[b]Northern Border of Warm Steppes
D+31 After Loss of the 'Griffin'[/b]

How long has she spent traversing this desolate steppe, Nova wondered to herself as she struggled through the stinging sandstorm. Each step forward was a struggle, between the semi-hard terain beneath her soles, the equipment she had stowed and was now lugging on her back, and the grit which stung at her semi-covered face (concealed behind an improvised shemagh and cloak).

Well over a day searching for her crashed ship and, once more, nothing. No distres beacon, no torn armour plate, no bodies. o sign of life by any means she could detect.

You can therefore imagine her utter shock, then, when she heard a squall of comms trafic on her comms bead. She stopped and knelt, adjusting her visor's ear-pieces and activated the internally-built mike.

[quote][i]"This is Lieutenant Rave Mallard of the Spectre Ops with Raynor's Raiders. 

If there are any Dominion personnel hearing this, we are in the southern desert on a mountain. In one hour, I will be heading to the northern border where the desert meets with mesas and badlands, waiting six hours for you to arrive. I will be doing this for the next two days, this message looping every hour on the hour for the time I am waiting. Please let me know you hear me on one of these channels. 

I repeat, this is Lieutenant Rave Mallard of the Spectre Ops with Raynor's Raiders. It's time to come home."[/i][/quote]

Nova frowned, biting her lower lip. On the one hand, she was relieved that - friend or foe - there was at least someone familiar enough that was as equally stuck as she was, and that they were actively looking for her. On the other hand, she had been practically a waned woman for the past quarter of the year - who knows whether this was all a set-up and she'll be back in an interrogation chair, if not shot, for her crime?

Everything within her was crying out to block this transmission, or to track it down and destroy it; how was this [i]not[/i] a trap? Pragmatism and her own survival, however, ultimately won out. Swallowing, she lowered her face covering and keyed her earpiece once more, opening a line of communications to the Raider base.

"This is .... This is Operative X41822N to Raider transmitter." she stammered over the howling wind. "Requesting extraction."