Metal Militia

[Shulsky]

The Bristol team brought its equipment along; the items were largely handheld, not at all that bulky aside from the atmospheric suits thudding against the steel deck where the others stepped far more lightly in their own steel-toed boots. All told, she supposed they seemed like the clear outsiders to the otherwise pressed, compacted styles of the Xenos. Theirs had room for some degree of persona, of similar-yet-different, of the world between the Houses where styles mixed and matches and changes. She could see theirs to have been likely bulk orders, cheap and easier to source.

The group followed loosely along, Blake noting the various reactions guards and other personnel had to the man. Straight-arm salutes here and there, the type one would have expected to see of a boot-fresh Midshipman at school in Virginia, the crisp motions and mechanical natures of it reminding her of days where they cared so, so much about those things, about shined boots and pressed blouses. It was strange to see on a base of a so-called Free Republic, but then the Xenos never were ones to be immune to hypocrisy.

Of course, there was also the formations marching along. Mechanical, precise, wrong. It reminded her of Rheinlander marches, though Blake knew that she could never quite inform him of that kind of image. People marched that way not because they wanted to, or because it was expected, but because they had to by some upper authority. Otherwise, they walked. Otherwise, they jogged. Otherwise, they ran. But people didn’t march for fun, at least not as Blake remembered in the Liberty Navy, and she knew that these people were of that same breed generally speaking. No, people didn’t march for fun, but another creature did. She stared as the groups moved past, noting the various little differences they had to the normal Libertonian style of that movement even as they marched. Navy marches never swung their arms so, the Bristol woman thought.

Then there was the tunnel ride itself. The base seemed to be generational in a way, with archaeological layers like a planet might. She knew the first to be the original immigrants, more isolationist Xenos then the rest with a creak and a groan to every single piece. Then came the old miners, the Toronto days, and after that the Liberty veterans of the Gallic War. It was all quite interesting, though altogether expected considering Ramsey’s history. She glanced at one of the engineers, the man giving an expressive enough look to get his point across. There was a lot of work for the base itself, and he wasn’t excited to see what kind of wrecks the Xenos were proposing to resurrect from the depths of death itself. It made sense that they were asking for help. Blake couldn’t help but agree.

She didn’t pay much attention to the observation sector, instead looking to the car itself and considering that. There had been ice fields filled with abandoned DSE detritus before and there would be again. The car finally came to a halt, the main hub. Blake decided to break the silence of mere viewing by asking a question.

”Why ‘Cobra’?”

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Operation Have Sea