| abstract | - Urfkgar is with a bunch of marines in line at one of the food vendors. Cole leaves the barracks in an undirtied uniform, implying he hasn't begun working quite yet. He looks around and after a loud grumble from his stomach he falls in line behind Urfkgar. The Zangali shuffles forward a step. Then, the line gets hijacked by a man making an extremely detailed and drawn out order as he tries to get a very specific hotdog. The man in question is not a marine. He says, "Yeah, uh, hmm, you know with mustard on the bun - but not on the dog itself. Then, I want ketchup criss-crossed over the mustard. Then, yeah, you know, four dobs of relish..." Cole checks his PDA for the time than taps his foot impatiently as the man holds up the line. He sighs and is getting a little upset. "HEY PAL! THIS AIN'T GOURMET COFFEE, ITS A HOT DOG!" He yells forward in his Tycho accent, leaning to his left so that he is visible in the line. Urfkgar looks over his shoulder at Cole before looking at the guy who seems slightly taken aback by the impatient engineer behind him. The guy says, "Yeah, my hotdog, so I'm getting it the way I want it because I'm paying for it." He turns back to the vendor who, by the look in his eyes, seems to share Cole's sentiments, "Anyway, I want those little green peppers. You know, the, uh, hal-oh-peen-yos. I want three of them between the rlish spots." Cole sighs and rubs his face with his hand. "I can't believe this guy. Does he know what's /IN/ a hot dog?" He asks with disbelief. The vendor just complies with the guy's requests, and the man eventually seems satisfied with the hotdog and moves on to the drink, "Now, what kind of ice do you have?" "Crushed," says the vendor. "I want a bit of ice lining the bottom of the cup. Then, lemonade. Then, more ice." The Zangali and most of the marines in the line at the food vendor behind this guy seem fairly zoned out by now. One of the marines, a Zangali and one person in front of Cole, says, "Give me a break." "This guy's out of control." Cole says simply. He sets down his field kit in his spot and looks to the man behind him. He gives that guy a stern look, perhaps to tell him not to skip Cole. The engineer then walks along the line until he's behind the picky man. He taps the guy on the shoulder and then puts his hands on his hips. "What?" asks the picky fellow as he turns to face Cole. The less zoned out marine follows Cole up to help hash things out. Jantine walks out of the barracks, and spies Urf in this long line, hoping to get his training begun he starts towards the line, but upon seeing Cole looking very threatening at the front of the line, keeps back, wanting to stay out of the way. "I'll pay you to get out of the line. Now." The stocky engineer says flatly. He looks very serious, but doesn't seem in a ranting mood, even though this guy is holding up an entire line of people. "Pay me to get out of line?" asks the picky eater. "Why would you do that?" Meanwhile, the hotdog vendor sneaks a hotdog to the marine next in line, trying to move through the line while the guy is distracted. Jantine continues watching the scene begining to unfold, trying to stay out of the way and in the background. Cole flips his eyes to the left to see the crafty hot dog vendor and then moves them right back to the perturbing man. "Because your holding up the damn place, and I don't want the marines behind you to rip you a few new torso orifices." He says frankly. "That would force me to get a mop. And honestly, I'm too overqualified to be mopping your internal organs." The marine who had followed Cole up says, "We'd keep it clean. The Chief could eat anything left over." The Zangali doesn't seem to hear this comment, and another marine is served while the conversation continues. The line begins to show some serious signs of life. The man says, "Hah, yeah, kill me. So, you want to pay me?" Jantine watches the men begining to move through the line, and is somewhat relieved that Cole isn't in too bad of a mood, so that he may escape any type of punishment. During a quick glance from the vendor to Cole, the short Lunite engineer holds up a single finger to the vendor as if signaling he'll take one. He slyly turns it into a question of the other man. "One rayden? Two?" His hand falls down to his side. The vendor tells the next marine loudly, "That'll be one rayden for the dog. Another for the drink." Life is cheap up on Hancock. The marine dolls out the two rayden and takes his drink and hotdog. Urfkgar is the next in line now, and he says, "Urf want juice. No stupid no gooderer juice. Urf want gooderer juice." The squeemish eater says, "You're going to have to aim higher than that, sonny." Jantine winces at the man's comment, hoping that it doesn't drive Cole into a fouler mood. Cole raises an eyebrow. "Sonny? Just