Life in the Avenger’s Barracks (4)

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all trueLeave a comment

Chapter 4: Broken Bones

The room was small and cold. It’s walls were made of thick glass, it’s floor and ceiling made of the same metal as the rest of the ship’s decks. Adams stepped through the sliding door with a small and up to the large metal table bolted to the deck. It was the only notable feature in the room aside from a pair of glossy black domes built into opposite corners of the ceiling. Obvious cameras being obvious.

She ran her left hand over the table. Its surface was polished smooth and cool, cooler than the deck beneath her slippered feet. Emily wished she was wearing her boots. She felt weird with just the flimsy cloth wrapped around her feet, taking smaller steps and fearing every bulkhead would end in a stubbed toe and every heavy object being carried around her would inevitably be dropped onto her delicate tootsies (shit, that’s what her mother used to call them wasn’t it?) while they weren’t protected by hard leather and steel. But she couldn’t bend over enough to pull her boots on without help just yet, or socks for that matter, and the embarrassment of asking for that help outweighed the fear of stubbed or crushed toes. So slippers would have to do.

There was a loud knock on the glass behind her and Emily spun around, coming out of one slipper, feeling the skin around her stitches pull and sending an ache through her ribs as she backed against the table like a cat hiding from water. She let out a breath when she saw Dr Colin Lynch smiling apologetically from the other side of the glass with a high stool in each hand and tablet computer in an X-Com standard rubber case tucked beneath one armpit.

Dr Lynch stood for a moment, just staring and smiling at Emily before she realised he wanted her help opening the door. She took a step forward and pressed the button that caused the door to hiss sideways then stepped aside to let him passed. He strode in hurriedly, setting down one stool on the side of the table nearest the door then striding to the other side.

“Hello, terribly sorry I’m late. Terribly sorry for startling you,” Dr Lynch dropped the stool down and on the deck and the tablet on the table in front of it, “I tapped the door with one of the stools and I expect it was louder than anticipated.”

He sat down and gestured for Emily to take the other stool. She sat down carefully, trying to avoid aggravating her wounds. Dr Lynch watched her sit then picked up the tablet and began punching at its screen, eyes half focused on whatever he was doing and half focused on her.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything more comfortable, but nothing else was high enough that we’d be able to see over this thing,” he wrapped the table with his knuckles then went back to the screen.

Emily nodded then decided to say, “It’s fine.”

“I borrowed them from the bar.”

Dr Lynch had changed since they’d rescued him from ADVENT surveillance and eventual arrest about two weeks before. He’d been thin and hollow then, with messy hair, a big crooked nose and gaunt cheeks, terrified for most of their hike through the city towards the E.Z. He’d put on weight since then, his face had filled out making his nose look less oversized and his blonde hair had been trimmed and combed. He’d ditched the suit he’d worn during the escape and instead wore the grey coveralls and white coat that Tygen planned to make the uniform of his scientists as they arrived. Emily felt underdressed in front of him, wearing just a pair of sweatpants and sports bra beneath a jacket hung over her shoulders like a cape, as raising her arms high enough to put a t-shirt on was a challenge at the moment. It had been bad enough needing help pulling on the sweatpants. She’d kicked off the other slipper as she climbed onto the stool.

There was a good minute of silence between the two before Dr Lynch lowered the tablet and rested it at a forty-five degree angle against the edge of the table, so that Emily couldn’t see it, he could, but it was still out of the direct line of sight.

“Now, how would you like me to address you?” Dr Lynch began.

“What?”

“How would you like me to refer to you? Would you like me to call you Emily or Miss Adams or Corpor-”

“Emily’s fine.”

“Thankyou,” he seemed genuinely pleased by that, “and please call me Colin.”

“I’d rather keep calling you Dr Lynch,” that came out with less spite than Emily was trying for.

“Whatever you’re most comfortable with,” his smile didn’t even twitch, “Now, how are you feeling?”

“Sore.”

“I’m not surprised. Dr Tygen and his machines may speed up the healing process, but even rapid healing will be painful. What hurts you more, the broken ribs or the wound on your waist?”

“The ribs,” she said after a moment of hesitation.

“Really?”

“I guess.” Emily scratched absently at what would be a new scar hidden under a layer of bandages beneath her coat, a dent in her waist a little above the right hip bone.

“You’re not sure?”

“I am.”

“You sound a little unsure.”

“Fuck you. I’m sure,” then a moment later, “the collarbone’s worst of all.”

“Excuse me?”

“I fractured my collarbone as well,” she shifted slightly to show that one of her arms was sitting in a loose sling, “That hurts the most,” she pouted unconsciously “no one seems to care about my fucking collarbone.”

Dr Lynch chuckled, “Okay then. Do you know why you’re here Emily?”

“Yes. It’s not necessary though, I just need to get back into it. It’s just that I’ve got too much time to think right now.”

“The Commander’s worried about you,” Dr Lynch said, ignoring her, “so is Central Officer Bradford. The Commander agrees that you just need to be fielded as soon as possible,” or not, “‘Kill a few X-rays and she’ll be good as new’ I believe were his words. Bradford is a little more concerned.”

“Is he?”

“Indeed. Apparently a few other have expressed their own concerns to him. Miss Degroot, for example, is very observant. You’ve been sitting relatively still for a few minutes now. Tell me, has your leg started twitching?”

Emily looked down and realised her right leg was practically vibrating up and down against the stools foot-rest-bar. She pressed her hands down on her leg to stop it before looking up at Dr Lynch again. There was no point in lying so she didn’t say anything at all. He seemed to be expecting that.

“Other unusual behaviours have been noted. You seem to be hesitant to step into large open spaces, aren’t talking as much and appear to be having nightmares most nights.”

“Eva noticed all that?”

“Not just her. Others are worried about you as well.”

“Such as?”

Dr Lynch just smiled apologetically again.

Fine, “How do you know it’s unusual?”

“We have several veterans of the First War, yourself included, who watched literally thousands of their comrades die. Others escaped from prisons that they may have deserved to be in. We’re giving you all the best weapons we have and sending you to fight genetically altered monsters that we know are bent on the destruction of the human race in order to achieve their nefarious purposes. Monsters whose mind-control abilities, as I understand it, may have been responsible for the fall of the first X-Com. Believe me, mental health is of great concern to the Commander and Central. Unusual behaviour is always noted.”

“That’s a little creepy.”

“It is,” that sorry smile seemed to be a permanent feature of Dr Lynch’s face now, “if you think about. But a panicked shot coming from a freaked out squaddie might lead to the kind of casualties that Dr Tygen’s machines can’t fix.”

“And it’s your job to prevent that?”

“One of them. I did a few a psychology courses during college, which unfortunately makes me the closest thing The Avenger has to a counselor. We might be spending a fair bit of time together.”

“I hope not.

“So do I. Do you know why you’re here Emily?”

“I’ve already told you. Yes. I know why I’m here.”

“Tell me about the mission.”

“What about the mission?”

“What happened during the mission?”

“Eva did the debriefing. Look up what she said.”

“Yes, Miss Degroot apparently delivered her mission report while Mister Leroy stitched her leg up. Tough woman. I’ve read her report, I’d like to hear it from your perspective.”

“If you’ve read it, then you don’t need to hear about it from me.”

***

The air smelt of smoke and ash, grass, trees, engine exhaust, the lingering scent of a pair of septic tanks that had been blown open about fifty metres behind the squad. Eva Degroot advanced towards a two story brick building at the end of an until-recently unused gravel road, rifle up and tucked firmly against her shoulder smelling of gunpowder and oil, her Gremlin hovering a pace behind and above her head.

Around the squad caravans and mobile homes were scattered, broken and occasionally burning between intact or splintered trees and occasional worn out wooden fences. A few terrified looking faces peaked out from behind stumps and wreckage, watching them pass then ducking away again. The building in front of them (Eva suspected it was an old warehouse) was the last place they’d heard enemy gunfire, and a chilling, strangled-off scream.

Cesar Vargas was on point, shotgun swivelling between windows as he moved, and Emily Adams was in the rear, running between close cover with one hand on her big revolver. Degroot was a little behind Vargas on the left flank while Li Ming Cheng trudged up the right with her big rotary cannon. It may have been the ADVENT body-count they’d left behind them, it may have been Cheng’s usual relaxed optimism, it may simply have been that her face was permanently stuck with a lazy grin, but it looked like she was enjoying herself. It was far different to the professional indifference that had been fixed on Vargas’ face since they’d dropped from the Skyranger or the concern that had been growing on Adams’ since before they’d even reached this little patch of rusted, rural Americana, as Central had been constant providing updates on the deteriorating situation within the resistance camp all the way over.

Vargas raised a fist as he reached a pile of crates and everyone froze. Degroot counted to one hundred then began making hand signals. Cheng ducked behind a splintered tree trunk and Adams jogged to another pile of crates. Not fantastic cover. Barely protection at all against the kind of firepower ADVENT usually brought to bear, but better than nothing.

The squad in place, Vargas still swivelling his shotgun between windows, Degroot took a deep breath and advanced towards an upright maple barely thirty metres from the old warehouse. She strode halfway there and sprinted the rest, slamming bodily into the trunk of a gnarled maple to brake herself. Another deep breath and Degroot swung around the side to see what she could see.

The sectoid spotted her the same moment Degroot spotted it. It screamed in her direction and threw itself through the nearest window, skittering like a spider across the long grass outside the warehouse to yet another pile of crates (did the resistance just unload crates fucking everywhere? Why the hell did they have so many crates?) moving outside Vargas’ line of sight. The red armoured officer that followed the spindly alien through the window wasn’t nearly as quick. Vargas’ big shotgun boomed angrily, catching the officer in the hip. It made a gargled scream but managed to stay upright and stumble behind the same cover as the sectoid. A black armoured trooper wasn’t nearly so lucky. Cheng’s cannon tore through the brick wall it had chosen to hide behind and ripped through its armour, flinging it backwards into a smoking pile of meat.

The sectoid screeched in Degroot’s direction, then so did Adams.

***

“You were eight when the aliens first attacked?”

Emily knew she was being petulant, childish, and didn’t care. She felt like being a little petulant after being ordered to sit through this useless chat with Dr Lynch.

“That’s what your file says. Your father flew cargo planes for a shipping firm, he was killed early in the invasion when the Aliens began cutting off supply lines. Your mother was a US Marine. When the situation,” Dr Lynch hesitated for a moment, as if searching for the right word, “deteriorated, she brought you to Camp Shelby. Do you remember that?”

