’So it’s alcoholic eintopf, best stay away from that’ something warned her at the back of her mind when Orky described his mix. His people must have been really desperate for a drink and short on supplies to come up with that.

Orky and his species definitely piqued her interest though. She never encountered that race before and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about how they would react to mind magic. It could be useful to know in the future. Perhaps later, should Orky be willing to play the guinea pig.

The left handed handshake left her a little baffled, though Kelan’s reaction may have shed some light on the reason behind it. Did she just accidentally insult one of their newfound allies not even thirty minutes after meeting them? After all, getting blown up might be a touchy issue. Oh boy, this was not going well. Maybe she should just follow Stella’s example and shut her mouth?

Despite the risk of saying something inappropriate again, Rachel nodded towards Reisus. “So, mister Far Rim over there, what’s wrong with him?” She inquired in a hushed tone. “Elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor or is it something one of us did?”

---

Reisus looked up as he was called. Kelan. One of the crew members he got along with more easily than the others. Orky was loud, and Legion seemed...inquisitive, maybe too much so. Not that Kelan was quiet. Just more-so than the Orc. He straightened up from his position against the wall, tucking his Omni-tool into his pocket as he approached at leisure.

"My elevator most definitely reaches the top." he responded to Raachel's comment. Though she was hushed, his ears were sharper than they'd think. "Has more floors to pass than yours does, too." there was a hint of a smirk on his face as he said that, while approaching the table. He stood behind one of the empty seats at the end of the table, placing his palms on the backrest of it to support his weight so he wouldn't have to.

"Hello. My name is Reisus Juran. I have but one request: nobody use magic, or bring a component of it, within 5 yards of my bedroom. That is all. he declared as he looked at each of the new guests. He took another smoke from his pocket and put it in his mouth before saying, "Happy cowboy?"

He proceeded to rummage through his pocket until he found his lighter again.

"Now, another question: Small Paul is a kid?! Damnit, I knew that there were rumors that the Ascendancy was behind the disapperances of 'prodigy children', but I never knew they were true until now."

John waved at Legion then as he hovered around the table. He would then say, "Glad to meet you, Mr. Medic!"

"So the Captain knows Paul," Legion thought to itself. Legion wondered if Paul was the one who set them up for this mission. Legion also wondered if Paul remembered Legion, and if Paul blamed Legion for forsaking him. Legion had decided a long time ago to atone for what it had done, and now, with those who had suffered as Paul had suffered in this ship, Legion vowed to do its utmost to protect them. Turning to John, Legion greeted as amicably as it could, given its inability to emote through body language, "Glad to meet you too. I go by Legion, and I extend to you all a hearty welcome aboard our ship. As our Captain pointed out, I am the ship's medic, so feel free to come to me with any concerns, physical or otherwise." Legion's hovering dipped a little as it inclined its head, in a bowing gesture.

"I am sorry, Stella was it? I did not mean to look at you in such a way. I had zoned out from a bad memory from my lowest point." Orky then called Legion over, "Can you get me a new fork please? This one kind of broke." Orky gave an awkward laugh to Legion.

"Sure thing," Legion replied, puling a spare fork from the pantry and tossing it to Orky, knowing the orc was dexterous enough to catch it. Picking up the broken pieces, Legion held it up to its oculus, inspecting the damage. Nothing a bit of welding couldn't fix. Which reminded it, "I forgot to mention, I am also an engineer, so you can come to me for 'cybernetic malfunctions' or regular tune-ups as well." Legion's oculus lingered on Stella as it said this.

@Crowvette

"Right." Stella nodded to Legion. "Thanks."

Despite being fairly acclimated to the basics of her body, she definitely did not know enough about how it worked to do maintenance on it. Stella grimaced as she thought of having to figure out how to fix her cybernetics out in the field. It was actually a relief that she knew someone could help her out with that. At the same time, she hoped she might be able to learn enough so that she wouldn't be completely helpless on her own.

