Location: Gliese 876, Piedra De Plata

Time: 2213 GEY(Galactic Earth Year)

Ancient Background: In the year 2085, human researchers, aided by advances in cold fusion, astronomy and hull composites, managed to create the first subspace drive. This paved the way for humanity to spread to the nearby stars with frightening speed. Groups of all kinds, ideological, national and corporate, seized planets and either began stripping them of resources or terraforming them as fast as they could. This lead to humanity's first century of interstellar warfare which, unsurprisingly enough, resulted in most of the technological advances that human militaries, space-navies and civilians are enjoying at this point in time. The cost in life has yet to be calculated, but current estimates put it at around five billion lost.

Almost exactly 100 years after the conflict had been sparked by the rapid expansion and fights over resource-rich planets or ones that were ripe for terraforming, the conflict ended. A new threat had arrived. In the year 2186, ships crewed by humans and armed with hitherto unknown technology jumped in at several border stars and demanded the immediate, unconditional surrender of every in-system soul and piece of equipment. Those that failed to comply were killed without mercy or compassion. The previous owners of the colonies sent their fleets to retaliate and succeeded in throwing back the invaders, but not before suffering massive losses.

Less than a week after pushing back the invaders, a new fleet attacked. No one paid the corporations and nations who had lost their fleets and border colonies much attention. Seeing as how the rest of humanity had their own problems to deal with, or were busy taking over the remaining holdings of those who were new fleet-less. But when the invaders, now identifying themselves as the Cepheus Crusaders, began launching more raids and attacks from some unknown base beyond the borders of explored space, the gravity of the threat became apparent. No single fleet was having any success at holding them back. If something wasn't done, the Crusaders would overrun the colonies in a matter of years, and with those resources bolstering their fleets, they would be able to easily push through even the old fortified systems.

Swiftly ceasing hostilities and convening for the first time since the conflict began, every organization or nation with a fleet to it's name met on Earth and created the Galactic Council of Civilized Worlds. Despite the showy name, they were efficient and had soon bent all of their resources towards reclaiming the lost territories. 27 years later, they have yet to succeed. The battle with the Crusaders still takes an enormous toll in human lives and resources every year, but neither they or the Council appear ready to give up and surrender. Even after this many years, little has been learned of the threat or their origins. All that is known is that they are, to a man, fanatics who will rather blow themselves to kingdom come than let the Council fleets get their hands on any of their ships.

While the threatened worlds are in constant state of martial law and few things occupy the colonists beyond wondering whether the next raid will get through their orbital defenses. In the "old systems" near Earth, the civilian benefits from the war. The profit generated by the shipyards building the Council's fleets and the labs developing new weapon tech, allows almost everyone to live in luxury. In the new frontier on the opposite side of human space to where the war is being fought, brave colonists and greedy corporations still plant the flag of humanity on more and more worlds. Excepting the occasional raids, that region of space is safe and as there are so many virgin worlds and so few colonists, almost everyone has what they need.



Recent Background: Gliese 876 is a system just a short distance from the front lines, even so, it's only been colonized within the last twenty years. The star(A red dwarf) is orbited by two gas giants which house shipyards and habitats, their names are Eden and Serena, respectively. Also in the system is Piedra De Plata(Silver Rock), a hot and dry terrestial planet first colonized by Spanish-speaking settlers.

Despite the occasional raids by Shen Pirates, it's generally a safe system that has yet to be attacked by the Crusaders and so has no large fleet presence. It produces a lot of ships that are swiftly headed for the front lines, but they rarely stay in-system for long. Recently, a large construction project has been launched which has resulted in Eden's space being declared off-limits to all. Those colonists living on it's habitats have(Temporarily, the military assures them.) been transferred to either Silver Rock or Serena's orbiting habitats.

Silver Rock has only two large civilian settlements. Fog City and Labyrinth Chasm, both close to the northern pole, in the somewhat temperate zone there. The entirety of the southern hemisphere has been declared off-limits by the military for reasons unknown, as has the northern pole. Popular theories vary from the insane(Alien ruins) to the sensible(Weapons testing labs.). The northern hemisphere is dotted with small settlements, usually around mines or terraforming stations. Some are underground, some are domed.

The planet has no native life, but as terraforming efforts have begun to drop the intolerable temperatures, so a few kinds of engineered flora and fauna have been released. At the moment the atmosphere would still kill most humans after a couple of seconds, even if the temperature didn't bake them alive.

Labyrinth Chasm is a city that's almost entirely underground, placed in a long, but narrow canyon. It's mostly an industrial city, and tends to be populated by lower-class people and has some severe crime problems. It's directly connected to Fog City by an underground railway. Fog City is a more upper class, domed city, but excepting a few, even the upper class on Silver Rock are pretty down-to-earth. It gets it's name from the crack in the ground at the center of the city(Now covered by a large processing facility, but still a tourist attraction.) which continually emits large amounts of steam, pure oxygen and some highly toxic poisons. The facility removes the toxins and distributes the water and oxygen to Fog City and Labyrinth Chasm. So far the source of the steam and oxygen are unknown, as any attempts at descending into the chasm have been met with temperatures powerful enough to melt titanium after a kilometer or so.

