The fleet pulls free of their holding locks, and moves one by one through the openings of Space Station Freedom hangers and enters space. Both the Vulture and the Hyena are amongst the fleet as they too leave the safety of Freedom Station.

 As the crew of the Vulture brings the dropship to their assigned coordinates for the first fleet spacefold. The count can be heard over the fleet intercoms as the Gambit announces the fold operations.

  It’s a subtle feeling at first then you know you have folded, and have the next forty six hours to kill. You each take turns hitting your bunks playing cards and whatever it was you brought with you onto the Vulture to entertain yourselves.

The pilot and co-pilot rotate taking turns getting rack time. There  is minimal activity on the bridge and even the engines are on idle as the Gambits fold bubble encompasses the fleet.

    When the fleet defolds, the radio comes to life, even on the Vulture the Veritech Pilots sit in their Mecha ready for the pod doors to open so they can launch.  Vypers Squadron is first out and make a parameter, their chat is light, but minimal as the fleet runs through system checks, including the crew of the Vulture.  An hour later the radio comes to life; “Gambit CIC, to Vulture you are to proceed on mission to these coordinates” (Enter coordinates here).

  With the new coordinates entered the Pilot moves the Vulture to a safe distance before speaking to the crew; “All right ladies and gentlemen, put your trays and seat in your upright positions.”  The co-pilot speaks; “fold in ten…. Nine…. Eight… seven… six… five…. Four… three…. Two….. One…. Commence Fold…."  Like before you fold. And the feeling tingles your stomachs for several minutes. You have sixteen hours before the next procedure.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:05, Sun 21 June 2015.

  The moments pass and you find yourself in transit.

Doshi becoming board with little to do with his time, so he walks over to Lt. Cerise room. As he knocks on the door and announces himself from outside. "Lt. Morimoto Ma'am. Do you have a quick minute?" Doshi really wouldn't visit her if he could avoid it, but since they are just hours away he's wondering what's the patrol orders and if she has gotten any more information on their first mission.

"Sure, while we're in fold space I'm not needed for communications, since no signals can get through."

   With little to do, Michelle sits in the cockpit of her alpha, staring at instrument panels and waiting for the time to pass. she leans back her head and pulls her legs up into a fetal position before putting her head to her knees.

 She hides there until the defold or is interrupted.

  Sitting at the table with the others at the table She listens to stories from her teammates about this or that. She tells them about her home world and how she decided to join the UEEF and talks about her mate Fillon and how he is serving on another fleet, and how she was looking forward to explore earth with him after the war.

In reply to Cerise (msg # 4):

"Thank you for seeing me Lt Cerise. I was just wondering if you have received our first mission package and wanted to know if there was anything special I should know before we get out of folded space?"
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 15:55, Tue 23 June 2015.

Miriana made her way to Lt. Cerice's room with her notes under her arm, and knocked on the door to see if she was there, and to be allowed entrance if she was.

OCC: The GM can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, now that we're in the Vulture and folding around, there are no doors, per se, except, perhaps some bulkheads for damage control: Horizons are relatively small drop ships. My understanding is that we have bunks and/or hammocks that we hot-rack in and our duty stations, with little room for anything else.

GM Note: this is correct.

"I haven't yet received any specifics, except that our first mission will be a performance test to give us a chance to learn to cooperate and heat treat any unintended folds. I believe it will be a competitive effort against the Hyena and her complement." As her other squad leader approaches, Cerise finishes her statement in an inclusive way, making sure they both can hear. "Lt. Thakun, Lt. Morimoto was just inquiring as to what information I have received regarding the nature of our first mission. Since you are both here, we could have an impromptu team leadership meeting, however, as I do not yet have any mission specifics, I do not think we can plan much at this time.
Do either of you have anything you'd like to discuss? Or anything to bring to my attention?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:13, Wed 24 June 2015.

OOC: I have no clue. I read Doshi 'knocked on your door' so i did as well and that was my only reasoning. Still, even a small ship would have a special room for the commander to work in without distractions so...

Miriana gave a quick nod in response.

- "Yes, i currently am not yet aware of the strengths and weaknesses of those assigned to Banshee squadron. Had we more time i'd hit the sims for some group maneuver sessions but alas... The reason i came to your room was because i have a basic idea for that satellite you requested of me earlier, before the fold."

She looked at Doshi, who had arrived before she had.

- "Would this be convenient time?"

In reply to Miriana Thakun (msg # 10):

If it's ok with you guys, ... I mean Lts. I like to stick around for this.

"Great, Lt. Morimoto, I would like you to be apprised of this piece of equipment as well. I just had no idea the initial designs would be ready so quickly. And, yes, Lt. Thakun, now owuld be an excellent time; let's see what you've come up with."

