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 Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 3:32 pm
BARTON EAST
0100 HOURS
24 NOVEMBER 2006
A lone Gaian Armed Forces Land Rover Defender stormed across the wide grasslands east of Barton Town, its twin headlights cutting swaths of brightness through the pervasive darkness. Even from a distance, one could hear the melodious sounds of Anti-Flag blasting from the SUV's speakers as it made its course. A pair of soldiers were seated in the Defender. "Hey, Sarge. Why do we always have to listen to this s**t for, anyway?" the first soldier, a gray-haired, purple-eyed 15-year-old with a striking resemblance to Yuki Sohma (and will be referred to such from this point onwards), whined.
The second soldier, a redheaded 17-year-old with an equally striking resemblance to Kyo Sohma (and will be referred to such from this point onwards), defiantly turned up the volume on the car stereo. "Because I'm in charge, that's why!" he declared, his voice nearly drowned out by the lyrics of "Their System Doesn't Work For You."
"Oh, that don't seem like no good kind of reason to me, you ain't the boss of me anyway..." Yuki muttered angrily under his breath. He was just in the middle of his tirade when he saw a strange dog-like creature cross in front of the Land Rover. "Hey, what's that?!"
"Hood ornament in a second!" Kyo cried out as he pumped on the gas pedal. "STEAM ROLLER!!!"
The Defender rammed into the creature at approximately 30 mph, the resulting impact knocking the critter back several yards. Kyo immediately proceeded to hit the brakes, causing the Land Rover to skid several feet before finally stopping. Once stopped, Kyo and his subordinate Yuki climbed out of the SUV to inspect the animal they had just hit. "Their System Doesn't Work For You" had just finished playing, with "Depleted Uranium Is a War Crime" succeeding it on the playlist.
"Looks like you mashed some poor fellow's dog, Sarge," Yuki said.
Kyo shook his head. "It's a Zergling, Yuki. Smaller type of Zerg," he replied. "This little guy shouldn't be out here this far, unless..."
Kyo's sentence was interrupted by the somewhat noisy approach of some more Zerg behind him. "Oh, s**t," Kyo muttered as he and Yuki turned around to face their new adversaries: a trio of Hydralisks.
Faced with almost-certain death, Yuki made an off-handed utterance in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I love you, Sarge."
Kyo shrugged aside Yuki's idea of gallows humour with a grimace. He attemped to draw his standard-issue Beretta 92FS but was promply cut down by the lead Hydralisk before he could get it out. Yuki met the same fate shortly afterwards.
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 4:39 pm
GAIAN NAVY CARGO SHIP KOMSOMOLETS
PORT OF GAMBINO
0300 HOURS
24 NOVEMBER 2006
It was 0300 hours, and all through the dimly-lit corridors of the abandoned cargo ship Komsomolets, not a living thing stirred, not even a rat. The silence was soon broken by the sound of a blowtorch cutting through the lock of a door. After a short pause, the portal slid open, and a Gaian Marine wielding a Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ultimax 100 light machine gun walked through the passageway; two more Marines wielding SAR-21 assault rifles with attached M203 grenade launchers followed right behind him, with an additional three Marines carrying a large box not further behind.
The point man held up his machine gun as he walked down the hallway; the view through his night-vision goggles was suitably tinted in shades of green and black. The small group eventually stopped at an intersection; while taking off his goggles, the point man motioned towards the three box-carrying Marines to set down their package. One of them pressed a yellow button on the front of the box, causing it to open and reveal a hefty charge of C4 packed in ice and surrounded by a veritable smorgasbord of sodas, beer, and energy drinks. More silence.
"Hey, are we really gonna blow this place?" a Marine asked nobody in particular.
"Only if there's a Zurg," a second Marine replied.
A third Marine took a can of Rockstar out of the cooler and popped it open. "Yeah, well, I got your Zurg right here," he laughed as he took a drink. He had barely put the can down when a large scythe-like claw burst through his head and lifted him up into the ceiling. Understandably alarmed, the remaining Marines lifted up their firearms and started performing a visual sweep of the intersection. Nothing but more silence and stillness...or so it would seem.
