With his fresh drink in hand Devin accepts the invitation and heads over to the table where the two women are sitting. The brawny redhead pulls up a seat and smiles, "nice to meet you Hannah. And Yeah I was surprised more people weren't injured by the double jump?" Devin pauses to drink his beer, "and what do you ladies have planned for the rest of the evening?"
If nobody's planning to drink with Gunny, we can move him forward and out of this scene. Gunny, the default is "You pass out, the nice Commander gets a couple of squaddies to take you to your bunk. You wake up the next day with a couple of baboons screeching and crapping inside your aching skull." Feel free to add details to taste,and think about what else (if anything) you might like to do before the action starts.
Sasha shakes her head at Thea's thanks, her voice slurred and heavy with that accent she worked hard to lose. "Dn't mention it, loik. Thanks for savin' my loife. Owe you for *that*."
When Thea leaves, she gives in to the loss of consciouness gratefuly.
When she wakes up the next morning(?) the pain is still there but it's more of a persistent dull ache and her mind is sharp. Thea's words from yesterday are still in her mind - the benefit of staying off the durgs is she can remember it all. A good quartermaster keeps things flowing. OK then. Tiem to do what she does best. She picks up her comm unit and places a call through to Morgan Kinnard. "Ensign Kinnard, please report to me in sickbay as soon as you're free." She's back in control and her voice sounds normal again. She winces as she remembers last night. Never remind them where you're from.
Kinnard is a junior officer who would love, love to be one of the ruperts highr up the chain - one of the boys in the "in" crowd - but he doesn't have the talent and his face doesn't fit - he's got as far as he ever will, pretty much. In an efort to be someone important, he joined up with the Nexus and is what they call "Connected" although even there he's never going to be one of the bosses or "Links" in the upper command or "Chain" (Sasha finds all the silly names very tedious but boys will be boys). Tehy mostly stay out of each others way but sometimes his criminal netwark is useful and this is - she hopes - one of these times.
Sasha is very aware that her hospital gown is not a great look so when he arives she quickly reminds him she's in charge. "At ease, ensign. I'm hoping we can hlpe each other. I know that over the years a lot of Juice hs gone missing, and it's got to be stored somewhere before it's sold non the black market, right?" The stuff is nasty, it's not something you keep under the flooring. "What I'm thinking is, *someone* knows where there's a lot of it to be found, somehwhere off the oficial maps where the Shrooms don't know about it. A map to where it is would be a good thing to have right now, because if we're out of fuel then the Shrooms find us and nobody's money means aneything then, right? I think a map like that would be a really good investment in the future, so we can all keep on earning money. That's waht I think, anyway. I'm jsut thingking out loud."
Thus isn't a decision he can make on his own, she knows. He's going to have to go back to his Link, and they're probly going to have to talk to the rest of the Chain. But organised criminals are her favourite kind - they're predicatlble, mostly. They want to make money, and a future where they can't do that is one they;l want to avoid.
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The evening faded with the sound of Commander Foster’s voice mentioning something in the background, but Gunny’s mind was too far gone to recognize its meaning.
Gunny sees a flash of light flicker alongside his left peripheral just before his wingman’s PF1-Manticore burst into view. The ship was not as agile as its predecessor, but it made up for its slightly slower banking thrust with raw forward acceleration. Gunny scanned the side of his wingman's ship, looking for any sign of spore pod, seeing the ship had been in a scrap prior to being reassigned to his command. It was a sight to behold. The new ships where much sleeker looking than the ones Gunny was used to, but if the mission had any chance of success, speed was going to play a big part. Its hull, being split into six different aerodynamic compartments allowed for a longer, more controlled, burn without causing the ship's internal structure to shimmy and become unstable. The cockpit, sitting back towards the rear of the ship, allowed the pilot more physical visibility of both his ship and the environment around him. The new design was leaps ahead of anything humanity had designed before. And now its metal was going to be tempered against the world’s most menacing threat.