what in the hell does that mean?" He asks without much respsect for the man in front of him. "What, am I, six? What are you, 60? Don't refer to me as anything but my name or my rank, pal." "I didn't realize we were buddies, kid," says the man who doesn't look any older than Cole. The Zangali gets his juice and wanders off, jabbing straws through the lid that he produces from a pocket. The marine with Cole asks the man, "Who are you anyway, you freaking 'tard?" Jantine shakes his head, afraid now for his own life more than that of the man in front of Cole. Cole puts his head to his right shoulder briefly, his neck cracking. "I've really got no problem taking you. I'd rather not, it's more paperwork." He reaches inside his pocket and produces two rayden. He whistles at the vendor and upon getting his attention, lobs the currency at him. "Two." He says simply. Urfkgar tells Jantine, "Train time." The marine copies the rayden toss and says, "One for me, too. Thanks." The culinary dilettante says, "Taking me? Are you suggesting we engage in fisticuffs?" The hotdog vendor says, "Right. Right." A pause. "Fisticuffs? What are you? Some sort of effeminate, tea drinking Sivadian?" Jantine nods his head, glad to get out of the situation with some grace, and walks over towards Urf "Yes Sir" he says. Cole brushes his way past the picky food "eater" on his right side and collects his two hot dogs. Grinning a bit, the marine brushes past the guy on his left; although, it's more like a half body check than a brushing maneuver. He, too, collects his hotdog. The picky food guy huffs and smacks his lips a few times but decides, apparently, that silence is his best option. He just kind of stands there, gaping. The Zangali scratches at his shoulder and seems a bit distracted as he looks back towards the hotdog vendor. Jantine reaches Urf, and askes "Where to sir?" as he stands there, apparentley already having lost intrest in Jantine. "'Preciate it." Cole says as he holds his two wrapped hot dogs in his left hand and then retrieves his field kit with his right hand and finds one of the empty cushioned benches to enjoy his clearly nutritional breakfast. "Train place," supplies the Zangali by way of answer before he lumbers off towards the lift. Jantine shrugs his shoulders, and follows Urf out. A few of the marines follow as well, tossing cups and napkins into the trash as they finish. There doesn't seem to be any real organization behind which marine follows and which just lounge around on the benches. Barren and shadowy, this long strip boasts dozens of abandoned, skeletal storefronts. A humongous pile of debris has been swept to the end of the strip, and a few new-looking 2x4's have been used to prop up some of the more structurally unsound storefronts. A few shooting targets have been set up on the pile of debris, and a spraypainted line has been drawn fifty yards back. A broken escalator leads down to the lower prominade. A few marines are already going through some sort of marinish drills off on the far side of the firing range. Most of the marines that followed head that way. The Zangali heads for the near side of the range where targets have been set up at ten, twenty, and thirty meters. Jantine follows Urf to the range, while doing so he unstrappes his pistol from it's holster, but doesn't take it out yet. "What stupid softskin know?" asks the Zangali. The few marines that stuck around draw their pistols and spread out on the firing line. They all seem to favor similar stances. They spread their feet about a shoulder's width apart, flex slightly at the knees, lean forward a bit, and keep their heads up. They hold their pistols with both hands as they fire with their nonfiring hand cupping the hand that squeezes the trigger. Jantine nods his head in the direction of the other marines "Besides what I've seen them do, and that the trigger fires it, nothing." he answers, while trying to decide wether he should get into the postion the other marines are in, or to stand around and wait for Urf to tell him what to do. His body comprimises, and goes halfway into the position the other marines are in. Urfkgar extends a hand out towards the holstered pistol. He says, "Urf need." Jantine takes out his pistol, and hands it grip first to Urf. Urfkgar takes the pistol in his bad hand and uses his good hand to press the release which drops the energy cell. He explains helpfully, "Thingy." He replaces the energy cell and checks the current charge readout on the back of the pistol. Satisfied with the green light he sees, he indicates the safety which is engaged and moves up to the firing line. He points the weapon down range and squeezes the trigger awkwardly getting a claw in the trigger guard of the small weapon. Nothing happens. He uses his other hand to flick the safety off and squeezes