RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 3.1] A Change of Plans

Phaedra was slightly shocked when the new arrival made her entrance.

"A full cyborg? Interesting," thought Phaedra.

"If that's it, you're all dismissed. Sergeant Volkov, brief the Private and meet me here to discuss that other matter."

"Sir," she said, rising to her feet and saluting. She strode over to towering form of Rita Stenton and gazed up at her. This was an odd experience; Phaedra was used to looking up to ID-SOLs and other men, but never a woman before. She noticed Rita's current stance with her arms over her chest.

"Stand at attention, private!" she barked. Phaedra placed her hands on her hips.

"I am Sergeant Phaedra Volkov, and I will be your superior, aside from the Admiral of course," she said with a motion to the Admiral.

"We will heading for the Tange system, and as part of operation Dynamo, we will be setting down and securing numerous spaceports and defending these objectives as the civilians are evacuated. In the event of NMX presence, we will not let a single one of them past, understood?" Phaedra stepped closer and gazed intently at Rita.

"I understand you like killing squids. Is that right private? While you may enjoy killing some NMX, should we encounter any, you will not cause any civilian casualties, are we clear?"

"Head to the med-bay for a physical evaluation and head down to the Armory to be assigned a PA. Dismissed!"

Phaedra then turned on her heel and approached the Admiral, standing at parade rest. She waited until the rest of the Marines left the room before speaking.

"You wanted to speak with me, Admiral?"

"None, Private. Headquarters on Nepleslia Prime made it very clear that they wanted to avoid collateral damage to the civilian population. The objective, after all, is to rescue the civilians as a sign of support for the UOC. Ah, Sergeant Volkov, just in time," Valken said, "I am willing to allow the use of DARTs on one condition: Sergeant Volkov has fire authority. No one uses them unless given authorization by the Sergeant. Those should suffice in the event that you come across anything shielded. Any problems with that, Sergeant?"

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Laura had bounded off to get her hands on one of the Aggressors. They were the cutest darned things. Ever. She didn't like using the big missile launcher so the AMP was just fine by her. It was a good gun, pretty and all but the best part about the Aggressor, in Laura's opinion, was the little plasma chainguns. Those things were the cutest little killers on the cutest massive killer robot!

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Once again, the work of being a medic was dumped on Bernhard. He sighed, now resigned to always having to take up Laura's non-combat work. "Now that you're done with the Sergeant, let's get over to the armoury. Best to reserve your PA sooner rather than later. We can do the physical afterwards. Bernhard Greer, medic," he said to Rita.

Though, maybe he should get a mechanic rather than do it himself, if she really was mostly cyborg. Laura was good at mechanical things, he thought. But then, he sadly realized, she never did any work outside of combat. Not that he actually knew whether she did work in combat either.

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"I ASSURE YOU, WE ARE THE BEST AT MAINTAINING ALL STANDARD EQUIPMENT! DEFINE 'OTHER GEAR,'" one of the Junker drones in the armoury yelled at its normal volume. How rude of this fleshy to imply it and its comrades didn't perform as perfectly as they had been programmed to do.

"You may very well be the best but I'd still like to inspect it myself, it is my personal belief that no matter how good the initial inspector may be I still want to verify it myself. Additional gear is just some extra explosives and a large quantity of burlap and netting. I plan on making a large ghillie suit to go over the armor for some camouflaging purposes." Sawyer replied to the drone that was hovering there. With that he stood there to await the drone's response to what he had said. While he was waiting he started to wonder where the rest of the squad was and who the new massive private was that showed up almost at the end of the briefing.

"Sir, yes sir!" Rita replied in timely fashion to Phaedra's order. She may have looked intimidating, but she certainly recognized the chain of command. "Yes, understood, sir! No collateral." Rita said, confirming that she knew what her orders were for combat. "Yes sir!" She replied again, making a heel-turn and heading straight for the armory. She was joined on the way by the medic, and raised an eyebrow. Unless the doctors on the ship were also extremely experienced cybernetics technicians, it would be pointless, sort of like a medical doctor trying to fix a plane or a car. "I'm already heading for the armory. Giving me a physical would make about as much sense as giving one to one of those service 'bots they have in the armory." Rita replied, looking away from Bernhard and back in front of her, down the hallway.

Arieg sat in the back, watching with an impassive look before finally speaking as the group began leaving the room. He addressed Admiral Valken with a respectful tone, "Sir I haven't cracked open my gear yet, any limitations on my loadout you want me to follow?" he asked. "You should have a general manifest of whats in there from when they shipped it to this bucket."

