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

"Great job shortcakes," Rico said, not bothering to actually looked at Carina as he ruffled the top of her head with his palm while briskly walking past her.

The Sanroma household looked a lot better from the inside than it did from the out. Inside was an air of familiarity and comfort...floral wallpaper, framed photographs of family members. Nothing really stood out, but it was all still nice all the same. Rico walked past all of that and headed into the living room, consisting of two large couches, a coffee table and moderately well-sized television set. The room was empty, however, save for Rico and Carina. Rico seemed very put-off by this fact.

"What the hell, where is everyone?" Rico mumbled under his breath, jogging from empty room to empty room. "Babs? Dee?! VEE?! ESMA?!" The sergeant received no answer, however. Confused is a tiny bit aggravated, Rico pulled out his datapad, quickly tapped a few icons on the screen and, in a short moment or two, sighed in relief as a familiar face appeared on the screen.

"Babs! Holy fuck, where are you guys? There's nobody watchin' my house!" Rico said to the small brown-haired face on his datapad's screen.

"We're all with yer Ma, on vacation, baby," the datapad replied in a female tone.
"What, everyone?!"
"Hell yeah, baby! The whole gang, yer Ma, sis an' brother-in-law. Callista won a free trip to the Diamond Dust resort on Fortuna, an' took all a' us with her!"
Rico was at a loss for words.
"...well, Rodger is here too, if ya wanna-"
"No no no no no, fuck that guy. Alright alright, fine...ya'll have a great goddamn time. And, uh, tell Ma I said 'hey'."

Rico heaved a great sigh as he disconnected the call, slowly stroking a hand through his hair. So much for his big plan; with nobody even remotely trustworthy to leave Carina with, Rico would most likely be stuck with her again. He couldn't just leave her with just anyone; those CP agents were most likely going to be checking up on him. Rico couldn't just babysit the little brat either, as he was due back from shore leave in the follow days. Things just weren't looking up for him.

Adrian had slipped away stealthily. He didn't want Suku to notice him, especially now that he knew his psychotic subordinate was equipped with Seriously Shitty Shivers Serum. So, the medic had simply disappeared into the crowd, leaving the big ID-SOL to convulse himself about, and Suku to stew and hopefully not plot his demise further than she undoubtably already had.

He caught up to Ran rather quickly. "Alright, where the fuck're we going? Somewhere with food in it. I'll be fuckin' starving by the time the night is out, and I don't feel like stumbling around this bitch of a place for nine hours trying to find some food."

Carina had been looking around the room as Rico began speaking to the strange woman on the phone. Her eyes darted about, taking it all in, and just wondering who her relatives were before she heard the distress in her father's voice, and the sigh that accompanied it. She looked up at him, frowning a little as she tugged on his pant leg.

"Papi...what's th'matter?" Concern clearly visible within her hazel eyes. She of course didn't fully grasp the situation, but still...

"We're not getting a fucking thing to eat until we're good and drunk." At that, Ran produced a small bottle of whiskey, which he immediately started taking rather large sips of, favoring it's earthy taste to the shocking and overly-exotic appeal of banana schnapps.

"There's nothing better than wandering around shitfaced trying to find stuff to eat, anyway." Kicking a bent can of beer to the side, the Chief almost impulsively took a right turn into a gentleman's club named "The Moldy Axehole", in which he immediately found a seat at the bar counter to order a row of six shot glasses, instructing the bartender to fill them with 150-proof alcohol.

"So I guess I can't say I enjoy this set up much." The Chief sighed into his glass, assuming that DeCane was sitting next to him. "All the original boys from the Alliance are long gone, and we got these newer guys coming in." The Chief took note of one female marine entering the bar with a lot of gear, and watched her until she sat at her booth.

"You know, I always wanted to stay a Sergeant. At least then I could always disappear in the enlisted ranks." He emptied another shot glass, breathing out what felt like fire as he felt the high-proof alcohol stew in his stomach. Leaning forward onto the counter, Ran pulled out his datapad to check if the Master Chief had responded to his invitation. But seeing that there was no response, the Chief simply put it back into his pocket.

Shit, I used to be that guy's superior. No matter how long I've been in this, I can never get used to this kind of crap.

(OOC Note: This is the bar everyone's headed to. cyborg, try not to jump the gun on where people are, since there wasn't a post prior to yours describing the bar location.)

Echo wandered into the gentlemen's club, finding himself strangely alone. He held the strap on his case tightly, prepared to swing it powerfully if any drunk men wandered up to him to pick a fight. He was tired, anxious, and paranoid due to Suku's stunt. None of these are a good feel for an ID-Sol, especially the paranoid part.

