Post by Circe on Jul 12, 2018 17:08:15 GMT -6
(This first initial post reflects logs have been transferred in from the matching location on RoleplayGateway.com)
The sudden noxious hiss of a nearby grate jogged Captain Nikolaev from his cross-eyed stupor, the tiny ember that had burned its way down to the filter etched in the center of both retinas. Before he was capable of any real coherence the hair on the back of his neck began to bristle, and a klaxon horn of alarm began revving in the back of the mercenary's mind
"Still do the cigarette thing, huh?"
"да." He let the spent butt fall from his lips freely, and a veritable cloud of stale smoke erupted with his brusque response, blanketing the tiny, fetid alleyway. Demonstrating the sort of habitual muscle memory only an addict could achevie, his foot shot forward of its own accord, stamping it out under his heavy black work boots. "Who's asking?"
"Private Alonzo Varela, señor," The voice was much closer now, indicating an unsettling ability for concealed movement to the Captain. "We met once, last summer in Mexia actually."
Yuri turned slowly, his left hand inconspicuously
disappearing into his jacket, an extra sidearm tucked away mere inches from his pack of cigarettes. Just in case. "Not my favorite meatgrinder, was too damn hot for a 'major city'."
A small wave of relief washed over the eternal pessimist as the familiar, grinning face of the Private greeted him. Tall, and wire-y Alonzo was a recognizable man with his sharp, but attractive features, bleached blonde faux-hawk, and twany, dark brown skin. He was clad in the same dull blue maitence jacket, cargo pants and work boots as Yuri, with the added bonus of an Autogun slung over his right shoulder. The two exchanged quick informal nods, the days of saluting and pomp long gone, before embracing, and patting one another on the back as comrades.
"That it was Captain, really made those unfortunate enough to die pungent, too." Alonzo pulled back from the brief contact, rolling his shoulder to reposition the rifle. "Two more men are en route, and the medic is already waiting at Bay Seven."
With another nod the Captain took a second to think, creating a convient moment to light up another smoke. "Xороший, хороший," he croaked between a heavy drag, "Has he said if this one is worth a damn?"
"Well..Our contact sure can't sing its overly vague praises enough."
"Hah!" A thick streams of smoke oozed out of both of Yuri' s nostrils despite his best effort to contain a snort. "Nor could he the last three disasters. If this one doesn't yeild anything of value.." He let himself trail off, exhaling another miniature nicotine cloud.
Having someone on the inside track of the largest - and almost only- Orbital Drydock for Sky's Edge was supposed to be a massive tactical advantage. A treasure trove of supplies, and raw materials. Yet so far it had been nothing but a procession of red herrings, and rusted scrap to the point Yuri half wondered if he wasn't being sent in a goose chase. One that had already cost him several men, and now had the last of their dwindling rations staked on it.
Glancing down at his watch he couldn't help but sigh as anticipation started to mix with dread. "Ten more minutes, да?"
"Yeah, then it's balaclavas down, guns up."
Across the dark expanse of space surrounding the planet, communications bands crackled to life with radio traffic between the small orbital dry dock and a nearby tug towing in another ship for scrap as part of Baqui's orbital reclamation projects in the Epsilon system.
"Victoria Approach, tug 121SE Atlas requesting to transition your airspace to the north." The tug's pilot requested over the channel, his words barely understandable amidst the static and background interference. Holding the com and waiting the pilot checked his external monitors one more time. The ship was an unusual one with it's ice coated hull and flat black paint; it had seen quite a bit of damage outside of the Epsilon system from something that he wasn't terribly interested in guessing at. All he knew was he got paid either way, as long as he continued to work this route.
"Atlas one-two-one, turn left heading two-seven-zero to intercept the localizer, cleared for dock two-four into station, maintain two-thousand-five-hundred feet until established." Came a hissing and popping response over the coms band. The tug pilot sighed in relief as the station traffic control responded. "Turn left heading two-seven-zero, cleared for dock two-four into Victoria, maintain two-thousand-five-hundred feet until established. Atlas one-two-one." He replied as he fed the instructions into the navigation AI on the ship. It was a simplistic thing, and was really only good for what it had been designed for.