"Thank you sir! I'm sure we'll make sure to use them with care." Matteo gladly replied to the Admiral. Even though he seemed pretty cautious, not trusting the Marines when it came to civilians, he was definitely reasonable enough. A pity he didn't get started on sizing up Wazu though. The ex-hitman suddenly thought back to the civilian who got a limb crushed during the prison raid; they didn't use missiles, see? It would have made a lot more ruthless sense to just paste them, but they didn't. The Marines were either softies, or they could afford the luxury. Only time would tell, since Matteo himself was rather new to this.

He waited patiently for Sergeant Volkov to finish talking to the Admiral as well, leaning against the exit. She was going to be the one authorizing the missiles anyways.

"I am willing to allow the use of DARTs on one condition: Sergeant Volkov has fire authority. No one uses them unless given authorization by the Sergeant. Those should suffice in the event that you come across anything shielded. Any problems with that, Sergeant?"

"None, sir," said Phaedra with a confident nod. She then lowered her voice to a whisper and leaned closer to Valken.

"I can send you a more detailed report on Private Avel Sitkeas if you wish, Admiral. But to summarize; Avel became unstable. She became a risk to herself and to her fellow Marines, and was discharged. Honorably or dishonorably has yet to be seen."

Phaedra leaned back and saluted.

"If that will be all sir, I will take my leave to prepare for the mission."

Once she was dismissed, she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

"Head to the armory and get your PAs in order," she said to the remaining Marines before walking out into the corridor. Phaedra headed towards the lift and took it down towards the armory.

For a brief moment, Matteo was silent again as he walked alongside Phaedra. He was glad that they wouldn't get their hands tied behind their backs, or at least, not as severely as initially thought. But, he wasn't overly giddy like a kid about it either. "Well ma'am, I hope you're not going to hold our hands too tightly when it comes to these. I like having some freedom to operate." he spoke up opportunistically. 'Why am I even talking to her?' the ex-hitman asked himself. 'I got what I wanted, and its not like I'm going to try and hit on her or anything either. But why am I still feeling so...shitty? Its not like I've ever...huh. Never felt shitty before. That's new.'

As one of the top individuals, Matteo had always had it good, no matter how tough the assignments were. This meant one simple thing though; he was at a disadvantage, since he wasn't sure how to deal with the hard times. The thought of Avel flickered through his mind. 'Ah. Right, she's the one that's got me feeling like this...I should try 'talking to' the Sergeant about this then.' He sighed, giving up that talk about the missiles almost as quickly as he suggested it.

"Er, nevermind, that's not really what I wanted to talk about Sergeant." Matteo paused for a bit, scratching the back of his head. "Well. Its about Avel...I think it might be my fault she did what she did." And already, he was feeling better. 'Hey...this isn't so bad. I feel better already. Wait, no, that isn't how it works. She's gotta say something back first.'

He waited expectantly.

"Well ma'am, I hope you're not going to hold our hands too tightly when it comes to these. I like having some freedom to operate," said Matteo. Phaedra briefly glanced behind her to reply.

"We are Marines; I would not expect the need to 'hold you by the hand,' but that does not mean you have free reign. The Admiral gave me the authority to allow the use of DARTs; I will use my judgement, and you will do as you are told, Private."

"Er, nevermind, that's not really what I wanted to talk about Sergeant. Well...its about Avel...I think it might be my fault she did what she did."

Phaedra stopped mid-stride directly in front of Matteo. She turned around, placed her cybernetic left hand onto his shoulder and looked him in the eye.

"Avel herself is to blame, no one else. Its true that she had her problems; all of us struggle with something." Phaedra motioned to her left arm, and then to the scars on her face.

"There is not a day that goes by that I do not think about what happened to me on that training mission. But I do not let it control me, I choose to fight it. Avel chose not to fight her scars, she gave in and her problems overwhelmed her. I understand how it would seem that you are to blame for Avel's behavior; but believe me, this was not the first time she caused an incident as a result of her own actions. What happened to her was the result of an accumulation of terrible events, and no one thing you could have done would have caused her to become suicidal like that. She had already made her decision long before that."

Phaedra removed her hand and turned to continue towards the armory, now walking beside Matteo.

"She was like a child of sorts; vying for any attention she could get, and then throwing a tantrum when things didn't seem to go her way. All that to say this, Avel is gone, and only herself is to blame. That's all there is to it."