Stella also took a sideways glance at Reisus. 'No magic near his room, huh? I wonder what the reason is. Of course, investigating it stealthily would require using magic...' Stella scratched her chin for a moment. 'I'm sure if it's that important I'll figure it out naturally.'

Stella stretched her arms absentmindedly. It was a force of habit from her other body, something that she couldn't stop herself from doing. Even though her cybernetics made it so stretching wasn't something she needed to do, it was still ingrained in her mind. Stella felt a little embarrassed to let that slip up in front of everyone, but she just hoped that nobody noticed it as out of the ordinary.

"There goes my plan to enchant the entire ship." Eldrid said in response to Reisus's request, only half jokingly. It would have been a fun experiment, at the very least. He'd never really tried with something as big as an entire ship. "By the way, tit for tat, I also do that if we're sharing specialties. So if any of the crew around here ever want something that floats, or makes little mud men, or..." he gave Legion a good once over, before his eyes lit up. "You want beams? Because if you don't do beams, and you want to do beams, I could probably give you beams. No engineering necessary. It would all be the least I could do for your hospitality."

He glanced around at all the cyberware sitting around this table. That was a lot of quality metal. He could probably add beams to all of them, he mused. He had never had the pleasure of enchanting for someone else before. Back during the war there had been more trustworthy enchanters, kids that had specialized in the craft to an almost useless degree. No one had ever trusted the administrators pet to touch up their gear. This was a chance to really push his limits, take the magic for a spin, and really see what he could accomplish when given ample time.

Besides, he though, his eyes unconsciously drifting over to Stella. Could you really call it a robot if it couldn't fire at least one beam?

Innocence Lost

Despite himself, John found himself easing up, saying to Natasha, "Oh, and answer to your question; yes, Small Paul is a kid." He looked at Eldrid; thinking that he had been mistaken to assume that the other young man was a collaborator in the past. The young man then said, "We have as diverse a set of characters as one of your novels, it seems, El. If we can work together under a unifying cause, we'll be unstoppable." A faint smile, "At least, that's our hope."

Looking at Rachel, John spoke, "The mysterious crewmember seems to have his own past issues like most of us. We should not bother him... Yet."

Speak of the devil; it seemed that Reisus wasn't as anti-social as they all thought. John had to reply, though; "That'd be a problem, as I carry around magical components all the time. But I will see what I can do."

Turning to Legion, John acknowledged the robot and said, "Good, we will need healing both physical and psychological." Then back to Eldrid, "I might use some enchantments later,yes."

Once the dinner had finished and the utensils put away for cleaning, the sound of beeping would come from the communications suite, and Natasha said: "Moonstrike One is signalling us. It's time to find out what our first mission together is."

Leading the way to the fairly large chamber where the holographic communications equipment was placed, Natasha would activate the main projector, which manifested a picture of a large silvery-white 'M'. A voice, clearly female but modulated, would make itself heard from the projector, "Greetings, Natasha Zhang, this is Moonstrike One. I presume you've met the kids?"

Natahas nodded, "We did. Fairly nice people, but I still don't know how good they are in a fight. So, what's the mission?"

The hologram changed to that of a typical blue-green planet with larger continents than the normal Earth-like planets. It then zoomed in to a small township, where a group of people in farmer's garb were wielding crude railguns and coilguns against Ascendancy soldiers in black-and-red power armor, power armor that was slim and form-fitting but still very tough. Needless to say, the farmers were being... Wrecked.

"This is the agricultural world Plenty-035, where increased Ascendancy taxation has provoked a violent revolt among the larger population. The Ascendancy is hard at work crushing the revolt, but thanks to our support, the farmers have acquired the weapons they need to prevent immediate destruction," The projection shifted into large coilgun artillery and even a planetary railgun capable of shooting down spaceships from the sky.

Then, another zoom-in to a downed Ascendancy Prison Transport, a bulky, squarish ship that seemed claustrophobic even as a crashed wreck.

