Neccessary Measures

It gleamed. Rather brightly, she thought. It was a mystery how anyone, even the bright people in Omni-Engineering, could make a 190 story high-rise building gleam so much, but then a lot of the cities on Rubi-ka had mysteries, big and small. This was just another one. A small mystery, in terms of significance, but certainly not small...

Funnily enough, the interior gleamed too. It really seemed to be designed to make people afraid of leaving, for fear of the retinas being seared through the sudden change of light. Or perhaps the brain exploding through the change of atmosphere as you walked indoors. It was rumored Department Director's had, in the past, used this building for private residences. Whatever the rumors, she decided to make her own mind up, and crashed onto the bed.

Definitely possible.

The luxury of this place would take some getting used to, especially live and interactive gridfeeds. Good God, she hadn't seen one in nearly 18 months. Long time to live without gridfeed. In a few minutes, she would have wished it could have been longer, but the figure on the bed was content for the moment.

Only for a moment.

IRRK news was about to run a live Gridfeed. Okay, fine, different alignment but newsie's across Rubi-ka were generally the same, with minor differences in language, their posture on certain subjects and differences in the weapons they held to their counterparts throats.

Omni-Reform had, of course, a small warning before the feed. This was not an Omni-Tek sanctioned news broadcast. Which meant IRRK had probably offered a ton, -Reform had probably screamed and whined at a Director's meeting about it, then been overruled because of the profit. If the money was right, she'd lay a bet on the clanner's getting a nice spot on Omni gridfeed. Not that any smart person would listen.

"Ace Reporter Kristi Toolian", reports from Sabulum. Wow, great, fantastic. She had varied memories of Sabulum, both good and bad. The town had once been wonderful, a very long time ago. Pretty dead now, she reckoned, after all the fiasco's that blew up there.

The news report brought up neither a good nor a bad memory, but her future, she figured, was as of 5 seconds ago pretty dead and, upon seeing the report again, she nearly blew up...

"Good God!", was probably heard at the security office, 127 floors below.

It took a while. There had been certain gunshot wounds that had taken less time to recover from than the shock of seeing your life in the corporation make a crash-landing on Simon Silverstone's head, with a sign proclaiming 'shoot me'.

IRRK news had, in all their wisdom, posted the one operation from Doctor Faith Seist's past that haunted the souls of all those involved, 6 years later.

29474. Not a year oft remembered, because very little of note occured in that year. At least, as far as anyone outside of OTAF Special Forces was concerned.

The past was always lurking, and it lurked in a most visual fashion now.

The envelope had resembled a normal monthly pay ticket. One single sheet proclaiming that Rank Name Callsign Name was entitled to CreditAmount. All well and good, even elite troops looked forward to pay day.

Except it wasn't pay day when the envelope arrived.

Quote:

---

"TO: Captain Doctor Faith Seist,
Deputy Commander,
12th Company,
26th Regiment,
127th Mechanized Infantry Division,
Omni Armed Forces.

FROM: The Office of the Lieutenant General (Officer Commanding: OTAF)

Due to the medical threat to Major Portman the office of the CO has decided and confirmed he is no longer the active commander of 12th Company, 26th Regiment, 127th Mechanized Infantry Division.

You are directed to take this communication as notice that you are now in command of 12th Company. Your immediate superior is now Colonel Barrent, 26th Regiment (Commander).

Furthermore, you are directed to detach your company from the Regiment and Division and move to coordinates provided with this communication and establish a forward mounting base, for observation, firebase use and for possible mobilisation of a quick reaction force.

Once in place you are directed to take all neccessary measures prudent to the safety of your command.

Communication ENDs"

---

No, it wasn't Pay Day. It was Pay For This Action With Your Future And Your Life, Day.

Yet she'd never have guessed, sitting in a plush room on Floor 127, that it'd rise up and bite her on the ass. Not considering she was the only person that came home from that particular operation.

Every single morning. Starched fatigues on a burning, hot parade ground with a Sergeant Major screaming attendance and orders.

The company hated their RSM, almost as much as they hated the MP's.

"ATTENTION TO ORDERS!"

No sound, but a crump. Left knee connecting to right knee, sleeves swishing as hands were removed from their clasped position, in the small of the back, to the sides of the thighs. And that was all.

