Christmas Past

I don't like to talk about my past. It's... well, past, over and done with. I'll go nuts if I think too much about what I've lost. But it's hard not to think about Christmas, not with that big-ass Festive Seasonal Holiday Observance Flora twinkling at me every time I turn around. So I'll talk about it - just this once.

Christmas was always weird for me - first off, I'm not Christian. December 25th was always "Jews Go To The Movies Day" as far as my family was concerned. Fun, and I have fond memories of quite a few otherwise worthless family comedies as a result, but it was never the big deal that it was for all the other kids. When I got older, it meant either really good overtime pay or extra time off, depending on my job. Again, fun, but not... you know.

Now I'm here, and it's still weird. My squadmates get all sniffly looking at the tree, and talk a lot about their families, and their kids, and their pets, and some of them get really angry and do stupid shit. Franks will be spending this Christmas regrowing his left arm because he completely lost it - charged a Bane mortar yelling "Ho ho ho, motherfucker!" and blazing away, only he forgot to switch to his pulse chaingun first. Well, at least the sickbay food is pretty good.

Me, though? I have guard duty tomorrow - I volunteered, because I don't want to lose any more mates to the "holiday spirit." I'll spend Christmas cleaning my guns and potshotting the Thrax that haven't figured out Resurgence Day is over, just like I did last year. And the year before that. And every year since I spent my first Christmas off Earth, in a refugee camp. Five thousand filthy, tired, homeless people sang carols and wept and hugged each other, and I dug latrines. Somebody had to do it, and I don't sing very well anyway.

I couldn't tell you who I'd kill to watch some damn Steve Martin flick with my mom and dad and little sister tomorrow, but that's past. Over and done with. If you'll excuse me, I gotta hit the rack - guard duty starts early, even on Christmas.

Proving a Point

Torture doesn't work. Never mind whether it's moral or not - when I think of what happened to Earth, it's hard to hold on to my morals, anyway. But it doesn't work. If you torture someone until they break, they tell you whatever they think you want to hear - you can never tell if it's the truth. That's why it's against policy, not because we have any fondness for crusties.

The point of this is, I fed the crusty, and the crusty talked. It had no reason to talk, except that I fed it. I don't know yet if it lied, but I've seen the region it mentioned, and it definitely looked like a staging ground. Now that I know what to look for, I'll clear it out.

I hate crusties. The fuckers trashed my home, killed my family, and kicked me out into the universe with nothing left but a rifle and a grudge. If that nasty thing hadn't been behind a Class-A forcefield, I would have shot it as soon as it told me what I wanted. But I am not gonna use that rifle to blow my own foot off, or hamper our operations, because of a grudge. I fed it. It talked. Now I'm gonna go shoot as many of its buddies as I can find, until the crack of my rifle drowns out the sound of its voice.

On the Side

I've been a good little soldier lately - well, sorta. Shooting things, carrying messages, picking up missing equipment and shepherding it home - it ain't exciting, but hey, they feed me. Well, sorta.

Guy I met offered me a little job on the side, though, and I took it. I'm not going to go into details, because I'm not a rat - but I will say that it was worth it just to piss off the brass. Wasn't any big thing - nobody got hurt or nothing, and I made some connections. Might do me some good, down the line.

Profile: Jayne Stilwater

Tier: 3
MOS: Commando
Gene Status: Clone, 1st Gen

What a world! I pop out of this slimy box, get hosed down and handed some clothes and a gun by a woman who looks exactly like I think I do, and off we go! I got to shoot a bunch of stuff on the way to Foreas Base, and that was fun. Jeri explained the whole cloning thing, and Jaxon - who I guess is my brother - sent me a message that didn't make much sense, about how awful being a clone is. I think he's nuts - this is great! I get guns, ammo, armor, training and - most important - lots of stuff to blow up!

I don't really know why we're fighting, actually, but I like fighting, so I don't really care. Go AFS!

Profile: Jeri Stilwater (Update)

Tier: 3
MOS: Ranger
Gene Status: Original

I have successfully qualified for Ranger training and am that much further towards my goal of Sniper training. I've killed a whole lot of crusties, and a whole lot of other things - some of them that I shudder to think about. I've cloned myself twice, and am satisfied that, despite his attitude, Jaxon will make a successful soldier, and I have high hopes for Jayne, who was gung-ho out of the creche.

Earth has never seemed farther away, but I have a family again, and that's something. I'm holding up my end.

Mission Accomplished

I successfully cleared the Pravus research facility and associated missions, which was immmensely satisfying. The Bane were producing machina at a terrifying pace within this facility, and shutting down that operation eased my mind somewhat on the subject. One of the Forean contacts also made the decision to formally join the AFS, and we need all the recruits we can get. It was definitely time and ammo well spent.

In the process of clearing Pravus, I completed my Targets of Opportunity assignment, which qualified me for an out-of-cycle clone credit. I also cleared all assigned missions in Wilderness, so I created a clone and took her to Divide, where we both were promoted to the next tier and given an additional cloning opportunity. I'm very pleased that the line has been given these opportunities, although I believe I'll save this clone for a while - I don't want to stretch our resources too thin.

Updated personnel files incoming.

Back on Duty

No updates for a while, because I got hauled away for a "routine screening." I guess my last entry made the shrinks a bit nervous, so I got to spend a few days in medical answering stupid questions about my "goals" and my "relationships." The corporal in the next rack (who was busy regrowing his legs - I didn't know they could do that) says that they keep us receptives shuttling through like clockwork - I guess some brass is still not at all certain that the Eloh are to be trusted. And, by extension, they're not quite ready to trust us, either.

