Okay so with the exception of those who have additional duties, people need to check if they want to take anything from the inventory of gear.  If you want to take something for the mission/s, let me know.

"I think I have everything I need, Sir," Jamie replied.
"Now, about the flight groups...what did you have in mind?  Groundside or otherwise?"
Jamie looked at his hand and starting holding up fingers, ticking off Talon members and ships.

Devon looked up and smiled for the first time since Sheppard had said 'working for the empire' - his expression and silence had made it quite clear the shipjacker wasn't exactly in love with the idea...

'I had this feeling you were going to ask me to take over the job of mechanic - so I did my best to prepare.'  He vaguely waved the datapad he was carrying.  'Reading up and stuff.  I'll go see what I got to work with, give my helpers something to do in the meantime and let you know what we're going to need...

It went without saying that the shopping list of parts and equipment needed was going to be substantial...

Shouldering the pack full of his belongings, Devon waved to his squadmates and ambled out of the briefing room, tapping at his datapad...

Having found out where he was supposed to sleep whilst on base and deposited most of his stuff there, Devon rounded up his helpers and headed back down to the hanger to make a start on what he felt sure was going to be a mammoth task...

Zenna checked over the supplies that were logged into the inventory. She felt that her personal gear was adequate for almost any job. But the addition of a few grenades might tip the balance in her favor should the need arose.

She picked out two concussion, four mini-smoke and four mini-stun gas grenades. As she examined the mini-grenades it became clear that the grenade launcher would be necessary. Since nobody else came for the weapon, she stowed it with her other gear.



Edit: Added the grenade launcher to the gear
This message was last edited by the player at 05:35, Wed 19 Mar 2008.

Daron didn't have much that he'd brought with him, a blaster and a stun baton that he'd picked up to use as a club, along with his clothes and some other minor things. He found a place to bunk down, putting his belongings somewhere safe where nothing would get messed with and went to check out the inventory of equipment that had been picked up by the Talons.

He looked over the stuff that the Talons had taken from their last mission. It was pretty good for the small group that they had, especially when you tack on top of that the capital ship and the starfighters that they'd aquired. They didn't seem to have any lighter armor, something that Daron would be able to use. The blaster rifles, though, would come in handy for Daron if they were going to be working on the ground for this next mission. Perhaps a few grenades as well.

"Yes Sir" he replied to Mark after being given his orders.

Getting up from the table he finds an empty space to bunk down, again lamenting the fact that he no longer had the sniper rifle. Once his few belongings were stowed away he quickly checked over the gear that he would probably need for any upcoming missions, deciding that the addition of a couple of concussion grenades wouldn't hurt.

He then got down to the task of working out how they would operate as a ground unit. Going over the number of people at hand to work with, he returns to the briefing room and gets to work.

Bishop made his way back his quarters to run Pre-Combat Checks of his weapons and gear.  He sat down cross-legged on his bunk as he disassembled and gave a quick scrubbing of his blaster carbine.  Once reassembled he felt a bit bored and stowed his gear in the ready before making his way out to find 'something' to do.

The transport arrived the next day on schedule.  It was the same YT-1300 transport who had delivered them the day before.  Once again the pilot made no effort to greet his passengers, staying hidden away in the cockpit.  Instead his Sullustan co-pilot again wordlessly directed the Talons to the cargo bay.  He then left with a single nod to Zyra.

The trip took a good twelve hours during which the Talons were left with free run of the ship.  Mark kept to himself, absorbed in a game of holochess that seemed to move more slowly then a bantha in a mudpit.

Finally the ship arrived at its destination and the group was disembarked.  They were quickly met by in Imperial Army Lieutenant.  He made little effort to introduce himself, clearly unimpressed with having to play chaparone to a group of mercenaries.

An umnmarked transport flew them quickly to a nearby Imperial Garrison.  Several of the Talons could not help but feel apprehensive as the past a platoon of stormtroopers and several groups of general infantry on parade.  The transport flew past quickly and made its way to the far end of the barracks, were a dormitary stood off far to the side.

The Talons were disembarked and left to explore their new 'home'.  Zyra alone remained with the transport as it whisked off again.

Their lodgings clearly had once housed the motor pool.  There was enough bunks to sleep twenty whilst a large open area had once housed equipment to repair and upgrade land vehicles.  At present it had been stripped bare.  A kitchenette contained a standard-issue food dispenser.  All in all the accommodation was sparse but entirely servicable.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:58, Mon 24 Mar 2008.

"They're certainly rolling out the welcome mat aren't they?"  Mark mumbled as he inspected their lodgings.  "Still its servicable.  We can be fully independant from here, with plenty of room for training and equipment."

