Legix
Well-Known Member
Day 3
New Bernese Slums, Bar
The slums were dinky, many of the buildings made of scrap or construction equipment that broke down. The mega-cities of New Bernese had taken many resources, leaving the remaining equipment scattered around by corporations that owned the surrounding lands. Small gardens littering windows and guns everywhere due to the space ensured that this bit of Nepleslia seemed like a Kuznyetski haven!
Inside the bar known as the Nepleslian Knucklewetter, the 309th had acquired a mostly empty house. There were other residents, of course, civilians of rough and rougher origins sitting around and drinking... but for the most part they had cleared out due to the oddity of seeing a proper military uniform. Most of those here were likely ex-members or deadbeats that could end up becoming members of the Nepleslian military, so it made sense that it would be a bit awing.
The thick-hipped blonde serving drinks was wearing really only a thong and pasties, of course... but Nepleslians had to enjoy the fine things. A buff man was working the bar, his head shaved clean and a mustache that seemed like the worst case of lip-worm alive could be seen wiggling its peachy tips along strands of black.
Just another day in a Nepleslian bar.
And another day for the unit's new XO. Chiaki Kokuten, or Kokuten Chiaki if you weren't Yamataian, sat at one of the tables, a dataslate in his hands. Through the smoke of his lit cigar he looked up and down at the unit's expenses, especially the cost of living and billets they were renting from the bar to house their Marines. He had been tasked with making sure the books were balanced so that they'd not have a red shell coming back from Central Corps to audit the 309th. Logistics kept the Nepleslian war machine alive, and managing that excess for conflict and struggle made the CC difficult to deal with.
He tossed a look at the waitress, and his eyes turned pink, as the always seemed to do when he looked at her. "Ma'am! Could I get another drink?"
The buxom, thong-bulging babe turned as she finished delivering a drink to a nearby table of roughnecks that likely had been on the other end of a welder all day.
"Yeah, okay hun! Just a sec..." She turned her back to Chiaki, bowing down just right to show off some killer figure on that fabric. Of course, he would hear the liquid of a new drink being prepared just as she zipped up. So unfortunately some sort of view didn't mean they'd get shit from the woman as she turned and began her strut back to the bar. He could see her grasp the thick mug from the funny-mustached male a moment later, turning and making her way over in the right way so her pasty-tipped chest could be on full show. She must really work hard to make tips.
Those pink eyes turned a bit more of a reddened color, but the Yamataian-Nepleslian smiled politely, his cigar still poking from one edge of his mouth. His wallet sat in his combination cover, and it was tugged out to pull a couple of DA from the leather slip. A well-polished NSMC insignia glinted against the low-light of the establishment, rippled by the appearance of Nepleslian paper-money.
"Thanks, miss," offered Kokuten, placing the tip on the table as his drinks arrived. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused. His hand spun around on his wrist in a strange, clockwork fashion, before he finally asked, "Is that a uniform?"
At the end of bar, perched with his goggles pressed tight sat Joe Larson, loader extraordinary carefully dragging a thick exacto blade along a hunk of brass metal. It was detailed, painstaking work but his hand gave nary a shake nor a twitch. He was so engrossed in his work he had barely paid attention to the pint that sat warming on the bar in front of him. His head bobbed ever so slightly as if he were listening to music, which very well could have been from the earbuds resting in his over-sized pointed ears, though no sound could be heard filtering out like would normally occur.
The waitress looked from the hand-spinning fellow flashing the dosh to the one whittling and ignoring her Nepleslia-made cans, but it took her some time to finally smile back to the cigar-smoker.
"We don't have uniforms in the slums, cute stuff~." And with her taking the offered dosh, he could watch her turn and head back to the bar while stuffing those bills in the ass-lining of that cloth. Joe was at her side, of course, the waitress looking and peeking as she glanced over the work. Carefully moving closer, she sat down and did her best to put on that charm without considering she was bending over and putting on a show.
A whistle from someone nearby was certainly far from shocking, but the pair of soldiers didn't have to wait long for another whistle to come as another hulking male plopped down at the table beside Kokuten. The cap that was sat down and the whir of machinery gave a clue, even though he was missing his jacket and wearing only a white tanktop with his pants versus the whole crew jacket.
Juno had arrived... and was already snugly putting on his disguise cap. A novelty one acquired from some far-away Nepleslia tourist store. "I Slay Pussy" with the passed out Neko above the words, the cap snugly slipping over his frost-tipped hair and making him look a lot more like some Kuznyetski kid than any level of white trash Nepleslian he might have in him. Which was very odd, given that the Kuznyetski weren't even the poorest among a sea of criminals and thugs... perhaps the colony on the moon was just backwards.
The Second Lieutenant took in his superior with what appeared to be idling interest over his mug of whatever proper swill he intended to pay with real money here. In truth, he kept an eye also on the other Marine in the distance, tooling with a small, spent shell. A little concern had dotted his yellowing vision, before he realized it was indeed a safe round, before those eyes greened back in the direction of Lieutenant Rickett.
"You're representing the Corps in full strength today, sir," complimented Chiaki on Juno's attire, particularly eyeing his pussy-slayer ball-cap. He set down his beer and locked his DataJockey to bring his attention the unit's CO, "I'm guessing this your first stop for the day?"
Joe looked up briefly, his magnified eyes blinking rapidly behind the thick lenses of his goggles. He had been so absorbed with his work that breaking from it straight to a healthy bearing bosom was a bit startling. He looked up at the waitress, "Umm, hi. I'm, uh, I'm all set. I, well, I already have a drink." He grabbed his pint and took a swig holding the glass up as proof.
"More like my last stop for the day." Juno looked at Chiaki, taking a hair of a moment to recognize the oddity of his eyes before reaching his hand up and then bringing it down to the table so the fingertips would tap. But, thanks to the Nerimium, they could hear a much more audible thunk, the heavy material pounding and shaking the table. The waitress was forced to stop her flirty smiling at Joe for a moment to look back at the pair, looking back to Joe with a sigh.
"I'll be back sweety... so try to drink up. Your friends over there are going to make me money... so I'd love to make even more from you and your casing there." She tapped her fingertip against the bottom of his pint before getting up, moving to fetch a new mug and make her way over toward the pair at the table.
"Last stop? What for? It's not that late is it?" incredulously asked Chiaki, looking at the time on his DataJockey to defend his claim. How late was it? How long had he been working? How long had that bat-eared guy been over there toying with the ammo casing? He had to admit, he got a little tunnel-vision whenever he threw himself into his work.
Still, his gaze widened when the waittress came back his way, resisting the color-change this time. Though a little red muddied the green color of his eyes.
With the others getting drinks and making small talk with the floozy waitresses, Ella simply slid into the bar silently, music still blaring from her headphones as she trotted past the group and to the far end away from everyone else. She didn't seem very chatty, as per usual and simply turned her attention to her own DataJockey.
"I haven't been able to rest while going over briefings." Juno had spoken rather shortly, watching Ella with a sigh as she made her way over. Even though the nerd was strapped up tight in her crew jacket, she was getting plenty of views from the locals for being another woman. The drink was sat down for Juno, the man reaching to his pockets and removing his wallet to throw the bills at the scantily clad woman. While she grabbed it up, he threw out more and then pointed over at Ella.
"Take her a drink, too. She'd love a little extra service." A few more bills were thrown down, the blonde smiling and nodding before leaving the pair at the table alone. "Hopefully, though, we don't have to get you involved in the tedium of the General's planning phases, Second Lieutenant."
"I thought that's what the XO did, hit the tedious shit while you do all the fun stuff," answered Kokuten honestly, taking another swig of his beer before setting it back to the table. The cigar rolled over to the center of his mouth and he took a couple of puffs. He also took sight of Ella, especially as Juno sent the waitress her way. The bar was starting to fill out with a few more uniforms, or at the least, Marines. While his glowing eyes observed, he continued aside to the LT, "I'm not opposed to sitting a few briefs so you can get some sleep, sir."
He did however, glance to shake the pad at him, almost forgetting he had been working on it. "Oh, almost got those books balanced, too. I'll have something drafted up that you can take to the Central Corps depot tomorrow. We're still within budget." A small pause followed, adding, "So far."
"Well, that's one good piece of news. But it's far from realistic to believe we can keep under budget forever... especially once we start getting suits for people to wreck."
Juno carefully reached out to take the pad regardless, sliding it around and looking it over without any sort of asking for it. Being in the military had made the man far from polite when it came to his job. Thankfully he didn't use his heavy-fingered hand to move through it, his eyes looking to Chiaki.
"I had heard a rumor that you've been speaking with Wilde. I take it you know her? Her record is extensive, for someone who got relocated to a rock like this to train some local defenses..."
Kokuten's brows arched, and he took his eyes of the rest of the bar to give Juno a yellowing gaze. Those cybernetic eyes of his whirred quietly in his head, searching for a bit of meaning in that question. They also made it pretty difficult to hide when someone had caught him off guard.
"We served together, on Kennewes, and few follow-up operations," minced 2LT Chiaki, burying that latter part into his cup of beer. He was hitting it pretty fast at this point, having knocked down most of it. "My guess is she volunteered for the assignment. she's always been a bit 'oo-rah'."
As if summoned, the Geshrin demolitionist entered through the front door. Autumn smoothed down the hem of her skirt as she meandered her way into the bar. She was dressed in a simple black halter dress with her regulation gunbelt adorning her hips with her favorite .45 Styrling Silver Special, her shoulders were bare, revealing smooth, olive skin. She scanned the faces of the crowd for her friends. It took her a few moments, but she saw them and smiled. Her gait was fluid as she maneuvered through the crowd, her legs were long and muscular and entirely organic. Her low heels lightly clicked against the floor.
While some might comment on putting beer away too quickly, Juno wouldn't have any of it. The lieutenant had drunk himself under the table back during the offensive once or twice when the tank he'd been with was knocked out. Fire and burning flesh wasn't a good thing to smell. The arrival of Autumn only a few moments later definitely seemed like voodoo magic, but his Kuznyetski brethren weren't here to blame. The man turned and gently pushed a nearby chair out to give her room to sit between Chiaki and himself, using his boot with some precision before turning his attention back to Kokuten.
"I suppose you should ask her, since you were so interested in Wilde, Second Lieutenant." A set-up, his voice booming loudly as he slid the tablet back and grabbed his drink at last. He wanted to drink and watch some forced social interaction.
Autumn cleared the distance and slid easily onto the chair. "Good evening gentlemen," she greeted them brightly. She cast a glance at the tablet that Chiaki had in his hands. "I thought I was supposed to be balancing the books, I know I cross trained but I was an armorer. Accounting and inventory is my lane," she offered to the medic.
"I know that, but I got to it first," sharply rebutted Kokuten, dutifully turning to Wilde, as ordered. He gave her a little shrug, the leather pads pushing up silver bars towards his ears. "Don't know how it happened. I'll tell you what," He waggled the dataslate, "I can let you check my math if that sounds like a good time to you."
"I actually do enjoy it, but you have to buy me a drink first," Autumn winked at Chiaki and grinned. She looked up at Juno, still smiling. "He'll work himself to a hole if you don't stop him, sir. You'll have to order him to have fun, I suspect." She settled on her chair.
"Taking bribes to do your job these days, huh? I guess that's how the world works." chuckled Chiaki, scolding the private somewhat jokingly. He threw up a pair fo fingers to signal to the waitress, "Two more over here, please!"
"Yeah, well, if he works the hole then I can just drive around it and keep fighting." Juno had finished probably one of the longest drinks, putting the mug down. The waitress was still standing over Ella, likely focused on her tip's extra bits instead of her job. The man pushed back in his chair to get up instead, grabbing his wallet as he moved to leave the pair at the table. "I'll be back with the booze."
Autumn seemed rather pleased. She held out her hand to Chiaki, "Hand the datapad over, sir. I can do complex math while drinking. That was part of my technical school, actually." She continued to smile as she waited for her friend to surrender the datapad to her.
"Yes, private-ma'am," answered Chiaki, throwing up a left-handed beer salute, tapping his forehead with the mug. He gently separated the tablet from the bull-dog of a CO across him, and then passed it over to Autumn. "You get on to me about working too hard, while coming in looking for work. Is that strange at all?"
