Aberrant: Stargate Universe - Lt. Vincent "Vinny" Wright

[Mr Fox]

Sgt Rea grumbled under his breath, then said aloud for everyone in the squad to hear, "This is borked Major. They're sending us in with no backup when two other teams got ganked by that alien whatchamacallit! What kind of plan is that?"

It was Vinny, Lt. Vincent Wright, that responded, "Shut your mouth Sergeant. We aren't here to mess with the thing, we're only here to set up a fence around it so the eggheads don't accidentally wander in and get themselves zapped. We're not even going into it's range."

Sgt Rea shifted the large bundle of fence stakes on his back and didn't look mollified. "And just how do we know what it's range is?" Rea had a tendency to speak a little to freely, and that accounted for his Sergeant's rank when he was 10 years Lt Wright's senior. Still, he was a solid man to have around in a fight as were the other members of the squad.

Next behind Lt Wright was Major Hadley moving quietly and cautiously as ever. He wasn't much for talking but, didn't begrudge the men their chatter under the circumstances. None of the previous teams had detected any signs of dangerous creatures or intelligent beings on this planet. RL1137, except for the alien artifact it was about as boring a world as he'd been to so far. The first teams hadn't even reported any big game to hunt.

In the rear Lt. Dana Eckhart moved with more caution than was strictly necessary but she was nothing if not competent. Wright thought to himself that she might be a bit more fun if she didn't try to be better than the men she worked with, but then again, he felt pretty safe with her at his 6. She didn't say anything, she just moved along in silence.

It was almost an hour trek, to the site of the artifact and not a thing to look at but trees and underbrush. When the squad arrived at the clearing things got confusing. There shouldn't have been anyone there, but another SG team was in the process of wrapping the artifact in bubble wrap as if they were going to ship it somewhere by UPS or something.

Major Hadley motioned the squad to halt and stepped forward into the clearing to talk to the other SG team. He noticed that the squad patches on their uniforms had the distinctive 13. He was confused because all the other teams were out on assignment and SG13 should have been on PX3274 helping with humanitarian relief due to a flood that had wiped out a village of friendlies. Well Captain Radcliff was a good guy and owed him $20 from last weeks card game so he wasn't too unhappy to see them. "Hey Radley, what are you guys doing here?" He looked at the men in the clearing but didn't see their commander. In fact, as they looked up at him he realized that he didn't recognize any of them.

He was just bringing his weapon up when bullets and zatt blasts erupted from the surrounding forest. SG4 never had a chance. Sgt Rea's went down in a hail of bullets with no chance to defend himself with the large bundle of fence stakes on his back. Major Hadley did manage to flick the safety off his weapon and pull the trigger spraying bullets through the clearing, but only one of the fake SG13 members was hit, sending him spinning to the ground. Unfortunately that was all Hadley managed before he too was down.

In the rear of the group Lt. Dana Eckhart managed to dive behind a tree despite a wound to the left arm and return fire blindly into the forest. It was a valiant effort, but a zat shot hit her almost immediately and she fell into blackness.

Lt. Wright didn't fare any better. He was hit by a zat square in the chest in the first volley of shots and went down without ever realizing it was an ambush.

[Mr Fox]

(((Lt. Dana Eckhart will be continued in her own thread.)))

Lt. Wright woke some hours later in a room. Perhaps it was a cell. It was hard to tell, the walls were an institutional green, and the only window was a tiny square in the door that he couldn't see anything through. There was a metal bed that was bolted to the floor and he was wearing hospital pajamas. Many hours later he was brought a tray of food by a big man in solid black BDUs, and that man was guarded by a pair of others holding Goa'uld Zat blasters. No question about it. Wright was a prisoner of the NID, or perhaps of some Goa'uld system lord trying to mess with his mind.

Later that day a female Doctor came in and gave him a physical while the guards held the stun weapons on him so that he wouldn't try anything. The doctor didn't say anything but ask him to do the things any doctor would. She had a touch of a french accent to her speech. More evidence that this was the NID and that he was back on Earth.

After two days, he was marched out of the room and down the corridor to a big open room devoid of any adornment other than the alien device which stood looking out of place in the middle of the floor. The guards left him in the room and locked the door.

