Based on the song "The Bitter End" by Placebo
Gooseman's point of view on the events in the episode "Supertroopers".
Set right after "Child in Time" (Gravestone's pov, depicted in "Supetroopers: The Plan", chapter 3.)
For details of the timeline I use, see my profile.
Author's note:
I assume for my universe that Wolf Den is located in central Western Australia.
Thanks to Robyn for beta-reading.
Disclaimer: 'The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers' is copyrighted by Hearst Entertainment, Inc.
This is a work of fanfiction, and I make no profit of it.
Since we're feeling so anesthetized
In our comfort zone
Reminds me of the second time
That I followed you home
When the adrenaline from the fight had ebbed and Wolf Den's attack systems had gone back into hibernation, he walked around his old training ground.
Mitigating the hot rays of the sun, a soft breeze was blowing over the salt lake surrounding the base.
How considerate of Killbane and the others to attack in winter! During the summer, the place would have been an oven.
He kicked a lone articulated joint, a remnant from one of the destroyed battle droids. It flew far over the platform's rim and disappeared beneath the glittering surface of the water.
He had thought not even Killbane would be stupid enough to risk releasing Batch-22.
The virus had been destroyed. Earth was safe again. Safe. The word tasted bitter.
He looked around. Negata and Walsh were taking care of clean-up. Wheiner had already departed. There was nothing left for him to do. He strolled over to the edge of the platform. There was no railing. If you were stupid or slow enough to fall into the lake, it was your own problem. He had been able to swim to the shore that was about five kilometers away when he was eight. He plopped down on the concrete ground and watched the endless movement of the waves. Somehow Wolf Den was home, and somehow it wasn't.
We're running out of alibis
From the second of May
Reminds me of the summer time
On this winter's day
The sun was hot on his face. He would have to use his biodefenses if he got sunburned.
He felt – empty. His priorities had been to make sure Batch-22 was neutralized and then to protect the humans present. Even though the renegade Supertroopers had been more intent on getting revenge against Negata and Walsh than against him, he had no doubt that the others would not hesitate to try and kill him when they met again.
He had battled Killbane two times before, yet never had it been so impersonal. The lines were drawn. There was nothing left to say.
He had never gotten along with Shimmerer, Gravestone or Brainchild, but when had rivalry turned into hatred?
When he stunned the raging Supertroopers who had been exposed to X-factor or long before that?
When he learned not to beat Killbane with his own weapons but to outsmart him; when he managed to divert enough of his energy to block out Shimmerer completely; when he actually stood his ground against Gravestone in a direct confrontation even if he lost at first; when he started questioning Brainchild's battle plans that would assure victory but not survival?
When Jackhammer called him on his refusal to follow a plan of Killbane's that was more than likely to get half of their team killed and he simply enacted his own maneuver that minimized casualties?
When Stingray decided he should be the only one who talked to Darkstar privately, and he failed to confront him about it because it would have been one more fight for which he could not spare the attention?
See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end
The flash of an object in the sky, an interceptor taking off into space, caught his attention momentarily. It seemed the commander of the Space Navy squadron, who had come down to discuss tactics on pursuing the escaped Supertroopers with Walsh, was leaving. He glanced around himself and saw Walsh walk into the administration building. Presumably the commander was headed for his old office to coordinate their next steps with the Space Navy and the BWL. It appeared that clean-up was finished.
With nothing left to distract him, he wondered if humanity would ever learn not to build weapons that it could not control. Probably not. The Supertroopers were living proof of it.
And he could not hold back against them anymore.
They were traitors.
Ordinary crime to stay alive was one thing. Even for doing business with the Crown, the renegades could be let off. As much as he believed that everyone who helped the Queen fill her psychocrypt should end up there, if Earth were to be strict on the matter of no Crown dealings, they would have to ditch the majority of their informants. But threatening to release Batch-22, a virus that could annihilate up to eighty percent of Earth's population – he could not comprehend how the survivors of X-factor could wish a similar experience onto billions of innocents.
Every step we take that's synchronized
Every broken bone
Reminds me of the second time
That I followed you home
Surge, Turquoise, Armor – their minds had been gone, and they were little more than automated killing machines when he brought them in. But Killbane, Shimmerer, Brainchild, Jackhammer, Gravestone – they had a choice in what they did.
They were the children of Wolf Den. It taught them how to survive and how to kill.
But it also taught him to value his teammates' lives, to assemble and disassemble an engine, to question every move everyone made and then to act before them. Strangely, it was the combat training that showed him that life was more than survival. If you went to the boundaries of your capabilities and beyond, you needed a reason to pull through other than you had been ordered to do it.
