[@iTem][@Xandrya][@Gardevoiran][@superservo27][@Rultaos][@t2wave][@Shard][@Silver Carrot][@BKburke]

After a slight delay, the Revenant finally departed from it's berth at the Alliance base on Laredo and once more headed off to the stars. The plant life was swiftly removed from the Lower Deck and dumped out of the airlock. Things quieted down after that and over the next several days, the crew sunk back into that same feeling of monotony they'd been mired in for weeks. Finally, Stryker woke up to an incoming call.

"Gooood morning partner" Dawson said as his face filled the screen and he got his first glimpse of Stryker's 'literally just woke up look' "Aww, what's wrong, interrupt your beauty rest?"
"Shove it Dawson, what do you want?"
"Just figured you folks would be eager for a job, and as luck would have it, there's something here on my desk right now, sending it through.... might wanna jump on this immediately, sort of a time-sensitive issue, but you'll see for yourself if you still know how to read."
With a chuckle, the video feed abruptly cut off.
"Yeah, fuck you too." Stryker said under his breath as the briefing files arrived on his terminal and he began to read through them.

May 27th, 2167
Somewhere In The Belt
The Revenant
War Room

A few hours after receiving the intel, Stryker had everyone gather in the War Room for the briefing. The first image that popped up on the holotable was an image of the known universe, gradually zooming in on a lone system right on the border between the Alliance territories and the Deadzone
"This is the Orion Frontier, the single most isolated system under Alliance rule. They've got one settled planet, Arbonne, and that's our destination. The Alliance started up a settlement here because, unlike most worlds they've colonized, Arbonne was already perfectly suited for human life. Most of the planet is covered with forests, though there are a fair number of open plains, with mineral-rich soil. Their plan at one point was to colonize, let the first generation of settlers get things going, then hand off operations to corporations with interests in mining or forestry, strip mine the unsettled areas of the planet for resources. This never came to pass, due in part to the isolated nature of the system, didn't make financial sense for an Earth-based mining company to send freighters all the way out there to pick up the raw material and bring it back for processing, they'd burn too much fuel. Ditto for setting up a processing plant in the system, too much investment for not enough return, so the plan was scrapped and the settlers were mostly left to their own devices, save for an Alliance supply freighter making the trip out there once every few months. They keep a small garrison of soldiers and an administrative staff on-site to run day-to-day operations. The only reason the Alliance hasn't shut this colony down is their one other vested interest."

The images on the holotable shifted to a topographical view of an empty plateau, which shifted horizontally to show a structure lying underneath the surface.
"The Alliance had this underground R&D facility built on the planet, a fair ways away from the only settlement, for classified reasons. No one knows its there apart from Alliance Command, the administrative staff, the researchers that live there, and now us. Although earlier this week, the researchers made some sort of big discovery, again classified, and now Command wants them and their research brought in, which I'm sure has nothing to do with the latest situation at Arbonne."

The holotable changed again to show an image of the planet surrounded by four Reaver-class ships.
"This is a composite scan from about three days ago, an Alliance patrol ship passed through the Orion Frontier on its way back from the outer-Expanse, they spotted these pirate vessels descending on the planet, they moved in to recon, but they went silent after a lone intelligence transmission. Operating theory is that they're dead, along with the entire military garrison, so it falls to us to get to the surface, get the scientists from their underground lab, and get out. Not the most exciting job I know, but there's a twist."

Another shift of the holotable brought up images of decidedly Nordic-looking pirates.
"They're called the Skaldurm. A mostly-human cabal of pirates that adhere to the culture and way of life of the vikings, an ancient human civilization. They storm a planet, overrun defenses, then raid, rape, and pillage what they want. On an isolated planet like this, their victory celebrations could last for weeks, so we can't just wait for them to leave, then swoop in and grab the nerds. There's also way too many of them to fight head-on, so that's out. And one last wrinkle, there's no way to get direct word to the scientists that we're coming, or to even get access to the facility without going into the town itself. The admins had a terminal they used to get word to the research team if anyone from Alliance Command showed up and needed to go down there. Like I just said, we can't storm the town itself, we wouldn't survive against their numbers, so someone has to go in undercover, alone, and get to that terminal. Taleste, you're the only one who has the skills to pull this off, so I'm putting this task on you, hang back a minute after the briefing, I'll go over the details for your side of things."

"Here's the plan." Stryker said as the holotable went dead "We're gonna breach the atmosphere on the far side of the planet, and fly low under cover of night to avoid any chance of detection, we'll find a landing zone to tuck the ship away then take the shuttles out to the entrance to the lab, where we'll lie low while Taleste does her thing." 
He looked over directly at her as he continued "When you get to the terminal, radio back for evac and I'll come back for you at the same place we drop you off, about a kilometer or so outside of town. If you run into any trouble, I'll come back with numbers. If all goes well, none of us will even fire a gun, but after those last few jobs, I want to be prepared for the worst possible scenario, so Grayson... get everyone kitted out for a doomsday scenario, maximum ammo, and I'll also need this stuff as well."
He paused to slide a hand-written note across the holotable to his quartermaster, who unfurled it and scanned it over quickly.

"Shouldn't be a problem, how much time I got?"
"We're en-route now, should be about three hours before we get there."
"Piece a' cake."

"Alright guys, if there's any questions, find me afterwards, I need the room right now to give Taleste the details of her job. We'll reconvene before we enter the system, in the meantime, I guess there's not much else to do but relax and get ready, Grayson'll have your gear ready before we get there."