The large soldier wandered over to the bar and sat down. He sighed deeply and ordered a soft drink, not wanting to fill himself with alchohol. "God...shit sucks."

(Gah...sorry Koenig...I should've waited for you to post ...still getting used to what I should and should not describe.)

Phaedra noticed more of the marines filing into the bar; namely the ID-SOL she had seen earlier. He plopped down into a seat at the bar with the other marines.

The waitress strode by and deposited a narrow glass filled with a chilled, clear liquid onto the table. Phaedra drew the glass closer with her fingers and she stared curiously at the beverage with a raised eyebrow.

"Here goes..." thought Phaedra. She raised the narrow glass and downed it in one go. She tasted it, swallowed, and then suddenly coughed reflexively.

"Ugh...my throat feels like it's on fire," she thought with a grimace.

"Still...it almost tastes familiar, like I've had it before; bland, but familiar. Maybe I'll try another glass."

Phaedra caught a different waitress and asked for another glass of vodka, but this time with some more flavor. The waitress gave her a "you really don't know anything about drinks" look before making a suggestion. It was true that Phaedra didn't know much about alcoholic beverages, so she nodded at the suggestion and waited for her drink.

"Eh. Sergeant isn't that rosy a role, mate," Adrian answered, having found his spot at the bar next to his superior. He waved to the bartender and pointed to a big bottle of absinthe, a glass of which was deposited quickly in front of the Nepleslian Staff Sergeant.

"I mean, you have all those little guys bugging you, and I don't think I'm technically legally allowed to hit them. Well, honestly, I don't know if an officer can either, but at least you can, shit, I don't know, threaten to throw them out an airlock if they get pissy." Adrian took a long pull off his glass before continuing, looking around the bar a quick moment to check out the other marines filtering in. "Me? Fuck mate, the AI doesn't even open the inner doors to those things for me, let alone throw some cocksucker into a sun."

It had taken longer to find Angry Ed's than Talbain though it would but it was still open. Walking into the shop the first thing he noticed was all the display cases full of weapons. After looking around for a moment he was disturbed by a man calling out from across the room. "Welcome to Angry Ed's, I'm Stevenson owner and operator of this fine establishment."
Talbain stood up looking confused for a moment. "If you run the place why is it called Angry Ed's?"
Stevenson walked around to the display where the the ID-SOL had been browsing. "Ed was my dad, heart gave out on him. A HHG round will do that. Now I'm assuming you're not here for my life story so what are you looking for?"
"I'm saw one of your adds." Talbain said as he fished out his Datajockey and pulled up the display. "Durandium shot gloves with a concussion device and I'm looking for a Styrling .45."
"Easy enough." was the only thing the shopkeeper had to say to that.

A few minutes later the ID-SOL walked out onto the street with a new gun on his belt and some nice new gloves. After calling for a cab he shot a message to Anselm on his data pad. "Hey, Where are you guys at in Roger-Wilco?"

((No idea what you want to use as your IM tag))

[Seigmund Talbain] said:

Hey, Where are you guys at in Roger-Wilco?

Click to expand...

Anselm pulled out his datajockey:

MarineSpam12 said:

bar and strip joint, let me check the name

Click to expand...

The Albino exited the bar and looked up at the sign "you're kidding me."

MarineSpam12 said:

It's called the 'Moldy Axehole' ...I can't believe I just wrote that, should I order you anything?

Click to expand...

The fresh air was a relief from the smoke clogging the gentleman's club, not that there was less smoke outside, but least the air was moving out here. Anselm waited outside until Talbain messaged him with a request, otherwise he'd wait for his squadmate to arrive before going back in.

((We use our regular names.))

Harrison seated himself at the bar a little ways down from Phaedra and ordered up a scotch on the rocks. He rested his legs on the lowest rung on the stool and leaned forward against the bar, forehead resting against his upturn hands. A pensive pose that showed Harrison was either deep in thought... Or falling asleep.

When his scotch came, Harrison wordlessly took the drink and downed its contents. Looking around, he turned towards Phaedra.

"Volkov," He said in a low tone, "why do you still have your weapons cases? It's a bar, not a repeat of the Kennwes invasion."

Viktor followed the slow trickle of Marines into the bar/strip joint. He'd never really picked up on the pleasures of going to clubs of this sort, but he didn't mind the view so long as they stayed away from him. Something about strippers just really irritated him or freaked him out; he wasn't sure which. Once inside, he headed for the bar and took a seat beside Echo. He couldn't help but laugh, hearing him complain.

