Reinforcements
PerfectionsFlaw
Join Date: 2003-02-14 Member: 13555Members
Join Date: 2003-02-14 Member: 13555Members
<div class="IPBDescription">TSA vessel Harper, in orbit of Garret</div> The TSA was expanding their resources because their budget amounted to table scraps so some genius brought up a station near Garret a large floating rock in the middle of nowhere with nothing on it, but some new form of propane the sciene department wanted to get their hands on. Every now and then you could see the surface of the beast erupting to let out howls of disgust for her visitors. Why were the marines here? Hmmph good question, but seeing as we don't know jack **** at this point I think it's safe to say it's another tag along. Uncle Sam wants us to watch over his investment so he saddled a good dozen of us and shipped us along with some civilian miners. To top that off the represenative of Mara Sara made sure that a law was passed to let convicts serve out their term in the TSA. It didn't catch on to the other colonies, but this unit just got reinforced with four convicts who were serving life sentences or on death row. The only thing keeping them from jacking this ship and making a break for the Outer Ring is the sarge and his pistol.
The first one I think I should introduce you to is Roper, he's doing three life sentences and was convicted of another three murders while in the slam. He must have been thinking, "It can't get any worse." hmph that's what I thought too, but now I'm here, with him. His weren't in self defense or out of lust and rage, he liked it. Only the sarge has access to the records, but two of the other convicts were in the same block and they heard plenty. Seems he likes sharp metal objects and sticking them into people. Doesn't make much sense why they'd secure him a standard issue combat knife. Then again it doesn't make sense why he's here at all. The only thing he'll be cutting while we're here are those damn chin whiskers.
The next guy is a clear cut oppurtunist, they had better keep their eyes fixed on him. I know for a fact that he killed his wife and child point blank with a handgun. They have ordinances now against that sort of thing, no firearms for residents who fit the psyche profile or any history involving violence on their record. I don't know why this one would kill his family just doesn't make any sense. Roper had a lust for the trickles of blood, this guy had no reason just twelve bullets in the clip and one in the chamber. Lucky number thirteen I suppose.
The third fella was a pirate who goes by Pierigru, funny name. Anyone who lives in the collective system knows that being a pirate is an automatic life sentence, take that add on the number of ships you've robbed or stolen for salvage and multiply it by three and you got your term. This guy was a busy bee for sure because he had two hundred and three consecutive life sentences. I did some math of on my own and that rounds out to around seventy ships give or take. Now money goes fast, but the average cost of a mining rig is around two million. Salvage from that is about half so one million, if this guy stole seventy mining rigs he'd have seventy mil. If he had stopped at sixty-nine mil he wouldn't be here right now.
The last one has the worst trigger happy disposition I've ever seen. These standard issues pump out around sixteen rounds a second and have hair triggers. Not once have I seen his finger around the trigger without twitching or tapping against the metal guard. I heard he had death sentence for slaughtering a bunch of colonists with a pump action twelve guage shotgun he named 'Bessy' Maybe it was just me, ah ****' sake it's not just me this one is on edge twenty-four seven. He is on a permenant high, my guess is while in prison he was still able to get his hands on some amphetamines and is now in withdrawl. We keep the caffiene away from him. His name was-
"Bradwick! Get your **** -ing hand off that weapon and stow it before I shove my polished size twelve boot up your jittery ****!" The twitchy **** got up and put it in the armory next to the rest of the rifles. Then he sat back down on the steel three-legged stool next to them, just staring every chance he got. Sargeant Greensbury saw him and stepped toward him, his boots making subtle thumps on the iron grate floor. He leaned in over the scrawny pile of human flesh, "You want your weapon back don't you, Private?" The sick sonofa **** shook his head no, "Good, cause if you touch that smokewagon and you'll be the first to demonstrate why man created a **** -ing space suit."
"Sarge, sir, they need you at the bridge." it was one of the regulars, marine who was in the squad and racked up some experience on the field. There weren't many, most of the squad was fresh out of boot and had never had a mission. It was him, Greensbury, and Franklin who were the regulars. The Sarge just stared at Bradwick for a good long while before he straightened himself and left the common room. Right now it was full of convicts all of them satisfying their urges in their own corner of the room. Normally this isn't where we'd be watching after some politicians pet progect, but as long as we didn't have to go head to head with those green puss-faced **** it was alright with me, staying away from the aliens is good too. I was playing solitarie against myself, it was a fresh deck that the TSA just shipped into the colonies to keep us grunts occupied with gambling one another. Which reminded me, I have a pool going that says Bradwick is the first one to snap and eat Greensbury's bullet.
