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Bitchtits McGee posted:It's like For Whom The Bell Tolls with Metroids. Yea I am getting some serious Hemingway vibes as well.
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Jun 5, 2014 00:09
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Froglight posted:Samus's first encounter with the Dark Company nice,
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Jun 5, 2014 02:16
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think you meant chafed instead of chaffed though
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Jun 5, 2014 02:16
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little munchkin posted:Yea I am getting some serious Hemingway vibes as well. don't be absurd. "Suspension of war courtesies?" what is this, 16th century France? "Stealthed" is not a word, a proper replacement might be "concealed" - and the author used this non-word twice in a paragraph. "Slumped-over gunner" needs a hyphen. Strobe lights don't blink but flash. It's not "nuclear radiation", I think he meant "ionizing radiation". Dear author, please make an effort, this is not up to standard. I'm sure you'll improve with time, there's plenty of room for that.
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Jun 5, 2014 07:56
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wafna posted:don't be absurd. "Suspension of war courtesies?" what is this, 16th century France? "Stealthed" is not a word, a proper replacement might be "concealed" - and the author used this non-word twice in a paragraph. "Slumped-over gunner" needs a hyphen. Strobe lights don't blink but flash. It's not "nuclear radiation", I think he meant "ionizing radiation". Fly away, troll.
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Jun 5, 2014 17:27
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wafna posted:don't be absurd. "Suspension of war courtesies?" what is this, 16th century France? "Stealthed" is not a word, a proper replacement might be "concealed" - and the author used this non-word twice in a paragraph. "Slumped-over gunner" needs a hyphen. Strobe lights don't blink but flash. It's not "nuclear radiation", I think he meant "ionizing radiation". Shut the gently caress up. You don't know a loving thing about Samus, moron.
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Jun 6, 2014 14:03
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gently caress the haters, Froglight. What happened next?
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Jun 6, 2014 15:42
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Hey, don't worry if it isn't perfect. We're still eating this up, and on the edge of our seats waiting for the next chapter. This has been one of my favorite updates. Highlights: I really liked learning about how Samus's helmet works, and it got intense at the end. Can't imagine how scary that would be! And that first sentence is poetry. You're definitely honing your writing skills. Just a nitpick: Does a platoon have 50 people? I watched the movie a few years ago, and I don't remember that many soldiers. Of course, the military in the Metroid universe probably does things differently because they're in space.
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Jun 6, 2014 16:53
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Yeah; remember this isn't canon.
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Jun 6, 2014 23:04
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Samus struggled to think. The yellow haze was all she could see. The sledgehammer blows to her head were as maddening in their perfect consistency as they were in their painful concussive force. One-two, One-two, no matter how she moved. How could they be this accurate? She had cycled through her preset visor modes and none of them could see through this haze, what the hell was it? In addition to the disorienting sniper blows Samus began to feel the lighter rounds of an automatic rifle tickling her joints and other probable vulnerable areas, probing her for weaknesses. As if the haze and the snipers and the rifle weren't enough, various grenades began to explode around her. A couple fragmentation grenades popped to her left and right. An inferno grenade exploded behind her and her suit was soaked in burning fuel, which quickly burned away with little effect. She never heard the nerve poison grenade go off, but her scanner went crazy warning her about the toxicity of the atmosphere; it was about the only thing she had to look at. Samus began to hear the great mushrooms around her begin to collapse, and she decided she had to do something; anything. She fired wildly from her machine gun in her arm-cannon in the direction of the shooters. This did nothing to throw off the perfect sniper blows. At this point the torturous head shots lost some of their potency, and Samus knew that it was because they had damaged her ear drums. The shots still hammered her brain and eyes, but at least her ears didn't hurt anymore. She decided that the only thing to do was to charge toward one of the shooters, and hopefully get out of this damned yellow smoke. That was when she heard the warble noise. A low pulsing noise began to sound inside her helmet. The noise caused Samus's eyes to unfocus and her nose to run. She struggled to refocus her vision, and did so for about two seconds. Samus fired twenty small zip missiles wildly in whatever direction she was facing, and instantly regretted the show of weakness. 'Audio dampeners, I need my audio dampeners. What was the command for those?' The warble grew louder and Samus began to lose track of where she was. 'I need some audio dampeners. Do I have audio dampeners?' Samus couldn't feel the sniper blows to her helmet, or the probing shots of the other gunner anymore. If there were any more grenades exploding, she never noticed. She only heard that crazy warble. Three seconds later Samus had lost the ability to think in language, and she sat down on the ground, confused and tired. She watched the yellow haze swirl around her and concentrated on that trippy warble noise. What was it? What was happening? She had a headache. She felt like she was trapped in a tiny room. She didn't feel like she was herself. Where was she? Two seconds later, her mind stopped creating memories. Samus's eyes began to close. She decided to go to bed. 