Blades

Sounds like a plan. Im sure there will be an eager bunch of newbies willing to scratch their eyes out to have a quiet word with the chief or the know-it-all-vets-who-layeth-down-the-smack when they mess up on the forums. As a side benefit - great recruitment oppurtunity here. Anyways, might be better off sticking to IRC than AW, but apart from that whenever it's suggested, I'll be popping by ...

quote:Plus we have wing logos! something other fleets can't boast, *cough*orion*cough* Thats true, ISS has wing logos. Just a pity they dont have any commanders to proudly wear those logos. And just FYI, Orion has had a selection of wing logos for over a year now - we just havent finalised on ones to stick in our signatures. Remember always, the Orion Fleet is light years ahead of any others in way of preperation, readiness and discipline. Put that in your pipe n smoke it.

It's HEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE! And I must say, the manual, keyboard control sheet (with reverse colour map) and CD are everything I imagined they would be. Ooow lookie at that nice regestration sticker covering the CD sheath. Im pretty sure I have to go somwhere and input that ... Ah well, cant sit around here all day jabberin and salivatin. I have an update patch to download, game to install and justice to dish out to our misguided Insurgent cousins. Be seein ya'll in a month or two. Oh, just out of curiosity, are there any other UK or European commanders who have been able to aquire it from the states so far? If not, today I proclaim myself your god and demand you deliver to me your women for my harem. Hurruh!

Better yet, go see me, and tell me I sent you. In other news ... Howdy Rich, hows you doin my degenerate Insurgent buddy? We all missin ya around these here parts.

I kinda lucked out. I knew my folks were gonna be in the states roughly around release time, so I kept my fingers crossed that they would still be around when it hit the shelves. Well, as luck would have it, they managed to pick up a copy for me from EB friday and will hand deliver it to me in a little over 8 hours from now. You'll see me in the morning - briefly - then probably not again until middle of the week. You know why.

