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Samus had finished dressing Jon. He wore a bright orange pair of cargo pants, and a white tank top, both of which had holes that most likely marked the end of their previous owners. He wore a heavy belt that weighed down his pants, mainly due to the massive pistol that Samus had advised him to just ignore. "The more conscious you are of your weapons, the greener you seem."She said. Samus sniffed a few times, "Gods Jon, go wash the deodorant off yourself and go jump around for a while. I swear, I can't take you anywhere." "What's the point of all this?" He asked. "What exactly are we going to do here?" "Well." She answered. "I'm going to be getting fuel and munitions for the ship. I figured you might want to wander around and hit up the comm center, and send a few messages." "Well yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to to do." "Also." She said, "When you're done with your thing and I'm done enabling us to travel and fight, there's a great little diner near the docking bay that serves the best Larean spice soup outside of Larean space that we will have to visit. We'll meet there after two hours?" Froglight fucked around with this message at 07:24 on Dec 23, 2013 |
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Dec 23, 2013 03:31
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Any news op? It was about to be lost in the archives but I saved it for you.
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Apr 17, 2014 12:27
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"Oh Gods!" Jon coughed and hacked. His eyes turned red and tears began to flow down his cheeks. Snot began to run down his nostrils. He grabbed the one napkin he had and tried to use it to clean the mess on his face as best he could. The waitress had just placed two bowls of Larean spice soup in front of Samus and Jon. "Are you okay? You haven't even tasted it" Samus said. "Are you serious!?" Jon managed to ask between coughs. "This is literally a bowl of riot control gas. The chef must have just found a way to pour a crowd control grenade into a bowl!" "Oh it's not THAT bad." Samus laughed, "It happens to be my favorite." Jon let out a few more hacks and covered his bowl with a plate. "It happens to be a noxious bowl of poisonous irritant." he said as he wiped snot from his chin. "Don't be such a weakhead. We have the exact same physiology. It's the most delicious thing in the universe, and it's worth learning to handle." "Well I'm a man who knows when to admit he's not ready for something, and I'll take something closer to chicken if they have it." Jon had finally gotten himself cleaned up. "I swear you planned this, this is some kind of prank." "I was merely trying to share my favorite food with my new friend." Samus said trying not to laugh. "Oh, sure." Jon said. "I swear that soup smells exactly like riot gas." "And how would you know what riot gas smells like?" Samus asked before spooning the soup into her mouth. "Same way anybody would know what riot gas smells like: Basic military training. It's not like there are actual riots going on these days, or that a riot would be met with anything as humane as riot gas." "So then you have done your time. Which side?" "Everyone has done their time Samus, and most people consider it rude to ask which side someone fought for. It makes for awkward post-war social interactions." Samus finished her soup and then took the plate off Jons' bowl as she pulled it towards herself. "But..." He said, watching her eat his soup. "Since it's you, and I can't imagine offending you: I got snagged by the Confederates and I did my six years with them." "As?" "I was a medic." "Now you're a journalist. Didn't want to continue in the medical field?" "Nope. Before my conscription I had no interest in the medical field. When I was conscripted I knew that a medic was the only thing I wanted to be. Now that I'm out, I have no interest in medicine again." "Alright." Samus finished Jon's bowl of soup. "I found a job while you were at the the comm station, and I decided that you can come along if you want to." Froglight fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 09:38
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This is one hell of a yarn.
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Apr 28, 2014 10:32
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Jon perked up. "Well of course I want to come along. What's the job?" Samus laughed. "Hang on, before that. As a fed recruit, were you really issued a Timber-83 rifle?" "Why? Don't you sit there and act like you're about to talk poo poo about my Timber....It's literally the perfect rifle." Samus laughed, "It's literally better at jamming than it is at shooting." Jon scoffed, "Yeah maybe, if you suck at taking care of your weapon." Samus made a point of brushing her shoulders off. "Personally, If I'm running around like an un-suited infantry fart, I would like a Jackal-68." "Really!?" Jon scoffed. "That ancient Bourian made bull pup cumbersome piece of poo poo?" "How is a bull pup cumbersome? It's obviously the more efficient design option." "Yeah, if you're a robot, maybe. That poo poo might pass all the lab tests and virtual battle outcome simulators; but try sleeping and living and fighting with that awkward inaccurate piece of poo poo for a month." "It might be 1% less accurate than a Timber but it's 50% more reliable." "You go ahead and be 50% more reliable about missing your target with your big fat poo poo rifle." Samus forced herself to stop smiling. "Can I resend my offer to take you with my on my next job? You're obviously hosed in the head." Froglight fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 11:16
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Ah sweet dude, been waiting on an update.
