"We all know Canadians can carry on entire conversations relating to nuclear non-proliferation and moral relativity theories taking into account existence of alternate planar realites, simply by using various inflections of 'eh?'"
-.Praetor
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| The Turbo Newbie Trilogy : Part 1 | | | Author: | | | IP: | bc-pgr-aXXXX | | Date: | 07/17/00 11:07 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for RhinoAssUgly: 7.8333 |  |
PART 1 Glaring at the HUD, Commander Harmon S. Graves leaned forward and punched at the comm. Things were sluggish on the cliffs. No good.
Breathing through his nose, watching the mini for a moment longer, he grimaced before finally speaking up. “Move your ass, Styles.” On the overhead zoom screen, the T-280
stopped momentarily, jerking as if about to choke on its cargo of sheet metal. Graves rubbed his temples, lips pursed.
“Sorry, sir,” came the hoarse reply seconds later, the SCV back on route. “It’s just so goddamn bloody hot in this bucket.”
“Suck it up, solider.”
“Sucking, sir.”
* * *
Spitting an unhealthy mixture of tabacco juice and saliva into the shifting sand, the marine grinned through sickly stained teeth. “Shirly’s raggin’ on Styles, again.” he managed, despite the tumorous lump bulging his lower cheek.
“He always puts that shit on open channels.” said another.
Staring at the stark, cloudless sky, sucking his chew, Bacco nodded. “Yeh, well. Styles is a gimp, anyhow.”
Shifting uncomfortably in their bulky CMC combat suits,chafing and sore, sweat tricking down the slick, unshaven faces of all men present, the colonial marines waited. Even with helmet fans and limited cooling capability, the 300 PC suits still managed to be self
contained ovens under the Wasteland’s direct sun.
The third, this one flicking ash from a cigarette as he half-leaned on his C-14, spoke up after a moment of silence.
“Man, I friggin’ hate scantids.”
“Second that,” the fourth muttered, keeping a weary eye as he checked his supply of grenades.
From a hundred yards away, gathered about in a tight huddle, the men watched the spindly insect scuttle across dry desert ridges. It’s tail swished, scorpion like but many times the size, seeming to sense the marines as they waited. It looked at home in the heat and dust, almost aware of the fact, taunting the terminally uncomfortable, out of place, tense soldiers of the 23rd Red. The clang of metal on metal suddenly echoing across the desert dunes sent the bug scurrying away and down the rocky face, the marines, too, startled to edgy anger.
“Christ, Styles!” “Merciful crap, moron!” “What the shit?!” “Styles, you gimp!”
“Dammit, Styles!” came a roar over the comm.
The bunker, thrown together in under fifteen minutes, was now ready, the final piece of sheet having been unceremoniously dropped into place. “Styles,” Bacco murmured into his headset as he and the others slung their rifles and made toward the safer confines of the new bunk.“Why don’t you just go down there with a fruitbasket, shake hands, say ‘hi, we’re just up there’?”
Graves sounded like he had a headache as his voice crackled. “Dobbs. Can it.”
Spitting another purple stream of juice, PFC Daryl Dobbs, aka TaBacco, gave a fake salute to the officer he knew watched via satellite from the comforts of his plush command center. Rough life, there. Even had air conditioning in those things. Probably a forty of malt and a two six of JackD, to boot. Whatever. Commander Harmon “Shirly” Graves could kiss his hairy ass right on the part.
Ducking through the low entryway, Dobbs reached up and plucked the finished gob of Logan Brand tabacco from his mouth, tossing it inside ahead of him. The dust from the
hasty construction had yet to settle, and visors were flipped down to avoid breathing the thick silty dust as it settled.. Slits of hard light, now reflected by the visors’ chromic tint,spilled through the sloppily cut murder holes spaced about the bunk’s thin walls. Internal lighting was wholly unnecessary. They didn’t plan to be here come nightfall. Hooking up the generator would have just wasted precious time, anyhow.
Speed in this operation was paramount.
Despite the seemingly laid back attitudes of the four marines now setting up shop in the cramped confines, all involved knew the mindset was paper thin. Sieging a cliff was always a roll of the dice. Truthfully, anything was a gamble when Zerg were involved, but especially a half-assed setup like this so late in the game. Under these circumstances, two factors alone decided whether or not everything went straight to hell : speed and luck. All involved knew it, and all involved did their best to keep straight faces and high spirits.
Still. The fact that bunkers were playfully known as ‘Death Sheds’ didn’t help calm frayed nerves, any.