"COMPANY! Your new CO, and foremost Medical Officer, is Captain Doctor Faith Seist! The new CO has decided to keep current duty rosters static. SEE MY OFFICE DOOR FOR THIS Q3 DUTY ROSTER. THAT IS ALL, MARK YOUR ATTENDANCE VIA COMMLINK AND GET TO YOUR DUTY STATIONS!"

Duty
Connected with valor, heroics, bravery, patriotism.
Bulls**t

Captain Seist was not a friendly Officer. A nice person, to be sure, but not a friendly one. Not someone with whom you develop an instant rapport in the Officer's Club. So few had ever heard her voice.

And it brooked no argument.

"Officer's and Enlisted Personnel, see my noticeboard at your earliest opportunity, today for my orders for an upencoming exercise."

She spun, and levelled a QL200 Magnum, not of standard issue, but Officer's normally chose weapons of their own.

"Regimental Sergeant Major, name this weapon," she postively hissed.

She was betting a lot on the RSM being an inflexible, by the book *******.

"I...I don't know it ma'am. It's not standard issue," he stated, but with hesitation.

"Neither are brains, I see. You will find out the name of this weapon by tomorrow's attendance call, or you will face me. And you will never again dismiss or order this parade ground without my permission, especially since I had something to add. Get out of my sight."

Fool, idiot, fool, idiot. Damn the by-the-book people. Damn them to hell.

(nice)

[ Excellent! Me likey ^^ ]

It took a week, but the Regimental Sergeant Major that had caused so much hassle, was given the chance to train as an Officer of Military Police. Everyone won.

By-the-book fool.

Doctor Seist started preparing for the briefing she had ordered. 3 platoons of enlisted personnel, and 1 command team composed of senior non-com's and junior officers, all of whom would be briefed on their objectives, tomorrow morning.

But they were nothing.

Captain Seist
Master Sergeant Pierce
Sergeant First Class Shortly
Sergeant First Class Nation
Lance-Corporal Oakley
Lance-Corporal Seist

Why her hooligan of a brother had been assigned to this group, by explicit order, noone knew. And noone cared, as long as he was watched. And carefully.

3 men, 2 women, 1 Atrox.
3 Solitus, 2 Opifiex, 1 Atrox.

Specialities were different, and varied. And none had been chosen. Not by her anyway.

Officer, Doctor. Senior Non-Com, Doctor. Sniper. Support Gunner. Grenadier. Infantry.

Why?!

((erm.. bump))

(( Virta. What are you doing to my thread? :p ))

((I dont have a clue, sorry. :) ))

((erm... spam?

Nice read though Stilly, keep it up. ))

The year 28480

The body lay, stationary, unmoving, what hair was not trapped under the body occasionally moved in time with the wind.

The blood didn't do all that much.

The sight wasn't an odd one in the sewers of Omni-1 - Entertainment District. The stationary body itself had, on many occasions, connected it's boot to the rear end of many a troublemaker here.

The body would never do it again.

6 years earlier

The patrol hadn't seen her for almost 4 hours. Even the Master Sergeant was getting just a little scared.

"BASTARD." The curse echoed from wall to wall in the canyon. The bridge above creaked, and groaned.

"Grumph," Pierce... pronounced, "At least we know, the Doc can shout. MOVE IT OUT, MONKEY MEN! EAST! DOUBLE TIME!"

"Master Sergeant, sir!"

* * *

"Bloody, bloody, bloody, useless, bloody, mantis," said the impaled and rather bloody figure, right before it collapsed.

"Bloody mantis," it whispered.

The eyes went dark.

((just bumping aaaand....welcome back Still :D ))

"Doctor? Doctor Seist?"

"Yellow"

"What did she say?"

"She said yellow. You grenadiers really are deaf..."

"Shut up boys, and let me through. I'm the only conscious Doctor here."

"Yes, Master Sergeant."

"Bloody mantis..."

"She spoke"

"Thank you, Lance Corporal S. Holmes"

"Who?"

"Corporal Nation, you should really study history."

"Shut UP, monkey men!"

* * *

Omni-3
Omni-Med Headquarters

A routine transfer of filing, confirmed that Jane Doe was in the cold room, refrigerated for the arrival of Doctor. James Felton at 0900 RST, the following morning.