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May 1, 2014 18:03
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ive learned a lot from this thread, but i want to know more. samus, how do you feel about gun rights and the second amendment dont let jon die, garfield needs him
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May 1, 2014 18:03
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"So tell me about this job you found." "Well, it's not my usual kind of gig, but it's with some good people I've worked with in the past. There's this young Confederate Captain, he's like 30 and his name is Deck. He got his commission when he was 19 and his first assignment was platoon leader for an anti-air stealth infantry platoon." Jon interrupted. "Where he led the only successful defense of one of twenty communication towers on the third moon of Genera, Pilius; allowing the confederacy to call for reinforcements during the surprise attack on the Generasol system. They say his twenty man platoon shot down over a hundred aircraft. All the other comm towers weren't destroyed, but worse, taken and turned by enemy programmers. Deck's men, because of their prepared and ready state, didn't have to fight a single man on the ground, because all of the enemy personnel shuttles were destroyed before being able to deploy their troops." Samus smiled, "That's what they say. It sounds like Deck might be a bit more well known than I thought." "He's literally in the Basic Training Textbook. Every recruit is told the story of how Lieutenant Deck, being given a seemingly unimportant task on a remote moon, saved thousands of lives and basically won a system victory by being the only commander to not become complacent in his duties. They use it to shame us into staying awake on guard duty and to make sure we get underneath the toilet seats when we cleaned the latrines." "I'll have to make fun of him for that when we see him. After that victory he was jumped straight to Captain and given golden-boy status. He was given more important targets to defend; like a mining colony that was considered to be an easy civilian-retaliation target. When the Confederacy accidentally blew up a medical research station, most analysts agreed that the Kerians would strike out at this colony. Deck asked for reinforcements, he asked for weapons, he asked for anything else that could be spared to defend the miners he was tasked to protect. Even though everyone and their livestock seemed to know that an attack was coming on that specific mining colony, the confederacy was convinced that Deck had his fair share of men and resources." Samus looked at Jon, as if she expected him to interrupt again. "My knowledge of Deck ends after the Siege of Generia, that's all that was in my manual. It seems like the rest of his story wasn't fit to inspire recruits to guard bunks or clean toilets." "Well. The Confederates accidentally blew up a research station, so the Kerians needed to accidentally blow up a mining colony. But Deck was in charge of defending that colony. It looked like it was going to take more than non-complacency this time, so Deck went over the heads of his superiors and used his own family fortune to hire mercenaries and pirates to fight for him. That might have been overlooked, but he also hired me." "So hiring known pirates was alright, but not you?" "I was hired, not to defend the colony though. I was hired to lead the hijacking of a Kerian prison station. A war crime to be sure, and Deck always knew it would be traced back to him. I was to free the confederate soldiers and illegally redirect them to Deck's command. As for the other criminals, the murderers and thieves of the bunch, I was to fix them with explosive collars and offer them their freedom in exchange for defending the colony." "Good Gods." "The mining colony was attacked right on schedule, and an army that was 60% pirates, mercenaries, criminals, and me repelled them. But the defense of that mining colony full of families wasn't as glorious as the defense of that lonely comm tower on that rock, and Captain Deck barely avoided a court marshal. That was two years ago, and he's been exiled to this mushroom covered moon, guarding a giant listening post in the least important sector of the least important section of space." "And that's where we're going now?" Samus nodded. "Deck has a hunch that he's going to be attacked, and if that's not a reason to clean the carbon out of your gun barrel, I don't know what is."
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May 2, 2014 10:26
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I remember reading this a few months ago, but I only just now found the thread again. This time I bookmarked it.
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May 6, 2014 05:00
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24 hours later Samus's ship; which frustratingly didn't have a cool name, Jon thought as he wrote of their journey so far, hurtled toward a remote mushroom-covered moon where a discarded war hero named Deck guarded a listening post that in twenty years of service had never heard anything worth reporting. Jon pushed his keyboard away and cracked his neck. Writing dead sober was always hard for him. He could never move on from a sentence until he was sure it couldn't possibly be written any better. Part of him wanted to just live this adventure for as long as he could, and write about it later, but he didn't trust his memory that much. Jon's cabin was fully lit and his door was closed. He saw darkness underneath the crack in his closed door. That meant the ship was asleep. That meant that she was asleep. When she woke up, she would turn the light on in her room, and that would cause the rest of the ship to jolt awake, and Jon would see the crack under his door light up, and he would feel a rush of excitement, and he would wait for her to greet him over the loud intercom. Of course Jon could just step outside of his cabin and start turning on lights. He could run up and down the corridors of the ship, turning all the lights on and off, but he already decided that he wanted to write a paragraph about how Samus and the ship always woke up together, and he couldn't ruin it now, even if he was hungry and wanted to go to the kitchen. At the comm station Jon had been able to contact his father. Neither Jon nor his father had ever used quantum communications before, and they spent a while geeking out about how far apart they were, talking face to face like it was nothing. Then Jon started to catch his father up on what was going on, as much as he could tell him. Jon bragged excitedly. He conveyed how excited he was to his father. He asked his father if he could believe that any of this was actually happening. His father congratulated him, told him to stay safe, and then spent the next half hour telling Jon about his latest business venture. He was starting a new company that helped Irridium mining sub-contractors get fully compliant with the new laws that governed something about the way Irridium mining sub-contractors had to do business. Jon eventually had to cut the conversation off, politely saying that he had run out of credits, when in fact Samus had casually given him what he made in a month in credits to contact anyone he wanted on the Q-comms. So Jon sat at his desk thinking about how Samus should be waking up soon, and thinking about what he should write next. He thought about Samus on her Captain's Bridge, and how she liked it fully lit, with all her computer screens on, displaying various news-feeds and the entertainment programs she subscribed to that had been downloaded automatically at her last fuel-stop. He thought about the music she liked to have playing, and the fact that she had only recently started playing it around him. He thought about everything he had heard about her before meeting her. He thought about the news articles he had read about some of the things she had done. He thought about the story of the Kerian prison ship and the explosive collars, and about the finer details she had glossed over. Jon minimized his document and decided to browse some of those entertainment programs Samus had downloaded. Froglight fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 6, 2014 |
