RP: NSS Acadia [Prelude] Fortune, Neon and Sand

Adrian looked back at Autumn. "Oi, sorry. Anyway, shall we get going, mates?"

"It's in the back. I charge full price for ammunition, but renting or testing a gun is free as long as it stays in the store. Oh... and since you two are SMODIN, I don't have to tells you guys that stealing is bad." The gunshop store owned replied.

"I mostly carry NAM, NovaCorp and Styrling. If you want Zen Arms, I can probably fish something out for you, but don't expect some kind of epic find. They've gotten scarce since Kennewes and what does make it's way up into the Colonies tends to suck."

"Of course. I'm not a thief, don't worry." Amelia smiled with some amusement. "More specifically I'm looking for a new pistol. Surely you have something better than our little .45 caliber pistols?" She looked towards the door leading to the aforementioned range. "That's fine, I understand. Though of course I'd like to compare the two gun's performance before I buy one." She gestured to her own pistol by lightly tapping it with her metal fingers. "I normally know what I'm looking for, but perhaps you have a recommendation?" She tilted her head to the side slightly.

"It comes down to want you want, really." The man shrugged, his curly hair making a slight bounce as he moved. "NAM's HHG is an okay weapon, and it can use more than just normal .45's, but finding a contractor that has been licensed to produce it legally is a pain in the ass. Of course, you might as well just go to your quartermaster and ask him for one."

"Aside from that, I'd recommend Zen or Styrling, since they have the only two traditional 45 caliber handguns that aren't knocked off another design. If you like something classy and easy to handle, get SV's gun. Reliable and cheap? Go Zen."

"I've got all three, of varying grades and makes. Some are copies, dirt cheap. Or... I've got a few all naturals from the Core Worlds. But you get what you pay for. "

"Oh quit with that sir thing." Fian waved his hand to show that he didnt care. Firstly he wasnt in uniform, secondly Trey was on shore leave and thirdly it was always akward for someone much older than him calling him 'Sir'. "You didnt come all the way to the entertainment center of Nepleslia to be all uppity. Relax."

The Vel Steyr cleared his throat as he remembered a resolution he made prior to accepting the assignment. "Well, I have business to attend to. Go on, have some fun. I'll catch up with you guys later."

"Yeah? Where are you parked?" Rose asked Gyles, happy to be away from whatever else might have been going on. The strange air around the man was hard to find a word for, but not something the Geshrin was overly troubling herself with.

Looking around for their bike, she clicked her stud against her teeth rapidly.

"Hmm... message says they delivered it in a Durandium shipping crate... somewhere in the garage right ahead of here. Whatever it is they packed it in has a retinal scanner, so the locks won't come off until I get there." Gyles replied in a matter-of-fact manner, if not a little blankly, as he glanced back at Rose. While the minutiae of technology were always interesting to him, he was much more interested in the green-haired medic.

The tech sentry looked around for the delivered airbike for a few moments. There was a nagging in the back of his mind about how things had turned out for Adrian, and by his admission, much more importantly, Kagura. He needed to know, and the Commander had pulled Rose aside as she dismissed the rest of the crew. What was she told that they didn't need to hear?

"About your report with the Commander. How did that... go?"

Henry had gotten off the ship on his shoreleave, and was dressed once again in his most casual of get-ups. Or at least the most casual he could find. A red tie, black waistcoat, white shirt, black pants and black shoes. He still had his unkempt hair, light beard and his reading glasses on. Henry decided - If Casual wasn't the option, the Stylish option would do, at least.
He was tagging along with everyone else, keeping to himself and admiring the sights and sounds.

"Certainly," Henry replied to Adrian, "To a Casino - Food or, a drink, maybe?"

SUBLIMEinal said:

Adrian looked back at Autumn. "Oi, sorry. Anyway, shall we get going, mates?"

Click to expand...

"It's all right, hun. There are better ways of getting me on the ground under ya," Autumn teased with a grin as she rocked on her heels. "Paid vacations wait for no man, so I'm definately ready to go. Besides, Ran might dry out if we take too long, his flask must be looking pretty empty after this engagement."

"It is very fucking empty. I want to go to the motherfuckin' liquor store immediately." Ran had placed his last cigarette between his lips, lit it, and smoked it rather carefully. "This is my last motherfuckin' cig, too. Those fuckin' caretakers are such sneaky little cocks that they must've gotten into my fuckin' stash. Little motherfuckers."

Henry almost reflexively whipped out his cigars and offered one to Ran.
"Cigar?" He asked politely. It was the last one in the crumpled green packet with the tropical motifs on it.

Cigarette smoke snaked out through his nostrils, slightly burning their way up, but not enough to warrant any sort of pained expression. "Naw, man, you keep those cigars. I'm strictly a cigarette man."