“Of course I do.”

“One of the really surprising things I learnt after joining the resistance, and now X-Com, was how long the first war actually went for. The aliens, and ADVENT, took control of the cities quickly enough. Most of us assumed that our militaries had simply surrendered. Given in to the greater good of the new regime. But many soldiers kept fighting. You kept fighting. It was six years before Camp Shelby was destroyed by the aliens. Do you ever wonder why?”

Emily looked at the table, at the tablet in Dr Lynch’s hands, at the darkened room beyond the glass walls. Anywhere but actually at him. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to look at him, but she didn’t.

“The theory I heard,” Emily said slowly, uncommitedly, as if discussing who she thought the murderer might be at the end of a crime novel, “was that the aliens let us be so we’d all gather in one place. Soldiers an’ possible resistance fighters an’ their families,” she nearly spat the last word, “anyone who’d fight back and keep fighting back. We heard of places like Camp Shelby an’ that’s where we went. And when the aliens thought they had enough eggs in one basket,” she swallowed, “they smashed it.”

“Do you remember when your basket was smashed?”

Emily swallowed again. Her mouth was watering and her stomach was roiling. Of course she remembered that day. The screech of approaching jet engines. The roar of machine guns being overwhelmed by the pulse of magnetic rifles. The garbled alien language being spoken by an earlier version of ADVENT’s new footsoldiers, sounding more human than they ever had since. The ground shaking as Sectopods slowly demolished their way through heavy weapons. The glowing purple eyes of the men and women who had shut down the Camp’s defences, forced to betray their friends and fellow soldiers by psionic enemies nowhere near the battle. Fire, so much fucking fire.

“Parts of it,” Emily still wasn’t looking at Dr Lynch but she could feel him twitch at that, “I fought.”

“You were fourteen.”

“I was a soldier. Didn’t matter how young, you pulled your weight in Camp Shelby. But they needed bodies to hold the line when the aliens decided to come. When you turned thirteen, you were drafted.”

“How did your mother react to that?”

“She didn’t like it, but it was either I picked up a rifle or we had to leave. She didn’t think we’d last long on the outside.”

“But you did. You lasted fourteen years after the base was destroyed.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to.”

“Do you remember what happened the day Camp Shelby was destroyed?”

So much fire. Emily’s mother dead amongst a half dozen others. A man with purple eyes had gunned them down, shot her mother in the back of the head. She didn’t have a face anymore. Just a bloody mess of shattered bone and brain. But Emily recognised her, recognised the tattoo on her arm, E.T in someone’s crosshairs. The man who shot her, eyes still glowing purple, flat on his back choking on his own blood. A burning building nearby casting everything red and orange and yellow.

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Honestly? Yes.

“Fuck no.”

“Okay. What happened during your last mission.”

“You’ve read the report.”

***

“Eva!” it was a panicked sound, broken and high-pitched in Degroot’s ear.

The Dutchwoman twisted in place, making sure she remained in cover, looking in Adams’ direction as the American drew her pistol and fired. Degroot followed the line of the barrel towards a capsized caravan and the abomination in front of it.

One of the civilians, a woman with short bleached blonde hair, was changing. Mouth wide in an expression of agony, her left arm had suddenly blown up into a grotesque pink tree-trunk of a limb ending in three sharp talons as long as Degroot’s shoulders were wide. The woman… The creature roared a primitive bellow that rolled over the scorched remains of the camp and the rest of its body shifted. Legs, torso and head, then its remaining arm, until it was just a dripping, oozing, neckless pink blob sitting on long footless legs with longer clawed arms. For a second Degroot was reminded of an old McDonalds mascot, the goofy purple monster thing. Maybe this was a distant cousin that had been tied to one of those medieval torture racks. And melted. Cheng was swearing rapidly in Mandarin and Vargas mattered a long, appreciative “puté madré.”

The creature roared again and lumbered forward, faster than Degroot would have thought possible. Adams fired her big revolver again, hitting the thing square in the chest. It didn’t stop, slow down, didn’t flinch, didn’t seem to notice at all. It just seemed to absorb the bullet, the big hole filling in the blink of an eye.

“Fuck!” Adams yelled, loud enough for Degroot to hear without her com-link, “Fucking shitty fuck!”

She fired again, trying to back up, but the creature was fast, its long legs eating up the distance. Adams barely squawked when its arm, as thick as her torso, hit her in the chest. It lifted her off her feet and sent her twisting into the stack of crates she’d been ducking behind a moment ago. They buckled with a violent crack when her back struck them, enough to make Degroot wince as she watched Adams drop onto the ground in front of them. The creature bellowed yet again and advanced on Adams.

It all seemed to happen in the space of a few terrifying heartbeats. Degroot released the breath she’d been holding since Adams yelled her name and raised her rifle.

She hadn’t forgotten about the ADVENT officer and sectoid, nor did she expose herself, but the maple tree she was hiding behind had not evolved with magnetic rifles in mind. Most of the officer’s burst went well wide of the tree, but one round ripped through the edge of the trunk and into Degroot’s left calf. The leg gave like someone had kicked it out from under her and she went down, jarring her elbows and teeth when she hit the ground hard.

Cheng was already reacting. There was the hollow metallic thunk of a launcher and a split second later one of her grenades exploded amongst the pile of crates the officer and the alien had been hiding behind, turning their cover to splinters and tearing through the officer’s breastplate. The sectoid was knocked backwards, but not killed outright. It was screeching stupidly as it tried to stand back up, but Vargas was already running forward, pulling his machete out as he ran, putting the momentum of his sprint into the swing as he dropped it down on the sectoids neck. Its head bounced once, twice, stopped. The body went limp.

Degroot looked back towards Adams, who was pushing herself back onto her feet. She’d lost her pistol but still had managed to keep her long rifle as she was spun into the crates. Her left eye was swollen shut, and Degroot didn’t doubt that she didn’t have at least a few broken ribs, but she didn’t let it stop her. As the creature began stomping towards her again she raised her rifle and fired.

It was a messy shot hitting around the creature’s waist. To everyone’s surprise, however, the creature was staggered, even taking a step backwards. Degroot didn’t let herself miss the chance. Still on the ground she took quick aim and fired. The shots slammed into the creature’s head. It swayed on the spot for a second that felt like an eternity, then fell backwards in a messy, slimy heap. Like someone had emptied a massive pile of lard onto the grass.

“Hold your position Menace One,” the Commander’s voice filled their ears, “we’re scanning for signs of other hostiles in the A.O.”

Degroot released another breath that she’d been holding and looked at her leg. The bullet gone through the back of her grieve, leaving a bloody black hole, but had been stopped by the front. She pulled a bandage from her field kit and began winding it as tightly as possible around the wound. Cheng and Vargas were watching everything, including the other civilians, for any further surprises.

“Looks like that’s a wrap Menace One,” Central Officer Bradford now, “Looks like you got them all. Firestarter’s on the way, let’s get these civilians out of-“

“Fuck,” the Commander again, still his usual calm self but concern clear in his voice, “Fuck. Menace One-Four’s vitals are dropping. Degroot, Adams is hurt worse than we thought. Get to her NOW.”

Degroot looked up just in time to see Adams sink to her knees, trying to use her rifle to keep herself upright.

“Kut!” Degroot swore as she pushed herself up onto her wounded leg, “Kut!” as she began painfully limping towards Adams, “Kut!” again as Adams collapsed forwards onto her face.

Vargas was already running towards the prone woman and after a few limping steps Cheng arrived by Degroot’s side, letting Degroot drape an arm over her shoulders and acting as a crutch. It still took an age to get to Adams, though it was really only long enough for Vargas to reach her first and roll her over after quickly checking her back for wounds. Degroot through herself besides the young American woman, whose eyes were open and breaths shallow. There was a lot of blood leaking onto the grass, too much blood. She found a gash, not too deep but two fingers wide on Adams waist just above the hip, more worrisome was that the edges of the wound had the look of recent chemical burns. Vargas had backed away to start herding the civilians towards the E.Z but Cheng seemed to recognise the oddity as well. Both women looked towards the dead creature, which seemed to be melting away already.

“Shit,” Cheng swore again, this time in English.

Degroot nodded agreement as she pulled out her combat knife and began cutting away Adams’ clothes and armour. Above them Firestarter’s engines whined, signalling its approach.

***

“Do you know why you’re here Emily?”

“I’ve already told you, yes! Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Your accent’s slipping.”

“What?”

“You have a bit of a southern drawl most of the time, but you hide it most of the time. I’ve been told it becomes more noticeable when you’re tired or drunk. I see it also happens when you’re irritated. It’s quite charming.”

Emily looked at Dr Lynch for the first time in what felt like ages but could only have been a few minutes, unable to think of a comeback either clever or vulgar. Dr Lynch’s eyes twinkled (honest to God, twinkled).

“Before the war,” he said, “I was a forensic scientist. Every so often I’d have to testify in court and there was one prosecutor I became quite good friends with. He had this habit of asking suspects and witnesses the same question, over and over, but always between other questions. One day I asked him why he did this, and he said that if they didn’t understand the question he’d keep asking until they did. So, Emily, do you know why you’re here?”

Emily squirmed a little, her ribs throbbed, “Because the Commander an’ Central want to know if I’ve gone round the bend. They’re worried I might freak out next mission and get the whole squad killed.”

“That might be what I’m asking. Maybe I’m asking why it is you think they’re worried about that? After all, they’ve not yet asked me to speak to Miss Navarro yet. In fact she’ll be going back onto active duty very soon.”

She thought for a moment, “All that unusual behaviour bullshit you dragged up a minute ago.”

“Maybe. Your friends are concerned about you. Mister Leroy has noted your difficulty sleeping. Miss Cheng says she hasn’t heard you laugh in the days since the mission. Mister Vargas says you were worryingly insistent about acquiring a bottle of Miss Seo’s ship-made rotgut. Miss Shen said you were rather bitchy when she came to visit you.”

Adam’s heart skipped a beat, “Sh-Shen said that?”

Dr Lynch’s eyebrows rose the barest noticeable fraction, “In the nicest way possible. She’s worried about you. We all are. Believe me, the Commander doesn’t think so little of his soldiers that one bad day could break them. But he is concerned that a small traumatic incident may trigger memories from a greater trauma. Memories of being betrayed by friends you were supposed to protect, as an example, may be reawakened by being wounded when someone you were supposed to save turned into a literal monster.”

