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RP: SFS Chapter One: Alistair's Remorse

Lamb

Ovine Member
Inactive Member
Ulfbhert Hangar Bay, 0424 Hours, On a Tuesday

The spacious hangar bays of an Orca-class carrier are a boon to both pilots and marine training exercises. Pilots enjoy the extra space afforded by a carrier with volumetric fields between their workspace and the void. They can freely move about the hangar in their craft, or open the thing up like a can of sardines and point at things while looking at mechanics with knowing glares. Marines enjoy these hangars for their wide open spaces. Any carrier that's under-compliment (and every carrier is under-compliment) will boast enormous spaces, like small cubic warehouses of distance which serve as great venues for hand-to-hand combat training, zero-G combat training, power armor familiarization, secret midnight sexual rendevous, and at times an event which could be considered a mixture of all of those things.

On this particular morning, one of these abandoned corners served as the meeting place for the small unit that (as rumors aboard spacefaring warships are the only thing which travel faster than spacefaring warships) had over the course of the last few hours began to be known as 'The Wire Humpers'. The credit went to one Corporal Davenport, who upon noticing Commandant Black's children said to her loose-lipped friend Private Bakersly, "There go the Wire Humpers."

Private Bakersly found this absolutely hilarious. He told his buddies at the card table twenty minutes later, one of whom told a disappointed woman the joke after disappointing her for about five minutes in Utilities C-- the same disappointed woman who told the Communications Officer she was relieving on the bridge-- the tired Comms man later mentioning it over a midnight breakfast with the ship's XO. The ship's XO related it to the laundry technicians who were watching Antisepticizer Beep basically do all of their work for them with awe. It went around and around, a sturdy piece of information which changed little over the course of the night. At some point, the story got back to Corporal Davenport, who was outraged that Chief Langham had gotten credit for her joke and demanded that someone make it known she said it first. Eventually, the night crew had come to the consensus that it was indeed Corporal Davenport who'd made the original joking reference; and that this would be the story as it was presented to the day crew in a couple of hours.

Near Harmonious Solarsailor's berth was the corner of the hangar in question. There was even more empty space in the section of the hangar where the Freespacer gunship was settled. The patrol pilots who'd gone out to fly around between the various ships of the massive gathered fleet gave the Phantasm II more space than it probably needed. But there was something frightful about the odd gunship, and it was abuzz with Junkers and a few odd mechanics as the finishing touches were put on something. Added to the bottom of the mighty 'Spacer gunship was a compartment, a lump of curving metal which made it look like Harmonious Solarsailor had perhaps devoured one of the fighters and now had it digesting deep in its comically distended gut.

And arranged just a few meters over from where the Junkers were skittering left and right with metal plating in claw was an airbike. Just a normal airbike, like a teenager might buy to tromp around the neighbourhood or like a group of middle-aged fat men might all be riding on with the whining repulsors tuned for maximum volume as the rode caravan style across the highway and annoyed anyone they passed. It was an older model, long and flat olive in color with thick steel plates over the repulsors and a plow-like swoop of metal resting ominously at one point. Pre-Succession machinery. Some of the parts still had Yamataian registration stamps fading away from them. There were also some old Blue Faction bumper-stickers slapped on the fuselage, from back in the day when color-coded armies fought for control of the Nepleslian homeworld. Beneath this retro monstrosity was the Commandant himself, the clean and wide-collared officer uniform missing in favor of a pair of standard-issue Marine cargo pants and the tank top from the PT uniform; these both now peppered with occasional black fingerprints and grease smudges. Only the tip of his braided beard issued forth from beneath the airbike to serve as an identifier of the man. The one part of the officer uniform which was present on this occasion was the peaked cap, still planted atop the head of the small girl which sat atop the back of the airbike, tiny legs dangling over a saddle bag and kicking the air. Cloudheart sat there with another paper book propped on her knee, this one titled 'Winning: The Science, The Art, The Act Of'. With her free hand, she stroked her miniature Junker idly as it watched its larger brothers dashing back and forth to work on the nearby gunship.

