Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tom rolled his Thunderbolt over to port, shaking his head as the sluggishness he'd been trying to fix with Cantieri was very obviously still present and may even have gotten worse.
This, apparently, was not unnoticed by his wingman, "Still sticky huh?" Lis asked over the comm, her voice slightly muffled and distorted by the speed they were travelling and the military encryption protocols.
"Yeah," He replied, wiggling the stick to try and loosen it, "I'm officially out of ideas."
He smacked his orientation indicator like he'd flick away a speck of dirt.
"What was that?"
"I lied; now I'm out of ideas."
She laughed as he brought his fighter back up into formation slightly ahead and above her, then rolled over 180 degrees so he could look up at the drydocks. "City in the stars." he whispered, and could swear he heard Lis smile.
The two fighters opened up into cruising speed and quickly streaked away from the Monolith, whose distinctive double-hull design glittered in the dark; flat white windows gradually becoming indistinguishable from the innumerable stars. When the ship was only visible to Tom as a blue outline in his vision when he looked over his shoulder right at her, he stopped turning back and focused on the trip to the shuttle.
Proxima was an unexciting system, its natural features ignored by relocation agencies. Instead the bustling city of its only habited planet, Prospero, was the main attraction for offduty servicers and tourists from the central planets. Prospero was the biggest extra-solar city despite having no political importance. Proxima was, however, a major naval repair yard and the only system through which ships could travel to the eastern systems. This high traffic made it especially colourful, though the number of ships were closely regulated by requiring all shipping be conducted along established and clearly marked Confederation lanes that pierced the system on Tom's onboard map.
The shuttle they were to escort was travelling along a sparse trade lane that ran from the Prospero naval officers academy to Prospero Junction. As military fighters Tom and Lis were not required or expected to follow the lane and so instead of cruising to the Junction and then up the lane to the academy they had triangulated an intercept point through darkspace; the regions of all Confederate-settled systems that lay between the trade lanes and local bases' spheres of influence. This path would alos carry them over a major tradelane leading from Junction to the jumppoint to Lalande 21185; the colonial captial system of France. As the mission timer clicked down its first hour the chevrons representing civilian shipping vessels began to give way to hull-specific outlines. Tom and Lis blasted unnoticed over the lane, their latent military sensor camouflage darkening their fighters to the lowgrade civilan scanners, and made the final course adjustment to meet up with the officers shuttle. Tom, in the lead and serving as mission commander, was monitoring local radios and picking up an anomaly. He was about to ask Lis about it when she jumped onto the comm ahead of him.
"Lead," his interest in the anomaly dropped as soon as he heard his formal title for the mission, "I've got something off the lane about two klicks at our depression."
Tom recalibrated his scanners to where Lis had them set, as mission secondary she was monitoring the actual contacts, and immediately picked up the rough outline of a wrecked freighter in gray, his helmet interface allowing him to see it through the instruments in his cockpit.
"Looks like a Huxley-class freight," He rolled a 180 again to see if he could make a visual check, "Appears she's been split down the middle Ten." He used her squadron call number.
"I'm picking up a few scattered crates, appears they've been spread less than a quarter klick from the wreck; suggests recent raid."
"Means whoever took this thing down might still be local." Tom slowed from cruise and flipped his fighter into combat ready. "Call it in, I'll do a scoot n' snoop."
This, apparently, was not unnoticed by his wingman, "Still sticky huh?" Lis asked over the comm, her voice slightly muffled and distorted by the speed they were travelling and the military encryption protocols.
"Yeah," He replied, wiggling the stick to try and loosen it, "I'm officially out of ideas."
He smacked his orientation indicator like he'd flick away a speck of dirt.
"What was that?"
"I lied; now I'm out of ideas."
She laughed as he brought his fighter back up into formation slightly ahead and above her, then rolled over 180 degrees so he could look up at the drydocks. "City in the stars." he whispered, and could swear he heard Lis smile.
The two fighters opened up into cruising speed and quickly streaked away from the Monolith, whose distinctive double-hull design glittered in the dark; flat white windows gradually becoming indistinguishable from the innumerable stars. When the ship was only visible to Tom as a blue outline in his vision when he looked over his shoulder right at her, he stopped turning back and focused on the trip to the shuttle.
