Playing games with this old heart

This Fic despite being rather long is supposed to be enjoyable, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed playing with the ideas over and over in it whilst writing it. A few things to note though, you don't have to have read Friendship is as Friendship Does to understand this but it will help! I mean Ellen was introduced in that and she's in this. Note two, whenever a characters name appears at the top of an uh segment it means that it is in that persons perspective, this becomes easier to understand as you go on. And finally, I like Skinnie's and that's why there is a lot about them for my POV in this! Oh another note, I've only seen as far as Tesca! Yeah an important note that one, I don't actually knows what happens first hand after Tesca finishes so . yeah.

Enjoy, and please, for the love of all things Roughnecks will you please review this if you read it! I mean I'm not asking a lot just a few words or even one word on what you think and if you like the idea.

Disclaimers; the show isn't mine but all the new characters are, all new campaigns are mine too. T'Alos most definitely is and he is my proudest creation so please bear that in mind, I really do love the little fellow!

Rating; I um and ah about these every time I write, I'd give it a 12 if I could but that isn't one of the ratings! There is a little bit of bad language in it, Ellen's does use milder swear words because she's like that! Not a lot of violence, in fact I can't think of any big violence in it. This blurb applies to all the parts of this fanfiction, so yah.

~*~*~

"Which squad were you with T'Alos?" Razak queried the young Skinnie delicately, filling in the reports; he had been made to fill these in when he had been assigned to work with another squad and the psychic from another miscellaneous unit. There were stationed on the Valley Forge, which was currently in transit on its way to the planet Tophet.

"Foxtrot squad sir, the unit was disbanded when the Lieutenant and most of the others died on Kilica."

"Which Lieutenant was in charge private I'm afraid I don't have that data?"

"Lieutenant Grayson Delaney, the squad was also known as 'Delaney's Devils' sir."

Razak held a discrete pause, he had read the cost reports of the failed Kilica campaign, SICON had announced that it was a no go planet; no more squads would be assigned there. The scariest thing was that the young psychic before him had predicted the whole thing down to the fact that SICON would never be sending Troopers there again. The Skinnie showed no emotion as he spoke which psychics were trained to do, even if the child was not a psychic he was still a Skinnie and they were renowned for their lack of visible emotions too.

"Alright, we are moving out at 0800 in two days time,"

"Yes sir," Razak watched him leave. There was something strange about the young Skinnie, besides his powers and his alien visage, something intangible; maybe it was his age, T'Alos was very young after all. He threw the reports to one side to join the others of his squad.

~*~*~

T'Phai

Someone rapped lightly on the door of the barracks; with a look of considerable confusion on my face, I opened the inner door to meet Ellen's enthusiastic features. "I cannot escape you can I?" I teased slightly and she grinned. The barracks themselves were plain, there were six bunks laid out in two rows of three, which were each covered with blankets and sheets, my own cot had my gear stored under it.

"Well bleh to you!" She said sticking out her tongue in one of her childish displays that I did not acknowledge. "I'm not here to see you; I'm here to see your new room mates." My face held a look of mild shock; I did not know I would be sharing my barracks with any one.

"Pardon?"

She bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, overjoyed at knowing something I did not. "You don't know? You've got to give up the solitude of living alone T'Phai, there are two other Skinnies sharing with you over this mission and I'm here to see one of them. Is it alright with you if I wait here?" I shook my head and she lowered herself onto one of the vacant bunks.

The barracks I was stationed in were much like any other, with a shelf by the door upon which my helmet was situated and, if what Ellen had said, were the truth then there would be two other helmets joining it. "Aren't you going to ask me why I want to see this person so much?"

I decided to walk willingly into her childish games, "Why do you want to meet this person so much Ellen?" To my delight, she noticed my patronising tone giving a slight frown of depression. "I do really want to know Ellen, but I am sure given time, I will find out on my own."

"Ok then, I suppose I walked into that one," She admitted slightly, Ellen is not quite as childish on the inside as one expects when first meeting her, she is a very mature person when you get to know her but she rarely lets people get close to her.

The doors buzzer went, and she looked to me with a smile. I stood and opened the air lock; standing in it was a female of my own kind. She saluted me keenly and I saluted back out of curtness. "Hail colonel T'Phai," She said in our own language; Ellen was smiling still, her smile had grown slightly.

"Hey T'Phai, there you were hoping to escape the fame of being a Colonel by becoming an MI." She teased, from the bunk she was still seated on, in my language too. "You must be Corporal L'Meariea," She stood and moved to my side, looking up to the females face.

"Yes ma'am."

"Nope, it's Ellen; you owe me none of that ma'am crap!"

The female skinnie looked confused looking to me for clarification, "She feels that she is no better then we are," I explained Ellen's introduction; I myself had been slightly taken aback by Ellen's ways when we had first met.

"My name is L'Meariea and I am assigned to Romeo squad, under the control of lieutenant Orson."

"Unfortunately name for a squad," Ellen grunted slightly, now speaking English. "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou!" She quoted, I looked as confused as L'Meariea did, and Ellen grinned widely. "It's Shakespeare, you know the old English guy who wrote a load of stuff to torture school kids across the world."

