RP: NSS Acadia [Post Mission 1]: Shore Leave

Reflected sunlight from Roger-Wilco's skyscrapers shone in through the window. Elite offices, high-class apartments and cutting edge research labs with their window panes polished to a mirrored finish jutting out of the clouds over the 303 square mile mega-city. Though this was not all it was of Roger-Wilco, as the shuttle descended, it became clear that the cloud was a layer of smog emitted by the many factories down below. Production has ramped up from start of the many wars the SAoN was committed to, but to the bars, stores and other businesses in the Urban Sprawl of RW, it was business as usual.

"Welcome to Roger Wilco City!"

The shuttle landed just outside the walled perimeter of the inner city, other shuttles bound for various parts of Nepleslia were also present in this predesignated spot. Large billboards advertising medical tourisim and top grade cybernetics lined the area. There was a large gate with guards that only allowed people with the necessary clearances to pass on to the Upper Haven, Doctorate or Hallowed Grounds. Directly opposite was a freeway leading deeper into the Urban Sprawl.

Fian got off the transport and stretched to the best of his ability. This done, he observed the billboards and its many offers and promises with interest. "Hmm..."

"Heh, The Butcher Squad; Mass Murder, done just the way you like it..." smirked Phaedra in an attempt to lighten the mood. It reminded her of an ad for Neppies she had seen in the vids.

(waiting to see how Amelia reacts)

Viktor nodded with understanding. "I know precisely what you mean." And then they were landing. Viktor made it a priority to be one of the first few off. First order of business off the shuttle? Pull out a cigarette, yank the tab, and take a deep draw. As exhaled, he felt much of the tension leave his body. Now freed from his need to be courteous, he could unwind. Looking around, he really wasn't sure what to do, so he waited for Harrison to get off before asking, "So, suggestions?"

At first, he wasn't really sure why he chose to ask Harrison, but after thinking about it he supposed it was because twice in the last mission they'd been partnered up. The first time had happened rather naturally, but the second had also been Viktor's choice. He wasn't sure why, but Viktor just felt naturally friendly toward the ex-mercenary. He decided to leave it at that for now.

Echo climbed off the shuttle and surveyed the area for threats immediately. His eyes scanned the horizon like an eagle's, waiting for something to twitch in just the wrong way. Yet, when nothing seemed to strike out at him, he relaxed slightly.

With an eye trained on those around him, Echo released his subconscious grip on his pistol and smiled. At least it was a nice day outside, maybe he'd enjoy himself here. Well...that is, of course, if anyone actually cares about me...which is doubtful. Oh well.

"I think there was a conference going on" Trey noted to Lilly distractedly, reading his paper again.

When the Shuttle landed, Trey got up and walked toward the exit, muttering "Later" to the woman whom had sat next to him. He headed straight for the gate into the upper portions of the city, getting in the short line to go through, fiddling in his pockets for his pass into the area, He should have it, but was having trouble finding the darn thing.

Lilly gave a dull "Oh." to Trey's brief reply. She barely had time to shove the datajockey back into her uniform pocket before Trey got up and hurried out. She hesitated, but instinctively lagged after him. When he finally paused at the end of a line, she leaned towards him. "Um, Mister Trey, I really don't mean to be a nuisance, but, well..." She stuttered off course for a moment, unsure where she was going with this. "Well, you see... I'm not really comfortable alone. Do you suppose I could perhaps come meet your family? I'd love to meet them. I mean, if you thought that was alright..." Her sentence trailed off into space...

Anselm got off the shuttle and drew more looks, this time he really didn't care, the news of the Yammie starbase in orbit was more important "Sir," he addressed the Master Cheif "respectfully, I'll be tagging along until the situation in orbit resolves" by resolves he meant went away, the albino didn't really care how, but he wouldn't feel comfortable enjoying his leave until it did, unfortunately for the Master Cheif.

Harrison climbed off the shuttle, with his hands in his pockets and his face taking in the cool breeze. Although it was far from pollutant-free, the air was much fresher than Funky City's or Los Apagos'. The old merc savored the feel of the cleaner air before he walked over to Trey.

"Same goes for me, provided you don't mind that I'm gonna tag along too."

"Fffuck, that was a long fucking ride." The Chief turned his DataPad off, which on its screen displayed the notification of Pisces appearing in Nepleslian space. According to this new notification, the Chief had a good idea of where to expect their new deployment, and all hopes of having a good shore leave were dashed as a result. Lighting up a cigarette, the Chief immediately started to exit the shuttle, before stopping in the middle of an aisle to receive a message.

You shit head! Where the fuck did you go?! The shuttles left, you bastard!

Click to expand...

"Ha ha, oh fuck." The Chief took a good drag of his cigarette and lit up yet another, hustling his way out of the shuttle. The Chief knew that he saw Master Chief Vel Steyr on board the shuttle, and it took him a good 10 minutes to locate the MC and run up behind him.

