Ares pulled aside another seat, yelling for Lieutenant Borislav to join them,
"Arkady, get over here, check this out!"
He handed the document over to Arkady, letting him read it before the next song started.
"We need information printed here on how to conduct an orderly, staged extraction or retreat. The 'retreating in stages' method, y'know? One guy retreats whilst another covers, then he covers as his buddy falls back, and keep doing that until contact is avoided. That sort of thing. Also... info on target priorities is good. Hitting the weak, soft underbelly of our foes is a good technique, but, if a chance to strike at the undefended leadership presents itself, well, we grab it.
Anyway... you're sounding rather poetic. That can't be good for your health, comrade."
Ares paused and chuckled,
"Anyway, as to the Corsairs, I believe that war may end soon. We'll see. We, being myself and the crew of the Havana with a fighter escort, Gabriel Mau, moved to assist them against invading Blood Dragons. We'll see how things transpire with that."
He prodded Arkady, then pointed at Miroslav in a tone of mock conspiracy and said, in a perfectly audible stage-whisper,
"He's gone all Shakespeare on us, listen to him, he thinks he's Hamlet! Ha!"
Ares, funnily enough, was one of those people that thought Laertes was the hero in that play. He smiled to his friends, hoping they could get this manual done in a concise, effective manner.
Xing shook his head slowly, amused, as he looked at the draft with interest as well, without touching it.
"Shakespear? On New Berlin we do not learn about futile things such as poetry, I'm afraid. Unless you want to please the "Got-Kanzler" with some meaningless words..."
He smirked, as he continued his reading of the document - however he did that with such ease, as to him the document was completely upside down since it faced Ares.
"However, I've heard many tales of the guerilla warfare leading to a succesful revolution on old Earth... Premier Mao and his own Red Army managed to cripple a technologically and numerically superior foe with a band of farmers."
He smiled,
"The whole point is having a higher mobility than the enemy. If they can't see you, if they can't strike at you, however little damage you inflict materially speaking, it is the opponent's moral you are killing."
He nodded slowly, as if thinking about something, then
"And of course, propaganda is the another weapon we have. Convince the enemy they are wrong, at the lowest point of their moral, and they would turn to you like fruit ready for the harvest."
As it was, Xing programmed some new song to be played next to Ares', without much inspiration.
Miroslav stood up to tread, and move along, but hooked still glancing through the bar and the table instead, where Ares and Xing were having their conversation. He was now not only less edgy but doling his burden out obviously medicated the tense minutes.
Although yielding against the massive typing awaiting him was far beyond reason, he just let his mind slip into recalling his childhood days for a moment, and the vast wheat field in Kaluga, he had spent the entire summer when he was eight years old with a band of his friends so called as 'blind evil'.
Ares had an rather elated and humorous tone as Miroslav departed the bar without saying a single word and started heading to his room, with the hard labor along, in the name of substantiating facts with stats. Ares smiled comfortably, perceptive of the fact that his young zealot would return back soon.
This was Yuri's first time at Cape Verde. The bar minding it's own business, nobody even noticed him coming in. He threw a glance across the bar from behind his pilot goggles, and moved towards the counter. The bartender was talking to another guy, so Yuri minded his own business for a while. Cape Verde seemed like a typical backwater filled with pirates and revolutionaries which sort of seemed ironic to him, though it was hard to ignore the rather eccentric surroundings with the various propaganda posters and the statues and stars around.
After a moment of standing about just listening to whatever conversation was about, Yuri motioned for the bartender to come over and spoke loudly.
- "Gimme a round of drinks for the entire bar, lady. On me."
This focused the attention of the bar on Yuri, who looked at them all smugly and continued.
- "Lets drink to all those poor capitalists who try to get a shot at us in Liberty all the time. We all know how that turns out don't we?"
The bar turned silent in a minute and erupted into a wave of laughter a moment later to which everyone slammed mugs and drank as much as they could in one go. The next round was already on the counter. Yuri took a mug and walked over to the jukebox. - "Lets change this stuff to something more.. fitting."
- Listen to my words and listen to them well! We shall prosper and we shall grow! The capitalists are too greedy, they are too self concerned, and that shall be their downfall my comrades! This world is filled with injustice, a plauge that we will cure, for we represent the People!
- The Coalition is getting stronger by the day, and we will stand victorious in the end. Never surrender, never give up, fight and one day our dream will come true!
Zarevo raises his mug and screams:
[color=#FF0000]- For the Coalition! For the final Victory!
Ares swung back on his seat. Shore leave was good for the boys' morale.
After a short while of relaxation and daydreaming, eyes half-shut, he came back to full consciousness with a start when some old-school traditional music came on. Of course, it had to be one of his squadron that was dancing on the table, hadn't it? Totenkopt's Recon boys would be laughing at Red Wing tomorrow, that was for certain.
He laughed at Kaputski, letting the song end so that he could carry on making a fool of himself,
"Get down from there, you drunk! You're making us look like lightweights, Lieutenant! We can't have that!"
He ordered yet another round of beer, sticking some party music on. Sure, it sounded like the trash Xenos would listen to, but it was good trash.
This weekend Gold Wing could cover the slack. The boys from Red deserved a breather. They'd earned it... and the next day they would have earned their bastard hangovers.
As the X4TS landed on Cape Verde, Miroslav had an inauspicious smirk on his face, clearly elated with the latest progress through Liberty and Bretonia. Alongside his guard lieutenant Boris, they dropped in the bar before tottering on to their seats recklessly. It was after a short instant of pause and some snickering when Baranov began swinging his right foot in accord with the tune and trilled to the barmaid smartly, indicating her to bring them beer. Zarevo was focused on the black case with a data disc in it for a second. Nobody except him knew that lieutenant commander was there to apprise captain Ares for the secret briefing as planned.