She went and sat on my bunk, looking up at me as if she expected me to be annoyed; I was not, Ellen is someone I have learnt to deal with given the time, she was now my closest human friend. "Is this who you were waiting for?" I queried her softly.

"No,"

L'Meariea stood immobile by the door, I looked to her and realised what she was waiting for. "Oh, of course," I stammered slightly. "You are invited to sit and by at ease soldier, I am afraid I have taken the bunk Ellen is seated upon but any other one is free."

"Thank you sir," She placed her helmet on the shelf and sat on a bunk down the row from my own, mainly out of respect.

Ellen lay back on my bunk, her arms behind her head, she was completely at ease around me and in the powersuit, which she had been assigned to visit me in. We had been aboard the Valley Forge for only a few hours and I had not yet seen her besides now. I did not even know which suit colour she was wearing, something that I normally did.

Being a Medic, Ellen had to change her uniform depending on where she was; generally, when planet side she wore grey or mild green grey to be more prescience now that we were stationed on the Valley Forge she wore dark green, which was almost the same colour as my own suit.

The door chime went once and I moved to it again, having not sat down again. It hissed open to reveal another Skinnie; he was barely more then a child, SICON had to have been desperately stupid to take the young being. I predict his age at about eighteen, which is far too young to be out fighting. He had a scar over the brow of his right eye and a pool of blood on his suit's arm.

"You are bleeding," I informed him despite the fact that he had to be aware of it.

"I am used to it sir," Even his voice was that of a child yet it held such knowledge and experience that it was easy to ignore the childish tones. "I am T'Alos, assigned to Razak's Roughneck's as a psychic." I was slightly taken aback I did not know that any Skinnie could use psychic powers.

"I .. I ."

"Don't chew yourself up over it," Ellen said she was still rested on the bunk. "Now you know who I was waiting for," I turned to her to see that she was watching me intently and L'Meariea was looking past me to the new Skinnie.

"T'Alos?"

"L'Meariea?"

Ellen motioned for me to sit with her; I lowered myself slowly onto the bunk besides her with a slight sigh. "See T'Alos is psychic, he can see things into the future unlike any other Skinnie ever, I swear you may all be slightly psychic! Anyway he and L'Meariea were in the Delaney Devils before this offensive." L'Meariea crossed the room and hugged her companion.

"I did not know that you were here," L'Meariea commented in confusion.

"Neither did I," T'Alos admitted, "Well to be fair I did, I just thought I had gotten confused."

I was more then willing to ignore the fact that I myself was being ignored; after giving up my rank of colonel in order to join SICON I had gotten used to the feeling of being ignored. To be fair, I was still a Colonel, the second I went planet-side on Tophet I was a colonel again but I dare say that SICON would ignore that.

"T'Alos," Ellen got his attention. "I hate breaking up reunions, but I do need to look at that arm of yours." She sat him down on my bunk without asking is it was all right with me, gently removing his sleeve. "So, what do you make of the temperature in here? Teph's done nothing but moan about it."

"I have not moaned about it,"

"No but you did mention it so many times that they did something about it," She looked down on the bad arm and nodded. "Yeah that's fine, should be all better by the end of the week." She placed his sleeve back, hooking it tenderly around his claw. "See when Skinnie's use their gifts, well at least in T'Alos's case, they get hurt like that or worse; that's how he injured his eye, he wasn't a clumsy clot like someone else!" She was addressing me for L'Meariea would have known this already and she was teasing my own scar, again.

"I was not clumsy; I just did not see the warrior bug." I objected speaking of my own wound, the jagged scar that ran over my left eye, I was lucky that my eye had been shut at the time. The Scar itself was caused just after I had been given the rank of Lieutenant, during a raid on my home village, a warrior bug had taken a slash at me and it was my eye it managed to get.

It had not hurt as badly as is expected, it stung for a while after and it had given L'War sufficient fuel for many a tease. I had had to remain off duty for a whole week, because the area had swelled so badly and resulted in my falling over far too much; it was my last time off with L'War around.

"Colonel T'Phai, please excuse my disrespect sir. I was just very happy to see L'Meariea again."

The child's voice snapped me abruptly from my sorry thoughts and I turned to him, taking a brief moment to take in his marginally pale features. He had very wise eyes for his age and he had the scar that Ellen had just pointed out to me, it ran almost fully across his forehead and looked vicious. "There is no need for your apologies; I am no longer a Colonel, Private."

"According to who?"

"The LT warned you about that," L'Meariea said softly. I had spoken very little to her so far, she reminded me far too much of L'War. "No using of your powers out of hours, you should respect her all the more in her death." Grayson Delaney had died during the final offensive on Kilica, I had heard of her because it appeared that the woman was dying anyway, she had had an inoperable brain tumour.

"I was not predicting, I still think he is a colonel, I am not foolish so much as to use my powers when there is no need."

"Then I apologise,"

"Accepted,"

I watched them both, feeling glad that there were others of my own kind around on this journey; we were all going back to Tophet on 'mop-up' duty as the others called it. I have always found it suspicious how the bugs on Tophet were so controlled and together even after the death of the brain bug there, it is almost as if something else were controlling them in its place.

~*~*~