Three days have passed
since the team rescued the Marines in the Causeway. Everyone has been grilled over the event
during combat, who did what, who brought down the tunnel, behavioural traits of
the unidentified robotic units. You are all finding it
quite frustrating as on minute you are being heralded for you quick thinking
and bravery in rescuing fellow troops and recovering the technical data from
their mecha. The next a different group
of officers is berating you for the destruction of the Causeway tunnel system
and the loss of a potential resupply route for the resistance fighters within
the capital city. You find yourselves discussing this as a group
and decide that you are all getting quite sick of this undercurrent of political
power play. You find a high degree of
frustration that Intelligence Command
did not brief you on the tactical importance of the Causeway in their future
plans. The team have been
treated very well by the troops at Forward
Base Kodiak 27. There has been an almost
Visiting Celebrity vibe amongst the
fellow troops due to the promotional footage created by Beta Ray. A few eager troops have tried to compete
against Xander and Rodar in competitions of strength at the gym. Thankfully Section Commander Grant appears to
have been in contact with the base commander and you have been spared the
drudgery of manning security piquet’s while you focus on mitigating accumulated
fatigue from the punishing sustained assault against the Invid.
Mid-morning on day
three, the base comes to an impromptu Stand
Too as a strange vessel appears on the horizon. Flying low, the base Communications Centre
verifiers that the vessel is Karbarren, and that there are dignitaries on
board. With troops providing all round
defence the odd looking cargo freighter sets sown kicking up great gouts of
dust.Striding forth through the haze
powers Lron the Karbarren. Tall with a
highly muscular physique and a natural charisma, he radiates a powerful
presence.It is clear why the populous
have rallied behind him.Trailing after him is Amethyst the Spherian, several auxiliary personnel and finally the
remaining members of your squad.
You are summoned to a
briefing in the Base Commanders compound. Maps of local terrain topography line the walls of the nerve centre,
coloured dots displaying the approximate location of friend and foe, play havoc
over various locations. Communications
technicians in various booths lining one wall, collate the data quietly and
efficiently before removing markers from maps. You feel uneasy watching blue tokens, friendly forces being dropped into
a plastic container on the desk next to each cubicle. Thankfully from the quick
glance that you are able to grab, before being directed to a briefing room, tactically
it looks as though Allied forces are making good progress in several key areas
in this sector.
You take your sets in
the briefing room and break out data pads and notebooks. The feeling of tension in notable in the room
are auxiliary personnel fuss about setting up holographic projectors, a lectern
and white noise generators. Whatever
this chat is going to be about will not be informal. Amethyst enters the room and in a rather non
militaristic fashion proceeds around the room hugging old team mates and
acquaintances, her interaction with Xander is a little cooler by comparison,
and a simple hand shake suffices before she takes her seat off to one side of
the room. No other personnel file in to
fill the seating and there aren’t very many seats, giving the indication that
this information session may be a
restricted to your group.
The Base commander
enters followed by Lron, as all
personnel present snap to attention. You
notice that the Base commander has removed all of his identification and rank
insignia, while Lron is wearing neatly pressed worker’s coveralls, it looks as
though they have been stained with ink to create the illusion of grease and
grime. The Base Commander glances across
to the Auxiliary personnel who switch on the White noise generator and then hastily exit the room. Your ears pop as the room quickly
pressurises.
“OK sit easy, for the purposes of this briefing when interacting with me
I shall only be referred to as Sir
or Officer F. Our co-speaker shall
only be referred to as Blue Santa. No questions until the end and at that time
raise your hand and I shall take questions.”
Officer F continues.
“A couple of interesting situations have presented themselves to us
recently and based on the current forces at this facility, I believe that we
have the capability to capitalise on both opportunities.
“Firstly, we have obtained information of an Invid strong point or base
175 miles from this location. This
location is significant in that we alone are the best positioned allied force to
carry out strikes against this previously unknown facility.However, based on the information that has
been leaked to us, we have been led to believe that this Target is a slave holding facility , housing many of
Karbarra’s elder’s and prominent craftsbears. The location of this facility is behind enemy lines in relative close
proximity to other know Invid hotspots
so we can assume that it would be likely to be rapidly reinforced should we try
to conduct a direct extraction.”
