[IC] Project Freelancer

[philp123]

"Cheers Wash, I appreciate it."Iowa replied to Washington as the ship lit up. "Seems like a solid plan to me". Iowa Examined all the points in which could be used as an EVAC point, noting them down, aswell as possible ambush points if a full scale evacuation was needed. Iowa jogged down to the armory and grabbed his basic weapons, His battle rifle, pistol and he brought along his new scanner. He downloaded it and moved along. He grabbed one silencer and put it on his pistol. He grabbed his helmet and clicked it into place. Then moved into the med room to pick up some medigel and Bio foam. He looked like a kid about to go hiking for the first time.

As he was moving down the hall he saw 'Cal's taxi service' Zoom by and pick up South "Cal, Please tell me this in't part of your plan?" He didn't wait for an answer, "Actually Never mind, I don't think I'll be apart of it, Just try not to run anyone over on the way, I'd prefer not to do any work before the mission actually starts." He sat down upon the back of the furthest Puma type ATV, "Drive me, taxi man!" He said with sarcasm. He looked around to see a man in an engineers uniform standing there. Iowa looked at him and said "Bet you wish you have a taxi service" The man sighed and walked away.

[Apollosarcher]

Cal laughed. "Actually yes, a I'm bring two because one they are fast and two they fit in the halls of a ship. We rig one to blow then use the other to terrorize them as we drive through the halls. There great distractions, I used to use them all the time. I trained in naval boarding action so were in my comfort zone." He said driving them along. "So this should be a interesting mission just don't hesitate to call us. Penn and I can have serious fun with this. Besides it's not every day I find a use for a Mongoose other than hauling people around." He laughed as they arrived in the shuttle bay.

Climbing off he walked over to the bird they would be using. "Alaska!" He yelled knowing the woman was around somewhere. "Want me to go steal a turret for the back of your bird?" He asked as he got back on drove both Mongoose's right inside parking them in the Pelican.

[Silentsniper211]

Wash was in the back checking the harnesses when Penn came in. “Sounds like your team is in for a whale of a time,” when he finished talking he went into the co-pilot’s seat and stated spinning up the weaponry.

Alaska jumped out of the cockpit of the pelican, not noticing that Cal had brought on the mongooses before she just ignored them. "Wash, come lock these mongooses up, put them in some quick release harness, make sure that you don't break it." Alaska was in control, and she liked it. "Cal, that would be fantastic, go grab one of those mounted Heave machine guns it should clip onto the part before the ramp."

Whilst Alaska was talking to Carolina Wash started talking to the others as he locked in the other side, "Well, you guys might want to get strapped in, once I'm done here, we'll pretty much be finished" "Okay, Anything Else you need sis?" Alaska looked over from where she was standing and looked through her preflight list, she wasn't normally this organised, but her brother had been bringing out the good side in her. "I think that's everything, Once Carolina grabs the turret I'll be set, Go grab everyone and tell them to sit down, and grab Iowa, tell him he's my Gunner"

Wash entered the back with the others, "Okay guys, once everyone is ready we'll be off, Iowa you're wanted up at the back, you'll be using the turret." ,She ran up to the Cockpit and jumped in the seat. Turning on her com she hailed to the main ship. “Mother of invention, this is Alpha Romeo 14/32 Requesting permission for take-off?” there was a brief radio silence before a reply was heard. “Alpha Romeo, you are cleared for take-off” came the clear reply, "Great command, We'll be engines hot in 15, wish us luck," she closed the channel and shouted back to the team, "Sorry about the noise, Remember, space is cold, very cold, lock in your helmets and you'l be fine." With that she started revving the thrusters in order to warm them up.

[Midna-Phobia]

North made it to the hanger shortly after the others and slipped aboard with South, smiling as he passed her a bag, which she carried over a seat, strapping herself in. North sat beside her, the pair pulling on their helmets as Alaska instructed. The ship eventually took off and they were able to move freely throughout the ship, though this was ill advised unless necessary due to risks of sudden veering to avoid space junk. North turned to South and was about to say something when he paused, waving his hand in front of her face before he chuckled softly. “She’s out cold.” He informed everyone else as he unclipped and stood up.

