Chapter 1 ⋮ White Bird
Nimbus was very adamant about the briefing for today's very important deal. He wanted no screw ups or contingency plans. He simply wanted this deal to be successful without the need of unnecessary force. However, that message he received a few days prior has really set him on edge. Why was the message garbled, and what was Demus even saying? A lot of things didn't add up, and it was becoming more and more apparent that even with the message being garbled, Nimbus could sense that something was awry. So Nimbus would be on his toes for this deal.
That aside, Nimbus stepped forward from an area around the large table--displaying the Noor IX system. Nimbus held his hands together and stared at all the Valkyries in hopes one of them would have a given idea as to why they were gathered here today. However, seeing as no one made a single move, Nimbus would be the one giving the orders today.
"We've made it to the Noor system," Nimbus took a short pause to witness the reaction of the Valkyries. However, none still made no move. Nimbus gave a soft sigh, "and we're just within radio range of the planet Ixone. So I've tasked communications to send out short bursts to let Demus know we are here. But it's going to be a while longer until we actually reach the planet. However, that does not excuse a mission briefing before hand."
All the women were intent-fully quiet for this mission briefing.
Nimbus tied his hands behind his back and nodded towards a crewman to bring up the planet Ixone on the table monitor. "As you may have come to guess, we're making a pretech arms deal on the planet Ixone--the home for arms dealers across the sector. Ixone has a thin atmosphere, so the inhabitants of this planet will have to adapt to the thin atmosphere via atmofilter or natural genetics. The planet is also rife with flying cities. This would be where a majority of the inhabitants live where less than 25% of its inhabitants live on the planet itself and not these cities. The biosphere of this planet is engineered as the humans of this planet have been working long-side an alien civilization to develop the biosphere into a habitable environment. However the conditions on this planet are still a little extreme for some civilians, so they refer back to the flying cities in search for warmth, comfort, and other luxuries that come with having a city perked high above the frozen tundra that is Ixone." Nimbus pressed the table to have the monitor zoom in on a particular city. "We'll be entering via dropship as this ship isn't really made for planetary landings," Nimbus paused for a moment, "I want this dropship to be masked by all planetary sensors." He makes a passing glance at Kaylah. "Kaylah I'm counting on you for this. As you'll be working from the dropship."
Kaylah only crossed her arms in silence. She seemed to be fully understanding of her current duties as of late.
Nimbus returned to his briefing after taking moment to let the sensor-cloaking idea sink in. "After that we'll arrive at this city here," the image is then focused on a land-city where the land around the city was white or greyish white, "We'll be making the deal in a forgotten mining town known as Salteras. Demus has said in a previous discussion of our terms of agreement that a small PMC force will be posted within a 1km radius of Salteras to see us entry. So be on the lookout for any possible enemy enforcers or arms dealers trying to attack the convoy. And speaking of convoy," Nimbus nodded towards the crewman who then switched the image to a 3D representation of a convoy of TL (tech level) 4 vehicles, "we'll be traveling in a PMC protected convoy consisting of three troop-carrier trucks, one personnel APC, and a few humvees. The cargo will be transported with those troop-carrier trucks, so the primary objective is to keep those trucks from being destroyed. Since there is five of you, I'm assigning vehicles now. Anne troop-carrier truck alfa 1-1, Asari troop-carrier truck bermuda 1-1, Ludmilla troop-carrier truck codec 1-1 , Lupe humvee alfa 1-2, and Kaylah humvee bermuda 1-2, You'll be with me this time Kaylah."
Lupe stepped forward and looked at Nimbus with a serious look. "Why are we assigned vehicles? Don't you think that if we spread ourselves thin, the enemy would take us out one by one?"
Nimbus' head shifted towards Lupe and he would then give a small chuckle. "Well you see, if I didn't spread you out amongst the convoy then when the enemy decides to fire heavy weapons at the vehicle that we're all in we would suffer the consequences of death. So it's best to have you each in one vehicle to ensure that if one vehicle is destroyed with one of you in it, the others can react much more efficiently to death of that person."
