The tall stick of woman's blue eyes bored into Slip Ring like a laser - just as she opened her mouth to deliver the finishing blast, she stopped however. Forcefully exhaling and slowly, slowly taking a deep breath, the Commissar calmly spoke to the Freespacer robot-girl-boy-thing. "Perform a facial comparison between this marine's face and the faces of all individuals in Yamatai's Top Ten Boy Bands of Year 36. Look for high percentages of similar facial features," she instructed, referring to Fian. Right before something fell on her ears and provoked one of her bushy eyebrows into twitching in uncontrollable anger.
And set her off like a minefield.
"WHAT THE FLYING F* ?! WHAT KIND OF NEPLESLIAN DOESN'T HAVE A GUN ON THEM?!?!" The banshee of a woman screeched at Krex. In the middle of a rage, her attention was fickle; she instantly shredded Fian apart with furious shaking when he just started to recover and speak again. "This marine's obviously not awake yet!" she angrily shouted at him, again grabbing him by the collar - if he were a baby, he'd have gotten shaken baby syndrome right this instant. The woman was angry. The woman was shouting. And she was rude. But the woman wasn't stupid. That was why Fredriika caught his slippery little insult with a harpoon gun. Hearing Alexandra mutter, she shot back; "It's not like I care who he is! His eye's obviously need replacing along with his ears!"
Seeing Ran hand the unarmed marine his own gun, she practically had it. Storming out of the very same medical transport, she picked up a cardboard box and held it high over her head. Screaming at the top of her lungs Fredriika threw it in after them all before slamming the doors shut and getting back into the driver's seat. "Search through those ready to eat rations right this minute mister! There's always a fourty-five in every box full of them as a side item, and assuming you don't shoot yourself in the head, I expect you to shoot the enemy!"
The only Navy Officer (or person for that matter) in the group seemed to grimace at all the shouting. He had literally been shang-haied from what should have been a simple "count-the-grunt-fest" that should have ended with him in an office with a hot pot of coffee. Now he was packed into a bus with a bunch of Marines, some he knew it seemed, and being drawn into a battle (maybe). Well, he should expect this with his luck. After all, he died in space and had his head decapitated from his corpse so that he could be revived again. It didn't get more screwed up than that.
"Well, I might as well make myself useful and see if I can't get any information on what the shit is going on," the Lieutenant grumbled before pulling out his DataJockey and attempting to connect to the network. "Not like I'll be much use in an actual fight, I'm the goddamned IT support."
Ah, the top brass is literally crazy this time. Fian thought as he was vigorously shaken. He gave Alexandria a shaky thumbs up behind the glass to tell her he is all right. As soon as the earthquake stopped it occured to him that it was the 2nd familliar face he had seen since his self-imposed exile, just how many other people are having a pre-mid life crisis? He turned around in his seat and looked into the rear compartment of the medical transport, and sure enough, gloriously resplendent like the son of an ancient god that has risen from his grave, was Matthew Lionheart in the flesh and in the beard, busy with his datapad.
"Hey Matt!" Fian yelled through the cabin rear viewport. "I know you've been dead once before, and we have a lot to catch up with but first what the frozen hell is going on here?"
"Standard fucking protocol! Shit's all kinds of fucked up!" Ran kicked off the seat between Krex's thighs and propelled himself rearward back onto his own seat. "Struggling" to loop his pistol belt through the loops on his uniform pants, the Marine not-so-subtly unzipped his pants and looked over at Elina, speaking in a very not-so-subtle, frail voice "Oh nurse, I require your soft touch over here. I can't seem to get my pistol belt on, for I am without the use of my ankles."
"..." Elina replied with a firm and disdainful glower, too busy prepping immunizations to give Ran the time of day. The fact that nearly every other thing that had come out of his mouth to date had been either insane or harassment certainly didn't make her inclined to deal with him any more than she had so far. She'd said some very disgraceful things dealing with him.
"BOSS BITCH! What's your name again, Fred? What the fuck is going on out there?!"
Initially struggling with Ran's weapon, then being assaulted by a box of rations wasn't the sort of welcome Krex was hoping for on-planet. Extricating the box off his head was a little more comical however. The wet box had broken on contact with his head, spilling the rations all over the floor of the truck. He quickly dropped to his knees on the floor, narrowly avoidng Ran's kick, muttering, "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to." Grabbing up three of the packages and trying to gather the rest under his seat, he flopped down on the bench, tearing into the rations for goodys.
