"I'm negative on the EM spectrum," Michael says from his kneeling position.  That nothing had come out of the doorway immediately hostile had been a relief.  "That should imply that our adversaries haven't reacted to our presence.  Yet.  Unless they're learning."  The various tools that had overcome the electronic security door disappear back into padded kits, placed back into their proper positions on his LBV or pack.  The airman stands, and moves into position near their female aviatrix.  Or resident psychic, depending on skill set she's representing at the moment.

The elevator beckons, giving entrance to the underground facility that promises...something.  Other than just radio black-out with the outside world.  Fingers flex around the pistol grip of his WASP.

"Radio transmissions are going to be intermittent at best underground.  I'll make the call for the QRF prior to descent." Michael says to Seb, tapping his radio.  "Just say 'when.'"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:49, Sun 17 Dec 2017.

Cooper reached for his gas mask, but instead of the carrier, he found a large 7.62mm belted ammo pouch.  Right, he thought to himself, realizing that he had been so focused on dope and beer, that he'd omitted a pro-mask.  Likewise, SAPI plates were ditched in favor of offensive and breaching capabilities.

Williams shrugged, then double-checked his Mark 48.  Perhaps the alien atmo might kill him slowly.  It didn't matter.  Cooper intended to kill them quickly and soon.

"Let's move out and draw fire," he said, nodding toward the route before them.

Hannah gripped her silenced MP7 tightly in her hands.  She tried to keep quiet, letting the boys lead.  They had more tactical acumen and she'd been finding herself trying to focus and be a more passive receptor to incoming information.  The lithe army aviatrix seemed attentive enough, following instructions, covering the necessary angles and entry points, as well as donning her gas mask when prompted.  But, Double Down was definitely not taking point or forcing her way on anything.

She had let it be known that calling the cavalry earlier rather than later was probably a good thing.  Whatever they found down there was going to need back-up.  And a distraction was always a good thing - a sort of "shock and awe" setup.  Hopefully, they weren't in for the shock; otherwise, they were going to have to be ready for the unwelcomed kind of "Awww...".  The hairs on the back of her neck were prickling again.  There was a general sense of anticipation and dread - sort of like what she was starting to feel every time she saw the purple glow - something was building and it was not going to ordinary (or good, most likely).

Another deep breath and she glanced down the hole in the floor.  A slightly resigned nod followed when Diver made his prompt for action.  The group was truly committed here, and it was bound to be CBQ rules down there.  Double Down could feel the thin layer of perspiration on her palms; it was a good thing that she had on her trusty gloves.  And that her face was covered.

Hannah wasn't scared, per se.  Just on edge...

"I think we're as ready as we're gonna get," James replies, stepping into the lift. He'll be first out, so he makes room for the others to get into position before retaking point. "All aboard that's coming aboard."

-
This message was last edited by the player at 16:09, Fri 22 Dec 2017.

James presses the DOWN button.  With a hiss of hydraulics, the platform descends.  The elevator shaft is concrete, old and pitted, with occasional veins of rebar exposed where larger chunks have crumbled away.

There's a momentary flicker of something - surprise, maybe? - at the edge of Hannah's awareness, but no invisible purple light spills into her vision.

With an exposed platform rather than an enclosed car, it's easy to mark depth.  Sixty feet down, the elevator announces its arrival with a bang and rattle.  James quickly slides open the latticework of the safety gate.  Grey Cell pours out into a small foyer, featureless save for a yellow safety stripe painted on the institutional white tile floor.

The air here is cool - comfortably air-conditioned but not the arctic chill that the Attars seem to prefer.  Cooper detects the faint scent of metal and cleaning products.  The walls are scuffed eggshell-white drywall.  From the high concrete ceiling, fluorescent tubes compete for space with fifty years of infrastructure: water pipes, air ducts, sprinkler heads, electrical conduits, battery-powered emergency lights, and newer bundles of network cable, all immaculately labeled with all the care an obsessive-compulsive maintenance department can muster. None of the team can see any security cameras.

Ahead is a short hallway with a four-way intersection, then a T-intersection beyond it.  James wafts forward and extends a dentist's mirror at ankle height.

The hallway to the right contains opposing wooden doors: GENTLEMEN and LADIES.  Beyond them, another door, this one unlabeled.  The hallway disappears in a corner.

To the left is a wooden door with a glass insert, though James' current viewing angle makes it impossible to see through.  Opposite it is a heavier steel door with a reinforced frame.  A small box set on the wall beside it bears red and green lights; the green is currently illuminated.  This hallway, too, ends in a corner.