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May 6, 2014 08:17
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a fun play on writer's block, nice
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May 7, 2014 15:11
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Trying to climb stairs was the worst. When you get stationed on a moon with 70% gravity, everything takes some getting used to, and everyone knows that; but nobody tells you how goddamned hard it is to climb stairs. Next time you're online, look up 'low gravity adjustment fail compilation'. It's hysterical. The 88th light infantry regiment had had a particularly hard time adjusting, as they were trained to fight and live on high gravity environments. The soldiers of the 88th were all shorter and stockier men and women, and they had what many consider to be the hardest basic training in the galaxy: Three months on the Iron-Air Island, a moon with 200% gravity. Sergeant Grammer remembered how hard it was to climb the stairs there. He remembered the way the Drill Sergeants began recruit training with a cruel joke; a two-hundred step climb from the landing pad to the training camp. He carried an already heavy duffel bag full of freshly issued clothes, thrown at him by fat uninterested civilian workers; and he remembered the way it doubled in weight when the airlock hissed on the shuttle he arrived in. He remembered that last sweet moment of normal gravity, and how much he would come to miss it in the impending months. He thought about that climb. Years ago. He was on the 5th year of his 6 now. He had a prosthetic stomach, and two feet of artificial intestines. He had been wounded in service to the Confederacy. He had two bronze medals of valor, and two enemy names imprinted on his dog-tags, but that climb might still have been one of his proudest moments. The gravity had ripped the sweat from his forehead, and once he put his head down, he couldn't pick it back up again; but his legs carried him up all two hundred of those steps. He was 4th in his class of 200 to make it up those steps, and when the emptied his stomach at the end of that climb, the vomit fell and splatted strange and heavily; and it took everything he had not to collapse face first into it. He managed to collapse beside it. After the first week he stopped choking in the middle of the night, and he had gained twenty pounds of muscle. When training ended, he was assigned to the 88th light infantry regiment, Alpha Company under Lieutenant Deck. He reported for duty a clean shaven cube of rippling muscle, prepared for duty on the harshest of livable environments. The unit was stationed on Generia, a 1.1 gravity moon. He had looked like a swollen, hormone-injected bull compared to the other soldiers. He was the strongest man in the unit by far, but he found that in normal gravity environments he was cursed with intense clumsiness. When he put toilet seats up he would slam and break them, and when he let them down he would be overly, comedically delicate. He had only spent three months on the Iron Island, and years later he had failed to re-adapt to normal gravity. His unit psychologist blamed his minds inner frustration over him never getting his high-gravity mission that he had trained so hard for. He wasn't unhappy with his military career though. He had gained the rank of Sergeant, and was well liked by both his subordinates and superiors. After winning several awards for push-up competitions, he won his first award for valor in the defense of Generia. He was later given another award for Valor and Adaptability when he led his squad in conjunction with Samus Aran and her team of exploding slave convicts and pirates in the defense of a mining colony on Plabus II. Now the decorated Sergeant found himself on a .7 gravity moon, exiled along with his Captain. Once he had faced Kerian Jet-Troopers and Shadowmen. Now he faced the stairs to his own commanders trailer. Ten steps. 'Here we go.' he thought. 'Four steps at a time, then just glide over the last two. Just glide. Don't go over and smash into the door. Don't go under and snag your foot and smash into the door.' Froglight fucked around with this message at 11:35 on May 9, 2014 |
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May 9, 2014 09:24
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Captain Deck and his Lieutenants jumped suddenly when something smashed loudly against the door of the command trailer. "Enter." The Captain called out. A few seconds later a calm and collected Sergeant Grammer opened the door and stepped into the room. The young Sergeant saluted and snapped to attention like it was his first time ever reporting to an officer. "Sir. Miss Aran has arrived and is hailing us from orbit."
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May 9, 2014 10:21
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The plot thickens...! Willing to see how far this can go before the climax. Will be waiting for more.
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May 10, 2014 01:40
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Great stuff op. Really highlights how even though most of us are Samus fans due to her beauty, she's got plenty of brains and brawn as well.
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May 10, 2014 01:59
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"So what happens now?" Jon asked. Samus was wearing brown pants tucked into black boots. She wore a collared long sleeved white shirt tucked into her pants. Her honey colored hair was collected into a tight military bun. It was the most well-dressed Jon had ever seen her. "I talked to Deck. He knows about you. They have quarters for us. In about three hours a shuttle will arrive and connect with us. A few strong young men will help me box up the suit and our luggage, and we will be flown down to the moon's surface in that shuttle. Then we will find out exactly why my man Deck seems to think throwing even more of his inheritance at me is a good idea." Samus looked Jon up and down. "We're going to be living with the 88th light infantry. They're some decent hardasses; do you want to wear a pistol?" Jon smiled. "No thanks, journalists have no need for weapons. Is there a reason we need the shuttle though? I thought these frigates were designed to fly and land under atmospheric conditions." "They are; Before you install ten tons of aftermarket weaponry. Then they get a bit wobbly." "Ah, I see. So the ship will just be orbiting up here all alone? Above a moon that at least one person thinks is about to be attacked?" "I'm rich, Jon, and I don't have much to spend my money on besides weapons and cloaking devices and counter cyber-warfare suites. The old girl will be okay."
