Eddy came wandering into the room, eating from a box of donuts that he had in one arm.

He stopped, looking surprised at the gathering here, and said,
"A surprise party?    For ME?!?
Oh you guys shouldn't have", looking all coy and mockly.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:46, Fri 02 Sept 2016.

Eddy entered just in time to hear Vosper offer, "Can't we just get a big can of 'Raid' or something? I mean... giant ants?  Really?"

Hearing Sunphoenix, Muldoon was a bit surprised. The young marine's IQ tests were average. Perhaps Lance had an interest in bugs. "Here I was thinking Ozzy was the egg head."

Poco's late arrival was expected, but the donuts were a nice surprise. Reaching into the box "Mmmm a eclair. A quick bite for the road."

"I wouldn't sell ants short. They are likely to be super strong and fast. Their carapace will act like armor."

Commander Barnes ignores Poco's late arrival, used to his antics by now. He listens to the others talking and jumps in after Muldoon's last statement; "Muldoon has the right of it, they are definitely faster than a human and their carapace requires sustained small arms fire to have any real effect. As far as Sunphoenix's suggestion if there was time it might help but there isn't. Also ant communication is scent-based using pheromones. A big can of Raid would be nice but even regular ants often prove remarkably resistant to poison. No, due to the proximity to the town we cannot use anything that could risk collateral damage to the people there. This team is in the best position to make a difference here."

Nightmare nods through most of the information, then asks, "were we able to determine what species they resemble? You know, the only way to put an end to the crisis would be to destroy the queen. Knowing the species would help us know where she is."

Eddy gave Muldoon a filthy look, as the GI raided Eddy's breakfast stash.
But it was all in good fun; and he'd actually brought them in for everyone, truth be told.

He tossed the box of donuts onto the table, "Well, seeing as Captain Carnage is helping himself, you all might as well take the food from my mouth, too".

Dropping into a seat, he looked at the screen, "Sir!" with a salute,
"You want to own some ants, give'm a food source!    It's all they're worried about".
This message was last edited by the player at 18:04, Sat 03 Sept 2016.

"You know, Eddy's not half-wrong," Vos chimed in. "We need a truck full of sugar.  Bait."

Muldoon took a break from his eclair and gulp down his latest bite. "I'm liking the plan so far. Maybe we can fill a couple of dump trucks with sugar and pour a trail that leads these ants away from the project site. We might get them far enough away from people we can call in an airstrike. Then we just to take out the stragglers."

Muldoon spared a glance at the clock "We are burning day light. We should board the aircraft ASAP. A military base should have dump trucks and tons of sugar. Barnes do you think you can make a call ahead an get those laid on?"

Commander Barnes listens to the various ideas before chiming in; "While I appreciate the brainstorming there is no way we can get two dump trucks full of sugar to the outskirts of Mercury to do what you suggest. We can see what there is on-hand in Mercury but I think you overestimate just how much sugar is available at a military installation. A decent amount, yes but not 'tons'. The ants have also been taking after meat as witnessed by our soldiers. They seem to be acting more than just mindless things following instinct as well which makes us wonder if whatever mutated them didn't increase their intellect as well. We can get together what sugar we can but the sooner the team is on-site the better."

"We're going to Mercury?
Isn't it, like, unbearably hot there?"

In reply to Poco Tehuantl (msg # 354):

Nightmare sits in his towels, and replies to Poco with just a hint of mischief in his eyes, "couldn't you tell by my choice of uniform?"

Eddy smirked, "Surely I'm predictable enough by now, that you know what's going to happen to that towel as soon as we get into public, right?!?" he said to 'Mare, with a 'nudge, nudge' raising of his eyebrows.

Then he looked at Barnesy, "Hey, why don't we just go in there with big old canisters of French Perfume, and disorient the whole pheromonic lot of them. Then, while they're dizzy, we slap them silly?

Surely Vos has got enough 'fume for us all ... you can usually smell her coming a mile off", he said, with a mischievous smirk.

Lance shrugs, "Well it was a thought... but if their smarter than the average picnic Ants... confusing them might not be as easy as all that."

"The Question that really matters is if we start wasting them and their queen shows up or they start communicating  with us asking 'why fore you crush us in the cold cold ground?'... do we turn from extermination to diplomacy and what are you, Boss, willing to agree to?  Its one thing to rub out overgrown vermin... its another thing to kill an intelligent race of beings that might not even realize they are facing another sapient species?"