"Move to the artifact and touch the symbol that begins to glow when you get close." The voice came from the ceiling.

Wright wasn't about to do what they asked, he'd heard about the other two teams. "Go to hell!", he spat.

"Lt. Wright, you have family in Tuscon, Arizona I believe? It would be a shame if something should happen to them. Crime is going up in the older neighborhoods after all. Bad things happen all the time.", the voice from the ceiling was calm and pleasant completely at odds with the words.

"BASTARDS!!! You leave my family out of this!"

The voice was as calm as ever, "Your youngest cousin is only 5 I believe, isn't that right? She should be starting school next year."

Wright slumped his shoulders feeling defeated. Major Caine had survived the artifact, maybe he would get lucky too. Defeated he walked to the alien device and watched as a symbol like a crooked Y began to glow. With great reluctance he reached out and touched it.

As his hand met the glowing symbol in the stone, his mind was filled with light. There was no thought, there was only pain. Pain was his existence, every cell in his body screamed in protest and flooded his brain with agony. It was more than anyone could take, but the light wouldn't allow him to pass out. It seemed to go on forever, hours at least, before the light vanished in a blink and he collapsed into merciful blackness. In truth only seconds had passed.

As soon as the room returned to normal light the guards returned and picked up his body and carried him back to his cell. Once there the doctor was brought in to tranquilize him and put up an IV drip to keep him sedated.

[Forge]

The light was intense as Lt. Wright opened his eyes to the institutional green that was failing to coat the walls of his make-shift prison cell. A headache pounded behind his eyes, as he tried to focus and gather in his surroundings.

They are screwing with the wrong guy. I don't know what they frikkin' think they're gonna get outta me.

Vinny sat up, tossing his feet over the side of the bed, noticing briefly that the headache was gone and thankfully, he wasn't strapped down. A quick look through the small wire-reinforced safety glass confirmed that he was still guarded by goons in all black BDU's.

He needed to get out, it had been at least three days, if not more. Wiping his hands over his hair and down his face he stood up and started pacing as best he could in his cramped quarters. The activity in the room evidently garnered the attention of his captors as he heard some comm chatter through the door, only being able to make out, 'He's awake'.

Vinny moved closer to the door, trying to surreptiously listen in on the chatter, but it was too muffled. As he leaned back from the door, his fingers found the edges of the door frame and a light clicked on in his brain. Taking a step back and examining it more thoroughly his heart began to race.

Completely taken up in his excitement as the minute flaws in the structure jumped out at him, Vinny started talking to himself, "Yeah...yeah...these doors are shitty steal and way past prime...if I...just there, that would do it, yeah."

A tap on the glass knocked him out of his revere, as the small panel they fed him through opened, "Hey...cool it down in there, you want tied down again?"

"Oh go screw yourselves, dicks, you wearin' all that black to cover the yella?" Vinny spit back as he backed up to his bed and sat down, staring down the goon through the glass as the panel slid shut with a metallic 'clang'.

Ok, where the hell'm I gonna get a gun? Let alone a finger charge...

Vinny let out a deep sigh as he layed back on the bed and closed his eyes, letting his hands rest on his chest as he counted respirations. Minutes passed as his nerves calmed down. His thoughts turned inward and Vinny sought out the other elephant in the room.

What the hell that thing do to me anyway? Feel better than I ever have, even my shoulder doesn't hurt. I feel like I should just be able to blow outta this place. Wonder if anyone else made it? Hope Eckhart made it out.

[Mr Fox]

Vinny was relaxing as best he could in captivity. It was really hard to tell how long he had been here since they kept him drugged some of the time, but he figured it had at least two and a half weeks. On the bright side as captivity went other than the experimentation they hadn't tortured him or tried to extract any information or any of the other nasty things he imagined. Well, maybe they had if you considered boredom. Even sleep was becoming difficult now after all this time of nothing but this room. For the thousandth time he considered what he could do to escape. He was about ready to make an attempt just to relieve the boredom when sirens began to sound. It sounded like an intruder alert. He was just getting to his feet when the door opened and two NID thugs with HK-mp5s came through the door.

