Quiet time with the monster...
30 Jan 2023MudBarf
Running around some ghost town settlement, feeding the beast with the blood of the soldiers who signed up for the other side. They could easily have been the ones I fought for - I tend to pick sides at random these days. Or leave it to my wingman to choose, and he inevitably finds some Empire faction to fight for, shooting at Federals.Got overly trigger happy and I shot my wingman again. He was fine - his shields took it this time, but he wasn't happy. He loves to remind me of the time I blew chunks of him all over a moon in who cares where. Took many combat stabilizers to keep him alive and a fair amount of progenitor cells to repair the damage afterwards, but he's basically in top shape again.
He thinks he's guit tripping me about it. He also thinks it was accidental, so I don't mess with his misconceptions. If he knew I'd shot him in a rage after he stole a kill, he might not hunt with me anymore. It was just some big mouth no talent merc I was hunting, and instead of letting me splatter his brains all over the power generator, Rhone took the kill shot after I got his shields down. I wouldn't care ordinarily, but this guy said something to me that made me mad.
"It's just you and me now, punk"
He wouldn't come after me, he's not suicidal, but it's better he doesn't know that one of his original lungs is still on that planet because of a *deliberate* act on my part. He's shot me on occasion too - I assume it was accidental. Best not mess with my assumptions either.
I decided that maybe it's time to take a little break and see if I can distract myself. There's a little undersea hotel on Inti 7, near the northern pole, in one of the temperate zones. It's full of little alien cockroach things. Semi-aquatic. They're harmless, but they smell. Going there for a bit because the place has some great offroading on the nearby islands.
I haven't been offroading properly since I left earth. SRV's are fine, I guess, but they just don't do it for me - I like the old mudplugging rigs. I'm having one shipped down there and a team is going to sweep the hotel before I get there, and get rid of the bugs. Gonna have the whole place to myself, not even the hotel manager will be there. Being a billionare has it's perks - I just booked the whole place for a week. The whole place is off limits while I'm there. Can't risk being around other living beings right now - the hunger gnaws at me.
Even the cleaning staff has instructions to only enter the facility when I'm on shore, and be gone within an hour.
See, I'm not sure I accidentally shot Rhone. I can't actually remember, it's all a bit of a haze. So I'm going to try to reconnect with the old me. The one I left behind on Earth. The one that loved offroading and adventuring.
I don't know. Maybe it's a fools errand, but I owe Rhone. He's saved my life many times - so I should do what I can to quiet the hunger. At least enough that I know what I'm doing when I'm around him. Find a distraction. See a bit less red. I owe him that much.