- "Well, i've not had much time so the idea is still very basic."

Miriana spread out a large paper depicting a crude drawing of a satellite.

- "No weapons due to not being intended for combat of course, and a long range scanner. I figured we could use the communications link between it and the ground teams so the ground teams and the Vulture could request images, and of course it would send the Vulture and the ground teams an alarm if anything shows up without proper FoF designation."

She pointed to a small part at the top of the satellite, with some arrows and Zetraedi text scribbled hastily next to it.

- "Now, the problem was the self destruct device. Bombs are... random in not always destroying the parts that you want them to, and acid does not always work in space, which restricted my choices there between going for something intricate using a chemical formula that ensured complete dissolution of its entire interior... or going for something much, much simpler."

She moves to point at the notes she had made regardless if any of them could actually read Zentraedi -- if they couldn't, they would match what she was about to say anyway, making translating a moot point.

- "Once it receives the order to self destruct, it turns around and uses the propulsion rockets it has to head for the planet's surface, and to keep on burning fuel until there is none left. The trick here is that we do not use any kind of heat shielding, causing most if not all of the satellite to burn up during atmospheric entry. Furthermore, if we place the black box used for information retrieval between these rockets and make it so the autodestruct command disables all interior heat sinks within its design, even if it were to be retrieved the heat would melt the black box beyond all forms of usability even if it were to be intercepted and kept from burning up during reentry by whatever means."

Finished with her presentation, she stood up straight again, looking at Cerise.

- "We would basically forget several of the lessons any Engineering student in their first year would be thoroughly drilled never to forget, and we would be doing so on purpose."

Cerise looks at the notes and clearly spends the time to read them.
"Using a planet's atmosphere as a means of self destruct is very ingenuitive, however it doesn't entirely fit my use case.
My plan for this device is to drop one or more of them at the edge of a system before we make our way inward to explore the various planets within. We would then send our communications to it, and it would then relay them, via fold space, to the rest of the fleet. In this way, the enemy would have to locate this device and monitor it in order to detect where our communications eventually are headed. The self destruct's purpose is to avoid it being monitored in such a way.
So, you see, this device will not, ideally, be near a planet, much less one with an atmosphere. I suspect that thermite, which provides its own oxygenation, on key systems, perhaps with an explosive charge to disperse the remains, would fit the bill sufficiently for this purpose.
I believe it would be best to remove the long term data storage components; since this is simply a relay, it only needs to pass an already encrypted signal along; it doesn't need to store it any longer than it takes to do so.
I do like the idea of it having sensors with FoF intel, so that it can report to us that it may be compromised.

Lt. Morimoto, do you have any thoughts on this? I understand that you are rated for electronic warfare operations; perhaps you have some ideas of how such a device could be attacked, and how to counter such attacks?"

Miriana frowned, rubbing her chin in thought as she listened to Cerise's feedback.

- "...So you'd be looking for something more akin to a surveillance drone rather than a satellite? Hmm..."

She looked at the sketch intently and it was clear she was trying to mentally envision changes to it to fit the same purpose, but before carrying on she waited for Doshi's opinion as well after Cerise asked him.

In reply to Cerise (msg # 14):

Doshi eyes widen he knows they are not going to like what he's about to say, but if he doesn't then its he's fault for not coming out with it.

"Well, ... I don't want to be the said hump that brings everything down, .... BUT I think first thing is Shadow Tech. My understanding is that the enemy can track all our stuff so if were not using shadow tech this all seems nice, .... BUT .... it's not going to work, .... Well I don't think its going to work."

He looks at their faces hoping not to be yield at, sometimes 'teckies' can be very sentimental with there work. And he really hates to stick it (well maybe not this time) with orders and reminding a senior officer but hell what's the worst that can happen .. ?

"If I understood the commander's orders nothing gets back to the fleet, so I figure communication back is going to be restricted. We search, record, and if necessary destroy and make sure were alone when we get back. I mean I know that sounds so simple, but maybe its meant to be."

     Doshi takes a deep breath, this is the biggie, I mean this can really set the Lt. off and with MY big mouth its sure to be bad.

"If this is something that's going to happen, .... I be honest unless completely field tested and approved by command, .... I'm not interest in being the guinea pig."

Doshi seems to always end up with his typical in stress mode facial ticks, ... He give that smile of his and his wink, as if all is going to be ok, and there's no need to really be upset, ... right? S@#T probably not.

"Sounds really cool though, can be use as a delay transmissions if everything is clear and safe, ... and it can be used as a focus point for recon mission in case we go out of range from each other." Trying to save his ass, "I'm not really good a this stuff, ...." He lets out a finial deep breath as if he feels he made it through, .... or did he?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:18, Tue 23 June 2015.

