Welcome Anastasia [Sign Out] [Multi-Login]


Add Reply
Small town, small crime
Topic Started: Nov 1 2010, 02:29 PM (23 Views)
Hiromi Nov 1 2010, 02:29 PM Post #1

Ian leaned back in his chair, feet up on his desk, studying the clipboard in front of him. The officer who’d just handed it to him looked on expectantly.
“Zaku IIs, you need my entire squad to take out two borderline obsolete pieces of junk?” Ian sighed and tossed the clipboard by his boots.
“What’s wrong,” the officer asked, “something better to do?”
“Could be,” Ian said in a not quite sarcastic voice, “just seems a great big waste of resources is all.”
“These hoodlums have been disturbing causing a shitstorm for the last week. I want them gone, as in yesterday. I’ve got no problem with overkill. Sides you haven’t done anything but sit there for the last 2 days.”
Ian sighed, “Fine fine we’ll get on it. Give me five minutes.”
As the officer walked out Ian ran a hand through his hair. His complaining was more for show than anything else, his superior was right, they could use the exercise. Sides he liked playing with his new toy. The Mobile Armor he’d been assigned a month ago, one of the reasons they’d taken this assignment, was a fresh of breath air over the hand me down pieces of shit he’d had to wear over the last few years. One of the things he missed about the Military was the feeling of brand new armor. These things had that wonderful new car smell, rather than their previous occupant’s BO, once an odor got into the suit’s air scrubbers it took forever to get rid of.
Groaning he let his chair fall on all four legs and stood up, wincing he walked to the locker room, feeling the blood return to his feet.
…
“The Hell much longer you going to sit there?”
Hiromi ignored her, reading the data in front of him. His armor retracted save for his helmet which sat off to his side, a long data cable plugged to a port inside it, connecting to the portable computer he was hunched over. Amber was sitting on top of the work bench a few feet away, looking on bored.
They sat in the makeshift garage. The current precinct they worked in, on the outskirts of Atlanta proper, was housed in a former residence. It wasn’t bad all things considered, the proper building had been torched during a riot a couple months ago and repairs were still underway.
She snorted and looked away. “You know, the only way to increase synch rating is to use the damn thing right?”
“Until Ian gets something for us there’s no point in bitching about that stuff,” he said, distracted from the holo-projected screen. “I’m just making sure the gyro’s still calibrated.”
“It always has to be tech with you, are you an operator or a mechanic,” she muttered.
“Both,” he shot back.
“Hey! Don’t respond to my internal comments!”
“Maybe you should try making them internal then,” Hiromi said dryly.
“Alright that’s it,” she snapped, hopping down. “You want a go bangsat?!”
note Bangsat is roughly translated to Bastard in Indonesian
“You’re really annoying you know that?”
“Do something about it!”
“Hey hey, that’s enough,” Ian said as he walked into the Garage, Jean-Patrick behind him. “We have some work to do.”
“Bout time,” Amber muttered, calming down almost instantly.
“You sure you’re not Bipolar,” JP remarked calmly in his accented English.
“Screw you,” she snapped.
Ian coughed loudly. “ANYWAY, go ahead and suit up, I’ll transfer the specifics while we move.”
Hiromi shrugged, thinking the activation command. The Red Power Armor quickly unsheathed itself encasing him. Bending down he carefully picked up the helmet, delicately unplugging the cable, and placed it over his head. With a quiet hiss the suit sealed, the internal air scrubbers automatically reducing the temperature inside to a comfortable level. His eyes were full of opaque green for a moment as the suit’s software booted up; the green quickly fading away, the front visor becoming something of a one way mirror. He quickly cycled through various commands mentally, bringing up suit readouts, the top down map, targeting reticules, and various other readouts in his pre checks, standard fare for cold startups. Finally he settled on his normal vision mode. He looked around feeling the armor smoothly respond to his movements, his team mates were also just finishing up.

Ian shrugged his armored shoulders; a small star appeared above his head on Hiromi’s HUD.
“Everyone ready, he asked over the internal comms. The three gave slight nods, also identing their comm beacons, causing a visible ripple effect to radiate from their suits over their HUDs. These simple actions were the final startup checks, satisfied that his squad was ready Ian gestured and led them out, breaking into a run as they hit the street, their power armor assisted legs easily accelerating them to an easy 35 mile per hour. Ian instructed them to put their suits on auto run while he transferred the case files to them. The three pilots read through the case with varying degrees of interest.
“THIS is what they hand us?” Amber exploded, “Two broken down Zakus?”
“Fraid so,” Ian replied.
“It would seem we are not exactly a must needed commodity in this area,” JP commented. “The normal resources the police possess would be more than adequate in apprehending these perpetrators.”
Ian waited a moment. “What’s the matter Hiro,” he asked, “no input?”
“He’s probably forgotten how to key his mic up,” Amber said, her voice one of mock sweetness.
Hiromi ignored her. “I know we have plenty of transfer offers available Ian, why are we still here? We could at least go to Atlanta proper.”
”How does he always manage to guess what I’m about to say? Its creepy” Ian thought.
“Don’t worry all, I know we’re being wasted here. I was saving it as a surprise but what the Hell, I’m moving us to Atlanta after this case there let’s just beat the snot out of these two assholes and then we can get back and start packing. It’s already been cleared”
JP snorted, “I can imagine that conversation went well.”
“Yes yes the chief here couldn’t wait to get rid of us and have to start making his own officers do dirty work again. He’s a small fish in a big pond, don’t worry about it.”
“Twist my arm,” Hiromi muttered, his comm off for that comment.
PM Offline Member Profile Report Post Quote Post Goto Top
 