"You learn to roll with it, soldier... or you go mad. It's frustrating, but you have to learn when to let go." Then he ordered a rum & coke --no ice-- to settle in for the evening.

Phaedra turned to the one who had spoken her name and found that it was Harrison, the first marine she had met on the shuttle.

"I'm not sure," she answered with a shrug.

A waitress sped by and dropped off another narrow glass of vodka, but this one with a slight red tint. She encircled the glass with her right hand and leaned on her duffle with her left arm.

"But I'd rather not get caught in a dire situation without my rifle or my armor," she said, giving both her weapon case and equipment duffle a pat with her left hand. As compared to their first meeting, Phaedra felt much more at ease conversing casually with Harrison. But then again it was probably the alcohol kicking in that took the edge off.

"As for the Kennwes Offensive, I couldn't say I knew what it was like; I was still in training then. The seat's open if you...felt like sharing or something," said Phaedra gesturing with her right hand towards the open booth seat across from her. She lifted her glass and took a sip, this time avoiding a grimace at the taste and holding off a cough until several minutes after she swallowed.

(sorry, it's for my own reference more than anything. the post was like three pages back.)

kai said:

Trey chuckled lightly at the strange woman's antics getting into the cab. closing the door, he tapped the cabbie's shoulder and told him an address, and the car was off. For a cab, it was really nice. It was clean, didn't smell, and actually looked fairly new. But trey didn't really mind, he was headed home now. Listening to Lilly's embarrassed attempt at explanation, he answered her "That works. Just don't worry too much about it here, okay? You should relax, It's a safe town." He leaned back in his seat and stared out the window, watching the clean buildings rush past as they moved toward what looked like a small, slightly upscale suburb.

Click to expand...

Lilly rubbed the back of her head gingerly, massaging the area that was aching. She gave a nervous smile. "Oh, no, that's not what I meant. I really happen to like Nepleslia. The environment always feels kind of cheerful, despite appearances." She wasn't sure if he'd understand, but it was the best she could do to explain. Despite the fact that Nepleslia was crawling with druggies, drunken soldiers, and criminals, nobody really seemed to be that tense about it. Nepleslia just seemed like it was very laid back, and Lilly liked the fact that everyone was just looking to have fun, despite how they pursued it.

Harrison smiled grimly as he thought back to his last few days aboard the Alliance. "Well, we started off alright." Harrison began his story, "Me, Chief Rui, P3C Henry Morris, Sergeant Kokuten and Cheza Evans. Inserted via air-drop and landed underwater, then hoofed it up to a beach with a bigass cliff right at the end of it. Reds had dug in with Panzerfausts and conscripts in the hills, and it was me and those four up against a force almost ten times our size. We fought all the way up to the cliffside, heading for out goal- a water treatment plan- when a prototype Crooked Demon came out of fucking nowhere and ripped our squad leader's arm off when it blew up something on his suit.

"From there, we suppressed the CD, turned it back towards the drainage pipes and took over the facility, all with Ran missing an arm." Harrison took a long draw on the scotch, coughed a bit, and continued. "The other two squads, Delta and Epsilon, didn't have it so easy. We had all kinds of casualties- one dead, two wounded, one severely. All of them faced off with CD prototypes." Harrison's face changed a bit. "We would've had to redeploy, but right when we got picked up a General swooped in and told us the offensive was over. We went back to the Alliance, took our shore leave and split up after that. Kokuten transferred off to another post, Cheza dissappeared like Morris, and only me and Chief Rui are aboard the Acadia- last two from Alpha squad. So here we are."

He shifted in his seat towards Phaedra and tilted his head a bit. "So what's your story? You weren't in the Offensive, so where were you?"

"Well, If you like Cheerful places, you'll enjoy my family" Trey quipped as the car began slowing in front of a slightly more than modest home, painted in a light green with a few darker accents here and there. Trey paid the cabbie and then exited the car, Stretching lightly and looking toward his house "Ah, It's good to be home again" He mumbled, walking off to the walkway towards his front door.

Phaedra listened intently to Harrison's story, but was slightly caught off guard when he asked where she was at the time.

"I guess simply being 'in training' won't cut it."

She took another sip from her drink and set it back down, her fingers toying with the glass.

"Where was I?" said Phaedra, looking at her glass.

