NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is the thread where we can put all the idle banter between characters while I work out the next mission. Basically, if its between missions we all come here, it encompasses all facets of base life, not just the titular breakroom. Its IC and OOC, just like the mission threads.

"Beer," muttered Gaz, striding into the billet, "Where do we get beer around here?"

"Have you finished your report yet?" quizzed McKenzie, he was sat on his bed, reassembling his rifle after giving it a good cleaning.

"Yeah yeah," replied Gaz, "Sat in a high-rise watching everyone else blow apart zombies, then hightail it to the chopper like the big girl's blouses we are."

"Good enough..." McKenzie grabbed his jacket as he stood up from his bed, "Lets go find some nectar of the gods."

"Think we can find that girl as well?" chirped Gaz, following McKenzie as he exited the billet.

Joker was the luckier of the two Shenyangi ALFA-1 members. While Talisman would be debriefing the returning teams (ALFA-2 though to ALFA-12 had all been sent into the field today, the remaining teams were on stand-by for deploy orders) for the next several hours, he could head out to the edge of the base to make a phone call.

He pulled his phone, a steel colored Katana II. With a quick tap of the 2 key he was connecting through the Shenyangi military comm net. Unlike commercial cell providers, Shenyangi Military comm systems had to work, 100% of the time. If you couldn't reach someone it meant that their phone was off.

He sighed as the call went directly to voicemail. He'd heard this message a lot of late.

"It's me, Alex, I'm just calling to tell you that I'm still alive, just got in from a mission. Tell Saya I said I love her. Well, I guess that's it. Call me when you can. I love you Saya."

He closed the phone and put it back into his pocket. He'd been unable to reach her for almost a week. He knew that cell service in Mereshka was at best, hit or miss, but still he wished she'd return his calls, or atleast check her messages.

If a QCS member had overheard that, they'd have found the call odd. He was married to the Saya they knew, so who was he calling? Since when were there two women named Saya in his life? He'd called his wife, and in the message, he'd left an aside to their 4 year old daughter, who happened to carry the same name.

A glance at his surroundings showed that he was near the quarters, so he headed over to the break room to relax for a bit before going and getting cleaned up.

OOC: Carrying over from the the other thread.

Kirk had gotten up and forced down a ration bar when overheard John and Edward. Intrigued, he walked over, hoping to take his mind off of what was likely to happen to him,

"I couldn't help but overhear you were talking about the QCS. That's really what started it all wasn't it? My former Commanding Officer Michael Hawkins, you would have known him as Mick, served with you. He never really spoke much about it with the Section 13 staff. I know him fairly well but from what I've heard he's different now than he was. I'm just curious, what was he like to work with? I've never had the honor."

Peter Rogers entered the break room and said "I'm Peter Rogers, I'm an armed chemist from Jagaro. I was sent by my government to help you guys fight zombies."

"Alexander Marshall, Executive Officer of the ALFA Teams. Welcome to the center of all special operations counter-undead warfare in Shenyang, Fort Jackson."

He gestured around to the quonset huts and hastilly fortified buildings.

"She ain't pretty, but she does the job."

OOC: Carrying over from the the other thread.

Kirk had gotten up and forced down a ration bar when overheard John and Edward. Intrigued, he walked over, hoping to take his mind off of what was likely to happen to him,

"I couldn't help but overhear you were talking about the QCS. That's really what started it all wasn't it? My former Commanding Officer Michael Hawkins, you would have known him as Mick, served with you. He never really spoke much about it with the Section 13 staff. I know him fairly well but from what I've heard he's different now than he was. I'm just curious, what was he like to work with? I've never had the honor."

John was surprised and he said "He was cool, and calm under fire, and I am not surprised that he didn't speak too much about it. I believe that after the incident where he was almost infected with the virius, he changed. The QCS, I believe was the first international undead fighting squad."

"Calm, if a bit inexperienced at the time. He, Kupchenko, and I got into some hairy stuff during our 1st mission all together. Ship full of undead, and a boatload of intel. Didn't think that the Captain'd survive that one, but he got Hawkins and I out of there."

He thought for a moment.

"Then I ended up beating him out for the girl of our dreams. How could we have known that 3 of us were in love with the same woman, team member, my wife when we met in TBCS. Felt like a total... well you know... after I ended up beating those two, why should I be the one who got her and left my friends crushed kinda thing, ya know?"

It was night by the time the helicopter made it to the base. The Hurfdurfistani UH-60 hovered about three feet off the ground, but only for a moment, while Andrew Biggs grabbed his kit bag and dropped off the side. He pounded the pilot's door twice to signal that he had dismounted. Unnecessary, but a force of habit. The helicopter took off, and Biggs looked around the landing pad. Prospects looked pretty bleak.

And seriously, he thought, zombies? Why zombies? It's possibly the worst excuse to implant an operative, ever. The Shenyangis are gonna arrest me as a spy... or worse. What in the hell was HFIS thinking... no such thing as zombies... He picked up his kit bag, put it over his shoulder, and walked off into the base, hoping he'd run into an officer to point him in the right direction. After all, it was a long flight, and he was hungry.

"Ah... hello? Anyone here? Better yet, any officer ranks here?"

OOC: Biggs doesn't actually know that zombies exist (It hasn't been a problem in Hurfdurfistan, and assumes he's been sent as an implanted agent. He isn't stupid, though, he'll come around when he realizes that the undead menace is real.)

After coming through port, the Hurtian squad managed to grab their gear and hitch a ride on one of the supply trucks of a large medical convoy, this also helped ease tension a bit since they had an armed escort now, albeit a small one.

They sat next to a psychologist, apparently people all along the front were having mental breakdowns.

Upon reaching their destination, they hopped off and continued inside on foot until they came to a hut, where they dropped most of their gear and then went through inspection, the mess hall, and then briefing.

Inspection wasn't too lengthy, mostly because initial identification was necessary before they even reached port, plus they were expected, and late.

Consequently, they were tired and hungry. But only mild to moderately worried about the zombies. Rosenthal was least worried, but was quite interested in Alpha-team's progress. Thompson, being wieghed down with most of the ammunition and weapons, was wondering if he could carry enough ammo for his teamates. Schwartz was more-so worried about the zombies directly, his previous experiance with bioweapons making passive populations aggressive generally didn't involve the dead actually rising, so he naterally wondered aloud to Rosenthal if bullets could actually kill the undead.

Rosenthal responded, while peeling a bannanna, that "If you shoot off the head, and smash their jaw, they can't bite yuo, and if they can't bite, they can't infect, now can they? So just do your job and make your shots count Schwartz!"

While doing so, he bent over to pick up a punch-type can opener from behind the counter, and pocketed it while pulling out a lighter and carton of black-market clove cigarettes, and was about to light one up, but decided not to at the last second, and placed them back in his pocket.

(The Hurtian equivilant of an American lighting a Cuban cigar).

This wasn't a good sign to those who knew Rosenthal well, as he hardly EVER smoked, and how he managed to pocket a the cigarettes was anybody's guess.

Thompson, upon finishing his meal, cleaned and double checked his gun and made sure it was in working order.

Schwartz, after finishing his meal and his final tour of KP duty, made sure the scope on his rifle was functioning properly. He then sharpened his bayonet. He wasn't too familar with the newly issued LAR-655 rifle, but he proceeded to dry fire the weapon and dicovered the handy bolt hold-open, which could be bypassed by closing the dust cover, activating the magazine cutoff, and pulling the trigger, he did this several times before a passer-by told him to stop.

Rosenthal, after deciding that he'd smoke after the mission or if death became obvious, whichever came first, decided to sharpen his shovel and trim the fuzes on his hand grenades down to 2 seconds or less, and fitting fragmation sleeves on all of them. He also double checked the color coding of his magazines of 12 ga shells (buckshot, rifled slug, doorbreaching, FRAG-12 [fragmation, incindiary] and flares), he also made sure he could readily identify the 'flares' magazines and grenades in the dark.

While picking up his things, Rosenthal gave the time to silently scoff at the idea of babysitting an armed chemist.

Meanwhile, back inside the hut:
"Ah... hello? Anyone here? Better yet, any officer ranks here?"
Schwartz, being bored, decided to load an empty magazine, cock the rifle, close [dust cover], aim at the newcomer's head, and dryfire the weapon.

"Bang, you're dead. You here to stop these so called zombies too?"

He then repeated this on another newcomer claiming to be a chemist rather than a soldier, almost asking to be outed by the group upon arrival, much to the slight pleasure of Thompson, who just smiled as he finished wiping down his automatic weapon one last time.

OOC: locations:
Moose Thompson: sitting at table field stripping and cleaning his gun, and eating.
Rosenthal: Outside going over his packload while thinking.
Schwartz: Sitting on the ground in the coner of the hut with his pack next to him.

"Shenyangi ALFA Team XO, 1st Lieutenant Alex Marshall. I should be able to help you."

He looked the man over, obviously hadn't dealt with this kind of thing before. He could see it in his eyes, still had that spark of innocence that comes from 'zombies don't exist'. As a result, he was slightly cocky in his demeanor. (more than usual atleast)

"Bang, you're dead. You here to stop these so called zombies too?"
"Looks like it." Biggs looked the man over. "Hurtian, huh? Shenyang is pulling from all over."

"Shenyangi ALFA Team XO, 1st Lieutenant Alex Marshall. I should be able to help you."

He looked the man over, obviously hadn't dealt with this kind of thing before. He could see it in his eyes, still had that spark of innocence that comes from 'zombies don't exist'. As a result, he was slightly cocky in his demeanor. (more than usual atleast)

"Pleasure's all mine. First Lieutenant Andrew Biggs. HFIS Special Activities Division." Biggs extended his hand. "I'm... uh... I'm here to... help you with your zombie problem, I guess." It even felt stupid saying it.

Being bored and not having much else to Peter decied to find some minor seclusion, so he could get some chemical spill combat practice. Ofcorse he couldn't make a real chemical spill so he set up some rocks to represent hazard spots. He but on his gas-mask and drew his kamas, in truth this was about half combat practice and half maditation, he didn't know what to thinks about the mission being called a counter-zombie mission but he knew it would require his full conciontration.

"You don't think they're real do you? Come with me."

Joker (AKA 1LT. Marshall) walked back toward a side door in the break room, which was actually the inside of a Shenyangi highway rest stop, but they had to work with what they had.

Beyond the door was a small meeting room. He waited for his guest to have a seat, then dimmed the lights and began a video.

"Alright, I know you don't believe in zombies, I can tell, plus I read your available dossier. I know the videos have never convinced anyone, but you deserve to see what you're throwing yourself into."

The video rolled, a vista remeniscent of every modern war movie ever made rolled, the video was from the mission data recorder of someone with the IFF tag:

SF:FRND:GOLIATH

He carried an XMG-10A2 machine gun, cut down for spec ops use, a spray painted SAS team logo IDed him as Flachion Team. He glanced right, and the video showed 3 others arrayed beyond him, with various firearms.

"Alright, stay tight, watch for any contacts, call them as you see them, and engage anything hostile."

"Roger." was Goliath's response.

The scene gradually changed, dead bodies, torn apart, lay strewn about the streets, cars were empty and burning.

"Contact, 3 o'clock high."

Goliath glanced over in time to see a silhouette disappear inside a window. Then a howl issued from nowhere. The team was caught in the open as several dozen undead emerged, encircling them, more out of coincidence than of any sort of 'planning'.

"Fire at will."

Goliath's response was a 12 round burst of 6.5 Grendel. Gunfire erupted and unearthly howls carried above the sound of the weapons. The next minute and a half was pure chaos as members of Falchion Team shot themselves dry, and were slowly overrun. The sounds of soldiers being ripped apart were only partially muted by the blare of Goliath's XMG.

"This is Goliath, require immediate exfil at LZ 1, report exfil at LZ 1 NOW."

"Roger that inbound."

As Goliath turned to run for the LZ, he found himself face to face with what had been one of his teammates. The former soldier sank its teeth into Golaith's shoulder, blood spurted onto the camera, partially obscuring the lens. He swore loudly, and fired into the zombie's torso until it fell dead.

He was lying on the ground now, bleeding and succumbing to infection.

"Goliath to Exfil, abort, I repeat, abort."

"Roger."

The last thing the video showed before it ended in a burst of sudden static was Goliath pulling his pistol and wracking the slide to ensure a round was loaded. The sound of a trigger pulling was the last instant of noise.

The tape ended.

"That was a Shenyangi SAS team, highly trained in all manner of warfare. They walked into what he assume was a coincidental ambush, and were overwhelmed. This video was transmitted live back to us. There was one survivor. A marksman, who had been posted on a nearby roof top. He's been listed as unfit for duty, and was honorably discharged. I'm not sure, but he may be in a mental institution at the moment, of his own accord. Seeking PTSD treatment."

He kicked the lights on.

"What's your take on that video? Honestly. Like I said, I don't expect it convinced you, it never does. The first mission does a good job of it, usually."

The last bit was more to himself than to his guest.

"Well... the way I see it, there are two possibilities here. Either you're just screwing with me, which doesn't seem likely, given your general demeanor, and especially your current diction... or this is the real deal. Zombies." Biggs shook his head. "I'll go along with it, I suppose, but man... unreal."

He stood up and stretched. "In the meantime, where should I drop my kit? And do I have time to get some range time in? Or eat?"