[RP] Operation Golgotha T + 1 hour 33 minutes Earth, Mission Zone 13 Abandoned 23rd Century Mine Facility Savage moved up to where Chaviks team were gathered a few moments after the shallow breeze from a naturally occurring vent had blown much of the dust past him. Upon reaching the huddled bunch of Insurgents and GalCom personnel, he perched by his old adversary and peered through the small gap the grenade had cleared in the cave in. “Well at least you didn’t bring the whole roof down on us.” He said, his voice uncharacteristically devoid of humour. “I guess that’s something we should be happy about.” Chavik coughed a couple of times into his fist and took a moment to compose himself. Savage regarded him with a concerned look. “You ok?” asked the Orion Fleet Commander. Chavik turned his head and looked into Savages hard eyes. “I’ve been better.” Commented Chavik. “Much better in fact.” Savage frowned and went to a side pocket in his jacket. A moment later he pulled out a small scanning device and passed it briefly over the Insurgent. “Says here that you’re having difficulty breathing … respiration and heart rate is up.” “So what else is new?” said Chavik, pushing himself to his feet and moving towards the small blast hole in the middle of the blockage. Savage looked down at the scanned reading from the device and went over them once again in his head. The results were disturbing. He’s deteriorating far quicker than he should be. Symptoms should be anywhere near as bad as this right now. Maybe he’s got something in him that’s making him far more susceptible that the others? Pondering this wasn’t helping the situation, nor was it going to prolong Chaviks life if something wasn’t done about it soon. What do I do? Call back the McKendrick? Have him return to the LZ and get picked up for early treatment? No, can’t do that. The entire mission would be in tatters. I can’t abort; we’ve come too far to turn back now. Savage stood and watched while the rest of Chaviks team made short work of widening the gap in the blockage enough to allow single file movement through to the other side. He signalled back to the rest of his team and had them begin to move up as Chavik and the others pushed forward. As he was making his way past the fleet commander, Foss felt a firm grip on his shoulder. He turned and found Savage looking hard at him, obviously greatly concerned about something. “Something wrong sir?” asked Foss. Savage nodded. “It’s Chavik. He’s sick, and getting sicker.” Foss nodded. “I checked him out before we broke at the LZ. He was showing signs of respitory problems, but nothing too serious. I gave him a shot of Tri-Ex to help with his breathing, but theres nothing more I can safely do until we get back to the ship. If he’s getting worse we should probably have him stay behind while the rest of us move on and pick him up for the extraction.” Savage shook his head. “We cant do that. We need him. Whats more, we need him healthy.” “Sorry sir, theres nothing else I can do for him un-“ Savage cut him off as he pulled a phial of something from an interior pocket in his jacket and held it in front of the commander/combat medic. Foss regarded it a few moments before an astonished realisation came over him. “Is that … what I think it is?” Savage nodded. “I want you to administer it to him.” Foss looked over his shoulder, then back to his commanding officer. He leaned in close and spoke softly. “Sir, I can’t give him that. It will kill him.” “No,” started Savage. “It wont kill him. At least not yet.” “No, not yet.” Said Foss, “but in less than twelve hours it will. Do you know what this stuff will do to him?” Savage glared at his junior officer. “I know exactly what it will do to him, commander. It will make him better. It will allow him to operate as normal, perhaps even better for the next few hours. He’ll be more alert, faster, stronger – in short deadlier than he already is. And that’s what we need. An edge.” “That kind of edge will kill him Karl. Kill him every bit as much as a pistol shot to his temple. This is nothing short of murder.” “No!” said Savage, almost shouting and drawing the attention of two officers who were passing by at the time. He shot them a quick glare and gestured with his head for them to proceed onwards. After they passed, Savage took Foss by the arm and led him a short distance away from the main trail and continued. “No, it’s not murder. He’s already dead. We’re all already dead.” Foss frowned. “What do you mean dead? He’s no deader than you or ..” Something seemed to dawn on Foss in that instant … and in the instants that followed, all became very clear to him. “What did you do Karl? What have you done to us?” Savage bowed his head briefly and drew in a deep breath. He took a moment to compose his thoughts, trying to find something eloquent enough to make his confession more palatable to his colleague, his friend. In the end, he gave up on any such noble gesture, and just told him the hard, cold facts. “Before we left the ship everyone was inoculated with anti-tox just in case we ran into EarthCom chemical weapons. Well, it wasn’t just anti-tox that everyone was injected with. There was a time delayed agent injected into everyone that has been designed prevent details of this mission falling into enemy hands.” “You …. Poisoned us?” “Think of it as a fail safe, Foss. We couldn’t take the risk of having our secrets tortured out of us should we fail here today. I had to make sure that everyone that went down would either come back up alive, or stay down here and be dead.” A cold shiver ran down Foss’s spine. The awful reality of the situation dawned on him. “I can’t believe it,” he started, grabbing the fleet commander by the front of his jacket and pushing him hard into the tunnel wall behind him. “You bastard! You total son of a *****!” “Quiet.” Whispered Savage, baring his teeth but otherwise not resisting. “I wont be quiet damn you. You’ve set us all up to die. You recruited us for this suicide mission and made damn sure that it was a one way ticket.” “There was no other way. You have to understand that.” “No!” shouted Foss. “I’ll never understand that. Never understand why you felt compelled to do this. You’ve doomed us, one and all.” Savage had heard enough. Foss reaction was also starting to get too loud for comfort. The fleet commander pushed out with both of his hands and grabbed Foss in a similar manner to which he was now held. He pushed himself forward and spun on his heel, taking Foss off balance and slamming him hard into the same tunnel wall where he had just occupied. “Now you listen to me Foss, and you listen good. You knew that this mission could be a one way ticket, and you didn’t balk at that. Now you learn that we’re all sitting on a time bomb, and you’re getting twitchy? Whats the matter with you?” Foss began to resist against the fleet commanders grip but was slammed back into the wall, hard. Dust fell from the impact against the wall and Savage heard an audible grunt from his friend as the wind was knocked out of him. “We have one shot at this Foss, but if we blow it, we cannot be allowed to be taken captive. If we fail, we fail completely. We will