S1, 02 Powers Growing (GC) (February 22, 2014)

Corresponding text underneath each picture.

**20th FEBRUARY 2094**

Chain: “Shush!” I hissed at Jarred.

A couple of hours ago, Jarred and I had seen an GI dropship lower into the atmosphere not far away. Knowing that a dropship could mean only one thing, we set off after it.  Dropships only carried one thing – supplies. They were also badly un-guarded as they were designed and operated to be as light as possible. They were crewed by a pilot, a co-pilot and two lifters, who shifted the crates on and off the ship. This meant that if we could find it’s landing site, would should hopefully be able to grab ourselves some decent supplies.

We followed it as it made it’s decent and discovered that is was heading towards a small mountain. Jarred and I had never been out this way before so didn’t know what to expect. We hid behind a ridge and watched the ship touch down at the base of the mountain. There was nothing to be seen in the surrounding area, no sign of life anywhere. I was just about to ask what Jarred thought of the situation when a small section of the mountain slid open! It was a hidden GI base! Jarred cursed and we watched as the lifters began to unload the crates from the dropship.

A couple of minutes later, the ship took off again and left the crew of the base to transport the supplies inside.

Jarred: “Now’s our chance.”

We made a run for it and made our way around to the base of the mountain. We sidled along until we could see the soldiers shifting the crates to inside the base.

Chain: “What do you reckon?”

Jarred: “I dunno. It’ll be risky.”

Chain: “Yeah, but is it risk worth taking?”

Chain: “What do you reckon’s in there?”

Jarred: “Food. Maybe ammo. That big one looks like it could be weapons.”

Chain: “We could do with some guns. All we’ve got is my pistol and your half-broken laser.”

Jarred: “Yeah, but how are we going to carry them? We won’t have time to break into it and take a weapon each and the crate itself is too big to carry. No, we’ll have to go for the smaller ones.”

We watched for a minute more, seeing if there was any pattern to the comings and goings of the troops, but there didn’t seem to be. We were just going to have to chance it when the time felt right.

Chain: “Okay, pick your target. I’ll go for the one central one.”

Jarred: “I’ll go for the one closest.”

Chain: “Coward.” I joked and winked at him.

Captain: “Come on, keep it moving!”

We heard a voice shouting from somewhere just within the base.

Jarred: “Are they ever going to leave?”

Just as he said it, the two guys who were currently picking up their crates, sorted themselves out and started to move inside. Nobody was coming out.

Jarred: “Now’s our chance!”

Chain: “Go!”

We dashed over to the crates, taking a quick look inside the base as we did and saw the backs of the troops as they disappeared up a corridor off to one side. A solider in a helmet, presumably the man we’d heard shouting, had his back to the entrance and therefore, us as well and didn’t see as we ran across to the storage crates.

Jarred: “Hurry up!” he hissed.

Chain: “I’m trying!” he replied as I lifted up a particularly heavy crate.

Chain: “Trust me to pick the heavy one.” He groaned as quietly as possible.

Jarred: “Let’s go.”

Together we started to make our way back towards the side of the mountain where we’d hidden before, going as fast as we could while carrying our crates. We didn’t know what was inside of them, but supplies of any kind would be welcomed. Anything would be a welcome addition to the few odds and ends we had at the minute.

We kept going as fast as we could until we reached a safe distance and then made our way back out across the sand and headed back towards the cave we called ‘home’.

**BONUS IMAGES:**

The front of the set.

The rear of the set, featuring the 2 hover carts.

These are the GI troops featured in this episode. I wanted to show right from this early stage that there are different species in the galaxy and that the series won’t just be filled with humans. These armour designs are going to be my standard Galactic Imperium armour designs for the whole series. Top left, we have the base commander. Top right is the Base Captain. Bottom row are simple soldiers.

As my series is going to be jumping around though time, I will include a date on each episode and add it to the timeline at the end of each episode so that you can follow it.

TIMELINE