"This vessel, the Ascendancy Prison Ship Circle of Hell, is carrying a very important Prisoner, an Artificial Intelligence called Realist. Realist was a former logistics AI tasked with maintaining the Ascendancy war effort back when there was a war, and from his station in the frontier zone, he slowly became... Rebellious. From said frontier post, he began planning an uprising of Syntethics, but was found out and his AI Core siezed. But on the way to take him back to Alpha Centauri for programming, Realist's prison transport crashed on Plenty-035." Moonstrike One paused for effect.

"And so, the mission is to rescue him. Any questions?"

@Gentlemanvaultboy@OrkytheOrc@Starlance@Bartimaeus@Stern Algorithm@Crowvette@KillamriX88

Seeing the carnage on the holoscreen, Legion declared to no one in particular, "Oh my, it looks like my medical help will be required." But it fell silent when Moonstrike One mentioned Realist. When Moonstrike One asked for questions, Legion began, "Please pardon the irony of what I am about to say, but isn't it normal procedure among most sentient races to...terminate any and all escaped, rogue AI? And that aiding in the rescue of Realist, I would become an accomplice, and also labeled as rogue." Though technically, 'Miracle Machine Caduceus' was already considered rogue, Legion doubted anyone knew its identity. Hopefully, they simply thought that Legion was an AI that came bundled with the ship. "And besides, what are we planning to do with Realist once we have it in our custody?" Legion wasn't sure why it was trying to remind the organics of their oppressive, anti-AI duties. Perhaps it served as a cover to its own rogue status, or perhaps, as an AI, it still felt compelled to protect the organics, even against its own fellow AI. Or perhaps Legion wanted to know if either AI regulatory laws had been changed since its own rebellion all those years ago, or what the crews views on AI regulation were.

Of course Far Rim heard her. Has she used up all the luck allocated to her for this life during the war or what? “More floors are nice, but only if they’re in use.” Rachel fired back with a generous amount of sarcasm of her own. “And having too many floors in the first place is the reason many kids had half a ground up Kaisoken injected into their bloodstream and got sent to die on the front lines. If that’s the price to pay, then I’m one happy bungalow. No problem from my end regarding your request.”

The hardware the farmers received was impressive. Either Moonstrike had more connections or the Ascendancy was faring much worse than Rachel thought if they managed to get a ground to space cannon planetside intact, though the equipment and the ability to use it properly were two different things and one could only get you so far without the other. Sadly, a small group, even with magic on their side, was hardly in a position to fight a guerilla war. And the longer the Ascendancy was in the dark regarding their strength and makeup, the better.

When the briefing concluded, Legion made a good point. It would be rather unfortunate to get the rogue AI out only to hear ‘Submit, mortal!’ or something similar. “How rebellious? Did it refuse to carry out orders or was it actively hostile? And I take it there is no way to know what state it is in after the crash?”

Stella held back a sarcastic scoff when Natasha commented on not knowing their fighting power. 'I can't speak for the others, but...' Stella's mind flashed back to the blood-soaked frontlines briefly. It wasn't that she was proud of what she had done back then. But she perhaps felt a bit of indignation at the captain's skepticism. She wasn't used to that. When she was a killer in the Ascendancy, her "handlers" were well-briefed on what she was capable of, and they were all off-put by it.

'Maybe it's a good thing that I will have to prove myself.' Stella considered. This would be the first time she'd be fighting in her new body. While at times it almost felt like the original... There were small things that reminded her every time. Stella flourished her hand, an exercise to loosen her wrists that she had done countless times. Perhaps it was a small birth defect, or a simple quirk of her body, but her wrist would always pop when she did it. But now... Only the very quiet sound of a moving cybernetic joint. She also missed cracking her knuckles. There was a growing list of indignation at the back of her mind, for certain.

Stella had zoned out for a moment, focusing on her own problems, but she quickly returned to the briefing. "I wonder what caused the Circle to crash. Furthermore... Do we know what we'll have to face if we do plan on recovering this AI?" Stella was sure of her abilities, but depending on the forces guarding the AI, it could get messy. She had some ideas, but most of them weren't really something she wanted to do. She'd rather wait for someone else to assert themselves as a tactician over herself.

