Lancer: The Beautiful Machine IC

[BelGareth]

Biff, as most knew him, sighed and stretched his old body, hearing several joints pop, and crackle, his sinner muscles, tight and dense from the manual labor stretched like stiff cotton, it felt good and bad, both at the same time.

He sighed again, he missed his stims, and the throbbing headache-turning-migraine was a constant reminder.

perhaps I'll let off the stems when I get em back he thought, knowing it to be a falsehood, and he would just fall back to how he was.

Taking just a moment longer, he paused and pulled off his work attire, a filthy jumpsuit he had acquired when he was bought on as an independent contractor. It had plastic zippers, velcro that was almost useless, and several connectors for a hard suit, which he didn't have, they were mangled at best, and he doubted they would even connect clean if they had a hard suit to connect to.

Which he did not, which was fine. has to be fine, no other option

Cracking his back and neck, his view shifted from the warm flashing amber lights near the decom suite, a dull RPV chassis standing nearby, but dead as a doornail, only a few flashing lights near the back neck indicated it was actually alive, and waiting to receive it's master. He also saw something else that was of note, someone had spray painted a red X on its chest, and he smiled like a wolf.

It was finally time, he had been waiting too long, he knew his old General would come through, but the hard labor had begun to grind down his willpower and resolve, one can only take something like this Place for so long. Especially someone like Biff, he needed to be used, to be something of worth, this was....not it. He was a fighter, bred for it, made for it, born to it, and he yearned to get back into the cockpit. The fighting pits had quenched his desires for the most part, he was at least one of the better fighters in the place, and most people nodded to him out of respect from just that alone, but he never used it outside the pit, such was the ways of the undisciplined warrior, no, he was a soldier.

A Professional.

At least he was.

Perhaps he would be again.

He almost ran to the meeting, forgetting himself in the rush to get back to better times. Stopping himself, he walked abruptly to the Last Call, giddy as a small boy on Elohim's Eve.

Once there, he smoothed out his overalls, which were removed from the waist up and tied around, showing his underwork shirt, stained with sweat and grease, and then walked in.

Seeing Karst, his eyes steeled and he gave his old commander a salute. Such was the time of their escapades, he thought it was applicable.

He nodded to the others, Liz, Kareftis, and the others who would be assisting him in this mission.

"Seems pretty straightforward from here, but I'm sure something will make it FUBAR'ed, we should set a separate rally point that is not the location of the printer, so we can protect the asset appropriately, additionally, who will be the on-site commander in case comms go out, I would suggest Mr Royston here, everyone respects him, and he has a good head on his shoulders."

It was as if something inside of Biff had been turned on, he was like a different person entirely.

"Separately, we have a stick of 4, a secondary stick leader for small team operations would be a good idea, I'd nominate myself, but I may be too busy taking my complaints out on others, Mr Holden is probably the best option for that."

It was obvious he could have gone on and on, but he looked up and quickly determined nothing more was needed from the deluge of his comments for now.