[color=39b54a]“Then wear a damned disguise.” [/color]Tonka said to Vellios, shaking his head. [color=39b54a]“There’s plenty of helmets with face visors that don’t look out of place that’s as rough around the edges like where we’re going. If you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, don’t think about killing off all the Eclipse mercs to hide your tracks. We start shooting the place up, it doesn’t matter if Dex or anyone has hacked into the station security network, any asshole with an omni-tool or camera can record all of our beautiful smiling faces and blast it across the Extranet faster than you can draw a pistol. But if you don’t want to be a decoy, fine. We’ll put someone else in harm’s way, because there’s exactly one person on this ship you give a shit about and the rest of us can go to the Void; you’d gut each and every one of us if it meant being a good babysitter to the kid. I sure as shit don’t trust you to watch our asses.” [/color]

That out of the way, he turned to the meeting at large. “I’m going to see if I can’t pull up station schematics off of the Extranet and get us a blueprint of what we need to look out for. Unless someone has a better spot for me or wants me to run decoy, I’m going to find a sniper’s perch around the docking bay so if Yestin manages to slip by you guys, he runs into an accident. That and covering your asses if we need to beat a retreat and make a run to the shuttle.” The krogan concluded with a shrug, giving Vellios a glare as he walked off the bridge and back to the Engineering compartment.

Tanya watched him go with arms crossed and a hand covering her mouth in thought. She extended her hand out to articulate her speech. [color=cyan]”I’ve not objections to the plan, really. Ideally I’d like to get in and out of there without anyone trading shots, but it’s something we’re going to have to prepare for. We absolutely do not want civilians getting caught up in this shit, so I’m going to protest the mining hallways idea. What if a family walks through there? Trust me, the last thing you want on your conscious is the sight of a little kid getting butchered from your mistake.”[/color] She said, quietly adding. [color=cyan]”I would know.”[/color]

Grinding the pad of her foot uncomfortably against the deck and wrapping her arms tighter about herself, she continued. [color=cyan]”Anyways, the priority should be getting Drono into the clinic, undetected if we have to. Let’s avoid stirring up too much shit, because the fact of the matter is, Eclipse is a security organization that is often contracted to guard stations exactly like Lafayette because there’s no Citadel authorities in the region. 

“They do a lot of awful shit, everyone knows this, but the fact of the matter is they don’t terrorize the neighbourhoods they have contracts. They go out of their way to look all prim and proper so that way the locals trust them and ignore all the evil shit the organization gets up to. It’s like how drug Cartels or mafias give people jobs or act like model citizens in areas they reside, people feel safer with them there because they don’t trust the authorities to help them when these bad guys are the ones giving out water and medicine and keeping them safe from pirates and the like. We fuck this up and all people are going to see are a bunch of Rogues who attacked the station and put them in danger. They won’t know, or care, that we’re trying to save someone’s life. It just makes it look like we’re willing to put a lot of innocent lives in danger for our own selfish wants.”[/color] Tanya said firmly, looking around at the faces gathered. [color=cyan]”I’m going to spend the trip to the station going over what’s known about Eclipse doctrine and studying their mechs inside and out. If I’m going to sabotage them, I want it to be quick and efficient where they’re useless bricks instead of deadly killing machines.”[/color]

With that, Tanya also made her way off of the bridge to prepare for an assignment that she had a sinking horrible feeling about. She was concerned for Drono’s well-being, but also for everyone else on the team… and this would be the first time they’d be operating in a civilian-heavy area. Omega was different; they hit the Twin Star’s mining facility and rescued some unintended hostages. If the team pulled shit like they did in Virmire, they’d not only look like villains and paint a target on their backs, but innocent people could be hurt from their carelessness.

Instead of making her way to the hanger, she headed to her quarters and sat heavily on the uncomfortable mattress, her back against the wall. How much was a life worth, anyways? If they started a shootout with Eclipse, how many innocent lives would be collateral, and to save one drell’s life? The team barely knew each other, and this was what they were willing to risk. Pulling the picture of her father from the end table, she looked at Eric Carson’s face for the thousandth time since she framed the picture, a still portrait from a mere second in his entirely life, and this was all she had left of him. [color=cyan]”Dad, what would you do? I could use your advice right about now.”[/color]

Eric Carson’s easygoing smile didn’t waver, and his gaze remained as steady as it always was. The picture remained silent.

[center][h3][I]Lafayette Station
Milky Way / Voyager Cluster / Yangtze System
1.5 weeks Later…[/I][/h3][/center]

Picked up on sensors before it came into visual range, Lafayette Station sat in orbit around Binthu, the second planet of the Yangtze System. Compared to the Citadel or Omega, it was a small station that had originally began life as a military field hospital outpost when the Alliance was charting territories in unknown regions in space, and upon finding nothing of value that would sustain a colony or trade relations with other species, was quietly abandoned by the Systems Alliance and quietly taken over by settlers that were willing to deal with the harsh isolation of the station and higher import fees for supplies in exchange for somewhere that was out of the way where no one would bother them. The station subsequently grew to a population of about 32,000 people, its original form buried under countless expansion and construction projects, including a fully-fledged hydroponics development that accounted for the station’s primary oxygen supply and agricultural source.

In orbit around the station were a number of defensive ships bearing Eclipse markings, and even as the [I]Borealis[/I] approached, there were ships visible leaving the station and arriving at very irregular intervals. The supply train and trading system was obviously healthy; the real question was what the people of Lafayette had to offer that could afford regular imports and Eclipse security. The docking clearance was granted without much in the way of suspicion, and soon enough the ship was directed to the secondary dock, the one constructed years after the station for civilian traffic. Eclipse, as it turned out, was in sole possession of the original docking bay and part of the station as a whole. 

While the station was run a lot like a mid-sized town, including just about any amenities you could want, there was an abnormally high emphasis on medical care. It became quickly apparent that a lot of the ships coming to the station were people desperate for medical care that they weren’t getting back in the Alliance controlled regions, be in waiting lists or unauthorized and unregulated treatments. Lafayette was becoming something of a beacon of hope for a number of people, although they certainly had to pay a premium for it. Universal healthcare, as it turned out, didn’t apply to the whole universe, especially somewhere that was largely off the grid and forgotten. None of the civilians appeared to be armed, save for a handful of those with pistols on their hips. It was unclear if those people required special permission or not to carry. If anyone on the team brought a gun, it would have to be concealed or find a way past customs. Given Eclipse was the outfit running security, their scanners would be sophisticated enough to pick up anything going through the checkpoint; the scanners would have to be sabotaged into reading false positives, or someone was going to have to find a way on the station outside of the checkpoint. Fortunately, there were only a handful of organic Eclipse officers at Customs; the rest seemed to be the typical LOKI mechs that were handling the processing of documentation and scanning for contraband.

However, there was evidently a checkpoint that wasn’t scanned that was related to medical supplies and the appropriate badges. Schematics also showed that there were service hatches in three separate locations, but there were also security feeds on each of them, locks, and attempting to access them would be largely in plain sight. Perhaps there was a way to find maintenance uniforms and equipment that would pass scrutiny... or something that could draw attention well away from the access hatches.