Snake chewed his tongue for a moment, looking Private Harvey up and down for any sign of weakness. To his surprise, this greenhorn was rock steady. Snake smiled, finally a newbie worth a damn.

"Ok son, well met," Snake replied as he extended an armored hand to shake, "can't rightly tell if you'll make it out there today on your own. Most greenhorns don't, but I can tell you that as long as you follow the sounds of people burnin' alive and the roars of 'ah sexual tyrannosaurus' you should be fine. Maybe some mental scarin', but you'll be fine."

Selene quirked a quizzical smile as Snake, and according to his medical file that was his real name rather than a nickname, turned to begin dressing down a young marine with a large rifle. Another alert started playing over the PA system, something to do with crackers? This was a strange ship and no mistake.

“AID,” she said, queuing the simple AI built into her helmet, “Isolate pertinent information and display as text." Her HUD immediately flashed to life and a text crawl began moving across the top of her visor. Estimate engagement in 60 minutes. A timer began to run down based on the time of the transmission. Alice requesting access. Selene frowned.

“Define Alice,” she quered, pushing her way through the scrambling marines, making her way towards the auto armorer. Ship AI Callsign Alice. Ah that made sense the ship’s AI was more powerful than her AID by several orders of magnitude and there was no reason it shouldn’t have access to her unit while she was within easy transmission range of the ship. It was also being polite, any AI on a ship this size could crack her computer like a walnut.

“Approve Alice and hold I’m going to suit up.” Selene reached the back of the cryo chamber and turned and walked towards the front again, carefully checking each pod. In the past people had been left in cryo accidentally, a mistake that could condemn them to die of hibernation sickness when their surfactant dose. Not today though, everyone was clear in the Marine section. Time to report it to medical and close up.

“Dr Harvey,” she spoke into her communicator, “Im closing cryobay 2 all pods are empty.”

@Elitestpotato

Alice wasn't impressed. Looking through the directory, she found several things which to use on him and appeared before the captain and then the rest of the crew in the cockpit except for the hot shot pilot, whispering to each of them, "Cover you ears."

Once everyone had followed her directions, she blasted the same dubstep Yankee Doodle with the same didgeridoo bass drop and kazoo solo in the middle, followed by what she found labelled "On Fire Mix Tape" (which actually contained more animal sounds than beats) and finishing off the concert with a round of techno-mariachi music. Of course the was only in the cockpit just to spite Steven. She wondered if he was going to call O'Henessey up to have him pilot.

"I would advise you not to insult the ship AI, mister Sans." Alice's little holographic sprite leaned against the chair, "You are insulting the ship after all."

A pair of Mr. Gusty's rolled up outside of the cockpit door, threateningly staring into it with cold, dead, robotic eyes. They were ready to extract vacuum-powered vengeance should anything happen to their master, one does not want to know what cleaning tools are capable of when let loose on human skin.

"I'll leave it at that, hopefully this won't cause anymore issues." Alice began to wrap things up, "You touch my physical mobile body, and you'll get 50,000 volts straight to the nipples.

Alice said that just to deter him from doing any actual damage to her, she travelled down to the cryo pods to see how things where going. Appearing as Selene walked out of the armorer, "Greetings Miss Mazierska, have you wrapped things up here?"
@Austronaut

Tyrone reached his hand out to shake with the Officer, he could tell that the initial intimidation tactics were a test of some kind, and he had passed. He smirked at the outrageous comment in spite of himself. The guy definitely had a strong personality, in a strange way, a break from the typical clean-cut officers he had encountered was somewhat refreshing.

"I'll stay close... well, not too close"

He once again gestured with the sniper, he wouldn't want to get mixed up right in the face of the action with a long range weapon.

"But I'll give you cover... that is of course if you'll even need it."

He once again smirked, a little more deliberately this time. He did want to stick with this guy, but of course he didn't seem the type that would like the implication that he would even need help from a lowly private.

