Leon wandered through the crew quarters with his head held high. He was supposed to be an example of protection and security aboard The Ark. He was supposed to be an example of how the other soldiers should act.
“What are you doing?” Fura questioned.
“What do you mean?”
“Walking around looking down your nose at people. You’re acting like a snob.”
“I am? I was just trying to look authoritative... protective……… responsible. Captain Royal said, a few weeks ago in his message, that I should act like a symbol of authority on this ship. I should make people feel like they’re safe. Isn’t that what I’m doing?”
“No, no its not. The way you’re carrying yourself makes you look like you’re better than everyone else. Stop it… You’re not good at being an example, just be you. Act like yourself. I’m sure all that junk about “being a symbol” and “making an example” was just formal run of the mill stuff that some secretary wrote up in that email, doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing John would write, especially after meeting him.”
“Yeah you’re probably right,” Leon replied as he relaxed his stature and continued on his path. On his way to the soldiers quarters he saw a variety of different people, he’s always been used too “a type” of people. He’s always jumped from station to station, moon colony to moon colony, and everyone he’s met his whole life has always seemed “the space type.” But everyone he saw today, it was a nice change, an interesting variety to the norm that he’s used to. When he finally reached the soldiers quarters section of the ship, it was quite easy to tell. The architecture changed from one that was more homey and protective to one that was more rugged, tough, and secure. Everything was a little dimmer, there were fewer windows along the hallways and you could hear… a lot of noise. Whether it was loud banging from people moving heavy ordnance and equipment or yelling from soldier squabbling amongst themselves, the average noise level was higher in this part of the ship. As he made his way through the soldiers quarters he noticed the numbers crudely painted on the doors, they were descending as he made his way down the corridors, some of the doors were open allowing Leon to see inside as he walked. From what he saw, most of the rooms were larger and comprised of about 30 bunk beds that lined each wall, each of them had large lockers or crates by them, the rooms gave of that stereotypical military barracks sort of feel, large rooms that stuffed as many soldiers in them as possible.
*Great, if I’m crammed in one of these rooms with these idiots, I’m gonna lose it,* Leon thought.
“Well hey look on the bright side, you could probably easily win in a fist fight against any of these guys!” Fura exclaimed, with a bit of cutesy optimism in her voice.
“Yeah but that’s not the point. I don’t really feel like having to be stuck in one of these small spaces with any of these stupid jarheads…”
Leon wasn’t paying attention to where he was walking as he was conversing with Fura, his sentence fell short as he walked into, what felt like, a wall. He backed up, and upon quick inspection it was another soldier. This soldier was at least 7 feet tall and must’ve been made entirely of muscle making Leon, a rather tall and fit man as it is, seem tiny by comparison.
“Who you calling a “stupid jarhead?”” the behemoth uttered, his voice carried a bit of weight with it and sounded exactly what you’d expect a man like him to sound like.
“Well,” Leon began.
“Great, here we go,” Fura said with a sigh…
Leon continued, “I wasn’t really talking about anyone specifically, but you seem to fit the bill…”
“Huh?,” the soldier curiously muttered out, “who do you think you are, some sort of tough guy?”
“No it seems like you’ve got that covered, Tiny. Why don’t you just carry on, I think your father, The Hulk, is calling...” Leon said with a smirk.
“Why you little piece of…” the soldier began to say, you could see he was becoming agitated, a small vein on his forehead began to show. The soldier lifted and threw one of his massive fists towards Leon.
Leon rotated his body to kick the behemoth behind his knees, dodging the fist in the process. The hulk of a man began to fall to his knees. Leon’s rotation continued until his was completely behind the huge man, he quickly unsheathed his blade from his waist, holding the man’s forehead, Leon brought the blade to his neck once he was completely on his knees. Leon’s necklace jingled as it came out from under his shirt, due to the velocity of his rotation, and came to a hanging rest, his Ghost squadron tags shone under the light above him. A bead of sweat ran down the man’s forehead.
“But yea, now that you mention it, I do think I’m a bit of a tough guy,” Leon said with a small grin.
Leon looked up and noticed that a small crowd had gathered around him, he could hear a few whispers among the men.
“Are those Ghost Squadron tags?” “There’s a member of the GS on this ship, seriously?!”
Leon brought the blade up away from the man’s neck, giving him a tiny paper cut sized incision on his cheek as he did. Sheathing the blade, Leon continued on his way down the corridor towards his quarters. He grabbed his dog tag necklace and tucked it back under his shirt as he cleared his way through the small crowd of soldiers.
“Well, you’re certainly a shining example of what the soldiers on the ship should be” Fura said, sarcastically, “nice job, tiger…”
“Hey he started it!” Leon retorted.
“You called him a stupid jarhead…”
“I wasn’t talking about him, specifically. I was more talking about all of them..”
“You kinda started it. Wait, stop! Fura yelled.
Leon halted, “what, why?! What’s wrong?!”
“Your room…”
Leon looked to his right, he saw a dark, steel colored door with the letters AG0013 painted on it. There was a thin black bar above the door. The bar emitted a line of blue light that run up then down Leon’s body then let out a low beep, the door opened immediately afterwards. Inside was a decently sized room. In one corner was a bed with a full sized mattress, it appeared to be of low quality. Tracing along the wall there was door that lead to what looked to be a private bathroom. After the door was a decently sized metal desk that was covered in various small boxes and computer parts, there were a couple larger boxes on the floor next to the desk as well. Going to the opposite side of the room was a very large locker that was flush in the corner, it was about 7 feet tall and 5 feet wide. The final wall had a very large window that granted a nice view into outer space. There were numerous light strips along the ceiling that provided a good amount of light to the room.
Leon stepped into the room, the door closed behind him, “Hmm, I could get used to this.”
He glanced over to the desk and ran a mental inventory over the things on the desk to see if all the parts he requested were there, they appeared to be. He walked over to the locker, there was a retinal scanner on the front of a very large computerized lock. He scanned his right eye with the scanner, it let out an audible “buzz” to alert that it denied him entry. Leon tried scanning his left eye, the lock clicked open.
*Hmm, it must not be programed for my cybernetic eye,* he thought.
Leon opened the locker, to one side were the various pieces of his armor, they were somewhat useless in the state they were now, they required the help of another person or machine to correctly equip onto Leon; to the other side of the locker was, emptiness. Leon's weapons were nowhere to be seen in the locker.
“Where the hell are my guns?!” he blurted out angrily.
“I guess we’re making a trip down to the cargo bay.”
Leon sighed as he closed the locker then made his way to the door, “I guess so…”
Exiting the room he made his way to the cargo bay, the door sliding shut and locking behind him.