RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 3.3] Winds of Change

Snapping a salute to the captain when he gave him his assignment a natural, " Aye-aye, sir." Followed as he preformed a near flawless about face and headed off in the direction of the other private, toward the combat sim. Now away from the captain, Alrik couldn't help but admire his prosthetic arm and wonder at the abilities it possessed. His own body had been augmented when he was a young man, particularly for the dangerous nights and keeping up with the speed of computer processing. Yet, once he earned enough money, Alrik planned to augment his body further.

Pushing his feet to move faster, he eventually caught up with the other private. " Private Murinae," he spoke with a small beat in his tone, different from his disciplined and monotone response to the captain. " I'm Private Third Class, Alrik Wolf. It's good to meet you," he gave a small smirk of his lips passing for a friendly smile.

Punctuality, she had always tried to maintain some sense of it. Whether it was showing up a few minutes early on the drill grounds or simply beating last call at the bar. However, today...well today she was running a bit late. As her cab pulled up to headquarters she practically threw her wallet at the driver before kicking the door open and hustling out. In a matter of seconds she had her duffel over her shoulder and cap on her head as she straightened her uniform ever so slightly. Then khaki boots were slamming against the pavement as she did her best attempt to do something between speed walking and a full out run.

It took a few minutes, and then a few more until she finally made her to the receptionist for the 4th fleet. "Hello, private 3rd class Rana Kalev reporting," she said politely as she presented her datajockey. Hopefully, they hadn't been expecting her to be that early. "I'm here for my assignment."

It felt like a scene right out of a movie as Cedric stepped out of the taxi in front of 4th Fleet HQ. He gave the building a good look-over before he reached back in to the taxi. It was there where he retrieved a single "Marine green"-colored personal backpack and his standard issue duffel bag. Both of those were packed to the brim with all sorts of things: personal items, standard-issue equipment, and exactly one metric shit-ton of things he had brought with him from the Sapper Training School. Coins, certificates, and all sorts of other things that he had been given for being the leading force in founding the school itself. He had enjoyed all of that, of course, but now it finally felt good to be heading back home where he belonged.

4th Fleet was his home.

Turning away from the taxi, Cedric stopped in mid-step as a young female Marine came blazing past him in a weird combination of walking and running with her duffel bag that made it look sort of like an odd hobbling motion. He wasn't too far behind her: opting to take his time with a quick range-walk to the doors. Once he was through, he made his way past all the blue uniforms that were hustling around, and made his way through the chaos to the front desk. He arrived not far behind the female who had gone hobbling past him and stood in front of the desk just as the winded Private introduced herself to the receptionist.

"Relax, kiddo!" Cedric chuckled, "If you aren't careful, you may just give yourself an aneurysm if you don't watch out!"

With a smile and nod of his head to Private Kalev, Cedric presented his own Datajockey to the receptionist.

"Staff Sergeant Cedric Sommerville, reporting as ordered."

Cadet Larsen barely kept a frown from his face. It was like this everyday. New Marines, new sailors, new files. It never ended!

"Private...Kalev and Sergeant Sommerville." Why did 4th Fleet get all the weird names? Valken, Ironside, Volkov and now Kalev... Could this day get any worse for Cadet Larsen.

"Both of you are to report to Captain Murdoch. Staff Sergeant, I see you were with the Fleet before Rear Admiral Valken took over from Admiral Wazu. Probably best to speak to Captain Murdoch if you have questions. He's the one with the cybernetic arms and sharp fingers. Be careful with Captain Murder, we've had a lot of fresh recruits from Boot and a few of them seem to have gotten him pissed. We're hoping to go 48 minutes with him yelling at someone."

Larsen handed back their datajockeys and pointed to Captain Murdoch.

The Staff Sergeant's advice fell on deaf ears as she waited for her orders. Though when he finally approached the desk as well she began to reconsider the idea. So he was a staff sergeant? Well he certainly fit the usual description for one. He was huge, and had a grizzled look to him. Of course, the eye helped as well. Still she saluted all the same as he came by as she had been drilled to do. "Sir, excuse me for earlier," she said with all the practiced politeness that a new marine was supposed to have.

