USCMRPG

2179 AD 25th August
Location: CSC Sector, Crysalis, Camp Castaway

18.00 hours local time (Watches calibrated to a 22 hour day/night cycle).

Camp Castaway was a little more than a football field sized compound surrounded by barbed wire and automated sentry guns. The whole camp was rectangularly shaped with a guard tower in each corner. The guard towers were sandbags placed atop platforms with stilts of metallic girders. Gushes of wind picked up the black volcanic dust on the ground and blew across the camp in thick veils - It was bitterly cold. Crysalis was still being terraformed, although the atmosphere was somewhat thin it was completely breathable. In the distance and general direction of the main colony random thumps and muffled staccatoes of gunfire could be heard every now and then over the soft moaning wind. The sky was clear and You could clearly see both stars and the gas giant which no one could remember the name of high aloft. The sun was distant and offered little more than a pale white light, no warmth at all. The nineteen Marines and two artificial persons hauled their duffelbags away from the landing pad were the two UD4-L dropships turbines still whined to a halt. The walked past a peculiar hole with dark stains around it on their way towards a woman who signalled to them to approach. The operation here was set to be at least 60 days so they had brought as much equipment as they could from their orbiting spaceship. Still it would be necessery to do several runs for the dropship crews to get all extra ammunition and supplies down to Castaway. The next scheduled re-inforcement was at least two, probably four weeks away. Already the Marines wondered what they were doing here in the ass end of space on a small rock floating in space. In short. This sucked.

The Marines mood dropped a few more notches as they quickly realized first that they had to live in tents and secondly that the tents had not been raised. The M66-P 8 man tents were neatly stacked in crates at their intended positions just west of the dining hall. The main (and only) building was an absolutely horrible building of naked concrete and with girders of rusty steel portruding out from it like a mutant porcupine. Most likely it was some kind of administrative building for the many mines here on Crysalis that never were never finished before the fighting begun. It was peppered with small holes from gunfire.

The woman who had waved at appeared to be a liasons officer. She were clad in the standard colonial Marine BDU, speckled in black and dark grey to fit in with the black volcanic ground, but lacked both armor and helmet, instead she had a cap with the USCM insignia on it. She wore a VP70 in a thigh holdster on her right thigh, she had a very pointy nose and her short cut blond hair whipped in the gusts. She saluted LT Jones sharply. "Lieutenant! Welcome to Crysalis. I am Lieutenant Anderson, I am sorry we have not had time to raise Your tents" Her voice barely carrying over the wind. "We suffered a mortar attack earlier today with three wounded who were medivaced" She gave a brief glance over their shoulders towards the peculiar hole they had walked past. "...after You get Your men started with the tents we can meet in the dining hall were I will brief You further. You will go into this head first, get ready for the first patrol tonight at 22.00 hours" she halted for a second "...local time" she added. With that she turned around and left them. She left with the kind of hurry someone freezing to their very bones does when heading for the door of their house. Raising the tents would probably end up being very annoying. And very cold.

>

OOC: Who gets what weapons and so on will be decided by the Sergeant of each section once briefing is done.

After disembarking the UD4L with the rest of the platoon an unshaven and tired Simovic had listened intently to what the liason officer had told them. He didn't relish having to sleep in tents especially ones in range of mortars but given they had no choice decided to get his section straight.

"Corporal Heart and Corporal Apachetear get your men setting up those tents you may want to leave enough space between them for a fire, looks like it could get pretty cold tonight".



Simovic then went over and spoke to Lt Jones "What do you think, I don't like the idea of having the men bed down here if there's mortars zeroed in, should we move them or start putting a few perimeter patrols out?"

Dirk put his seabag over his shoulder and walked down the ramp into the shit hole planet the Corps had put him. The dust swirled around them, kept aloft by the frigid alien winds. Looking around his eyes fell on the hole. "Looks like the party started without us." He thought as they passed it.

The alien sky held the twin stars and the huge gas giant that hung over them like the Sword of Damocles. He sighed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarets and his lighter. Lighting one with the battered old USMC lighter that had been passed down from Marine to Marine in his family he put both back in his pocket and followed the LT to the officer that was waving them over.

Listening them talk he almost laughed."Tents. Fuckin tents. Not even set up yet. Tell me is isn't the government its best." He thought as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke, watching the wind catch it. In the distance he could hear weapons fire. The patrol tonight should get interesting.

"Ok fourth squad. You know what to do. Lets get these tents set up and ready to go. After that the sarge will let us know about drawing weapons and ammo. Looks like we have a patrol coming up so lets be ready." Dirk said over the wind.  

''Yes sir'', Pvt.Monks said over the whirling winds of the moon the marines where sent too.

"Yes corporal Dirk!" Posey sounded off. Then he began helping Pvt. Monks by giving him a hand with the tents.
-=Dirk=-

"So monks how long you been on the base here?"
-=Tag Monks=-

Posey looked up at the two stars which had distracted him for a second or two. Then he slung his rifle on his back and began working again.