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May 12, 2014 09:19
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Samus had wanted to arrive when everyone was asleep. Captain Deck insisted on a welcoming formation. Samus personally knew most of the men and women of the 88th. Her part in the defense of Plabus II had been unusual. The 88th had been initially resistant to the idea of fighting alongside the infamous Samus Aran, and it didn't help that she arrived commanding a squad of enslaved, bomb-collared, convicts. The uneasiness of the Confederate soldiers was quickly assuaged, however, when it became evident that without her help they would have all surely been killed. Truly, the quickest way to a soldier's heart is to save them from a grisly death on an ugly rock lightyears from their home. The few days that Samus spent with the 88th after their victory had only reinforced their love for her; because, as most of the 88th would later attest at council inquiries: not only had Samus saved all of their lives after their official request for reinforcements was refused, but, "Samus was awesome." The results of the council inquiry into the defense of Plabus II were never published. Froglight fucked around with this message at 11:03 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 09:56
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The ramp of the shuttle lowered. On one end stood the assembled 88th Light Infantry, standing at attention in impressively dry uniforms, considering the humid, mushroom covered rainforest moon they stood on. On the other end of the ramp stood Samus Aran and Jon. A single member of the 88th's formation took three steps forward and shouted out: "The Eighty-Eighth Light Infantry welcomes to the 7th moon of Nen: Friend and honorary member of the Eighty-Eighth Light Infantry, Ms. Samus Aran!" The herald took a deep breath and continued: "The Eighty Eighth Light Infantry also welcomes to the 7th moon of Nen: Our comrade, and winner of the Silver Medal of Bravery and the Medal of the Wounded, Master Sergeant Jonathan Tarpin!" Froglight fucked around with this message at 11:39 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 10:48
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"Listen, I understand that her being here right now is good, and I'm as glad as anybody to know that we have this chick backing us right now, but to be honest I'm pretty loving uncomfortable with the situation overall. I know alot of you guys fought with her on Plabus." "Plabus II." Another soldier corrected with his mouth full. "Yeah, whatever. It's just weird that she gets all this love from you guys. The girl {he wanted to say bitch, but knew better, considering the crowd.} has killed confederate soldiers. You all love her because Captain Deck used his parent's money to hire her to protect you, but if there was some rich rear end officer on that Kerian assault team who had the same idea, she would have been tearing through those tunnels, blowing us away the same way she defended us. She's a merc, a very powerful merc; and that should make you uncomfortable." Private Sicka was speaking freely, because he was at The Speakeasy. It was a special dining trailer where a soldier could relax. The 88th's camp on the 7th moon of Nen didn't have a bar, or a clubhouse. There was no alcohol, or intoxicants of any kind. There was, however, The Speakeasy. The Speakeasy was one of three dining trailers, and it was officially the only spot on camp where military standards were relaxed; only during meal hours of course. At The Speakeasy a man could put his hands in his pockets and say what was on his mind. A sergeant couldn't punish a private without severe provacation. Officers and sergeants who were unpopular with their men avoided The Speakeasy like it was the plague, for fear of being generally eaten alive. Captain Deck knew that his best leaders could discipline a man in the morning, and still take their lunch at The Speakeasy. Froglight fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 13, 2014 09:28
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Sergeant Grammer was known to take all of his meals at The Speakeasy, and he was the only person above the rank of Sergeant to do so. All of the leaders of the 88th took their occasional meal at The Speakeasy hoping to be noticed by Captain Deck. The Speakeasy was 99% Privates and Specialists, and the occasional Corporal. The 88th Light Infantry was a Battalion of about four hundred men, divided into three companies of about one hundred: Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. The remaining hundred men were divided between the Headquarters Company and the Support Company. Headquarters company was basically just Captain Deck and the guys who ran communications, tactical overlay, and the drones; plus the Doctor and the medics. Support Company was the mechanics, the armorers, a chemical guy, and a couple quartermasters. The hundred men of Alpha company, just like Bravo and Charlie, were divided into three thirty man platoons: One, two, and three. Sergeant Grammer commanded the third platoon of Alpha.
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May 13, 2014 10:08
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Thoroughly enjoying the recent updates OP, will be keeping an eye on the thread for more. Very cool to get a glimpse of how the 'rank and file' view Samus.
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May 14, 2014 11:59
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It's like For Whom The Bell Tolls with Metroids. 
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May 15, 2014 00:32
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Bitchtits McGee posted:It's like For Whom The Bell Tolls with Metroids. Wow. Thanks, dude. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Specialist Sands and Specialist Gomez were both medics in the 88th. Respectively, they were the medics of first and third platoon of Alpha company. Sands and Gomez met while they were being processed for service before basic training. They had their heads shaved for the first time in the same room, and spent their basic training together. Since they were both slated to be medics, they continued together to the Confederate Combat Medic School, where they did their best to party like the rich university kids who could afford to avoid the draft, while still having to wake up before dawn everyday for twelve hours of class and training. Sands and Gomez were fast friends by the time of their medic school graduation. They were both looking forward to their unit assignments, and the prospect of being out of a training environment and having a bit of freedom. They mainly looked forward to the possibility of being treated like adults for the first time in their new military careers; and they had been bold enough to request to the school's commanding officer that they be assigned to the same unit. "I'm not trying to go anywhere without my motherfucking brodie!" Sands had said one evening at the student dining hall, before engaging in a long and overdrawn custom handshake with Gomez. The evening of the graduation ceremony was something that Sands and Gomez would joke about for years. There was a sad, half-assed ceremony, and out of their class of 314 graduates, two soldier's parent's were present. The graduates wore their blank, conspicuously undecorated dress uniforms, and accepted graduation certificates that looked like they were printed two hundred years ago. They listened to a sad speech from a retired colonel who had served way back when the Kerians were seen as insurgents and terrorists. He had ranted for an awkwardly long time about how the Kerians hated the bold capitalism of the Confederacy, and how if they had their way, all of the species would forsake their planetary identities and combine their DNA's in order to create some "sick-freak mongoloid super race." Most of the soldiers were midly uncomfortable, but a couple of them were nothing but motivated by the old-timer's speech. Sands and Gomez thought the entire thing was hilarious and didn't want the retired colonel to stop, because they thought he was spouting comedy gold. Froglight fucked around with this message at 09:51 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 09:26
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The officer in charge of the 3rd medical training company was supposed to give his two strongest soldiers out of every graduating class to the high-gravity shock trooper training program on the Iron-Air Island. He also had to recommend two of his smartest for compulsary doctor schooling, and another two of his most non-noteworthy to mortuary duty, sorting out the remains of the fallen. The officer in charge of the 3rd medical training company hadn't spent a single day on the training camp in the last 4 months, as he had taken an unofficial extended leave to be with his wife and children after an obscure relative on his mother's side had passed away. On his first day back in office he looked at a chart of student test scores: The top two students he recommended for doctor apprenticeship, and the bottom two he recommended for mortuary work. The officer didn't even have time to stress about his last decision before there was a knock on his door. "Good morning sir. Private Sands. I know you have an open door policy and for what it's worth I just wanted to officially request that I be sent to the same unit as Private Gomez."