Either way it was becoming quite clear between the music and action movie-esque Officer he'd be following that this wasn't an ordinary ship

This... will be an interesting deployment

Selene stepped into an alcove where she had placed her duffel bag. She stripped out of her white flight suit, took off her helmet and bio sensor and placed them in the bag. She took a moment to tie her blond hair back into a tight pony tail and then pulled on her undersuit. The undersuit was a black body stocking with a fine inlay of platinum wire that allowed her armor to communicate with her body. She headed back out into the chamber pushing past Snake and the new marine, apparently engaged in some sort of tactical conversation. With a sigh she stepped into the auto-armorer.

In theory the auto-armorer should only exert a slight pressure. Unfortunately that was based on a theory that all soldiers were of a more or less standard shape. Older marines joked that the auto-armorer would eventually pound you into the 'standard shape' and Selene could well believe it. Sixty long, uncomfortable seconds later she was latching down her helmet visor.

“AID,” she queued bringing her HUD live in a flash across her retinas. Her standard display showed up as a transparent mask allowing her to see the status of all the soldiers in her charge. All still green. A woman was walking towards her, the AID carroted her as Alice. The ship had a mobile avatar for its AI?

"Greetings Miss Mazierska, have you wrapped things up here?"

Selene smiled politely.

“Yes Alice, as soon as Officer O'Henessey and that private clear the chamber we can seal it and drain the power,” she turned to include the two men in the conversation. O'Henessey was the officer after all. The others, apparently concerned about being thrown out an airlock had already left.

"Haha, ok son whatever helps you sleep at night," Snake replied as he noticed Selene step off the auto-armorer and watch as another woman appear from nowhere. Must be one of those 'artificial intellects' he'd heard about.

Snake patted the private in the shoulder and started moving out of the cryogenic-chamber, wearing as swave of a smile as he could muster as he met the two woman.

"Ladies," Snake chimmed in shamelessly as he passed them. "I'm very sorry for holding both of you up and wasting your time. I will be seeing myself down to the docking bay to inspect our dropship situation. If either of you need any assistance whatsoever, feel absolutely free to ask. I like to think myself something of a saint when others are in need."

Tyrone straightened up

"Yes Ma'am, sorry for holding things up, I'll head straight to the drop-ships and get ready for deployment"

He nodded at the Medic as well as woman who had newly arrived before making a quick exit. He shook his head to himself as he heard the Warrant Officer he had been chatting with schmoozing behind him.

If I had a pair of tits I bet he'd really keep an eye out for me out there.

He made his way through the new ship

Just a left and... oh wait was it a right or?

He realized that he had gotten himself lost. He hadn't been given much of a rundown of the ship as the new guy, and had fallen behind the pack that was leaving the armory thanks to his conversation. He began to get nervous, deployment was soon as he was going to be stuck in the depths of a large an elaborate ship... he realized that he probably should have followed the Officer's lead as he continued to walk through the halls, trying to act as though he knew exactly where he was going.

Escaping Warrant Officer O'Henessey's macho bull shit was my first victory of the day. Sometimes, there was only so much of that man I could take. He was a good soldier, that was a given, and a finer leader of marines? None that I'd ever seen, but that didn't make it any easier for a vet like me to put up with his incessant bravado.

I laid my Multi-Purpose Thermal Launcher across my metal-clad lap, inspecting it with my obsessive compulsion for perfection. In war, God was a soldier's best friend, but just in case, it was always handy to ensure your weapon was at its best. Especially, my weapon. A blockage in the chamber at the wrong time, could mean the difference between destroying enemy armour, or the enemy armour destroying us.

Thinking back to O'Heneseey, I felt bad dismissing his macho demeanour. Perhaps the eyes of God were on me, no? I mean, it wasn't like he hadn't earned the right. He was brave enough, that much was true, and certainly crazy enough. There was just something about the way he approached people, something belittling, as if his hide would protect him from a rifle round more than ours would. Arrogance? Maybe. Hardened soldiers had a way of believing themselves above anyone who had served a day less than them, even when in most cases, they themselves were shot and killed by an irregular - like the rebels - who possessed idealism in place of advanced combat training.