"Uh... Allright then... Fian." Trey said, taking half a second to completely recollect the man's name. "I only came here because they dumped me here, but for now I need some new clothes." When the Vel Steyr man walked off to attend his 'Business' Trey Nodded and walked back into the store, Fetching himself a few sets of clothes, so he didn't stand out so much.

Fifteen minutes later, He emerged from the store, wearing a red t-shirt with black designs shaped vaguely like guns all over it, and some jeans. Vaguely remembering something about a train, the Penton wandered the streets looking for one to a place which would have nicer hotels, probably far from this strip of odd shops.

“And as long as we don’t leave with ‘em we can test ‘em out…?” Nick parroted, his thoughts wedged somewhere between gunpowder and chili cheese. He might’ve needed something to look forward to working on when he got back. “None of these are dirty right?”

And he paused, thinking logistics and rationally. He already had a capable handgun back at his home, he needed something else.

“Matter-of-fact what kinda shotguns you got back there? I’m gonna need a bit more stopping power.”

ON, Fortuna

Rose jerked like she'd been hit lightly, stepping faster than Gyles while she looked for the bike. "It sucked, okay? They're not doing shit about him..I still have to follow orders like I think he should have medical credentials. She said he'd be 'reprimanded' but fuck all if I'll trust a Navy officer to do it. I'm not holding my breath." The medic's hand twitched, one then the other in a strange pattern. It looked very unnatural, however she said nothing about it.

"Well... you weren't kidding when you said it sucked. Fucking figures that whatever laws they try to pass don't get applied in full when it suits em'." Gyles replied in a manner that seemed a little tired, but more or less worried. He'd had some experience with laws and the military, and knew that higher ups did bend the rules now and then when they saw something good to be earned. It was, after all, the manner in which he was recruited. Apparently, they were getting close to the bike now, as a small blip was showing up on his visor's display systems.

"Regardless of what bullshit they made up about Kagura, he fucked up bad." Rose grumbled dourly, an angry expression set on her face for a longer time until the twitching stopped. "Guess my new rank doesn't mean much, fucking officers.." As best as she was trying to take her mind off of it and fell to silence.
grb2hack: "Let's just try to forget about it... at least until we're back from shoreleave. They say the military is some honorable, godly place, but it's still only bad business with good benefits.

"Let's just try to forget about it... at least until we're back from shoreleave. They say the military is some honorable, And that you're always better for it, but it's still only bad business with good benefits." Gyles sighed a little bitterly, before attempting to put on a more relaxed face. He really wanted to change the subject to something a little less troubling. "So... any preferences for food?"

"Not really, as long as there's a lot of it and I don't think about that shit on the ship." Rose jerked her head back towards the direction of the Nerkat. "I'm not really in the mood to be picky as long as the place is halfway clean." She wasn't going to hint more than that, and kept her eyes looking for the bike they were supposed to be taking.

"Awesome. And well... here it is." Gyles said, as the approached a mid-sized Durandium crate, fitted with what was presumably an electronic lock with a retinal scanner. The tech sentry approached the square metal object, removing his visor so it could get a good look at his eyes. There was a small flash as scanner systems verified his identity, and in an instant, the container opened up, revealing a shiny and rather clean airbike of an obscure make.

"Ugh... and there we go." He said somewhat satisfied, despite a small small jabbing pain in his skull that seemed to emanate from his exposed eyes. The tech sentry slid his visor back onto his upper face, concealing his pale blue eyes beneath a dark composite lense, and soon felt some relief as he received a small shot of painkillers from his device.

"Doesn't look too bad." Rose observed, suddenly closer than she had been before. "Ready?" She was a little quiet, the thoughts of what had gone wrong with Adrian were still clouding her mind, but she had placed a hand to the man's arm lightly. "Y'all right maypole?" Her eyes, that rich amber which normally made her look more sour seemed to apprais his general condition with a doctor's eye.

"Yeah. These eyes of mine are a little funky, but I get a small dose whenever the visor detects I'm in pain. Funny thing." Gyles replied, pulling out the bike accessories. There were a pair of helmets and a set of gloves, but he had neglected to order riding suits so he could push the bike to higher speeds.

"Good..well as long as you don't have any problems with it. You get the injection site checked often right?" The Marine asked simply, taking gloves first. Slipping them on one finger at a time, it was clear the woman had worn her share of them, but she waited on the helmet as she considered the man.

"Not often, but the Doc told me I have to change the nozzle on the hypospray during physicals. I'm getting light irritation around at my temples." He answered, putting on a pain of gloves himself. The tech sentry retrieved one of the helmets, one that at least looked like it would fit, and handed it off the Rose, with a bit of a sarcastic grin on his face. "Hope you don't mind these things messing your hair up for a bit."