Proxima was an unexciting system, its natural features ignored by relocation agencies. Instead the bustling city of its only habited planet, Prospero, was the main attraction for offduty servicers and tourists from the central planets. Prospero was the biggest extra-solar city despite having no political importance. Proxima was, however, a major naval repair yard and the only system through which ships could travel to the eastern systems. This high traffic made it especially colourful, though the number of ships were closely regulated by requiring all shipping be conducted along established and clearly marked Confederation lanes that pierced the system on Tom's onboard map.
The shuttle they were to escort was travelling along a sparse trade lane that ran from the Prospero naval officers academy to Prospero Junction. As military fighters Tom and Lis were not required or expected to follow the lane and so instead of cruising to the Junction and then up the lane to the academy they had triangulated an intercept point through darkspace; the regions of all Confederate-settled systems that lay between the trade lanes and local bases' spheres of influence. This path would alos carry them over a major tradelane leading from Junction to the jumppoint to Lalande 21185; the colonial captial system of France. As the mission timer clicked down its first hour the chevrons representing civilian shipping vessels began to give way to hull-specific outlines. Tom and Lis blasted unnoticed over the lane, their latent military sensor camouflage darkening their fighters to the lowgrade civilan scanners, and made the final course adjustment to meet up with the officers shuttle. Tom, in the lead and serving as mission commander, was monitoring local radios and picking up an anomaly. He was about to ask Lis about it when she jumped onto the comm ahead of him.
"Lead," his interest in the anomaly dropped as soon as he heard his formal title for the mission, "I've got something off the lane about two klicks at our depression."
Tom recalibrated his scanners to where Lis had them set, as mission secondary she was monitoring the actual contacts, and immediately picked up the rough outline of a wrecked freighter in gray, his helmet interface allowing him to see it through the instruments in his cockpit.
"Looks like a Huxley-class freight," He rolled a 180 again to see if he could make a visual check, "Appears she's been split down the middle Ten." He used her squadron call number.
"I'm picking up a few scattered crates, appears they've been spread less than a quarter klick from the wreck; suggests recent raid."
"Means whoever took this thing down might still be local." Tom slowed from cruise and flipped his fighter into combat ready. "Call it in, I'll do a scoot n' snoop."
Friday, May 26, 2006
Darby leapfrogged his way down a wide main street parallel to the plaza, throwing one IFF flare to distract a sniper while he sprinted from the cover of a tall red news box across a dusty boulevard to the cover of an abandoned landcar, whose owners had left so fast the doors were still open on both sides. Keeping an eye on the small red diamond that highlighted the sniper on his visor, he poked his head up to take a look down the boulevard at the plaza. He felt the minute impact of a spark hit his faceplate moments before the impossibly highpitched whip of the sniper's bullet blew past his right ear. The round punched a clean hole through the top of the trunk, down the bottom of the car, and sent a puff of asphalt dust up form the road right behind Darby's left boot. Not wanting the give the shooter even the minute time it would take to chamber a new round, he almost dove from his cover point into an awkward crouch walk, swinging his rifle in his arms for balance and momentum. The movement also served to agitate his active camo, which vibrated tiny gelatinous cells under the fabric to make his outline indistinct. Another round corkscrewed a smoke trail in a diagonal in front of his chest, so he spun with his right shoulder and crashed through a falsewood door, tripping on some debris and tumbling onto his back. Rolling with the impact, he came up in a crouch with his rifle up and ready but the dark old storage room of an abandoned restaurant was empty. He quickly moved against a steel counter for cover and waited for a ranging shot form the sniper, but apparently he was out of the shooter’s sight.
The storage room opened into the kitchen, where the light coming in from the shattered door danced on hanging pots disturbed by the violence of his entry. He scanned in thermal for a garrison upstairs or further ahead, but could only detect the faint outlines of chairs stacked on tables. He found the front door and snaked his helmet camera cable out a crack opened in the door scanning for threats, especially more snipers. He was only fifty feet from the location of the French unit, which constituted one more boulevard and a short alley. He cleared that next street without incident, apparently the sniper cover was patchy, and made his way down a narrow, debris-strewn alley as the chevron representing the entrenched french unit narrowed and the distance numbers decreased to nothing.