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May 16, 2014 09:42
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So Sands and Gomez had been assigned to high gravity shock trooper training, which was practically Special Operations, and not the kind of training that was usually inflicted on unwilling draftees; and so the unlucky pair learned the meaning of true misery. They were assigned to different training classes and had been separated for the first time and wouldn't see each other until their training was over. They were a year behind Sergeant Grammer, and they were much less gung-ho, but they went through the same training. They survived where Grammer had excelled. "I'm a loving draftee." Sands ranted one night, "I didn't sign up for this Special Forces crazy rear end bullshit! If I do this one more day my spine is literally going to poo poo itself!" He spent his months of training in pure misery, accepting the mandatory steroid injections and being forced to work harder than he ever thought he could. He would later brag that "Vomiting from exertion was as regular as the extreme diarrhea that came from the cocktail of uppers and steroids we were forced to take.". And that, "We never knew whether we should eat more or less." At his original boot camp he initially achieved a 56% rating on the combat obstacle course, and after 3 months of hard training and rear end kicking by his drill sergeants he graduated at 69%. At the end of his shock trooper training he scored something undisclosed above 100% at the same test. When Gomez and Sands were finally reunited, they barely recognized the mountains of muscle that they had both become, and for a while, they could not stop laughing at the sight of one another. "What's up bitch? Don't you ever abandon me again you stupid swollen motherfucker." Were Gomez's first words to Sands. Froglight fucked around with this message at 10:51 on May 16, 2014 |
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May 16, 2014 10:38
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May 18, 2014 04:24
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Wow, I just got caught up with this story, and it's really good stuff! It seems like you're avoiding the temptation to get right into intrigue and action. Instead you're building up a whole galaxy, immersing us in details of characters' life, and letting us know what everyone thinks of Samus, which is really unique. You're such a strong wordsmith that I think it will all pay off in a big way. Also, the swearing, drinking and diarrhea in the latest chapters give the story a gritty edge that I don't normally see in Nintendo games. I can't wait to see what adventures unfold for Jon and Samus, and Sands and Gomez, too! You say this is strictly non-canon, but I think Nintendo might be temped to pick this up for a novelization if you send it to them. Even non-Metroid fans might find this interesting because of the attention to worldbuilding and the variety of viewpoints, which are impressive. With a little polish and practice, you could be the next Timothy Zahn.
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May 18, 2014 06:01
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Camp 88 was the was the only inhabited spot on the entire moon; a handful of trailers behind four tall walls in the middle of one of the massive mushroom rainforests that completely covered the moon. The entire purpose of the camp was to shield and operate a very large antenna that's only purpose was to be able to communicate with the next closest moon to a further off actually important place. Very little unfiltered sunlight reached the ground of the moon due to the thick canopy of mushroom caps that was, at it's lowest point, one hundred feet in the air. The canopy gave the entire moon a strange sense of being entirely indoors, almost like a massive sports stadium. Animal life was primitive; big bugs and lizards mostly, and the occasional jacked-up looking rat. As a soldier, you were generally expected to live and fight on moons and planets lightyears away from the places you had spent millions of years evolving, as though it was no big deal. Weird gravity, uncomfortable temperatures, strange radiations and atmospheres. These things were all dealt with as much as they could be with medications and technology, but it still always sucked. The seventh moon of Nen was catagorized in common soldier lingo as a "cold sauna" zone; cool and humid. The morning of the day that Samus was to land at Camp 88, Sands and Gomez, freshly shaved and showered, headed to the dining hall to take their breakfast. Sands and Gomez sped up their walk so they could catch up to Specialist Traner, a very tightly wound, very attractive female soldier who worked at the Command Center, doing something with radios or drones or something. Specialist Traner was a favored target of the duo's jokes. Sands and Gomez caught up and walked on either side of Traner. Sands and Gomez had rifles slung across their backs, and Traner had a heavy pistol strapped to her thigh. "You know where you are right now Traner?" Sands said through his smile. "Fu-" Traner began "You're in between a rock and a hard place, Traner." Gomez said Traner fumed silently "That's bad news Traner." Sands chimed in "Yeah." Gomez said, "Bad news for you, Traner." Traner shouldered her way past the two roughly and snapped. "Ugh! you guys are so loving weird! I don't have time for your bullshit right now! Samus is landing today and I have a million things to do to get ready! All you grunt retards have to do is find a pair of pants without shitstains to wear at the formation!" Her rant trailed off as she quickly outpaced them and headed to some apparently important task. "Let's get some breakfast, dude." Froglight fucked around with this message at 08:38 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 08:15