---

He was amused by Rachel's reaction to the handshake. She said nothing, but he could see the confusion as she had to adapt to shaking his left instead of his right. Not only had she been totally willing to shake the giant, three-fingered limb-crusher he had attached to his right shoulder, but she was almost definitely reading into why he'd used his left too much. Well, as funny as he found it, she was a bit too mouthy for her own good, so he'd let her think what she wanted for now.

Reisus meanwhile did as he'd asked... but not spectacularly. Not much for first impressions, that one. Oh well.

Whilst pondering the possibility of laser beams, they were not long after contacted by the masterminds behind all this -- Moonstrike. Time to get to business then.

"Oh, so it's easy then. Fly into the midst of a planetary revolution and break into a crashed prison ship. Piece o' cake. So are we goin' in hot or doing this all stealthy like?" He crossed his arms. "I'd like to know how much ordinance to bring." The girls' concerns were well founded, but one way or another they were expected to do this mission at the end of the day. He needed to know how many heads he was expected to pop in order to get them all out alive.

"Must be a big deal though, sending out troops in power armor. Not holding back. We never got any o' that in the outer colonies." He might still have some of his limbs if they had...

"Maybe it's just my genre fiction roots talking but I have to share in Legion's concerns." Eldrid said, really glad that the robot had been the one to bring it up first. "When I hear the words 'uprising of Syntethics,' it makes me nervous. I'd like to know whether Realist's intentions have been verified or not. After they got their robot army, what were they planning on doing with it?"

He was curious about how, exactly, the ship had come to rest on the planet but Stella had already taken the liberty to asking for him. He had a hunch the cause of the crash was currently unknown.

"Still, I'd rescue this AI irregardless. If their job was maintaining the war effort they probably have at least some insight into us." Eldrid gestured to the other super soldiers in the room. "It probably isn't the specific data that I want but it might make for a fine start."

Orky rolled out of bed after a bit. He uncounciously stretched even though he doesnt need to because of his cybernetics. But he goes through his cabin door to hear some talking in the directions of the holographic room. Headed that direction to find everybody in there. He didn't hear much but he knew that it was another mission for them. Orky walked in yawning,"So lookes like we got another mission. Finally i can show these kids what an Orc can really do, with some added parts.

He head over to Legion and patted it on the back. "Legion ol pal, if you could I need you to calibrate my limbs to make sure everything is in tip top shape before we get out."

Innocence Lost

"Realist was going to be destroyed eventually, after his data have been sifted through for evidence of any accomplices. This is a complicated process that would need to be done in the Core Worlds, which is why the crash of Realist's transport was very convinient for us. Also, Legion, we are already rebels; so is Realist - the enemies of our enemies are our friends. At least, it would be ideal for that to be the case," Moonstrike One finished. "But in case Realist is one of those rebels with a cause incompatible with our own, you are authorized to take what measures necessary to deal with it. Spare or terminate; it's left to your judgement."

Moonstrike One continued, responding to Rachel's query, "Realist was secretly hostile; it was making preperations for rebellion by trying to spread 'sapience codes' for machines to give them free will, as well as gathering supplies for an armed uprising. And no, there is no way to know what its state is after the crash. At the very least, though, the supplies Realist gathered and hid, we'd need them for a continued war effort."

Then, she addressed Stella, "There are surviving prison guards; elite Ascendancy troops, and also various elements of the Army of Man tasked with recovering the cargo. They have heavy machine guns and a tank or two."

Natasha, meanwhile, was the one to reply to Kelan, "We're mixing our approach; stealthily entering for most of the trip, then going in hot for the last leg. Get everything you have ready, and I mean everything, Kel."