Ella, on the other hand, was getting full-on boob pressed from the rear as the waitress peeked over her. "Come on girly~, your boss wants you to have fun. What can I get you to drink?" The waitress slipped around to her side instead, half leaning on the bar so those bare-hanging boobs were even more obsessively in her face. Far too big to be Hanako sempai.
Ella was doing her best to lean away from the busty waitress without slipping out of her chair. The closer the destitute got to her, the more Ella seemed grimmace and somewhat growl with personal space being invaded. The show bust seemed to agitate the tank driver further.
Finally, through clinched teeth, Ella spoke. "Soda. Club soda." Her voice seemed to strain as she hissed at the floozy.
Why Minnie had to travel so far from the fort to a slum bar to deliver past inventory reports to her XO was lost on the mouse long before she entered the KnuckleWetter. In an age with a rich digital format, It was 1,000x easier to simply send the information Via her datajockey or another similar platform. It was also a considerably safe option considering how easy it was to press her for blank margins and obviously doctored data on the subject of allocations and loss.
The bar was moderately empty, Presiding a majority of the squad filling the house made it easy to distinguish the familiar faces. Minnie was keen to avoid the two lieutenants. One was bad enough on a good day, Two with the possibility of inebriation was a danger flag she wasn't quite willing to set off. Instead she used Autumn as a way to hide her from Chiaki's peripheral for as long as she could to slide in next to private Duville. She could burn some time away waiting for the lieutenants to separate And help the poor girl out from being bullied from the likes of an oppressive bar-wench.
She quickly took a seat next to her fellow private, Giving the bartender an appraising glance before requesting something "Light" in the hopes it would at least send her off back towards the bar for said drink.
"One soda? Cute~." The waitress finally left Ella alone, moving to meet the bartender halflway as the man finished handing drinks to Juno. The big Nepleslian lieutenant was already turned and walking back to the duo at the table with two mugs impressively held in one hand and the robo hand hefting his up to drink on-the-move. The waitress quickly returned with that soda and the bartender moved to plop and prepare a drink for Minnie just a hair behind her.
Juno sat back down, putting the two other orders up on the table and parting them toward Autumn and then Chiaki before finally lowering his own from yet another near-chug complete.
"Two of the best brands this shithole has... fuck I miss real Nepleslia."
"There's good beer around here, you just got to look," Chiaki looked down at what he got, and took a whiff, "You just need to look real hard, apparently." With a well-spirited raise of his mug, he threw back some of the drink, "Besides while we're here, isn't this real Nepleslia?"
Autumn accepted the glass with a smile, "Thank you.." She lifted the mug up in her empty hand and took a long drink. She set the mug back down again till smiling, it wasn't the best beer but it was mostly cold and beer. "Technically, it is Nepleslia. It's not the same as Prime though, but I haven't been home in a few years, so this is as good of a Nepleslia as another."
"I suppose it is real Nepleslia if we talk borders... but nothing beats Prime." Juno felt the need to clarify among the trio of them, raising his glass back to drink a bit more but unfortunately not going for a glass-clearing chug like before. Rather, the mug was lowered back without much of anything being deposited in his gut. "New Bernese might as well be a dustball compared to Prime before I got re-deployed with the restructuring and dismantling of the unit to spread our veterans around."
Joe had been attentive to the predicament that Ella was facing and was about to shuffle over and save the small woman from the clearly overbearing, pun intended, waitress when he saw Minie slide in beside her. Well at least she had back up and it also saved Joe from getting in to her personal business anyway. He really did want to get to know Ella better but he respected her right privacy, a strange habit in the military really.
He was close to finishing his etching and he felt that it was coming out just right.This was the casing of the last round he had shot in training. He had a thought to memorialize it and had finally found the time. The small scratching finally taking life as a simple yet clearly romanticized view of the New Bernese landscape. The lines flowing together to form an elegant backdrop of rugged mountains with a simple field before it. The image wrapped around the entire casing so the image could be seen from all sides. The blaring Bebop music, oddly quiet to everyone else, of the earbuds helped him concentrate, as he let the fast tempo and even faster chord changes guide his hand to create the piece.
"So... You don't drink?" Minnie questioned Ella, trying to break the ice somewhat before noticing that the younger woman was, In fact, Still wearing her headphones. The muffled audio unrecognizable for someone that didn't listen to a lot of music like Minnie.
She cocked her head questioningly to the side, Waiting in the off chance she somehow heard her before tapping her once on the shoulder and mouthing the words silently Do. You. Drink?, In tandem with pretending to drink an invisible mug, And jerking a finger towards the waitress as if it wasnt already obvious what she was asking.
With the overwhelming presence of the waitress replaced with the underwhelming presence of Minnie, Ella's frown became slightly less stone faced but still tensed with someone right next to her. She tried to tune her out with some musical but the insistence from the mouse keeping up, Ella removed the head phones from one of ears before shaking her head. At least she could make conversation non-verbally.
Bless the waitress or punch her in the tit, she kept a smile on her face even as the pair focused on one another. She'd already turned and moved off at the calling of more patrons, while the bar-tender made sure to extend an open palm at the pair before speaking with a fairly deep voice with a deep-grain to make it sound like he'd probably spent most of his life living in smoke.
"Make sure you ladies pay, now. We don't keep open tabs, even for Marines... too many poor shits."
Creaking floorboards announced the weight of a wandering tourist just before their shadow blotted out the doorway. Well, that's pretty much what Fang Yin Zhou looked like, grasping a paper map far too close to their face as if deciphering some ancient document. Jean shorts, white vest, hiking boots, and one pseudo-Kuznyetski utterly out of their element.
Took the sound of familiar voices for them to finally snap out of this trance. The placid creature still visably took several paces to confirm their comrade's existance before breaking a smile, eyes lighting up.
"Minnie! Autumn!..." A small stuttering wave, as if the large lady needed to scale down their body language to suit smaller people. "Erm... Lieutenants Juno and Kokuten!... Gracious me!"
A sharp sideways glance, not really even perceiving the waitresses' total lack of garb.
"Oh hai honey, y'think y'eall have a Akvavit or a Brandy or something? I'm thirsty!"
Autumn's attention shifted to the large demolitionist and she returned Fang's wave. "There's the shy thing now," she commented to Chiaki, flashing Fang a charming smile. She pulled the relinquished datapad closer and glanced over the numbers as she sipped her beer. "Yeah.. leave the drunken mathematics to me, it's not too bad, but this is easy. There are macros for this in this spreadsheet that make this process faster once you input the formula." With a couple of taps, she pointed to the formula bar for Chiaki. "Why were you doing this the hard way?" She leaned closer to the XO for a moment as she crossed her legs to counterbalance on the chair towards Juno.
Chiaki huffed at being told he was doing things the hard way, he rolled his shoulders and began to tug off his officer's jacket. He set the garment on the back of his chair, and rolled up the sleeves to his turtleneck, exposing more of his gun-metal arms. Fang was afforded a friendly wave before he looked into his work.
"Wait, how did you do tha-..." the Officer's eyes flashed white, finally playing witness to Autumn's quick handi-work, "What are you... How did you get it to do that? Where are the buttons for this?"
Autumn held up the datapad for Chiaki to more easily see, "You see that little symbol, the 'fx'? That's a function button. You tell the spreadsheet to do things from there." She pointed to another menu option at the top middle of the sheet. "And up here is the 'formulas' menu. You can tell the system to do things from here, like for this, you just want to click 'autosum' to add it all together... and then... down here, you just subtract that total value from the budget..."
"Wha-whoa whoa, slow down, do that again," Chiaki blinked, not used to being this blind-sided by his own technology. He bumped shoulders with the PFC as he stared into the screen, having been lost in the quick display. "The formula button... and then... sum? I don't need to open the calculator for this?"
"You two are nerds." Juno hefted his mug up to finally finish it off. Anything to silence the nerdiness. The container was brought back down as he looked to Fang and then at the waitress with a wave as she was going to get drinks for the table who'd called her. It'd be a moment before they had Fang a drink, but in the meantime he pushed the chair beside him out and moved a hand to indicate she should sit the fuck down.
"Join us, Fang. Anyone is cooler than these two talking about things that aren't really battles."
"Doesn't the saying, 'you can't fly without supply'?" Autumn's eyes glanced up to Juno for a moment before she looked back to Chiaki. "Yeah, you just click this and this, and you don't need the calculator. This can even do trigonometry. This is super helpful for configuring chemical distribution ratios for improvised explosives or larger than normal demolitions if you need to figure out material versus blast radius vs shock waveforce. If you only have 1 bomb to set, you want to make it good. It's helpful to be able to do this one the fly too... you never know what will happen in the field," she smiled again, though this comment reminded her of what happened on Rok'Veru and what had earned her a commendation from the General and Admiral.
"You blew something up with an Expel program?" blinked Chiaki, somewhat amazed by the reasoning behind the use. His metal finger touched the screen, scrolling the data up and down. "This is pretty amazing, I could've had my work done a few hours ago."
The 2LT threw a look at Juno, "We oughta' make her a Corporal, give her even more work to do, no? Or put that other Corporal to work with this kinda knowledge."
Fang, in the mean time, had ended up just merrily sitting down in the middle of them, smiling but with nothing going on behind the eyes... Well, -something- going on, but as far from maths as one could get.
"Does battling causality count as a battle, sir?" She put a hand on the lieutenant's mechanized side, through backing off with the later realization of the reflex. "Surely using a tome and a heart's own knowledge to break the laws of the universe is worth something."
The Officer on the other side of Fang quirked a brow at her string of words. Everyone in this battalion seemed to be pulled from the far corners of the looney bin. He pondered that a bit, considering that made him one and the same. So, Chiaki offered, "Is it really breaking the laws? One plus one equals two seems pretty par for the course."
"Well, using less munitions to do more." An immediate answer, filled with cheerful confidence. She was, after all, enthralled in the mystique of it all. "The placement of objects within a home can define it's spiritual energy, correct? And that's why sometimes minimalism works... You can bend these unseen forces to your will... Not that I profess to understand it completely. But that's why I'm a Private and you are a Second Lieutenant."
Shifting colors in the 2LT's gaze indicated he may have had less of an understanding than Fang implied. He hadn't been too sure what to make of the large woman, and her daisy-flower-filled perception of reality. "I'm thinking I'm an O-1, and where I'm at because my spirit's a bit... older."
He cast a look around the smokey room, reminded of his cigar. The blunt had gone out in the ash tray, and sought to relight it as he spoke, "If that's the case, then what's this room tell you about its spiritual energy?"
Autumn nodded to Chiaki, "Of course. We had some planned demolition runs later on in Rok'Veru but otherwise, it was all on the fly. I'll need more booze before I'll feel up for talking about the tunnel bomb I did for Vanderhuge and Violetta." Her eyes traveled upwards to Fang, "I think there is some measure to intuition, we explain spiritualism with science but at the heart of it, we use less to do more to minimum collateral damage and maximize effectiveness." She offered her fellow demolitionist an understanding smile. "In the heart of it, it's our judgment that guides us in what we use in battle. We go with our gut feeling."
Fang kind of chopped her palm onto the table as if overcome by an urge to grasp Autumn's hand, communicating some flavour of understanding... But they were a little to far away, as well as occupied with a flat panel computer gizmo. It looked dumb.
"Totally! I mean, like, the virtue displayed by those actions has a wider variety than just a zero to a hundred scale of the biggest boom, right? It's the spirit that bestows the meaning behind the action, the exact result." Mindful of being caught up in talking about this sort of stuff, the meatier demolitionist made a point of stopping to take a swig of the drink Juno had provided her. The waitress had obliged her with brandy alright, but this consistency was a little more like... Cough syrup?... "As for the spirit of this bar, well... It's a little hard to tell when you are an active component of it. This drink is a little funny, but maybe I'm an inadequate drink appreciator?... Shoulda brought my tarot cards..."
"The spirits are just different here, Fang, in more ways than one," Autumn continued to smile up at Fang as she set the datapad gently back down in front of her. She lifted up the mug of beer and took a hearty drink. It was not her favorite thing in the world but it was good enough, she was never picky about food or drink. "You do readings then? I think I saw a fortune teller once during one festival of bullets in Hanya. How does it work?"