"Sir, Staff Sergeant DeCane has missed the shuttle. What with the current situation with the station appearing in our space, I'd like it if at least a few of us stayed behind to wait for our highest-ranking medic to join us." The Chief had not bothered saluting the MC, based on the urgency of the situation, and the fact that only a year ago, he used to outrank him.

Fian nodded at Chief Ran's request. The MC felt the whole saluting thing to be rather impractical at the squad level, but to please the brass, he would require them to salute in the presence of a more superior officer, and for the greenhorns until they got bored of it. "I'll wait here for Adrian then. The rest of you, quickly buy a shiny new gun or gadget or something, don't waste the precious undetermined time we have left and make this shore leave worth at least something. I have a feeling it'll be our last for a while."

A chuckle escaped his lips. "Just wait till I tell him to get back on the shuttle because we're leaving immediately."

Viktor was about to offer himself to stay behind, but hearing Fian's suggestion to go out and enjoy the time, he decided to do just that. "Enjoy, guys." He gave a wave of the hand over his shoulder as he headed down the street. He was just going to play it be sight, really. Viktor just walked, examining all the advertisements and people, searching for something to really catch his eye.

At last he came upon a rather humble gun shop and smith. He crossed the street quickly and stepped inside. Almost immediately, he found what he wanted: Tiger's Tears. He inquired for an appropriate scope to fit the weapon, and exchanged the 1300 DA for the pair of items when he realized a holster would be handy, not to mention some ammo. At that realization, he decided he might as well purchase a jacket to go along with it. So he added 200 DA to that, and took his time to organize all of it.

The chest holster went on first, and the Tiger's Tears fit snugly to Viktor's right side. The jacket came next, and finally the extra ammunition was pocketed therein. Realizing which side the weapon was on, he remembered one of his personal quirks. When wielding firearms, he was left-handed, but when piloting a Power Armor, he preferred his right hand. It was quite the oddity, and he smirked at the thought. His purchase secured, Viktor thanked the man behind the counter and headed to rendezvous with Fian. He had nothing better to do, and no one had joined him on the short venture. Soon enough he had arrived at Fian's side. "Figured I'd keep you company; nothing better to do, anyways." Upon finishing the sentence, a fresh cigarette was drawn from its packaging, the tab yanked, and the first breath inhaled. Exhalation followed shortly thereafter.

Petty Officer Suku Matsobuki cracked her neck as her shuttle landed at the landing area outside Roger Wilco. She had unwisely chosen to nap in an awkward position on the trip over to the city and now had an uncomfortable crick in her neck. It began to aggravate her, making her emit a low-growl which seemed to cause the man next to the Medical Officer make some distance between her and himself. When the shuttle was ready to disembark, Suku hopped up quickly, brushing past a few people and shoving one to get off as quickly as she could.

When her Navy shoes hit the flat paved ground, she unbuttoned her Navy jacket and untucked the white shirt underneath. She made a burdened sigh as she pulled off her blue garrison cap and fanned herself with it.

"You think if these assholes could figure out fucking FTL travel, they could make a god damn working Air Conditioner!" muttered the sweaty Geshrin angrily. She wiped some of the perspiration off her forehead with a gloved hand.

When she felt cool enough, she stuffed her cap under her belt and took a short look around. Nothing seemed all that interesting at first, until she spotted a group of Marines disembarking at one shuttle. She squinted her eyes to see if she could recognize any of the Marines, though could not see any familiar ones.

Then, she spotted a shuttle not too far off that seemed to be dropping off another group of Marines. She tried to focus her vision to see if she could recognize any of them. By a stroke of luck, one of the first was easy to recall. Fian Vel Steyr, the handsome boyish pilot from the Alliance.

Suku smiled giddily, about to hop over and make herself known to the man. Though, as she started to walk over, she stopped suddenly, noticing that she didn't look her best. She quickly used her garrison cap to wipe off most of the excess sweat. Then, tried to straighten and flatten her jacket and shirt, attempting to become as presentable as possible. She straightened her hair a little bit and gave herself the green light.

Though, she frowned as she turned and saw that Fian wasn't as easy to spot as before, but still targetable. Worse yet, she thought she saw Ran, someone who still owed her a pair of light blue panties.

This, however, didn't break her stride as she called out to Fian.

"Fian!" Suku said, loud enough for most of the shuttle landing area to hear. When she found herself close enough to the Master Chief, she asked, "Well, you're looking good." The former-nurse apparently neglecting, or bothering to recognize anyone else around.

Harrison looked around the group of soldiers that he had travelled with for a while, looking them over as if checking them for potential ability in combat. It was then that he noticed a new face closing in.

If it weren't for the emerald-green hair and Navy uniform, Harrison may have overlooked the new arrival as another recruit arriving on the planet to go on shore leave. However, he recognized the angry, borderline-murderous Suku Matsuboki almost unfailingly, and decided to turn towards Chief Rui.

