Varus looked to Dresden for a brief moment, almost as if to say "your forgetting a very tiny member of the team." But he didn't say anything, after all Max was usually very punctual, so this was strange to be sure. He must be delivering his present, he thought to himself.

"Yes, we should get started." He said pawing at the console to enlarge the four files, giving them a quick flick to cause them to lazily spin. "We have four things that our dear Claire has filtered through to use." He finished gesturing to Claire at the mention of her name.

Claire took a light bow in acknowledgement.

"The first, a contractor has requested assistance in guarding his research endeavors. He says it would be invaluable to get his cargo off the planet and back to Alliance space. Problem is, he needs to mine it first, and reports say the planet is a class 3 threat level." For those who wouldn't know just yet, a class 3 threat level planet has a tame environment, but many hostile creatures lurk on it. "Similar it's far outside the Alliance security zone, so pirate activity is likely."

"The second", he started without waiting for a response. "People have been going missing on Ythrid IV, and with a colony so small, it's a mystery no one can solve. They need us to head in and figure out whats going on."

"The third. A shipment of Alliance cargo, mostly weapons and research data was hijacked by marauders, Command has tracked down their base, but we need to get in there and get back what's ours."

"And finally, and this one has me worried." He started with emphasis on the worried part. "Hakov II, a small world that was just colonized not 4 months ago. Had only one settlement on it's surface, has gone dark. No transmissions, no distress signals, nothing. It just vanished. Command wants us to figure out what happened."

Once he finished his speech, he took a step back and made each document appear flat on the table, positioning each one at a corner of the rectangular space and stepping back to let his little council have their say on each one.

Finally, they were getting started. As Varus began listening the available contracts, she filed each one through her own personal interests. It didn't take her long to decide and, being something of an opinionated person, was the first to pipe up about why her choice was obviously the best one.

"I say we take the third one," she said, taking a step forward. "It's the only solid one, really, aside from ]i]maybe[/i] the mining nonsense. At least with this one we know what we're up against, we know what we stand to gain, and we're doing a service of supply and vengeance for the Alliance. Pretty simple choice if you ask me, better than chasing ghosts and digging up rocks."

If Max had been present she might have worded the last part differently, but it wouldn't have changed her point. The fact that they'd even considered taking the ones regarding missing persons shocked her. She felt quite frankly insulted that they would be sent on a search and rescue. They were a high-end military vessel, not the damned lost and found.

Teeth raised a hand lightly--just off the table at the wrist, but still, and he turned slightly in his chair to address Jackdaw as well as the rest of the room. "Well, we can't just discredit the disappearance of an entire colony. Stolen property is important, yes, but this could be a sign of a bigger threat. If this was just the first attack, doing nothing could just invite more in." He spoke a bit differently in business talk--nothing drastic, of course, this was Teeth after all and there probably wasn't a word he could say without friendship leaking out the pores of it, but he talked about the options like a diagnosis--pragmatic and blunt.

Dresden waved her tail lightly, barbed tip gesturing at the Seron man. "I vote the horror movie waiting to happen too--certainly sounds the most exciting." Her grin flashed, a dangerous, wild edge to it.

Rennac listened intently as the missions were all laid out, paying particularly close attention to the last one. "I have to agree with Teeth on this one. Even if their typical Com systems were knocked out by a virus or attack any engineer or technician worth a damn would be able to set up at least a crude distress beacon from spare parts on site. To simply go dark that suddenly without any warning. Either something is jamming the signals on a huge scale which would indicate the possibility of intercepting Alliance transmissions in which case all of our transmitted intel could be compromised. The second option is that there is something that is both undetectable and has enough firepower to wipe out an entire colony with a single sweep, which is a clear threat to the alliance for other more obvious reasons. The marauders and cargo will more than likely stay where they are so long as no one tries to stir the nest. The fourth contract though could be the precurser of something much bigger. And as scared as I am to say, I have an inkling of what that may be. Captain, may I take over the display?"