"Well, I'm not an expert like my mom. But the most important thing to remember is that the forces on display are contextual." Fang made a slightly more nostalgic smile, leaning down on her elbow. "So, like, the future isn't set in concrete. Being able to look at it changes things, right? Kinda makes it more like a weather report."
"Oh, and you've been to Hanya, then? I used to have a calendar with pictures of the golden triangle... Beautiful place!"
"I'm from Hanya,"Autumn replied briefly before letting Chiaki talk.
"So you don't really know if something is going to be bad... or really bad?" clarified Kokuten, jumping back into the conversation as his interest was drawn in a bit more. "Such as the difference between knocking your knee on a desk and say... losing it to landmine?"
"Knocking your knee on a desk in a minefield would be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as they say." Fang seemed a little more nervous talking to an actual officer about this kind of stuff. She genuinely liked the demeanor of their new direct CO and account-scribe, but his odd incandescent eyes made him rather hard for her to read... Perhaps, if they could just accept that it entailed things which had served the imposing woman herself in the past, then that would be just fine. "At least that's the way I see it. Karma is cumulative. So if you are getting bad portents, it's something that takes extra effort to appease... And, well, if it's something like a 'Spacer mothership landing on your house, then... Well, sometimes it takes extra extra effort. But nothing is impossible with respect, spirit and foresight."
"That's a heck of a mindset, especially out here with all the minefields and desks to lose your knees over," A metal finger spun in the air a bit, to indicate the level of severity in the number of desks and mines they'd need to contend with. Then, he scooped up his drink. "You know, since you mentioned them, I was there when we first encountered the Spacers. I remember our first conversations with them, I got to chat with a Synthetic Intelligence. You remind me a lot of them, the S.I. I mean."
He took a sip of his beer, "In a good way, of course."
"Really? I'm not good with computers..." Fang just recoiled a little, two-handing their tiny glass. "That's pretty amazing, through, being the first friends of an entire race..."
Wasn't going to say it out loud, but the spacers rather scared the girl. The idea of entirely removing oneself from nature was a very daunting prospect.
"You didn't get the rads?"
"We can teach you, well, I can teach you more about computers if you'd like, Fang. This program is helpful for what we do when we get to pre-plan something or if we have time to do the math rather than going with whatthe spirits compel us to do," Autumn offered with a bright smile, setting down a mostly empty beer mug.
"Oh, that sounds very useful!" Fang responded in earnest, basically making a perfect imitation of an '
' emoticon. Of course, they had clearly forgotten their Datajockey with their gym equipment again, and settled for just leaning over towards Autumn's to show interest. "I could figure out the exact proportions of and types of bombs to lug with me, right?... Supplies aren't great for altering destiny when you can't alter your loadout on the spot..."
"Rads? No, we were all suited up in WATERs and AIRs for the incursion, it was actually one of the reasons why they accepted us so readily," clarified Chiaki after Autumn made her offer. "We thought we were in for some serious trouble, but the Spacers proved to be pretty alright. At least... Until one of them stabbed a Marine..."
Kokuten rubbed his bearded chin, "Yeah, up until then it was pretty calm."
"I forget, was that the robot with the wig or the weird one?" Autumn tried to remember the incident, but was drawing a blank.
"The weird one, the one with the wig was actually alright, as far as I remember. It was Rico that got stabbed, trying to get sweet on the Spacer," Kokuten corrected, having a bit more of a more solid memory on that. "Wazu chewed his ass off for that."
"Well that was daft." The larger woman crossed their arms and sandwiched them between her chin and the table. Stories of far-of glories were something Fang wouldn't dare interrupt at length, but was propelled into interaction by the chance to grasp a first-hand account. "You ever go fisties with one yourself, or go into the blitz long'side one?... I heard they had crazy stuff like... Blowin' up a nuke next to their own ship, to like, rapidly change the course and stuff..."
"Well, perhaps not in the way you might imagine," explained the Officer, flagging down for another beer as the questions came. A lot had changed with the Free State since they first encountered them years ago. After a moment of pondering, he gave her an answer, "I used to serve on a research station with ... a lot of problems. The original Squad Leader for the squad I had been in charge of was a 'Druidess', a Type 3 who was bit more of a pacifist. It was the other Type 3... Ah well, she was less of a pacifist, but nonetheless too gentle for blitzing..."
He had begun to worry if he was boring the large woman, "There was this hulking Type 2 who ah... Well, he was bit of a pacifist too. He didn't have too much trouble with fights, but the problem was really getting him to fight."
Hmm... That wasn't all that interesting at all. grumbled Chiaki internally, "Honestly, all the Freespacers I've ever met weren't all that exciteable. They were quirky, but were by and far different from a proper Nepleslian."
Autumn pushed a errant strand of hair back behind her ears as Chiaki shared his story about the Spacers. She continued to smile up at Fang and nodded in agreement to her statement about changing destiny. Her eyes moved to Juno who stood on the opposite side of her. "You going to make it, sir? You look a little... tired?"
They could see it in his eyes, ever since he chugged away. Juno had drank his beer too fast. They could definitely see it in his eyes, that the damage had been done.
"No more, nerds."
Juno pushed himself up, grabbing the table firmly as he tried his best to not just flop backwards in the rush of his movement. He wasn't drunk, but tipsy while tired wasn't terribly better in terms of condition-wise.
"As much as I'd love to talk about quirky Freespacers, the old days, and... about literally everything but how we're going to crush these scum once I fend off the General's lengthy rants... I... need to go lay down. So just... do this fun stuff with calculators and making our young Fang here into a proper historian buff. But I need to live in the present."
Juno carefully grasped his cap, gently adjusting it so the words were a bit more clear with the bill angled downward. The man raised his hand to grab and rub his face, finally shifting it up and turning to make his way out without any sort of ceremonious salutes or gestures. A Nepleslian didn't have time for hand-waving once he was getting back into working the military life.
"Make sure everyone makes it back to the Heckler sometime to rest and check in. I'll toss a few packets your way with information as it gets solidified in the mix-up, Thick. Hopefully it'll be enough to read up on during your downtime!"
Autumn and the officers stealing her bestie, Fang, Had left Minnie somewhat sour. She had been moderately content to sip her beer in the corner with Ella until then. Private Duville seemed perfectly fine, Alone, To her own devices. But Minnie was a social creature by nature.
She sighed, Again. For possibly the tenth time in as many minutes, Turning to Ella again to glance at her as many times to find her as of yet still unchanged in her posture of activity.
"You came here for a reason, Right?" She querried, Casually tugging out one of Ella's earbuds with a simple tug of her finger after her last attempt to speak to her went unanswered. "A bar's a social scene. Why not mingle a little, Duville? You could have stayed back at the rendevous with the tank if you wanted to be alone."
"Orders." Ella grumbled as she reached for her earbud. "The cro-magnon we call Juno said he wants 'everyone to take a breather' and for me to not 'be fucking weird.'" She said, air-quoting for emphasis before putting her earbud back in. She at least turned the music down to be somewhat nice to the marine.
"I'd much rather be back inside the tank, buttoned up and left alone with... someone else." She glanced down to her little pocket senpai and took a sip of the club soda. "But hey, can't be acting weird."
Autumn raised an eyebrow as Juno headed off. Her eyes glanced around the bar for the other members of the 309th. They were still missing Minnie from Thick. Her eyes spotted the male tanker sitting alone with a shell casing. "Let's combine our forces here, we're leaving men behind," she commented with a slight frown. She pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to Joe. "Hey there, Larson. What are doing over here all alone?" She offered the loader a friendly smile.
"Oh, Hi ma'am," replied Joe. He looked up from finishing his small signature along the bottom of the casing, he smiled at her appearance. "Yeah I was just having a pint while I finished off a project is all." He slid the casing a bit away from Autumn, as if to move it out of eye sight. He wasn't really embarrassed by his hobby but he also had not asked permission to abscond with a spent piece of equipment and did not really know if it were permitted or not.
"So, uh, what's up? How are things," he asked as he plucked his tiny earbuds out of his big ears.
"Ma'am?" Autumn chuckled lightly, "Please, call me Autumn or Wilde, I'm not an officer." She slid onto a chair across from Joe and smiled brightly.
The Geshrin demolitionist leaned forward, propping her chin up on her arms as she met Joe's eyes. "I actually just popped in, so things are just getting started. I just saw you here all by your lonesome and thought," she continued to smile, "that you could use the company. Plus, I want to get to know you a little better since we'll be together for a while."
She paused as she gauged his reaction for a moment. "There's a couple of us over at another table," She gestured to the table where Fang and Chiaki were sitting before deep green eyes return to appraise his face, "Since I just transferred in to the unit, I'm buying next round. I'd love to have you join me for a drink, how about it?"
"Oh?" Minnie Coo'ed, Suddenly a lot more interested in private Duville and who she would rather be buttoned up and alone with.
Using what information she had on hand and general observation, She narrowed it down to someone she likely spent a lot of proximity with most days; The tank crew. The lieutenant was already vacant, And seemed an impossible choice in general, which left the only tankie left inside the KnuckleWetter.
It all fit together nicely to the Mouse's imagination. Larson was alone, Seemingly occupied when she arrived, likely waiting for Ella for some kind of tryst with the girl, Who seemed too shy to make a move with so many of her peers here to judge. Minnie couldnt blame her.
"Come on!" Minnie grabbed Ella by her wrist and pointed over towards Autumn and Joe sitting just on the other side of the bar, Completely oblivious to Ella being able to once again being deaf to her. "Let Doc Valentine help you out, Just this once!"
Joe smiled his easy smile, he had spent much of his life being a good friend to those around him for, as he would always joke, he is a good listener in reference to his ears. He looked over at the table, where sat Fang and Chiaki and nodded 'hey' to them. "Well, Autumn or Wilde, I would love to come join you guys," he said with a jesting smile, his large eyes mirthful behind his coke bottle goggles. He stood and grabbed up his 'modern art', "What do you think? It's to commemorate my first posting." His demeanor was very relaxed, more surfer dude than one would expect at first glance.
Autumn beamed and rose as well. She looked down at the casing, "May I take a better look at it?" She held out her hand for the casing with a good natured smile. "I've actually never seen someone etch a casing before in all my time rolling around battlefields."
He handed the spent artillery casing over, "Well, I did wood stuff back when I was growing up but had this idea during training, figured I would give it a shot. I am thinking a neat collection of the Three Oh Ninths time together would make a great set."
The Geshrin demolitionist raised the casing up to catch the light, appraising Joe's careful handiwork of the New Bernese landscape on the spent brass. She let out a low impressed whistle as she saw the little nuances. She recognized the perspective and knew where he had been situated to see this particular view. Autumn offered the casing back to Joe after turning the shell over in her hand a couple of times."That's really good. There's no turning back once you start carving away, is there? Creation through careful application of destruction?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Can't wait to try it on a live round," the loader said wagging his eyerbrows. "I would never, though a light etching of a smiley face on the business end would give me no end of laughter as it smashed those fatnecks," He took back the casing nodding in thanks.
"It's an interesting idea. I don't how well that would stay on the lead once it goes down the barrel," Autumn replied brightly as they crossed the distance between where Joe had been sitting and where the others were sitting.
Ella, putting up as much resistance as she could, was easily dragged across the bar along with the mouse. She didn't say much and her digging in her heels didn't do enough to not be dragged, so all she could do was glare at the mouse as her mouth slowly formed into a snarl.
"Come on, Duville! Its time to take that breather and socialize!" Minnie huffed between each breath as Ella became harder to move along. She gave up at the half way point, Hardly taking notice of her hostility. "We're prob going to spend a lot of time here in Freemud, With all these pirates and reds. So why not socialize and hit it off a little bit with your peers? Private Wilde is over there, She's real nice. And Fang too! Plus Larson, I know you spend a lot of time with him in the Sokoo."
Autumn turned her head to the two shorter Marines, and smiled, despite the driver's snarl. "Duville, Mouse, come join us! L.T's orders! We're supposed to socialize like proper marines-together!" Her voice was cheerful as she waved them over to the table where she was routing Joe with Fang and Chiaki.
The mention of socialization with anyone brought a look of horror onto Ella's face. Vivid flashbacks of growing up and being bullied flew through her head as what felt like 18 years of terrible memories passed by in the span of a few second. She felt like a prisoner who was about to face the firing line.