the trigger once more. This time the pistol fires twice. The power read out, if Jantine's watching real close, goes red a moment before turning green once more. By the time it's green, Urfkgar has the safety back on and extends the pistol towards Jantine, keeping the business end pointed down range when he does. Jantine takes his pistol back, and points the gun down the range. He takes the safety off slowly, using his whole other hand to do so. He returns the hand to the fireing position demonstrated by the others. He then aims at the closest target, and squeezes the trigger. When gripped normally as opposed as by a Zangali with a too large hand, the safety can be removed easily with the thumb of the firing hand without taking the index finger off the trigger. The nearest marine smirks a bit as he continues running through his basic pistol marksmanship drill. The Zangali doesn't bother to comment. Jantine's shot hit the base of the silhouette but missed the 'bull's eye' area in center mass badly. Jantine looks somewhat disapointed, obviously believeing this was going to be easier, however he looks at Urf, his face asking if he should try again. "Shoot stupid softskin. No grabass time. Train time," says the Zangali. "Need shoot morerer times. See marines? Marines shoot morerer time. Marines no grabass." Jantine nods, and fires again. This time his shot goes wild, and hits the far wall, almost twenty feet above the targets. The marines edge slightly farther away from Jantine. The Zangali thunders, "Stupid softskin! No grabass!" Jantine takes a deep breath, and fires once again. This time he manages to hit the target, as well as being in the outer circle of the bullseye area of the target. The Zangali doesn't yell this time. The marines don't seem to notice as they work on their own marksmanship skills. Jantine fires again, confidence renewed. Surprisingly, his shot not only hits the target, but hits somewhat close to the middle of it. The Zangali doesn't seem all that impressed. He picks up a bit of rubble and chunks it at the near target for some reason. The target goes down leaving the twenty and thirty meter options. Jantine is quite shocked by the Zangali's outburst, but getting the picture, he fires at the next closest target, albight a bit nervous. Unfortunately, he doesn't hit it, but hits the ground somewhat close to the target. Urfkgar snorts and says, "Shoot morerer stupid softskin." Jantine fires again, this time barely waiting for Urf's retort. His shot goes wild again, hitting the far wall about six feet from the last time. "No grabass!" booms the Zangali. The marines edge further away, leaving a whole firing line between them and Jantine. Jantine fires again, and surprisingly, the intimidation of the Zangali works, he manages to hit the target, although not where he wanted to, but he does hit it. The marines off to Jantine's side are consistently showing the coxwain's mate up. Jantine fires again, hitting directly in front of the target. Jantine's jealousy of the marksmenship of the others is taking its toll. "Here," says the Zanagli as he gestures to a firing lane where the ten meter target still stands. Jantine moves over towards it, and gets back into position, silently thanking the Zangali for the relief from embarresment. The marines doing the pistol training finish up and wander off towards the marines doing the more labor intensive drill which seems to be some sort of urban operation combat scenario. Jantine fires once again, finally hitting the target again, even if it is only on the edge. "No morerer," grunts the Zangali. Jantine turns on the safety, holsters his pistol, and says "Thank you sir." The thanks could be taken two ways, that he is relieved that he doesn't have to embarress himself anymore, or for the basic training just given to him. The Zangali is looming near Jantine who is on a range that, judging by the target distance, has been set up for pistol work. A bunch of marines are charging around off to the side doing some sort of urban type training. Edouard walks out of the lift geared up for laser tag, carrying with him a sniper rifle-sized gun for laser tag. He starts to walk to the ruins. The chaos seems to be some sort of combination of officially sanctioned training/boys with toys spectacle. The gear, though, keeps things fair functioning much like a stun system, deadening 'wounded' limbs and paralysing 'killed' individuals. While officially sanctioned methods are in use, primarily because they are effective, the chain of command is fluid, and occasionally team members seem to be turning on each other. In other words, Edouard can step right in and nobody will take offense either way. The Zangali, not geared up for tag, seems to be merely observing. Edouard watches the scene as he approaches and comes to a stop before