Vinny Init: 12

BGs: 10

[Forge]

"You gotta be shittin' me fellas."

Just as the thugs aimed their weapons, Lt. Wright threw his hands up before him reflexively in a vain attempt to stop the impending rain of gunfire, and much to his surprise, a sheet of glass in a riveted metal frame, appeared before him.

Click to reveal..

Forcefield: Wall

(22:03:55) ChatBot: (Forge) rolls 6d10 and gets 5,8,5,9,3,10.=2

+8/+8 soak

The spray of bullets, stopped dead, sent spiderweb-like cracks along the shield, only for them to disappear a moment later.

Well that's fuckin' useful.

"Ok, ass-tards, my turn."

Feeling more secure behind his new aegis, Vinny let loose with his 'explosive' instinct that he had been wary of implementing and a mortar-like device appeared in his hand just as he threw it forward towards the guard.

Just like playing lawn darts. Vinny snorted to himself, his face lit with revenge.

Click to reveal..

Quantum Bolt: Explosion

(22:04:57) ChatBot: (Forge) rolls 5d10 and gets 6,5,8,10,5.=2

Damage

(22:10:16) ChatBot: (Forge) rolls 4d10 and gets 2,5,4,10.=1

5 Lethal to each BG and subsequent environment damage

[Mr Fox]

The room exploded in dust and torn rubber and stuffing from the walls. Blood also splattered all over the room as the two unarmored guards found themselves shredded with the explosion and thrown from their feet. Now that was one handy trick!

Unfortunately these guys were tough, as tough as they come and despite the fact that were now bloody messes they still managed to bring their weapons to bear and fired another ineffectual barrage.

((You are now finished with round 2 and at the beginning of round 3))

[Forge]

Lt. Wright had followed the Airmen, completely nonplussed when he found himself moved to 'guest' quarters. It was standard protocol after all. His debriefing shortly after settling in with Teal'c was short and sweet.

~~~

Indeed.

~~~

Vinny spent the next couple days attempting to achieve some kind of routine and suppressing the grief and weakness that he felt in the loss of his former team. It was difficult to maintain any kind of sanity, for as he walked around with his Airmen, 'posse', all he could see was the lack of structural integrity in the base. The nagging fear that the entire complex was on the verge of collapse left a haunting ghost in his eyes. He mostly kept to his assigned room except for his frequent excursions to the cafeteria to satiate his unrelenting hunger and the daily trip to the gymnasium to maintain his physique, and let loose some anger.

~~~

Dressed down in sweats, a tank top and the ever-present cigar, Lt. Wright's taped hands beat at the canvas of the punching bag, making a point to avoid the spot he knew would send its contents spilling over the floor. Vinny had been going at it relentlessly for 3 hours now and hadn't so much as broken a sweat, he wasn't even tired. A 'normal' person would have broken bones.

I s'pose maybe I shoulda seen this coming. I mean, Daniel ascended and fell right? Hell, Anubis did some crazy shit when he was here. We fuckin'...discovered...Atlantis, this is the bread and butter 'round here. Just that in the 3 years I've been here, never thought anything would happen to me.

Stop yer fuckin' whining pissy boy. Yer still alive to exact revenge right?

With one last all-out strike, he knocked the bag swinging as he walked over to a bench and started ripping off the tape. A familiar bitter grimace settling across his face.

(((Cont. in Dec's thread.)))

[Forge]

Lt. Wright watched the beast and little girl leave the gym, their actions seeming to him like the flirting of hormonal teenagers in a dark corner of a school dance.

If they ain't bangin' by the end of the week, I'll eat my cigar.

Vinny shook his head as he replaced the earbuds of his Ipod and threw his towel over the handlebar of the nearest treadmill. He was determined to break a sweat today or break equipment trying. Vinny hadn't slept since they got back and if for nothing else than the break in routine, it seemed to be adding to his already mounting irritability.

Taking a draw on his barely touched water bottle just before shoving the fairly masticated cigar in it, he stepped up onto the machine, setting the treadmill to its highest incline and increasing the speed to 8mph. As he hit play on his Ipod, the sweet sound of Muddy Waters', "Rollin' Stone' began to pound his eardrums.