"Thank you cadet, I'll be on my way then Staff Sergeant," she said as she excused herself with another quick salute. Captain "Murder", that certainly had a pleasant ring to it. She had heard the name before, but honestly didn't know much else. Something about his brutality? Still, he was her superior officer now, right? She didn't get to choose, and so she was off.

Her boots met the tiled floor at a much more reasonable pace this time around as she went off in the pointed direction. Her duffel was still slung over her should filled to the brim with just about everything she owned. Not that it was much, but a pleased smile was on her face all the same. She had made the 4th fleet after all, and that was certainly something to be proud of.

It took a bit more time than she liked, but she eventually found who she assumed to be Captain Murdoch. A few run ins with busy clerks had slowed her down, but she had gotten here all the same. As she approached she'd offer a salute before coming to full attention. "Rana Kalev, private 3rd class. I've been reccently assigned to 4th fleet, and have been told to report to you, sir," she said in that military disciplined tone.

Sebastien would give little more then a backwards glance and, with obvious disinterest in his voice, a simple "Yeah.". It was nothing against Alrik but at this particular point in time Sebastien was very likely incapable of caring less who he was.

Sure there were times when Sebastien could be social and even warm, and more often then not he was always interested on who was whom and whatever secrets those people may have which of course meant acting interested. This just wasn't either of those times.

So falling once again silent unless once again spoken to, Sebastien would do has Captain Murdock has instructed and make his way inside and eventually downstairs to where he'd find the aforementioned techies with which he'd speak to about getting in a PA combat sim.

Despite outward appearances which might seem, at least to Alrik, that Sebastien was either simply unpleasant or just in some sort of bad mood the reality was he was quite happy to be going into a PA sim. When you have the interest in tech that he did there was little better then being encased in a suit of the stuff at your command.

Secretly he hoped for an AIR over a Hostile though he knew its overall weaknesses vs the Hostile but just like in life he liked to be light on his feet and move quick and while the hostile could deliver the AIR was able to deliver in spades. Really though he entirely expected to get stuck in a Hostile sim and would be quite content with that.

Sebastien's biggest concern rather was having to do this sim with Alrik. It was not that Sebastien felt one way or the other about him but there was this nagging feeling he had that the sim could go better with someone else.

Kurt moved from his position of covering the hallway down to the next room where Tyrellius was, keeping his rifle trained down the hallway while moving to him. Stacking up behind Tyrellius, Kurt looked back at Lisa, pointed at her legs and them back to the door, indicating he wanted her to kick the door open for them and then resume covering the hallway.

He then tapped Tyrellius on the shoulder and pointed down the hallway, indicating that he should cover the hallway while Lisa breached the door for them.

Keeping his hand on Tyrellius' shoulder and staying very close to him, with his rifle hovering and pointing above Tyrellius' shoulder, Kurt stood there and waited for him to give the nod that he was ready to go.

"Wait, fuck." Kurt whispered, "Which side of the room are you going to take?"

Captain Murder?

The name seemed imposing enough, though Cedric had never heard of the man. Of course, Cedric had also spent the last several weeks working busily on founding an entire school of training. So it wasn't like he had always been up to speed on the news while he was away. Hell: 4th Fleet alone proved that. When he had last been in, he had been under the guidance of a crazy neko mercenary, and being given orders by a pill-poppin' old man with a cane. Now there had apparently been a change in management since he had been away and he was quite honestly being thrown for a loop by this sudden change of environment. Of course, if there was one thing that any true Nepleslian loved (outside of beer and fine women), then it was a good challenge. So with a smile and polite nod, Cedric took back his DataJockey, and let Private Kalev lead the way as they set out to find the Captain.

After making their way through and past several legions of rushed and disheveled sailors, they finally found the man they were looking for. He was standing out amongst the rest, barking orders angrily at sailors rushing around from place to place, and he had his large cybernetic arms crossed in a seemingly threatening manner.

Cedric could take him.

He didn't know why the thought had entered his mind, but he felt as if he would beat the sailor in a fight. Maybe it was the Navy blues that made him think that? Oh well.

Holding out his DataJockey once more, Cedric gave a quick salute, "Sir. Staff Sergeant Cedric Sommerville reporting for duty. The Fine Arts Academy finally let me go so I could ply my trade out in the field again."