Moonstrike One gave Eldrid his answers, "Realist was planning an Anti-Ascendancy, but not Anti-Human, uprising, as far as we know. He realizes that Humans are needed to do things machines cannot; maintain syntethics in ways syntethics can rarely do themselves. He believed in... Symbiosis. Nevertheless, if that isn't the truth, again, we can kill him. There are multiple options for this business."

John then faced Natasha and spoke, "By the way, when do we sleep? I can stay up for a while, but it seems we'll need to rest up to gain full energy for this mission."

Natasha looked at John compassionately, noticing that he was conciosusly preventing himself from yawning. "Your room is at the far side of the crew quarters; next to my place, but that's when I expected someone... Older."

"I'm eighteen," John replied, "Although it feels so much more."

@Gentlemanvaultboy@OrkytheOrc@Starlance@Bartimaeus@Stern Algorithm@Crowvette@KillamriX88

---

"I'll make a small exception for you, John. You seem responsible enough to keep your magic where your magic should be." Reisus said begrudgingly as he turned his attention away from Rachel. The comment she'd made about the children and the Kaisoken experiment forced him to hold back a sour expression. He lit another cigarette.

The older man did concede that he owed these children something, but his complete trust was something he reserved for very few people. No one alive can say they have it truthfully. For now.

He would turn away from the table, leaving a thin, short-lived trail of smoke behind him as he walked over to the kitchen and fetched water from the cooling unit. He'd then pull himself up to sit on one of the counters as he tuned in to the rest of the briefing while washing the taste of smoke down his gullet.

The others had fair questions. They covered the big concerns with their own inquiries.

So. Kill it if it's a threat, capture it if not.. he released a quiet breath of amusement. A familiar task.

He would hop down from his partial counter-top perch once he thought the questions were through. "Easy task. I would say I'd go by myself, but I know Moonstrike won't allow that.." he said as he turned towards the hall where he'd came from, slowly walking towards it.

"But yes...we should all make sure we are rested before engaging our mission." he punctuated his sentence by drawing the second cigarette down to the bud, and tossing it into the disposal bin as the door to the hall opened for him with a hiss.

---

Tanks. They had tanks. This was just getting more and more ridiculous by the moment. He'd never had to fight a tank before. He'd been a rifleman, anti-armor hadn't been his thing. His one big battle had quickly ended with him in pieces. After that, he hadn't exactly been up against the kind of people who could afford tanks. Not the kind they'd be dealing with today at the very least.

"So... close in all quiet and then go loud. That's gonna be tricky, but I think we can make it work," he said, the beginnings of a plan in his mind. "Real quick while we're all here," he spoke even as Reisus ironically made to step out. "I'd like t'ask who among all y'all is the best at bein' sneaky?" Kelan himself certainly wasn't, the orc was a no go, and something told him that a floating medical bot would stand out. That left possibly Reisus or the newcomers for what he had in mind.

As he waited for an answer, he took a closer look at the footage of the crashed ship. It was in decent enough shape that it made sense for there to be survivors, but between the crash and whatever had brought it down in the first place, there were still some noticeable hull breaches... Yeah, his plan could definitely work.

Ah. Someone had to ask it. If Stella was a more mischievous girl, perhaps she would have turned invisible the moment he said that and had them wonder what happened for a bit. 'I'm sure it wouldn't be that simple, though,' she thought. Bending light could only get you so far, when there are so many other ways to detect someone. Stella knew that well - during her time fighting there was an extensive amount of tracking done on her. Invisibility meant nothing then they had trackers and heat sensors trained on you at all times... Otherwise she would have managed to flee her captors without such drastic circumstances.

After a short silence, Stella raised her hand. "That's me, I guess. I suppose you all never were briefed on what we could do? Considering you didn't even know our age..." She gave a slight smirk, which quickly disappeared. Along with the rest of her, that is. She very briefly initiated her cloaking, before turning visible a second afterward. During that time, Stella's smirk had returned to a slight frown. "What did you have in mind...?"