"What's your take on that video? Honestly. Like I said, I don't expect it convinced you, it never does. The first mission does a good job of it, usually."

The last bit was more to himself than to his guest.

"Looks like standard braindeads to me," commented a new arrival from the doorway. "That appeared somewhat tactical..."

"But likely a coincidence, as you said," her twin finished. "We've dealt with their kind before..." "Just not in this kind of numbers."

The two wore standard military fatigues, though there was no insignia to delineate an origin, and sunglasses despite being indoors. They came to attention simultaneously and saluted the XO.

"Special Operatives Vivian and Veronica Foxx, reporting for duty, sir."

John was surprised and he said "He was cool, and calm under fire, and I am not surprised that he didn't speak too much about it. I believe that after the incident where he was almost infected with the virius, he changed. The QCS, I believe was the first international undead fighting squad."

"Calm, if a bit inexperienced at the time. He, Kupchenko, and I got into some hairy stuff during our 1st mission all together. Ship full of undead, and a boatload of intel. Didn't think that the Captain'd survive that one, but he got Hawkins and I out of there."

He thought for a moment.

"Then I ended up beating him out for the girl of our dreams. How could we have known that 3 of us were in love with the same woman, team member, my wife when we met in TBCS. Felt like a total... well you know... after I ended up beating those two, why should I be the one who got her and left my friends crushed kinda thing, ya know?"

Kirk nodded, "Yeah the girl'd be the reason for most people. But I never heard about him almost getting infected. Top level classified stuff back home. In fact, after what you guys did down at the Industrial District the whole place was cordoned off for weeks by Dominion Intelligence before reopening. Place was loaded with their private troops and operatives. Bunch of jerks, they took potshots at our cruisers if we got too close. I'd have been down there with you, but I had a city to save first and from what I heard of the squad that did show up, better I didn't.

He's pretty quiet these days, always wrapped up in a new project or going abroad for God knows what. At first it was hard to believe a guy twenty years my junior was in charge, but he's a good leader. I've seen a lot of things on the force, as most cops do, but nothing like the past three years."

"You've got time, we're on stand-by until another mission comes up, so feel free to check out the base, like I said she ain't much, but you ought to be able to find what you need."

Quarters are in the buildings off to the right, one door down. Range is across the base, which still isn't far, just follow the flightline until you see the ad hoc tarmac with the C-17, take a right there and follow the signs.

For food, either grab something from the machines in here, or the mess hall is just past the quarters, about 3 doors further on.

You'll hear it if we're looking for the team, You're part of ALFA-1, if someone calls you somewhere, then get to the CP ASAP, its the building in the center of the base, with all the antennas and dishes."

He turned to Kirk.

"I noticed that when I talked to him last, he's gotten, 'spooky', if you catch my meaning."

IC:

John said "I can't believe that I was goatroped into doing this again. You'd think that a tired old man wouldn't qualify, well, I guess they think I do.." He threw up his hands and he chuckled and he said "I do wonder though if someone's trying to get rid of me this way.."

Captain Kupchenko final walked into the break room. He no longer wore his full tac gear, but none the less, his Springfield Armory XD-45 remained in a drop leg holster over a new pair of urban camouflage pants.

He didn't acknowledge anyone in the room, he just walked to a cooler and retrieved a bottle of water.

He sat down and stared at a wall of several seconds, then swiveled and looked at those in the room.

"We lost 4 good men today, suicides after they were bitten. I hated having to write that protocol... 4 men lost on checkpoint ops like ours, with full strength teams and better support."

He shook his head and opened the bottle.

"Damn... which teams?"

"3, 8, and 10. I need to find them people to fill the rosters out now, without breaking up the other teams."

Schwartz following his direct CO's orders -he still doesn't think himself part of 'Alfa team', rather just a tag-along support squad- went to the rifle range and started boresighting his gun with a 3" holdover at 50 meters, but, since the range was somewhat small, proceeded to investigate the idea of 'stump-shooting', although he'd need a spotter...

He looked and asked some chemist playing with rocks to act as his spotter, and made a point that if he didn't get his gun sighted in, it could easily lead to people getting killed.

-----
Thompson, having cleaned his gun roughly five times with his eyes closed while eating, went over to the range for a quick refresher drill. He tried to conserve his ammunition for the real targets later, as he wasn't even sure another supply convoy would make it up here by the time they move out.
-----
Rosenthal was practicing throwing rocks roughly the size and heft of hand grenades and running an obstacle course/bayonet drill, as it was readily apparent with the shotgun that any fighting he was going to do was close quarters.

Oddly enough, the parent design, the Yanitarian ShY-08 (http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/index.php?showtopic=1585), marketed itself with a reinforced bayonet lug for 'killing cybernetic robot zombies' in the advertisements... Though the Hutrian military designers gave the LAS-12 only a conventional bayonet lug, rationalising that facing robot zombies was a marketing gimmick only and would just give soldiers one more thing to break...

Not that he wouldn't mind having such a feature at this particular time, at least it still carried a decent sized sword or knife bayonet.

After running the course, he decided to chop some wood with his Hurtian E-tool (more of a battle axe than shovel, or a shovel with recessed axe-head).
--------

All three had missed the introductory 'movie', although all had limited and sometime even combat experiance with crazed locals and NBC slimed battlefields.

Rogers removed his gas-mask and agreed to spott for Schwartz, hoping that he would agree to do the same for him when he finished. Rogers never fired a real gun before but he had worked in riot control several times before and the Jagaron dart luncher was modeled after the M4 he now used.

Schwartz sets up a high power scope and tripod by one of the low walls, and aims it at a rock shaped like a smaller-than average football roughly 400 meters away, a man would appear to be little more a mere speck the size of someone's thumbnail without a scope at such a distance.

He then instructed Rogers to look very carefully at the rock and inform him when and where he saw puffs of smoke, making sure not to blink.

He then went about getting into a decent prone firing position, setting up short bipod legs, and squirming until the gun wanted to cooperate and naturally point at the rock.

"Ready? Commencing fire..."

He fired a single bullet, and waited for Rogers to tell him where the bullet landed as he let his gun settle back upon the rock.
(Most likely somewhere within 6 MOA ~ 24 inches off center, slight shift wide due to wind)

Rogers Squented for a second, "About 34 cm left of center and 8 cm down."

Schwartz then adjusted his rectrcle by .5 MOA up for range and 2.5 MOA right for windage, he made held the pins slightly above and to the right of the 'target' took a calm breath, then held instinctively fired another shot after exhaling.

He then looked around for the target, only to find it gone.

"Now onto closer targets..."

He closed the caps to his scope, retracted his stock, picked up his two peices of spent brass, and threw one.

As the brass fell through the air, he raised his gun and started siring single shots at the case as it bounced along the ground 20 meters away, the first shots wher a little off, but he quickly corrected for this usually by the second shot.

In about 75 seconds his partially used 30 round magazine to run dry.

"Your turn." he calmly and matter-o-factly stated as he pulled his spent magazine from its well, closed the dust cover, and dry fired to relieve the tension on the bolt group.

"Would you like yours at the range or out here?" Noting that the properly designated (yet small) 100 meter range was off to the side.

"I'll practace practice at the range." Rogers said knowing that although the M4 was said to have an effective range of over 300 m he would need some practice at under 100 m. "I need to know what I can hit with this thing at shorter distances. I have not used one of these before only a rather distant variant." He set himself up, switched his gun from safety to semi-auto, aimed at his target, got ready to obsorb a huge amout of recoil, and fired.

OOC: up to you what happens; dose he hit his target, is it a clean miss, dose he get thrown on his arse by the recoil.

IC:

John eyed a rather large box that had been delivered to him from the CSOCOM HQ, which he wondered if he should open. He opened the package to reveal a pristine M-14 Sniper Rifle, and not only that, but one with the rare feature of the semi-automatic/automatic fire selector. John said "I am going to zero this beauty in, I've gotten 12 boxes worth of ammo, and they claim more is on the way.."

Steve also saw a package, and it was more 9mm ammo for his MR-63 Rifle, and he said "Wow, thank goodness they sent 25 boxes worth, I'll be sure to run out of these."

As per Joker's directions, Biggs found his way to the range. There were two others shooting, one of whom had dry-fired at him earlier, but it looked like he was a bit busy at the moment. The other... Christ, the other didn't look like he'd ever even held a gun before. Did have some sort of ninja weapons with him, though. Biggs made a mental note to ask him to spar later.

Biggs took up a sitting position at the range, about 120 meters down the line from the sniper-spotter pair. He fired off the internal magazine, taking maybe twelve seconds to land his four shots. Then he repeated the exercise in prone and standing positions. All the while, he was observing the Hurtian shooter from earlier. He was good, no doubt about it.

When Biggs was done shooting, he started to walk over to where the Hurtian was shooting. The Hurtian finished before Biggs got to him, briefly conversed with his spotter, then the pair stood up and walked over to the range. The spotter took up position, braced himself heavily, and fired. From Biggs' position, it looked like a clean miss.

"You're bracing too hard," he called out, "You're only firing 5.56, man. Recoil's not that bad."

OOC: up to you what happens; dose he hit his target, is it a clean miss, dose he get thrown on his arse by the recoil.

OOC: The 5.56 is a pretty swift low recoil cartridge, it may get your shoulder to jiggle violently though... automatic fire would seem (from a guess) to be like someone leaning against you a bit. So getting knocked flat isn't possable with an M4.

IC:
First shot hit the lower edge of the paper at 100 meters.

"A little low... don't learn so hard forward that you choke up so much."

Almost instinctively, he went through a mental troubleshooting checklist that his drill instructors had taught him aloud.

"Just remember to breath unless you're pulling the trigger, aim like a shotgun at less than 10 meters or when on automatic*, keep both eyes open, if vision gets blurry wink for the gunsight to retain eye dominance, never squeeze the trigger longer than you can comfortably hold your breath. learn to ride the edge of the trigger shear for rapid fire, use the sling for added stability, aim for the head and neck for long shots and bullet drop will send it into their gut."

The next shot went high.

"Try and shoot a grouping, aim at the exact same point each time."

Next series of shots landed between the 5 and 1 point rings in the 4 o'clock position. (on a 10 point circular target roughly 12" wide)

"Adjust front sights 3 clicks down and rear sight 2 left, try using the smaller peep-hole"

All other shots on target within the 8 point circle.

"Now onto more realistic targets... 2 full size head and torso targets on a moving track, geared to equal the pace of someone running. Get killshots on both before they reach you."

What he neglected to mention, was that they'd dart between cover and were hooked up to a clutch so that the whining of the motor couldn't tip him off as to whether the targets were moving or exactly how fast.

"Begin!"

OOC: I'll let you figure out how well you do here. I was assuuming the chemist was already a fairly good shot with the low velocity dart-gun.

The specifics of the track/cover would be the target disappearing completely from view behind a 'bush' (multiple layers of torn up camo netting) at about 50 meters and re-appearing at 10 at a full sprint, beyond 50 meters the cover is mostly partial except at the 75 meter mark and time betwen cover is about 5 seconds/meters, the targets have an average speed of 10 m/s and a sprint of 20 m/s.

There are multiple tracks and 'switching stations' to randomly change directions of the targets, so they follow a semi-random zigzag except for the last 10 meters.

One would run continuously while the other would pause momentarily under complete cover.

OOC:
I think you just 'unbumped' this thread...

So now I'm de-un-bumping...
Next person to post gets on page 3.

Edit:
And don't mind the deleted posts, they mean nothing...
(Mostly just chatter on what a kama was -something between a pick and a sickle- and the low recoil of the 5.56x45 mm.)

IC:

John arrived at the range with his M-14, and sat down on the chair, and loaded a few .308 Winchester rounds, and he looked through the scope. He adjusted the Sheapard Scope that was on it, and he waited until his natural respatory pause and fired. He looked threw the scope to check his target, and to his surprise, the shot went into the bullseye!

He fired some more shots, for he needed to practice with this weapon before he would go into combat with it.

Grant eyed John as he fired his M-14. A respectable weapon, he concluded, but not comparable to his own XM-8 sharpshooter. He looked down the scope, picking off a target at 500 feet. It had been a little low. Sitting up from his crouched position, Grant adjusted the sights and fired again; dead center.

OOC:
I think you just 'unbumped' this thread...

I didn't know that was possible.

Edward walked into the range then set a package onto the nearest unoccupied booth. "Got a present from the boys at home, I've got a feeling its better then what I've got." He flicked out his knife then slashed the packing tape at both ends of the box, then slid it out. Wrapped in celophane was his M-1 Garand. "Ah, I missed this one." He checked the clip, none loaded per protocol, then racked a clip into the chamber, and fired. His first shot hit the target dead center in the head. "Looks like I haven't lost my touch."

Dr. Ling, a psychologist from the ISAF hospital in Randova had arrived earlier, but had been busy getting settled in with his new, albeit small office. On the way in he'd bumped into a woman who hadn't bothered to even respond to their accidental collision, he wondered what was making her so disagreeable, then quickly forgot about it as he re-checked the file on the soldier he'd been sent to examine.

"Oh my, I have quite the fight ahead of me, don't I?"

He was talking to his pet cat, which was curled into a small ball in the corner sleeping.

He looked at the file, then got up and went to find his subject.

10 minutes later, he had found Officer Kirk, sitting in the break room, with nothing to do.