Surface temperatures during the day vary between 203 degrees Celsius(Equator) and 21(North pole), during the night the variance is 156(Equator) and -43(North Pole). Of course all settlements have climate control that holds the temperature close to a pleasant 25 degrees, dropping it to 20 during the night.



Technological Advances: Most advances useful during the average person's day lie in nano-bot waste recycling, nano-surgery and holographic entertainment. On some of the more affluent planets, hover-vehicles are also popular, but they remain too expensive to be present outside of the core systems in any great numbers. A few of the richer citizens have their own space-yachts and sometimes even small, private fleets, but them excepted, most space ships are limited to corporations, national fleets and pirate navies.

Despite the promises of science fiction movies, energy weaponry still isn't very much in use except in space battles. Energy demands prevent most vehicles smaller than tanks, including people in power armor, from mounting plasma cannons or ion beam-casters(The two most common kinds of energy weapons.). Overheating also tends to be a problem on any worlds which aren't arctic. Therefore ballistic weaponry is the norm within the atmosphere.

Effective cybernetic replacements for lost limbs or organs are mostly limited to the extremely rich or people in the military. If you're a member of the working class, you'll have to deal with mechanical legs that short out if you step through a puddle or cyber-eyes that can only see the world in shades of puke.

Power armor is mostly just mechanical lifter harnesses that allow the wearer to wield absurdly large weapons or which have lots of armor plates grafted on. A few experimental suits have been created which magnify the wearer's strength and reflexes without encumbering him, but all that has leaked about them is that they have flaws. What kinds of flaws, no one knows, but it's always said in a really ominous tone of voice. The Crusaders, unlike the GCCW, have managed to make extremely effective and powerful suits of power armor, which means that any world where they're allowed to land is usually lost. Rather than digging out their entrenched troops, most navies opt to bombard them from orbit till they're gone, no matter what the cost in civilian lives.



Subspace: Subspace drives allow swift movement over large distances, though there is a limit to how far they can go. The farther someone tries to use them to jump, the larger the chance of some sort of malfunction or ending up in the heart of a star. They can only travel from near large gravity wells(Usually planets) to near other large gravity wells. Near is an important word. Jump too close to one, or jump from too close to one, and you'll end up in a really bad way. Jumping work somewhat like travelling wormholes in that any ship in subspace is outside of normal reality.

Subspace gates have been constructed between some systems, but mostly only the core ones. They provide virtually fault-free jumps even to ships that aren't fitted with subspace drives. No one is quite sure about the nature of subspace, but it seems to be a sort of pocket reality that surrounds all of our universe. No one has ever spotted anything else in there while travelling. No ships, no stars, no creatures. The only things from our reality that seem to intrude on subspace without entering it is large gravity wells.

The Crusaders don't seem to use subspace, for some reason, relying instead on something called G-Drives to propel them over vast distances without leaving our universe. G-drives still seem to rely at least partially on gravity wells, however, so some of the principles must be similar.



Out Of Character Notes: This game will emphasize staying in character. No OOC goofing around. If you want to join, PM me and talk to me about what sort of character you want to run and I'll introduce you. One requirement is that you know how to capitalize words, spell and use punctuation at least semi-correctly. This game will use a rudimentary rule system rather than being free-form, to prevent anyone from creating over-powered characters.

There is, of course, more to the world than what's been presented in this post, but those things will be explained as you encounter them. All characters will be human, natives of Silver Rock(Possibly born one of the Eden or Serena habitats, but unlikely.) and start out in either Fog City or Labyrinth Chasm.

You may attack other players, but don't do so unless you have a roleplaying reason for doing so. You may not specify the actions of NPC's or reactions of other characters to what you do. I have no limits on language, and some descriptions of violence may become somewhat gory, so if you're touchy when it comes to such things: Don't join.

I'm in.

(OOC: Intro post for Knocko, Stampede's character.)

It was, as always, a warm and sunny day on Gliese.

Knocko Jones, as most people knew him, was returning to Labyrinth Chasm, where he lived, after a month* of duty at a terraforming station up north, near the Northern Restricted Zone. It had been an utterly unincidential shift, except for some standard maintenance and a few faulty pieces of equipment needing fixing, but a paycheck was a paycheck.

He was coming home on one of the regular supply convoys that travelled between the settlements and the outlying mines and facilities.

The ancient, tracked vehicles were arriving at the rift in the ground that contained Labyrinth Chasm after a few weeks of travelling, and everyone on board breathed a sigh of relief as they entered one of the upper entry bays and could leave. None of the convoy vehicles were in any way luxurious. All eight of the passengers who were returning after a shift and not going out again had been sitting in empty cargo holds. Sleeping in padded containers and using crates as chairs.

