(Jokers Wild, Set 1, Side Story 1: Those Whom Chance Plays With)
This is a side story I derived from something that simply sprang to mind in Chapter 9 of the main Jokers Wild story. The day of the cookout for the Three Ships was supposed to be a longer, more leisurely day than I made fit to show. In particular, it was a stand-down day for the Mjolnr, where only the minimum guard was to be on duty to keep peace for the ship, the rest of the crew was free to roam. This is the result of that plan: a more comprehensive showing of how well Magi personnel can screw around when off the clock, and the main character of this one, Clotho, is no exception.
Note: this is well beyond normal for me. The ending is going to be nowhere near usual for me, either. This whole fic is going to be very unusual, and not in a kid-friendly way. It is also going to not include much in the way of organized battle, either, so...
Story Info:
OC WARNING: Same as in the Jokers Wild main arc, this story will include some OC-centric parts, and not in the typical fashion. Of course the main characters and a lot of the secondary and side characters of SEED and SEED Astray will show up. You have been warned.
BAAAAAD LANGUAGE WARNING: This story revolves around a fleet of misfits and jokers. Expect foul language; they are Navy and Marines, after all. Also expect possible suggestiveness, crazy situations, interpretiveness, analysis, and lots and lots of violence. You have been warned.
ALCOHOL WARNING: There will be more than a few drinks had in this one. More than a few.
ANTI-POLITICAL-CORRECTNESS WARNING: To strive to be politically correct serves no purpose, for real life makes no such distinction. I will not do so. Death before dishonor. End of story. Please don't ask me to explain this one.
This story will be in two-shot story format.
And thus, onto the story from another corner of Existence...
(Side Story of the Jokers Wild: Those Whom Chance Plays With)
(0630 UTC)
"Hey, you must be one of those Druggies," the Marine Training Officer in the room says as Clotho walks in.
"Druggies?" Clotho asks in response. "Oh, you mean that Gamma-what-the-fuck-ever shit the Earth Alliance was feeding me?"
"Yeah, I heard about that shit. Word is the three 'scientists' that were controlling you are up on the chopping block, execution, for it."
"Wow, so long as I get to kill the tall one, I'm up for that," Clotho replies with a hint of savagery to voice. "Hey, you have any opens?"
"Only on the field holosim range," the Rangemaster declares. "All the live-fire range is taken up, and they're using high-cal stuff so we can't have unarmored personnel in there." The sound of a 120mm Short-charge infantry autocannon, despite being loaded with practice rounds, was still insanely loud even through the armored bulkheads.
"Works for me," Clotho replies. "Where to?"
"Head through lock four, the Range Instructor will get you set up."
"Aye, sir," Clotho walks through the said lock into the holosim range room.
"Morning, pilot, what can I do for you?" the Range Officer asks as Clotho closes the lock behind him.
"Oh, give me a small arms battery for starters, typical ranges, and crank the difficulty up slowly," Clotho asks.
"All right, plug your codex in the register block and get to it."
The room was arrayed similar to the old United States Army's 'Nintendo Rooms' which were a projector screen that showed a target field the soldiers shot at with pneumatic weapons. Here, the principle was the same, but the technology was slightly different. Rather than just a projected shooting field, the illusion of depth was given by way of holosim projections. The weapons used were the same weapons that the Infantry used, but had their firing mechanisms replaced with an electromagnetic recoil system that did not tie the user to a single location. Magazines were fed in and out of the weapon as normal to force simulation of using real ammunition, to which Clotho had picked up a web harness from the wall with the normal allotment of magazines for someone armed in the ship and not armored in Marine Armor (Marines carried a lot more ammo than a normal person could ever carry).
Clotho picked up the typical M4 carbine assault rifle, loaded a magazine and dropped the bolt closed on it. It was the work of a few seconds to get the sling situated to where he could carry easily, but nothing he had not practiced a few times since becoming one of the Magi. He also added on the typical dual leg tactical holsters, a pistol in the right holster and five magazines for it in the left holster (1).
"Ready to go, pilot?"
"Yes, sir," Clotho replies as he sets up a M249 SAW on the ground in bipod configuration to use if the enemy got too numerous. Knowing the almost sadistic training practices of Magi, the amount of targets Clotho would have to deal with as the match continued would steadily increase until he reached the point of impossible odds—then it was only a matter of time before he was singled out and swatted like a fly. If there was one thing about the soldiers represented in this Sim that he had always heard (Negaverse soldiers), they were not pussies. They would eventually take him down.
