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The Depths of Deception

Coin followed the group into the meeting room, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible. She was relatively comfortable with Bit and August, but beyond that, much of the group was still an unknown to her. She took an open seat, keeping her limbs as close to her chest as she possibly could. She pressed her back into the seat, and brought her feet up to the seat of the chair, holding her knees at chest level. The few seconds she waited before the representatives walked in felt like years.

As the representatives filed in, Coin felt the unavoidable feeling that she should probably already know who the human representative was, at the very least. Did Coin salute? Did she just wave? Did she just continue sitting, balled up in her chair? Coin wasn't sure, so she stayed put, for the moment.

Then August asked about pay, and Coin wanted both to hide her face in embarrassment and reach over and slap August. His tact was poor and he gave off a pretty horrible first impression. Not the best way to start off this inter-species team dynamic. At least the Rothian reacted well enough. Coin sighed inwardly.

As soon as the non-disclosure agreements were brought up on the displays, Coin began skimming the contract and gave her thumbprint without any second thought. She was, after all, assigned to this team by her commanding officers, so it wasn't like she'd have much choice anyways. As soon as the display accepted her thumbprint, Coin brought her hands back to her knees, pressing them to her chest tightly.

Agents Of Stardust

Krystina took little longer than usual to process all that she was told, being slightly distracted by trying to fly her starfighter and not get killed. On her HUD, the fighter Astra marked as a relay began to glow blue instead of red; typically, Krystina marked hostiles red, friendlies green, and objectives blue. She forwarded the updated objective marker to the rest of Wolf Squad, simultaneously engaging another pirate fighter with her laser cannons. She skimmed the tip of the wing, and Marina flew by rapidly to finish up the job.

"Wolf Zero to Durendal, counting six- no, five fighters left," Krystina quickly adjusted as Brandon and Jason took out another pirate starfighter. "Your relay is intact, and it looks like Wolves One and Two are applying pressure. Let us know when we're clear to finish this up," Krystina reported in. "Wolf Squad copies, Captain, we'll return home ASAP."

As she finished, Jude opened a channel to the entire squad. "Helmsman Freelander would like to remind you that you should stop slacking off, Wolf Squad." Krystina smirked. So the helmsman liked some friendly competition.

"Wolf Squad, let's show Miss Freelander what we think of her suggestion that we're slacking off, hm?" In immediate response, Brandon and Jason maneuvered their fighters so that Jason was below a pirate and Brandon was behind. Jason steadily accelerated and placed himself in front of the pirate, allowing the pirate to begin chasing him. He avoided each laser cannon shot with ease, allowing Brandon to line up the perfect shot straight into the cockpit. Simultaneously, Marina landed a shot on the wing of a pirate, sending the enemy starfighter spiraling off into the darkness of space.

Krystina grinned widely. "Jude, tell our lovely helmsman that if we were slacking, she'd have a lot more problems on her hands." Krystina made a mental note that the blue outlined ship was still flying. She wasn't entirely sure why this ship was important to Astra, but it was, and that's all that mattered to Krystina.

Agents Of Stardust

After the crew meeting, the Wolves had peeled off to the hangar to prepare for the mission. After a quick eval, Krystina determined that there wasn't enough time for any performance tweaks to be made on the fighters without potentially compromising them in case of a deployment. So instead, she and her squad got to work on the paint modifications, taking on any help from crew members that were lingering around the hangar looking for work.

As soon as the Durendal had made contact with the pirate ship, the Wolves began prepping for deployment. They worked themselves into their respective flight suits and cockpits, beginning the start-up sequence for launch. Krystina glanced from squad member to squad member, waiting intently for the all-clear to launch. She couldn't help but smirk at her squad; they had adjusted each of their positions slightly so they would launch from the hangar in formation. That's why she picked these people, Krystina thought, as she received the all-clear to launch from the bridge.

Wolf Squad began powering up the starfighters at Jon's first call for them to scramble, and were already on their way out of the hangar at Jude's recommendation to launch.

"Wolf Zero, away."

"Wolf Three is backing her up."

"Wolf One is out the door."

"And Wolf Two is covering his ass."

"Durendal, please copy that Wolf Squad is away and beginning aerial defense of the ship," Krystina reported in to the bridge. Considering the captain was joining the boarding party, the fighter squadron was likely reporting to either the XO or the helmsman. It didn't matter; somebody was going to be on the other end to respond.

On her heads-up display, the names of her squadmates popped up in the corner, a dim glow outlining each name as they spoke.

Wolf One lit up first: "Zero, what's our goal here? Are we playing offense or defense, today?"

Krystina fumbled options around in her head for a split second. "I'm calling defense so we can thin out the herd. Keep the attention off the Durendal; I don't want the ship taking any shots that we can divert. After that, it's captain's call from there," Krystina responded. "I don't think I need to call any kind of formation for these rookies. We're dealing with pirates, here, kids. Wolf One, you do as you will, Wolf Two will cover you. Marina, you're with me." At that, Krystina and Brandon peeled their fighters off in opposite directions, Marina and Jason following their respective leads.

Krystina and Marina opted to veer hard to their left, pulling out five enemy fighters from the main group in pursuit. Brandon took the remaining seven head-on, with Jason dipping underneath the pirates' formation and popping back up behind them, effectively trapping the pirates in a crossfire between the two ESC fighters.