It didn't take long before the hulking mass of the ship was situation with scraping thud into the dry dock. On closer inspection, the hull where the ice had been scraped away was full of dents and several gouges. Main communications and cameras had been violently torn off, and it appeared that the starboard navigation package had been completely obliterated at best. The ship had likely seen better days, but this seemed like the end of the road for it.
"Hey, hey!" The effort it took Behzad to choke out just those two words was staggering.
They rattled out of his chest in ragged gasps, reverberating more from a quartet of broken lungs than his damaged vocal chords, barely managing to crack the cell's oppressive silence. Fuck. Mustering what strength he had left, and using the chain that connected his various shackles to a tract in the ceiling, the soldier forced himself up off the damaged concrete floor. Twice he stumbled, unable to put his full weight on a battered shin, but the cuts and gouges the loose rubble have him just served to piss him off more, and gut it out.
"Hey, you!" he croaked, straining against the vertical limits of his chains to get a glance at what amounted to the last beacon of hope in his dimming world.
The cell, a large, decaying concrete cube roughly the size of a shipping container, had all of one light source - a half dead, low output LED bar that slowly flickered right in the middle. Part of Behzad wondered if that wasn't just neglect, but a psychological weapon as he squinted to catch a view of the mystery woman on the other side. He couldn't see shit. A lot of that was the dehydration, head trauma, and caked on blood, but blaming that Betepian fuck made him feel good. Helped him cling to life.
Bracing himself Behzad took a deep, hissing breath, willing his body to function whether it wanted to or not. "HEY LAD-" A violent torrent of coughing cut him short, adding to the agony, but echoing through the cell like thunder.
"I'll take it," he thought, wiping the blood from his mouth, and focusing on where he was pretty sure they had dumped the woman.
At least he thought it had been woman, the guards had just drug a beaten, bloody mass in and quite literally threw it in. He only got a brief, hazey glimpse, but he was pretty sure, and from the shape the guards were in, and how they talked about their newest prisoner, she gave as good as she got. That's what sparked hope, but that was hours ago. Many hours ago.
And he hadnt heard a sound since.
"You even alive over there?" Damn did speaking hurt more than ever.
Behzad would give it a minute, but if she didn't respond soon he wouldn't give up, scooping up some small rubble to toss over.
She was alive, as evidenced by a low moan of pain as she struggled to roll over before lapsing back into unconsciousness. Everything hurt, and she couldn't remember what had happened this time. Things were starting to get out of control, and waking up in strange places wasn't on her list of approved activities.
"F..uck.." Rei groaned as she started to come around again. Running a tongue around through her mouth, she could feel a few loose teeth and empty sockets. Nothing that wouldn't eventually get sorted out, but for now it made for a gore filled and bleeding mouth. Further contemplation only made her realize how much everything hurt, and why she hadn't opted to have any sort of the medi-chines or pharma packages installed; that could have at least alleviated some of the pain. Just laying there and breathing hurt, and the whine of the ballast on the electronic lights over head didn't make it any better.
"Kill me.." She coughed before spitting up blood onto the dirty concrete of the cell. This likely wasn't going to kill her, not this time anyway, but it was damn sure going to feel like it.
That still didn't change the fact that Rei had no idea where she was at the moment. Briefly she remembered something on board Ghost Dance, but that had been a brief scuffle right? Nothing too uncommon when someone decided that the terms of a deal weren't worth adhering to. However, she found herself increasingly concerned that she was just now waking up in some strange cell somewhere. Briefly her mind flashed back to the Aschen ship she'd run into, and wondered if this was the last stop before they decided to kill her for some imagined insult or broken rule.
