Fan Fiction ❯ umm... submit a name? ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Alphasama 
This chapter really isn't that great. More of an introduction than anything else, and it helped me get in the 'story' mood. ^^ review, please
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.01.2004 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 130 | Status: Completed
This chapter really isn't that great. More of an introduction than anything else, and it helped me get in the 'story' mood. ^^ review, please
Anime/Manga: Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.01.2004 | Pages: 1 | Words: 2.8K | Visits: 130 | Status: Completed
The days off are always the most boring , Alpha mused silently, Nothing ever happens, it's just too...boring.... Every day he had off, he waited for the alarms to ring, but they seldom did. Nobody in their right mind attacked StarCorps on a good day, let alone when most of the soldiers were in. It had been proven previously, when a weakly-armored Angel flew head-on into a defensive laser shot by the cannons on top of the HQ. Alpha yawned, leaning back and balancing a pen on the tip of his finger. In front of him, was a white sheet of parts he had to order, he just couldn't figure out what he wanted. It was like being a kid in a candy store, with one hundred dollars in his pocket. He just didn't know where to start . The sheet of paper was thanks from some nameless company he had helped a while ago, and they were offering all the free parts they could afford. So far, all he had marked off were dual laser cannons, and a new titanium sword.
He was just closing his eyes when the alarms went off, causing him to fall out of his chair, right in the middle of a group of stampeding rookies, all racing to get to their Angels. Alpha snckered, although slightly self-concious as he lay on the floor. They werent going to send a bunch of rookies into a REAL battle yet... the first one had to be completely orchestrated by the higher-ups. He got up and brushed himself off, walking calmly to the hangar, where all of the soldiers' Angels were held. Alpha instantly saw his Soldier unit being prepped for battle. It had a beautiful set of quad ZX-93 boosters on its sleek blue back, in its right arm was held a single precision rifle, while in the other was a twin-barrel laser rifle. In a sheath hanging off of its shoulder was his favorite weapon, a titanium broadsword. His current one was pretty beat up, with several scratches and dents in the blade. It was also getting a little dull...
The Soldier had reached the docking elevator when he finished his thoughts, the elevator in question opening as though beckoning him in. He obliged, jogging forward and pressing a single button, the elevator taking him to the cockpit of his Angel silently. The doors opened again in minutes, the cockpit doors opening, and a ramp sliding out to connect with the bridge that was in front of Alpha. He walked onto the ramp, and inside the Angel. The doors closed behind him, leaving him in complete darkness. He pressed a button to the side from memory, and the dim red glow of the lights flickered on. The cockpit was full of machinery, almost no room for himself. Alpha sat down in the pilot's seat, flipping off the light and activating the comm unit.
"This is Alpha, may I ask who's going to be doing my systems check today?" he asked, smiling to himself as he opened the computer to the headquarters.
A pleasant female voice answered, a slight Texas accent in her voice "Well, I will honey, looks like all of your systems are running to optimum performance... switch on your generator, and we'll get this baby outta here!"
Alpha flicked a toggle to activate the matrix core within his generator, waiting for the lights to come on. "Generator activated, how's the system looking?"
"Clean as a whistle sweety, no problems yet, you're in the green."
He flipped another switch, activating the screen to the comm unit, his sight filled with the beautiful face of his engineer. "Wow, you're a hot one..."
The girl laughed, shaking her head, "I'm taken sweety... now let's see here... your boosters look a little more strained than usual, but that shouldnt be a problem, its right on borderline green."
Alpha nodded, looking at the new screen shwing an outline of his mecha, the boosters still green, but they did look like they were under more pressure than usual... He shook it off, switching on the final toggle. "Okay beautiful, you need to take it over from here, I don't have clearence to get myself outta this docking bay!"
The girl giggled, pressing a string of buttons on her keypad. "Ya'll do now! The restraints should be coming off... now!"
The restraints mentioned released the Soldier, sliding back into place with a release of steam.
"Enter this code into your data... take elevator path eighty-seven dash fourty-niner-three... after you get out, head on over to coordinates Beta nine-nine-six-eight..."
He did as he was told, punching in the information dutifully, looking at his map on the HUD, "So... Snake squad needs some help? Figures, you use reptiles for sneak attacks... Oh well, see ya later."