The first one I think I should introduce you to is Roper, he's doing three life sentences and was convicted of another three murders while in the slam. He must have been thinking, "It can't get any worse." hmph that's what I thought too, but now I'm here, with him. His weren't in self defense or out of lust and rage, he liked it. Only the sarge has access to the records, but two of the other convicts were in the same block and they heard plenty. Seems he likes sharp metal objects and sticking them into people. Doesn't make much sense why they'd secure him a standard issue combat knife. Then again it doesn't make sense why he's here at all. The only thing he'll be cutting while we're here are those damn chin whiskers.
The next guy is a clear cut oppurtunist, they had better keep their eyes fixed on him. I know for a fact that he killed his wife and child point blank with a handgun. They have ordinances now against that sort of thing, no firearms for residents who fit the psyche profile or any history involving violence on their record. I don't know why this one would kill his family just doesn't make any sense. Roper had a lust for the trickles of blood, this guy had no reason just twelve bullets in the clip and one in the chamber. Lucky number thirteen I suppose.
The third fella was a pirate who goes by Pierigru, funny name. Anyone who lives in the collective system knows that being a pirate is an automatic life sentence, take that add on the number of ships you've robbed or stolen for salvage and multiply it by three and you got your term. This guy was a busy bee for sure because he had two hundred and three consecutive life sentences. I did some math of on my own and that rounds out to around seventy ships give or take. Now money goes fast, but the average cost of a mining rig is around two million. Salvage from that is about half so one million, if this guy stole seventy mining rigs he'd have seventy mil. If he had stopped at sixty-nine mil he wouldn't be here right now.
The last one has the worst trigger happy disposition I've ever seen. These standard issues pump out around sixteen rounds a second and have hair triggers. Not once have I seen his finger around the trigger without twitching or tapping against the metal guard. I heard he had death sentence for slaughtering a bunch of colonists with a pump action twelve guage shotgun he named 'Bessy' Maybe it was just me, ah ****' sake it's not just me this one is on edge twenty-four seven. He is on a permenant high, my guess is while in prison he was still able to get his hands on some amphetamines and is now in withdrawl. We keep the caffiene away from him. His name was-
"Bradwick! Get your **** -ing hand off that weapon and stow it before I shove my polished size twelve boot up your jittery ****!" The twitchy **** got up and put it in the armory next to the rest of the rifles. Then he sat back down on the steel three-legged stool next to them, just staring every chance he got. Sargeant Greensbury saw him and stepped toward him, his boots making subtle thumps on the iron grate floor. He leaned in over the scrawny pile of human flesh, "You want your weapon back don't you, Private?" The sick sonofa **** shook his head no, "Good, cause if you touch that smokewagon and you'll be the first to demonstrate why man created a **** -ing space suit."
"Sarge, sir, they need you at the bridge." it was one of the regulars, marine who was in the squad and racked up some experience on the field. There weren't many, most of the squad was fresh out of boot and had never had a mission. It was him, Greensbury, and Franklin who were the regulars. The Sarge just stared at Bradwick for a good long while before he straightened himself and left the common room. Right now it was full of convicts all of them satisfying their urges in their own corner of the room. Normally this isn't where we'd be watching after some politicians pet progect, but as long as we didn't have to go head to head with those green puss-faced **** it was alright with me, staying away from the aliens is good too. I was playing solitarie against myself, it was a fresh deck that the TSA just shipped into the colonies to keep us grunts occupied with gambling one another. Which reminded me, I have a pool going that says Bradwick is the first one to snap and eat Greensbury's bullet.
Comments
this could get interesting
Greensbury had a nice speech for us at 14:00 hours on the seventeenth of March. Which revealed the reason he was called to the bridge in it's entirity. "Get in line you **** squabbling maggots!" He was talking to the convicts, the ones who had willingly joined the the Trans-System Authority were already in a nice line facing forward looking dead ahead. The cons took their time one by one standing up and forming a line. Bradwick was still shaking in his boots, just not because of any outside force like the atmosphere regulator or the shiney pistol at the Sargeant's side. He motioned his hand to the line of men behind him, "These men are marines, the newest batch of Frontiersmen that Ariadne Arm has to offer." he was walking back and forth the floor between the two lines of marines. "You are **** to me, you are only here because some politician thought it'd be cheaper to feed and cloth you for the duration of your stay in the TSA than for a lifetime in the slam. I personally hope no-," he stopped walking and smiled brightly, "I aspire to have been able to shoot one of you dead by the time we leave this ****-hole." Still smiling he stared at Bradwick like the scrawny fella was a human bulls-eye which he wanted to move so it would be more challenging. "These men will move on the the next mission and the next improving their skills in combat and strategy, eventually they will become officers in my beautiful army. You cannot hope to achieve this in a thousand years, even if you live to see the second coming of Christ and he forgives you for your sins I will send a nine milimeter projectile through your thick skull and the last thing that you hear will be the metal bouncing around in your empty **** -ing skull." Greensbury stopped walking and no longer smiled. "That is all, dismissed!" He briskly walked out of the barracks his boots clanging against the grate.
