Second Month, 7:58PMT
Just woke up after sleeping for a night, and thought I'd take a look at what I'd written yesterday. Kinda short and not enough detail I'd say. I'll have to try to remedy that as I keep going. The problem with me's that once I get started I can't hardly keep up with the ideas I'm thinking, and so I get about half of one thing written before I start writing the next. Guess that comes from not having much education and years spent working jobs that don't do too much to emphasize my writing skills. Heh, my former captain would think that one's kinda funny.
Anyway, if this is any indication, it looks like I'm gonna continue this thing instead of letting it slip like so many of my other projects -- well, like the stuff I used to try before I joined up with the marines.
So, I'm sitting in the sleeping area of our rock now. It's a big hollowed out place, roughly rectangular in shape. The work was done in a couple of days with the robotic spades we salvaged from the abandoned Dominion stockpiles. The ceiling and walls show the scalloped furrows of amateur work, but we got the floor right, which is what counts if one wants a good nights rest.
Scattered about are the few personal possessions any of us have left. Not much at all, just a few old lockets, photos, and the odd trinket. There was more, of course, back at base, but all that got left behind when we shipped out here to fight. About all I've got left of my previous life is a hunk of quartzite on a steel chain. It's about three centimeters in diameter, and it's not polished or anything, just kinda mounted as-is right out of the quarry from which it came. It don't mean that much, really; it was a stocking-stuffer one year at Christmas, but it was the most portable ting I could find when I shipped out. I don't even know why I've kept it all these years.
It's unusual the amount of variety one can find in the lucky charms that marines keep. For instance, Taylor and Munford both have the standard lucky rabbits-foot (synthetic 'cause, of course, rabbits didn't make the journey with us to the Koprulu sector). But others have feather necklaces, decks of cards. or even the famous shot glass of Tom Birque.
Says he kept the shot-glass as a souvenir of rough night of drinking on Tarsonis. Stories kinda funny: it's him and three of his buddies cruising through the slums of the former capital city. After a few hours of wandering, they end up in this seedy bar on the edge of town (and, no, I don't think the whole place is a big slum like some of the former SoK boys will tell you) when a hoover-bike gang parks their vultures out front and comes in to wet their whistles.
Despite the already already shady nature of the place, these boys managed to scare out most of the other customers. It turned out they were members of the Desperadoes, who had a real nasty rep. Ol' Tom and his buddies didn't feel like moving on, though. They'd decided this was going to be their last watering hole of the evening, Desperado thugs or not. So they just kept right on going, talking about old times back on Brontes and whatnot. Needless to say, they had some previous experience in similar situations.
Just when they'd begun to think the evening was going to end without any trouble, one of the Desperadoes comes over to Birque and his buddies, and says, "If you boys want to stay here, you're going to have to earn your places."
Several of the other Desperadoes came over to the table at this point. Bets were placed, glasses, liquor bottles were produced, and the drinking contest began. Now Birque and his buddies are stout marine types that know their way around a bottle -- even if it was Tarsonian synthahol -- which has been used as an antiseptic by certain military outfits not only because of its effect on bacteria but its taste as well. As Birque tells it, at this point he and his buddies weren't entirely sure what they were in for, as they'd already downed quite a few beers by this point and weren't sure whether they could handle the stronger stuff at this point.
At first they tried to back out, but the Desperadoes that had gathered round the table made it clear that leaving now would mean a fight, which, being outnumbered by about twenty metal and leather clad Desperadoes, didn't seem like a good option at that time. And, besides, there's nothing wrong with a marine doing some heavy drinking every now and then, is there?
The first shots of the clear, tepid liquor were placed on the table after the Desperadoes had finished placing their bets. Birque remembers the diversity of looks among the gang at this point: the man with a beard but no teeth, the black guy with a bad facial scar, the thin guy with a shaved head and earring. All of those fellows were standing around the table that all of a sudden had become the evening's entertainment for the gang.
Birque remembers the first shot as it went down, tasting like warm, bitter water. It produced a powerful burning sensation. Up in the nose, along the lining of the throat, and in the back of his mouth fibers clenched and contracted and nerves that don't get frequently exercised suddenly reported intense pain. Down in his stomach there was a small revolt too, as the new guy in town made space for himself by shoving all the other current guests aside in a way that felt most unpleasant to Birque. For their part, the three Desperadoes that were involved in the contest didn't look like they were handling the Tarsonian liquor much better.