I swore to myself then, that if I was ever in charge of a unit, I'd run it the way the Lord would agree with. Firm but fair, without the patronising bravado. My men would know that I was just that, a man, and they would come to see my actions as heroic, as opposed to individual segments of my self-reinforced legacy.

My forehead cracked against the barrel of my launcher, partly to test for any shakiness in the weapon's grips and tubing, but partly to stop me from hammering my C.O. He was a good man, and I was a good soldier. Nice and simple, like Moses and Gershom, a Godly affair all told.

And besides, at least his yelling and emasculating of the new guys allowed me to slip away to tend my baby.

I kissed the barrel of my launcher, its chrome plating cold on my lips.

Standing from the bench, I holstered the launcher over my back, where it latched and was held in place. It was time to go and reacquaint myself with my C.O, and see what exactly it was we were heading into. Though as I put one plated foot forwards, clanking on the metal work beneath me, my head felt a rush of dizziness.

It was the lights. They always impaired me after a cryosleep, but not right away. It'd creep up on me, sometimes minutes, sometimes hours after I'd woken up. Docs said it was something to do with my inner ear, but I didn't care so long as it was a passing thing.

I left the armoury, after letting the nausea pass, and exited through the hissing doors. The corridor beyond was starting to buzz with groggy ensigns and nervous marines-- speaking of which, one happened to be a few feet away, looking lost. His insignia denoted his rank as a Private, though I didn't recognise the man. A rush of shame for this too, because us black folks had to stick together.

@TheRealCrow "Over here, brother," I said with heavily accented English. "Get tooled up and get good to go, we not long off entering shit storm, yes?"

@TheRealCrow @FPR

"You two should take a left, go straight for about five doors, take the cargo elevator on your right down eight floors and you will be a to hangar control room who can then direct you to the hangar where everyone is getting ready to load up." Alice appears from nowhere as she always does, "As for you Sergeant Ihejirika, would you like me to request more toilet paper or diapers for the shit storm for personal use?"

Alice was tracking the location of the squad through teh various cameras in the ship, the route she gave the men wouldn't lead them back to their group, but it would be faster towards the hangar and might actually get them a good word depending on who was commanding and how much they liked having soldiers be one step ahead. Of course she was beating on two of the ship's engineers, Donnelly and Daniel not making out in said cargo elevator, but if they were, the gents would have some free entertainment on their way down.

"You two should be prepared for anything down there. Rebels stay alive not because they're good but since they're creative. I'd hate it if you two died down there. Writing the paper work for this stuff is a pain in the ass."

---

With that, Alice disappeared from the sight of the two men, materializing once again in at the bridge next to Captain Sterling. "Captain," Alice looked through her files on the ship including the one that were only meant for Sterling's eyes, "Shouldn't we be telling the crew of what else might be down there? Sending men in to die for an ulterior motive isn't something that is warmly welcomed in the USEA code of military conduct."
@Lord Coake

Selene was among the last to reach the dropship. Some of the medications that she carried required precise temperature limits for long term storage and were only good for a few hours after they were taken from the ships extensive pharmacy. They had to be laboriously loaded into her suits storage magazines, a job that was a real trick without a corpsman or a tech to help. Her suit display read her medical equipment at 95% efficiency, she had switched out some of the recommend load in favor of her personal preference but there was no easy way to correct the suits assessment. She also had to collect hear weapons, a standard service pistol that she wore at her hip and a light carbine that was currently slung behind a shoulder on one of the armors many attachment points. No one expected a medic to really mix it up, but every marine a rifleman blah blah blah.

Marine dropships were big, but there is no space in the universe that is big when it is packed with dozens of Marines and their equipment. O'Henessey was standing outside, presumably to take the last slot in the ship so he could be among the first out. She jostled in past the other Marines as she forced her way into ship. Several Marines greeted her with everything between snarls of annoyance and friendly greetings as she moved down the cramped central gangway. Two black soldiers were sitting across from one another, their bulk blocking further advance. She cast a glance back over her shoulder, she was nearly half way to the back of the dropship. Standing orders dictate that a medic be stationed in the middle of an assault force. This prevented, in theory, the medic being hit immediately on disembarkation and from going down with the ship if it took an AA hit late in the drop.