Darby stepped out of the alley into a sun streaked hole of a three storey building. A shell had apparently blasted straight down through the roof and all three floors and made a sizeable crater that was ringed with sandbags and razor wire. He realised he was inside the french unit’s perimeter, a neither he nor the soldiers occupying it had noticed. He spoke loud enough that his comm unit broadcasted his greeting out from his helmet speaker as well as his comm link to the other Wolverines.
“Lieutenant Darby arriving at waypoint.”
There was a number of startled cries from around the sandbagged emplacement, and a trio of dirty men in Gens D’Armes uniforms rushed him from the darkness of the store front. It took the presence of an equally dusty noncom with a pistol to ease them down from shooting the stealthy Wolverine.
“Sergeant Reno?” He asked the NCO, who was staring right down the alleyway Darby had unwittingly infiltrated the position from.
Though Darby didn’t ask again, there was a noticeable delay in the NCO’s reaction which came with a snap look and a lurching grab for the front of Darby’s vest. He greeted the Wolverine with a slap on the helmet and various tugs at his uniform, which felt very much to Darby like arriving at an Italian dinner party. Apparently satisfied with the new arrival, the french NCO retreated with his trio of soldiers back into the dark storefront without saying a word. Darby followed, his visor polarising the make the dark interior visible faster than his naked eyes would have, and hesitated as the troops sat at a table and began playing a card game they had apparently abandoned when they heard his announcement. He walked swiftly the to NCO, who was no successfully ignoring him, and stood as close to the mans face as he could.
“I’m here to relieve you of command Sergeant.” He said, to which the french NCO nodded disinterested. “You’re under my authority now, along with your unit.” He added as an after thought, hoping that would snap them into soldiering properly.
Seeing they seemed to have no interest in manning their positions, he took the card river on the table in one hand and dropped them to the wrecked store floor. That seemed to motivate the rest of the french unit to man their positions, or at least go somewhere else in the area to avoid the inevitable chewing out their Sarge would soon be receiving from this Confederate soldiering behemoth.
Instead, Darby walked the man to the back of the position, where he had entered unnoticed, and began to illuminate the various glaring holes in their defences. The still silent NCO nodded and softly issued a few orders in French to his unit, prompting a few tired-looking soldiers to come back with a kitbag and begin loose reinforcements. They then inspected the storefront placing the plaza, where the wrecked chamber of an overheated machinegun lay in a pool of spent casings and had been propped on a counter split in half by a shell inpact and dusted with debris from the ceiling. All of the shelves and tables closest to the window were black and most were at least partially melted while any vertical surface was pocked with bullet holes big and small. Darby noticed that, while the NCO was certainly listening, the man didn’t seem remotely interested in keeping his unit or himself alive. He grabbed the Sergeant by the shoulder and pulled him close.
“Listen, I know that I’m not a local, and you must think that I’m only here to boss you around and get you killed for nothing. I’m just a soldier, just like you and them and those people in the plaza across the street. I don’t want to die, and don’t want any of your boys to die either but I am better at this job than you are. I have better training, better tools, and better opportunities to showcase them. I need you to listen to me out there, and I promise you I will not waste your lives.” Just as he was thinking what a terrible politician he would make, he realised the rest of the unit had gathered behind him while he’d been talking and were now in some semblance of parade. He turned to address all fifteen of them. “I’m a representative of a mobile company from the Confederation carrier Monolith, we have two hundred infantry fighters on the ground and almsot half that number are poised to assault this plaza. We will be providing suppressing fire to the quadrant visible through this storefront, and will be expected to backup the assault.” He paused, thinking maybe he should say more, but decided he might as well move on to topics he was comfortable with.