Ran interrupted, "Shit son, you also into moist" Ran leaned towards Elina "...wet" there was a wink "....boxes?"
Plesantly surprised by Ran's casual nature, the joke went waaaaay over his head. "I prefer nice dry ones usually. Easier to stuff them full, y'know what I mean?" The first ration granted him a bottle of whiskey and a cheeseburger he pocketed. The second held the .45 he needed, but included only the one magazine. Dropping the two open rations to the floor, he reached for his bag, stepped on the scattered packages, and gifted the cargo area with the aroma of rancid beef and potato stew. Not realzing it, he had opened the package and started spreading it along the ground.
Ran looked over at Frederika with that revelation of Krex's, and decided to say nothing about the Comissar.Tragically not averting his gaze from Frederika, Ran exclaimed "HOLY TITS, DOES SOMEONE NOT KNOW HOW TO WIPE THEIR ASS, OR ARE THEY JUST WALKING AROUND WITH SHIT IN THEIR PANTS ALL DAY?!"
Emerging from behind the medical trolley laden with pills and hyposprays wheeled in for the marines' benefit, Elina's instinctive reaction at the smell is to literally cybernetic activate filters in her nose and mouth and shut it all right out, gagging just a moment. "Okay, first off, that's disgusting. Second off..." she points at the trail of oozing, rancid shit-masquerading-as-meat being smeared across the floor. "That's also disgusting. One of you needs to clean that up ASAP."
"ALSO, your fucking pills are here. Actually take your doses before you start shitting yourselves for real." The marine doctor frowns, gesturing over to rows and rows of individual cups laden with a trio of colored pills in them, accompanied by a hypospray applicators. "For those of you curious, take all pills, down them with liquid- ideally water or sports drink since some of might gag from mixing medicine and whiskey -and then jab the plastic sticks to your necks for the immune booster. If you miss either of them you're going to be very very sick."
"There's a little spray noise when you press the button and your neck might feel a bit funny. That how you know it worked."
Grabbing his pills, fumbling with his new gun, and trying to wipe shit off his boots, Krex mumbled as he sat back down, "Gag my ass. Sorry Doc, I got the good stuff." Downing his pills with his newly acquired whiskey, he did indeed gag. Thrusting his head out of the truck, he retched for a bit, trying to get the smell out of his mind and trying not to throw up. Between gags he managaed to plead, "Dear God, someone please give me that shot. I don't wanna shit my pants too."
"Augh, fine. But try to do it properly next time, marine." Elina grabs one of the applicators and reaches over the trolley, unceremoniously stabbing it into his neck and activating it. There's a faint 'pssht' noise as pressurized liquid shoots through the skin, passing into his bloodstream. Her expression is entirely humorless, eyes glaring at him like little slivers of glowing ice blue. "And just for that, once you're done gagging, start passing pills and hyposprays around. We've got a lot of people to cover."
The resident Tech Officer tried to ignore all the noise in the back as he tapped away at his DataJockey. He barely even noticed a certain Pretty Boy's call out. "Eh?" Matt looked back at the crowd before narrowing his eyes at Fian. "Oh, yeah. Died and came back. Afterlife sucked since it didn't have booze." the Lieutenant replied with a casual wave. "Working on getting a report, though I might have better luck just radioing HQ with all the nonsense happening on the net."
Sitting there in the driver's seat and looking over her shoulder back at them all and the pretty-boy next to her, the Commissar hit her pre-midlife crisis right then and there.
"My name is Fredriika, and it's totally a woman's name!" she shouted at Fian again. The peope she was with - they were absolutely shit-tier! This only meant one thing; a conspiracy! She was being plotted against! They didn't want her anymore. Found her worthless. So they sent her here to this god-forsaken planet to destroy her - peel away her mind, layer by layer! The utter insanity she was trapped with in this ride of horror was just too much to take! She wanted to just drive them all into the fire and end her misery.
"Oh hey, there's an article about some random conspiracy against officers ---- no wait, that's just Ran's Performance Review," Matt idly commented.
