"Well I'm not complaining." Zyreq replied to Juliana. "If it means I get to kill, or at least maim, I'm happy."

IC: Brae Tessen

Brae pouted. "Zaegor are poisonous. Only good thing about them is the carapace. Hard to put a dent in and makes for good armor."

"How poisonous are they?" Zyreq asked in response.

IC: Iral Vijil

The Hihijli audibly sighed, rolling his avian eyes. "Do you ever talk about anything other than killing?". Juliana's observations stopped him from commenting further, though. It was somewhat worrying that a bunch of mercenaries were called in as opposed to highly trained police outfits.

IC: Brae Tessen

"Poisonous enough to kill an Apatagor in a mere minute." She said.

"With how much blood?" Zyreq pressed.

IC: Brae Tessen

Brae sighed and rested her chin on her hand. "Anything above a milligram is fatal. No more of this. Talk about something else, hm?"

IC: Juliana Winters - Shuttle One.

No one else seemed too concerned. Maybe I'm overreacting... or maybe they're all immature. She already knew it was both. The carefree, unconcerned attitudes of the other pilots was what had drawn her to this unit in the first place... but there was such a thing as being too aloof.

Juliana had known more than a few people who'd lost their lives to their own blind loyalty and unwavering obedience. She didn't want to lose any more comrades - friends - in that way.

"Hmmm... well, if you so insist." Zyreq sounded a bit disappointed, but non the less relented to Brae's wishes.

IC: Taia Sal - Strapped in and ready to go

"Tiger Two, reporting in," Taia finally said over comms. "Didn't want to interrupt your...uh, important conversation."

IC: Skoll

"Glad you could chime in, Tiger Two." Skoll toggled the com switch again back to shuttle com. "Tiger Six to Argonaut flight control, all Tigers accounted for." Switching back to pilot coms once more, he looks over at Juliana. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I don't like how all of this sounds either."

@Nato Greavesy @UltimoScorp

IC: Skoll

"But in all honesty though, I think we're going to find out more the moment we touch down. Or, most probably, when we're about half-way through the job."

@Nato Greavesy

IC: Taia Sal - Takeoff imminent.

"Sorry for not chiming in earlier. Eh. We'll be going soon...hopefully we'll know whether to keep things intact or not before we engage. I need to know where to aim, after all."

Static crackled over the comms as the telltale sound of the shuttle's engines began to whine to life. "To answer your earlier questions, Ms. Winters, we've been given full authority to destroy the mechs. Which also means we get all the salvage from this job, so try not to bust up our new toys too much down there."

There was a brief pause, during which time the whining became a dull roar, and each pilot's helmets would begin to cancel the sound out, protecting the hearing of each pilot.

"As for why we're doing this, I very much suspect the government doesn't want to have their own mechs on the line for the first contact. Should we fail, they will, of course, be stepping in and mopping up." Natalia's tone made it clear she was none too pleased about that fact.

There was an immense clanking sound, and the shuttles seemed to drop slightly at the nose before an incredible acceleration kicked in. Each shuttle was launched out of the Argonaut by huge launching catapults, like those on aircraft carriers.

IC: Brae Tessen

Brae let out a low growl.

"Whoever's piloting this rust bucket better be careful with Praetorian. If I have to replace one more conduit because of some vrae'ka idiot's flying..."

IC: Taia Sal - A bumpy ride
"Gotta save as much money as possible, huh? Bet these people didn't even want to shell out the extra money on something to actually stop people from stealing these Mechs..." Taia grumbled. "Never liked that. You'd think they'd try to minimize long term losses but nooo. Only short term."

IC: Juliana Winters - Shuttle One.

"Ugh, I hate having to deal with this bureaucratic BS." Juliana grumbled, "Surely there are some actual, outright bad guys somewhere in this galaxy that we can go up against?"

IC: Skoll

"Okay, see, that's how you jinx shit. I would like to not have some ass-hat be a reoccurring problem thank you."

IC: Skoll

"Then perhaps we can actually get that result and not pull fire towards ourselves? Or am I just wishfully thinking here?"