"I didn't say you were in command, Hammer, you are not.  I was asking your opinion."

Then Cor speaks out again.  "Very well, priority has shifted.  Primary priority is to rendezvous with Ten, Five and CC9.  I am sending location blips to the entire team showing where Ten and Five are, based on their droids' positions.  Meet with them there.  Ten, Five, keep your droids close until the team is fully assembled."

Blips appear on any Talons' datapads showing a place a block from the hotel - two blips.

"Move out immediately and advise when you have regrouped."

"CC9 advises concern over new voices in this comms system.  My apologies, Ten and Five.  Hammer and Doc are authorised to speak on this channel for the duration of the crisis.  They are the potential recruits you intended to interview.  The third voice belongs to the third potential recruit, whom I shall now assign the callsign 'Knife'.  Talons comms are still secure, within those parameters."

"Alright, people. Let's get on moving, then. We head towards the spaceport and rendezvous on the way there. Then, the swoops will conduct recon in pairs. Once we have the intelligence, we make our move. Hammer, Doc, Knife - welcome to the party."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:52, Mon 17 Feb 2014.

"Two or Seven, Doc here. Perhaps one of you should give us the coordinates as well. I will try to keep up with your bikes, but in case we get separated, it would be good for us to know the new target location. Lets move out!"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:45, Mon 17 Feb 2014.

"Five, remain where you are until the others can reach you.  A static meeting point is easier to find than a moving one and we know that your location is relatively clear."

"Eleven, is the situation still peaceful enough for us to wait? I would prefer securing you and our ship. I've asked my M4 to plot a course so that the others can join us enroute."

"How about a compromise?  The hospital is closer to the spaceport then the hotel.  Perhaps we meet out the front?  Security won't let you in but we can come out as soon as you arrive?"

"Doc here. While I agree a static rendezvous point would usually be better than a moving one, I must remind you of my… lacking driving skills. It will doubtlessly take us far longer to reach the hotel than it would with someone more skilled behind the controls." Dohr realized he didn't know Vyn's call sign… "So if Five has a ride, it might be faster for him to come meet us, just like… Vyn said."

"Five, I see you have ignored my advice to keep your M4 close to you," Cor says in an entirely calm voice, "so I am disabling its location blip to prevent the rest of the team heading in the wrong direction."  One of the blips disappears from the datapads.  The other, for now, remains steady.  "The situation at the spaceport remains unchanged - hostilities have ceased for now, though they will probably resume at some point.  Vyn, my advice to meet away from the hospital was related to hospital traffic and hospital safety.  I have no desire to cause congestion, nor to indicate to the gangs that the hospital may be a secure place for enemy forces to congregate, as that may make it a valid target."

There's the sound of Cor taking a deep breath.  "I would rather not die for the sake of a squabble.  Please move out.  Now."

"M4-Five, get back. Two, estimated time for arrival at Ten's current location. Eleven, keep me posted on the situation at the spaceport", Five blasted away like a repeating blaster. Whether he was irked or not did not carry over the comms, but the words sounded militarily enough to point him out as a professional soldier. "And while you are estimating the ETA, get mobile."

"Eleven, moving out now for Five's position.  Five, will keep you updated of our route and progress."

"Seven, why don't you take point, I'll bring up the rear.  Vyn, keep Five apprised of our route."

"Acknowledged, Two.  Once you regroup you will have the combined skillsets of almost the entire team, plus whatever our new friends can offer."  There's a frantic tapping of keys.  "Update: R2-A9 has patched into the local security network.  There is only so much I can do without alerting security to the breach but at least I can get a better view of what is going on outside.  The attack has recommenced but they are restricting themselves to light arms use - nothing heavier than a heavy blaster rifle."  She makes a thoughtful sound.  "I do not think they are trying to get in, just trying to keep the security force busy.  Which makes me wonder if they are not waiting for someone to arrive."

She continues without a pause.  "While you are travelling I will explain.  I need you all together because the timing of this will be essential.  Five, your ground coordination skills will be ideal for the task; you will be controlling the timing.  Seven and Ten, when they arrive I want the two of you to quickly assess all vehicles for damage and determine whether they can be used further or need to be replaced.  We need vehicles that can move quickly and take a few hits without exploding.  We no longer have time to negotiate with the gangs so our path must be more straightforward.  Here is what I want you to do.

"On local civilian maps there is a law enforcement station about two minutes from Ten and Five's current position.  I have no doubt it has already been attacked but I want a team to head there and find out if there is anything worth scavenging.  Explosives and long-range arms are best, particularly grenades, gas or smoke grenades if possible.  If there is nothing to find I want a team to rig up a speeder-bomb.  If you can set it to explode mostly out one side and to create the biggest smokescreen possible then all the better.  CC9, your explosives programming will help with that.

"The gangs have two main barricades from which they assault the spaceport, both on the front approach.  We will bomb them - with gas and smoke if possible, with fragmentation damage if not.  Gas and smoke take much longer to disperse than flak and will hamper the target even if they take cover.

"Once we know what we have to work with, we will know better how we can hit them and how hard.  I want both bunker points hit simultaneously, creating a thick screen to hide behind.  Once it is up I want the entire team to drive straight through the spaceport's front doors; I will let them know you are coming when the time is right so that they will retreat from the explosions and let you through."