They were both silent for a moment. Emily back to staring at the table, Dr Lynch watching her.

“Of course maybe I’m asking if you know why we chose the autopsy room for our little tête-à-tête.”

“Our what?”

“Chat.”

“Oh. No, I don’t.”

Dr Lynch looked around them at the glass walls and the room beyond, the smile slipping for the first time since he arrived if only for a moment.

“Truthfully neither do I. Maybe because it’s the only private space on the whole damn ship save for the Commander’s quarters.”

Emily chuckled, “Honestly, that’d have been even weirder than doing this here.”

“Yes, I agree. It might have also been so I could show you the place where Tygen and I are going to cut that creature into tiny little bits,” again his smile slipped, again only for a moment, “We’re going to keep having these meetings while your healing. Perhaps afterwards as well. We want to make sure you can take whatever is coming.”

“We’ Dr Lynch?”

“I was recently rescued by a charming young lady with a southern drawl, a young lady who never let me out of her sight and kept me moving no matter how terrified I was. I’d like to try and return the favour.”

“Oh. Thankyou.”

“The pleasure’s mine, my dear. Now tell me truthfully, do you want to find somewhere else to do this or should I bring a space heater next time?”

Emily laughed.

Irrational irritations and other unnecessary issues (15/3/16)

On By longandshortofitallIn Quick and dirty, Random but worthyLeave a comment

Yesterday was the fourteenth of March, 14.3 for most of the world but 3.14 for these arrogant North American wankers. Now I can complain long and hard about the American system of dating things, and I will at some point in the not too distant future, but this time I want to talk about something else. Y’see, thanks to the entirely irrational dating system used in North America yesterday was Pi day. Y’know, π. That number that ‘geniuses’ on TV use to prove that they’re geniuses by quoting it to the sixty-third decimal or some such bullshit, but us mere mortals usually round up to 3.14 (but never to exactly 3).

So yesterday was Pi day and that seems as good as any reason to complain about the lack of pies in Canada. The edible kind, not the numerical kind.

Well, there are pies up here in the northern hemisphere I suppose. I had pumpkin pie for the first time last Thanksgiving. It was alright, tasty enough, though it still doesn’t quite feel like it should be a dessert if you get my meaning. And other dessert pies aren’t unusual. It’s possible to get the occasional shepard’s pie floating around, made with mince that might even have come from a cow and reconstituted potato.

But I’m not talking about any of that, I’m talking about the proper Aussie meat pie. The kind that comes in a foil tin, fits in your hand and available from anywhere with a power outlet to plug in one of those mini-ovens (for keeping things warm and on display). Fuck 420, I wanna fuckin’ Four’N Twenty meat pie at that perfect temperature where the heat brings out the flavour of the beef and gravy but doesn’t burn the roof of your mouth. Mrs Mac or Sargents, drenched in tomato sauce (not ketchup, bloody tomato sauce) I wanna walk into a Vietnamese bakery (they don’t seem to have those here either, damnit) and a grab a steak and pepper pie on my way home from work, or suddenly realise that since I’m in Newtown I can sneak into a gourmet bakery and switch things up with a curry chicken or lamb and rosemary pie. I wanna goddamn meat pie. And a lamington. But mostly a goddamn meat pie.

There are a few places around that cater to the Aussie palate, but the only one that’s worth getting from a pie from is all the way up in Whistler (Peaked Pies, give it a go if you’re up there). Not surprising given the concentration of Australians up in Whistralia, but not a practical option down here in Vancouver. The other places just tasted… not good… enough? Yeah, not good enough. Like the meat was worse than the lowest grade horsemeat put into a service station pastry or the gravy tasted chalky and had the consistency of flubber or the pastry lacked the structural integrity to hold everything together or some combination of things. Just, not good enough. And still difficult to get to.

But good god I miss pies.

Life in the Avenger’s Barracks (3)

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all trueLeave a comment

Chapter 3: He only wanted to help.

Thierry Leroy crouched behind a barrier, the kind of thin sort-of metal waist high walls that ADVENT used for everything from crowd-control to (as was the case this time) separating the sidewalk from the road. He clutched his rifle tightly in hands clammy beneath his gloves and watched a pair of ADVENT troopers shining lights through car windows. A red-armoured officer watched their search with that odd detachment that would have marked them as something not-quite human in his mind even if he’d never seen the oversized eyes on a dozen of their comrades corpses. His Gremlin hovered quietly at his side, also hidden by the barrier, mechanical eyes twitching in a fashion similar to its master.

Across the road Cesar Vargas and on the other side of another barrier Cesar Vargas watched the enemy trio with cool eyes and a slowly moving jaw. The young Mexican had an almost magical ability to produce chewing gum (both the kind for blowing bubbles and the kind that freshens the breath) and was constantly, to borrow a line from Eva Degroot, “doing his best impression of a cow.” A few car lengths to their rear Li Ming Cheng and Emily Adams crouched beside a parked sedan. Adams had a reassuring hand on the shoulder of a terrified Doctor Colin Lynch, the man Menace One had been sent to rescue. Cheng looked edgier than normal. Leroy knew she hated bringing up the rear, probably resented being on babysitter duty with Adams. Front and centre spitting death and destruction was where she wanted to be, but her heavy cannon and the grenade launcher slung between her shoulderblades meant that she was ill-suited to leading the way when stealth was required. Like this mission had until these three fuckers had appeared around the corner and begun searching the parked cars in front of them.

“Menace One,” the Commander’s voice crackled slightly in Leroy’s ear, “we’ve confirmed other active patrols in the area and hostile aircraft inbound. We don’t have time find a way around these guys or make it to an alternate extraction zone. We’re going to have to go through them. Over.”

Leroy’s eyes darted between the troopers, the officer and Vargas. His posture had shifted slightly, shoulders a little more slumped, his back and neck a little straighter. Not by much, of course, it was barely noticeable unless you knew the man well and knew what to look for. But still, it made him look meaner, better prepared for violence.

“Avenger this is Menace One-Two,” Cheng’s voice was soft in his ear, “Has Firestarter got a location for the other patrols? Over.”

“You know that’s a negative Menace One-Two. But I expect they’ll come to us. Menace One-Four,” that was Adams, “take out the Trooper on the left. Menace One,” Leroy, “Menace One-Three,” Vargas, “Hit them while they scatter. Menace One-Two move forward and hit anything still moving. Weapons free. Adams, you may fire when ready. Over.”

“Roger that,” Adams kept her voice low like Cheng. Not a whisper, since it can be difficult to control the volume of a whisper, more like a low murmur.

Leroy crossed himself (an unconscious habit) and looked back at Adams for a moment. She’d taken her hand off Doctor Lynch’s shoulder and now bent over the bonnet of a surprisingly large hatchback, elbows propped on the bright red surface, staring down the scope of her long rifle. Her target was maybe a hundred metres away, and the girl had the talent to hit it with her (admittedly also oversized) sidearm. The Commander – monitoring the battlefield on a dozen monitors displaying blueprints, street maps, passive scanners, body cameras, hacked security cameras and whatever drones could safely be put into the air – would probably put her on a rooftop as soon as possible to watch over their advance up the street, up high where she’d be able to put her superior range and accuracy to most use. For now though, unable to get onto a rooftop without passing the ADVENT patrol in front of them, she’d take the easy shot.

Cheng meanwhile had made her way to the left side of the street, west by Leroy’s reckoning, and was unhurriedly padding up the sidewalk towards them. They all wore specialised soft soles on their boots to muffle their footsteps, but the aliens would notice her approach in moments.

Leroy turned his attention back to the enemy in front of him. They had moved to the next car, again shining flashlights through its windshield and windows, one trooper taking the trouble to get on his (her? Its?) knees and check beneath the undercarriage. Leroy wondered if they actually expected to find Menace One just sitting in the back of a sedan, waiting to be discovered. Wondered if they even knew of X-Com’s involvement in Doctor Lynch’s disappearance and escape. Perhaps they just expected some terrified scientist shivering in the back seat. Perhaps they didn’t even know what it was they were looking for.

Adams’ target stepped over to the opposite side of a parked car from her. Leroy expected her to shift targets. She didn’t.

“Firing.”

There was an enormous crack that echoed between the high glass and steel building fronts surrounding them, like the end of the world compared to the silent streets and muffled words that had preceded the shot. And it was a decent shot, shattering its way through passenger window and windscreen of the vehicle that had been in the way, catching the trooper in the centre of the chest and sending her (him? It?) sprawling backwards and out of Leroy’s line of sight.

The other two reacted as expected, scattering quickly and immediately at the sound of the shot. The flash of red armour sprinting towards the relative safety of another traffic barrier drew Leroy’s eye and Vargas’, who shot first. A full burst straight into the right side of the ADVENT officer’s chest. The fucker was staggered for a moment but seemed like it (it) would keep going, until Leroy pulled the trigger and caught it in the unprotected neck and jaw. The officer was pitched sideways in a spray of orange blood, bone and teeth. Momentum caused it to bounce and roll forward a few times upon hitting the ground before coming to a rest laying on its stomach.

The other trooper managed to hurl itself behind one of the parked cars it had just searched along the east side of the street. Cheng didn’t give it a chance to get its bearings. At the sound of Adams’ shot the big, lean Chinese woman had started to sprint forward, sliding into the side of a bus shelter to break her momentum, the barrels of her rotary cannon already spinning. The ADVENT trooper didn’t see her coming, didn’t know she was there until her long burst tore through its armour and sent it flying into the gutter. Cheng held down the trigger until she was quite sure it wasn’t getting up again, not as long as it seemed due to the echoes of her heavy weapon, like the roar of a chainsaw. Afterwards, Leroy would run past the trooper and see that its right arm had nearly been severed from its torso, white bone showing through red and orange flesh held on by a few scraps of tendon and a few intact pieces of its armour.

For a long second after there was nothing at all. Everyone stood still, peering at the street ahead or the street behind. North or south. Then Leroy’s hearing began to some back. He heard a few screams and remembered that ADVENT hadn’t completely cleared this area of civilians. He heard alarms and knew that more than just the few patrols ahead now knew where the armed human soldiers were. He heard his own breathing, deep but rapid, chest moving in time with his eyes. What he did not hear was the sound of footsteps. The piercing screeching warcry of the sectoids or the garbled language of the ADVENT troopers.

