Piper 90: Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
goneawaymod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
goneawaymod) wrote in goneawayworld2021-04-10 09:37 pm
3..2...1...CONTACT!
Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.
Contact.
It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.
The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.
To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?
And if they were there, who was in theirs?
[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.
They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]
cw: warfare gore stuff.
They're not in armor, they're just in fatigues.
"You're not even going to talk to her?" Wash asks a redhead with freckles, who looks like he's fresh from prom.
Wash is young and almost unrecognizable, his hair a frosty blonde when buzzed that close to his head. He's just barely eighteen, freshly enlisted. He'd signed on the day after graduating high school, much to his parents' regret.
"Dude," says the redhead Wash was talking to, bug-eyed, nervously eyeballing an attractive blonde down the table, clearly worried she'll overhear.
"You are going to die alone," Wash says.
"Shut the fuck up, Winters! It's not like I can even do anything about it in basic." It's clear the redhead young Wash is talking to is a friend, though, and getting touchy the way someone does when their friend is giving them shit.
"This is going to be you, when you're 60," Wash says and then he starts to sing quietly, "All by myself, don't wanna be! All by myseeelf -"
He doesn't do it quietly enough and the nail that sticks up gets abruptly hammered down, especially when that nail makes the mistake of doing something goofy.
"WINTERS!" calls out someone that is clearly a drill sergeant.
Wash winces and the redhead and the other soldiers closest to Wash have to hide expressions of delight.
Wash hops to his feet, immediately at attention.
"Yes, drill sergeant!"
"IS THE MESS A CONCERT HALL? DOES THIS LOOK LIKE AN ACOUSTICALLY SOUND ENTERTAINMENT VENUE TO YOU?"
"No, drill sergeant!"
"DOES THE MESS LOOK LIKE A PLACE WHERE CELINE DION, THE PRIDE AND JOY OF KEE-BECK, WOULD HAVE CHARGED $10,000 A HEAD FOR VIP TICKETS TO SHARE WITH US HER MAJESTIC FRENCH-CANADIAN SINGING VOICE?"
"No, drill sergeant!"
"YOU SEEM TO WANT TO REGALE US WITH YOUR SOFT ROCK VOCAL STYLINGS SO I'LL MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU! STAND UP ON THE TABLE!"
Wash is temporarily thrown.
"Uh." He quickly self-corrects and then shoves his tray aside and stands up on the table. "Yes, drill sergeant!
"SINCE YOU ARE SO DESPERATE TO HARMONIZE YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY HOLD IN THE SONG IN YOUR HEART, YOU WILL NOW PROCEED TO ENTERTAIN THE ENTIRE COMPANY!"
Wash's voice cracks nervously, "Yes, drill sergeant!"
The entire company suddenly comes down with some kind of epidemic because everyone starts coughing. This is not because they're sick, this is because they're not allowed to laugh, therefore their laughter at the spectacle has to be turned into something else.
Wash starts to sing, slightly out of tune, "All by myseeeelf, don't wanna be! All by myself...Anymore!"
Recruits have to hide their faces in their hands. Wash's redheaded friend's shoulders start shaking so much he looks like he's recovering from hypothermia.
Wash briefly pauses, and then starts over, "All by myself, don't wanna be! All by myseeeelf -"
"RECRUIT, YOU APPEAR TO BE REPEATING YOURSELF!"
Wash calls out in a high and strangled voice, "Those are the only lines I know, sir!"
There is not only coughing, there is choking all over. Even one of the other drill sergeants now has the wide brim of his hat pulled down over his face and is hiding the rest of it in his hand, pretending he is just scratching his nose, but the redness in his face gives away that he's struggling to hold laughter in himself.
"NEVER MIND THEN, PROCEED!"
Wash starts singing again, "All by myself, don't wanna be! All by myseeeelf..." and keeps continuing with the few lines he knows, as other recruits around him struggle to choke down food in between coughs and basically just die of laughter-induced internal bleeding.
This lasts until chow time is almost over, then the drill sergeant finally relents.
"RECRUIT, AS YOU HAVE LEFT ME WISHING I HAD JUST SCALPED MY TICKETS FOR A PACK OF GUM, YOU MAY NOW STEP DOWN!"
"Yes, sir!"
"AT EASE!"
"I think I just had a stroke," says a black-haired female recruit next to him, only now finally able to breathe.
Wash's face is bright red and he hides his face in his hand as he starts cramming his peanut butter sandwiches into his mouth.
The drill sergeants blow whistles and the recruits quickly start to pour out again for practice. Wash is one of the last ones out because he has to take a few extra moments to cram the rest of his food into his mouth and drink some orange drink to force it all down. After pouring out into the hallway his redhead friend, who trotted ahead of him, turns back to briefly face him, hissing low enough the drill sergeants can't hear: "Near, far, wherever you are..."
Wash gives him a flat look and then pauses, expression confused. There's a strange shrieking sound in the air outside, getting loud enough they can all hear.