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Captain Deck's extracurricular command strategies weren't limited to hiring Samus. He had spent millions of credits of his own money to equip his soldiers with equipment usually reserved for only the most elite of troops. Special networked augmented reality visors allowed his men to view objectives and waypoints in real time, overlayed in their vision. Flying drones that mapped and scanned a battlefield could interface with a soldiers visor to make a beam of light shoot skyward from an obscured enemy tank. A drone could spot an enemy in a window and direct all soldiers in sightline to target that window. Captain deck had purchased this Special Forces AR system for his men who were not rated for it, and they had had a long hard journey of learning to use it. Additionally Captain Deck had a massive arsenal of illegal weaponry; weapons that were banned under the War Courtesies. These were weapons only to be used as a last resort, under threat of imminent defeat, and included chemical bombs, landmines, sonic weapons, and burning phosphorous. Deck's aresenal of black market illegal weaponry was nothing special, except maybe in it's extensiveness. Plenty commanders who could afford it liked to keep a few war crimes up their sleeves in case of an emergency. To some, it was preferable to melt an enemy platoon with phosphorous, and take the black mark on their honor, than surrender their objective and be taken prisoner. When an officer was taken prisoner he was processed and released from service: Free and alive, but never to serve as a military officer again. When an elisted man was taken prisoner, he was processed and released back into service, under the agreement that he would take no part in any offensive action until his time of discharge. Military commanders and their units had sort of unofficial honor ratings. So let's say you're a commander who is tasked with taking a fueling station that is currently being held by the 166th Light Armored Vehicle Regiment. You would be able to see in your initial briefing that in their last battle, the 166th is said to have blown up a clearly marked medical transport in the middle of battle. Now you don't know what the circumstances were. You don't know if it was an accident, or one trigger happy private with a missile launcher. Hell, you can't even be sure your own unit wasn't using clearly marked medical vehicles to get in close to the enemy without being shot down, only to use it to drop troops right in front of the enemy. All you know is that the last commander, your ally, who tangled with the 166th reported that they shot down his ambulance in cold blood; and this is something you take into consideration when determining your own battle plan. A clearly dishonorable unit: One that uses illegal weapons, kills civilians, shoots wounded, shoots medics caring for wounded, and shoots medical transports can usually expect to be met with the same treatment by the next unit they fight. There have been plenty of commanders whose last action, as one of the last surviving members of their unit, and as the enemy cut through his bunker doors, was to launch a prepared long range messenger drone into space, telling of the cruelty and war crimes of the people who were about to kill him. There were things beyond the obvious that could give you negative points on your honor rating. For instance, if a platoon of Kerians were processing their dead enemies after a victory, and came across a pair of dogtags that belonged to a former Prisoner of War, they might see that this unit had employed men who were not supposed to be serving in an offensive capacity as per POW laws; and they would file against the honor of the unit they had just defeated. Fighting dirty might win you a victory or two, but most commanders knew that it was foolish in the long run. For one, soldiers generally didn't like fighting dirty, and the ones who did usually liked it a little too much for anybody's good. More importantly though, when a commander decided to buy a bunch of chemical and napalm grenades and go reaving around like a pirate, it wouldn't take long for the enemy force to go out of their way to converge on him and exterminate him and the unfortunate men he had dragged down into the mud. When a tiny, unimportant fueling station gets attacked by an unnecessarily large force, and the station is simply destroyed instead of being taken; you can be sure that the commander in charge of guarding it had pissed off one too many people by fighting dirty. You could also be sure that his calls for reinforcements had fallen on deaf ears. Froglight fucked around with this message at 07:03 on May 21, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 08:36
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ulvir fucked around with this message at 20:44 on May 20, 2014 |
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May 20, 2014 20:38
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Same.
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May 20, 2014 22:10
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 Keep it coming!
