So it begins.
Let's take a look-these would be heroes, or perhaps destroyers.
The real story is with them.Auron Kell (Ironsight)Strange, what sticks with you-the day you met former I.S.S Captain Anderson, the air was thick with the smell of pale beer, bitter hops and fried food. The romantic would call it an 'air of palpable despair', the pragmatic would mention 'the leavings of a thousand spacers long gone to the grave'.
"Glory...it's all moonshine. Or whatever you want to call it. Nonsense." He had said to you-or maybe not to you, exactly. Sometimes it seemed her barely noticed you were there at all, drinking copious amounts of an alcohol that would probably kill an augmented human. Occasionally, his biomechanical arm tapped the table, seemingly of its own accord-it seemed to be in need of repairs.
"I fought for the Empire, yes. They gave me this arm, and told me I was a hero..."He continued.
"...but I don't feel like one. I just survived, is all-lots didn't. I had to do some terrible things, you know...all for the good of the Empire. Though I usually felt I had to do it for the men and women who counted on me. Thats what I tell myself, yes." He had turned to you then directly, and clamped his real hand on your shoulder.
"I can see it in your eyes. You got the wanderlust. You want to go places you're not allowed, find lost things, dance with pretty women orbiting over planets you don't know the name of.
I was the same way. The Empire gets us all, I guess...the promise of the medal, the old mens way of telling you to throw yourself forward unto the breach, it steals your drive, turns it into want they want-a killer of men. They promise alot of things. But we lie to you. We all lie to you.
...I can give you a small piece of advice.
Don't let them change who you are..."His look was of a haunted man.
There was more after that-but that was the part...that always stuck with you.
...
And so, many years later, you find yourself in the C&C of the I.S.S Tripoli, with your new squadmates-your first mission briefing is about to cap, and you've got a chill up your spine.
What if I do good? You think oddly.
What if they give me a medal? Your mind ponders, and you shiver involuntarily.
J Aslak (Larch)There were times back in the Tundra you felt you had achieved a state of oneness with the turn of the worlds.
Not that you would phrase it that way.
You merely felt...content. The pure cold air, the beautiful and terrible dancing lights in the night sky (almost always a war on, your mother has once told you, in her usual stoic matter), the feel of a caribous warm matted fur and muscle under your thickly gloved hands-real leather, not synthetic. There feelings and emotions will always stay with you. They bled into your skin and bones, and became part of you.
But in time, the restlessness began.
It was not exactly a feeling of not belonging...it was more like a longing to move, to go, to seek.
To Walkabout.
And so you did-with the knowledge that you might not ever return home...but perhaps you have made peace with that.
...
And so, here and now.
The frigid purity of the icy air has been replaced with the recycled and slightly oily tang of oxygen and CO2 on the carrier I.S.S Tripoli. It slightly nauseates you, but such things you do not complain about. You were brought up to be strong, after all-one has to be, to survive.
You wonder if this might one day become your new home-the feel of a slipfighter baring down on an enemy, the satisfaction of a mission done well. Might you obtain that certain oneness (so like a faded memory of childhood) here, as well?
Time will tell, your mother was also known to say.
Solana Aceae (Paprika)They said flying was in your blood.
In truth, you were terrified and thrilled-and amazed at what sprang from your hands with a bit of training. The time honored ability to bring death, in it's so many hues and shapes.
Maybe they were right.
You've been hooked on flying as easily and completely as any drug-when you're on the edge, pushing it even-thats when you most feel alive. Sometimes you wonder about that, but most of the time you don't.
And, the knowledge that the icy void of space is only few inches of armor and shielding away from your fragile Human shell, ready to drain your tiny life into it's ponderous extremities? Glorious. Transcendent. Utterly Terrifying.
But you will never let it reach you, will you? It feels like defying some great force, a living Godddess, for no other reason than you can. You're the fastest pilot alive, and it will never reach you.
Never.