not become their prisoners. We will not betray our friends and colleagues.” Through gasps of breath, Foss fought hard to get his words out. “It was never about that.” He said, coughing through his words. “You didn’t give us the choice.” Savage released him and stepped backwards. “I couldn’t.” said Savage. “We couldn’t take the chance.” “We?” gasped Foss. Savage nodded. “Me, Rattler, hell, even Neena was involved in the decision making process. We all hated the idea, but we all agreed it was the only way to be sure.” By now Foss had regained enough strength to speak in complete sentences. He was still hunched over, but looked into the fleet commanders eyes as he spoke. “Why send us all on this mission to rescue a single man when so many have to be sacrificed. Why kill thirty of your friends and colleagues just for this one man?” Savage sighed. “You know the reasons why David. You know what the alternative is.” Foss cleared his throat and spat onto the floor. “The alternative would have left us alive and fighting Karl. Now all we have left to do is fight one last battle.” “No,” started Savage. “if we fight and win, theres still a way out of this for us. If we get back to the ship in time we can be treated before it becomes fatal. But time is something we do not have in abundance.” Again, Foss coughed and spat. “Why are you telling me this? Just to get me to administer your stimulant to Chavik?” “Yes …. And because it’s the only way he’ll stay alive long enough to be useful to us. For some reason he’s reacting to the poison far quicker than the others. His symptoms shouldn’t be manifesting for another two hours yet. He should only start to get this sick once Akira is extracted. The stimulant will help him overcome them … it might even keep him alive long enough to get him and the rest of us back to the ship. I just don’t know, but I do know that without him our chances get downgraded from slim to none.” Foss shook his head. “It’s just about the mission. That’s all it ever was from the moment this started.” Foss sighed, and brought himself up to his full height before addressing the fleet commander again. “What happened to you Karl? When did you abandon your principles, you’re attitude towards human life?” Savage frowned. “I never abandoned them David …. Just put them on hold. It had to be done. There wasn’t any choice in this.” Foss glared at his fleet commander, and began to walk back towards the trail. As he passed, Savage held out an arm and blocked his path. In his hand he had the small phial he intended for use on Chavik. “There wasn’t any choice.” Foss looked at the phial, recognised exactly what it represented, then took it and stepped past Savage without another word. As he continued down the path and towards the path through the blockage, he called back to the fleet commander. “You’re wrong sir. You did have a choice. You chose not to choose. That’s where you went wrong.” With that, Foss disappeared through the other side of the blockage and out of sight. Operation Golgotha T + 1 hour 57 minutes Earth, Mission Zone 13 Abandoned 23rd Century Mine Facility The rest of the trek through the mine had been uneventful. Along the way, two more remote sensor units were discovered, uncovered and spoofed by Diamond and his box of tricks. A little further back the stash Diamond had spoken of was recovered and dispersed to the relevant people. Diamond took with him a series of det packs and holographic projection equipment while Savage had loaded up with an out of circulation sniper rifle and scope. As Savage checked over the weapon, a few of those recruited made quietly sarcastic remarks as to why the man would opt for such a weapon when he seemed incapable of operating in a combat environment. Diamond, who had been in position to overhear these remarks quickly put to rest any suggestion that Savage couldn’t use it. This was further backed up when Gallion threw in his 0.2 cents, briefly regaling them with a tale from long ago when he and the then inept Savage had been a guests on a little known Insurgent commanders cruiser. “He may not look or act like a soldier,” remarked Gallion, “but he has an eye for accuracy. If you ask me, he was wasted both as a file clerk and a commander. If he had the right training and discipline, he could have made a helluva cleaner …” The brief stop off was soon halted when the troupe moved further into the cave and came across another small obstacle. A bridge covering a chasm spanning some thirty feet was damaged and looked incapable of supporting too much weight. Fortunately, single passage across the rickety bridge proved to be safe, if a little time consuming. Although ahead of schedule, they had little time remaining for other distractions. Again the pace picked up, and soon Chaviks team reached the coordinates that Diamond had assured them was very near the exit to the cave where they could overlook the EarthCom barracks that guarded the entrance to Golgotha. Sure enough, the exit was not far from this point, and as Savages team caught up with the trailing elements of Chaviks, daylight could be seen from a vent not too far ahead. It was nearly game time. Operation Golgotha T + 2 hours 04 minutes Earth, Mission Zone 13 Mine exit “Well, here we are.” Said Diamond, surveying the terrain ahead of him with both Chavik and Savage directly behind. The three of them were flat on their stomachs, peering carefully over the ridge down at the barracks and picking out individual guards. “You think you can get down there without breaking your neck?” said Savage to Chavik. The Insurgent grunted an affirmative, and put down his range finder a moment later. “I cant make out as many as we were expecting.” He said. “Perhaps this wont be such a chore after all?” Savage snorted. “I hardly think this is the break we’ve been waiting for, and if it is, I would rather it had come later than now to be honest.” “We take what we can get.” Said the Insurgent. “Indeed.” Said Savage. As an after thought he added. “How are you feeling now?” Chavik cocked his head and peered at the fleet commander. “Im touched, but I really don’t think this is the time for a get to know you session.” “I wasn’t going to ask you for family holos or you shoe size, I want to know if you’re up for this.” Chavik chuckled, then coughed. “Im feeling better. Foss gave me something that’s perked me up some. Still, if its all the same to you I’d rather be back in space than eating dirt with the likes of you. No offense.” “None taken. Go get your team prepped and have the others hold back until I give them the signal.” “What are you going to do?” asked Chavik. Savage slithered back a few feet and sat upright. He pulled over his baggage and began to assemble his rifle. “Im going to get set up here and cover your ass, that’s what Im going to do.” Chavik raised and eyebrow and flashed a worried glare at the grinning Diamond. “I doubt I need to remind you Savage, but we’re gonna be next to invisible down there. If you start shooting at targets and miss, you could accidentally take out one of us.” Savage smirked at the Insurgent as he slapped the rifles magazine in place. “Don’t worry Chavik. I don’t miss.” [/RP] Bring it on!