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May 22, 2014 08:49
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Two nights before Jon and Samus landed at Camp 88, they had shared a bottle of Larean Gourd Liquor. After his first sip Jon had winced and grabbed the table, "Whoa...do you have anything to mix this with?" "I have pretty much anything. Want some cow milk?" "What? No, gross. Do you have juice or soda?" "I have everything." Samus said laughing. "Cow milk is the best thing to mix Gourd Liquor with though, I'm telling you." "Give me something with caffeine, so I don't pass out. If your tolerance for booze is anything like your tolerance for spices, I'm in for a rough night." "Fair enough." Samus pressed a few buttons on her kitchen wall and brought Jon a tall glass of pale yellow liquid with ice. After a few drinks Samus had said little, and was still sober. Jon was not, and Samus had learned almost everything there was to know about him. She learned about the fiance that had been with him since high school, and left him during his third year of military service. She learned that he had actually achieved the rank of Master Sergeant in his six mandatory years; a feat that normally took a man between twelve and fourteen years. She learned of his strong distaste for the military in general, and she heard his blunt opinions on how he didn't understand how she did what she did for a living. Jon told the story of how he had treated over fifty casualties as base medic at the battle of Jerus-9 (3). Jon told the story of how he was part of a volunteer force that boarded a passenger ship that had been taken over by pirates. The pirates took the first class passenger liner hostage, and had immediately been surrounded by Confederate forces. Jon and five other upper-enlisted men took the mission of boarding the ship unarmed, disguised as a negotiation team. Had the pirates been a bit more intelligent they might have questioned why there was even such a thing as a negotiation 'team'. Jon and five other men had snuck single shot wrist guns onto the bridge of that ship with the mission of killing fifteen pirates. The bloody melee on the bridge of that airliner had resulted in fifteen dead pirates, and a mission completed; as well as four dead confederate sergeants and a double lung perforation that would result in Jon's medical discharge from the Confederate Army. "I lost a good friend in that fight, and three friendly acquaintances; but I might never be as proud of a single minute in my life." Jon took another sip of his drink. "Kill a man with a rifle at two hundred meters and you're all like: 'Oh drat, nice shot by me. Maybe I'll get a medal.'" Jon laughed. "Pound a man's face in with an empty magazine and two holes in your guts and suddenly you think, 'War is truly hell. What are we doing?' Jon laughed. "You know what's really funny though?" Jon had said, quite drunk at this point. "What's that?" Samus said, slightly buzzed. "I'm a big human history buff." Jon took another sip. "Humans eventually got to a point where it seemed like war was over. We fought the last savage world wars, then we fought some more wars over economy and government, then we fought some religious wars, and after that people struggled to find a reason to kill each other on a mass scale; and after a couple more small wars that seemed to be just for the sake of war, we stopped. People literally couldn't justify killing each other anymore, and we had like seventy years of peace. The environment was stable. We pretty much solved the energy problem. Everything seemed great. Things were so great that the entire human race came together, in a world without war, and we loving reached the stars. We loving did what our ancestors had dreamed about and made TV shows about. We united as a motherfucking people, and we fulfilled our evolutionary goddamned imperative. We shot out into space. We took longer than most of the other species, but gently caress the goddamn game if we didn't actually do it; human style." Jon took another sip of his drink and looked around the room. "And then what?" Samus asked. "What?" Jon blinked. "You were saying; we shot out into space." "Right!" Jon yelled. "We shot out into space, as an enlightened species that had evolved beyond war, conflict, and economy. And you know what we found?" Before Samus could ask Jon answered. "We found the next loving level! That's what we found! Harsher conflicts, deadlier wars, and even deadlier economies. I guess we'll just have to push through this for a couple thousand years, too. Maybe then we'll all be enlightened again." Froglight fucked around with this message at 10:05 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 06:42
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After the welcoming ceremony, Samus and Jon had been led to Captain Deck's living trailer. As they followed their guide down the landing pad stairs and between the rows of rigid soldiers standing at attention, Samus had muttered to Jon, "I told you they'd know who you were." Jon muttered, "You win.". Jon looked around at the formation and noticed that Confederate soldiers now wore green boots, instead of the black ones that his generation had worn. He thought the new green boots looked silly. He also noticed one soldiers' untucked bootlaces, and a small stain on another soldier's pants. He hated that the sergeant in him noticed these things.
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May 25, 2014 09:17
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Jon felt awkward and exposed, in the way that only a self-hating former Confederate Master Sergeant could feel being greeted and honored by an allied regiment. Samus Aran felt awkward and exposed, in the way that only a universally worshiped, universally hated demigod of a mercenary folk hero could feel being greeted by an infantry regiment that consisted of about sixty percent of the original members that she had known and served with during a very complex and unorthodox operation that had resulted in a resounding victory. Samus looked at Jon's face, and thought that he looked like a bit of a drama queen bitchass.
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May 25, 2014 09:28
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Froglight posted:"We found the next loving level! That's what we found! Harsher conflicts, deadlier wars, and even deadlier economies. I guess we'll just have to push through this for a couple thousand years, too. Maybe then we'll all be enlightened again." This is pretty deep.
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May 26, 2014 13:23
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Before she had been led off the landing pad Samus had briefly addressed the formation. "Hey guys, good to see a few familiar faces. So far this place seems to suck a lot less than the last place we were. A little chilly but I'm loving the gravity, and these cool giant mushrooms. I downloaded all the newest movies, shows, and games I could think to grab at the last fuel station. I know you guys have been stuck out here for a while, and my drives are open for you to download whatever you'd like. I remember how much I used to hate these formations, so: Speech complete." Samus and Jon sat at a table with Captain Deck and Sergeant Grammer, who had been put in charge of accomadating Samus, her suit, and Jon. "We've got a four man living trailer set aside for the two of you, and we have a spot in the hangar made up for the suit, next to our own mechs. I don't know what kind of munitions you use, but we have a decent stock of third party stuff, in addition to the normal military fare. We have three mech pilots who are definitely excited to lay their eyes on the "The Samus."" Samus rolled her eyes. "I wish people wouldn't call it that." "That's what happens when you don't name things." Jon said Captain Deck leaned forward. "Whenever you're ready, Sergeant Grammer will take you to Tactical Command to get your helmet tapped into our interface here, and we can familiarize you with our tactical overlay system. We've got a much nicer setup than we did last time we worked together." "A much nicer setup, to defend this place?" Jon asked. "I don't want to be rude, but that mining colony you guys defended a few years ago was a legitimate front line target. This place is out in the black, and has almost zero tactical value. It seems like they set you up with a nice safe retirement rock here. I'm wondering what has you jacked-up enough to spend all this money to equip your men with expensive after-market gear, and hire Samus Aran for three entire months." If Captain Deck felt any indignation at having his command questioned by this tag-a-long journalist, he didn't show it. "I'm simply doing what I've always done: Everything in my power to protect my objective and the lives of my men when I believe either to be in danger." "In danger from what?" Jon persisted. Samus and Grammer looked at each other awkwardly, knowingly. "My 'retirement' party, Mr. Tarpin."