...
Right here, right now.
The briefing will begin soon enough...the black is out there waiting-always waiting-and you yearn to test yourself against it once more.
...
Wonders of the stars, right? You spot your old friend Inara sitting a few row ahead-studying her nails intently. It was so fortunate you got the same posting.
And the Devil of Doubt whispers in the back of your head...
The question is, do you really trust her with your life? Do you trust yourself with hers?Prospero Travieso (Carcass)The noted dictator and enthusiastic torturer Shan Yu once said...
"Live with a man 40 years. Share his house, his meals. Speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano's edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man."it's odd that one comes to you now. There are many ways to take it-the ruminations of the penitent, the gloating of a madman-but you tend to think of it in a wider sense. Sometimes what people say eclipses their own life and experiences.
Only the fear of death brings about the truth. Only when one faces the loss of everything, does it precipate momentous change.
And there was never in the history of man, a people that needed change as much as your beloved Empire.
You quickly grew tired with the propaganda pamphlets-the siege of Earth by the Voidhounds, the 150 year Klendathwui war, the breaking of slipspace and the taming of what lay within-these stories you had heard long before.
You were more interested in what was happening here and now. How the Empire was slowly and quietly retreating from areas it had spilled generations of blood over. Abandoning it's colonies in some places, clamping down on them with paranoiac zeal in others. A hundred small uprisings quickly became thousands of revolutions. The tighter the grip, the wilder the thrashing to be free. You had read about those before-the Old Earth countries of Oceania, Pan-Asia and the Neo-Euro Union had all begun their own precipitous falls in the same way...
And no one was talking about it.
Your family and friends, as much you loved them, did not want to see or hear.
Your life was supposed to be well planned out, they assumed. 25 or 30 years of ceaseless hedonism and frolicking amongst the greenery and bright lights of Neo-Babylon (not that you shunned what time you had before), then installment in a political office of some minor import. Marriage, children, and inheritance of family business and responsibility.
All while the worlds fell apart around you.
Don't they know? Can't they understand?
If someone doesn't do something...anything...there might not be an Empire in 25 or 30 years.
You smelled the smoke on the wind, in the Gardens of Neo-Babylon. Prelude to the flames.
...
So, here you are, right at this moment. Waiting to be briefed.
Unlike some of the others here, you are in full military kit-looking sharp, in other words. You have never lost that blue blooded pride that comes from being one of the elite, even when you have struggled to not let it turn into condescenion toward your fellow pilots.
You wonder if your family pulled strings to get you here. This small and heavily armored carrier, in a mostly safe star system, away from any major rebellions and trouble...
But no place is really safe these days-they probably don't know that. Will it take the death of a son to show them what must be done?
Oddly, that last thought brings a smile to your face.
Inara M. Taragon (Ruin)You remember Anima. Harsh and dusky light slanting through thick green leaves. A tapestry of exotic tastes, from your peoples eminately skilled chefs. The ominous and electric smell of the wet dust before an oncoming storm. The soft feel of the sea breeze and the tingly sing of Aanka Bone-wind chimes as you woke up in the morning.
You love it still, not but the beautiful climate and harsh terrain-a place that bore out weakness and replaced strength-but for it's people and animals. Even the predatory Aanka Cats and Mud Theshers were awe inspiring in their fury and hunger.
It was a beautiful, wild place-more so because of the ruins of those who had come before. It gave the place a feel of profound melancholy and loss. Old homes and forlorn bunkers, spun with webs so thick with the dust of ages they could not be made out. A small child's toy robot laying on it's side in a puddle of ancient solidified coolant, looking like it was made to lie there. Rows and rows of graves with barely read names and heartfelt goodbyes.
A feeling that intensified as you saw what was becoming of the wider world, a world that increasingly conjoined with your own.
People were suffering, everywhere. The great halls and libraries were being abandoned. Angry chanting in the street. And all in power turned a blind eye...