"As long as you have been here Posey" Monks yelled throw the dirty wind of the moon ,while he helped the Pvt. set up the tents.

Logan walked down the ramp while slinging his duffle bag over his shoulder. He was hoping his first drop would be in an area where it was at the very least somewhat warm, but instead he was dropped into this ice box.

Logan was one of the new guys in the unit, fresh from boot-camp, and he was determined to impress the older veterans. He also wanted to get moving as soon as possible.

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Kurosaki stood there waiting orders. He had come from a family of rice farmers in Nagasaki, not far from where the atomic bomb had struck. Japan was in a middle of civil war between the military and the rebels, headed  by Shuya Narahara. His family moved him to the united americas when he was fifteen. His first language was Japanese, but could speak enough english to survive boot camp.

"Uhhh... Awaiting Orders"

Tomala walked off the ramp with his bags and his rifle slung. He took a deep breathe and continued moving. He missed home dearly he saw alot of Marines had never seen before. He was from New York City he missed the atmosphere of the whole concerate jungle. Now he was going to serve in a conflict that mean't really nothing to him but he is a Marine it was his job and he loved the Colonial Marine Corps and everyday he spent in it. He never wanted to go to and have a desk job in the real world he needed excitement. He put his bags down for a couple of minutes for a rest and said, " Private Tomala awaiting orders."

'Here we go again...' was the first thought that passed Collins' mind when he heard the heavy hydraulics of the UD4L's ramps howl. Collins has been with the USCM for a couple months already and had the doubtful privilege of visiting a fair half a dozen planets. Sean figured that you could tell how the whereabout on a planet would be, by experiencing the very first ten seconds after arrival. With this rather senseless theory on his mind he set his first step from the dropship ramp onto Cyrsalis... "Fuck!" Black dust whirled around his feet and the harsh cold wind bit directly into his spine. Adding to the uncomfort of Sean's legendary 'first ten seconds' a wandering dustcorn got caught in his left eye.
Rubbing his eye he kept on marching down from the landing pad with the others. By now he already knew what was to be proven a given fact - this place sucked!
While the CO's and NCO's were counseling, Sean stood with the other marines, looking at the crates with the neatly folded tents discontentedly. Carelessly he dropped his stuffed dufflebag to the dusty ground, waiting for the order he already knew. "Set the fucking tents up, and reinforce them with sandbags... shit figures, we'll have to fill them ourselves, too." he mumbled to himself, taking a look at his wristwatch doublechecking that it was set to the local time course.
(tag Anyone whose near to Collins)

Heart dropped his gear near one of the tentpacks.



"First squad, you heard the man! Start pitching this tent. On the double!" Heart shouted to make himself heard over the wind. He then opened the tentcase marked "1" and started to sort out the various pieces of equipment inside.



"Logan, since you where so kind to ask, how about you grab that corner over there, and stretch it." Heart shot the private a toothless grin.

Ignoring the departing dropships Octavius double timed it away from the landing pad, while taking in what the rest of the platoon were doing, to a cleared space in which the supplies from the ship had been dumped before looking around for his squad leader.

Standing just five feet nine inches tall, Octavius wasn't the tallest man in the platoon, but his uniform was immaculate and his blue eyes offset his rather hawk faced appearance.

Clucking his tongue at the sight of the haphazard stacking of the platoons supplies, he caught sight of his approaching squadleader and instantly came to attention.

"Corporal Silvanus!  What are our orders, sir?" asked the marine, his voice holding a trace of an accent.

She saluted LT Jones sharply. "Lieutenant! Welcome to Crysalis. I am Lieutenant Anderson, I am sorry we have not had time to raise Your tents" Her voice barely carrying over the wind. "We suffered a mortar attack earlier today with three wounded who were medivaced" She gave a brief glance over their shoulders towards the peculiar hole they had walked past. "...after You get Your men started with the tents we can meet in the dining hall were I will brief You further.

Jones returned the salute and nodded. He did not care to attempt to speak over the wind.

Lieutenant Jones was happy to see the initiative of his platoon. They had gotten to work quickly in the terrible conditions.

Simovic then went over and spoke to Lt Jones "What do you think, I don't like the idea of having the men bed down here if there's mortars zeroed in, should we move them or start putting a few perimeter patrols out?"

Jones replied to Simovic and made sure that Sergeant Bennett could hear, "There's not much we can do about it. It's not as if there's that much room. Let's just get all men setting the tents up quickly and hope we can do something about it once on patrol. The sentry guns will give us warning if someone attacks the compound. Once they're at work, you two come with me and Lieutenant Anderson"




OOC: Can we tell if there are guards in the guard towers and if we're sharing the compound or if it's just the bandits.

There is one guard in each tower. Part from that the base seems almost deserted.