"So we're expendable," said Anne as she stepped forward a pace in protest, "Did we not sign up to change our lives for the better, not become some foot-soldier who is as expendable as the soldier next to him?"
Nimbus was strangely silent at the sign of protest.
Anne was then angered by his silence, "You can't just stand there and expect us to listen to this horseshit!"
Lupe, almost ready to whip a fist at Anne's skull, stepped in and lifted a hand in front of her. "If you didn't understand the terms of agreement with Nimbus then you were never prepared to put your fucking life on the line. You signed that pact long ago, and there's no reason for you go back on it now. Now shut the fuck up and let the ugly fucker finish his shit."
Anne reeled back in defeat, knowing full well the reason why she went along with Nimbus. At the moment, it seems as though Anne is having conflicting emotions about the current game-plan as of now. At one moment Anne is all for the splitting up of the team, but is against the fact that they're treated as expandable assets that can always be replaced by much more efficient buyers willing to take her place. She didn't like that mode of thought, not one bit.
Nimbus released a small sigh of displeasure before continuing his briefing. "As I've said before we'll be dealing in the forgotten mining town of Salteras, and we'll be traveling in a PMC protected convoy with each one of you assigned a particular vehicle. Once we have reached the PMC protection sphere, they'll immediately cast a large-scale alarm system that will trigger if anyone other than assigned persons travel through the sphere. Since they are roughly a kilometer out from Salteras, we'll be given roughly two to five minutes before the intruders reach Salteras. However the town will be filled with more soldiers who are all under Demus' command. So, they'll be dealing with the intruders first. But don't get too comfy, you'll still remain on high alert until the deal is done and we've left the planet. That's all that I have for now. We'll run through a summary of the briefing once we arrive within one day of the planet. Dismissed."
With little resistance, the Valkyries had left Nimbus and the crewmen to their lonesome. However, Nimbus was running through anomalies that seemed to appear in the briefing. The mere fact that Nimbus was sent a message by Demus himself was rather startling to him. First he was concerned, and now he's startled. Something doesn't add up.. Whatever could it be? He didn't really know..
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≪Nimbus and company reach the planet Ixone, and preparations are made for departure down into the planet≫
Nimbus stepped up the back ramp of the dropship and looked back at the Valkyries while the cargo was being transferred from the cargo bay to the dropships themselves. "Remember to not fire any weaponry unless threatened or ordered. Understand?"
The Valkyries all stood in a line before nodding, or saluting, towards Nimbus in understanding.
"Good. Now Valkyries, embark!"
The Valkyries did as they are told and followed Nimbus onto the dropship. All of them found their places on the dropship as did the cargo. There was minor chatter amongst the Valkyries. Anne and Lupe were the main voices to be heard amongst the chatter as they were chatting about how well it could go down on the ice planet, Ludmilla was running through her equipment (obviously talking with herself), Kaylah filled up the 1% of chatter where she was running through data on the planet, and Asari was quietly whistling a tune of her homeworld.
≪Rolls a Computer Intelligence Check for Kaylah ━ 2d6 = 9≫
As the flight of dropships depart from the battleship─which was staying comfortably away from the inner orbit of the planet to avoid being sucked into the atmosphere─Kaylah scraped up some particularly interesting information regarding the planet. From what she can gather, the planet has seen whole cities crash into the frozen tundra below due to sabotage or flat-out fighting between flying cities. Further digging concludes that there was a city that crashed within the twenty-five kilometer range of Salteras. This could prove to be rather problematic as the probability of their being survivors of the crash and those same survivors inhabiting the town of Salteras is higher than 15%. That aside she would continue to do more digging as she was carrying her dataslab.
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≪Nimbus and company arrive on world they have a choice between two space ports: one space port is a public space port and is owned by Demus and some corporate entities while the other is owned by the ground city of Loreto ━ Nimbus chooses the obvious one and that being the former ━ Dropships land in port with little trouble≫
〖Time Stamp: Juni 18th 3200〗
Little trouble is made while entering into the cold and (from the looks of things) desolate space sport. Nothing seemed to move, or rather nothing seemed to breath as the denseness of the snow covered the vision to near zero. Unless you were standing inside the port, you wouldn't see the hand in front of you if you even dared to extend it. Though, that was not all that was there in the space port's ship-bay.
