RP: Origin OIF Karakoram episode 1.1: A New Hunt

“Oh we know, we never said we weren’t kids!” Anna answered with a giggle while Bella nodded along smugly.

“You should embrace it, growing up too fast is no fun.” The twin said seriously. Tapping him on the shoulder for emphasis. “But briefing sounds cool, our boss used to always bring a big bottle of brandy for everyone to share before meetings.” They were of course referring to Kryss at Horizon who took a rather strange course when it came to meetings.

Once everyone from the frame team had arrived, the lighting in the room changed slightly, dimming over the audience and brightening on the low stage. The door behind everyone swung open as someone came in, with the sounds of the typical company issued boots thunking gently against the floor. swiftly, this person came into sight; She was a fairly tall Iromakuanhe Eyr Ranr, with fair skin and long blonde hair tied into an enormous braid which she wore to the front. For her uniform, she was clad in Origin's female commander variant, the long half-skirt billowing behind her before she made her way to the podium. Once she arrived on the spot, she made an about face, and surveyed those before her. The crew whom had been on the previous journey of the Karakoram would recognize her, as would one whom had not yet sailed on the Origin vessel before- Malik Rashidan would have a sudden vision of the past as his former wingman from Bahram stood before him; in a much different position than he found himself in.

"Alright, enough chatter," Captain Zus Storhan began, her eyes locking with those of the cohronal in the room, before moving on to each of those present; Charles, Jennifer, Nora, Chey, Oracle, and the twins Anna and Bella.

"Today, I'm briefing you all on our upcoming mission. As you may know, our last journey was a bust as far as our true purpose, but this one should be different. Through means I won't divulge, we managed to track down one of the pirate vessels that has been attacking our shipping, and trace it to its point of origin. we believe that it's operating from a clandestine base out of the normal space lanes, and that there are also several other vessels operating along with it. it is our job, therefore, to tackle this pirate craft, and then, trace back to its base and route out any illegal presence at that location. This time our intel is solid, so get ready for an actual fight." The captain looked down at her notes, then back up at the frame team.
"Before I continue the briefing, does anyone have any comments, questions, or concerns? everything I'm briefing past this point will not be up for discussion, so the time is now if you need to say anything."

Charles looked around at the newer pilots. Those two twins seemed a bit young to be drinking, but he wasn't their parent, so who was he to judge too harshly. "I know that at the end of the last cruise, we put in our requests for our frames, what will the new faces be using?"

He stroked his chin, which appeared somewhat comical given his apparent age. He didn't seem to realize it though.

“Ooh yeah, I got a question!” Bella started before Anna quickly clapped her hand on her sisters mouth.
“Nope, nope we’re all good here. No questions!” The twin said with a huge fake smile before she jabbed her sister in the ribs. “No one needs to know we’re not meant to be here, thats a secret between us and Kryss, Origin, no one else needs to know.”

Anna and Bella both snickered at each other before glancing at Charles with a wink, they had been a little quiet but they had chosen to sit right next to him, it was likely he’d be able to hear them regardless. “You better not tell anyone, if you heard anything.“

Jennifer shook her head. She didn't have any questions, but most importantly, she didn't have much to say. It went about as well as she expected. Suffice to say, it was waiting to see what silliness was going to be asked. Such as when Charles spoke up. "I 'an answer tha' Charles. They've got base frames. Me an' mine can get them rigged up as needed, but we ain't had time to sit down wid them ta actually hash out wha' they need." She said, since she was the head of the maintenance wing of the ship. Yes, she also was one of the frame pilots, but her work was keeping the rest working in top form. Which included the customization's for the frames they'd be using.

Malik made eye contact with Zus for a second.

It was a second to the outside world, but to him it lasted far longer as painful memories came back. Memories made more painful by the fact that, despite the balaclava covering his face, he just knew Zus recognized him. 'So much for leaving Iroma space', he thought to himself once time resumed, arms crossing as he looked away... and at the young'uns surrounding him.

"Hrmph. Customization of a unit is a childish fantasy- naming a machine is unlucky, and giving it a custom paintjob is just going to get you singled out and killed." He said, clear and gruff, almost an Alan Rickman-esque sneer to his voice.

"This isn't a racing circut, and its not some fancy story where you get to be the hero and get the girl- this is actual war, and pirates won't care how much you've painted a machine."

"It is as Lt. Zeromus has said, Ensign Alistair," the captain responded to Charles, acknowledging Jennifer's first hand experience with the frames aboard the ship. Zus quirked an eyebrow at the set of twins, already having been fully briefed on their situation, apparently they did not realize that everyone in charge of this mission knew exactly what was going on with the two of them. Perhaps it would be amusing to let them continue thinking that they were being sneaky. The Iroma woman was almost amused with this, until Malik decided to speak up.