Once they gave me back my guns, I took a jog out to the Caves of Donn, following up on orders to look for Eloh artifacts there. Turns out the whole area was under Bane control, and almost all of the natives were dead - or worse.

I tried to get a couple of survivors out to the extraction point, but they ran right into the line of fire of a Bane mortar, and they were all dead before I could get them out. I should have taken that mortar out before I picked them up, dammit. The Foreans lost enough people there, they didn't need to lose more just because I forgot to look before I leapt.

I successfully accomplished the rest of my objectives, but the whole thing left a bitter taste in my mouth. Not much I can do about it now, though. Those poor bastards didn't even have any family left to apologize to.

One More Reason

Got a fireteam together and cleared Crater Lake - it was pretty hairy, but we got through it. No sweat. Right?

But those "hominis machina," man... if that's what the Bane will do to me if they catch me, I'm gonna eat a bullet first. A nice big one, one that'd splatter my brains over half a klick so they can't use 'em. I'd seen the Forean Machina, but it didn't quite sink in. They're just so... wrong. Humans - good soldiers, dedicated scientists, brave men and women - made into bloody, blank-eyed puppets and set against their former friends. Brr. I thought I was pretty tough, but those bastards got to me.

Better Late Than Never

"From behind with a rocket launcher." Yeah, that would have been handy to know before tangling with the Predators, but I didn't have a rocket launcher anyway, and it turns up a couple of rifle shots from behind work just as well. Creepy bastards - dumb, but creepy, and their firepower's no joke.

Next couple of stops will probably require a squad, or at least a fireteam. I'm not much for playing nice with others, but I suppose I'll survive.

Weapons

That damned Forean kid really set me off. The military "only sees him as a weapon." Welcome to my world, kid. Only reason I exist is my lunatic Original, Jeri, isn't satisfied shooting crusties herself, she wants to clone a whole squad to do it with her.

But you know what? I fight. Shot a couple dozen crusties today, as a matter of fact. I don't hate them - not the way Jeri does, anyway - but they'd shoot me where I stood in a heartbeat, so I shoot first. (They do have hearts, did you know that? Found that out the messy way. Man, Foreans are weird.) Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, that kid. Hauled him back to face the music. There's a war on, after all.

And that sanctimonious prick Rogers. "Could've handled it better." Fuck him. What am I gonna do, tell our ally to go screw? What's the difference between collecting bloody bits of dead Thrax and picking up some scared kid and hustling him back to base? I do what I'm told. Until they pin a few more bits of shiny metal on me, I ain't gonna think about this shit that hard. End up crazy as Jeri, if I do.

Jesus. What a cluster.

Assault

I decided early to accept Ranger training when I'm offered the promotion, but I'm beginning to think that I'd like to be a sniper, down the road. I'm not at "one shot, one kill" level yet, but I'd like to be. Saves a lot of ammo.

Lots of crusties killed today, lots of trips to the hospital. I assaulted a couple of Bane-held control points with minimal backup (hence the trips to the hospital) and minimal strategic success, but I definitely whittled down their numbers. I don't understand why we don't strengthen that area further next time we hold it - the rock formations in front of LZ are a fabulous place to snipe from. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, but if I can do it, so can a Bane Light Bringer. A little C-4 would take care of that.

I've got some missions to complete yet in Wilderness, but I'm looking forward to moving on as soon as I can. That thief in Twin Pillars had a lot of friends, and I'm tired of getting the stinkeye everywhere I go just because I turned him in. Risking your career for some damned stim - I'll never understand it. Getting shot at is plenty stimulating enough.

Anyway, I'm hitting the rack. Over and out.

Profile: Jaxon Stilwater

Tier: 2
MOS: Specialist
Gene Status: Clone, 1st Gen

Bio: I'm a clone. I've been around for about two weeks now, training up to fight the war that created me. I'm a specialist, because my Original is a soldier.

Not much of a bio, is it? It's not much of a life.

My fellow clones tell me it gets better, that as I make my own memories the ones I have now - fuzzy, half-real ones of being a girl half my size, on a planet I've never seen - will fade, and I'll feel like me. Or at least I'll have an idea what "me" means. I'm almost done training, so I guess I'll soon find out.

I can't fucking wait. Anything's better than this.

Profile: Jeri Stilwater

Tier: 2
MOS: Soldier
Gene Status: Original

Bio: I was born on Earth about thirty years ago. People always ask, "But where are you from?" Earth, dammit. Just Earth. I wasn't a soldier back home, would never have imagined I'd be one now, but nobody gave me a choice. They just gave me a gun.

Now, I can't imagine what else I would be. I go where I'm told to go, shoot what I'm told to shoot, and jump on every chance to clone myself that Command gives me. I won't live real long - none of us do, medics and armor and hospitals can only do so much - but the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that even if I die, some other soldier with my genes will be out there fragging the goddamned crusties. Maybe, if we're all really lucky, one of us Stilwaters will see Earth again, someday.

High Command requested that we file reports on our activities from time to time, particularly us receptives. Trying to figure out how this alien Logos stuff is affecting us, I suppose. I don't worry about it much. I'll report my activites - I do anyway, but what's a little more paperwork, anyway? I'll even report my "feelings." Right now I'm feeling like shooting some crusties.