Awaiting Nimbus, and company, was a PMC soldier who was standing tall amongst her brethren. This soldier was very tall with brown hair and brown eyes with some distinct scars upon her face. One could see, upon looking at her, that she was not the prettiest of women but she wasn't the ugliest either. She was very moderate, taking the middle-ground in beauty. However, beauty-aside, she was holding on to some baseline TL 4 weaponry. Some the men standing behind her were holding heavy weapons and energy weapons. This soldier addressed herself first and foremost by stepping forward and extending a hand of gratitude and hope, "Thanks for coming!"
"Pleasure," Nimbus said above the whipping sound of the cold wind, "Who am I speaking to?"
The PMC soldier gestured him and company to follow while the other soldiers conversed with the crewmen to try and load up the pretech weaponry onto the troop-carrier trucks. "The name's Eider Zwolensky. I'm the Executive Commander of Ixone's First Degree Planetary Defense Force."
"I thought you guys were PMCs?" Lupe spoke up from behind Nimbus.
Eider smirked revealing a few missing teeth, "We're hired hand. Under orders of the First Council, we're to help the arms dealers, willing to hire us of course, to protect them from opposing arms dealers. Think of us as double agents."
Nimbus smirked beneath his mask, "Well that's not really something you should be putting into my Valkyries' minds. They'll think that you're setting us up."
Eider cackled, "Don't think so lowly of us dealer!! We're only doing this to keep the circulation of credits within Ixone's hands. The former members of the First Council wish it so. It's the only way this planet can survive. You're no different from the last seller."
Nimbus gave off a small chuckle before Eider stopped the group just before the entrance of the space port.
"We can't leave yet. We're experiencing a CAT-4 Storm. We'll have to remain here until the storm has subsided."
≪A call comes in on Eider's compad, and she answers≫
≮Eider≯
≮We've loaded up the cargo, and are awaiting further orders mam!≯
≮Good. Wait until the CAT-4 Storm dies down, and then we'll move out.≯
≮Yes mam!≯
≪Eider hangs up the call≫
Nimbus steps forwards, his hands tied behind his back. "I don't suppose we can speed up time to get this transaction over with?"
Eider only shook her head, "These storms are pretty violent. So violent, in fact, that if we were caught in anything above a CAT-4 we'd be good as dead. So no, we can't speed up time to get this transaction over with. I suggest you stand a little further away from the exit as the shutters will automatically open even if there's something in the way."
Nimbus steps a few feet away from the shutters as a blaring horn came into earshot and flashing red light covered the exits in a red hue.
The Valkyries, on instinct, immediately pulled for their guns, but Eider had stopped them. An automated voice came into earshot soon after.
⋘NOW OPENING SHUTTERS! NOW OPENING SHUTTERS! CATEGORY 4 STORM IS AT 25% STRENGTH! EXIT POSSIBLE! EXIT POSSIBLE!⋙
The shutters opened up to reveal a winter wonderland. The ground was covered with snow, the external walls of the port were dosed in ice, and the street in which encompassed the very front of the port was also dosed in ice. Everything was just filled with the attributes of winter.
The Valkyries, never having seen snow before, stared in awe at the sheer whiteness that was winter. However, time was of the essence. So standing there taking in the spectacle that was winter was not really something that was worth the time. Nimbus, after having stepped ahead of the Valkyries by some feet, snapped their attention back to realty. The women saw vehicles pull up to the curb. And at the moment, the snowfall was akin to heavy snowfall of our planet.
The Valkyries were assigned to their vehicles. Nimbus, Eider, and Kaylah were all put into one humvee while the rest were spread out amongst the others.
A few minutes would then past as the convoy would disembark from the port and head off in the direction of Salteras.
List of Dialogue Colors for Characters
- White ⇛ Nimbus
- Light Salmon ⇛ Lupe Motolinia
- Cyan ⇛ Anne Brown
- Gold ⇛ PMC Soldier 1
- Lime ⇛ Eider Zwolensky
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