The formation had been in flight for almost an hour when Gunny noticed the Shroom’s flag ship pinging on his long-range radar. Even though his crew was well versed in combat, it was their first time engaging anything like this, and Gunny was worried. He glanced down one final time to make sure the new EMP device, and its trigger, where in place and ready to detonate. His hand became steady on the new ship’s controls while his breathing intensified with an increase of adrenalin. After a quick flick to the com's open mic switch, he began to pass on the information to the squad. “Be alert, target will be in visual in six clicks.”
His estimate was accurate as the alien ship took shape just inside of six clicks. He only got a glimpse of the ship before something hit his wingman’s port side. Whatever it was, tor the entire side of the ship to shreds. Then another, and another. The screams echoing through the local coms brought tears to the veteran’s eyes as he watched his friends, people who served under him for years, get spaced in heaps of debris. It took every ounce of resolve he had not to turn around and attempt to evacuate them. Knowing he had only moments before it was him being crushed, he keyed his thrusters and prepared for a boosted forward burn. One final time, he flicked the coms open and tried to issue orders between the mayhem that was taking place. “Mack, Slingshot, and Topknot on me. Jericho, Spider, and J-man, form a column and make a beeline for that ship.” He watched the first column brake off when he received a transmission from base. The static was immense, and the screams continued to echo through his mind as he barely made out Lieutenant Benjamin’s voice. “You won’t make it Gunny! Their weapon is, static, static, static.” Gunny tried to respond, but his words went unanswered. Finally, Lieutenant Benjamin’s voice cleared the static one last time. “Trigger the EMP GUNNY! NOW!” With an enormous amount of uncertainty, Gunny reached over to trigger the EMP.
Deigon jolted awake with sweat beading down his face. It took a good moment before he realized it was only a dream. Then he was reminded about the prior night’s endeavors by a massive throbbing pain in his head. Wrenching his head with both hands he slumped over in pain. “Good god I need to stop drinking.” Without hesitation he grabbed a small vial of pills from his nightstand and then realized he was still fully clothed and really lost on how he ended up in his room. "I truly hope I didn't do anything stooped." He said out loud, as if someone was actually listening.
With his fresh drink in hand Devin accepts the invitation and heads over to the table where the two women are sitting. The brawny redhead pulls up a seat and smiles, "nice to meet you Hannah. And Yeah I was surprised more people weren't injured by the double jump?" Devin pauses to drink his beer, "and what do you ladies have planned for the rest of the evening?"
Thea's bruised and battered face smiles at the marine's comment and then winces as she attempts to stretch her sore leg under the table. "Well, I'm glad everyone lived through it. Although I'd rather not do it again anytime soon...or ever."
"That was some nice bit of emergency first aid you did on Sasha." She adds looking at Devin. "Where'd you learn to use Vaccpatch and sealing torch like that?"
When the marine asks what they were up to the rest of the night, Thea looks over to Hannah. They'd both pulled a long shift and she wasn't sure if either of them was up for much more. But she wasn't necessarily ready to head back to the squad room and her bunk either.
"Well, there's always the Roach Races down in the lower decks." She says. The races were an ongoing tradition on more than a few Federation Starships since way before the Covax arrived. They didn't use real cockroaches of course. No, place for those things in space. No, in this case, the race participant was a basic model X22 Maintenance Drone. These ubiquitous semi-autonomous machines are lovingly referred to as roaches because of their insectoid shape and ability to reach nearly every nook, cranny, and conduit on a startship. Carrying a select suite of cameras, scanners, and tools, the little drones perform the bulk of the mundane maintenance work on a starship like the Big Dog. Given the combination of boredom and alcohol consumption on your average Federation ship, it didn't take long for engineers and other crew to start tricking out these drones and betting on whose could survive and beat a gauntlet of its fellow competitors.
"They should be in full swing now. I even heard the Chief is backing a team this year. Can't imagine what that crafty buzzard will come up with. Want to head down and see what the latest odds are? Personally I think the Grinning Wreckers have a shot at taking the title."
