milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Australia's coming.

Won't be long now before the Borealis pops through the longest portal jump yet and puts them all out somewhere they've none of them ever been, looking for a barely understandable signal and a completely unknown situation. It's one of those situations that isn't so much 'I don't like this' as 'This makes me feel like I'm chewing on tinfoil', maybe with a side of 'Get those fingernails off that blackboard' thrown in.

There's only so much prepping Shephard can do aboard the boat. His nerves are too on edge to do anyone any good. He's likely to bite someone if he sticks aboard the Borealis much longer, so he grabbed something he knows like the back of his hand and went looking for a door. If he can't get advance intel of what's coming, at least he can get a little piece of the familiar.

The Milliways door opens and Shephard stalks right through it, slipping from the main Bar to the back door and heading for the woods with his Osage orange longbow and hand-tipped, hand-fletched arrows slung across his back. They might not be the forests of Preston County but they'll do, for now. And the world doesn't need that many demon bunnies in it.

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Voodoo's laying on the grass outside a half-finished kill house, strumming a guitar and singing along to a song he learned right out of Basic. He spots Adrian fairly easily. It helps that he's carrying a smegging huge longbow.

"Hey, jahhead! This one's for you!" He launches into a considerably more profane song.

Voodoo doesn't mean anything by it - he's just in a particularly good mood.

Shephard's no Mad Jack Churchill, but he does love him some old-school weapons sometimes.

Still and all, he stops to listen, and then to crack a crooked grin. And maybe start air-drumming along as he gets the hang of the tune; it's an old habit of his. "Nice one," he says when it finishes. "Now you got me all nostalgic'n shit."

Voodoo cracks a grin of his own. "Figured you'd like it. So what's with the longbow?"

"Goin' huntin'," says Shephard. "Rabbit, probably. The red fuckers taste like shit but they got good fur on 'em, and Mrs. Wilson eats the meat anyways. Deer'd make a nice change from rations back home, if I c'n git one."

Voodoo smirks. "Shit, brother, with a bow? You trying to make it hard?" He nods to his M4, leaning against the wall of the kill house - safety on, chamber clear, and sans a magazine in the magazine well, of course.

"Never used that for hunting before - well, hunting animals, I mean -, but you're welcome to put it through its paces." He starts strumming the guitar again, this time to another song he learned out of Basic. He's not singing, you understand - just strumming.

"Bow I made myself, arrows I made myself," Shephard adds. "Fuckin' knapped the arrowheads myself-"

He reaches over his shoulder, draws out one of the arrows, and hands it over for inspection. "That's real flint there. Fletching's crow feathers. Shaft's Douglas fir."

Voodoo stops strumming and takes the offered arrow. He looks it over, nodding in approval. His knowledge of archery is extremely basic, and his knowledge of knapping is nonexistent, but he's got respect for dedicated craftsmen.

"Looks like a nasty piece of work. Outta curiosity, where's back home?"

"Preston County, West Virginia," says Shephard. "Born'n raised in Rowlesburg. Bound out of the Greenbrier these days, though."

Given that the bunker referred to on record as Project Greek Island was decomissioned as anything but a tourist attraction as of 1992, and never had Marines stationed there to begin with, Adrian figures anybody with a reasonable familiarity with national defense will probably twig to things being amiss. It's a sort of sounding out just how much he's going to have to explain.

"West Virginia, huh? Been there a few times. Mostly on exercises. Not near Rowlesburg, though."

Voodoo stops strumming and looks up.

"Greenbriar? Did G-1 fuck you over or is there a shooting war on?"

He recalls learning a thing or two about the bunker soon after BUD/S - it was an open secret, anyway. He never heard of it being used as a duty station, though.

"Ain't surprised. Rowlesburg mostly got mining company folk'n white water rafters," says Shephard. "Too far back from anything major t'git a whole lot of attention from on high."

Then he grimaces and says, "Option two. We got us a full-fledged fuckin' alien invasion, conquest'n occupation of Earth back home. Mrs. Wilson ain't nothin' compared to that shit."

"Shit, really? That's just all kinds of fucked-up."

Then: "Wait, you ever hear of a guy called Gordon Freeman? Real skinny dude, super-thick glasses, whiter than sour cream?"

Then, almost as an afterthought: "Crowbar holster?"

Shephard drags a hand over his face and mutters something under his breath that sounds not unlike 'pokkelijder'. Then he looks up. "Yep. Sure do. That's my world you're talkin' bout there."