The straight-ahead hallway has two wooden doors before the four-way intersection.  Beyond it are two more doors, both of the heavy steel type, with their green lights also illuminated.

As James relays the terrain to the rest of the team, he hears a distant muffled thump.  Then - footsteps and the squeak of rubber on tile, approaching from the right.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:38, Tue 26 Dec 2017.

Contact!

A surge of adrenaline immediately sharpens James' already active senses. He focuses on his breathing to avoid the unwanted physiological side-effects of tunnel vision and time dilation.

Almost, he corrects himself, reestablishing a sense of calm and control.

Time to grab a mo-fo.

James signals the others that someone, or some-thing, is bopping down the hallway from the right, making enough noise to be heard through the plastic shroud of the gas mask- pretty clear evidence that the subject doesn't have the faintest inkling that intruders are lurking just around the corner. The Grey Cell point man cocks his head and reaches questioningly towards Durand's holstered taser. The former FBI man is currently in the best spot to use the non-lethal device, but if the Frenchman would rather take the shot, James will step aside and shift into a covering position.

-
This message was last edited by the player at 17:23, Sun 31 Dec 2017.

Durand had placed himself closer to the rear of the stack, thinking that Choi's skill set was best suited to taking point and Williams had the materials and training that would be required if they needed to breach entry anywhere, but that now left him ill suited to utilise the taser that nestled in a holster attached to an MLBE loop on the front of his plate carrier vest.

Lifting his right hand off the trigger guard of his rifle, the Frenchman reaches for the taser and eases it out of the holster so that he can hand it off to Choi. It will take less time and should be quieter than the tactical ballet that would be required to use it himself.

Once the taser has been passed to the American the DGSE Operator uses hand signals to indicate to Martinez that they should split the area ahead into two arcs, with Durand taking the right and the PJ the left. The Frenchman then brings his rifle up, his hand returning to the trigger guard although he keeps his finger off the actual trigger wile he waits for Choi to act, conscious that there are a lot of friendly bodies in a relatively small and enclosed space and the gas mask is limiting his field of view, so if he does need to start shooting for any reason it will be with single shots at carefully selected targets.

The team spreads out as much as the hallway allows, muzzles coming up in a whisper of incipient firefight.  On point, James steadies the X2.  His eyes flicker down the tile, measuring out the 21 feet that are the maximum range of the weapon's probes.  He glides forward until he's within range, then freezes in place.

Waits.

The squeak of rubber on tile grows louder, accompanied by the sound of footsteps.  Then two feet, clad in new white Converse sneakers and resting on metal pedals, slide into view.  The rest of the wheelchair rolls forward around the corner and pivots smoothly toward Grey Cell, then abruptly halts as it fills James' sight picture.

The man in the wheelchair is on the far side of eighty, dressed in cargo pants and a white guayabera shirt.  He's as bald as a cartoon vulture, and the right side of his face has the melted-wax slumping stiffness that tells of at least one severe stroke in his medical file.  But his good left eye focuses intently on the team.

The man pushing the chair is no more than a decade younger, with unkempt white hair that halos his face .  He wears khaki pants and a New Mexico Tech T-shirt.  He smoothly brakes the wheelchair's left wheel with the toe of his leather sandal, then raises his hands.

Dacovetti tenses, watching the exchange of the taser take place out of his peripheral vision, attention focused instead on his assigned sector.  The first beads of sweat are forming inside the assorted collection of plastic polymers making up the gas mask protecting his respiratory tract from the unknown hazards in the environment around the team.  If any, of course.  It could all be overkill.  Or it could be an agent so small, some little beast so minute that it could slip through the pores on the filter strapped to his face as easily as walking down a hallway.  Spending any more time thinking about it is pointless, a distraction that reduces immediate survivability far more than anything they've run into so far.

Then the geriatric duo with the wheel chair comes into view.  An explosive combination of a sigh and a chuckle escapes Michael's lips, tension bleeding out in a momentary theater of the absurd.  The variable regarding the levels of medical equipment imported has been solved, he thinks wryly, not quite relaxing.  There is no guarantee that they won't suddenly prove to be some half-Attar genetic thing.  The WASP comes up, thermal scan made and the equally surprised elderly duo proves to be human, the wheel chair, slightly above ambient having absorbed the body heat of its occupant.

The thought comes that this place is either a retirement home for those working with the Attars or working against them.  If it's the latter, the idea crawls up his spine that they may have just led the enemy here.