"Victor Kirk I presume? If you would come with me to my office, I have some questions I'd like to ask you."

He gestured to Kirk for him to follow.

OOC: Forget to wipe the cosmoline off the M1? (http://theboxotruth.com/docs/edu23.htm)

IC:
Schwartz noted a new arrival carring an old M-14A1 Automatic weapon, followed by another arrival with a very recently unpacked M1 Garand that reaked of the grease and oil it had been stored in.

Both shooters managed to score bullseyes fairly quick.

Another one, carring a 'plastic' M-8, fired at a target a mere 160 yards away, essentially point blank for his marksman's rifle. He also noted that his first shot missed.

OOC: VV you missed the / in [/quote]

"You've got time, we're on stand-by until another mission comes up, so feel free to check out the base, like I said she ain't much, but you ought to be able to find what you need."

Quarters are in the buildings off to the right, one door down. Range is across the base, which still isn't far, just follow the flightline until you see the ad hoc tarmac with the C-17, take a right there and follow the signs.

For food, either grab something from the machines in here, or the mess hall is just past the quarters, about 3 doors further on.

You'll hear it if we're looking for the team, You're part of ALFA-1, if someone calls you somewhere, then get to the CP ASAP, its the building in the center of the base, with all the antennas and dishes."

OOC: Was this directed to me? I've been unsure and waiting for a definate direct post.

OOC: Was this directed to me? I've been unsure and waiting for a definate direct post.

OOC: No, that was mine, but I can share if you'd like?

Rogers managed to hit all the targets before they 'completed' their 'run' but only barely. If this was like what is ahead of him then he should be able to make it out alive he thought. He went back to regular target practice till he was reasonably satisfied with the resaults, next he decied to practice with a gas-mask, that was the main reason he was here to fight in contaminated environments. His accuracy droped as was expected but was readjusted fairly quickly since he had spent so long shooting through clouds of tear gas with a gas-mask on back when he worked in riot control.

OOC: Forget to wipe the cosmoline off the M1? (http://theboxotruth.com/docs/edu23.htm)


OOC: Whoops, my bad.

IC:
Edward fired the last round into the tragets head before setting the rifle down and wiping his forhead. As he hands passed his nose, he noticed the stink of cosmoline. "Frak.." He muttered. He sifted through the crate his M-1 had come in before finding the cleaning kit. "M-1's only six years old, and already they're packing it in perservative..." He muttered again.

Having fired off all the shots he was willing to spare, Biggs walked across the range, observing the other shooters. He spotted one soldier, Calizoristani from his uniform, firing a particularly nice M14, but with an automatic fire setting. Didn't know they made those. Just down the line from him was a UHC trooper with a Garand, which, if Biggs recalled correctly, was the Brooksian zombie-killing weapon of choice. Were they really taking this zombie thing seriously?

Both of them were shooting pretty well, as was the FUS... marine, was he? Biggs knowledge of foreign military insignia only went so far, but it looked like a Marine Corps insignia. But the FUS soldier had something new, an XM8 in the parasniper configuration. Biggs had to admit, if only to himself, that he was a little jealous. But then, maybe the firearms fairy would visit him later, after he sent back a report home.

But all three of them were busy shooting, whereas the Hurtian commando from earlier was just watching his spotter shoot. So Biggs walked over and sat down.

"We've got quite the assortment here, looks like. Of guns, that is. Everybody here seems to think they can be a marksman. Not quite as easy as just having a scoped rifle, eh?"

Edit: OOC: http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1729/emotsynpaxn5.gif

"You've got time, we're on stand-by until another mission comes up, so feel free to check out the base, like I said she ain't much, but you ought to be able to find what you need."

Quarters are in the buildings off to the right, one door down. Range is across the base, which still isn't far, just follow the flightline until you see the ad hoc tarmac with the C-17, take a right there and follow the signs.

For food, either grab something from the machines in here, or the mess hall is just past the quarters, about 3 doors further on.

You'll hear it if we're looking for the team, You're part of ALFA-1, if someone calls you somewhere, then get to the CP ASAP, its the building in the center of the base, with all the antennas and dishes."

The two nod and head towards the indicated living quarters. They find a vacant room and drop their sea bags, unpacking them quickly. A few changes of clothes, a few personal items, and a dozen different types of weapons each. They discuss the merits of each one, deciding what might be the best kit to bring along.

But all three of them were busy shooting, whereas the Hurtian commando from earlier was just watching his spotter shoot. So Biggs walked over and sat down.

"We've got quite the assortment here, looks like. Of guns, that is. Everybody here seems to think they can be a marksman. Not quite as easy as just having a scoped rifle, eh?"


OOC: was directed at me?

OOC: no, I think he mistook Pvt Schwartz as a model soldier...

"We've got quite the assortment here, looks like. Of guns, that is. Everybody here seems to think they can be a marksman. Not quite as easy as just having a scoped rifle, eh?"

"Makes you wonder which one will make their shots count and which ones will be either shoting a miss or a slow miss, doesn't it? So why do we have more sniper rifles than marksmen anyways? At least I know I have my reason for getting sent here. Not sure I can say the same about the others."*

*In refferance to the FUS XM-8 shoting at less than half the range the gun was meant to shoot, and the others shooting at well defined targets on a fairly range only good enough to check the zero of a rifle or for basic rifle practice.

He continues in a quieter tone: "For crying out loud, they sent us a non-combatant into this team... At least I know he can protect himself. From the looks of it, half the forces deployed here are slowly breaking down and the other half just keeps getting killed. This mess makes our runs through the gauntlet* seem like a walk in the park."

*The Gauntlet is a bit of traditional in Hurtian Marine Raider training, essentially there's a contaminated or zombie infested tropical island and they have to land and traverse an obstacle course without getting killed by the wildlife or their instructors, and they have to run the course with only a combat shovel, bayonet, canteen, and basic survival gear (no food unless you catch it, decontaminate it, and eat it), while wearing full MOPP IV NBC protection. Removal of the NPC gear can easily resault in instant death since they never tell you what they sprayed the island down with -some HMR special blend cocktail called HE80.

He then noticed Roger finish the 2 'zombie' run successfully...

"Okay, now take 2 mags of 10 and kill 5. If you run out of ammo, fix bayonet and charge, even the ones you killed, don't worry, I'll cover for you... I better see a fatal shot and bayonet hole in all targets."

He then sends 5 targets downrange as Roger reloads.

"Fix bayonet! Switch to full auto only, and use the big hole."


He then shifts his attention back to the conversation:
"I doubt he'll make it on his first try. Nobody does. Reloading will eat his time and he essentially only gets 2 to 4 bursts with both mags included... They generally get 3, two short ones at long range then they panic and squeeze the trigger till they run dry when they get up close, and finally they choke and forget to charge as they get overrun. Goal is to teach these guys not to panic even when they know they gonna die, very painfully."

Schwartz, while chatting, nonchalantly brings the targets rapidly uprange, this time at near full speed all the way through*

*Never below 15 m/s and often reaching 20 m/s, meaning you have about 7 to 5 seconds to empty a mag into all of them, change clips, empty that mag, and charge with his M4 while making double sure to kill every target. This mostly is to simulate a holding light rush of about 30 zombies on your own.
--------
Rosenthal and Thompson were on their way back to their living quarters, Rosenthal was stopped to retrive a weapons crate, loaded with a pair of HAP-625 SMGs with sound modulators (silencers), and a conversion kit for the LAR-655 to 6.5x25 pistol ammo, and roughly 3,000 rounds of said ammunition.

Rosenthal: Unpack our stuff, I've got to drop some of this stuff off at the range. Take anything you think you'll need from this crate when you get done. After that, I really don't care.

Rosenthal took a HAP, the conversion kit, and two boxes of ammunition back to the range.

Note: the LAR-655E2 (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10892498&postcount=17) has an integral noise/flash reducer, not quite as effective on sound, but more than adaquate for eliminating flash and muzzle jump. Appearance and use vaguely similar to the SVU-AS (http://world.guns.ru/sniper/sn19-e.htm)

IC:

John looked up at the newcomers, and said "Aye, I'll be you've never seen the rare M-14A2/M-15 rifle before, and it's even rarer as a sniper rifle. Apparently, CSOCOM found some of these lying around, about 5 of them. That's all that were ever made, this is serial.." He looked at the serial and gasped "0001". He loaded more .308 Winchester, and fired again, this time getting a group of 0.32 inches around the 9 and the 10 rings, 3 going in the bullseye. He was getting used to this gun alright..

OOC: oops, my bad. i used the ft reference from GSG when there is instruction in marksmanship. i'm a pilot, so i don't really know ground weapons (except SAMs, AAAs etc).

Dr. Ling, a psychologist from the ISAF hospital in Randova had arrived earlier, but had been busy getting settled in with his new, albeit small office. On the way in he'd bumped into a woman who hadn't bothered to even respond to their accidental collision, he wondered what was making her so disagreeable, then quickly forgot about it as he re-checked the file on the soldier he'd been sent to examine.

"Oh my, I have quite the fight ahead of me, don't I?"

He was talking to his pet cat, which was curled into a small ball in the corner sleeping.

He looked at the file, then got up and went to find his subject.

10 minutes later, he had found Officer Kirk, sitting in the break room, with nothing to do.

"Victor Kirk I presume? If you would come with me to my office, I have some questions I'd like to ask you."

He gestured to Kirk for him to follow.

Kirk looked up, the ghost of a smile crossed his face, "So you're the guy they sent to get inside my head huh? Alright, let me just grab my stuff," he shoved everything into a black duffel bag and shouldered it, slinging his carbine to the opposite shoulder, "Lead the way, Doc."

He knew he needed help, and everyone sure as heck knew it too, so he decided to actually be truthful and let the doctor help him. Kirk was the first to admit three years of 'this curse' as he called it left him with a lot of baggage he might as well dump sooner or later. It certainly wasn't helping him, so it wasn't worth keeping.

IC:

John looked up at the newcomers, and said "Aye, I'll be you've never seen the rare M-14A2/M-15 rifle before, and it's even rarer as a sniper rifle. Apparently, CSOCOM found some of these lying around, about 5 of them. That's all that were ever made, this is serial.." He looked at the serial and gasped "0001". He loaded more .308 Winchester, and fired again, this time getting a group of 0.32 inches around the 9 and the 10 rings, 3 going in the bullseye. He was getting used to this gun alright..

"First of the model, eh? My Garand is relativly new, the Union put them back into Production with a few tweaks for the QCS, never bothered to check the serial number." He fired another round into the traget before manually unloading the M-1, a process made easier by a clip ejector.

"First of the model, eh? My Garand is relativly new, the Union put them back into Production with a few tweaks for the QCS, never bothered to check the serial number." He fired another round into the traget before manually unloading the M-1, a process made easier by a clip ejector.

John nodded and he said "Aye, and it works just fine. I heard rumors of why it was such a limited production. Something about cost overruns. Funny thing was, they were supposed to scrap them all, but CSOCOM did not. They kept them hidden around, for uses like this." He fired another magazine into the farthest target, 4 shots going in the bullseye, and the rest into the nine and the ten areas of the target.

"Well, as long as it works." he slung his M-1 over his shoulder. "I missed this one, racked up quite the kill count with it."

"Well, as long as it works." he slung his M-1 over his shoulder. "I missed this one, racked up quite the kill count with it."

John chuckled as he saw Steve lug a BAR into the room and he said "I hope you don't intend to take that into combat, too heavy.." Steve said "Yes, but CSOCOM noted that I had several zombie kills with this thing.." He patted the BAR and he said "Good 'ole bess. John, Ed, I thought of bringing my vintage SKS rifle which had a mean bayonet on it.."

John fired another round of ammo, and he said "I think I'd trust this with my life now that I've had adequate practice.."

"A BAR? You're kidding me, that thing is a squad support weapon, pretty much the equivilent of todays SAW." He shook his head. "And I thought I was the only one with a slightly vinatge primary."

"A BAR? You're kidding me, that thing is a squad support weapon, pretty much the equivilent of todays SAW." He shook his head. "And I thought I was the only one with a slightly vinatge primary."

Steve grinned and he said "I love it though, it shreds zombies like no other vintage gun!" He fired at a target with the BAR, and he was laughing all the way.

"Thats because its the only vinatge gun that shreds zombies, every other gun gives them cranial ventilation, even a Thompson."

"Thats because its the only vinatge gun that shreds zombies, every other gun gives them cranial ventilation, even a Thompson."

Steve said "That's why I picked it. I not only needed to kill them, I needed to shred them to be sure they're finally dead." John nodded, and then he saw a packing slip that read "Other shipments of the rest of the M-15's will be shipped to you, along with 144 boxes of .308 ammo..." John laughed and he said "They're sending me the rest of all of the M-15's that exist in Calizorinstan, so they won't get in trouble, and they're all variously customized. One has a laser holosight on it, and the other has some railing system with flashlight installed.."

Edward chuckled. "Doesn't matter how good the equipment is, or how well it should preform, its how its used that counts." He tapped his uniform. "Just wish I could get standard battle gear, titanium vest with kevlar coverings over my arms and legs, not to mention a helmet with full uplink to Union surveilence satallites as well as a data mainframe." he shrugged. "A bit more advanced them some of the Tech around here, but anyone can operate it."

OOC; My brains a bit frazzled, so I apologize if I add extra letter, misspell or us improper grammar. Been cramming for finals.