Those who weren't hanging around to help load the convoy and then heading out again immediately headed for the elevators which would take them further down into the city. The top level was nothing but garages, storage and hangars. Most of the actual city was further down, deep into the rock and sand. It wasn't easy to keep a family when you were away for over half the year*, Knocko was the only one on his terraforming station who managed it, so most of the others were likely just off to visit prostitutes and bars.

As soon as he stepped out of the dry, dusty air of the cargo compartment and into the slightly less dry and dusty air of the large garage bay, two mails arrived for him on his PDA. It could connect to the Galacti-web to fetch any messages for him, but only when he was near a wireless network connected to it, like in most cities.

(OOC Info:

Labyrinth Chasm: Deserving of it's name, LC is deep and labyrinthine. The upper levels are relatively easy to find one's way around and decently ventilated. The lower slums, however, are utterly impossible to navigate for anyone without a map or a guide. There are twenty-one levels downwards, including the top-most garage level. Most of the city, however, is clustered around the canyon, which has been sealed off by a see-through membrane. Those residences providing a view of the canyon, and natural light, are extremely sought-after. While houses with windows opening up into the canyon are permitted, no one is permitted to build in the canyon itself. Most of the public spaces of Labyrinth Chasm are is boring stainless steel corridors. A lot of private residences and businesses are more decorated, but few public areas are.

Knocko and his family live on the 11th level from the top. A middle-class neighbourhood, with some crime problems. It's one of the widest layers.

*Years, Months, Days: Almost all human settlements use Earth GMT time, even if their days are three weeks long or they go around the local star in less than a month. It helps make time-keeping easy for appointments and such. Earth GMT is also used to govern the artificial days and nights aboard large space craft.)

Knocko paused and grunted. He took out his PDA and began the process of opening his new mail.

The first mail was from his wife, she'd heard his shift was over and had written a small essay on the things that had happened while he was gone. His oldest son had gotten some remarkably good grades while Knocko was away, and the younger one had been attacked by a rabid dog on the way home one day. Fortunately nothing had happened that modern nano-medicine couldn't deal with and the dog had been put down.

Then there was the second email.

Knocko didn't know the sender, his name was Dante Adriano and his account was registered with Zanzara Industries. It was a short and simple message instructing him that he had a chance to earn some extra money if he met Dante in a disreputable bar called The Black Mushroom down on the 19th level, which was one of the slummiest places you could find in Labyrinth Chasm. At least the 20th and 21st layers were less awful because few people had moved there yet and they were still under excavation.

Crazy kids. Knockos oldest, Teddy, was definitely his wifes kid. He was the soft spoken, bookworm type. Nothing wrong with that. His youngest, Ray,...well...he was more like Knocko. Always getting into scrapes and the like. Whenever Knocko saw him acting up, he discouraged it...but secretly he got a big bang out of the kids behaviour.

Hmm..the other message was intriguing...he sure could use a couple of extra bucks. The kids education was burning a serious hole in his paycheck, not to mention Kate always hassling him to take her on one of those orbital cruises.

He absent mindedly picked at one of his artificial fangs a permanent reminder of his misspent youth.
The Black Mushroom, what a dive. It amused him that 10 years ago, he would not have thought twice about going to a place like that. Now...things were different.

He checked the mail to see if there was any indication as to what time he should be there.

Knocko

The mail had been sent just as he disembarked from the convoy, judging by the time tags, so most likely Dante was expecting him to head down to the Mushroom right away. How the guy had known when Knocko was arriving was unknown, but he'd probably had someone watching the entry bay.

As the large man stood around pondering the emails, he almost got run over by a forklift loading a crate of artificial flour into one of the trucks. The driver was about to yell at him for standing in the way, the swerved had almost taken HIM into one of the bay's supporting pillars, but upon seeing how big Knocko was, he had hastily stomped on the gas* pedal and continued on his way.



(OOC: Most atmospheric vehicles are powered by hydrogen energy cells, but old words persist.)

Knocko raised a bemused eyebrow in the direction of the irate driver and shook his head.

Right...well, he had two choices, go and see this mystery man in a dump of a neighborhood...or go straight home to his wife and kids. His wife was expecting him soon....she was a little firecracker when she got mad and if she knew he had stopped at bar...

"Ah, what the hell."

The extra cash and a vacation for the two of them would cool her off, he could use a second honeymoon.
Knocko began to make his way to the bar...by whichever way would get him there the quickest.

Knocko

Knocko entered one of the large personnel elevators and began the downwards descent.

The walls of the elevator were heavy diamond-glass and offered a perfect view of the Chasm during the first few levels. It stopped often, and took on a lot of people during the first half of the trip, but by the time he was down to the 15th layer, most of them had disembarked. The ones that remained looked wholly untrustworthy. Likely muggers and corporate mercenaries all of them, the only ones that didn't look like they'd knock him down and steal his kit the moment he turned his back were a few Brazilian* Fleet pilots on leave.