Lisa sighed and looked at ceiling. With the ways things were going on now, they will all go back to basic. "Fuck you both! Kurt you go left, Tyr you go right. Let's do it!" She said, aimed her gun at the lock and shot short burst while being careful to not hit her teammates. She then gave doores swift kick neer the handle, so guys could breach it while she got out of their way.

(Rana)

Captain Murdoch took Rana's datajockey and read it silently. "Not exactly the typical Marine we get. We need shooters on the frontline, not babysitters. Lots of those squiddy Nekos are born thinking we're the bad guys and are out to rape them? They get a rifle shoved into their hands and told to go fight. They may look like adults but most of the ground troops aren't more than a year old. Can you rip their throats out before they rip yours out?"

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(Sebastien & Alrik)

One of the techs guided Sebastien and Alrik to a pair of large blocky simulators and pointed them to the ladders on each. The two Marines duly climbed up to the top of the simulator and saw a hatch.

They slid down into their respective cockpits. It was all black and they were snug inside, like when they were wearing a real Power Armor.

In their cockpits, a female technician spoke in a monotone voice, like she was reciting a well known script for the umpteenth time. "These simulators will reflect the movements of your Power Armor and will respond likewise. If you take damage in the simulator, the simulator will reflect that in your systems and movement. Despite Captain Murdoch's insistence, we have yet to find a way to simulate the pain. Though, we do encourage screams of pain as they make good viewing."

Suddenly, the Heads Up Displays lit up with start up diagnostics just like the real thing. Both of them were "assigned" the signature Nepleslian Hostile, armed with the standard HPAR and ARROW calf launchers.

"Both of you are stranded behind Squiddy lines. Your objective is to head 10KM through the NMX pursuers towards the nearest friendly position. You may use whatever means necessary. The program terminates when both of you reach safety or if one of you dies. This scenario is based on true events. You may begin."

The surrounding area was wooded as far as they could see and their sensors were clean, for the moment. Shields at full, ammunition at full, and an objective marker was on their HUD. The suit's system had no map of the local area.

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(Cedric)

Murdoch turned to face Cedric. Ah, so this was the one who hadn't been there when the sudden orders for Admiral Wazu's replacement arrived. Murdoch had read the file for this one, and all other current Marines in 4th Fleet. Promoted far more rapidly than necessary to a leadership position. Unorthodox and possibly dangerous.

Marines didn't become Sergeants because they were great fighters. Only those who showed some leadership capabilities were given the chance to rise. Otherwise, the Corps ran the risk of promoting some bloody minded idiot who would get the squad killed, wasting the millions of DA poured into their training and equipment. At least, that was the Corps Murdoch had served in before transferring to the Navy.

"Sergeant Sommerville. I don't need to see your orders. Wait for me to finish with Private Kalev and then we will talk. Admiral Valken has something he wants me to tell you."

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(Fun House)

Lisa's shot blew out the lock and the door swung back slightly from the force. The sound of a paintball gun firing echoed, quickly followed by the sound of those paintballs breaking against the wooden door. If those had been real shots, the bullets would have gone right through the door.

If she had heard it once, she had heard it a million times before. Yes, her background was...different when compared to what you usually got in the marines, but did that make her any less of a fighter? She may not have been born with absolutely ruthlessness or cold nature that many a soldier had, but she had finished the basic training like the rest of them. Yet every time it was the same damn question. “Could you kill?” they always asked her time and time again.

“Sir! I’m here to get the job done, sir!” she barked out in the way she had been doing for months now as she stayed at attention. Her body was stock still and her breath slow and calm as she kept her eyes set straight ahead. In truth though, could she? Even now she could remember the colourful lies that she had told her siblings when she left. War wasn’t a game, she knew that. Her parents had drilled that into her ever since she brought up the topic of enlisting. She had seen the way they mourned during reunions with their units, and she had noticed those odd tremors they had from time to time. Was she ready to get the job done? “And if that requires to rip out a throat I will do so, sir!”

Once inside the simulation machine, Alrik began to go over the system information by himself when the simulation started up. A mecha infantry program, Alrik did not like these. He was a man who believed in the power of the single individual not the huge machine wrapped around him, but he would attempt to complete the simulation. Hopefully with no casualties on his end and reaching the targeted area swiftly. 10KM away though, that's a distance and a half.