'Am I laying down?' Suddenly, the entirety of her situation was clear to her again. She was being attacked, and she couldn't see. She still could not think in language, or hear anything but the warble, but the last conscious part of her brain screamed out for survival, it screamed out: "Find them!" Samus passed out. Samus stood up, quickly. Two hockey-puck sized robotic drones shot out from each of her shoulder-pieces, and they began to fly around her in opposing circles. With each pass the little drones ranged out five yards, and after three seconds they were circling her a hundred yards away. One of the drones found something, a man with a rifle laying prone. The drone transmitted the man's location back to Samus. A rectangle lit up on her visor, through the yellow haze. Samus raised her gun arm and fired a one second burst from her machine gun. Of the thirty bolts fired in that one second, twenty six passed instantly through the man's face, without disturbing his position at first. Ten of those bolts exited the man at various points in his back. Three wound up coming out of his feet. The remainder found their way out between his legs, which they also passed through and shredded. The sniper blows stopped, as did the machine gun pricks. No more grenades exploded. Samus stood, gun-arm raised and smoking for a full thirty seconds before Samus woke up, and noticed that the yellow haze was dissipating. The hockey-puck drones had come back and settled back into their home in her shoulders. She had never known that they existed, and it would be a while still before she did. The scene around her came back into view. The ground around her was black ash and goo. The armored trucks were no longer burning, but were melted by the corrosive yellow haze. They looked like rotted fruit versions of themselves. The dead men of second platoon leaked out of their armor and formed great pink puddles. The black armored assailants were nowhere to be found, and the scene was even more quiet than it had been when she arrived. Samus dropped her gun arm and tried to remember what had just happened. Froglight fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 09:43
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Alpacalips Now posted:Hey, don't worry if it isn't perfect. We're still eating this up, and on the edge of our seats waiting for the next chapter. Yeah that's my bad, I meant for the platoons to be between 25 and 30, with four trucks. I think I originally wrote that scene with two platoons in mind. I was a medic in the Army myself for four years, and I'm trying to call upon some of my own experience in writing this. As always I'm having a ton of fun, and happy that you guys are enjoying this.
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Jun 10, 2014 04:32
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Keep 'em coming!
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Jun 11, 2014 02:09
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I just want to say: I have never played a Samus game in my life, and I know literally nothing about the story or setting. But I am so glad I happened along this. I have been writing little stories like these in my spare time for quite a while but I gave up ~1 year ago because I didn't think anything would come of them. Your writing is not only great, it's inspiring. I now plan to pick up writing again this summer. Oh, and don't stop, I'm more engaged with this story than most books I've read. Bravo!
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Jun 11, 2014 08:21
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HoboNews posted:I just want to say: I have never played a Samus game in my life, and I know literally nothing about the story or setting. Dude; when I wrote the first chapter to this story, I knew jack poo poo about the Metroid universe, and the only reason I felt ballsy enough to write about this character was because I grew up with her SNES cartridge as one of three games I ever owned and played. It's kinda funny, because I started this story feeling kinda cocky, because part of me thought I could just hi-jack this iconic character and start to write my own original story. After all, I'm the guy who plays Fem-Shep, and has played female characters since Star Wars Galaxies...I love me a badass lady space-scoundrel... But after all the love and support I got, I kinda started to feel guilty for not being that much of a Metroid aficionado, so I quickly read-the-gently caress up, and adjusted my fiction accordingly and respectfully. I actually have big big big, long ranging plans for my version of Samus, and my cheeks grow sore from smiling with every comment that you all post. As for you, Hobo, don't you ever give up, you oval office. Send me some of your poo poo.
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Jun 11, 2014 08:56
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 oh man. recent updates are the best yet! Good stuff OP.
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Jun 11, 2014 13:51
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Froglight posted:Send me some of your poo poo. I'd be more than happy to share some of my stuff! Message me on how I can send you my stories! I'm digging them up as I send this.
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Jun 12, 2014 20:31
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She should have used to morph ball! But seriously I'm loving this.
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Jun 13, 2014 05:02
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I'm surprised you haven't played many Metroid games! They're great. If you have a Gamecube, get Prime. Definitely one of the best games of all time. Whatever you do, don't get Metroid: Other M. Samus's characterization totally sucks in that one and you'd hate it.
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Jun 13, 2014 16:58
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when are samus and jon gonna gently caress? i can feel the tension between them! please promise you won't give up on this great story
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Jun 14, 2014 02:16
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I agree the tension, is like an electric sizzle.