A chime echoed from Killroyal's communicator and the Commandant slid out from beneath his station to sit up and withdraw the device from his pocket. It was 0425, five minutes before he'd ordered everyone to muster in the hangar. He wiped a layer of sweat and grease from his forehead with the back of his hand and silenced the alarm, then regarded Cloudheart for the first time since she'd silently arrived a few minutes before.

"What are you reading, little girl?" He asked her with a furrowed brow.

"It's a 'self-help' book, which is really not accurate." She explained, not looking up from the ancient tome. "Then again... It's helping me learn what sort of things a Nepleslian might feel insecure about, so maybe it's a 'meta-self-help' book?"

Killroyal nodded with a grunt and stuck his hand into a rucksack he'd leaned up against the bike, fishing for a moment as he told her, "Your book is shit. That book is shit. Every self-help book is shit. You know what really helps people?"

"Tell me what really helps people." She answered, still eyeing her book but with a sort of excitement building in her voice-- her perhaps about to gain insight on the inner-workings of the self-appointed father-figure.

"Books that don't tell you what to fuckin' do, books that just tell you interesting stuff you can think about on your own time. Books like this one." The Commandant withdrew a thin, hardback volume and pressed it against Cloudheart's leg from below. "Got it when I was a kid, thought it would teach me how to fix my airbike. Instead..." Killroyal's eyes widened and his expression intensified, if that was even possible, "It taught me how to live."

And so, Cloudheart dog-eared the page she was on and closed her book, reaching down to retrieve this yellowed codex which was so sacred to Commandant Black. She looked upon it curiously. Inner Peace and The Art of Airbike Maintenance. She looked back at the Commandant timidly, an expression of awe-- for few other than her kept paper books.
 
Alistair, after reading to Cloudheart, had passed out and slept deeply for the first time in a long time. He didn't have the nightmare that night. A feat he is normally only able to pull off when severely intoxicated, even then it is a sporadic thing. He was awoken by his alarm going off. He slid out of his bunk and walked to the showers. It was the first time since Alistair had gotten on the ship that he was able to shower.

Alistair finished up his shower and got dressed. By then he had heard the new unofficial name of there little squad. He blew it off, not really giving a shit.

He walked up to the deck were the Commandant had told them to meet. It seemed that he was first up there besides Cloudheart and Black. Alistair walked up to the two and snapped off a salute. "Good morning Commandant," He said with a slight smile. "and good morning Cloudheart." He looked the bike over. It was an old clunker to say the least, but it was a nice clunker. "I like the bike sir. Mind if I take a look?" Alistair asked as he walked closer.
 
"Didn't have you figured for a bike man." Admitted Commandant Black, turning to focus on Alistair with an appraising glance. After sizing the boy up for a moment, the burly officer stepped to one side, extending his arm in a sweeping gesture as he both encouraged and warned the young marine, "Take a good look at her, son, get your fill. Just remember: Don't do anything to it that you wouldn't mind me doing to you."
 
Alistair nodded, "understood sir." He said with a smirked. "I used to race a couple years back. Not to brag, but I wasn't half bad." He walked up to the bike, giving Cloudheart a friendly smile.

As he knelt down he saw all, he could see all the work Black had put into it. "I like what you did to the repulsers sir. Smart to reroute some of the excess energy into them, as well as focus the plates to give more lift."

Alistair really did enjoy airbikes. He might have done it in a dark time of his past, but back then besides alcohol it was his escape.
 
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Gearhead Halcyone had spent the entirety of the night, since being summoned, with the gunship. She had worked along side the junker drones to build the additions on to Harmonious Solarsailor. She was now extracting herself from a small access space, where she had been putting some finishing touches, as well as leaving behind a momento, her signature as it was, for the work she had done on the gunship.