"Shiiiit."

There's really not much else to say to that.

"That's - that's really fucked-up." He pauses.

"Shit, don't think I ever asked for your name. Voodoo, by the way," he says, gesturing to himself.

"Can't say I remember askin' for yours, either," says Shephard. "Sergeant-Major Adrian Shephard. Ain't too many folks outside my family bother usin' the 'Adrian' part."

"That so?" Voodoo squints.

"You look pretty young for a Sergeant Maj.," Voodoo observes. It's not an accusation - Voodoo saw the EGAs the first time he came in - just a statement of fact.

"Yeah, 'bout that- Freeman tell you anything 'bout what happened with that invasion?" Shephard says, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Anything like the words 'Seven Hours War', maybe?"

"Nah," Voodoo says. "His fiancée did, though - some chick named Alyx Vance? Biracial, pregnant, pissy as a stoat?"

"Congratulations, then, you met my commander in chief," says Shephard. "Fact is, yeah, I am fuckin' young for the rank. Battlefield promotion. Far as we can tell I'm the only goddamn Marine left alive."

Voodoo's jaw drops.

"Bullshit. You serious, brother? 200,000 jahheads on active duty and you're the last fuckin' one?"

He's starting to take this "Combine" threat really seriously now.

Then: "Wait, she's your CO? Why?"

"There's a big fat fuckin' pile of ashes where the Pentagon used to be and a fuckin' mile high black tower full of psychic space maggots'n all their war machines takin' up the downtown DC region," says Shephard. "The Combine swept through Earth like corn oil through a horse. Anybody military survived, the Combine took 'em and stuffed their heads fulla more chips than a fuckin' Pringles factory. Anybody government survived, they got shot. Ms. Vance's my CO 'cause she's in charge of the human resistance against the fuckin' maggots and that's the closest goddamn thing we got to anything that even looks like a government any more."

"Shit, they must've really had it in for DC," Voodoo mutters.

"But how come you're not in charge? You've probably got the most formal training outta...shit, anybody."

"Seniority, pretty much," says Shephard. "I got the formal trainin'. Ms. Vance, she's been livin' with the Resistance'n fightin' alongside 'em since she was a kid. She knows how their shit works, 'n everyone knows who she is. Me?" He shrugs. "I spent twenty fuckin' years on ice while she was out there learnin' shit'n protectin' her people. I know how to make shit die. Ain't quite the same."

"She's got me doin' strategic planning for the Resistance forces, though, that's somethin'. Folks might not listen to me, but they'll listen to what I got to say if it comes from her."

Voodoo snorts. "Hell, I know how to make shit die. Pretty damn well, too. Not something you can underestimate the value of when the time comes. But at least she's not shutting you out."

Then he remembers the "on ice" comment.

"Wait, you guys've got cryogenics?"

"We don't," says Shephard. "Some sheepfucker of a G-man who likes fuckin' around with anybody he c'n git his hands on? He does. Ms. Vance tell you about Black Mesa at all?"

He'll explain what he has to, but if there's anything he doesn't have to, well....

Voodoo nods. "Said there was some kinda teleportation accident. Aliens came in and started trashing the place."

A pause.

"Said your unit came in and started killin' civvies."

He'll give Adrian a chance to explain himself before he comes to any conclusions.

"Yeah."

He kind of figured that was coming.

"They put us on Ospreys'n told us we was bein' deployed to Black Mesa. Said we'd get our orders when we got to the site and not one second before."

There are three things in the world that Shephard is afraid of. Flying is one of them, and the trip to Black Mesa is a big part of why.

"Just about as the place's comin' into sight a couple of the weirdest fuckin' ships I ever saw drop out of the sky'n start shootin'. One of the other Ospreys goes down faster'n you could say 'fuck'. My CO starts tryin' to give us our orders then'n there, and that's when the manta ray fuckers blow us out of the sky. That's the last thing I remember 'fore wakin' up somewheres inside Black Mesa. I didn't find out until a fuck of a lot later just what orders they were tryin' to give us."

Voodoo nods. He doesn't know if Adrian's telling the truth, but he'll have to take his word for it.

"So what'd you do until then?"

"Tried to find out what the fuck was goin' on," says Shephard. "It was me'n a bunch of scientists and a shitload of unconscious HECU. One of the eggheads said there was a radio on the surface'n we was underground a ways. I figured if I could git a word out to someone we'd stand a better chance of gittin' out of there alive, so I went out to find that radio."