He switched off the comm unit, reverting to the original view mode, his screen now filled with the docking bay through his Angel's eyes. The docking elevator beneath his Angel wirred to life, moving underground slowly and taking him about a mile away from where he was supposed to go. Alpha yawned, leaning back in his seat.
The elevator hatch to above-ground opened in the heat of the battle. There weren't a lot of enemy Angels, but all of them were skilled and had a lot of weapons. Alpha toggled his quad-boosters and took off to help Snake team. He holstered the precision rifle and took aim at a nearby enemy Angel, blowing it to smithereens with a well-placed shot to the booster pack. Alpha reached the coordinates three Angels later, each one he left behind in a pile of scrap. There were four members of Snake team left, three a sniper with no cover, the other a demolitions unit. The demo unit couldnt do much of anything, as it was barely outfitted for the counterattack, and the snipers were in plain sight, therefore hindering their ability. They had to cionstantly move, and never got a target in their crosshairs.
Alpha landed, taking out three enemy mecha with his next shots, aiming for the cockpit. The battle was going well enough, there were minimum casualties on the defensive side, and half of the attackers were gone. He yawned, switching the comm unit to talk to the members of Snake squad.
"Hey, are you all rookies or what?"
The first answer came from the demo unit, "I'm not, the three snipers are, though. The northern hangar was damaged, so I couldn't get outfitted properly. You know if the order went through to use the...."
A sharp bullet to the cockpit from an enemy silenced him forever, leaving Alpha to wonder what he was talking about. He switched on his comm unit, leaving the screen on the Angel's sight, taking out aother Angel as he talked, "Alpha here, I have a slight problem, I'm protecting three..." an explosion to the left made him rethink his counting, "make that two rookies, how about some back-up?"
The girl from earlier's voice came through, "Right-o, just stay alive, and you'll have a soldier and a demo unit, the demo unit is gonna be carrying a Nova Cannon, so don't get angry if he's late."
"Yessir!"
Alpha switched off the comm unit and went back to the Angel he was currently attacking, blowing off one of its arms before he tossed a grenade at it, catching it perfectly in the newly-made hole.It went up in a fireball, a peice of shrapnel lancing through another enemy Angel, incapacitating, but not destroying, it. He holstered the precision rifle and brought out the laser rifle, aiming at the same incapacitated Angel and blowing it to peices. He took aim at another Angel, firing at its knee joint and allowing a friendy Angel to destoy it.
The Soldier reinforcement arrived, taking out the angel Alpha had just aimed at. In response, Alpha switched the comm unit over to it, "What the hell!? Didn't you see me aiming!?"
There was no response but static, and the soldier destroyed two more enemies. Alpha ground his teeth and tossed another grenade into the fray, listening to the reassuring explosion and watching peices of enemy mecha flying in different directions. He looked over his shoulder and saw that only one sniper was left, and it seemed to be trying to hide against the HQ building. That reminded Alpha of something, and he looked to the top of the building, muttering, "That's strange, the defenses aren't online..."
He shrugged it off and blew up one more enemy Angel, before the last of his reinforcements, the Demo unit, arrived. It was moving slowly due to the weight of the Nova Cannon on its shoulder. Alpha opened a comm link to all three of them, the Soldier, the sniper, and the Demo unit, "I'm gonna go let loose some hell, I'll probably be back here when I'm done, make sure ya'll don't let the rookie die, or yourselves for that matter."
Without waiting for a response he activated his boosters, flying off as he holstered his laser rifle and unsheathed his sword. He sliced through the middle of a nearby Angel, and looked for something more worth destroying. He saw a new model of Angel, one that he hadn't seen before. It was flying towards the HQ, and it looked a lot like a Phoenix model, now that he thought about it. It had some sort of energy surrounding it, and whenever it came in contact with an Angel, it simply exploded. Alpha flew towards it, protecting the HQ now behind the thought of defeating this new foe. He poured on more speed, and completely passed it up. The thing just turned its humanoid head towards him and raised one of its hands, the yellow wings on its back glowing brightly. Electricity shot from the hand that was aimed at him, hitting him full in the chest and shutting down primary power, the boosters now barely holding him up and the lights flickering to the dim red glow of secondary power. He knew he had about ten minutes before the secondary generator also shut down, but he wanted to defeat this electricity-weilding enemy first. He flew at it again, the boosters groaning in protest. He slashed at it, succeeding in cleaving off a chunk of one of its right leg. The wires within it were now visible, and he could see one of the main energy pumps within it. He thrust his sword in, not realizing that even as he did another jet of electricity was flying at him and surrounding the mecha, shutting down secondary power and frying his right arm, the metal twisting and rending, already charred black from the assault.
