Re: [IC] Chapter One
"... so I'm holding onto his helmet to stabilize his neck, staring straight ahead, thinking to myself, 'don't look down, don't look down, don't look down and see brains.' So, of course, I have to look down right as he opens his eyes and I about shit myself. Bastard walked right between the blades, felt the wind on his back, realized what he'd done, and went over in a dead faint. Not a mark on him."
"Fuckin' lucky. The flight deck will kill your ass in an instant. This one time I was on Saipan-- oh, hey, boys. Who made the coffee?"
The door opens again to admit two more men. The one leading and issuing the coffee inquiry is close to six and a half feet tall, weathered to an ambiguous forty-something, with unmilitarily-long silvering hair and three days of stubble. He's wearing cargo pants and a well-worn MA-2 flight jacket that bears a name tag with jump wings and CWO3 BANNON. The baby-faced redhead behind him is of more normal height and military grooming; he wears jeans, a black Patagonia fleece pullover, and a velcro-patched baseball cap with a Welsh flag.
Bannon crosses the room and offers his hand to each man in turn. "Mike, Jim, good to see you again. You're Sebastien, right? Nicetameetcha. I'm Ted Bannon, Chief Bannon if there's brass around. I run this outfit's intel shop."
Turning to the counter, he selects a mug bearing a dinosaur's skull and the legend "TEA-REX." "Crad, jump in if you want one. Guys, this is Caradoc Crewe, your ditch doctor." He gestures toward the redhead, swirling tendrils of steam around his knuckles.
Caradoc smiles and nods to the room as he drops his bags in a corner and busies himself with a tea infuser. "Hi, lads. As the chief so elegantly puts it, I'll be your medic. I fear I've the advantage of you, having seen your charts already. Sorry, sort of a necessity. For your curiosity, I'm Territorial Army - Artists' Rifles. And the junior man, I think, being but a lowly corporal." He grins self-deprecatingly and throws himself into an overstuffed armchair with the boneless ease of youth, draping his legs over one of its arms. "Christ, that was an awful drive. Next time I won't spend the last days of leave playing local tourist if it comes with roads like those."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:16, Thu 13 Nov 2014.