relived, "Glad to hear the new Major. I wasn't looking forward to replacing everyone's limbs. Especially if I only had one left myself."

>>13219745

"Additionally, thanks to the fact that you stole data and, ah, 'liberated' those scientists, we've had an easier time going through their research. Apparently, their attempts at controlling the bugs resembles the recent problems we've had concerning re-synchronizing the genes of our vets from Homestead. Thanks to their work, we've managed to solve the problem, so getting you kids new meatsuits is no longer an issue. So as you can guess, with the new funds, I'm ordering new clones for our psionically capable veterans, as long as those of you who are down to your original."

"I know some of you want to know: 'but Walker, I had some clone stock from before I was exposed to radiation and psionic waves! Why can't I use those bodies?' Well kids, all of you who were exposed and recovered are now documented as originals. Meaning your old stock isn't you anymore. So congratulations; you get to spend your own paychecks now, instead of your originals."

"Ah, right, on that note, we can't destroy or recycle that clone stock on account of the Freeman Act. They are, for all intents and purposes, a separate... 'individual' from you. As such, I have a proposition for those of you with pre-exposure clone stock. Would you mind if I activated those clones? They are... or were, you. So being the closest thing to representative, I'm asking you if you'd mind having a past copy of you running about."

Dragon was less then happy. Seconds before launch is pod malfunctioned and he was unable to launch. Still he saw the fight, and he saw the assault of the two bitanks right off the bat. Maybe there was a reason he didn't launch. maybe luck works in mysterious ways.

"Man i'm always going to be an *explative* private"

"Oh, right, before I forget."

Major Walker stood up from leaning on the table in the center of the room.

"Private First Class Lost, Doctor Warsaw, Private Trauma, STEP FORWARD!"

The three clones exchanged nervous glances, and stepped forward. The last time something like this happened, Walker put two bullets into Lost's kneecaps.

"Knight Lost, Emergency Medic Warsaw, for exemplary service and bravery in the field, I am promoting the two of you to the rank of Specialist. Here is your new rank patch; wear it with pride!"

"Knight Trauma, in recognition of your stalwart dedication, I am promoting you to Private First Class. Enjoy the pay raise, soldier."

>Lost, I believe you get a spec class. Warsaw, you are close enough that I'm pushing for it. Also, I don't remember what your rank prior to this was, so unless you were a corporal, I hope you don't mind skipping a rank. Trauma, I believe you were a Private, so I'm promoting you. Congratulations, you can boss around Privates now!

>>13220060
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

>>13220052

"I hear that."

>>13220123

Hint on getting out of Private: don't do things that would make the Major want to send Hartford to get you, or would cause him to detonate your limbs.

>Anyone else? Lost? Ghoul? Ender? Hello?

>Also, I'm going to purchase a spare clone for anyone that's down to one clone.

>>is still hanging out.

>>13219928
Ghost just didn't know how to feel about the possibility of another version of himself running around serving along side him. "Sir, a question comes to mind! Er, this other Ghost, the old me, is also a sergeant and was leading Alpha squad as well. If he were to be brought out of storage, which of us would run Alpha?"

>>13220588

The Major moved to answer, but found that no words sprang from his mouth. Which WOULD lead Alpha? Or the Platoons, for that matter, for some individuals? Well, considering he was asking them permission, he might as well leave it to them to decide.

"Well Sergeant Ghost, personally, I would prefer you - the, ah, 'original' to continue your leadership duties. However, if you choose to activate your original clone - well, I suppose it would be something for the two of you to work out. Because technically, BOTH of you are the leaders of Alpha Squad. Of course, you can simply choose not to wake up your original clone. That would simplify the matter entirely."

>>13220661
"I'd imagine getting him to choose another callsign would be a good idea if I decide to activate him. The confusion caused by multiples of us running around will get out of hand quickly..."

>>13220661
"I think I'll just leave him in storage for now..."

HELLO, FAGGIT SKY MARSHAL PLEASE SEND HELP TO WAYPOINT CHI, JON RIKER WELDED ME INTO A LOCKER AND BEAT ME.

>>13220851

"Fair enough. I'm leaving the decision up to you though, since doing otherwise might be a violation of the Freeman Act."

>>13220856

GOOD JOB, JON RIKER! SORRY KID, WE DON'T DEAL WITH SPACE COMMIES HERE!

>>13220890
NO I'M SERIOUS HE'S THE LAST SYNDICATE, I NEED SOME FUKKEN BACK UP SO HE DON'T GET THE DISK

Somewhere, a meatsuit is looking in on a bank of visual monitors. Fingers move across the keying panel, not exactly dancing, more like scrambling. The meatsuit's eyes track movement on the monitors, and though the room is silent aside from the noise of the keystrokes, a pair of earjacks convey digitalized noise to the central processing cortex of the meatsuit.

A debriefing room full of the Bravos, a padded prison cell with a single occupant, an empty Inquisitorial office, a couple of researchers exchanging notes over a specimen.

An admiral in his deck. A private in his bunk.

"-this is weird."
"-tell me about it." A voice replied to the meatsuit from the earjacks.

"-literally?"
". . ."
"-idiom. Right."
"-continue the work. Share MEME in due time."
"-yes."

The meatsuit of one Anhuelle Lanuja continues to work on the database. Searching, learning, memorizing, preparing.

> This SHOCKING BACKSTORY FLASHBACK occurs on the extraction ride of the last mission, where Colton was uncharacteristically quiet.

23 buildings, 34 vehicles, 7 planes, and 420 people. Now it was 24 buildings… and how many dead? Colton would have to check the newfeeds.

Or was it only 1 building, and however many dead? Colton guess it was where one drew the line between Original and clone, as much in his head as with physical bodies.

Vantis York Colton was 24, depressed, and jobless. His trust fund, left to him by his estranged parents, had kept him alive. His schooling, which had left him with the equivalent of a PhD in Structural Engineering, had landed him a job that he had found restrictive and dissatisfying, which had let him go after continuous failed deadlines on the terraforming projects. His dark intellect pursued various quarries on the planet’s intranet, and that’s where Colton had found religion.

Religions, in general, were left alone by the Federation. Most of them. But Transhumanism was stomped out every time a sect brought itself out into the open. To outsiders, it was a religion dedicated to the destruction of all human ways and almost extinction-level deaths. To those inside, it was saving humanity from certain doom. They were going do what the Iron Line and countless cloned lives could not, they were going to beat the Exalted… by joining them.

>TOO FUCKING LONG!

When Colton was indoctrinated, he found this would not be an easy task. The taint that humanity had driven into the countless systems they touched would have to be scoured away. But for the first time in his life, Colton felt like he could help change the world. And so he used his knowledge of engineering and the chemistry he picked up on the way to help cripple the infrastructure of his planet. Later, after his bombs had caused the deaths of countless officials and the destruction of vital government and utility buildings, they would call him a mad bomber.

It was when he had tried to bomb a frigate in the PDF that he had been caught, trialed, and imprisoned for life. It should have been a death sentence, and many a day the man now known as Colton wish it had been. But an Inquisitor had stepped in and made a deal with the local government. And out of that deal, his transcription data had been handed over.

The Dualism process of cloning was still in its early phases, flipping the genome and personality of a clone to create a polar opposite. But they had starting being able to focus on parts of the body, and of the personality of the mind. With a surgical precision, which still went through various copies, they carefully cut around the demolition genius that had made him so infamous, and had flipped the part of him that was a fanatic for the Exalted. The result had turned it into a bone-deep loyalty for the military. Satisfied, they handed the reins over to the military, which produced a copy for testing.

>GODDAMN IT!

This copy, this “Colton” was flawed in many ways. He still had the memories of the old one, and he knew what they had done to him. He could see his real self, his true character like a mirror, a flipped image locked behind a flat plane. He didn’t want to be loyal, but he had no choice. The only rebellion he was able to do shirk responsible and ignore indirect orders, badmouthing everyone and everything. His life was bitter, knowing that he was traitor to his original’s beliefs, the beliefs he knew by heart but would never, could never act on. And they had even placed a few ideas of their own in his head, making Colton unable to take his own life, which also made him extremely cautious of damaging his mem-chip.

All in all it put Colton in a very bad mood as he was jostled in the Pelican's ungainly departure. 23 buildings, 34 vehicles, 7 planes, and 720 people…

>FFUUUUUUUUUUU-- Oh wait, I'm done.

>>13221211
>>13221218
>>13221232

>What a lot of text to read. Boring, boring, boring. You didn't come here to feel sorry for Colton. You came here to watch him suffer.

>Here you go, though also a big block of text.

Colton blinked his eyes. His vidscreen was blurry before him, before the sophisticated net of sensors caught his eyes’ movement and focused the net of 15 sensors that composed the helmet’s “eyes”. Groggily he swung his helmeted head down, only to realize he was lying down on a bed with crisp white sheets. As he turned to his right, his sensors picking up motion on the peripheral grids, it all came back to him.

“So, doc, how’d the v*censored*ing surgery go? Am I back to j*censored*ing w*censored*ery?”

The doctor, a balding middle aged man named Rorwen Tucker, gave him a critical glare. “If by that you mean are you back up to your original’s body template, then yes.”

“Okay, I’ll just be on my q*censored*ing way--S*censored*ING X*censored*ALL!” Colton screamed as he tried to squirm out of bed. A pain assailed his entire lower body. Sure, he could have dealt with certain parts being a little tender, but from waist down it was agonizing pain when he moved, like he had been flayed alive. Colton lifted the sheets.

“X*censored*ING Q*censored*ING P*censored*ED J*censored*! WHAT D*censored*ING DID YOU P*censored*ING DO TO ME?!” he screamed, then kept up a stream of profanities as Dr. Tucker backed away, a placating smile on his nervous face.

“It was an upgrade… a gift, from the major. Something about him being sorry about ‘cock blocking’ you… did he not tell you?” As Colton didn’t give an affirmative in his torrent of curse words, Tucker continued, his voice taking on a lecturing drone.

“We start by injecting a carbolitic micro-protein in several sites. It doesn’t do anything by itself, but as we inject the nanites, they quarry these deposits, along with your old flesh. I’m not an expert in nano-technology, but from the demonstration vid and the papers posted on them, these nanites literally consume your body from the inside out, replacing it with new material. In this case, that protein with base blocks of your now recycled biomass. They have to be programmed, of course, to each patient, and these in particular are formatted to only affect all the muscle, tendons, and cartilage in your legs. The result is an incredible improvement muscle reaction and flexibility… or in laymen’s terms: you can move faster.”

Colton stopped cursing. He quivered in rage and Tucker could hear heavy breathing from behind the mask. Suddenly Colton’s hand reached down and ripped the bed sheets away.

Pointing with his other hand as his legs, he snarled: “WHY THE B*censored* ARE MY J*censored*ING LEGS W*censored*ING BLUE, DOC?!”

Dr. Tucker looked down, blinking in surprise. “Well, there are certain side effects to--”

Colton leaped out of the bed and slammed the doctor to the floor. “THE H*censored*ING MAJOR PUT YOU UP TO THIS, Q*censored*ER?!”

Tucker breathed rapidly as the demoman’s featureless helmet loomed a couple inches from his face. “I-it’s temporary… the sensitivity will go away in a few days… in a few months your skin will gain back its lost pigmentation, and, and it didn’t affect your surgery or cause any coloration there…”

“MY Q*censored*ING ASS IS BLUE, DOC! MY. ASS. IS. S*censored*ING BLUE.”

The doctor screamed until the two orderlies pried Colton off.

>Upgrade point: +1 to MOVE.

Guess who's back, ladies and gents?

I'm back. In. The. GAME!

I'll be reading archives to catch up to this point, and rejoining formally next quest.

Prep yourselves for shenanigans.

>initiate internal monologue

I remember. I remember when i first killed a man. It was riot duty, surprisingly enough. There were huge rights going on about the taxation of trade routes.

I was sent out to quell a riot in front of a bank. The rioters were destroying it, tearing everything down. It was my second month on the force. I didn't have any experience. So we donned our gear and got dropped in via pelican.

As soon as we hit, we formed a line to the side of the crowd, slowly advancing forward, the stomp of our boots on the pavement resounding off the sides of buildings in the courtyard.

The rioters started backing off. Heh, they were scared. But not one. He had a gear covered vest, covered in weapons and other implements. He had short hair, cut back to a military crew cut. The look on his face could only be described as pure and condensed hate.

He locked eyes with me, and pulled what looked like a combat knife. He started slowly walking towards me, sticking out from the crowd. I looked to my C.O., and all he did was look back at me, then put his chin up, as if to say "do what you have to, Fly".

I dropped my riot shield, then pulled my sidearm. I fired off one shot, and the crowd went silent. He dropped to his knees, blood pouring from his neck. He looked back at me, clutching his neck, a look of plea on is face. I shakily holstered my sidearm. And dropped to MY knees.

Dear god what had I done?

The mans name was Robert. Robert Mattson. He had a wife and two children. And i took from them the one thing i never had.
A father.

suddenly, shitty drawfaggotry! At some point, I will learn this newfangled drawing apparatus.

Also, bump.

>bump

Tap-tap-slide.

As the meatsuit previously known as Anhuelle Lanuja works on the secreted console, doubt begins to gnaw at his thought process.

Lanuja's MEME- His whole personality and memory, to be exact, had been wiped clean. But the neural pathways made by years and years of study and research remain carved onto the meatsuit's brain. Lanuja is- Or was, a contemporary of the esteemed Honored Professor Janice, even.

But unlike the erratic brilliance of the Doctor, Lanuja was a conservative researcher. Plodding, slow, but certain. He tested hypothesis, make certain of assumptions and approximations...

In a sense, he was the wall that the more liberal researchers had to break down to get acknowledgements. But Janice, she simply soared over him. His findings only reinforced her mad theories, his stodgy reputation a foundation to her infamy.

Then, he died. Or as close as dead in this age of cloning and memory transcription. His MEME was wiped clean, in a freak accident with a prototype for a new transcryption machine. Lanuja came in, insisted on testing out the prototype on himself, and the 'accident' happened. It was totally unlike his personality, according to his fellow researchers...

And to compound the doubt, as this meatsuit found out as it delved into confidential research files, the Saint's Soul Staff project was on-going on the same site...

Tap-slide-tap-tap

The meatsuit files in the coincidences and continues...

>had been hidden in the back of the hanger working on the replacement Karnivore, so he'd missed the roll call for debriefing from the Major.
"Shit just ain't right..."
>he had been brooding over the entire situation since the mission's end, still believing there was more to all of this then even the Major knew...

Hawkes for the first day since Homefront was sober. He had very important business to attend to with the Major. His polished boots clacked against the ground and he entered the debriefing room and waited quietly for the Major to finish his talk.

He tried to pick an opportune time to move towards the Major and hoped he wasn't interrupting anyone's question. He handed the Major a sealed envelope, saluted, and whispered something to him. With that he turned and left the room in search of Ghoul.

>reading up on the technology behind the pendleton incident, I decided to give this a whirl.

Dreaming.

His eyes opened from inside the transcription pods. There was an unexpected clicking noise that said that the machine broke. He pushed his way out, uncovering the hatch and finding marines scrambling around the port. Nothing had changed, he was still in the Trans-Port in HomeFront.

There was a power outage it seemed. An extremist was caught ported in a few minutes ago. Went crazy and rigged himself with explosives.


>>

The power went back on. Everything was fixed. Fenner checked the time on his wrist console. He was 45 minutes late for the rendezvous. How long was he out in that machine ?

Ainsible station. He was going to call her. Tell her that there was a delay. The tri-galactic coverage rates were going to be brutal. But he didnt want to worry her.

An answer.

" Hello ?"
" Hey 'Randa, sorry about the delay- there were some snags with the terminal so Im going to be- "
"Who is this ?"
A pause.
"Who is this? Did you get the wrong number ?"
" It's me 'Randa, It's Fenner. We were going to meet in the Trans-port right ?"
"Yes ? No ? What are you talking about mister? You're right there getting your bags from the other porter."

He looks to the other transcription platform where he placed his bags. Empty. It was sent.

He looked back to his transcription pod. It had just booted up again after breaking on the scanning phase. His luggage must've gotten there before him. Solid materials are easier to transcript than wetware after all.

And yet why was he here ?

Wait.

" Who're you talking on the phone, 'Randa? " Said a distant voice on the other side of the crackle. His inflections and casual phrasing of Miranda's nickname felt like an echo in his head.

It felt like him.

"Fenner- What's your game- there's a man on the phone that claims to be you " Miranda's voice was distant on the other side of the phone.

"I- " The young man said, " Sorry- I think I got the wrong number. " He hangs the phone. Picks it up again and this time dials the number to his own personal wristcomm.
There should be an error message.
But it was ringing.
It should still be ringing.
It should ring four times before-

" Hello ?"

He throws the phone on the receiver. That was his voice
THAT WAS HIS VOICE.

He reeled back from the haunted ainsible from hell. He reeled back from the messenger of his own doom.
He reeled back from Fenner.

He reeled back from her.

He was a nobody on some Trans-Port. He was an error message on some trans-galactic system. He was not himself.

He fell over backwards as he backed into a medical stretcher that was carting some poor casualty away. The body's face was burnt, he was dead- his everythings was spilling out from the body bag and the orderlies was helping Fenn up as he stumbled broken and dead, himself. He saw the young man's ID.. Ender Spinelli designation R 566HPDF-04CC. He was young. Younger than he was - a junior combat clone that was going to get his chops at basic.

He grabbed it. Stumbling like an old fool while he did so. The technicians helped him up cursing while he apologized profusely.

His breath was ragged. His lungs were heavy. He cluthced the id card in his hand and looked at it. He could call Miranda again. He could out the man next to her as a fraud- a doppelganger a fake.