'No..' She thought to herself as she tried to concentrate through the pain that seemed to threaten to engulf and drown her into it's depth. Then there was a voice, it didn't sound Aschen, but there was a first for everything she supposed. However, it's sudden interest in her well-being immediately made her reject the idea that she was somewhere close to near Langara. The oppressive heat, humidity, and stench, what little she could smell through a nose clogged with blood, told her no.
She had never known the Aschen to like the heat, or even remotely tolerate it. They generally opted to inhabit cooler climates, and also didn't tend to toss people into concrete cells.
"Well I'll be damned," Behzad could hear the skin of his lips cracking with each vowel, "You really are alive, aren't you?" He tried to chuckle, but all that came out was more coughing, blood, and phlegm. Looking down at it churned his stomach, reminding him if just how long it had been. Three days since I've had a fucking drink. Five since bread.
His vision blurred, the lack of oxygen from this coughing fit taking him dangerously close to unconsciousness. All I have to do...Is give up. Even the mere thought I stopping seemed to send his body into shutdown, strength fleeing. His legs began to give out underneath him, causing Behzad to stumble forward, planting both legs out of instinct. Full weight on the leg they beat made him want to scream, but it also sharpened his vision up, kept him awake. Wide awake.
"Embrace the suck!" A sea of flashblacks broke, days in basic, Airborne CRT, Delta One training. Years of pain, and agony flew buy in mere moments. Lances don't relent..Not a single step back..
"You..You as fucked up as you looked?" Behzad rhasped, reaching up as best he could to grab onto his chain for support. "Can you move?" He wrapped it around his left arm repeatedly, then went limp, letting it keep him upright at the cost of his shoulder.
To the last breath..
"If you can you need to move your ass, now, lady.." His eyes shot over to the door - a singular steel slab amid all the concrete. It had a pneumatic locking system, and biometrics. Opened from the outside only, and as far as Behzad knew, was the only thing keeping them here. That, and his chains.
"I didn't see them shackle you, and you've been out hard for hours." He tried to do the math, but days - let alone hours had blurred together weeks ago. It was pointless. How long have I been here.. "Fuck, that means they probably medicated you, that Yeti-fucker likes his sedatives, but you being awake means whatever dose they gave you is burning off. A dose they calculated.."
Behzad figured they had minutes at most, a whole half hour if it was a busy day. He prayed his cellmate had maimed, or murdered enough to leave them understaffed.
"They don't just leave us unattended, and free to roam. If you want to make it out of here, you need to get up! Now!"
"I was last time I checked." Rei replied bluntly to her cellmate as she rolled over onto her back. Healing from this little adventure was going to suck, especially with little to no medical assistance apparent wherever there was. Rei knew that for whatever odd reason she healed quicker than most, but the trade off seemed to be an inability to tolerate most technological advancements in medicine; at least what had been available to her. Drugs seemed to not have much affect at the least or didn't last long before her system purged them.
"I'll survive.." She groaned as she did a quick mental head to toe scan. A few deep bruises where the first things she noticed, then the pain began to settle around certain areas like her arms, legs, and ribs. It hurt to breath, it hurt to speak, it even hurt to think too much beyond a few choice words to her new cellmate. "Drugs.. oh that's nice.. yeah those don't work so well on me." Rei muttered as she slowly sat up, only to lean back over and vomit dark bile.
"Fuck this..." She grumbled to herself as things spun dizzily. How much of the sedative had they given her? She hadn't had a reaction like this before. Vomiting was generally a sign of worse things, like her body's inability to process whatever they had given her, and the potential for the dosage to more than kill her.
"One thing at a time, keep your damn pants on..." Rei snapped as another wave of pain washed over her. Trying her best to ignore it, she looked at the door then ventured to ask, "Where is here..." as she pushed herself away from the puddle of fluids on the floor. Leaning back against a wall, she closed her eyes for a moment trying to replay events in her head. At the moment she didn't have much of a desire to get out, just for things to stop spinning and her stomach to stop trying to turn itself inside out.