A Trooper who lost too many challenges was downgraded to a different level. There were three categories: officer candidate, specialist, soldier. Some who were demoted fought their way back up to their previous position, but most lost the will to survive and died.
There were some he saw break, and many whom he saw come close. He did not want to watch, thus he interfered and tried to shield them. Not that it won him any friends. Troopers needed to be self-sufficient.
To need help was seen as a weakness. He understood the concept soon enough. It took him a little longer to accept it.
He suffered more than a few broken bones, but with his bio-defenses, simple fractures healed within a day or two; complicated fractures usually took a little longer.
He learned to disregard the pain. Physical pain was far easier to bear than the endless derisive remarks if Darkstar or Jackhammer, or even Shimmerer or Stingray, needed to step in for him.
He became skilled at various fighting techniques far earlier than anyone else at Wolf Den because he had to. Kiwi fighters often wondered how he did so well foreseeing their moves in hand-to-hand combat; the truth was, for the longest part of his training he had been like a Kiwi to a Rhinotide in terms of size and strength. It didn't stop him. He learned to dodge, and he learned to be smarter and to strike fast.
Strangely, he got along with Troopers from other units far better than with those from his own. Except for Darkstar.
You shower me with lullabies
As you're walking away
Reminds me that it's killing time
On this fateful day
He wondered why Stingray and Darkstar had not been part of the attack team – had they not been invited, or had they deliberately decided against the mission?
Had Darkstar decided against it?
Back at Wolf Den, she tried to keep the team together in all their rivalries, tried to make people solve their conflicts through words instead of gashes and broken ribs. Even if she never questioned the training, she too understood that life was more than fighting. In a world of constant aggression, she showed compassion and gentleness, a luxury for which she paid dearly, yet she never stopped.
He missed her with an ache he could not describe.
Niko and Doc, even Zachary, tried to be there as friends for him, but they simply did not understand what it meant to be trained as a living weapon, kept in good condition but ultimately expendable. They did not know what it meant if everything that you thought was good and true crumbled beneath you, and all you could do was cling to your ideals and hope you would be able to rebuild them in a different place.
See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end
See you at the bitter end
He believed in justice. He believed in law and order. Every time he handcuffed a criminal, he hoped the universe would be a better place even if only for a short while.
But what type of justice was there for those who repaid wrong with wrong?
Somehow he still hoped they wouldn't need to fight.
Every time we're intercepted
Feels a lot like suicide...
Slow and sad, grown inside us
Arouse and see you're mine
It might be best if he never saw Darkstar again.
Even if she did nothing more than steal a credit card, falsify an identity, and drive without a proper license, the mere fact that she was a Supertrooper who had run made her a prime candidate for the cryocrypt.
He could only ignore her and Stingray if they lay low; if Darkstar could calm her partner enough that he did not blast everything around him to pieces, or if she left him…
The many 'if's were starting to give him a headache.
See you at the bitter end
His comm unit beeped. He had forgotten to turn it off. Walsh's face appeared.
"Gooseman, report to my old office."
It seemed duty was calling again. He walked over the deserted training ground to the administration building, through grey corridors and up the concrete stairs to the room where Walsh was waiting for him. He wondered what had come up. Another mission, a shoot-out with the Blackhole Gang or even another tussle with Bovo cattle, would take his mind off things nicely.
Upon entry into the sparsely furnished, austere room, he noticed that Walsh looked even more rigid than usual.
"Gooseman, prepare for a 317 mission to Nebraska, yellow alert. You have to be ready for departure at an hour's notice. There have been reports that indicate Stingray and Darkstar are hiding on the planet."
The weight on his chest clamped down.
Love has seen your run-around
Who wanna seek you now?
I want a peace
I'd whine out
See you at the bitter end
"Nebraska's a pretty big planet," he replied when Walsh did not press on with mission details.
After their last confrontation on Mars, he had searched for Stingray and Darkstar time after time and never found a trace.
"Then you're going to search it in widening circles if you have to," Walsh barked.
He would have laughed at that suggestion if not for the dead serious expression on the commander's face.
The respite was over. He would have to go after them.
Love's reached his side
Grab this gentleness inside
Heard a cry
Six feet down
In six weeks' time
The mess you left
Will end
See you at the bitter end
As he was preparing for the mission, a request for assistance by Sheriff Bob Ladd of Frontier reached them. He reported a conflict with a local cattle breeder, who had apparently hired an off-worlder who could start fires with his eyes…