Suddenly, the alien cries of several Hydralisks rang out. A Marine spun around with his SAR-21 and began opening fire as a pair of the deadly creatures stormed down a corridor. There weren't any Zurg on this ship; the Marines had received a distress call about Zerg instead!
A chaotic firefight immediately broke out as the Marines, outnumbered and outgunned, attempted to hold off an ever-increasing number of Hydralisks from bearing down on their position. Even with the sheer volume of fire being laid down, the Hydralisks just kept on coming, threatening to overwhelm the Marines. One Marine who had run out of ammo for his SAR-21 tossed aside his rifle, drew a SIG-Sauer P226, and opened fire on a nearby Hydralisk; as futile as his effort was, it was still better than nothing.
"We're holed in! Blow it! Blow it!" a Marine cried out as he wildly fired his SAR-21 at anything he saw moving. The point man replied by reaching towards the C4 charge and pressing the detonator.
The Port of Gambino was soon rocked by a massive explosion as the Komsomolets went up in a blaze of glory. The Marines had wired the entire ship with explosives; blowing one charge would set off the rest, and the sheer volume of explosives laden on the ship would ensure that no trace of it would remain.
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:32 pm
ZURG ENCAMPMENT BARTON COAST 0500 HOURS 24 NOVEMBER 2006 A lone Zurg sentry perched up in a guard tower was busy awaiting the end of his shift as dawn approached. As he stretched and yawned, he immediately caught sight of a Gaian Army mecha limping in the general area of the Barton Cliffs. He took out his 4D goggles and put them on in order to get a closer look at the mecha; it was a ZGMF-1017 GINN with a damaged leg. After inspecting the mecha for a few moments, the Zurg sentry took off his goggles and called out to his commanding officer. "Sergeant! Hey, Sarge! Hey!" The Zurg sergeant emerged from his makeshift command centre. "You will immediately tell me why you have called me from my desk, Private!" he barked at the sentry. "Gaian Army mecha coming through the Barton Cliffs, Sarge! It looks broke!" the sentry replied. The Zurg sergeant thought this fact over for a moment before finally deciding on a course of action. "KILL IT!!!" he yelled, his voice echoing. Within seconds, an ex-Gaian Armed Forces BM-21 multiple rocket launcher (one of many gifts given to the Zurg by various pro-alien organizations, such as the Believers) was warmed up and deployed to take out the would-be marauder. Armed with a full complement of 122 mm rockets, the BM-21 drove to position. The Zurg sergeant took one final toke from his joint before dropping it to the ground and stepping on it. "Fire!" he barked. The crew of the BM-21 proceeded to fire a volley of rockets at the wounded GINN; at least several of them hit their mark, blowing the hapless mecha to smithereens. The Zurg sentry was jubilant as he saw the destruction of the GINN, jumping and cheering in his guard tower; the celebration would soon be cut short, however, as a beam rifle blast connected with the tower and obliterated it along with the sentry. The Zurg sergeant turned around, only to see a GAT-X207 Blitz decloak right in front of him; he barely had any time to look up before the mecha stomped on him. One Blitz soon became several, as many more decloaked; the mecha then proceeded to wreak havoc around the outpost, firing off their beam rifles and KE penetrators at anything and everything they could find. A lone Gaian Army Mi-24P Hind-F hovered just a short distance away, paying witness to the carnage as it unfolded. A short time later, a quintet of Gaian Air Force MiG-27K Flogger J-2s sped towards the Zurg encampment from the general direction of Isle de Gambino. "So I says to him, 'Answer that and stay fashionable!'" one of the pilots said through the radio, laughing raucously as he delivered the would-be punchline of his joke. "It's not funny anymore, Maxwell," another pilot groaned. " All right, cut the chatter, ladies. Drop your socks and grab your throttles," the lead pilot said. The formation's target, a Zurg UAV in the form of a Mini UFO, was just before it. Four of the planes pulled back as the lead MiG fired off its GSh-6-30 cannon; a few rounds were sufficient enough to blow the UFO to pieces. After fragging the UAV, the MiGs got back into formation. "Zurg outpost verified and locked," the lead pilot said. "This one's all yours, Maxwell.""Woo-hoo!" Maxwell cried out happily as his MiG bore down on the outpost. The Blitzes had already vacated the area, so there was no worry about friendly fire; with that in mind, Maxwell fired off a volley of six AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missiles at the remnants of the outpost.
