RP Open Post

[goddamngrenades]

Smut, Gen, Angst, Fluff, Anything, Everything.
PFL era, Post war, Pre Canon, AU, whichever
Brackets or Prose whatever you're comfortable with
Tag and go, baby!

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[goddamngrenades]

The sweep shows a whole lot of nothing. Mostly empty houses, a few ransacked shops, the teeny, tiny library and the possible bonus of mechanical parts from the lone police station and impound. A man could dream. York settles at the northmost point on his Mongoose and starts flipping through frequencies idly, trying to key into that encryption he'd poked at in the other base.

Maybe something would come through. Who knew?

[beforeblue]

It's a depressing sight. Might have been a nice village once, a quiet place to raise a family. Abandoned. Starting to crumble.

There's a message for him. Carolina.

/Bring him in./

No. Oh no.

He'd hoped the bureaucracy would keep things on hold for longer. Feels like there's a block of ice in his gut.

"I think it's a bad idea," he sends back. Short and simple. Gives him time to come up with more reasons.

He heads to the rendevous, waves at York. "Find anything?"

[goddamngrenades]

Now what was that? Something, a flicker of something on one of the frequencies. He tries to chase it down but finds a whole lot of nothing and there should be something, SOMEWHERE on one of these! Number stations, chatter, mindless bullshit, SOS's that HE set up awhile ago on auto broadcast when he first crashed but, nothing.

What the hell is going on with this planet?

"Nothing the kids can't handle." He sits up and waves Wash over. "You?"

[beforeblue]

Wash heads over to him and it's harder now that he's made out like he's fine, to keep pretending that nothing is wrong. He crouches down next to York. "Yeah, it'll be a good run for them I think. Good practice." He glances around. "I got nothing. Can't exactly imagine this place was that important."

[goddamngrenades]

"...What's up?" there's a tension to David's shoulders that's familiar. Not in David, which was weird, but in North. Something was out of place. Or maybe he'd seen something upsetting. Who knows?

[beforeblue]

He tilts his head a little, looking at York, then shakes it. "Nothing. Just uneasy. It seems like a nice little place and seeing it like this is... weird. Always the small things that get you."

[goddamngrenades]

"..." He really wants to buy that. There is nothing he wants more than to believe it, really. That's what the rookie would say- but it's been decades, Wash has been selling his skills on the side for years, this is not the worst shit he's seen. Hell it's not the worst they've seen outside the project. "Level with me here. You're spooked. What'd you find?"

[beforeblue]

Too damn observant. He just needs a little more time. Tonight, it'll have to be tonight. Before Carolina starts suspecting that he's stringing things out, or they get orders to push for another battle.

"Trackers," he lies. "They're old, just not as old as I'd like. I got rid of them. Just has me edgy. Didn't think anyone else had been out here anytime recently."

[goddamngrenades]

"Trackers or motion sensors? One we can ping back to the source the other is just 'hey we were here'." But Wash got rid of them because paranoia. Okay. That he gets. "Hop on. I think we're clear if we swing in tomorrow, early morning. Clear the houses, tap into the library like I planned, find where they're holding up."

[beforeblue]

"I checked. They wouldn't have tracked back to anything. It was probably refugees, people escaping the fighting. At least they had to sense to set them."

He thinks that's enough. York seems to accept it. He should have been better than that. He can't afford to give that much away again. Not now.

He climbs back up onto the Mongoose. "Sounds good. See how they handle setting up a new camp, sentries. Be good for them."

[goddamngrenades]

"Nah. Clean sweep and head back to base. There's not enough cover, too many possible points of entry, and nothing to defend here. We find an old base, we practice there." If they have the time. If he's lucky? THey just might. ANd he's always been the worst kind of lucky

[beforeblue]

Wash shrugged. If that was how he wanted to do things. "Sure. I'll keep my eyes open for anything suitable next time I go on a raid. They need the practice in the field." At least York wasn't just giving them basic and throwing them onto the front lines right off.

[goddamngrenades]

"Baby steps, you know?" Keep it safe. He'd rather not risk a large operation at all but they might find something worth hauling- so it's markers and trackers set up all the way through the middle of the village and along the first leg of the path back to the caves. All in all, drive, sweep, return drive it takes about three hours.

[beforeblue]

"Was it like this for you? Baby steps? I don't remember it."

He wants to tell him that they don't have time for baby steps. They should have thought of that before joining a war. That things are about to go spectacularly wrong. He holds on tightly to the Mongoose and helps set trackers and clear the way for tomorrow.

[goddamngrenades]

"Oh hell no. I went from basic to combat maneuvers in under a week. Mostly scouting missions so sometimes they were milkruns and sometimes they were clusterfucks." Guess which kind got his whole squad killed in an ambush? Protip: Not the milkrun. "But I'm try'n to be a better superior officer than ones under an insane amount of pressure cuz of a war or the stupidly low bar set by the project."

[beforeblue]

"Think mine was the same," Wash says, shrugs. "Saw combat almost as soon as they could hand out rifles." Lucky he'd been a good shot. Luck was all that had kept him alive to even get to Freelancer. "Lost most of them. Planet got glassed." It's one of the memories that he's glad has been warped and muted by Epsilon. It's dulled now, like sepia toned films from centuries ago. Like it happened to someone else.

[goddamngrenades]

"Jesus christ, Rookie." He mutters, staring forward at the winding paths of the caves. If he looks back he'll flip the damn mongoose and that won't help anyone.

[beforeblue]

Wash tilts his head, staring at the back of York's. "Not like it's that uncommon. Nothing special." It had happened to enough places that he's amazed they ever ended the war. Guess people were too terrified to even think of fighting on after that though. Near Extinction does that.

[goddamngrenades]

"A plane gett'n glassed is horrifying no matter how common it was, kid. Global genocide is kind of a terrible thing, you know?" Like he needs to be reminded of that. Jesus.

[beforeblue]

"That's not- I didn't mean it like that. I just meant... plenty of people who saw it happen. Lost people. I was just one of the lucky fucks who got out in time."

He swallows, forces himself not to slump. "Yeah. I know."

[goddamngrenades]

"And every one of them has a bucket of issues from watching it happen." Because it's horrifying. "Better lucky than good. Times like this I think it might've been better to be good."

[beforeblue]

"I'll add those issues to my tab," Wash says, dry as hell. "We just can't stop surviving. It's our curse."

[goddamngrenades]

Soon enough they're coming up on the base- the kids keeping the schedule he gave them that morning and Kimball waiting for a sitrep. "Gotta report in with the boss. Meet you for dinner?"

[beforeblue]

He's impressed by how effortlessly York has integrated himself with the base. Kimball trusts him. Likes him more than she ever liked Wash. Not that Wash gave her much reason to get any closer than needed.

He nods. Glances over at the kids. "Yeah. I'll look forward to it."

[goddamngrenades]

"Something a little more low key than last night. No need to dress for it." He swings off the Mongoose and pats Wash on the shoulder, jogging over to where Kimball kept her office.