He fell, his battered mech crashing into the ground with a yelled curse. He watched the yellow mecha fly away, launching a ball of energy at the HQ. Suddenly, they all stopped, all the enemy mecha at least, and began to flee. Alpha watched proudly as one of his ally's Nova Cannons blew apart a group of closely packed Angels. Alpha turned on emergency power, and sent out an SOS, using the rest of the power to open the hatch and climb out, cursing the yellow mecha upon sight of his battered, bruised, and almost ruined Angel. He sat down, thinking dark thoughts about the yellow Angel while he waited for someone to come get him. He was probably going to have to get a whole new Angel!
The ground shook, the Demo unit that had been his reinforcements landing beside his broken Angel. It had ditched the Nova Cannon, and was moving at normal speeds now. The cockpit hatch slid open, the pilot waving Alpha in. He took a last glance at his battered Angel and climbed in.
When he looked at the pilot, he was slightly suprised. It was a female, and she was pretty thin. It was amazing that she could move the controls of something as heavy as the Demolitions unit at all, let alone the extra weight of the Nova Cannon.He smiled to her, moving to sit in one of the extra seats that were behind the pilot's 'chair'. The girl ignored him, for the most part, concentrating on getting the Demo unit back to the hangar. Alpha turned his head, looking around at the cockpit. There wasn't much that was different from... He snapped his head back to see the main screen. He had just seen a flicker of light, and what looked like the air rippling... He tapped the pilot on the shoulder when he saw the air ripple again.
"Hey, miss? I think we have company. A stealth unit..."
She jumped, looking at the screens and turning on the thermal view, nothing showing up. She looked back at him and glared, "What the hell are you talking about? Even a stealth unit would be visible on the thermal view! Now shut up! You think piloting this big hunk of junk is easy even without you bothering me!?"
Alpha leaned back and kept his mouth closed, not wishing to spark her wrath further. He thought to himself silently, instead, I could swear I saw it... but she is right... it would register on the thermal view... He saw another ripple, however, this time it was more of a heat spike, she had humored him and left the thermal view on. He knew she saw it too, by the way she jumped, and looked back at him. grinned, "Told you..."
She glared, turning back to the view and switching on faster boosters, "This thing's too slow, if we get into a fight with something that can turn invisible, we're dead meat..."
Alpha nodded his agreement, even though she couldn't see him. He made the thoughts of the stealth unit leave his mind, trusting that she was a perfectly capable fighter. He instead looked around the former battlefield, noticing that they had suffered more losses than he had originally thought. There were Angels with the StarCorp logo on them littering the ground, and more that he couldn't tell with. It seemed like most of the Angels had the StarCrop logo... but he had known that the enemy had gone through the most casualties.. why else would they have run away? He shrugged it off again, thinking AGAIN about what the Demolitions unit had said before being killed, wondering what 'it' was...
The female pilot cried out suddenly, a red beam lancing through the right arm of the Angel. It completely disrupted the electronics within it, causing it to go limp, the light rifle it had been carrying falling from its hand. The pilot grabbed her own hand, one of the trade-offs of piloting an Angel, was that you experienced its pain, but you could move it with a thought. Another beam fired off right behind them, suddenly appearing in the middle of blank space, barely missing one of the boosters.
Alpha looked at the main screen, suddenly seeing more of the tell-tale signs of invisibles enemies, he counted about thirty of them, each one moving and then locking into a position. When the female pilot raised her free arm, firing off one round of her other light rifle, they all appeared, floating orbs of metal with only a small red sphere in the middle of them. They surrounded the Angel in a sphere formation. The alarms beeped loudly, signaling that a lock-on of some form had been achieved. The female pilot let out a gasp, as small beams of red light fired from the spheres on the flying orbs, evaporating most of the Angel but Alpha. His mouth dropped in horror when she died in front of him, a laser striking her straight through the middle, blood pouring from her body. The Angel started dropping quickly, the orbs disappearing again. He reached over the dead girl's shoulder, pushing the emergency cockpit release button, which jettisoned them out of the Angel. Or, to be more precise, jettisoned him and a dead body out of the Angel.