After backing out of the crawlspace, her mechanicall feet making contact with the cold hangar deck with a pair of metallic thumps, she directed a junker drone to hold the metal cover plate in place as she held up her artificial arm, which split apart, folding out her arc welder and welded the plate in place, finishing her part of the job.

Halcyone put away her welder, made some approving comments to Solarsailor, complimenting it on it's new appearence and capability, then took note that others were showing up. It must have been morning, time for the group to gather.

She closed her helmet's faceplate and talked over to join the others. "Good morning" she greeted them, cheerfully enough as her helmet's voice synthesizer was capable.
 
It was unclear to many how Linda spent her night, most of it was not spent in the room she was supposed to be in, and she often times just seemed to disappear. One thing was clear though, she was handling some IPG business. However whatever she was doing she had no intention of being late to the meeting. She showed up in her prim and proper IPG uniform, though today it seemed a little more snug than the day before, whatever it was the uniform was showing more detail to her figure, particularly her upper body, especially her arms, it seems she was trying to be intimidating.

She eyed around the group that was present at the moment and gave a soft nod. She did take notice of the air bike, and was actually reasonably knowledgeable about them, but that was from a different cover that she could not reveal right at that time, so she chose to talk about something else, looking to Killroyal." I did not know this was a casual meeting."
 
Klank. Klank. Klank.

"Good~morn~ing, Commantimidator Black!" Phase greeted with a full-bodied wave. That is to say, a wave that seemed to carry their smaller form this-a-way and that-a-way as they put their full force into it. Following in footstep-unison was their larger body, carrying a large angular case of some sorts, which resembled somebody trying to vectorize a cylinder in a low-polygon environment but failed and somehow made the thing less cylindrical than intended.

If one were going for such a silly analogy, that is.

The smaller's face lit up with a basic smiley.
"Also good morning to the rest. I was not aware that this place was that popular to be on a tuesday. Then and again, ev-er-y-bo-dy~ loves to spend time with Harmony, yes?"

The glowing eye of the larger settled on the bike, and out came a little angular drone, hardly more than an octahedron with pips of light on its corners, which came about Black's head and immediately began examining the bike with visible rays of light tracing its hull.

"What an inter~esting machine!"
 
0300

As was her custom, Eir had gotten up early – very early. It wasn’t that she really cared for mornings, but she always held herself to strict standards, and those standards included frequent morning exercise. She had already warmed and was jogging through the massive bay. The world around her was tuned out by a pair of ear buds nestled gently into her ears. She had her Dizzy Dinkaid edition datajockey playing her recently purchased ‘The Art of Never Again’. The scope of it was impressive, and strange that it was so seemingly different from what she knew of many ’Spacers. It was downright contradictory to the idea of peace. She resolved to make a point of asking some of her teammates about it sooner rather than later.


0330

Weight training. Today was strength training for her in the form of dead lifts, presses and barbell curls. By now she had worked up a sweat and was starting to feel a proper burn. The repetitive activity had given her time to reconsider her situation and she had to admit things had gotten better. Their fleet was still in one piece, and as far as she was aware they had edged away a little from instant and total destruction.

0425

A now freshly showered and clothed Eir made her way back into the hangar bay. As she arrived she adjusted her beret, looking across the bay. She found what she was looking for, spotting her squad gathered near the Commandant and his airbike. This did not look like it was going to be the sort of thing she normally expected out of a first formal gathering, but it was as good a start as any. She made her way over at a brisk pace, stopping when she was near the group and offering a crisp salute. “Reporting for duty, Sir. Good morning.”
 
Eli woke in his rack, promptly smacking his head on the rack light before falling out of it, flat on his back onto the deck. He sprang to his feet - or at least tried. He promptly smack his head again on the rack below his and was returned to his spot on the decidedly unhygienic berthing floor.

His world was misery.

He got up, removing a fresh uniform from his rack and commencing his morning preparations - shower, teeth brushing, deoderant. He didn't wake up early enough to exercise, but he'd never really had to worry about that sort of thing - working out was just something people did to pass time where he came from - he'd probably be in the gym later, pumping iron to pass time.