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Jun 14, 2014 03:18
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After the acidic haze had mostly dissipated, and Samus had fully regained her senses, she realized that she had shot one of them. The suit had shot one of them, anyway. She used her scanner to trace the trajectory of her last shots to their position of impact, and bounded the hundred yards in a few seconds. The men who had ambushed her had run off as soon as she killed one of them, and the hypnotizing warble noise had gone with them. She would have to give her audio dampeners a more accessible spot on her command shortcut list. The realization that she had seemed to finally control the suit with her impulses excited her, but she had only narrowly escaped a very stupid defeat, and only by luck. She also had no idea how it had happened. She knew that much of the suits capabilities were still a mystery to her, and she wondered how the suit had found and shot the man, when none of her view-modes could see through the haze. Samus came to the spot where her shots had landed, but where she expected to find a bloody scene, she found a burnt one. She cursed the competency of her ambushers once more. Even during their hasty retreat, they had recovered their comrade's remains and torched the area. There was no way they could have gotten every splotch of DNA, not with the caliber and amount of the rounds she had hit the man with; she knew she would have turned the man into a meat fountain. Samus activated her scanners, hoping for an errant speck of DNA on a nearby mushroom. Instead, about fifteen yards away she found a hand. The hand was large and hairy, and human; with about 4 inches of wrist. Jackpot. Samus picked up the hand with the finger and thumb of her massive left gauntlet, and quickly deposited it into a storage compartment that popped out of her thigh. At that moment the air finally cleaned up enough to let transmissions through, and she was jacked back into the battle. She turned off the individual platoon networks, to stop them from all blowing up in her ear at once, and sent a message to Tactical Control. "This is Samus, I'm back on." Samus heard a muddled echoing voice, and remembered her hearing damage. She would be able to get her ears fixed later, but for the rest of this battle, she would be needing everyone to speak loudly and clearly. She turned her volume up. "Please repeat." "Roger that Samus, what is your status?" Specialist Traynor sounded relieved. "Charlie platoon is 100% KIA. No wounded" Samus said, louder than was necessary. "They were engaged and killed by a small special forces team. Five men at least, minus one killed by me. I don't know where they are now though, they could have gotten past me. The line may be compromised." "Understood. Hold your position Samus, for now. There are a couple spots on the line that could use a hand. Wait one." Samus added. "These guys broke every courtesy they could seem to think of; wounded executed. I advise that the 88th go weapons free. This fight is as dirty as it could be now."
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Jun 14, 2014 07:46
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(Years later, when Jon wrote about the last battle of the 88th, he used a combination of the perspective of Samus herself, and the perspectives of the medics Sands and Gomez, whom he had befriended there, and had kept a friendship with for the rest of his life. This is an excerpt.) When the alarm came that Samus's friend, on board her ship, had detected an enemy drop, Sands was thinking about going to sleep. Gomez and Sands had been hanging out, and it was about four hours before dawn. Sands and Gomez didn't work until a bit past midday, so they tended to stay up late. Gomez had been watching Sands play through the captivating story of a game. It was the third game in a series that they were both fans of, and had been eagerly awaiting. They didn't think they would get to play it until after their deployment, but Samus had brought a treasure trove of the newest games and movies with her, and had opened her drives for them to download any and all of it. Gomez and Sands were fairly happy at Camp 88, even before the year's worth of new entertainment they had just gotten from Samus Aran's hard drives. They were happy besides that. Before this, they had spent a year and a half in training, and being in training 'sucked'. Over the centuries, poets and authors and memoirists had never been able to displace the word 'suck.' as the ruling adjective for all aspects of military life. When you were unhappy, you hated the suck. When you felt upbeat and motivated, ready to tackle a challenge, you embraced the suck. Specialist Sands, at a point later in our friendship, and being just a little drunk, explained it in a way that I have always thought was charming and accurate: 'Have you ever had a day full of errands ahead of you, on a rainy day? At first you avoid the rain, and you try to stay dry. You run from cover to cover, and try not to get wet. You get a few rain speckles on your shoulders, and in your hair, but you're still basically dry; dryer than most. As you go about your day you notice all the drenched miserable people around you, and you thank the stars that you have still managed to stay dry. How did those people even let themselves get so soaked? They really need to get it together. Until, at one point, as you head into the store to buy bread or whatever-the-gently caress, a random gutter just dumps buckets onto you, and you're suddenly one of those soaked miserable people. At first it sucks, you had been trying so hard to keep dry, and you had been doing so well. Now you're completely soaked. Then the next time you have to wade into chest deep water on a training exercise, you're already wet so who even loving cares?' I told Sands that he was mixing his metaphors, and he responded: "Whatever dude, you know what the gently caress I mean." I did. Froglight fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 09:02