Most people kept a wide distance, though, due to his size. And teeth.

As the elevator reached the 19th level, everyone except for a few techs heading further down disembarked. A small group of people roughly shoved their way past Knocko when he stepped out, getting on the elevator. They looked like the usual thugs found down there, except for one of them, who was wearing what looked like a bright red wetsuit, for some reason.

When the elevator had continued on it's way, and he on his way towards the Black Mushroom, he noticed that someone, most likely a member of the group of thugs, had stolen his lighter out of one of his trouser pockets. The tech didn't smoke, but it was always handy to have around.

The Black Mushroom was a few blocks down the street. Even though the air was thick with dirt and smoke, and most of the walls were so grimy that just touching them would make a man feel like he needed five long showers to get clean again, the bar managed to look even dirtier than the rest of it's surroundings. Two large bouncers hung around outside the entrance. Both of them were carrying heavy stun batons, and no doubt a large array of hidden weaponry under their clothes.

(OOC:

*Even though the GCCW allocates fleets to the defense against the Crusaders on a galactic scale, individual fleets are still under the command of their respective corporations, nations or groups. And the fleet sections not on the front are not under GCCW command. Gliese 876 is currently under the protection of the Brazilian fleet, along with Blacklance mercenary fleet elements.)

Knocko frowned in irritation and perhaps even disappointment. If somebody wanted a lighter that badly, he would have just given it to them. The sooner he got out of this social cesspool the better. Hoo boy, if Kate could see him now, he'd be in for a thrashing.

The strange red outfit that resembled a wetsuit was an odd site, but then again, kids were dressing more crazy everyday.

He nodded respectfully to the two bouncers and strode into the club. Keeping as alert as possible. Provided the bouncers give him no hassle, he will find a spot at the bar, buy a drink and enquire about his contact.

The bouncers merely gave him a glance as he entered, verifying that he didn't look likely to cause trouble and was too big to push around for kicks.

Once inside, Knocko spent thirty seconds coughing violently as he was unprepared for the heavy smoke which hung in a twenty-centimeter thick layer from the ceiling. Anyone who was too tall, like him, had to walk stooped over to be able to breathe. Most of the people there were heavily scarred and armed, dressed in rags or passed out under tables. At a second glance, it turned out that there were very few people passed out under the tables, most of the others lying around on the floor were dead, some in an advanced state of decomposition, which wasn't exactly helping the place smell better.

Buying, and unfortunately also drinking, a few glasses of something that tasted like it was 98% wood grain alcohol got the bartender to point out the only man in the bar who looked civilized and unarmed. Dante Adriano. The business man was sitting in a corner, dressed in a business suit that was already looking like it was never going to be entirely clean again, and gave Knocko a wave as he looked his way.

In a nearby alcove sat two large men in body armor, shoulder patches proclaimed them as part of Zanzara Industries' local peacekeeping forces. Judging by rumours, they kept the peace locked up in a closet somewhere and instead dispensed large amounts of rubber bullets, pepper spray, non-lethal shocks, crippling beatings and, when they were far enough away from the local law enforcement, very lethal gunfire. At the moment they appeared unarmed, but since modern assault rifles could be folded up to about the size of a Backgammon board, that didn't mean much. Their faces were hidden by gas masks, but he could feel their gaze on him.

What a place...to hell with a thrashing. If Kate knew he was here...she would kill him.

He'd been an engineer for a long time, he'd been to a lot of...heavily industrialised places. Not to mention his time spent with his old gang "Total Hogs", but in all his years, he had never smelt or seen anything like this.

He extended a hand to Dante.

No need to be rude.

But kept the bodyguards in his field of vision the whole time.

Then he cut to the chase:

"You look like a man of intelligence, so allow me to compliment you by getting straight to the point. Who are you and what do you want with me?"

Dante, who looked vaguely Hispanic, smiled at Knocko as he shook his hand and pointed to a seat on the opposite side of the table he was sitting at.

"Well, Mr. Jones," he began, "I'd like you to take a quick extra shift at your terraforming station. I'm afraid that due to the highly illegal nature of the job I have in mind, I can't really inform you of the details until you're there, though I can tell you that getting caught while doing it would result in the both of us either getting executed or shipped off to the Tau Ceti ship yards to work as slave labor."

"It'll be a highly illegal job. If you perform it satisfactorily, you can name your price. In money or goods. The supply convoy should still be waiting up in the entry bay, if you intend to accept, you need merely head up there and get back in. Once you're back at the station, we have a contact who'll inform you of the next stage. You may, of course, inform your family before you go."