“Jesus, Bacco, I’m steppin’ in yer shit over here.”
One of the marines, a good ol’ boy not usually prone to conversation, dubbed Mooley, rubbed the bottom of his boot against a rock embedded in the sandy ground, smearing
used tabacco off his sole. They hadn’t even bothered to spare a sheet to floor the bunk. Speed was key.
Dobbs crushed a dusty thin shrub beneath his heavy boot as he glared through the foot high slits at the goings on outside. “Cram it with walnuts, ugly.” he murmured, barely
paying attention to his peeved buddy. He wasn’t in the mood for further jibbing. Things were coming down to the wire.
The Arclite had rolled up to the plateau just near the bunker, not yet deployed but looking primed; running low, engines rumbling. It wasn’t pushed out quite as far as it would be when the Shock finally showed and stuff started happening; no point in backlighting the tank until it starting unleashing the beast. Off to the left, Styles’ SCV helped pop a transport supply crate behind the single unit of artillery, lending a much needed hand to the raising of a turret tower already started by a second T-280.
Also watching the hustle around the bunk, shoulder to shoulder with Dobbs, PFC Bickerson leaned his assault rifle against the wall and dropped his bandoleer of grenades into the sand at his feet. “Whaddaya say, Bacco? 10 minutes?” he asked aside, eventually looking away from Styles’ welding.
“’Bout that, yeah.”
Relative silence fell as the men fiddled, thought, or did both as best they could. There wasn’t enough room in the bunker to sidestep let alone pace. Personal space and private bubbles were rarely factored into Terran schematics.
“How many spares y’all got?” asked the scantid hating, cig smoking trooper. Williams.
“Half dozen.”
“Same.”
Willams nodded and hunkered down with his back to the corner, mindlessly thumbing his Impaler’s safety. His combat suit felt unusually stuffy, today. In the humidity of the small space, silence again reigned, save the clicks and snaps of Bickerson checking the clip in his Colt sidearm. Mooley coughed and eyed the bottom of his boot.
“Did you guys take a look down there?” Williams asked, finally breaking the nervous calm. “I caught a glimpse when we set down. The creep’s halfway up the friggin’ cliff
face. Quite a few Bugs, too. Lots of those little shits. The mean ones.”
“Lings.” Bacco said without turning away from the view, doing his best to blink away the sweat which now poured into his eyes. If the combat suits were self contained stoves under direct sun, they were goddamn blast furnaces inside a bunk being cooked from on high.
Williams rocked, as if full body nodding. “Yeah, those. Never seen a colony so close up, before. The whole damn thing was moving ...” Breaking off, Williams again thumbed his safety. The weapon felt somehow pathetic. “Any of you think this whole damn thing here is, I dunno, kinda not right somehow? Wrong, I mean. Look. One bunker, a tower, two
SCVs and that Shocker. There’s not even a fuckin’ medic in here.”
The three, more seasoned marines stayed quiet and didn’t look up, keeping themselves occupied. There were reasons for everything.
Williams let his shoulders fall, his face hidden by the gleaming visor.
“... deploy the goddamn thing! Now! Now!” A fierce burst of static, Graves barking.
“Go time!” Bickerson hooted, chambering a round in his Colt before jamming it back in it’s holster.
Outside, Bacco watched the treads on the Arclite suddenly spin sand into the air as it lurched forward to the lip of the plateau. The hydraulic arms were already on the move,
twin 80mils cranking back to give way to the massive Siege Cannon. Tearing into the deeper soil as it advanced, the arms lifted the treads from the ground, skidding the now
stationary artillery weapon to a grinding halt just shy of the cherry spot at the brim overlooking the Zerg colony.
“Close enough.” Bacco grumbled under his breath as he cranked back on the bolt of his C-14.
“Whoa, whoa!” Mooley was howling from behind, his soiled boots long forgotten. “We got flyers! Fast from our side! Christ, get yer ass up, Williams!”
With a deafening thud and a sudden sandy cloud, the Arclite unleashed it’s first 120mm shell. The power of the recoil jerked the entire front end of the rig into the air only to have her come crashing roughly back with an even more violent burst of sand and dust. The hydraulic arms did their duty, keeping the massive gun placement placed.
Somewhere down the cliffs, an explosion ripped into the Zerg mineral line, annihilating a half dozen drone workers as it tore across the creep.
“Styles and company haven’t finished that tower yet, we gotta cover the tank!”
“Bring it! Bring it!”
“Williams! Ferchrissake!”
To Be Continued ...
A Steaming Pile of
Goodness 07.17.00
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