Taerys nodded slowly, considering each of the options put forward by Varus. She remained silent for a while as she watched the others put forward their views first. She knew that they weren't going to get all of the problems fixed. That was never the case, and it would never be the case. It did honestly sadden her a little that all these people in danger were getting ignored but tough decisions had to be made. 

"Jackdaw is right, we know what we're getting with these marauders." The Varyx paused for a moment, looking around at everyone. "And what are we getting exactly? Pirates who couldn't organise themselves into a truly troublesome force even if someone smacked them in the face with the possibility of toppling the alliance." Taerys shrugged lightly, smiling a little. "We can deal with them later if we have to. What scares me more is the unknown. We should go to that colony that we lost contact with. If it was any normal glitch or bug in the system then surely their comms would be back up by now, no?" Again, she's looked each other crewmember in the eye before turning her attention to Rennac. "Either way, let's see what the new guy has to say about this."

Varus listened to each member of the crew in turn, and when Claire's turn came around it was no different.

"I would have to agree with the majority Captain. Cargo is always being attacked and taken, this is nothing new, though if Command asked us to get it, it must have more value than most. Still, an entire colony vanishing without a trace is... disconcerning. From a PR stand point, it doesn't look good on the Alliances record." She said calmly, her hands never leaving their place behind her back.

When Ryder's turn to speak came he just looked down at the new guy, Ren and reached on to pat his head with a massive hand. Making a grunt and "petting" Ren. He's a simple man, but it's the little things he likes.

Varus took note of what Ren said and with Tearys backing him up, why not. "Rennac, tell us what you know. "

Rennac was a little on edge by the massive hand petting his head, not showing any outward awkwardness as the large lizard rubbed his head like he would a pet. Personally he was somewhat offended by it since it started when he was sent to earth for training, the recruits trying to rub his head and belly to get him to react like a normal dog. Still, he wired his wrist computer into the display, bringing up a case file he was briefed on. It detailed on the discovery of a derilict Alliance vessel which had all of it's systems offline. The most noticeable thing though was that there was no real damage. "About two months ago an alliance exploration vessel came across this ship floating off it's original coarse. Initially the crew believed it to be an attack which crippled the ship and killed the crew. Upon further examination they found there were no signs of plasma blasts on the hull which caused the damage. Standard protocol is to link up and download the ship logs to investigate. When the exploration vessel attempted to do that they were almost immediately crippled by a virus that was responsible for the other ship's destruction. The virus counteracted every alliance security protocol, every firewall or virus detection and shut down all systems. Thankfully they created a compact distress beacon and were rescued before all the air was used up. This here is a super virus, which we believe was crafted specifically to cripple and destroy alliance systems." On the screen now as an image of the code in question, a mere snippet but enough to show the complexity of it. "Part of the reason I am here is to oversee the installation of the new safeguards which is being prioritized for all major vessels. However, this sudden blackout without warning makes me believe this colony was the victim of the same virus. This is not just some nerd at a terminal trying to have fun. This is high level code, something you buy off of the black market to terrorize entire governments. Command believes the only group who could have made this virus are those who know the computer infrastructure of alliance computers and space craft. Command thinks we have a turncoat who sold out our computer systems. This virus destroyed a ship and it's entire crew without a single shot being fired. If it was done on a hostile colony... think about what is run by those systems. Shield generators, atmospheric converters, terraforming equipment, air collectors, all basic devices needed to make a settlement on a hostile world. All would either be offline or working to do more harm. Given this information I believe this dark colony may be our first lead to track down one of the largest threats the Alliance has seen.

Varus took a minute to process all Rennac had just said. He wasn't a fool, but all this computer code being flashed made absolutely no sense to him. What he did understand clearly though was the threat this virus posed. If it could infect a ship to completely disable it, including life support, it was a terrifying force. If it could be use don colonies, it would be even worse. Without defenses or communications any settlement could be open season.