The sudden noxious hiss of a nearby grate jogged Captain Nikolaev from his cross-eyed stupor, the tiny ember that had burned its way down to the filter etched in the center of both retinas. Before he was capable of any real coherence the hair on the back of his neck began to bristle, and a klaxon horn of alarm began revving in the back of the mercenary's mind
"Still do the cigarette thing, huh?"
"да." He let the spent butt fall from his lips freely, and a veritable cloud of stale smoke erupted with his brusque response, blanketing the tiny, fetid alleyway. Demonstrating the sort of habitual muscle memory only an addict could achevie, his foot shot forward of its own accord, stamping it out under his heavy black work boots. "Who's asking?"
"Private Alonzo Varela, señor," The voice was much closer now, indicating an unsettling ability for concealed movement to the Captain. "We met once, last summer in Mexia actually."
Yuri turned slowly, his left hand inconspicuously
disappearing into his jacket, an extra sidearm tucked away mere inches from his pack of cigarettes. Just in case. "Not my favorite meatgrinder, was too damn hot for a 'major city'."
A small wave of relief washed over the eternal pessimist as the familiar, grinning face of the Private greeted him. Tall, and wire-y Alonzo was a recognizable man with his sharp, but attractive features, bleached blonde faux-hawk, and twany, dark brown skin. He was clad in the same dull blue maitence jacket, cargo pants and work boots as Yuri, with the added bonus of an Autogun slung over his right shoulder. The two exchanged quick informal nods, the days of saluting and pomp long gone, before embracing, and patting one another on the back as comrades.
"That it was Captain, really made those unfortunate enough to die pungent, too." Alonzo pulled back from the brief contact, rolling his shoulder to reposition the rifle. "Two more men are en route, and the medic is already waiting at Bay Seven."
With another nod the Captain took a second to think, creating a convient moment to light up another smoke. "Xороший, хороший," he croaked between a heavy drag, "Has he said if this one is worth a damn?"
"Well..Our contact sure can't sing its overly vague praises enough."
"Hah!" A thick streams of smoke oozed out of both of Yuri' s nostrils despite his best effort to contain a snort. "Nor could he the last three disasters. If this one doesn't yeild anything of value.." He let himself trail off, exhaling another miniature nicotine cloud.
Having someone on the inside track of the largest - and almost only- Orbital Drydock for Sky's Edge was supposed to be a massive tactical advantage. A treasure trove of supplies, and raw materials. Yet so far it had been nothing but a procession of red herrings, and rusted scrap to the point Yuri half wondered if he wasn't being sent in a goose chase. One that had already cost him several men, and now had the last of their dwindling rations staked on it.
Glancing down at his watch he couldn't help but sigh as anticipation started to mix with dread. "Ten more minutes, да?"
"Yeah, then it's balaclavas down, guns up."
Across the dark expanse of space surrounding the planet, communications bands crackled to life with radio traffic between the small orbital dry dock and a nearby tug towing in another ship for scrap as part of Baqui's orbital reclamation projects in the Epsilon system.
"Victoria Approach, tug 121SE Atlas requesting to transition your airspace to the north." The tug's pilot requested over the channel, his words barely understandable amidst the static and background interference. Holding the com and waiting the pilot checked his external monitors one more time. The ship was an unusual one with it's ice coated hull and flat black paint; it had seen quite a bit of damage outside of the Epsilon system from something that he wasn't terribly interested in guessing at. All he knew was he got paid either way, as long as he continued to work this route.
"Atlas one-two-one, turn left heading two-seven-zero to intercept the localizer, cleared for dock two-four into station, maintain two-thousand-five-hundred feet until established." Came a hissing and popping response over the coms band. The tug pilot sighed in relief as the station traffic control responded. "Turn left heading two-seven-zero, cleared for dock two-four into Victoria, maintain two-thousand-five-hundred feet until established. Atlas one-two-one." He replied as he fed the instructions into the navigation AI on the ship. It was a simplistic thing, and was really only good for what it had been designed for.