After that, he began the long trudge to the hangar, snagging a disposable paper cup filled with coffee on the way. Passageways on ships were cramped by design, and he still hadn't mastered most of the intricacies of shipboard movement - he still banged shins on kneeknockers and his head on overhead pipes with frightening regularity.

Eventually, he made it to the hangar bay, where the high ceiling was a distinct comfort. The rest of the team had beat him to morning muster, all of them clustered around the imposing, room-filling (even a room as big as the hangar) presence of Commandant Black. He joined the back of the group, furrowing his brow at the strange sight of a recreational airbike on a military ship.

"Mornin' good people. And g'mornin' t'yeh boss-man, seh yes." Eli directed the last comment to Commandant Black. "Eh, Sir, I mean. G'morning sir."
 
Beep took its time as it made its way down the, what seemed like, snug corridor. The Metal behemoths footsteps reverberating though the deck with the harmony of the whine of servos moving said legs. The warmachine had spent the night sorting laundry and trying to figure out what card games the ships official laundry team were playing while it enjoyed itself.

That time was gone however and now it was focused on its new job, which was trying to locate the rest of its team.

Hanger
As it strode into the hanger its ocular scanner panned the area looking for any signs of the people from yesterday. Spotting several of them around, what appeared to be an airbike, it made its methodical thundering stride towards them.
 
She had spent the rest of the night hiding in her dreams snoring, drooling, and with little streams of tears. Pretty much a lovely night for Dr. Dom. So when she showed up in the hanger with her suit back on hiding her overly young and tear staind face, she was tired and grumpy. She had missed breakies, soher little drone had brought a few ration bars init's free grasper, next to the brown leather medical bag it normally dragged with it.

Dom walked up and leaned up against the bike making it tetter. Not that she knoticed, she was busy watching the latest vid about a Major Hospital. Very good training in interpersonal relations in the medical fields'
 
Both an Officer and a Statesman, Killroyal's greetings came out in a fluid way, and the tone was pleasant enough. If it weren't for the fact that his face was as always set in a permanent, strong faced scowl, one could almost start to see him as the kind man his words said he was when his actions weren't paying attention.

"Yeah, well, it's a project so I've had plenty of time with it. Thinking about buying some of those old type-seventeen torque converters, but you know how it is dealing with heat when you've got an engine putting out that much power." He told Alistair, squatting next to the younger marine to ensure he wasn't prodding anything that hadn't been bolted down yet. He clasped a hand on the Private's shoulder, perhaps a little to forcefully, and stood again to see Halcyone, Linda, and Phase approaching first.

"Good morning, children." He greeted them all at once, then added for Linda's benefit as Eir and Eli approached, "This is a casual meeting for me. I honestly don't give two shits in a side alley clinic about your uniforms, either, but I don't want to piss off all the queers running around with stripes on their sleeves so I guess I'll let you guys tool around in your color-coded bullcrap so they don't have an excuse to stop you in the halls and dress you down. Holding up my schedule and shit."

Finally, he accepted Eli and Eir's greetings.

"Welcome to duty, Smith. Put your punching face on, daughter o' mine, because you're about to use it." He told Eir, again clasping a rather forceful hand over her shoulder before turning to Eli and finally for once in his aggressive diatribes adopting something of a smile. He moved close to the chocolatey goodness that was Eli Garvey and put a hand around each of the soldiers biceps, pressing him back as if to look him up and down with a sense of amusement. "'Boss-man'?" He repeated, enunciating it very clearly with raised eyebrows. "Boss-man. You know what, son? You can fuckin' call me Kill. Hold onto that fucking attitude for as long as you're in my company, son, you're on the way to Corporal. Anyone gives you trouble, send 'em my way."

As an aside, as he backed away from Elias, he pointed at Eir and went on a bit, "I saw you pressing steel in the gym as I was walking by earlier, Smith. You're well on the way too, daughter. Just keep honing your killing form."