“Make room!” she called, her helmet speakers projecting the words to be audible above the ambient noise. One of the soldiers reluctantly shifted and she sat down beside him, engaging the restraints that would lock her to the dropship. She cast her eyes over their weapons, one of them had what appeared to be a large thermal launcher, an unusual choice but something one might expect of a veteran.

“Any word on the drop time private?”

@TheRealCrow @FPR

@ClocktowerEchos The Captain knew exactly what file Alice was referring to, and sighed before answering. "Should we? Maybe. But will I, no, simply because our only orders were to engage the rebels and protect the planet. Now, this does not cover anything UESA Intelligence chooses to investigate during or after the battle, which will most likely be the thing you are referring to." He glanced at the control panel to his side, then keyed the ship's intercom "This is Captain Stirling. We are about to exit hyperspace into the Sotra system, which will be an active combat zone. All crew report to your Battle Stations immediately, and all Marine Dropship and fighter pilots prepare for immediate take-off. Marines, your officers have been given the detailed versions of your ground engagement orders, but the summary is this: Defend the capitol city of New Portland from any and all rebel ground forces. Captain Stirling out."

He observed the main viewscreen as the ship slowly dropped out of hyperspace, and into the Sotra system. The battle had already begun, and it wasn't long before the Convergence of Destiny was engaged with a rebel Frigate. "Fire Rifleman missile pods A1 through B5, and the main cannon. Have half the fighter squadrons begin strafing runs on the enemy, while the rest guard the marine dropships." He keyed a button on his command console, giving the dropship pilots their launch signal. Stirling looked to Alice and said "I want you to make your best judgments, and assist in this engagement both up here and on the ground, but notify me before doing anything drastic."

@Lord Coake
"Copy Captain," Alice began to forward the commands to their respective places. Within seconds, gun turrets fully extended themselves and spinning to prepare for engagement. The last of the fighter pilots dashed to their fighters and buckled themselves in as engineers filled fuel tanks, loaded missiles, check systems and hydraulics and giving them their final approvals as some of them made their way to the launching areas. The last of the marines boarded the drop ships, now clutching their rifles or praying as the ramps closed, hoping it wouldn't become an ariel coffin.

"Roger Captain. I will notify you before I attempt to kamikaze the ship into something else." Alice saw the captain giving her an eye, "That was a joke. I will be using whatever related systems I currently posses and will allocate extra computing space for it. We simply have to hoe for Mr. Sans not to get us killed."

She turned her attention to the troops and the pilots, some of which will never be able to see the ship again, "Attention all crew, we are going in hot. Prepare for anything. Should you need extra encouragement, there will be drink and better food available when you get back and cake. Lots of cake. Also refrain from dying, paperwork is a bitch at best. For last minute motivation, please enjoy some fine quality banjo music from a few centuries ago. This will be available for purchase at the crew shop after the battle should we live."

With that, the sound of anarchic banjo music resonated throughout the ship and added one last bit as a precaution, "Warrant Officer O'Henessey be prepared to pilot in case our pilot hates this banjo music enough to have you pilot the Destiny instead. I do hope you know how operate such a craft."

Tyrone sharpened up at the sound of him being addressed as private. That had become his name over the last few months; he barely responded to Harvey at this point, never mind Tyrone.

He turned to meet the gaze of a rather big muscular guy, but the unimposing nature of his greeting made him seem less so, at least as compared to O'Hennessy, who might as well have been ten feet tall with his demeanor. His accent let him know that he was foreign, African probably. He knew as much as the whitest white guy on this ship about that continent, but despite the fact that they probably shared little more culturally than the color of their skin, it was nice to see another dude who looked like him. He felt himself loosening up as he assessed this guy as a potential friend, that was until he remembered he was about to attempt casual small talk with a superior, considering a fellow Private would never address him as such. He stiffened up once more.