As he shouldered the M4 and took stance as he learned in the Wyoming Extended Training Facility, the enemies began showing up in the distance. Unlike normal arcade-style shooters and the old United States Army system this was derived from, Clotho had the option of moving around to take cover behind other simulated obstacles; the tree he was nearby came to be his home temporarily before he realized the tree was solid physically, not just light. "Whoa, what did you—how did you—ah?"
"Nanos, we use them to simulate physical matter if it moves slow," the instructor says. "Now, are you going to deal with them, or wait until they run up and bayonet your arse?"
"Oh," Clotho groans, then brings his M4 up and braces against the 'tree'. His first shots were a bit off, since he was used to the bullet drop of the Earth Alliance rifles, but it did not take him long to get on target for the first kill of his training round. True to the simulation model, the Negaverse unarmored infantry were not the best at aim, and the simulations of rounds hitting the tree he was behind were less than frequent, meaning they were rattling off a lot of rounds that had no hope of hitting him. Yet, at least. As the number increases, so do the odds...
The hall echoed to the sound of his gunfire and the sound of rounds whizzing through the air, a realism effect that Clotho was surprised he initially took for granted until it practically distracted him. He had to force himself back on target, not a simple task at just enjoying the quality of the sim, until he realized he was out of ammo. He dropped out his magazine and replaced it with a new one, drew the charge handle back, and released it to slam forward and theoretically load a round. With that done, Clotho was back on target and firing short bursts quite effectively that were wounding or killing enemy troopers at ranges beyond 300 meters, though it only took him a matter of seconds to empty his magazine and be forced to reload again.
Some other persons entered while Clotho was loading in his fourth magazine of the day, though he ignored them for focusing on his form and making sure he did not screw up his loading and firing procedure. The enemy had grown thick in numbers, more than he realized he was initially going to fight at one time, so he let his M4 hang and picked up the M249, a light machine gun more adept at 'crowd control' and simply went at it. With short, fast bursts he was able to thin out a whole squad of the theoretical platoon that had come looking for him, though the frequency of rounds getting close to him was increasing steadily and he figured it only a matter of time before he was toast.
It was the sound that first caused him to realize he wasn't alone any more. The louder, much more malevolent bark of a M2 heavy crew-served machine gun caused him to glance at the users—a pair of the Astray pilots from the Kusanagi. The first of their trio—Asagi, Juri, Mayura, Clotho knew of their exploits—was prone on the ground on the other side of the range, bracing against a simulated rock. And so far they were doing reasonably well with the M2, but not as well as Clotho was doing with the M249.
"Load me!" the M2 Gunner half-shouts over the increasing sounds of battle as she picks up a Javelin 5-B-6 and shoulders the monster weapon to sight through the targeting apparatus. A single Javelin was not a 100 percent threat to armor, but one could easily cause a serious amount of damage to lighter tanks, of which one was approaching and providing covering fire for the advancing infantry. The distinctive dual crack of first the missile being ejected from the Javelin tube was quickly followed by the crack and roar of the missile's engine taking off, and Clotho traced the missile in sim visually as it arced up and then down on top of the turret of the enemy hovertank, which then spectacularly shredded apart from a lucky ammo bunker hit.
"Deuce up! Go for it Mayura!" She had ejected the Javelin tube from the controller targeting unit, setting both aside and resuming the heavy MG and began cutting down the exposed infantry that thought the advance of one pathetic hovertank was going to give them a clear march at the enemy. Clotho joined in with gusto himself, at least until his ammo ran out for the M249 and he set it aside for the M4 again. His ammo for that did not last long, though, as he only had two mags left when he set down the M249, so he grabbed up the light machine gun by the handle and carried it back to the supply desk, where the attendant had a set of new mags ready for him for the M4 as well as three boxes of the M249 ammo and a LAWS rocket. Quickly he reloaded on the spot, which turned out to be not-so-quick at over twenty seconds to get both weps in battery, then headed back to his firing spot.
By the time he got back there, though, he knew it was over. The most damned-big tank he had ever seen had rolled onto screen, stopped, and a column of Infantry had formed up behind it. From where Clotho was standing, he could see the infantry, but the tank was the bigger worry since some of them carried special Autocannons that fired like a shotgun—and this could have been one. He set down the M249 temporarily and hefted one of the LAWS rockets to his shoulder.
"Damn, they're using that tank for cover! Asagi, head right and try to get some of those infantry before they crawl all over us!" Asagi shouts over the increasing roar of enemy fire incoming.
"Right!" the prone of the three had jumped up and began running toward the right, intending on going 20 meters in that direction, but was stopped by her hand buzzer going off and lighting up red.
"Asagi Caldwell down!" the administrator shouts.