Probably just as well, the girl hadn't been sleeping well recently. He’d hopefully get her to have something to eat before they landed. Moving into the cockpit he moved to sit in the co-pilot seat, checking over their course and current speed. “It’s going to take us at least six hours to reach this thing.” He eventually noted, looking to Alaska before shrugging. “I guess the project really doesn’t want to be associated with this mission. Makes sense I suppose, we should probably drive in shifts though so that you’re not exhausted by the time we get there.” He advised, not trying to imply she was weak, more that he thought they’d all perform well when better rested.

[Apollosarcher]

Cal ran off before returning with a large mini-gun mounting it to the back of the Pelican. After that he secured his helmet and stowed his gear. He took a seat in the Captains chair behind the pilots seat before they took off, he figured the ride would be more fun up here than back there. He saw North walk up and join them letting them know that they would rotate piloting shifts. "I'll go next then, I'm more than likely the second best pilot." He chuckled deciding to leave the two he climbed back in to the rear seats. "Penn, I need your help. I want to get the first Mongoose coat in explosive so we have a nice big distraction for when shit hits the fan. After that you and me take the other one and go terrorize the halls of the ship breaking everything we can." He said smiling, he figured the demolition guy would be happy with the idea of the kind of chaos he had come up with.

[Silentsniper211]

“Six hours is going to be a long time, what do you think it is we’re getting?” Alaska leaned back and turned to him “We’ve got a pretty clear run, I’m only going through one asteroid belt luckily,” Alaska listened to his offer of driving in shifts and wasn’t sure how to react, North was a nice guy so she was pretty sure he was just looking out for her. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” She said leaning back and yawning “I hope you two know how to fly,”

She pressed a button and the auto pilot came on. She swung her legs over the side of the chair loaded up the ship plan again. She had loaded it into the ship to make little corrections, she had chosen the smallest hanger on the frigate, and it looked like the least guarded hanger on the ship and was best option. She zoomed in and called in her brother. When he walked in she started explaining what she was going to do.

“Okay, you two, I’m not actually going to land, you’ll be ‘jumping’ It’s not exactly the safest option but it’s the stealthiest. I’m going to be drifting around this hanger where you’ll jump through it leads straight to the centre of the ship, no guards should be on duty, no problems you can deal with it from there.” She paused and zoomed out “If all goes according to plan I’ll be waiting for you outside the same hanger”

“On the other hand, if all goes to shit, then i’ll drop Carolina and Penn in at the entrance and let them cause some havoc. In which case i’ll need a bigger EVAC zone, so i’ll be going to the main hangar here,” She said indicating to the largest hangar "Of course things change and what not, but that's what i'll be doing," Alaska closed the hologram and swung her legs back over the seat "Well, if there are no further questions?" Keep doing what you were doing "back to it lads"

[Eisenhorn]

Penn looked up when Cal came back and told him he needed his help. The man grinned when he was informed that one of the two Mongoose vehicles they brought with them needed a high explosive makeover. The followup on the chaos plan was them riding around, destroying everything in sight? Well, that was icing on the cake, and everyone could hear Penn laughing as he stood up and stretched, hauling the bag of explosives off the deckplate before speaking to Cal, already looking towards the two vehicles, one of which was about to get an extreme makeover. "Consider it done mate. Got a preference on which one doesn't get turned into a rolling bomb? Hell, this reminds me of an old job couple years back, before this whole Project business. Good times."