He hit the ground, hard. The parachute opening in enough time to keep him from dying, but he could feel his ribs crack from the impact. After the jetison capsule hit the ground, the door flew out, smashing into the ground and bouncing a couple yards away. Alpha rubbed his hurt side, and climbed out of the capsule. He looked up, and was slightly suprised to see that the StarCorp HQ was only about a mile away. This oughtta be about an hour walk, but damn... my ribs... he thought, walking slowly towards the giant building.
He was just closing his eyes when the alarms went off, causing him to fall out of his chair, right in the middle of a group of stampeding rookies, all racing to get to their Angels. Alpha snckered, although slightly self-concious as he lay on the floor. They werent going to send a bunch of rookies into a REAL battle yet... the first one had to be completely orchestrated by the higher-ups. He got up and brushed himself off, walking calmly to the hangar, where all of the soldiers' Angels were held. Alpha instantly saw his Soldier unit being prepped for battle. It had a beautiful set of quad ZX-93 boosters on its sleek blue back, in its right arm was held a single precision rifle, while in the other was a twin-barrel laser rifle. In a sheath hanging off of its shoulder was his favorite weapon, a titanium broadsword. His current one was pretty beat up, with several scratches and dents in the blade. It was also getting a little dull...
The Soldier had reached the docking elevator when he finished his thoughts, the elevator in question opening as though beckoning him in. He obliged, jogging forward and pressing a single button, the elevator taking him to the cockpit of his Angel silently. The doors opened again in minutes, the cockpit doors opening, and a ramp sliding out to connect with the bridge that was in front of Alpha. He walked onto the ramp, and inside the Angel. The doors closed behind him, leaving him in complete darkness. He pressed a button to the side from memory, and the dim red glow of the lights flickered on. The cockpit was full of machinery, almost no room for himself. Alpha sat down in the pilot's seat, flipping off the light and activating the comm unit.
"This is Alpha, may I ask who's going to be doing my systems check today?" he asked, smiling to himself as he opened the computer to the headquarters.
A pleasant female voice answered, a slight Texas accent in her voice "Well, I will honey, looks like all of your systems are running to optimum performance... switch on your generator, and we'll get this baby outta here!"
Alpha flicked a toggle to activate the matrix core within his generator, waiting for the lights to come on. "Generator activated, how's the system looking?"
"Clean as a whistle sweety, no problems yet, you're in the green."
He flipped another switch, activating the screen to the comm unit, his sight filled with the beautiful face of his engineer. "Wow, you're a hot one..."
The girl laughed, shaking her head, "I'm taken sweety... now let's see here... your boosters look a little more strained than usual, but that shouldnt be a problem, its right on borderline green."
Alpha nodded, looking at the new screen shwing an outline of his mecha, the boosters still green, but they did look like they were under more pressure than usual... He shook it off, switching on the final toggle. "Okay beautiful, you need to take it over from here, I don't have clearence to get myself outta this docking bay!"
The girl giggled, pressing a string of buttons on her keypad. "Ya'll do now! The restraints should be coming off... now!"
The restraints mentioned released the Soldier, sliding back into place with a release of steam.
"Enter this code into your data... take elevator path eighty-seven dash fourty-niner-three... after you get out, head on over to coordinates Beta nine-nine-six-eight..."
He did as he was told, punching in the information dutifully, looking at his map on the HUD, "So... Snake squad needs some help? Figures, you use reptiles for sneak attacks... Oh well, see ya later."
He switched off the comm unit, reverting to the original view mode, his screen now filled with the docking bay through his Angel's eyes. The docking elevator beneath his Angel wirred to life, moving underground slowly and taking him about a mile away from where he was supposed to go. Alpha yawned, leaning back in his seat.
The elevator hatch to above-ground opened in the heat of the battle. There weren't a lot of enemy Angels, but all of them were skilled and had a lot of weapons. Alpha toggled his quad-boosters and took off to help Snake team. He holstered the precision rifle and took aim at a nearby enemy Angel, blowing it to smithereens with a well-placed shot to the booster pack. Alpha reached the coordinates three Angels later, each one he left behind in a pile of scrap. There were four members of Snake team left, three a sniper with no cover, the other a demolitions unit. The demo unit couldnt do much of anything, as it was barely outfitted for the counterattack, and the snipers were in plain sight, therefore hindering their ability. They had to cionstantly move, and never got a target in their crosshairs.
