The Phobos Labs - Intro

[Kinsie]

PART 0: CALM BEFORE THE STORM

I woke up in a room swallowed by darkness, on a bunk-bed torn at and practically chewed on
by it's previous owner. As I arose from slumber, so did the various others who "lived" in this
wing of the Phobos Base East Barracks, a barracks built onto the Phobos base so us marines
can flood out and save the day in case of emergency. There's one on each compass point of
the base, and each base can hold... what, 100 marines? Yeah, that's close to the mark.

Donning my armor and picking up a UAC-grade light machine gun, I stepped out of the barracks
dank recesses and into the bright, busy Phobos Research Base. The base was built in 2046 to
support scientific research into hundreds of technologies, including military weapons, which
is where we came in, along with defending the base from the odd dipshit space-pirate trying
to play hero and raid a heavily defended base armed only with a sizable gut. Now, where was I?
Ah, ah yes. We test out guns. And guard stuff. And... "Hey, John!" a familiar voice called out.

I looked in the voice's direction to see Steve "Deimos" Gutteburg, a German-American well known
around the barracks for his discriminating taste in weaponry, paticuarly shotguns. It was because
of him the UAC were trying a new model of the "Old Faithful", and due to that fact he was the lucky
"playtester" for a military-issue "Buckshot", the name he gave double-barreled, or "Super" Shotguns.
He held the weapon to his chest as he walked over, almost using it like a security blanket
with pump-action. "Hey Steve!" I replied. "Tried that shotgun yet?". "Those rocks didn't stand a
chance!" he chuckled. He had a point: No good action for three-thousand killometers, where there
was a largish stand-off between a militia and the Mars branch of the UAC. Instead, me, him and
about a thousand other marines were stuck on his godawful, scientifically-enlarged hunk of rock.

I guess I should introduce myself. I'm John "Doom" Davidson, a member of the UAC Space Marines.
The basic use of the Marines is being called in to halt any really serious shit, and to guard
places we're told to. It's been that way since I signed up, and I've been stuck on this planet
for, what, one year now. It's a boring life, I'll tell you that.

I wandered over to the base's small firing range, and got ready to hone my aim. Readying my
machinegun, I waited. Suddenly a humanoid shape burst from a holographic projector. The figure was
not a pleasant gent. He had torn clothers, tussled hair, a scarred face and a permanent snarl. He
had a massive machette in one hand, and he immediately charged towards me. I wasted no time in holding
down the machinegun's trigger. Ten loud shots later, the holographic figure was clutching it's torn up
gut and falling slowly to the floor, when in reality the bullets were impacting somewhere into the wall
in the back of the room. I blew the smoke from my machinegun's barrel and went up to get my scoresheet.

Grabbing my scoresheet from the machine, I heard the PA system fire up: "Attention all South Barracks
personell, report to sector CA, you are required in an important assignment." Friggin' South Barracks
freaks. They got all the brownie points from the higher-ups, and all the good assignments, when in
truth they weren't quite as good as us. Close, but no cigar.

Seeing as I was having a day off from the looks of it, I decided to take a long lunch. Walking to the
mess hall, I saw two West Barracks marines joking around with some scientists. the West Barracks guys
were the guinea pigs for when the UAC discovered some sort of new energy source for weapons. As such,
they wore brown, angular, open-visor helmets, tan power-armor, and hauled around lightening guns.
However, they never let this get to their heads, and were on the whole very down-to-earth people, and
quick with a joke, always ready to light your cigar. Adjusting my helmet, I wandered over, and
recognised one of the West-B soldiers as a friend, Peter "Ranger" Muldoon, a friendly guy, if a tad
shy around people he didn't know."Hey, Ranger!" I shouted over to Pete. Peter earned his callsign
from the old TV show "The Lone Ranger", which aptly described Peter and his ability to work in a group.

"Yes?" he replied, cringing at my using his codename. "Ya want lunch? I'm payin' today." I grinned.
"You win a bet or something?" he asked, a puzzled expression on his face. "Yup!" I showed him the score
card. "Ten shots from a MP15, Ten hits, No misses." Ranger's friend burst out laughing. "Man, the Sarge
is gonna be pissed!" How word got out over my private bet with the North Barracks Sargeant, a promenant
military mind, I don't know. See, he looked over my sholder in the simulator range and said, and I
quote: "You couldn't shoot ten holes in a shitheap!" So I made a bet with him, fifty gold if I could
hit something ten times without missing with an MP15 in the firing range. Together me, Ranger and his
friend went to the North Barracks to claim our bet. The look on old Sarge's face as his cigar dropped
out of his mouth will stay with me forever... man, it was worthwhile.