"Well, if by enemy, you are referring to the Invid; they can indeed track protoculture powered equipment. However, they have shown a near-blindness, at least at long range, to non-protoculture powered devices. This leads me to my next suggestion: this should be powered by a battery, as opposed to protoculture. Given the limited nature of its mission, it should not have great power requirements. As for nothing going back to the fleet; my impression was that nothing that could lead the enemy back to the fleet was to go, if an enemy was present; I am not aware of any capability that allows anyone to trace a fold-space communication to its destination if they don't have control of its origin. But, perhaps you are correct in that. At any rate, once we have a more concrete design, I'll be submitting it up the chain to seek approval for its use on our missions.
I'm not entirely certain what being a rodent has to do with this, but I assume that, if command likes the idea, someone will have to field test it; it seems as likely as not that that would be recon units like ours."

Miriana shrugged in response.

- "Well if they are to be dropped off rather than have them position themselves it should be simple. Forgo the engines, run it all on batteries and have an internal heat sink so the whole thing won't even show up on an IR scan even with the FoF gear and LR scanners in it. The heat sink won't be able to absorb heat forever without needing to vent, but we can play around with the number of heat sinks until we end up with something that's operational for as long as our missions last. And because it's virtually impossible to detect as long as the insulated heat sinks aren't up to capacity we could pick it up just as easily since only we would know where to find the damn things."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:52, Tue 23 June 2015.

Kaarle is currently at his veritech checking and re-checking all of his equipment, working with the maintenance crew to confirm everything is in proper working order so that he is ready to deploy at a moments notice.

OOC - Not sure what else I should be doing except killing time lol
This message was last edited by the player at 23:04, Tue 23 June 2015.

Iphigenia decided that she would go through and make sure that all of her medical equipment was operational and to her standards and when that was finished, she would go mingle with the rest of the crew.

  As Iphigenia joins the group, Sillia smiles and welcomes her to the conversations. "Where have you been hiding?"

This message was deleted by the player at 23:54, Wed 24 June 2015.

Iphigenia acknowledges Sillia with a smile, walks up to her, asks her if she could sit in the empty chair next to her and begins telling her and any who is nearby that she has been in the medical bay going over everything to make sure its in good working order and that everything is too her standards.

In reply to Miriana Thakun (msg # 18):

"Yes, that is along the lines I was thinking of; small, difficult to detect, and limited purpose. Go ahead and draw up some final plans; perhaps get some of the other technically minded squad members to give their input as well. Then I'll take it to command to see if they like the idea. Obviously don't spend resources building this thing unless they do." Cerise smiles. "And thanks for both of your input. It has been, and will be valuable. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get past you two so I can go check on how things are going with everyone else." Cerise turns to the pilot while she awaits a pathway clear enough that she can squeeze by out of the cockpit area and back to the bunk area (aka hallway). "Sergeant Swift, I am going to go check out the equipment and personnel. I will be sure to be back at my station when we leave fold space."

After she gets back to the bunk area she addresses all the combat types back there "Ok, I know that being on a Horizon class ship with a fold system is a whole new ballgame for me; I'm sure it is for most of you as well. Well, something else that is different about this one, at least compared to the old Horizon-Ts that we've all ridden in is; this one has weapons systems! So, we'll need to work out a rotation for who gets to be on weapons duty on which shifts. Everyone who has quals on ship's weapon systems will be in rotation. Since I haven't drawn up the rotation yet, though I'd like two volunteers." Cerise obviously assumes that anyone and everyone would rather have something to do than be sitting around doing nothing in cramped quarters that make Earth's WWI submarines seems like palatial mansions.

OOC: I don't know who has the Weapons Systems skill, since I'm just a player and can't see all your char sheets ;), but Cerise should have records of everyone's official qualifications, so she'd draw up the rotation based on that.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:52, Wed 24 June 2015.

Miriana nodded in response. A small craft then, with a thermite detonator on the inside and the outside of it made to look like debris from a space battle. Heck, when the thermite would go off it would probably look like scrap on the inside as well. Regardless, she had been working for quite a bit of time on the plans, so a little rest was in order.

- "Right then. Not much of a Weapon Systems specialist but i've got Engineering degrees on damn near anything in the fleet. Reflex Systems, Protoculture, field armor, weapons, Robotech... even the starships themselves. And i can salvage what little i can't repair into parts to fix what i can. In other words... wake me when something breaks."

She gave the others a small wave before heading to one of the bunks and settling in to get some sleep, not even waiting to see who would be volunteering for first shift. Unless anyone moved to stop her, she'd be fast asleep five minutes later.