If Cal had a preference and voiced it, Penn would respect it. Otherwise, he set to work with some of the extra explosives he brought for the ocassion. First off, he lifted the metal coverings wherever he could, finding the empty spaces and voids underneath them and started packing them with explosives. Non volatile, granted, so a stray round wouldn't send it up prematurely, nor would bouncing around a lot. Penn saved the volatile stuff for missions where entry alone wouldn't risk detonating it all. Replacing the coverings, he rigged up a string of frags on each side, tucked safely away that the pins would pull on when the trigger signal was sent, priming them to detonate alongside the packed explosives, adding even more shrapnel to the mix then there already would be. It would take some time, granted, but it wasn't a new idea, rigging a dummy vehicle to explode. Standing up, his pack a lot lighter now, he dusted himself off and looked at his handiwork, noting you could almost not tell the thing was even more dangerous, just more so to everyone around them vice the riders. "And that's all she wrote on that one. You folks might not want to ride on that one, bit of a firecracker now."

[philp123]

Iowa had been examining the Machine gun that Cal had mounted on the back. "If this gets fun, I'm going to have the time of my life" He looked back to Penn "My god man, Well the guys on that ship will have one hell of surprise if they find you two." he turned to Cal, "I take back whatever i said about your plan, i can't wait to see the fireworks" he left the Machine gun propped up and sat back down attaching his harness. Iowa always listened to music before a mission, it always helped him get mentally ready for what he was going to do. He turned off his internal communicator and turned up his music. He was kind of expecting a massive ship to just appear out of nowhere, after all he was used to slip space travel, but flying in a pelican was a bit far. Although he did enjoy light ship space travel, reminded him of his first of tour in space.

He focused at nothing and tried to drift asleep, he was going to need to be on his toes as much as possible if they were to pull of this mission correctly, and if the shit hit the fan, it would be him cleaning up the mess, he wasn't going to lose anyone else, especially not any of these guys. His head dropped, his body went loose and he drifted away into nothingness.

[Midna-Phobia]

Over the next six hours North did the best he could to stave off boredom. He went through all his gear and checked it meticulously, even giving every piece a good and through clean, although they look like they had already been cleaned for him before he left. Once that was done he then proceeded to do the same with South’s gear, which again seemed to be fine, though he made sure to leave her technical stuff alone. If he broke something she wouldn’t be happy and he wasn’t sure if there would be any time to fix it.

He then made sure to have something to eat before taking his shift at the helm of the ship. It was kind of nice, driving the ship. He’d been trained in it in some of the advanced training he’d elected to do, but it had been some time since he’d got to just sit back and drive a really big bird. That hour seemed to pass the fastest and they were getting closer now, so Alaska was returned to the wheel. He made his way into the back and attempted to wake South. It was probably better she’d slept this long, she would have been really bored otherwise.

The girl jarred awake and he offered her something to eat, which she rejected once more. “Not hungry.” South insisted once more with a loud yawn as she stretched out her limbs, luckily those suits were really comfortable to sleep in.

However this time North wasn’t going to let her off so easily. “Eat.” He insisted. “You haven’t eaten since last night now. You’re going to need food in you for this. Even if you’re not hungry. Please.”

South sighed, but figured he was right and slipped her helmet off once she had been assured it was alright and began eating. However she found once she began she was a lot hungrier than she’d thought she was. So the girl did something she didn’t often do and restrained herself. They still had a long flight back.

[Silentsniper211]

Wash didn't know what to do with himself, he'd used to military regulation and without anyone who was a higher rank there. Wash sat down in the back and stared into space. Whilst Alaska just kept walking around double checking flight equipment and instruments. As soon as it was her shift again she jumped back into the pilot seat. she checked her Eta and called back into the back. "Hello everyone and thank you for flying with freelancer space travel." she double checked her estimates and went back on the speaker, "We are now within ten minutes of our Area of operation." she looked up from her instruments and examined the ship. "If you look straight ahead you can see the SS Matador, I'll be pulling up by the small hangar very shortly, so please put prepped and checked for combat, thank you, oh and can someone Wake up Iowa he needs to be on look out when you guys jump." she closed off the Comm. and set out the flight plan on her HUD.