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Thea wandered the decks of the Big Dog lost in thought. Sasha's words kept circling around in her mind.'...you're going to ride right off that edge and straight into oblivion...not your fault they're dead...still seeing them then maybe it's because you aren't - ready to let them go....let them go...let them go...'
The captain was right. She'd been making more than her share of mistakes lately. Been letting her own guilt, insecurity, stress whatever a person wanted to call it affect her duties and, with the hanger, could have caused real harm. She would have still gone after Sasha, no doubt, but some of the other stuff...well...
The thought trails off as she looks up to find herself standing in front of Elias Moran's quarters. She knew the CAG would be up, he always seemed to be up well into the late hours of third shift. She may not always agree with his tactics and by-the-book ways, but she respected the man's dedication and willingness to put in whatever it takes.
She puffs out her cheeks, throws back her shoulders, takes and releases a deep breath before pressing the chime on the cabin door.
"Come." Is the muffled response.
"Oh. What is it Gillis?" The CAG says setting down his stylus and looking at her with more than a little surprise.
"Sir...." She swallows. Nervous. Admitting her own faults wasn't easy to do under any circumstance. Admitting them to the CAG right now, was that much harder. "Sir, I just wanted to...to apologize for my behavior lately. I should've never been testing an engine without permission from you and the Chief. And while I still think rescuing Quartermaster Maran was the right call, I should've at least signaled Cerberus with my intentions. Perhaps that could've given the navigators time to set up another set of jump coordinates so we could've caught up without endangering ourselves and the shuttle. I won't let either happen again sir." She says standing straight backed and looking more a professional flyer than she had since the invasion started. "Bottom line is I was wrong and have handled myself badly sir."
"I...just wanted to let you know I understood." She adds making it clear she knows who to blame for her extra duties. For just a moment she lowers her gaze to meet the CAG's iron gray eyes.
"I've only one request sir. And that's permission to pursue the improvement of the thrusters on our Yellowjackets with the Ensign Wessell. We know we need to find some kind of edge against the Covax. If we can squeeze even a little bit more out of our thrusters, even in short bursts, it would allow a better chance for our pilots to slip free of their blasted swarms. Only off duty time of course sir."
There. She'd done it. Swallowed her pride and her own embarrassment to try and clear the air with Moran or at least make a start of it. And to take a step toward giving her current people a better chance to survive this whole horrible mess. She still had to find some way to honor the dead, but saving a few of the living, might just make a good start of it.
She returns her eyes to the front. Waiting at attention for the CAG's response.
If nobody has any ideas for other Moves, I see two loose ends at the moment: letting Commander Foster into Engineering inventory, and Sasha's meeting with... let's call him Mr. Luca.
Gunny: With regard to the Commander, in a day or two she'll very politely remind you. You can beg off, of course -- say you were drunk, you don't remember, it's against regulations, whatever. There's not even a mechanical penalty for this! Your move requires you to /make/ a foolish promise, not to actually follow up on it...
Sasha: This may be a scene, so let's see if anyone else has anything first.
Thea's suggestion they all go to watch the Roach Races sounds good, but Hannah isn't up for moving things to a whole new location.
"The races sound interesting and I'd like to catch them sometime, but not tonight. I have a meeting with the XO tomorrow morning and I'd rather not look and feel like garbage for it. I'll catch you all later, I'm off to get some sleep."
Hannah feels more at ease after hearing her request has been taken well and accepted by Commander Benjamin. She smiles back at him.
"Thank you Sir. I'll inform Engineering right away. There is one more thing. If I'm going to be helping out in Engineering, I'll need to know my way around well enough to be of some use. Is there a set of blueprints for the Cerberus that I could borrow from somewhere for a little while to study?"
Little about her; nothing about her and Sasha; the legality is questionable, because she's a senior Engineering officer but from another ship. (But is Gunny someone who focuses on the legalities?)
The next scene will be around / on a rocky asteroid, in a high eccentric orbit around a young rapidly spinning neutron star. Known issues will include radiation, possible Corax fighters, possible Corax Basics, unstable machinery, more radiation, and of course the relentless cold empty death of space. If you guys are okay with that, we would cutscene to that and backfill as we go.