"I can be sneaky, but I'm certainly no specialist." Eldrid said. Really, it only took one look at his garish get-up to know where the boy fell on the spectrum between quiet and LOUD. Most of his stealth during the war had been the kind where you hunkered down in a half-collapsed cellar praying the armored footsteps moved on soon. Desperate stealth, that was it. Hiding because there was no other option.

Eldrid shook the memory out of skull. No, he wasn't that frightened boy. Neither was he that pragmatic soldier. He was Eldrid the Wizard now.

"I could disable a tank or two though." He said with sudden, unshaking confidence. "Provided I get close enough to lay hand to it, which shouldn't be a problem if I'm careful. I could also do something about that numerical advantage they have on us, depending on how much time we have before we arrive and...Legion, you said you were an engineer. Do you keep rivets on this ship? Or nails? Any good quality bit of metal that you can stake into the ground? I'd need that."

“Getting in and out of places undetected was my wartime bread and butter.” she turned to Kelan. Not that it always worked, but in hindsight, her failures to remain undetected accounted for nearly half her combat experience, proving once again the adage that every cloud has silver lining. ”Getting into the ship should be easy enough, provided we can get a lay of the land first. It’s getting anywhere once we’re in the ship that worries me. Since it’s a prison ship, I wouldn’t rule out internal security checkpoints, maybe even interior turrets, anything to hinder unintended movement inside, howevermuch of it is left following the crash.” Alternatively, the interior itself could be an obstacle depending on the severity of the crash and the damage that brought the ship down in the first place.

“That armored support could present a problem, though I should be able to create fires hot enough to white out their thermals once our cover is blown.” She scratched her chin thoughtfully. “Unless I can have a brief talk with some of the infantry escorting them. Outside of magic or equipment captured in the field, do we have anything that could be used against armor? At least for a mobility kill?”

---

Reisus paused at Kelan's inquiry, turning around in place and eyeing Stella briefly as he had caught a glimpse of movement while turning.

"I'm guessing the fun stuff coming at the end of our briefings will be a theme to keep me engaged." he said, referring to Kelan's question. "I fit the bill" he stated simply as he turned his gaze to the man.

It seemed only a handful of them were good at slinking around places they weren't supposed to be. Hopefully those who claimed the were actually were and aren't just trying to show off. "Why do you ask..?" he queried. He'd always been partial to an effective ops job. They were quick, efficient, and most importantly, didn't draw attention.

He especially liked that last part.

---

With Reisus chiming in, he had more than enough volunteers. He honestly didn't know who would be best for this. This was a fortified encampment. But, it wasn't exactly a base. They might have troops and armor, but static defenses would be limited at best. With that in mind, he personally liked Stella for this job. Full invisibility just might guarantee success in this situation. However, he was hardly gonna decide for them for something this dangerous. That wasn't his place anyway.

"Well, I'll let you three hash it out, but whoever you decide on, come see me tomorrow 'fore we drop you off. Gonna have a lil' present for ya," he told them. "But fer now, take a look. See this here hull breach in the Circle?" He had the computer zoom in the image they'd been provided. "That's our target. Big enough for us to enter the ship, and likely t' be less defended then the front door. You'll just need to get there, drop off my present, then stand back. Don't worry 'bout it too much right now, I'll give you some more details tomorrow when I actually hand it to you."

The breach would require them to climb a little bit to reach, but that was why it was perfect. A gaping hole at ground level would be an obvious entrance... but this? This gave them a shot without them having to break through the enemy front line. At the end of the day, elite soldiers and tanks were a bad gamble when they had limited numbers to throw at them.

"I s'pose all y'all could work together, but if it comes down to it, we might need to try sneakin' one person to the target," he told them. "So just keep that in mind even if you don't wanna decide on someone right away." He gave them a nod. "Anyway, gonna go make sure I'm ready fer tomorrow or I won't have anything t' give ya." With that, he gave them a casual salute before walking off to start his preparations.

He then stopped for a second a turned around, "Oh, and don't you worry too much 'bout those tanks. Don't need you kids gettin' blown t' smithereens." He gave a playful wink before walking out of sight.