PART 1: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

"So, what's your name?" I asked Ranger's buddy at the messhall. The man bit into his burger, chewed
a few times, gulped it down and spoke. "My real name or my codename?" Over the next few minutes I heard
the story of Jacob "Wrack" Smith, a veteran of the Slipgate wars (As many West-B soldiers were), who
had a colorful history with military authority, one such incident (Involving his foot, a general's
genitalia, and the interfacing therof) forcing his transfer from the Earth-based Slipgate-Corps, to the
Phobos Labs West Barracks. Despite being torn away from his young family back on Earth, Wrack held no
grudges so it seemed, relaxing and joking all throughout lunch.

"Man, where be all the womenfolk around here?" mumbled a fellow East-B trooper as he sat down a table
away. Wrack rolled his eyeballs in dismay. "Probably expected hundreds of scantily-clad sluts waiting
on him between incidents." Ranger thought, and added "It's not like many women want to move away from
Earth nowadays anyway..." his eyes wandered across the huge hall. "Mind you, that one over there..."
he was staring at a young East-B trooper across the hall. She wore the standard helmet, but the armor
was more... um... how to describe... form-fitting? Yeah, that's it. The various symbols on the armor
and weapon holsters hinted that she was a mechanic, trained in combat in case of emergency.
"That one over there..." Ranger repeated... "She can screw my nail in anytime." Cue much groaning
in dismay at corny innuendo and laughter at lame joke. Suddenly, an alarm sounded. The hall dimmed
red, and the PA sounded on again. "Attention all off-duty Marines, we have an emergency. Please report
to your barracks for briefing". Shit! "Sorry, gotta go!" I shouted as I lept out of my seat and ran for
the East Barracks.

Everyone stood in a long line, facing the general who was responsible for keeping us in order. I tried
to look for where the nameless mechanic was standing, but I could find her anywhere. "There have been
various experiments in teleportation technology down in sector CA. The scientists hoped they could
learn from their mistakes from the Slipgate Incident, but it seems that they've accidentally warped
in something that can only be described as Evil.". The general was truly fearful of the situation.
"Most of South Barracks have been killed or injured, and we need everyone down there to neutralise
the threat." Suddenly, a voice piped from the end of the line. "Sir, what does this menace look like?"
The general stared at the trooper, and gave the answer no-one wanted to hear. "It's not human."

Five minutes later, we were gathered outside one of the entrances to sector CA, armed and dangerous.
Me with my MP15, Deimos with his Buckshot, and everyone else with a variety of guns and energy weapons.
I saw some troopers with .44 Magnums, Plasma swords, and even a Chaingun. I tightened my grip on my
machinegun, and the general counted down. "OK, we enter in three... two..." he never had time to say
"one", because at that time, the door smashed open and hordes of... things... burst into the narrow
corridor. That's about all I remember of the hasty, panicked, hopeless battle that followed, as a short
time later I fell into unconsciousness.

Comments?

[dsm]

Heh, I can't say that it follows the Doom backstory completely, but who cares anyway?

Great story, you've got some great ideas and the characters have a fine personality. If there's anything with this story that could've been better, it'd have to be the writing itself (one's writing can always get better). It's not that it's bad or anything, but if you described people's feelings a bit better and described the characters in further detail, it'd be one heck of a story I think.

PART 1: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Hey! That's MY title for the intro episode of my first Doom story! Thief!!! :-P

Anyway, I like how you've included the characters from Q3A and some of the other id games, but....where's Phobos? You mentioned a guy called Deimos, but what about Phobos?

[Kinsie]

There was an alt. skin for Doom in Q3A called Deimos. I may throw Phobos in later, who knows.

[mewse]

Trasher][ said:
There was an alt. skin for Doom in Q3A called Deimos. I may throw Phobos in later, who knows.

phobos.jpg

[Kinsie]

Ah. Well damn me and damn the Q3A playguide that apepars to have wandered out of view.

Besides, a guy codenamed Phobos on Phobos base would be a bit screwy...

[dsm]

Trasher][ said:


Besides, a guy codenamed Phobos on Phobos base would be a bit screwy...

Heh, fair enough - maybe his nick "Phobos" is a posthumous nick.

[pritch]

This gets better as it goes on. I grimaced with the "what?..." bit in the first paragraph, try and avoid colloquial language and rehtorical questions as a rule. It will make your writing appear more mature.

The story and the characters are good though, indicative of the bright imagination you clearly have. Tie that in with some improved writing skills and you'll be on to a winner.

[Rotting Corpse]

Dude that is cool. Dont see any thing that needs work. Thanks for not useing flynn taggont for the doom dudes name.

[Kinsie]

Demons Hand said:

Thanks for not useing flynn taggont for the doom dudes name.

Well, I thought of using a name like Tim Flaggon, but shot that down as "ghey".

Next chapter coming whenever I can tear myself away from schoolwork.