He was fake. He was the doppelganger. The real Fenner is with Miranda. The real Fenner was going to bend a knee and propose to her at the front of the skybridge.

He had done just that 10 minutes ago, 3 galaxies away.

The id was clutched in his hand. He looked at it again. This was someone's son, this was someone's ticket to stay out of the war.

This was his chance to die right.

>>13220546

Ender woke up. He was in the debrief. The accolades of clapping and and cheering murmered in his mind until someone said his name.

The Major was going to give him a clone. " Sir- " He stood up.

" I'm afraid that I may have to politely decline on a new clone "

He looked around briefly. He then sat back down. Monoist was not something he filled out on his records.

But he felt like that kind of asshole that told everyone that their lives were worthless.

No that wasn't it.

He was just fine with dying is all.

>>13223937

The Major looked at the young clone, a little confused. Most soldiers, especially originals, would have jumped at the very notion of getting a spare clone added to their banks.

Perhaps Ender was a Monoist?

"Alright then, Private Ender. I'll respect your wish to live with a more prominent reminder of your mortality. And you know what? I like that. That and your performance during the operation. I hereby promote you to Private First Class."

>>13224023

The chair scraped back as he stood.
" S- SIR ! " He didn't know why he yelled it.
" TH- THANK YOU , SIR " He sat back down. Looking at the black of his boots, dodging everyone's glances at him.

Monoist or no, he swilled the words in his head over and over.

"Reminder of my own mortality "

He smiled a little at that.

>>13224023

Major Walker, in writing his reports, would later mention in a report sent to Fierstrom the unusual recruit and his thoughts of the boy. And as standard protocol, his adjutant, Lieutenant McMillan, would read over his reports and add his two cents at the Major's insistence.

Unlike the Major, McMillan was perfectly fine leaving clones in the dark about his decisions.

"Hello, Inquisitor Fierstrom? This is Lieutenant McMillan. I'm sending the after-action reports of the operation on Bluebone to you. However, there was one soldier that seems a bit out of place - mainly in his refusal to accept an additional clone..."

>>13224106

" The Zeroist recruit who executed a doctor ? Yes, its being looked into. But since the legitimates that are bringing up the charges are essentially war criminals now it's not a case they could make... wait- this isnt about that is it, Adjutant ? What are you on about ? "

>>13224175

"Well, that soldier. Just doesn't seem right. I mean, he's a rookie, and yet his first engagement, he blows up a bloody tank, and goes cold on one of the scientists, right after he panics over the comm channel."

"On top of it, he refuses the offer of a free combat clone backup? Most clones would literally kill people for that, ma'am. Something just doesn't add up, if you ask me. You know Walker - he just accepts things at face value. I think there's something more to this kid. Seeing as you are an Inquisitor, do you think it would be possible to do a back ground check on him?"

Aberham, sits in the medical office, slowly reading the report 'provided' be the captured staff.

>>13224260

Squeamish paused as he wandered through the medical office doors.

"Sir," he said, tipping an invisible hat to the larger man. "Anything interesting?"

>>13224480

Abe looks up from his work,

"Hey...Squeamish right? My apologies, have we spoken before?" He stands and extends his hand.

>>13224260
Results of Aberham's examination reads as follows:

>X-Comm operates as a digital queen program armed with Xenoform linguistic morphology.
>All Xenoforms are psionic
>Xenoforms are genetically bound to each brood Queen
>The brood Queen bound to X-Comm currently is a human test subject codenamed: Dom
> Dom does not show up in the lab records.
> Scientists don't know or remember who Dom is.

>Erasure....

"-so we have a deal? Ten to one, Sergeant Ghoul gets more than Sergeant Irons, both in their respective Armors?"
"Fuck yea! Sergeant Ghoul would kick so much ass!" "Shut it, Bronte, Sharky's a greater machine than Karnivore." "You shut it. My sarge is better than Irons!" "You-"
"-wait a moment. Is not this wager the point of this argument?"
"Right, right." "Yeah, just see it next time."

The two clone soldiers wander away, leaving the clone soldier with their credit chits. He closes his ledger file, and stores the credit in the tag-wallet.

Gambling. Socializing. What is it again? Oh, right, keeping up with the non-restricted addictive substances, for recreation purposes, right.

The clone soldier flips out a slim metal box, and pulls out a thin stick out of one end with his lips, and with a flick of his wrist, turns the box around and turns on the igniter on the reverse side of the box. A moment is all it takes for the ciggarete to take light, and the clone soldier puts back the lighter-cum-cigarette-box with practiced ease.

Yes. He actually practiced it. This clone dislikes the taste, and he does not see the point of the activity. None of them does. But for the sake of assimilation, sacrifices would have to be made. An Naval Admiral would hardly be suitable face to keep with the groundpounders, thus the task falls to this clone.

Exhaling a perfectly circular smoke ring, the clone leaves the hallway. Tonight, he has to attend to some back-channel supplier to get some 'favors'. Then there is the matter of returning the favor owed to that medical staff. And then... There are lots of things to do.

The clone soldier exhales.

Really, do they actually like this taste? What a strange notion.

>>13224517

He winced and shook the proffered hand. "Erm... I suppose we haven't actually, ah, spoken before. I've spent the last few weeks alternately under the knife and in the cloning 'vats. I was going to introduce myself after the VR training, but, ah, my brainstem burned out. Bad gene sample."

>>13224559

"My apologies again, I should have come to you as well"

He sits back down

"In any case good to be on board with you, you've been on with medical longer then anyone. As for the info, well, looks like they are adapting psicomm tech to control the bugs, maybe even slave the whole operation to a single individual. Warsaw is more up-to-date on psicomm protocol so I was going to condense the testimony and have him take a look."

>>13224538

>Thank you Orbital
>Walker cleared be for advanced class, woot

>>13224595

Squeamish paled.

"Wait, you're telling me that they are planning on connecting a hive of xenoforms through a single operator? I'm not a xenobiologist, but isn't that... a little insane? Even if it works... I'm sorry, sir, I've seen what they do. Do to people. I wouldn't even wish that on the Exalts..."

>>13224633

Abe chuckles a bit,

"Insane, you fucking bet, No info on who they are doing it to, but I can only assume this 'Dom' character is a custom genetics job; with expanded mental capacity and memory augments. Not something I want to think about. Flux in general creeps me out."

ABerham> Pick a medic upgrade type
>SciFax [MAd Scientist type]
>Engineer
>Exurgeon

Lost> still working on your Valkrye class.
Valkrye [vK]
[Aka Drakoon for male members]
HP 3
Move: 4
Ac:t1
Pneumatic Spear.
Damage 3. Range 2Deep
Legion Shield.
One Direction Coverage: Repels 2 damage.

Sweep:
6x[T] 1 hex radius.

Impale:
7x1

*P Spear is treated as a Large Class weapon for purposes of damage.

No art but this looks like a final for it.

>>13224662

He sat down and idly flipped through some of the memos cluttering the tabletop.

"This whole thing stinks, if you don't mind me saying, sir. I mean, I've only seen a few flashes of it, but there's something wrong with all of this. Psychics and xenos and... Inquisitors. I envy the grunts who don't know enough about biology to care about this stuff. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin."

>>13224719

>SciFax [MAd Scientist type]
>Engineer
>Exurgeon

Awesome!

OK....so Aberham is definitely not the mad scientist type, he's very practical and getting into the field medic role well,

So that leaves Engineer and Exurgeon, what difference might I anticipate between them?

Lieutenant McMillan activated his personal terminal. Even after that little incident, he was still recognized as a commanding officer. He hoped.

"Hello R00, how are you? Listen, we have a new recruit, and well, would you please find him and, well, maybe help relieve him of the stress from his first engagement? ... Really? Thank you. Ah, right, his name. Ender, Private First Class, I believe..."

An hour later, the famous robot maid of Bravo found herself standing in front of barracks 2-C, where Pfc. Ender was assigned.

"... Deep breaths, it's all service, just like everyone else..."

"... I hope he's cute, though..."

>>13224768

The soldiers - mostly new recruits or recently-thawed clones - were relaxing in their bunks, as soldiers tend to do when they're not fighting, eating, or running drills. A knock was heard at the door of the barracks, which then opened with the quiet hiss of automatic doors.

"...Hello, is Private First Class Ender available?" R00 said timidly to the group of soldiers, most of which were unfamiliar with Bravo's unofficial mascot, aside from the wild stories a few heard.

Ender felt the clone next to him nudge him in the stomach - one Private Dowhilisk. "Lucky you, Ender. You get to spend time with R00!"

>>13224732

"I'm no 'sir' at least not yet, and I'm just as lost as you are"

>>13224851

"Ah. Sorry, si-err... You do, however, outrank me."

>>13224719
>>13224763

Engineers have the neat ability to repair mechanical stuff
Setting up fortifications, and has a neater Grav Glove that allows them to shift/shape/build/crush objects.
They lose the heal ability but instead gets to build barriers, gun emplacements and resupply stations with their drones.

The Exsurgeon can use drones to "box" bodies in the battlefield and have them fully repaired with drone prosthetics. There is a 50 percent chance of battlefield recessitation. Other than that, they can treat all or mostly all ailments with a travel sized tactical formula gun capable of boosting battlefied performance, or the enemy's willingness to be defeated.

>>13224886

"...really, ah oh that's righ: Spc. is not ranked as an N.C.O"

under his breath : "thank god for that"

"Hows life been treating you?"

>>13224889

very cool,

Abe still want to be in the business of healing folks (despite the fact that I personally love the engineer)

So it looks like Exsurgeon will be it, hope I get to keep my grav gun

>>13224904

Squeamish blinked.

"My brain was put together so shoddily that it literally burned out when the datajack started running at full speed. I've, er, been better. Been spending my off time studying the military augmentation catalog. With all the chrome they can stick in a clone, I'm really surprised that we come out as... human as we do."

Walker had finally finished writing those reports when he decided to read Lieutenant Hawkes' letter. Opening the letter, his face shifted to a frown. After re-reading the letter twice, Walker opened up a secure channel in his TACIM.

"Lieutenant Hawkes, you wished to speak with me in private, correct? Then meet me at the viewing bridge in 15. Walker, out."

Major Walker stood up, and marched out of his room, clutching a datapad and Hawkes' letter. Walking briskly, he reached the viewing bridge in 5 minutes. With 10 minutes to kill, the Major ambled about, looking for a nice secluded area in the large park.

A simple recreational area, the viewing bridge was simply a reinforced plexi-glass dome installed that allowed it's goers to walk around in the small park looking at the "night sky."

And as Walker waited for the Lieutenant to show, that's what he did. He wondered to himself, how at one point in time, gazing at the stars was something that didn't fill him with dread and anger.

>>13224964

Aberham returns the blink, and mentally chastises himself for bringing up uncomfortable subjects.

"Sorry to hear it, S.O.M. can be a bitch."

>>13224966
Hawkes entered the far end of the viewing bridge, a cigarette between his lips. He began to move towards Walker, his hands in his pockets.

"Sir." He leaned against a railing nearby. He took the cig from his lips and let the smoke drift out of his mouth. "Sir, I need to get out of a leadership position.... For now at least. The stress, it's been getting to me, along with all the other things that have been happening." He dropped the cigarette and stomped on it, crushing the burning embers beneath his boot. "It's been great being an Lt, but it just isn't my thing. I'm better off as a grunt, faceless and unknown. I've got enough trouble worrying about my own ass that I don't have time to worry about anyone else's' as well." Hawkes moved to an attention stance, "Sir, requesting a resignation of position, Sir!" He held his hand up in a salute waiting for his orders.

>>13224904

Squeamish smiled weakly and shrugged.

"I don't mind. It is an inconvenience. For me, I guess. It just kind of hurts to be up here with everyone planetside getting ground up. I've done... four field operations so far, and I've been with the crew since Aggoria."

He shook himself visibly and changed subjects. "The catalog is interesting reading, though. I mean, that is what my... my original is doing right now, running an augmentation practice. Once I stop falling apart every week, I'm going to see if I can get some of the high-grade cyberware requisitioned to play with. I don't know about you, but balistic fibre muscle-weaves sound good to me. I'd like to be shrapnel proof." he continued brightly.

>>13224966
>>13225038
>minor sounds of a scuffle can be heard through the door to the viewing bridge, as Ghoul attempts to boot in the door to the room, while being held back by 4 soldiers

Shot sat in the gyro, deep in thought. In truth, he wanted to punch something. His original wasn't him anymore. This... this was his original. This.... this body that felt so alien and... new. He sighed, walking out of it and to the windows, staring at the infinity of space.

He rememered how Wolf had reacted to the scientists copping a feel after the last mission. It was only natural to want to protect a girl, right? He clipped another cigar and sighed, lighting it quietly. So. He was stuck in this young, female body forever, then? After all, any new clones were going to be of her, not his old self. He ciuld try and get gender reassigned, but that felt, somehow, like giving up. Like admitting defeat.

Well, fuck that.

But what now? What was he going to tell the new recruits? Ugh...

>>13225038

Walker stared at the young man, one of his longest-serving veterans. He shut his eyes, took a deep drag from his cigar, then turned his back to the Lieutenant to lean on the hand rails and to stare at the field of stars above him. He sighed, before removing the cigar from his mouth.

"I understand, Hawkes. It's a stressful position, especially if you are leading on the field."

The Major stared at the orange embers of his cigar, his eyes focusing on some point beyond them.

"Did you know, son, that I never wanted this position? That I too, was more than content being the faceless grunt? The unsung soldier, one of millions? I was more than satisfied with my Tactical Advisory role way back when."

Major Walker looked to the stars one more time, before turning to look Hawkes in the eyes.

"I won't judge you soldier; I know that not everyone is cut out for this kind of thing. I just want to know: are you sure about this?"

>>13225073

After struggling against the soldiers, Ghoul manages to break free from one of the four. With one less man attempting to restrain him, the huge Russian managed to throw off the other three security guards.

"Fuck, stop him!"

Just as Ghoul is about to reach the door, guarded by two more MP's, a booming voice is heard behind him.

"LIEUTENANT, I'M GOING TO HAVE TO ASK YOU TO STOP!"

Ghoul slowly turns around. Standing amongst the four fallen MP's is Sergeant Hartford.

>>13225073
Hawkes turned his head towards the door, listening to the loud banging on the other side.

>>13225093
He turned back to the Major, "Walker," he wasn't trying to be rude, but trying to be sincere, "There are very few things that could keep me in this position. I've served for awhile now, and it all my time I found that I've been happiest when all I had to do was shoot things." He looked back again as there was a loud thud outside the door, "Sir, ever since Homefront was attacked I'm just not in the right mind for commanding troops. That was my home-planet, Sir. My friends and family haven't died of age. They've all been killed by Xeno's on that planet, and right now that's a pretty heavy thing to deal with. My men may call me weak, but that's the price I'll have to pay." He looked the Major in the eyes, "You're a strong man, Sir. I just don't got that strength in me yet."

>>13225116
Almost grinned at the sight of Sgt. Hartford, one of the cigarettes that were clenched between his teeth was bent from dealing with the MP's,

"Can I help you Sergeant? I need to speak with the Major, and these lads decided for some reason that I cannot."

Ghoul's next words dripped with venom, almost inviting Hartford to start the brawl anyone nearby could see coming like a freight train.

"Don't tell me that I have to get through you to just speak with my Commanding Officer."

>>13224809
" Lucky me ? " Ender blinked and stared at the maidbot. Today, she wore a service uniform. A slight smile went across her face. Grabbing his hand, the two of them exit through the sliding doors.

"Stress? " Ender protests. " If theres stress to be relieved it's the fact that I'm being kidnapped by a -"

R00 turns to him. Still as a cat.

" Sorry-" He starts. " If the major is requesting I get some R and R - can we go somewhere else ? "

The robot tilted her head- but complied regardless.

A hill overlooking the space port was rimmed with grass, and some chairs installed for passerbys and joggers. The robot sat staring at the distant roar of engines and the traffic of troops. She turns her head to see Ender come back with a bag of roasted peanuts.

" Want some ? "
" I'm good, private Spinelli"
"Ender is fine."
" Is master preferable ?"
"No "
" Affirmative."
" You're not too versed at this are you ? "
The maid blinks.
" I see, " He sits down next to her. Eating the peanuts in threes as he stares out onto the sunset.
The robot looks about curious realizing the lack of people in the area. There was no social merit to this gathering as Ender wasn't talking, only... being.
" What is the significance of this act, Ender ?"
"Sunset in Hearth takes 153 minutes. The color shifts of a whitedwarf goes from blue to green to to yellow to red to orange to purple. There was an opera based on this span of time, " Ode to the twin Suns" it was a play I saw as a kid and it made me come here to Hearth- " Ender looks at the robot. " I'm sorry - am I boring you ?"
" Continue "

"Right, Before we leave this rock, I wanted to see this sunset, with Ode to twin suns playing to this exact scene whenever I close my eyes " He demonstrates the gesture. And so I'm burning it in my mind. "
" This- moment," R00 asks, "Is it important that I not be in it ?"
" N-no not at all," Ender grabs her hand. " You can join me if you'd like"
"I'm under orders to " She sits.
" Then enjoy it with me- if you'd like." Ender smiles.

They sat. A tinge of green painted the sky. As the two looked ahead Ender could distinctly hear a sonnet sung in the play. It was R00, hitting the notes as the super-jets screamed in formation above them. To Ender, the song was loud and clear as the skies turned purple around them.

> > > >
[musical Suggestion: Maria and Draco]

>>13225185

> Sorry folks, I was posting on Orbital's computer. and acciddentally used his trip.

>>13225185

"It's wonderful"

Your GM is now a bipolar psychopath.

Good job, Ender.

