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ASK Fanfic7
Also Known as Unit Relations
by Anthony Kim |
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Centaurus, Chaos March
May 22, 3058
Lance Corporal Ibrahim Assad and Privates Jimmy Parks and Geraldine Jones were ready to party. They had just finished the big training exercise successfully. That hadn't meant the end of their work, however. An exhaustive After Action Review was done immediately afterwards, highlighting not only what went wrong, but also what had been done successfully. Although everyone was tired and hungry, they followed the AAR with a weapons cleaning, following the Marine philosphy that taking care of your weapons came first.
After a shower and a really long rest, the trio was more than ready to cash in on the leave that had been granted. They were dressed in their khakis, smelling clean and looking sharp. Parks had gone so far as to douse himself with cologne, claiming, to the derision of the rest of the platoon, that it helped him with the ladies. Heading out of their quarters, they hit the streets. The streets of Marcellus City were awash with military uniforms of the different units currently on-planet. Marines rubbed shoulders with soldiers from the Phoenix Lancers and the 13th Arctic Irregulars, as well as other smaller units.
Elementals parted the crowd with ease, discernible by their size and bulk. They had not lost the arrogance that seemed to mark most Clanners, even though as defeated opponents, they had been taken into the Lancers as bondsmen. Interspersed among the crowd were soldiers wearing the distinctive armbands of MPs, nervously watching the crowd.
The streets were broad, to allow for military traffic as well as extensive civilian use. Hulking military vehicles and sleek civilian cars sped on. However, the streets still had an intimate feel to them. Tall buildings bordered the streets, making the pedestrians feel as if they were walking in the middle of an artificial canyon. Smaller side streets from the main avenue beckoned with neon signs, advertising some novel way to part the customer from his money.
Jimmy had to be forcibly restrained from entering some of the seedier looking joints. He claimed it was because the crowd out on the streets made him feel claustrophobic, and he needed to sit down somewhere, but they all knew better. He had tried that ploy before, and the had nearly ended up in the stockade that time.
For a while, the three of them wandered aimlessly about, just soaking up the sights. Truth to tell, it looked pretty much the same as any other city in the Inner Sphere. However, as all of them had never left the Republic before, it just felt _different_ in a way none of them could explain.
Getting a little bored playing tourist, the three Marines began to look for their destination. A friend of one of their squadmates had mentioned a particular club in downtown that had good music, good atmosphere, and a dance floor. It seemed the perfect place to relax and unwind, and Corporal Jeffries, their squad leader decided to hold a squad party there. The squad was proud of their performance in the exercise, and it felt like the thing to do. Assad consulted the directions he had been given. "Ok, we make a right here," he said, pointing toward a small pedestrian street that branched off from the main thoroughfare. The street was dark, as the buildings facing the street blocked the setting sun. "Let's see if we can find it." The three of them headed down the street.
The place was not that hard to spot. In the semi-darkness, they saw the neon sign advertising the place. Underneath the sign, stairs headed below street level. Heavy vibrations could be felt coming from the stairwell. Jones grinned. "Okay, there it is, The Forgotten Planet. Looks like my kind of place, guys. Let's party!" She led the way down the stairs.
Parks and Assad grinned, and followed.
Throwing open the door, they were assaulted by the sheer noise. Hard rock music sailed past them out into the street, and the trio pushed through the wall of sound to enter the bar. Directly across from the doorway was a bar that ran about two thirds the length of the bar, trimmed with electric blue neon lighting. A young bartender stood at the bar mixing drinks. To the right was a dance floor and areas for both a DJ and a live band. To the left and extending to the long ends of the bar were booths set on a higher level, so that to get into the booth, one had to step up. Right in front of the Marines were chairs and tables. Not all of this was apparent at first, since the bar was packed! There was hardly room to sit, and the clientele was a mixture of both civilians and military, drinking beer, dancing, or just talking, trying to compete with the music. Parks's eyes lit up, as he assessed the female portion of the crowd. Jones turning her head, dryly remarked, "Guess we're not the only ones with good ideas, it seems."