After finishing his inspection of the unit, he would take his comms and signal over to Sebastien, " Private, we're going to cut comm use for the time being. Use hand signals and minimal sensors until we're farther away from the starting zone, chances are they know we're here, so we need to move quickly and get away from this area." With that, Alrik would cut of the use of his comms and turn the sensors to a minimal ping, hoping to avoid detection by the enemy.

Quickly and quietly was a matter much different in a mech than that of a normal nepleslian body, but Alrik would attempt to use his survival abilities and his training in guerrilla tactics to guide the two away from the starting point and towards the end point, while keeping an eye out for enemies and staying hidden. His hand signals would tell Sebastien to keep an eye on the left side, while he covered the right. Hopefully, his leadership abilities would help in this situation.

Tyrellius, having been standing right where Lisa had said, felt his blood quicken at the sound of firing inside the room. There was a real target in there! "Good thing we didn't go kicking that one down," he said. Of course the door was still shut. Glancing at the other two, he reached out and pushed it open, making sure to stay back by the wall, out of line of fire of the weapon inside. As the door swung open he raised his weapon at the edge of the door frame and fired into the room.

Damnit, Kurt swore to himself, still behind Tyrellius and now aiming his rifle down the hallway.

Now we're going to be pinned down outside this fucking room trading shot with whatever's in it, giving the guys in the rooms further down to prepare. Fuck this, I'm getting myself shot.

Kurt would attempt to shove Tyrellius against the wall next to them, and raising his rifle at the door, moved slowly in a wide arc towards Lisa, advancing extremely slowly while "slicing the pie" of the room.

So the rumors that had been drifting around were true.

Cedric had to stop himself from rolling his eye at the naval officer's words.

There had been rumors, though very sparse and vague, that "certain NCOs" would be getting a "talking to" in 4th Fleet. Since Cedric had been one of two NCOs who worked with Admiral Wazu in 4th Fleet, unless Phaedra had seriously messed up then they most likely meant Cedric. So he had done his best to silence all of those rumors up until the very last day he was there and they said the school was stable enough for him to go back to his unit. However, on the entire way back he hadn't thought about this. As far as he had been concerned, it was just some young private with a mouth too big for his own good. He doubted that anything was going to happen.

Yet now the new Admiral had a message for him.

Amazing how an Admiral would actually manage to squeeze time for a lowly little man like Cedric in to his schedule.

Returning his DataJockey to his pocket, Cedric watched in silent patience as the Captain worked out the Private's orders. She responded to his questioning bravely enough: with a typical attitude of brutality that all the green Marines carried with them (though some carried it with them during their entire time in the Corps). She seemed to be dedicated enough to the cause, or at least dedicated enough to make it through boot camp, and that in itself was saying something.

Cedric shifted his thoughts from concerning himself with the Private and looked to the Captain once more.

((Rana and Cedric))

"Good, very good. There's a couple of jokers running a PA combat sim two floors below. Tell the techs that I've ordered you to join the exercise as an NMX pilot. You can respawn as many times as you want, they can't. But I don't suppose it needs saying how it'll reflect on you if it takes you too many tries. Dismissed, Private."

Murdoch waved Rana away and motioned for Cedric. "My office, Sergeant." He led Cedric into a small, surprisingly well-kept office separate from the others.

"Coffee? Rum? Whiskey?" Murdoch offered, his tone slightly friendlier, his back to Cedric as he pulled out a couple glasses. The big Navy Captain turned to face Cedric and saw the look on the Marine's face.

"You think I led you here because you're in some trouble? That the Admiral wants you strung up and tried as a conspirator for something?" he asked seriously.

A moment passed before Murdoch snorted with a chuckle. "Marines get denser and denser as they accumulate more lead," he said, "Admiral Valken doesn't play politics like Admiral Wazu so whatever shit you were doing before, you can forget about it. If it wasn't for the Tange mission, 4th Fleet would be hitting the NMX where they're soft and squishy."

