Soviet Assault Suit

[Coolhand]

Rich, funny you mention that, this suits actually from a book i started writing over a year ago. I had the first draft pretty much finished but then decided that i really didn't like that it was written in 1st person. i've so far only gotten about a chapter into the re-write so far... here's a section (laden with spelling and grammar errors i'm sure) from the old version that deals with these suits.

*******************

I flew on down the ladder, I suspected the shoal were too large to use these claustrophobic tunnels which gave me a definate advantage in speed. Emerging into a hold full of cargo containers, the bar was some way off to starboard. I ducked into a compartment that had been converted into a office as i heard a clonking and scraping from further up, the invaders were opening and searching though containers, some of which were loaded onto an express elevator that went all the way the top of the ship, a shoal in the usual groups of five i'd seen before were standing on one of the elevating platforms, escorting a pallette of cannisters. I was in the process of working out what the hell was going on when i realised something else was in there with me I turned and one of them was staring me in the face, its bulky form had leaned out of the darkness of the room and its face was just inches away.

I froze in fear, waiting for the next move, no way I could get at the repeater before... Not that it would do any good against this armour. It hung in the air in front of me, low light cameras glowing as red eyes on the surface, I waited, it didn't make its move. I pushed it away, we floated to opposite sides of the room, I could now see It didn't even have a gun in its clawed mechanical hands, the bulky firearm lingered by a locker. its limbs were floating limp and it was now beginning to roll over like a dead fish. There were no bullet holes in the thing, not even a scratch on its polished carbon body, it looked brand new, maybe it was just an empty suit? I had to look inside and so pushed myself closer, it had bounced back into the room and I sailed out to meet it setting up a rotating motion in the middle of the small room, a grim waltz in the dark. Its head had lolled back with the seal cracked on the helmet - had it died of decompression? The occupant seemed grey in colour, some flesh of the wearers neck was visible in the dim light, I considered letting go and getting out of there but I forced its faceplate open, I was looking face to face with one of the shoal.

He looked like a normal guy not as bulky looking as your average marine, chiselled features that made him look as if he'd come straight into space from a hollywood face shop, skin completely colourless, mouth open with feedback cables attached to his skin. A little fluid globule of something purple floated from a feedtube, probably some sort of nutrition or a stim drug, no doubt the suit had all same kinds of plumbing as a spacesuit. The thickness of the material surrounding the limbs seemed to indicate it had power augmentation, thats how these guys were able to move so fast. Judging by the speed, this suit was pretty much beyond state of the art, what the hell were these guys and what the hell killed him?

Clanging approached from further away, I snapped the faceplate back into place, grabbed the floating large caliber gun and shut myself into the locker as the door to the compartment swung open. I peered through a vented slot into the gloomy room as two of the shoal stepped through, with the dead guy thats three, the other two must be covering the other side, I could see the shoulder of another though the doorway as the two floating in the room looked at the dead murderer. I was surprised to hear them talking, then muffled shouting, they were arguing with each other over the dead one, one attempting to to assign blame on the other, I guessed everyone at the end of the day was just watching their own back.
Then the realisation struck me, I could understand these wankers.
"It was your fault, you set our inhibitors too high." The thing spoke in a thick American Australian accent. "ahh my head, it's splitting!" It reached up and clonked a palm ineffectually on its carbon forehead.
"Would you shut the **** up, and get him, Will." The leader had an equally thick new zealand accent.
"Ahh, **** you, sarge." he raised a middle claw at his leader and reached up under a flexible carbon flap which made up several layers armour around the collarbone and popped the seal, his faceplate swung up revealing red and blotchy skin, must be hot in there. He looked at his fallen comrade.
"Poor bastard, it was only his first time out, you shouldn't have given him so much."
"We haven't got much time left, just grab him and lets go, those suits're expensive."
He reached out and grabbed his mate and the metal doorframe, about to pull him out of the room.
"Hey, where's the gun?"

Sh*t.

He snapped the faceplate back down and inspected the room, he must have picked me up on thermal because he swung round to face me, leveling his weapon as I flew out of the locker. Red tracer bullets flashed past as the stationary attacker tried to put a bead on me, I returned fire with my eyes closed, you could cut down a giant redwood with these things, it must have put out about 60 armour peircing bullets in the quarter second that I squeezed the trigger. The recoil in the confined space was immense and it blasted me back into the wall behind, I opened my eyes expecting to be dead, or worse. The gun in my hand was now clicking rapidly as it was starved of ammo, big holes had been punched everywhere in front as i'd wildly swung the gun around the room under the near uncontrollable recoil. It had gone though the two suits in the room, one of them now chopped in two, strings of cabling and guts were all that held the shattered torso together. Fish in a ****ing barrel, I panicked as a third slowly revolved into view in the doorway and instinctively clicked the gun, useless... It didn't matter, it was holed anyway and trailing blood, must've caught a couple through the wall. Just one left, I darted into the corner by the door looking for an escape but found an ambush, I checked the guns mag counter and threw it in to the corner by the locker.