Assad grinned and gave him a smack on the back of his head. "Quit thinking with your 'nads, boy!" Before Parks could reply, he heard a welcoming shout from the rest of the squad, who had reserved a booth. Bobbing his head in time with the music, they headed for the booth.
The entire squad celebrated their performance, drinking and talking animatedly. Oddly enough, though they were all drinking, none of them seemed to be drunk, as if their excitement was burning off the alcohol as they drank it. They weren't the only group of Marines there, but they were definitely the most rambunctious.
The DJ in his corner area started playing the latest by Misjump Catastrophe, a band from the Federated Commonwealth that was just starting to make a name for itself. Jones's head snapped up. "Hey, this band rocks! Let's go dance!" Most of the squad went to the dance floor, the only exceptions being a couple of people begging off, including Jeffries, claiming that they were really tired.
Jimmy Parks was wound up and dancing sounded just fine to him. Moving his body to the music, he was a whirlwind of energy on the dance floor, making up moves as he went along. Although Parks was excellent in the field, with an awareness of his surroundings and how to move through them silently, he lost all of that on the dance floor. The other Marines tried to give him as much room as they could, to avoid getting smacked. The group ended up moving to the edge of the dance floor when it happened.
Parks's flailing hands accidentally upended a drink on a nearby table, sending it on a ballistic trajectory across the room. Assad, standing across from the gyrating young man, saw the plastic glass arc across the room. It hit, drenching a pretty young woman in alcoholic beverage. His first thought, perhaps brought on by the alcohol, was a humorous "Shot, out" as the thing reminded him of an artillery round, followed by an "Uh oh" as the woman's angry date stalked across the room and headed for the dance floor.
The other Marines had stopped dancing, but Parks was in his own world, oblivious until he was jerked around by a pair of rough hands. His eyes followed the hands up to a uniform he had never seen before to a face contorted by anger. The mouth opened, and an angry bellow came out. "LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY DATE, ASSHOLE!"
Parks followed the guy's pointed finger to the still soaked woman. "Shit, I did that? I'm sorry man."
The man was unsatisfied. "What are you going to do about it, jerkwad?"
Parks thought about it, squinting at the man's name tag. "Well, Mr. LeBlanc, how about I pay for her cleaning bills?"
"Not good enough," the man retorted. "How about me and some of my friends, take you outside and beat the crap out of you?" gesturing to his table where similarly garbed people sat.
Assad thought to himself, this is getting a bit out of hand. Pushing the man's hand aside and interposing himself between them, he spoke. "Look, he said he was sorry," he said, glaring at hisfriend. "How about we buy you and your friends a drink? What unit did you say you were from again?" Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Corporal Jeffries, and other Marines who had come to the bar. This movement was mirrored by the angry man's comrades who stood up and started moving toward the scene of the confrontation.
The man, still staring at Parks, answered. "We're from Kavanaugh's Kommandos."
Still trying to turn the man's thoughts away, Assad was going to question him about the unit, which he had never heard of before, when the startled man was picked up by the collar by a mountain.
Or at least that's how it seemed. The Elemental and a couple of his friends had been sitting at the bar, and had moved to the scene of the confrontation. His Lancer uniform was decorated with a Nova Cat patch on his shoulder sleeve. "Gentlemen," he said in a pleasant baritone, "I cannot hear this fine music because of you two, and you are disrupting my evening, so please take this outside, or else." He punctuated his sentence by lightly tossing the man back to his friends. With a slight sneer on his face, he muttered, "Stravag freebirths" and turned to go back to his chair.
Unwilling to let the Elemental have the last say, the Kommando yelled to his back, "Unlike you guys, at least we don't knuckle under to ComStar every chance we get!"
The enraged Elemental turned, his fist cocked back. However, Parks literally beat him to the punch, cold cocking him into the arms of his fellow Kommandos. The fight lasted until much later when riot police capped the festivities off by hauling everyone, Elemental, Marine, and Kommando into jail. |
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