"I see the challenge this poses. If this is a chance to learn more about it I vote to visit the missing colony." He said weighing his words and Ren's simultaneously.

Ryder got kind bored of "petting" Ren and began pacing the room, eventually sitting down by Teeth, his head almost as low as his, but close enough that he didn't have to crane his neck to see him. He turned to him and just stared, not saying anything, all four eyes prancing over the Skulldog.

Claire was content to just keep quiet. She new her place and it wasn't to plan battle and virus strategies. It was just to weight the PR angle and make sure the "warriors" don't choose the option that would seek out the greatest battle.

Jack felt on the verge of nodding off. She couldn't control the mission choice, and if Varus was legitimately worried about the vanishing colony, then she figured it had at least some weight. When Rennac started to talk, she more or less tuned out; there were some things like the description of the virus and what not, but all of the technical talk and the talk about his missions quite frankly left her bored.

No wait, a point of worry did come to her mind. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it worried her. Rennac seemed to be the leading authority on what the virus could do, and how it worked, even if he was boring and verbose. She looked to Varus, brow furrowing preemptively.

"You will be leading us, right? You, the Captain. Right?" she said more than asked, but it was clearly a weighted question.

Rennac nodded in agreement with Varus, looking to Jackdaw as she seemed to have an attitude problem whenever he was concerned. He worried if she would even be able to work with him in the field but kept that to himself for the time being. That being said, he wasn't about to rely on Jack to cover him while cracking an security system. "Of course Captain Varus is still in command. That was never brought into question. If he were being replaced, someone higher ranking than me would have come on board. I am just here as your new hacker and your computer security specialist. I'm just an adviser on these topics in addition to being a soldier like the rest of you." He gave a nod to Varus, knowing it was best that he take back control of the meeting to help assure the others.

Varus knew Jack was rather, untrusting, but to ridicule the new guy in from of 5 others, not counting Ren, Jack, or himself. Jack was a special kind of character, but not perfect, and this was her vice.

"I wouldn't let a Green lead a mission until I know he can at least walk on warred ground." He said without emotion, which almost made it colder. It wasn't that he didn't think Ren was useful, just that he hadn't proved it yet. Words on a dossier only go so far on the field. One has to first do it to prove their true value. "I will be on this mission, call me the leader if you wish."

"But the vote seems to be rather decisive, we will go to Havok II and learn about this mysterious colony."Once his bout was said, he took control of the table back from Ren, searching for information about the planet they would be going to.

Teeth and Dresden were quiet through the thing--Teeth glanced a bit when Ryder sat near him, but for the most part focused on the mission at hand. Neither of the two was much of a techie--they could work what they needed to to make their jobs function, but past that, pretty much nonexistent. On top of that, neither was really ground team--they both felt it was less their place to speak than the others.

Hakov II it was, then. The Varyx slowly stepped forward as the information was brought up. "Any local wildlife that we should watch out for?" Taerys felt satisfied at the outcome at least. In fact, she was pretty fired up for it. It also seemed that Rennac kind of knew what he was going on about so they did have some potential knowledge of what was coming. Hopefully that meant that their preparations would be useful to some degree, although Taerys knew that the only true preparation you could have for going into the unknown was to expect nothing to go as you plan. Adapt or die. That was her mantra. It seemed to be going well for her so far anyway. Honestly, though? She was kind of craving the adrenaline rush of being out in the wilderness; Varyx were not suited to being crammed into ships, even if those ships were the most advanced ever to be built.

Varus took a minute to pull up the information, looking it over before sharing it with the rest of the present company.

"According to existing records, it is a threat level 1 planet. So hostile wildlife should be almost nonexistent." He started out slowly, starting to pick up tempo as he got closer to where he was in his reading. "The planet seems to have minimal tree life, but plenty of other plant life such as grasses and shrubs. It's terrain is relatively flat save a massive range of mountains that seems to wrap around it's equator. Only one existing colony about sixteen miles from the mountain ranges foot. Four hundred sixty-two registered colonists." He finished his voice trailing off as he read out how many people were on the planet. With no contact he had to assume the worst, and the worse for 462 people is grim to say the very least.