The other patrols were holding position, or far enough away that they weren’t about to come spilling out of the buildings. The others were waiting for it as well, and everybody seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Nice shooting everyone,” the Commander’s voice again crackled in his ear, “let’s move Doctor Lynch forward and find a decent vantage point for Menace One-Four.”

Behind him, Adams nudged Doctor Lynch and pointed him in Leroy’s direction.

***

It sounded odd when said out loud but, back when everyone called him by his christian name instead of his surname, Thierry Leroy had joined the army because it seemed the fastest way to learn how to help people.

Thierry’s father was an electrician, his mother a nurse. She named him after a grandfather she never talked about, but always seemed to remember fondly. They raised him in Lyon, walking distance from the Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste which seemed to be the centre of his world for much of his young life. His father was not overly religious (Thierry’s mother was the devout Catholic) but loved the old church, and would often take his son for ice cream by its steps.

When he was twelve years old a friend of the family gave him a book written by a nurse who had been an aide worker in a dozen different countries from Haiti to Somalia to Sri Lanka. To everyone’s great surprise, the pre-teen Thierry had loved the book, reading it three times before he turned thirteen and searching for similar books, movies and magazines. By fourteen his walls were covered with posters adorned by Croix-Rouge française and Médecins Sans Frontières between the more stereotypical kind that advertised bands, movies and tv shows.

At fifteen everyone knew what the young man believed his calling to be. Everyone had plenty of advice on how to get there, but he only listened to a few of them. When, aged sixteen, Thierry asked for his father’s permission to travel with a church youth group to go build an orphanage in Central Africa (a first step, he believed, to becoming a real aid worker). Being a practical man Thierry’s father made a great show of going through the pamphlets, brochures, websites and booklets provided about the trip. Being a practical man he of course said no.

“First thing is first, we can’t afford it,” he told his son over a coffee at a place not far from the Cathedral, “Second, you don’t want to do this. This is tourist shit. The Red Cross wants people who actually know what they’re doing, not some little fucker who went on holiday and pretended to build a wall.”

The refusal hurt, but he was a practical young man and he saw sense in the words. So he began looking for other ways. Considered getting into nursing (his grades weren’t high enough to become a doctor), carpentry and becoming an electrician like his father. He began volunteering at an aide agency, calling people asking for donations.

Six months after that chat with his father, Thierry’s sister (older, at university) dropped a pamphlet on his keyboard. The front page showed a picture of a man in camouflage with a red cross on his arm giving a small African child an inoculation.

“You should join the army,” she said with the kind of confidence that only older siblings possess for talking to their inferiors, “You’d get paid to learn how to do what you want to do, and they might send even send you on aid missions.”

Thierry had told her to mind her own fucking business, but kept the pamphlet. He began to check the army’s recruitment website, and consider how useful it might be in, say, a refugee camp in a combat zone to have some military experience. He’d certainly know what he was doing then. He was seventeen when he told his parents of his plan to enlist. They supported him. His sister took the credit. He enlisted a month after turning eighteen and climbed onto the bus to a CFIM for his initial training.

They were just starting to hear about a strange terrorist attack that had occurred in Frankfurt, which killed dozens. No one knew who did it, but everyone knew who didn’t do it, which seemed to be everyone else.

Within a month there was talk about strange aircraft, attacks on other civilian centres and remote communities across the globe just disappearing. Everyone thought, but no one wanted to say it out loud.

Within two months no one cared anymore. It was aliens.

At the end of his training Leroy was given a rifle and his regiment sent to fight in the south. It wasn’t just aliens. It was a war. A week after that it was called a slaughter, and the aliens didn’t care if you were wearing a red cross armband or not.

***

Cheng grinned as she fired her grenade launcher, grinned harder when it exploded and sent another ADVENT trooper cartwheeling backwards. The sectoid that had been beside it screeched and waved about its shredded left arm. Vargas put a tight burst into its skull and bits of brain streaked the road. Adams guided Doctor Lynch forward cautiously towards the extraction zone.

Leroy caught movement to his left, spun, fired without thinking, caught a second ADVENT trooper in the neck. The black clad fucker went down in a gurgling pile, clutching at its mess of a throat as orange blood pooled through its fingers. Cheng jogged up beside him and watched the mess cooly.

“Leave him to bleed out?” she asked.

Leroy scratched his beard. It had gotten long recently.

“Non, I like to help when I can.”

He raised his rifle, took careful aim and pulled the trigger.

Reviewing the Old School: The Dish (2000)

On By longandshortofitallIn Quick and dirty, Up for reviewLeave a comment

This is a movie that’s worth it for the ending, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

The third film by Working Dog Productions (second if you don’t count documentaries, and honestly why would you?) and biggest box office success, The Dish was released back in 2000 is a comedy that tells the (‘inspired by true events’) story of the Parkes Observatory (a big bloody radio telescope located in the middle of a sheep farm about twenty kilometres from the town of Parkes) and its quirky Australian technicians in the lead up to the Apollo 11 moonlanding. As well as tracking and relaying signals and communications from the travelling spacecraft enroute to and from the moon, it would also act as the primary receiver of the television signals that allowed the whole world to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first steps upon its dusty surface.

This is a character comedy first and foremost and the characters are, for the most part, great. Unlike Working Dog’s previous film (and previous review fodder) The Castle, which really only included actors who were notable in Australia (it was Eric Bana’s film debut for Christ’s sake), The Dish‘s leads included notable Kiwi Sam ‘I-was-in-Jurassic-Park’ Neil as Cliff Buxton and American Patrick ‘I-have-one-of-the-most-recognised-voices-in-film-and-television’ Warburton as NASA representative Al Burnett. And they’re good. Neil as Cliff is calm and full of authority, puffing on his pipe, in complete control, trying to keep the peace. It means that on the rare occasion that he does tell someone to quit their bitching or loses his cool there genuine emotional impact. Warburton is quiet but obviously concerned as Al, he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders as NASA’s man on site but tries very hard to keep the stress from showing. Tom Long as Glenn is fantastic, playing a socially inept and slow nerd stereotype, but with such sincerity (I use that word way too much in these reviews, but I can’t be bothered grabbing a thesaurus) that you don’t mind. He gets the girl in the end (or at least asks her out) and it’s not some bullshit about her seeing ‘the real him’ behind the shy chitchat (most commonly in movies after the girl breaks up with some jock dickhead and realises that what she really wants is a nice guy who treats her alright). The girl in question, Eliza Szonert as Janine, is obviously attracted from the beginning of the movie to Glenn’s genuine sweetness and kind nature. Roy Billing as Mayor Bob MacIntyre takes the role seriously and has excellent comedic and dramatic timing, as does Genevieve Mooy as his wife. The only main character that I had an issue with was Kevin Harrington as Robert ‘Mitch’ Mitchell. Harrington’s a decent actor, and Mitch decent for the most part, but his character is the one that’s meant to be creating or experiencing conflict with Al, the American outsider, and I just never quite bought it. Lines yelled when they should have been spoken I think. This may have been actor, director, script or some combination of the three, but as a central character conflict I thought it just didn’t work. Having said that Harrington has excellent timing and delivered some of the best lines in the film.

The film has a large cast, possibly a little too large. All due respect to the actor but Billy Mitchell’s character, Cameron the over-zealous army cadet with a crush on the Mayor’s over-zealous (small L) liberal daughter seems superfluous in hindsight. I expect he’d there to represent a view of the Australian military (even with Australia starting to withdraw forces from the Vietnam War), but he doesn’t provide enough laughs to justify as much presence as he has in the film. Yet all the named characters can be justified, and I can’t really think of any that I’d really want culled. It makes for a cluttered cast-page, but doesn’t really make the film any worse for it. Just longer. I also like how they make an effort to give even the minor characters a little depth. Take the above mentioned Janine. She’s not just “girl who drops off lunch that Glenn has a crush on,” she’s also the security guard Rudy’s sister and a really awful driver. It’s not much, but it’s more than a lot of scripts would have given a character like her.

Rob Sitch does a good job directing, and I particularly loved scenes where the titular Dish and the men inside are simply doing their jobs. The choice of music is excellent, using some excellent 60s hits that never distract from what’s going on in the film, but will get you tapping your foot while it’s happening.

The pacing felt a little off. There are two climactic points in the film. The first takes place around the middle when a blackout briefly knocks out the Dish’s power and the backup generators weren’t primed possibly. Because this is the 1960s, this wipes all the data from the computer and for a whole day they ‘lose’ Apollo 11. They then desperately try and figure out where it is, while “bullshitting” NASA (and the American Ambassador who comes to visit). It’s a fun, desperate scene for the various characters but it drains away any tension for the second climax, where high speed winds threaten the broadcast of the actual moonwalk. I’m not sure how this could’ve been improved, but it never really feels like it was quite as dangerous a risk as they say it was.

Is the movie funny? Yes, yes it is. Not in a laugh-your-arse-off kind of way, more like a quiet chuckle and knowing smile. There are some fantastic moments that really sum up the Australian atmosphere of the film, like cricket on the satellite dish, the frequent cups of tea, the omnipresence of sheep and lamb. The Prime Minister (played by Billie Brown and only ever referred to as “Prime Minister” because John Gorton was not our most memorable PM) only appears for a few minutes overall but does a great job of portraying the well-spoken pub-brawl nature of Australian politics for most of the century. (“We’ve got a saying in the party: Don’t fuck up…” “And?” “That’s it.”)

Less of the humour than you’d expect, however, comes from any juxtaposition between the Yanks on site and the local country Aussies. Al is definitely different, is unused to working in professional environments without dress codes, formalities and chains of command, but he’s never anything but polite and is one of the most respectful people in the film. Similarly the US Ambassador, played by John McMartin, is never mocking in his attitude towards the locals and is simply a NASA-enthusiast is just bloody excited to visit Parkes and watch the landing. And that segues nicely into what this film is about.

Y’see, The Dish is not about culture clash, it’s about vindication. There’s the obvious ones. Al’s presence is vindicated in the eyes of Mitch when he helps them bullshit NASA. Mayor Bob McIntyre is vindicated for lobbying to get the Dish built in Parkes in the first place. There’s the less obvious ones. Bob’s daughter Marie (Lenka Kripac) is a teenage feminist spitting out opinions against chauvinism and imperialism without any real idea what she’s talking about (today she’d have a blog on Tumblr), and she’s surprised when Al tells her that it’s been a delight meeting and talking with her. It’s a small thing, but you get the feeling it’s the first time someone has shown any sort of approval for having strong opinions. The second half of The Dish is full of these vindicating moments, culminating right at the end with the moon walk.

