The days passed by somewhat quickly, the preparation for assignments always taking up most the day. Despite not having more than a few idle chats with people in that time, there was a sense of community and purpose that had persisted amongst the Jury Riggers that had survived the clusterfuck on Virmire. Even encounters with Vellios didn’t seem so forced since Tanya and him and had their heart-to-heart following the unfortunate incident that threatened to throw everything to the wolves. For once, everything seemed to be somewhat okay, and the people she lived with and worked with were starting to become friends and develop legitimate feelings for one another. Everyone was on board with helping Drono get better. There was no financial payoff here, no bounty to be claimed. It was because someone they cared about was in need, and it was enough. Still, despite all of this, Tanya had the memorial service lingering in her mind, mentally crunching numbers to see if the team would be able to make it to Terra Nova in time or if she’d have to find her own way with the intention of meeting up later. A picture frame of her father sat on the table next to her terminal, Eric Carson’s smile and crisp uniform a constant source of reassurance and comfort throughout her ears of self-imposed exile. Did Belle Carson even think about her estranged daughter? What was she up to these days? Tanya always thought she’d go back to Earth to reconnect with family there, but after close to 30 years, how could one just go back to another world and hope to pick up where you left off? Terra Nova was home, just not the one Belle was hoping for. Her husband killed, her daughter a traumatized wreck who needed support more than ever… all of it was just too much for Belle to handle. She lost her shit and forced Tanya out of her home, which she recalled was becoming quite run down and dishevelled as time went on. Her mother needed somebody, but she sure as hell didn’t want it from a daughter that reminded her that the Systems Alliance cost her a husband and a daughter. Would she even be at the memorial? Would she acknowledge Tanya, try to make amends? There were a lot of unanswered, supremely anxious questions that had no answers. A hard drink of whiskey helped quell them, for now. Focusing on the matter at hand, Tanya had a pair of blue coveralls that were of a similar shade, but different trim and manufacture than what she’d seen from pictures on the Extranet of what the service workers on Lafayette wore, and she noticed that headwear was decidedly non-standardized, so a black patrol cap seemed to be the order of the day, which wasn’t unheard of in remote former Alliance territories as casual headwear. A hard hat was a hard hat, and she definitely had a couple of those kicking around. Twirling casually between her fingers was the fake identity chit that she’d had for a few years since the electronics warfare specialist of her platoon back in the 63rd, Vasquez, pulled some strings and managed to make some authentic-seeming fake IDs for everyone for when it came time for shore leave and making sure that none of the platoon’s shenanigans managed to make it back up to their superiors. She’d used it a few times, having it modified twice now with her fake alias, Veronica Piers, just with a few credentials changed from time to time. She’d passed it on to Dex to make some further modifications that she was a contractor for Sword & Shield Electrical, one of the civilian contractor companies on Lafayette that helped keep the infrastructure maintained, and it was easy enough to access the company’s online webpage and have Dex hack into the host’s server to made some edits to the employee page so “Veronica’s” name would pop up, as well as a carefully planted picture or two on the site that didn’t show her face, but definitely would passed muster if someone looked it up. Tanya just hoped that the company itself didn’t regularly check on their own IP. A plan in motion, Tanya kept working on her end of things until Iosif made an announcement on intercom that they were on the approach to the station. Heading up to the bridge, Tanya leaned on the back of Iosif’s seat to look out through the view port at the station. It was familiar, in an Alliance sort of way, but a lot of work had evidentially been done to it to expand its size and shipping capacity, which was way more than anywhere out in the middle of nowhere had the right to be. She studied the Eclipse vessels, patrolling like sentinels around the station and the system for signs of trouble. The dark yellow paintjob and familiar black sun logo were visible on all of them; they definitely weren’t trying to keep a low profile. Everything about the Eclipse presence portrayed a dominating confidence that they were the unchallenged masters of this system, unlike Omega where threats existed from a number of rival factions that were eager to take what they had. On Lafayette, however, they seemed more than eager to boast their strength to intimidate troublemakers or to give themselves a more impressive profile for prospective clients and recruits. After being granted docking permission, Iosif took the [I]Borealis[/I] into the assigned docking space and the mission began in earnest. Giving the others a chance to disembark first, Tanya slipped out when she figured eyes would be off of the ship and with a tool bag strapped over her shoulder and an armful of emergency pylons, Tanya walked to one of the more secluded looking maintenance hatches that was obviously watched over by security feeds and the LOKI mechs. What she was counting on was her casual body language and faked credentials to sate the mechs and any of the Eclipse members who were checking cameras today. She rather hoped they were lazy and not paying close attention to the monitors. Setting four pylons on each corner of the hatch, Tanya managed to open the lock with her omni-tool when predictably, one of the LOKI mechs came marching over. The mech stated in a feminine and dull voice. Tanya handed over her faked identity chit for inspection, clenching her teeth as the mech scanned the chit, evidentially satisfied with the credentials. it commanded. [color=cyan]”Certainly. S&S has noticed a 14% increase in false positives for intrusion alarms in the service corridors and we want to check to make sure that something wasn’t smuggled on the station that’s been eating at the wires and that all the terminals are properly connected. Curtis Myers, my foreman, lost the master key that I programmed shortly after I left the station for vacation and I was called back. With what Eclipse is paying us, we didn’t want to let this slide, and we didn’t want them to catch wind that their contractor has been leaving loopholes open.”[/color] she explained to the mech. the mech said, turning on a dime and marching back to its position. Tanya slipped into the hatch and closed it above her, locking the mechanism from within. After making her way down the tunnel, her omni-tool lit up and began tracing the signal carrying wires until she eventually came to the first service terminal. The team’s voice comms were recorded into text files for her to read at her leisure, and she mentally took note of who already made their passage through customs. She keyed her own voice comms. [color=cyan]”Hello boys and girls, your favorite techie has found her way into the bowels of the station and given enough time and get into just about any of the station’s non-essential functions from these terminals down here. Only things I can’t do much about are Eclipse tech since its on its own network, but I can at least get you into the door and disengage alarm callouts, open and close doors, and isolate problematic things like patrolling mechs if you guys need it. My access has been logged by one of the LOKIs, so I say we have a good half hour, forty minutes before someone reviews the log at worst, a couple hours at best unless someone can access the mech’s database or individually hack into LOKI unit 423-A.”[/color] she said, recalling the serial number imprinted on the mech’s breastplate. Given that the LOKI units were being used as pseudo law enforcement, the public needed a way to identify the mechs they interacted with. [color=cyan]”How are we looking?”[/color] she asked everyone.