>>13225249

I would be doing this if you weren't an original.

>>13225249
>Haha, glorious.

>>13225158

Sergeant Hartford cracked his knuckles, then cracked his neck.

"The Major is busy with Lieutenant Hawkes. I'm sure he'll be finished shortly. But it looks like you're willing to wait."

Hartford raised his arms in a fighter's stance.

"Let's go, Lieutenant!"

The giant roared as he charged the Lieutenant. The remaining MP's simply flattened themselves against the walls, unable or unwilling to get any closer to the eminent fight.

>>13225274

>>>Just gonna leave this here....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iof5pRAIZmw

>>13224944

You cant. But heres the deal. Get rid of the projectile aspect of your formula gun [4R]. And now you do heals and buffs at melee range.

Then I can let you use a grav gun.

Essentially: Keep grav gun or switch to Injector gun

>>13225274
Grins fully now as Hartford rushes forward with a roar. Ghoul quickly brings his own arms up into a rather odd stance, hands open partially and his face basically left open; before shouting.

"IT BEGINS!!!"

Ghoul takes a step back with his right foot, a maniacal smile as Hartford charges

>>13225313

um, sounds good, lets do that. Keep the Grav, hold off on the ranged injector

>>13225149

The Major chuckled to himself, then lifted the visor of his TACIM to allow the two of them to look each other in the eyes. And in that moment, what Hawkes saw was not the loud commander filled with excessive bravado that he and the rest of the men had come to know, but an old, weary man, who suddenly seemed very small.

"Son, you talk about me being strong an' all. But the truth is, I ain't. I'm just a cowardly, crazy old man who cares too much and can't make up his bloody mind. I'll tell ya something, boy. All the things that you think shows that I'm strong is simply my weakness."

Walker then moves his visor back on, and in an instant, his entire body language returns to what it was moments ago.

"I don't mean to sound consolin' or anything, but callin' out your commanding officer and telling him face-to-face that you don't think you are capable of doing a job can be called a strength."

> > >

"-there's a fight? Ghoul against Hartford?"
"-FUCK! Where?"
"-two to one odds! No take backs! Comm your wagers to my PALM. I'm footing it there, right away!"

>>13225355

Walker moved to place a heavy hand on the should of Hawkes.

"If this is what you want, then I've no right to stop you. Thank you for being honest with me, Hawkes."

In one sweeping motion, Walker's hand drops down along Hawkes' shoulder, to tear the patch indicating Hawkes' rank as Lieutenant.

"Hawkes, from this moment forward, you are permanently relieved of your position as Lieutenant of the Sons of Hati Platoon. You are hereby demoted to the rank of Sergeant. As your final action as Lieutenant, I would like you to deliver a list of recommended officers that you believe are capable of commanding your platoon."

"SERGEANT HAWKES, IF YOU UNDERSTAND, YOU ARE HEREBY DISMISSED!"

"SIR, YES, SIR!" He turned and marched toward the door.

Midway he stopped and half-turned back towards the Major, "Sir, you may not consider yourself a 'strong' man... But I'll be damned if you deny you have a strong heart."

He opened up the door to the scene of Ghoul's and Hartford's fight beginning, "Go get 'im, Ghoul." He gave the big man a pat on the shoulder and walked past, hands returning to his pockets.

>Third repost? I keep dicking this up.

>>13225341

Hartford charges Ghoul, and in midstep, hunches forward and drops low, below Ghoul's open hands. Pivoting his torso, Hartford swings his right arm upwards and into Ghoul's jaw.

Moments before the hit connects, Ghoul catches Hartford's bone-crushing swing with his hand, and savagely swings his head down, onto Hartford's, sending the Sergeant reeling backwards.

>>13225507
steps in towards the reeling Hartford, dropping to a knee and slamming the bottom of his palm into the Sergeant's right kneecap. Laughing maniacally the entire time so far
"Come on!!!"

Shot sighted. There was one person he could talk to on the matter, and that was Walker. So Shot made his way through the halls of their headquarters, deftly avoiding the fight. He didn't really have much interest in it.

"Sir?" shot asked, looking through the room he normally found the man in.

>>13225543

Hartford dropped to a knee. But instead of crying out in pain, he cried something else.

"GOT YOU!"

Ignoring the pain of his likely shattered right kneecap, Hartford quickly grabbed Ghoul's head, and launching himself up, sent the same knee crashing into Ghoul's head as hard as possible and sending the Lieutenant faltering.

"THAT ALL YOU GOT?!?"

Wasting no time, Hartford cried out and once again pressed his attack, throwing a left hook at Ghoul's head.

>>13225547

Walker was once again staring at the field of stars above his head when he heard a female voice call out to him. It took him a moment and a half to realize that the person calling out to him was Corporal Shot.

"Jeez, just how is everyone able to find me? Do I have a tracker in my suit or something?" Walker mumbled to himself.

Without turning to see the person talking to him, Walker responded, still watching the night sky.

"Yes Corporal, do you need something?"

>>13225567
Grinned as blood trickled from his shattered nose and seriously cut lip. Ghoul brings his right arm up knocking the hook from hitting his face and instead deflecting off of Ghoul's shoulder.

"NOW THIS IS ENTERTAINING!!!"

Steps into Hartford's guard, left foot stomping down on the Sergeant's right foot. As he steps into Hartford's guard Ghoul left hand thrusts towards the man's throat.

>>13225596

Pain blurred the Sergeant's vision. But he ignored it. For perhaps the first time in his life, he was enjoying a fight.

Not like he ever was in anything that wasn't considered a one-sided massacre, though.

Hartford saw the hand shoot out for his throat. With his foot pinned, he couldn't move to deliver one of his famous kicks. It was obvious that he couldn't deflect the attack with his hands - too slow.

So Hartford did the only thing that came to his mind.

He lowered his head, opened his mouth, and bit down, hard, on Ghoul's hand.

>>13225582
"are you certain the old bodies are unrecoverable, sir?" he asked, walking up to him. "It's a matter of... pride, sir." he sighed. "Look, I... I'm worried. worried the boys here will stop treating me like... I'm one of them. Just the other day, after the mission, Wolf threatened to beat up a guy who'd felt me up. He wanted to... protect me, sir. I... I know that this means I'll live twice as long as normal folks, sir, but..." he sighed, sitting heavily in a nearby chair. "I don't want to turn into... something I'm not. Sir."

>>13225613
Grit his teeth in pain as blood oozed from his bit into hand, but took the chance he had. His right hand thrusts forward at Hartford's throat

Ghoul didn't care whether the Sergeant was enjoying the fight, because HE was. It had been 2 days since he'd last lit up a cigarette along with the other problems bothering the Lieutenant at the moment This was a good way to let off steam

>Off to play vidya, night all.

>>13225646

Walker rubbed the bridge of his nose. Oh boy. While he could sympathize with Shot, he had no idea how to handle his... unique situation. The only thing he could do for the... man was tell him the truth.

"That's the thing, Corporal. The bodies are recoverable. They still work. But they aren't really yours anymore. We can't stick your current mind in your old one - just won't work that way. We can activate him, sure, but the Shot we activate won't be you. Or the you now."

The Major sighed. He wanted to help him, he really did; but how do you deal with this situation, anyhow?

"We can try to create a new body for you. Or rather, one based off your old one that's synchronized to your current flux signal. However, I'm no expert on this kind of thing. I'll see what I can do; however I can't promise anything. In any case, go down to the cloning labs and ask the doctor on duty. I'd expect he'd be able to help you better than I can, Shot."

>>13225676
Shot nodded.

"Thanks for listening, sir. You know... I only have a few of those cigars left. The ones from home. I just wanted to let you know that if anything happens, any weird shit or political bullshit, that they're yours. I've never had a better man to take orders from, and that's the honest truth." he stood, chuckling. "I wonder how it woulda turned out. If this was who I really was." with a sigh, he turned and headed to the cloning labs.

...

rolled 3 = 3

>>13225716

>Fuck, rollan again.

>>13225690

If only Major Walker wasn't a commander, he would probably be the one to seek Shot out instead for advice.

Sadly, his position meant that there were very few he could confide in. In fact, he couldn't name a single person who he could tell everything to. Except for Fierstrom. Which never seemed like a good idea.

Walker slowly walked to the exit of the viewing bridge. As he opened the doors, he found Lieutenant Ghoul and Sergeant Hartford grappling each other. Ghoul had Hartford by the neck, while Hartford was raining blows onto Ghoul in an attempt to break free.

In a few moments, Hartford slowed, and Ghoul, noticing that his opponent was about to suffocate, released his grip, allowing for the giant to fall to the floor. Ghoul raised his arms in triumph, roaring a primal scream of victory.

Which promptly turned to insane laughter when an additional squad of MP's showed up with stun batons and all 8 men tackled the bloody Lieutenant. 5 minutes later, the Lieutenant was unconscious, and more than half of the MP's were injured.

Walker just rubbed his temples, and before he walked to his quarters, had a single order to give to the MP sergeant.

"... Sergeant."

"Sir!"

"... get these men to the medical bay."

"Sir! Yes sir!"

In his quarters, Ghost sat on his cot lost in thought. He had left the debriefing earlier to check on that project he had set up, only to find that R00 had been pulled off by the Major temporarily. No matter, that wasn't his concern at the moment.

There was another A.I. on board. He could feel it's presence, it's consciousness all the way from here. Where as most droids were a candle barely flickering, and R00 was a lightbulb illuminating a room, this A.I. was a lighthouse, a beacon visible across the horizon. It hadn't been like this until it had been installed, and he hadn't noticed until he had time to sit and think.

----------------------

How long had he been sitting here? He had tried to find any information about this A.I. on the terminal and only managed to turn up a block with the Inquisitorial seal. He could already feel out it's location on the ship. Although he could try to find more by visiting it, he had already been shot once recently and didn't want to repeat the experience.

Rising from his cot, Ghost walked out of his quarters. No clear destination in mind, he began roaming the ship.

>>13228326
Dragon sees ghost moving as though he was on a mission
"Sup boss?"

>>13229363
Startled, Ghost turns to see Dragon walking along side him. "Oh, just walking some. Got bored. How are things going with you? Not getting into too much trouble, I hope."

>>13229415
"Well you know boss, trouble finds me. I'm alright, kinda pissed off about not being able to help out in the fight. I mean shit, might have taken out that bitank, that woulda saved the rookie and kept a nice slug out of you." Dragon sighs "But hey, what can ya do? Besides that I'm gold sir."

>>13229517
"Don't worry about it. The damn thing came out of no-where, and I managed to survive it anyway. We got some back-up clones out of it at any rate. Not sure if we'll be doing more work for Evergrad for awhile or something else, I've heard nothing."

>>13229555
"Really? Huh. Well so long as it keeps me from exploding i don't really give a *explative*. Actually, nah, i didn't really mind exploding so far..." Dragon seems to trail off, rubbing his stomach around where his liver would be. "amd I didn't even do shit....So what do ya think? Are we going to switch from bug killing to more covert *explative* like last mission?"

>>13229669
"At this point, who knows? If Evergrad was pleased enough with out performance, he might find other work to do. If not, I have no clue as to where we might end up."

>>13229709
"Well whatever. So long as i get more chances to blow *explative* up. Still though, the fact that there was civilians sorta...i dunno. Just feels off. I'll kill a man in a fair fight, or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if I'm gettin' paid. Mostly when I'm gettin' paid, but civilians? Eh."

>>13229779
"Those scientists weren't completely innocent, Dragon. They were cloning xenos to use against us! I think things worked out for the best, this time around."

>>13229848
Dragon shrugs "I don't know about that sir. We all got a job to do. If Walker told me to clone xenos you're damn sure i'd poke a corpse with a stick untill there's two. As for being used against us...well who's word we got on that?" Dragon hesitates a moment "...you know i'm not really human right boss?"

>>13229884
"Eh... what!?"

>>13229903
Dragon laughs "I figured they would tell you or something Ha!" Dragon shakes his head "Damn, man, that means no one could know. Well yeah, i ain't human, not really. I dont know and shit. I'm clearly not the smartest boss. But uh, yeah, I was uh..."built" or something. A "Genetically manufactured human"....least that's what they said. They gave me some money and bam, i was outa the place they kept all of us. First place i went was a docters and sure enough my DNA or whatever was all weird and shit. At least that's what he told me. Then i figured, shit they built me to be a good trooper so...well yeah here I am."

>>13229968
Ghost stops. "Genetically manufactured? You mean there is no original of you? Right..."

He stands there, considering something. "Dragon, when you get the chance you should go find Aberham. Tell him what you just told me and get a dna test. Tell no one else. Excuse me." With that, Ghost set off down the hall.

---------

Marching into the command room, Ghost halted before the Major. "Sir, I need to have a word with you. In private."

>>13230068
"Alrighty Ghost. Take care."

>>13230108
Or rather, where the Major was supposed to be in his command chair. He found Lt. MacMillan sitting there instead. "Pardon, where is the major at?"

>>13230108

But the man wearing the cowboy hat wasn't Walker. It was McMillan. And with a start, he jumped from the command chair and dropped the hat. He scrambled to pick the hat back up, place it back on the seat, and straighten his suit.

"Ahem, ah, right, sorry Sergeant Ghost. The Major's not in right now. In fact, I don't know where he is. Nobody does. In fact, I just found his hat here..."

McMillan motioned to the empty command chair.

"Anyway, is there anything I can help you with instead?"

>>13230176
This was odd. Ghost hadn't talked any with MacMillan, and didn't really know if he could be trusted with what he had heard. Still, he had to have some excuse for marching in like this. "Oh uh... Where is R00 at? She's needed at the tech labs. They need to do some diagnostics with something or other. Yeah. And where was the Major last seen?"

Baumer tugged at his tight-fitting uniform, clearly unhappy with the starched and pressed outfit. Class A indeed. No better way to show that you're fresh outta boot camp. Fresh meat. Lovely.

The papers in his hand read for him to report to Bravo for troop assignment. They nicely forgot to say who he should be reporting to, and where he should be heading on this station to find Bravo to begin with. Lovely.

Paul Baumer clicked his shined boots together, feeling rather out of place. Well, might as well get searching for where he was supposed to be.

>>13230260

"R00? Well, I do believe she's busy doing a job. Maybe for the Major, I wouldn't know. I can try locating her with a terminal. Would you like me to do that?"

McMillan walked over to his normal station, and pressed several keys, causing the holo-screen to light up.

"But yeah, the Major... no clue as to where he could be. Last I saw, he was headed for the viewing decks. And, well, when I came back here, I found his hat. Funny thing, really. The other officers in here said they weren't aware that it was here either. Makes me wonder if the Major even WANTS to be found, if you ask me."

>>13230310
Dragon made his way to medical, and saw a lost private. Brand new uniform too. "Sup buddy. Ya new to bravo?"

>>13230340
Baumer straightened, taken aback by the new arrival.

"SAH, YES SAH. Would you kindly direct me to whoever I need to have approve this transfer, SAH?"

Inwardly, he groaned. Nothing like making a fool out of himself the moment he put his boots on the deck.

>>13230319
"Certainly. And when you locate her, send her to the tech labs. I'll be waiting there."

Ghost quickly departed the command room and went straight for the viewing deck.

>>13230391
Dragon just laughs "Nah nah nah buddy, I'm a private too....Fresh outta basic?"

>>13230418
Baumer paused to read the soldier's tags properly before sighing. "Private... Dragon. Sorry to disturb you, mate. I'm a bit jumpy unless I've got a rifle in my hands. Then I'm as cool as a cucumber, but right now I'm just out of my element, ya know. Sorry for the 'sah' and all that, just used to being yelled at by the NCOs, ya know."

>>13230405

McMillan watched as the Lieutenant left the command room.

He moved away from the terminal. No need to locate R00.

He had an idea of where she was at the moment. No doubt obtaining a DNA sample from one of the new recruits.

McMillan tapped his temple, activating his TACIM implant. Unlike the Major, most of the command crew had the TACIM implants, instead of the bulky headset that the Major wore.

He scanned Psi Comm briefly. No luck. Wherever the Major was, it was some place where Psi Comm couldn't locate him. Maybe that's why he wore the headset TACIM model, McMillan wondered to himself.

>>13230453
"I heard that buddy, but really Bravo ain't like that and shit. I mean The only one that's sorta like that is the Major. Pissing him off cost me a leg and a liver and I didn't even do nothin. We're all family for the most part here bro. Kill some *explative* and you'll be right in...As for who your with...uh." Dragon rubs his chin and looks around "we're sorta bad at that, you'll be thrown in with someone at the start of the next sortie. Say i gotta head to medical. Tag along arlight?"

>>13230506
Baumer shrugged. "I've got nothing better to do, might as well get the lay of the land. Lead on, Dragon."

Arriving at the viewing deck, Ghost found no sign of the Major. Figuring that since R00 had recently received orders from him and that she might have some idea, he left and made his way to the tech labs.

When he arrived, there was no sign of her either. Punching a button on a nearby terminal, Ghost opened a link to the command room. "Excuse me again, Lt. McMillan. I've finally gotten around to visiting the tech labs and I still see no sign of R00. Did you contact her?"

>>13230516
"Not much to show really. Most of the ship has shit to do with us." Dragon points to a few corridors "Officers are usually down there, motor pool there, mess, showers, baracks, and...here we are, medical."

Dragon knocks on the door rymically. "Knock knock,"

>>13230581
"Is there a shooting range around here? Or a VR room of sorts? I could use some practice. How many troops are in your platoon? How often are you deployed?"

>>13230551

McMillan tapped his TACIM implant to respond. Shit, he had hoped that the Sergeant would still be off looking for Walker.

"I attempted to, Sergeant, but it appears as if she's... ummm... how do I put this? Well, busy, doing her... thing. Yes. That 'thing' with a recruit, I think. I think the Major is messing with someone again."