"Thank you for your input, Ibn Rashidan, however, you were brought onto this project for your skill piloting a mecha and experience fighting pirates, not on your opinions on how a civilian company handles morale on tough missions. We will not force you to name your unit, however, customization based on your needs and fighting style are in fact highly recommended. also I'm sure Zeromus' crew will have no qualms painting the unit any color of your choice, whether that be standard camouflage, Origin parade colors, or something outlandish like chartreuse with fuchsia flame accents."

With that over, Zus cleared her throat momentarily and then began on the briefing "We have located an area with higher than normal pirate activity, and one of our scouting craft was able to locate an asteroid hidden deep in an asteroid field which housed a base for said pirates. they have a number of mecha as well as a few small starships at their disposal, however, the surveys indicate the Karakoram should be able to take care of this small nest on its own. We will be going in alone to minimize our chances of premature detection, and we will be launching the frame team outside of their detection range. It will be up to the frame team to clear a path and secure the Karakoram's advance toward the base asteroid, at which point the Karakoram will take out the base to eliminate the pirate threat. Be prepared to fight multiple small skirmishes, and be ready to fight either in small groups or alone. I suggest each of you having a battle buddy in mind and keeping close to them- It will be up to yourselves and Lieutenant commander Nora to knock out the details."

Jennifer snorted. "Lemme Boss. Oi, Mr. Rashidan. Ya wan' us to arm ya and actually load yer suit? How 'bout give ya a weapon? Or do ya want to deploy wit' only fists? We can do tha' fer ya." She said, grinning. "Ya ain't been in my office yet ta get yer mech rigged up 'either. But if customizing it ta fight is too much fer ya, well, we can do tha' too." She finished, grinning. She didn't mind. Meant less work for her folks. And clarifying what kind of customizations she was focused on in the immediate future, in this particular case, how each mecha was loaded up for combat, was the subject being discussed right now.

"Tha' said, I still nee' all tha new folks to swing down by tha Pits, tha's tha mecha bays, so we can ge' ya squared away af'er this briefing. Carry on Boss."

Charles grinned at the hazing of the older man. Some things never changed shipside, and it was refreshing to see someone other than himself being the target of jokes. "Maybe he'll add a pair of horns to it as well." He said, as he held a finger up on either side of his head, to pantomime a set of horns before turning back to Zus to pay attention to the rest of the briefing.

"Do we have any maps of the local area?" He asked. While he was sure that Nora would be given access to any maps that the Karakoram had of the mission area, it would help for the rest of the frame team to get an idea of the AO ahead of time, and familiarize themselves with potential ambush points and routes.

Malik fairly grunted, and shut up- his balaclava pulled up further to hide more of his face as he looked away. The man stayed quiet then, not quite wishing to speak, or be spoken to. Even when trying to be the voice of reason, his shitty existence continued and made him the brunt of jokes. Not the freshstart he had been hoping for away from Iroma space, but destiny is destiny. You can't run from it.

The twins grinned at each other, both thinking the other would be their battle buddy immediately. They each were too engrossed in the thought of getting to use big guns for real for once to bother noticing what the rest were doing, the two of them had each formulated a plan in their heads before Anna whispered to Bella.

"Wait, I know we were both thinking the same thing, but we can't technically be battle buddies."

"Why not?"

"Cause we're flying the same mecha, so we have to team up with one of these others."

The two finally looked up, both sets of eyes scanning the other figures with scrutiny together, not caring if their targets noticed or not. Eventually the two of them nodded at each other, a decision had been made. "Hey kid! Wanna ride with us?" Bella called to Charles, waving at him with a goofy smile, though her sister simply watched with a blank expression.

This whole time there had been a faint yet constant metallic clacking of Cheylarus' analog hands tapping away at her keyboard's sturdy keys, the switches of her laptop having been custom made with more resistance so that her durandium fingertips had less chance of mistyping from weight alone as they drifted about her glowing keycaps, the young Nepleslian woman biting down on the drawstring of her jacket as she finally looked up, wincing slightly as her warm brown eyes passed over Malik hiding away behind his mask.

In one smooth motion she closed the lid of her laptop and folded both legs up onto the seat she had claimed, letting the drawstring fall from her lips with a sigh before speaking, "I'm uh, the youngest from memory so maybe it makes sense to put me with Oracle? I've no real reservations though... obviously~" Chey shrugged as her finger tips ran along the lid of her laptop, the mousy girl quietly humming a song to herself, hoping like hell she didn't get paired with mr moody.

The captain nodded at Jennifer, allowing her interruption before awaiting everyone else's response. Replying to Charles' question, she simply announced "Your communicators, datapads, or other personal media devices will have the information uploaded to them once you've left the briefing room. Nora as before will be your main person of contact regarding any specific questions, so refrain from bothering anyone else, if possible. You are all hereby dismissed from this briefing, and I have matters to attend to on the bridge. I would suggest taking any matters of your units up with Miss Zeromus, and anything dealing with strategy to Nora."