He stood up and signalled to his guards with his hands that he was ready to leave, "Of course, Mr. Jones, once you're at the station, there will be no turning back. If you attempt to inform the authorities or bug out, we'll have to choice but to terminate you." Before heading off he took a credit card out of his pocket and threw it unto the table, "No doubt this will calm your wife if she intends to protest, it's a Zanzara account card, the credit limit is half a million Universals*. Whatever she uses will be paid, with interest, once the job is completed."

Then he left, his body guards walking ahead and shoving a path through the people in the bar.

(OOC:

*Universals is the currency used on all human planets, by all traders and all nationalities. What you can get for one Universal varies from planet to planet, but on Silver Rock, half a million Universals would be enough to lead a highly opulent lifestyle for over a year. One Universal breaks down into a hundred Solars. If you don't care about luxury, you can live for about 1000 Universals a day on Silver Rock.)

Knocko was stunned. The frank nature of Dante's manner when referring to his proposal as 'illegal' was incredible. He stared down at the credit card...how was he going to explain this?

What was worse, Dante knew he was married, he also seemed to have some insight into the nature of his wifes taste. That frightened him as a family man...and also angered him. Knocko made a silent promise that he would find out just as much about Dante, as Dante knew about him.

Still...maybe it was all worth it...unless of course, there came a double cross. Perhaps he could send his family away and take care of the task himself...he decided he would weight it all up on the way home.

Now, only two things were for certain: Kate was going to be as mad as all hell...and he was going to go through with Dantes proposal.

He would stop by the florist on the way home.

(OOC: Introducing Travis Reid to the timeline.)


Travis Reid

It had started a few days ago when Travis had found an anonymous post on the Galacti-web which asked for a hacker on Silver Rock to identify himself. That was it, nothing more, no identifying data or mail address at all. Most of the local Web-Nerds shrugged it off, decided it was just an anomaly, and ignored it. Travis didn't, though. He scoured some local records, found some IP addresses and made some discreet enquiries.

He was rewarded. He soon found who had posted the notice, it was someone within Zanzara Industries. Further digging found that it was actually one of their high-ups, Dante Adriano. He tried to find out more about the person, perhaps some way of contacting him, but hit a solid wall of perfect server security, went out for some pizza, came home and collapsed on his bed out of exhaustion.

The next morning, the searcher had been found.

Two anonymous Zanzara goons in body armor, holding assault rifles and wearing gas masks were waiting outside of his door on the 18th level. They informed him, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to follow them. The trip took them all the way up to the 2nd level, where most of the city's subterranean farms were located. A pleasant young man, who identified himself as Dante, congratulated Mr. Reid on figuring out the trail, he was the first to make it that far past their server security.

It was a very simple, and very illegal offer, he was going to head up to Entry Bay #14 the next morning, find a large, tattooed man who was boarding a transport and follow him. Once they arrived at their location, all would be made clear. Of course, after boarding the transport, Reid would have two choices. Comply, or suffer an.... Accident. Corpses in the burning desert were rarely found.

Currently it was the morning where Travis had to make the choice. During the night, someone had shoved a note into his mailbox which reminded him of it.







Knocko

Kate had reservations about whatever it was her husband was headed off to do.

Something which paid that well could only be illegal, she said. Something illegal could get him killed or locked up for life, she said. Where would the kids be without a father, she said.

Knocko's wife said a lot of things. But eventually, the phrase: "Half a million Universals, and MORE." was the decisive arguments. A large bouquet of her favourite flowers only served to hammer the point home.

She fuzzed over him before he left, reminding him to be extremely careful, and did her best to explain to the children that their father was going to be missing for another while. But when he got back? Things would be different. Very different.

Once he reached the bay, the transports were still there, as Adriano had promised. Seems they'd gotten delayed by some small equipment malfunctions and spare parts which were slow to arrive. No one seemed to pay him any attention as he found a transport with room to spare and got in, doing his best to make his bulk comfortable in the cramped space.

Travis let out a sigh as he woke. He didn't really want to take on this job that Dante appeared to be sending him on. He showered up and got himself dressed. He had his morning coffee and went through the morning routine before holstering his gun, placing his PDA in his pocket, and placing his Baulwe Wolk around his waist. He stepped outside and read the note from his mailbox before folding it up and shoving it in his pocket. His stomach was churning and he had no idea how he'd be able to do this. As a hacker, he usually knew a lot of stbefore something happened. Not this time. He took a few more breaths before starting out to his destination to meet up with the man mentioned. Once he had made it where he was told to go, he noticed the man described by Dante stepping into one of these convoys. Travis followed after him and stepped into the same one, taking a seat in whatever empty place he could find. He decided he'd wait a moment before striking conversation with the fellow.

Knocko did his best to act like it was just going to be another day at the grindstone. He tried to act casual, but not too casual...blending into the crowd was never the easiest thing to do and with all these people it was going to be tough to notice if he was being followed.

No one seemed to be following Knocko until he reached the bay. As he headed for one of the transports he noticed that someone who had been waiting near one of the doors came after him. The man, a pale, skinny guy who apparently hadn't shaved that morning, hopped into the same transport as him and took a seat a short distance away. It didn't appear as though he was going to say anything.