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May 29, 2014 07:55
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A slow look of realization invaded Jon's face. The smug, questioning journalist that he liked to be gave way to the grim soldier that he was. "poo poo." He leaned back in his chair. "You don't know, though." He said, not even managing to reassure himself. Captain Deck allowed himself a grim smile. "I raided a prison ship, hired pirates, hired the invincible Samus, and violated half a dozen of the War Courtesies. Now I'm here; a piece of fruit put on the lowest branch by my own people to be plucked by the enemy." "Maybe you should have just surrendered that mining colony." Jon said. "Your unit would have been taken prisoner, mostly alive, and cycled to the back, and you would be a free man." "Maybe I should have." Deck said. "That was a long time ago though, and I was a true officer of the Confederacy, and my objective was my holy land. Now I've been put here, and I won't allow my men to be massacred because of the decisions I've made." "Neither will I." Samus said. Jon looked at her. Samus looked as serious as he had ever seen her. "I'm guessing you knew all along." He said. Samus avoided looking at Jon and looked at Deck. "The Kerians will come here, most likely in the next three months. They'll come in overwhelming force and they won't be expecting much of a fight." Jon interrupted her. "Because they won't loving be getting much of one!" "My ship will be safe in orbit Jon, and at the first sign of danger I will send you up in a shuttle. I won't be responsible for your death at least." Froglight fucked around with this message at 09:07 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 08:41
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There was a three hundred year old soldier chant that went: "Run! Guns! Run guns run! Run run guns! Guns run run! Guns run guns! Run run guns! Guns run guns run guns run run! Guns run run and run guns run! Run guns guns run guns guns run!" Many a quiet tavern had been thrown into a riotous, fraternal uproar when one veteran decided to stand up with his drink and start the chant with the screaming, 'Run!'. The funny thing was that this chant preceded the Kerian Rebellion and was in fact known and revered by both sides. Froglight fucked around with this message at 10:26 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 10:24
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Samus's first encounter with the Dark Company Samus, sprinting faster than any vehicle could travel on the petrified moss that covered the rough jungle floor, arrived at the scene of second platoon's last transmission. Four armored personnel carriers were engulfed in flames. She could make out the shape of the slumped over gunner through the inferno in the nearest truck, and the ground was littered with dead confederate soldiers. Samus noticed half a dozen bodies laid in a straight line, bandaged and fixed with tourniquets. They all had bullet holes in their foreheads. Wounded men who had been executed. She noticed the medic nearby, cut nearly in half with wide open blue eyes. His weapon was nowhere in sight and the medical strobe light on his helmet, warning enemies not to shoot, was still blinking. Samus had rushed to the scene after the commander of second platoon had transmitted: "We are being engaged by a suspected Special Forces unit. We observe four men in black armor, weapons unfamiliar. We are pinned down. Requesting suspension of War Courtesies to engage suspected Special Forces with illegal weaponry." Lieutenant Tamry had always been a little too straight laced for Captain Deck's strategies. He had radioed in for permission to use the nerve gas grenades and EMP pulsers that had been given to him. Now he was dead along with the rest of his platoon. Samus activated her sensors and scanned the scene. Nerve gas, explosives residue, phosphorous residue, gunshot residue, nuclear radiation, smoke from burnt flesh; all displayed as percentages and fractions in red and blue numbers, depending on how dangerous they were for human inhalation and exposure. Four men in black armor had taken out an entire fifty man platoon, and had dirtied the air plenty in the process. Looking at how the bodies were laid out it was obvious that second platoon had surrendered before being killed. Despite the obvious close range execution of the wounded, her sensors picked up no traces of the killers. The battle was fully on at this point. After a month of living at Camp 88 it had happened. An entire Kerian Brigade had tried to stealthily drop three hundred kilometers from the camp. The 88th would have had no shot at detecting the drop if Samus's ship hadn't detected the stealthed carriers from it's position in orbit. So the 88th was outnumbered, but not surprised when the attack came; and they rode out to meet their enemy, forming a front-line defense about fifty kilometers from the camp. Somehow, with Samus rushing from point to point all along the line, and with their expensive logistical systems, they had been managing to hold the line. Until the strange transmission from Second Platoon of Charlie Company, and now it appeared the line had been broken. For the first time since the battle had begun Samus stood in near silence. The air here was chaffed and she could neither send nor receive transmissions. There was no radio chatter in her helmet, and the sounds of the roaring vehicle fires seemed peaceful in comparison. To Samus, in her suit, it never really seemed like she was wearing a helmet. The system of screens and cameras that made up her vision was so perfect that she could look in any direction and see perfectly as if she hadn't had a helmet on at all; aside from the scanners and various thermal and infrared view-modes. She decided that there was nothing to be done here, and that she needed to get to clean air to transmit her findings back to command. Before she could take a single step, she heard a series of pops, and the already dirty air around her was instantly filled with a hot thermal haze that obstructed both her normal view and her thermal vision. She was nearly blind and as she started to think of what other vision modes she might employ, high velocity rifle rounds began pounding on her head. The sniper rounds came in perfect pairs, every second. The powerful impacts did virtually no damage to the suit, but they echoed maddeningly within the helmet and caused Samus intense pain. She couldn't help but shut her eyes and grit her teeth and fall to one knee when it started. She fought against the panic that stabbed into her and began to cycle through her view-modes; not being able to concentrate enough to think of the one she needed, but hoping that she would stumble upon it. Froglight fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Jun 3, 2014 |
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Jun 3, 2014 08:09
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