The ending is wonderful. Everyone is gathered around television sets watching Neil Armstrong take the first few steps on the moon’s surface. You feel the emotion of the moment, that feeling of witnessing something truly monumental occurring, one of the greatest achievements in human history. The culmination of years of work, expense, stress, terror and hope, broadcast for six hundred million people to see, with that purest of goals: To prove that humanity could do it.

This movie is not perfect. It’s funny and clever, but there’s a list of flaws that I don’t even have time to get into, but it’s worth it for that ending. That feeling of elation and that feeling of achievement. This is a film about the Australian contribution to the television broadcast, not about NASA or the astronauts. The Cold War, the Vietnam War and the Space Race are never mentioned in the film. This is a movie not about an American achievement but a human achievement. In that final few minutes it makes you proud to be a human.

So, yeah, it’s worth it for the ending.

Life in the Avenger’s Barracks (2)

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all trueLeave a comment

Chapter 2: Cheeky talk

There was a whooping cheer from the assembled crew members as Emily Adams and Else Krause entered the ship’s living quarters. There was barely more than a dozen people gathered to celebrate the two rookies’ triumphant return home but in the cramped, angular, metallic space their voices echoed back as if a hundred were crammed into the small space. Adams blushed furiously. Krause grinned coyly and polished her glasses with a red and yellow rag, sending a discreet wink in the direction of Navneet Banerjee when she was sure he’d be the only one to catch it. His beard twitched upwards in a knowing smile.

The two women stood just inside the hatch for a second, hesitating in front of the unexpected welcoming party. Long enough for Li Ming Cheng to sidle up between the two and gently drape a bare, muscular arm over each of their shoulders.

“You’re blocking the door,” she said, wearing her usual lazy grin, “go let them shake your hands or something.”

She pushed them into the group less gently (Cheng was stronger than she looked, and she looked very strong) and they were quickly pounced upon. Degroot tussled Adams’ hair like a proud older sibling and John Tipene, an enormous Maori and one of the Avenger’s general technicians, slapped Krause’s back hard enough she almost flew two feet and made her wish she still had her armour on. She told Tipene that and he laughed his sweet chuckle. Someone pulled a bottle of what could be loosely described as gin that it was rumoured Louise Seo (Firestarter, the primary Skyranger pilot) created using a homemade still hidden somewhere in the hanger-slash-armoury. Someone said “To your first dead alien!” as the bottle was handed enthusiastically over to Adams, who hesitated a moment and unenthusiastically eyed it suspiciously, then took a long pull to the cheers of those around her. She cringed and made a sort of soft gurgle as the vile liquid went down, but came up smiling anyway. The toast was repeated and the bottle handed over to Krause, who didn’t hesitate to take two quick swallows before coughing the third up all over the front of her armour. Good natured laughter mixed with the applause.

Cheng used the liquid distraction to work her way around the crowd to her small bunk and foot locker. Thierry Leroy, who had led the mission, was reporting to the Commander and Central while everything was still fresh. They’d each need to write up an After-Action Report later, but Cheng was of the opinion that paperwork was best done while hungover. An opinion she’d likely hate herself for in the morning.

“How did they do?” Degroot had separated herself from the throng and come to lean against the bulkhead next to Cheng’s bunk, tattooed left arm and scarred right arm folded across her chest, “Really?”

“Fine, both of them,” Cheng muttered as she peeled off her sweaty tanktop and pulled a fresh t-shirt and hoody from her footlocker, and a less fresh washcloth. She didn’t head to the sink to “freshen up,” as Seo would say, but slumped onto her bed in her sports bra and fatigue trousers. There was no real modesty in the barracks.

“Neither of them panicked,” she continued once settled, “they didn’t miss either. Emily carved up one sectoid’s face beautifully. Very tight grouping from here,” Cheng touched her chin, “to here,” she tapped the centre of her forehead about two centimetres above her eyebrows, “Looked like someone had buried an axe in its head.”

“Lovely,” nodded Degroot completely sincerely, “What about Krause?”

“Else’s more ‘spray and pray.’ She relies on the fact that if you fire enough bullets in the right general direction chances are some of them will hit the target.”

“That is how most wars have been won. So, think the Commander will give one of them a long rifle and the other a machine gun?”

“That’s what Leroy is going to recommend,” Degroot gave her a funny look and she quickly added, “with my approval. I walked him to the bridge, we discussed it on the way. Anyway, are you coming to the party?”

“Not until later. I promised I’d help Shen with some repairs first. I’m on standby so I can’t party hard anyway,” the Dutchwoman’s nodded towards Banerjee, “Neither can he, for that matter.”

“Getting old ma’am?”

Degroot allowed herself a sardonic grin. She had a young face, round with only a few wrinkles around her eyes, and a high-pitched voice that (thanks in part to a middle class Londoner’s accent when she spoke English) wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a UK university campus. She was, however, the oldest current combat operative in the new X-Com. She’d been a young lieutenant when the first X-Com had fallen and twenty years had passed since then.

“The hangovers are worse than they used to be.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t drink anything. Of course,” Cheng watched Banerjee hovering close to Krause as she and Adams finally fought their way to their own footlockers, “I don’t think he’s got drinking on his mind.”

“As long as he can get his pants back on quickly. Cesar and O’Neill are on cadaver-duty. Cesar will probably join you at the bar afterwards. O’Neill will do whatever he feels like.”

“Probably head to the armoury and sharpen his machete.”

“Again.”

The two soldiers shared a chuckle. It was easy to relax around Cheng. She was calm, good at reading people’s moods and never took a joke too far. Yes, she might have a laugh at the quiet, determined Irishman’s habit of spending more time maintaining his equipment than with his squadmates but she was also the one who rose to his defence whenever a joke went from lighthearted banter to outright disrespect. If you made Cheng laugh you felt good. If Cheng didn’t laugh you felt like a bastard.

Degroot uncrossed her arms and pushed herself off bulkhead and scratched absently at one of the scars on her right bicep, “I need to get going, I’ll see you later.” Raising her voice to be heard above everyone else she yelled out to the two guest of honour, “Emily! Else! I need to go help Shen! I’ll join you all later!”

Krause waved vaguely, while Adams perked up visibly.

“Will Shen be coming to?” she said, half out of her shirt, brown hair falling across one half of her face.

“Most likely, depending on what time we finish. Don’t worry, I’ll drag her along if I can.” Degroot made her way out of the barracks and into the corridor beyond, “And hurry up! Louise will have already drunk all the good stuff at the rate you’re going!”

***

While The Avenger was small by the standards of some of the alien battleships that had made appearances over the Earth and even by the standards of many pre-war human warships, it was still pretty large. Degroot walked quickly through the collection of passages and corridors that wound their way from the top-back of the ship, where the living quarters were, to the lower front of the ship, where engineering was. Stern to bow, she thought idly, wondering if the old nautical terms counted on what was a flying aircraft carrier and troop transport converted from an alien spaceship. Central probably thought so (Bradford was like that), but he’d probably agree with whatever opinion the Commander had on the subject (Bradford was like that). If the Commander had an opinion on the subject, which he probably hadn’t (the Commander was like that).

There was a slight shift in the inertia of the ship, something felt in the inner ear and around the sinuses, indicating that they had changed direction. Degroot paused for a moment, waiting for a claxon to sound or orders for the team on standby about a possible mission. When none came she assumed that they were simply heading to look into some resistance tip-off about supplies or intelligence and continued towards engineering.

She reached the… room? Cabin? Hold? Again, should she be applying nautical terms and which ones if so? She reached engineering, knocked on the door and stepped inside.

“Sorry I’m late,” she muttered, scratching at the scars on her arm, “I needed to talk to Li Ming Cheng about-”

She stopped abruptly when she saw that Lily Shen wasn’t alone. There was the Commander, standing beside his chief engineer in front of a computer concentrating on a tablet as if it was the most important thing in the world (which it might have been). Without conscious thought Degroot snapped to attention and fired off a parade perfect salute, blurting out a “Sorry sir!” that sounded like it came from an untalented parrot. The Commander just waved absently at her and growled out an, “At ease.” Shen leant against her desk, a smirk on her face and amusement visible in her eyes. Wordlessly she pointed at a fabricator on the other side of the room from the Commander. Wordlessly Degroot nodded and wandered over to it.

The fabricator was a large box with a clear perspex top attached to a conveyer belt. Its insides were essentially, as Shen would describe it, a 3D printer with a few robotic arms, saws, drills and a laser for the finer details. Unit 3 had been acting up for a little while now. Nothing serious, but anything that delayed production or wasted resources could be lethal if left to get worse. Degroot had come in yesterday and worked her way through some fruitless software diagnostics, so today she planned on cracking it open and checking out the moving parts. Shen had already left a toolbox besides the miniature factory, so Degroot pulled off one of the maintenance panels and began examining its guts. In the background the Commander began asking questions to which Shen replied quickly enough to indicate she’d been anticipating most of his enquiries.

“So ammunition and explosives won’t be a problem?”

“No, but any advanced grenades or specialty equipment will require investment in supplies. I’ve listed what we’d need specifically on page five.”

“Good. I assume weapon parts won’t be a problem either?”

“For the most part. The heavy machine guns might be an issue if they aren’t maintained properly, since they have the most moving parts. I don’t think any of the troops are careless enough but if you’d make a point of reminding our grenadiers to brush their teeth and triggers regularly I’d appreciate it.”

“‘Teeth and triggers,’ heh, I like that. Might use it myself. Do you need anything else for the construction of the new facility?”

“More help. Aside from that we’re good Commander.”

“Alright I’ll see what I can do. What about- Lieutenant Degroot.”

Degroot paused for a second at her name, but didn’t look away from her work. That would have felt inappropriate. Shen seemed surprised as well, though she overcame it quickly enough.

“Eva is helpful, but I wouldn’t want to impose on her and her other duties. And honestly, skilled as she is she’s not qualified for some of the work we’re going to need-”

“No,” the Commander said, a slight hitch in his voice, “no, I just… I just remembered Lieutenant Degroot.”