I'm not reliving this again! She thought to herself as instinctively reached for her sidearm. but her hand found nothing. She had left in the tank after Juno forced her out. Fuck.
So instead of taking the easy way out, Ella's mind raced for things to say. "I'm not good at the talking thing... Por favor..."
"Than sit with us and politely ignore us, Duville. Play on your datajockey and nod along or something," Autumn suggested brightly. "It's what kids do these days anyways instead of talking? I'll have Fang pick you up and carry you over here, if you prefer." She smiled with a wink. "No escape~."
An authoritative voice crowed with the thudding sound of a metal hand on a table, "C'mon!"
The Second Lieutenant had been watching the situation unfold from a distance, and had suddenly found the perfect opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. He stood up and beckoned the Marines in the room on over, catching on to Autumn's vibe and her dress, finally. His arm spun on the elbow in a strange, ushering way, his invitation implied, and his kindness made it seem optional.
Though, everyone knew an officer's kind invitation was a polite order.
"Autumn's got the right of it, let's all sit down at the same table and have a drink! Tankers, grunts, officers; we're all Marines!"
Joe spun a chair around at the end of the table and plunked down facing the group at large, he easily leaned forward against the chair back and watched as the others moved to the table. He started to think what an odd group they all made but stopped himself, for all he knew this was the normal set up for any military unit. Why would these folks be any different? He couldn't allow silly thoughts like that cloud his perceptions and interactions any more than he wanted their possible judgments to color him. In the end he was happy to be around his new colleagues.
Ella on the other hand was not happy to be around everyone. They offer her the choice to ignore to them yet force her to socialize. She's ordered to not be fucking weird and now everyone was making it real difficult. All she wanted was some peace and quiet..
She had no real choice in the matter. Instead, she opted to shut down socially and seemingly mentally. She looked ahead with a mixture of blank emptiness and a tinge of annoyance. If she played possum, perhaps the jackals would leave her alone.
Autumn grinned at the tankers as she returned to her seat beside Chiaki. Her arm brushed against the Lieutenant's for a moment before she addressed the group. "Okay, this is my round. What's everyone having?" She signaled to the bartender with a smile. "Don't be shy, I have some back-pay that I haven't been able to spend since after Kennewes." Her attention turned to their newcomers, the tank driver and the loader. "So which one of you named the tank after a Neko? It's an odd choice considering our history with Yamatai."
The door to the bar opened, and in stepped a slim well-toned red-head with sharp green eyes. Her clothes, if they could be called that was a mess, there were only the ripped remains of a shirt that hung on her shoulders to cover her sports bra, and an entire leg was missing from her pants. Despite the state of her dress, however, she had a smug look on her face. This woman who was content with whatever she had just gotten done with was Corporal Wallace.
She made her way over to the counter and ordered a drink with a chuckle. "Their faces were priceless." She then downed her glass in one go and let out a relaxed sigh.
Chiaki leaned over to Autumn, squinting at the mess that had walked in through the door. His eyes spun as they focused, "Is that one of ours?"
Autumn nodded, "Yes, that's Corporal Wallace, she's the other tanker. We have a large female presence in this squad." She turned her attention to the newcomer and brightly called out to her, "Corporal Wallace, come join us! I got this round!"
In response to Autumn, "Well, I am a brand new addition to the unit so it wasn't me and judging from the few buts I have heard and seen of the cabin I think it was probably Duville that named it." The big eared man looked to Ella and saw her obvious discomfort. He frowned to the fact that it was clearly getting to her that she was basically being forced to sit with the group. Knowing how alienation felt Joe could understand the small woman and wanted to do something right by her.
Knowing that really everyone would be crowding the table he briefly stood and pulled over one of the small two person tables and placed it a few feet away from the main table while close it was clearly separate. "Duville, hey, why don't you sit at this table, that way you can have some elbow room," Joe said with an easy smile. He turned and sat in his backward chair again at the main table.
Ella simply stared ahead blankly, not acknowledging Joe's offer. Shit, they're still trying. She thought to herself as a bead of sweat started sliding down the side of her face. She slumped back in the seat slowly, mainly to try and hide but also to ready for an escape plan.
Fredrica looked around when she heard someone call her. They called her by her rank so she knew it would be another soldier, and sure enough, most of her squad was there. She made her way over and gave a wave. "Hey, what are you all doing here? Not going to rob a bank or anything are you?"
"Nothing so grand, we're just socializing as a unit. I have this round covered, what'll you have?" Autumn offered Fredrica a friendly smile. Her attention shifted back to Joe. "It's definitely not what I expected the tank to be named. Usually Marine naming conventions are well.. aggressive. Hostile, Aggressor, Raider, so Soko Neko stands out. It's not a bad name, I just don't know what it means, I'm not good with Yamataigo." She shrugged at the tanker, "But it really does suggest how things have changed in the Corps... like this for instance." She gestured to each female squad member in turn. "If I didn't know better, it would look like there was a harem being built around the tank. This ratio is unheard of in my military experience."
The Geshrin demolitionist's gaze shifted back to the lone officer of their group, "What are your thoughts on having so many fine female Marines in your unit, Lt Chiaki?"
"Me?" Chiaki's eyes widened as the conversation spun back in his direction. The Officer had been occupying himself with the next round that the table's most gracious member had purchased. The beer lowered from his mouth, and wiped his lips of the fresh foam on the top of the ale.
His amber eyes flitted amongst all the women present, "Ano..."
The Officer muttered Yamataigo into his mug, a barely audible string of words, before springing out, "I think it's fine! It's a fine thing. To have fine females in this fine platoon. With such a fine tank. It's fine. It's er, fine." He took another sip of his beer, "It seems like a perfectly fine make-up of marines. It's just... a bit... different."
A bit of spittle drooped out from the side of Ella's mouth as she continued to play dead.
This did not go unnoticed by the 2nd Lieutenant, "Valentine."
The Medic had a gunmetal finger pointing at her, which then pointed at DuVille with a notable whirring sound.
"Sir?" Minnie arched a brow, Following the lieutenants finger as it traced a path, Carefully studying the exposed cybernetic mastery of his arm. A thousand questions filled her head, Mostly about said arms before his fignger stopped at private Duville.
A quick double take was all Minnie needed after that to realize something was awry. She quickly turned to face the other girl, Two fingers casually snapping in-front of her to gauge her active perception while she locked her cybernetic gaze to Ella's own to study her scalera drift and pupil dilation.
"Oh" was the responce to her findings after one final test of lightly and scientificly shaking her before turning back to her executive officer.
"I think shes suffering from a mild case of acute stress reaction. Its not litter urgent but we should probably get her back to the rendezvous and the CCP to get some rest and get her hydrated."
"That's a good assesment, Valentine, make it happen," ordered Chiaki, tapping the table, and pointing to the door. "Unless she snaps out of it, get her fixed up. We need to take care of our own here, even during liberty. I'll be sure to comp you the time tomorrow."
"Sir." Minnie acknowledge with a curt nod, Leaving a small personal dataslate for him at the table, A few DA and an adequate tip for her drink. The very slate with all the moderately accurate and slightly altered inventory quotes and invoices she came to deliver in the first place, And placed an arm on Ella's back. Carefully guiding her through the squad and towards the door of the bar, Ushering quick farewells and sparing a glance towards the newest arrivals, Lingering her unblinking gaze curiously on corporal Wallace, Pondering the events and circumstances prior to her arrival at the bar and whether or not she should drag her back to the casualty collection point for a checkup as well before deciding private Duville required her attention more.
"Come on now, Duville. Lets get you back to a nice cot and some warm blankets. No dirty pirates or scary ol' Reds are going to bother you. I'll be watching over you all night just in case so you can rest easy."
Fitz found an empty seat with the rest of the squad and sat down. "I'll have a beer, don't really need anything fancy, I still have to uphold a decent image for the Marines right?" It was odd to hear such words from someone literally missing half their clothes but she did seem somewhat serious about it.
"What's wrong with the driver though? She looks like she saw a really bad porno."
Autumn chuckled. "Of course. From what Mouse is saying, she's shy? I guess? But I can see that bad porno thing. Have you actually watched what the Yamataians consider porn in regards to Nepleslian Marines? It's a riot. They are obsessed with our guys loving on each other and lemon flavor lollipops." She flagged down the bartender and ordered Fitz a beer. "So what have you been getting into Corporal Wallace?"
When Slon stepped into the bar, he regarded the whole establishment with a flat expression. He had stepped off the shuttle so recently that he still had his NSMC-branded duffel bag slung over his shoulder, but he had realized after re-reading his assignment orders that he had at least a few minutes to grab a pint before officially reporting in. So the towering Kuznyetski sniper made his way to the bar where he could make himself comfortable at one of the stools before dropping the bag to the ground with a heavy -thud-.
He was quick to snatch his bailey cap off his head and tuck it into the back pocket of his jeans, before retrieving a pack of cards from the breast-pocket of his blue flannel button-down. Then with a wave to the bartender - purposefully ignoring the nearly bare woman strutting from one table to another - he called, "Barkeep. A pint, please." Money was on the bar-top and the man was soon setting out the cards to begin a round of solitaire.
"Hey LT, are we getting another addition?" The heavy thump of the duffel bag nearby caught Autumn's attention and she nudged Chiaki. "You might need to check your email. I didn't get a notification of a drop but I don't think I'm on the administrative personnel orders distro." She leaned in closer to her old friend and indicated Slon with a tilt of her head before returning her attention to the others.
"Er..." The Second Lieutenant stared down at his datapad and swiped it open, and sure enough, there was a brand new e-mail present. There was a short, quiet moment passing when he eyed the contents and looked up. "We'll see..."
Kokuten tested the name, "Private Kuznyetski?"
Slon's head shot up and he had to scan quickly. Then he realized where the voice came from and he eyed the table's occupants. Clearing his throat, he stuffed his cards away in his shirt again, "Uh, yes, sir?"
"Well, that's him," affirmed Chiaki, nodding to Autumn when the sniper responded to him. "C'mon over here! You're 309th, right? We're sitting over here for a pint."
Fitz rolled her shoulders and got comfortable in her seat and chuckled to Autumn. "Well, the girls thought I was just a city girl." She brought her left arm up onto the table, the circuitry like tattoo on her arm glowing a soft faint green. "I had to show them that this isn't one of those weak aesthetic models."
An appreciative smile curled across Autumn's lips at Fitz. "And that my dear, is definitely something to drink to." She raised her glass to the woman in a toast. "How badly did you break them, or was it just to tap or nap? I was telling Fang that she should join in on those friendly bouts of skill."
The sniper hesitated for a second as he eyed the table. But he had been invited and he liked to think his family had raised him not to be rude unnecessarily. So even though he couldn't help but think about minefields when he approached the table, he grabbed a seat, deposited his bag again, and made himself as comfortable as possible.
A tip of his pint to those around him, "Slon. Kuznyetski. I just graduated out of the scout-sniper school. Got orders for the 309th. I guess you're all with the local garrison?"
Whether or not the group decided to mess with their newest arrival, the day's loud bustling at the Knucklewetter had definitely accented the break from the harsh battling the world was no doubt set to endure. The Nepleslians spirits, as quirky and odd as they were, would no doubt have an effect and potentially spread from the lowly spirits of the estate. In particular, one man who left the bar later with the pasty-wearing waitress caught himself looking over his shoulder while the right hand squeezed the scantily-clad rump beneath her jacket.
"You know... maybe it wouldn't be that bad to enlist and get out of the slums."
A laugh from the woman was partially missed behind the bark of a gun and no doubt a nearby gunfight between some local thugs in the slum, her body pulling in close as she grasped his derriere in turn.
"New Bernese was built on the rich taking advantage... but it's kept alive because of the folks who make that move, dreamer-boy. After tonight, you might feel torn on joining up... but I'll make sure you get all hopeful to be them if you do end up heading to the local recruiter in the morning~."
The boom of a hand-grenade had no chance of reaching the noisy interior, but it did help the pair speed up as they moved out through the packed streets of the slum to try and settle in for what was seemingly growing into a longer and relaxing day on a world engaged in a planetary fight with pirates and impostor Reds.