Wash listened up when he heard they had a few minutes left. He walked over to North and south, He Grabbed his shotgun and his silenced pistol from next to him and calibrated his HUD for stealth. once checking all his Ammo was in position he walked over to Iowa, giving him gentle shake. "Hey, rise and shine, we're Green in Ten, and your on gun duty." He Glanced at the primed mongoose, He had a hunch that the mongoose was going to be their savior. He came up to North and South, "South, I understand you were asleep during the quick briefing so I'm just going to fill you in quickly." He paused holstering his weapons. "My sister thinks that the most efficient way of entry is for is to jump, across." he put his helmet back on and clicked it into place. he took out the mag of his pistol checking the rounds and sliding back into position "You two ever done a space jump before?".

[philp123]

As Iowa drifted away from one reality he entered another. In his dream he was on the cruiser saving a spartan from a sniper wound through the chest. All of a sudden the team started dying off. one by one each member met their demise. Iowa became the last one left. he patched up the final team member and helped her to the escape shuttle. he turned around as the shuttle flew off, to the sight of a pistol aimed straight at him. The dream ended just as the pistol's trigger was pulled.

Iowa woke with a start as Wash Shook him."Cheers Wash, just give me a moment to collect my self." He shut down his music and opened up all the channels. Iowa looked around and noticed Oregon sitting on his own, Iowa hadn't really spoken to Oregon, he seemed like a nice guy, but Iowa was yet to psychoanalyze him yet. He unhooked his harness and got up to the Gun and talk to him. "You ready for this Oregon?" he called over Moving towards the gun. Before he started talking with Oregon he needed to Alert Alaska of his position he lifted up the gun from it's position clamped to the ramp of the pelican. Once he was ready he called into the cockpit "Alaska, I'm up and on the gun as instructed, waiting on your call." He turned around and started up the conversation again, "It's unfortunate I haven't yet had the pleasure of training with you yet," Iowa paused and examined the swords upon his back, "You Wield a Katana? That's an odd occurrence, not many people use a sword in our age."

[Apollosarcher]

He laughed at Penn then shock his head. "No preference just remind which I'm not driving." He chuckled and as Penn finished he marked the wheel with a red tag. Before heading back up to the cockpit and taking a seat, catching a couple hours nap he got up and went over his gear one more time. He even checked in with the suit's calculation system, it told still not enough data to determine mission success rate. However he saw South eating as they neared the first drop point,

Cal walked over to Wash putting a hand on hi shoulder, he hadn't put on his helmet yet so he shot the siblings a smile and pulled down a jump pack. "Space jumps are easy." He said passing the first one over to North. "You just need to go slow and use a gentle touch. Naval combat is my specialty so if you want I can fly South over and then fly right on back." He spoke still holding the jump pack he hand planned to give to South. "If she has no zero gee experience it would better if I carried her over. Might take a little more time but we can't afford her not to make it in." He spoke slowly and with carefully assurance.

[PhoenixEye9]

"You Wield a Katana? That's an odd occurrence, not many people use a sword in our age."

@philp123

Oregon awoke to someone talking to him, he was surprised he got as much sleep as he did. Nobody had bothered him since he got on for the ride, which didn't bother him much it let him meditate and get the sleep so he could function properly for the mission. "It's a nice weapon, even if a bit odd. It makes for a fair fight if I really need one. Otherwise the pistol does its job pretty well. It is a shame though we haven't trained together yet, but I also follow a weird training schedule with more out there positions, so its at least understandable. Our first mission though, think we're ready for it?" he asked as he got up next to Iowa, "It's time for us to see how much of a team we really are,"

[Midna-Phobia]

South looked up to Wash as he came over and explained the plan to her, however when asked if she’d ever done a space jump before she looked to North for a few moments before shaking her head slightly. “I’ve done a couple.” North answered evenly, he smiled at Wash, but then remembered he had a helmet on, which really made the gesture pointless. “I was planning on helping her across.” Even though he didn’t have as much experience as he’d like to attempt something like that. As far as he knew, no one knew South had next to no military experience, and he’d still like to keep it that way.