Degroot looked up from her work, saw the Commander staring at her intently, felt ridiculously self-conscious. Then his face burst into a smile.

“Starburns!” he damn near shouted, victory in his voice.

Shit. Degroot’s face went bright red.

Shen looked confused (with good reason).

“Starburns Commander?” she asked (the bitch).

“Yeah,” the Commander began (the bastard), speaking fast and cheerful and obtuse, “the lieutenant was wounded while raiding a downed UFO during the first war. Shot by a sectoid with a plasma pistol right in the arse,” he pointed two fingers at her rear end and mimicked the action of shooting a bolt of plasma, “She couldn’t sit for two weeks. The doctors did all they could, but it left a star-shaped scar on both cheeks. One of her friends, a captain we called… Pharaoh? Pharaoh. He was a fan of this show about college with a character named Starburns, and the name stuck. Though he was the only one who ever called her that to her face.”

The Commander grinned like a schoolboy at the end of his story, then finally saw the resemblance of Degroot’s face to a ripe tomato, glanced at Shen who was holding back laughter, then back at Degroot.

“Shit, I’ve embarrassed you lieutenant. My apologies. I… really. I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t remember everything from then. It’s very… very fragmented. When I do remember things, I get excited. I trust Miss Shen will not share this outside this room?”

“Of course Commander,” Shen said not entirely seriously.

“She will not share this outside this room,” a harsher tone from the Commander.

“Of course Commander,” entirely seriously this time.

“Good. Again, apologies lieutenant.”

“Thank you sir.”

“I will say it is nice to see another familiar face in all of this.”

Degroot smiled, “Likewise, sir.”

“Well, I’ll take my leave then. Lieutenant. Miss Shen. I believe there’s a party going on above us. Do make sure you both head up there before it ends.”

With that he turned and left, leaving the engineer and the soldier alone. Degroot turned back to the fabricator and went back to searching through the machine’s equivalent of a small intestine. It was an embarrassing story, and she still had the embarrassing scars to remind her of it, but it was nice to know that someone remembered it. There were few enough people left who could. It was nice that the Commander remembered her from back then. There were few enough left from back then. She felt good. Red-faced but happy.

A feeling that disappeared when Shen walked over and, in a conspiratorial voice asked “Both cheeks?”

***

Emily was drunk. Very drunk if Gertrude Wilders was to be believed. The… fuck, she was Dutch right? Emily knew where Trudy was from most of the time. Dutch. She was Dutch like Eva. Who was Dutch. Of course. Anyway, Trudy would stumble up every so often and point at the empty bottle of what passed for gin that Emily couldn’t seem to get rid of and ask if she’d drunk the whole thing. Emily would say something like “most of it” and Trudy would laugh and tell Emily that she was really drunk. Trudy was pretty drunk as well though, so her opinion may have been off. She was on the other side of the bar now dancing with John Tipene and Martin Singh, both of whom were sobre because their shifts on the bridge started soon.

Thierry… Thee-ary? Tee-ary? Terry? This was why everyone just called him Leroy. Leroy had provided the music, coming down after briefing Central and checking on Navarro in the infirmary and plugging an old smartphone into the sound system. Mostly pre-war French electro-swing, to everyone’s great surprise. He was with Li now, singing along to the current mix of synthesised beats, wind instruments and sultry vocals. That Li seemed to know the words were more surprising. Was. Was more surprising. The two of them had been working their way through the bar’s supply of bottled beer, and at some point had produced a pair of fighting knives which they were now taking turns to hurl at the dartboard next to the bartop. Li had better aim, but couldn’t get the knife to strike the board point first so was just hitting the bullseye again and again with the handle (and laughing every time it did). Leroy’s throws sunk the knives into the board, but nowhere near the centre. Cesar Vargas, sobre as well since he was on standby like Eva, Gerry and Navneet, watched the two drunks handle knives with horror in his eyes, but couldn’t look away.

“Like watching a train wreck,” Emily said, then realised she’d slurred the words out loud.

“What?” yelled Louise over the music.

“Nothing,” Emily shook her head a little to hard, tried to take a swig from her bottle, realised it was empty, placed it on the bartop a little too loudly.

She sat with Louise and Simmons (she didn’t know his first name, no one seemed to), who acted as deck-chief and navigator for the Skyranger. Like Louise he was also a Canadian. Like Louise he had a half-empty bottle of rye whiskey in front of him, bartered from a resistance contact who seemed to know how to make the stuff without anyone going blind. Else sat with Navneet and Charlie Otembe (a short, slim Nigerian who handled most of the ship’s basic wiring), discussing something that both men obviously found very interesting. Or maybe they just found her boobs very interesting. Else had very nice boobs, and Emily wasn’t entirely sure she was wearing a bra under her standard issue t-shirt.

Shit, she was staring at Else’s boobs. She needed to stop staring at Else’s boobs. She wrenched her attention away from the two, and refocus on Louise and Simmons. They were talking about… electronics? Something about the Skyranger’s fuses? Emily had no fucking idea. She sighed and wished that Shen was here, that Eva would hurry up and bring her.

There was a cheer from the trio at the dartboard, even Cesar, and Emily saw Li pulling a knife out of the centre of the board. She cheered as well, and tried to take a celebratory pull from the gin bottle in front of, realised it was empty, put it back down and pushed it away in disgust. Emily was bored and staring at the wrong pair of boobs. Time to fix this. Be decisive.

“Right,” she said pushing herself out of her chair unsteadily, “I am going to go pee. I am going to go get Eva and Shen. Then I am going to get another bottle of something. In that order.” Decisive.

Louise and Simmons looked at her, gave her a nod, then went back to their chat. Emily turned and left the bar, holding tight to every bulkhead she passed and feeling the ship swaying around her.

There was a head just next to the bar, a small metal room with a large toilet and sink, both with rounded edges and corners so that if violently shaken a falling crew member might only end up with a concussion instead of cracking their head all the way open. She peed, stood, flushed, bent over and puked loudly into the toilet. Then puked again, a little less loudly. She groaned when it was done, spun around to the sink and washed her hands and face, rinsed out her mouth. There wasn’t a mirror handy, so she couldn’t be completely sure it was all gone, but a quick check seemed to show she’d missed her clothes. Thank God for small mercies.

“Right,” she said again and staggered towards engineering.

The bar was, effectively, right above engineering, but getting from one to the other required either going through the armoury hangar or winding your through a corridor, down a narrow staircase and past a pair of rooms yet to be cleaned up, cleaned out and generally patched up. Heading through the armoury was faster, but required going down a ladder, and Emily didn’t trust her… laddering… abilities at that exact moment. The stairs seemed safer. Even then, if they weren’t so narrow she might not have made it, one step at a time with her arms pressed against either wall to keep her steady. Shit, she made it though. Barely, but she still made it. Fucking most terrifying thing she’d done that day, and a few hours ago she’d shot an alien. An alien with no lips and a lot of teeth. She shuddered, and wished she hadn’t left her bottle of gin behind. Still, she was in the final stretch. One foot in front of the other, steadier than she’d been for some time, she made her way slowly towards Shen. And Eva, but mostly Shen.

Then stopped. She was in front of a sliding hatch left open a crack thanks to a bit of piping that had fallen between it and the frame. Probably one of the dozen rooms filled with alien junk that needed sorting out and rewiring into something useful. But Emily could hear voices, mumbling, grunting, groans, muffled words. Curious, she leant heavily on the frame and peered through the crack. Saw two bare, pale legs (socks still on) wrapped around a waist above a bare, brown ass thrusting fast and hard in time to the moans, groans and grunts of the intertwined couple.

Surprised, cheeks suddenly burning, Emily took a step back, but not far enough away that she couldn’t still see part of the furious fucking through the narrow opening, a shuddering leg crossed over a socked foot and a pulsing ass-cheek still very clear in her sight now that she knew what she was looking at. So she took another step back and felt herself run into something lean and muscled. A hand clamped over her mouth before she could make a sound, and if she’d been sober she might have fought back. Might have driven an elbow right into Eva Degroot’s gut. Thankfully her brain was running slow enough that by the time she thought to aim a pointed body part at her attacker, her eyes had found Eva’s smiling face. The older woman winked, raised her free hand to her lips to indicate silence, waited for Emily to nod back before releasing her. Lily Shen was just behind, grinning wickedly as the voices from just past the door began to get louder. Eva pointed towards the stairs that Emily had struggled so hard to get down. The two other women nodded and gave the lovers some privacy.

The trip back up was much easier with Eva and Shen behind her providing physical and moral support. They kept quiet until reaching the top, where Emily spun around on the other two (and almost kept spinning but luckily managed to grasp a bulkhead and catch herself before going down).

“Who was that?” she hissed in a slurred whisper.

“Well,” Eva shrugged, “I’m pretty sure I heard German, so probably Krause and Banerjee.”

“Else and Nav? What? Since when?”

Eva shrugged again, “A few weeks maybe? They started not long after they both joined the Avenger.”

“I thought everyone knew,” Shen said with a small, embarrassed smile that made her look very pretty in the artificial lighting, “They aren’t really good at being discreet about it.”

“I had no idea!”

“That is because you’re a sweet and innocent hardened killer,” Eva wrapped a strong arm around her (probably to help hold her up) and tousled her hair, “with little experience in these areas.”

“I am not innocent,” even drunk Emily regretted how childish she sounded, especially in front of Shen.

“Yes you are. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

Eva began to walk again, arm still wrapped around Emily and dragging her along. Shen fell into step besides them.

“I suppose we’re not technically military,” the chief engineer said thoughtfully, “so there aren’t really any rules against fraternisation.”

Emily felt rather than saw Eva nod, “Yes, but I remember even during the first X-Com the Commander wasn’t too bothered about enforcing them. If you might die in a week you don’t want to do so with regrets. As long as it didn’t affect the job and you didn’t use his quarters.”

Emily looked sideways at Shen, smiling on the other side of Eva as they walked.

“Where are we going?” she asked Eva.

“Back to the bar of course. Miss Shen here owes you a drink.”

“She does?”

“You killed your first alien. Of course she does.”

“You did. I do.” Shen nodded faux-seriously, “May Tygen cut it up into tiny little pieces,” then she smiled again.

“Oh. Okay. Why are you being so nice Eva?”

Eva chuckled, “I’m in a good mood. Don’t get used to it.”

“Oh. Okay. What were they saying?”

“What was who saying?”

“You said you heard German.”