"Three, Five.  We're unlikely to have much downtime.  Governor's don't pay our sort to watch the holovid.  Might pay to turn that office over there into a briefing room.  Dig up any maps and other relevant info you can."

"Six.  You're our slicer for the forseeable future.  Get on that computer and see what you can dig up.  I doubt it will be much.  Three, seven, I want a full security sweep of this place.  Bugs, cameras and so on.  I want to know what time any patrols swing by, hell if a dog takes a whizz against the wall I want you to measure it!  Start with the briefing room.  What's said in there needs to be for our ears only."

"Two.  I want all our weaponry checked, cleaned and pronounced servicable ASAP.  Get to it people."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:39, Tue 25 Mar 2008.

Zyra took her place at the lecturn of the briefing room and waited for everyone to arrive and make themselves comfortable.  Then she began her briefing.

"Well I've spent the last hour or so receiving our first 'official briefing' from a Major Terell.  The Major is an adjutant to the planetary governor and is apparently charged with dealing with the problem we've been hired to solve."

"In short the governor has problems with a rebellion.  Supply raids, bombings, riots, and racketeering.  This pirate group or groups have been getting increasingly brazen in their attacks recently.  They've even hit a few small military convoys."

"Reading between the lines it seems the Governor has backed himself into a corner.  He'd told the local Moff that he'd dealt with the situation nearly a month ago.  In truth his stormtroopers raided and destroyed a suspected rebel outpost.  The place had been booby-trapped with explosives and he lost over half his stormtroopers in the explosion.  Assuming the rebels had cut and run, the governor reported his men had died in battle, destroying the pirates.  He didn't want to admit he lost dozens of stormtroopers due to poor planning."

"Which brings us to our job.  We will perform a number of strike missions which will be given to us on a 'need to know' basis.  Their intel is poor at best.  For now, we've got convoy duty.  A convoy of ground transports is heading out from here tomorrow to one of the western provinces.  Its a six hour trip through some barren country.  Risk of a strike is considered moderate.  As of now we're the official escort.  Sounds like there will be approximately a dozen vehicles carrying a mix of cargo.  I'm assured there's no munitions on board but they wont tell me the cargo."

"Our planned route will have us travelling through built up areas for an hour or two.  Then between there and our destination, most of it is open road with only two or three small towns to break up the monotony."

"We haven't been given much to work with.  Wether they're deliberately keeping us in the dark or they couldn't plan their way out of a paper bag is anyone's guess.  A bit of both I'll wager."

"Convoy duty." Mark echoed.  "How positively thrilling.  Nothing like playing glorified chaparones to a bunch of cargo hauler drivers waiting for someone to drop the hammer on you in a place of their choosing."

"Four, ground ops is your field.  I'm a throttle jockey not a ground-pounder.  How do we run this?  I know several of you have land operations experience so lets hear it.  I'm too used to working in three dimensions, not two."
This message was last edited by the player at 00:53, Wed 26 Mar 2008.

Not a great deal of information Exilim thought to himself. Turning to Zyra he asked "Is it possible to find out how many other guards there will be besides us....or is it just us for the dozen vehicles? Also any details on whether they have used this route before and likely ambush sites, barren doesn't mean we are going to get a clear view if anyone comes at us."

He went back to looking at the mission from a worst case scenario....they really needed more people.

"We're it." Zyra confirmed.  "Normally they'd only supply a handful of guards to such a convoy so we're considered more than sufficient for the job."

"As to ambush points I was hoping you would tell me.  I'm assuming nobody would be foolish enough to attack us in the first or last leg of our journey as we'd be in metropolitan areas were local law enforcement can respond quickly.  The small towns enroute would surely still run the risk of someone calling the authorities.  Surely the logical place to site an ambush is in the barren areas.  Its largely plains and desert from the maps."

"I think the route is the one they normally use.  Its the only good land access.  It's not easy to run cargo haulers around back roads."

"So then if these pirates will only be expecting a handfull of guards on this trip, perhaps we should conceal our numbers. Hide half of us or so inside the trucks we are transporting, that way when they open them up to steal the supplies, they've got a suprise?"

It seemed like an interesting job for them to be doing, going in place of the governors storm troopers so that they could die instead of the imperials. It left a bitter taste in Daron's mouth to have a bulls-eye put on his back so that a storm trooper could live and a governor could stay in power.

Devon - who had slept through most the journey - shook his head at this one.

'nah.. if they get to the point where they're opening the trucks.. it means they already dealt with any guards.  Which means half of us are either captured or dead...  hide people, sure - I just don't reckon we should wait for them to open the trucks.'