"Special attack, punks!" Clotho fires off the LAWS rocket and immediately drops the tube aside to heft the second; he did not watch the rocket impact, but the sound of the blast was answer enough. He had the second rocket on target as Asagi was just reassembling the Javelin with a fresh missile tube to use before Clotho stopped, stunned: he was looking down the barrel of a large autocannon now, and it was a very large tank. Easily half larger than the Linear Tank.
They all had a few moments to watch the simulated autocannon fire and the tank recoil back before all three of their hand buzzers lit red and declared audibly they were dead with a loud buzzing noise.
"That's that, kiddies," the Administrator says; the three look back to the lady who was leaning against the corner of her desk. "The one thing you got wrong was you should have engaged the Von Luckner IIN right off the bat and hammered on it with LAWS and Javelins. A lucky critical hit could have stopped it, not out of pure damage, but the principle holds. Your shooting was dead on, though, you have special forces training?"
"Sort of," Juri replies. "A lot of time on the rifle ranges, that's all."
"I am spec forces trained," Clotho declares. "Not that Earth Alliance spec forces could hold jack or shit against Magi Marines, though," he notes begrudgingly.
"Well, for what it is worth, Clotho Bauer has the lead on taking down enemy infantry, where Mayura Labatt has the unit highest score due to taking down that Aeon Light Hovertank at twice its effective range. There again, luck was the determining factor; normally it would take three or four Javelin hits to take one down on damage alone, and then it can still be a threat."
"How effective can these things be against Earth Alliance Linear Tanks?" Juri asks, pointing to the Javelin.
"Yeah, or how about a Mobile Suit?" Asagi asks immediately thereafter.
"Linear Tanks don't have much in the way of armor, so one or two would disable them or kill the crew. Mobile Suits are a different story, they tend to have heavier armor spread all over, which makes taking them down for even armored infantry a dicey proposition. Can't say more than that, sorry."
"Well, that was freaking nuts," Clotho says. "At least I can still shoot."
He would not admit it, but the fact that Mayura beat him on score was grating on him in a less than pleasant way.
-x-x-x-
(1010 UTC)
"If I'm not riding the edge, I'm not happy," Clotho replies to a question on how much he was turning his chips in at any given time for raw C-bills, or at least credit to his account. Hard C-bills was something rare to come by on the ship, but credit transfers from one account to another were not significantly difficult. On the other hand, Clotho liked the thrill of playing a game pretty much 'instant death' faceoff, which engendered such actions as constantly turning in his winnings.
"You say so, kid," the dealer replies.
"I'm out," an Aerofighter pilot groans, having been cleaned out by an Engine Mechanic and the eponymous Clotho.
"And who's our next victim?" Clotho asks after a few moments.
"Hey, any objections to an Orb pilot joining in?"
"No, miss, so long as you have the typical entry fee," the Dealer asks while Clotho was trying to convince the waitress to fetch him another martini. He was not succeeding in coaxing another drink out of her, but that did not stop him from trying.
"Can do," the scrape of a chair leg drew Clotho's attention back to the table, and to the new player. "Oh, you," she says as she realizes who she was looking at.
"You," Clotho replies, somewhat surprised to see Mayura on the other side of the table now.
"You try again at the range sim?"
"No, that one tank taking us down was enough demoralize for one day." Not to mention the fact that you outscored me by trashing that hover tank, Clotho thinks but does not say.
"Big, wedge-shaped turret, main autocannon and coaxial laser with a LRM pack in its own pintle mount? Twice larger than a Linear Tank?" the dealer asks.
"Yeah, sounds about right. I think the controller called it a Von-Von-Von-Something, I don't freaking remember," Clotho dismisses the matter.
"Von Luckner IIN, some seriously heavy metal. Often called a heavy Battlemech on treads. Capable of tearing apart smaller Mobile Suits in less than five seconds, no questions asked. Negaverse version, the II-N variant, is cheaper and comes in only one configuration, but it will still stomp a medium 'Mech or most Mobile Suits flat in seconds. If there was less than a dozen of you fighting it, you were pretty much toast," coming from a blooded Star Colonel of Mobile Suits, the Gundam pilot heeded his words well. Clotho figured Raider would turn one into a 75-ton pile of scrap fast enough, but he had to remind himself that all six of the Star Empires had energy-resistant armor technologies that would make the Earth Alliance drool. A Quick kill in such a battle would be practically nonexistent, but a 'fast enough' kill could be done.
"Ready to go?" the dealer asks Mayura, who nods. The players each drop in a series two C-bill chips to start the pot; the cards were dealt as normal, five-card draw was the game so each player received five cards. Clotho checked his cards and found himself off to a good start with a pair of fours. The other players gave none of their usual indications that they were well off, though the Aerofighter Tech two seats to Clotho's left was looking a bit shaky...