"Ran," Harrison said quietly, "Your girlfriend from the Alliance just showed up. You might want to make yourself scarce..."

Amelia raised an eyebrow with a mild perplexed expression. "As long as you don't mind it, I suppose." She seemed distracted. Noticably in her metal hand she held a small flat device, which was the cheap way to carry data. What it was of, it was hard to tell. But she apparently planned to do something with it.

They began to walk through an area where a shift in the ground had brought down a small section of the city. The ruins were eerily quiet, despite the random homeless people huddled underneath whatever piece of debris they could find. "By the way, I'll thank you to not make judgements on who I'm meeting with. At least not until he leaves." Amelia informed her as they approached a building that still had a roof, even though a wall next to the door had been knocked out. She slowly stepped over the rubble and moved towards the opening.

Anselm's nostrils flared "Navy-", months of training and indoctrination kicked in and the albino snapped into a perfect salute "Ma'am." He looked a bit ridiculous standing there in his flight shorts on the dusty street saluting this naval officer while everyone else seemed to either tense up or not respond to the green-haired woman's presence, Anselm just prayed she wouldn't let him stand there and cramp up, but she probably would.

"Umm... I guess, if you don't mind kids. They may be a little shy though." Trey said, considering for a moment how his family would react to a woman following him home, but then he remembered that they knew that even if he managed to be stupid enough to cheat, he wasn't stupid enough to bring such a lecherous thing home.

By the time They made it to the front of the short line, he had found the card giving him clearance to the upper wards of the city, and, showing it to the guard, was let through. After convincing the guard that lilly was a guest of his, she was allowed to pass, as well. Once on the other side, he quickly pocketed the ID card and went about searching for a taxi or something to take them to his house. It would be nice to surprise his family, after the several months he had been away, even if he had another marine tagging along like a lost puppy.

Phaedra frowned when her attempt at conversation did not quite come out the way she intended. After Amelia's indifferent and somewhat distracted reply, Phaedra realized there was nothing particularly interesting about herself that she could use to continue a conversation. She doubted that Amelia would want to "swap stories" or any of the like; not that Phaedra had anything interesting to tell her back.

"Or I could tell her about that one time where I lead my team into an ambush...on a training mission.
Yeah...that would go over well..." she sighed.

Phaedra noticed that they were now in a rather run-down part of the city, as if it had never been cared for. She corrected herself as they travelled further; it looked like this place had either been hit from an earthquake or been heavily bombarded.

"How could they allow this part of the city to fall into such disrepair?" wondered Phaedra. It was then that Amelia mentioned something about the person she was meeting; she said "not to make judgments."

"Yes Ma'am...er Amelia," said Phaedra, still adjusting to the loosened formality of shore leave. She stepped carefully to avoid tripping on the rubble that covered the ground; she refused to make any more of a fool of herself today. Considering the instances that she made a fool of herself coincided with the times that she opened her mouth; Phaedra resigned herself to simply listening to Amelia as they stepped towards the dilapidated building. She figured that she would alienate less people the more she kept her mouth shut. She shifted the weapon case on her shoulder and said no more.

A small, very outdated shuttle touched down on the pad. The rear door opened, and a number of very, very scared-looking brand new privates hopped out and scurried off. Adrian Decane emerged after them, cackling with his hands on his hips and a cigar in his mouth. "That's right, you little shits! Enjoy your shore leave!"

The Staff Sergeant stepped down as the shuttle lifted off again and headed back in the direction from whence it came. He walked towards Fian, a wide grin clenching the cigar plastered on his face. He snapped a clean, if abbreviated salute to the Master Chief.

"Vel Steyr! Long time no see, mate. How'd you like Golding? Heard you boys got in a bit of a scrape with the IPG over that business."

Fian took out the cigarette that Viktor gave him back at the recruitment center, after that little nap on the shuttle, his head was a lot more clearer without resorting to wild and drastic acts like smoking. "Heh, that was quick." He said to Viktor while twirling the cancerstick. This was a good time to let something off his chest. "You know, the truth is..."

... And this was when the Master Chief, Ace squad level commander and AIR-Type pioneer was ambushed by a nurse. Her voice cut through the air and into Fian's cybernetically augmented hearing like an actual sword. While previously the MC had nothing against Suku, after seeing her slug Cassanova during their last encounter, Fian was really afraid. If Rico couldn't handle her, which mortal man, especially the ones with a broken arm, can?

"A. A. A... Yes-ss of course!" He stammered, taking one step back, another step back, and then a lefty to place Adrian Decane between him and the mankiller.

"...IPG any day, Adrian."

Adrian laughed, expelling cigar smoke through his teeth. He removed the big cancer stick from his mouth. "Good, good. So, how you be-" He noticed the officer was moving around him now. "What the hell..." He turned and looked, and saw Suku.

"Oh. Shit."