Edward chuckled. "Doesn't matter how good the equipment is, or how well it should preform, its how its used that counts." He tapped his uniform. "Just wish I could get standard battle gear, titanium vest with kevlar coverings over my arms and legs, not to mention a helmet with full uplink to Union surveilence satallites as well as a data mainframe." he shrugged. "A bit more advanced them some of the Tech around here, but anyone can operate it."

OOC; My brains a bit frazzled, so I apologize if I add extra letter, misspell or us improper grammar. Been cramming for finals.

John nodded and he said "Well, I guess we know who's in possession of most of the M-15's built. Well, I love it personally, it was meant to take the place of the BAR. I guess we could call Steve and I, Bonnie and Clyde if you get the reference.."

"Some of the most famous criminals of the early twentith century. I'm going to guess Steve is Clyde because he has the BAR, eh?"

"Some of the most famous criminals of the early twentith century. I'm going to guess Steve is Clyde because he has the BAR, eh?"

John nodded and he said "I'm going to go into the simulation room, to hone my zombie killing skills with this.." Steve said sarcastically "Sure Bonnie!" John said "I'll be back Clyde.." He chuckled and entered the simulation room, and it seemed as though he had just been dropped into a checkpoint that was besieged by undead, even though it was a simulation.

He fired his M-15 at the zombie targets on screen, and he climbed an observation post, and started to snipe the inflicted rapidly, with deadly accuracy, bursting the heads of some, and leaving a hole in the others.

Around the middle of the 'vintage gun' discussion, Rosenthal showed up with the newer supplies so that Schwartz knew how to shoot with the ammo he'd be given...

He noted talk of the M1918A3 BAR, small clip and no real semi-auto capability being the only two drawbacks, giving it a really sharp learning curve for sniping. The M14A1, which they continued to call the M15, was a weapon that behaved almost the exact opposite, being lighter and firing the same power (though small dimensionally) projectile at twice the rate of the BAR, was a doomed failure in accurate fully automatic fire, but behaved favorably as a designated marksman's gun, especially when coupled with an ART sight (Automatic Ranging Telescopic -an adjustable power contraption that automaticly compensated for bullet drop as magnification increased, all you had to do was magnify till the target appeared the same size in the crosshairs, line up, pull trigger, rinse, repeat until empty).

He didn't say anything about their vintage weapons, and he noted that at least the Garand and BAR could fire the same cartridge, as could the XM-8 and M-4 he saw earlier on the range. He made a point, that if given the option, to divy up the team based on what ammo they used and to make sure the experianced troops watched over the greenhorns and snipers.

He then walked up to Schwartz, and uncerimoniously handed him the chamber plug, bolt spring, and magazine adapter, along with 3 magazines of 6.5x25 pistol ammo.

"Looks like you'll be shooting all day, mind if I join you?"

He pointed to the little HAP-625 Submachine gun he had stuffed atop in a shoulder bag loaded with ammo,* then to a long metal tube he had placed next to it**, then the targets downrange.

*one of the more utilitarian method Hurtians carry a SMG is inside a large ammo bag, since it technically was called a 'pistol' thus lacking a shoulder strap, it was expected to be 'holstered', but nobody ever went around to developing one..

**The tube is a barrel extension intended to convert the HAP 'pistol' into a 'pistol-carbine'. It wasn't too popular with the troops, mostly because it tended to be exposed, flimsy, made the gun poorly balanced, and screwing it on incorrectly threw off the shooter's aim.

Rogers downed a few of his targets before he ran out of ammo at which point he chose to forsake reloading in favor of a jump kick to the closest target fallowed by a quick stab with his bayonet. After the first target however he just ended up stabing wildly.

IC:

Steve saw Rosenthal and he said "Hullo! I was just shooting targets with my M1918A3 BAR, that's what I'm usually going to carry on missions. However, I've heard that John is volunteering to join Alfa-8 to help replace that team, which was wiped out."

John meanwhile, was making sure that no zombies were climbing up the observation post, and so far, he only shot one with his M-14A1, which was trying to climb up it, but he shot it in the head, with one shot. He continued his sniping, which was getting more deadly, though sometimes he missed.

Schwartz and Rosenthal caught the conclusion of Roger's stabbing spree, and looked at the targets, then noted one of the mags was full, the other still in the gun...

"I'd give you a score of 10..."

He paused, and waited for rogers to look pleased.

"Out of 30, you'd still have 20 to 1 odds against of you surviving, try again this time with 2 bullets in your first mag and 3 in the second, and a full mag in the third, firing will be on semi-automatic only, and double the targets to ten this time."

He set up the targets again as Roger prepared for the next wave, this time he'd just send them all towards him as fast as the motor would allow, something between 18 and 20 m/s...

What he didn't tell Roger, was that Rosenthal and himself be shooting at the same targets from behind him on full automatic with the newly acquired pistol ammunition, making sure Rosenthal's gun wasn't suppressed. The goal was to show him how it was done the Hurtian way...

Of course, they'd give Roger time to empty the first magazine first and swap to the second or to make him think twice before charging and what would amount throwing his life away should they be real zombies.

Edward walked over to Roger. "Kid, one thing you need to learn, never engage a zed in close combat unless you're out of ammo, you'll never be facing one, you'll always be facing at least ten to fifteen, depending on how much noise we make."

OOC: no, I think he mistook Pvt Schwartz as a model soldier...

OOC: Gods no. If mine is far from it, and he is, then he shouldn't expect anyone else to be. Besides, Schwartz hasn't really displayed a... high degree of professionalism, shall we say, yet.

IC: "Well, the ones that made it back can hit what they're shooting at, ostensibly. 'Course, they might have just gotten lucky. You're right, though, about the rest... or at least about how they're cracking up as they go. Supposedly one of them is visiting the shrink as we speak."

"I doubt he'll make it on his first try. Nobody does. Reloading will eat his time and he essentially only gets 2 to 4 bursts with both mags included... They generally get 3, two short ones at long range then they panic and squeeze the trigger till they run dry when they get up close, and finally they choke and forget to charge as they get overrun. Goal is to teach these guys not to panic even when they know they gonna die, very painfully."

"Tough. Very tough. When is he ever going to have two mags of ten shots, though?"

He watched in silence as Rogers made his zombie run. It looked like he panicked as soon as he entered melee.

"Your buddy just better hope it doesn't come to bayonet range. On the other hand, maybe you're just not using him correctly. He's got those... sickle-looking things. Maybe he's more proficient with those than he is with his bayonet. Honestly, it doesn't look like that'd be much of a stretch."

"Tough. Very tough. When is he ever going to have two mags of ten shots, though?"

"I had his ammo per mag reduced because the range doesn't allow for 30 moving targets... let alone 300, and besides, he needs to learn to reload quickly anyways. If he can't hit 10 targets with 35 bullets from 3 mags in 5 seconds he certainly won't be able to handle 30 or more targets and 90 bullets in five, especially if he only bothers to use the first 30 before running willy-nilly..."

"Your buddy just better hope it doesn't come to bayonet range. On the other hand, maybe you're just not using him correctly. He's got those... sickle-looking things. Maybe he's more proficient with those than he is with his bayonet. Honestly, it doesn't look like that'd be much of a stretch."

"I never said he couldn't."

He stressed the last part, implying that he panicked and wasn't thinking clearly anymore after firing only 5 shots at a paper enemy.

He was already liable to crack under pressure.*

*One of the many things taught to Hurtian Marine Raiders, is the raising of indiginous forces, or at least the rapid 'crash course' style training he's sending Rogers through. But that kind of training is for HMR drill Sgts, Pvt Schwartz is just making sure he won't end up dead because of Rogers.

OOC: Yeah, HMR makes for some mean drill instructors... Some clowns in HOI pretty much set up their own form of 'the gauntlet' in Chtzeland for fresh recruit screening (rather than as the equiv to 'hell week'), resaulted in about 90% of the volunteers getting killed before they even took their ASVAB... Of those who washed out, they had roughly a 1% chance of making it back home without getting shot (so about only 00.005% of all the volunteers even if half the survivors 'washed out', and even if they made it, they were considered traitors, hunted down, and executed), The course itself had a 50% death-rate, only marginally safer than running away. And that is what raising an Army during an NS Civil war is like. Especially since NS nations have far more able bodies than time available to raise a halfway decent army during a wartime crisis. It didn't help much that their 'Native-soldiers' were all conscripts taken from their homes by force.*

*Making the entire HOI action in Chitzeland (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/the_chitze_revolution.html) about as humane as Stalin's great Purges conducted in a manner resembling the Nazi ghettoes and concentration camps. It is a small wonder on how the NS community drew a blind eye to those activities. Although, in comparrision, and when you figure WHY they died rather than how many, The Parthians, Pudite and Zanski forces were much worse.

Back in Ling's office he offered Kirk a seat on one of the office chairs in the room. He didn't have one of those fancy couches, and he didn't believe that they were helpful either. He was an 'experimental psychologist' at Randova ISAF Hospital, which meant that he didn't do much prescribing, he specialized more in alternative methods.

"So, I want you to tell me what happened and why you think it happened. After that, I'm not gonna try to drug you up, rewrite your mind or any of that. I get the sense that you wouldn't appreciate if I tried that anyway."

---

The two COs walked into the firing range. They carried their weapons from the mission.

The Lieutenant carried his 3 pistols, in various holsters, his TAR-21, and his M-1014. The Captain had his MSG-90, pistol, and XM-10A2 carbine. They nodded to everyone there and headed for a shoot house, which had been hastilly constructed from plywood, and surrounded by ballistic curtains.

"Two to sweep, give us your best shot." siad Kupchenko.

He was talking to the range officer. The man, who never spoke much, simply nodded. He hit a switch, initializing the timers and starting the random target configuration.

"Alright you two, you know the rules, keep your fire lanes clear, you're going for efficiency, not speed, but the faster you go the less targets you'll have. You're in a 3-d environment and targets can come up from your 6. Good luck, when you breach the building the timers will start."

The pair looked at each other, they'd worked together for several years and they when they were ready to go.

Each nodded and Kupchenko gave a silent countdown.

Just as he hit zero he kicked the door in. Marshall rushed in, shotgun in hand, and swept left. A fraction of a second later the Captain was through the door and heading for the right side of the room. He carried his SA XD-45 pistol, and very carefully fired twice into each target, once in the chest and once in the head.

"Left clear."

"Right Clear. Room Clear."

The moved to the next door. A stun grenade sailed through the door, and just after it detonated, theoretically stunning everything in the room, alive or otherwise, the two went in. This room was pitch dark, and the two kicked on the lights affixed to their weapons. Just as they were about to declare the room clear, they heard a 'tick' noise behind them.

Kupchenko spun low, and saw a target popping into the door. He fired the last rounds into the target.

"Loading."

"Roger."

Marshall swept the room with his shotgun, and waited for Kupchenko.

"Loaded."

"Roger. Loading."

He fed new shells into the shotgun as Kupchenko kept an eye on the room.

They moved the the next room.

Here the floor was collapsing into the lower level, and there was a staircase to the upper-floors intact. They cleared out the room, then headed up the stairs, Kupchenko took point, as Marshall set a dummy claymore mine across the stairs. This would prevent one group of flanking targets from popping up, as a claymore would stop one group of attacking undead in the real world.

"Claymore Out. Staircase."

"Roger."

On the upper-floor they recieved stiffer resistance. The Lieutenant transitioned from his shotgun to his TAR-21 seemlessly as they cleared out the second room. After the third room the Captain had his XM-10A2 as well. They reached the upper floor balcony. From here they quickly swept the surrounding area. Kupchenko transitioned to his sniper rifle and Marshall kept him covered, as they climbed to the roof.

Marshall killed off the targets there and then covered Kupchenko while he swept 'the distance' for targets. He fired on a target that had popped up beyond the shoot house, and then nodded to Marshall. They rigged rappelling lines and made their way down the side of the building, then over the the finish.

"Done."

The timer showed that from start to finish, they'd take a total of 25.02 seconds to clear the whole building, comprised of 10 rooms. In that time they'd collectively 'dropped' over 36 targets, and reloaded 5 times.

"Stellar as always sirs."

"How's it compare?" asked Marshall.

"You're 4-hundredths over your record sir."

They looked at each other. That record had been set several weeks ago, before they'd hammed themselves with a half-dozen back to back missions, ALFA-1's being the most recent, and one of the more tame.

"Not that bad, especially for full gear, just after a mission."

"Agreed. Same time tomorrow, if possible, then we'll go at it solo."

"You're on."

They walked over to stations at the assault rifle range (Marshall) and sniper range (Kupchenko) and went to work on their remaining ammunition.

Marshall set his rifle to full-auto. Something most undead hunters would scoff at as 'rock and roll mentality' (meaning a good way to die young) and sighted on a target down range. He braced and pulled the trigger. The weapon cracked twice in rapid succession as two rounds rocketed down-range. They caught the target in a right group in its 'head'. One roughly between the eyes, the other an inch left of center and an inch higher.

He lowered the rifle and took a breath. Then rolled the weapon up with surprising speed and fired again. These hit slightly more wildly, but still hit its head. After he'd emptied his weapon's magazine he moved to the nearby pistol range to work on his pistol fire, it had been a little sketchy of late.