Maybe he was just being paranoid, but did he not have a right to be? This was not a regular morning. A stupid phrase kept repeating inside his head:

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

He would stare down the newcomer until he got some sort of reaction.

As the two sat around, each of them waiting for the other to speak first, the cargo compartment sealed itself. It was dark for a few seconds before the lights went on, and there were some moments of discomfort as the compartment pressurized itself. Slowly, the old machine lurched into action, and through the small windows they could see it rolling out of the bay and up into the desert.

Once the thing was moving over level ground, the driver entered the cluttered storage compartment from the cab. He looked like a stereotypical trucker and seemed surprised to see Knocko, "Taking another shift so soon?" he said, "I can't imagine the missus being happy about that." He sized up Travis for a couple of seconds, then ignored him.

Knocko had talked with the convoy driver a few times before, on other long runs back and forth, as a way of passing the time.

(OOC: The trucks are relatively flat things, almost wider than they're long, and definitely wider than they're tall, to minimize damage from sand storms. Usually each truck has two drivers, taking turns being asleep. Even though most of the trip is automated, it's vital that the trucks have drivers in case the GPS system is damaged or something else makes manual driving necessary, possibly in the case of having to avoid large sand drifts caused by storms, or any rifts in the terrain caused by Silver Rock's active geology. The trucks also have limited armaments in the form of a single turret mounted on the cab, on the off chance that someone should attempt to raid them for their supplies. In case of an emergency, the cabs can also seperate from their storage compartments.

Most of the equatorial desert and that which lies between the equator and the poles is standard sandy desert. Lots of dunes, little solid ground. Near the poles, the sand is usually replaced by large rocks and cracked wastelands full of craters, rifts, valleys and caves. Due to this, several illegal organizations and full-blown pirate groups are hiding just on the edge of the restricted military zone on the northern hemisphere.)

Travis felt nervous. He kept glancing over at Knocko and trying to think of something to say. He eventually cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak.

"I was told to meet someone here... were you sent by a man named Dante?"

He tried to keep himself calm. He didn't want the large man getting the wrong idea about him.

The young man seemed slightly on edge...this could be reasurring...or perhaps not.

Perhaps he's nervous because he's about to blow my brains out. Sure, this is a crowded place, but maybe he's a crazy junkie...this Dante guy probably has rivals.

All these thoughts and a hundred more seemed to race through Knockos head, he answered the stranger abruptly, not wanting to seem rude, but not wanting to appear naive either.

"Well, that all depends on who's asking."

"My name is Travis Reid. Like I said, I was sent here to meet someone... Someone's who description that... well, you seem to meet."

He tried to speak calmly and gently, even holding his hand out for a handshake to try and show friendliness, but the fluttery feeling in his stomach wasn't helping, nor were his thoughts. This man could probably crush him if he thought Travis was a threat in some way. He never really liked meeting new people.

Knocko shook the mans hand, nodding while appraising his new aquaintance.

"Right, well, now that we have gotten the formalities out of the way, who sent you to meet me...and why?"

At that point Travis and Knocko's PDA's started making noises, for Travis a quick cut of a popular rock song, while Knocko's sounded like a cheap doorbell. The sounds meant that someone was trying to patch through an audio link*. Whoever was calling was hiding his identity, number and location.

(OOC: Most PDA's also function as phones in addition to their other abilities. A few as video phones.)

Knock turned away from Travis and regarded his PDA...mulling over whether to answer or not. This had to be one of the weirdest mornings he'd had for a long time.

Eventually he clicked the receive option and answered tentatively.

"Er...hello?"

Travis was about to answer Knocko when the his PDA rang. He stood up and moved away so he wouldn't interupt Knocko's conversation. He pressed the receive button and held it to his ear.

"Hello? Who's this?"

It seemed like the two of them were recieving a message from the same person at the same time, "Dexter Jones and Travis Reid?" The caller asked, "This is your contact, I'm out at T-Station W-8*, where you should be headed. I'm only detecting your two PDA's on board, is there a third person in the compartment with you, short, black hair, Asian features, wearing body armor? Likely carrying a briefcase? Answers to the name of Imari Biggs? Oh, and if you have any questions, you may as well ask them now before I get on with briefing you. I'll have some time afterwards for questions, too, if any arise as a result of the briefing."

Whoever was calling them sounded male. His tone was business-like, but friendly, and otherwise rather bland, neither exceptionally deep or high-pitched. The only detectable accent was a faint British one.

(OOC:

*T-Stations are Terraforming Stations. The W-stations take care of careful weather manipulation, F-stations take care of releasing flora and fauna from bacteria and upwards, and P-stations purge dangerous toxins from the atmosphere and adjust the level of oxygen.