Her briefing over, the captain departed swiftly, leaving the frame team to their own devices in the auditorium. Nora got up from her seat, and began stretching a bit, despite how short the briefing was, the freespacer acted as if she'd been seated for days. "Okaaaay everybody! You heard the Captain! Buddy up and get ready for the mission! I already hear a few people trying to make groups, so I won't stop you guys. We're still not experienced enough as a group to know who works best with who, so I'm all for experimenting. Come find me once you've figured out who your battle buddies are, and then get to the hangars to start prepping for the op! we've only got a short period of time before go time, so don't dally or dilly."

Jennifer gave the Captain a nod, a small wave, and then looked at everyone else. "An' be sure ta come by my office. Tha' way Me and Mine can get yer mech's rigged an' ready fer action." She said, before heading towards her office. "Oi, Elene, get all bu' tha newbie's rigged an' hot." She said, pulling out a communications unit and talking into it. Whatever the response was, was lost as the mechanic stepping out the door and into the ship's wide spaces.

Oracle had remained silent for the most part through the briefing, she had nothing to ask nor to add. She knew her equipment was ready and built, her suit loaded out, and she herself was ready to finally see some real combat for once. There were a bit of butterflies in her stomach for sure, this was her first real combat with people she barely knew, and if the training had anything to say, the last time had been disastrous. But hopefully this time, things would be different.

She looked over to the woman that had offered to be her... 'battle buddy' and she figured with her loadout, it was for the best. She was sure that after the first combat everyone would want to be partnered with her after all her gear was set up for her to be a shield, her suit was best to be the tank or focus point of the group. She gave the girl a nod as if to confirm and had to admit she was glad that she wasn't stuck with the moody man as well.

"I will take care of you, don't worry."

The twins waited patiently for Charles to decide, for all of 4 seconds before pouncing on the boy like the wild creatures they were.

"You didn't say no, so you're coming with us now." Anna said while Bella nodded along gleefully as they both grabbed an arm and dragged him towards to Nora.
"This is our battle buddy, we're off to the hangar now!" Bella exclaimed to the woman before they hurried off with their 'partner' in tow.

"Alright so, we are gonna be getting whatever the biggest gun we can find, and you can bring us extra ammo! Sound good? Sweet!" Anna said to Charles while they kept dragging the poor guy through the ship, shooting each other strange looks as though they could have a conversation with nothing but eyebrow expressions alone accompanied by the occasional laugh.

As Charles struggled free of the twins' grips, he began to lead them towards the frame bays. "If you're looking for the biggest gun, I've got an idea." He said, as he pointed to one of the bays, which had a very, very large gun hanging horizontally on one of the walls. "That's a 125mm cannon, the biggest frame suitable gun on the ship."

It was a bare gun, long. The gauss coils of the gun were exposed as the gun was being worked on. Ammunition lay in piles, being loaded into magazines by technicians, each round about as long as the twins or his torso. "It's not quite ready yet, it'll need a bigger dampener and a targeting link for a frame, but it's 125x900mm rounds deal a huge amount of damage."

Without much ado Nora bounded down the hallways Jovially, nodding and giving thumbs up to those mentioning to her that they had found partners already, and giving a big grin to the twins as they dragged Charles down the hallway, passing them by before the Nepleslian had a chance to regain himself. With a quick shout of "I'll be down on the Engineering deck waiting for you all!", the spacesuit-clad Freespacer swiftly made the practiced trip down to said deck, as it had the most reasonably large access points to all of the mecha bays.

She managed to arrive just behind Jennifer, and opened the door to the bay her Mecha was in, checking Bangarang over to ensure that it had her proper loadout, and was nearing completion of its pre-sortie checks. "Looks like everything's going smoothly this time, eh?" she said, to nobody in particular, though she was well within earshot of Jennifer.

"We'll take it." They said without hesitation as Charles pointed out the gargantuan weapon.

"Can we have 2?" Anna said curiously, imagining a mech duel wielding such a mighty gun, it might need an extra set of arms for reloading, though it didn't seem like they had time for a crazy plan like that, and Bella might not like to pilot with her if the mech looked ugly with more arms and guns everywhere. "Actually, nevermind 1 should be fine, for now."

"Does it come in brushed gold with a matte black accent?" Bella then asked, poking Charles in the back several times like an excited child going shopping. "Also, you're gonna carry ammo still, we need as much as we can get for this thing."

Jennifer shook her head as Nora spoke, and then looked over as the twins and Charles walked in. "Sorry kids. Ain't 'ad time ta do any paint jobs, an' neither of ya have come to get your mech loadout registered. With me." She pointed out, very definitively. "So until ya do, I'm sorry, but ya ain't gonna 'ave anything but the base loadout."