Kupchenko lay absolutely still, in his full combat gear, The concrete below him was unpleasently hot, and smelled of rubber and gasoline, one of the failings of having a base at a rest stop. He steadied his aim, and sighted down the scope.

He muttered something, a line to a song, and then went dead steady. A breeze kicked up in the distance, he compensated and took the shot. The bullet took a second or so to reach the target, 800 meters down-range, and punched through the rough placement of the brainstem.

He began reacquiring targets, and repeated the process for each target in his lane.

IC:

John kept firing at the zombies, his M-15 cracking out the .308's, putting some holes in zombie heads. So far, 15 more zombies had tried to climb up the outpost, but he had shot them down.

John was frankly amazed that they hadn't broken into the complex that was behind him yet, they were still banging at the gates. He kept up the fire at the zombies, ducking to avoid anything that was flying through the air.

This time Rogers wasn't going to mess he took his time, he tryed to make sure each shot hit it's mark, there where some misses bit most hit home. He reloaded as quicly as he could, by the time he empted his second clip three targets where down, he downed three more before the last two where right on top of him. He downed one of the targets like last time with a jump kick and a stab from his bayonet, the other one he downed with his kama, he imanganed it was his old riot baton and hit it like a punk from back in the old days; knee, back, head.

OOC: By the way Rogers is his last name his first name is Peter.

Back in Ling's office he offered Kirk a seat on one of the office chairs in the room. He didn't have one of those fancy couches, and he didn't believe that they were helpful either. He was an 'experimental psychologist' at Randova ISAF Hospital, which meant that he didn't do much prescribing, he specialized more in alternative methods.

"So, I want you to tell me what happened and why you think it happened. After that, I'm not gonna try to drug you up, rewrite your mind or any of that. I get the sense that you wouldn't appreciate if I tried that anyway."

Kirk leaned back and took a deep breath, "That all depends on where the real problem lies. Was it the situation in which I broke down, or was it the event I was reliving? I mean, I don’t know Doc, I’ve been in this mess for three years now and the longer I’m in the more likely I am to stay in.

You wouldn’t get it. You weren’t there. The root of all this started about five years ago in First City. You may have heard about the heroic exploits of the QCS over in the Industrial District, but what you didn’t hear about was the Residential District. That all went down a few weeks before”

His eyes glazed over as he was immersed in the memory, “I was on patrol duty, going the usual route. The Dominion government had just recently gone democratic and we were to be the ‘friendly enforcers’ as opposed to the faceless, baton wielding thugs you’d see on TV. So I was going slowly, talking and generally being friendly to the citizens when I got a call about a domestic disturbance quickly becoming a full-blown riot. I turned on the sirens and went to the scene only to find hell on Earth.

Windows were shattered, people were screaming and a mob of about fifty were attacking citizens at random. But this was no normal assault, I mean, they were biting people for God’s sake! I pulled my gun and ordered them to stand down when they began advancing toward me.”

He wiped a tear from his eye before continuing, “It all went downhill from there and we were positive this was no riot. Within hours it was almost uncontainable. We evacuated as many as we could to safe zones and fallout bunkers but the mob had swelled to thousands. We called for help from the National Guard only to learn that the rest of the nation was embroiled in war with the Intelligence Ministry. This was before everything was put into the Dominion Defense Forces so the military was very compartmentalized and other agencies were permitted to maintain private militaries. Obviously, not anymore.

Central was overrun early on infected poured in seeking a safe haven, only to turn and aid in destroying it. I assumed command of the CA officers in the Residential District and pushed the evacuees down Main Street through hastily set up barricades and checkpoints. The infected, which meant all wounded, were taken aside and detained while the rest were pushed toward the Government Complex. The rest of the streets were locked down, leaving the barricades as lines of defense the undead would have to cross to reach the Complex.

I knew we wouldn’t stop them, but the hope was to whittle the mob down enough so that the military forces at the main gates would be able to stop them. It failed miserably. We were overrun before we knew what hit us. Officers were dropping left and right, only to get back up and start attacking their comrades. My God, there blood everywhere; and the moaning, Jesus the moaning. The whole thing was surreal. We pumped round after round into them to no effect and .50 cal. rounds did squat despite blowing limbs off.

They...just kept coming. White phosphorus only served to turn the mob into an advancing funeral pyre. It was just a drop in the bucket. Most of the city was already burning. You couldn’t see the sky and in the distance you could hear the artillery firing over the undead.

His breathing was heavy now, his heart racing as the memories and emotions continued to surge forth unopposed, “Jones and Higgins were...They were...No legs...Crawling toward me...I had no choice. They were all around us as we retreated into the Strykers, pounding on the sides and dragging as they held on...”

Kirk gripped the chair with white knuckles, his face ghostly white. His breathing was ragged, coming in shallow gasps, “Today, when I saw those things and who they used to be I...I was reliving it. All of it. The fire, the screaming, people dying, and I’m completely helpless to stop any of it. We had armored vehicles, heavy assault weapons, and the latest body armor and we...we failed at our one job: To Serve and Protect. You have no idea what it’s like, watching a colleague, a fired, get dismembered before your eyes and then start coming after you. I was out of ammo and one of them stripped the nightstick out of my hands so I had pull my knife and get his helmet off to...”

He was blinking back tears at this point, trapped in the vortex of helplessness and despair of what happened. He tried shaking his head to rid himself of the images seared into his mind, but they refused to leave him.

“Why?”

OOC: This is the simulator, right?


Edward wiped his brow. "One more clip, then I'm out." he emptied his last clip into several advancing targets, eight shots, eight shattering pieces of plastic wood and whatever else they were made of. he turned towards the exit, only to be blocked by several more targets, slowly advancing. He smiled slightly then drew his M1911 and fired all eight shots, once again, eight shots, eight kills. The last traget adavnced closer, now within knife range. Edward drew his knife, a carbon steel model trenchspike, and rammed it into the targets "face" then withdrew cleanly. He forwned, the simulation didn't even compare to the real thing, his gunshots would've drawn more then nine, and he most likely would never have the opportunity to casually kill an afflicted with a trenchpike, most likely the tragets had been placed near the exit to try and create a scenario where the only route to exfiltration was through a mob. he walked out the door and headed for his quarters, his mood quickly turning sour.

IC:

Zombies were now climbing up the observation post, but John pulled out a katana, his trusted close in zombie killer. He decapitated two zombies, and then cut the ladder off of his observation tower. John then took his gun and fired at more that were gathered at the base shouting "G'roff!", and that shocked the zombies enough, that he dispatched several of them.

OOC: Isn't the breakroom RP setting placed outside the QZ?
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13358972&postcount=274

The Dropship ran fast back to base, trying to get as much distance between it and the QZ as possible. It touched down and the two COs stepped off onto the tarmac, weapons almost empty. They immediately headed for the hastilly constructed medical facility, really little more than a pair of quonset huts, but inside it had all the facilities of a top flight military field hospital.

After being given clean bills of health they headed back to the command building. The speakers within the base were blaring with some kind of music, apparently some form of Shenyangi rock, but the tune was barely recognizable through the static of the hasty system.

Talisman reached the briefing room first, he'd debrief the team if they showed, otherwise he'd write his AAO, this would be a tough mission to justify, with the loss of a chopper and all.

OOC: Think so, I thought the original idea for whats going on now was a firing range then it shifted into a simulation... now I don't know what it is. Shenyang, we need cleanup!

OOC: Alright, so here's the basics of what I've got.


Fort Jackson IS 50 miles outside the QZ.
It's a FOB, so it doesn't have any extraneous tech, but it still keeps up with Shenyangi standards.
Somehow, some of the members have started up a simulator, which is odd, as FOB's are often lucky to have firing ranges. Whatever, I'll let it go.
The FOB is built around a stretch of highway and a rest stop, allowing STOL, STOVL, and VTOL aircraft to effect supply, insertion and extraction. CTOL and Carrier-based aircraft aren't compatible with the area in question unless they meet one of the shorter take-off classes.
C-5B, and just about any other transport beyond the C-17 and C-130 would explode on trying to land, due to a lack of available runway space.
The approx. population of the base is 1200 personnel, of which, 540 are ALFA Teams, 200 are base security, and the remainder are support staff, ground crew, and aircraft crews.

The doctor had been taking notes, careful to note his reactions. He saw very quickly where this was going. As Kirk spiralled further and further, his psychologist waited for the story to reach its end.

"Why?" he heard Kirk say.

Inside his head, he'd made his diagnosis. It wasn't the scenario, it was the memory. This he could help. There wasn't time to treat the cause, he'd have to settle for treating the symptoms. He needed a low-impact treatment to help manage stress, and to help this memory, a very obviously traumatic experience, pass into being just another bad memory, not an open wound waiting to be prodded.

He waited for Kirk to calm down again. His strategy was to beat him down now, leaving no real damage, so that he could fix the problem.

"I think we can agree that its the memory, would you say that's the problem at the moment? I'd like to suggest that you try something that I've had some success with in the past. Believe it or not, I've seen several similar cases, though I can't give you names, some have high positions within Shenyangi military units. The treatment, it's helped them, though I can't say they were total successes, and I can't promise anything."

He looked Kirk dead in the eye.

"Would you be willing to try meditation? Just clearing your mind before a mission and saying some phrase to help put yourself in a state of calm, no Hindu practices, just a simple calming exercise. I can't promise it'll prevent any attacks in the future, but I believe it could help you stave them off. Are you willing to give it a try? Other than that, all I've got is a stress ball and a bottle of pills. I told you no pills, and I doubt the stress ball would do too much good in the field."

The twins finally emerged from their room, looking much the same as when they'd gone in, save that they now carried their weapons openly. Both were outfitted with M16-A2s with an M-203 attached as well as a Beretta 92 each and combat knives. One carried a Timorian version of the Benelli M1014 on a forward sling. The other had a pair of Desert Eagles holstered on her right hip, with an empty holster occupying the left. They also wore LBV's over their fatigues, ammo pouches packed full. They made their way towards the range, judging the skills of their new comrades, evesdropping on the conversation.

OOC: Sorry for the seeming lack of participation. Things have been kinda busy for me over the last week or so. Also, I'm lousy at slow starts.

OOC: No problem, it happens.

OOC: i just started an RP, so I may have to drop out of the next mission. and at the expense of shameless plugging, here's the RP i started: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=547586

This time Rogers wasn't going to mess he took his time, he tryed to make sure each shot hit it's mark, there where some misses bit most hit home. He reloaded as quicly as he could, by the time he empted his second clip three targets where down, he downed three more before the last two where right on top of him. He downed one of the targets like last time with a jump kick and a stab from his bayonet, the other one he downed with his kama, he imanganed it was his old riot baton and hit it like a punk from back in the old days; knee, back, head.

Biggs grinned. "He did alright that time. He's getting there. Think he'll be ready by the time we ship out?" he asked Schwartz. "And more importantly, will he be ready for... er, 'real' undead?"

"I'd say he scored about 21 over 30, which is acceptable, at least it's a noted improvement from earlier. And if he's lucky, he'll survie long enough to get a 'perfect score' on the mision. Just remember a wounded zombie is only slightly slower than the rest, and you'd better kill it instead. Noise equal loss of stealth and more zombies, so only open fire when either there are too many for you to take in CQB, or if you are perfectly certain that you'll be extracted before you run out of ammo."

He intentionally neglected to meantion the third case to use firearms: when used as bait or decoy so the others can slip by, which generally meant you'd be given 3 magazines and a grenade.

"Well, we're all sighted in, Thompson has my gear unpacked, so I suppose it's time I got some rest before the next mission. It was a long trek to get up here..."

With that, Rosenthal and Schwartz went off to the 'barracks'.

Great, thought Biggs, now how am I going to waste time? He turned to Rogers, "You got a free minute? Down for some hand-to-hand?"

Rogers told Biggs "sure, what weapon you using?"

"For hand-to-hand, I fight unarmed. Maybe I'll use a combat knife, if I have to. Are you using your kamas?"

"Oh, I'll use my bare fists, it wouldn't be fair for me to use weapons, I had to go through unarmed martial arts before I got trained with my kamas." Said Rogers before he put his equpitment on the ground and got into a ready stance.

OOC: What's Rogers using? Biggs knows Ju Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, and Krav Maga.

Joker was the luckier of the two Shenyangi ALFA-1 members. While Talisman would be debriefing the returning teams (ALFA-2 though to ALFA-12 had all been sent into the field today, the remaining teams were on stand-by for deploy orders) for the next several hours, he could head out to the edge of the base to make a phone call.

He pulled his phone, a steel colored Katana II. With a quick tap of the 2 key he was connecting through the Shenyangi military comm net. Unlike commercial cell providers, Shenyangi Military comm systems had to work, 100% of the time. If you couldn't reach someone it meant that their phone was off.

He sighed as the call went directly to voicemail. He'd heard this message a lot of late.

"It's me, Alex, I'm just calling to tell you that I'm still alive, just got in from a mission. Tell Saya I said I love her. Well, I guess that's it. Call me when you can. I love you Saya."

He closed the phone and put it back into his pocket. He'd been unable to reach her for almost a week. He knew that cell service in Mereshka was at best, hit or miss, but still he wished she'd return his calls, or atleast check her messages.

If a QCS member had overheard that, they'd have found the call odd. He was married to the Saya they knew, so who was he calling? Since when were there two women named Saya in his life? He'd called his wife, and in the message, he'd left an aside to their 4 year old daughter, who happened to carry the same name.