Muldoon shrugged when he heard the news that the military base might not have that much sugar. He was just spit balling. But the team had come up with some good ideas.

But when he heard Sunphoenix seemingly asking for mercy for super smart killer ants, Muldoon was stunned "Lance you sure you were a marine?"

"In any case we are wasting time. Let's do the rest of this talking on the aircraft." Muldoon suggested.

In reply to Master Sgt Patrick Muldoon (msg # 358):

Lance looks over at the Master Sergeant and asks, "Are you sure you understand what those stars and stripes you wear stand for?  This is AMERICA... we're supposed to stand for liberty and justice for ALL... not just White Anglo-Saxon Protestants... ALL means ALL!  If these Giant Ants are intelligent and can be reasoned with ... our Duty to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.. is Not some words we've strung together that sound cool.. it must mean for Everyone who can understand them and is willing to live peacefully by those tenants! We should be better than the Nazi's idea of 'Fuck'em.. their Ugly and NOT Us'!..."

Turning to Commander Barnes, "You say their intelligent.. has any attempt been made to communicate with them?"
This message was last edited by the player at 13:05, Sun 04 Sept 2016.

to Sunphoenix, "Mind your language!  Have you no civility?  There are women here!"
 

Then to the rest, "Commander Barnes, you have left us in the dark previously and I can't help but notice some gaps here.

Giant, meat-eating intelligent ants?  Hundreds of them?  And we are supposed to believe this wasnt a deliberate attempt to make a weapon -- and now you've lost control and want us to handle it?"
And as Sunphoenix had said, should the team mindlessly obey orders to wipe out a new intelligent species?  Or was there another solution?  The military always think 'shoot first ask questions later.'

"I want a brief before we go with whatever hard intel you have on these ants -- observed abilities, vulnerabilities.

Vibratory powers, flame powers, claws, darts -- these are all likely to be ineffective.  But scent could throw off their communication -- unless they have mutated another form of communication?

And what about the queen?  Traditionally ants are mindless and the queen makes the decisions, so shouldn't we be targeting the queen?"

Osc figured finding the queen might be a challenge.  "If the ants prove too much of a challenge, we could use our powers to divert the ants and make moats, smoke, barricades, lay down insecticide sprays, even fly bombing runs over packs of them, and so on.
Vosper, Poco, and I could evacuate people while the others hold off the ant invasion...?"

Could Sunphoenix carry people unharmed?  Could Nightmare change into his 'other' form and carry people to safety without making them panic and flee?  Would they have any new teammates for this mission?  There were too many unknowns.

"In addition to a brief on these ants, I will need a recent study of this strain of ants -- have you even brought in an insect biologist to assist?"

Oscy was abrasive and unaware of it.  Sometimes scientists focus more on the data and less on the interpersonal -- and people skills (or relative lack thereof) had been one of his reasons for joining the team.

Osc took one of Poco's donuts.  "Isn't there any coffee?"
This message was last edited by the player at 15:06, Sun 04 Sept 2016.

Just barely after Sunphoenix and Oscillator throw down their opinions Commander Barnes's voice comes over the intercom again; "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I said there was a question of whether their intellect was increased. That doesn't mean they are as intelligent as say dogs are, just that they seem to be acting with some level of problem-solving. So I don't think they would be responding to any communication we can have with them. As far as meat eating is concerned it makes some sense, there isn't an abundance of plant life out around the testing area so they would have to find something."

Commander Barnes pauses for a moment before continuing; "We don't know HOW many ants there are out there for sure at this moment. I wouldn't say hundreds are marching towards Mercury but there are plenty of them. We haven't seen any queens but there seem to be two kinds of ants; workers and soldiers. There appears to be 1 soldier ant for every 6 or so worker ants. The workers are about as big as a person laying down and weigh about 600 lbs. They have pretty heavy carapaces but once pierced they seem to go down quickly enough. The soldiers are maybe half again as big and twice as heavy. They have bigger mandibles, an observed stinger, and thicker carapaces. They are also more aggressive and are harder to take down even once their carapaces are pierced. Both types have antennae as is normal for ants and they certainly seem to wave them about an awful lot. The different weapons you all bring to bear will certainly work better on them than small arms fire, it just takes a little bit to get through." He takes a couple breaths before continuing; "As far as your accusation about weapons development it is ridiculous. You keep coming up with these bizarre conspiracy theories to explain imperfect intel but we provide what information we have as we can. Yes, during various tests we exposed numerous kinds of creatures to the effects of nuclear blasts to see how they handle them. It is how we know cockroaches can take a LOT more radiation than we can and survive. They also had some colonies of carpenter ants to test but were unable to recover them all and figured some had been swept away by the blast....no big loss or so we apparently thought. These ants definitely seem to be a mutation of those carpenter ants where the workers lost the formic acid spray and a soldier class with stings developed. This was NOT done as a bioweapon experiment. So you have what slim information we have in this short period of time."