Good to go here.
A bit curious how fast this pulsar is spinning and how much gravitational wave (space time distortion) we might encounter. "Young neutron star" gives me hope there might be fuel here...)
The maglev catapult slammed Thea back into her seat as it slung her Yellowjacket into the void at more than a half dozen times the relative speed of the Cerberus. Her ears pop and for a half a beat it feels like her heart is going to pop right out of chest until the fighter's inertial dampeners and her pressure suit kick in at full power. As the pressure eases slightly, she kicks in her thrusters and kicks the fighter 45 degrees coreward to match the Big Dog's course.
"Cerberus, this is Green One. Away and setting course." Within thirty seconds the rest of Green Squad had checked in. They'd drawn the lucky straw.
None of the slide rule set had any real idea how the extreme radiation would affect a ship jumping deep in system, so the Big Dog and the tankers it was escorting had to enter further out. That meant pulling a extended high burn in system to actually reach this moon with its supposed refinery. The radiation was also hell on their sensors, so while they could located the moon with some reasonable accuracy, they needed close up eyes to actually find the refinery. And to make sure there aren't any Shrooms waiting for them like the last time.
"Roger that Green One. We have you on the scope and you are cleared for Operation Haystack. Good hunting, Firefly." Came the static filled reply from Ensign Terrapin.
"Acknowledged Cerberus." Thea nudges the Yellowjackek's flight stick a bit more adjusting course further coreward while dipping the sleek nose of the craft further toward the ecliptic.
"Okay ladies and gentlemen, you heard. We're a go. Cockroach, tighten up formation."
A chorus of roger's bubble through her comm except for one.
"Don't know how they expect us to find anything buttoned up in these blasted coffins." Cockroach was still complaining about the extra shielding placed over their usually transparent glassteel cockpit canopies. Even as he bi^%$ed he edged his craft back into position.
"Because it's our job." Thea's replies tersely. The Ishkurian had been complaining about flying blind ever since engineering had welded the extra paneling onto his bird. "And it's the only way we can survive in this soup without cooking. We've all had to fly by sensors plenty often, this's no different."
She looks down at her popping, flickering, snowy sensor display and sighs. "Okay, maybe it's a bit different. But it's nothing the best squad in the fleet can't handle."
Her thumb slides over her thruster control. "Buzzsaw you take point. Now can the chatter and let's find us some juice." She orders her squad, hitting the button and sending the fighter leaping forward with her four mates. Five tiny human manufactured flares of light. Momentary dust motes of life racing through the emptiness of space.
EVA suits are rated for several hours in hard vacuum, enough to do inspection,vrepairs or maintenance - under normal conditions. Here, even with the rad-tabs, she's got 20 minutes, 25 at most. Sasha paces the hold of Cranberry, walking it all through in her mind. Ok, so thers three standard types of fit-
*THUNK* The absence of pain is almost a surprise - as the flare of the shuttle blinds her and disintegrates Starr and Buck, and the projectl impales her, there's no pain. Sound, of course - the alarm in her ears, the hiss of air from the EVA brach, and the feeling of cold. Thermodynamicly, it's the warmth leaving her EVA rather than cold rushing in, but it doesn't feel like that - it feels like the fingers of Death Herself have reached in and are pulling out her life bit by bit.
Oh, enough. She turns and glares at the EVA suit - not the same one of course, they had to cut her out of that - as though it's responsible for her memory. She'll have less than half an hour out there, she can't get distracted. She's escaped Death before, she reminds herself. Which is true, but after that thing in Crow Street back home, she'd avoided the place, not gone straight back in. She doesn't even have to be here - she's the boss, she could leave this to Bodie and Stuggs. But she has more EVA time than all the others put together, and in the time window they've got she can't be sure anytone else will get it right. Besides she has a rep to keep with. Nothing bothers Captain Maran, Death took a stab at her and she went outside for more. *That's* the reputation you need to deal with people like Mr Luca and walk away at the end of it.
