A crew of tough-as-nails space marines finds the lone survivor of a shipwreck that had been sending out distress signals. The planet itself was utterly uninhabitable, it was shocking the kid survived. The child, barely two years of age, became their mascot, and guarded treasure. This little child, a level 2 Deathworlder, would grow up with a large family, and space marines are a bit fierce about protecting those they love. -- Anon Guest
Trouble barely remembered life before they joined up with Grissom's Grunts. The troop of freelance Space Marines were mostly big and tough and covered in scars. The last people anyone would trust with a small child, at first glance. Yet they were also the fiercest protectors and kindest parentals anyone could care to meet.
They didn't greet monsters under the bed with ordinance, and that was a good thing. They put up anti-monster traps and showed Trouble that there wasn't anything in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on. Sometimes, the toughest and meanest of them would take up a guard post on the basis of, "Now I'm the scariest thing in the room."
They tried to keep Trouble safe. At least one of the GG's would have Nanny Duty to keep the kid under adult supervision. However, as the name may suggest, Trouble had ways of getting into adventures and finding problems before they were lost. Like right now, when a troop of bandits thought that picking on a Marine Transport when it had minimum crew was a good idea.
Spoilers: It wasn't.
Trouble was already in the maintenance tunnels playing a game with Waz when the bandits attempted a takeover and instantly tangled in one of Trouble's noisier monster traps. It's amazing what you can do with coloured yarn and random bits of metal flack.
"Monsters?" cringed Trouble.
Waz had already fired up his datareader and inspected the security feeds. "Nah, just your regular average ordinary everyday assholes," he showed the little saurian. "Let's give 'em some tranq darts. They need a nap."
"Time out time," grinned Trouble.
Of course Space Marines are going to train a very small child in the use of light arms. Just in case they all went down and that small child needed to defend themself.
"We gotta surprise 'em. Weapons locker three. Super quiet."
By the time Shuf, Mal, Oz, and Sarge made it back from the mission, the bandits were gift-wrapped in the brig and they had a new ship and loot for trade in.
"I caughted 'em myself," Trouble boasted.
"I helped a bit," said Waz. "It's your guys' turn to get the tranq gun off of Trouble."
"Nya nya, you can't catch me!"
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / albund]
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