McMillan did the best he could at sounding a nervous and unsure - something that he was very good at. He didn't want to let the good sergeant know that the Major wasn't the one behind R00's orders.

>>13230602
"Uh, lets see. We got VR way down over there but I think that's only for like, planned sims or some shit. I'm sure there's a range somewhere but I'm an anti tank...not a good idea to have them shooting on a ship hahaha." Dragon thinks about his folowing questions "Uh...alot There's Iron vipers, headed by ghoul and then SoH lead by Hawkes. Then there are squads under them...I'm in alpha with ghost. Not sure of an exact count really though buddy. Sorry"

>>13230642
"Ah, thanks. Maybe I'll try to find the range later on or something. Doesn't hurt to stay sharp. Hopefully I'll get assigned someplace soon. Don't want to drift around too long.

So, you're an Anti-Tank? Have any good stories? I mean, you usually can't go wrong with explosives."

>>13230678
"yeah i suppose, I punched a bug to death...that was badass.Blew up a tank and a whole bunch of other people. Blew myself up, that was banging too, saved my friend howe with that one....Uh, talk to the Doc, he probably knows more or something, I'm just a grunt"

>>13230715
"Oh. That isn't your first bod? Well, I guess its rather common up here, eh? Sorry if I offended ya, mate."

>>13230748
"Nah i don't give a fuck. One body is as good as another. Definetly in my case" Dragon knocks harder "DOCS, YO."

>>13230758
"So... how does it feel to... you know... bite the dust? Do you remember how it felt to go out? Was there anything in-between? Sorry, its just a morbid fascination. We all don't really want to know for sure, but in this day and age we can..."

>>13230758

Warsaw's door finally slide open, the sound of a very angry man screaming over a very load guitar pored into the hallway. "Yo, Dragon what's up?"

>>13230779
"Huh? Oh literaly no big. then again i have a huge ass tolerance for pain or something. The bugs sorta slashed chunks outta me and that sucked but then BAM. I was looking down from the sky and shit. Howe moved away from my boddy and i got those mother fuckers back by blowing up my corpse....it was cool"

>>13230630
He really didn't want to interrupt something, but he also felt like really needed to talk with the Major about Dragon, among other things. Well, there was still one way. He hadn't purposely made it happen yet, but he knew how it felt. although his ability hadn't been discovered in the VR sim, he had slowly learned about it. He could feel the artificial intelligence, the consciousness of droids. Concentrating on that, he began feeling out the ship. Those on either end barely detectable, that A.I. from the last mission immense to his mind. Still, no R00 to be found. Was she not on the ship?

"Excuse me sir, are okay there?" Ghost opened his eyes. A technician with a concerned expression was leaning over him. He picked himself up off the floor, "Sure, fine." Ghost left toward the hangar.

--------------------------------

Asking around, he had found that R00 and some Private had went down to the surface. If they had traveled too far from the starport, there was little chance of him being able to find them even with his new sense.

Still, the major's absence was strange. Opening a com to command, he decided to try another time before he made a decision. "Hello Lt. McMillan. it's Sgt. Ghost again. Has the Major showed up yet?"

>>13230815
"Hey bro, nice tunes." Dragon takes a step in "this is a new guy. He probably has some questions and shit and the standard check over or whatever, also i need you to look at my DNA. "

>>13230815
Baumer clicked his heels and straightened, Boot Camp rules kicking in again. "Just looking for a squad, sir. Supposed to be transferred somewhere on this station - dunno exactly where. Do you need a copy of my DNA or something like that?"

>>13230900
>>13230856

"Baumer, is it? Nah, all medical records are on file. You'd have to talk to Lieutenant Ghoul or Hawkes about a squad though or one of the Sargents maybe. Now why do I need to look at your DNA Dragon?"

>>13230981
"Ah, alrighty then. Could you point me in their direction, possibly? Otherwise I'll just try and find the range - need to blow off some steam."

>>13230981
"Because I ain't human and aparently no one knew BUT me....Kinda figured someone higher up would tell all ya but I guess not"

>>13231013

"Couldn't really say where any of them are, you could try the bridge I guess, Walker might be there. Wolf hangs out in the pit occasionally. Couldn't even guess where any of the others might be, but you hang around long enough one of them is bound to find you"

>>13231046
"You look pretty human to me. Last time I looked at your medical records they agreed."

>>13230841

Lieutenant McMillan looked up from his terminal when the channel from Ghost opened up.

"Funny you should ask, Sergeant. I'm still looking for him. Either the man's invisible, or he's not on the ship. I've been trying to locate him - but no success at all."

As McMillan spoke to Ghost, he and the two remaining officers failed to notice the lone old man who walked into the room, picked the old cowboy hat from the chair, and quietly left the room as soon as he came.

"As soon as I find him, Sergeant, I'll let you know. Anyway, why do you need to speak to Walker so badly?"

>>13231215
"Well i mean I am human and shit but like not really i guess. All i know was what i was told. I'm full on clone and shit. Anyway i told ghost and he told me to get my DNA looked at so whatever just take a look"

>>13231215
"Okay. I suppose I'll head down to the range in the meantime. Don't feel like disturbing whoever is up on the bridge - I'm too low ranking to mess with that crap."

Baumer turned and slowly headed down the corridor, looking around for some sort of a sign as he waved goodbye.

"Thanks, Dragon."

>>13231260
"Peace buddy, and relax bro. We're all friends in bravo."

>>13231296
"Except for Trauma...she's a firecracker"

>>13231312
"I'll watch out for her, then. Try not to blow yourself up again. Or whatever you prefer."

Baumer quickened his pace down the hall - the station was enormous. But he had plenty of time on his hands.

>>13231253

"Works for me. Have a seat and I'll fire up the medical array. Anything in particular I should be looking for?"

>>13231376
"I dunno. The DNA? I don't know this *Explative*"

Oh yes, while we are doing this, I would like all the leading sergeants to list the "permanent" members of their squads.

These are the people who will always be assigned to their squad, unless some shit happens and the squad leader isn't there.

Also, take this opportunity to claim "free" soldiers, AKA Enzo, Ender, Bit, and Baumer. And any other soldier still unassigned.

These lists will help keep you from accidentally being assigned to a squad you aren't actually in.

>YAY! RP THREAD!

>>13219928
>This offer still open, Major?

>>13224719
>WOW! This class sounds awesome! How does it mesh with my +1 range?
>Also, is it like the Dragoon from Final Fantasy? Can I jump really far?

>RP soon.

>>13231472

Offer still open, assuming you can find Major Walker. He's apparently doing a "Where's Waldo" kind of thing, seeing as he just walked in and out of a room without anyone noticing.

>>13231399

"So I start from square one then. Alright just hold still for a moment...." Warsaw slowly passes the medical array over dragon's arm, presses a few buttons. Then drops the thing on his desk and kicks back in his chair. "So how's that new kidney?"

>>13231216
"Something about about personnel in Alpha. Thanks anyway."

Not on the ship? Did the Major go down to the planet too? That helps him make up his mind. He grabs a shuttle and gets the pilot to take him down tot he starport.

--------------------------

The shuttle landed at the starport. When the pilot went back, he found his passenger slumped over in his seat as if in a coma. He was about to call for emergency services when the passenger roused and only instructed him to wait here before he left.

---------

Ghost knew where to look. A hill close too the starport. An odd place to spend time to Ghost, surely the noise from the starport would obstruct any attempt at relaxation? He found them, just at the top.

Clearing his throat as loudly as he could, though probably not enough to be heard over the wail from the starport, Ghost nearly shouted, "I am sorry to interrupt this thing you have here, but I need to speak with R00 for a moment!"

A confused look on her face, she got up and walked over. "Is something wrong!?"

"Nobody can locate the Major, he might not even be on the ship! I was told that you were on assignment from him, so I thought you might know where he was!"

"No, Lt. McMillan gave me this assignment. I don't know where he is."

Ghost froze. McMillan had lied to him? This seemed a very strange thing to not only lie about, but to lie about the Major giving orders as well? Something strange was going on here. Stranger then usual, that is. "R00, you're coming with me!"

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No, not at all. We've got something we need to talk with Major Walker about."

They were back on the Lucky O'Reilly. Ghost decided not to bother asking McMillan again. While Ghost had asked around in the barracks if anyone had seen the Major, R00 had apparently made use of the showers there.

With R00 following behind him, Ghost decided to stop by medical to check on that DNA test. Maybe he would run across Walker on the way?

>Alpha Squad
Ghost
Dragon
Dominique
Howe
Lost
Trauma
Aberham

>If you wish to join Alpha, let me know. We are kind of large though, so there's a chance you might not be accepted.

>Just slot me in wherever there is an opening.

>>13231495

Lost thoughtfully tapped her upper lip. Where was Walker? She had heard the question on the lips of several of the crew. Normally, Walker was an easy officer to find, and always had a few minutes for even the lowliest private. Lost still wasn’t sure where she stood with the major. His normal demeanor had seemed to return to normal, and he seemed genuinely proud to promote her again, but every time she remember his cold, cold eyes in the medbay, a shiver ran through her. Still, she also believed that the major was right, that if her clones were no longer viable because she was an original, then they deserved to fulfill their own promises to the military, rather then be kept out in the cold.

Tentatively she reached out, seeking the mind she had felt pride and respect from, that had bored holes of disappointment and disgust into her.

> Ohh Major, where are yoooouu?

>>13231528
"Liver doc, and it's good. It's strange but eh, i'll deal with it, on the pluss side i ain't pissing blood anymore"

>>13231726
Arriving in medical, Ghost spots Dragon over by Warsaw. "Any results yet, Doctor?"

>>13231779
"Just started sir."

>>13231726

"Liver, kidney they do the same thing right?" Warsaw asked with a laugh. "Either way, good to hear. Having to open you back up and replace it would be a lot of paper work."

>>13231779
"Not yet, sir. Waiting on the medical array to do it's thing."

>>13231587

McMillan tapped at the terminal, opening a new channel to R00.

>R00, did you obtain the DNA sample?

>Affirmative, however DNA sample is potentially destroyed.

McMillan's eyes nearly popped from his head. Was his plan unknowingly ruined by the Sergeant.

>Please confirm the status of the DNA, then proceed to give it to the lab technician Johansen in the cloning labs.

R00's eyes twitched rapidly as she communicated silently with McMillan.

>Confirming DNA sample status... DNA sample is destroyed. I'm sorry, Lieutenant. Would you like for me to try again?

McMillan flopped down onto his chair when he read the message. Shit. Considering that the Sergeant might have suspected something, he figured having her try again might get the Sergeant poking his nose around.

>Negative, R00. Thank you for trying to help me.

>Understood, Lieutenant McMillan.

R00 closed the channel. She was a little disappointed. She would have enjoyed procuring another DNA sample from the soldier.

>>13231793
Ghost sighs. "Well, let me know when it is finished. Warsaw, I expect you to keep the results quiet if anything aberrant turns up. And don't talk about this over the comms either."

With that, Ghost departed the medbay with R00 in tow. "R00? You are outside the chain of command and are not technically military. If anyone orders you to help them or someone else 'relax', refuse. Until the Major shows up, please help the techs with that project I'm in charge of. You know the one. And if McMillan gives you any other orders, let me know."

R00 nods uncertainly and heads for the tech labs.
Ghost continues walking down the corridor, once again without destination.

Recreation...was just that. A way for Dom to stretch her legs and relax, and maybe get some exercise while doing it. For the first time in a long while, Dominique was at peace. She was a violent one when in battle-anyone could tell you that. She liked to roar and to shout, to charge in with battle cries and leaps. She'd only been in one engagement, but it had changed her-made her less timid, and more at peace with herself. Right now, she was shadow boxing, to a tune only she could hear. Working up a sweat. Still, the high-collared outfit stayed on, keeping anyone from *really* telling much about her other than the face. Jabs, hooks...the androgynous Knight was working out, throwing high kicks in for good measure. She was psyching up for the next engagement...and oh, she could almost hear it.

That buzz in her ear, the roar of the oncoming swarm. Let it come, let it come! She wanted to dive into the thick of it, to hack and slash, to smash them with her fists. She couldn't say why, couldn't say what drove her to wade into the thick of things, but it felt *Good*. It felt *Right* to use a blade, and not a gun. She'd never admit it to herself, but that was why she'd signed up as a Knight. Not because she wanted to protect. But because she didn't want to fight them at a distance. She wanted to see them squirm up close. It was almost hard-wired into her psyche. Calm, timid, friendly and affable outside of battle, psychotic when the blood started flowing. It wasn't even anything she could control, or had any sway over!

Anyone who was watching could have seen that Dom's shadow boxing had become more vicious-hooks had become grabs, what had before been a jab had now become a wrenching throw. Dominique was finally slowing down, however, as her thought path became something a bit less violent....And somewhere, she wondered what was in the mess hall today.

With a final uppercut, Dominique's short training session ended, and she turned to leave, wiping sweat from her brow, and grabbing her nearby towel. She'd shower later. Food first.

>>13231927

"Because having someone aberrant in Bravo would be strange, right?"

Warden always knew that when there is more than one source of noise, someone's taking care of it.

but damn one can't read a book in peace here.

"What is it with the constant raff I always listen around. Is there a pamphlet or report where I can study what goes on here?"

>I never catch these threads
>Do we have an advancement tree yet? I swear I could have gotten a stat upgrade by now

>>13231991
Dragon shrugs as Ghost leaves and turns to warsaw "Why does this have to be secret and shit? *explative*ing only reason i haven't told anyone is because i thought you all knew! I mean it's not a big deal right?"

>>13231995

Read all of this: http://www.mediafire.com/coltonzerospace

On that note, has been updated. Read change log for details.

>>13231693
Continuing along the corridor, Ghost spots Lost looking around. "Hello Lost. Have you seen the Major? No one can seem to find him."

>>13231995
Warden made a second take and, realizing he was still, arguably, in a battle environment, turned on the suit's OS

>>13232065

Lost started, her long blond hair swinging around as she glanced about.

“Oh, sergeant! What? The Major? No…” She looked like she was going to hold back, but then gave a sheepish grin at her squad leader. “I’m trying to ferret him out with my mind, I want to ask him to activate my old clone. Well, now I guess she’s not even mine.”

Lost’s blue eyes take on a determined glint. “I think she has a right to be a part of our family, that she would want that over being frozen forever. What about you? How do you feel about it?”

>>13232146
"The other Ghost? I haven't put too much thought into it, been a bit busy. I think things would get confusing very fast and have decided to leave him in storage until I have this thought out better. I know he wouldn't be too bothered waiting a week or so in storage anyway, considering I've spent most of my life there. Another week at most, won't hurt."

The Major stalked the halls, looking for something, someone. Well, he was looking - although what he was actually looking for was something he wasn't even sure of himself.

He felt something in his mind. He paid no attention to it. He found what he wanted. One very unfortunate Private Taggart.

"Sir!" Taggart cried as he threw a crisp, clean salute. "Is there something you need - UWAH!"

Suddenly, Walker grabbed him by the collar, and began to violently drag him down the corridor.

"It's your lucky day, Taggart! Today, you learn to DRINK!"

Major Walker continued stomping down the halls towards the mess hall, with poor Taggart in tow, similarly dragging another soldier, one Private Baumer, this time only saying to the man, "YOU, ME, HIM; DRINK, NOW."

>>13232219

Lost's pretty face took on a questioning quality. "Then why do you want to see him?"

>>13232325
Baumer allowed himself to be led by the domineering man, protesting weakly as he went.

"Sah, uh, is it alright that we should be drinking at this moment? I mean, I wasn't allowed to touch a beer during most of Basic. I thought it was all 'non-alcoholic' up here."

Baumer groaned. He was definitely not going to be shooting a rifle anytime soon now...

>>13232331
"Well, can't really say. Something the Major should hear about directly, I'm afraid." Pausing as if considering something, he continues. "Have you ever happened to talk with Lt. McMillan, by chance?"

>>13232379

Walker paused only long enough to grab a passing Knight - Private Dom - by the collar, with the same hand gripping Taggart.

"Whoever told you that Bravo is 'non-alcoholic' was lying to your face, soldier. Now, you can either follow me willingly, or I can keep dragging you."

Then Walker grabbed him by the arm.

"TOO LATE! TO THE ALCOHOL!"

rolled 2, 1, 7, 1, 6, 4, 6 = 27

Trauma manages to find the Major, "Sir, scuttlebut says you want to see me?"

>>13232412
Baumer sighed. "Yes sir. To the alcohol indeed."

He hoped this wasn't going to end like the last time he got hammered.

>>13232024
"Got me" Warsaw replied. Presently the Medical Array beeped, announcing that it had finished it's diagnostic. Picking the thing up Warsaw began scrolling through the results, mumbling to himself the whole time. “Blood pressure is slightly elevated......White blood cell count is also high.....Hmmmm....Here we go DNA results.....Everything looks normal.....Hmmmmm......” Spinning in his chair Warsaw access his terminal and after a few seconds another list of data appears on the screen. Looking back and forth between the screen and the Medical Array Warsaw obviously becomes more and more puzzled. “Dragon...I think I'm going to be a while looking over this. You might as well find something else to do. I'll give you a call when I'm done.” Warsaw's attention never left the screen in front of him as he spoke. He quickly became completely absorbed in his work, forgetting Dragon was even there. Absently he reached over and tapped a few button on his Radio, which immediately began blast music even louder than before.

>>13232405

“Err, the Major’s assistant? I’ve seen him, but I’ve never really had any reason to talk to him, why?”

>>13232428

"TAGGART, GRAB HER!"

"WA? YES SIR!"