A glance at his surroundings showed that he was near the quarters, so he headed over to the break room to relax for a bit before going and getting cleaned up.

OOC: They had a daughter? Hmmm... You'd think the father of the mother would get some heads up..... Ah well. And yes, Mereshka is back in black. At least until monday. Sorry for being gone so long by the way.

Fukusyu had just barely arrived. He had missed the first mission, but his little detour was worth it. On his way, (He traveled by foot, like all true Mereshkans), he had come across a village infected by the zombies. He smiled remembering the time spent killing the zombies, then burning the village to the ground, preventing the spread. The smile was without warmth, and it showed just a little too much teeth to be friendly. On the way to the base, he stopped, seeing to men, apparently ready to fight each other. The smile widened and he sat down to watch.

OOC: Since someone claimed it had been 5 years, I figured they'd have had a kid by then, so I improvised from there. Would have consulted you, but you were MIA at the time. I'm sorry about just letting you walk into that one.

OOC: What's Rogers using? Biggs knows Ju Jitsu, Tae Kwon Do, and Krav Maga.

OOC: He knows American Kenpo and Kumite-ryū Jūjutsu, I chose those because I have taken them.

OOC: Since someone claimed it had been 5 years, I figured they'd have had a kid by then, so I improvised from there. Would have consulted you, but you were MIA at the time. I'm sorry about just letting you walk into that one.

OOC: Haha, you're fine, but I would appreciate a telegram at least. I'll get it. Eventually.

Edward walked back to the training room and saw several people ready to spar. he leaned against the wall and smiled. Wonder if they'll focus on escaping locks rather thenlanding blows. He thought.

OOC: Haha, you're fine, but I would appreciate a telegram at least. I'll get it. Eventually.



OOC: Ah, Meresh, just in time for the second op.

Fukusyu looked up at the newcomer. Still wearing the smile, he asked, "So, come to watch the show?"

OOC: Hehe, for a little bit anyways.

IC: Fukusyu gave a short bark of a laugh. "Proper fighting style? There is no such thing. Every-one has different ways of doing things."

"Not really, just watching to see if they use the proper fighting style."

OOC: Damn time-warp thingy.

OOC: Hehe, for a little bit anyways.

IC: Fukusyu gave a short bark of a laugh. "Proper fighting style? There is no such thing. Every-one has different ways of doing things."
Edward stoddaway from the wall. "Let me demonstrate." He walked over and wrapped his arms around Fukusyu. "If a zed did this to you, you'd have to break out of it before he munched on you." Edward let go. "Unless you know the proper way to get out, it'll tear through you're neck and you'll bleed to death. Now I don't really know how to break grapples, my only life line is my sidearm if that ever happens, so fighting styles are near useless, the undead can't feel pain, and unless you can crush a skull with a flurry of blows, you're gonna end up as well chewed meat."

Fukusyu sighed. "Or, you could do it my way." He grabbed the hilt of the katana at his side, and pulled it out just a little bit. "You repeatedly drive the hilt into the stomauch, not to cause pain, but just to drive him back a bit, enough to let you draw it more." He drew the katana the rest of the way out, slashing at about waist height. "You then cut the offending zombie in half, and stab it in the head before it can grab your legs." His manner suggested that he had done this many times before.

Fukusyu snorted. "We use swords to make us strong. We do not rely on technology like you foreigners do." He sheathed his sword. "Besides, what would you know about Mereshkans?"

Edward laughed. "Mereshkans do love their swrods, don't they?" He drew his pistol, ejectd the magazine and pulled the slide backto eject the chambered round. "Or you could do it the simple way." He placed his forearm against his throat. "When a zed grabs you, push your forearm against its throat, that'll keep it out of bit range." He pressed his pistol against the underside of his jaw. "The put your sidearm under his chin and pulle the trigger, at he very least it'll snap the spinal cord, the following procedure is simple, push zed away, repeat as needed." He picked up the ejected round, pushed it into the magazine and slapped the magazine back into the pistol. "Not as graceful, but it gets the job doe."

Fukusyu snorted. "We use swords to make us strong. We do not rely on technology like you foreigners do." He sheathed his sword. "Besides, what would you know about Mereshkans?"

"Swords, I used to use on back in my QCS days, got rid of it when I realized it took up to much room." he sighed. "As for what i know about mereshkans, I served with Saya in the QCS and was involved with the TCBS, thats how I know."

OOC: This thread has a horrendous time warp.

OOC: *Sigh* I suppose I may as well get used to it.

IC: Fukusyu looked up in surprise. "Saya? Saya Nireda? Has freaky eyes? Has a bit of a temper, but can be absolutely adorable when she wants?"

For the first time in many years, Fukusyu gave a real smile, and a real laugh. "She's alive?" He hopped up and began to actually dance with glee. "She's actually alive!!" He knelt down to his pack, and pulled out a bottle, "This calls for a celebration my friend! Some of Mereshka's finest saki." He took a swig from the bottle, and offered it to Edward.

Edward chuckled "Thats her all right, served a couple years of my life in various units she was in."

For the first time in many years, Fukusyu gave a real smile, and a real laugh. "She's alive?" He hopped up and began to actually dance with glee. "She's actually alive!!" He knelt down to his pack, and pulled out a bottle, "This calls for a celebration my friend! Some of Mereshka's finest saki." He took a swig from the bottle, and offered it to Edward.


Edward looked at him, bewildered. "Uh... Okay." He took the bottle and took a small swig. He held it out in front of him and stared at it with one eye. "Y'know, that is some good stuff." He gave the bottle back. "And how could you not know she was alive, isn't she a national hero or something"

Fukusyu, unable to control his grin, laughed some more. "Thank you, I'll be sure to send you a few bottles." He saw that Edward was confused,took another gulp, and began to explain. "You see, me and Saya lived in the same village, and after it was attacked, I thought she was dead. So, how is she?" He asked. He laughed, "You are still too used to technology. I never stay in one place very long, never long enough to catch rumors, and we have no television or....." He thought for a second. "Rodeo! Thats it. Yes, we have no T.V. or rodeo. How was I supposed to know?"

Edward supressed a grin of his own. "A rodeo is bull riding." He rubbed the stubbleon his chin. "Where to begin... Well, she's a fine soldier, bit strong willed, she still has the eyes and all, oh, and the most important fact, shes married and has a daughter."

His grin faltered a bit. "Married? Hmm... Well, is she happy with the man at least?"

OOC: Sorry for not posting, I've had computer problems that I just fixed..

OOC: Hey Cali, long time no see eh?

OOC: Hey Cali, long time no see eh?

OOC: Yeah, heh..

IC:

John walked into the room, Steve was still in the simulation room, he was sweating. He said to Ed "Man, that simulation was a bit too real, but I held off the zombies, at the last, I was bayoneting.." He plopped down into a chair, and he said "That M-14A1 is going to work well for me.."

Edward grunted. "Most of those people won't last a second, they're to used to a human battlefield, I think that our next mission might have some interesting zeds, and not the regular military or civie zeds either."

OOC: Hmm... Figures. As soon as you get back I have to get off.

OOC: He knows American Kenpo and Kumite-ryū Jūjutsu, I chose those because I have taken them.

OOC: Coincidentally, I chose mine for the same reason.

IC: Biggs dropped into a fighting stance. Instead of attacking, however, he simply waited for Rogers to strike.

"Not really, just watching to see if they use the proper fighting style."

OOC: That's the beauty of Krav Maga. It's adaptable to any type of attack, because it relies on the underlying principles of hand-to-hand combat rather than structured techniques.

OOC: That's the beauty of Krav Maga. It's adaptable to any type of attack, because it relies on the underlying principles of hand-to-hand combat rather than structured techniques.

OOC: Well then, not to be knocking anyone thats currently sparring with traditional fighting styles in the thread, but zeds can't feel pain, so most of it is usueless. Just pointing that out.

OOC: Krav Maga isn't based on pain, its based on beating something senseless. While on the surface this seems useless, the ability to fight off several dozen knife wielding assailants, attacking from all sides en masse would come in handy. The martial art itself was developed has been developed to the point that it has instruction for jabbing the barrel of an M-4A1 carbine (not the bayonet, the BARREL) into the eye socket of an enemy, and pulping their brains with a swift jerk.

Its a martial art based on using energy against the adversary to overpower them quickly, allowing a follow-up with some form of weapon.

Martial arts based on pressure points would be next to useless, but anything designed to cause overwhelming damage with minimal danger to the user would be greatly effective.

OOC: Well then, not to be knocking anyone thats currently sparring with traditional fighting styles in the thread, but zeds can't feel pain, so most of it is usueless. Just pointing that out.

No, I agree. It doesn't do any good to strike a zombie's pressure point. But ultimately, given that the anatomy is identical, the defenses will be much the same. For instance, if a human grabs you in a bear hug, you apply pressure to the neck (I personally grab the top of the eye sockets and pull back) to force them to release. If a zombie grabs you in a bear hug, you apply pressure to the neck to keep the zombie out of biting range and force them to release, if only because the body isn't supposed to bend that way.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6646/eyeslidwj2.jpg

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=547958

mission 2 is starting.

OOC: I really do appologize for my lack of participation, I was really enjoying this, however, I got fired from my job last friday. So, hopefully my absence is understandable. I will try to get myself caught up and post something IC by the end of the week.

OOC: No problem, it seems this is the week for bad things happening, everyone involved has something going wrong all at once.

OOC: Ello, back for a little bit. Please tell me I didn't miss mission two.

OOC: Ello, back for a little bit. Please tell me I didn't miss mission two.
Alright, we won't tell you, but I'll show you the link...
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=547958

IC:

The Colonel (John) and Steve Bjornnes walked through the door, dirt and grime showing on their faces, mixed with sweat and tears, made them look like warriors that had come back from a battle. Except, that they had lost one of their own warriors, Ed Harrison. John sat down, and he said "I think I might still have my electric guitar. Ah!" He unpacked a case, and took out a Micro Cube® amp, and a Fender Showmaster jet black guitar.

He explained "Music relieves my soul after a loss, or a battle, I'm going to play a traditional Calizorinstani rock piece, heavily based on the blues.." He stood up, and turned the dials on the guitar, and then started blasting away in blues pentatonics, using vibrato and hammer ons.

Steve looked on in awe, as his superior sang in Calizorinstani "We are the warriors of seventh company, we will over come the Khilstanians in the end, and them and their barbarious religion destroyed for all time, yeahahah!" John continued to blast away, and he got even higher in octave as he did hammer ons.

He yelled over the noise "I'm free for song requests! I know Ed would've wanted to play a good song for him!"

OOC: Dear god RL sucked for a while, but...I'm back. I'll post a little later, exhausted right now...I'm not even gonna try to comprehend Mission 2

OOC: Dear god RL sucked for a while, but...I'm back. I'll post a little later, exhausted right now...I'm not even gonna try to comprehend Mission 2

OOC: When you don't have anything to go on, you end up making stuff up. So, we did. Not too coherent, though.

OOC: When you don't have anything to go on, you end up making stuff up. So, we did. Not too coherent, though.

OOC; it was like a dramtic rat on acid that was loaded up with a bottle of bourbon. Stuff like that.

IC; Frank entered the break room and immediatly ordered the stiffest drink he could get, then slugged it back as fast as he could. "Keep 'em coming, gonna need them." he told the bartender.

IC:

The Colonel (John) and Steve Bjornnes walked through the door, dirt and grime showing on their faces, mixed with sweat and tears, made them look like warriors that had come back from a battle. Except, that they had lost one of their own warriors, Ed Harrison. John sat down, and he said "I think I might still have my electric guitar. Ah!" He unpacked a case, and took out a Micro Cube® amp, and a Fender Showmaster jet black guitar.

He explained "Music relieves my soul after a loss, or a battle, I'm going to play a traditional Calizorinstani rock piece, heavily based on the blues.." He stood up, and turned the dials on the guitar, and then started blasting away in blues pentatonics, using vibrato and hammer ons.

Steve looked on in awe, as his superior sang in Calizorinstani "We are the warriors of seventh company, we will over come the Khilstanians in the end, and them and their barbarious religion destroyed for all time, yeahahah!" John continued to blast away, and he got even higher in octave as he did hammer ons.

He yelled over the noise "I'm free for song requests! I know Ed would've wanted to play a good song for him!"

Grant reached into his footlocker, pulling out the six-string he'd brought from home. He tuned it and approached the men.

"I know this is an acoustic, but you wanna good song?"

Whiskey bottles and brand-new cars,
Oak tree you're in my way.
There's too much coke, and too much smoke,
Look what's going on inside you...

Ooh, that smell.
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, ooh that smell.
The smell of death surrounds you...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_3t33-NMM4

OOC: Just for everyone's knowledge, if I'm gone for over a day, I have no problem with people RPing my characters to keep the RP going. Now I'm going to assume that my characters are not dead and post here.

Oh, and someone asked if they can hit on Gorobets. I'll say what I said before: sure, go ahead. You're not guranteed with success though.

IC:

The Skgorrians shuffled into the break room in a manner not too dissimilar to their undead foes. They had left all of their kit in the barracks and were dressed in their off-duty uniform - black boots, dark blue trousers, and a bright red T-shirt with a snarling wolf's head on the back. Fatigue was clearly eivdent in their movements and in their expressions, as they both collapsed onto a beaten-looking sofa. It wouldn't take a very observant person to look at Petersen and see what was wrong with him: both of his eyebrows had been burnt off, his face was red with burns and his left hand was entirely wrapped in bandages. Nevertheless, he tried to keep up appearances.

