ON> Nepleslia
The dust sprinkled down all around, thousands of tons of concrete, pulverized by the force of the falling building and spread across the city. Occasional tanks and oversized Nepleslian soldiers trudged by in the snow banks of gray dust, many of them off in the distance. He could see a single tank on the street he was on, nonchalantly rolling over some poor guy's car.
Tommy began making his way toward the tank near him, occasionally coughing to expel the dust from his lungs. "Hey! A little help over here!" He shouted at the tank when he got to about 10 yards away from it.
The tank's gunner had the vehicle's 35mm chaingun trained on Tommy as the tank continued rolling toward him at about ten miles an hour, slowly but surely leaving a path through the dust and rubble. "Name six types of fish!" the gunner commanded him.
"What? You've got to be kidding me!" shouted Tommy as he holstered his pistol and began slowly backing up. "My chopper left without me! The Taii that dragged me here is dead! I've been shot in the arm! And you are gonna give me a biology quiz?! WTF, man!"
There was apparently some conversation that Tommy couldn't hear, as the gunner lifted his hand to his ear. Despite Tommy's failure to answer their question (which was aimed at seeing if he was human), his response was apparently adequate, much to the disappointment of the gunner, who would have preferred to keep the tank's interior clean and not miss the chance to shoot something. The tank's rear section popped a panel slightly open and a pair of goggled eyes peered out as the large vehicle halted. "Come on!"
Tommy quickly climbed inside the tank. "Thank you! Now, was that so hard? Heh, name six types of fi..." A stab of pain ran up Tommy's wounded right arm. He grimaced and stopped talking.
The dimly-lit interior of the tank was filled with the hum of the engines and the sounds of the turning wheels. He couldn't see the driver, but he could spot the engineer laying on his back on a blanket placed thick on the tank's floor and one of the 105mm gunner's feet hanging in the round passage up into the turret. It was quite cramped. "Honor to have an officer aboard," the engineer commented, fishing around in a small locker with his hands and getting out a TA-13 Medpac.
"I'm an embedded reporter, actually," said Tommy as he tried to get into a comfortable sitting position in the cramped space. "Ow! Dammit!" said Tommy as he looked down at his shotgun wound. "That zombie ruined a good shirt... Where are we headed, by the way?"
"You're the officer. We're just going around shooting these things," the engineer replied, tossing the medical kit to him.
"That's... interesting..." said Tommy as he opened up the medical kit and looked for the painkiller. "Well, I don't want to interrupt your, erm, mission, but I'm guessing that this tank needs to head back to the base eventually to reload and refuel." He said as he injected his arm with a syringe labeled "morphine". "Just drop me off at the base when you guys get there... I'll just sit here and try not to go into that bright white light..."
(Important OOC Note: Morphine is not usually found in TA-13 Medpacs.)
"It's okay. We'll go back now," the engineer told Tommy. He relayed the idea to the rest of the tank crew. At this point the main gunner started using the 105 cannon as an anti-personnel weapon, no longer caring about ammo conservation. The noise from the gun was pretty intense, and in between shots, Tommy could make out the 35mm chaingun sporadically firing as well. It made it sound like the tank had encountered something big, but in reality, it was just the tank operators unloading their remaining firepower with excessive force on any "enemy" they found on the way back.
"Daisy, Daisy, gimme your answer true..." The morphine in Tommy's bloodstream was beginning to kick in. "I'm half... crazy, just for the love of you..."
Tommy lost consciousness and woke up to find he'd been dumped in a makeshift military hospital in a small city of tents somewhere in the Uesureyan Fields military base, his wound covered by a stained bandage, and surrounded by a large number of injured soldiers and body bags. There weren't any beds, but there were small pastel-green blankets for people to lay on.
Tommy sat up and looked down at his shirt. The right sleeve had been cut off so that the medics could get to the wound. "Oh well. It was ruined anyway," he muttered as he looked about for a change of clothes, only to remember that he had left his duffel bag on the helicopter. He sighed as he got up and looked around at all the injured and dead soldiers, and then checked his belongings. His camera, miraculously, remained intact, as did his grandfather's pistol. One last cartridge of ammo remained on the ammo belt. Tommy shrugged and began making his way out of the tent, being careful not to step on anyone.