New Bernese Slums, Bar
The slums were dinky, many of the buildings made of scrap or construction equipment that broke down. The mega-cities of New Bernese had taken many resources, leaving the remaining equipment scattered around by corporations that owned the surrounding lands. Small gardens littering windows and guns everywhere due to the space ensured that this bit of Nepleslia seemed like a Kuznyetski haven!
Inside the bar known as the Nepleslian Knucklewetter, the 309th had acquired a mostly empty house. There were other residents, of course, civilians of rough and rougher origins sitting around and drinking... but for the most part they had cleared out due to the oddity of seeing a proper military uniform. Most of those here were likely ex-members or deadbeats that could end up becoming members of the Nepleslian military, so it made sense that it would be a bit awing.
The thick-hipped blonde serving drinks was wearing really only a thong and pasties, of course... but Nepleslians had to enjoy the fine things. A buff man was working the bar, his head shaved clean and a mustache that seemed like the worst case of lip-worm alive could be seen wiggling its peachy tips along strands of black.
Just another day in a Nepleslian bar.
And another day for the unit's new XO. Chiaki Kokuten, or Kokuten Chiaki if you weren't Yamataian, sat at one of the tables, a dataslate in his hands. Through the smoke of his lit cigar he looked up and down at the unit's expenses, especially the cost of living and billets they were renting from the bar to house their Marines. He had been tasked with making sure the books were balanced so that they'd not have a red shell coming back from Central Corps to audit the 309th. Logistics kept the Nepleslian war machine alive, and managing that excess for conflict and struggle made the CC difficult to deal with.
He tossed a look at the waitress, and his eyes turned pink, as the always seemed to do when he looked at her. "Ma'am! Could I get another drink?"
The buxom, thong-bulging babe turned as she finished delivering a drink to a nearby table of roughnecks that likely had been on the other end of a welder all day.
"Yeah, okay hun! Just a sec..." She turned her back to Chiaki, bowing down just right to show off some killer figure on that fabric. Of course, he would hear the liquid of a new drink being prepared just as she zipped up. So unfortunately some sort of view didn't mean they'd get shit from the woman as she turned and began her strut back to the bar. He could see her grasp the thick mug from the funny-mustached male a moment later, turning and making her way over in the right way so her pasty-tipped chest could be on full show. She must really work hard to make tips.
Those pink eyes turned a bit more of a reddened color, but the Yamataian-Nepleslian smiled politely, his cigar still poking from one edge of his mouth. His wallet sat in his combination cover, and it was tugged out to pull a couple of DA from the leather slip. A well-polished NSMC insignia glinted against the low-light of the establishment, rippled by the appearance of Nepleslian paper-money.
"Thanks, miss," offered Kokuten, placing the tip on the table as his drinks arrived. He opened his mouth to speak, and then paused. His hand spun around on his wrist in a strange, clockwork fashion, before he finally asked, "Is that a uniform?"
At the end of bar, perched with his goggles pressed tight sat Joe Larson, loader extraordinary carefully dragging a thick exacto blade along a hunk of brass metal. It was detailed, painstaking work but his hand gave nary a shake nor a twitch. He was so engrossed in his work he had barely paid attention to the pint that sat warming on the bar in front of him. His head bobbed ever so slightly as if he were listening to music, which very well could have been from the earbuds resting in his over-sized pointed ears, though no sound could be heard filtering out like would normally occur.
The waitress looked from the hand-spinning fellow flashing the dosh to the one whittling and ignoring her Nepleslia-made cans, but it took her some time to finally smile back to the cigar-smoker.
"We don't have uniforms in the slums, cute stuff~." And with her taking the offered dosh, he could watch her turn and head back to the bar while stuffing those bills in the ass-lining of that cloth. Joe was at her side, of course, the waitress looking and peeking as she glanced over the work. Carefully moving closer, she sat down and did her best to put on that charm without considering she was bending over and putting on a show.
A whistle from someone nearby was certainly far from shocking, but the pair of soldiers didn't have to wait long for another whistle to come as another hulking male plopped down at the table beside Kokuten. The cap that was sat down and the whir of machinery gave a clue, even though he was missing his jacket and wearing only a white tanktop with his pants versus the whole crew jacket.
Juno had arrived... and was already snugly putting on his disguise cap. A novelty one acquired from some far-away Nepleslia tourist store. "I Slay Pussy" with the passed out Neko above the words, the cap snugly slipping over his frost-tipped hair and making him look a lot more like some Kuznyetski kid than any level of white trash Nepleslian he might have in him. Which was very odd, given that the Kuznyetski weren't even the poorest among a sea of criminals and thugs... perhaps the colony on the moon was just backwards.
The Second Lieutenant took in his superior with what appeared to be idling interest over his mug of whatever proper swill he intended to pay with real money here. In truth, he kept an eye also on the other Marine in the distance, tooling with a small, spent shell. A little concern had dotted his yellowing vision, before he realized it was indeed a safe round, before those eyes greened back in the direction of Lieutenant Rickett.
"You're representing the Corps in full strength today, sir," complimented Chiaki on Juno's attire, particularly eyeing his pussy-slayer ball-cap. He set down his beer and locked his DataJockey to bring his attention the unit's CO, "I'm guessing this your first stop for the day?"
Joe looked up briefly, his magnified eyes blinking rapidly behind the thick lenses of his goggles. He had been so absorbed with his work that breaking from it straight to a healthy bearing bosom was a bit startling. He looked up at the waitress, "Umm, hi. I'm, uh, I'm all set. I, well, I already have a drink." He grabbed his pint and took a swig holding the glass up as proof.
"More like my last stop for the day." Juno looked at Chiaki, taking a hair of a moment to recognize the oddity of his eyes before reaching his hand up and then bringing it down to the table so the fingertips would tap. But, thanks to the Nerimium, they could hear a much more audible thunk, the heavy material pounding and shaking the table. The waitress was forced to stop her flirty smiling at Joe for a moment to look back at the pair, looking back to Joe with a sigh.
"I'll be back sweety... so try to drink up. Your friends over there are going to make me money... so I'd love to make even more from you and your casing there." She tapped her fingertip against the bottom of his pint before getting up, moving to fetch a new mug and make her way over toward the pair at the table.
"Last stop? What for? It's not that late is it?" incredulously asked Chiaki, looking at the time on his DataJockey to defend his claim. How late was it? How long had he been working? How long had that bat-eared guy been over there toying with the ammo casing? He had to admit, he got a little tunnel-vision whenever he threw himself into his work.
Still, his gaze widened when the waittress came back his way, resisting the color-change this time. Though a little red muddied the green color of his eyes.
With the others getting drinks and making small talk with the floozy waitresses, Ella simply slid into the bar silently, music still blaring from her headphones as she trotted past the group and to the far end away from everyone else. She didn't seem very chatty, as per usual and simply turned her attention to her own DataJockey.
"I haven't been able to rest while going over briefings." Juno had spoken rather shortly, watching Ella with a sigh as she made her way over. Even though the nerd was strapped up tight in her crew jacket, she was getting plenty of views from the locals for being another woman. The drink was sat down for Juno, the man reaching to his pockets and removing his wallet to throw the bills at the scantily clad woman. While she grabbed it up, he threw out more and then pointed over at Ella.
"Take her a drink, too. She'd love a little extra service." A few more bills were thrown down, the blonde smiling and nodding before leaving the pair at the table alone. "Hopefully, though, we don't have to get you involved in the tedium of the General's planning phases, Second Lieutenant."
"I thought that's what the XO did, hit the tedious shit while you do all the fun stuff," answered Kokuten honestly, taking another swig of his beer before setting it back to the table. The cigar rolled over to the center of his mouth and he took a couple of puffs. He also took sight of Ella, especially as Juno sent the waitress her way. The bar was starting to fill out with a few more uniforms, or at the least, Marines. While his glowing eyes observed, he continued aside to the LT, "I'm not opposed to sitting a few briefs so you can get some sleep, sir."
He did however, glance to shake the pad at him, almost forgetting he had been working on it. "Oh, almost got those books balanced, too. I'll have something drafted up that you can take to the Central Corps depot tomorrow. We're still within budget." A small pause followed, adding, "So far."
"Well, that's one good piece of news. But it's far from realistic to believe we can keep under budget forever... especially once we start getting suits for people to wreck."
Juno carefully reached out to take the pad regardless, sliding it around and looking it over without any sort of asking for it. Being in the military had made the man far from polite when it came to his job. Thankfully he didn't use his heavy-fingered hand to move through it, his eyes looking to Chiaki.
"I had heard a rumor that you've been speaking with Wilde. I take it you know her? Her record is extensive, for someone who got relocated to a rock like this to train some local defenses..."
Kokuten's brows arched, and he took his eyes of the rest of the bar to give Juno a yellowing gaze. Those cybernetic eyes of his whirred quietly in his head, searching for a bit of meaning in that question. They also made it pretty difficult to hide when someone had caught him off guard.
"We served together, on Kennewes, and few follow-up operations," minced 2LT Chiaki, burying that latter part into his cup of beer. He was hitting it pretty fast at this point, having knocked down most of it. "My guess is she volunteered for the assignment. she's always been a bit 'oo-rah'."
As if summoned, the Geshrin demolitionist entered through the front door. Autumn smoothed down the hem of her skirt as she meandered her way into the bar. She was dressed in a simple black halter dress with her regulation gunbelt adorning her hips with her favorite .45 Styrling Silver Special, her shoulders were bare, revealing smooth, olive skin. She scanned the faces of the crowd for her friends. It took her a few moments, but she saw them and smiled. Her gait was fluid as she maneuvered through the crowd, her legs were long and muscular and entirely organic. Her low heels lightly clicked against the floor.
While some might comment on putting beer away too quickly, Juno wouldn't have any of it. The lieutenant had drunk himself under the table back during the offensive once or twice when the tank he'd been with was knocked out. Fire and burning flesh wasn't a good thing to smell. The arrival of Autumn only a few moments later definitely seemed like voodoo magic, but his Kuznyetski brethren weren't here to blame. The man turned and gently pushed a nearby chair out to give her room to sit between Chiaki and himself, using his boot with some precision before turning his attention back to Kokuten.
"I suppose you should ask her, since you were so interested in Wilde, Second Lieutenant." A set-up, his voice booming loudly as he slid the tablet back and grabbed his drink at last. He wanted to drink and watch some forced social interaction.
Autumn cleared the distance and slid easily onto the chair. "Good evening gentlemen," she greeted them brightly. She cast a glance at the tablet that Chiaki had in his hands. "I thought I was supposed to be balancing the books, I know I cross trained but I was an armorer. Accounting and inventory is my lane," she offered to the medic.
"I know that, but I got to it first," sharply rebutted Kokuten, dutifully turning to Wilde, as ordered. He gave her a little shrug, the leather pads pushing up silver bars towards his ears. "Don't know how it happened. I'll tell you what," He waggled the dataslate, "I can let you check my math if that sounds like a good time to you."
"I actually do enjoy it, but you have to buy me a drink first," Autumn winked at Chiaki and grinned. She looked up at Juno, still smiling. "He'll work himself to a hole if you don't stop him, sir. You'll have to order him to have fun, I suspect." She settled on her chair.
"Taking bribes to do your job these days, huh? I guess that's how the world works." chuckled Chiaki, scolding the private somewhat jokingly. He threw up a pair fo fingers to signal to the waitress, "Two more over here, please!"
"Yeah, well, if he works the hole then I can just drive around it and keep fighting." Juno had finished probably one of the longest drinks, putting the mug down. The waitress was still standing over Ella, likely focused on her tip's extra bits instead of her job. The man pushed back in his chair to get up instead, grabbing his wallet as he moved to leave the pair at the table. "I'll be back with the booze."
Autumn seemed rather pleased. She held out her hand to Chiaki, "Hand the datapad over, sir. I can do complex math while drinking. That was part of my technical school, actually." She continued to smile as she waited for her friend to surrender the datapad to her.
"Yes, private-ma'am," answered Chiaki, throwing up a left-handed beer salute, tapping his forehead with the mug. He gently separated the tablet from the bull-dog of a CO across him, and then passed it over to Autumn. "You get on to me about working too hard, while coming in looking for work. Is that strange at all?"