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 7:24 pm
GIB HEADQUARTERS
0700 HOURS
24 NOVEMBER 2006
Rays of sunlight cascaded through the open window and onto Agent Murrue Ramius' face. The melodious sounds of Green Day's "Welcome to Paradise" droned at the relatively low volume of 50 dB from her alarm clock. Murrue instinctively reached over to the clock and hit the snooze button. "How many times do I have to tell you, you radical hippie punks? Depleted uranium's not a war crime," she muttered sleepily as she tried to fall back asleep.
Ten minutes later, "Longview" began blasting from the alarm clock at 100 dB, startling Murrue and causing her to fall out of the bed. "Okay, I'm up," she said half-sleepily, raising her left hand in the air.
With considerable effort, Murrue got up off the floor, made her bed, and got dressed. She stumbled into her closet and began haphazardly tossing out clothes. Within a few seconds, she had an outfit ready for use: a gray T-shirt, urban camouflage BDU pants, a black Kevlar vest, black gloves, and a pair of combat boots. She never wore the prescribed GIB uniform except during special occasions. After getting dressed, she grabbed an eyeglass case from her dresser, opened it, took out a pair of black shades, and put them on. "You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good," she said to nobody in particular.
It wasn't until she left her room that Murrue realized she had forgotten her sidearm. She quickly rushed back inside, ran up to a large cabinet, opened it, and hastily grabbed a GLOCK 18 and several spare 33-round magazines from one of the racks. After taking the time to holster her sidearm and stow the spare magazines, she stumbled back out of the room and made her way to the cafeteria for her morning coffee.
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:25 pm
Zero sat in the cafeteria watching the members come and go. After he opted out of the last mission, he was determined to do something. His tray was empty except for a few crumbs and his cup was at the halfway mark with some sweet liquid from another planet. "What to do, what to do..."
He leaned back in his chair with his legs propped up on the table, as he watched Murrue walk into the cafeteria. His neck made irritating popping noises as he sharply bent it left and right as his straight, black hair follwed in the direction of movement. If it wasn't for the food and free everything, he'd never wear the GIB suit. He did take liberty with it instead, using a trenchcoat in favor of the jacket, a t-shirt instead of the regular one and black jeans instead of the pants.
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Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 11:23 pm
GIB HEADQUARTERS
2300 HOURS
1 DECEMBER 2006
It had been exactly one week since the attacks in Barton East, the destruction of the cargo ship Komsomolets, and the unauthorized Gaian Armed Forces assault of the Zurg encampment with MiGs and cloaked Gundams. Due to a relative lack of agent interest in those cases, they were promply closed and relegated to the archives, pending further inquiry and possible reopening.
With the confirmed shootdown of Number Nine by his rogue comrades Numbers Six and Eleven, interest in the three cases was renewed...somewhat. Agent Murrue was the only one to surmise that the three cases might somehow be related in some fashion. From what she already knew, the attacks in Barton East and the destruction of the Komsomolets already had two connecting threads: the presence of Zerg and the deaths of Gaian Armed Forces personnel. The raid on the Zurg outpost, however, was a little harder to connect; it might have had something to do with the shootdown of Number Nine, though its link to the surge in Zerg sightings was tenuous at best.
On a normal Friday night, Agent Murrue would almost always be found in her room playing one of her many computer games; Battlefield 1942 and Call of Duty were perennial favourites of hers, as were Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, and StarCraft: Brood War. This night, however, Murrue set aside her gaming for a trip to the archives, located in a chamber adjacent to the main office and a fair distance away from the personnel living quarters.
Structurally, the archives were just like the rest of the GIB headquarters: suitably high-tech and dominated by white and chrome. However, despite the prevalence of supercomputers and other advanced data-storage devices, the Gaians in Black were still partially dependent on good old-fashioned paper for their recordkeeping. Agent Murrue found the case files she wanted lying around in a surprisingly large pile of documents on one of the many tables; it took her a small amount of digging to find them. With the files back in hand, she immediately returned to her room to review them.
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