Eugen Weise strolled into the Pub, eyes searching for his old favorite table. It'd been nine long months since he'd been in here, nine months of horror and excitement, of death and glory. McIntosh and his handpicked crews and pilots had once again returned to Sol, and only a bare few had returned. Even the Terra III was gone, destroyed after- No. It was done, he didn't need to think about it any more. As he snatched a bottle of Vodka from a startled Infantry Captain, he spotted it.
His old table was still there, little brass plaque and everything. Although he couldn't read it, obscured as it was by the elbow of some rookie, he knew the words by heart:
"This Table permanently reserved for Eugen Weise, SCRA Fighter Corps, dedicated on the Occasion of his Third 'Hero of the Revolution' Decoration for Suicidal Bravery against overwelming odds. A braver man has not been born.
-Grand Admiral McIntosh, SCRA"
He wandered casually over to the Jukebox, and pressed the appropriate buttons. As the strange, metallic voice filled the bar, he turned, and shouted:
"Totenkopt, you old b*stard, this is for you, wherever you lie! H*ll will be a better place for you being there! You! Get off my table!"
As the rookies scatter and the bar returns to its normal volume, Eugen sits and swigs at the Vodka. God, what a waste... All those men gone, even for such treasures of technology!
With a roar, a gunshot rips through the air, and the bottle in Eugen's hand shatters, covering him and a dozen others in glass and liquor. As Eugen rises, his hand reaches for the pistol normally mounted low on his hip, but comes back empty, for his pistol is in the hand of the tall, cloaked man at the door.
"Looking for this?" He holds up a massive, .65 calibre pistol, a red star prominent on the grip. "You lent it to me just before we were boarded... I never got a chance to give it back."
Eugen could only stare agape as Totenkopt slid into the seat across from him. It's impossible, I SAW him die, no-one could survive a hit from that... thing! It devoured all the bodies, I saw it! It almost got to m- No! Stop thinking about it!
"What... what're you doing here? You can't be alive! I saw you die!"
Totenkopt leaned back and laughed, laughed as Eugen had never heard it before. His voice still had the metallic buzz, but now there was something... else. Totenkopt leaned across the table and grasped his hand, allowing his sleeve and glove to separate slightly. With horror, Eugen noticed a purple glow coming from within the blackness of Totenkopt's form. I'm not the only one? What if it's all of us!
"Don't worry about me, old son," he grated, "I'll be fine. It's like I said, every year there's a little less of me, and this time, they went for something new... wait'll you see the ship they gave me, it took almost two months to capture one intact."
"What, did... It spit you out? I saw it eat you!"
"Not quite... I sort of, cut myself out, and the electronics got scrambled. They had to use organics to save me, all the bionics were already gone. I hear you got one of those yourself?"
"Yea, my lower left leg, and two fingers on the left hand. Not a man in Hammer Squadron is whole anymore, you know. And, truth be told... I might have a little of That," as he pointed at the glow, "myself. The fingers are normal, but the leg... it's not mechanical at all, and it's not mine. It just works for me."
"I know the feeling. Hopefully they'll keep working for us, and not the other way around..."
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
"Gentlemen, and oh-so lovely Ladies! I raise a glass to the new pilots of Red Wing! May they prosper in their newfound rank and glory, and let fate decide the rest!"
With that, Eugen loosed his favorite pistol and fired a shot into the Jukebox, whereapon it began a most fitting tune. With that completed, he leaped to a tabletop, cape spinning and new insignia gleaming, and emptied the rest of the magazine into the roof.
"Drinks are on me for the next five minutes! Get Some, Comrades!"
As the remainder of the pub rushed the hassled bartender, Eugen smiled down at the new pilots with gleaming teeth. The shock in their eyes at the rampand destruction clear in their eyes inspired more racous laughter from the infested Commander.
"And that, young grasshoppers, is how we party in Red Wing! Lets steal some capship jockey's table, and get thrashed!"
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
As the rush subsides, and the song ends, the next track, also quite appropriate, shouts out from the corner. Eugen is in the midst of a punchup with a pair of the Terra IV's Weapons officers, and the new pilots are watching in trepidation. He appears to be doing fine by himself, although one who is a patron of playing fair might not approve. The man who strides into the bar next, thankfully, is not, and a good thing for Eugen it is too.
"Weise! I need them to run the guns, damnit man! Stop hitting them with tha' wee table, and get over here!"
At the sound of a voice heard by every man, woman, and child in Sirius, the bar goes completely still. Grand Admiral James McIntosh is a giant of a man, over six foot three and weighing in at a comfortable 250 pounds. Heavily modified by Coalition Engineers, with arms to rival a normal man's legs, McIntosh is a force to be reconed with.
"Boss! Good to see you back in port!"
Eugen drops the heavy oak table on his opponent's feet, and strides over to the Grand Admiral. Reaching to a nearby table, he hands a bottle of Vodka to McIntosh, and grabs another himself.
"What brings you down here, Sir?"
"Well, after a .65 round blew the leg off my desk, I knew that you had to be back in. I suspect that this Vodka will help ease the pain of finding a new desk..."
"Whoopsie! Sorry Sir! I thought they re-enforced the ceiling, or I wouldn't have done it!"
"You would so. Now Comrades, a Toast to the latest victims of Red Wing! Drink up, it may be your last!"
With that, McIntosh raised the bottle, and shouted with the rest.
"The Coalition! Get Some! Get Some! Get Some! Ahoooooo!"
Throwing the now emptly litre bottle into the faux-fireplace, McIntosh strode from the bar, a grin of pure evil plastered to his face.
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.