Chain wrapped tires screeched and bit into the hard packed snow, sending the medical vehicle roaring forward as she slammed the accelerator into the floor. At the same time, Matt's data jockey came to life as a static washed voice crackled over its puny little speakers. " - Pirates attacked and *bzzzt!* mycoprotein vats - " Hearing this, Fredriika's ears perked up as she started using her own Data Jockey with one hand and madly drove with the other, drifting the multi-ton vehicle around a corner.
"I'm just going to drive us straight into the entire crowd of pirates and turn them into red in the snow!" she madly groweled, the sound of gunfire and explosions rapidly growing louder.
"THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PRETTY FUCKED UP IDEA, FREDDIE." Ran clearly did not understand Frederika's purpose in correcting him with her real name and - regretfully - got his pistol belt secured and zipped up his pants, looking over at Elina. "You can penetrate me with that later, angel." There was a wink.
"That's Staff Sergeant, Corporal." Again, Elina sort of frowned and laid a strip of tape over all of the little disposable pill packs to keep their contents from being wasted, somewhat angry that she had to sort them all to begin with only to have something come up.
"Please don't Commissar, I signed these vehicles out. I'd rather not explain to the pit crew why there are chunks of gore and stupid in the grill." the Lieutenant in the back complained with a sigh.
Perhaps Ran saw the rank on Matt's uniform, but Ran immediately changed his tune. "FUCK IT, FUCKING DO IT, BOSS LADY."
"Nice to see you again too Ran." Matt commented before narrowing his eyes. "Wait, I thought you were a Sergeant?"
Ran leaned back and pulled a cigarette out from his lightening pack, and still without a lighter - or any real fucks to give, started chewing on it. "I sure as fuck thought so, too. Apparently I fucked my rank out of an admiral's daughter."
"Really? Was it --- no, wait. I think I know which one. I don't want to know anymore." Matt sighed again in exasperation. "At least you made a mistake that was in your character. Oh, be warned. The Demon of the Alliance Med Bay is somewhere on world."
Ran stared at Matt. "No fucking way."
"Yep. She's the one that rezzed me. Nearly got castrated as an out-patient procedure." the Lieutenant nodded.
"Whoever the fuck you're talking about, I already like her." Elina added with a bit of a smirk, looking at Ran's expression in particular.
The Lieutenant stared at Elina with an owlish expression. "Oh shit, are they cloning her in Basic? Why don't we send a Platoon of them at the enemy? We'd never have to fight again."
"Uhm? I'm an original, as far as I can tell." Elina blinked back, looking back at the Lieutenant with a slightly sheepish expression. Acting the way she did in response to an officer talking about being castrated might give off the wrong impression, after all. "And it's nothing personal, sir. I just like seeing the Corporal squirm."
"....okay, that's good. You're a lot nicer than Petty Officer Matsobuki. She would have hit me with some form of chem-cocktail for even talking like that."
"FUCK OFF RAM! MY NAME IS FREDRIIKA, AND EVERYONE SHUT UP! I'M GONNA DO IT! I'M GONNA RAM! I SWEAR!" Fredriika screamed back at her backseat drivers.
Before they knew it, the medical vehicle rounded the corner and stared down a group of thirteen armed men. Equippped with an assorted mix of body armor and weapons, they were all advancing down the street as they fired their guns, suppressing the few civilians still fighting back. All going in the same direction as the medical vehicle. Backs turned to the crazy Commissar and her entourage of marines, Fian had a front row seat in watching them run straight into a cluster of the pirates as several smashed into the windshield as others were dragged underneath the snow-chained wheels.
In the back however, the ride was somewhat smooth, with a few bumps here and there. Right up until the entire ride slammed into one solid mass after another before starting to wildly swerving back and forward as light *plink-plink-plink* sounds rattled against hard durandium, tires popping. Spinning out of control Fredriika clutched the steering wheel as the vehicle slammed into the depths of a Grub-n-Gulp.
"Everyone out! We got hostiles out there! I only ran over half of them - maybe!" the raven haired Commissar stumbled out of the vehicle. Outside, she had run over a lot more than she admitted - several upturned cars were on fire, and the snow had turned far more red than anyone could have expected. Even inside the convenience store, crimson streaks were left on the linoleum floor. The ones she didn't manage to add to her high score had scattered into cover as a few civilians further back managed to pin them down for the time being, letting the marines move out freely.