Phaedra matched Matteo's gaze one more time before she walked past him into the armory. Once there, she spotted Laura inspecting the Aggressor she had chosen for herself. Phaedra continued past the medic and eventually stood infront of her NIGHT armor. She removed the heavy helmet from its place and ran a finger over its sleek black finish. She inspected the design she had the drones add to the armor's helmet: a large emblem in the form of a wolf skull was emblazoned on it. Phaedra's mouth curved upward into what might have been a smile.

"Go get 'em, Wolf," said a familiar, yet long forgotten voice.

'So she feels its more Avel's fault, huh?' Matteo thought to himself. Soon enough though, they found themselves in the Armory, and the marine called up a Hostile for his own use. He loaded it out with a HPAR and the missiles the Admiral said to use before starting to secure extra magazines of ammo onto the suit. "Yeah, I suppose childish is the best way to describe how she acted." Matteo decided to continue, talking over his mech and to the Sergeant on the other side. "I guess that's why I turned her down. She was way too easy and wasn't exactly an adult about it either."

The young man casually attached the last extra magazines of ammo for his HPAR and backup SMG before deciding to remove the helmet, holding it in his weathered hands. Its red orb looked up with him with a doleful eye. "I dunno. I kinda expected something like this outta The Cat, but not one of our own." He gave a mournful laugh. "Hell, I was hoping for just that, so I could turn her down for kicks."

"Didn't expect any of this coming from Avel though."

"That's true but some parts of you are still human. Though, I don't recall being asked to do a psych profile." Bernhard shrugged as he walked with Rita to the Armoury. "Our other medic, Laura, is pretty good with mechanics. No idea how good she'll be with your stuff," he added.

"The only part of me that's still human is my brain, and I don't know how you'd do a physical on that. 'Course you could always open me up if you wanted," Rita replied, tapping her head with a resounding metal ring. Giving a grin, she looked down at Bernhard amicably. "It's cool that you're not a tight-ass like that one bitch that made me stand at attention for like ten seconds. That's just fucked up, in my opinion." Rita added, rolling her eyes. "I don't really care that much, though. I'll be happy as long as I get to kill squids."

"Sergeant Volkov? She's not that wound up normally. I think it's gotta do with the new Admiral. He literally came aboard an hour before you did. Phaedra and the last CO, Admiral Wazu, seemed to have had a good working relationship. This new guy's still kinda unknown and she doesn't want to piss him off. Cos he looks like the kind you really don't wanna piss off," Bernhard said as they rounded a corner and arrived at the Armoury.

"I suppose that explains why she had a stick up her ass, but excuses are for pussies, don'tcha' think?" Rita responded, stretching her artificial limbs over her head and then placing her hands, open-palmed, against the back of it.

Laura Romero was talking to one of the junker drones about how cute the Aggressors were, ignoring what Sawyer saying. She wasn't even sure what he was talking about.

"Alright drone, can I at least get enough netting and burlap to make a suit for myself? I'd still like to inspect my suit for myself. Oh, hello there Laura, how are you doing, Ma'am?" Sawyer said, while standing there staring at the junker drone. Seeing Bernhard and the rather tall lady next to him, Sawyer couldn't help but stare at her, thinking to himself 'damn, that is a hell of a lot of metal attached to one human being, wonder what the hell happened to her?' "Hey Bernhard, how's it going? And who's the new person with you?"

Laura continued to ignore Sawyer, totally engrossed in her conversation with one of the drones, "And the plasma guns! They're so small yet so powerful! And they're so cute! Every power armour should have cute guns like that!" The junker drone bobbed up and down in agreement, "YES, YES. THE EQUIPMENT IS THE BEST MADE, DESIGNED TO BE PERFECT. AESTHETICALLY AND FUNCTIONALLY. IT IS GOOD TO HEAR ONE ADMIRE THE BEAUTY OF MACHINERY," the happy little drone replied loudly.

The drone which was attending to Sawyer returned with five feet of netting and burlap. "FOLLOW ME." The drone turned and began walking further into the armoury, expecting Sawyer to follow.

"Were you asleep or something? She's the new girl who arrived in the middle of our briefing," Bernhard replied to Sawyer. "Watch that guy, I think he's chatted up every woman here except you and Sergeant Volkov," he whispered to Rita. Bernhard still hadn't forgiven him or Laura for the prank.