Outside, the scene was not chaotic, but very busy as soldiers flowed in for triage, and treated soldiers gathered around helicopters and tanks, some wearing bandages and going back into the harsh environment the city had become. There didn't seem to be many starships on the pad, and there wasn't an actual Star Army soldier in sight. All of these people were Nepleslians.
Tommy began checking the helicopters for his duffel bag. It wouldn't be a huge loss if the bag was lost, even though it had some nice clothes inside, but Tommy felt slightly ridiculous walking aroun in a shirt with only one sleeve.
The helicopter he'd flown on earlier wasn't that hard to find, since it had the pilot on top of it working on the damaged engines, making it one of the only ones there without its blades spinning. Unfortunately, the pilot told him the last thing Tommy wanted to hear. The bag had been left in the city to lower the helicopter's weight so that the damaged bird could make it back to the base. "Sorry," the pilot shrugged, and went back to work.
"Don't worry about it," replied Tommy with a sigh. He looked at the empty landing pad nearby and scratched his head. He really wanted to be on a freighter heading back home right now, so he could get something to eat and then sleep until the cows came home. The Star Army would probably understand if he took some days off from his reporting duties to recover from his gunshot wound. Suddenly getting an idea, he reached into his pocket and fished out a grimy data pad. The pad seemed to be chipped in several places and looked barely functional. Nevertheless, Tommy tried to get a list of flights headed to Yamatai to show up onscreen.
The shoddy internet on Nepleslia didn't even compare to the PANTHEON system's omnipresence on Yamatai. It took a minute or two for the pad to even find a wireless network signal, and when it did, no results on departing or arriving ships. It did list the ships currently here on the local map of the base that the pad automatically downloaded, though. The YSS Rave was nowhere to be found, but there were a few privately owned ships, and one of the five prototype Type 27 Nekovalkyrja Scout Ships was about to take off, apparently.
Tommy briefly wondered where the scout ship was headed for, but quickly decided that he should get off the planet before he got "drafted" again. He began heading for the Type 27 Scout Ship, using the map displayed on his data pad as a guide.
A black Mindy swooped out on the air with a whistling noise, and Tommy found himself flying across the Uesureyan fields with gloved fingers looped though his belt. The Type 27 Scout's bays engulfed him as the Mindy brought him aboard the ship while the ship was taking off. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who thought he needed to leave.
The dust sprinkled down all around, thousands of tons of concrete, pulverized by the force of the falling building and spread across the city. Occasional tanks and oversized Nepleslian soldiers trudged by in the snow banks of gray dust, many of them off in the distance. He could see a single tank on the street he was on, nonchalantly rolling over some poor guy's car.
Tommy began making his way toward the tank near him, occasionally coughing to expel the dust from his lungs. "Hey! A little help over here!" He shouted at the tank when he got to about 10 yards away from it.
The tank's gunner had the vehicle's 35mm chaingun trained on Tommy as the tank continued rolling toward him at about ten miles an hour, slowly but surely leaving a path through the dust and rubble. "Name six types of fish!" the gunner commanded him.
"What? You've got to be kidding me!" shouted Tommy as he holstered his pistol and began slowly backing up. "My chopper left without me! The Taii that dragged me here is dead! I've been shot in the arm! And you are gonna give me a biology quiz?! WTF, man!"
There was apparently some conversation that Tommy couldn't hear, as the gunner lifted his hand to his ear. Despite Tommy's failure to answer their question (which was aimed at seeing if he was human), his response was apparently adequate, much to the disappointment of the gunner, who would have preferred to keep the tank's interior clean and not miss the chance to shoot something. The tank's rear section popped a panel slightly open and a pair of goggled eyes peered out as the large vehicle halted. "Come on!"
Tommy quickly climbed inside the tank. "Thank you! Now, was that so hard? Heh, name six types of fi..." A stab of pain ran up Tommy's wounded right arm. He grimaced and stopped talking.
The dimly-lit interior of the tank was filled with the hum of the engines and the sounds of the turning wheels. He couldn't see the driver, but he could spot the engineer laying on his back on a blanket placed thick on the tank's floor and one of the 105mm gunner's feet hanging in the round passage up into the turret. It was quite cramped. "Honor to have an officer aboard," the engineer commented, fishing around in a small locker with his hands and getting out a TA-13 Medpac.
"I'm an embedded reporter, actually," said Tommy as he tried to get into a comfortable sitting position in the cramped space. "Ow! Dammit!" said Tommy as he looked down at his shotgun wound. "That zombie ruined a good shirt... Where are we headed, by the way?"