To Doctor Domicile, he did little more than grunt a greeting at the woman who'd so rudely de-cigared him the previous evening. He would've probably pointed out she was precisely one minute late, but there was a little empty wooden box back in his quarters where he typically kept the fucks he was meant to distribute.

He went back to his spot next to the airbike and began fooling around with his effects, preparing to start up his impromptu combatives course. There were whiteboards with techniques illustrated on them. In another history, he would've ran a martial arts studio with the tagline, 'Learn to kill like royalty.' A dark alternate history where the Red Faction won the Nepleslian civil war and all Nepleslian central planets were poorly policed by a weakened Yamatai struggling to recover from a devastating war with the Lorath-Abwheran Alliance. A dark alternate history, indeed.

While Commandant Black explored a slice of this wicked dimension, Cloudheart finally hopped down from her perch on the back of the airbike and touseled Alistair's hair while she approached Halcyone and Phase. "Good morning." She said to both of them, and then focused on Phase, but didn't leave Halcyone out of the conversation, "Did you see the work Gearhead Halcyone did on Harmony while the Nepleslians slept? Harmonious Solarsailor looks beautiful... But also, what've you got in your case, there?"

Nearby, a laundry technician pushing a hover-cart loaded down with folded canvas tarps recognized Beep and approached.

"Hey there, Beepmaster." He said, patting the massive war machine affectionately. They'd all began calling him 'The Beepmaster' over the course of the night. The laundry technicians praised his speed, efficiency, and ability to remove their workload completely to the point that they considered him some kind of stain removal messiah. This particular technician was named Simmons, and Beep would remember him as being the one who went out and found as much more dirty laundry as he could when, halfway through the shift Beep had neatly folded the entire night's work.

"Alright, children, close yer food kissers and gather around!" Commandant Black's voice cut through the reverie as quickly as people had broken off and started talking to one another. "Elway is on the bridge right now talking with some local commerce cops to see if there's anything nice for us to bust open. In the meantime, we're gonna partner up some of you noncombatants with marines and learn how to punch the crap out of each other. First off-- Who the fuck are you!?" Killroyal leveled a thick finger upon Simmons, who almost yelped instinctively.

"Petty Officer Simmons, sir!" He chanted back, throwing a salute to the overbearing officer.

"Get the fuck out of here, sailor!" Came the screeching interjection, Killroyal seeming to redden slightly.

"Yes, sir!" Simmons almost shouted, then turned on a heel and went back to pushing along his grav-pram.

"As I was saying..." Killroyal seemed to calm down instantly, gesturing to his illustrations, "First off, we'll be learning to throw off weighted attackers with a little use of our body as a simple machine. In this case, a lever. Your marine partner will--"

"Commandant Black." It was Elway, powerwalking across the floor. He'd donned a jet-black Raider armor, the stealth variant, and with the helmet under one arm and a flamethrower leaning over one shoulder he was making quite the ruckus as he stomped his way across the floor.

"Gods-be damned, Master Sergeant, if you interrupt me again--" Black started, clenching his fists.

"I found a ship for you." Elway interrupted him again, showing a fearless, almost bored face. "Actually, they've requested Harmonious Solarsailor by name for this one."

"Elwaaay...." Black growled back, eyes bulging, then blurted without changing his expression, "That is marvelous news! New plan, everyone, better plan!" Black clapped his hands and rubbed them together with an excited look about him. "Go suit up. Even you wireheaded 'Spacers. If you don't have impliments of murder, procure some from the armory. Everyone get in killing order and get back up here as soon as you can. Dis-fucking-missed!"

Immediately, Killroyal began stomping away and shouting at a nearby mechanic who'd failed to get out of sight in time. "Get me a shuttle to stick on top of this ship like they had last time, and grab something nice-- only the best for my children. And bring me that pair of pliers! I want a pair of pliers, you fuck, I told you that an hour ago!"

