hecu_marine | (no subject)

(no subject)

Adrian Shephard likes to think of himself as a pretty adaptable man. Throw him into a strange situation in a new environment and he takes to it quickly, under just about any circumstances you could care to name. Mama Shephard saw to it that all her kids grew up like that. It's served her middle child well in all kinds of places and situations, whether it involved a flood almost wiping out his hometown when he was a boy, or being thrown into basic training straight out of high school, or waking up in the belly of an underground research facility after a plane crash. Shoot, even going from escaping that facility to the middle of nowhere twenty years after the fact wasn't all that hard to adapt to, with his upbringing and training.

But there are some things he's just not prepared for, and while he tries to deal with those as best he can, the usual coping mechanisms don't always work so well. He's had to suppress his dislike of flying before. Getting shot out of the sky over Black Mesa turned that dislike into a fear, which he could cope with, but now-

Well, now he's got to use a helicopter, which is pretty much the flying machine that most wants to kill its passengers as far as he knows. And even better, he's got to pilot the damned thing, because of his two current companions one is too incapacitated by head injury and drugs to even sit up straight and the other one's never so much as been behind the wheel of a car.

They didn't exactly cover this in Basic. You'll excuse Shephard for singing quietly under his breath to try and keep himself on an even keel. It's a long way to wherever it is they're going and he can only read about a third of the navigational instruments in front of him.

"...clear blue skies over Germany
Came a roar and a thunder men had never heard
Like the screamin' sound of a big war bird.

Up in the sky, a man in a plane
Baron Von Ricthofen was his name..."

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Barney comes to, slowly, and in somewhat of a blind panic. He's in a Combine... something. That's not good, but--

--is that singing?

It's so unexpected that it calms him down soon enough, and he lays back in the storage unit to just listen.

"Eighty men tried, an' eighty men died
Now they're buried together on the countryside.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more!
The bloody Red Baron was rollin' out the score!
Eighty men died tryin' to end that spree
Of the bloody Red Baron of Germany..."

"Left, two, three, four..." is Barney's weak response after listening--it's not so much singing along as it is mouthing the words softly.

"In the nick of time, a hero arose-"

Shephard breaks off; did he just hear something? He does his best to crane his neck far enough to get a look behind them, but it's kind of hard to see anything in this cockpit other than what's out the front window if he doesn't want them all to die horribly.

"Somebody awake back there?" he finally says.

"Yeah," Barney replies. "Yeah, 'm'wake."

"Good. Y'had me worried for a while there." Shephard smiles, though he's facing straight ahead and Barney won't be able to see. "Welcome back, Mr. Calhoun. How's yer head?"

"Better," Barney says, speaking up with some effort. "I'm still... still swimming, hurts to keep my eyes open too long. Body feels like jelly. But being able to rest... 's done me good."

"Figured as much. You stay where you are, okay? Ain't much room to move about the cabin and I got no fuckin' clue where they put the john on this thing."

"Fair 'nough," Barney says. "Haven't eaten very much lately anyway."

By which he means he hasn't eaten period, but Adrian doesn't need to hear all that.

"Know the feelin', sir."

Not from today, but in general. It's happened a few times.

"Might have t'land eventually 'n let you off, by the way. Me'n Chell here're on our way to somewhere that's got the Combine angrier than a hive full of hornets. I don't think you want to be on board if we start takin' on gunships."

"And I'm very, very thankful, honestly, but... you got any idea where that is?"

Barney already knows the answer. But he has to know.

"All I got's the latitude and longitude, sir. 40°20′14″N, 85°38′35″W." Shephard shakes his head. "Intercepted a Combine signal to 'all autonomous units'. Guess they ain't real big on names."

(In happier times, those coordinates would have pointed at a place called Summitville, New York. And, rather like some worlds have a golf course in northern New Mexico, in other worlds there was a Zen monastery in Summitville.

These things happen.)

Barney knows those coordinates.

"'S White Forest."

"Wouldn't know, sir."

But that didn't sound like it meant anything good.

"It's more or less the Resistance base of operations now," Barney explains, wearily. "All our science staff, plus our hopes for the future, are in that base. And..."

No.

Should he tell the man?

"Shit. Well-"

Shephard glances at one of the few instruments he can decipher. To someone with a Combine helmet on and the authorization to use this aircraft, it would be a point-to-point GPS-like system utilizing dirtside transmitter towers located in Combine Citadels and manufacturing facilities, and have a map overlay with elevation and atmospheric conditions laid out for examination. To Shephard, it's a largely black screen with a number of tiny dots in various sizes that slowly move past the central dot. The one he figured corresponded to the Scab slid off the screen some time ago. The red one for 40°20′14″N, 85°38′35″W is getting bigger with each passing moment.

"Then we'll just have to get there as fast as we fuckin' can, won't we, sir."

Great. Defending eggheads from space aliens again. How does this keep happening?

"Yeah. We will, or the Citadel goes nova for real this time and we all die."

It's a non-choice, really.

There's a snort. Shephard would be laughing if he weren't convinced that the act of doing so would set off his already-kinked-up stomach.

"Sir, I did not survive Black Mesa just so that a different bunch of fuckin' oogieboogies from another dimension could wipe me and the American people off the face of the planet. We'll get there."

There's a long, thoughtful pause from Barney, calculated to make sure he doesn't say something he'll regret.

"...you were in the HECU."

It's not mad, but it's not particularly happy, either.

"Said so when we first met, sir, not that I'd expect you to remember."

Aw, shit. That's not a good tone of voice at all.

Barney sighs, and runs his hand over his face. "'M not gonna call you out or anything. We've all done things we're not proud of, so I'm not gonna start pointing fingers that your brothers killed mine. And 'specially not after the past few days. It's just not worth it, I don't think. Not now."

( "Do not give me shit for somethin' I did not fuckin' do." )
( Then don't give him shit for fighting back. )

"... I'm good with that, sir."

"Good," Barney says, with a vague air of finality. Like he said, it's not something he wants to press, not now.

"...you know if they have any rations anywhere in this thing?" He's betting not, though, based on what he knows about the Combine's method of making soldiers.

"Don't think so, sir. I'm tryin' real hard not to think about food right now, tell you the truth." After a pause he adds, "Might be some energy gel or somethin' in one of them first aid kits, though."

"Right. Thanks," he says. And even if it's just bug juice... it's got to at least help with the aftereffects of the shit they gave him.