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I once asked Samus, shortly after we met, about her childhood; being raised by Larean Sisters. Mostly she spoke of their mild manner, their competent and wise parenting, their superior education, and their belief in daily physical training and health. She didn't seem to have much negative to say about the sisters. Eventually, I asked her about their religion, since that what was what I really wanted to hear about at the time, and because she didn't seem to be making her way to that subject as quickly as I wanted. "It's not a bad little religion, if you ask me. I once heard a Bourian reformed pirate say, 'Religion on every planet begins with the first ape who has the idea of telling his friends that the sun talks to him'; and that the entire future of that planet depends on that ape's intentions and honor. He said that that was why most civilizations never made it to galactic civilization. If I remember correctly, he was part of an argument that involved speciesm. He claimed that all people were equal, and that their destinies depended only on this one little ape." "He sounds pretty philosophical for a pirate." "Reformed pirate, and he was an idiot. I did always like that one little line of his though." "Anyway, I always thought that the Lareans must have had a particularly noble sun-monkey. Larean religion, or at least the primary one that I was raised under, preaches that our lives in this universe marks our infancy, on our way to becoming celestial beings." "Celestial beings?" "Gods, basically. They believe that this world is where we live our short lives, in pain and strife, making mistake after mistake. We learn what it is to be truly powerless, we do evil, and we die in pain and fear." "That sounds pretty harsh for a good little religion." I commented. "That's because you haven't let me continue. You interrupt too much, especially for a journalist." I was taken aback by that, even a bit wounded. She was right of course, all those years ago, I had no idea what I was doing interviewing someone like her. "We spend this life picking nuggets of happiness from a world of blood and work. When we die, we enter the second world. The world of our tutelage. In this world we are molded into what we are destined to become. We suffer for our sins, and we suffer greatly. This life is even more harsh than this first, but it isn't short, and in the second life you don't have the power to make mistakes and be evil. You are punished and molded." I hesitated to interrupt her again, until she subtly motioned that it was my turn to ask the question I was supposed to ask. "How long is the second life?" "Only as long as it needs to be, which is where the religion comes in. The wiser and better you are in this life, the shorter your tutelage will be in the next. In any event, we are speaking of eons, but one eon of tutelage beats two. By the time your tutelage is over, you are a god. Just like the god that created this universe. Just like the god that created all the species of the Confederacy, and the Kerian State. Who also created similar species who fight similar wars in all the galaxies we will never reach. Who has probably made other entire universes." "So we are like baby gods?" I said, smiling like an idiot. Samus laughed at that for a while and said, "I would love to see you put it that way to a Sister's face, but yes, essentially we are baby gods." She paused, then added: "I always liked the Larean religion, it was the only one that felt as massive as the universe it sought to explain. The only one that didn't feel like the musings of a sun-ape." "So you believe in the Larean philosophy." I said respectfully and quietly, even choosing the word 'philosophy' because I thought it was particularly reverent. "gently caress no." She laughed. "Even the sisters only pretended to still believe it for our sake; but I do think it's a pretty good philosophy for enforcing morality while limiting bloodshed, and the Lareans do have a peaceful history." "Until now." "Until now." She admitted darkly. "I know that better than anyone, being one of the first Larean draftees." It was at this point that she ended the interview. Our interviews always seemed to end in me saying something that put her into a dark mood. As our time together went on, I got better at avoiding this. This was one of our first sessions though, and it had only lasted five minutes. Froglight fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 10:30
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I was going to complain about how the story's jumping all over the place, but then I realized that the fractured narrative reflects the fractured nature of the Metroid universe. Well played. 
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Jun 18, 2014 05:52
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I've been sitting on the sidelines for a while now but I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this story and I bet there are a lot of others like me out there who aren't speaking up. Keep it coming, sir.
