Well it's been a bit. Village Tale #4 is on hold till I finish figuring out how I want to handle certain scenes. Till then I picked up an old idea I had that didn't work out as well as I wanted at the time and reworked it a bit. All C&C welcomed as it helps improve my writing. Tenchi Muyo and Armor owned by their respective Creator and Author and used without permission. I have no money to give so please don't sue me. ********************************************************************* prelude: Time moved forward for mankind. many discoverys were made, such as the FTL drive. Man then reached out for the stars and discovered what many had known. That they were not the only living beings in the cosmos. There were the Juraian and the Oni empires along with the Silver Millinum empire. What Some found shocking and others found quite amusing was that most of the current rulers had at one point or another lived on earth and that they seemed to almost be ageless. They were called the God emperors by some. With these discoverys brought more advances for humanity. Cultures that had been stiffed on Terra left to find homeworlds of thier own. They too expanded earths knowlege of the universe by expaning their knowlege of what lay beyond the rim. But some things should be left undiscovered. ********************************************************************** Tenchi sat at the bar looking at everyone else. Normally he liked to think of himself as a socialble guy, if a bit shy at first, but he just couldn't bring himself to go over and talk to anyone. He could not figure out why this was though. Of course Tenchi knew he was lying to himself, he knew perfectly well why he was acting this way. Tommorow they were all going to die. Tenchi payed the the extra credits to get a whole bottle and another extra few to take it out of the bar area. Normally ships regs said that no alchohal was to leave the bar area of the ship, but on the eve of a drop many of the rules were permitted to be bent. As he walked out Tenchi noticed that several other people had gotten the same idea, leaving singly or in pairs. As Tenchi walked down the corodor of the great space carrier he walked past several couples, some were engaged in very interesting activites. He was even approached several times on his trek, but each time he politely refused and no offence was taken, after all everyone handles pre-combat jitters in thier own way. Tenchi finally reached his destination, Drop Hanger 1, the largest room in the great ship Miyazaki. One of the first things he saw, or rather heard, were that there were several other people aready here, and by the occational moan or grunt that reached his ears, were making the most of the twilight gloom that permiated the hanger. After all who cared what your partener looked like when the next day you may gasp your last. All that matters is the comfort that a warm body next to you offers and let what ever else come what may. Tenchi looked around and finally settled on a location that no-one had seemed to occupy, the main strut in the middle of the bay. After climbing up the ladder and finding a suitable crossbeam Tenchi sat back and tried to relax. He fished out one of the last of his cigerettes, popped the top off the bottle and pondered as he leaned back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the slip of paper that had his combat assignment on it. He snorted in disgust as he once again read over the text printed on it. A lousy scout. How in the world did he get a scout position. Scouts were a mostly volenteer position, since it came with the rank of warrent officer. Many did it to get the perks, but to the best of his recolection Tenchi did not remember asking or even thinking of this assignment. He also thought about where this burst of cynicisam came from. He remenised back to basic training. His superiors had seen that he had natural ability with combat armor. While most people had trouble adjusting to wearing and using the power armor, he had taken to it like a fish to water. Tenchi had heard them mutter things like natural leadership ability, and highly skilled and co-ordinated. He pretty much ignored these things till one day he was pulled out of a training exersise and called into the comandants office. They offered him cigerettes. They offered him booze. They offered him a officers commision. Tenchi took the cigerettes and booze, but rejected everything else. They tried to cajole him by extolling the the virtues of being an officer. When that didn't work they tried to plead to his sense of duty by giving examples of what good leadership could do for a fighting force. Seeing that this hadn't moved him they ranted and raved at him that if he was smart he would take the commision and like it. After their spiel blew right passed Tenchi they sighed and sent him back out. Now it seems they had had their revenge on him. Tenchi lit his smoke and took a swig from his bottle. They had trained for 26 weeks, but to Tenchi it wasn't enough , it would never be enough. 