03
Apr/2008
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Memoirs of a Marquis Member: Chapter 4: Is Paris Burning?
Chapter 4: Is Paris Burning? Upon docking in Paris, we decided to look for the Knight’s in-law’s house. The cache is really close to the Invid hive, and we weren’t sure exactly how quickly would have to leave the area; so we decided to find Knight’s in-laws first. After a quick search near the docks, we found for a map and a phone book with the in-laws address.
With the in-laws house located, we left the Pride of Russia and most of the tank crew to guard the barge. The tank engineer was none to trilled with idea and called me…well something not polite in Russian. I was pretty upset at that and said …well something not polite back in Russian.
The Doctor was even more concerned about the tank crew. She was worried that the tank crew would take the barge and flee the area while we were gone. I didn’t think they would leave without the Comrade, but the Doctor took the spark plugs from the barge, just in case. The Doctor, the Comrade, the Marine, the Knight, and I all took my pick-up and headed for the in-laws house.
Heading out in Paris at night was a far different experience then the last time I was in the city. With the Invid in town, most of the local population fled the town. Now the city, the heart of France, was a ghost town. There was little to no lighting, which made it difficult to navigate around the town (especially using the back roads like we were). Fortunately, the Doctor proved to be an excellent navigator, and after about an hour of traveling through Paris, we arrived at the Knight’s in-law’s place.
The in-law’s place was just as dark, as the rest of France. The house was in the well-to-do part of town, but all of its windows and door boarded-up. It looked like no one had lived there for quite a while. The rest of the street looked abandoned as well and the lighting was very poor. The Comrade and I guarded the pick-up, as the Doctor, the Marine, and the Knight went into the in-law’s house.
The house itself looked it had been used in several months. However, the Doctor’s audio recorder suddenly turned on. Since it was completely out of power, it came as a complete shock to the Doctor. It meant that the audio recorder was drawing power from somewhere, maybe even somewhere in the house. The group inside the house began searching for whatever was broadcasting power.
As they headed downstairs, they noticed movement. They approached the source of the movement very carefully and called out to in hopes that it was the in-laws hiding in basement. However, what appeared was a five-year-old boy. The Knight befriended him as I was brought inside to translate. His name was Jacques and had no memory of a last name. I decided to give him a moniker: “de Paris” or “of Paris”.
After befriending the Jacque, we continued searching the house. We found two things. First, we found an old generator in the basement with power broadcasting equipment. It hadn’t been used for a while and not the source of the power for the Doctor’s audio recorder. Still was welcomed. The Doctor happily took apart the power broadcasting equipment, so we could attach it to our barge.
Second, we found the in-laws headed south to a villa in the Alps. The Knight will have to get some snowshoes to have a talk with the in-laws.
We then headed back to the barge. The Doctor set-up the broadcasting equipment on the barge and re-installed the spark plugs in the engine. While the Doctor was re-installing the spark plugs, the tank engineer confronted her. I don’t know exactly was said but they shouted at each other enough for the rest of us to know there was a confrontation.
Despite this, we had a relative peaceful night on the barge. The next morning we made a run into town to get food. Paris was just as deserted during the day as it was during the night. After a bit of driving around, we found a butcher shop and found some smoked meat that hadn’t spoiled yet.
When we got back to the ship we made plans on how we were going to sneak into the underground cache under the Ecole Militarie. The rest of the group wanted to sneak through the ancient underground tunnels of Paris to the Ecole Militaire. On the face of it, it was a good plan, as it would allow us to avoid the Invid. But they did not know what I know.
According to by ex-boyfriend Arnaud, the mob use to smuggle in the tunnels in Paris since antiquity. However, that changed when the Rain of Death was visited on the Earth. Either the Rain mutated some of the wildlife, which then fled into the sewers, or the UEG was experimented with monsters and released them into the sewers as a security measure. The mob had to learn that the hard way.Arnaud was with some of men in Paris once time waiting for smugglers who were using the tunnels. They waited and waited until it was clear that the smugglers had missed the deadline. Then Arnaud and his men went into the sewer to look for them. After a bit of searching they found the smugglers, they were all attached to wall my some sort of resin. Most were dead….and had their stomachs ripped out of them. However, there was still one man left.
He begged for Arnaud to kill him. However Arnaud needed to know what was going on ordered his men to pull the man down. It was then something began ripping itself out of the man’s stomach. Arnaud and his men killed with their pistols before it could do anything. It was then that horrible sets of inhuman screeches were heard throughout the tunnels. Before they could do anything, monsters were upon them. Most of the men were killed instantly, but Arnaud and a few of his men were able to fight their way up to the surface.