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Jun 20, 2014 15:19
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A few kilometers away, while Samus was rushing toward the scene of distressing silence; Sands and the men of first platoon, Alpha Company were holding their spot on the line. They weren't facing the same demonic spooks that the unfortunate souls of the second platoon of Charlie had been matched against, and so they weren't a massive puddle of pink goo and melted metal. If you had been there to tell them they were lucky though, you might have been the thing that finally pushed them over the edge. Currently The men found themselves pinned down in a long shallow trench, a ditch really. The Kerian force a hundred yards away had a slightly higher position, and slightly better cover. So the men of One-Alpha, including their medic, Sands, were lying flat on their bellies, with their faces in the dirt, as they had been ordered. Truly, they were splayed out and their faces were in the dirt. They couldn't even afford to lift their heads up enough to fire accurate shots back at the enemy position. Gunfire was erupting loudly and constantly from the trench, though. A very small automated machine gun sat among them on a tripod, and it was swerving and firing furiously to shoot down the arcing missiles and grenades that flew down onto their position from the enemy. If even one of those missiles, that were most likely being shot from a similar little turret, had been able to land, they would all likely be killed. Every missile shot down above them rained stinging shrapnel down onto their backs and helmets. The exposed back of every mans neck ran with blood from tiny cuts. The ammo supply of that furious working little gun might has well been a stop watch counting down to their deaths. The machine gunners of the platoon had already had their ammo supplies re-appropriated to the little turret, and they clutched pistols given to them by Sergeant Grammer and Lieutenant Foley, the only men who had sidearms to give. Sands poked his head up slightly, and watched the busy little machine gun swinging its head around and spraying volley after volley of lead, hearing the connecting explosions of the incoming projectiles overhead. It was all Sands could do not to personify the plucky little robot and fall in love with it. 'Get it, little buddy, get it.' He thought. So they waited, glued to the ground while Sergeant Grammer and Lieutenant Foley tried to strike a deal with tactical command for their lives. "We need support here!" Sergeant Grammer had shouted at first. "Is Samus free!?" "Samus is occupied." The insanely calm voice of Traynor spoke through the radio. 'If we get through this, Gomez and I are going to gently caress with her so much worse than we did before.' Sands thought. Sands wouldn't have been able to hear the radio if Grammer hadn't insisted on keeping his medic glued to his side. "Understood!" Grammer shouted, still a bit calmer than Sands felt the situation warranted. "Can we get fire support? We have drones up and we should have a visual." The wave of hovering drones they had sent out to spot the enemy had mostly been shot down, but the clever pilot had managed to cling a few to the top of the mushroom canopy, where they could turn off their engines and hang like invisible bats, giving the button pushers at tactical command a clear view of the battle. "Negative on fire support. All munitions cannons are occupied" Traynor said, a bit of compassion and regret coming through her voice for the first time. Sergeant Grammer knew that there was no point in arguing. If Tactical Command said there was no Samus coming and no fire support, it was for good reason, and it was because the cannons and the woman were busy helping people deemed to be in more danger. Lieutenant Foley on the other hand, shouted at Sergeant Grammer. "You tell that loving Specialist that I order her to-" Traynor's voice on the radio interrupted him, "Alpha-One, I can give you tombstones." 'gently caress.' Sands thought. "No." The Lieutenant said, too quietly and meekly for anyone to hear. "I want-" Sergeant Grammer yelled over him. "Tombstones, men! Prepare for tombstone drop! We! Are! Charging!" The men on their bellies clutched their rifles tightly, and cocked a leg up, preparing to leap up and charge as best they could without raising their profiles. To his credit the Lieutenant assumed the position and didn't say another word. 'gently caress.' Almost all of them thought. A tombstone is a rectangular slab, about three feet wide and six feet tall. One side of the tombstone is transparent, so clear that you can barely see it. The other side is mirrored and reflective, so shiny that you can barely see anything past it. The clear side faces you, and the shiny side faces the enemy, provided the drop goes as planned. "Roger that, Tac." Sergeant Grammer replied. "Lay em' down." During a tombstone drop, an area will be pounded and implanted with these pieces of cover. The idea is simple, you use these clever pieces of cover to charge and overtake an enemy position. Just one more of the unusual weapons Captain Deck threw into his shopping basket on some seedy black market run. A seemingly poor substitute for a rain of missiles or liquid fire, Sands thought, but better than watching a belt of ammunition count down to your doom, when the missiles and the liquid fire are busy. So he cocked his right leg up, took a few deep breaths, and waited for the command to charge. "Tombstone drop in ten seconds. Good luck One-Alpha." Specialist Traynor said. 'Shut your gorgeous mouth.' Sands thought sullenly. He suddenly didn't appreciate the humor in the name Tombstone, the way he did when he first learned about them. Froglight fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Jul 6, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 06:33
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A little bonus content: My friend, who is a completely awesome artist has been working on my concept of Samus as a birthday gift to me. I love the original design of the suit, and so we are definitely keeping within the spirit of it. For my story, though, I'm imagining it as more of a beefy war-machine. My guidance to him was basically: "You know what we like, westernize it a bit, chunk it up. As far as size goes, bigger than the main representation, but it's important for it be something she puts on and wears, like a suit of armor. Not something she jumps into and pilots, like a mech." 
Froglight fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jun 22, 2014 |
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Jun 22, 2014 06:39
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Woah that's rad
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Jun 22, 2014 10:12
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That's an amazing drawing
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Jun 22, 2014 10:48
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While the forums were down, a front page comedy goldmine article with the first few posts of this story went up, with illustrations done by me... although it's a pity I had the drawings done before I'd seen Froglight's friend's interpretation!
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Jun 26, 2014 02:12
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Wow. I don't really have the words for this besides: This is awesome. I'm happy. I had no idea that this was going to happen, I always figured people were consulted before articles were posted about their work but I'm sure there was some line in my registration agreement about all of this belonging to SA. I have no plans on stopping. Thank you for your illustrations and your work, NTWN. Let's keep this party going.
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Jun 26, 2014 10:02
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What a kick rear end design! Samus looks like she stepped into the Warhammer 40K universe and bought a new suit. Are those lights on the shoulders reactors, weapons, or thrusters a la Iron Man?