He flicked the floating document splitting it for each member to get their own floating copy to read and look over at their pleasure.

Rennac listened carefully as the briefing continued, gauging the responses of each member of the team to the decision. He paid close attention to the planet's info, nodding to the data that was soon presented to him. "Captain, considering our location in mind I'd like to spend a bit of time updating the security protocols on our wrist computers before we arrive. Since we'll need to access the colony's logs if we cannot find the survivors, there's a risk we'll fall into the same trap the exploration vessel did when they investigated the derelict."

Dresden raised a hand, there--lightly, almost mockingly, and tossed out a quick, "This guy's been on the boat for ten minutes, he's not touching my stuff. Should somebody not be getting an actual experienced tech to patch the wrist comps?"

For those who hadn't noticed yet, Dresden was prone to disliking people.

Taerys shrugged gently, her excitement fading just a tad. "Sounds like a very boring place..." She trailed off, glancing down at the metallic floor. Perhaps that was the reason why the perpetrators chose that planet. It would all seem rather innocuous seeing as the planet had only recently been colonised. At least, that was what they would have hoped everyone thought. It did mean that anyone on the planet's surface wouldn't have many places to hide. Though, maybe they didn't want to hide at all. Maybe they wanted a fight or something. Taerys just sighed to herself in exasperation. The world was full of unpredictably. The best that she could do was live in the world of the present and not worry about the world of the future. "So if that's the case then we have all we need to know, right?" The Varyx inquired, looking up at Varus. "And I can see why Dresden might be distrusting towards him, but Rennac was chosen to be on here for a reason. We just get him to do what he needs to do with our armour and we're ready."

Dres rolled her eyes a bit, turning slightly towards Taerys. "Yeah, so were all of us--picked cause where we're from, we're top of the top, best of the best. But now we're on the Dawn, where we start off worst of the worst out of this group, and we all gotta learn it sometime 'til we earn not being it anymore. You lot can do whatcha like, but I'm not ground team, and the new guy isn't touchin' my stuff." It really wasn't ... well, probably not personal, hard to tell with this girl sometimes. She didn't like the look of him, at least, didn't liek how quickly he'd decided he was an authority, how he acted like he was automatically a friend to everyone, automatically anything more than their coworker.

But she didn't get a say in much of anything he did, other than that he wasn't touching her stuff.

Jackdaw glanced over the sheet as it came to her, and then closed it out. Maybe it would be interesting after all, though she still felt the more immediate threat of missing supplies should have taken precedence. However the majority thought otherwise, and she wouldn't argue. Her alarms did go off when Rennac began talking about altering people's armor.

She didn't say anything, but she did take a subtle step back. She would be damned if that man got anywhere near her body. When anyone tinkered with her it left her feeling odd, like she wasn't herself.

"He is not messing with my body," she said flatly.

Rennac sighed and shook his head. "Fine. I wont be the one to update your wrist computer. I'll give you the data you'll need and you can do as you please with it. You mainly use it on the ship anyway so it doesn't matter much to me. I make the same offer to everyone else here. Unless the Captain gives the order for everyone to get the upgrade, you can pick whether to let me or one of the other technicians install it or do it on your own. I'll make the installation devices available to the department heads. Just remember we are on the same side. We don't have to like each other. Hell, you can hate my guts for all I care. All I care about is that we keep it from becoming a liability. The moment your personal feelings towards me get in the way of the job, that's what will get this crew killed." He lashed out not because of any vehemence towards Dresden but more her attitude and what he had seen in Black Ops. Moment some idiot let a grudge show in the field, half of the unit was as good as dead. He was just thankful she only kept the ship in working order and wasn't on the ground team.