Ella, on the other hand, was getting full-on boob pressed from the rear as the waitress peeked over her. "Come on girly~, your boss wants you to have fun. What can I get you to drink?" The waitress slipped around to her side instead, half leaning on the bar so those bare-hanging boobs were even more obsessively in her face. Far too big to be Hanako sempai.
Ella was doing her best to lean away from the busty waitress without slipping out of her chair. The closer the destitute got to her, the more Ella seemed grimmace and somewhat growl with personal space being invaded. The show bust seemed to agitate the tank driver further.
Finally, through clinched teeth, Ella spoke. "Soda. Club soda." Her voice seemed to strain as she hissed at the floozy.
Why Minnie had to travel so far from the fort to a slum bar to deliver past inventory reports to her XO was lost on the mouse long before she entered the KnuckleWetter. In an age with a rich digital format, It was 1,000x easier to simply send the information Via her datajockey or another similar platform. It was also a considerably safe option considering how easy it was to press her for blank margins and obviously doctored data on the subject of allocations and loss.
The bar was moderately empty, Presiding a majority of the squad filling the house made it easy to distinguish the familiar faces. Minnie was keen to avoid the two lieutenants. One was bad enough on a good day, Two with the possibility of inebriation was a danger flag she wasn't quite willing to set off. Instead she used Autumn as a way to hide her from Chiaki's peripheral for as long as she could to slide in next to private Duville. She could burn some time away waiting for the lieutenants to separate And help the poor girl out from being bullied from the likes of an oppressive bar-wench.
She quickly took a seat next to her fellow private, Giving the bartender an appraising glance before requesting something "Light" in the hopes it would at least send her off back towards the bar for said drink.
"One soda? Cute~." The waitress finally left Ella alone, moving to meet the bartender halflway as the man finished handing drinks to Juno. The big Nepleslian lieutenant was already turned and walking back to the duo at the table with two mugs impressively held in one hand and the robo hand hefting his up to drink on-the-move. The waitress quickly returned with that soda and the bartender moved to plop and prepare a drink for Minnie just a hair behind her.
Juno sat back down, putting the two other orders up on the table and parting them toward Autumn and then Chiaki before finally lowering his own from yet another near-chug complete.
"Two of the best brands this shithole has... fuck I miss real Nepleslia."
"There's good beer around here, you just got to look," Chiaki looked down at what he got, and took a whiff, "You just need to look real hard, apparently." With a well-spirited raise of his mug, he threw back some of the drink, "Besides while we're here, isn't this real Nepleslia?"
Autumn accepted the glass with a smile, "Thank you.." She lifted the mug up in her empty hand and took a long drink. She set the mug back down again till smiling, it wasn't the best beer but it was mostly cold and beer. "Technically, it is Nepleslia. It's not the same as Prime though, but I haven't been home in a few years, so this is as good of a Nepleslia as another."
"I suppose it is real Nepleslia if we talk borders... but nothing beats Prime." Juno felt the need to clarify among the trio of them, raising his glass back to drink a bit more but unfortunately not going for a glass-clearing chug like before. Rather, the mug was lowered back without much of anything being deposited in his gut. "New Bernese might as well be a dustball compared to Prime before I got re-deployed with the restructuring and dismantling of the unit to spread our veterans around."
Joe had been attentive to the predicament that Ella was facing and was about to shuffle over and save the small woman from the clearly overbearing, pun intended, waitress when he saw Minie slide in beside her. Well at least she had back up and it also saved Joe from getting in to her personal business anyway. He really did want to get to know Ella better but he respected her right privacy, a strange habit in the military really.
He was close to finishing his etching and he felt that it was coming out just right.This was the casing of the last round he had shot in training. He had a thought to memorialize it and had finally found the time. The small scratching finally taking life as a simple yet clearly romanticized view of the New Bernese landscape. The lines flowing together to form an elegant backdrop of rugged mountains with a simple field before it. The image wrapped around the entire casing so the image could be seen from all sides. The blaring Bebop music, oddly quiet to everyone else, of the earbuds helped him concentrate, as he let the fast tempo and even faster chord changes guide his hand to create the piece.
"So... You don't drink?" Minnie questioned Ella, trying to break the ice somewhat before noticing that the younger woman was, In fact, Still wearing her headphones. The muffled audio unrecognizable for someone that didn't listen to a lot of music like Minnie.
She cocked her head questioningly to the side, Waiting in the off chance she somehow heard her before tapping her once on the shoulder and mouthing the words silently Do. You. Drink?, In tandem with pretending to drink an invisible mug, And jerking a finger towards the waitress as if it wasnt already obvious what she was asking.
With the overwhelming presence of the waitress replaced with the underwhelming presence of Minnie, Ella's frown became slightly less stone faced but still tensed with someone right next to her. She tried to tune her out with some musical but the insistence from the mouse keeping up, Ella removed the head phones from one of ears before shaking her head. At least she could make conversation non-verbally.
Bless the waitress or punch her in the tit, she kept a smile on her face even as the pair focused on one another. She'd already turned and moved off at the calling of more patrons, while the bar-tender made sure to extend an open palm at the pair before speaking with a fairly deep voice with a deep-grain to make it sound like he'd probably spent most of his life living in smoke.
"Make sure you ladies pay, now. We don't keep open tabs, even for Marines... too many poor shits."
Creaking floorboards announced the weight of a wandering tourist just before their shadow blotted out the doorway. Well, that's pretty much what Fang Yin Zhou looked like, grasping a paper map far too close to their face as if deciphering some ancient document. Jean shorts, white vest, hiking boots, and one pseudo-Kuznyetski utterly out of their element.
Took the sound of familiar voices for them to finally snap out of this trance. The placid creature still visably took several paces to confirm their comrade's existance before breaking a smile, eyes lighting up.
"Minnie! Autumn!..." A small stuttering wave, as if the large lady needed to scale down their body language to suit smaller people. "Erm... Lieutenants Juno and Kokuten!... Gracious me!"
A sharp sideways glance, not really even perceiving the waitresses' total lack of garb.
"Oh hai honey, y'think y'eall have a Akvavit or a Brandy or something? I'm thirsty!"
Autumn's attention shifted to the large demolitionist and she returned Fang's wave. "There's the shy thing now," she commented to Chiaki, flashing Fang a charming smile. She pulled the relinquished datapad closer and glanced over the numbers as she sipped her beer. "Yeah.. leave the drunken mathematics to me, it's not too bad, but this is easy. There are macros for this in this spreadsheet that make this process faster once you input the formula." With a couple of taps, she pointed to the formula bar for Chiaki. "Why were you doing this the hard way?" She leaned closer to the XO for a moment as she crossed her legs to counterbalance on the chair towards Juno.
Chiaki huffed at being told he was doing things the hard way, he rolled his shoulders and began to tug off his officer's jacket. He set the garment on the back of his chair, and rolled up the sleeves to his turtleneck, exposing more of his gun-metal arms. Fang was afforded a friendly wave before he looked into his work.
"Wait, how did you do tha-..." the Officer's eyes flashed white, finally playing witness to Autumn's quick handi-work, "What are you... How did you get it to do that? Where are the buttons for this?"
Autumn held up the datapad for Chiaki to more easily see, "You see that little symbol, the 'fx'? That's a function button. You tell the spreadsheet to do things from there." She pointed to another menu option at the top middle of the sheet. "And up here is the 'formulas' menu. You can tell the system to do things from here, like for this, you just want to click 'autosum' to add it all together... and then... down here, you just subtract that total value from the budget..."
"Wha-whoa whoa, slow down, do that again," Chiaki blinked, not used to being this blind-sided by his own technology. He bumped shoulders with the PFC as he stared into the screen, having been lost in the quick display. "The formula button... and then... sum? I don't need to open the calculator for this?"
"You two are nerds." Juno hefted his mug up to finally finish it off. Anything to silence the nerdiness. The container was brought back down as he looked to Fang and then at the waitress with a wave as she was going to get drinks for the table who'd called her. It'd be a moment before they had Fang a drink, but in the meantime he pushed the chair beside him out and moved a hand to indicate she should sit the fuck down.
"Join us, Fang. Anyone is cooler than these two talking about things that aren't really battles."
"Doesn't the saying, 'you can't fly without supply'?" Autumn's eyes glanced up to Juno for a moment before she looked back to Chiaki. "Yeah, you just click this and this, and you don't need the calculator. This can even do trigonometry. This is super helpful for configuring chemical distribution ratios for improvised explosives or larger than normal demolitions if you need to figure out material versus blast radius vs shock waveforce. If you only have 1 bomb to set, you want to make it good. It's helpful to be able to do this one the fly too... you never know what will happen in the field," she smiled again, though this comment reminded her of what happened on Rok'Veru and what had earned her a commendation from the General and Admiral.
"You blew something up with an Expel program?" blinked Chiaki, somewhat amazed by the reasoning behind the use. His metal finger touched the screen, scrolling the data up and down. "This is pretty amazing, I could've had my work done a few hours ago."
The 2LT threw a look at Juno, "We oughta' make her a Corporal, give her even more work to do, no? Or put that other Corporal to work with this kinda knowledge."
Fang, in the mean time, had ended up just merrily sitting down in the middle of them, smiling but with nothing going on behind the eyes... Well, -something- going on, but as far from maths as one could get.
"Does battling causality count as a battle, sir?" She put a hand on the lieutenant's mechanized side, through backing off with the later realization of the reflex. "Surely using a tome and a heart's own knowledge to break the laws of the universe is worth something."
The Officer on the other side of Fang quirked a brow at her string of words. Everyone in this battalion seemed to be pulled from the far corners of the looney bin. He pondered that a bit, considering that made him one and the same. So, Chiaki offered, "Is it really breaking the laws? One plus one equals two seems pretty par for the course."
"Well, using less munitions to do more." An immediate answer, filled with cheerful confidence. She was, after all, enthralled in the mystique of it all. "The placement of objects within a home can define it's spiritual energy, correct? And that's why sometimes minimalism works... You can bend these unseen forces to your will... Not that I profess to understand it completely. But that's why I'm a Private and you are a Second Lieutenant."
Shifting colors in the 2LT's gaze indicated he may have had less of an understanding than Fang implied. He hadn't been too sure what to make of the large woman, and her daisy-flower-filled perception of reality. "I'm thinking I'm an O-1, and where I'm at because my spirit's a bit... older."
He cast a look around the smokey room, reminded of his cigar. The blunt had gone out in the ash tray, and sought to relight it as he spoke, "If that's the case, then what's this room tell you about its spiritual energy?"
Autumn nodded to Chiaki, "Of course. We had some planned demolition runs later on in Rok'Veru but otherwise, it was all on the fly. I'll need more booze before I'll feel up for talking about the tunnel bomb I did for Vanderhuge and Violetta." Her eyes traveled upwards to Fang, "I think there is some measure to intuition, we explain spiritualism with science but at the heart of it, we use less to do more to minimum collateral damage and maximize effectiveness." She offered her fellow demolitionist an understanding smile. "In the heart of it, it's our judgment that guides us in what we use in battle. We go with our gut feeling."
Fang kind of chopped her palm onto the table as if overcome by an urge to grasp Autumn's hand, communicating some flavour of understanding... But they were a little to far away, as well as occupied with a flat panel computer gizmo. It looked dumb.
"Totally! I mean, like, the virtue displayed by those actions has a wider variety than just a zero to a hundred scale of the biggest boom, right? It's the spirit that bestows the meaning behind the action, the exact result." Mindful of being caught up in talking about this sort of stuff, the meatier demolitionist made a point of stopping to take a swig of the drink Juno had provided her. The waitress had obliged her with brandy alright, but this consistency was a little more like... Cough syrup?... "As for the spirit of this bar, well... It's a little hard to tell when you are an active component of it. This drink is a little funny, but maybe I'm an inadequate drink appreciator?... Shoulda brought my tarot cards..."
"The spirits are just different here, Fang, in more ways than one," Autumn continued to smile up at Fang as she set the datapad gently back down in front of her. She lifted up the mug of beer and took a hearty drink. It was not her favorite thing in the world but it was good enough, she was never picky about food or drink. "You do readings then? I think I saw a fortune teller once during one festival of bullets in Hanya. How does it work?"