The storage room opened into the kitchen, where the light coming in from the shattered door danced on hanging pots disturbed by the violence of his entry. He scanned in thermal for a garrison upstairs or further ahead, but could only detect the faint outlines of chairs stacked on tables. He found the front door and snaked his helmet camera cable out a crack opened in the door scanning for threats, especially more snipers. He was only fifty feet from the location of the French unit, which constituted one more boulevard and a short alley. He cleared that next street without incident, apparently the sniper cover was patchy, and made his way down a narrow, debris-strewn alley as the chevron representing the entrenched french unit narrowed and the distance numbers decreased to nothing.
Darby stepped out of the alley into a sun streaked hole of a three storey building. A shell had apparently blasted straight down through the roof and all three floors and made a sizeable crater that was ringed with sandbags and razor wire. He realised he was inside the french unit’s perimeter, a neither he nor the soldiers occupying it had noticed. He spoke loud enough that his comm unit broadcasted his greeting out from his helmet speaker as well as his comm link to the other Wolverines.
“Lieutenant Darby arriving at waypoint.”
There was a number of startled cries from around the sandbagged emplacement, and a trio of dirty men in Gens D’Armes uniforms rushed him from the darkness of the store front. It took the presence of an equally dusty noncom with a pistol to ease them down from shooting the stealthy Wolverine.
“Sergeant Reno?” He asked the NCO, who was staring right down the alleyway Darby had unwittingly infiltrated the position from.
Though Darby didn’t ask again, there was a noticeable delay in the NCO’s reaction which came with a snap look and a lurching grab for the front of Darby’s vest. He greeted the Wolverine with a slap on the helmet and various tugs at his uniform, which felt very much to Darby like arriving at an Italian dinner party. Apparently satisfied with the new arrival, the french NCO retreated with his trio of soldiers back into the dark storefront without saying a word. Darby followed, his visor polarising the make the dark interior visible faster than his naked eyes would have, and hesitated as the troops sat at a table and began playing a card game they had apparently abandoned when they heard his announcement. He walked swiftly the to NCO, who was no successfully ignoring him, and stood as close to the mans face as he could.
“I’m here to relieve you of command Sergeant.” He said, to which the french NCO nodded disinterested. “You’re under my authority now, along with your unit.” He added as an after thought, hoping that would snap them into soldiering properly.
Seeing they seemed to have no interest in manning their positions, he took the card river on the table in one hand and dropped them to the wrecked store floor. That seemed to motivate the rest of the french unit to man their positions, or at least go somewhere else in the area to avoid the inevitable chewing out their Sarge would soon be receiving from this Confederate soldiering behemoth.
Instead, Darby walked the man to the back of the position, where he had entered unnoticed, and began to illuminate the various glaring holes in their defences. The still silent NCO nodded and softly issued a few orders in French to his unit, prompting a few tired-looking soldiers to come back with a kitbag and begin loose reinforcements. They then inspected the storefront placing the plaza, where the wrecked chamber of an overheated machinegun lay in a pool of spent casings and had been propped on a counter split in half by a shell inpact and dusted with debris from the ceiling. All of the shelves and tables closest to the window were black and most were at least partially melted while any vertical surface was pocked with bullet holes big and small. Darby noticed that, while the NCO was certainly listening, the man didn’t seem remotely interested in keeping his unit or himself alive. He grabbed the Sergeant by the shoulder and pulled him close.
“Listen, I know that I’m not a local, and you must think that I’m only here to boss you around and get you killed for nothing. I’m just a soldier, just like you and them and those people in the plaza across the street. I don’t want to die, and don’t want any of your boys to die either but I am better at this job than you are. I have better training, better tools, and better opportunities to showcase them. I need you to listen to me out there, and I promise you I will not waste your lives.” Just as he was thinking what a terrible politician he would make, he realised the rest of the unit had gathered behind him while he’d been talking and were now in some semblance of parade. He turned to address all fifteen of them. “I’m a representative of a mobile company from the Confederation carrier Monolith, we have two hundred infantry fighters on the ground and almsot half that number are poised to assault this plaza. We will be providing suppressing fire to the quadrant visible through this storefront, and will be expected to backup the assault.” He paused, thinking maybe he should say more, but decided he might as well move on to topics he was comfortable with.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Quarter to four on a Thursday.
