[center][b][h2][color=f26522]Jonathan McCord[/color][/h2][/b][/center]

A cigarette burned dimly in the darkness and a wisp of exhaled smoke curled into the night. Overhead a rolling blanket of cloud marched steadily across the sky shrouding the light of Espia’s moon into a subdued gray and silver like a heavy cloth being pulled slowly across a lantern. Jon watched the wind carrying the amorphous forms and smoked. He’d been there for a long time, having moved into position when third shift opened the spillways and the generators spun up with a roar of water and machine that filled the canyon and masked all sounds other than warning claxons and the freight-train thunder of millions of gallons moving seaward. As the Tie Shan River settled through another cycle of man-made tide control, the air quieted and the structure took on its own ambiance, humming with the steady movement of giant turbines at low rpm and the somewhat soothing sound of water moving. Amber and red fixtures spread ghostly light over walkways and service doors, combining to give the whole facility a sepulchral glow. Occasionally a loudspeaker would broadcast some announcement in crackled tones from a speaker that had seen many years outside in thick saltwater air. Jon drank a cup of coffee from a thermos top and leaned back against the footpad of his [i]Marauder[/i]. 

At some point Cassandra had made the decision [i]not[/i] to tell the regular employees of the dam about the potential for danger. As for security, she had entrusted Jon to brief them for the possibility of both friendly and unfriendly visitors and that their agreeable secrecy would be appreciated in ensuring that operations continued uninterrupted should the situation become more, “[i][color=ed145b]complex[/color][/i]”. She had a way with words. Jon thought. A sentiment that he knew didn’t go unnoticed by Colonel Wayne. He took another sip and set the cup down next to the thermos and lit another cigarette. It hadn’t taken long to brief the relatively small security crew which mostly amounted to having eyes up, ears open and that they would be most dangerous, should the need arise, by keeping the channel open and making their communications short and professional. From what he observed from his time on Espia, at least within Cassandra’s sphere of the Aqua Vitae Corporation, was that they were fairly rigorous in hiring practices. Everyone on the shift understood what was said and further [i]what was not said[/i] in a potential defense of the structure. When the shifts overlapped, he’d give the briefing again, but the regular passdown between the guard crews was to be conducted normally. 

His gaze shifted with a gentle wind that swayed the tree tops slightly. He didn’t anticipate having to take any shots at extreme range, but paying attention to windage was a bit of a habit. At a standard 1G the drop in his AC5 was predictable and nothing short of gale force would affect its trajectory out of the barrel for a significant distance. The biggest challenge he’d found, other than the regular shitty weather, was that being a smaller planet the Coriolis Effect came into play much sooner and had to be taken into account. The PPC’s naturally were undisturbed by windage, however he liked the simplistic ruggedness of his shoulder mount and the Kentucky Rifle painted on the side armor had felt like the perfect harkening back to a time of warfare long past on ancient Terra. Occasionally, he liked to read the surviving stories of the woodsman and cowboys of that time. The mountaineers, the trackers and hunters and the tactics they used. HIs mind wandered for a moment. He didn’t really consider himself spiritual in any way, but at some basic, genetic level, he’d felt the foregone call of eons in his blood. He felt it on the desolate Taurian frontier protecting terraformers from pirates and raiders poaching supplies and he could feel it the forests of Espia in the mineral salt taste of earth and water. 

He pulled a sleeve back from his jacket and glanced at the watch face under his wrist. The sun would be up in a few hours and the Knights would be due in at any time. Marit crept into his mind first and he shook his head slowly, looking up at the hefty cloud layer again. At least the weather was helping for a change, he thought. With no moon or starlight, the Knights approach would be in near total darkness. He finished off what was left of his cigarette and turned to start getting his kit back together. Crouched in a depression on the edge of a treeline at the top of the southern hill that overlooked the dam, the profile of his Marauder would be hard to distinguish when the Espian star first rose in the east and cut long shadows through cloud against the morning. He thought he could have probably handled the mission alone, particularly with good position and surprise on his side. The southern road had an especially dangerous bend along the hillside that would make a hellish ambush point. However, Cassandra wanted to see what the Knights were made of and the Task Force Ops were the Colonel’s way of showing her just that. Jonathan didn’t envy their position, but after what he’d seen at the sports stadium, he didn’t mind the extra firepower on his side either. 

He killed the rest of the coffee and took a leak before crawling up the side of the machine to the cockpit. The canopy folded down around him as he subtracted his jacket and stored it, along with the rest of his pack, in the compartment behind the seat. The sensors came online, however “[i]bitchin’ Betty[/i]”’s voice was more subdued with systems again in passive surveillance. He pulled a worn, red cotton headband over his relatively unkept and windblown hair for the sweat that was sure to come later. It wasn’t quite time for the neurohelmet and he left it on the hook while opening a channel to the ops frequency and waiting for the Knights to arrive.