"You'll pay for it later." Rose promised, pulling the helmet on and securing it. She waited near the bike, thinking about a few possible solutions to his problem, though she had more fun running down the various avenues that might have been his original condition.
grb2hack: Gyles slid the helmet on and locked it, doing his best to make sure that he wouldn't end up knocking his visor lens on the inside of the helmet, and started the engine up. "By the way, they've got internal comms if you want to keep talking on the ride there. There's a tab on your left side."

"Works for me, let's get gone." Rose replied through the comm, waiting until Gyles looked away to sit on the bike herself behind him, scooting up against him close enough so her skirt wouldn't fly up, but that meant her thighs had to be pressed to him so no one would get free peeks. It didn't bother her, and would be shield from the wind anyway. "What'd you have in mind for food anyway?" The medic asked, casually slipping her arms around the taller man's sides.

Gyles revved up the engine, shifting his body so they'd drive out without bumping into the sides of the container. "Alright, let's see what this thing can do." He exclaimed a little enthusiatically, accelerating full tilt and zooming out of the starport's garage, before settling into a slightly more reasonable cruising speed. In all, it had taken maybe twenty seconds to get onto the road, and he felt fantastic already, if only a little tossed around. But someone was riding shotgun, and he realized that Rose was probably feeling a little shaken up. "Sorry about that Rose, I just wanted to push the bike a bit a before we hit the road, to see what my limits are. Everything alright back there?"

"Yeah, just fine. No worse than being in a shuttle with a drunk, maypole." Of course she remembered the vibrations the airbikes had by that point, they came back with a vengence. Of course she didn't mean it, and felt safe enough as she could on any airbike with Gyles flying it. "So how long is it going to be?" Her voice asked witha bit less playful sting than it had a moment before. They were out of the port, and away from that blasted ship that felt more stilfing to her than any previous command.

"Ouch. Hrm... at this speed... maybe half an hour, to an hour." Gyles replied briefly, keeping most of his attention on the road ahead. "Why, did you want to hit the bathroom first?"

"No... maybe after though." Rose chuckled into the comm, glancing around at the view while it passed them with the rush of wind. "I haven't seen country without mortars exploding in a few years. This is gonna be weird."

"You have to admit, it's... different." Gyles said, taking a second to glance out at a sea of tall, dry grasses that flanked them on both sides, that seemed to flow on both side briefly before being blocked out by a mass of trees and underbrush.

Roses eyes followed to the terrain, it was more alien to her than a city. Clean kind of..I guess. That's good.. Not mentioning the ride was quickly erasing her sour mood, and taking her mind off the need to do more than hold onto the other Marine. "It can be an okay change I guess."

"The smell's really different." Gyles remarked, taking in a deep breath. "It's not that soft plastacine smell they pump through the air on some ships to make us more alert, but is a helluva lot easier on the lung than smog."

"Something in between. I like the ship smell though.." Rose replied indifferently. Maybe because it was clincal? Taking another breath of the landscape, she couldn't help but wonder what sort of hell they would be sent into after the brief stint of leave would be a memory.

"I used to ride all the time. It feels great to be back in the seat of a bike." Gyles said, half-thinking aloud, half-trying to find something to talk about. "Don't suppose you have the time to hear a guy brag about the good old days he ruined, would you?"

"I'll toss my helmet if it starts to get too bad." Rose offered in reply, her way of making him feel better about it. "Ruined by joining the Marines, or do I get to hear about a skeleton in maypole's closet?" The Geshrin asked, letting herself try to adjust to the clean air with another deep breath.

"I used to be a racer. Loved it, even if the league I was in gave a shoddy deal, but I tended to jump the gun on a few things. Gambling, was one." He explained, trying not to let it feel too real while he did. Being on an airbike for the first time in nearly a year didn't exactly help much, either. "The Nepleslian Star Empire doesn't really mind gambling of any sort, but apparently, the inside scam I had going had caught someone's attention. No idea either, but I probably lost him a lot of currency, and he was angry enough to personally go out of his way to ruin me and my friends in the league."

"You flew too high?" Rose asked, trying to summerise the entirity of the conversation into about one phrase. So he was a boke jock? Her grip on the man tightened a bit, and she found herself drawn away from the scenery a moment into thought. How many lives had been caught in the net of the Marines like his? Honestly she felt like it was remotely similar to hers, but the Private was soon watching the sunset again while they sped along. "Guess you should have been more quiet about it."

Gyles sighed, but was starting to feel a little better talking about it. At least this time, there wasn't a mouthy pseudo-AI to downtalk him. "Yeah. Apparently though, it balanced out... I guess." Admitedly, the setting sun was painting the open landscape in a rather nice combination of oranges. "Some captain or admiral thought I was good enough to pluck from prison before the hard criminals had their way with me. So I got fed into the machine, and because I came from a fairly long line of mechanics, they put me in with the Engineering Corps. The rest... is history."