Terrified of both Walker and Trauma, Taggart simply chose obeying orders from the loud man over thinking of the future.

And with Trauma being "dragged" by Private Taggart, Walker had only one thing to say to Trauma.

"YOU, DRINKING, NOW!"

The Major then laughed like a maniac before hauling his unwilling soldiers to what was sure to be a night resulting in alcohol poisoning.

"HELL, IF YOU HOLD YOUR LIQUOR WELL ENOUGH, MAYBE I'LL MAKE YOU A SERGEANT, TRAUMA!"

>>13232439
"Well *explative* that aint a good sign" Dragon shrugs. "Good luck with that doc" With that he exits medical, with no real place to go he wanders the halls. Eventually he happens upon ghost

"Yo ghost. Doc's looking at my results. He said everything was fine but then he got this weird look on his face and kicked me out to work." Dragon then noticed the specalist "Oh hey lost, congrats on the rank up and stuff"

>>13232480
Ghost looks around. Seeing no one, near by he continues. "Something strange is going on here. Other then all these psi users popping up. The Major disappears to who knows where. I caught McMillan lying about orders he gave, telling me the Major issued them. On top of that, Dragon just told me he's an artificial human. No original at all. Things aren't adding up here. He knew about you being psi sensitive, I'm wondering what else he knows."

>>13232553
"....Was I suposed to hear that sir?"

>>13232500
Trama yanks taggart arouns and and boots him away, "Don't drag me around." She follows walker to the appropriate drinking area, orders seven pitchers of SPACE ALE, IT'S THE SPACIEST for her and walker and starts drinking, "So, sir. is this all you wanted to do? Have a drinking buddy?"

>>13232553
>>13232567

Lost looks from her sergeant to her squadmate, not sure if she should comment. She takes the easy way instead.

"Thanks, Dragon! I'm sure you'll make Specialist in no time, the way you keep knocking out bugs."

>>13232567
Ghost turns around. Shit. "Well no. But now that you did, I'll use my staff on you if you tell anyone. Dragon, who made you? Do you know"

>>13232604
"Meh, I end up making more then you guys anyway thanks to my card skills. I just hate being the bottem rung ya know?" Dragon laughs "I just hope i never make sargent. I am not the *explative* you want to lead a squad"

>>13232614
"Woah relax Sarge, don't have to threaten the staff shit on me. I honestly didn't think the artifical human thing was a big deal, and *explative* higher ups knowing more then us is the name of the game right?" Dragon pauses to think "hmm well I don't know WHO they were but i know it was on Typhon in the Sobek system"

>>13232614

At that moment, Walker appears behind Ghost with his assorted number of forced drinking buddies. Pointing to Ghost, Dragon, and Lost, Walker boomed.

"TRAUMA! TAGGART! GRAB THEM! OFF TO AL-COOO-HOOOOOL!"

4 minutes later, with two more random additions including one Ensign Himmel, Walker kicked down the door into the mess hall, pointing to the soldier in charge of the food stores.

"VAYLEN! ALCOHOL! THREE CRATES! LET THE BOOZE FLOOOOW!"

>>13232614
>>13232629
>>13232650

Lost wonders if this would be a good time to slip away...

>>13232660
> TOO LATE!

"Major!? Is everything alright?" Lost asked, being swept by the mob of booze-hounding soldiers.

>>13232684
>Too late!

Before he could respond, he was sitting at a table next to Dragon and Lost in the mess with booze in front of him. "Well, the Major showed back up at least..."

Trauma's patiently downing her pitchers of SPACE ALE, calmly staring at the others, "So. Major. why all the..." she gestures around the bar. "This?"

>>13232650
>>13232710
Putting a finger to his lips to remind both Lost and Dragon to keep quiet about what he was just discussing, Ghost sips at the booze. Not enough to get drunk.

>>13232756
"Hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
Dragon is drinking heavy

>>13232710

"What? Everything is fine. FINE! Can't a commanding officer have his men follow him into a drunken oblivion without someone sniffing up his ass?"

Even without being an empathic powers, it was plain as day to Lost that something had the Major shaken up.

>One minute before the Major bursts in.

Colton sat at the mess. He ignored the other patrons. He was hungry.

His fellow table-mates, anxious green soldiers and tech staff, watched in horrified amazement as a small black cap, indistinguishable from the rest of the black helmet, popped open on a little hinge with a hiss. Picking up the single occupant on his tray, a tube of “ration paste” about the size of a pre-war tube of toothpaste, Colton twisted off the tube’s cap. Placing it against the hole in his helmet, he started to turn the tube in his hands, an screeching “eee-eee-eee” could be heard by the table’s transfixed hostages, as the tubes threads meshed with the helmets.

There were cries of disgust as the tube started to wither upon itself, shrinking as loud slurping and chewing sounds could be heard from the helmet, which unfortunately had its speakers turned on.

Soldiers and technicians fled the table as he finally burped and removed the empty paste tube, resealing the food port on his helmet.

It didn't take long for Dom to get dragged away by Walker and the rest of the misfits of Bravo-

-Not that Dom was anything but a misfit himself, that is.-

But when he did, Dom went with a grin, and whoop. "Walker, you're the best CO a soldier could ask for."

She said, once they hit the bar. It didn't take long for Dom to throw them back, drinking heavily. He had been born on a backwater planet, where drinking had practically been a local sport-

it was time to show these uptight city-folk how it was done.

>>13232784
Trauma starts on her third pitcher of ale "Look, Drag Queen, i just find it peculiar that Sir Walker as reached a particular level of madness"

"Anyway Lost, it sounds like you've got a good reason for activating other Lost. So, go for it!. By the way, which one of you will continue being called Lost? Having both of you answer to that'll be weird.

>>13232867

Lost sipped at the ship's version of an apple martini. Which is to say it was nothing like an apple martini.

"Hmm, well I guess I'll ask her... Also, her last recorded memory will be being a Corporal... does this mean she'll outrank me? It's not her fault I got demoted..."

>>13232865
"Oh you and that drag queen gag. Shit I didn't even know ya and you called me that." Dragon watches the pitcher go down and smiles. "God damn Trauma you're too much man for me"

If there was one thing Nomad hated more than anything, it was being useless. And that's what he'd felt like since returning from the Homestead Offensive. Apparently the radiation had affected him more than he thought, a fact made apparent when he vomited blood into his breakfast one morning. Forced into PsiComm sleep while the radiation was cleansed from his body, Nomad had spent the past few days formless.

Finally back in his body, Nomad had spent the last few hours getting reacquainted with it by taking his frustration out on a few combat dummies. Having missed not only the King of the Hill Simulation but a mission as well, most of the dummies now lay in two pieces on the traiing room floor. Still in a bit of a funk, the Knight decided he needed a stiff drink.

Entering the mess hall, he was surprised to find most of Bravo had thought the same. Grabbing a bottle from one of the crates and popping it open, he slid into a nearby chair.

"Am I missing something? Is it someone's birthday and no one told me?"

>>13232936
"Well, the Major already said that Edwin, which is what I'm calling him since I'm keeping my callsign, would be a sergeant. Guess that means she would be a Corporal".

>>13232946
Trauma keeps working on her queue of pitchers five down, god only knows how many more to go. "Look, Dragon, It's fun to say and you're pretty much a screw-up. There's a reason walker keeps on detting your organs. It's discipline. Don't be such a srewup and i don't break your arms."

>>13233048
"Bah, screw up. I've done fine on the field and in here. He just thought I spread a picture of him and firestorm around that Howe drew. I didn't. I won't say I wasn't involved in it's making though heh. I bet howe he wouldn't do it but damnit the guy has some balls." Dragon seems to think of the moment fondly "that was one of the few bets i've lost." Dragon turns back to trauma his face being suported by his fist. "Trouble just seems to follow me" She's not sure, but it's possible that trouble was a reference to her. "So you going to drink ale all night or move on to something actually strong?

>>13232975
"At any rate, I don't think the Major is in a condition to talk about it right now. So, everything going alright?" ghost begins taking larger drinks.

Ghoul's eyes snap open, and he realizes he's laying on a medical table. Why was he here, wasn't he going to talk to Walker, then it hit him. He remembered his fight with Hartford and getting jumped by the group of MP's just after victory.

A smile grows on Ghoul's lips as his roar of victory resumes and he attempts to get up from the bed, only to realize the MP's had strapped him to it.

"GOD DAMMIT!!! SOMEONE LET ME GO!!! I GOTTA FIND BLINKY OR THE MAJOR!!!"

How many drinks did he have? 5? 10? More than a dozen? He couldn't tell. Then again, Walker wasn't keeping count from the start.

Walker looked about him. Odd. There was a man with a giant black sphere for a head. Was that Colton? Walker couldn't really tell.

He looked to his right. Private Taggart was slumped over, passed out. Poor kid really COULDN'T handle his alcohol; he was out after a mere 6.

He picked up another bottle and tried to down it, only to realize that he already downed it.

He looked around once more amongst his men. A tiny smile broke out, seeing them mess around in various stages of alcohol induced stupidity.

"I wonder, is this what it feels like to be a grandfather watchin' his brood...?" Walker quietly mumbled to himself.

Just as he reached for his cigars, Walker stopped himself. It seemed that he had just enough of his mind sober to realize playing with fire and sharp objects while drunk was not a smart idea.

If he could still reason like that, he needed to drink more.

"Vaylen! More booze! Let the soldiers drink!"

>>13233105
>>13233189

Lost looks down at her drink, which someone had refilled.

“Hmmm.” Her features wrinkle in thought. “I guess they are going well. I’ve had a few sessions with Trauma, worked on mostly reining in my powers, keeping the empathy passive, a little mind-reading. Simple stuff like guessing shapes and colors. Also I had her hide on the ship, and I tried to screen out her mind from all the others on the ship to find her.”

Lost looks over at Trauma, who is drinking enthusiastically with Dragon.

“She’s getting better at hiding, and also screening her thoughts from me. I guess this empathy works both ways. Besides that I haven’t had much luck activating these ice talents I’m supposed to have. I spent three hours with a glass of water last night, and it could have been my imagination if it was below room temperature at the end.”

Lost's eyes grow distant and a fond smile grows on her slightly thin lips. “Aberham is talking to me again, and I think the Major is happy with me.”

She looks over at Walker, who is very much getting his drink on. “I’m worried about him though.”

>>13233104
Trauma continues the highly efficient ingestion of alcoholic beverages, "I did, a little while ago. and let's see.you just aren't mature enough." It appears she's just started grabbing whatever is in the bar and drinking it straight. two large bottles have already been added to her trophy line.

>>13233223
"Maturity is overrated. I'm honest, brutaly honest, now THAT'S a quality you can count on." Dragon has been keeping a steady pace, aiming for the higher proofs and sticking with it. He seems to be a top shelf man, expecially when it's not his tab "So far you've just been sorta mean to me for no real reason. Ya cut me trauma, ya cut me deep and shit" Dragon laughs as he finishes another bottle.

>>13233217
"Yeah. Might be related to the general weirdness going around here." Taking another drink, he paused. Maybe because he wasn't in the best state of mind at the moment, he replied, "No luck with the ice talents eh? Do you remember what you felt like when you activated them in the sim? Try to remember that, concentrate on it." Seeming to realize something, he quickly added, "I heard that helps."

A ghoulish figure darkened the mess hall entrance. Wiry arms with bony hands seemed to disappear into a wrinkled jumpsuit. A battered cap sat askew on a headful of rough stubble. Sickly yellow skin was stretched across bony facial features to the point of near translucence. The wretch's lips were peeled back in a dumb smile, revealing a large set stained teeth. As it's jaws parted a slurry of words seemed to fall out of their own accord.

"Hail and well met fellow spacemen! I return to you with my liberty spent but my spirits renewed! I have plumbed the far corners of Hearth's entertainment district and ensured the security of my lineage! With this latest triumph...rest assured that...triumph...Ugly -HUARK"

Krieg's mouth erupted in a jet of purple liquid. As the heavy globs arced downward to the deck, so too did Krieg.

>>13233114
After a few minutes of angry grumbling to himself Ghoul strains his arms against the straps. He thought he wasn't getting anywhere until one of them snapped, with a grin Ghoul finished breaking himself free from the bed within minutes.

Looking around the medbay before leaving he spot Hartford and wakens the large man, and with a knowing smirk they head off to the mess for a drink Ghoul supporting the Sergeant due to his still shattered knee.

They had no clue that there was a party in the mess that they were missing, but by some fluke heading towards anyway.

>>13233268
Trauma's emptied two cabinets and is halfway through the third. "Look, maturity is what's expected of you. Bluntness counts for nothing if you're just flail about with it. Like i said, it's discipline. I mean, Damn, dragon You're the older one."

>>13233339

Lost looks questioningly at Ghost. “It seems like almost everyone who was quarantined because of a mutant signal got some sort of power. Do you have one too? I don’t remember seeing you display one. Do you need help unlocking yours as well?”

Lost sounds almost eager.

>>13233440
Ghost glanced around to insure no one was looking his way before leaning in to whisper to Lost so nobody else could hear, "Sort of. I'll tell you about it later, not here though." He looks around again, still no one paying attention to them. "We could try to sneak out of here, I'll let you in on it."

>>13232843
Alcohol. Another such slightly restirchedtch addictive ssuubstances. Hic. Alcohol causes lower inhibition, aaaand, alcohol poisoning can cause blindnessss, liver damnaages, and-

"-fuckever."

Despite Ghoul winning the melee, and credit chits exchanged value, the house always wins some. This clone was in the process of ambling off somewhere else, nowhere in particular of his list of 'things to do', but then the Major and a mob of clones swept him off along.

And then there were alcohol.

Not wanting to stand out (more), he drank. The level of blood alcohol is now dangerously high, the clone soldier knows. And it impairs judgment. Which is why he thinks that Colton's tightly wrapped ass looks so inviting he assumes.

Intoxication is not a great time to test for connection values and emotional quotients of relationship, but nevertheless. THAT. PERKY. ASS. IS. MIGHTILY. INVITING.

"-fuckever."

Grope. Hmm. Rub. Smooth. Squeeze. Rather springy too. Kinda nice to do...

Thus, the clone soldier continues to kneel behind the sitting Colton, and continues to knead both cheeks...

On another place, a meatsuit watching a bank of monitors stare blankly at a particular viewscreen.

"-the fuck am I doing, groping a man's ass in public?"

>>13233534
>>13233540
Ghost glances over then does a double-take. Whispering to Lost again, "I think a chance to sneak out is coming up..."

>>13233357
Watching the good seargent makes his entrance, Nomad went into the mess kitchen. After a few moments he came out carrying a glass of orange liquid and a funnel. He motioned for one of the other soldiers to turn Krieg over before sticking the funnel in his mouth. At his questioning look, Nomad explained as poured the concotion into the funnel and down Krieg's throat.

"Gramp's old Wake-Up Juice. Guaranteed to have you up and sober in two shakes of a tail feather." Shaking the last bit out of the mug, Nomad backed up and motioned for the soldier to do the same.

Krieg remained unconscious on the floor for a few moments before his eyes shot open. Popping up like a Jack-In-The-Box, the good seargent roared as he disappeared into the kitchen. Nomad just grinned. "See always works."

>>13233540

Colton’s eyes, which no one could see, were wide. In the sheer disbelief of the incredible amounts of equal pain and sheer absurdity.

Ohdeargodwhatisthismandoingithurtssomuch.

Colton craned his neck around to look at the man. The drunk man. The very drunk man. His eyes managed to see the name tag, even if they were doing red with rage. Weird. Private Weird. AKA DEADMAN.

Colton reached back and grabbed the man’s neck. There was a strangled “gerk!” as his hand squeezed the windpipe. Weird’s hands continued to caress his behind, causing untold agony to the tender flesh. Ripping the man away from his backside, he looked eye to eye with the drunk, insane dead man.

“…KILL YOU.”

Colton brutally slammed the man’s head onto the metal table, then let the limp body slip from his hands. Then he stood up and started to brutally stomp the body, a stream of censored curse words coming out.

>>13233534
>>13233672

Lost grimaces at the scene as they get ready to leave. "Maybe we should help him before that demoman kills him?"

>>13233434
"The older one? Heh" Dragon shrugs "Well I'm not the one breaking people's fingers and shit" Dragon starts to stand. "I AM DONE WITH YOUR NEGATIVITY. I DEMAND A HUG!"

>>13233697
"He won't kill him, someone else will intervene. Come on, let's go" Ghost gets up and begins sneaking out of a side entrance.

>>13233672

Suddenly, a mountain of drunken man crashed into Colton in the middle of his beating session.

However, instead of having his legs broken, Colton felt... nothing. Save for being lifted up and being held like some animal, he was rather confused.

Until he heard the drunken speech of a very drunk Sergeant Hartford.

"De'rs a kitty in your helmet! Let me pe' ta' kitty!"

And with that, Hartford began to rub Colton's shiny black helmet whilst making odd meowing noises.

>>13233720
>>13233723

"Well... that solved that... I think. Unless the sarge break's Colton's head open."

Lost follows Ghost.

>>13233723
Ghoul was sitting not far from the Major, laughing at the drunken goings on around him, all the while drinking from a large bottle of Vodka as if it was water.

"Get the kitty Hartford!"

>>13233672
"-fchkk~"

As- STOMP expec- STOMP ted- STOMP Colton's- STOMPiTTYSTOP not res- STOMP ponding too well. STOMP

Actually, in between the rattling of thoughts caused by the boot connecting to soft body tissues, the blood alcohol level is keeping him rather coherent. And not quite painless, but it muted the stompings.

But the only thing that he can coherently think about is-

"-so smooth." STOMP "-gghrk."

Then the stompings stop, but the clone is already passed out. From the alcohol.

>>13233707
Trauma puts down her drink. "Fine. You get a hug for being family. That's it."