"Well, I'm not an expert like my mom. But the most important thing to remember is that the forces on display are contextual." Fang made a slightly more nostalgic smile, leaning down on her elbow. "So, like, the future isn't set in concrete. Being able to look at it changes things, right? Kinda makes it more like a weather report."
"Oh, and you've been to Hanya, then? I used to have a calendar with pictures of the golden triangle... Beautiful place!"
"I'm from Hanya,"Autumn replied briefly before letting Chiaki talk.
"So you don't really know if something is going to be bad... or really bad?" clarified Kokuten, jumping back into the conversation as his interest was drawn in a bit more. "Such as the difference between knocking your knee on a desk and say... losing it to landmine?"
"Knocking your knee on a desk in a minefield would be the straw that breaks the camel's back, as they say." Fang seemed a little more nervous talking to an actual officer about this kind of stuff. She genuinely liked the demeanor of their new direct CO and account-scribe, but his odd incandescent eyes made him rather hard for her to read... Perhaps, if they could just accept that it entailed things which had served the imposing woman herself in the past, then that would be just fine. "At least that's the way I see it. Karma is cumulative. So if you are getting bad portents, it's something that takes extra effort to appease... And, well, if it's something like a 'Spacer mothership landing on your house, then... Well, sometimes it takes extra extra effort. But nothing is impossible with respect, spirit and foresight."
"That's a heck of a mindset, especially out here with all the minefields and desks to lose your knees over," A metal finger spun in the air a bit, to indicate the level of severity in the number of desks and mines they'd need to contend with. Then, he scooped up his drink. "You know, since you mentioned them, I was there when we first encountered the Spacers. I remember our first conversations with them, I got to chat with a Synthetic Intelligence. You remind me a lot of them, the S.I. I mean."
He took a sip of his beer, "In a good way, of course."
"Really? I'm not good with computers..." Fang just recoiled a little, two-handing their tiny glass. "That's pretty amazing, through, being the first friends of an entire race..."
Wasn't going to say it out loud, but the spacers rather scared the girl. The idea of entirely removing oneself from nature was a very daunting prospect.
"You didn't get the rads?"
"We can teach you, well, I can teach you more about computers if you'd like, Fang. This program is helpful for what we do when we get to pre-plan something or if we have time to do the math rather than going with whatthe spirits compel us to do," Autumn offered with a bright smile, setting down a mostly empty beer mug.
"Oh, that sounds very useful!" Fang responded in earnest, basically making a perfect imitation of an '
' emoticon. Of course, they had clearly forgotten their Datajockey with their gym equipment again, and settled for just leaning over towards Autumn's to show interest. "I could figure out the exact proportions of and types of bombs to lug with me, right?... Supplies aren't great for altering destiny when you can't alter your loadout on the spot...""Rads? No, we were all suited up in WATERs and AIRs for the incursion, it was actually one of the reasons why they accepted us so readily," clarified Chiaki after Autumn made her offer. "We thought we were in for some serious trouble, but the Spacers proved to be pretty alright. At least... Until one of them stabbed a Marine..."
Kokuten rubbed his bearded chin, "Yeah, up until then it was pretty calm."
"I forget, was that the robot with the wig or the weird one?" Autumn tried to remember the incident, but was drawing a blank.
"The weird one, the one with the wig was actually alright, as far as I remember. It was Rico that got stabbed, trying to get sweet on the Spacer," Kokuten corrected, having a bit more of a more solid memory on that. "Wazu chewed his ass off for that."
"Well that was daft." The larger woman crossed their arms and sandwiched them between her chin and the table. Stories of far-of glories were something Fang wouldn't dare interrupt at length, but was propelled into interaction by the chance to grasp a first-hand account. "You ever go fisties with one yourself, or go into the blitz long'side one?... I heard they had crazy stuff like... Blowin' up a nuke next to their own ship, to like, rapidly change the course and stuff..."
"Well, perhaps not in the way you might imagine," explained the Officer, flagging down for another beer as the questions came. A lot had changed with the Free State since they first encountered them years ago. After a moment of pondering, he gave her an answer, "I used to serve on a research station with ... a lot of problems. The original Squad Leader for the squad I had been in charge of was a 'Druidess', a Type 3 who was bit more of a pacifist. It was the other Type 3... Ah well, she was less of a pacifist, but nonetheless too gentle for blitzing..."
He had begun to worry if he was boring the large woman, "There was this hulking Type 2 who ah... Well, he was bit of a pacifist too. He didn't have too much trouble with fights, but the problem was really getting him to fight."
Hmm... That wasn't all that interesting at all. grumbled Chiaki internally, "Honestly, all the Freespacers I've ever met weren't all that exciteable. They were quirky, but were by and far different from a proper Nepleslian."
Autumn pushed a errant strand of hair back behind her ears as Chiaki shared his story about the Spacers. She continued to smile up at Fang and nodded in agreement to her statement about changing destiny. Her eyes moved to Juno who stood on the opposite side of her. "You going to make it, sir? You look a little... tired?"
They could see it in his eyes, ever since he chugged away. Juno had drank his beer too fast. They could definitely see it in his eyes, that the damage had been done.
"No more, nerds."
Juno pushed himself up, grabbing the table firmly as he tried his best to not just flop backwards in the rush of his movement. He wasn't drunk, but tipsy while tired wasn't terribly better in terms of condition-wise.
"As much as I'd love to talk about quirky Freespacers, the old days, and... about literally everything but how we're going to crush these scum once I fend off the General's lengthy rants... I... need to go lay down. So just... do this fun stuff with calculators and making our young Fang here into a proper historian buff. But I need to live in the present."
Juno carefully grasped his cap, gently adjusting it so the words were a bit more clear with the bill angled downward. The man raised his hand to grab and rub his face, finally shifting it up and turning to make his way out without any sort of ceremonious salutes or gestures. A Nepleslian didn't have time for hand-waving once he was getting back into working the military life.
"Make sure everyone makes it back to the Heckler sometime to rest and check in. I'll toss a few packets your way with information as it gets solidified in the mix-up, Thick. Hopefully it'll be enough to read up on during your downtime!"
Autumn and the officers stealing her bestie, Fang, Had left Minnie somewhat sour. She had been moderately content to sip her beer in the corner with Ella until then. Private Duville seemed perfectly fine, Alone, To her own devices. But Minnie was a social creature by nature.
She sighed, Again. For possibly the tenth time in as many minutes, Turning to Ella again to glance at her as many times to find her as of yet still unchanged in her posture of activity.
"You came here for a reason, Right?" She querried, Casually tugging out one of Ella's earbuds with a simple tug of her finger after her last attempt to speak to her went unanswered. "A bar's a social scene. Why not mingle a little, Duville? You could have stayed back at the rendevous with the tank if you wanted to be alone."
"Orders." Ella grumbled as she reached for her earbud. "The cro-magnon we call Juno said he wants 'everyone to take a breather' and for me to not 'be fucking weird.'" She said, air-quoting for emphasis before putting her earbud back in. She at least turned the music down to be somewhat nice to the marine.
"I'd much rather be back inside the tank, buttoned up and left alone with... someone else." She glanced down to her little pocket senpai and took a sip of the club soda. "But hey, can't be acting weird."
Autumn raised an eyebrow as Juno headed off. Her eyes glanced around the bar for the other members of the 309th. They were still missing Minnie from Thick. Her eyes spotted the male tanker sitting alone with a shell casing. "Let's combine our forces here, we're leaving men behind," she commented with a slight frown. She pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to Joe. "Hey there, Larson. What are doing over here all alone?" She offered the loader a friendly smile.
"Oh, Hi ma'am," replied Joe. He looked up from finishing his small signature along the bottom of the casing, he smiled at her appearance. "Yeah I was just having a pint while I finished off a project is all." He slid the casing a bit away from Autumn, as if to move it out of eye sight. He wasn't really embarrassed by his hobby but he also had not asked permission to abscond with a spent piece of equipment and did not really know if it were permitted or not.
"So, uh, what's up? How are things," he asked as he plucked his tiny earbuds out of his big ears.
"Ma'am?" Autumn chuckled lightly, "Please, call me Autumn or Wilde, I'm not an officer." She slid onto a chair across from Joe and smiled brightly.
The Geshrin demolitionist leaned forward, propping her chin up on her arms as she met Joe's eyes. "I actually just popped in, so things are just getting started. I just saw you here all by your lonesome and thought," she continued to smile, "that you could use the company. Plus, I want to get to know you a little better since we'll be together for a while."
She paused as she gauged his reaction for a moment. "There's a couple of us over at another table," She gestured to the table where Fang and Chiaki were sitting before deep green eyes return to appraise his face, "Since I just transferred in to the unit, I'm buying next round. I'd love to have you join me for a drink, how about it?"
"Oh?" Minnie Coo'ed, Suddenly a lot more interested in private Duville and who she would rather be buttoned up and alone with.
Using what information she had on hand and general observation, She narrowed it down to someone she likely spent a lot of proximity with most days; The tank crew. The lieutenant was already vacant, And seemed an impossible choice in general, which left the only tankie left inside the KnuckleWetter.
It all fit together nicely to the Mouse's imagination. Larson was alone, Seemingly occupied when she arrived, likely waiting for Ella for some kind of tryst with the girl, Who seemed too shy to make a move with so many of her peers here to judge. Minnie couldnt blame her.
"Come on!" Minnie grabbed Ella by her wrist and pointed over towards Autumn and Joe sitting just on the other side of the bar, Completely oblivious to Ella being able to once again being deaf to her. "Let Doc Valentine help you out, Just this once!"
Joe smiled his easy smile, he had spent much of his life being a good friend to those around him for, as he would always joke, he is a good listener in reference to his ears. He looked over at the table, where sat Fang and Chiaki and nodded 'hey' to them. "Well, Autumn or Wilde, I would love to come join you guys," he said with a jesting smile, his large eyes mirthful behind his coke bottle goggles. He stood and grabbed up his 'modern art', "What do you think? It's to commemorate my first posting." His demeanor was very relaxed, more surfer dude than one would expect at first glance.
Autumn beamed and rose as well. She looked down at the casing, "May I take a better look at it?" She held out her hand for the casing with a good natured smile. "I've actually never seen someone etch a casing before in all my time rolling around battlefields."
He handed the spent artillery casing over, "Well, I did wood stuff back when I was growing up but had this idea during training, figured I would give it a shot. I am thinking a neat collection of the Three Oh Ninths time together would make a great set."
The Geshrin demolitionist raised the casing up to catch the light, appraising Joe's careful handiwork of the New Bernese landscape on the spent brass. She let out a low impressed whistle as she saw the little nuances. She recognized the perspective and knew where he had been situated to see this particular view. Autumn offered the casing back to Joe after turning the shell over in her hand a couple of times."That's really good. There's no turning back once you start carving away, is there? Creation through careful application of destruction?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Can't wait to try it on a live round," the loader said wagging his eyerbrows. "I would never, though a light etching of a smiley face on the business end would give me no end of laughter as it smashed those fatnecks," He took back the casing nodding in thanks.
"It's an interesting idea. I don't how well that would stay on the lead once it goes down the barrel," Autumn replied brightly as they crossed the distance between where Joe had been sitting and where the others were sitting.
Ella, putting up as much resistance as she could, was easily dragged across the bar along with the mouse. She didn't say much and her digging in her heels didn't do enough to not be dragged, so all she could do was glare at the mouse as her mouth slowly formed into a snarl.
"Come on, Duville! Its time to take that breather and socialize!" Minnie huffed between each breath as Ella became harder to move along. She gave up at the half way point, Hardly taking notice of her hostility. "We're prob going to spend a lot of time here in Freemud, With all these pirates and reds. So why not socialize and hit it off a little bit with your peers? Private Wilde is over there, She's real nice. And Fang too! Plus Larson, I know you spend a lot of time with him in the Sokoo."
Autumn turned her head to the two shorter Marines, and smiled, despite the driver's snarl. "Duville, Mouse, come join us! L.T's orders! We're supposed to socialize like proper marines-together!" Her voice was cheerful as she waved them over to the table where she was routing Joe with Fang and Chiaki.
The mention of socialization with anyone brought a look of horror onto Ella's face. Vivid flashbacks of growing up and being bullied flew through her head as what felt like 18 years of terrible memories passed by in the span of a few second. She felt like a prisoner who was about to face the firing line.