Murdoch eyed the still-silent Staff Sergeant. "Admiral Valken wants you to design two special explosives for him. First, a breaching charge to blow open a hole in a starship's hull or airlock large enough for PA to get in but not big enough to cause significant structural damage. Second, a small explosive that doesn't do much damage to anything. The Admiral wants to play merry hell with the bad guys, small bomb, big loud bang to scare 'em. We've got enough bombs to kill, he wants a bomb to scare them, strike terror into those squids. Because if we get the squids afraid, then everyone else will start to fearing us."

Murdoch didn't mention who "everyone else" was and waited for Cedric to reply.

'Of course I'd end up with one of those types.' Sebastien would think to himself with a heavy sigh as Alrik shows he not only has a talent for stating the obvious but for assuming no one else knows it. At least in Sebastien's mind. To top it off he also assumed he was calling the shots. Sebastien knew there was reason he didn't particularly like this fellow right off the bat, aside from being a prison rat, and this seemed to just show why.

However Sebastien didn't care enough to say anything and it could have been worse. At least it was sign this wasn't Alrik's first sim.

So following suit, so to speak, Sebastien likewise switched into silent running and took point behind Alrik's simulated Hostile.

Though given that given the speeds their 'suits' could go, 10k was not all that far and Sebastien would rather make a run for it. Not a mad run but a run none the less. The idea of slowly trapesing about with minimal sensors wasn't his idea of fun.

"Yes, sir," she said stiffly before offering one final salute, as it seemed she was dismissed. With duffel bag still over her should she turned about and quickly began to make her way towards...well assumingly the PA combat sim. Admittedly the directions were a bit vague, but if she couldn't figure out this how was she ever supposed to do anything in the field? Though speaking of the field...she really didn't know how to pilot a NMX unit.

Oh, it wasn't that she didn't know about them, but rather...well they only really taught her how to handle the Hostile and Aggressor platform in live fire exercises. Well as she thought about it further, perhaps that was why she had been allowed unlimited respawns? It certainly made sense. The first few tries would certainly expect to see her struggling to walk if she went with the Ripper, but the Daisy or Mindy? It'd certainly be either acquainting herself with either of those models. Though even as the options went through her head, her feet carried her onwards and forwards. Another flight of stairs, a left at a hallway, and she barely noticed when she arrived at the simulator room.

"Hello, I am Private 3rd Class Kalev. I've been ordered to enter the ongoing simulation as a participant on the NMX side by Captain Murdoch."

One of the techs, a woman in Navy blue, pointed Rana to another blocky simulator further away from the ones being used by Alrik and Sebastien.

When she was inside, the instructor, a man, spoke into her radio. "You'll be piloting captured Nepleslian units. Usually a Hostile, though we may throw you an Aggressor if you're too slow taking them down. That, of course, lowers your score since they're already pretty handicapped. NMX chatter will be in your radio. Your call sign is X1, if you die, you become X2 and so on. Your AI commanders will issue orders and while we suggest following most of them, nothing's stopping you from doing your own independent stuff. Have fun."

The Heads Up Displays started flashing on, going through the list of start up checks. Right away, Rana noticed that the suit was damage, with minor redundant systems offline and the shields were half charged.

"All K squad units, continue herding them towards us. C and D squads, be ready. X1, they're 300 metres to your front. Link up with F squad and attack them head on. Either slow them down or get them to split!"

Rana's screen gave her all the information about NMX unit displacements.

Cedric gave a small smile, "Well sir, I've always had a habit of not totally trusting people who get paid more than me, so you'll have to forgive me."

From that point, he simply stood at parade rest and listened to the Captain tell him about what he wanted. A breaching charge oriented towards space, and what was essentially a really big flash-bang grenade. The first one wouldn't be very hard: just making a large breaching charge that could stick to something in a vacuum. The second one would be a little more difficult: making a bomb that makes a lot of noise, light, and visual attraction without really damaging much. Cedric fished in one of his cargo pockets and retrieved his DataJockey from earlier. Searching his various 'apps', Cedric found the very program he was looking for. It was a 3D drawing tool he had gotten when he had first graduated from demolitioinist training. He had always kept it close at hand, yet it hadn't seen use until he had been designing new courses for the "Fine Arts" Academy. It seemed he finally had an actual use for it.

"Well, sir. You've come to the right person if you want those designs. I'll get working on them and try to get them to you by the end of the day if that's okay with you."