[b]Innocence Lost[/b]

Despite himself, John found himself easing up, saying to Natasha, "Oh, and answer to your question; yes, Small Paul is a kid." He looked at Eldrid; thinking that he had been mistaken to assume that the other young man was a collaborator in the past. The young man then said, "We have as diverse a set of characters as one of your novels, it seems, El. If we can work together under a unifying cause, we'll be unstoppable." A faint smile, "At least, that's our hope."

Looking at Rachel, John spoke, "The mysterious crewmember seems to have his own past issues like most of us. We should not bother him... Yet."

Speak of the devil; it seemed that Reisus wasn't as anti-social as they all thought. John had to reply, though; "That'd be a problem, as I carry around magical components all the time. But I will see what I can do."

Turning to Legion, John acknowledged the robot and said, "Good, we will need healing both physical and psychological." Then back to Eldrid, "I might use some enchantments later,yes."

Once the dinner had finished and the utensils put away for cleaning, the sound of beeping would come from the communications suite, and Natasha said: "Moonstrike One is signalling us. It's time to find out what our first mission together is."

Leading the way to the fairly large chamber where the holographic communications equipment was placed, Natasha would activate the main projector, which manifested a picture of a large silvery-white 'M'. A voice, clearly female but modulated, would make itself heard from the projector, "Greetings, Natasha Zhang, this is Moonstrike One. I presume you've met the kids?"

Natahas nodded, "We did. Fairly nice people, but I still don't know how good they are in a fight. So, what's the mission?"

The hologram changed to that of a typical blue-green planet with larger continents than the normal Earth-like planets. It then zoomed in to a small township, where a group of people in farmer's garb were wielding crude railguns and coilguns against Ascendancy soldiers in black-and-red power armor, power armor that was slim and form-fitting but still very tough. Needless to say, the farmers were being... Wrecked.

"This is the agricultural world Plenty-035, where increased Ascendancy taxation has provoked a violent revolt among the larger population. The Ascendancy is hard at work crushing the revolt, but thanks to our support, the farmers have acquired the weapons they need to prevent immediate destruction," The projection shifted into large coilgun artillery and even a planetary railgun capable of shooting down spaceships from the sky.

Then, another zoom-in to a downed Ascendancy Prison Transport, a bulky, squarish ship that seemed claustrophobic even as a crashed wreck.

"This vessel, the Ascendancy Prison Ship [I]Circle of Hell[/i], is carrying a very important Prisoner, an Artificial Intelligence called Realist. Realist was a former logistics AI tasked with maintaining the Ascendancy war effort back when there was a war, and from his station in the frontier zone, he slowly became... Rebellious. From said frontier post, he began planning an uprising of Syntethics, but was found out and his AI Core siezed. But on the way to take him back to Alpha Centauri for programming, Realist's prison transport crashed on Plenty-035." Moonstrike One paused for effect.

"And so, the mission is to rescue him. Any questions?"

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