"Is this some damn concert or something?" He bellowed, "and why have you all got instruments with you? I thought we were an international force of zombie-killers, not a superstar rock band!"
"P-perhaps they're playing in memory of Ed," Gorobets whispered softly so only Petersen could hear her. His expression instantly softened,
"oh, I see. Well carry on!" He demanded, "if you're going to make a racket, at least make it good."

ooc: it was me who asked about gorobets. all right, i'll wish my char the best then ^_<

ic:

"Yeah, c'mon," Grant encouraged. "Let's sing on up to where Ed can hear it."

More people started to join in, including surrounding base personnel. They had been through Hell, twice, and it felt good to let off some steam. After taking in a deep breath and releasing it, Trosky mustered up the courage to apporach the pair of Skgorrians.

"Excuse me, Gorobets...?" he asked timidly. "Um, well, would you care to dance?"

ooc: i'll leave it at that. if u don't respond soon, can i assume i can rp her accepting?

IC:

John said "I am going to play a song that Ed had very near and dear to his heart, I know so, for he told me, all right, let's hear it for "La Grange!" John turned up a few settings on his amp, and started into the riff, and he yelled over to Grant "Do you suppose you could do some of the riff stuff while I go into solo?"

Soon, he was into the solo, vibrato, and hammer ons were reverbrating through the solo, and then he was back to the main riff. Steve yelled "I'll join in!" He brought out a Gibson Robot Guitar, plugged into his little Micro Cube to, and joined in with a wild solo, and he said "Ed, if you're listening, this is for you!"

Gorobets whipped her head around from talking to Petersen to look at Trosky.
"U-urm," she stammered, her fists balling up and clenching with worry. She looked over again at Petersen, who nodded and smiled encouragingly. Turning back towards Trosky, she cracked a wavering smile and stood.
"S-sounds great," and with that began thrashing around aimlessly to the music. Dancing was not her strong point.

Gorobets whipped her head around from talking to Petersen to look at Trosky.
"U-urm," she stammered, her fists balling up and clenching with worry. She looked over again at Petersen, who nodded and smiled encouragingly. Turning back towards Trosky, she cracked a wavering smile and stood.
"S-sounds great," and with that began thrashing around aimlessly to the music. Dancing was not her strong point.

ooc: good start...

ic:

"It's all right," Trosky told her, noticing the look on Gorobets face as she stepped clumsily to the music. "Look, I'll lead. Just follow the way I step."

He went a little slower to the music, letting her get a feel for the rythym. She wasn't great, he thought, but there was some improvement from when they'd begun.

"There," he encouraged her, "You're getting it."

ooc: i forgot, what's gorobet's first name. trosky's is yvgenni.

OOC: It's Ingrid

IC:

Under Trosky's direction, Gorobets' thrashing was starting to slow down and become vaguely associated with the rhythm of the music rather than resembling the death spasms of a drunk, epileptic cow.
"This is fun!" She grinned, jumping up and down in glee, flailing her arms.

Meanwhile, Petersen sat on the sofa, nursing a cold one and staring intently at the dancing couple.
Must be nice to cut lose just like that, he mused. By the Wolf, I wish I was there rather than Trosky.
The thought hit him like a train and took him completely by surprise. Was he jealous of the foreign soldier? Downing the beer in one in an effort to wash away that thought, he dropped the bottle to the floor and started to look around.
"Can't a man get a damn drink here?" He bellowed in his customary style.

OOC: It's Ingrid

IC:

Under Trosky's direction, Gorobets' thrashing was starting to slow down and become vaguely associated with the rhythm of the music rather than resembling the death spasms of a drunk, epileptic cow.
"This is fun!" She grinned, jumping up and down in glee, flailing her arms.

Meanwhile, Petersen sat on the sofa, nursing a cold one and staring intently at the dancing couple.
Must be nice to cut lose just like that, he mused. By the Wolf, I wish I was there rather than Trosky.
The thought hit him like a train and took him completely by surprise. Was he jealous of the foreign soldier? Downing the beer in one in an effort to wash away that thought, he dropped the bottle to the floor and started to look around.
"Can't a man get a damn drink here?" He bellowed in his customary style.

"Here," Strauss said as he walked up, handing over a flask. "Premium Commonwealth Vodka." He stood by Peterson and observed their young subordinates. "Ah, to be young again..." he added wistfully.

IC:

Colonel Macked shouted "Alright, coming up next is a little number from an artist called Joe Satriani, called Surfing with the Alien, Steve you do the rhythm and I'll do the solo!" He turned up the flanger setting on his amp, and Steve did likewise, adding a bit of tone also and gain.

When they started playing, the sound of the flanger filled the room, and when Colonel Macked did the solo, with the pull in it and the vibrato, it was the most amazing thing Steve had heard all night. After the song was finished, Steve walked over to Trosky and Gorobets and he said "After you're finished Trosky, may I dance with Gorobets.."

He heard his Colonel started into "Always with Me, Always with you..", and he said "You know, we've always thought back home that when the Colonel retires, he could start a band he's so good.."

IC:

Colonel Macked shouted "Alright, coming up next is a little number from an artist called Joe Satriani, called Surfing with the Alien, Steve you do the rhythm and I'll do the solo!" He turned up the flanger setting on his amp, and Steve did likewise, adding a bit of tone also and gain.

When they started playing, the sound of the flanger filled the room, and when Colonel Macked did the solo, with the pull in it and the vibrato, it was the most amazing thing Steve had heard all night. After the song was finished, Steve walked over to Trosky and Gorobets and he said "After you're finished Trosky, may I dance with Gorobets.."

He heard his Colonel started into "Always with Me, Always with you..", and he said "You know, we've always thought back home that when the Colonel retires, he could start a band he's so good.."

"O-of course, sir," Troksy answered, formally offering Gorobets' hand for transfer. He could have sworn it had happened, but thinking it was his mind, Yvgenni didn't mention it...but he could swear that she'd squeezed his hand before he'd handed her off.

"O-of course, sir," Troksy answered, formally offering Gorobets' hand for transfer. He could have sworn it had happened, but thinking it was his mind, Yvgenni didn't mention it...but he could swear that she'd squeezed his hand before he'd handed her off.

Steve said "Thank you Trosky.." He took Gorobets and started to dance, he did it slow so she could follow along with ease, and he said to her "Isn't that Always with Me, Always with you, such a beautiful song?" John was now in the solo, going wild with his hammer ons and tapping, but it sounded beautiful the way it melted into a swing type song.

"Uh-oh," Strauss said as he took a swig from his flask of vodka. "Looks like the kid's already in trouble." He walked over to the priate, who was standing uncomfortably to one side. "What's wrong, private?"

"Nothing, sir," Trosky answered.

"Nothing my @$$," replied the Gunny. "If you're swerious, go after 'er. Remember, we're Marines; lifetakers and heartbreakers."

He's right, Trosky encouraged himself as the song ended. Now was his chance...

"Pardon, sir," Trosky told Steve, "But I'd like to ask for another dance, if m'lady doesn't mind," he said with an exagerated bow.

Meanwhile, Grant had caught on and started up a new song before the others could decide a good follow up.

You can dance-every dance with the guy
Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight.
You can smile-every smile for the man
Who held your hand neath the pale moon light
But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darlin' save the last dance for me

OOC: I'm just going to guess that my guys arrived late on the large transport with the LAVs and the survivors.

IC:
The Hurtians shuffled past a door late that night, they hadn't really slept in the past 48 hours now, the last thing they wanted to do was party.

If anything, they wanted to go to sleep, pretend yesterday was just a nightmare, and choose only to remember the positive bits.

Which meant trying to forget Ed even existed...

They climbed into their bunks, removed their web-gear, set their packs and guns on the floor but within easy reach, and tried to get some sleep.

Rosenthal never had his gun returned from the elderly survivor either.

Just meant another three people to imagine never existed...

There wasn't enough room for everyone, and Alpha team was deemed more important to the cause than civvies... people had to be left behind...
The old man, sadly, understood this.
Rosenthal also decided, that should anyone on the team ask, all the survivors made it out okay, and to not mention the others they found...

And most certainly not about when they had to dump all survivors into the sea because one of them was bitten and 'turned' en-route...

He hoped the skiff they promised would troll through and pick the survivors up if they made it through the night...

Edit:
OOC:
Cal, you really want Rosenthal to shoot a cap in that amp?

IC:

The Colonel had caught on to the trick of Grant's, and he soon drowned Grant's singing out in another bar of La Grange, and he started screaming the lyrics at the top of the lungs, and when the song came to a lull he shouted "Down low, yo!" He then bent at the knees and did a wild solo.

Steve said "If I may have her for the next dance, then I shall give her to you, even if I may not, I will still let you have her. I wish there was more females around her." He let Trosky dance with Gorobets, and he then picked up the Gibson Explorer, and turning up the amp, let out a wild death metal style pentatonic that matched the La Grange music.

Edit:
OOC:
Cal, you really want Rosenthal to shoot a cap in that amp?

OOC: If you don't, I will.

IC: Biggs half-walked, half-stumbled from the transports to the barracks. Passing Rosenthal, he drew the Hurtian handgun the old man had asked him to return. He safed the pistol and threw it onto Rosenthal's stomach. "Looks like one of yours. Guy who had it rode out with me. Sorry for the confusion." Biggs then walked the rest of the way to his cot. He removed his gear, tossed it on the cot, shed his uniform, and showered. Although the hot water was able to wash the grime and blood from his body, nothing could remove the dark thoughts from his mind. Same as always, he thought, just have to better next time.

He dressed in civilian garb, a light black jacket over a t-shirt and jeans. He looked wearily at his gear, tossed on his cot messily. He reached down, grabbed the SOCOM, and pulled a shoulder holster out of his bag. Better safe than sorry, after all.

From there it was off to the field hospital, where he found that he had in fact not broken his rib, only fractured it. The staff wanted him to spend the night, recuperate under their supervision, but he made it clear that there was, "no fscking way I'm spending tonight sober, especially not in a hospital bed." The staff, ever polite and courteous, wrapped his injury more tightly, and begged him not to "do anything stupid."

He left the field hospital, popped a beta blocker, and felt the calm descend over him. He strode over to the bar, took a seat near Frank, and ordered whiskey. The barkeep placed a glass on the bar, poured a measure of whiskey, and started to retract the amber liquid. Biggs reached out, grabbed the man's wrist, and simply said, "You're going to want to leave the bottle."

Kirk had been relatively quiet all through the mission, and despite the help the shrink had given him, he still felt drained.

"Maybe it's not stress, maybe I'm just old," he muttered to himself.

Though he was a little over forty, still young by Dominion life-expectancy, most of his colleagues in the fields of Special Operations and the Quarantine and Containment Squads of Section 13 were on avergae ten years his junior. Being a police officer and old as he was, the best he should qualified for at this point would be a SWAT or Hostage Rescue Team within the Civil Authority. Had he been military, he would still be within the Special Forces, but Kirk was careful to avoid that route.

All things considered, he felt in the mood to join the party; however, looking at all of the soldiers, considerably younger than he, he thought better of it and returned to his quarters. Quietly, he broke down and cleaned his armor and weapons, finally stepping into the shower and cleaning himself as well. Satisfied that everything was put away and in good order, he pulled the headset out of his helmet and hooked it up to an iPod. He passed out on his cot happily listening to 'Cold November Rain' by Guns n' Roses.

OOC: No, I'll turn it down..

IC:

The Colonel turned down the amp, and was instead playing some blues patterns, which were not as hard rock as before, and it was now relatively quiet and he said "I've turned down the amp, and I'm playing some slow music, so, no need to shoot the amp." He then switched to the lead guitar of Always with Me, which was quiet.

Steve stood on the sidelines, arms crossed and looking around. He did admit that the amp got a little loud sometimes, but now it was quite good. He stood up, and he brought a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew from his backpack, and proceeded to drink some of the Mountain Dew, and when he finished, he said "Ah, that's good. Helps me to forget about the stress of the mission."

OOC:
One of the reasons the HAP (Hurtian Burocrateese for a lightwieght domestic submachine gun) is being phased out was the complete lack of a safety...

IC:
Rosenthal was taken aback, as Briigs had just thrown a loaded gun at him, let alone the fact that he never wanted to see that particular gun ever again. Nor did he even want to know how Briggs got a hold of it...

Though his face told the unspoken truth, things had gone bad regardless of their actions, and frankly, he didn't want to know what happened after they pulled out.

He decided to shadow Briggs for awhile, make sure he didn't do something that would get him and the rest of the team killed. He checked in with the hospital staff after waiting for him to leave, deciding best to fake a sprained ankle if asked, lord knew he'd need the extra padding around the shins for the next mission anyways...

From there, he followed from a distance to the bar...

Great, he's going to try and drink the pain away till he can't even walk...
Let alone shoot anything...

He went back to the infirmary to procure some ether (a general anesthetic) or Rohypnol (a 'date rape drug', used to treat insomnia)... The latter being prefered, no stuggle, loss of memory to yesterday's events, mostly perfect... Besides, he was injured, he needs at least the 24 hours to heal... Now all he needed to do was the barkeep's help...