"Sounds like a plan..."

He paused to look for a rank on him

"Sergeant"

Just then the ship's AI showed up and began firing off directions before making a snarky comment. He betrayed his own professionalism by turning to the Sergeant and asking casually:

"Who would program an AI for a military starship to be so... sassy? To keep things light perhaps? I guess that's why I'm just a soldier and not a science guy or whatever"

The fact that they were alone and drop time was rapidly approaching dawned on Tyrone once more as he realized he hadn't really absorbed the directions he had been given. Either way, he figured he would follow the sergeant.

"Lead on"

"Honesty miss, I can't rightly say I can," Snake replied to the A.I. as he finally entered the dropship and fough against the sudden rush of motion as the vessel took off towards the massive planet. The Warrent Officer had no damn clue what planet they were descending to, but he know that they would be heading towards some city center called 'New Portland'. Snake never had the luxury of growing up on the homeworld or on one of the thriving 'New' cities. Snake was born on Rust, Phobis. Probably the scummiest place in the Sol System.

Snake looked to all the marine ahead of him inside the dropship, a mixed bag of marines. He felt a speach coming on, like most other things Snake did. Things just seemed to present themselves for his amusement or his outrage. This...would be fun.

"Ladies and soon to be statistics," Snake began with a booming importance enriching his tone, "if this is your first time fightn' for your fellow man or skipping a jail sentence, welcome! Now I ain't a deceptive man. Hell I barely have the IQ to know what 'deceptive' means. I am not a learned man, but I am a man of expericence. Years I've spent on the frontline, roasting people and shits of all persuasions have taught me all I've ever needed to know. No one here is a general. Down here, in the mud and the shit and in our own damn blood, we are all the goddamn same. None of you are better then the other, just a clusterfuck of meat and ideals. You all want to live through all of this? Good luck, we'll all fucking need it."

It’s like something out of a movie Selene thought as Snake completed his speech. A hysterical giggle lurked at the back of her throat but she choked it down. This would be her first battle, the first time anyone had shot at her in earnest. Without conscious control her fingers began to tense and relax, curling into to fists and then spreading them again. Steady Selene, you're a professional, a doctor, you're trained for this. Suddenly a practice in the Swiss alps didn’t seem like a tremendously boring way to spend her life after all.

She caught Snake’s eye as he finished his speech and the hysterical giggle slipped out inspite of her. Blushing she closed her hand around the handle of her pistol. It would be alright. She could do this.

Kathy finished up the fixes to Block 3 and hurried on her way to a defensive system's console in Engineering to keep watch during the battle. The screeching joints of cannon 3A would have to wait. She would be needed here to make sure any malfunctions to defensive systems during battle would be noticed and fixed.

After a minute at her console, she realized that the pilot, officer... whatever his name was, wanted to reroute engine power to steering. Since Kathy had nothing to do for now, she decided to help out.
@Elitestpotato

"Alice, I can help with Officer Pilot's request. I have a really efficient algorithm I developed while working for an aerospace research company that can balance power between the engines and steering to give him the best of both speed and maneuverability. I'm coordinating with the respective engineering crews to get this working. The pilot should feel an improvement right... ... now!"
@ClocktowerEchos

"Call me Anan," I said to the Private with a wink, smirking. "Though not in front of O'Henessey, if you wise."

It was all well and good being friends with the men, but showing it in front of the wrong officers could get a man in trouble.

"As for A.I," I continued, rolling my tongue to find the right words, "They all like it, most of what I see. Like someone poured coffee over mainframe, yes? Me? Would not trust one to pilot car, let alone big ship like this."

My English had made leaps and bounds over the last decade, assisted in part by the fact that it was the official language of most military outfits. An army speaking several different languages wouldn't have been an army at all, after all. Sure translators could be called in to accelerate communications, but why bother with the middle man? All things considered, it was an easy language. I spoke it well enough.