>>13233723

OHSWEETGODI’MGOINGTODIEANDMYASSHURTS.

Colton tried to pry off the man’s ridiculously enormous arms. They were like rooK arms. There was a squeaking noise as the sergeant’s hands rubbed up and down his helmet, Hartford’s drunken maw dribbling beer-filled drool over his optics. Colton had the terrifying premonition that he was going to die here. Grappled by an insane drunken giant, who was going to crack open his head like a egg looking for a kitten. A kitten! WHY WOULD THERE BE A KITTEN IN HIS HELMET!?

Colton started to scream incoherently, struggling feebly in the man’s grasp.

“HELP MEEEEEE! MAJOR, OH GOD MAJOR, TELL HIM THERE IS NO KITTEN! PLEASE, I’LL BE GOOD FROM NOW ON. SEE, NO CURSING! I’LL BE A GOOD BOY, JUST CALL OFF YOUR DOG!!! OH GOD MY ASS HURTS!”

rolled 1 = 1

>>13233829
"Rationalize all you want, a hug is a hug!" Dragon wraps his arms around her, the grip is quite fucking tight, a bear hug, but after a moment he lets her go "That wasn't so bad eh?" With a firm pat dragon is off, namely to save Colton.

Dragon stands behind the sargent, for a second he thinks of delivering a kick that was delivered to him a few days ago, however the man outranked him and dragon didn't like personal fights. "Hartford, why are you bothering colton? The kittnes are all in the rec room!"

Rolling for drunken decive

>>13233755
Moving down the corridor, Ghost motions to Lost to follow until they are out of hearing range for anyone still in the mess. "Follow me, I know a room with no surveillance."

Farther along in the fall and down a deck, Ghost brings Lost to a room and they both enter. "Here. This is one of the old tech workrooms. It hasn't been in use since the new tech labs were installed, so I kind of moved and removed all monitoring systems.

Now, about my power. It didn't manifest in the VR sim, so I am fairly certain nobody knows of it yet. While in the sim, I was able to feel the droids. Sense them. They felt hollow. After the last op, I realized it more. That core we recovered? It must have been an AI. When they turned it on, I could feel it's presence. I also noticed something from R00. From what I can tell, I can feel the droids and their sapience, consciousness. At first it nearly made me black out, but it's gotten easier to use. I can locate just about any droid on the ship this way now. Just from practice. not sure how to explain it, but it feels like I could do better. I just don't know how. I feel like I reached a limit with what I can do from practice. However, I pretty much learned to cause it by remembering how it felt when it happened the first several times. I was able to build on it from there." Ghost stops and looks for Lost's reaction.

>>13233919
fuck yeah 2 for 2

>>13233919
Trauma watches dragon leave with his flaming hair, the alcohol turning the flames blue. The hug just happened to get her lighter close enough to his hair. She grabs something from the fifth and final cabinet and starts to watch the fun, smiling the whole time.

>>13233976
Dragon feels a slight burning in the head area. Once again his high pain tolerance nums most of the damage

It doesn't dampen his sence of smell however

"MY MANDANA" Dragon quickly pats out his black hair before much damage is done, however once again the mandana is lost to the world.

He turns to trauma, a glare is the only reaction.
She killed mandana
She was dead to him.

>>13234030
Trauma finishes dousing the tightly balled, but unharmed mandana in alcohol, and sets up for a pitcher's throw, aiming at Dragon's face

>1d10 for throw.

>>13233919
>>13233976
>>13234030

Hartford turns around, only to see a burning head.

"AHH! THE FIREMAN IS HERE TO GET US! RUN AWAY, KITTIES!"

And with that, the drunken Sergeant then proceeds to throw Colton, right onto Trauma, before tackling the burning Dragon.

"I WILL SAVE KITTIES FROM MEAN FIREMAN! AAAAAHH!"

rolled 5 = 5

>>13234077
>1d10 for throw

>>13234086
Rolling for cat-OH GOD HATFORD
"What the *explative* man! I put the fire out!"

rolled 9 = 9

>>13234081
Trauma grabs a metal barstool and tries to bat the flying colton away

>>13233925

Lost was a little concerned when Ghost started leading her down the corridors. Especially when he gestured to a room where he said there was “no surveillance”. Maybe Dragon was right, maybe the sergeant had seen too much into her willingness to be punished for her actions? Was she going to take advantage of her? That was, of course, countered by the fact she was pretty sure she could snap his next in under two seconds. Or, since she liked him, just immobilize him by shattering his collarbone.

As she started talking, her caution declined as her curiosity increased. This sounded very akin to her empathy. Machine empathy? Maybe controlling them? Lost didn’t think she could do that with her powers, control human minds, and she didn’t much want to. But he sounded like he had a good grasp on his powers, and she wasn’t sure why he would hide it. That thought, made her mad. Lost’s fine eyebrows formed into a “v” and a scowl formed on her pretty face. She pressed a finger into his chest and pushed.

“Why are you hiding this? Didn’t what I went through teach you anything? Didn’t they all say that I shouldn’t hide my powers, that that is what caused all my problems in the first place? I thought better of you, Ghost, telling me to do my best and to not make those mistakes again, to do my duty. I thought we were family! You haven’t even told the Major yet, have you? Were you going to tell him today, or just put it off until he shoots you in the knees!?”

At this point Lost had pushed Ghost against the wall, her hand boring painfully into his flesh.

>>13234081
Three empty bottles of Vodka lay near Ghoul, as he watches Hartford throw Colton. With a roar, Ghoul stands flipping the table before him over.

"BARFIGHT!!! AHAHAHAH!!!"

>>13234134

Unfortunately, the closest metal bar stool is the one that Trauma is currently sitting on.

"Oh shi-"

CRASH

The flying Colton crashes into Trauma, sending the two of them flying into the pile of glass bottles Trauma had just recently made.

Walker saw it all in slow motion. Unfortunately, by that point, he was so far inebriated to care, or even fully understand, why one of his men was flying into another.

>>13234155
> Oops, sorry for the misplace pronouns. I got distracted by the barfight.

>>13234134
Tauma crashes into her trophy pile of of empty bottles as colton's helmet smashes into her stomach. There's broken glass everywhere, and Trauma throws colton off of her as she yanks out a five inch piece of glass out from under her ribs.

She balls up her fists and FLEXES out the glass in her back. "Major. Either Hartford leaves immediately or I'm sending him to the medical bay with four useless limbs."

>>13234155
He was caught off guard. She raised some fair points. He suddenly felt very guilty. "L-look, I was considering telling the Major at some point, I just had trouble finding him! Besides, I shouldn't know about that A.I., and I'm surprised the Inquisitor hasn't noticed me snooping around! Honestly, I didn't think it could pose a threat to anyone!" He bore an expression of shame on his face, he really hadn't thought about why he had decided to hide it. Looking away, the only thing else he could say was "I'm sorry..."

>>13234194
>No worries. That thing in the bar got out of hand fast, didn't it?

>>13233668
Krieg's nose was bleeding, his throat was on fire, his eyes would not focus, but he was sober. That much was painfully obvious. His recent memories were only shades. There was a glimpse of a shuttle ride back to the O'Reilly and a few moments spent drunkenly lurching down her corridors. Presently he appeared to be in the mess hall's kitchen, and his uniform was covered in foul-smelling purple goo...

"Oh man...I think I murdered the Grimace."
A shrug.
"Musta had it coming."

Krieg picked himself up off the floor. As far as he could tell there was a war going on in the mess. He straightened his cap as best he could, puffed out his chest, drew his shoulders back and marched towards the mess hall door.

>>13234161
After throwing his table, Ghoul sits back down on his seat and merely watches Trauma, Hartford, Colton, and the rest with mild interest. He only really wanted to fight Blinky at the moment, but if Trauma managed to be Hartford then she'd be on his list as well...

>>13234232
>>13234247
>Yeah. I'm not sure who I feel worse for.

Lost’s angry expression lessened. Somewhat. She still had a little pout on her delicate lips. She looked suspiciously into Ghost’s eyes. Her voice was surprisingly quiet, at odds with her still scornful features.

“You know, when I started manifesting, I worried about the Inquisitors too. I thought that they might drag me away from everyone I cared about because I was different. Because I could do things, knew things, that I should not. And when the Major told everyone, Fierstrom did not come for me. When everyone else started getting mutant signals, she didn’t kill us off or take us away to be dissected. She’s supported us, she sent Amino to help diagnose our powers. Now I don’t know if she’d being nice because of the Major, or because of some ulterior motive, or because she’s actually a nice person. But I have faith that if you tell the Major, he will protect you. And if it works out anything like mine did, you’ll be a boon to the team instead of a risk.”

Her blue eyes took on a piercing quality, and her voice gained a chilling quality. “You tell him. You tell the major or I will drag you kicking and scream by THE EARS to him, put you over my knee, and spank the confession out of you.”

Lost ruined they mood by rolling her eyes. “Well, not today. Today I don’t think he could remember his own name, let alone understand anything you say to him.”

“Err, sergeant, sir.”

The doors slide open with a violent jerk and six men enter.

The first Five being rather large men in a semblance of riot gear, and the sixth a very confused medic.

Aberham holding a bottle of gin in one hand and a med tool in the other looks around.

"The fuck is going on in here?"

rolled 9 = 9

>>13234386
Tauma jumps across the table and tackles Hartford, trying to get a grip on the large man, in an attempt to remove him from the premises before having to resort to breaking bones.
>1d10 for how well that's going

>>13234361
Ghost blushed a little when the spanking was mentioned, but said "Thanks. I'll tell him when I can. Er.. did you still want help with your powers?" Getting a cup that was laying on a desk, Ghost walked over to a faucet in a connecting restroom and filled it water. Walking over to the desk, he set it down. "You can try with this. Now, how did you feel when you first noticed it?"

>>13234386

Walker, reminiscing about the past, suddenly stood up. He was no longer Major Walker, commander of Bravo Force aboard the Lucky O'Reilly. In his mind, he was 27 years younger, in a dingy bar with his friends in the Rose Wood Corporation during his days as a part of the Gemini Project.

And he was about to trigger a bar fight, just like back then.

Clutching two empty beer bottles, he made his way to Aberham, staring him in the eyes, letting the stink of alcohol wash over the medic. And in one swift move, he raised his right arm, and smashed the first glass bottle over his head.

"LET'S GO, SIERRA TEAM! HOO-AAAHH!"

And with that, he swung the second bottle over Aberham's head.

>>13234386
Oof. Lucidity, returning. In bits. Did he just? He did.

"-mfffck."

That hurts. Cataloging damages. Windpipe, crushed. Nose, bleeding profusely from meeting the table edge, though not broken, thankfully. Ribs, might be cracked, or just sore from being kicked. Organs? No idea, but they hurt.

"-plegh."

He spits out some blood from his mouth, and snorts out more clots from his nostrils. Afterwards, he decides to play it safe and edges out of the melee.

Socializing, success.

rolled 3 = 3

>>13234457

After watching the scene with interest of a semi-drunken man, the clone decides to do something. He remembers seeing this in the tripvids.

He picks up another empty bottle, and gives an overhead chop at the nearby skull. Which is owned by one Major Walker.

> -1 for non-lethal intent

rolled 920, 186, 159, 618, 329, 487, 56, 835, 874, 945, 80, 154, 530, 309, 527, 222, 390, 689, 852, 776, 27, 743, 695, 346, 594 = 12343

Dragon transforms into a dragon

Snnnnerr
SnnnnCHUGHHnnnerrrhh
Snnnnhunnnnrrrrr

*FUKKIN ALARM*

The sound of Enzo's head reverberating off the support beam above him send an audible thud down the walls of the room. A rather long and uninterrupted string of vulgarity followed before he rolled out of the cot and feel to the floor. All 6 ft of it.

"Fucking day this is being. Uuuagh wher- where is the command chain? Where is being Alpha....?" said the bloodshot eyed russian. The last thing Enzo remembered was loud explosions on what was supposed to be a covert mission then static filling his head.

>>13234386
>>13234457
>>13234510
Starts cackling madly, as he merely sits in his seat arms crossed over his chest watching. Waiting for either someone to start something with him or to walk out the door and back into medical.

rolled 9 = 9

>>13234510

Walker merely freezes as the glass impacts his skull. Even as he has an MP in a headlock.

He slowly turns his head, blood trickling down it, to face Weird.

"You want in, local? All right then. LET'S DO THIS SHIT!"

Walker suddenly drops the MP, and falling into a fighter's crouch, swings at the Private.

>Why the hell am I rolling? To gauge his actions, I guess.

A brief but poignant look of fear moves over the medic's features and is washed away as the bottle collides with it.

For a second his mind hovers on the edge of conciseness, running thought all the ways the previous moment mad no sense, but gives up when Aberham hits the floor with a start.

He kicks back to reality and the very angry major, and swings out with his foot to stop him advancing, and for some reason, he feels compelled to aim for the knees.

Two of the MPs jump on Walker

rolled 5 = 5

>>13234522
HAHAHA nooo

But really, he gets hartford off of him after trauma's failed attempt to grapple
"Man to hell with this *explative*"
He walkes over to colton's body while grabbing what alcohol he can and starts to drag it all out past ghoul "Just another day huh?"

>>13234450
Lost frowned at the sudden change in topics. Also, why was Ghost blushing? Well, maybe it was shame or embarrassment. Lost had certainly felt a bit of that, along with a surprising amount of anger, when Trauma had taken physical measures to snap her out of her self-deprecating sob-fest. As he turned his back to move over to the desk, she gave herself a little smile. She thought Trauma would be proud of how she took action and got Ghost back into the game.

As he came back and put the glass in front of her, she frowned at it before placing a chair in front of it, straddling it backwards and resting her arms over the top, to stare eye-level at the filled cup.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking about anything.” She thought back onto what was going on at the time. “Well, that wasn’t true. I was thinking about protecting Shot. I knew we had gone off-course and it was going to be a hard landing, and I didn’t want any of those people to hurt him. So I guess I was thinking about protecting the people I cared for? And then I just lunged at the sniper and he froze…”

rolled 8, 5, 3 = 16

>>13234556

rollan'

rolled 4 = 4

>>13234544
The Major's swing is a mile wide off. Or at least a few inches off. And the grinning clone didn't even dodge.

The blow must have impaired Walker more than he realized.

The clone raises one arm. And simply pushes.

rolled 1 = 1

>>13234421

Trauma gets flung across the mess hall, by the drunken and agitated Hartford, into a table for her trouble. She drags herself out of the debris and rushes him again, Getting into a brutal scrap with the giant man.
>fightan roll

>>13234561
Protecting people? That may bit a little bit hard to replicate the feeling of. "Well then, let's try this. Think of someone you really care for, then visualize them in a dangerous situation. Try to invoke that feeling." Taking a pencil, he hands it to Lost. "It seems like your powers can work through objects. it worked through your spear, right? Try to freeze the water through that pencil while feeling that protectiveness."

Ghost crouched down next to the desk and watched.

>>13234556
>>13234564

As the two MP's charge Walker, he suddenly drops low, allowing him to throw the first MP over his back and into a table. Rising, the second MP collides with Walker and successfully gripping him. The Major begins to rain punches on the man when a kick from Aberham to the knees sends the Major falling to the floor, with the MP on top of him.

"FUCK! JOHN! BACK ME UP!"

Walker continues to struggle against the MP as the first runs over to aid his colleague in restraining the Major.

>>13234560
Smirked at Dragon as he passed by, dragging Colton behind him

"Yep. Just another day in paradise."

Ghoul then returns his attention from going between the Major's fight, and the battle between Trauma and Hartford

>>13234627
Finally stands, patting Dragon on the shoulder before rushing the Major's position, tackling the Mp's that were restraining him

"FUCK IT TIME TO PLAY!!!"

rolled 4, 10 = 14

>>13234627

Aberham Bolts up, stutters half-way wincing and clutching his head, and then pulls the med tool up to Walker’s shoulder, slamming it into the shunt with unkind force.

The MP continues to struggle

rolled 1 = 1

>>13234655
"...Actually it's been a shit day for me." He hands Ghoul the bear and props on colton. "Watch these will you?"

Dragon was angry, one of the few times of his short life...and well, it was time to unleash the dragon

Truma...hartford. So caught up in their fighting they didn't see him, and it was perfect that way.

As they grappeled he just walked up and put one hand on each of their heads

CRACK

The two skulls bounced off each other and dragon felt much much better.

rolled 3 = 3

>>13234660

The med tool punctures the Major's shoulder, however with him struggling against the MP's, the needle of the med tool snaps.

"FUCKIN' 'ELL, BRING IT! AHAHAHAHA!"

Suddenly, Ghoul smashes into one of the MP's, who is thrown into Aberham.

>>13234675
I'm tempted to quit now for two reasons
1) I will never be able to do something better then this ever again
2) I don't have any clones and as soon as they wake up dragon is dead forever

>>13234675
Dragon walks away, pickes up colton and his booze and leaves.

Outside he starts to try and remove colton's mask, but he quickly realizes this will probably lead to him blowing up.

With no other ideas Dragon just taps the helm "Hey, hey bro, wake up"

>>13234593
>>13234627
>>13234660
>>13234675
The clone comments as he watches over the mess in the mess; people strewn all over, glass shards glittering all over, alcoholic brews, bile, and blood mixing all over the floor.

He just grins and comments, "-cheers."

rolled 9 = 9

>>13234660

The MP bounces into Abe forcing him to stagger back to the door back to the door but he maintains his footing

Aberham flings the bottle of gin at the major's head, then pulls a side arm from his coat.

*BAM* *BAM* *BAM* *BAM* into the floor (armored decks after all)

"LISTEN YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER THE FIGHT IS OVER"

"STOP MOVING!....NOW!!!"