getting to the ruins. He takes a moment to look around and scout a course. Most of the marines seem to be concentrating on assaulting one particular building in a structurally sound area of the promenade through which several paths of entry are available. Two four man teams are converging along the roofs from opposite directions. Another four man stack is against the wall by the ground level entrance about to go through the door. They're taking heavy fire from windows despite suppressive fire being supplied by the attacker's pals from covered positions in buildings and behind rubble across the way. Edouard, not yet a controversial figure in the match, is being left alone, and his options are open at this point. After a few moments of looking around, Edouard hunches down a little bit and quickly makes his way towards a rougher cluster of buildings that have yet to be touched by the firefight, but have a decent firing line on the building under assault. The stack manages to get through the door, but if ears are any judge, they don't last very long once inside the building. The furthermost of the roof level attacking forces gets pinned down and is unable to advance across the last building seperating them and the siege. The nearer group on the roof falters as their buddies are stalled, and they settle down in the upper story of a building across a narrow from their target. The back and forth fire between the sides of the street continues as Edouard moves into position. Edouard ducks behind the buildings as soon as he can to avoid detection. Once inside his pace slows down; for stealth reasons and practical reasons of having to make his way through rubble. He's aiming for a third-storey window. The gunfire, energy blasts, and random yelling continue while Edouard moves into position. By the time Edouard reaches the window, a quick look reveals both groups of roof top attackers have either been wiped or have relocated. A door opens in the narrow alley that is hidden by a pile of rubble from the beleaguered attacking forces, but Edouard, due to his better angle, is able to see one of the defenders pokes his head cautiously out. After a bit of climbing, Edouard reaches his window. He looks around and settles in a few feet away from the window -- while not compromising his firing line much -- and sets the gun up on a broken table while he sits down behind it. The man finishes adjusting the gun just in time to see the head pop out. He takes aim and fires. The marines are engaged in some sort of mock battle with blanks and less than deadly energy rifles as well as some sort of harness contraption. The Zangali's watching as the battle seems focused between those in one building vs those across the street. The guy in the doorway goes down, and the door is quickly shut up after he is dragged inside the building. Even though he is only shooting blanks, Edouard's shot makes a considerable amount of bang amongst the energy sounds and echoing. The human quickly resets and starts looking for another target. Despite the noise from the sniper rifle, the folks in the besieged don't seem to immediately locate the new source of incoming fire. The door opens once more, but no one appears in its frame. There are a few likely looking targets in dark recesses behind windows judging by the flash of energy weapon fire, but no one is nice enough to reveal themselves clearly this time. In the absense of any obvious targets, Edouard stays quiet for now. Apparently tired of being cooped up in the building an alert looking four man team pours out from the open door, trying to make it around back of the building where the four man assaulting team hung out in when their buddies got pinned down earlier. The first man is pulling security to the front, the next two are pulling high while in the narrow alley, and the last man is watching the rear. From the way they are beating boots, they have no idea where the fire that took down the marine in the doorway came from, and they are trying to avoid being around to find out. When the first of the four men appear outside, Edouard quickly gets his aim on them. He follows them for a moment before taking a shot at the leader before he exits the firing line. The leader goes down as he gets nailed in the back, but the guy pulling rear security registers the muzzle flash and returns fire on the move with his quasi-pulse assault rifle. He can't shoot nearly as well as he can pick targets. Edouard quickly rolls out of sight the instant he realizes he's been spotted. He takes a few heartbeats to look around at his exit routes, and he decides to move away from the target building via a hole in the wall. Meanwhile, the three survivors of the exiting team vanish around the corner behind their chosen building. The rest of the firefight seems fairly stagnant. More fire