96 percent of the ships combat troops were rookies. "We are defenitely doomed" he muttered into the darkness. The line to the mess hall was very short the next morning while the line to the clinic was out the door and down the hall quite a distance. It seems that anyone who was not on duty last night had gotten rip roaring drunk. Tenchi watched as the smell of food reached more and more people in line dropped out. A girl with pink hair in front him actully made it up to the counter before she blew chunks. Looking around to appologise to everyone she saw that the only person left in line was Tenchi. It seemed that when her stomach evacuated its contents it also evacuated the last of the holdouts. Tenchi had been fortunate enough to have been awoken from where he had been sleeping on the strut by the drop bay sergent several hours before reveley was to sound. He had gone over to the clinic to get a shot for his stomach and head. After a few minutes he was feeling no ill effects from his previous nights activites, so it was to the cooks imense suprise that he ordered a double helping of what was being served. "What can I say, I've got the munchies." was the only response Tenchi could think of giving the startled cook. Midway through his meal Tenchi saw that there were more and more people entering the cafetira. "medics must of finally caught up to themeselves" he muttered to himself. Tenchi then noticed out of the corner of his eye someone heading towards him. "Mind if I sit here?" a male voice asked. Tenchi kept right on eating. Taking his silence as aqueasance the fellow set his tray down and sat. "My name is Otaru whats yours?" the male said. "Tenchi." he said, though he wasn't sure he had said it out loud or not. Silence reigned for a few moments before Otaru said "you know you shouldn't eat so much. Gut wounds are a whole lot worse if you have a full stomach". Tenchi merely grunted at this. Plasteel was one of the most resiliant materials known. anything that could get through it was going to make a wound of the type that you wouldn't have to worry about a full stomach or not. A few more moments of silence passed before the young man got up. "I'll see you around" Otaru said quietly as he left. Tenchi finished up his meal a short time later. Tenchi knew that Otaru had just been looking for some comanionship to help calm his pre-combat jitters but Tenchi knew he had come off as cold and unfeeling. He knew he used to be very open and wondered why he hadn't been more friendly. Once more the answer popped into his head. They were all going to die. Tenchi stood before the armor locker that matched the code he had been given. He entered the code on the keypad and watched as the door swung open revealing the scout class power armor unit within. Unlike warrior class armor, scouts carried no built in armaments. Scouts were made for speed, get in look around and get out. While the warrior had 4 particle stream projectors, two in each wrist, and 24 wave motion bombs, launched from a rack mounted on the back, the scout only had in the way of firepower was a old style particle stream rifle, of the type used by open air troops, and 6 wave motion bombs, which had to be launched manually. Tenchi looked at the suit and a involintary shudder ran down his spine. While warrior suits were color coded by unit and rank, scout suits were only one color, black. Scouts while in theroy warrent officers, had no place in the actual chain of command. Theoreticly this was done to make the scouts job easier by not having to worry about having to go up the chain of command to report his findings, but realisticly it wound up happening anyway because everyone wanted to know what was going on. Tenchi stepped into the open armor and felt a momentary sense of panic as the armor sealed itself, as if it were trying to eat him alive. his rapid breathing and heatrate subsided after a few moments when the suit finished sealing itself and it's internal systems came online. The holographic displays popped up and showed him all the information he would ever want to know. This reasured Tenchi some more. The monster was not going to eat him but was under his command. He made some exagerated motions with his arms and legs to get the feel of things. A buletin appeared on one of his screens reminding him not to wear jewelry of any sort inside the armor. Tenchi almost burst out laughing when he saw this. by the time you saw the message you probobly would be dead. Combat armor fits skin tight on the body, the only place you could wear such affections would be on your head, which was the only place that had any space. Many people indeed do that, but Tenchi really didn't care for the look. He then remembered the the training film on why you didn't do this type of thing. A young man had worn a religous medal into his suit. The medics wound up having to pry it from his chest. The cronometer chimed let him know that it was time to make his way to the briefing room. Right inside the enteranceway to the breifing room was a large mirror. You couldn't help but to see your reflection when you walked in. Some of the the head shrinkers on board worried that this might have a detrimental affect on the troops. The brass pshawed at this, after all, all killers liked to look the part. Tenchi took a look