War is all coincidences, good luck, bad luck, direct hits and near misses. A bomb hitting the right enemy in exactly the right place and right time for a quick save, or hitting your foxhole at the wrong one. If Wash had not gotten in trouble, had not been forced to sing, had not needed to take an extra few seconds to eat the rest of his food and drink the rest of his gross, orange powdered drink, no one on the rig would have ever met him.
Even the people viewing the memory won't realize what's happened at first because everything just goes white. There is a deafening ringing in the air. The smell of burnt bacon. Muffled voices, from down a long tunnel. Screaming.
Wash is now suddenly laying on the floor. Light is spilling in around him when once there had been more walls. His head is bleeding and his fatigues are slightly singed.
He sits up, gasping, panting, dazed. Holes have been blasted in the walls of the base. The area just in front of him is filled with charcoal and bits of burning uniforms. The occasional body part. Wash's redheaded buddy is mostly intact, but only mostly, and it would probably be better if he was just charcoal like the others.
Because the way his blank eyes are fixed on him, staring at nothing, is worse.
A CO grabs Wash and drags him up by his elbow, drawing him backwards, inside. Yells something about an armory, yells the word "colonies" but the words can be barely heard over the ringing. Eventually he starts moving under his own power, but it takes being dragged farther up the hallway.
But something hard steals over his face and he does eventually manage it, heading off to get armed despite not having reached the end of basic.
They'd thought Leonis-Minoris was safe enough to have basic training for the nearby systems. Far enough away from the fighting.
They were wrong.
no subject
It's a performing nightmare, but a funny one if you're not the performer.
The memory turns so far from funny though, turns on such a dime that Bunny chokes on his own laugh, looking around for the real Wash whose memories he's in.
no subject
Honestly, he couldn't even let himself feel the weigh of it then. Because he had to hit the ground running and then it never really stopped. And he'd adapted well to this life - until his court martial, at least. Everything that came after that was a disaster.
But this? It's just war. And this was...god, close to two decades ago.
It just makes him feel fucking ancient. He looks down at the redhead ruefully.
"His name was Shelbin. Reg Shelbin. He actually went to my high school. We didn't become friends until the second half of senior year but we enlisted on the same day, right after graduation. A few people did. We all actually ran into each other at the recruiting office, right when it opened. The others didn't go to the same place for basic, though. Lucky them."
The situation is clearly deteriorating, the base being thrown into pure chaos.
"He was a good guy."
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"Do you think about this a lot?"
It's still a mystery to him why this memory sharing happens at all, but maybe something somewhere wants them to talk about things they wouldn't at all, given the choice, but for some reason might need to speak about.
no subject
He actually explains because he's been growing more and more open over time, letting his guard down.
"The part where I served in the war, that was...awful, but in a way I was used to. And it was a fight that mattered. Aliens were trying to wipe out humanity, glassing colony world after colony world. The reason I even joined Project Freelancer and got utterly screwed was because I got court martialed and wanted to get back out to the field. The war wasn't over and I wanted to do all I could do."
He raises his eyebrows.
"And I got court martialed because of someone else's stupidity anyway."
An older Wash, but still younger than now, can be seen arguing with a superior officer in a battle field that is clearly out of fucking control.
Wash and the officer are standing at a point slightly farther back, were the officer is in a much safer position than the men farther afield, who are getting creamed.
"- need to fall back and regroup -"
"- stand down, Winters! -"
"- no tactical significance whatsoever to a ground-based -"
"- that is an order, Winters! -"
"- just hoping for another piece of chest candy - "
"- how dare you! Stand down! -"
"- insulting them and constantly careless with the lives of your men, you unbelievable blowhard -"
"- shut the fuck up -"
"- just call in the fucking air support! -"
"- I'm giving you one more chance to back down -"
"- Just give the order to evac and call in the fucking air support -"
"- before I have you court martialed!"
There is a beat. Which means his temper, though flared, didn't lash out instantly. No, he gave it thought, briefly looked back out to the field where everyone else was dying, where it was clear they'd be lucky if anyone survived, and made a decision.
And knocked his superior clean unconscious.
"Then I guess I'll see you at my fucking court martial!" Wash shouts to his unconscious body.
"Jesus Christ," says out another soldier.
"Michelson, start dragging his useless ass back to fallback point two-two-niner for evac, we're getting everyone out of here and blasting it from orbit like we should've done a whole half hour ago!"
The soldier and another soldier both nod and start dragging the CO off without protesting Wash giving those orders.
He grabs a radio.
"This is Lieutenant Winters, Captain Grashton is down, and I am in command. All units, fall back to points Two-two-niner and one-zero-three for immediate evac! Beta group and Zeta group, scrape together whoever's still standing and lay down covering fire!"
And after calling in the orders for an aerial bombing, he gets right out there with his men, laying down fire and helping drag along the injured. He is the last one to get on the last transport out.
"Oh, look, the moment my actual military career ended, down to the second," he says with fake enthusiasm.
Freelancer doesn't count.
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He knows even as he asks, a little sarcastically, that no, that's not the reason but it's so infuriating the way incompetence and selfishness are ground in to some ruling classes even with worlds on the line, multiples of them.