"Whose side are they on?" he whispers, quietly enough, he supposes, that only Hannah can hear.

When his thermal sight registers no anomalies that might indicate that either of the two senior citizens is an Attar Durand allows the barrel of his rifle to lower so that it is no longer pointing directly at either of them.

He can feel a trickle of sweat run down his forehead under the respirator, hear the sound of his own breathing. Maybe they have called this one wrong. Maybe there is an innocent explanation for what's going on here. Maybe. And Durand has just called in the QRF. Are they about to invade sovereign Belize territory to storm something that's nothing more than a retirement facility whose residents happen to be hyper serious about their security and privacy?

Not for the first time since he joined Grey Cell, the operator wonders if this is the moment that his career just ended. He wasn't overly concerned for himself. He'd never sought high rank with the DGSE, for that required playing too many political games, knew that he could get options in the private sector that paid three of four times what the French Government did. But he was bothered for his team. And Kowalska and Crewe. He owed the Attars for what they'd done to them.

For one surreal moment he's tempted to say take me to your leader, instead glances over at Martinez, his shoulders wrinkling into the briefest of shrugs before turning his attention back to the two senior citizens again, watching to see what happens.

James would have been less surprised if it had been a 10-foot-tall xenomorph queen in the hallway. The two old men momentarily throw him for a loop. It feels like ten seconds pass, but it's really just under one.

"Hands up! Let me see your hands!" He's having trouble modulating the volume of his voice- he doesn't want to make a lot of noise, but he needs to be heard through the respirator mask. Two old dudes' lives may depend on it.

Thankfully, the senior citizens comply. If they look as surprised as James is, their expressions are closer to annoyed than afraid.

"You!" he says pointing at the standing man with the taser. "Come here! You," he begins, making eye contact with the man in the wheelchair, "Don't move." The situation is too fraught to enjoy the subtle irony of the order.

James passes the ambulatory case back to his companions. Then he circles around behind the wheel chair and steers it around the corner, exposing his back to the corridor for a brief, asshole-puckering couple of seconds. He hands the taser back to Durand and draws his pistol, before peeking back around the corner. All clear.

"NPC, cover the corner." James figures his interrogation skills are about to be called into play. A pure shooter can cover the rest of the team for now.

Fuck this thing, he thinks, removing helmet and then mask. These guys are reading human and Cooper seems to be OK. Beads of sweat roll from forehead to chin. The relatively cool outside the humid confines of the respirator chills his face. It feels good.

"Sorry for being rude, gentlemen, but..." But what, James wonders. What protocols apply in this case? Who the hell knows. Just get to the point. "Special Agent Jim Morrison, FBI hostage rescue team. Who are you and what is this place?"

-
This message was last edited by the player at 01:56, Mon 08 Jan 2018.

Hannah's brow furrowed as their first contact with the enemy turned out to be a couple of geriatric gentlemen.  Her silenced MP7 didn't waver from the targets, even though they appeared to unarmed and surrendering.  She was glad that the men were preoccupied with Choi, who'd taken the lead on any negotiations.  Double Down had found herself almost hyperventilating, the short sharp breaths in time with her racing heartbeat.  The thin army aviatrix had to force herself to take a deep breath, which caused her thin frame to shudder slightly as she exhaled.

Her eyes darted towards Dealer and her head moved slightly in acknowledgement to his query.  Another deep breath followed.  She continued to view the pair through her thermal sights, which gave no anomolous heat signatures on the two elderly gentlemen.  Or their wheelchair.  But then she tried to defocus her sight and relax her mind.  It was a work in progress as the adrenaline pumping through her system was trying to do the exact opposite with her senses.

Double Down knew that there was plenty of background noise and that her special awareness wasn't very reliable, but she knew that she had to try as well.  It was one of the reasons that she was down here and not piloting the group's getaway vehicle.  Part of her longed for the bygone days when all she had to worry about was guiding her chopper into a crowded market square with only a meter of space to spare.  Under fire.

Her leg throbbed sympathetically for a moment.  Allowing her to latch onto that feeling and ride it.  The pulsations were given purpose and pushed outward as Hannah softly intoned, "Who are you?  ... Really...."

---

[OOC:  If allowed (not sure how any of this should work, really), Hannah will try to use her Awareness to see if the two gentlemen have... uh ... alien ties...]
This message was last edited by the player at 00:34, Wed 10 Jan 2018.