is directed at Edouard's window, though. Edouard hurries away from the fire directed towards him. He moves down a few buildings before peeking out of a glassless window. Satisfied with the view, he retreats from the wall and sets up camp in a similar location, although with a slightly smaller line of fire. He settles in and starts looking for his next target. The marines who circled behind the building can be seen as they move between buildings behind the far row. There are more of them now. It looks like more moved out while Edouard was changing positions, but it's hard to tell exactly how many more. They seem to be intent on going down to the end and probably trying to come back and attack the 'attacking building' from the rear or side. Edouard watches the group for a moment before picking out a soldier with rank markings. He leads the man for a moment before pulling his trigger. The man goes down, but due to the three hundred and sixty degree security performed by the four man teams and hyperalert soldiers, the shot brings fire down upon Edouard's position once more. A lot of the shots don't even find their way through the window. Edouard rolls out of the way again, but not with as much time to spare as before. This time, though, he's much quicker on the move, this time moving back towards his previous position. The now advancing defenders are glimpsed coming around and up behind the buildings on the original attacker side of the street before Edouard's reached his old position. Edouard pauses a moment when he reaches his first window, taking a little bit of time to think. In the end, he sets up as before, but angled to follow the counter-attack. This time, though, he lines up someone looking in his direction and fires a shot. The marine goes down, and the return fire is significantly lacking. The two remaining marines in the already shot up team, to their credit, quickly link up with another group forming a heavy team of six people. Convinced enough that he hasn't been seen, Edouard stays in position and continues tracking the group. He once again lines up on the guy covering the area he's in and fires off another shot. The guy goes down, but he's obviously not quite 'dead.' Training shows once more, as the marines form a circle around him, dragging him off to cover. The injured guy, it seems, takes more marines out of the fight than killed ones. The urban siege still rages in the more stable section of the deck. Having muddled the counter-attack up, Edouard sets his sights once again on the main battle. He looks to where the attackers are holed up, and looks around for targets holding them down. Jantine walks in, with his pistol, he checks in with the man at the desk, and recieves permission to fire at the targets, given to him with a shrug as the man goes back to doing whatever he was doing before. Jantine walks over to the firing range. Six of the eight windows of the defending building have steady fire pouring fourth out of them. There are several marines on the roof as well from the looks of things, but it is two stories higher than Edouard's position which makes getting a shot off at them difficult unless they expose themselves over the edge, and they aren't doing that. Edouard watches for a few moments before deciding he needs a better position. He slides away out of sight and then looks around for a way up. Jantine unholster's his pistol, flicks of the safety, and begins to fire. He fires seven shots, of which he only hits with two. His shots are worse than previously this afernoon, even at the closest target, the mock battle farther down the deck seems to be distracting him considerably, as he glances in that direction after his seventh shot, and holds the gaze for some time before returning to his target. A slightly wobbly looking staircase is available to the upper story well as a marine style assault ladder leading to a hole in the roof left by something thoughtful (or less) previous occupant. Edouard opts for the stairs. He picks up his gun, loads a new clip and then starts up on the stairs, only going as quickly as he dares. The stairs hold up pretty well to the careful pace. After seven more just as succesful shots, Jantine gives up, and begins to simply watch the battle raging farther away, one particular slinking figure catches his eye, and he watchs this one man intently, somehow this man has a different air to him than the marines, somewhat of a different feel to him. Edouard follows the stairs up under cover until he reaches the top floor, which offers a large opening in the wall and room for him to lay down. He gently drops down to his stomach before proceding to the opening. The man sets up closer to the edge than he has before, using the rough remains of the wall to support his gun and hide his body. He then starts looking to help