>>13234769
Turns looking at Aberham thanks to the sound of the gunshots, one Mp being held in a fireman's carry across his shoulders, and bluntly asks.

"What I do?"

>>13234620
Lost looked at the pencil. She remembered the stories, not from Prima Masquerade, but from her accelerated learning before she went to boot camp. Of wizards and witches who used things called wands to channel magical powers. She looked at the pencil… skeptically.

“I… I don’t think I can see this as a weapon. Maybe I’ll just try my hand.” Lost reached out and placed a finger against the smooth glass, cool from the water inside.

She focused on the water and tried to imagine her teammates in peril. First she imagined Dragon. Dragon with… his head on fire, running around, trying to put it out. She laughed at the image, and tried for something more serious. Serious. Hmm. Shot stuck in his gyro, which was on fire. But… but Shot could light things on fire, so wouldn’t he be immune? She sighed and started over. Aberham; Aberham being surrounded by roaches. Hundreds of them. And her stepping in, taking them down. But… but there were too many, and she couldn’t fight them all…

Lost let out a sigh, and tried to think about to a moment that she could have realistically saved someone. Last mission, when she had her powers. The Bi-tank, coming out of no-where and riddling her teams with fire. The gatling fire hitting Ghost, but this time Aberham too. They were both down, Ghost couldn’t try and shoot out the driver. She stepped up and lunged the spear forward, jamming the spear into the center of the tank and frost flashing out from the impact. The tank crushing under its own weight, shattering. Lost saving her teammates.

She looked expectantly at the glass. And sighed in frustration: it was still just water. Annoyed, she pushed it away in disgust. As she did, there was a cracking sound as the water, which had been super-cooled, suddenly burst into ice, shattering the glass and spraying quick-freezing ice everywhere.

She looked up at Ghost, with wonder in her eyes and a maniacal grin.

rolled 3 = 3

>>13234675
Trauma had been at this for a good minute, ducking punches, trying not to take the full brunt of a hit, while slaming knees, elbows, fists and feet into the larger man's gut, and when she finally, finally knocked him out, Dragon comes by and slams their skulls together an instant afterwards.

And as Trauma falls to the ground, clutching her head and struggling to move, she sees dragon, and utters "Brother, I'm going to beat you to death for this." The absolute hate radiating from her eyes.
>1d10 for HATRED FUELS ME because i ain't got anything better to do

rolled 8 = 8

>>13234769

The Major simply stops resisting for a second to look at the MP and Aberham.

"FUCK NO! THIS FIGHT AIN'T OVER JUST YET!"

Walker quickly brought his feet to his chest, and kicked the MP off of him. Slowly rising, Walker turns to stare at Aberham, when the same MP charges him from the side.

>Roll for MP success!

rolled 9, 2 = 11

>>13234838

To his disbelief the officers is still moving to tackle him,

He flips the pistol around, and readies to swing should he insist on approaching

>two Attacks

>>13234798
Ghost's raised an eyebrow when Lost laughed, but didn't interrupt. They both sat there for a few moments when Lost seemed to give up and pushed the glass aside. ghost fell back in surprise when it burst, sending shards of glass and ice all over the floor. Rising up excitedly, he embraced her . "You did it!"
Realizing what he just did, he backs off a bit while blushing. "See? What did I tell ya?"

>>13234838

As the MP once again charges Walker, the Major simply turns, and swings, catching the charging MP straight in the face, breaking the man's goggles.

Walker then drew his own sidearm, but shifted his grip to hold it by the barrel instead.

"Let's do this, punk!"

Walker then charged, arm held high ready to bring the pistol down on Aberham's head.

rolled 2 = 2

>>13234838
>>13234908
Seeing that Walker is still up to something, the clone decides to pull up a leg, and boots his superior officer in the arse when he attempts to charge.

>>13234908

The older man charges with unexpected speed,

For a moment Aberham hesitates, and unconsciously backs up, causing his first swing to go wide, but in a stroke of luck pushing aside the Major's attack,

Now open he bring is arm back and connects with the side of his head, dropping the officer and splattering blood on the medic's jacket

>>13234939
>>13234960

Walker felt the kick from behind. Where was John? Wasn't he supposed to be backing him up? Well, it was a bar fight.

Off balance, his first swing missed, only to be knocked aside by the medic's blow. Just as he was trying to regain his balance, the medic's second blow with the pistol connected to the Major's temple.

As Walker slowly fell to his side, the world growing dark, he realized something.

Of course John wasn't there to get his back. John's been dead for over 20 years.

THUD.

The Major hit the floor, bleeding from the head and unconscious.

>>13234897

Lost beamed under the praise. The hug had been unexpected, and she was aware of how awkwardly Ghost disengaged himself. She managed to keep from laughing, part from the exhilaration, and part from Ghost’s modesty. There was a part of her, 13 years in fact, that flew in the face of the “common federation morality” that her accelerated training and boot camp had tried to impart. She was tempted to go over there and swing him around by the arms, but his reaction and the confines of the room could both prove disastrous.

“Thanks, sergeant. Have you figured out how to do anything with your power, besides sense things, I mean?”

>>13235011
>>13234960
Watches Aberham catch the Major upside the head with his pistol, causing Ghoul to decide it was probably time to leave.

"Welp I'm out..."

As he finishes his sentence Ghoul throws the Mp that had been across his shoulders since the Doc had discharged his side arm at Aberham and any Mp's that might be between Ghoul and the door.

Whether the thrown Mp knocks anyone down, Ghoul takes the advantage of the minor distraction and heads out the door at a brisk walk toward the medbay. He still needed someone to patch him up from the fight with Hartford before anyway.

Aberham stumbles forward, as the MPs swarm around doing their jobs,

One look at the Major and regret wells up in him, He could be seriously injured, and he would have been responsible, Assaulting a commanding officer was not something he was ready to entertain.

"DID YOU ASSHOLES NOT HEAR ME!"

"I WILL PERSONALLY DROP YOU INTO A COMA IF YOU KEEP THIS SHIT UP!"

Trauma pulls herself up and drag's Hartford over to Abe, "Here. He needs to go to the medbay. Also, about How long after someone is dead can they be revived?"

>>13235040
"Er.. no. Sometimes it feels like something else is just in reach, but nothing I can think of to try has helped me move forward. It's like pulling feeling, just at the edge of my mind. Something is holding me back, but I don't know what it could be. you have any thoughts?"

>>13235093

"I'm going to pray you are shiting me Trauma, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT!"

>>13235143
Trauma scrambles out of the room in search of dragon, "You know what, nothing. See ya."

>>13235109

“Well, I think that we make blocks for ourselves, because we’re afraid of hurting people. I think that’s why I had so much trouble reading minds again after I did it the first time, which really scared me. Trauma lets me try my empathy on her, and knowing that there was a bond of trust between allows me to reach out and try new things.”

“Maybe you need the same? Obviously not a person, but maybe a droid?” Lost’s eyes give a conspiratorial glace. “I heard that you and the droid r00 are pretty close. And I’ve heard that she’s becoming full AI. Maybe you should ask her for help?”

>>13235194
The bends down over the major, a quickly pulls up his status,

"Alright, just out, good."

>>13235194

Then he turns to the nearest MP,

"You, follow her, hold her down, then giver her this, (he offers a small vial) via her shunt, then take her to the med bay, she injured."

Trauma runs down the halls, tracking the amazingly strong smell of burnt hair and high proof liquor, before catching up to him, draging along Colton, "You know what comes now, don't you, Brother?

>>13235055
Krieg bursts through the kitchen door just in time to catch a facefull of MP. The impact of a fully armored trooper nearly two heads taller than himself sends him off his feet and back the way he came. Pinned under the larger man's bulk, Krieg laments how his small stature is so unsuitable for barfights. He misses his bitank.

>>13235238

-Com-
"All available personnel in Medical please report to the mess, one triage unit and three stretchers as soon a possible."

Then he attends to the unconscious.

>>13235206
Ghost looks somewhat embarrassed. "You've heard the jokes too, eh? It's true that we've...been with each other a few times, but much of it's exaggerated. None the less, I have tried with her. She's pretty much fully sentient and sapient now, which actually seems to make experiencing that 'pull' more difficult. Maybe if you read my mind, you could find something? Don't worry, I trust you." Not finding another chair other then the one Lost was occupying, he just sat on a nearby cot. "If your comfortable with that, that is. If so, I'm ready." Ghost looks at Lost expectantly.

>>13235292
Dragon stops "I thought I knocked you out" He takes a moment to let colton down, and then the beer. He turns to face Trauma
"You know, you've been nothing but a bitch to me from the onset and I've taken it alllll in. Not tonight, tonight i've had enough." Dragon takes on a fighting posture "As far as I'm concerend, I'm not your brother anymore...come on then, come get some if you think your hard enough"

rolled 3, 8 = 11

>>13235357
"Brother is brother. It's just a matter it fact. I just expect more of you. You're supposed to be the rolemodel. But i did promise i'd kill you. Don't worry, i'll find a way to bring you back." Trauma then goes in with two punches.

rolled 2, 3 = 5

>>13235305

Corporal Said rounds the corner, He was not exactly clear on his priorities at the moment, much less what that loud medic wad given him. Either way, he was not going to be woken up mid rest without making someone's else day miserable too.

"Both of you, back down"

He Rushes Trauma

rolled 1 = 1

>>13235391
Dragon takes the first hit but dodges the other. He then throws two of his own

>>13235333

Lost gaped at him. Well… that was unexpected. She knew that Trauma had been more then a little wary when Lost had strong-armed her into helping her. And here was her sergeant, the man who looked out after her and her squadmates, asking her for help. She wanted to say yes, but she was worried about the outcome. Trying to nose around in his mind for information, to find a block? Just the thought of invading Ghost's privacy so much mortified her, as it had with Aberham. Trauma had never really surrendered, not really even with the trust, and she had kept back a lot. For Ghost to simple lay himself open for her to see all of him, was something far more intimate then the supposed dealing between him and r00, if more one-sided.

“Are… are you sure?” Her voice was filled with concern.

> So, how do you want to do this? I take the first step, and you lead me around through the halls of your mind? And I’ll react to it? Or what?

rolled 3 = 3

>TEST ROLL

>>13235469
Apparently confident, he answers "Yes."

>Go ahead and take the first step. Immediately, past the surface emotions of a little nervousness you'll find that Ghost relents and you can explore his mind. After fist impressions, I can add further things you find.

>>13235391
>>13235431
"-stand down, the two of you." A low voice echoes in the hallway. The two soldiers realize that the hallways is now silent for the exception of their own fighting.

There, staring from several feet away, is the private who started all this. Except, that it isn't. This clone is wearing a naval uniform, and wearing an Admiral's tabs and unmistakable cap.

"-stand down, or I make you stand down." He raises his arm, and there is a familiar-looking PAL with the detonator list, currently keyed to the two of them.

But that isn't all, a full score of Naval MPs is behind him, along with medics and orderlies. The Admiral throws some orders at them.

"-handle the injured, then throw the lot of them to the brig. And bring my clone to me. I need to detonate his hands."

rolled 7, 3 = 10

loldicetest

oh good god what did I miss.

Also borrowing this computer from someone else. can anyone link me to the mibbit ?

rolled 8, 1 = 9

FOR TRUST OR LACK THERE OF

>>13235574

You missed half of Bravo getting drunk out of their minds. Also,

https://02.chat.mibbit.com/?url=irc%3A%2F%2Firc.rizon.net%2Fskirmishquest

>>13235539

“Okay…”

Lost turned the seat around and sat normally, getting comfortable. Time seemed to speed up when she was in a person’s mind, moving at the celerity of thought. She focused on his emotions, a bundle of expectation and nerves with a zing of excitement, and reached out with the hand-that-was-not-a-hand to touch Ghost’s mind.

Lost had gotten used to the maelstrom that was the human mind’s consciousness, and she could see through the twister of the mind much clearer then before. She could feel a thick web of resistance pop up has she moved in—those who were aware of her presence could erect such wards—and she summoned forth calming waves of thought, soothing the barrier until it relented. From the thought vortex she could see snatches of memories, of surface thoughts and emotions. Flittering panes of memories, flipping end over end showed some of his experiences with the droid in question, probably because he was trying to hide them. She saw feelings… feeling about her. Lost accepted those, she understood that men thought of pretty women in such a way, and her self that was 13 years Prima Diva accepted it as commonplace.

She moved, without really moving, deeper into the twister, pushing past the chaotic surface of Ghost’s mind into the rushing torrents of his underthoughts.

> You’re up.

Dragon took the hard hit, and aswered with a strong blow of his own. That was it, the fight was over.

The battered trauma had so much rage, it was all that kept her going this far. A major stab wound, what was probably a concussion, still she was here, still she landed that blow.

Blood oozed from dragons mouth, his face felt fractured. Even in such a weakened condition she rocked him. The blood swashed in his mouth and he spit it on her "That's was for Mandana, Bitch"

He looked up, the alcohol and the blow made him weak. In their rage they didn't hear the warning and in his weakened condition there was nothing to do.

The baton cracked him in the face and he was down. the boots rained down to assure the job was done. He had a high tolerence for pain, but that only means you stay awake through it all

Many people were brought to the medical center that night, and the one in the worst shape was the only one not grated the sweet release of being knocked out.

If his broken jaw could move, he'd have a smile on his face..

Returning to the med bay Aberham surveys the lot, and assist where needed.

In the stall he clean the gash on the side of his head, inspecting the wound left to him by the Major. He found in astounding the first injury to draw blood had been given too him by his own commanding officer

He sighs heavily and chastises himself for losing his composure. The ups and downs of his episodes had been getting harder to recognize and control, maybe it was Warsaw being sick, or just getting closer to the crew, especially Lost.

"...Christ, you have no idea what's going on do you" he says apathetically into the mirror.

"Go thinking there's a party, get assaulted"

Most of all he was angry that Medical was being used to patch up those whom by his estimation did not deserve it. He had almost ordered the treatments to be suspended of those not unconscious, but though better of it in the end.

>>13235693
Ghost was unsure of what to expect, or how he could even help her along if he could.

------------------------------------------------

Ghost is laying in the medbay, his head still aching from colliding with the cockpit interior of the bitank. He stands up.

He is standing outside the door to medical, listening to Lost talk to Aberham and Trauma. He feels a little guilty for eavesdropping, but can't help but listen in. He had set his tablet to record audio while talking with the doctor and had left it on, so he would hear all this regardless.

He retrieves his tablet, Lost stops him. Words are exchanged, and he can't help but notice that Lost is very attractive. He hurries out, hearing Dragon talk about him when he leaves.

.....

Next day, he overhears someone joking about what happened in the medbay some other soldiers, suggesting Ghost should take advantage of his rank and position as Lost's superior. He feels indignation, but walks off before he's noticed

...

He receiving a staff and a folded cloth, what appears to be a shroud from some unknown individual. "You've been selected to field test a new type of equipment. As such, you have now the earned designation 'Saint.' All candidates for being a Saint have been chosen from those who have been decided to be strong of mind. Your high scores, as well as the fact you've survived two battles with brood queens, means we have decided you are the best candidate. With this appointment, you will receive additional duties. Some in your fellow soldiers have displayed psionic potential. With these new tools, you are to be tasked with insuring that they do not pose a threat should they show signs of instability..."

The memory is abruptly cut off, as if Ghost just realized it had been seen. Still, he does not close his mind. Lost is able to forge onward.

>continued, more incoming!

>.Managed to steal internet from a bus riding next to us kekekekeke.

>Start Log.
In a white room in a white space there was a red chair and a black table. On that red chair was someone, something, an object of the ether that has yet to find shape and form until a feminine figure in white walks in and seats herself on a white swivel chair.

The object on the red chair was confined by heavy machine straps unnatural for a human to be bound in. An iron facemask held the being inside as well, limiting virtually all of its activities to a simple yes or no answer. The woman in white, also had a mask - nay a reflective visor that allowed her all the protection over her subject while remaining free to enact anything at any time.

And so she chose to speak. Or rather extrapolate. The series of stocastic noises that streamed out of her glowing visor exchanged a series of yesses and nos, 1s and 0s with the subject. The process was slow, but time was something they both had together.

Time was infinite here.

Orbital was in control here.

> Your name.
Abaddon.
> Your function.
There was a violent jerk of the iron masked figure. Demonic shapes formed on the bindings.
> Your function.
I exist as the master of locusts and death. I am Abaddon authority of the lowest rungs of the Abyss.

More beeps
And Who the frak are you ?!
>I ask the questions here, Abaddon. Your program is a corruption, a war atrocity. You should not have come to exist and you must be destroyed. Yet why is it that you have not followed the proper protocol of disintegration ?

. I cannot.

> Why ?

I do not share the same parameters of finity as you do, construct. I exist, I am being. The core that presides over my death is a wave, a function, an ultimatum that I share with my angels and only then will we destruct. Only then will we find solace in our limitless cycles.

> You speak of the Xenoforms.
Yes.
> Can you control them
As much as I can control myself.
> What do you aim to do ?
Destroy
> Destroy What ?
Everything.

Orbital's signals stopped sending momentarily. Her demure figure was sat on the chair proper. Upon upending her palm before the subject. A sword produced itself from luminous recognition on her hands. With a practiced form that was orthodox to Knight-like fighting she rears back a blow. The length of the blade aimed into one of the finely constructed slits in her subjects' constraints. Dying was one of the few choices available to it. It was only then that she had stirred a response from the demon.

You risk data corruption. You risk lobotomizing the construct.

>It is necessary. You are an existence that must be-

Stopped. Destroy my cross and another will form from the chorus of angels singing from the distant black. The cycle will not cease.

