Re: [Mission 1] Boldly Going....
Weiss looked at the duo and chuckled. "Well kid, the better things bout being a sniper is the range you have on your target...in theory. Unfortunately, it isn't likely to happen. I've only been on one actual combat mission against hostiles. The remaining Pirates from the Pirate Wars, the ones you hear about once in a cycle." he explained calmly as he leaned back.
"Being a sniper during boarding actions isn't what I thought would happen to me in basic, but it was pretty good that I was the only guy with the larger rounds than my squad mates. You see...unlike the riflemen during boarding actions who have to carry around the dinky 9mm Boarding Action rifles, I could keep my sniper rifle with me. Sort of meant when we had heavy armor to deal with I was the one called in to punch through it. I mean, that's something you'd expect from Heavy Guns, not a sniper. But since we didn't want to blow ourselves out into space, Snipers are normally considered better for dealing with heavily armored enemies." For a moment, Weiss regarded the Obermaat. Suddenly nodding, he motioned for Nevaraon.
"Eh, newbie. One thing you should remember is never drink more than you can handle. If you look at the Obermaat here, you can tell he's a bit buzzed, but none worse for wear. This is good, since we could be called in at any moment to board or land. Then again, a Marine that can't fight when buzzed is a wuss, got that?" he spoke to the younger Abwehran with a grin.
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"Captain, we've got signals coming from around the gas giant. It's pretty faint, but it seems like machine coding in a way." Eva spoke up from her console as Erna blinked beneath her goggles.
"You don't say? Have you determined an origin?"
"Not yet, a lot of the transmissions are scattered among the moons. We haven't detected anything from the Gas Giant or from the first planet. From all the traffic, my guess is that there is either a highly automated station here or, by some fluke, the system gravity has captured a bunch of old-style probes and they can't seem to get out." the comm. operator explained as Erna sat back in her chair and narrowed her brows in thought.
"Better be safe than sorry," she mumbled quietly. "Set stations to Condition 2, I want to be ready just in case they turn out to be hostile."
"Aye, ma'am." Eva replied before turning to the internal communications panel and picked up the sound phone receiver. "All hands, Go to Condition 2 Alert," she reported before repeating.
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"All hands, Go to Condition 2 Alert," came over the intercoms a second time as Weiss sighed heavily.
"Well, that's nice." he muttered calmly. "Oh well...time to move this conversation down to the Barracks, the Lounge is closing up." he ordered casually as he stood up and motioned for his subordinates to follow.
After all, Condition 2 was the call for everyone to halt any and all recreation and prepare for the possibility of combat. For the majority of the crew, that meant to suit up into Skinsuits. For the Marines, it was to get to Barracks and into their own skinsuits. They wouldn't arm themselves as of yet, but they would be ready to hit the Armory in mere seconds. The Bridge Crew would normally switch off duties with another watch to go into skinsuits themselves, but since the Fearless was a Testbed the bridge crew didn't have any extras on hand. "Sucks to be the bridge crew," Weiss muttered.