Before anything else could happen, Harmony chirped in, interrupting the Commantimidator's harassment of the unfortunate mechanic. "Commandant Black, if I may... Over the course of the night I have had a crew-compartment installed."

"Over the course of the night!? For fuck's sake, you Freespacers work fast!" Black turned and responded to the gunship without breaking tone or expression, as if his response were part of his rant at the technician. "Great, great. I love it. I was wondering why you got fat."

"I'm not--" Harmony started but was interrupted as Black's voice chased after the marines he'd just dismissed.

"Get your shit and get back quicker, one of your siblings is the family van, now, you adorable little shits!"
 
Alistair was crouched next to the bike. Black had placed a hand on his back with such force that it took all he had to not fall onto the Commandant's pride and joy. "Yeah, I can see what your talking about sir. Have you thought about adding some larger exaust ports, as well with a direct injecting coolant? That would cut down on the heat considerably." He said still admiring the bike.

He heard everyone walking up, and turned to face them all. That was when Cloudheart hopped off the bike and tussle his hair. Alistair smiled at her and stood up walking over to the rest of the group, standing next to Eli. Alistair didn't say anything as he walked up, but flashed him a friendly michevious grin.

Alistair was ready to start the hand to hand combat, when Elway arrived. As he heard that they got a ship to board, he was anxious to get started. He looked over at Eli and Eir, "Let go get suited up." He said taking off towards the Armory. His locket bouncing the whole way.
 
The voice of the technician caused the massive war machine to stop in its tracks for a moment, curiosity overtaking its digitized brain. Locating the source, an individual by the name of Simmons if it recalled, Beep started to give a customary wave of greeting before Killroyal gave his own greeting of sorts. With his acquaintance forcefully leaving Beep readjusted itself so that it could listen in on what the plan was for today, which involved a lot of whining servos as the hulking shape bent over.

Hearing the news to 'suit up' as it were, The large automaton made its lumbering way to the armory. It had to laugh at itself for a moment as the image of it trying to get into a small powersuit flashed across its memory banks but it shook it off as it let its mind wander on to better things.

"Beep"

It said to itself wondering if the ship had any better fabric softeners.
 
Phase watched the multiple interruptions to Black's with the constantly lit ovals for eyes on her screen, unblinking and. . . constant. At least, until they had a moment to respond to Cloudheart.

"Ah, you wish to meet my friend?" Phase asked the shorter one, cocking their head and ruffling the other spacer's hair - a surprisingly intimate gesture for one who hadn't even experienced a hug until the day previous. The larger body let the brick down onto the ground and several of the long panels cracked open, unfolding into legs as tall as Cloudheart was. "This is my dog-like-brick-with-legs-friend! I have no name for them, but they do a sim~ply fab~u~lous job of carrying my pets. You may pet it, if you so desire~"

Upon the announcement of a new task Phase tittered, with the back of their hand touching where their mouth would be.
"Ah, is it murder time fun time? I must have had my clock set wrong~!"

That of course, was a joke on the Type Four's part.
Phase was never off-time.

The larger body went straight for the armory, leaving Phase and the brick with legs with the remaining others.
"If it's pliers you seek, Commantimidator, all you had to do was ask~" they addresed, rubbing alongside the brick to open a panel - which featured, of all things, Yamataian gachapon eggs. The octahedron from earlier flew back to Phase and delicately attached the egg to one of its points, then flew back over to Killroyal with the egg gently dangling underneath it. Through the top half, he could see a pair of foldable pliers stored.

"Oh, doctor Domicile, you didn't tell me you had a drone friend as well!" Phase said. "I could make you an even better one, you know~"

All the meanwhile, the larger body raided the armory for something it could use, and something it could modify for use - in that order. Phase decided upon using the gun its users have affectionately dubbed "The Money Shot" for the former, and for the latter they picked a weapon that should have been for use on official frames only, but who cares about that baloney?

The monoeye of the tall frame watched Alistair as he entered for weapons.
 