at himself in that mirror and felt a morass of gloom wash over him. The briefing didn't start immeditely. The first thing that happened was that the commander started to give a pep talk. Tenchi took one look in his eyes and knew. he thought to himself. This last bit of ugly truth just hammered home to Tenchi what he had thought all the time, Then he felt it start to happen to him, the strange sensation that he was seperating from himself and some other part took over. He called this other self the Engine, because it was like a machine, no emotions and one prime directive, to survive. It would do what Tenchi couldn't. The first time he remembered it happening was in Basic training and had been quite a painful experience. But each time after that it had gotten less and less painful. The Engine knew when it was needed, so Tenchi started psyching himself as the pep talk ended and the briefing began. A few moments later The Engine sat and listened while Tenchi huddled in a far corner of his mind. The planet they were about to assault had the code designation of J-9, but one of the Amazonians from Juzendo had named it after a place from thier folklore on old Terra. They had named the place Jusyenko and the name had stuck. To Tenchi when he had first heard what the place had been named thought it appropriate. He had heard the legend and compared it to the planet and thought it appropriate indeed. The surface was indeed covered in pools. But there were chemicals in those pools that would warp and distort a body so badly that death would be a blessing from the agony. That is if you survived breathing the air for more than a few seconds, as it seems that most of the atmosphere had a compsition similar to nitric acid. Living through that you then had to avoid having the flesh scoured from your bones by the 250+ mph sandstorms that happened popped up quite regularly due to the planet going from 200 degrees durring the day to -120 at night. Finally there were the enemy. 10 feet tall with alot of tenticles, horns, and large insect like eyes. They had enough strength to rip a suited man in half. The scientists had their own long complicated name for them, but once again the Amazonians from Juzendo had come up with a name that fit just right, They called them Taro. Tenchi had once asked about it and had been shown a old holoimage. The outlime was very similar but that was it. The briefing got to the point of troop assignments. The Engine saw that it was assigned as forward scout to A team, the smallest of the three teams that would be making planet fall. With no emotion at all The Engine made the appropriate notations in its comp unit. " Before any of you in A team get all worked up," the commander said, "Intel scans show that the only thing that is in your area is a small structure that we belive is just a supply depot. At most you will be spending a few boring hours sightseeing until B and C teams get done with their long range sweeps. Since you have the shortest area to cover you won't need that many men." The commander paused for a moment before continuing. "Drop will be in 15 minutes. Everyone go to your assigned drop squares and good luck." With that everyone stood and saluted. The Engine made it's way to it's assigned drop square. It saw that there was one other scout assigned to it's group. The other 2 teams had 4 scouts. This of course made no differance to The Engine. It had a mission to acomplish and that was it. The way the drop pads functioned was quite interesting. In front of them all was a giant holosqare that strobed like a kalidescope. The patern that had been programed in was in theroy suposed to relax the troops as to prepare them for drop, but what it wound up doing was alot of the time was make some of the troops dizzy. The cube would at the appropriate time show one of three colors, Red for wait, Amber for ready, and Green for go. When it hit green everyone was to charge forward and try to tag that green holosquare, but of course they would be transported before they even got 2 steps out of their start square. The Engine noticed that the drop square had switched from Red to Amber. Someone in drop control came over the com and said "Go get em!" A female responded "It's gonna be a cake walk!" The mission commander put a end to any further conversation by say "OK everyone cut the chatter!" 15 seconds before drop, The Engine unslung it's rifle and armed it. Someone, possibly the commander was about to say something, possibly to reprimand him when the drop square switched green. The techs watched in awe as the troops surged forward, ang gaped even more so when a scout in A team almost made it to the wall. The Engine noticed none of this as the transit beam took them planet side, and right into the open jaws of hell. ********************************************************************** Authors notes: Well hope you like what I have so far. As I have stated any constructive critisism will be welcomed. Hope to have the next chapter out soon. Rabbit Reality is based solely on what the viewer percives it to be Q:how can you stand to eat one of gods creatures?! A:then why did he make them taste so damn good?