"Call?"
"Call," the Aerofighter tech declares.
"Call," the Engine tech says.
"Call," Clotho adds after a moment.
"Call," the Star Colonel to Clotho's right says.
"Call," Mayura finishes up after a moment.
"Declare draws," the dealer (a Mobile Armor pilot when on duty) orders.
"Two," the Aerofighter tech requests.
"Four," the Engine Tech asks for, and four she received.
"Three," Clotho requests. His next few moments were spent rearranging his cards, to which he found that he now had a pair of sixes to go along with his pair of fours.
"Call?" the dealer asks again.
"Call," the Aerofighter Tech answers.
"Call," the Engine Tech replies.
"Oh, I think I'll drop ten," Clotho says offhand.
"In," the Star Colonel replies as he tosses in the requisite amount.
"In," Mayura offers up her 10 c-bills worth of poker chip.
"Out," the Aerofighter Tech drops his cards.
"Out," the Engine Tech was a little more dramatic about surrendering, his cards ended up sliding into the center of the table nearby the chips.
"Call," Clotho prompts. Despite riding the edge, he was not going to push his luck on raises on two pair.
"Call," the Star Colonel declares in response.
"Call," Mayura says.
"Two pair," Clotho drops his cards face up, showing the sixes and fours with a queen high.
"Fuck, there was that other Queen I needed," the Star Colonel had in his possession a pair of queens and that was it.
"Nothing on him," Mayura had only a pair of sevens, definitely nothing to challenge Clotho.
"How do you want it, Gundam pilot?" the dealer asks, knowing that Clotho never held onto his whole pot.
"Ten I shall hold, the rest in," Clotho requests, which made him thirty C-bills richer since what he banked he would not touch in this game.
"Can do," two of the five-point chips came his way, the remainder went back into dealer hands and were immediately credited to his salary account. "Next hand," he calls Everyone throws their starting chips in, two C-bills worth each as the table rules required.
"Call," the Engine Mechanic says when he gets a good look at his cards.
"Call," Clotho replies a moment later.
"Bet 5," the Star Colonel drops said chip in.
"Raise fifteen," and Mayura drops twenty in the pile. Clotho noticed a twitch on her left cheek, which he thought might be a sign she was pushing something here...
"Out, way the hell out," the Aerofighter Tech declares.
"No go," the Engine Tech adds.
"I'll take that bet," Clotho dumps in his twenty, which nicked almost half of his chips on hand.
"Too rich for me," the Star Colonel sets his cards down on the table.
"Cards?" the dealer requests next.
"Four," Clotho requests. The four he received matched what he was hoping: in addition to the ace he held, he now had another ace and a pair of eights, giving him two pair, or, unbeknownst to the Raider pilot, a 'Dead Man's Hand'.
"Two," Mayura requests immediately thereafter, and receives her pair.
"Call time, pilots," the dealer orders.
"Bet of ten," Clotho declares as he drops in another ten c-bills worth.
"How about I raise you to your whole on-hand stack," Mayura replies with something of an evil smile, pushing a stack of chips just above his total on hand into the pot.
Clotho chuckles grimly; he knew he had her bluff and would call her on it just for the kick, not to mention whooping her in a one-on-one as this had become. "Hope it's worth it," Clotho half-taunts her as he pushes the rest of his stack in.
"Any raise?" Mayura nods neg to settle the betting. "Show 'em," the dealer concludes.
"Here's your challenge," Clotho says, setting his hand on the table.
"Aces and Eights, a classic Dead Man's Hand," the dealer notes. "Your counter?"
"Finishing—" Mayura sets the cards down in a stack; "—move," and draws the last word out a moment more as she uses one finger to spread her cards. Three queens, heart, diamond and spade.
Clotho deflates visibly in his chair, realizing she had defeated him twice already and this one included using his own favorite game saying against him.
"Game over, man, game over," he grumbles to the surface of the table.
"You all right?" the Star Colonel asks.
"I'll live," Clotho says as he straightens up. "Guess I'll have to continue another time. Have a good afternoon, all," he says in a gratingly civil fashion, which everyone at the table could tell was his way of keeping from blowing up over whatever matter had upset him.
Most of the patrons were rather phlegmatic about it, but all wondered why he was so frustrated.
-x-x-x-
(1245 hours UTC, Club 300)
"Hey, you're that Gundam Pilot, aren't you? Clotho, from the Dominion, right?"
Clotho turned around slightly to look at the speaker, though he was less than surprised to see the trio of Astray pilots that seemed to be haunting him today. In so doing he came extremely close to slipping off the stationary barstool he was sitting on in the Club 300, but he managed to retain his balance.