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Jun 26, 2014 15:34
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no they will not posted:While the forums were down, a front page comedy goldmine article with the first few posts of this story went up, with illustrations done by me... although it's a pity I had the drawings done before I'd seen Froglight's friend's interpretation! you really brought it to life - I've never even played Metroid but now I feel like I've shot the motherbrain myself!
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Jun 27, 2014 01:31
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Oh my god this is awesome. Please keep going I can hardly wait.
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Jun 27, 2014 18:35
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After Sergeant Grammer's command to prepare for a charge, there was an awkward wait. The men breathed quickly and unevenly, and continued to be shielded only by the little turret and it's dwindling ammo supply. The ten seconds between Grammer's shout of "Tombstones!" and their drop felt impossibly long, like one long torturous stomach cramp. Sands wondered if he would be able to actually force himself to his feet when the command came. He swore his legs were asleep and his spine was in pieces. He didn't think he could stand, let alone run and fight. His hands tingled and he felt like he couldn't even pull a trigger, beads of sweat were violently birthed from the pores on his head and face. He thought about the stories he heard of people freezing up in battle, helplessly and through no real fault of their own; cowards. Then it happened. There was an earth shattering boom, and the air was filled with smoke and debris. The tiny machine gun was still shooting and Sands noticed the men around him begin to stand up. Without thinking or feeling Sands shot up and was on his feet charging before most of them. He bounded over the edge of the ditch and into the open field. He couldn't see much past the smoke that came with the landing of the tombstones, but he could make out the near invisible edges of one just to his right about twenty meters away. He sprinted recklessly to it and slammed into it, harder than he meant to. A second later another soldier slammed into it and took cover next to him. Sands noticed that the soldier was clutching his rifle, and had a moment of panic when he realized his own hands were empty. He had forgotten his rifle. He had forgotten his loving rifle! Sands panicked for two entire seconds before he realized that his rifle was dangling from it's sling, near his legs. He clutched it and raised it up to his chest, holding it tight. The smoke had cleared, and Sands saw that all of the men were taking cover behind the first line of tombstones. He saw the command beacon of Sergeant Grammer at the closest stone on his left, and the beacon of LT Foley two stones to his left. Sands barely noticed the pounding of enemy rounds into his tombstone; the things were notoriously invincible, and were even designed to dull the sounds of impact against them. Hiding danger was a great way to inspire courage. Sands saw a blinking notification in his visor telling him that he was designated to bounding group C. Bounding group A would charge to the next row of visors first, while Bounding group B would give them covering fire from their positions behind the first row of stones. When group-A hit the second row of stones, they would begin to fire at the enemy while group-B charged past them to the third row of stones. They would alternate like this until theoretically they had their gun barrels down the enemies throats. It was an ancient tactic for sure, that they had all spent half an afternoon learning at boot camp. There were ten rows of stones, and the tenth row basically lined the enemy position. The mirroring sides of the stones would be blinding to anybody on the wrong side, though. Bounding group C consisted of Sands, the LT, the radioman, one of the machine gun teams, and one mortarman. Six men. They would advance row by row behind the other two groups, only when it was considered to be safe. Sergeant Grammer was part of bounding group B. The first charge whistle sounded in his helmet, and the man who had been taking cover next to him, who he hadn't bothered to recognize, slipped out of cover and charged forward. Sands held his position and watched the man. He saw a few near hits whiz past him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a man further off fall to the ground. His brief cover-mate had made it to the second row though, and Sands felt a wave of relief. All he had to do was follow that man, and as long as that man was okay, he would be okay. The covermate peeked out of cover and started shooting, and the second whistle sounded. Sands watched Grammer's beacon move forward. He couldn't see Grammer but the beacon was still shining when the second group made it to their positions at the third row. The third whistle sounded and a light blinked on Sand's display, signifying that it was his turn. He huffed and puffed as he ran the distance to the second row, which seemed like a much longer distance than he had watched the first group run. He didn't even notice anybody shooting at him, and he made it to the same tombstone that his old cover-mate had made it to, and he recognized the man as Private Caldwell; a kid that Sands had never given a second look, in terms of brain or brawn. The fourth whistle sounded and Private Caldwell and the rest of A-group charged ahead, past the third row and on to the fourth. Sands and