His little pick me upper speech could mean only one thing, we had an actual task at hand. Rumor floated down that the sister ship in the docking bay, a nice little ride from what I could tell she was made to cap one of those geysers, was what we were gonna take down. Getting there and bolting the bucket of bolts down wasn't the problem, the problem was getting it back. Navigating a seventy-five meter long and thirty meter wide ship which was essientally a gigantic propane tank through the small asteroid field that surrounded Garret was what was un-nerving. Also the forecast for today was going to be cloudy with a chance of rock showers all afternoon. In lamens it means we were flying a ballon through a sea of thumb tacks. Thermal scanners said that the core temperature of the resource anomily had risen about one third what it was the other day, that meant two things. First one being I had better bring some spf-100 and a pair of oven mitts, second being she was about to become a floating cloud of gas in space real soon. I didn't want to be anywhere near the little lady when she wen't sub-atomic.
We had circled Garret about four times in the last two days, they were doing surface scans of heat and bacterium. Little Garret was getting too hot for an infra red to pick up anything that wasn't smaller than a five ton warhead. And bacteria needless to say thrives on heat, but too much would kill it, and this was definately too much. The vessels processor was working double time to keep the air breathable, we were only in the kitchen and we are about to go into the oven. I think I just figured out why they wanted cons on this mission, if it fails they don't owe any families back home compensation for service in the field or a decent burial and a medal of some sort. No if they died on that rock the corpses would just float in space, or if they're lucky they'd catch a nice cremation in the furnace. I suddenly remembered why I liked the Trans-System Authority.
lots of things that can go wrong but a scruffy group that can band together and succeed...
or be squashed and have no one to take the blame <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The odds of Bradwick cracking first were getting higher and higher by the minute. A new option appeared in the spread, someone's gun could accidentally go off and put a round or two into the poor ****. The payout was one and fifthteen, I was adding up the pool, all the bets made against him, and how much I'd lose if Greensbury shot him. Luckily, there's always the spread or in this case how he dies. The most common was a bullet from Sargeant Greensbury's pistol, second most popular was his being jettisoned along with all the other garbage, third in the running happened to be my favorite it involved putting Bradwick and Roper in the same hold together and someone accidently dropping a steak knife inside during meal time. This was the most creative and the one that people had least been betting on. Right now the pool was somewhere around a good nine-hundred and fifty. One or two of the civilians got in on the bet in hope to land a nice wad of cash, but the only people who knew enough to have a decent chance were the ones in the surveilance room. Today was going to be just as intresting as the last.
The effectiveness of the marine marksmenship normally never failed me, except for this situation, Bradwick getting shot by accident is about a probable as the Sarge reaching out and giving him a brotherly hug. Something must've stirred up the TSA at this point because their last transmission lead to a full guard surrounding the mining unit. They were expecting sabotage apparently, could be one of the cons were paid off to break into the avionics panel and reroute a few system devices. But everyone'd be expecting that, chances are the rat was probably in the outfit, maybe even one of the civis. As much as it'd tickle my heart to see that tub of **** blow up halfway to the rock, I couldn't express it properly. Namely because Greensbury said I was supposed to be on it. Seems someone decided to nickname the thing already, "The Life Boat" either that was because no one thought it'd make it back or a crude referance to the passenger's prison sentence. Didn't matter much they were gonna put me on it, suddenly the idea of putting Roper and Bradwick in a cage with a sharp object wasn't a happy thought anymore.
I sense lost of conflict in this story, maybeh we will need some aliens to pull this ragtag group back together
<!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
why thank you, kylie girl made the sig for me w/out me even asking her!
did you make your sig? it really does look sweet and had me laughing pretty damn hard
I must say that you did some nice work
eevile evil coil
mm
don't worry, it's a rite of passage, happens to the best of us
*me pets MUGA sig that was 6 damn pixels to big once*
you know how on cops they have that blurry box effect over the faces of the people?
just put that over the finger!
and you also need to lose some KB of your avatar.... 22kb is the limit <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
you know how on cops they have that blurry box effect over the faces of the people?
just put that over the finger!
and you also need to lose some KB of your avatar.... 22kb is the limit <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indeed, they do that to that guesture as well...
So, if it's good enough for the b****y FCC, then it should be good enough for a web-forum...
... missed the original image though... so I've no idea what I'm commenting on...
*mearly stares at PF's av.* Yea, while I'm here, might as wel say I've taken Felicia as my goddess from a while back... (yes, that is in a joking way, didn't seriosuly start worshipping a CAPCOM character)
"this is my armoury, there are many like it, but this one is mine, hump it and see what happens" and then there was a chibi looking marine holding a knife and flipping you off
it was a damn good sig
can't you make it 400x75?
I think I saved the origional on my comp...
I did!
is there a way you could decompile it or something?
and it shouldn't be to hard to shrink the image size and blur it, I will ask some of my friends and see if they know any tricks <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->