"Am so," he replies in a slightly loaded fashion. "You three must be the infamous Astray Girls from the Kusanagi, I'm guessing," he replies with what he hoped was dignity.
"C'mon, let's get a table, we'd like to talk to you," Clotho could barely tell which one of them had said it (he thought it was the blonde in their ranks) but did not complain. Nor did he have much of a choice in the matter; Mayura and Asagi 'escorted' him from his barstool to the table they had in mind, a corner booth, as Juri remained behind to place an order of drinks for the four.
Clotho found himself rather adroitly trapped by Mayura on one side, Asagi on the other, and Juri reinforcing Asagi shortly thereafter. "Uhh, if this is about my Honda payment, I swear I'll pay it off after the Magi beat ZAFT and the Earth Alliance senseless, I swear it," Clotho offers as an opening position.
"Good," Juri replies, playing along with his joke. "While we're at it, I heard a strange rumor about the Magi. Did you know that the name Magi is supposedly shorthand for Multimage?"
"No, it ain't, it's an old insult the Illyaris coined to mean 'Wise asses' instead of 'wise men', but it stuck when the New Moon Empire started using it in meaning of 'wise men'. Used long enough that even the Magi call themselves Magi more than they call themselves Multimages...I hope I got that right," Clotho declares.
"But they really do call themselves Multimages, right?"
"Sometimes," Clotho tells them with a bit of a speech impediment.
"Why that name? Kinda bizarre for such a great Empire and all that," Asagi comments offhand, sipping her beer cautiously.
"Old, old principle," Clotho replies. "It was the name of the First Emperor's profession. He was a completely farked dude, kicked out of his homeland on one planet in one dimension because he was too good for the army there, learned spellcraft from the Valkyrie of old Norse legend, trained his family in those spells, and was kicked off-planet to another dimension for being too good once again. Push came to shove, found himself embroiled in a revolution on his new homeworld, ended up a General in the new government after leading the revolution to victory, then through some shit I don't understand became the Emperor of the planet...and thereafter more planets, then more planets, and soon he was a real Emperor of a really farked up Empire that built this ship. Make sense?" Of course, in his drunken state he was grossly oversimplifying details left, right and center, but he got the gist of it correct.
There was a pause of about thirty seconds, as he looked from one to the next several times. "Something up?" Clotho asks after realizing that they had not only drank all their beers dry, they were staring at him like he just shouted there was a purple-striped elephant in the room.
"That is batshit crazy," Mayura declares. "I mean, who really believes that magic is real?"
"Hey, I am simply telling you how they explained the founding of the Empire to me. Another thing, the Remembrance of the Emperor includes a lot of magic reference, just what I have read so far. It may be real, who the fuck knows what is real when you get down to it? By our own definition of real, this ship should not exist!"
"Whoa, man, whoa!" Asagi cautions; Juri went to the bar to get more drinks for everyone, likely out of desperation over the absolutely batshit logic involved. "Don't get defensive, man! Some of us think you aren't lying."
"Funny way of showing it," Clotho declares. "Oh, what did'ja get me this time?" he asks as Juri sets a pilsner glass in front of him with a red drink in it.
"Sweet Tart. Combination of vodka, grenadine, and sweet 'n' sour." Juri had also grabbed herself the same, but beers for Mayura and Asagi.
"Never heard of it," Clotho declares. "Well, game on!" he slugs the large and likely potent drink, but does not down the whole thing at once. "So, what else is eating you three?"
Asagi groans at his extremely tactless phrasing, being the least-drunk of the four at the table she had the best 'judgment' of them all and immediately concluded that he was being a pervert when he was not. Mayura dismissed it to him being buzzed at the least, not thinking that
"Well, if Magi society does have Mages, then why aren't there any on this ship?" Juri asks, overlooking or ignoring his play on words.
"Yeah, this would be as good a place as any to have 'em," and Asagi was beginning to sound hosed as well.
"Fucked by the Game-Masters," Clotho replies immediately; it was one of the first things he learned about the ship was how badly screwed the ship was by the Admiralty Review. "The Division of forces that this ship belongs to, the Magi Techstrikers, has an obscure political jerkoff branch called the Admiralty Review and Assignment Board. Incompetent fucks. They did their damndest to kill this ship off, not enough crew, not enough escorts, not enough supplies, and no Strategic Mage as it is supposed to have. If the ship had a Strategic Mage, none of this shit would have happened, I'd still be Earth Alliance and you'd still be in the Kusanagi because nobody would have ever met the Mjolnr, they'd be home already and whopping major portions of ass."