the rest of C-group would only ever need to run one row at a time, instead of the two that the other groups ran. The men of C-group were deemed less expendable than the rest of the soldiers. Sands understood the radioman and the LT and the machine gun team, but he doubted his own importance; anybody could cram medcloth into a wound or tie a tourniquet. There were a few more whistles and a few more bounds. Sands never had need to fire his rifle, and he continued to keep himself glued to Private Caldwell, even when Caldwell darted to the right for some reason to a slightly further off tombstone. Sands noticed three men lying face-down and still during his bounds, and not until later did he consider the fact that he might have stopped to provide medical aid to any of them. Another whistle sounded and Sands rushed forward only to discover that there were no more tombstones, only a line of his friends all aiming their rifles at a group of Kerian soldiers. Most of the Kerian soldiers were lying limp and dead. Almost as many were lying in the position of surrender. An unarmed Kerian medic with his strobe-light blinking was tending to the wounded, like an overwhelmed ER nurse. Sands noticed the medic was kicking weapons away from the wounded and dragging them all to an area away from the dead and surrendering. He was working dutifully and seemingly without fear of the Confederate rifles watching over him. The Confederate soldiers began to move forward to disarm and bind the surrendering Kerians, while leaving the medic to work. The LT yelled for the radioman. Sergeant Grammer yelled. "Doc!" Sands came to his senses and responded a bit too quickly, "Sergeant, I'm here what's up!?" "It's over, let's go get our wounded! Come on man!" Froglight fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 2, 2014 08:11
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Sands and the soldiers of Alpha-One had used the tombstones to charge and take a fortified enemy position. Sands would later be told about how great a tactical victory this was. He would be told how his unit had only suffered ten deaths while his unit had inflicted twenty-one deaths on the enemy. "Ten for twenty-one; uphill? Against a better equipped, dug in enemy?" A major would later say to his face. "gently caress yeah man, you guys kicked loving rear end, no matter what wound up happening with the rest of your unit. You're all in the training vids now." Sands didn't know anything about the twenty-one dead Kerians, but he personally collected the tags from his ten dead comrades on that field between the tombstones. He would never forget the few seconds that he watched that unbroken Kerian medic working, before he and Grammer turned back to face the blinding reflective field of tombstones, to find their own dead and wounded. Josey and Kramer both had legs knocked off. Their uniforms had automatically tourniqetted them, and Sands had deactivated the auto-turqs after he had applied his own, more precisely placed tourniqets and began IV blood transfusions on the men. Tamble, the lame hick that Sands had never trusted or liked, had a hole where his heart should be, but at least died with his eyes closed. Nobody liked Tamble. Sands felt like poo poo. Sands took his tags. Terry was gutshot. Sands crammed medcloth into his bleeding stomach hole while Grammer held him down. Terry screamed and flailed alot and then passed out, but the bleeding seemed to stop. Sands got some synthetic blood flowing into him, and everything seemed to be going well. Barga had two legs knocked off, and was dead by the time Sands got to him. Sands took his tags. Barga had a fake marriage and got double pay for it, and he always paid everyone's bar tab. Folentis was headshot and dead. Sands took his tags. Folentis had once helped Sands learn to program radios in vehicles. Makrin, one of the machine gunners who was given a pistol, was shot twice in the chest and dead by the time Sands got to him. Sands took his tags. Makrin always seemed alright. Ryles had been hit in the arm and knocked over. He had already bandaged his own wound and was trying to help another wounded soldier when Sands found him. That other soldier was Lorens, who had shrapnel in his left eye and in his face. Sands blindfolded both his eyes and told him to keep them both shut. "Eyes move together, and you're just gonna gently caress your eye up more by moving them at all." Petras and Quiza were alright dudes, good gym buddies, but Sands didn't have much in common with them otherwise. They were both dead. Sands took their tags Sergeant Noell had always been a massive rear end in a top hat. Sands hated him and had liked to imagine him freezing up like a coward in battle. He was dead, and not a coward. Sands took his tags Roeper was a chick. A chick who made it into the 88th; a feat that definitely would have made headlines wherever she was from. She was always cool. She was dead. Grammer took her tags. Froglight fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 6, 2014 10:58
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Beautifully done.
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Jul 6, 2014 12:02
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Hi Froglight  I'm interning for a well known publisher in the Boston area currently and I was showing one of the editors your work and she was very much interested. I was wondering if you have PMs or anyway to get into contact? I can't give the name of the publisher in this public forum and I can't promise anything but her voice and mannerisms were very encouraging.  Talk to you soon.