The Desperadoes standing around the table kept up with their laughing and horseplay, while one of 'em poured the next round. Birque describes the effect of the liquor at this point as having a kind of clarifying effect on his mind. Despite what he knew the alcohol should be doing, by his account, Birque felt like somehow the new alcohol had counteracted the previous alcohol. And he seemed to be seeing the contest from an entirely sober perspective. He thought he might be able to win it with this second wind as the night passed and the group kept downing shots of synthahol.
At least, that's the way things seemed until he and his two buddies woke up the next afternoon, stripped naked and dumped in the alley beside the tavern. There was no sign of any of the Desperadoes or of any of his or his friends personal possessions. The only memento he had of the evening was a shot-glass stuck in one of his hands, which he could only assume was the one he'd been drinking out of last night, through his blurry vision and skull-cracking hangover. To this day, Birque's not sure whether the glass was some sort of sign that he won the contest, which isn't likely because they would've left some of the betting money as well; or whether it's a trinket to remind him of the humiliation of the loss he and his buddies faced as they tracked down new clothes and money; or just some sort of weird symbol of brotherhood -- like, hey, you drank with the Desperadoes and only ended up naked, passed out, and in the alley next to the establishment where that occurred. Strangely, neither of his two buddies had been left with their drinking glass.
The stories I could tell about myself lack any sort of action or drama like that, at least, before I joined the marines they did. Just to give you a brief run down of my history, let me tell you that I grew up in a small mining colony set up one one of the moons of Moria. Because it was a small, atmosphere-controlled environment, only several hundred miners and their families occupied the place at any one time. Without human intervention, life would not have been possible on the moon, which was why I spent most of my childhood staring at a barren, crater-filled landscape through the portholes in one of the domes, and only wanting one thing: to get the hell out of what I thought of as the most boring place in space any way possible.
The thing I remember most acutely about the colony was that the atmosphere was so oppressive because of the poor air filters which left quite a bit of the rock dust and soot in the closed environment from the mining activities. It'd get caught up in your lungs any time you did any exercise whatsoever, and the local medical facility couldn't stock enough breathing masks and pure oxygen to treat all the lung problems everyone had. Most of the miners up there developed severe lung disorders and needed various genetic/regenerative therapies every ten years or so. Luckily, I was one of those that made it out of there with the same pair of lungs I started with, unlike several of the other children who developed severe forms of silicosis in just a few years.
There was just a small group of us mining brats up there, and we all went to a school set up by the combine. It had to be one of the poorest educational experiences anyone ever had. We were like after thoughts, being so far removed from the mainstream of society. Our education seemed to consist mostly of mining related topics, part of some company project to have a group of knowledgeable recruits available to work at similar such lousy facilities elsewhere, I suppose. Of course, we did have our one egghead that went on to oversee the combines planetary operations on some small planet somewhere, kinda surprised me when I heard that 'cause I didn't get the impression any of us had any bright future ahead of us when we were in school.
My family life was both severe and tender as seems to be the case with most mining families. At an early age, I already knew the strict discipline a tired miner father would enforce when I acted up, but I also knew the love of a mother who would always try to find ways to soften up the mining life.
That's really about all I care say about it. It was a loving, good family, and I have nothing but fond memories of them. For the most part, I'd say it was a good child, but once I hit my teens I was just counting the days until I could get away from that backwater mining facility and do something, anything.
As far as I know both my parents died on that godforsaken moon after being worn out by years of intense labor and living in such unhealthy conditions. But I don't really know 'cause I haven't heard from them since I finally managed split town when I was sixteen, lying about my age so that I could join up with Kel-Morian armed forces as a marine.
Anyway, enough with the reminiscing and nostalgizing. I've got a entombment to get to.
16:58, Same Day
I just got back from Bard's entombment, and it's almost time for me to stand watch again.
That's one cool thing about this situation, when you die you get a really big time funeral. Evelyn Wu, one of the officers to make it with us, refers to these ceremonies as "fit for a pharaoh" (who were apparently these ancient Earth emperors or kings or some such). Because we've got a surplus of equipment and most of us are familiar with the "anonymous acres" places marines usually end up getting buried in, if they get buried at all, we go all out here for the funerals. Everyone (while there's enough of us left at any rate) gets a six by twelve tomb for him dug out of the rock face of the knoll in which he is buried with all the pomp and ceremony we can muster. With a several ton rock slab protecting them, a soldier can be sure of an uninterrupted eternal slumber -- as they should be.
Not counting that raid yesterday, the Zerg have been keeping their distance recently. Not like when we first got here -- seemed like we were fighting every half an hour then, but when we managed to fortify out position and held out against the initial onslaught, things started to calm down.
That's all for now.