These aren't mine! Please don't Sue! 

(For that matter, don't Karen either!)





A planet, once like ours...

(focus...)

The Northern subtropical continent...

(focus...)

A blue-skinned warrior struggles onward...

(focus...)

BKAM!

Lina lowered her rifle.  "Good job, Gourry." She adjusted her helmet and 
spat on the ground, clearing the acrid taste of Sarin from her mouth. 
She muttered, barely audibly.

"Bloody Spy satellites."

*****

Pointless Productions Presents:

G.I. Lina: Prologue

A Slayers/Rogue Trooper Fanfic

*****

If Zel could still cross his arms, he would. Man, he was bored. And 
extremely sick of Gourry. The moron was still singing. 

"HiHo! HiHo! It's off to war we go!"

"Gourry, SHUT UP!"

"With rifles, blades and frag grenades, Hiho, Hiho!"

Zel gave an electronic sigh, and tried to see what he could spot. At 
least, being linked into the command helmet, he could see well. The 
helmet had a full combat sensor suite- Geiger, IR, full-spectrum... the 
works. And a radio. He twiddled one reciever, and tried to find a good 
opera- some Wagner, perhaps, to drown out Gourry's appalling singing.

*****

Xelloss, for the umpteenth time that day, looked over the inventory. 
Rations to last Lina six days. Lachete. Assorted grenades. Mini-LAW. Two 
hundred rounds of ammo. Small elephant...

Xeloss paused, and smiled. Then he deleted the entry.

Then he accessed the long-range transmitter/reciever, and accessed the 
24-hour Soap channel.

"But Charlene, that guy's my cousin's wife's grandmother's postman!
No WAY are you marrying him!"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means... I have absolutely no idea."

Xelloss smiled again. Before the drop that killed them all- all but 
Lina- He'd found out about Pot, and taken somewhat a lot of the stuff. 
It had had a lasting effect.

'The Austrailians know how to write a series!' he thought, somewhat 
dazedly.

******

Gourry was happy.

All his life, he'd been a marksman. (Admittedly, he was only five, but 
that wasn't important.) He'd carried his prized Rhinemetall M-77/414C 
everywhere, eaten with it, polished it non-stop, slept with it... the 
works. And he'd only kept it beside him in his bed, but there had been 
mutterings among the others.

Now he WAS his gun.

Gourry was happy.

He started singing again.

"Ten big SAMS, sitting on a rack."
"Ten big SAMS, sitting on a rack..."

*****

Lina was not happy.

She was having to put up with Gourry's singing... if it could be called 
that... and Xel's Soaps, and Zel's grumpiness, and NOW it was beginning 
to rain! 

Lina stopped in her tracks on the ridge, and spoke to Xeloss.

"Oy! Tell me we have a poncho in there." There was a slight whine in her 
voice, as if she was now reaching the end of her tether. 

Silence.

"XELOSS!"

"Romania! Archduke Franz-Ferdinand! 42! Sodium Pentothal!"

"Xeloss, do we have a poncho in there?"

"Ah. That is a secre-"

BKAM! BKAMBKAMBKAM!

"Whee! That was fun!" This was Gourry. If anyone could see his face on 
the biochip, he was flushed and his eyes were dilated, but that's what 
happens when an attractive woman squeezes your trigger.

"OKAY! OKAY! I'LL LOOK!"

Xeloss had just had Gourry fired about an inch from his audio pickup.

"Sorry, Lina. Not there."

Lina sagged, and looked a bit deflated. Then she threw her helmet on the 
ground.

"WHY ME? WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ME? WHY DO I HAVE A PERMANENTLY STONED 
QUARTERMASTER, A TODDLER FOR A FIREARM, THE BIGGEST MISERYCIRCUITS IN 
THE GALAXY FOR A HELMET AND _NO_MOTHERSKEVVING_PONCHO_! YAAAAGH!" 
Finished cursing her luck, in particular the fact that she was the lone 
survivor of her company, Lina broke down. And that started Gourry off.

Xel turned the soaps back on, tuned to his favourite, and dropped out.

Zel looked away. Emotions weren't his strong point. 'Hmmm... what's 
that?' Zel checked what his sensors were telling him. 

Oh Skev.

Mazoku ground troops approaching. 

JTIDS suggests air support en route as well.

Skevskevskev...

"LINA!"

"What?" She brought her head out of her hands and looked at her helmet.

"We got trouble. Major skev coming down and soon, so get me on!"

"Great, just great." Lina slapped the helmet on, and grabbed Gourry. 
"What exactly is it?" 