"Whoa, so you're saying that a Strategic Mage could do the same thing this ship can, jump between dimensions?" Juri asks.
"Yeah, something like that," Clotho says. "I don't know what all badassness a Strategic Mage is good for, but I know they badass based on their pay-grade."
"Huh?" Mayura prompts.
"The more ass you kick, the higher your pay-grade in the Magi. I'm a Veteran Gundam Pilot, so I get fifteen thousand C-bills a year, which comes out to somewhere between forty-five and sixty thousand Earth Dollars a year."
"No freaking way!" Mayura half-shouts. "You get paid that much? How can the Magi do that?"
"I never asked," Clotho admits. "My beer math may be off, though; you could ask Oruga, he has all the figures figured. Or something like that."
"Right," Juri grumbles, realizing either she was grossly underpaid or the Magi personnel were seriously overpaid, or possibly both. Fifty Thousand a year to drive a Gundam and Clotho was only a Veteran? There were still two grade of pay over him if she remembered her briefing on Magi ranks and ratings correctly, not to mention officer's ranks probably also made more (she was not willing to put the honorific 'earned' to their pay system yet, unless they really were worth that kind of pay-grade).
"Thanks, Clotho, you helped us quite a bit," Mayura drops a twenty in front of him to cover the drinks. "Here, this'll pay for the drinks, keep the change. Talk to you later," and before Clotho could say a word the three pilots were headed toward the door.
"Holy shit," Clotho grumbles.
"Feeling all right?" Clotho takes a moment to focus in on the asking individual, then realizes it was his titular commanding officer, Gerald Lightbringer.
"Yeah, sir, except, I don't have a freaking clue what game I was just playing, but I know I lost big-time," Clotho replies blearily.
"Plied you with a load of booze and pumped you for information," Gerald says as he takes a seat. "No big deal, they did not ask about anything even sensitive, it's all there in the paperwork if they weren't freaking lazy and did their homework. Can you stand?"
"I can, sir, if I was not at this cramped-ass booth," he replies stoically. "Am I...in trouble or something?"
"Oh no, quite the opposite. You have an invite to lunch at the Sniper Bar and Grill, and I figured you'd want the chance to try and at least out-eat or out-drink those three for some form of victory today. Not that you have not already done so, but best I give you a chance for some serious street credit." Gerald stands up and prepares to move away, but stops. He dropped a blister-pack of pills in front of Clotho. "Nanos to clean the alcohol out of your system. Take two, thirty minutes you should be good. Out of your system in an hour. Doesn't get much better than that."
Clotho eyed the pack of pills, then took them without much in the way of hesitation.
-x-x-x-
(1345 hours UTC, Sniper Bar and Grill)
"Hey, you're here?" Clotho glances to the speaker, Juri, but that was it. "Oh, don't tell me you're angry at us," she asks while sitting down. Asagi and Mayura were quick to join them, since this was their table as per the cards with their names on them. Gerald had arranged it so, as well as putting Oruga and Shani elsewhere, with some of the other Astray pilots, to help people get to know each other better.
"Fine, I won't tell you," Clotho replies. "I owe you for the drinks earlier, so I took the liberty of ordering you each an Apple-Tini each. And next time you guys want info like that, do the homework. It's all there in the manual, if or when you look for it."
"And how are you...well, you were hosed an hour and a half ago, how did you—" Mayura was silenced by the arrival of the waiter with menus and the Apple-Tini drinks.
"Technology and magic, Mayura. One or the other is good, combine the two and you can push the horizons of reality way back." Not to mention that the Magi enjoy a good beer or three every now and again, Clotho thinks with a grim chuckle behind a passive mien. "Unfortunately, all we have right now is technology, but I think the cook can work wonders with just about any cut of beef you give him. And then there's that whole thing I told you about, y'know, no wizards on this ship, damn pity that is. I wouldn't mind learning that skill myself. Now, mind telling me who put you up to that?"
"If you're buying the drinks this time, I think I owe it to you," Juri replies. "Erica Simmons heard it from one of the Engine Mechanics, she wanted us to get it from an officer, but we figured you might know, so..."
"How are your drinks, sir, madame?" the waiter asks as he stops at their table.
"Excellent, though if you would, please pass onto the bartender that I would like a large pitcher of Special Recipe Mudslide whipped up, a little heavier on the Kahlua than normal."
"Can do, pilot," the Waiter replies.
"And one other thing. This table's drinks don't get charged back to the Century Commander, clear? I owe them a bit of a debt, so I'll cover it."
"Will do," he replies before headed off for the bar.
"Am I going to regret this?" Mayura asks completely straight.
