~~~
[B]DAY 70[/B]
~~~

For once, Richard was not in a murderous mood when he woke up, having managed to receive a decent amount of sleep after the team parted ways, and that was after the big coffee vs tea debate. He reminded himself to order in some fine Orellian Tea and try and convert the heathen. His eyes were still haggard and his pallor pale, but those would improve during the day. Stepping out of the armouring chamber with a yawn, the Englishman scratched the back of his head, feeling the small spikes on the tips of his gauntleted fingers scrape against his skin. Around him, the rest of the team were preparing as well, the males in various states of undress as he trundled past them, slapping his locker closed with his armoured palm. After being woken up by the Colonel’s message, Richard had taken a quick shower and breakfast, this morning being a good old fashioned bacon and eggs to sate his hunger. After taking a quick smoke on the way to the arena, he had found that he was the first to arrive, but made no attempts to wait for the team, preparing himself beforehand. 

Sitting on one of the wooden benches, Richard tapped the wrist monitor of his suit and started to cycle through the GHOUL units listed in the school’s database. While there were the standard IMP and DEVIL models currently on the market, along with the now obsolete LUCIUS unit, Richard focussed on the few other models, some still marked as experimental. DEMON, a high velocity assassination and terror model that relied on visceral damage to rout its enemies. FIEND, a larger unit designed to reposition enemies and drag them into danger, as well as a brave venture by the GHOUL company into a more durable unit. JESTER, a small, agile unit that made use of a holographic projector to ‘glitch’ his image before closing distance to pump close range shaped microgrenades into vulnerable points. As well as this, there was the new, highly experimental support unit that Richard’s father had recently informed him about. NECRO, a puppetmaster of sorts, using nanites to ‘hijack’ enemies. Richard still did not understand it fully, but he would have to experiment with it to give some feedback back to his father. He would maybe use it in the next few missions, but for this particular one, he would have to go with something he was comfortable with. Most likely DEMON.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As his teammates finally emerged from their respective changing rooms, fully armoured and encased in the black, beetle-like carapace armour., Richard barely had time to give a nod, and was about to comment on Jack’s change once more, before the blast door leading to the arena opened with the hiss of hydraulics. A rush of air swept over them, bearing the stench of ozone and sweat, masked with the smell of antiseptic. Stepping into the changing room, Colonel Landsfeldt was as imposing as ever, his mechanical arms behind his back and his skeletal face pulled back in a skeletal smile. The familiar hiss of his bionics was comforting in a way, but also reminded the cadets of his partial immortality and difference to them. Here was a man that had been through hundreds if not thousands of battles and led as many charges into the enemy from the front. He bore decades of experience that they could only whisper about. They were barely starting on their journey. The other man was reaching the end. 

“Attention!” he shouted, almost all the cadets instantly snapping into parade ground salutes with the harmonising clash of chemically hardened boots. “Welcome to your first mission as a unit, Team 1,” he said as he paced in front on the students, “Today’s mission will seem familiar to some of you, but utterly new to others.” Those few words sent a shiver down the Englishman’s spine. He had a feeling he knew what mission he was talking about. And he didn’t like it. A creature just as deadly as he was in melee was never appealing to him. “Throughout your lives you will be forced to fight a variety of missions against a variety of enemies, automatas, xenos or humanoid,” he started, staring each one of them in the eyes, Richard refusing to flinch against his cold, hard gaze, “some will be harder than others, but one thing is definite. You will need to rely on each other. Each one of you must be willing to put your life on the line for your comrades, and for the mission No-one is more valuable than the other, and you must remember this if you are to succeed.” The Colonel remained silent afterwards, letting the words sink in. “With that said, I wan t you all to enter the Simulation room, and prepare for you mission. Good luck cadets.” Snapping another salute, Richard stepped back to allow the Colonel to walk to the control room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stepping into the sterile, white simulation chamber with the rest of the team, Richard took a deep breath. This would be his first team simulation in a while. While he was curious how far his team would go, he calmed himself. He would have to pull his own weight here, or maybe even more than his own weight if one of them proved wanting. Clenching his fists tightly, the Englishman let out a tight breath, opening his eyes once more as he removed his glasses, placing them into a small armoured compartment in his chest. Instantly, a HUD appeared over his face, correcting his slight myopia and providing information of the units around him. He was interested in them, but at the same time, he knew what was coming next as the room hummed to life. “Close your eyes,” he warned his team as he followed suit, clenching his lids shut. Almost as soon as the words left his lips, the world lit up into stark whiteness, glaring through his eyelids and revealing the capillaries in them, but the Englishman kept them tightly shut to avoid any retinal damage.