Even then the monsters were not willing to let them go. As his men jumped into a waiting van, one of the monsters followed up to the surface and tried to enter through the sliding door. Arnaud blew it away with a shotgun but its blood got over Arnaud and his men and burned them because it had a high acidic content. Arnaud was the only one to only be slightly injured by the spray of monster blood and he was the only one to survive the encounter. Arnaud showed me the burn scar on his wrist, so it must be true.
Anyways, I digress. The group was determined to get that cache and we decided the only way to do that would be to sneak into the Ecole Militaire from the surface since we didn’t know of an underground route. We waited until nightfall and then the Comrade, the Doctor, the Knight, and the Marine and I got into the pick-up and headed to the Champ de Mars. We parked the pick-up a couple of blocks away and snuck to the Ecole Militaire on foot.
When we got to the Champe de Mars, we could see the Invid’s lobsters were busy dragging the remains of the Comrade’s tank platoon to the hive. Why they were doing this I do not know; but it was a bit of a blessing. The activity made it easier for us to sneak over to the Ecole Militaire.
When we got over to the Ecole Militaire, it was the Comrade and his heavy boots that first found the hidden entrance. As we literally walked over the entrance, the Comrade heard a hollow sound as he stepped onto covering over the entrance. We removed the covering and peered down into the entrance. It lead straight into the tunnels, the dark, dark tunnels. The Knight was unconcerned, he had faith that the cache was down there and the sewer were relatively safe and was the first of the party to go down. I was the last to go down because I didn’t wanted to go down there with the monsters, but I could let my friends go down there alone.
This particular part of the tunnels were an ancient burial ground, with nooks for the ancient Parisians to place their dead. I didn’t like it and if it was up to me, we would have left immediately. However, the group wanted to press on. I covered the many different routes a monster could come from, but there was a lot of them. At one point I heard something moving behind us and yelled at it to halt. Whatever it was it either immediately stopped moving or snuck away. As God as my witness, if I had heard it again I would have had Charles and Joan scare it off.
Soon the group found the cache. The Comrade and the Doctor began inventorying what was in the cache as the Comrade, the Marine and I were covering both ends of the tunnel. It was that point, the Comrade, the Marine, and the Doctor heard something approaching from the tunnels heading towards the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know why I didn’t hear it. Maybe the lure of weapons in the cache distracted. Or perhaps I was too scared out of my mind to rationally comprehend it.
Anyways I digress. The Comrade went the way we came to see what the source of the noise. Hearing approach he took a defensive position waiting for whatever it was to come around the corner. The Marine when down the other tunnel to identify the source of a second noise. The Doctor went to back up the Marine.
Soon the Comrade opened up with AKBM at something down his hallway. The Marine and the Doctor began to trade fire with something down their hallway. I realized I had do something. At that point, I made a small pair to Saint Sebastian to help me avoid the “arrows” as he did when he was sentenced to a firing squad by a Roman emperor. I raced passed the Comrade to come face to face with what we were facing. What I almost literally ran into was not I was expecting.
It was not some slimy monster that attacked from the darkness like Arnaud had said. It was the Invid. However instead looking like some sort crustaceans, it looked vaguely human. It still had oversized legs and arms and its head looked like it might have been ripped off a Valkyrie, but it was able to fit down here and more threateningly it had some sort of large energy weapon. Well I wasn’t about wait to see what the the Invid’s energy gun did.
I called on Joan and Charles to help me out. Charles unloaded into the Invid’s mass while Joan released a barrage up the barrel of the Invid’s energy weapon. The Invid’s weapon was rendered totally useless. The Invid was forced to only throw punches which I was able to nimbly dodge. Joan and Charles fired a few more bursts into the Invid before it fell over stunned. I moved out as the Comrade moved up to finish it off. The Comrade had a bead on the Invid the entire time, but was kind enough to wait until he could get could get a clean shot so he didn’t hit a friendly. That’s the kinda of guy you want to back you up in a firefight.
As the Comrade was eliminated our foe, I turned to check on the Marine and the Doctor. They had done great, having eliminated their foe in hail of kilojoules fire. Fortunately for us, these were the only two Invid that had to come to invest what was going on in these parts of the tunnel.
We quickly gathered the cache and headed out of the tunnels before more Invid came up. The cache included some ammo, many handguns (iucluding my favorites), rifles, shotguns, energy weapons, and even anti-armor sniper rifle. The cache also had ammo, protoculture cells, rations as well as uniforms, clothes, and the some spiffy new armor the Expeditionary Forces. I don’t know much about the Knight’s friend, but he sure had great taste in equipment.
Upon returning to the barge we began to make plans on what to do next. The Doctor and the Comrade debated who was going to get training on the sniper rifle (apparently the tank engineer was already qualified). The Knight was making plans for us to go to the Alps to meet his in-laws hopefully. The Marine wasn’t sure what he going to do with the Gallant in the hands of a civilian and near the Russians. As for me, I was just grateful we got out of the tunnels without being eaten alive…
Tags: Memoirs Robotech Mekton
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