The elderly men do not resist as James separates them.  At his self-introduction, however, a flicker of alarm passes across the standing subject's face.  It's so quick that James would miss it if he weren't so intent on the interrogation.  Miss it before it hardens into defiance.  "You're outside your jurisdiction, Special Agent," he growls.  He squints at James' face, then adds softly in heavily-accented Korean, "Neo domabaem wang-i aniya. Geulaedo domabaem gisailjido molla."

Behind him, the wheelchair rolls back into view and executes a precise ninety-degree turn, bringing its occupant to face Grey Cell again.  The man in the chair slouches to the right and a trickle of blood runs from his nostril, but his eyes are alert and angry.

Hannah twitches as an electric sensation crackles through her head.  An instant later, there's a tick audible to everyone as... something... happens in the air between James and the standing man.  A puff of momentary breeze ruffles James' hair.

To Hannah's senses - it's more a sense in her visual cortex than anything she sees with her eyes - a silvery-blue lattice materializes, spanning the hallway with interlinked hexagonal cells no more than a quarter-inch across.  There's none of the searing near-painful actinic purple she's perceived from the space dwarves' powers.  This manifestation thrums with power, but it's almost something she can reach out and manipulate herself.

The man in the wheelchair rotates his left hand upward.  Held between his thumb and forefinger is a two-inch dodecagon of dark jade.  To Hannah's inner sight, it pulses with the same power - and its holder's eyes glow with it, too.

"Need to go, Mark," the man in the wheelchair slurs.  Then his eyes fix on Hannah.  Dart to Cooper.  Back to Hannah.  His anger fades into something halfway between suspicion and wonder.  "Belay that.  Young lady, who sent you down here?"

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
And you're no lizard king.  You may be a lizard knight, though.

---

Cooper (NPC'd) winces at the tick and shakes his head, as if croggled by a sudden change of pressure in his inner ear.  His weapon twitches toward the man in the chair, then deflects slightly to not quite cover the man's forehead.  He takes a step forward, coming up on Hannah's other side.  "You're seeing that too, right?" he whispers.

Hannah's eyes darted in Cooper's direction, and she gave a slight nod to his query.  "Yup." was all she said in response, her eyes never leaving the corridor or the two elderly men.  She was still trying to figure out if she actually believed what she was 'seeing'.

She forced herself to take a deep breath to try and slow her heart rate.  Her eyes darted to the display of power from Mark, the gentleman engaged in the figurative pissing match with James.  The audible pulse was an assault on her senses on three different fronts.

Her weapon didn't waver, still trained on the man in the wheelchair - even though Mark seemed more willing to directly engage.  There was something about the other man.  Something ...  Then the wheelchair bound man addressed her directly, forcing Double Down to blink for a moment.  And she recognized it, the deference and the cadence.  Mark wasn't a simple orderly, the man in the wheelchair was in charge.  And military.  Hannah wracked her brain to see if the two men might match any of the old photos of the other members - 'missing' or 'dead' - of Observation Squadron Fifty-Four.

She rolled the dice.  "Commander Ceelen sends his regards." Double Down answered after a deep breath and a pregnant pause.  Her blue-green eyes peered up over the thermal sights on her MP7, but the gun barrel never wavered from its position.  "Someone just tried to kill him; he figured the site was likely compromised ..."  It was a slight prevarication, but the auburn-haired pilot wasn't going to completely tip her hand.

Durand glances at his watch. It’s only been four minutes since they parted company with Vidry’s team. Four minutes during which they have somehow or other stepped into some sort of twilight zone. The Frenchman still isn’t sure precisely what’s going on but whatever it is he’s no longer sure that bringing in the QRF is a good idea.

”Dealer.” the DGSE Operator says quietly, his eyes watching Hannah’s interaction with the two old guys. ”See if you can get through to the QRF. If you can get through tell them to break off and hold at their present position.” He doesn’t know if their comms will work underground but there’s only one way to find out.

Following Choi’s cue, Durand then begins the process of removing his respirator. After all, neither Williams nor either of the senior citizens appear to be having any difficulties, so it was reasonable to presume that the gas masks were no longer required. It requires him taking his helmet off first, which would surely make the alien circlet that he’s wearing visible to anyone that happened to look in his direction. He doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that the circlet had done nothing at the sound of the tick. Probably the former.

It takes a moment or so to remove the mask, replace it in its pouch, then don the circlet and helmet again. When that process has been completed Durand keys his throat mic, trying to establish contact with Vidry. ”Leopard Frog from Bullfrog, how copy over?”