When the brightness died down, Richard finally opened his eyes to something much darker and grungier than the previous white room. They were in a dimly lit briefing room, portholes in the walls revealing the dark void of space, speckled with the light of stars that broke the monotony. The ground was a rusty brass colour, with the occasional blood stain dictating an old boarding action or accident. The walls were painted in a dark green, with some sections having been scratched away to reveal the dull gunmetal beneath which was slowly rusting away. Well. This was a familiar scene. In the centre of the room was a small table, its surface dotted with various buttons and dials. Slowly an image flickered up, but continued to flicker inconsistently, making it unreadable. “Hold on,” Richard said, walking over to the table, “I got it.” At first, Richard tried to stabilize it with what seemed to be precise movements of the dials and buttons. It got it to get to a workable level. All of a sudden, the Englishman sent a vicious kick into the base of the machine, but not a hint of malice was borne on his face. Almost instantaneously, the machine stopped flickering, leaving the image of their mission briefing on the three slowly rotating screens.

[Centre]+Mission Briefing+

Objective:
Kill the Saurid Matriarch

Planet:
Taeron Prime
Minor Agriworld
Mostly Savannah environment
Gravity of 10.02m/s2

Background Information:
Saurids landed two months ago.
Preyed on Isolated colonies and villages
Bred to the point where local defense forces could not contain them
Now own around 60% of the planet’s habitable surface
Cannot bomb area due to munitions dump for entire defence force being under the area
Attempts to deliver virulent biovirus via airdrop to Matriarch unsuccessful, due to anti-air bioforms destroying them, then Digesters converting it into an accelerant

+END+

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/c0HLAaP.jpg[/IMG][/Centre]

Same old mission. If memory served, this was the mission which had been cancelled due to Karl being called away to a different squad. He also remembered the raging fury that turned Landsfeldt’s normally pale, corpse-like complexion tomato red. He was really pissed then. Nevertheless, Richard shared a look with Thessalia and Jack, before once more focussing on the screen. Saurids were nasty little things, attacking in swarms with their base creatures, and then mutating them to suit the new environment. They were a deadly enemy known for their adaptability and ability to appear without number. They reminded him a little of Terra’s ancient life forms, more specifically something called a ‘Vellocyraptore’, a bipedal creature with a larger horizontal height than vertical, equipped with wicked sharp claws and teeth and a cunning intellect. Saurids fitted this description to some degree, if only a little miniaturized, and a few minor anatomical differences. The base form bore no eyes, and navigated more by smell and heat more than anything else. Apart from what scientists suspected was a guiding hive mind, thanks to some specialised node in their brain…or something along those lines. Richard never really was the type to pay attention in class, despite gaining high grades. 

The mission briefing was soon transferred to the monitor on their carapace suits while the rotating image was replaced with a map of the area they would be fighting in. White and red blobs swarmed all over the map like some insane illness, and continued to shift and struggle like amoebae. According to standard cartographic procedure for war, the blue would represent allied forces, and the red would be the enemy. The saurid Matriarch’s suspected position wasn’t marked, meaning that they would have to find the ugly bugger themselves. “Right…let’s get started,” Richard said, leaning in towards the map while keeping an eye on the mission briefing. “We’ve got a few insertion methods at our disposal,” he said as he scratched his chin, “first is the direct drop method, which will probably be what I’ll be taking. I can be sent right into the middle of enemy lines, and I’ll try to create a distraction for you guys to find the matriarch, but I don’t know how long I can last. Never fought a saurid before.” Using a finger, he traced an X onto an angry red blotch that was currently surging towards the leftmost bridge, where there was a small blue blob with another blob rapidly moving to reinforce. “Unless anyone has any better ideas?” Looking over to Thessalia, he raised an eyebrow. “Sergeant? I await your orders.”