"I was busy becoming a cyborg..." she said bitterly, looking straight at Harrison. She brought her left arm down off the duffle and flexed the metal fingers in front of her to emphathize the point. After a moment she focused her gaze on her hand, opening and closing the fingers.

"It was just a training mission..." she began, her tone solemn.

"Live-fire simulation with power armor; drop in, destroy the strongpoint, elminate the automated enemies, get back out." She looked back up at Harrison.

"Simple, right?" She set both hands on the table and toyed with her glass again.

"Well, something...more correctly, everything went wrong. I was on point, with four squadmates on my six. We approached the bunker from the rear through a thick forest...eliminating any defenses before an alarm could be raised. I entered the small clearing between the woods and the bunker and then..." Phaedra's remaining eye seemed to glaze over. She swallowed and took another sip from her glass.

"And...and then, everyone was screaming. Whatever they got hit with hit me too; all the scopes and sensors were dead...I couldn't eject...black smoke was everywhere...I..." She subconsciously held her left shoulder with her right hand.

"Somehow I got out of my armor, but by that time I was melting...one of the coolant lines ruptured and sprayed my whole left side. I've never felt such agony..." Phaedra's face was drained of color and she looked ill. She locked her gaze onto Harrison again.

"I can't even remember what happened exactly...I just remember waking up in the med bay, barely conscious from the pain...My left side was...gone," said Phaedra, drawing a line from her left eye down to her left leg. She glanced at her glass and slammed the rest of the vodka down.

"And the best part was, the IPG just covered it up. They blamed me for whatever had happened, and I accepted it; what else could I do? I was the only survivor from my unit; I led my friends into an ambush; on a training mission." She visibly sank and looked at her lap.

"How can anyone trust me if I get my teammates killed," she said with a shake of her head.

Phaedra suddenly realized how bitter her tone had become and how much she had just told Harrison. Her eyes widened and she glanced back at Harrison.

"Ah dammit!" she said, sinking her face with her hands and attempting to hide her shame and embarrassment.

Harrison smiled slightly and put a hand on Phaedra's shoulder. "I trust you," he said quietly, attempting to ease the tension evident on Volkov's (somewhat) hidden face. "So you led your squad into an ambush- big deal, how could anyone have known they were there? It was a training mission, not a full-fledged guerilla operation. If you're the only survivor of that day, then live up to their memory: Stop moping around on it, get back on the horse and perform better than what was expected of you then. You can't assume it was your fault because the IPG told you too."

Harrison's face hardened. "I hate the IPG, by the way, so you can't blame me if I express any hard feelings towards them. But you have to move on. Don't forget about it entirely, but keep on working your best and don't let the past affect you."

Echo smiled and shook his head. "Yeah...I suppose. You are far more experienced in the squad setting than I, though...I was a lone operative until about three months ago. But, they saw it fit to move me to another unit when I threatened to kill my Chief because he touched my rifle..."

With a chuckle, Echo leaned back in his chair and clutched the strap on his gun case. If anyone touched this baby, they deserved whatever he gave them. It was his, no one else's. He had no real possessions to treasure, nor loved ones, so he embodied all of those feelings within this rifle. It was his baby.

"Yes, well get used to it, ASAP," he replied, taking a few gulps from his glass. "And just a suggestion, but don't go threatening the Chief. I haven't been with this group for very long, but Chief Vel Steyr's a good guy, and if you go about threatening his life I promise you, everyone--myself included--will stand in your way. Just food for thought." He smirked and drained his glass then asked for a refill. "I can tell you've got a strong attachment to that rifle, and I doubt anyone will make anything of it, but I thought I might as well put that out in the open."

Then, after another drink, "But that's no matter, really. I just don't know what to talk about. Your turn: think of something interesting."

Phaedra drew strength from the reassuring hand on her shoulder. She dropped her hands and matched Harrison's gaze.

"I can't believe you'd trust me, even though you have never seen me prove myself in combat. Honestly...that's why I was wound up so tight on the shuttle; I push myself as hard as I can so that others will trust me. But unfortunately I didn't really know how to conduct myself outside of standard regulations. Being a clone does that I guess." Phaedra fiddled with her glass again.

"But thank you Harrison...for trusting me. I do intend to honor their memory by being above and beyond the best that I can be. Now if you would mind not sharing what I told you with the rest of the crew...I'm pretty sure it was the vodka doing the talking. Maybe you trust me in such a short time, but I doubt the rest of the crew would. So if you could keep it a secret, at least until I've proved myself to them, that would be most appreciated," she said.

"So," said Phaedra, changing the subject, "What about you? Do you have any family?"