Alpha landed, taking out three enemy mecha with his next shots, aiming for the cockpit. The battle was going well enough, there were minimum casualties on the defensive side, and half of the attackers were gone. He yawned, switching the comm unit to talk to the members of Snake squad.
"Hey, are you all rookies or what?"
The first answer came from the demo unit, "I'm not, the three snipers are, though. The northern hangar was damaged, so I couldn't get outfitted properly. You know if the order went through to use the...."
A sharp bullet to the cockpit from an enemy silenced him forever, leaving Alpha to wonder what he was talking about. He switched on his comm unit, leaving the screen on the Angel's sight, taking out aother Angel as he talked, "Alpha here, I have a slight problem, I'm protecting three..." an explosion to the left made him rethink his counting, "make that two rookies, how about some back-up?"
The girl from earlier's voice came through, "Right-o, just stay alive, and you'll have a soldier and a demo unit, the demo unit is gonna be carrying a Nova Cannon, so don't get angry if he's late."
"Yessir!"
Alpha switched off the comm unit and went back to the Angel he was currently attacking, blowing off one of its arms before he tossed a grenade at it, catching it perfectly in the newly-made hole.It went up in a fireball, a peice of shrapnel lancing through another enemy Angel, incapacitating, but not destroying, it. He holstered the precision rifle and brought out the laser rifle, aiming at the same incapacitated Angel and blowing it to peices. He took aim at another Angel, firing at its knee joint and allowing a friendy Angel to destoy it.
The Soldier reinforcement arrived, taking out the angel Alpha had just aimed at. In response, Alpha switched the comm unit over to it, "What the hell!? Didn't you see me aiming!?"
There was no response but static, and the soldier destroyed two more enemies. Alpha ground his teeth and tossed another grenade into the fray, listening to the reassuring explosion and watching peices of enemy mecha flying in different directions. He looked over his shoulder and saw that only one sniper was left, and it seemed to be trying to hide against the HQ building. That reminded Alpha of something, and he looked to the top of the building, muttering, "That's strange, the defenses aren't online..."
He shrugged it off and blew up one more enemy Angel, before the last of his reinforcements, the Demo unit, arrived. It was moving slowly due to the weight of the Nova Cannon on its shoulder. Alpha opened a comm link to all three of them, the Soldier, the sniper, and the Demo unit, "I'm gonna go let loose some hell, I'll probably be back here when I'm done, make sure ya'll don't let the rookie die, or yourselves for that matter."
Without waiting for a response he activated his boosters, flying off as he holstered his laser rifle and unsheathed his sword. He sliced through the middle of a nearby Angel, and looked for something more worth destroying. He saw a new model of Angel, one that he hadn't seen before. It was flying towards the HQ, and it looked a lot like a Phoenix model, now that he thought about it. It had some sort of energy surrounding it, and whenever it came in contact with an Angel, it simply exploded. Alpha flew towards it, protecting the HQ now behind the thought of defeating this new foe. He poured on more speed, and completely passed it up. The thing just turned its humanoid head towards him and raised one of its hands, the yellow wings on its back glowing brightly. Electricity shot from the hand that was aimed at him, hitting him full in the chest and shutting down primary power, the boosters now barely holding him up and the lights flickering to the dim red glow of secondary power. He knew he had about ten minutes before the secondary generator also shut down, but he wanted to defeat this electricity-weilding enemy first. He flew at it again, the boosters groaning in protest. He slashed at it, succeeding in cleaving off a chunk of one of its right leg. The wires within it were now visible, and he could see one of the main energy pumps within it. He thrust his sword in, not realizing that even as he did another jet of electricity was flying at him and surrounding the mecha, shutting down secondary power and frying his right arm, the metal twisting and rending, already charred black from the assault.