Commander Barnes finally finishes his dialogue with a brief sentence; "I happen to concur with Muldoon's observation, that this can be discussed further en route."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:29, Sun 04 Sept 2016.

"Roight.  Let's go then.  We'll yammer more enroute."

Muldoon listened to another of the Lance's speeches had could not help but wonder what sort of major malfunction had occurred in the kid's brain. But they were in a time crunch and lives were at risk. He would leave it to the giant ants to reeducate Comrade Lance.

"Doc there should be labs you can access at our destination. If you need book or gear I can help you loading it on the plane fast."

"Agreed? If so let's get wheels up." Muldoon asked the last question hoping that the replies would be positive and short.

Lance smirks, "Yeah, Ozzy, that's kinda dark.. bioweapons like giant bugs.. ain't there some kinda treaty the states made after WWII not to do that kind thing? I wasn't Even going there... our military may sometimes have a darkside to its special operations - shadowy agendas.. but I think that's more on a individual case-by-case thing.  You'll always find a few bad apples in a pile... but its not a systemic problem... yet, at least!"

Lance nods in reply to the Master Sergeant, "Well if these ants are just big-more-than-dumb bugs... and their unfriendly... we certainly don't have much choice but to keep them away from innocent folks homes and what not.  Let's do this then..."

Pondering aloud, "...hmmm... I wonder if they still retain most normal creatures fear of fire.. I might be able to 'herd' them away from populated areas with some 'creative' fire shaping..."

Sunphoenix follows everyone to the awaiting craft... making sure his firewing ports on his costume were clear immediate use.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:53, Sun 04 Sept 2016.

Vos didn't wait for the others.  In a blast of wind and a dash of speed, she circled Eddy once - just long enough to laugh, "That smell's called sweat, mate, it comes from working out.  You should try it some time!" - and then she dashed to her room.  Grabbing her gear and suiting up with her enhanced speed, she zipped down to the hanger and took her seat on the jet.  They'd be yammering the whole way there, so she saw no reason to hold up on that account.

"Buckle up when ya fly the friendly," she smirked aloud as the others joined her.

Nightmare sits with his legs crossed and his fingers steepled, thinking. As Vosper dashes out, he says, "very well. I'll go get dressed and join you at the plane."
Then he calmly exits the ready room and prepares himself.

"Sweat?!?  Try wearing a fur coat 24/7", Eddy called out after the wind that was Vos.

Then, standing and pouting, he muttered, "And I can bench more than her", rather more defensively than he had intended, "and for longer".

Picking up another donut ... in each hand ... he headed off to his room to change into his usual 'mission' gear.  Which consisted of the Armoured Vest some of the engineers had made him, which looked like armour the Native American braves used to wear, and cargo pants.
He also brought along his big-assed bow, that only he (and possibly the Inhuman) could draw; and three quivers of high tech arrows.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:39, Mon 05 Sept 2016.

Muldoon followed the others to make sure the team all made it aboard the aircraft before walking up the ramp of the C-130 himself. As he passed Poco Tehuantl and heard the comment Muldoon laughed his friend's replied.

As every got themselves stowed away, Muldoon founding himself quietly humming a popular running cadence and thinking of the fight ahead.

"Now we are on our way we we have plenty of time to finish that brain storm session. Any one got any more ideas?"
This message was last edited by the player at 22:20, Mon 05 Sept 2016.

Vibra-flying thru walls, Osc got his standard costume and his new research gear together.  They'd probably need everything he had.

Barnes had denied any weapons development out of hand, called it a conspiracy theory.  But Osc had some insight into the military's weapons development lately, and maybe Doc's security clearance was getting higher than Barnes' now?  Maybe Barnes was really in the dark on this?

Of course the USA was doing secret weapons development, and now that they had a super team of people, the next move would be to develop super animals that always obeyed & never questioned.

But the argument was irrelevant, because he would take on the mission regardless and do the job.

But before Osc left, he scribbled himself a note about researching the latest secret govt super weapons research.

Osc vibra-flew to the aircraft and thru the wall and into a seat.  Just in time for Muldoon's question.