"Mazoku patrol, Lina! Probably a vehicle!"

"Think they'll have a poncho?"

Zel mentally put his face in his hands.

Xeloss came back to the real world long enough to discharge a skeet, a 
few grenades, and a couple of clips of AP.

Time for combat.

*****

"Here they come," murmured Lina. About twenty of them. Zel was right, 
there was a recon tank with them. Deal with that first.

The skeet flew high into the air, and then its programming kicked in. It 
started scanning the ground.

+++HEATSOURCE:TANK+++REORIENT+++TARGETED:ENGINEBLOCK+++IMPACT IN 5+++

The skeet landed on top of the engine, and fired its shaped charge into 
the engine.

The explosion took out half the Mazoku there, prior to Lina leaping in 
and ventilating several of the troops, Gourry singing all the while.

"The wonderful thing about triggers, is triggers are wonderful things!"

Lina briefly considered which was worse: the soldiers or the singing.

A burst of fire went straight over her head.

'Definitely these guys.'

*****

Several seconds later, it was all over, and Lina went scrabbling for 
ammo, rations, and anything else she could use.

Xeloss noticed something.

"Lina..."

"Quiet, Xel."

"Lina!"

"Shaddap! YAY!" Lina found a poncho.

'Oh, ta hell wit' it,' thought Xeloss, and fired a spread of smoke and 
flash-bangs to screen them. He'd noticed a drone nearby, and had to get 
Lina's attention before anything bad happened.

The Drone charged, straight at a dumbstruck Lina, who was caught trying 
to pull her Gover from her belt.

BKAM!

The Drone dropped.

"Nice shot, Gourry."

"NOT ME! I DIDN'T DO IT!"

"Then who...?"

A familiar Laugh echoed through the clearing.

"No..." Lina's spine went cold, despite the warm poncho. "I saw HER die 
as well! I didn't have time for her biochip!"

"OOHOHOHOHOHHHHHOHOH! Lina! You can never get away from Naga!"

"HIHI Lina! I KNEW you'd survive the battle! You always were a 
survivor!"

A short female GI, obviously on too much sugar, hopped into the 
clearing. Private first class Amelia.

She was almost dwarfed by the twenty millimetre cannon she was carrying. 

It was also GI issue.

'No... She couldn't have...' Lina was filled with dread as she looked 
along the gun to the biochip slot. 

She had.

"Yes, Lina, Where would you be without me? All over the place, no doubt, 
mixing with the wrong circles, and nearly getting killed!"

Lina's biochips reaactions could be summed up as follows:

Zel: Oh-Oh. We were the only people to escape... she's a DESERTER!

Xeloss: Oh, wow. I wonder if she's got any virtual hash?

Gourry: (Mouth open, practically drooling, staring at Naga's cannon) I'm 
in love...

All very predictable.

*****

That night, they set up camp.  "So how'd you get out?"

Amelia looked up over a just-add-water chicken curry. (It looked like 
chicken curry, smelt like beef curry, and tasted of broccoli. That's 
army food for you.) "I caught a ding on the head while getting Naga out 
of her skull. (Author's note: Biochips are in the front of the skull, 
just below the surface.) I put her into this bad boy here." She stroked 
the cannon- Lina was still having trouble believing that Amelia was 
running around with the thing- and winked at Lina. "From what I hear, 
it's a complete role reversal for her!"

"HEY!" yelled Naga. "I will have you know that I'm as pure as the driven 
snow!" 

"Driven to distraction, perhaps," Lina muttered. "Well, I need some 
sleep. Xeloss... ah, forget it. I'll do this myself." She pulled over 
her backpack, and called up the readout on what she had. Then she 
stopped.

"Xeloss?"
 
"Mm-hm?"

"Why does this inventory say I have two sharks, a rubber squid and an 
orange penguin in here?"

"Oh, the penguin exists. Here." And out of the side hatch, a small 
package fell out. She picked it up, and turned it over. 

'LIMITED EDITION: ORANGE FLAVOUR PENGUIN'

"Okay. It's a biscuit. But what about the others? I don't know of any 
Shark biscuits..."

"Ah," smiled the biochip. "That is a secret."

"You're going to tell me or else."

"Or else what?"

"I'll get Naga to laugh at your audio input."

"Lina, you're too cruel. To keep myself occupied,I created a program 
that randomly creates nonsensical items and adds them to the inventory. 
I check every so often, and delete them."

"I see. Xeloss, you're insane."

"I know."

End of part one.


NEXT EPISODE: A PLOT!


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