So when Cal came over and offered to do it he was hesitant. He was right; of course, Cal was more qualified than he was to help her. In the end he decided to just let his sister decide who she wanted to help her. However he saw her hesitation, she was probably worried about hurting someone’s feelings. “Cal’s more experienced.” He assured her. “And he’s right; we kind of need you over there.” He said with a small chuckle.

South nodded slightly and pulled the pack on as she stood up. “You’ll probably have to tell me what I have to do.” She said uncertainly. It didn’t sound overly hard or dangerous, but they were about to board an enemy ship.

[Apollosarcher]

Cal smiled and pulled on a pack himself before securing his helmet. "Don't you worry. However since were going together you'll need a harness. Only use your pack if mine cuts out. He hooked his armor up to hers at the front as checked the locks out the equipment, they didn't need there stuff to get sucked out into space when they opened the hatch. "Just stay still and if you get nervous hold on to me." He said in a calm voice.

He was glad he could walk her over, he could almost here the joke from Alaska now about how he was taking her the weirdest date ever. While he was on the subject of Alaska he decided to radio her. "Alaska I'm taking South to her drop point so you'll have to wait for me to get back."

He told her before cutting the link. He didn't need what ever joke she was about to make. Opening a private channel to South he spoke to her. "I know your tired South and I know your probably hungry so if you want when we all go home I'll see if I can get us leave at the next refueling station and treat you to lunch." He told her as he gripped as the magnetic in his boots turned on letting him stand even when they did open the bay doors in to space.

[Midna-Phobia]

Seeing that South was in good hands North smiled to himself before placing a hand firmly on Wash’s shoulder. “You ready?” He said in a friendly tone as he made his way over to the airlock.

South nodded slightly as he told her what she had to do. Sounded simple enough; just don’t do anything. She followed him over to where they were supposed to exit the ship however she flinched slightly when he spoke to her and she found herself nodding for no apparent reason. “Let’s… let’s just get through this all in one piece first.” She said with a small nervous laugh. She was vaguely aware that North and Wash were both close by, since they were being dropped off at a different spot on the ship to the others since their missions were on nearly opposite sides of the ship.

As they stepped into the airlock and the door to space opened in front of them South watched her brother take a confident step out into the nothingness. She walked with Cal however once her feet left the ground she felt this small sense of panic overcome her that she tried to quickly quell. However she couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped and she quickly clung to Cal’s arm before looking to him and then looking away quickly, glad that the helmet hid the blush quickly enveloping her face. The feeling of being weightless, of nothing beneath her feet was something strange that South doubted she’d ever get used to.

[Silentsniper211]

"Cal you're good don't worry, just be back in time, i still need to move you to the other side of the ship" Se replied to Cal as he entered the airlock. "Oh and don't break my brother!" she angled the craft correctly for the easiest escape. She turned off the engines but left the life support on, keeping the ship warm. she called back into where everyone was, "Right once Cal comes back I'm going to fly you into the largest hangar, Iowa will make sure to keep the guys off you whilst you drive out and then we'll leave, allowing you to do your magic, In which case we'll rendezvous at the large hangar."

"Good to know we've got some experience on our team," Wash said to the team, he ran over and grabbed a thruster pack and put on his helmet. "Always," wash replied to North. He entered the air lock as Cal it hit the button. both doors closed and the air rushed out, and weightlessness set in. He loved the rush of adrenaline. "God i love that feeling." Wash stepped out into the blackness and drifted towards the small hangar. After a few small course corrections he touched down in the small hangar.

He radioed to His sister, "Agent Alaska this is Agent Washington are we secure?" after a brief silence the reply came back. "Ughh why so formal, yeah we're good.", Wash sharply replied "It's protocol Alaska, anyway Team Alpha is on board and prepping for stage one, agent Washington out" he inspected the hangar and noticed only three armed guards. He called in both North, and South, and indicated at the guard at the right and the guard at the left, whilst Wash took the one by the by the door. Covering his mouth and dragging him backward slowly knocking him out. and he moved it behind one of the crates making sure anyone on a patrol wouldn't be able to see it easily.