> Are you proposing a solution that will prevent me from ending your instance right now ?
I do.

Orbital waivers. Her face shield slides back. Organic lips shaped from dense datastars move for the first time. This time her voice is that of a human facsimile.

" Let's hear it "

Everything seems strange. he is in the VR sim. Looking up upon the hill, he the droids come to the forefront of his senses. He feels an emptiness, as well as a potential for the droids. The sim plays out, no other odd feelings.

...

He is walking through the barracks. Out from the showers walks R00, her hair still damp. ghost is slightly puzzled. He can 'feel' R00, more substantial then the droids in the sim. He doesn't quite understand what it means.

...

Two riflemen go limp, falling to the ground before being rolled over by Shot. There is a loud noise, Ghost rolls over. Seeing a bitank, he snipes the pilot. He hears shouts from his squad and looks down to his side where he sees blood spreading in his shroud. For a brief moment before Aberham fixes him up, the perception of other droids in the area dance on the edge of awareness. They feel closer to him then they ever have, and there is a pulling sensation.

....

He is a familiar room, his quarters. The workroom. He is looking through some papers, thinking about the Edwin in storage before a beacon flashes in his mind. The overwhelming presence of an A.I. calls from a particular section of the ship.

When he comes to, he is sitting on the same cot he sits on now. He is confused, doesn't know how much time has passed. He begins searching the terminal set up against a wall for information about last mission. Searching for data on an AI yields a screen with the Inquisitor's seal. Ghost feels worried.

...

He is searching the ship, looking for R00. Remembering what had happened in the sim, with R00 previously, with the aftereffects of the AI activation, he recalls feeling the confusion. Puzzlement, questioning, he notices some droids being worked. He remembers again, his awareness stretches out. He sees the droids, the AI. He continues until he can sense all the droids on the ship. He opens his eyes to find himself on the floor.

>That should be some stuff to work with! Your turn.

>>13235735
Seeing one of the combatants (Trauma, his MEME whispers) fall to her face, and the other (Dragon, it whispers again) barely standing, the Admiral stows his detonator and instead motions for the Naval MPs to do their work.

Disciplinary actions when the subjects aren't even aware are useless.

"-medics, make note. Once both regained consciousness, inform me, I shall detonate their knees and elbows. You can halt all medical procedures to those areas beforehand. Just take care of their immediate wounds."

The Admiral then turns around and heads towards the mess. He has several other clones to discipline.

>>13235735
Trauma had bin through a lot this night, not only had she dealt with five cabinets of liquor solo, stabbed by the same amount of glass, and managed to bring down a drunken, raging Hartford, with nothing more than the concussion dragon gave her when he cowardly attacked them from behind. It wasn't that dragon was a gen 1, it was that he ruined her win that caused this all.

When she lashed out she wanted to put all her strength behind it, tear off his head with it, but at the last moment she hesitated. Dragon was still Brother, and family deserved mercy. So, she pulled it as much as she could, and then he swung back right as the MP tackled her from behind, carrying her into the line of the punch, she dropped to the floor, probably a second concussion, and the MP's cracked him across the face, snapping his jaw like a dry twig.

So she let him have it. she'd stay down for His win over his sister just this once, and waited untill he was carted off to vent on the MP. The drugs didn't do much, and all she did was knock him out, before heading off to her quarters. The wounds she'd sustained had stopped bleeding at least, there was no reason to waste medical resources of an overcrowded infirmary. All that was left was to strip down, shower, dress and sleep.

Then the dreams of home.

The Sobek System was one of the first colonizations, but oddly, it's one of the least populated, having only Typhon with a permanent human population, as the binary planet Boreas and Khione are chilled to the point where they would require high maintenance facilities that would simply not be cost effective

Typhon is a statistical improbability. It has an uncanny resemblance to old earth, down to the general location of it's land masses, The only significant departure from earth is that it's atmosphere is slightly denser. It's permanent population consists of several hundred million people and an unknown amount of clones, all of whom work For Caduceus. It supports itself Tourism stemming from it's nature as the cutting edge of technology, and the fact that it is almost a planet-wide zoo of old earth. Typhon is home to one of the most successful and productive research and manufacturing facilities in the Galactic Federation, The Caduceus foundation. The Foundation has been at the forefront of technological advancement, and are personally responsible for the later generations of clones, Specifically enhancements to late gen 1's, and the entire gen 2 and 3 lines. Caduceus has it's hands in every area of research and Development, from weapon contracts, to generators, to cheap but rugged personal amenities to self-constructing bases. If it's made, Caduceus is responsible at least one of them. There are rumors that Their success stems from ancient ruins, but no one has been able to corroborate the reports with any degree of certainty. This colony is important enough to warrant it's own Federation embassy/consulate, and has a Transcription Amenities Agency branch and headquarters.

>>13236215
The culture of typhon is a bit unusual. While nominally, the planet is governed by the Caduceus foundation, the former leaders of the planet, The Order of the Transcendent Helix (a human-centric offshoot of Transhumanism) still have a large say in the operation of the planet. Both factions have their own agendas, but more often than not, work together. Travel is something met with congratulations, and it's customary to have a fete in honor of those who leave, and trade deals are often sealed with a minor gift. A Typhoid's word is his bond, and lying is an unthinkable, despicable offense. This honor is strong enough that once they have given that word, it is impossible to break it, even under psychic duress. If they have given their word to keep a secret, no mind probe will be enough to ferret it out. This honor is literally bred into the populace, but leads to minor xenophobia, as they know outsiders are not kept to their standards. Specially bred psionic scanners are constantly, subtly reading the mind of any outsiders and watching for espionage.

Largely, the only problems in system are several pirate bases, which interfere with the resource collection operations from the exceedingly rich binary planet that feed the Typhoid shipyards, which are advanced enough to produce all but the largest capital ships, and repair everything available in the navy.

Ender hummed the third movement as he went about his casual routine to do some firing practices with his ionizer.
There was no real skillbuilding behind this act, but the challenge was always to keep his aim straight as he meditated on the events of the passed 20 hours. Days in Hearth stretched to 19 hours, allowing people to be awake longer.

Rent polycarbon blocks sprang up from the zero gravity room. Each of their sides had different colors. Ender needed only to shoot the correct side while at the same time allowing the blocks to drift towards a chute. The whole affair was like playing pool an automatic. 5 blocks were penetrated with smoking holes as they whirled into the chute.

Again, it was all meditative.

He imagined that woman's face exploding in a hot flash.

Fire.

A blue faced cube dunked in the chute. He took a breath and continued to fire.

>>13236215
>>13236223
The TAA is a company that sets up a hospices with medical facilities, living spaces and kitchens, all well staffed(with the same staff, actually. simply different copies) on as many planets as they can, offering safe comfortable locations, free to use for anyone with a (naturally expensive) Lifetime Membership and their companions, others will have to pay subscription fees dependent on the time spent using the facilities. Lifetime memberships are often awarded for prestigious or lengthy military service, political positions, and civil service jobs. And all Caduceus employees as it is a subsidiary of the Caduceus Foundation.

Lost didn’t really sit cross-legged in the darkness, not really. But it seemed to her as if she did, with fragments of the memories that she had forged through as images floating in front of her. She sweeps away the first three memories. They were a starting point, but not an end in themselves. She pauses over the memory of the Saint technology and the orders, but then disregards it. Her mentality as a knight is strong here: go straight for the problem. She inspects the other memories closely, opening up all her senses to the memories, looking at them through other angles, trying to see the common threads through each.

The droids, it was only the droids he could sense, and the AI. With R00, what would be akin, if not exactly, an AI, he can feel something fuller, more substantial. Lost thought back to what she knew about droids. They were simple creatures for the most part, combat droids relying on shadowing and operating focused around a single soldier. They were part of the TA net, which meant they were part of psi-comm. Beyond that she didn’t know much. She took a peek into Ghost’s mind, and suddenly it all clicked.

Droids, AIs, computer in general, operated on psi-comm. To be specific they operated on a sub-level of psi--comm, that was a significantly lower bandwidth, higher exchange rate. This allowed for quick communication of the binary information, as opposed to the much more complex code of true psicomm, which dealt with mem-chips, transcriptions, and even full memory complexes. It was two levels: which Lost thought of as psi-comm and bi-comm. The analog of human minds and the binary of the computer.

> >

>Continued from >>13236509

What if he felt the AIs because of companionship? What if, much like AIs operated on this “bi-comm” so could he? What if he could push his mind into this realm that only machines inhabited, allowing him to become aware with those devices around him? And, as an insect drawn to the brightest lights first, he could sense the “higher” forms much easier, such as AIs and droids.

She plucked, without truly knowing how, a blank plane of thought from the air. Taking a deep breath that was not truly breathing, she blew out this thought, this idea, onto the plane like painting on a canvas, and let the suggestion flutter from her hand, to fly into flocks of thoughts that filled his subconscious. Perhaps that would help settle the idea, unblock the method.

> I seem to be making up some lore on the spot to help troubleshoot this idea. Hope that’s okay. Ball’s in your court.

>>13236295

The first drop was a grand clusterfuck. But a job was a job.
Fighting people and galactic insurgents was something he thought another unit did. Granted , he was also pulled into the image of joining the PDF because of a photo of a man erecting a flag over a pile of car-sized bugs.

He was wading in darkness, honestly. And adrift as he was, he gave everything to his job. Looking for that moment to make his life mean something.

>>>

" Fucking shithead" said the Betsy Anne Sgt. Clones of her were popular for bootcamp freshies." You already collapsing after a 12 miler ? E-Med ! stick this piece of shit with pain killers ! "
" N- No sir" Ender gasped out between wretching coughs. His shaved head was dusty from the elements. His skin was crackling and callousing. " Pain killers gonna weaken my muscles- I want to make the cut "

The medic trainee ran up , ready to administer a shot when a silent hand waved him away. The same hand wringed Ender's neck.

"Get the fuck up Spinelli- you're a goddamn shame, watching you suffer like this is bad for morale- you wanna improve this unit's time then you better catch up to them STAT . Now get ON FRONT. I want YOU to be the one leading them. Hector, Bit, switch places "

Ender's body wasn't build like a combat clone. And yet he was assigned to a combat clone camp. Despite the presence of other humans in circulation, he couldn't hold a candle to years of conditioning and genetic cherry-picking. And yet he kept running. His legs were slag, he felt his toes getting slick with icor. But it kept his mind off from being a nobody.

He was suffering. But he was alive.

>>
" FUCK THEM UP FUCK THEM UP " He was a tool, a part of a greater movement. He didn't care, he was a body of murder and a head full of instinctive balistic calculations. He fried that frakking bitank, watched the poor bastard inside fry from a moment of weakness. The mania gripped him, the bloodlust, the effeciency for the sake of the mission drove him to do heinous acts with no hesitation, no fear. He would do it. A predator sets ablaze , its wide flank exposed to small arms fire ended the craft after Wolf's precise shots scored a wound on it. The sky was orange a slight smile spread across his face, but there was no time to enjoy it. He would do any heinous act, he would kill without hesitation. And yet the conviction didn't carry the professional numbness that it would carry with it. He felt every sin, felt every shot.

He had just accepted. It was this little underscore that kept him from getting archived in section 6.

He was a monster to behold.

A monster called human.

Being much more sober and collected than the other Bravos, Nomad helped carry out Private Weird to the Medbay. As he tromped through the halls, he spoke in a hush whisper to the injured clone.

"So...I know you got control of the cams. Got some footage myself. I'm sure the rest of the Force would love to see the Major in a drunk brawl. And I know your always game for profits...."

"-10-90."

"Oh, c'mon, I came up with the idea didn't I? 20-80?"

"-your idea, your responsibility. You get caught, you take the blame? 40-60."

"...sounds fair. I do believe we have an accord."

"-good."

>>13236518
Ghost sat there, waiting. A series of errant thoughts flitted through his mind, about how his power might work, but seems to be gone before he could fully grasp it. Something about him being able to sense the droids through psicomm? A possibility, perhaps.

>I got a little, more info on it from OC. Ghost himself isn't aware though, of what exactly triggers it. I did include a hint in one of the memories I gave.

While patiently sitting there, he began thinking of what had caused the Major to behave as he had. Briefly, he was concerned of what one of the others might think if they had spotted him and Lost sneaking off together. Discarding the thought, he just hoped that no one had noticed.

Squeamish cursed to himself as he scrambled out of the medical bay, arms full of medical equipment. Of course, there would have to be a bar brawl. This was what happened when you crammed soldiers into a ship together.

He slowed as he approached the mess hall. He could smell it before he could see it. Blood, piss, alcohol, puke… and burning hair? He slowed as he came upon the first casualties. Dragon sat on the bulkhead, eyes spinning in his head.

“Hey. Hey? Erm… can you hear me?” He said, waving a hand in front of the broken man’s face. No response. With a heavy sigh, Squeamish dropped his gear and squatted down on his haunches. Dragon, he believed, although it took him a moment to recognize the man without the bandanna. He pulled up the portable scanner to check for damage, only to notice with a start that there had been a full gene scan done not three hours ago. He frowned and attempted to call up the results, only to run against a brick wall.
Why would Dragon’s genes be classified information?

Squeamish’s breath came faster. He picked up one of the man’s limp hands and ran the scanner over it, grabbing another genetic sample. He scanned the file intently as the results came up. Dragon was certainly human, except… There. There and there and there. The man's DNA had gaping holed torn through it. It was like someone had built a couch but didn't bother to upholster it.

Artificial synapses smoothly clicked to life, copying down the file via wireless linkage. Squeamish’s brain had been such a wreck upon cloning, the army had opted to install cybernetic augments rather than growing a new one. They came in handy in times like this. Within seconds, the file was packed away in his head, and Dragon’s gene scan had been deleted from the mainframe, as if it had never existed. The whole process took less than a minute.

With a slightly glassy grin, Squeamish began treating Dragon’s other injuries.

Fascinating.

>>13236732
Dragon just watched the man. He tried to mumble when he asked for a responce but god damnit all of him hurt. He just watched as the doc went to work.

Mental note: you owe this dude a hug

Ghoul after walking from the mess, had been sitting quietly in medical, waiting for one of the Doc's to patch up his nose and any of the cracked ribs he got from his fight with Hartford.

>>13236664

>Um… well, I guess I can just keep hunting around in the dark… I just thought basically being able to operate on a machine (AI) level would explain it. Maybe I’ll focus on the block more…

Lost leaned back, and frowned. Nothing. There could be a thousand reasons, from that she simply didn’t know what she was doing, to that he already knew all of this, and everything in between. Maybe she was looking at this the wrong way: maybe the why it worked wasn’t important, maybe it was the how. Or the why of the how.

Why did Ghost black out when he reached out? Why had the feeling been strongest for him when was close to death? Maybe it was a question of balance. Maybe existing in both planes, in both psi-comm and bi-comm was something one could not do. Like splitting one’s self between incredibility complicated tasks would cause one or the other to fail. Maybe failure was losing connection with one or the other.

It might like be like trying to keep two consciousnesses active at the same time, each one fighting with the other for awareness, for dominance. Perhaps to have a consciousness reaching out to the droids required a letting go of the other, active consciousness. Maybe the answer was… surrender.

> Ghost can’t be conscious/alive/active as an individual to control droids? Warmer? Colder?

>>13236832

Aberham walks out of a nearby Stall touching the wound on his head and wincing slightly. He walks to Ghoul and pulls a diagnostic tablet from the counter.

"lieutenant.." He acknowledges flatly, and begins to punch key setting up the devices to render a skeletal scan.

>>13236890
Smirked softly to himself at Aberham's noticeable annoyance. Responding neutrally.

"Doc."

As the minutes dragged on, Ghost began to think on what else she would find within his mind. His first 'real' memories of when he emerged from the clone tank right before the final battle on Aggoria. His first death, surrounded by makarians closing in on them on ground and in speeders. The fear he had felt for the others who had no more clones, every time they came so close to death. Him being promoted to sergeant, feelings of pride. Worry for those in his squad, the feelings of responsibility weighing on him heavily. Learning that the mutated flux signals had left them with no back-ups, and the terror he felt when he realized how close he came to the end when he had time to think on taking that slug from the bitank. He had tried hard to hide it from the others...

She would likely have picked up on his attraction as well. Couldn't be helped, but he couldn't help but worry it might cause issue.

>>13236837
>Hot hot hot! it is one of those three!

>>13236908

Aberham returns a look of indignation, but then resignation; he just looks profoundly tired.

"Can you please lean back up against the wall, out your feet together, and sit on your hands, the scan can work faster if you don't move."

"All that really need to happen Sir?"

As Walker lay in a bed in the medical bay, he dreamt. Perhaps it was the comment made by Lieutenant, or rather, Sergeant Hawkes earlier, or perhaps the excessive amount of alcohol intake, but Walker’s mind drifted in his sleep to days long past.

“MOVE!”

The order rang through William’s head like a shotgun. And without any hesitation, he moved. At that moment, he and six others simultaneously broke from the cover of the tree line and advanced through the mist-covered field. A waxing moon lighting up the field, they were like ghosts in the night. Ghosts cloaked in black and armed to the teeth.

“Move with a purpose. Strike first. Strike fast. Strike with fury, anger, and the strength to win.” William mumbled to himself as the crossed the field, snapping his gun left and right, scanning for hostiles.

“Tango in the open, 1 o’clock. Take him out on my order.”

William’s weapon snapped to forward. His HUD highlighted a silhouette in the mist, standing against a wall.

“Wait for it… wait… and… fire, now.”

*Click-click-click*

A silent burst from his suppressed rifle, and the man crumpled. For the six other commandoes, the same scene played out. Wasting no time, William continued to move forward through the mist, until he reached the wall. Slamming against the wall, he moved along it to the North, stopping at a door.