"I'm pretty sure I can handle myself," Rita replied, rolling her eyes. A pair of deep blue, cybernetic eyes focusing on Sawyer, burning his appearance into Rita's mind. Names and faces, she needed to know all of them. "Hey, bobblehead!" Rita said to one of the junker drones, pointing at herself. [b}"I"m reserving a hostile with a standard loadout, sans the ARROW and BOLT missile launchers. Give me some extra ammo for the moneyshot instead of those." Rita said, thinking to herself for a moment before looking over to Laura. "I'm guessing you're Laura." She started, furrowing her brow. It was hard to like people who were so damn chipper. They just... Annoyed Rita, not to mention they came off as exceedingly... Creepy. "Doc, I don't want her poking around inside me. I think I'm gonna skip the physical after all."

"IS THAT ALL?" the drone Laura had been gushing to replied to Rita. Was this a fleshy? It looked like one but sensors showed it was made of metal. But it acted like a fleshy. A Fleshy-Machine hybrid? Impossible!

Sawyer followed the drone into the armoury as it expected him to do so. ' Didn't think Bernhard would be quite so ticked at me but oh well, he's a bit of a prig anyways' he thought to himself as he walked 'hope these drones have tools here for me to do some general testing with and so I can work on my suit as well.' As he got to where the drone was waiting he asked, " just wondering, do you have a set of work tools available for me to check out? Mine haven't made it here yet. I'll need a diagnostic set, some shears, and for that matter a basic toolkit to use for other purposes if they are available."

"Yeah... I've never seen Laura that happy either... Are you sick?" Bernhard said, putting a hand on Laura's foreheard. "No, stupid," Laura said turning around to reply to Bernhard and the new person. "Um... yes I'm Laura. You are?" the female medic responded, the excitement gone from her voice. She looked Rita in the eye.

Nope, she wasn't sick, Bernhard concluded. The woman always became unenthusiastic when meeting new people. Probably to do with having a child's maturity, an adult's intelligence and a teenage body. The worst possible combination Bernhard could think of. Time to watch what happens.

"Rita Stenton," Rita replied, stepping forward and shaking Laura's hand. At this distance, it was easy to see the small lines of circuitry running through her eyes, but her hand was soft, like human flesh, and it was warm to the touch. The heat generated by her internal electronics is probably what heated it up, but the synthetic skin produced by the Nepleslian government was certainly of high quality. To Laura, it felt exactly like an actual person's hand. Those around Rita would rarely be able to tell exactly what the extent of her cyberization was, but her eyes made it clear she was at least -part- machine. "Yeah, that's all." Rita said to the junker drone, waving it away.

"DRAWERS OVER THERE CONTAIN ALL TOOLS FOR POWER ARMOUR MAINTENANCE. RETURN THEM WHEN YOU ARE DONE. THIS SUIT IS AVAILABLE," the junker drone leading Sawyer said, first indicating a large tool drawer and then the nearest Aggressor.

"Thank you drone" Sawyer said as he went to the tool kit and started pulling out tools and setting them next to the Aggressor that was indicated to him. He started by doing a general walk around of the armor, inspecting the body for any dents, dings, or cracks in the outer armor. He then took out an electrical test kit and started with the standard test on the wiring of the arm and leg servos, even checked the optical sensors and the wiring that led from them to the HUD inside the suit. He then started inspecting the weapons systems and tweaking them to more precisely match his own preprogrammed aim-set. Sawyer also set an analysis program running on the general programming to ensure that there were no quirks that may pop up while on the next mission. While that was running he took the netting and burlap and pulled out a set of shears and started cutting strips of the burlap and tying them to the netting to start making new ghillie suit for himself. 'Well at least back here nobody is likely to interfere with me while I'm doing my work' he thought to himself. Looking back he saw that the tall woman was waving the drone off. 'Well this seems to be ok so far, time to wait and wonder what the tests will find out.'

Laura spoke up, "Well, good thing I know how to fix machines. I assume someone sent us a file with your schematics?"

Overhearing Laura saying something about fixing machines, Sawyer yelled from where he was "I've got tools to fix shit with if you need them." Then he continued to make his ghillie suit which admittedly took him a few hours but when it was done it was almost perfectly made to allow him to blend into almost any semifoliaged area. Once all testing was done he thanked the drone and asked them "is there any way I can mark this set of Aggressor armor to ensure that I am always issued the same set? I tend to make a link with a specific suit and it takes time to get reacquainted with a new one."

"THAT REQUIRES THE COMMANDING OFFICER'S DECISION. HE HAS FINAL AUTHORITY ON UNIT ASSIGNMENT," the drone replied, wondering why such an obvious answer was not apparent.

After wasting several hours going over the Power Armour systems and its redundancies, Sawyer found nothing wrong with the suit or its systems.