I own nothing.
Prologue
"The universe must really hate me." muttered Jon as he made his way to his new commanding officers office. "Major Wright certainly does." he continued to himself, bitterly remembering his previous XO grinning evilly as he signed the transfer orders. What Sergeant Jon (Reaper) Forrester USMC didn't understand was "What exactly did I do to piss him off so thoroughly?" this last thought being spoken aloud just before arriving at his destination. "Better get this over with." he admitted to himself as he knocked sharply on the door.
"Stand by." came the order through the door. Jon complied, bringing himself to parade rest against the wall just outside the door.
"We can't do this sir. It goes against everything on my moral compass!" came a voice through the door.
'Shit, if I talked like that to a superior they'd drop my ass right out of force recon, maybe the Corps too,' Jon thought with a mental shiver. The Corps was his life, and he'd be damned if he'd let anything jeopardize his career. Even so he couldn't help but listen to the conversation going on in the CO's office.
"These orders came straight from the Secretary of Defense Jim," said a much calmer yet powerful voice "and if I'm going to follow those orders I need you on board with this. I can't do it without you."
"Thank you sir but even so I can't condone this kind of activity without telling the volunteers first, you need to let them in on..." said the first voice interrupted by the phone going off.
"Colonel Price," answered the calm voice that Jon now realized belonged to his new CO, meaning the other voice must belong to his executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hawke if he remembered his orders right. "Yes. Yes. Very well, carry on." Col. Price finished before hanging up. "That was the front desk Jim, it seems the knock on my door a few moments ago is our new Sergeant. We will continue this later, for now, ENTER!" this last word being shouted so it was clear it was directed at the patiently waiting Sergeant.
Wasting no time, Jon opened the door and marched briskly to a point three feet in front of the CO's desk. Coming to attention and rendering a crisp salute he barked out, "Sergeant Jonathan Forrester reporting as ordered sir!"
"At ease Sergeant," the Colonel said returning the salute "Orders?"
"Yes sir." responded Jon grabbing the manilla folder from the stack of paperwork situated in his left hand and giving it to the Colonel.
"I'll take that." stated the XO pointing at the service record that remained.
"Yes sir." the Sergeant repeated handing over the stack of papers.
"Tell me how it is you were selected for this assignment Sergeant." the CO said finding the transfer papers in order.
"My command informed us of a unit accepting volunteers for an extremely high risk assignment, I was one of a very short list of willing volunteers, ultimately I was selected because of my battle history." Jon answered, selling himself as much as possible while keeping the answer short. He wanted this assignment, if for nothing else than to not have to go back to the XO from hell.
"Battle history he says," exclaimed the XO incredulously, "If I had half as many medals as you do I'd be a General by now! Colonel, he's received the navy cross and two silver stars! how in the hell are you still a Sergeant, Forrester?"
"I think I can answer that Jim," interjected the Colonel reading through the transfer performance evaluations "Look at this. All of his evals show him as the next Napolean, with 5.0's across the board, except one. One eval shows him to be a 1.0 Marine and paints him as a blight on the Corps."
Jon knew which one that would be but decided to keep his mouth closed until he was asked for his input.
"What crack smoking jackass would give such an exemplary Marine a 1.0? What the the hell was he drinking?" fumed the Lt. Colonel. Despite his better judgement, Jon liked this XO.
"Look at the name Jim." stated the CO flatly, handing the eval to the XO.
Glancing down the paper quickly, the XO's eyes widened as they read the name at the bottom, "Oh dear God."
"So Sergeant, it seems you ran afoul of Major Wrong." said the Colonel with a grin.
Jon tried and failed to stop the snort of laughter from getting out at hearing the favorite name the grunts had for their least favorite officer.
"So what was it? Did you not polish his turds just right or perhaps you forgot to wash his parking spot." continued the CO.
"I don't know sir I heard he once drummed a Marine right out of the service for not saluting him from the other side of an airfield." the XO added with a smile.
"So what did you in Sergeant? And by the way you may consider yourself ordered to speak freely." stated the CO.
"I believe I can narrow it down to three things sir," began the Sergeant "First I'm not a christian, I pray to the old norse gods. Major Wright constantly accused me of devil worship, personally I think Thor or Odin would be offended at being compared to Satan. Second I'm a serious otaku. I have a large collection of anime, manga, and sci-fi novels, and Major Wright believes the only books I needed were a bible and an army field manual."
"What on earth is an otaku?" asked the XO.
"Its japanese sir," explained Jon "Its like nerd or comic book geek."
"Very well Sergeant, what's the third reason?" asked the CO.
"Probably the most likely reason the Major dislikes me is because during all the dangerous missions he sent me on, I always disobeyed his one constant order."
"which was?" prompted the CO.
"After every briefing he'd look at me and say 'Try to die this time would you? I'm sick of dealing with your sorry ass.'" Jon finished.
"That bastard's gonna wind up dead in a ditch, shot by his own troops, and no one's gonna care." said the XO.
"His loss is our gain Jim," said the Colonel with a now permanent smile on his face "He handed us the perfect candidate on a silver platter. Very open minded with a habit of not dying when any one else probably would. Tell me Sergeant what is your take on genetic modification?"
"I think the human race needs a good kick in the genetic pants sir, from a military standpoint it would mean a lot of good young men could put some serious boot to ass for their country. On a volunteer basis, of course, being fully warned of the risks ahead of time, seeing as artificial genetic modification could leave them disfigured or unable to reproduce."
"Thank you Sergeant for proving my point." said the XO.
"And if that were the case would you still be willing to volunteer for such an assignment Sergeant?" asked the Colonel, excitement written all over his face.