You were not the sort of blessed by ignorance. Anima was part of the Empire. If the Empire fell...logic would suggest it's component pieces would suffer similiary. It would have been easy to say, let the piece fall and your home would be untouched-let someone else do it-it's not my problem.
But you were never that sort of person.
So you left your dreams and home behind-family, friends and those sweet upon you as well-and became a slipfighter pilot.
You are Ruin.
Ruin to your enemies? The herald of the Empires fall?
Who knows but you?
...
And this, we arrive in the here and now.
You study your nails uncomfortably in the front row of the C&C, feeling a bit out of place here. The room is so...small. You like wide open spaces. Here, it's like the walls are closed in about you...like a cage.
If it is a cage, it is one you must endure-so you have reasoned-for the good of all.
For the good of all is a best a cause as any.
Scott Robinson (Cowboy)You can't help but laugh at the good times you had. Sometimes with friends and very good friends-their faces fade as the years go by, but they never really leave you.
It was freedom, pure and undiluted-there was always another bar, another woman, another brawl to be had. Live, Love, and Die hard was a good thing to live by-that wasn't your motto, but you got it from a popular holo anyway. And the dying part was overrated, anyway.
While you take pride in the fact you never started a fight, you certainly finished most of them. A slug to the chest, a punch to the chin, a chair over the head-all in good humor, of course.
Piloting started out as another game to you-but it was more than fun, it was thrilling-vicious-satisfying. That your first ship was stolen, and your first experience was dodging the thankfully ancient planetary defense guns they had fired in your direction was some part of it.
After that, you found a whole galaxy of bars, women and brawls-and praise to the powers that be, you were actually good at this piloting thing. People liked to think you dependable. It wasn't long before you were roped in by the Empire-that monolithic entity which had only existed to tax you, until then.
They knew you were good, and offered you a choice-enlistment in the slipfighter academy, or jail time for theft. Of course you took option A! What's better than getting paid to do what you love, and not rotting in an asteroid-penal colony?
You only made one stipulation-you kept the hat.
In any case, even a down to the earth (an oddly enduring phrase) person like yourself can appreciate the gravity of the situation. The Empire isn't looking so hot these days. Maybe you want it to go and maybe you don't-but you wouldn't put any bets on it's longevity.
When...if...that happens, you'll be free to roam again.
Until then, well, you've got a job to do.
...
And right here, in this moment.
You sit in the back row of the briefing room, taking a look at all your fellows-five other pilots in your wing, and 18 from the other four.
You wonder if they're as half as good as you are. Probably not.
You wonder who you're about to brawl with. If they deserve the fire.
You wonder whose the prettiest of them. Easy bets on the dark haired girl in the front.
You wonder if the ships mess has a good bar...
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The Tripolis mission coordinator-a fair haired woman who all of you know only as Jaxo-coughs, clearing the room of chatter and idle thoughts in a heartbeats pace.
"I'm glad you all are paying attention." She says primly-her eyes dance dangerously.
"Before the briefing, i'd like to introduce you all to our new wing of slipfighters...I know it's very soon...after what happened to White Wing, but I hope you'll all treat the replacements with all due respect. Might you all mingle a bit, while I get todays briefing up?
Get to know them. You will hold each others lives in your hands.
As for you new blood-get used to the title of nugget. That's what you'll be till you earn your blood like the rest of us. I expect you to have settled on a team leader and a wing name by the time I'm ready.
We expect great things from you, just remember that. The men and women who died so you could be here will not be easily replaced." She finishes, turning back to her notes with a slight frown.
OOC: Will put up mission briefing when I well, wake up. Until then, RP away and tell me if I'm doing your character well in the OOC thread.
You guys need to decide on a wing leader and wing name. RP here, discussion in OOC
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Topic: Heavenly Shades of Nightfall/Mission 1: Cold Hearth/Turn 1.3 Missing something (Read 7723 times)