the pinned down friendlies. A few likely targets of opportunity present themselves in the windows of the defending building. While the marines don't reveal themselves, the muzzle signatures as they fire give a pretty good indication of where they are. Edouard decides to take his chances on the muzzle fire, and lines up on the window with the most direct shot on his guys. He takes a little more time to aim this time before pulling the trigger. A bit of Edouard's platform shifts as he fires, and the shot registers as a graze on the training system, but the marine is too surprised to get a clear fix on where the shot came from; although, he is looking in the general direction of Edouard's position. The shift takes Edouard by surprise, and he goes quiet to make sure the building doesn't want to surprise him again. For now, the building is still. The marine isn't, and he yells up to the folks on the rooftop, "Three o'clock. Three buildings down, far side. Sniper!" There is a bit of motion up on the roof on the defender's building. Edouard, sensing he might be in trouble, decides to take a chance and lines the same shot up again. He holds his breath and fires. The yelling is silenced effectively by the shot, but the shot draws the attention of the defending rooftop. The single, retaliatory bang from the roof indicates Edouard's taking sniper fire this time instead of the quasi-pulse assault rifle fire earlier. The exact form of the return fire surprises Edouard, but not as much as what saves his game for now: the floor beneath him collapsing the instant the shot comes at him. The human lands hard on the floor below, but it luckily holds. He immediately rolls into a corner for cover. For a moment he lays still as he regains his senses. Once he does, he looks around at his exits, and starts crawling away from the target building again. The sniper seems to be unable to make Edouard a target a second time and the crawl is uneventful until the assaulting defenders are spotted moving on the attacker's stronghold once more. They are mostly exposed on the ground below Edouard's building, but there are thirteen of them in two groups of four and one group of five. The groups are spread about thirty meters apart with the middle group directly under Edouard's building. The first group is laying down suppressive fire on the attacker's building behind a berm provided by a well placed pile of trash. The other two groups are moving up to support that one. Unwilling to go after the defenders with a known sniper loose, Edouard makes his way to the ladder by the stairs and starts slowly climbing it. If it makes it to the top, he initially only climbs up enough to get his eyes above the roof to see if he's in immediate danger. While it's impossible to tell with absolute certainty the level of danger the roof represents, there is definitely no one is standing at the top of the ladder with a loaded gun pointed at Edourd's face. The roof seems as safe as anywhere else and significantly safer than the kill zone between the two opposing buildings. Edouard moves a little higher up on the ladder and brings his gun up above the roof. He then uses the scope to look around to see if he can find his challenger. There is a sniper/spotter team posted on the defender's building. Right now they are focused on supporting the assault coming around the back of the building by preventing the building allied with Edouard to mount uncontested fire from its roof and side windows diagonally across to eliminate the cover provided by the trash pile. With the team spotted, Edouard sets the gun down on the roof and starts to pull himself up, trying his best to stay as low as he can. If he gets off the ladder, he sets the bipod on his gun and slowly aims for the shooter of the team. Busy with keeping the folks in the building from engaging the flanking force, the sniper/spotter remain oblivious. No one else seems to have an angle to see anyone who keeps low and towards the center of a roof. Edouard only takes as much time as he needs to zero in on the sniper before pulling the trigger. The sniper effectively 'dies.' The spotter pushes him off the rifle and grabs it, swinging it around towards the building Edouard's in. He starts his sweeping search at the floor below Edouard's previous position, though, wasting valuable time. Edouard doesn't waste any time after the first shot to line the spotter up. He only pauses to hold his first breath before firing again. And, another one bites the dust. Edouard has no more challengers for rooftop supremacy at the moment. A straight pogue type-pencil weeney walks up to Jantine, "You've been selected by lot to be among those sent to the beach to pick the model for the NLM advertisement campaign. The shuttle leaves in five minutes. Private Ruin and Nebell also have been selected. You