“Secondly, we believe that we may have rediscovered an ancient Karbarren
artefact building. This structure is
located some distance from the Invid strong point, though physically closer to
the Invid strong point than we are here, so it may prove to be an adequate location
to extract these non-combatants to.”
“I’ll now hand you over to Blue
Santa .”
Lron steps up to the lectern and composes himself before speaking. Rodar is
completely captivated by Lron , he
looks like a teenager having met his hero.
“Good morning, I am pleased to finally meet you all face to face. I have been instructed not to make any
references to your team. However, please
let me say, that having heard of your actions in assisting in the liberation of
my people, I am truly grateful for your assistance. I must humbly request it again.”
“I am still learning of your races culture and history through writings
of your scholars. When the Invid landed
on this planet and over ran us, capturing our children and Elder ‘s they sort
to destroy both out future and or past. They reinforced this through the destruction of many of our sacred
buildings. Invid Scientists and troops
actively sort out and burnt our artworks and books. They destroyed our culture, stole our
language from us, and almost succeeded in breaking our spirits. In an attempt to hold on to what little
history we possessed, our parents and extended families sung us stories of
old.”
Lron pauses before reverently picking up a book that he displays to the
group. The book is exceptionally old,
the cover faded and worn, a strange scripting brass metallic paint states the
title. You have no idea what this
represents, however Rodar is sitting
on the edge of his seat holding his breath in anticipation.
“I won’t go into too many details, however after one of our cities was
recently liberated, this book was gifted to me. It contains many of the stories I heard when growing up, and several
that I have not. One story refers to a
series of towers built by The Master
Crafts Father , as a vault of knowledge and wisdom for our people. Only those with Technical skill, Will power,
Strength, the traits valued by my people could enter. Those capable of passing the Forgebears tests and proving themselves
worthy would be granted access to, Um, something of great power for the
betterment of our people.”
There is a hand drawn
picture of the tower that is now displayed in 3D via the holographic projector.
Officer F takes the floor again.
“Right down to business.It is
common knowledge that allied forces currently hold air superiority across this
planet, enemy forces have a number of entrenched and mobile anti-aircraft
locations that still represent a real and actual threat to our forces. Whilst conducting a scouting mission recently,
one of our Recon flights of captured this image.”
Another image slides
alongside the hand drawn tower. Heavy
image distortion mars the image yet the outline looks remarkably similar to the
hand drawn tower if viewed from overhead.
“ Military Intelligence
believes that this may be one of the towers referred to in Karbarren Lore. There is some sort of energy signature
surrounding this structure that has resulted in the distortion to the visual
image shown in the recon photo. For some
reason there is no Invid presence in the immediate area around this structure
and enemy ground forces appear to actively deviate patrols away from the location.”
“If the structure can be secured, this would represent a possible
extraction location for the captives held at the slave camp. Socially it would help immeasurably in giving
the Karbarren people a sense of unity and hope. Long term hopefully there may be lost
technology and knowledge that will assist in the rebuilding of Karbarra, though
that is only speculation.”
Officer F uses a laser clicker and the holographic display converts to a tactical
map.
“In 4 days’ time your section shall travel to this location in Blue Santa’s cargo airship.Once directly over the target at a height of
38,000ft you shall exit the craft, performing a HALO drop to the target. Supplies and tooling shall be dropped with you. You will access the structure and secure
it. From there we shall apprise it’s
tactical valve as an extraction point for the second stage of the mission,
being the rescue and repatriation of the Karbarren VIP’s.”
“We will begin jump training for this mission in 2 hours. I have a training team standing by to bring
you up to speed, it will not be easy so listen and learn.We only have a window of 4 days to get you up
to speed, there is a storm front expected to hit the the morning of day 5.”
“OK questions”