It didn't take long before the hulking mass of the ship was situation with scraping thud into the dry dock. On closer inspection, the hull where the ice had been scraped away was full of dents and several gouges. Main communications and cameras had been violently torn off, and it appeared that the starboard navigation package had been completely obliterated at best. The ship had likely seen better days, but this seemed like the end of the road for it.
"Hey, hey!" The effort it took Behzad to choke out just those two words was staggering.
They rattled out of his chest in ragged gasps, reverberating more from a quartet of broken lungs than his damaged vocal chords, barely managing to crack the cell's oppressive silence. Fuck. Mustering what strength he had left, and using the chain that connected his various shackles to a tract in the ceiling, the soldier forced himself up off the damaged concrete floor. Twice he stumbled, unable to put his full weight on a battered shin, but the cuts and gouges the loose rubble have him just served to piss him off more, and gut it out.
"Hey, you!" he croaked, straining against the vertical limits of his chains to get a glance at what amounted to the last beacon of hope in his dimming world.
The cell, a large, decaying concrete cube roughly the size of a shipping container, had all of one light source - a half dead, low output LED bar that slowly flickered right in the middle. Part of Behzad wondered if that wasn't just neglect, but a psychological weapon as he squinted to catch a view of the mystery woman on the other side. He couldn't see shit. A lot of that was the dehydration, head trauma, and caked on blood, but blaming that Betepian fuck made him feel good. Helped him cling to life.
Bracing himself Behzad took a deep, hissing breath, willing his body to function whether it wanted to or not. "HEY LAD-" A violent torrent of coughing cut him short, adding to the agony, but echoing through the cell like thunder.
"I'll take it," he thought, wiping the blood from his mouth, and focusing on where he was pretty sure they had dumped the woman.
At least he thought it had been woman, the guards had just drug a beaten, bloody mass in and quite literally threw it in. He only got a brief, hazey glimpse, but he was pretty sure, and from the shape the guards were in, and how they talked about their newest prisoner, she gave as good as she got. That's what sparked hope, but that was hours ago. Many hours ago.
And he hadnt heard a sound since.
"You even alive over there?" Damn did speaking hurt more than ever.
Behzad would give it a minute, but if she didn't respond soon he wouldn't give up, scooping up some small rubble to toss over.
She was alive, as evidenced by a low moan of pain as she struggled to roll over before lapsing back into unconsciousness. Everything hurt, and she couldn't remember what had happened this time. Things were starting to get out of control, and waking up in strange places wasn't on her list of approved activities.
"F..uck.." Rei groaned as she started to come around again. Running a tongue around through her mouth, she could feel a few loose teeth and empty sockets. Nothing that wouldn't eventually get sorted out, but for now it made for a gore filled and bleeding mouth. Further contemplation only made her realize how much everything hurt, and why she hadn't opted to have any sort of the medi-chines or pharma packages installed; that could have at least alleviated some of the pain. Just laying there and breathing hurt, and the whine of the ballast on the electronic lights over head didn't make it any better.
"Kill me.." She coughed before spitting up blood onto the dirty concrete of the cell. This likely wasn't going to kill her, not this time anyway, but it was damn sure going to feel like it.
That still didn't change the fact that Rei had no idea where she was at the moment. Briefly she remembered something on board Ghost Dance, but that had been a brief scuffle right? Nothing too uncommon when someone decided that the terms of a deal weren't worth adhering to. However, she found herself increasingly concerned that she was just now waking up in some strange cell somewhere. Briefly her mind flashed back to the Aschen ship she'd run into, and wondered if this was the last stop before they decided to kill her for some imagined insult or broken rule.
