Things are really falling apart if fists are already flying.
He expected to be struck again, or shouted at or something. Rennin watches closely as the stars fade and remembers that his bones are now Thermosteel and that the screaming Galah must have shattered his own hand against his face. The punch still stings like hell though. Rennin believes he must be saving face by leaving gracefully, going to a storeroom and having a good solid cry alone.
The next officer to address the recruits is more polite, though still full of the same dribbling garbage as the former.
Rennin inwardly chides himself for being so undisciplined in front of younger recruits. The rest of these impressionable untalented rectal swabs would probably just follow the leader, and since his Sergeant status has been reinstated they’ll be looking to him for guidance. He may have heard all this crap before but the newer guys need a little cold hard boot put into them, it gives them the necessary fall back to brace their resolve. Rennin always saw it as hiding guilt behind purposeful ignorance or shrouding one’s own uselessness behind blind obedience. Heil Britannia!
Despite his seemingly overbearing good humour, and abundant disregard for authority, his attitude is symptomatic of his severe unease. He hasn’t heard anything from Caufmann or the others to let him know when they’re coming to get him and he really doesn’t want to be stuck with the rest of the grunts when they get sent into battle. Rennin shudders, thinking how these kids will react when the contaminant rushing at them is someone they know.
It isn’t long before they all receive their standard issue gauntlets, allowing them easy access to all the data they’ll need for where they’re assigned, their unit and where they’ll be deployed. Rennin flips his on, and reads over his assignment. His heart sinks when he reads:
Unit: Nova
Position: Point/Sniper Cover
Call-sign: Longinus
Deployment Zone: Centre-city Stadium.
Current Objective: Immune personnel en route to fortified Whitechapel District. Protect at all costs.
Report to Gunship: Dead Star.
Rennin takes a deep breath. He decides that it’s best to meet these rejects as soon as possible to assess the exact odds that they’ll explode ten minutes after take off.
He passes more troops, on the receiving end of their uplifting lectures from their respective leaders, all the while trying to ignore Arca Drej’s knife sheathed across his right shoulder. It vibrates momentarily from time to time. The sensation really does make Rennin’s skin crawl.
He sees the gunship, with what was once an emblem of a supernova splayed across one side of its nose. Someone has painted over it with an image of the iconic Death Star. Rennin can’t help but laugh bitterly at such a colossal mistake.
George Lucas is rolling in his grave.
There are over a hundred gunships in total by the look of it but he isn’t sure how many will actually be flying. The power grid is still down, too. He gets to the gunship and the commanding officer salutes him, causing Rennin to metaphysically vomit. He raises his hand to his brow loosely. “Rennin Farrow reporting, your highness.”
The stocky lieutenant looks up at him with pale brown eyes, “My highness?”
“I assume you’re Princess Leia, leader of this unit?”
The lieutenant’s face looks like it just aged twenty years before looking to the emblem on the gunship. “Oh that. We didn’t think it would do any harm to let the men have a little fun. Plus I’m sort of being punished,” he says looking past Rennin and smiling at an officer several gunship berths away that looks like a total prick.
“For what?”
“He found out it was me that filled his boots with Loctite. Took a laser-scalpel to remove the bastards.”
Rennin can’t help but smirk. “I think if I did that to my boss, he’d be cutting me up with the scalpel.”
Recognition flashes across the lieutenant’s face. “Ah, you’re the Godyssey guy from the lab.”
“You’ve read my file?”
“Well, yeah, that, and you’re the one who was wounded the night of the Aurelia Rally, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Mate, stories get passed around like the town bike here. I heard you lost both your legs and half your face from one guy, another told me the thing tried to violate you with its cast iron rod, another one was it took your guts out and tried strangling you with your own intestine, and some idiot tried starting a conspiracy that you were the android all along.”
Rennin shakes his head, “And I thought you army boys weren’t creative.”
“Yeah well, I knew you were a veteran from your file and the rest I just ignored. Good to have you here, actually. What’s your call-sign by the way?”
“Longinus.”
The lieutenant smirks. “Messiah Stabber, eh? Well I’m Lieutenant Sabre, our heavy gunner is Jawa, our spotter is Obie, vehicle specialist is Clank, corporal is Fader, Pilot Bulldog and our four grunts are Ruin, Ghost, Oxy and Boron.”
“I thought teams known with call-signs are supposed to follow a theme. Like we’re gunship Dead Star. We can all be dead stars. You could be MJ himself, I’ll be Judy Garland, that guy could be Marilyn Monroe—”
“Nothing’s perfect,” says Sabre with a small laugh.
Rennin looks again to the crude drawing of the Death Star next to the name Dead Star. “I see that.”
“Well one of the gunships is called Barbie so it’s not all bad,” Sabre says.
“Point taken. Got in trouble for something to do with barbeques?”
“No, fucking in the shower.”
“Lovely.”
“All the gunship crews have call-signs but mostly it’s pretty normal stuff.”
“Not referring to us as numbers anymore?” asks Rennin.
“Regular troops are still numbers. Hell we’re all still numbers, but gunship crews get call-signs. Something about differentiating between the meat that gets slow cooked and the stuff thrown in the grinder.”
“Big word for a lieutenant. What’s your actual name?”
He shrugs, “Best stick with Sabre, I don’t want anyone getting confused. We’ll all be referred to by our call-sign in the field.”
“Wonderful.”
“Alright, we’re all scheduled to depart in fifteen minutes so grab your ammo and get yourself ready.”
“From where?”
“There’s caches everywhere with ammunition, just look for the soldiers surrounding crates like packs of seagulls and get what you need. Grenades are at the far back wall, though,” he says pointing further down the warehouse.
Rennin moves to the nearest ammo crates that contain pistol, pulse rifle and sniper rounds. The heavy gunner from Gunship Dead Star, Jawa, is over at another crate stocking up on his special type ammunition.
Rennin pushes between several soldiers and grabs the standard two magazines for his pistol and pulse rifle, putting them in his ammunition harness attached to his armour plating. He’s about to walk off when something occurs to him. He’s seen almost every zombie movie ever made, played every survival horror videogame and they all have one thing in common: never enough bullets. He digs back into the crate and shoves every pocket he can full of sniper, pistol and rifle rounds. When he’s satisfied his ammunition belts and pockets literally cannot hold any more, he half waddles off towards the grenade crates at the far end of the warehouse.
It’s heavy, he notes, but I’m not going to run out of bullets. No way.