Eli followed Alistair much the same way an undercover cop follows a perp in a bad movie, the two of them weaving their way through the press and throng of military personnel moving about the ship. They were moving at the curious military pace of 'with a purpose', not quite running, not quite walking, clearly trying to go somewhere with some intent.

Eli burst into the armory, immediately going to his gang-tagged Hostile and climbing in. There wasn't a lot of time to waste, if Commandant Black was any indication - they had to suit up and get going. He blazed through the pre-action functionality checks in record time, satisfied that his suit was apparently in perfect working order. He lifted his weapons off their racks, an HPAR rifle and as many grenades and spare magazines as his suit would let him mount.

He gave a thumbs up to Alistair. "Yo mon, I'm gon' head back to dem Commandant now. Don' be too long, seh yea."

He waved a silent greeting at Phase and the others, before ducking out of the armory and reporting back to their CO, ready to go.
 
As Alistair finally entered the armory he made his way to the Hostile suit he was in yesterday. As he stepped into it, his systems synced to the Hostile's computer instantaneously. That was when Eli looked over to him. "Don't worry, I'm on your six." Alistair said finishing a crash course of the power up and grabbing a Money Shot and an AS4GS Shotgun plus tons of ammo for both to boot.

He noticed Phase looking over at him. He turned and smiled. Ready for battle Phase?" He said with a smirk. Walking past the Freespacers as he moved to leave. He was ready to begin the combat exercise. It's the first te his team had ever seen him in combat.
 
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Linda was in some ways impressed, not by the meeting itself but how consistently the one normal think the Commandant tried to do was thrown into disarray, one could almost call it a talent. It was a shame though, taking a look at the illustrations it had seemed that it would at least be a satisfactory lesson for the newer ones present. Previously the Freespacers handled themselves just fine so Linda was hopeful that the new additions would do just as well.

The IPG operator made her way to the armory once more, moving over to her black Raider armor. She enjoyed the simple no nonsense approach to the suit, it would carry what you needed and nothing more. She quickly suited up and made sure both thigh launchers were stocked with DART missiles, she did not want to blow a hole in the ship they were on. Once again she chose the Light Coil Autocanon, favoring it's accuracy and smaller profile than the chain gun. To make up for her lacking power however she brought along a magazine of incendiary rounds and three magazines of HEAP rounds, the rest were normal slugs that she would use on things not so sturdy.

She made her way back once she was suited up, connecting the suit once more to the IPG network for intel and recording purposes. She did not need to record every single operation they did but it was something she had made a habit of and it made reports that much easier for her.
 
With the order to go and suit up, Dom moved to the Quartermaster's office. As Phase asked about her FARS unit, she would have looked annoyed if it wasn't for her full helmet, "No... You leave Sweety alone!." She may have miss understood what Phase meant.

Once she entered the Quartermaster's office she went right up to the main desk. Speaking up she made a request for a PA to suit her needs. With a few stated requirements, Dom left them to their work and went to go find some thing to munch on. After a bit she came back to the Quartermaster's office she saw what they had for her.

The thing they'd given Dom was hardly considered to be 'a fully combat-ready' Devestator. It was a stripped thing, but it was what she'd asked for and the suit techs in the armory had done the best they could for her on short notice; dashing about to scramble for tools while the other members of the team slipped into their own armors. Every weapon had been stripped in every sense of the word. The only way Dom would be hurting anyone with this armor would be to strike them with a closed fist. Admittedly, the closed fist of a Devestator was as powerful at full tilt as a rolling semi-truck.

She'd had her accessory slots filled with anything they could find of use for her. An engineering arm had been crudely cut and welded with medical implements, a drone launcher attached to the armor's bulky shield-mount. Riding where missile racks would normally set was a box which once held one-thousand rounds of 7.62KZ. Now, it was filled with the circular cushion from the armor's helmet storage case-- the improvised home for the good doctor's FARS unit. Finally, where before the left arm's power slot was waiting for a powerful plasma weapon, it was now serving as the power supply for the various bonesaws and sterilized hypospray nozzles that'd been previously knocking about in Domicile's medical bag; the hand left free for fine work. The quartermaster and the armorer had shared conspiratorial glances as they went about their work, as if the very act of stripping any semblance of weaponry were somehow forbidden sacrilege. Eventually, they named it an abomination and set their tools down, satisfied with having ruined a perfectly good weapon of war.