He covered his mouth and yawned  'Spent too long going over those ships - not enough sleep...' he mumbled, then perked up slightly - 'reckon we could make an inside contact with the pirates?  The extra intel wouldn't hurt...'

"Lets have a look at these maps before we talk of concealing ourselves. With the little information at hand, we will probably need some scouts out ahead of us in the barren areas anyway as the maps can only give us a rough idea of ambush sites. That means our numbers with the transports will be down a little already."

Exilim smiled grimly to himself.......it was always more fun setting up the ambush rather than walking into it

Flash did everything he was supposed to(in case there was any doubt).

He mostly left the planning up to the others, those who had experience.  Ground was not his territory.  Space and computers for him, but when it came to hills and bushes, he left it to the experts, and did what he was told.  As a result, he didn't have any input of his own, but stayed back and watched, learning, gathering information that might be useful later.

"Then we use a feint," Daron explained. "We're just mercenaries after all. We don't get paid if we don't live. When it gets too hot, the exterior group falls back, leaving the transports "alone". When the raiders go to open up the trucks, they find themselves staring down the barrel of a blaster rifle and then the first group returns and the raiders are pinned between both groups with nowhere to go."

Allen speaks up.  "I'm no expert on ground tactics, but in space, you generally try to keep the enemy off your ship for as long as possible."

Bishop went about stowing his meager gear and checking his equipment and weapons before the briefing.

At the briefing Bishop chuckled to himself when the ground was referred to as two-dimensional, he muttered mostly to himself, "Always a 3D battlefield."  He leaned back in his chair and listened to the others formulating a plan.  He posed a question, "How good is our intel?  Could this pirate group be an Alliance cell?  And if it is, I think the idea of making an inside contact may be a good idea."  He grimaced slightly at the plan of squeezing the pirates in a crossfire, that took precision and a lot of trust, which he thought just wasn't all there yet.

"It would be a good idea to establish contact with these guys.  We hear they're the scum of the galaxy, but hey, we are too!  If they don't know we're here to end their rebellion, contact could be extremely useful; we could play holochess from both sides of the console, so to speak.  Trouble is, how do we contact them?
"We have no idea what kind of resources these people have.  They could be sophisticated, with attack vehicles and snipers or they could be charging with stun batons.  All we know is that they aren't stupid; they've evaded the Imperials this long and they're on their toes.  It could be that they have and inside informer and they already know we're coming.
"Any resources that are not present at the moment of ambush will likely be useless.  An ambush like this requires a quick-in, quick-out plan.  We won't have time to think and they have the initiative.  Once we know what's going on it will probably be too late.  If we're doing our job, we'll likely be killed.
"These people could be prepared for anything and everything, so we should give them what they won't expect:"
Jamie looked around expectantly.
"Nothing.  Anyway, that's my idea.  We watch them, study them, and, when they're finished, we track them."

Bishop raises a finger as to motion a point, "It's also possible this convoy is total bantha-poo and they Imps are just using us to draw out the 'pirate' forces, or could be an integrity test for us." emphasizing 'pirate' with air quotes.

Zenna had take a seat next to the computer terminal. She was silent for the most part as she ran several procedures. She started by checking for spyware before she began a few inquiries of her own.

As she waited for the results, she turned from the terminal to respond to the ideas that were being thrown out. "So it sounds like there's two ideas."

"One - repel the ambushers."

"Two - let the ambushers take the convoy."

Zenna smiled as she stated the two basic ideas. "Why not let the pirates take the convoy. We'll have to implant several homing beacons so we can track the shipment after they take the cargo. Then we can plan an attack of our own. One of our choosing."

"I'm not sure the tracking idea is going to work Zenna.  I mean the first thing we did when arriving here was scan for bugs.  If you lifted a convoy wouldn't you immediately begin scanning it for tracking devices?  Besides, I doubt the Imperials are going to just merrily let us hand over the convoy to the pirates."

Leaning over to Zyra he says with a grin.  "With all this planning they'd better attack us.  It's going to be a dull trip otherwise."

"The Imperials won't stop us if they don't know," Jamie put in.  "We go with the convoy and tell them we're controlling the perimeter.  Basically, we keep our distance and watch.  If we use a tracking device, it would have to be remotely activated, say, one hour after they take the convoy.
"But that's not exactly what I had in mind.  I meant we could follow them.  Then we either strike some sort of bargain with the pirates, should they be the kind of allies we're looking for, or we give the Imperials the location of the rebel hideout.  Now, it's quite possible they won't run straight back to their home base, so we may have to shadow them for a while before we learn where they operate.  I don't know what the Imperials do, but back on Corellia the security forces used this tactic all the time to catch bands of undesirables."