[Apollosarcher]

He chuckled keeping his private line open to her, he spoke gently. "Relax South, your in good hands. I've done this dozens of times." He said placing his arms around her. The harness would keep her in place but it seemed like she needed the hug. As the floated clear of the ship he looked at her then dragged two fingers across his face plate, mimicking a smile. "That's how we greet each other out here, since you can't here the external speakers and sometimes we can't use radios we make a smile." He said slowly letting his jump pack pushing them along.

"South just be careful, I'd like to take your for a space walk again sometime." He said as dropped her off on the ship handing her to North. "Tell North to call the moment one of you makes trouble. I'll make more." He said, he shot off burning the last of his fuel in quick trip back evening doing a couple tricks before heading back inside. "Alaska I'm on the others are away and secure... Can I go set up the Mongoose now, I wanna find somewhere nice and critical to put it... Hey Penn think we could sneak this thing in to there gunnery deck? It would shut down all the ships canons and if the design is correct we could hit the armory while were there to! And what better place to hide from these asshole than there own armory!" He laughed then left Penn going to sit beside Alaska in the Co-pilots seat.

"On the way back I'll fly if you like. I was going to ask you if you wanted to hit the motorpool later this week me and the boys in Engineering have made a Mongoose racetrack. Were going to do a trail run, figured you would want in on the racing." He said smiling, the two of them both loved vehicles and Carolina enjoyed hanging out with folks. He wanted to bond with them, no he needed to. He had to beat the damn Sim and to do that he would have to know them all perfectly.

[Midna-Phobia]

South was happy regardless when they made contact with the ship, her boots latching onto the hull and she quickly made her way over to North, who was waiting for her. Turning she waved slightly at Cal, but he was already on his way back to the ship so she doubted she saw her. Quickly turning her attention back to the tasks at hand. As they followed Wash inside South gulped slightly as he indicated to two other guards, obviously expecting them to take them out, as he did. But she wasn’t sure she could.

Sure, theoretically she knew how. But actually attacking someone and knocking them out was a completely different matter. She looked to North, once again her worried expression was hidden by the helmet but he clearly knew what was on her mind and nodded slightly, trying to reassure her. Taking a few breaths she nodded slightly. He moved over towards the taller guy, the one of the right and quickly pulled him into a choke hold. South went for a less tactical approach and raised the butt of her gun, ready to strike him down. However she hesitated. She couldn’t bring herself to hit him. He hadn't done anything to her.

Luckily at that moment the guard moved, only slightly, like he was trying to find a more comfortable way to stand. But it startled her; enough to have her make a small, surprised noise and strike him out of fear. He crumpled easily to the ground, the blow made worse by the amours enhanced strength. “I’m sorry…” South said softly as she knelt down and dragged him over to where the others had been stowed. “It’s nothing personal.”

[philp123]

"Our first mission though, think we're ready for it?, It's time for us to see how much of a team we really are,"

@PhoenixEye9

"Yeah i think we can do it, it doesn't look like one of the hardest missions in the world, I mean I've had the privilege of reading most of the teams med reports,we're all fit even for Spartans, we're one of the best squads out there." He said in a serious tone as he proceeded to look out into space, watching Cal return back from the ship. “Whatever happens I can see it being very interesting” He looked at the massive ship with a spartan flying away. He looked at the machine gun and chuckled "If things turn out bad, I have a feeling we're gonna need more than this machine gun, to stop them, i think i even saw a MAC gun on that thing," As Cal walked in he greeted him with a nod, and chuckled with the image of the explosion in the armory. "Sounds like a good, plan, that would give us a clear escape." He turned back to Oregon "What about you, you've been with for a week now, think we're ready?"