Thats it $ilk, you're on report.

Firestorm. When you absolutely, positively have to kill every Insurgent in the region, except no substitute.

Way ahead of you Gallion. Sadly, none of these newbies have registered to the Orion Fleet just yet, although I suspect once they start paying attention they will be commin in droves.

Well, providing it's available before next friday, Im gonna be one smug UK commander cos my folks are out there right now and are lookin out for a copy for me.

Believe it or not, I've actually gotten round to building the new broadcast box and have finally got full 24/7 capability. So, from now on wherever you are in the world and at whatever time, you can tune into Rudest, Crudest and most Offensive Internet Radio broadcast anywhere in the universe. True, live presentations of - The Basement - still only go out tuesday evenings 9pm - midnight (GMT) although show repeats and all the latest and greatest dance n r&b as well as the very top choice of chart toppers of the last 30 years will be blaring away and able to keep you company during the other 165 hours of the week. www.b2radio.co.uk

quote:Why does it take so long for orion to promote its cadets? Because we wont take just anyone into the fold. Orion isnt like other fleets. Everyone of my people had to prove to me that they were worthy of the fleet, it's ideals and fellow commanders. We dont have casual gamers in Orion. We have a strong chain of command. We do things a certain way around here and everyone in the fleet respects that way. People who dont pull their weight, contribute to the betterment of the fleet and (Most importantly) dont perform their assigned tasks adequately will not graduate and will therefore not become full members of the fleet. Thats why.

Our intel network is worrying more about dangerous Insurgent Fleets than washed up traffic jocs playing cards and drinking beer in that oversized coffin you call New America. Dont worry, we'll get round to smokin out you roaches once we've moped up the rest of your pitiful fleets. Would tuesday be good for you?

Ah yes, them were the good old days ... Have no fear JJ, you're time of final judgement draws near. Those officers who have been monitoring your activities these last couple of months will be reporting to me shortly as to your general progress. As soon as I have their opinions, you shall have mine. Then you'll know.

Hope to see you at Destiny real soon Evan. I'll even bring the straws.

With all the running away you guys do, it's difficult to do more than bark while you scurry down your bunny holes. Still, we got our very own ferret to chase you out ... somthing you and the rest of your degenerate camp will discover soon enough. And by all means, go down fighting.

Be seeing ya'll real soon Evan.

If I was you Nick, Id listen when your woman wants to talk. From what I seen, you should be playing more with her than your PC. And if you dont, well, you know my offer from the other night still stands ...

Chucking silly insults? Hrumph, this is the corner stone of human communication I'll have you know. Anyway, I'll settled this right now. My dads bigger than your dad. So ner ner.

[RP] You'd think not with all the crap spewing out of the faces. [/RP] And thats gotta be a home run.

Heh, you should never leave yourself that open when Im about.

[RP] quote: Nope, my mistake, I seem to have eaten something that didn't agree with my stomach That'll be humble pie you vulger little tape worm. Do your doctors know how to extract your head from your own arse? Try blowing on your thumb real hard. [/RP] Heh, this is funny. We should commision a book on top BC taunts.

[RP] Hmm, so far all I see is 'We are coming, we will destroy you .... but not today. No siree, not today because, ah, we're busy. Yeah, thats it. Busy with BIG, DANGEROUS SCAREY FOES you know nothing about. *Ahem* You toothless old hasbeen. Your cowardice is rapidly aproaching legendary status. Even our lowliest cadets are chuckling in their booties at your pitiful outbursts. I'd continue to mock you, but Id be better off taunting an opponant with bigger balls. Hows about a Vesperon eunuch? Run along Gammy gammmy Gam Gam, you're irritating dialogue is as stale and inspiring as you're fetid breath. At least the Insurgents have the balls to wage a war with more than words. You cant even do that with any real menace. Bah! I waste my time. [/RP] Goooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllll!

*shudder* Dont you know that Biogenetic engineering is bad for your health? Why not just grown em long like they do in the Orion fleet? Oh thats right, you cant. Now step the hell back before I whap this puppy out and put a big red slap mark on your booger green forehead.

[RP] Coward, huh? Thats right. Lets put off this little spat by implying that I am too scared and puny to face you. Lets have you keep yourselves at a good distance from the like of poor, little, insignificant old me so you dont have to sully yourselves with putting me to death. You make me smile, my warty little fungal growth. All the time you boast of you ability to vanquish the mightiest of foes, yet you still havent been able to penetrate meaningfully into our territory and shy away from conflict. Or maybe this is the new voice of Gammulan reason. Maybe this diplomacy of yours covers a simple, stark thruth - The fact that you and your entire species have been bested by humanity on more occasions than you can stomach. You have finally realised that your talk is just that - talk. You failed to breach our defenses and drive us to our deaths. You failed to take and hold territory from us. You failed your gods, your families, yourselves. You failed to win a war of brutality or attrition, and going by those two examples, you really believe you can win a war of words? Out of your league you toady little anal wart. [/RP] Strike three.