The young Private had asked me to lead on, and not wanting to give the A.I another excuse to ambush me with more of its quirkiness, I obliged him. Our brief journey took us through a series of winding, metal grated corridors, where we brushed by busy ensigns and frantic engineers. Waking up a ship like this from hyperspace required a bit of muscle, but it never failed to surprise me how much work needed to go into checking the systems. Though sure enough, after the diagnostics, spearheaded by the A.I, those flight boys would have spent the rest of the fight sitting in chairs, drinking coffee, and tending to the occasional power outage or system malfunction. Unless the Destiny took a direct hit from a battery of warheads, of course, and in that case I'd be much happier on the ground fighting dinosaurs with plastic cutlery.

The hangar bay was one giant metal womb. Several vessels were docked along its width, ramps down and ready to receive. Munitions trolleys were rolled this way and that by red-faced deckhands. I stopped at one of these, and grabbed a couple of square mags for my launcher. Like most systems of it kind, the M19A78 98MM Multi-Purpose Thermal Launcher relied on a vertical 7 round magazine. 14 rounds might not sound like much, but I learnt early on in my career that carrying a load of explosive ammunition on a dropship was asking for trouble - not from personal experience of course, but I'd seen some unlucky shit in my time.

Me and the Private carried on towards the dropship designated for our team, and I could hear the Warrant Officer long before I saw him. I entered first, giving O'Henessey a brisk nod, and took my place in a seat next to our assigned medic. She was pretty enough, that was for sure, but unlike my SO, I'd fired off my smut rounds earlier in life.

"M'am," I said to her, flashing a brief smile. Medics performed a thankless task, dragging our dismembered half-dead bodies across battlefields. Sure they got plenty of praise after the battle, but never during. I could blow up a tank, and get cheered into deafness by my comrades. Our medic might save six lives, braving mortar fire and stray rounds, but no one would give her a pat on the back until said mortar fire and stray rounds stopped... therefore I gave them all the courtesy I could, whenever I saw them.

She didn't notice though, apparently too busy with the hilarity of our leader's rousing speech. I hadn't heard it, but that man's charisma followed certain tram lines, so my imagination was apt for giving me an impression of what was said.

I looked up at the Private, and nodded to the seat next to me. "Sit, yes?"

Dr. Havey's heart raced. A combination of excitement and panic began crawling over him. He knew in-space combat was exponentially more fragile than on the ground. Medics wouldn't be able to properly tend to a wounded soldier still suited up, and he expected most of the casualties to come from punctures in armor.

Master Sgt. Mazierska was the first to close a cryobay. The rest of the reports soon flooded in and the crew remained intact, given for some nausea and mobility issues, nothing the average person wouldn't be able to walk off. The staff settled in, chatter calmed, and the on-scene medics seemed to be keeping themselves together.

Havey stood at the nurses' station. The LEDs built into the walls around him flashed with the status of every suit currently deployed. "When the color's start changing, you start prepping the beds." The nurses nodded, just basking in the calm before the storm.

He hurried himself back to his office. The screen on his computer was set to a live feed of the casualty count and list of names, currently empty.

Snake shook off the random laughter for their medic and opened up the port side hatch and looked down at the city below. New Portland was a modern marvel of urbanization and colonization. Bright white skyscrapers sat like titans at the very heart of the city. In comtrast, some smaller building at the very edges of Nee Portland showed signs of damage as small fire glowed.

"Looks like those scumbags were havin' fun without us," Snake commented to everyone aboard willing to listen. "Rebel nut-garglers they can raise hell and get away with it. No fucking respect."

As the dropship ascended, foot soldiers could be seen rushing into the city like ants after find a family picnic. Rusted up caravans carrying heavy armaments and ideological idiots zoomed down a war torn sepension bridge, running over corpses and knocking around abandoned cars left and right.

"Hey, someone back there hit whoever is flying this damn thing and get us fucking down their. If I wanted ah sky-high tour of 'West Who-Gives-A-Fuck' I'd be wearing a floral shirt and downing a drink over here."