<strong>Pvt. Angelina DeSilva - 1st Squad - USS Johannesburg, cryo tube room</strong><br/><br/>“To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub....”  When all your dreams are nightmares, no solace can be found in the arms of sleep, where the once pillowy clouds of slumber have been transformed into a tortuous bed of nails. Angelina couldn’t remember a time when her dreams hadn’t been filled with nightmarish visions from her haunted past, when she didn’t wake from her uneasy sleep with her heart pounding, a scream clawing at her throat. That’s why for her, cryosleep was a godsend. While others may dread or simply grit their teeth through the induced state of oblivion and its perhaps less than pleasant accoutrements, Angelina welcomed it.<br/><br/>As consciousness began to permeate through the black nothingness swirling through her mind, Angelina’s dark fringe of lashes slowly lifted from their resting place feathered against her cheeks. Her luminous, deep brown gaze began to bring into focus her position within her cryo tube, her stiff limbs groaning in protest as she sat up, spilling her  bare legs over the side of the capsule.  As she peripherally began to absorb the sounds around her as the rest of her squad began to rouse themselves from their own deep freeze, she couldn’t help but notice the hulking display of Rome’s nude body emerging proudly from his cryotube. Quirking her eyebrow and shaking her head almost imperceptibly, she smiled inwardly at his strutting boastfulness. She actually liked the obnoxious giant; yeah, he did what he could to make it appear otherwise, but she knew he had a soft heart beating within all that hard exterior.  Although she liked him - hell, she felt lucky that she honestly liked most of her entire squad - she knew he didn’t need any encouragement to his already bursting-at-the-seams ego.<br/><br/>Detaching herself from her tube, she pushed herself to a standing position, stretching her arms overhead then twisting out the kinks from her back, and finally bending over and curving her hands around the backs of her ankles, the stretch of her hamstrings feeling good to her long-inactive muscles. Clad only in an olive green tank and bikini briefs, gooseflesh raised along her arms in the cool air of the room and her nipples pebbled beneath the thin fabric of her tank stretched taut over her full breasts. She preferred to wear the more opaque color instead of the standard issue whites, it’s dull green color less of a contrast to her soft mocha-colored skin, and less revealing of her womanly shapes beneath. The choice wasn’t dictated by modesty or shyness, but stemmed from her desire to keep tensions around her at a minimum. Shit was hard enough as it was, without adding to it unnecessarily.<br/><br/><strong>”Mmm! Mmm! MMM!!… Damn, baby girl! Daddy like. You keep doing that, you and me’s gonna get along REEEEAL nice like, know what I’m sayin’?”</strong><br/><br/>Angelina had heard Rome’s approach and felt his towering presence behind her, but didn’t bother glancing back to view him taking up what she assumed would be some cock-sure pose behind her. Taking her time to finish up her deep stretch, she slowly stood up straight, turning to face him. No stranger to having to figure out a way to maintain that delicate balance where teasing camaraderie reinforced rather than eroded the brotherhood of a unit, Angelina knew the bawdy teasing was part of the bonding process and usually had fun with it. Calling the big man’s bluff, she positioned her much smaller body inches from his own, her fabric-covered hardened nipples a breath away from pressing into his chiseled chest. Her eyes locking onto his, she flicked her glance briefly downward between them as she spoke, amusement in her warm tone, “Too bad the brass didn’t upgrade you to a higher caliber weapon for this mission...<em>daddy</em>.” She spun away from Rome without waiting for his response, her long dark hair flicking lightly against his skin as she turned quickly to get on with her duties.<br/><br/>Chuckling to herself as she breathed in a lung-full of air deeply, she padded from the cryo tube room toward the showers, bringing her focus to getting ready for their as yet obscure mission.  She was the newest member of the squad - a squad that had apparently been through some heavy shit together, so she assumed they were a pretty tight unit. Hopefully she wouldn’t be the odd man out for long though, it wasn’t a very healthy place to be in situations where everyone depended on each other for survival.<br/><br/>No luxurious bubble bath or leisurely meal awaited - the dance-and-dash in the shower and grab-n-go of what passed as food was the Corps at it’s most predictable. Quickly suiting up in her full combat gear, she hustled onto the drop ship with the rest of her squad.<br/><br/><strong>~ In the dropship ~</strong><br/><br/>As Angelina white-knuckled her grip on her seat restraints, her widened eyes watched the blue of the sky and the green of the ground careen wildly past the side portholes of the lurching ship.  As she recognized the ground topography as a jungle landscape that was likely moments away from becoming her grave, she laughed humorously at the twisted hands of fate. “Madre de Dios!” she whispered, releasing one hand from it’s steadying grip long enough to press her silver crucifix hanging around her neck to her lips and then tuck it back within the cushioned safety between her breasts. Her hyper-aware gaze flitted briefly over the serene countenance of the squad’s synthetic...Senjo...the non-human face perfectly sculpted into a woman’s calm, beautiful visage.  Angelina found herself acknowledging the definite advantages of existing as an emotionless machine, as her heart raced and her stomach plunged with each lurch of the plummeting aircraft. Even if the synthetic...Senjo....had the capacity for such musings, Angelina figured she probably wouldn’t ever want to trade her cold precision existence to be fallibly, disconcertingly human anyway.<br/><br/><strong>"We're taking fire! I repeat taking fire, expect a hot LZ!"  "We're hit!" "Brace for crash landing!......."</strong><br/><br/>The frantic shouts of the pilot only underscored what was already more than obvious to the squad. Shit had definitely hit the fan. Angelina had a bad feeling this ride from hell wasn’t going to end with some male-bonding fist bumps on the heels of a smart-ass comment about letting a woman fly the plane. No, this drop-kick fuck fest had all the hallmarks of the beginning of a really bad day. As the dropship screechingly impacted with the ground, Angelina’s body was violently jolted within the confines of her restraints, the straps bruising her flesh and the jarring crash disorienting her momentarily. The ship came to a grinding halt, the rear hatch doors automatically blew open, and Angelina took in a deep, shuddering breath, not having realized she had been holding her breath since the shit started going downhill.<br/><br/><strong>"1st Squad! Talk to me!"</strong>The barking command of their sergeant permeated the haze of her mind, and Angelina spoke up - or at least tried to. Coughing to clear her throat, she tried again, “Here, Sarge” she replied, listening to other members of her team confirm they too still breathed.<br/><br/>Unstrapping herself and rising shakily to her feet, she bent over for a moment as a wave of nausea and dizziness hit her. Raising her eyes, she warily peered out of the back hatch.  Her skin’s sensory memory registered the oppressive, wet heat of the heavy air, her eyes took in the fecund greenery surrounding them, and her nostrils flared with the familiar scent of damp, rotting vegetation. No, it wasn’t Columbia, but it might as well have been. She spit on the floor of the ship, trying to rid her mouth of the acrid taste lingering on her tongue, and again found herself laughing grimly at the irony of having travelled across the galaxy and yet ending up pretty much in the same fucking spot.  Gritting her teeth, she stood up straight and glared around her, at the ready to take her place with the squad.  Grimacing under her breath, she shook her head in dismay.<em>“Fuck. Me.”</em><br/>