need to find them before you begin the selection process." Happy that he's clear, Edouard crawls to the edge of the roof to see what's happening. With the sniper gone from the picture, the rates of fire have picked up from the allied building's windows and marines appear on the roof. The thirteen marines are quickly whittled down to ten, but four of them, under cover fire from the rest, are advancing quickly towards the entrance. A straight pogue type-pencil weeney walks up to Jantine, "You've been selected by lot to be among those sent to the beach to pick the model for the NLM advertisement campaign. The shuttle leaves in five minutes. Private Ruin and Nebell also have been selected. You need to find at least one of them before you begin the selection process." Edouard aims for the marine at the head of the advancing group and squeezes off a shot. The marine goes down near enough to 'dead' to make no difference. The next one nearly stumbles, but he manages to clear his fallen comrade. The two behind him have less problems. Jantine looks startled, and replies to the young man "Alright sir, is there going to be paperwor with this or should I just find you when I'm done?" "You'll need this," says the clerical guy handing Jantine a camera. "You're just to scout the selection. We'll make the final decisions." Of course he would, he's a remph. Jantine takes the camera, and takes one final look at the mock battle before heading out to leave. Edouard takes aim of one of the remaining two, just going for a disabling shot this time. The marine trips and falls as his leg stops responding to his mental commands. The other ends up getting picked off by the defenders as soon as he clears the doorway of the building - at least he didn't retreat. The six other marines decide inside is better than outside, apparently. They pick up and race towards the building's entranceway in no particular order; although, they seem to be drawing closer together as the near the door. Edouard lines up the leader of the next group and aims for another disabling shot, with the hope of causing trouble with the guys behind him. This group is more spread out, so the lead man's fall wouldn't have caused all that many problems - except he went down practically in the entrance. The fatal funnel gets just that much more fatal with two downed marines in it. A couple of marines do manage to make it in, though, opting to dive through a window. The firefight inside is one sided with the allies winning quickly. Edouard looks around the area of the building to make sure it's clear before he slides around to look over the opponent's building. A smattering of shots from the interior of the building leave no doubts about the marines being 'dead' outside. The original attackers aren't facing nearly as much fire as they did during their first attack, and they are risking a straight up the middle, hey-diddle-diddle style frontal assault on the opposing structure. Edouard crawls into a better position to watch the windows of the building, ready to reach out and touch anyone that asks for it. One of the defenders leans out a window to spray marines directly below him. Edouard's ready and waiting when the head comes out. He lines the shot up, holds his breath, and fires. The marine 'dies' but avoids falling out the window to the actual physical punishment brought on by gravity. Edouard's sniping allows the first group of attackers to gain entry with minimal losses. No more risk their necks and 'lives' with the window lean method. A few spherical objects rain down on the next group of marines through the door. The spherical objects turn out to be stun grenades. A well timed toss ends up wiping out the four man attacking element. Edouard continues to watch the windows for shots, although the battle seems to be out of his hands at this point. With the grenades being tossed around the rate of fire coming from Edouard's side of the street picks up substantially as the third team heads across the kill zone. The next team makes it into the building. The fighting inside continues - which is generally a good sign for the attackers. Bodies pass by the windows, but making out friend from foe is somewhat difficult. Keeping the gun pointing on the building, Edouard looks up from the scope for a moment to look around and make sure nobody's coming from the flanks. The wounded man who slowed the first rush of the defending attackers is crawling about in the street, edging towards the back entrance of Edouard's building. The marine's in the building allied with Ed stop laying down suppressive fire, opting to add their numbers in assault positions as opposed to support. Edouard takes one more look at the assaulted building before swinging around to face the wounded man. He takes his time to line up a shot, and takes it. The