Planets which are too hot or cold are often assisted in temperature changes by massive orbital shields or mirrors which block out sunlight or reflect more of it unto the planet's surface. In many cases, these shields often turn into orbital platforms over time, the side that's not absorbing or reflecting sunlight usually sprouting a variety of small facilities and habitats.

Silver Rock's orbital absorbers are due for deployment the next year. )

"I have a question. Who is this? That's my only question for now. I'm sure anything else will be answered during the briefing."

Travis began looking around for the Imari guy mentioned before taking a seat where he was earlier.

"I don't see him, it's just me and Knocko here."

Travis was curious to whether or not another person had been chosen to join him and Knocko on whatever it was they were being sent to do.

"Woah...easy on the "Dexter" buddy..." replied Knocko before glancing embarrassingly over at Travis.

"I don't see anyone like that here, get him to stand up or wave or something."

"If you don't see him, he's not there," said their contact, "After all, both of you were given the choice of not accepting, and so was he. Nonetheless, I am confident that we have all of the resources we need to complete the mission."

"You can call me Candiru One, that's my callsign. Dext- I'm sorry, Knocko, will be Candiru Two, and Travis will be Candiru Three. It may feel a bit silly, but we'll want to be able to talk during the mission without anyone finding out our names."

"I still cannot brief you in detail, yet. Though I doubt it, there's a faint chance that someone is listening in," One paused briefly, "But here's a quick overview: First, I'll need your help making a few modifications to the controls of W-8, that'll be our first criminal action. But I'm sure that with Knocko along we can get to where we need to without arousing suspicion. After that we'll be heading north into the Restricted Zone. Just across the border there's one of the fleet's deep space scanning arrays, which is where our mission seriously starts. We'll make the trip in a disconnected ATB*, so no one will be able to detect us on the way, I believe that Knocko knows how to drive one of those."

"Now, any last questions before I end the call?"

(OOC:

*ATB's are All Terrain Buggies. And they are, literally, All Terrain. Their wheels can inflate to become pontoons for crossing lakes, they can drive up 60 degree slopes provided that there's some decent friction, it requires military hyper-velocity projectiles to tear through their wheels and some models are even equipped with limited jump jet capability for crossing extremely broken country.

Most ATB's have no weaponry, a sealable cockpit for hostile planets and room for four people.

It's disconnected in the sense that it's emergency GPS beacon is disabled and it's connection to the local GPS network for just finding out where it is has been removed as well. Dangerous to do on a planet that's not heavily populated, but practically makes you invisible.

Travis smiled to himself afer seeing Knocko look a little embarressed. He shrugged and began to speak.

"So we're heading into the Restricted Zones? I've heard all sorts of crazy rumors and theories about that area. Weapons research, alien ruins, something about a Timecube or something. I think I read about it somewhere. Anyway, do you happen to know what's actually there, Candiru One? And what does Candiru mean anyway?"

"Yeah, that's a good question. What I want to know is, apart from the law, is there anyone else we got to watch out for? Who would be listening to this call? I mean...how high does thing actually go?"

"The truth about the Restricted Zones is surprisingly boring, it's just military manufaction and research facilities. Sorry, don't expect to see any aliens when we go there. And there shouldn't be anything other than the law to worry about, provided that you include the local fleet and Silver Rock's armed security forces as part of the law."

"Our employer isn't entirely non-suspect, so there's a vague chance that local law enforcement might have learned about this. I really doubt it, but I don't want to take any chances, I'm sure you understand. And I'd be risking more than just my job if I told you anything about those involved in this venture."

"I'll be cutting off the call now, unless you have any vital questions, and, uh, a Candiru is a small fish from the Amazon river back on Earth. It's known for swimming up the urethra of humans, attaching itself with sharp spines and then sucking blood. Don't blame me, command assigned us this callsign."

"Oh, nice. " In response to the meaning of the callsign.

Having no further questions, Knocko would turn to his new 'coworker' and ask him about himself.

Travis shuddered after finding out what the a Candiru was, getting an awful mental image of it. He placed his PDA away and turned to Knocko.

"Me? Well, there's really not much to know. I'm a hacker. That's how I ended up here. I didn't leave a family or anything behind so I guess it's all okay. I haven't done anything in awhile anyway. All I've left behind was my small home and my gaming community. Like I said, not much else to know. So what about you, Knocko? Tell me about yourself."

Knocko paused to reflect on what details to add and what to leave for now, settling on:

"I'm an engineer and general maintenance man. I got a family to support and a wife that just wont quit, bless her. I need the cash, I got the mail, I took the bait. I just hope the hook is worth the risk."

Right off the bat Knocko seemed to like his new companion, but liking and trusting were two different things and for now, he would keep a wary eye on the man.

It was still several days before they were going to be at the terraforming station, but they passed by quickly. There were no more messages from Candiru One.

Eventually they could see the station on the horizon. A flat, hexagonal structure rising out of the sand, looking like it was just a large concrete block with metal entry doors, one along each side. At the centre there was another hexagonal structure, a metal spire that rose so far up that the tip was almost invisible. Occasionally bolts of lightning would leap from the spire and earth themselves.