"Yes sir I would." stated the Sergeant with total conviction.
"Outstanding, Marine!" cried the XO with joy "You are exactly then type of man we need on this project."
"That settles that then," said a very pleased Colonel "You will report to this office tomorrow at 0900 hours to begin your inprocessing. And bear in mind everything that happens at this command is strictly top secret."
"Understood sir."
"Dismissed."
"Yes sir!" barked a very happy Marine as he took one step back and executed a sharp about face to walk out of the office.
"What the hell kind of command did I get myself into?" Jon asked himself aloud later in his quarters "Genetic modification? Really? If they start talking about power armor and bolters I might just scream 'For the Emperor!' just for kicks. Sure they might question my sanity but I'll at least get a laugh out of it. And besides," he smiled as he thought to him self "Who's to say becoming the first Space Marine is entirely out of the question?"
He had no idea.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The first thing that registered in Hibiki's mind was pain. The last thing he remembered was running through engineering to find his partner, followed by an explosion.
'That's right I have to get my partner!' Hibiki thought dully to himself forcing his complaining body to move. adjusting his arm so that he could rub his eyes clear, his hand came into contact with something soft, warm, and unfamiliar. Opening his eyes he immediately saw the strange object inches in front of his face. Grabbing hold to inspect it further it felt like a warm water balloon, firm yet soft, almost like flesh. "What the heck is this?" he asked aloud. Looking up he quickly realized what this fleshy bag was attached to as he gazed into the face of a monster. "Ahhh!" he screamed pushing the creature away "It's a monster!" As he tried to claw his way away from the thing he was stopped by a soft and strangely muffled voice.
"Hey, wait!"
"Huh?" he gasped turning towards the voice, watching as the arms came up and removed the environmental mask revealing a mess of red hair, with bright blue eyes set in a face that part of him had to admit was cute despite belonging to a female, the very creature he had been taught to fear for as long as he could remember.
"Wow, it's a real alien!" the girl exclaimed, clearly more excited about this than he was.
"W-what? Alien?" Hibiki managed to stutter out, unsure of what to make of the red head in front of him. Giggling, the girl proceeded to make a number of hand gestures at her new found "alien". Still unsure but seeing that he was in no immediate danger, Hibiki repeated the hand gestures back to the girl.
"I did it!" the girl squealed in delight "It worked. First contact!"
'Okay thats enough crazy for me' thought Hibiki chuckling nervously while backing away slowly before making a quick break for it, throwing a quick "See ya!" over his shoulder he leapt down from the conduit they were on and started running for all he was worth.
-5 minutes later-
"Sorry but I don't feel like having my guts eaten up by women today!" Hibiki panted before making a quick turn into a side room, Realizing too late it was a dead end. "Crap!" Hearing the crazy ufo lady coming through the doorway Hibiki jumped up on a computer terminal to get a height advantage over the woman. Jumping to the right and left trying to find a way around the girl neither of them saw the monitor coming to life with the words "Executing order 36YG9. Project SM standing by for authorization."
"Mr. Alien let's just sit down and have a little chat." the girl pleaded before lunging forward to grab her alien. Seeing his opportunity Hibiki launched himself over the girls head causing her to crash into the terminal.
"Women are scary!" he declared as he made tracks out of the room.
"Mr. Alien why are you running away?" the girl asked tearing after her quarry.
The room being empty once more, there was no one to notice the monitor flashing new words across the screen, "Authorization confirmed. Do you wish to continue? (Y/N)_"
-aboard the new section of the Tarak ship "Ikazuchi"-
"Sir, data is being transfered from the old section of the ship." reported one of the faceless techs aboard the bridge.
"Treacherous women. Fire the Muramasa space missile. Destroy the old section before the pirates capture it." ordered the Captain.
"Sir there are a number of life pods being jettisoned with multiple life forms aboard. We believe it's the pirates sending our men back to us, perhaps there is a peaceful way to settle this." said the second in command.
"Fire the missile." repeated the Captain in a voice devoid of emotion.
"Yes sir."
-aboard the old section of the Tarak ship "Ikazuchi"-
"Oh my, there's a missile heading right for us!" cried Ezra
"What?" shouted BC in alarm "Parfait can we move this ship?"
"Afraid not, the engines are dead." Parfait reported sadly.
"Shit!" cursed BC "Captain what should we do?" she asked into her headset radio.
A scratchy static filled voice came over the radio "It's a shame to lose such a prize but, LETS GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
"Beginning extraction of crew" called one of the bridge bunnies
"Missile impact in 150 seconds" reported another.
"Hey wait." cried the red haired girl before she was tackled from behind by her very upset flight leader.
"Dita what are you doing? you know better than to separate from the team!"
"I'm sorry Meia." apologized Dita.
"Crew extraction complete" reported the bridge bunny "25 seconds to missile impact. We can't avoid a direct hit!"
"Hit or miss, this is our destiny." stated Magno accepting her fate.
"Jura, Dita, lets go." said Meia not wanting to stick around for the missile.
"Ahhh! my dread's stuck!" screamed Dita, slipping into panic. "Some one help me!"
"There you are partner." said Hibiki finally finding the mech that started his entire adventure and climbing into the cockpit. "Now lets go home. Uhh...Wait. How do you operate this thing?"
"Seven seconds to impact sir," stated the tech on the Ikazuchi, counting down the seconds as the rest of the bridge crew stood and saluted the old section of the ship, "5...4...3...2...1...0."
The sight from the bridge was spectacular as the the Captain yelled in triumph "That'll show those women not to mess with the mighty men of Tarak!"