wounded man is put out of his misery. The relatively quiet sound of pulse fire and louder screaming and yelling of directions begins to slacken from the invaded building. The Zangali wanders in. Soon there after, Urfkgar bellows, "No more train time!" The dead begin to get up and dust themselves off before converging in the kill zone. Hearing the Zangali's bellowing, Edouard stands up and begins the trek down the ladder and through rubble to the meeting spot. He's one of the last ones to arrive. Various NCO types initiate head counts amongst the marines. When the numbers gathered match the numbers on their datapads, the converge into a brief huddle. Then, the senior sergeant, a first sergeant, tells Urf, "We're up chief." The Zangali points at a random marine which, as chance would have it, is Edouard. He demands, "What see gooderer? What see no gooderer?" Edouard motions to the building he spent so much time shooting at. "I was getting a lot of good shots from the defenders," he says. One of the marines standing on the defender side of the huddle says grudgingly, "So, you're the rogue sniper." Another, one with a sniper rifle, says, "Could have nailed you." Edouard smiles vaguely but doesn't say anything in reply. "What morerer stupid softskin see?" asks the Zangali. "Urf no care stupid softskin do no do. Stupid softskin see." Edouard waits to see what others say. One of the marine's on Edouard's side of the street says, "We should have done more to support our first attack instead of getting pinned down and picked off like we did." Another marine on that side of the line says, "Yeah, you're in or you're out. We did it half assed, so we got our asses handed to us that time." A marine on the other side of the divide says, "We should have done more to eliminate the force multiplier advantage offered by the tactical marksman." He gets some looks, and he clears his throat, "Killed the freaking sniper, man." Edouard smiles a little more but keeps to himself. The first sergeant throws in his two cents, "Communication, communication, communication." This gets some eye rolling from the marines. One near Edouard mumbles, "They say that when they can't find anything else to criticize. It's either talked too much or not enough." The first sergeant continues, "You should have gotten organized with, uh, Private Baptiste instead of hoping a cherry would just happen to know his business. I blame the team leaders for that foul up." Edouard continues taking in the comments quietly. The Zangali doesn't seem to have anything to add, and the after action report degenerates into a bull session. Another marine near Edouard says, "Good job hitting that guy hanging out the window. I was looking up at him, but my weapon was fouled with the guy in front of me and the wall. Got too close." Edouard nods a little bit to the marine that complimented his shot. One of the 'bad guys' says, "We shouldn't have held off the attack so much to treat our downed man. Get the fighting done first. Let a medic handle it during the fighting. Self aid if he could have done it. We should have just done our primary job." Edouard starts to say something but stops himself. "Speak up," says one of Edouard's new friends, apparently slightly more empathic than the average marine. Edouard shrugs a little. "In basic, they emphasized helping wounded comrades first," he says. "Yeah," says a marine. "But not at the expense of the mission. If you got the time, try to get them to a safe spot and stop any major bleeding if you can. You do what you can, but you can't always do what you want." Edouard nods a little and conceedes the point with a little shrug. "Could have left one to do it instead of stopping the whole show," suggests another marine. Edouard nods a bit and shifts his gun a little to a more comfortable position. "All right, turn in the stuff if nobody else has got anything worth saying to say," says the first sergeant after glancing over at the impassive warrant officer. Edouard nods and turns to head out. Jantine walks in, camera in hand, looking for the man who gave it too him originally. The crowd of marine types are in the process of dispersing. The fidgety looking pencil pusher is a good distance back from the marines, having, apparently, been watching the display of military prowess while waiting on Jantine's return. Or something. Jantine looks at the dispersing marines, somewhat sad he didn't get to see them finish, but also glad he got lucky and was able to do what he did. He walks up to the man, and hesitantly gives him the camera, really not wanting to part with it "Here it is sir" he says. The man begins to review the digital display of whatever photos Jantine took with the camera. Jantine turns to go, leaving the man to look at the pictures.
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