A cascade of dust and debris washed off a rising pile that managed to grunt, “I’m here, Colonel.” Morgan dusted himself off while still sitting in the rubble, feeling slightly concussed from the blast, managing to quickly glance around before continuing, “but our bunker got shelled. Our position will be overrun by Martian armour within the hour. Recommend pulling back to Rusholme.”
“Copy that, Major. Recommendation acknowledged but rejected. Hold the line.”
“Affirmative”, Morgan grumbled, sighing, increasingly convinced that to command and management, the common soldier was currency to be spent. Well, he supposed, that was why they referred to the recruitment offices as “Human Resources”.
Morgan got to his feet, rubbing his head where it had hit the back wall; the hair was slightly matted with blood and sweat. Private Marshall, the man who was manning the heavy pulse cannon, was lying on the floor in a pool of blood and mangled remains by the slagged pulp of what had been the cannon. Private Rogers' antipersonnel gun was nowhere to be seen, nor was the man himself. Lieutenant Johnson was attempting to lift the other antipersonnel gun from where it had fallen after being blown from its tripod. Going to help Johnson, he assumed the rest of his bunker crew were buried under the rubble of the bunker, and right now he didn’t have time to man a rescue operation.
“Beta and Epsilon bunkers, we need increased anti-vehicular coverage over Delta’s line of fire”, he grunted into the com as he helped Johnson heft the gun up to the remains of the wall to use as a brace. “Repeat, Delta bunker is down and out. We need more cover!”
Getting the gun in position, Morgan and Johnson poured pulsefire into the oncoming Martian troops.
Leaving the war room, she spotted Lance, one of the POWs she had helped rescue in a recent raid on Cheney Prison and a victim of the mind control experiments the Corporation had been conducting there. Lance had been subjected to unbelievable tortures in Cheney – the bastards at Dermis had learnt from him that pain can override other memories, and now he was condemned to relive his torment indefinitely in the confines of his own subconscious. She forced a smile for him, and shrugged off the glare she got in response as she wearily continued towards the residents’ quarters in the basement.
In the basement, she fell limply onto her bed, not bothering to remove her cybernetic foot, and lay there for what seemed like an eternity, sleep continuing to dance on the edge of her reach, drained in body but restless in mind.
Chapter 1 of my adaptation and continuation of the story of a forum roleplay I GM'ed well over a year ago, which unfortunately died. I'm adapting it as a "web-book" - the idea here isn't that its capped at the beginning and end like a novel (e-book, I guess) but ongoing, serial, more like a webcomic in structure.
ReplyDeleteIf you want spoilers for the next dozen or so chapters, feel free to read the original roleplay.
Oh, and thanks to Amy Watson & James Mellor for beta reading services, and to Robin Irwin & Amy Watson for their influence on the direction of the story in the course of the original forum rolaplay and the creation of the respective characters of Sam Marks (to be introduced in Chapter 2) and Jeanne Duval.
I just read the first chapter, and it's quite interesting. I'd definitely continue reading.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are some grammatical errors, and some sentences are awkward.
Also, I didn't quite get Jeanne Duval's role. At first you mention that she's a duty watch officer... and was in the war room--which seems to imply that she's part of the government? Then you imply that she's a member of the rebels: rescuing Lance.
Duty watch officer in a rebel base
ReplyDeleteAlso, its Annette who was on watch. Jeanne was just there to keep her from boring herself to death (its a revolutionary militia after all, it doesn't have the same rigid rules and dogma as a regular army. There's no problem with people who aren't on duty being in the war room for example, so long as they don't get in the way anyway. And watching a satellite feed all day can get boring. A bored guard is not an alert guard.)
ReplyDelete