It's been two days since Grunt has experienced his little... forays... into an alternate timeline, and true to her word Juno has provided him with some special codes and left him the hell alone.  Like many other Dragon-Blooded Grunt is faced with downtime, as the front has been curiously quiet.  Oh, sure, there's stuff to prepare for, training to do, and the like... but all in all it's been like leave.

Until Grunt gets a message one morning.  He's to report to a briefing room immediately, full gear, for a potential action.  By the time he reaches the briefing room it's already half full.  Sunipa is there, preparing a powerpoint presentation and cursing under her breath as the room fills.  Some of the Maasai snicker as Sunipa continues to curse out the projector software.  Most of the people Grunt recognizes as Ilmorijo Maasai, armed with their shotguns and spears.  There's only one other Dragon-Blooded in the room:  Ibrahim Doyuz, 'Mastiff', an Earth-caste who enjoys his assault rifle a bit too much and was never on the best terms with Grunt.  The fact that they're assigned seats at the front implies it'll be a full elemental Circle going out on this mission.  He gives Grunt a grudging nod.

Some of the Maasai snicker as Sunipa continues to curse out the projector software.

Grunt had barely been out of full kit period for the last two days. It was an effort of will not to walk around in full armor with tactical gear at the ready. Yes, it was paranoia but dammit dead universes were unnerving. Couldn't drink, couldn't get stones, and way too tense for the usual stress relief.

So he's actually perversely glad for whatever hell warranted the formality of a full elemental circle.

He saluted Sunipa crisply when he entered the room, gave a more casual nod to his colleagues, and took an available seat.

"The others are on their way," Mastiff says after a few more seconds of cursing on Sunipa's part.

The first to arrive is pretty much an unknown to Grunt.  He's a teenager, barely old enough to have taken the Dragon's Breath, and by the ginger red of his very long hair and burning red irises he's got to be a Fire Aspect.  The kid is dressed in navy slacks and shirt with a bullet-proof vest and a single M1911.

Mastiff rolls his eyes when the teenager salutes him; but the teenager moves past him to salute Grunt and sit next to him.  "Hey I'm Chris," His voice is rapid, a bit clipped, too excited to finish a word.  "Chris Starkey.  Haven't met you yet!"

Grunt at least knows of the Starkey family.  They're mostly dead, lost covering an evacuation of the Mississippi delta.  A few of the youngest managed to get up to Chicago and were the first Dragon-Blooded aboard the Last Refuge.

"Grunt," he answered, deciding that for now it was a callsign sort of meeting, "Air Aspect."

Kid needed a knife, or at least a truncheon. Guns were of course very useful but their atmosphere was held in by something less durable than Lost Earth's gravity well. Firing inside was always a terrible idea.

"Which means we're waiting on the Water and Wood. Half expect it to be Scimitar for the former."

"Oh, uh, Flametongue,"  He says, hitting his forehead with the heel of his hand, "Right, I keep forgetting that... no it's not Scimitar, I think they said Wail and Algonquin?"

Mastiff manages to choke back a laugh at the kid's callsign.  The latter two are both helpful and worrying all at the same time.  Wail, the Wood aspect, works closer with the Voyagers than the Ilmorijo, which means someone's expecting hard vacuum.  Thankfully Wail's one of the most competent Dragon-Blooded Grunt has ever met, though way too much of a loner even by Dragon-Blooded standards.

Algonquin, on the other hand, is a Native American from the Great Lakes area.  While he may not be the most powerful Dragon-Blooded- especially given his advanced age- the man is exceedingly competent, an expert at improvisation, and a born leader.  It's clear who's going to be heading the team.  Algonquin isn't a person they'd be throwing out for just anything, especially not with a raw recruit on board.  He also has a pretty firm reputation for dueling Imperator sorcerors.

"I hear they're excellent and I can't wait to learn from them," Shit, how young is this kid?  "And you, I've heard about you a lot..."

"Better to keep your ears open and your mouth shut then," Mastiff grumbles.

"You have heard more scuttlebutt than I have it seems," Grunt told Flametongue, "Grab a seat and wait. No point in speculating when the slides are going to cover the same ground."

He gave Sunipa another three minutes before silently standing and helping her sort out the projector. It was best not to let the CO get too worked up before a briefing.

Sunipa ends up needing the help.  To be fair to her, the projector is a finicky model, but Grunt has used this kind before.  Soon he's got it up and running.