Yes, Clotho thinks but does not say. "Nah, this is a house specialty. It's just like a chocolate milkshake with a buzz-kick to it. Makes a Sweet Tart look small and pathetic. Very good stuff, I even heard where it came from but I can't remember right now. Interesting story, if I'm thinking about the right drink."
In the interim Gerald had stopped the activity to inform them why they were getting a free dinner and drinks, which from reactions given by the three Astray pilots was a nice way to show appreciation and solidarity with the underdogs. Moments afterward the waiter had come in with the pitcher and different glasses more suitable to a half-frozen half-liquid slurry.
"This...is a mudslide? I thought it was made with ice, not ice cream," Asagi asks.
"It's a special recipe our bartender picked up from a mercenary in our homeland. 'Crazy' Erich Hess, Command Fieldmarshall of Sigma, it's a family recipe he picked up from his parents. Ice cream replaces the usual ice in the mudslide recipe, mixed with Mudslide mix and Kahlua. Enough horsepower to knock some wussy Marines stiff, enough varied chocolate-style flavorings to bring to mind a chocolate milkshake with a hint of coffee, not enough high-power stuff to make it illegal or hazard of alcohol poisoning. Now, are you ready to place your orders?" he asks respectfully.
After the four placed their respective orders for dinner, Clotho served everyone a round of the Mudslide. Juri was the first to comment on it: "This is surprisingly good, if very high on the 'should not have' list."
"No fooling," Asagi replies between short, fast sips of hers.
"I could get used to a drink like this," Mayura replies. "Which means I'm not doing one of these again until after I'm thirty."
Clotho's first sip of the mixed milkshake made him wonder if the bartender put a few shots of vodka in it above and beyond the normal recipe, which he sometimes did at the request of Century Commander Lightbringer or some of the other more senior officers, with a corresponding batch price increase that wasn't even a dent in Magi salaries or sensibilities. The second sip made him wonder if it had been custom mixed without the normal mudslide mix, instead using chocolate and something stronger than vodka, but he dismissed it as being picky and on edge right now.
"What'll you do after the war is over?" Asagi asks about halfway through her first mudslide.
"I dunno yet, probably hang on with the Magi until they leave, but I don't think I am going home with them at the end of their time here. I'll stay here and beat the shit out of the Earth Alliance until they fold or I die, whichever comes sooner."
"You'll die first," Mayura replies almost coldly. "No offense, but getting rid of a government is no simple task. Took a lot of the Earth Alliance terrestrial forces to take out Orb, and I think the Magi could do better than our self-defense forces." She still wasn't willing to directly give them more credit than Orb until they proved it, just the possible that maybe, just maybe Magi claims about their skill were justified. And as far as she was concerned, it would take quite a lot to prove it.
"Thanks," Clotho replies almost sharply. "What're you three going to do?"
"If we survive, we're going to open our own engineering firm after we're through with our military enlistment and college. Labatt, Caldwell and Nien." Juri sounded very hopeful about the plan, even over her own caveat that they may not survive.
Clotho poured the three another round of Mudslide, then himself. A quick check on the pitcher showed enough for a third round and that was it.
"Whoa, this stuff has some serious power to it," Mayura echoes Clotho's earlier thought. "I think I need to slow down on it. But it's soooo good," she continues on; Clotho could tell he was winning this game, but not by much.
"Looks like Asagi beat you to it, Mayura," and Clotho was instantly reminded that she had had three beers, an Apple-Tini and a curiously powerful Mudslide, which explains why she was effectively out and only barely breathing.
"Lightweight," Mayura declares harshly. "Shame to waste good drinks on her."
"True," Juri replies. "Oh, our dinner is here!"
"I'm saved!" Mayura replies as she looks over the massive hamburger and fries. Clotho had ordered the same, Juri had a chicken caesar salad, and the unconscious Asagi had ordered grilled chicken breasts.
"Just the smell of these is amazing. Do they have a special academy for galley staff or something?" Asagi asks nobody in particular.
"I think they do," Clotho replies calmly.
"More than a few, actually," the waiter completes the answer. "The titular Sniper for the grill, the head chef, graduated with honors from the number three academy, and he was submitted to attend the top culinary academy for the military, but the shit with the Admiralty Review kept him from it until we landed here." Of which, the latter problem meant that there was no way he was going to do the best academy when he had come here and likely would not be leaving any time soon.
"Oh, that stinks," Mayura gripes. "Maybe he could do an academy or something on—no, that probably would not work, given what we'll probably have to do to the Earth Alliance soon enough."