"That kind of officer must have done something shitty to be perusing the prison manifests looking for recruits." Rose made her sardonic reply. "History? I know you guys were on the K too, but not clear on the rest. That all the time you spent in?" Rose hated to admit it but she was a little bit interested in the story. It did involve more action than most at least.

"New program at the time. The cases that aren't helpless get a third of their sentence on minor postings, or a full tour of duty on any active SMODIN ship. From what I gather, the guy was a racing fan." Gyles smirked and let out a short, bitter chuckle. "It's nice to be appreciated. So what do you want to hear about? Kennewes? I was also there when we met the Freespacers for the first time."

"Nah, I was there." The other Marine replied, plus she didn't really care about Freespacers since she didn't have to deal with any on her last assignments. It wasn't to say she hadn't seen any but more distracting was the kind of programs they made for the continuance of the Marines. "At least you didn't have to think the recruiter's promises would be real.."

Gyles just chuckled in reply, trying his hardest to remember what the guy said. "Well... it was basically: 'I stuck my neck out to save your ass, visorboy. See the universe, get three decent squares a day and you probably won't get bu- ... stabbed by your bunkmate.', or something like that." He explained, checking the time on his visor. It would technically be nighttime on Fortuna in less then ten minutes, so he'd probably have to push the bike a little to get a decent table in time.

"Buttfucked. You don't wanna be a medic when that gets messed up." Rose sounded like she was reliving a graphic memory. "You're tall enough to avoid it mostly, anyway that visor makes you look mysterious." Rose decided, ignoring a twitching tremour from her hand. "Have you decided where we're going yet?"

"I like to think that. I guess not showing your eyes is a pretty good way" Gyles allowed himself a small smile, though Rose would likely remain unaware of it. "Dunno. There are few of these small restaurants starting up in 'Culture Town', or whatever the hell they call it. I'm thinking either seafood, fish and chips or a steakhouse. Someplace clean, maybe with a live band."

"Yeah well make sure they catch the shit here or don't trust it..fuck if I want to spend another night with food poisoning when I'm supposed to be having fun." Rose laughed. The thought of 'Culture Town' as he put it added a bit to things. Well maybe she'd see something new with a name like that, or just a lot of touristy bullshit. "Wonder what kinda digs they have."

"I'll make sure." Gyles followed suit with his own laugh. "But tell you what, if you do get sick... I'll promise to take care of you for the rest of shore leave."

Adrian looked to Henry. He wasn't familiar with the somewhat odd marine, but hey, someone was offering up free cigars. "Oh. I'll take one of those, mate. What brand?"

Autumn watched the marines smoke curiously, she never got the appeal of cigarettes. She knew a few woman that liked cigars for other reasons but she never understood why straight men liked them so much. "I don't get it, why smoke them? Sucking on a tube of burning paper can't be that much fun when they are more interesting things for men with oral fixations to keep themselves entertained with," the Geshrin armorer commented with a grin at her fellow marines.

"I guess it could be worse, one of my old friends used to dip and.. swallow."

(*Bangs head on desk* Sorry, I need to keep up with this and stop dragging my arse.)

Amelia stole a glance at Nick. Was he new to Nepleslia or something? She herself was fairly new to cities, but even she knew better than to ask questions that shopkeepers could find insulting. She returned her attention to the owner, deciding to ignore it for the time being unless it continued.

"Easy to handle hm? May I try one of SV's? My use for it would be one handed, as this hand isn't exactly ideal for steadying my aim." She waved her three clawed mechanical hand a bit. "Accuracy is essential, but I'm sure it's alright with that, as no manufacturer would make sub-par equipment when it comes to something as far as weapons go." She brushed her bangs away from her face a bit with a claw as she waited for the response.

Ran stood there with a cigarette between his right middle and pointer finger, which had gone un-smoked, and was left to burn past his metallic fingers. He was just staring at Wilde for a while, before asking "Wilde...are you calling us gay?"

"Hmmm... I'm not sure, you boys being gay does me no good but I'm not the selfish sort... if you were adventurous, I'd say bi-curious before saying gay. But it really depends on how you look at the fixation to smoke, I just think it's rather phallic is all," Autumn replied to Ran with a grin. "If you wanna prove to me just how straight you are- we're on leave for a bit, we're heavily tested for various stds among other things sooo if you wanna play, I'm not gonna bite ya or want you to buy me flowers."

She rocked on her heels again and smiled brightly, enjoying the sensation of her leg muscles expanding and contracting with the movement. "But all things in time, eh?"