"You're the officer. We're just going around shooting these things," the engineer replied, tossing the medical kit to him.
"That's... interesting..." said Tommy as he opened up the medical kit and looked for the painkiller. "Well, I don't want to interrupt your, erm, mission, but I'm guessing that this tank needs to head back to the base eventually to reload and refuel." He said as he injected his arm with a syringe labeled "morphine". "Just drop me off at the base when you guys get there... I'll just sit here and try not to go into that bright white light..."
(Important OOC Note: Morphine is not usually found in TA-13 Medpacs.)
"It's okay. We'll go back now," the engineer told Tommy. He relayed the idea to the rest of the tank crew. At this point the main gunner started using the 105 cannon as an anti-personnel weapon, no longer caring about ammo conservation. The noise from the gun was pretty intense, and in between shots, Tommy could make out the 35mm chaingun sporadically firing as well. It made it sound like the tank had encountered something big, but in reality, it was just the tank operators unloading their remaining firepower with excessive force on any "enemy" they found on the way back.
"Daisy, Daisy, gimme your answer true..." The morphine in Tommy's bloodstream was beginning to kick in. "I'm half... crazy, just for the love of you..."
Tommy lost consciousness and woke up to find he'd been dumped in a makeshift military hospital in a small city of tents somewhere in the Uesureyan Fields military base, his wound covered by a stained bandage, and surrounded by a large number of injured soldiers and body bags. There weren't any beds, but there were small pastel-green blankets for people to lay on.
Tommy sat up and looked down at his shirt. The right sleeve had been cut off so that the medics could get to the wound. "Oh well. It was ruined anyway," he muttered as he looked about for a change of clothes, only to remember that he had left his duffel bag on the helicopter. He sighed as he got up and looked around at all the injured and dead soldiers, and then checked his belongings. His camera, miraculously, remained intact, as did his grandfather's pistol. One last cartridge of ammo remained on the ammo belt. Tommy shrugged and began making his way out of the tent, being careful not to step on anyone.
Outside, the scene was not chaotic, but very busy as soldiers flowed in for triage, and treated soldiers gathered around helicopters and tanks, some wearing bandages and going back into the harsh environment the city had become. There didn't seem to be many starships on the pad, and there wasn't an actual Star Army soldier in sight. All of these people were Nepleslians.
Tommy began checking the helicopters for his duffel bag. It wouldn't be a huge loss if the bag was lost, even though it had some nice clothes inside, but Tommy felt slightly ridiculous walking aroun in a shirt with only one sleeve.
The helicopter he'd flown on earlier wasn't that hard to find, since it had the pilot on top of it working on the damaged engines, making it one of the only ones there without its blades spinning. Unfortunately, the pilot told him the last thing Tommy wanted to hear. The bag had been left in the city to lower the helicopter's weight so that the damaged bird could make it back to the base. "Sorry," the pilot shrugged, and went back to work.
"Don't worry about it," replied Tommy with a sigh. He looked at the empty landing pad nearby and scratched his head. He really wanted to be on a freighter heading back home right now, so he could get something to eat and then sleep until the cows came home. The Star Army would probably understand if he took some days off from his reporting duties to recover from his gunshot wound. Suddenly getting an idea, he reached into his pocket and fished out a grimy data pad. The pad seemed to be chipped in several places and looked barely functional. Nevertheless, Tommy tried to get a list of flights headed to Yamatai to show up onscreen.
The shoddy internet on Nepleslia didn't even compare to the PANTHEON system's omnipresence on Yamatai. It took a minute or two for the pad to even find a wireless network signal, and when it did, no results on departing or arriving ships. It did list the ships currently here on the local map of the base that the pad automatically downloaded, though. The YSS Rave was nowhere to be found, but there were a few privately owned ships, and one of the five prototype Type 27 Nekovalkyrja Scout Ships was about to take off, apparently.
Tommy briefly wondered where the scout ship was headed for, but quickly decided that he should get off the planet before he got "drafted" again. He began heading for the Type 27 Scout Ship, using the map displayed on his data pad as a guide.
A black Mindy swooped out on the air with a whistling noise, and Tommy found himself flying across the Uesureyan fields with gloved fingers looped though his belt. The Type 27 Scout's bays engulfed him as the Mindy brought him aboard the ship while the ship was taking off. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who thought he needed to leave.