Vidry answers almost immediately. OK, at least the comms between teams are still intact. There’s a brief pause as Durand composes his message. ”Sitrep. No sign of any opposition so far.” Another pause before he continues. ”Tu ne vas pas le croire. Nous avons rencontré deux vieux gars. Les retraités. Un dans un fauteuil roulant. Nous essayons de mettre la QRF en attente.” What people would believe or not believe in Grey Cell was a relative term of course. They could take shapechanging aliens in their stride but two American senior citizens was entirely another matter. The switch to his and Vidry’s native language is partly instinctive, partly an attempt to prevent the two senior citizens from eavesdropping. Not that he knows whether they can speak French or not of course. ”Any activity at your end?”

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
You’re not going to believe this. We’ve met two old guys. Pensioners. One in a wheelchair. We’re trying to put the QRF on hold

---

Between being addressed in his ancestral tongue, and the strange energy discharge, James finds himself pretty much gobsmacked. He resists the urge to fall back on his FBI training, responding with, "Answer the question". That would likely be counter-productive, at this point. Instead, James elects to keep his mouth shut, allowing Omdahl's promising intervention to run its course.

-

There are a few moments of the stand-off where Michael's brain runs a "does not compute" sequence that doesn't quite leave the airman paralyzed, but does leave him wondering just what Grey Cell has managed to step into this time.  Just which bizarre unforeseen permutation of reality are they currently inhabiting?  One with aliens invaders?  One with psychics?  All of the above, mixed in with angry geriatrics?  It's enough to leave a man's brain with a permanent BSOD.  Thankfully, Dacovetti has orders.  First things first, he dumps the gas mask.  If all of his friends want to die from unknown biohazards, why should he be any different?

A quick tap of the fingers on his radio's detachable face-plate adjusts the current frequency set and launches him over to the UHF radio band.  The direct control frequencies are usually point to point.  This far underground, he's not sure he'll get much of anything, but if he can't the pair of professional killers guarding their back should be able to.

"Archangel, Archangel, Empire Three, how do you read?"  A screech of static overcoming the squelch setting comes blasting back into Michael's ear. A sound containing something, that might, might, be a radio transmission.  "Archangel, Empire has you broken and unreadable.  If you can copy my message, break off your approach and hold current position.  Repeat, hold current position, do not attack."   Another blast of static breaks squelch. The weight of the radio shifts with a shrug of Michael's shoulders.  "If you copy to hold position, break squelch twice."  This time, two faint breaks come through the radio.  Followed by a few more random clicks, pops, and hisses.

"Best guess?" he says to Seb, "they're holding.  But I'm wouldn't take the bet if we were gambling for real money.  This is farther underground that these radios are designed for."

"Tout est calme ici," Vidry reports.  "Nous avons entendu la transmission du concessionnaire et nous relayerons à la QRF."

The two elderly men stare intently at Hannah.  They say nothing, but to James and Sébastien, their body language strongly suggests that some sort of communication is passing between them.  Hannah and Cooper can almost assense it - a subliminal whisper in the ether.

As Sébastien removes his helmet, both men's attention snaps to him, their faces tightening in surprise.  Hannah feels another flicker of information pass between the men.  Then the standing one's stance changes just a bit: still suspicious, but no longer prepared for imminent violence.  "You are in way the fu--"  His eyes dart to Hannah again.  "Way over your heads," he continues.  "If Ceelen really sent you, you wouldn't have come in blind.  So something happened to him and you got just enough information to find us."  He pauses and James can see him scrutinizing the intruders for microexpressions that confirm his suspicion.

The man in the wheelchair speaks up again with a faint, lopsided smile.  "Whatever you think you came to find, this is not it.  You really need to go away and report that you found nothing more than a retirement home for offensively rich, eccentric expatriates."  There's an almost physical force behind his words, compelling obedience.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
All is quiet here.  We heard Dealer's transmission and will relay to the QRF.

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 13:23, Sat 13 Jan 2018.

"Unf."  Cooper's (NPC'd) off-hand comes off his gun in a reflexive warding motion.  "Mate, you really need to not do whatever the fuck that was," he warns the man in the wheelchair, taking a step forward to bring his muzzle even with the invisible line in the air.
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:23, Sat 13 Jan 2018.

James' impatience wins out. "Your Jedi Mind Tricks won't work on us," he blurts out, realizing as he does so that he's talking out of his ass. Well, if his butt has already bounced the check, his mouth might was well add a few more zeroes. "We didn't come all the way out here to turn around, run home, and bury our heads in the sand. Why don't you tell us what the fuck this place really is, and then we can decide for ourselves how in over our heads we really are here."