I'm not reliving this again! She thought to herself as instinctively reached for her sidearm. but her hand found nothing. She had left in the tank after Juno forced her out. Fuck.
So instead of taking the easy way out, Ella's mind raced for things to say. "I'm not good at the talking thing... Por favor..."
"Than sit with us and politely ignore us, Duville. Play on your datajockey and nod along or something," Autumn suggested brightly. "It's what kids do these days anyways instead of talking? I'll have Fang pick you up and carry you over here, if you prefer." She smiled with a wink. "No escape~."
An authoritative voice crowed with the thudding sound of a metal hand on a table, "C'mon!"
The Second Lieutenant had been watching the situation unfold from a distance, and had suddenly found the perfect opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. He stood up and beckoned the Marines in the room on over, catching on to Autumn's vibe and her dress, finally. His arm spun on the elbow in a strange, ushering way, his invitation implied, and his kindness made it seem optional.
Though, everyone knew an officer's kind invitation was a polite order.
"Autumn's got the right of it, let's all sit down at the same table and have a drink! Tankers, grunts, officers; we're all Marines!"
Joe spun a chair around at the end of the table and plunked down facing the group at large, he easily leaned forward against the chair back and watched as the others moved to the table. He started to think what an odd group they all made but stopped himself, for all he knew this was the normal set up for any military unit. Why would these folks be any different? He couldn't allow silly thoughts like that cloud his perceptions and interactions any more than he wanted their possible judgments to color him. In the end he was happy to be around his new colleagues.
Ella on the other hand was not happy to be around everyone. They offer her the choice to ignore to them yet force her to socialize. She's ordered to not be fucking weird and now everyone was making it real difficult. All she wanted was some peace and quiet..
She had no real choice in the matter. Instead, she opted to shut down socially and seemingly mentally. She looked ahead with a mixture of blank emptiness and a tinge of annoyance. If she played possum, perhaps the jackals would leave her alone.
Autumn grinned at the tankers as she returned to her seat beside Chiaki. Her arm brushed against the Lieutenant's for a moment before she addressed the group. "Okay, this is my round. What's everyone having?" She signaled to the bartender with a smile. "Don't be shy, I have some back-pay that I haven't been able to spend since after Kennewes." Her attention turned to their newcomers, the tank driver and the loader. "So which one of you named the tank after a Neko? It's an odd choice considering our history with Yamatai."
The door to the bar opened, and in stepped a slim well-toned red-head with sharp green eyes. Her clothes, if they could be called that was a mess, there were only the ripped remains of a shirt that hung on her shoulders to cover her sports bra, and an entire leg was missing from her pants. Despite the state of her dress, however, she had a smug look on her face. This woman who was content with whatever she had just gotten done with was Corporal Wallace.
She made her way over to the counter and ordered a drink with a chuckle. "Their faces were priceless." She then downed her glass in one go and let out a relaxed sigh.
Chiaki leaned over to Autumn, squinting at the mess that had walked in through the door. His eyes spun as they focused, "Is that one of ours?"
Autumn nodded, "Yes, that's Corporal Wallace, she's the other tanker. We have a large female presence in this squad." She turned her attention to the newcomer and brightly called out to her, "Corporal Wallace, come join us! I got this round!"
In response to Autumn, "Well, I am a brand new addition to the unit so it wasn't me and judging from the few buts I have heard and seen of the cabin I think it was probably Duville that named it." The big eared man looked to Ella and saw her obvious discomfort. He frowned to the fact that it was clearly getting to her that she was basically being forced to sit with the group. Knowing how alienation felt Joe could understand the small woman and wanted to do something right by her.
Knowing that really everyone would be crowding the table he briefly stood and pulled over one of the small two person tables and placed it a few feet away from the main table while close it was clearly separate. "Duville, hey, why don't you sit at this table, that way you can have some elbow room," Joe said with an easy smile. He turned and sat in his backward chair again at the main table.
Ella simply stared ahead blankly, not acknowledging Joe's offer. Shit, they're still trying. She thought to herself as a bead of sweat started sliding down the side of her face. She slumped back in the seat slowly, mainly to try and hide but also to ready for an escape plan.
Fredrica looked around when she heard someone call her. They called her by her rank so she knew it would be another soldier, and sure enough, most of her squad was there. She made her way over and gave a wave. "Hey, what are you all doing here? Not going to rob a bank or anything are you?"
"Nothing so grand, we're just socializing as a unit. I have this round covered, what'll you have?" Autumn offered Fredrica a friendly smile. Her attention shifted back to Joe. "It's definitely not what I expected the tank to be named. Usually Marine naming conventions are well.. aggressive. Hostile, Aggressor, Raider, so Soko Neko stands out. It's not a bad name, I just don't know what it means, I'm not good with Yamataigo." She shrugged at the tanker, "But it really does suggest how things have changed in the Corps... like this for instance." She gestured to each female squad member in turn. "If I didn't know better, it would look like there was a harem being built around the tank. This ratio is unheard of in my military experience."
The Geshrin demolitionist's gaze shifted back to the lone officer of their group, "What are your thoughts on having so many fine female Marines in your unit, Lt Chiaki?"
"Me?" Chiaki's eyes widened as the conversation spun back in his direction. The Officer had been occupying himself with the next round that the table's most gracious member had purchased. The beer lowered from his mouth, and wiped his lips of the fresh foam on the top of the ale.
His amber eyes flitted amongst all the women present, "Ano..."
The Officer muttered Yamataigo into his mug, a barely audible string of words, before springing out, "I think it's fine! It's a fine thing. To have fine females in this fine platoon. With such a fine tank. It's fine. It's er, fine." He took another sip of his beer, "It seems like a perfectly fine make-up of marines. It's just... a bit... different."
A bit of spittle drooped out from the side of Ella's mouth as she continued to play dead.
This did not go unnoticed by the 2nd Lieutenant, "Valentine."
The Medic had a gunmetal finger pointing at her, which then pointed at DuVille with a notable whirring sound.
"Sir?" Minnie arched a brow, Following the lieutenants finger as it traced a path, Carefully studying the exposed cybernetic mastery of his arm. A thousand questions filled her head, Mostly about said arms before his fignger stopped at private Duville.
A quick double take was all Minnie needed after that to realize something was awry. She quickly turned to face the other girl, Two fingers casually snapping in-front of her to gauge her active perception while she locked her cybernetic gaze to Ella's own to study her scalera drift and pupil dilation.
"Oh" was the responce to her findings after one final test of lightly and scientificly shaking her before turning back to her executive officer.
"I think shes suffering from a mild case of acute stress reaction. Its not litter urgent but we should probably get her back to the rendezvous and the CCP to get some rest and get her hydrated."
"That's a good assesment, Valentine, make it happen," ordered Chiaki, tapping the table, and pointing to the door. "Unless she snaps out of it, get her fixed up. We need to take care of our own here, even during liberty. I'll be sure to comp you the time tomorrow."
"Sir." Minnie acknowledge with a curt nod, Leaving a small personal dataslate for him at the table, A few DA and an adequate tip for her drink. The very slate with all the moderately accurate and slightly altered inventory quotes and invoices she came to deliver in the first place, And placed an arm on Ella's back. Carefully guiding her through the squad and towards the door of the bar, Ushering quick farewells and sparing a glance towards the newest arrivals, Lingering her unblinking gaze curiously on corporal Wallace, Pondering the events and circumstances prior to her arrival at the bar and whether or not she should drag her back to the casualty collection point for a checkup as well before deciding private Duville required her attention more.
"Come on now, Duville. Lets get you back to a nice cot and some warm blankets. No dirty pirates or scary ol' Reds are going to bother you. I'll be watching over you all night just in case so you can rest easy."
Fitz found an empty seat with the rest of the squad and sat down. "I'll have a beer, don't really need anything fancy, I still have to uphold a decent image for the Marines right?" It was odd to hear such words from someone literally missing half their clothes but she did seem somewhat serious about it.
"What's wrong with the driver though? She looks like she saw a really bad porno."
Autumn chuckled. "Of course. From what Mouse is saying, she's shy? I guess? But I can see that bad porno thing. Have you actually watched what the Yamataians consider porn in regards to Nepleslian Marines? It's a riot. They are obsessed with our guys loving on each other and lemon flavor lollipops." She flagged down the bartender and ordered Fitz a beer. "So what have you been getting into Corporal Wallace?"
When Slon stepped into the bar, he regarded the whole establishment with a flat expression. He had stepped off the shuttle so recently that he still had his NSMC-branded duffel bag slung over his shoulder, but he had realized after re-reading his assignment orders that he had at least a few minutes to grab a pint before officially reporting in. So the towering Kuznyetski sniper made his way to the bar where he could make himself comfortable at one of the stools before dropping the bag to the ground with a heavy -thud-.
He was quick to snatch his bailey cap off his head and tuck it into the back pocket of his jeans, before retrieving a pack of cards from the breast-pocket of his blue flannel button-down. Then with a wave to the bartender - purposefully ignoring the nearly bare woman strutting from one table to another - he called, "Barkeep. A pint, please." Money was on the bar-top and the man was soon setting out the cards to begin a round of solitaire.
"Hey LT, are we getting another addition?" The heavy thump of the duffel bag nearby caught Autumn's attention and she nudged Chiaki. "You might need to check your email. I didn't get a notification of a drop but I don't think I'm on the administrative personnel orders distro." She leaned in closer to her old friend and indicated Slon with a tilt of her head before returning her attention to the others.
"Er..." The Second Lieutenant stared down at his datapad and swiped it open, and sure enough, there was a brand new e-mail present. There was a short, quiet moment passing when he eyed the contents and looked up. "We'll see..."
Kokuten tested the name, "Private Kuznyetski?"
Slon's head shot up and he had to scan quickly. Then he realized where the voice came from and he eyed the table's occupants. Clearing his throat, he stuffed his cards away in his shirt again, "Uh, yes, sir?"
"Well, that's him," affirmed Chiaki, nodding to Autumn when the sniper responded to him. "C'mon over here! You're 309th, right? We're sitting over here for a pint."
Fitz rolled her shoulders and got comfortable in her seat and chuckled to Autumn. "Well, the girls thought I was just a city girl." She brought her left arm up onto the table, the circuitry like tattoo on her arm glowing a soft faint green. "I had to show them that this isn't one of those weak aesthetic models."
An appreciative smile curled across Autumn's lips at Fitz. "And that my dear, is definitely something to drink to." She raised her glass to the woman in a toast. "How badly did you break them, or was it just to tap or nap? I was telling Fang that she should join in on those friendly bouts of skill."
The sniper hesitated for a second as he eyed the table. But he had been invited and he liked to think his family had raised him not to be rude unnecessarily. So even though he couldn't help but think about minefields when he approached the table, he grabbed a seat, deposited his bag again, and made himself as comfortable as possible.
A tip of his pint to those around him, "Slon. Kuznyetski. I just graduated out of the scout-sniper school. Got orders for the 309th. I guess you're all with the local garrison?"
Whether or not the group decided to mess with their newest arrival, the day's loud bustling at the Knucklewetter had definitely accented the break from the harsh battling the world was no doubt set to endure. The Nepleslians spirits, as quirky and odd as they were, would no doubt have an effect and potentially spread from the lowly spirits of the estate. In particular, one man who left the bar later with the pasty-wearing waitress caught himself looking over his shoulder while the right hand squeezed the scantily-clad rump beneath her jacket.
"You know... maybe it wouldn't be that bad to enlist and get out of the slums."
A laugh from the woman was partially missed behind the bark of a gun and no doubt a nearby gunfight between some local thugs in the slum, her body pulling in close as she grasped his derriere in turn.
"New Bernese was built on the rich taking advantage... but it's kept alive because of the folks who make that move, dreamer-boy. After tonight, you might feel torn on joining up... but I'll make sure you get all hopeful to be them if you do end up heading to the local recruiter in the morning~."
The boom of a hand-grenade had no chance of reaching the noisy interior, but it did help the pair speed up as they moved out through the packed streets of the slum to try and settle in for what was seemingly growing into a longer and relaxing day on a world engaged in a planetary fight with pirates and impostor Reds.