Besides, it *is* kind of fun. In here, the EVA is half a ton of bulk, but out there with the compressed air jets working in silence, she's transformed into a wingless god of old.
She raps her knuckles against the outer shel. Bring it. I'm ready.
With his head still throbbing from a night of moderate drinking, Gunny, once again, dragged himself out of bed and prepared for the day with a hand full of pain killers. “I really need to stop drinking. He thought to himself while preparing a bird bath with the same water he used the day before. Water was hard to come by in space and everyone was rationed. Gunny was no exception, so he did what he could to conserve bathing water.
While preparing something to eat, he found himself in deep thought. “Wait a moment. Isn’t today…” Without delay he dropped what he was doing and rushed over to a tattered old-school calendar that was hanging nearby. “S@!#!” He protested while dropping the calendar and grabbing his 1930’s style A-2 leather flight jacket, which he wore over a standard issue jumpsuit. While not letting the door hit him in the ass on the way out, he rushed off to the Cerberus’s flight deck locker room where he began prepping for the mission he almost forgot about.
In a rush, Gunny had the flight crew drag out his Tomcat and prepare it for launch as he walked through the bay and began accounting for his newly assigned squad. “Roster check people!” He shouted while grabbing a roster from the flight deck’s desk. “Mackintire!” He called out, while a young clean-shaven boy raised a hand in response. “Jaraco!” He announced just before a heavy pause that had him thinking about his old squad. What are the odds of another young woman having the same call sign? He asked himself as he continued down the roster. “Jagger!” After another brief pause, he announced the name again. "Jagger!” After a closer inspection of his crew, he spotted a young man, possibly in his mid-20s, barley holding up a hand in response. The boy was odd looking for a pilot. He had a cleanly shaved mohawk, two facial piercings, and a tattoo that ran down the left side of his neck. “Where the f!~+ did they find you.” He asked after getting a good eye full of the pilot. The young man simply laughed in response. “Tin Man” He announced while looking over at the final member of his squad. He had seen Tin Man before but couldn’t remember where. The man was quite a bit older than the rest of the crew and had the eyes of someone much, much, more experienced. His slightly greying hair led Gunny to think that the man was at least in his fifties. “OK, everyone is here. I have cleared our squad for this next mission, which will be a fuel grab and go. The mission will be hot and highly radioactive. If you haven’t already done so, take you anti-rads now or you won’t be coming back from this. Our official call sign will be WOLF. Our primary mission will be to locate and extract Juice for the fleet. Wolf’s assignment will be to run escort for the juicers. Now, mount up, run your preflight checks, and launch. We'll be rendezvousing on the port side of Cerberus and will be flying echelon formation for the escort. In the event we get engaged, which is likely, we will break off and form a Vic. Call out targets and focus fire. These things are tough, so don’t let up until you're sure there spaced.” After finishing his briefing, he climbed into his Tomcat and began his preflight inspection. Soon after launching, he headed over to the rendezvous spot and assumed the point position of Wolf's echelon formation.
The escort was a tedious routine of flybys that had Wolf squad continuously scanning for any sign of shroom activity. As expected, as soon as the call come across the coms, Gunny spotted the incoming shrooms on ship's long-range radar. After switching his com over to his squad's designated channel, he called for the Vic formation. “OK Wolf. We have a number of incoming. Form a Vic between the juicers and the shrooms. Don’t let them engage the juicers. Period.” After addressing his squad he switched the com back over to general and announced his squad’s pre-engagement. “This is wolf pack to Big Dog, we have contact. Preparing for engagement.” After his transmission, Gunny closed the com and broke off to engage. Hopefully this will buy enough time for them to locate the juice and get out.
Gunny adjusts his coms to the local and general channel and then relays the information to everyone. “Wolfpack to Big Dog, Green One, and Juice Crew. We have eliminated the immediate threat. Scans are showing some very unusual readings, which are leaving doubts about the origin of the threat. These may not be shrooms. I repeat, they may not be shrooms. Proceed with caution.”