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Jul 8, 2014 03:29
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Oh hey, wow. Yeah If it's not linked in my profile, I don't mind saying that you can contact me at froglight1@gmail.com
Froglight fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 03:52
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Traynor came in over the radio. "Alpha-One. Confirmed that you have taken the Kerian position. You're pushed up past the line into enemy territory, so watch your sides, and move your drones out of hiding and set them to scout around, I definitely need eyes on your flanks. Put your prisoners to sleep and send your wounded back two-klicks to these coordinates. Good work Alpha-One, now dig in and defend." So Sands was sent along with two privates to carry the wounded men on hovering platforms two kilometers back. Sands had been awake for thirty hours, and should have been exhausted, but he felt wide awake and full of energy, and the two kilometer jog alongside the floating litters felt like nothing. If anything, it felt peaceful. compared to all the noise of the battle, the moans of the wounded might as well have been the chirping of morning birds. Sands arrived at the evac point and lowered the litter platforms. He checked the vitals on his patients, and made sure all their tourniquets were still tight. Tourniquets were sometimes more painful than the wounds they cinched off, and it wasn't unheard of for a delirious wounded soldier to claw his own tourniquet loose and bleed out. The two privates kneeled and pulled security on either side of the wounded men while Sands went to work taking care of them. The men's weapons and armor were stripped off and would be sent back to the camp with them. It was a full twenty minutes before the armored ambulance came roaring along, weaving it's way slowly between the mushrooms. It stopped ten yards from the wounded. Sands noticed that the truck had a machine gun turret, manned by one of the medics, and that it had no medical markings. "loving evac medics." Sands muttered. The evacuation squad was made up of the least experienced and a few of the more incompetent medics. Not to say that the unexperienced ones were incomptetant. Sands had his eye on some of those newer guys as potential replacements for him when he got out. The guy who was manning the machine gun was one of them, a skilled medic and soldier named Boman; a good kid. Unfortunately, Sands knew, the medic leading that truck was a complete jackass named Pallo. Pallo jumped out of the passenger seat of the truck and ran up to Sands with his rifle pointed forward, looking like an idiot. Sands left his rifle slung across his back, and walked toward Private First Class Pallo, who continued to crouch ridiculously and hold his rifle at the ready. Sands didn't hold a high rank. He had gained the rank of Specialist automatically by being in the military for two years. He was now in his fourth year, the year where most good soldiers who applied themselves would attain the rank of Sergeant; but Sands didn't chase the rank, in fact, he practically ran from it. He still outranked everyone on that evac truck, and for the first time he felt the need to use his authority, and for the first time, he tried out his authoritative voice. "Where the gently caress are your medical markings!? And why the gently caress are you idiots running around with a machine gun!? Are you trying to get blown up!?" Pallo replied, "We're here to get the wounded back to base, and we aren't going down without a fight." Sands ignored Pallo and hopped onto the hood of the ambulance. He stomped across it and jumped up onto the roof where Boman stood manning the machine gun. Sands pulled out the pin that secured the gun to it's turret, lifted it out, and threw it outside of the truck, where it dangled a foot above the ground by the belt that fed it ammunition from inside the truck. "No offense Boman, but I trust the honor of the enemy more than I trust you guys with a gun truck." Sands said. Boman looked stunned and said nothing. "Unhook the ammo belt, stow the gun, and put on your markings. Give me all your machine gun ammo. We need it up ahead. You guys are two klicks before the fight line and you aren't here to fight or provoke the enemy. I don't know why I have to tell you this." "The line's been compromised." Pallo retorted, "A few black-ops spooks got past Samus a few kilometers west of here. Nobody knows where they are now." "Bullshit." Sands said. "We heard the report come in ourselves man, in her own voice." Bowman said. Sands was still kneeling on top of the truck right next to him. "Big deal. A few guys got through the line? Do you think their mission is to shoot up an ambulance with three privates and a few wounded men? They won't be able to do poo poo until the line is actually broken and they can get reinforcements. Why the gently caress don't we know about this breach? These guys are probably going to attack another point on the line from the rear so a Kerian platoon can make a push." Pallo looked at him blankly. Boman was busy unhooking the ammo hose from the machine gun. The machine gun detatched and fell onto the moss "Boman. Get out of this turret. Help load the men and take care of them and get them back to the camp. Stow the loving gun, and turn on every strobe you have and put on your loving medical markings." Before Boman could respond, a high pitch beep sounded in the ears of all the men, minus the stripped wounded. A voice came through, a top level broadcast to every soldier in the 88th: "Men of the 88th. This is Captain Deck. We are surrendering. It's over. Stack your arms and armor and assume the position of surrender at least ten yards away from them. Offer no further resistance and make no further movements against the Kerian positions. This is an order." The broadcast ended as abruptly as it began, and suddenly the entire network shut down. Communications and tactical overlay shut off completely. Sands couldn't radio his platoon for clarification, and he could no longer see their command beacons shooting into the sky. Pallo and Boman could no longer see the holographic path that marked their way back to base. They were completely disconnected and alone. Pallo began to unhook his armor. "Stop that!" Sands said. "We still have to get these men back to base, surrender or no surrender." "They'll blow us up!" Pallo exclaimed. "They won't loving blow us up! Change of plans: We're going back with you guys. Boman, you and I are in the back of the truck taking care of patients. Pallo, you stand in the turret and flash your strobe light. Take all our strobes and hold them up alongside yours." Sands unhooked his helmet and threw it to Pallo, and had Boman do the same. 'What the gently caress is happening? I thought we were holding them back.' Froglight fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 06:57
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