-
This message was last edited by the player at 20:08, Sat 13 Jan 2018.

Durand's rifle is still pointed downwards. More or less. The tension feels tangible to the Frenchman. And is being fuelled by the sense that these dudes seem to be communicating with each other mentally. Something had happened. He had felt it briefly affect his vision, could taste something unfamiliar in his mouth. It had to be the circlet. Although whether it's granting him any particular protection from what Choi just called Jedi mind tricks is hard to say. After all, neither Choi nor Cooper seem to be affected either and neither of them are wearing alien circlets around their heads. The tinfoil? Really?

"Easy, everybody." The Frenchman's voice is low. His comment is at least partly addressed to the two old guys. He's also trying to watch how Dealer, Double Down, and Martinez are reacting. Just in case any of them do feel compelled to follow the old man's instructions.

"Maybe you're right." He's talking to the two old guys now. Choi's given them bad cop. Durand's trying to give them good cop. Or at least reasonable cop. "But think about it. If we can find out about this place and find our way down here then the chances are so can other people. I think you know who I'm talking about. You want to face them on your own and rely on mind tricks to protect yourselves? Or do you want to work with us?"

The Frenchman's eyes flick to Dacovetti. "Dealer, you want to draw your new weapon?" It's intended as a show of force, the circlet and the energy pistol both visible demonstrations that Grey Cell have seen faced their enemy. And won. Durand had heard an American Marine he'd served with in Afghanistan call it 'seeing the elephant.' Well they'd seen the elephant, had the scars to prove it. And the kills.

"Oh, and gentlemen, if you don't mind, let's have all the conversations in the open? My name is Sébastien Durand. This is a NATO operation. I'm in the French Army." That was the one thing that he'd said that was a lie. But if these guys were ex military he figured it might be a better option than I'm with French Intelligence.

"And you are?"
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Sat 13 Jan 2018.

Presumably there is enough firepower in the corridor for Micahel to risk securing his primary weapon on its sling and pulling forth the plasma pistol from the modified drop-holster on his right leg.  His hands move slowly with deliberate calm and he doesn't point the weapon directly at the two men, more to to avoid looking through the eye-searing optic than to appear less threatening.

"This little weapon says 'hello' from the Crab Nebula," he says.  It's as good as any origin theory as any at the moment.

The man in the wheelchair sags back, seemingly exhausted.  His companion half-turns to him but he makes a go on motion with the hand that's apparently responding to his will at the moment.  "Scraps," he slurs, eyes fixed on the weapon in Michael's hand.  "You're scavengin' whs'left.  W'means they're active 'gain."

"Shit."  The standing man is leaning forward again, body language saying he's ready for a fight if the answers he gets aren't to his liking.  "Okay, son, you say 'NATO,' but that doesn't explain the psychic digger."  He jerks his chin at Cooper.  "And the enemy of my enemy isn't necessarily my friend.  No offense."  A humorless smile flits across his face.  "There's a lot of people who'd love to get their hands on us even if they aren't on good terms with our alien space brothers."

"So, monsieur Durand.  I'm Mark Branham.  Commander, US Navy, retired, ARPA, retired.  And NATO is not in my chain of command, so I'd really like a SITREP on Admiral Frye and Commander Ceelen and what the hell's happening with the Policy Liaison Group."

OOC: The Policy Liaison Group is Vest's office.  As he indicated in #345 of this thread: "he U.S. Navy intelligence component charged with monitoring current alien activity on Earth and maintaining security for Navy personnel who were involved in contact or research during the last period of incursions."

Choi's impatience is in danger of boiling over. He was raised to respect his elders- filial piety is an integral piece of Korean culture. But there's no time to play games here. He's lost one too many teammates to give two shits about manners and etiquette right now. And talking to these old men is like talking to a wrinkly, sassy-as-fuck brick wall. He takes a deep breath: in through the nose (four-count); hold (four-count); exhale from the mouth (four-count). Better, but only just a bit.

"Someone's..." James starts, but then cuts himself off. "No! Extra terrestrials are assassinating your old coworkers. Admiral Fyre- murdered in a parking lot; Captain Albinson- in a fucking coma. The doctors removed an alien implant from his head; Celeen, we rescued him from a Russian hit squad working for the E.T.s. Miss Darnell Hawkins- we saved her from an alien drone. So, who's the enemy, Commander? We represent the people of earth. Who do you work for? This ain't no retirement home. What is this place and what are you doing here?"

-
This message was last edited by the player at 20:05, Sun 21 Jan 2018.