After making his announcement, he switches back to Wolf’s dedicated channel. “Well done everyone. Let's fall back into echelon and get this thing done.” Wolf pack drops back into escort formation and then continues to run routine scans of the area.
There's two jokes you're alowed to make about Sashas' height - in her hearing at least, if you want to live. Teh first is that when they told her she was too short for the marines she cussed them a streak that left them begging her to join up to teach troopers how to swear properly. It's certainly put to good effect when she graps her comm-link and lets loose with a stream of cursing while she tells them to stop shooting. "... and I will shove them so far inside and so deep down you'll have to go where no man ahs goen before to get them back! And you will *BE* no man! Now CEASE FIRE unless you ID it as a shroom or it shoots at you!"
Taking a deep breath, she sets the comm link to all channels. "This is Captain Maran of the Colonial Fleet, opening comms with Courcy de Vries. Can we talk? We come in peace, and I have an ofring that might interst you."
Know your enemy, or so the saying goes. Sasha makes it her busines to know *everyone* - and that certainly now includes de Vries. She puts teh word out with everyone she can think of - get me info on him, who he is, what he likes. If he's a bilionair he's going to have some stupid thing he collects, they all do. She also puts the word out that anyone who can bring her something he'd be itnerested in, they will have a deal.
There's all sorts of civilians on board, and they packed light when they ran but they all brought something with them - it's human nature to carry what you value, not what will hlep you survive. Now though - somewher in that collection - might be tehir best chance to hook a billionair's interests.
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Gunny switches his com to a local only channel and attempts to respond to Shasha's rant. Tap, tap, tap, the sound of a finger tapping the com's open mic echos through the channel. "Hello, Shasha are you there." Static, static, static. The sound of Gunny making static sounds over the mic with his mouth is somewhat apparent but is obviously meant to be taken literally. "If your there Sasha, you're coming in broken." Static, static, static.
With the bogies suddenly and completely cleared from the scope Thea simply orders her squad to proceed toward the asteroid and continue scanning for the actual refinery.
Somebody just lost a few million credits worth of toys. She thinks to herself. Of course, if you've enough money to build a friggin' refinery for your own personal use in a system like this...
She lets the thought trail off, instead focusing her attention on the scope and trying to spot their actual target.
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For Sasha anger is a tool rather than a state of mind and like all tools you put it away when you're done with it. She switches the comm link back to private and Gunny can hear the grin in her voice as she responds. "Hilarious Gunny, cos I can hear you just fine - in fact, it sounds like you're telling me you don't wanna be drinking in my bar any more, did I hear that right? Going teetotal? Nothing but water for you from now on? I can make that happen."
The idle chat passes the time while they all wait to see if the other side responds.
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Hannah sits huddled on cranberry trying to follow the com chatter and listening to Captain Maran curse a lot. She thinks she's aware of what's happening, but the lingo is sometimes hard to interpret.
Stuff blown up but that was a mistake so things are alright. I guess that counts as alright...
Hannah sometimes wonders if she's too much of a pleaser, and this is one of those times. Technically she doesn't think she really has to be on the fuel hauler at all. When she let engineering know she was available on-call, this is the first thing she was given. Somebody had to go along "just in case", and they were short-handed.
She'd agreed partially because she didn't want to immediately turn offered work down, Hannah might not hear from them again if it damaged the relationship she was trying to build. But also, it did sound exciting to take a look at an old-fashioned state-of-the-art facility built by a wacko billionaire.
Now though her mind is more on the dangers involved than the potential excitement.
"Things still going alright Captain Maran?" Hannah asks forward off com.
Gunny smiles and then responds. "Yay, sounds like the coms cleared up. Good to hear your voice Sasha, I was a bit worried one of those DEADLY ATTACK drones got to you. I would love to go over my thought process about the engagement over a glass of top shelf non-water tonight. That is, if we make it back and you feel up for the company. Have you had any luck locating the target?" Banking his Tomcat port side, Gunny leads his squad back around the front of the juicers while scanning the area for activity.