“Germa- Oh. It was just Krause who was speaking German. I don’t think Banerjee speaks it, though he’s probably learning it a little. I’m a little rusty, but I believe she was repeating the word ‘schwerer.'”

“What does that mean?”

“Harder.”

Emily’s cheeks went scarlet. Absently, she wondered if there was any gin still in that bottle she’d left behind.

Irrational Irritations and other Unnecessary Issues (1/3/2016)

On By longandshortofitallIn Quick and dirty, Random but worthyLeave a comment

You know what I don’t actually mind anymore? People taking pictures of their food. Seriously, if you want to take pictures of that salad on your table and put it on Instagram that is not just completely okay with me, but these days I will defend you for doing so. No one is more surprised that I just typed out that last sentence more than me.

Now, it used to annoy me. Back home when I was out with friends we’d see someone holding their phones above their plates we’d have a good laugh at these ridiculous people letting their food go cold. If you were one of our friends there was a good chance we’d relentlessly mock you to your face, or at least share a groan at the sight of yet another picture of a steak sandwich appearing on your social media wall of choice. I mean, why would you be taking a photograph when you could be eating it? There are starving children all over who dream of that linguini in that bowl and here you are putting a picture of it up on the internet for them to see, rubbing it in.

Not surprising that I’d have a problem with something like this, at least initially. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’ll make broad judgements based on trivial and inconsequential things that have no real effect on me.. I’m half-a-hipster, so a complete arsehole. Shit, that’s what these posts are basically here for. Working at a restaurant you’d think that I’d only get more and more annoyed by people taking pictures of their food. Apparently, you’d be wrong.

Y’see I like the place I work at, I like the food, and I like that other people like the food. I may not be the one in the kitchen prepping calamari or flipping burgers, but I feel a certain pride in the quality of the meals we provide. They look good, they smell great, they taste amazing. Seeing someone who is so excited by the sight of one of our burgers that they want to create a permanent memory with their friends and share it with their mates appeals to that pride. It’s a fucking compliment, how could I be annoyed at that?

But it goes beyond pride at work. About a week after I arrived in Canada I went to a bar that I’d eventually become a regular at and began working my way through the cocktail menu. It’d only been a short while but I was already missing the people I’d left back home, and that night I was missing one of best mates in particular. Back home I’d have been at that new bar with him, ordering the whiskey and rum based while he’d be getting into the gin and vodka drinks. I missed that, so when I got a delicious twist on an old fashioned I did something I don’t normally do. Snapped a picture and tagged him with it on Instagram. Sharing a drink with my mate the only way I could. God bless social bloody media and all that.

So yeah, I get it. I appreciate it. I’m sorry to the people I made fun of. If you wanna take a picture of that lovely looking banana split you’re having for breakfast (yolo) than do it. I can’t guarantee I’ll ‘like’ it, mind you, but I’ll defend your right to put it on Facebook.

Still not a fan of gym selfies though. Fuck’em.

Bad behaviour for all the world to see: A thought on how social media might affect employment

On By longandshortofitallIn Questions of culture, Quick and dirty, Random but worthyLeave a comment

So it was the end of my shift at work and I was taking a quick glance through Facebook while waiting something to eat. Between the obligatory pictures of people’s pet, distant parties, workout selfies and one awesome video of two kangaroos fighting in the middle of a school (with the usual “meanwhile, in Australia…” tag) were a whole heap of unusual posts and changes by one of my good mates. Strange stuff, like switching his gender from “he” to “she,” sharing a page about veganism, changing his profile pic and cover photo to something less than flattering and making it clear that he would no longer be shoving his thumb up his bum. This last one was quite clever, since it involved changing his employment status to “bum thumb” and then quitting it, thereby adding “Quit bum thumb” onto his timeline with a little comment. Now, the easy assumption to make is that his Facebook was taken over by someone that was not my mate. Maybe a tech-savvy enemy had broken through Facebook’s security to play havoc with his life. More likely he’d left his phone or computer unlocked and Facebook logged in and a cackling friend had gone to town. Where I come from both circumstances would be referred to as getting “hacked” so that’s the language I’m gonna use here. Now, he might not have been hacked. He might have become a transgender vegan since I last saw him a few days ago. I doubt it though. I mean transgender maybe, but vegan? No way, no how, no matter the preferred pronoun. I also can’t see him doing this to himself. So he must have been hacked. And that got me thinking.

One of the biggest issues that our generations moving forward are going to have to deal with is employers (current and prospective) going through our social media accounts and using that information to decide continued or prospective employment. It’s happening now, it’ll continue to happen, there’s nothing we can do about it. Except bitch and moan when an employer uses a picture from Facebook or Instagram of us passed out on the lawn surrounded by empty tequila bottles and a stolen hills hoist as an excuse to fire our drunken arses. Well, that and keep those pictures off the publicly viewable internet. If social media is an extension of an individual’s personality then companies have a right to base their decision upon whether or not that personality meets their standards, image and brand. On the other hand, do we as individuals not have the right to keep our personal and professional lives and views separate? But that’s a discussion for another time. What I began to wonder, and wonder if anyone else had begun to wonder, was if anyone had looked at a hacked account and decided that, no, this person isn’t for us?

Y’see, I spent a few years as a bank teller. Banks, you should know, care quite a bit about security and privacy. That meant not leaving personal information about clients lying where they could be seen (and preferably locking it away), not talking about our customers, changing our passwords regularly and, most importantly, logging out or locking our computers whenever we stepped away from them even if it was only one step. It meant that no one could access them when we weren’t looking, learn someone else’s personal details or deposit twenty grand that didn’t exist into their accounts. “Lock your computers” was a mantra amongst the management of most of the branches I worked at and failing to do so was a fast way to get in a lot of trouble. Fun times. And banks aren’t the only organisations concerned about security and privacy, just the one I was a low level customer service drone for.

Now companies and the people that handle employment are increasingly social media-savvy. Someone working for a corporate HR department would, looking through my friend’s Facebook page (and those of people like him) and guess, like I did, that he was hacked. That most likely he’d left his computer unlocked and his Facebook open and someone had taken the opportunity to take the piss. Now, let’s say this has happened obviously more than once. Might this HR person then conclude that (aside from not having mates who necessarily have their best interests at heart) this person has bad habits regarding their own security and privacy? Poor security awareness? Maybe. Maybe that otherwise harmless joke costs them an interview, under the assumption that bad personal habits make bad professional habits.

I’m not saying this does happen now. I’m not an employer, I’m not interviewing anyone, I’m not working for a company that seems to worry about employees social media accounts, I’m careful about what I post anyway. I can’t say I’ve heard about this happening to anyone yet so maybe I’m just, as I said, overthinking. But as social media comes to dominate more and more of our private and professional lives, we’re going to have to think about things like this. Because other people already are.

So, y’know, maybe next time you see your friend’s left his computer unlocked and Facebook open don’t declare their new found sexuality with a bunch of homophobic slurs. It might make them look bad in more ways than one.

Review the Old School: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

On By longandshortofitallIn Quick and dirty, Up for review3 Comments

Let me be absolutely clear about something right from the beginning. My most recent viewing was of the Director’s Cut. The glorious, three-hour-long Director’s Cut. Did this make a difference? No clue, I watched the original cut way back when it came out and I wasn’t about to rewatch the same movie just to find out what parts they cut out. I’m not that masochistic. I have a job. And other shit to write. Moving on.

Directed by Ridley Scott and released all the way back in 2005, Kingdom of Heaven stars Orlando Bloom as Balian (later de Ibelin), the blacksmith for a Lord in France who finds out he’s the bastard son of a well-regarded Crusader recently back from the Holy Land, Godfrey de Ibelin played by Liam Neeson, shortly after his child dies and his wife tops herself out of grief. At first seemingly angry that Liam Neeson is his father (God knows why), Balian soon decides to join dad in the family business of killing the enemies of the leper King of Jerusalem (voiced by Edward Norton). Him killing his half-brother priest may or may not have helped in the decision making. Dad doesn’t make it past Italy, unfortunately, but makes sure to make Balian his heir and a knight before carking it. Balian gets to the Holy Land, hijinks ensue. These included Balian bedding the King’s married sister Sibylla (played by Eva Green), sparing and impressing a Saracen Cavalier (played by Alexander Siddig), killing a decent number of Christians and Muslims, building a few wells and, of course, taking command of the defence of Jerusalem against Saladin’s overwhelming forces after the new King of Jerusalem (spoiler, Edward Norton dies) starts a war then promptly loses it, all while learning the true meaning of knighthood. Good times.

This is a good movie, but it’s far from a perfect one. Orlando Bloom plays the role surprisingly well. There were one or two moments where I felt he was channeling Legolas or Will Turner, but I’d blame some awkward and clumsy moments in the script more than anything (a moment before the final battle when he’s giving everyone a pep-talk stands out). His character was a little too perfect though. It was lampshaded at the beginning of the film that he’d fought for lords before joining his dad on horseback and in the engineers, had participated in the building of powerful siege weapons, but we see him the movie as one of the best fighters, a skilled tactician and an expert in irrigating deserts. I mean, is there anything this guy isn’t good at? Similarly the villains are cartoonishly bad. Or specifically Guy de Lusignan played by Marton Csokas, the man who would be king and fuck everything up. Don’t get me wrong, Csokas plays the role well enough, but he’s just such a fucking stereotype with no motivation beyond “I’m gonna start a war and kill me some Saracens.” This worked with Brendan Gleeson’s character, Reynald de Chatillon, the insane commander of the Knights Templar, but he’s played as the mad attack dog whose entire purpose is cutting down people who don’t deserve it for his twisted faith. Guy is supposed to be the one who stands to gain the most and lose the most, but we see no reason for him to be such an arsehole. He doesn’t seem to want to conquer, doesn’t seem to give any shits about the faith or crusades beyond providing him with support or troops. There’s some vague hope for winning glory on the battlefield, I guess, but it just seems shallow. Maybe I’m not reading enough into the character, but it seemed like he was acting the arsehole simply for the sake of being an arsehole who we can blame him when the Kingdom of Heaven all goes to hell, and the audience can say, “See? Should have listened to Balian.”