Once the techs finished their work on her new PA, Dom stepped up with a pair of spray paint cans, one pink and one with bright purple loaded up in it. She moved forward and started up the twin hisses with the skill only young teenagers possess. A pattern soon formed of tiger stripes, pink and purple strips broke up the Devistator's outline up. Then once she felt it was properly ‘tagged' she let it dry as she loaded her leather bag up with more bandages and patches. Once it's brown leather was stretching at it's seams she clipped it to the PA's waist. With a few orders to her FARS, it landed in the slot installed for it.
 
It couldn’t be more obvious at this point that their new commander did not care much for military protocol, possibly did not care much for the military at all. There were few people Eir had met that had ever lived up to having a strange name; they were usually just unfortunate victims of hipsters or the children of parents who read too much Gothic literature. Killroyal on the other hand was living up to his name pretty readily. His whole life seemed to revolve around air bikes and killing things. Incredibly enthusiastically killing things – and he was built to do so to, judging by the ham-like hand Killroyal used to clasp her shoulder.

There was a slight pause before Eir managed to respond to her seemingly impending promotion. “Thank you, Sir?” was the best she could come up with, though it came out more like a question then a statement. She was also beginning to wonder exactly what kind of circumstances had lead to Killroyal’s own promotions to Commandant.

Then he rattled off their orders and dismissed them to get their kit. She was somewhat surprised that Killroyal didn’t join them for this. There was no way a man with that kind of love for murder did not enjoy handling the tools of his trade. Perhaps he already had everything he needed or would be directing from the shuttle.

Eir turned and made her way quickly from the hangar and to the armory for the fourth time in two days.

Eir, upon reaching the armory, strode over to her Devastator. The thought that this one was hers made her smile. She placed a hand on it almost fondly before she started strapping weapons to it. This time around she swapped the Plasma Lance cannons on the backpack module for the 55mm Railguns. Without knowing what they are getting into she felt better having the flexibility the weapon provided, even if she had to willingly give up a bit of stopping power to make room for it. Next came the Doorbreaker; it was a staple of the suit as far as she was considered, the solution when you absolutely, positively had to make sure there was nothing left of your enemy. With a lot less consideration she strapped a Vibrosaw short sword to the suit. Eir liked to get in close, and sometimes you needed to have an answer if your enemies liked to get in closer still. In addition the amount of heavy weaponry she was already bringing, she loaded her DART system with the EDR-02a’s; it never hurt to soften up a target before going in for the kill. Last, but not least, came the Tower Shield. She would never understand a devastator pilot that would use the armor without one; it seemed core to its very design to her. As an afterthought she slapped a few scalar pulse grenades on, since it never hurt to have a nonlethal option kicking around.


The whole process was over fairly quickly but she made a point of not rushing herself. If they were going into a firefight, Eir was going to be good and ready. The last thing any Marine wanted was their equipment failing on them. Now that it was fully equipped, she got into the suit herself, relaxing a little at the familiar sounds of the startup sequence. As the suit readied itself, she looked over to Dom’s own devastator, catching sight of it just as the woman finished painting it. Eir shuddered at the desecration.

“You might want to at least grab something to defend yourself with,” she called over. “It looks like you’re really going all out playing Doc, but remember, you’re here to learn how to keep your space safe. Sometimes that means you have to get your hands dirty.” She gave a nod to the Doc and started back in the direction of the hanger, her heavy footsteps thudding off the deck.

Once more Eir entered the hangar at a jog, falling in behind the rest of her squad. She reported in as she stood behind Alistair and Eli. “Well, time to get back in to it!”
 
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