Might be rehearsing tonight, might not. Made some progress over cake and tea last evening, working more and more on a total lack of acting ability in my character; harder than you'd thgink, you non-actors out there, to make the audience believe YOU are a genius and generally-not-so-bad guy, but your character is a flub.
Would really like to purchase a 360 this week, doubt it will be possible. I might be able to borrow money form my father until I can pay him back with showmoney, but he'll probably cite being broke/a loser to get out of it. Not that I really deserve a loan; if I had managed myself properly I could get one without any outside influence. But I'm lazy and I like shiny things, so there's no use lamenting my non-having.
E3 has been exciting this week, though I still can't get over to PS3 controller just being a motion-sensitive, wireless PS2 controller. I know a lot of people out there really love the dualshock (Itself a PSOne controller with double analog sticks.) and there is something to be said for keeping a consistant controller for a fan base, but the 360 controller is a good example of an upgrade that adds new features while maintaining the core working elements of the previous generation. The other side of this, of course, is nintendo's controllers which have been drastically different with each generation. The Wii controller sounds sort of cool, but most of the first party games I've been reading about seem to have little to evolution past their gamecube iterations other than the nunchuk peripheral support.
I've been feeling really out of shape this past week, alternately sick and weak and unmotivated. Finishing school pulled a rug out from under me that even doing CGS isn't fixing. I should start working out, I guess, but I don't really feel like it. I have been writing a lot more, though, as this site can attest, so that's good.
Damn I want to play Oblivion...
Might be rehearsing tonight, might not. Made some progress over cake and tea last evening, working more and more on a total lack of acting ability in my character; harder than you'd thgink, you non-actors out there, to make the audience believe YOU are a genius and generally-not-so-bad guy, but your character is a flub.
Would really like to purchase a 360 this week, doubt it will be possible. I might be able to borrow money form my father until I can pay him back with showmoney, but he'll probably cite being broke/a loser to get out of it. Not that I really deserve a loan; if I had managed myself properly I could get one without any outside influence. But I'm lazy and I like shiny things, so there's no use lamenting my non-having.
E3 has been exciting this week, though I still can't get over to PS3 controller just being a motion-sensitive, wireless PS2 controller. I know a lot of people out there really love the dualshock (Itself a PSOne controller with double analog sticks.) and there is something to be said for keeping a consistant controller for a fan base, but the 360 controller is a good example of an upgrade that adds new features while maintaining the core working elements of the previous generation. The other side of this, of course, is nintendo's controllers which have been drastically different with each generation. The Wii controller sounds sort of cool, but most of the first party games I've been reading about seem to have little to evolution past their gamecube iterations other than the nunchuk peripheral support.
I've been feeling really out of shape this past week, alternately sick and weak and unmotivated. Finishing school pulled a rug out from under me that even doing CGS isn't fixing. I should start working out, I guess, but I don't really feel like it. I have been writing a lot more, though, as this site can attest, so that's good.
Damn I want to play Oblivion...
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Tom marched heavily into starboard flight control from the shipside hatch. His eyes were burning at the rims, and he almost bumped into Boss Munro as he squeezed them between his fingers. Munro was hunched over a terminal speaking in hushed but intense tones to the control officer. Both were bathed in the wiregrid glow of the terminal and Munro didn't look up at the pilot as she crossed to the observation window.
"What's the rush Boss?" Tom asked, stepping around a hurrying Ensign.
"It's Captain Blair." She said curtly, as if a complete response.
Tom waited for another Ensign to step away from handing her a PDA, then asked quietly, "What about him?"
Munro finally looked into Tom's eyes, and hers were almost as tired as his. "He's been off-comm for three hours, Freeman."
Tom felt his whole world explode into clear focus for the first time since his last communique with Shaw, and tried his best to keep a look of professionalism about him as he followed Munro to a quiet part of the O-Deck.
"What's..." Tom paused, trying to be diplomatic and not overstep his bounds, "Uh, being done?"
Munro looked up sharply, her features softening somewhat but not what she had to say. "Admiral Trotter won't send out a search party while we're facing a shooting war."