True to scuttlebutt, the other two are Wail and Algonquin.  Wail has a fresh new scar trailing down the left side of her face, pink and angry- courtesy of a demon starting trouble on the outer skin of the Last Refuge.  Algonquin, on the other hand, looks like he's been carved out of smooth oak.  He's gotten that curious age where his wrinkles have smoothed out and solidified, forming vast canyons across his face.

"Welcome, everyone,"  Sunipa starts the presentation as soon as they're seated.  "As you know, things have been quiet lately.  We've been making steady progress towards the next ventpoint with little interference from the Dead.  I can't tell you why this happened-"

A dozen eyes slide to stare at Grunt...

"- But the important part is that it means we're approaching some situations with a lighter hand.  Case in point, the Royet."

She flicks to the first slide:  a standard Mercury-class transport.

"There are no extant archival pictures of the Royet but it's built from the Mercury-class pattern.  The Royet is classified as a wildcat miner, working outside of the dedicated mining fleet.  We can thus infer it has some basic armament, specialized mining equipment that can double as armament, outsized engines, and an outsized processing and storage bay."

Flick.  A graph of mining targets reached.  Portions of the bar graph are highlighted in red- approximately 10% of the bar.

"For the new people in the audience, wildcat mining is prohibited by Core and the Last Refuge.  The chance for capture and infiltration by the enemy is too great.  Wildcats grab the resources they desire, smuggle it to the mining teams, sell it off for a tidy profit.  In theory wildcat miners are subject to prosecution but in practice we turn a blind eye to their shenanigans.  We get a substantial amount of rare raw materials from their forays into dangerous space.  The red sections represent 'gray mining', essentially materials we can't definitively track.  We can assume this is from wildcatting."

Flick.  Telemetry data from the picket fleet, one set from 2 months ago, the other set from this morning.

"The Royet departed from the fleet 2 months ago and returned this morning, about a standard interval for a wildcatter.  Unusually the Royet was found floating at the edge of our fleet instead of suddenly reappearing at our docks.  Not only was it found floating this morning, refusing to answer a hail, but it was covered with unusual rocky growths."

Flick.  A grainy picture of the Royet, twisted, covered in weird rocky lumps.

"It has not responded to hails.  The engines are dead.  Sensor scans show atmosphere but we can't tell if there's life.  We can safely assume enemy interference, but we're not sure about the degree of interference.  The usual response here is to splash the Royet.  Command has, instead, requested we recon the ship."

Flick.  A schematic, helplessly complex.

"The Royet is, in fact, a wildcatter but it's not entirely true it's without licensure from Core and Command.  The crew of the Royet have been caught before, and given the option to perform tests of a dangerous prototype instead of incarceration. Command has assured me that this equipment is completely mining-related and could not cause the damage or alterations observed on the Royet."

Flick.  A picture:  a mugshot of a gorgeous-yet-grizzled older woman with an eyepatch.

"To make matters particularly interesting, Captain Handall of the Royet is a personal friend of Journeys."

Flick.  Text.

"Our orders are as follows.  Approach the Royet.  Board it if possible.  Establish communications with the picket fleet once boarded.  Retrieve the mining equipment or any data related to the prototype.  Rescue any living personnel.  If possible, retrieve the body of Captain Handall.  Are there any questions?"

"What is the containment procedure for whatever rock they found that did that?" Grunt asked with a nod towards the Royet's picture, "And are we taking a boarding vehicle directly or leaving a vacuum gap?"

"We have a Nike-class cruiser nearby that will be taking you to the Royet.  This is the Quarantine Hauler Salk, a mostly hollowed-out ship fitted with special Essence fields and a loading bay.  That'll come into play if we need to contain it.  Otherwise we destroy,"  Sunipa tells him.  "You'll be boarding via the outer hull.  Wail will be in charge of taking samples out of the outside in case we take the destruction option, as well as piloting you to a few meters from the Royet and then opening up the hull.  The rest of you are to establish a forward base- Algonquin will be in charge of the overall operation, but Mastiff will be leader of Team A and Grunt will be leader of Team B."

"Splitting the party?"  Flametongue says out of line.

Sunipa shoots him a Look that quickly shuts him up, "The easiest way to enter is along the middle-spine of the Royet.  You'll effectively enter flanked.  Team A will head towards the bridge, Team B towards the engine, quarantining rooms methodically with salt, essence, and lead.  Flametongue, your job will be to assist Algonquin and to access the ship computer- I'm told you've got a talent for CompSci."

"I notice the communication array is missing.  Or removed."  Algonquin says in a reedy, quiet voice, "There's no tumor on it.  Wail will need to set up a temporary transmitter/receiver and wire it to us."