This random action put me into what a soldier probably would have described as an excellent tactical position, It came in and pushed my third kill out of the way, concentrating on the area where my thrown machine gun had hit the locker. The bloody suit spun past me, helping my concealment. I snuck around behind it as it tried to figure out what had happened, it moved cautiously over to inspect the locker, its own scraping and whining electric motors concealing the sound of my own stealthy movements behind. I was tempted to turn and fly for it but it would surely cut me down, I had to finish it. Pulling the repeater from my backpack I had managed to get all the way around the back of it underneath its dome of red spiders eyes. I jumped up and it must have caught sight of me in its rear eyes. I clung desperately onto the smooth backpack of the heavy suit as it spun itself around, trying to claw me from its back but if i stayed lowdown enough the suits bulky mechanism prevented the hands from reaching me. with my left hand I was now reaching up into the armoured fold, I found the release, flipped its detent and pressed the button. He immeadiately grabbed my wrist with a set of claws, they tore the flesh and I could feel it was about to break my arm. The other hand reached up to snap the faceplate back down and it began backing up until it smashed me into the wall by the locker, now being crushed between the wall and the suit and having my left arm slowly ripped from its socket, I rammed the repeater into the the closing gap and delivered ten or twelve flechette rounds into the helmet. Blood, skin, skull and brains gushed from the gap below the partially opened faceplate as a rush of lead particles and gasses from the repeater mushed up and displaced what had been in there previously. It let go of my arm and began convulsing, I quickly backed away as the violent amplified thrashing tore up the walls around it, then it hung there, a big amplified twitch here and there as whatever motor neurons it had left gave out their last pulse of energy. A gratifying sight. I was grinning manically and chuckling to myself. Better get out of here, no doubt the soldiers were being monitored from the ships above, I probably didn't have long until another shoal of bastards appeared to look for them, as if in response the comms in the open helmets crackled into life, requesting a status report.

**********************

yeah, its cack, the re-write will be better.


G, wish i could get redalert to run on this machine.. that game was awesome.

[biotech]

Its far from cack, but you are right, 1st person perspective is so limiting.

A few extra commas in some of the longer sentances wouldnt hurt, but seconds drafts are always better.

I started re-writing my story this year, and the original was set 15 years ago, so I aged the characters up and rewrote it extensivly.

It came out better because of all the life experience I have now I didnt have then.

Good luck Steve, and dont give up on it.

Maybe when you get published you can get your agent to look at mine!

[Coolhand]

yeah i don't remember it being that bad, i'm sure there's a version with much better punctuation on my other machine at my parents house, the one i have here doesn't even have the last 3 chapters. i hope i haven't lost it, i need it as reference for the re-write! this'll probably take me 15 years too...

reminds me of family guy... hows that novel coming along brian? hmm?

[biotech]

Yeah, I know the scene well.

At least yours is set in the future, first time I wrote mine GB senior was president.

[Steve O B Have]

It's from a fairly old Anime called Armoured Trooper VOTOMS from 1983 - When I was young my parents went to Singapore and bought me back a couple of little VOTOMS figurines - they long got destroyed but the cartoon still looks cool. There was supposed to be a remake this year but I can't find reference to it.
Vertical One-man Tank for Offense & ManeuverS
Armored Trooper Votoms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Freak]

Not bad Coolhand, but your losing the first person will work much better, for your story.

Rich is that your BMF story your reworking?

Funny you should mention RA2 I pulled it out last night. I might install General this weekend.

[biotech]

Yeah, I popped up a new version in the writers section, but I am working on new inserts for it too.

[chrono]

The whole power armor style has bee worked with a lot so it's understandable if 1 suit is similar to another's.

[Coolhand]

those things always remind me of futuristic toilets that have sprouted arms and legs.

Originally Posted by Coolhand

its much easier to rotate the paper and ghost in straight lines and so on than it is bugger about with the wacom.

actually scratch that comment, i've finally found the rotation tool (hidden under the hand shaped move canvas tool) at first i thought it was limited to a clunky type in interface but i was amazed how quickly and smoothly it manages to rotate the entire canvas, very cool.

[Freak]

Originally Posted by Coolhand

those things always remind me of futuristic toilets that have sprouted arms and legs.

LMFAO!!