Munro quickly moved to get away form him, but Tom began to stalk her around the O-Deck, "Won't? Has he asked for volunteers? Is he only considering Hornet, or will Apex be considered?"
The Boss whirled on him then, in the middle of the deck, clenching the PDA close to her side, "I've got one pilot MIA and an empty space in my hangar. The Admiral is facing the biggest armed crisis of the century out there, we don't have time to search for a downed recon flyer and you know it."
Tom found himself stepping forward to press the issue but, in the manner of the very stressed and exhausted, quickly switched his mind to a remembrance of his rank and position, and instead left the O-Deck for his quarters. Inside he switched on the wireless transmitter while he connected to Shaw's frequency. The intel agent spoke to him from the pilot's seat of his ship, the unnamed wetwork operative sitting in the shadows behind him. "Got all that," Shaw said before Tom could explain, "And I've already got a remedy for you." Shaw flicked a switch and the lights in his cockpit darkened. Tom's wall-mounted comm unit chimed and Shaw spared him a wink before the channel swtiched off. Tom got up from his chair and hit the response stud on the wall panel.
"Freeman." He said, rubbing his eyes again more in bewilderment than anything.
"Meet me on the flight deck Silencer," Major Halverson said over the comm, "I'll brief you en route."
- Shaw 'disables' his own ship and sends out a distress call, Monolith responds with Apex and Campbell sends Spider and Silencer.
- Shaw knows where Blair disappeared and why, but doesn't know where he is now.
- CIB sent an emergency order to Blair mid-mission to scan a civilian freighter. That freighter was carrying weapons to Italian front line forces and they fired on Blair. Shaw lost Blair's fighter in the gunfight but doesn't think he was killed.
- The Apex pilots escort Shaw to the Monolith where he inroduces himself as a pro-Confed privateer. Unbeknownst to anyone on Monolith, Shaw's landing was a cover to get Snake/Fisher onboard.
- Shaw leaves, promises Tom he'll find Blair. Snake/Fisher begins surveillance and prepares for sabotage.
"What's the rush Boss?" Tom asked, stepping around a hurrying Ensign.
"It's Captain Blair." She said curtly, as if a complete response.
Tom waited for another Ensign to step away from handing her a PDA, then asked quietly, "What about him?"
Munro finally looked into Tom's eyes, and hers were almost as tired as his. "He's been off-comm for three hours, Freeman."
Tom felt his whole world explode into clear focus for the first time since his last communique with Shaw, and tried his best to keep a look of professionalism about him as he followed Munro to a quiet part of the O-Deck.
"What's..." Tom paused, trying to be diplomatic and not overstep his bounds, "Uh, being done?"
Munro looked up sharply, her features softening somewhat but not what she had to say. "Admiral Trotter won't send out a search party while we're facing a shooting war."
Munro quickly moved to get away form him, but Tom began to stalk her around the O-Deck, "Won't? Has he asked for volunteers? Is he only considering Hornet, or will Apex be considered?"
The Boss whirled on him then, in the middle of the deck, clenching the PDA close to her side, "I've got one pilot MIA and an empty space in my hangar. The Admiral is facing the biggest armed crisis of the century out there, we don't have time to search for a downed recon flyer and you know it."
Tom found himself stepping forward to press the issue but, in the manner of the very stressed and exhausted, quickly switched his mind to a remembrance of his rank and position, and instead left the O-Deck for his quarters. Inside he switched on the wireless transmitter while he connected to Shaw's frequency. The intel agent spoke to him from the pilot's seat of his ship, the unnamed wetwork operative sitting in the shadows behind him. "Got all that," Shaw said before Tom could explain, "And I've already got a remedy for you." Shaw flicked a switch and the lights in his cockpit darkened. Tom's wall-mounted comm unit chimed and Shaw spared him a wink before the channel swtiched off. Tom got up from his chair and hit the response stud on the wall panel.
"Freeman." He said, rubbing his eyes again more in bewilderment than anything.
"Meet me on the flight deck Silencer," Major Halverson said over the comm, "I'll brief you en route."
- Shaw 'disables' his own ship and sends out a distress call, Monolith responds with Apex and Campbell sends Spider and Silencer.