The direction is mostly good, Ridley Scott knows how to cut together an epic and visceral battle, the combat is clear, bloody and wider shots are used to great effect. Smaller skirmishes meanwhile are lonelier, more intimate affairs, but their setups (long shot of a single knight at an oasis) reminded me of showdowns in old westerns. There were a few moments where the editing made me cringe. One in particular, where Balian first meets the king of Jerusalem seemed badly and unnecessarily cut together. They start out talking over a chessboard then are suddenly looking at plans for a fort, which Balian gives his advice on, then awkwardly shifts to the king with him. It’s meant to feel like a long conversation but instead just feels like they decided to skip half a sentence. It’s weird and unnecessary. But not common. As for the music, well, the only time I really noticed it was during the big battles when I realised it was the same theme from The Mummy. Take that as you will.

Regardless, the cast is stellar. And I mean, really fantastic, putting excellent actors in even minor roles. Liam Neeson has a major role but doesn’t make it through a third of the film, Kevin McKidd has about three minutes of screentime before being killed off and is billed only as “English Sergeant” and Michael Sheen plays the priest I mentioned above. The one who gets stabbed by Balian not even ten minutes in. A special mention should go to The Hospitaller, played by David Thewlis. While remaining nameless, The Hospitaller actually manages to survive most of the film and plays a sort of mentor and father to Balian. He’s a man of faith if not religion, and acts as conscience for Balian in his harder moments with good humour and sincere kindness.

But the characters I really wanted to see more of were the Muslims. I remember when I first watched this not long after it came out for the first time on DVD feeling that the Muslims were treated unfairly, and they may have been. But rewatching it, I felt like this was one of the best possible portrayals of an Arab conquering Christians that we could’ve gotten out of 2005. The Christian folk who want peace always remark that it requires both the King of Jerusalem and Saladin to maintain the peace. Firuz, his retainer spared by Balian in the beginning of the film, is a good man and remarks that it was because Saladin was his teacher. Saladin, played excellently by Ghassan Massoud, does a solid job as the stoic general, who doesn’t really want to go through the trouble of taking Jerusalem but has his own fanatics to deal with. He shows disappointment when he meets a captured Guy, and good humour after treating with a worthy opponent. Not a perfect portrayal, but two years into the Iraq War and four years after 9/11 from an American director? Not bad. Not bad at all, and I wish we saw more of it.

Strange to think that this was directed by the same guy who’s now in so much trouble over fucking Exodus: Gods and Kings. What happened Ridley? You used to be cool.

The Stories We give Them: Life in the Avenger’s Barracks

On By longandshortofitallIn Longer rants, Not at all true2 Comments

There was a dull clang that reverberated through the hull of The Avenger as the Skyranger touched down, an ugly bird with surprising grace and a full belly swinging back onto its nest. There was a long moment as a half dozen of the big ship’s technical crew (mechanics some of the time, analysts the rest) and three of the five soldiers who’d remained behind for this mission simply stood in the long shadows hiding them from the very early morning sun, watching as the Skyranger’s powerful jet engines began to cycle down. Then the ramp fell, quick yet controlled, and they rushed forward.

The four troopers who’d made up Menace One were already on their way down the ramp. Gerry O’Neill looked grimly at the crew jogging towards him and grunted something lost over the whine that still came from the slowly stilling turbines and high winds that whipped across The Avenger‘s landing deck. Gabriela Navarro was strung between Li Ming Cheng and Thierry Leroy. There was blood leaking from a gash where her arm connected to her shoulder and a hole in her guts just above her left hip. She was barely walking, her head bowed lower than normal, a grimace on her face, inaudibly mouthing what were probably curses with every step. Given warning of the wounded before hand two of the techs had brought a stretcher to the deck and with a grunt Leroy and Cheng heaved the injured woman onto it as gently as they could.

“CHINGA TU MADRE!” She cried far more audibly, so it obviously wasn’t gently enough. Cheng laughed and Leroy squeezed her uninjured arm in apology.

“I’ll take her to Tygen,” Leroy said, eyes darting between her wounds and the lift down to the bowels of the ship, “I may be of some use.”

Cheng shrugged. O’Neill nodded. The techs were already starting to push her towards the lift.

“Make sure you report to the Commander when you know her condition. He’ll want to be updated on how long she’ll be out of the field for.” O’Neill spoke with a quiet, low brogue. He could be loud when he wanted to, and often had to, but when given the choice spoke like he was singing a lullaby.

Leroy dipped his head and chased after the techs and the stretcher. O’Neill smoothed back his blonde hair (unnecessarily since not a strand had come loose from his tightly bound ponytail) and stared at the activity around the deck. The techs were busy securing the Skyranger with magnetic locks, checking the hydraulics in the struts, examining the still powering down engines and a lot of other things that he wouldn’t have a clue about. The three troopers – Emily Adams, Eva Degroot and Cesar Vargas – were unrolling body bags on the deck in front of the ramp. To hold the loot from the mission. He gave Cheng a look somewhere halfway between a glance and a death-stare.

“We should report to Central and the Commander. They’ll want to debrief us properly.”

Cheng smiled back and sat down on the Skyranger’s ramp, one leg stretched out along its length and the other over its edge and resting on The Avenger‘s deck, her rifle propped beside her.

“You can. I’m going to stay here and supervise the unloading. If the Commander wants to debrief me I’m sure he’ll call.”

O’Neill gave her a look somewhere halfway between acceptance and resentment, grunted a whispered “Okay,” then turned on his heel toward the lift where Leroy, Navarro and the two techs had disappeared two minutes before. Cheng watched him disappear then stretched out and laid back, cradling her head in her hands.

“That, my friends, is a man who probably sleeps with a shotgun under his pillow because a knife didn’t make him feel safe enough.”

That got a laugh out of everyone, even Degroot who did her best to exorcise her sense of humour while on duty. Gertrude Wilders, one of the techs securing the Skyranger to The Avenger nodded as she pulled out a spanner and began making adjustments to the magnetic locks.

“Did you see how tight he held onto his rifle? His knuckles were so white I thought they were going to burst!”

“Too true!” shouted John Tipene, another tech and a big man with a bigger voice, “Anyway, thought you guys would be celebrating more! First successful mission and all that.”

That was true, and barely two days since the Commander had been recovered from the alien facility. He’d been awake just over three hours when he’d gathered the nine frontline combat personnel in the armoury to introduce himself and discuss the direction he planned to lead X-Com and the fledgling resistance towards. Throughout it all he’d been brimming with natural authority and confidence, but polite, courteous, formal and very careful about speaking in clear, plain language (most likely in acknowledgement of those in the group who didn’t speak English as a first language) right until he got to the end and the planned first step.

“Our immediate concern is to make a statement of intent, so that other resistance cells know we exist and the aliens know we are a threat. Thankfully Central was able to point us towards a big fucking statue in what was New York. Now, I don’t know about you but I reckon the best way to make a big statement is blow the shit out of one of theirs. So that’s what we’re gonna do.”

Fours hours later they were gunning down ADVENT Troopers and planting X4 charges on the base of a statue taller than the buildings surrounding it. The mood in the Skyranger had been good…

“Oh, they were celebrating dude,” Louise Seo, Firestarter, pilot of the Skyranger at the centre of everybody’s attention and proud Canuck, had finished her post flight checks and was striding around the aircraft with her helmet under one arm, “even Gerry was laughing at Li here’s jokes. Right up until Gabbie fell onto her face and was forced to admit that the blood loss was worse than she’d told us.”

Cheng nodded and looked at her gloved hands, covered in semi-dry blood til halfway up her forearms. There’d a been a few desperate minutes as Leroy had gone through the Skyranger’s first aid kit and Cheng had been putting pressure on Navarro’s wounds to staunch the bleeding while O’Neill kept her conscious. The desperation had passed when Leroy found what he was looking for, two red injectors that he’d stabbed into the unprotected side of her abdomen and a blue injector stabbed into her neck. She’d stabilised and the bleeding had stopped. The miracles of modern medicine. Cheng had grinned and leant back on her haunches. O’Neill said something nobody could hear but looked relieved nonetheless. Leroy continued to look after Navarro, putting to work the combat medicine he’d been learning around the time the aliens had first started landing and stealing people from Earth.

“Da bien,” Cheng said in Mandarin, “Shit,” she repeated in English.

“What?” Seo gave her a curious look.

“Nothing.”

A second ago she’d been resting her head in her hands. Her blood soaked hands. Dried blood, sure, but it was still in her hair now and the close-shaved sides of her head. She needed a shower anyway, but it probably still didn’t look great. That was fucking annoying.

“It’s fine,” she continued, looking at all the concerned faces.

“Will… will Gabriela be okay?” Degroot asked, cautiously. She had a high voice with an almost English accent when she spoke the language, and a habit of using people’s full names. She was probably the only person who called Cheng “Li Ming” instead of just “Li.”

“She’ll be fine. Leroy says it missed the kidneys and anything else important. She’ll probably still be out of it for a while though. Besides,” Cheng grinned and looked back into the Skyranger’s hold where six relatively fresh corpses bled onto the metallic deck, “she got the bastard who shot her.”

Irrational irritations and other unnecessary issues (16/2/2016)

On By longandshortofitallIn Quick and dirty, Random but worthyLeave a comment

Have I complained about North American toilets yet? I’m gonna complain about North American toilets. What is there to complain about North American toilets you ask? Calm the hell down son, I’m about to tell you what there is to complain about North American toilets.

There’s too much fucking water in North American toilets.

Don’t give me that look, this is a serious issue. It really is. Listen, the country I come from is mostly desert. The rest spends five out of ten years in drought. We are a very water conscious people, and our dunnys reflect that. The half flush? Aussie invention. Waterless urinals? Aussie invention. Toilet bowls that aren’t filled unnecessarily near to the brim? Not sure if that’s an Aussie invention, but we certainly seemed to clue into it before everyone else.

High efficiency and low water usage, because we actually act on concerns about water-security in our day-to-day, unlike some countries and cities I’ve visited. Seriously, what the fuck California? When I was in LA we drove by what looked like a fast food joint that had fucking water misters for keeping customers cool. Fucking water misters spraying an empty patio. I mean, no wonder you lot are running out of water. That is not how you do water restrictions America. Not at all. And it’s reflected in your loos.

They’re loud, they’re wasteful, and there’s a very real danger of splashback. C’mon guys, shape up and get yourselves proper crappers. You too Canada, you’re not getting out of this unscathed.

This is a classy blog. I’m gonna stop while I can still make that claim with a straight face.

God I miss Australian toilets. Amazing what you miss most about home, yeah?