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The story begins. Our heroes are marines of the United States Colonial Marine Corps cruiser USS Gaines, waking up from hypersleep after a long and mostly uneventful police patrol of the remote colonies. They believe their next stop will be home and shore leave, so they sleep peacefully.
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One by one, the members of the marine troop thaw out and step from their cryo tubes. They are few in number. At the executive end, we have Lieutenant Norman Fleming, the unit's commanding officer. The troops are under the leadership of Sergeant Gary Moore. His corporals are Alexandra Brimstone for the infantry unit, and pilot Daniel Duarte for dropship ops. The dropship gunnery chief is Private Robert Sabo. The ground troop privates are demolitionist Michael Morrison, APC driver Kenneth Berliner, comtech Nino Vitelli, medic Aishwarya Patwardhan, and smartgunners Jarod McKenzie and Joshua Booths. Rounding out the military personnel is the sophisticated android Leon, in a science support capacity. The motley outfit stretches its legs and jaws.
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Between bad food and bad language, the orders come through: check out the Korea, an ailing supply ship on an emergency return course to Rodina station.
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The marines get the lecture of a lifetime, as the Sarge and the LT try to prepare the troops for what they might be facing: possible contamination, crazy crew.
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The Gaines draws up close to the Korea. Comtech Vitelli scans the supply ship and investigates the findings. The marines work on their individual assignments before disembarking.
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The USS Gaines completes its long loop to intercept the Korea and sidles close to the ailing supply ship. The soldiers suit up for battle, load into the APC and the dropship, and launch on what is to be a very brief inspection of the ghost ship before entering her top-side shuttle airlock. From there, lowered into the bowels of the ship, the APC rolls out into the vast empty cargo staging area. The ship is dark and cold. They travel forward as far as they can before reaching the obstructing walls of the forward cargo holds. The marines head out on foot.
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7. 06 - Inside - Mar. 12, 2002, 04:15PM - Read 931 times |
The troops quickly find that certain doors are jammed or out of power. They split up into two squads. One team moves forward through the straight and narrow access tunnel to the crew decks, while the other team takes a more circuitous route through one of the cargo bays. Back on the Gaines the military-employed android Leon receives a coded transmission from Earth and sends it through to Fleming, who's too busy to read it.
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As the squads continue forward they find that the cargo is intact, and that aside from a few leaky pipes, there's nothing obviously wrong with the ship. Getting closer to the crew decks, they gradually put themselves out of radio and video contact with Lieutenant Fleming aboard the APC. But the LT's not alone: dropship crewmen Duarte and Sabo are busy setting up sentry guns in the open cargo staging area the APC is parked in.
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9. 08 - Static - Mar. 12, 2002, 04:44PM - Read 865 times |
Cut off from command, the squads enter the forward crew area for the first time. A false-reading tracker leads to a moment of tension.
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10. 09 - Dreams - Mar. 12, 2002, 04:59PM - Read 899 times |
Sarge's squad makes its way onto the bridge, finding it empty. Brimstone's squad checks out a tool-making setup in one of the compartments before moving on.
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66 entries found in Chapters.p1 - p2
- p3
- p4
- p5
- Forward 1 Page
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