And then of course there are the people you don't ever need to get angry with because they're already doing their best to make everyone happy. Sasha has a strong sense that the thin, quiet young woman who's trying to fold herself up out the way is one of them. She gives Hannah a thoutful look for a moment of two - not posh, but not poor either - never gone hungry, or known what it's like to have nothing - well educated - no, wait - *very* well educated - split ends, chews her hair? Definitely chews her fingernails - almost certainly no boyfriend/girlfriend - feels like a fish out of water but almost certainly a hell of a lot braver than she think she is.
The thoughts play out in a fraction of a second, on instinct as she clips the comm link - shell reply to Gunny in a bit but Hannah gets her undivided attention right now - to her belt and sits on the floor of the hold, arms round her knees as she gives Hannah the compliment of telling her the truth. "Are things going alright? I'm not sure. The pilots are on a hair trigger, can't blame them really all things considered - and they shot down some blips on the radar they thought were shrooms but turned out to be drones, probly belonging to the guy we're hoping to get fuel from. I've sent o transmission trying to parley but if it goes titsup the two of us are in an unarmed ship with enough Juice in it to make a small sun if it gets hit."
"But there's nothing I can do about that. If it comes to a figh, we've got the best pilots in the Federation on our side. And Gunny, or course." She stands up in one smooth motion, and gives Hannah a smile. "So don't worry. Besides." She gives the student a thoughtful look. "You ever been in an EVA suit? Wanna see what it's like while we wait? Trust me, you step out an airlock in that, nothing between you and the void, and you just look out into space - it's times like that I get the point of religion."
Hannah offers a thumbs up acknowledging the information, which doesn't to her mind match the conclusion she shouldn't worry.
"Nah, I'm good. I had an EVA suit on at the last refinery where everything was exploding." She wonders if the Captain was really offering a space walk at this time or if it was some kind of weird joke.
"Do we have any specific reason to believe this guy de Vries is both residing here and still alive? I mean the place is supposed to be automated right? And I have to say it would be hard to find a worse environment for long term living between the radiation and the gravity well."
Sasha misses a step as she turns back to look at Hannah in surprise. "That was you?" Her memories of the whole thing are patchy at best. "You kept the explosion to a minimum, saved my life and a whole bunch of others in the process. So - thanks. Next time you're in my bar, don't pay, you hear me? That was some cool work under pressure."
She gives a shake of her head as memories start to pile up. No. Enough. "Well, if you're an EVA veteran you can help me into this when the time comes,vyeah? I'm still not fully recovered, an extra pair of hands would be much appreciated." It's clear Hannah thought she was kidding, so she explains. "I'm gonna have to hook the pipeline up to the Juicer manual, nobody has come up with a guaranteed way to do it without human supervision believe it or not."
Hannah's question get a shrug. "Truth, I don't know if he's here at all. But I hope so, I can handle people, so I'd rather have to deal with a weird bilonare than with a bunch of drones on autopilot." She grins at Hannah. "Seems like I'm done most of the talking! Why don't you tell me about yourself?
"Okay, let's find us some juice." Thea says over her squad's comm link. The radiation and the refineries concealment made using long range scanners pretty much useless, so it was their task to get in close and personal to try and spot the facility.
"Search pattern Beta." She orders. "Remember this place was hidden so people just like us wouldn't find it, so stay sharp. Obviously it's not just the Shrooms we've got to watch for, but any other little surprises left by the owner. Anyone picks up any kind of anomaly report it ASAP and squirt it back to Big Dog for the experts to ID."
Her scope shows everyone moving into position. "On my mark. Three...two...engage!" She kicks the sleek, single person Yellowjacket into a shallow dive that soon has her squad fanned out and flying within a dozen klicks of the asteroid's surface.
She swallows hard and wipes the sweat from her eyes as her radiation monitors go from yellow to orange. Although she knew she should still be protected by the shielding and the meds, that little spot between her shoulder blades started to tingle and prickle as if the enemy had a pistol poised and ready to pull the trigger if she so much as twitched wrong.