He fell, his battered mech crashing into the ground with a yelled curse. He watched the yellow mecha fly away, launching a ball of energy at the HQ. Suddenly, they all stopped, all the enemy mecha at least, and began to flee. Alpha watched proudly as one of his ally's Nova Cannons blew apart a group of closely packed Angels. Alpha turned on emergency power, and sent out an SOS, using the rest of the power to open the hatch and climb out, cursing the yellow mecha upon sight of his battered, bruised, and almost ruined Angel. He sat down, thinking dark thoughts about the yellow Angel while he waited for someone to come get him. He was probably going to have to get a whole new Angel!
The ground shook, the Demo unit that had been his reinforcements landing beside his broken Angel. It had ditched the Nova Cannon, and was moving at normal speeds now. The cockpit hatch slid open, the pilot waving Alpha in. He took a last glance at his battered Angel and climbed in.
When he looked at the pilot, he was slightly suprised. It was a female, and she was pretty thin. It was amazing that she could move the controls of something as heavy as the Demolitions unit at all, let alone the extra weight of the Nova Cannon.He smiled to her, moving to sit in one of the extra seats that were behind the pilot's 'chair'. The girl ignored him, for the most part, concentrating on getting the Demo unit back to the hangar. Alpha turned his head, looking around at the cockpit. There wasn't much that was different from... He snapped his head back to see the main screen. He had just seen a flicker of light, and what looked like the air rippling... He tapped the pilot on the shoulder when he saw the air ripple again.
"Hey, miss? I think we have company. A stealth unit..."
She jumped, looking at the screens and turning on the thermal view, nothing showing up. She looked back at him and glared, "What the hell are you talking about? Even a stealth unit would be visible on the thermal view! Now shut up! You think piloting this big hunk of junk is easy even without you bothering me!?"
Alpha leaned back and kept his mouth closed, not wishing to spark her wrath further. He thought to himself silently, instead, I could swear I saw it... but she is right... it would register on the thermal view... He saw another ripple, however, this time it was more of a heat spike, she had humored him and left the thermal view on. He knew she saw it too, by the way she jumped, and looked back at him. grinned, "Told you..."
She glared, turning back to the view and switching on faster boosters, "This thing's too slow, if we get into a fight with something that can turn invisible, we're dead meat..."
Alpha nodded his agreement, even though she couldn't see him. He made the thoughts of the stealth unit leave his mind, trusting that she was a perfectly capable fighter. He instead looked around the former battlefield, noticing that they had suffered more losses than he had originally thought. There were Angels with the StarCorp logo on them littering the ground, and more that he couldn't tell with. It seemed like most of the Angels had the StarCrop logo... but he had known that the enemy had gone through the most casualties.. why else would they have run away? He shrugged it off again, thinking AGAIN about what the Demolitions unit had said before being killed, wondering what 'it' was...
The female pilot cried out suddenly, a red beam lancing through the right arm of the Angel. It completely disrupted the electronics within it, causing it to go limp, the light rifle it had been carrying falling from its hand. The pilot grabbed her own hand, one of the trade-offs of piloting an Angel, was that you experienced its pain, but you could move it with a thought. Another beam fired off right behind them, suddenly appearing in the middle of blank space, barely missing one of the boosters.
Alpha looked at the main screen, suddenly seeing more of the tell-tale signs of invisibles enemies, he counted about thirty of them, each one moving and then locking into a position. When the female pilot raised her free arm, firing off one round of her other light rifle, they all appeared, floating orbs of metal with only a small red sphere in the middle of them. They surrounded the Angel in a sphere formation. The alarms beeped loudly, signaling that a lock-on of some form had been achieved. The female pilot let out a gasp, as small beams of red light fired from the spheres on the flying orbs, evaporating most of the Angel but Alpha. His mouth dropped in horror when she died in front of him, a laser striking her straight through the middle, blood pouring from her body. The Angel started dropping quickly, the orbs disappearing again. He reached over the dead girl's shoulder, pushing the emergency cockpit release button, which jettisoned them out of the Angel. Or, to be more precise, jettisoned him and a dead body out of the Angel.
He hit the ground, hard. The parachute opening in enough time to keep him from dying, but he could feel his ribs crack from the impact. After the jetison capsule hit the ground, the door flew out, smashing into the ground and bouncing a couple yards away. Alpha rubbed his hurt side, and climbed out of the capsule. He looked up, and was slightly suprised to see that the StarCorp HQ was only about a mile away. This oughtta be about an hour walk, but damn... my ribs... he thought, walking slowly towards the giant building.