Krystina reverted her attention back to her situation at hand. She had Marina at her eight o'clock, and five pirate fighters scattered behind her in various positions. "Wolf Three, dip out of formation for a split." Marina ducked to the left accordingly, and Krystina slammed on the reverse thrusters. She watched in amazement as the pirates shot past her in pursuit of Marina and chuckled. They fell for the easiest bait there was. She shot some laser cannon fire in their direction, her shots bouncing off the pirates' shields. One of her shots penetrated the shield and landed itself on a thruster, the fighter lighting up into an instantaneous ball of flame before the vacuum of space put out the fire and left naught but the empty shell of a fighter.

"Wolf Zero recording one down. Eleven to go," Krystina called in, only to hear in quick response, "Make that ten, Zero. One and Two bagged another."

"Easy pickings. We'll have these guys rounded up in no time," Marina called in. Krys could almost see the joy in her voice; Marina loved an easy housecleaning.

Krystina called into the bridge, "Durendal, confirm two hostiles down. While we're at it, what do you want us to do once the rodents are dealt with?"

Agents Of Stardust

sorry for being gone for a few days, I'll get a post up asap.

The Depths of Deception

Coin had to take a moment to register that Bit did not know what coffee was. "Well, uh... This is called coffee. It's..." Coin drifted off. She'd never had to explain coffee before. "It's got this stuff called caffeine and humans use it to wake up in the morning. It can be kind of addictive, and I guess you could say I'm an addict," Coin grinned awkwardly. "I'm pretty used to drinking a cup every morning. I don't exactly function properly without it," Coin explained as well as she could. "Most people like to put something in it to sweeten it because it's so bitter, but I like it black, or without sweeteners."

As August walked in, Coin tossed him a quick wave. "We were just talking about it actually. I was trying to be positive about it, but it's impossible to ignore the intense political pressure on Pax, Bit pointed out." She sighed, taking another sip of her coffee. "Hopefully we'll be able to operate undisturbed. Unlikely, but l'm an optimist," Coin shrugged. She peered into her coffee mug, noticing it was almost empty. She downed the rest of the coffee in a single gulp. "In any case, I'm going to be taking everything we're told today with a grain of salt. Politicians are assholes."

Agents Of Stardust

Probably pirates. Small chance of Rahq. Good odds. Krystina liked those odds. She couldn't decide which she was looking forward to more; the joy of easily taking down pirates, or the challenge of defeating a coordinated Rahq squad. Of course, an ideal situation would mean no combat at all, but at the same time, that was no fun.

On the other hand, the undoubtedly good news was that Wolf Squad had full access to the fighters. Krystina ran a mental checklist of what changes each squad member would make based on what she knew about each of them. She'd personally be adjusting power outputs, siphoning a little bit of firepower for some extra speed and agility. The captain mentioned that the fighters came with shielding, speed, and stealth, but Krystina's dogfighting style relied on strong speed and maneuverability, so she'd be putting as much power as she could into thrusters. She'd also want to paint a wolf's head onto the nose, and the logo she had chosen long ago as Wolf Zero. And probably a big bad red zero on the wings as well.

Marina and Jason would be making similar adjustments to the power outputs, as well as the paint. Marina might splash some flowers on in addition to the wolf livery, and probably a blue three in place of Krystina's zero. Jason would also throw on the wolf additions, but Krystina knew he liked green and would probably make his number two green. And instead of flowers, he'd be painting skulls. He had on all his previous fighters.

Krystina guessed that Brandon would only add the standard wolf livery and a white one for his number. However, his adjustments in terms of performance would be significantly different: Brandon would try to squeeze out as much power as he could from the guns, and maybe even sacrifice power from the shields to do so, making him almost totally dependent on his wingman to watch his back. That's how Brandon had always worked, and that's why Krystina picked Jason as his wingman.

Krystina raised a hand one last time. "What kind of stealth updates are we talking about? Low-emission stealth to mask signatures, I'm assuming?" She promised herself that this would be her absolute last question. She had to get to work on her fighter; the paint jobs wouldn't happen yet, but Krystina had no doubt that the squad would try to make their performance adjustments as well as they could. They weren't going to finish in such a short time frame, but they'd get to work on what they could

The Depths of Deception

Coin laughed. "I'm not much of a fan of politicians, either. I'm infamous for blaming politicians irrationally on the last few ships I served on, in fact." The coffee machine responded with a loud ding, alerting her that the coffee was ready. She pulled out the pot and poured herself a cup. "Pax is the center of politics in the wonderful galactic state of affairs that we live in, isn't it? Unfortunately, we're bound to have a run in with a politician, here." Coin took a sip of the coffee. She liked it black, and people often remarked on such a preference. What could she say? Black coffee was refreshing.

"I guess it's wishful thinking that the politicians will stay out of our way, then, isn't it?" Coin sighed. "I wanna believe that we'll all be able to do our jobs in peace but... I'm not so sure," she lamented, taking a perhaps melodramatic sip of coffee.

The Depths of Deception

are these posts going up at all?

The Depths of Deception

Coin flung her door open just in time to overhear Bit complaining about Dirophyd alcohol. "Bit, if you can't hold your liquor, better quit now," Coin jabbed, opening up the pantry. She began preparing a cup of coffee for herself. The past couple days had been bland; shopping for food and exploring the city summed up most of Coin's time on Pax. Coin hopped up on to the counter and sat on it. "So, Bit, what do you think this meeting's going to be about? I mean, obviously they'll brief us on what we're actually doing here, but what do you think that is?" Coin wondered aloud, as the coffee grounds crunched behind her. "I like to think that we're gonna be, like, some badass interspecies police force. I honestly can't think of any other possibilities," Coin reasoned.

The Depths of Deception

woo double post