She pauses for a moment.  Then she continues, "We do not have the arms to hold a protracted firefight with enthusiastic gang members who may or may not have grenades of their own, and I do not want even one of you neutralised so we will not give them time to use their weaponry.  Ideally the bunkers should be bombed from above and a speeder-bomb towed and released right in front of the gangs, with the non-combatant vehicles positioned to head straight into the spaceport when the chaos is at its thickest.  Even if you can only use one jury-rigged speeder-bomb it should create enough strife to get you in.

"Five, this is crucial.  I am relying on you.  They will not fall for this twice.  Everyone needs to get through into the spaceport under the one diversion so we need fast-moving vehicles that are not going to fall apart under blaster fire, even if you have to weld scrap metal to them.  Whichever swoops are bombing or towing need to be ready for a fast pass and then they need to turn around and get the hell through that spaceport gate.  We need our best pilots behind the controls of each vehicle and everybody else needs to be ready to fight if this whole thing goes belly-up."

After a pause she says, "Doc, Hammer, Knife: I do not know your skillsets.  Alert Five and Two as to your abilities and help as you see most fit.  Even if you choose not to stay with our outfit we will take you with us off-world and drop you on any nearby neutral planet you would prefer to go to."

"Hey, once we're IN the spaceport, are we planning to stick around for a bit or skip town straight away?"

"Eleven, keep feeding us the data while we're enroute. And Seven, we will assess the situation once we're at the spaceport and have the control of our ship."

The bigger question is how will spaceport security act?  You've just seen a speeder bomb explode and now another speeder is closing on you at high speed.  Odds are they'll open fire on us.

"As I said, Knife, I will explain the plan to them when the time is right.  If they refuse to listen then I will advise you of that and we will adjust the plan accordingly."

Yes you did Eleven. I was merely speculating on how they will respond. These are not trained military personnel. Panic or a stray shot is all it would take to have them firing on us.

"I think the wisest course would be to trust to their supervisor's ability to assess their own personnel's capacities.  If I get an assurance that the security people will not fire on you then a certain level of trust in their ability would be logical.  They know their force's tendencies.  We do not."

"You're getting ahead of yourself.  The plans sounds goon but there are so many things that can go wrong with this plan to focus on first.  Rigging a 'speeder-bomb' is harder then it sounds, and I know something about explosives.  Then we need to rig them to fly themselves and remote detonate on command.  Then we need to co-ordinate a simultaneous explosion.  We also need to arrange two speeders to slip through.  There's a lot of assumptions in this plan.  We don't even know if we can arrange the hardware."

"Hammer, the speeder-bomb can be pulled with tow ropes and released at the right moment.  We certainly do not have the resources to rig a speeder for remote control, nor did I assume we could.  As for the difficulty in making a speeder-bomb in the first place I suggest you confer with the rest of the team when you regroup because then you will know better what our skillsets are.  Until you understand what skills the team has and what resources we can scrounge the assumptions are as much yours as they are mine."

"That was my point Eleven."

"Then we are thinking along similar lines, Hammer, and that is all to the better."  Cor doesn't sound in the least bit fazed but, then, she rarely does.

"Eleven, Doc here. I fear or rather hope my skills will not be needed too much during the operation. I will not be of much use in building bombs or piloting at great speeds or welding plates of metal to the bikes for that matter. My best abilities lie more in the medical department and in diplomacy. But perhaps contradictorily I also consider myself fairly skilled in melee, light and heavy weapon combat. And like all officers in the Dorian army, I have received intensive training in military strategy."

Dohr dodged a smoking air taxi, checked Rian's position and carried on: "As for the plan, it will probably not go as nicely as you managed to make it sound, but it feels plausible and better yet, it is the only one we have. But I wonder if you would be able to give us some more details on the barricades the insurgents have set up? What are they made of? How far apart are they and what is their distance from the spaceport entrance? And most importantly, do you have any kind of an estimation about the numbers of our opposition?" Oh and since I will not personally be of much use building the bombs, I will join the looting party heading to the ACE station.

"Events rarely pan out smoothly in any aspect of life," Cor comments, "particularly not ones involving fighting.  I doubt there is an individual amongst us who is not aware of that fact.  If you are skilled in light weapons fire and military tactics then certainly you will be of use in searching the law enforcement station, thank you.

"As for the barricades...  The front of the spaceport is set on a wide multi-lane road.  The gangs have set up two barricades on the other side of that road, well in range of a decent blaster, and are using light rubble to hide behind.  There is a gap of perhaps five metres between the two barricades and the space between has been cleared, which makes me think they intend to fill that space with something large and unpleasant.

"I am uncertain how many gang members are in each barricade.  The security camera does not cover that area of ground at the right angle to be certain but I would guess between three and six in each, armed with light blasters and heavy blaster rifles.  This is why I believe a protracted firefight would be inefficient and dangerous.  Distraction and obfuscation is a better option."

"There are a large number of damaged and abandoned speeders throughout the city," CC9 states flatly over the comms.  "It may be possible to adapt speeder power cells to detonate.  They could then be dropped into the barricades from a considerable height by swoop."  There is a pause.

"It would have an additional psychological impact if the detonation devices were strapped to corpses of fallen civilians, and these dropped by swoop on their heads.  It would require team members willing to do so, however."