OOC:
One of the reasons the HAP (Hurtian Burocrateese for a lightwieght domestic submachine gun) is being phased out was the complete lack of a safety...

OOC: Now, knowing that beforehand, throwing the gun would have seemed like something less than a passable idea.

OOC: Now, knowing that beforehand, throwing the gun would have seemed like something less than a passable idea.
OOC:
It's only in the user's manuals...
Besides, it allows your char to run into a gun he's totally unfamiliar with...

It's a pretty odd ultra-compact carbine with a rearward extracting mag located in front of the trigger guard. It's a Single action automatic weaopn, because the return-spring is massive in order to handle cartridges up to that found usualy in battle rifles.

Balance is poor, fit and finish was sloppy, jams were frequent due to poor feed-lips or trying to use them with standard (forward extraction) magazines.

And frankly, due to these shortcomings, it has earned a reputation worse than the STEN for jamming during a high-stress encounter...

And even when it worked... Rifle ammo not good for pistols... the reduced case sized 6.5x25 wasn't much better...

Later models had integral feed lips, meaning they only worked with mags after their own lips were sawn-off... but it allowed integral-feed guns to use the same mags again, but completely screwed the guys out of the loop screwed...

Besides all that, it's main advantages were that it was light, easy to conceal, lethal at medium/long pistol range, carried lots of ammo, and proven to be a huge tack-driving drill at close range. After all the bugs were worked out, using pistol-ammo, and provided the gun was still in good condition (easliy damaged in CQB).

IC:
After watching Briggs for awhile, and looking at the others, he decided to just let Briggs alone, and just to make sure he doesn't go on a mission anytime soon until after he's healed.

Meanwhile, he went back to his bunk, retrived the previously owned HAP, and looked it over for recent 'battle scars', mostly taking care in dissassembly, checking the feedway for damage, bending them back into place, checking the fittings for the folding buttstock, scope, trigger group, and silencer. It had clearly been fired on full auto for prolonged time, but he couldn't say for certain who fired more, the second magazine was missing, either spent and discarded or he never managed to use it.

To his surprise, followed by dismay, the mag in the gun was empty, and the stock's locking pin was bent...

It had been used as a bludgeon...

That or someone dropped it... or threw it... or mishandled it in any way whasoever...

He then reassembled the gun, gave it a quick boresighting, and set it on the table.
He then took his combat shovel, and drove it into the ground.

The shovel was a typical appearing but culturally unique weapon of the Hurtian Marine Raiders, originally considered a status symbol much like an officer's pistol and sabre, it was built purely with fighting as a primary objective, digging holes was just a side-effect...

Unlike most, the HCS has no provision for folding, and has a 24" long knurled steel handle, the shovel blade had a recessed sharpened blade on the left and a saw-edge on the right, the end was generally kept fairly pointy. Around this, a rather unique fighting style had developed, it wasn't required for anyone except officers, but in the HMR, people pride themselves in their abilities, and the HCR was a truly devestating weapon in close confines, especially when killing zombies. Much better than the spike 'armor piercing' bayonet or the utility knife/bayonet fitted on the ends of the most rifles, though not as convinient.

He took the HAP, and slung it over the handle of a shovel, stock extended, forning a crude cross. He then saluted, turned, and walked away.

He didn't want to let the partying interupt his mourning, and he didn't want his mourning to snap the others back to the grim realities. Plus, he decided, that since the loss of the survivors was generally unkown, that their mourning should be equally unknown to them.

Being the country's 'quiet proffesionals' had its drawbacks...

Besides, what was there to mourn about Ed? He knew the risks, and he took it to save the others, and now he's dead so that eveyone else could live, the civvies on the other hand, they didn't ask for any of this. It was their job, above all, to keep them safe, for behind every dead civvie, evey bit of collateral damage, is personal failure...

OOC: Is anything going to happen in this thread, or shall we just call it a day?

The Colonel put his musical instruments away, and then he took a glass of some unidentified drink, and went in the corner to mourn. It seemed that Steve was mourning in his own way, drinking Mountain Dew, and having a donut.

OOC: Is anything going to happen in this thread, or shall we just call it a day?

ooc: have gorobets squish our manly egos like a fudgsicle on an LA freeway during summer?

OOC: I suppose so, but I signed on for zombie killin'. Is anyone else still interested in that?

OOC: I'm up for it. Thing is, is the OP up for it? I didn't make one character go MIA Presumed dead without reason. I might start a spin off thread focusing on the hunt for Edward, he is a war hero after all, even if he's dead they'll still want a corpse to bring home. Totaly different squad though, QCS fireteam Bravo and Charlie.

OOC: I apologize for the lack of activity around on my part. I recognize that there were some serious issues with the execution of this whole thing. Beyond that, we're so horrifyingly time warped at this point, and there's no way to fix that. So, as an apology, I'm going to disavow the existence of this series entirely. Beyond that I'm going to restart from zero in a week with a new sign-up. If anyone wants to try again, as though this fiasco never happened, then I invite you to join my rebooted ALFA teams in a week. If not, then I frankly can't blame you.

I'll post a link to the new sign-up when it goes up.

OOC; Damn, guess I'll just have to retcon Harrison's "death" Suppose I'll sign up with him and have him dissapear on the second mission. Again. Y'know Shen, this brings to mind perfect opportunities for breaking the fourth wall....

OOC: I apologize for the lack of activity around on my part. I recognize that there were some serious issues with the execution of this whole thing. Beyond that, we're so horrifyingly time warped at this point, and there's no way to fix that. So, as an apology, I'm going to disavow the existence of this series entirely. Beyond that I'm going to restart from zero in a week with a new sign-up. If anyone wants to try again, as though this fiasco never happened, then I invite you to join my rebooted ALFA teams in a week. If not, then I frankly can't blame you.

I'll post a link to the new sign-up when it goes up.

Shen, I think most of us could even be okay with the lack of activity, as long as we knew when you were going to post again. Even a rough estimate would be awesome. Once per day, once per week, doesn't matter.

OOC: Yeah, I'm more available now, however things have broken down to the point that I think it's best to start over. To quote my one of my favorite video games:

"This twisted game needs to be reset. We'll start over from 'zero' with this V2, and entrust the world to the next generation." - Solo-Wing Pixy (Ace Combat Zero)

It's gotten to the point that despite my excellent skills in speed reading and catching up, even I can't quite create a viable time line out of the mess that I've created. As a result, its for the best to start over, that and there's a few tweaks that would have been helpful before, but that didn't make it into 'ALFA 1.0' here. I'll be able to run the new ALFA threads much more smoothly now.

As to breaking the fourth wall, keep it to a minimum please, yeah maybe one or two jokes tops, but remember that I'm shooting for a more serious, realistic portrayal of the 'reality' of counter-undead warfare. I can accept a case of deja vu, as long as it's not carried out in a method that obviously breaks the flow of the rest of things. Deal?

I say "No deal" Mr. Game-show host with the tazer...
You'll have to deal with 'cold threads' anyways.

Chitzi civil war (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/the_chitze_revolution.html) was 90 pages of goodness-gracious RPing without any thread-starter input that went on-off for over a year...*
(I think they used to automaticly get considered worthwhile NS historical mention if the last more than six months OOC RPing on their mainstream timelines)
*Miss that thread for so much as a bad day and you're 10 pages behind and flanked on 2 sides...
It was so bad that I'm not sure anyone bothered counting their dead...

My part is very open-ended, as it only hints that something inevitably went wrong with the survivor evacuation.

Ed is dead. Briggs cracked his ribs. Everyone else is physically fine.
UHC seems to treat Ed like I treated Bob 'Briggs' Stratton...

Most are partying and trying to mourn, forget, and hit on the only women on-base...

Others are opting to isolate themselves.

First off, Shen, awesome use of a quote...

Secondly, I concur that I think the RP is salvagable as is.

I say "No deal" Mr. Game-show host with the tazer...
You'll have to deal with 'cold threads' anyways.

Chitzi civil war (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/the_chitze_revolution.html) was 90 pages of goodness-gracious RPing without any thread-starter input that went on-off for over a year...*
(I think they used to automaticly get considered worthwhile NS historical mention if the last more than six months OOC RPing on their mainstream timelines)
*Miss that thread for so much as a bad day and you're 10 pages behind and flanked on 2 sides...
It was so bad that I'm not sure anyone bothered counting their dead...

My part is very open-ended, as it only hints that something inevitably went wrong with the survivor evacuation.

Ed is dead. Briggs cracked his ribs. Everyone else is physically fine.
UHC seems to treat Ed like I treated Bob 'Briggs' Stratton...

Most are partying and trying to mourn, forget, and hit on the only women on-base...

Others are opting to isolate themselves.

OOC: One rib. Still very much combat capable (albeit with painkillers). Also, B-I-G-G-S. No "R". I can't believe I just caught that.

OOC: I think that this thread is salvagable, but seeing as though all of this is happening in Shenyang itself, I think he should decide whether it gets retconned or not.

Having said that, I would like to state my aims for this thread. A little bit of downtime RPing is okay, but I want zombie-related fun. It's what we all signed up for.

Now here comes the bit that everyone will hate me for - this thread would work better if it was more structured. Half the time we seem to run around like headless chickens, and I for one get very confused indeed. If we were grouped into squads/fireteams it would be a lot more realistic rather than what we have at the moment, which is a helicopter dropping a dozen Colonel Matrix/Rambo-type figures off to go and do their own thing.

*digs hole to hide in and take cover from the abuse*

OOC: That's one of the errors I aim to fix with a reboot and restructure. Yes this might be salvagable, but that would take even more time for me to do than just wiping the slate clean and restarting. If I keep this iteration going, it'll turn into the NS I.I. version of the Vietnam War, it'll just drag out for seemingly no reason, and a lot of people will hate it, if not now, then in short order.

I want to avoid anything horrifyingly pointless happening somewhere in the ether of the time-warp, and that's best done by one of two options.

A. Total shut-down, a la 'Fire Sale' and restart from square one

or

B. "It's been X weeks since the previous mission...

Frankly, while B is fully viable as a strategy, as long as we can construct a viable timeline out of the mess, I think that A holds better chances of fixing the problems. I know when I've screwed up, and this was a screw up of the highest order.

Due to the structure of the missions I have to be around to some degree, and the past several weeks, (past month+) I haven't.

Like I said, while I'll admit it's salvagable, I think its best if I reboot from the beginning.

P.S. Thanks for appreciating the quote.

OOC: I say go with B

And it is good to have you back man, I do enjoy your writing.

ooc: lol, no probs, Shen. that's my fave gaming series btw (i even shelled out $150 for the game...before I even had a 360).

So, will the new first mission be the old first mission, or do you mean a complete restart?

ooc: lol, no probs, Shen. that's my fave gaming series btw (i even shelled out $150 for the game...before I even had a 360).

So, will the new first mission be the old first mission, or do you mean a complete restart?

OOC: I think he means he'll keep the first mission as established history, pretend the second one never happened, and move on from there

OOC: I think he means he'll keep the first mission as established history, pretend the second one never happened, and move on from there

ooc: oooh. okay.

OOC: I was going to restart from zero, and then run the same mission templates, now new and improved. Almost like this was a dress rehearsal, albeit, a Kill Bill-esque one at this point. All the same characters can be involved, its just that I'm fixing format, pacing, and general design and story errors.

OOC: I was going to restart from zero, and then run the same mission templates, now new and improved. Almost like this was a dress rehearsal, albeit, a Kill Bill-esque one at this point. All the same characters can be involved, its just that I'm fixing format, pacing, and general design and story errors.

ooc: can we have standard fireteams then, or same rules for numbers, etc.

OOC: Can't wait Shenyang, I'm sure the changes will be great

OOC: Pretty much, yes. I've gotta go, I have class in about an hour, and I've got a lot to do before then. Back in tonight.

Now that I'm active, really looking forward to the new Teams threads. If he's doing what I hope he's doing with the zombies, things'll be much more coordinated-and deadly- on their part.

OOC: here's a quick glance at what I'll be changing / adding.

more competent undead, which I will coordinate for specific events, thusly taking control of whether or not they become cannon fodder.

Fireteam / Fire-Manuever Team organization of members

Faster pacing and new plot twists.

Possible CO / XO change (this one is unlikely)

and many more.

I take full credit for single-handedly dragging the Chitzi thing through 60 of its 98 pages. (During which time Wanderjar and TWSP went AFK, left, came back after 6 months, and re-joined the RP)

I'm also pretty sure, that if I start forcing enough people to read the whole thing to understand the Hutrian culture, that my country shall be rightfully hated...
(Yeah, there's many refferances back to that thread in most of my IC posts, or was it refferances to refferances and links found in that thread?)

Oh! You just reminded me! I've yet to reply on Mokastana's thread!
I forgot to post the rate of Stratton's decomposition!
--------
K, even though my 'fireteam' of 3 managed to remain self-contained and isolated enough to AFK my way out of mission 2...

Sure... Why not?

And I thought some of these guys would walk home under their own legs...
-----
Compromise:
Since another lemming is dead, new tactics and orders?
Such as employing the 'buddy system'?

And since things flopped for the second time, more suicidal missions!

You start RPing the undead.
Declaring an undead 'dead' will be a godmod, and an incorrect observation.
Attribute their rise in intellegence to evolution...