Hiromi Nov 3 2010, 02:27 PM Post #2

Part 2:
Hiromi sighed as he looked over the tools laid out next to him. In front of him the four suits of armor stood, back in the garage in the makeshift precinct. His and Ian’s were fully assembled; they were virtually untouched and had only taken about an hour of maintenance a piece. Amber and JP’s would take a bit more work and as such were disassembled, with the obvious exception of JP’s beam rifle, which was not repairable and good for nothing more than spare parts now, the replacement due to arrive later in the day .
Amber’s armor was up first. Fortunately the Gouf’s Gatling rounds were fairly small to accommodate a larger ammo capacity, the ones that had struck her in the chest had barely scratched the tough Gundarium armored plate, unfortunately there were still weak points, and the enormous rate of fire of the Gattling dramatically increased the chance of finding one. In this case it was knee joint, two rounds had found the space in between the two armored plates covering the quad and shin, causing enough damage to lock the joint in place. Naturally Amber, who had been in full bum rush mode, had responded to the now unbalanced suit by running full steam into a brick wall. Cursing Hiro grabbed a pair of hydraulic pliers and began attempting to extract the two slugs.
___
“One killed while resisting arrest, the other wounded but stable, scrapped heavily damaged Zaku and Gouf, both probably good for nothing but parts.”
The precinct Chief thumbed through Ian’s report, as a matter of policy any time a Power armor engagements occurred he had to directly handle the after action review and debrief. Ian leaned casually against the shut door to his office nodding in agreement.
“Not bad Niel,” he said tossing the data pad on his desk. And he meant it; normally Mobile Armor engagements were synonymous with property damage, c collateral, and death.
“Thanks Chief,” Ian replied.
“Don’t suppose you’ll change your mind about staying on then?”
Ian shrugged, “fraid not Chief, after we’ve repaired I think we’re going to accept one of the offers on my desk, just not enough work close by to justify keeping the suits here.”

The Chief sighed, “You’re right of course, still can’t help but with you’d stay on.”
“Never know Chief, we might be back.”

“Well, best of luck to you then.”
Ian, knowing when he’d been dismissed, nodded and let himself out.
___

Hiromi took a long drag on his cigarette; Amber’s suit was more or less good to go now. I’d taken about four hours, a ton of lubricant, and a little creativity with a sledge and diamond edged chisel to get it back in proper shape, but at least now it could flex smoothly. He’d learned as a teenager that fixing Power Armor was about equal parts finesse and equal parts brute force. Of course that meant that no matter where he went he was basically the default mechanic. Oh well, it wasn’t as if he still didn’t find some enjoyment out of it.
Ian’s armor was next, and this one was a doozy, not much structural damage, but a loooooot of electrical work, while circuit breakers had saved the more important systems many were still fried, he’d have to find which wires were and weren’t serviceable, replace them, and any other hardware that had been burned to a crisp. Grabbing a crowbar he went to work prying off an armor plate exposing the circuitry below.
As he pulled out a voltmeter he heard the door behind him open. Turning he saw a water bottle come flying at him. He instinctively grabbed it out of the air.
“Not bad,” Amber said, walking over.
Hiromi shrugged, “Thanks, need something?”
“Just checking on my Armor.”
Hiromi gestured towards it with the Voltmeter. “Just finished, try and avoid the bullets next time.”
“Always the asshole routine huh?”
“Eh, it’s what I’m good at.” Hiromi decided not to call her on the hypocrite part.
To her credit she actually smiled. She always tended to be a bit nicer after battles, as though her bitchiness was just pent up aggression that needed release. She sighed as she inspected the leg of her armor closely. “Stupid old piece of junk,” she muttered. “Can’t believe he managed to hurt me.”
“You’re lucky you know,” Hiromi replied absently, yanking a bad wire out of JP’s central CPU.
“Yeah I know, if the leg hadn’t locked out and twisted it would have broken my leg too.”
Hiromi shrugged. “If it makes you feel better I’m still learning how to use these things too, there’s a reason Ian always beats me hand to hand in the sparring matches.”
She snorted, “I know better than trying to out pilot vets, but you, you’re fair game,” she said with a grin.
Hiromi put down the voltmeter and gave her a sarcastic look. “Well if it’s a game its certainly not one I plan on losing.”
“Good, it wouldn’t be any fun when I beat you otherwise.”
“Keep dreaming. And if you’re going to just stand there help me out and grab that wire cutter there.”
“Oh fine, don’t think I’m going idiot mechanic like you though.”
“Least you’d be good at something th… hey!”
She held the wire cutters over her shoulder while Hiromi rubbed the back of her head where’d she smacked him.
“Let’s get this over with already,” she grumbled. “I don’t plan on being here all night.
PM Offline Member Profile Report Post Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic
Members: Anastasia
« Previous Topic · Roleplay · Next Topic »
Add Reply
Fast Reply