"That's correct.  Flametongue, you'll need to coordinate with Wail as well as assist Algonquin."

"That's a lot of work on a single point of failure and you're bringing a whelp." Mastiff grumbles.

"Unless Core really wants the data, the transmission array is down the list of problems to address. And we used to be the whelps, gotta grow out of it some time," Grunt told Mastiff with a frown before he nodded to Sunipa, "You want us to shut down the engines immediately or is the hope that this thing might be guided? I assume the Asset's databanks are about as forthcoming as usual."

"We immediately shut down the engines.  If we choose to keep it intact, the Salk will envelop it and then take up a holding pattern outside the fleet itself, near the ruins of the Asset.  Which, as you've so noted, has been very quiet lately." Sunipa tells Grunt,  "Reception/transmission is actually your first priority.  We want total, complete knowledge of what's going on inside the Royet at all times so C3 can make judgment calls if need be."

Command, (Fleet) Control, Core.  This is telling.  The bigwigs are taking personal interest in this if it proves interesting.

"If the crew is alive, your orders are to sterilize the rest of the ship and call for a medical tug before progressing further.  We'll have one nearby at the Salk but we're assuming no survivors."

"One.  Board.  Two.  Establish two-way comms.  Three.  Wail take samples, Team A towards bridge, Team B towards engine.  Wail take samples.  Algonquin and Flametongue access ship computers.  Quarantine, sterilize, extract.  Salk destroys or contains Royet.  Am I clear?"  Wail finally speaks up.

"That's correct."
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:36, Fri 21 Dec 2018.

"Understood," Grunt said with a nod.

"Mastiff, Grunt.  You'll have a squad composed of two fire teams of 4 men each."  Sunipa gestures to the Ilmorijo, "Mastiff, you have Turkwel squad.  Grunt, you have Mbagathi squad.  I suggest you check your equipment and meet with your soldiers.  Everyone, reconvene at Hangar 3 at 0900.  Fall out."

((Mechanically:  two groups of Rank 3 minions, both with Tactics specialties))

He stood and snapped a salute to Sunipa before heading out.

Grunt did the full pre-deployment rundown on both his own gear and the tactical team's, with an emphasis on making sure salt supplies and delivery systems were ready to go. Ship corridors meant a long knife, heavy pistol, and shotgun. No breaching charges this time.

Mbagathi Squad is headed by an Ilmorijo named- oddly- Frank.  Frank has equipped them all with boarding shotguns and spears, the latter slung over their back.  Three of them are also equipped with saltbags and have rocksalt rounds for their shotguns.

"Pleasure to work with you sir,"  Frank says as he checks his rocksalt rounds. "Any special equipment you'd like us to bring?"

"How are we on explosives and incendiaries? Ghosts are getting almost old hat but that thing looks a little too organic for my taste, be a shame to tussle with something our regular munitions couldn't penetrate," Gabriel asked Frank, "And I mean sustained incineration, not just a few grenades."

"Good question.  Kipkirui's our explosives and heavy weapons expert.  Kip?"  He asks a tall Maasai, "How are we doing for incendiaries?"

"Bad," He replies in excellent English, "We don't train as much.  Fire is good for ghosts but worse for the living.  Have not had enough Fire Aspects to help us control it.  Could get some Willy Petes if necessary.  How many we need?  Also maybe a flamethrower.  But only one, with so little time."

"Get the phosphorous. If we need more than two charges of it we should already be withdrawing," Grunt told them, "And if I thought we'd just have the usual haunts it'd be one thing, but there's a twitch in the back of my head that something interesting is going to crop up. Explosions in a standard hull aren't my thing."

"Any idea what that is?  See anything like that on the Asset?"  Frank asks him, "We haven't seen nothing from any captured materiel.  The fact we've even got it is pretty much only a bit beyond rumor at this point.  But we know it's around.  Getting towed outside."

"I think it's here as a distraction, so they can steal the big ship," Kipkirui says balefully.

"Well, that's why there are no Celestials involved, right?"

"Can't answer questions about tin cans that don't exist," Grunt replied, "But you're as briefed about what we're heading into as I am."

He frowned.

"And there's no Celestials because aside from Secrets and Brahe, neither of whom we want along, none of them can keep quiet or not draw inordinate amounts of attention."

"Well, I think we're going to make quite a lot of big bangs if this goes wrong.  The Salk isn't just a quarantine ship," A soldier pipes up, "I've served before.  Those essence containment shields can be focused at short range.  It makes a big ship-sized blow torch.  That'll get a lot of attention fast."