- Shaw knows where Blair disappeared and why, but doesn't know where he is now.
- CIB sent an emergency order to Blair mid-mission to scan a civilian freighter. That freighter was carrying weapons to Italian front line forces and they fired on Blair. Shaw lost Blair's fighter in the gunfight but doesn't think he was killed.
- The Apex pilots escort Shaw to the Monolith where he inroduces himself as a pro-Confed privateer. Unbeknownst to anyone on Monolith, Shaw's landing was a cover to get Snake/Fisher onboard.
- Shaw leaves, promises Tom he'll find Blair. Snake/Fisher begins surveillance and prepares for sabotage.
Monday, May 08, 2006
While Monolith conducts peacekeeping operations in Ross 128, a pair of next-generation superiority fighters is delivered to the ship. Donated to Apex's best pilots, Major David Halverson and Captain Thomas Freeeman, for morale and publicity tours of the system, they seem to be one-man tickets to on-flight shore leave. However, during a fly-by of a major trade lane through the system, the two pilots receive classififed orders to destroy an aggressive ship harassing civilian shipping. Confidant of the new fighters' abilities and pleased at the show of Confederation power the display will surely make, the two begin the attack without hesitation. Soon Tom begins to doubt the validity of the claim, as the so-called agressor doesn't seem to be firing on civilian ships at all but rather armed vessels outside of the main trade lane. Under heavy pressure from Admiral Trotter, Silencer and Spyder destroy the ship using long range missile strikes and are immediately ordered back to the ship where the fighters are pulled form the flight line and shortly depart. Back on active duty with his Thunderbolt, Tom begins to replay the event sleading up to the attack in his mind, eventually meeting with Halverson to discuss his fears they were manipulated into making an illegal attack. With the situation in Ross 128 rapidly degenerating towards war, Tom is consumed with finding information regarding the engineers and officers who shuttled the fighters to Monoltihin the first place. Following a digital trail on his spare time on board, Tom runs into powerful firewalls and blocks and is even cautioned by the ship's quartermaster to give up the search. Now convinced that something is amiss, Tom takes shore leave on Ross 128's main starport to hire a code slicer named James McCanny who digs up information on the officer who brought the fighters to the supercarrier. Just as McCanny and Freeman discover the identity of the officer as that of a Confed Intel Agent, they are arrested by another CIA named Curtis Shaw. Shaw tells theneverything concerning a high-level military conspiracy orchestrated by the CIB to prolong the conflict in Ross 128. The ship Tom and Spider destroyed was a French diplomatic shuttle carrying a negotiator from a meeting with a local terrorist group, the attack was staged to show the French how much Confed knew but wouldn't allow the Ross French government to openly acknowledge that identity of the shuttle. Shaw doesnt' know why the CIB wants the situation in Ross 128 to escalate, but he and his wetwork operative had been given incresingly illegal missions to probe both French and Italian governmental processes from high in the CIB structure. With Tom's leave time ending, Shaw gives him an injection with a subdermal recording device and a communications scrambler, allowing the pilot to reach him and download anything the implant recorded weekly. Shaw also recruits McCanny for his slicing ability.
- Keeping Shaw's involvement secret form his handler
- Keeping Tom's surveillance and communication secret from everyone on board
- Cool shit with the wetwork operative (References to Fisher, Snake)
- possibly have Fisher/Snake infiltrate the Monolith
- Have more black-ops missions set up by CIB, not involving Tom but he thinks he knows what's really going on; high paranoia
- Eventual source of Brotherhood War be attempted Intel coup disguised as no-confidence vote in Senate over Confed's handling of the Ross 128 war
- Keeping Shaw's involvement secret form his handler
- Keeping Tom's surveillance and communication secret from everyone on board
- Cool shit with the wetwork operative (References to Fisher, Snake)
- possibly have Fisher/Snake infiltrate the Monolith
- Have more black-ops missions set up by CIB, not involving Tom but he thinks he knows what's really going on; high paranoia
- Eventual source of Brotherhood War be attempted Intel coup disguised as no-confidence vote in Senate over Confed's handling of the Ross 128 war
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