'No..' She thought to herself as she tried to concentrate through the pain that seemed to threaten to engulf and drown her into it's depth. Then there was a voice, it didn't sound Aschen, but there was a first for everything she supposed. However, it's sudden interest in her well-being immediately made her reject the idea that she was somewhere close to near Langara. The oppressive heat, humidity, and stench, what little she could smell through a nose clogged with blood, told her no.
She had never known the Aschen to like the heat, or even remotely tolerate it. They generally opted to inhabit cooler climates, and also didn't tend to toss people into concrete cells.
"Well I'll be damned," Behzad could hear the skin of his lips cracking with each vowel, "You really are alive, aren't you?" He tried to chuckle, but all that came out was more coughing, blood, and phlegm. Looking down at it churned his stomach, reminding him if just how long it had been. Three days since I've had a fucking drink. Five since bread.
His vision blurred, the lack of oxygen from this coughing fit taking him dangerously close to unconsciousness. All I have to do...Is give up. Even the mere thought I stopping seemed to send his body into shutdown, strength fleeing. His legs began to give out underneath him, causing Behzad to stumble forward, planting both legs out of instinct. Full weight on the leg they beat made him want to scream, but it also sharpened his vision up, kept him awake. Wide awake.
"Embrace the suck!" A sea of flashblacks broke, days in basic, Airborne CRT, Delta One training. Years of pain, and agony flew buy in mere moments. Lances don't relent..Not a single step back..
"You..You as fucked up as you looked?" Behzad rhasped, reaching up as best he could to grab onto his chain for support. "Can you move?" He wrapped it around his left arm repeatedly, then went limp, letting it keep him upright at the cost of his shoulder.
To the last breath..
"If you can you need to move your ass, now, lady.." His eyes shot over to the door - a singular steel slab amid all the concrete. It had a pneumatic locking system, and biometrics. Opened from the outside only, and as far as Behzad knew, was the only thing keeping them here. That, and his chains.
"I didn't see them shackle you, and you've been out hard for hours." He tried to do the math, but days - let alone hours had blurred together weeks ago. It was pointless. How long have I been here.. "Fuck, that means they probably medicated you, that Yeti-fucker likes his sedatives, but you being awake means whatever dose they gave you is burning off. A dose they calculated.."
Behzad figured they had minutes at most, a whole half hour if it was a busy day. He prayed his cellmate had maimed, or murdered enough to leave them understaffed.
"They don't just leave us unattended, and free to roam. If you want to make it out of here, you need to get up! Now!"
"I was last time I checked." Rei replied bluntly to her cellmate as she rolled over onto her back. Healing from this little adventure was going to suck, especially with little to no medical assistance apparent wherever there was. Rei knew that for whatever odd reason she healed quicker than most, but the trade off seemed to be an inability to tolerate most technological advancements in medicine; at least what had been available to her. Drugs seemed to not have much affect at the least or didn't last long before her system purged them.
"I'll survive.." She groaned as she did a quick mental head to toe scan. A few deep bruises where the first things she noticed, then the pain began to settle around certain areas like her arms, legs, and ribs. It hurt to breath, it hurt to speak, it even hurt to think too much beyond a few choice words to her new cellmate. "Drugs.. oh that's nice.. yeah those don't work so well on me." Rei muttered as she slowly sat up, only to lean back over and vomit dark bile.
"Fuck this..." She grumbled to herself as things spun dizzily. How much of the sedative had they given her? She hadn't had a reaction like this before. Vomiting was generally a sign of worse things, like her body's inability to process whatever they had given her, and the potential for the dosage to more than kill her.
"One thing at a time, keep your damn pants on..." Rei snapped as another wave of pain washed over her. Trying her best to ignore it, she looked at the door then ventured to ask, "Where is here..." as she pushed herself away from the puddle of fluids on the floor. Leaning back against a wall, she closed her eyes for a moment trying to replay events in her head. At the moment she didn't have much of a desire to get out, just for things to stop spinning and her stomach to stop trying to turn itself inside out.