Clotho could tell she was starting to have speaking problems, mostly in her redundancy of phrasing. Dinner seemed to revive everyone's gusto, to which Clotho ordered a series of PPC drinks—something very unusual and very much in tune with mobile warfare, as Clotho explained (3). Shortly, three Negaverse PPCs were delivered to the table, almost crimson drinks in a rocks glass that looked sinister but smelled great. "Uh, what's in this?"
"Four shots of base drink, weak stuff that I forget what they use, two shots grenadine, one shot grape wine and two shots grape pucker. The Negaverse First Army, the Dark Army as they called themselves, the 'mechwarriors always had one of these before they pitched their battles. Tough bastards."
"Really?" Mayura taunts him. "And you can handle this?"
"No guts, no galaxy," Without a second thought, Clotho chugged his whole drink in a matter of two gulps and slammed the glass down with an explosive release of breath. "Oh, man, my respect for those Negaverse bastards just went up two notches, if they can do that routinely," he gasps out between ragged breaths.
"Well, I'll have to agree with you on that one, no guts no galaxy." Moments later Mayura's glass hit the table.
Juri made the classic mistake of a PPC drinker: she did not slam it, she sipped. After four sips, her mouth went numb, making her a poster-case for tongue-tied by alcohol, though in the end she did manage to finish it off. And not thirty seconds later was unconscious from it.
"Damn, man, looks like it's just you and me," Mayura comments after seeing that Juri was now sleeping fairly soundly along with Asagi. "Hey, you still with me, crazy guy?"
"Yeah, sorta," he replies.
"I'm gone, man. It's embarrassing—embarassing to ask, but can you help me back to the Kusanagi?" A gagging sound from the command section table provided both a momentary distraction, as apparently Athrun Zala was having problems with his dinner for some reason, though a few well-timed smacks on the back from Kira cleared everything up.
"Yeah, sure, I guess," Clotho replies as he stands up. "Drop it on my tab, good sir, and I'll be in later tonight or tomorrow to pay up," he tells the waiter after standing.
"No worry, already deducted your payroll for it. Enjoy the evening, sir, ma'am." The waiter was immediately off to service another table, so as not to draw any untoward attention to them.
Clotho followed at a decent distance behind Mayura as per her request, though after they got out into the main corridor it became fairly obvious that Mayura couldn't even brace against the wall right. Without even getting a decent feel, he gave her a shoulder to brace against to continue the long-ass journey toward the Kusanagi's docking collar. After two hundred meters and three levels down from the central shaft, Clotho realized that she was out as well, and that in his toasted state he wasn't really able to carry her alone.
Clotho tried, tried mightily to get her to the Kusanagi, but in the end he hit the deck in a pile with Mayura on top. In so doing he landed angled outward toward the Dominion's dock collar.
Author's Chapter Afterword:
Even when piss-eyed drunk, Clotho does not like losing. At all. And will go out of his way to try to win, even if he has to change the game severely.
This one is a serious departure from my normal. I don't think I have ever considered something this politically incorrect for some time, much less that which I plan for the second half of it. No spoilers there, but I have only one thing to mention on that note: you can technically get away with not reading the second half of this story and not miss anything in terms of plot, but you will miss some entertainment value (if you find such actions entertaining). Again, no spoilers as to what will go on, but...
I figured that of the three Astray girls, the likely one for going head to head with the Dominion's resident gamer would have been Mayura, due to the fact that she is listed as a tomboy and leader. People like that do not surrender in the face of competition. Other than the Astray series, I have not seen much in the way of characterization of her, so if I fouled up somewhere, I would like to know.
Next up: Conclusion of the day's misadventures for Clotho and Mayura, fueled by a misunderstanding on a certain Marine's part...
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Footnotes:
(1): Despite the proliferation of infantry armor and body armor, the Magi still consider the pistol a serious weapon system, and is especially deadly in trained hands with the advent of stable explosive ammunition. The Magi have never signed the Hague convention, instead preferring to fight in a fashion that mirrors the enemy's capability and willingness to use weaponry or savagery. This will be better explained and illustrated in an upcoming chapter of the main arc.
(2): Javelin, Revision five, Block six. A Javelin Anti-tank missile rebuilt in the fifth revision arsenal standard, conforming to block six performance requirements (in this case, range of 22 kilometers and limited anti-countermeasure capabilities). Javelin, in any configuration, is designed to kill tank crews by way of shrapnel from the blast hole it puts into the interior of a tank. Against heavier Negaverse and Magi tanks, however, it is not always capable of penetrating the armor.
(3): A PPC is named after the Battlemech weapon that shoots charged direction ion bolts. Much like the namesake Battletech weapon, this is a hard-hitting drink that even the author has problems with.