24
Apr/2008
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Memoirs of a Marquis Member: Chapter 7: The Count of Monte Cristo
Chapter 7: The Count of Monte Cristo
A shot rang out echoing through the chateau. I was relaxing in the first hot bath I had in months enjoying a Gitanes Caporal when I heard the shot. Instinctively, I jumped out of the bath and grabbed Joan and Charles. I never felt quite safe, unless Joan and Charles were with in arms reach. Call me paranoid, but you can never be too confident in your surroundings. If I was going to ambush someone, while they are in the bath or asleep in the bedroom is the perfect time to do it. How do I know of about such things, you ask? As I say I am not a nice girl.
Anyways I digress, the CVR-3 that I wore into the chateau would have taken a while too long to put on. Somebody had just fired a shot, and I didn’t know if there were more shots to come. The CVR-3 is very tightly fitting and only allows for you—how you say—“Birthday Suit.” I wrapped a towel around me and immediately went to check on where the shot came from.
The building’s acoustics were absolutely atrocious, I could not figure from where in the château the shot came from. I checked a nearby bedroom room, which was empty. Fortunately, as precious seconds ticked away I didn’t hear any other gunshots. Good, at least there was no raging gun battle going on. After clearing the bedroom I went to next room, which turned out to be the billiard room.
It was then I realized how nice everything was. The carpet felt really, really soft against by bare feet. It almost felt like walking on fields of teddy bears. Also, the billiard room had a fireplace with a roaring fire in it. It contrasted with the near blizzard going on just outside. That is when I noticed the Southern Cross Tactical Corp soldier standing outside in his body armor. He was still on guard duty apparently obvious to the gunshot I heard inside the building.
Satisfied that I was in immediately danger, I began to head back to the bathroom to put on the CVR-3 so I could at least wear something a bit more substantial. That is when I ran into the Marine and the Doctor and four Southern Cross troopers. I could tell by their expressions they were surprised to see me, at least in what I was wearing. The Doctor was kind enough to go out to the truck to get some clothes for me while the Marine filled me in on what had happened.
Apparently, the Knight was killed in ambush. He had just walked out of the shower when he was shot in the face. It was the classic mafia style ambush. To catch a person at there most vulnerable maximizes the success of such an assassination attack. There was very little evidence around the body at least for non-policemen to find.
The Doctor returned with my clothes and I changed into them. We all headed out to billiard room to figure out what to do next. The Marine suggested we bring in Red1, Red2, and Red3. I didn’t want to let the Southern Cross troopers know about our ace up the sleeve, but the Marine said right in front of the Southern Cross troops…who were obvious unnerved about the idea. I tried to quickly cover it up by saying to the was the Marine wasn’t how you say “right in the head.” However, the one of the Southern Cross troopers wasn’t buying it. He immediately drew his weapon and demanded to know who these Red people were. That was when all hell broke loose.
Another soldier drew his rifle and kept it aimed at the Marine. I immediately drew Joan and Charles, put Joan in the lead soldier’s face and demanded that they all stand down. But the soldiers weren’t going to have any of that. A third soldier drew his rifle and aimed at the Marine. As soon as the Marine moved the two soldiers opened fired on the Marine but the Marine was able nimble enough to get out of the way. The Marine drew his ‘toy gun’ and killed one of the soldiers. Meanwhile the other three soldiers moved in on me and began trying to beat me down with their rifle butts.
Now I have been on the wrong end of too many police beatings, to be easily taken down. I was able to easily dodge most of their strikes. In the meanwhile, the Doctor ran off to find Jacques to make sure he is safe. Joan and Charles decided to make their opinions known. Each began releasing bursts into the three soldiers I was fighting. However these soldiers were well-trained as they managed to avoid to most of the fire.
Things were beginning to look desperate. The Marine was still having trouble with a soldier. The soldier was wounded but still providing harassing fire on the Marine. The two were also beginning to slowly destroy the billiard room with their fire. I had managed to significantly injure two of the soldiers and largely knock them out of the fight. But one managed to butt stroke of me, and the remaining soldier had backed off and began shooting at me. I only had one bullet left in Charles and Joan remained dry. In the meanwhile, a Tactical Corp soldier in body armor outside had seen the gunfight and headed over to the door to prepare to enter fire.
That was when the cavalry literally came to the rescue. In a loud booming voice that could only be possible via the Pride of Russia’s loudspeakers, the Comrade demanded that everyone stand down or he and his crew would turn the château into a smoking pile of ash. Immediately the remaining Southern Cross soldiers dropped their weapons and gave up. In fact not only did the Southern Cross soldier in body armor drop his rifle did his head get shoved into a wall by the hulking Russian tank gunner.
We gathered up everyone in the living room under the guard of the Comrade, the Marine, and myself. One of the Southern Cross soldiers was a medic and was attending his injured comrades while the rest of the prisoners stared at us nervously. The Knight’s mother-in-law couldn’t stop crying. The father-in-law, however, was intoxicated from drinking too much brandy. The Comrade demanded to know who shot the Knight.
It was a shattering of his glass, which the father-in-law spoke. He said he was one to that the Knight. His reasoning was simple; his daughter had fallen in love with the Knight. The Knight went off to fight a war against the Masters and his daughter went with the Knight. Sometime during that war or during the Invid Invasion afterwards, his daughter was killed. Therefore, if the Knight had never become involved with his daughter, the father-in-law inebriated brain reasoned his daughter would have been still alive.
The Comrade said he would have shot him right there for that admission, but it wasn’t worth the effort. The father-in-law had become a shriveled up shell of a real man. Normally, I would have shot them right then and there, he had killed once and therefore he could kill one of us again. For some reason I didn’t. Maybe it was out of sympathy for the mother-in-law. She had just learned in the course of a few hours that her daughter was dead and that her husband was a stone cold murderer. I should be careful, I becoming soft and that can get you killed.
Anyways I digress. The Comrade announced we were taking some supplies and some military equipment and we were leaving. Apparently, the Southern Cross soldiers had a Southern Cross Battloid outside, but it was unmanned. The Pride of Russia was able to sneak right up next to and decloak right next to it—capturing it intact. We also took the damaged cyclone that the Southern Cross soldiers were using. Finally we took the body of our fallen comrade so we could bury him at more dignified spot. We left the Southern Cross soldiers with most of their weapons so they could defend themselves and most of their supplies.
Once we found a good spot in the Alps, we buried the Knight in his Southern Cross armor. It was fitting that a knight be buried in his armor. We gave him final rites, well at least as we could best remember. Then we put erected a cross with name on it to use a tombstone. We hardly knew David Cerra, the Knight of our group, but we will remember him always.
Tags: Memoirs Robotech Mekton
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