"I'll tell you what, I ever find out whoever fuckin' waived the OSHA requirements on that place, I'm gonna dig up his grave'n piss on his corpse. I damn near got killed by all the shit that went wrong with Black Mesa's systems more than by the fuckin' aliens." He shakes his head, and looks as if he'd like to spit. "Got as far as the radio and they told me to get my ass the fuck over to the extraction point, we were pullin' out. Only that pisslicker in the suit was strollin' around the place neat as you please and fuckin' locked the goddamn door to the EP before I got there. They took off without me."

Voodoo nods, brows furrowed.

"Any idea what he wanted with you?"

"Fuck me if I know," says Shephard. "Didn't never catch up to him, not 'til it was all over. All's I know is, I met up with a couple other guys who got the shaft'n we did our best to get the hell out of there."

Voodoo can probably guess how well that part went, given... well, everything.

"Found out why they were pullin' our asses out when a bunch of some kind of black ops ninja types, no insignia or nothin', showed up with a certain 'package'. Turned out somebody wanted Black Mesa plain ol' blown off the map."

"Why, though? Ol' Uncle Sam's pretty good at hushing stuff up if he wants to."

Shephard snorts. "I ain't gonna say I know for sure, but here's somethin' I found out later... there were folks who survived Black Mesa. Civvies, scientists mostly. Most of 'em, they're Resistance now. One of 'em, the one in charge of the whole goddamn place, most folks reckoned he died that day, or disappeared or some shit like that. Only thing is that motherfucker popped up four years later when the Combine came callin'. Asshole was the one who negotiated the end of the Seven Hours War. Seems Doc Breen got himself hid and hid good, like the kind of good you only git if you know what kind of shit's on its way'n git your ass out of town ahead of schedule. I reckon he had a couple dozen fingers in places ain't nobody who ain't government ought to have 'em."

"Shit, you think he orchestrated the whole thing?"

It'd be one-fucked up power grab, but Voodoo's not holding this Dr. Breen guy above it.

"Man got put in charge of runnin' the show for the maggots," says Shephard. "He was a regular ol' Vidkun fuckin' Quisling. Damn right I think he orchestrated the whole thing."

He shakes his head in disgust.

"Anyway. Shit got real nasty after the black ops types showed up. Come the end, between them'n the aliens, I'm the last man standing, 'cept for that fucker of a G-man, who had the arm'n fire codes for that package... and who got me knocked out somehow, fuck me if I know how, and that's how I got stuck on ice a good twenty years'n woke up the last Marine on Earth."

"And the Combine didn't catch you?"

You'd think interdimensional alien conquerors would be pretty thorough.

"Naw, I woke up in no man's land," says Shephard. "Somewhere 'round southwest Pennsylvania. Git too far outside the cities'n mining operations they got set up, 'n the wildlife gits nastier than the Combine- there's an ass-ton of critters from the dimension Mrs. Wilson comes from roamin' around loose now. I got lucky'n found a Resistance cell before the Xen things or the Combine found me."

"Well, at least you've got friendlies at your six now."

Rule #1 of gunfighting: Bring a gun. Preferably, bring two guns. Bring all your friends with guns.

"That's what they drilled through our heads at SERE. Nothing more important than having friendlies at your back."

He smirks. "Not for long, though. We started mindfucking the prison guards - took over the prison after two weeks. Think they learned not to fuck with SEALs after that."

"Nice." Shephard's expression goes wry for a moment. "I got to see 'bout teachin' some of that to the Resistance folks I got followin' my lead. The human ones, anyway. Dunno if the Vorts'll see it the same way, they don't think like humans do."

"What, SERE? I could lend you a hand if you need one. I'm just sick of being stuck in this bah."

"Wouldn't say no, once we're back from Australia," says Shephard. "We got us a distress call to answer 'fore I c'n git back to trainin' my bunch. Wouldn't be the first time we brought back help from here, neither."

Voodoo's begun strumming again - tuning notes, mostly. "Australia, huh? Well, have fun down under is all I can say."

He's seriously tempted to say something about keeping Alyx's temper in check (seriously, they were this close to shooting each other), but he figures Adrian can handle it if anyone can.

"Can't be that much worse than the Amazon," says Shephard. "Lookin' forward to it."

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