When they got within ten miles of the station, the wind, which normally blew lazily across the desert, barely even strong enough to arrange it into dunes, picked up strength rapidly. Small dust devils were constantly forming and dissipating after a few seconds, sand could be heard rattling against the outside of the storage compartment and occasionally a powerful gust of wind would make the entire vehicle shake.

Despite this, however, they reached the nearest entry bay without incident. In short order the entire convoy drove inside and the bay was repressurized. From outside came the constant howling of the wind and sometimes the boom of thunder. It was a sound that Knocko was used to hearing all day when he worked at the station.

They barely had time to get out of the transport before the large bay was clogged with workers loading, unloading, bickering, almost running each over with forklifts, checking cargo lists, complaining about cargo lists, correcting cargo lists and sneaking off with supplies while other workers were busy complaining about them. Besides the workers and the foreman who was trying to bring some degree of order to the chaos, there was one other person in the bay.

When Travis and Reid looked at him, he gave them a quick wave and then motioned for them to come to him. He was standing near one of the airlock doors leading from the bay into the station itself. He had a buzz cut and a friendly face, built like a stocky soldier and wearing a desert-camo haz suit without the helmet.


(OOC:

Notes on the T-Station. Most T-Stations have bases the size of small towns. The above-ground base houses most of the facilities for the workers, where they live and so forth, as well as safe rooms, storage and other stuff. The spire above ground is what modifies the atmosphere, releases spores or affects the weather. Below ground is an even more massive part of the facility which is mostly pipes, machines and automated things, into which the workers occasionally descend to perform maintenance or regular check-ups. Most T-Stations have the standard selection of highly dubious stories about monsters living in the below-ground part.

The crew for an average station is around two-thousand people, including a small security regiment. Security measures have been ever increasing since the appearance of the Designers, an extremist religious eco-terrorist cult.

The Designers: Opposing any kind of ecological change or terraforming, whether malicious, beneficial or neither. They hate people who terraform worlds like Silver Rock into planets which can support humans as much as people who hunt species into extinction for profit. Their beliefs can be summed up as: "God created the universe, any sort of human-caused change to it is deviating from His plan." They despise technology, too, but grudgingly agree that it often provides good tools for destroying unbelievers or maintaining a status quo.)

Knocko gave a quick glance to Travis and began to follow their new contact, shouldering past the scurrying workers.

(Arodom gets introduced here. Arodom is Evilsincarnate.)

As Travis and Knocko got near Candiru, another man stepped out of the door and took up a place near him. The guy looked pretty rough, like someone used to living on the streets, probably the sort of fellow you'd want watching your back in a tough situation.

Their contact introduced him, "This is Arodom, when I heard that the fourth person of our little squad wasn't going to show up, I quickly checked among the new arrivals here for someone who might be useful. Arodom, Mr. Reid and Mr. Jones."

"Now please follow me," he said, and turned to head out of the hangar through the door that Arodom had come from, "You can get acquainted in a short while, I've found a safe room to brief you in and disabled the local surveillance network. It's really just a storage closet, but I've rigged up a holo-display."

Arodom had arrived at the station a few weeks ago to do some work to get him through a rough patch and when he was made the offer he, whatever his reasons might've been, accepted Candiru One's extremely illegal offer on behalf of Zanzara Industries. He knew as much about the mission as the other two did at the moment, which was that they were heading north to a fleet facility to do something that they would get executed for if they were caught. If they succeeded? Then they'd get immensely rich.

Knocko was a large, tattooed man in working clothes, and Travis a neater-dressed, slightly shorter and somewhat skinner guy. The most striking feature of the large man was the fact that he had metal teeth.

"Oh, and one thing," he added, before he went through the door, "Short change of plans, we're heading out from here in a few hours already. I'll explain why when we get to the briefing room."

(OOC: Whatever of his equipment that Arodom isn't currently wearing or holding it's assumed that he has in a duffel bag in the worker dorms or which he's carrying with him.)

"Well, it's nice to meet you Arodom. " said Travis politely as he took a seat on whatever he could find in the storage room.

"I'm ready to hear what this is all about. I'm a little curious as to why there's been a change in the time we're leaving."

With that, Travis relaxed and begin thinking about how he'd gotten himself into this mess. He wondered why he just hadn't become a teacher or some quiet job.

"Yeah, nice to meet you to," replied Arodom.

Arodom glanced casually around the room and then looked back to Candiru One.

"Why don't you tell us what you want us to do now; I don't like people who keep secrets."

"I was getting to that," said One, sounding slightly annoyed, and gestured for everyone to take a place around the rather large table that he'd managed to edge into the storage closet, the chairs were made out of boxes and apparently whatever else he had been able to find in the small room, "We're leaving early because while I was waiting for you, there was a lapse in security here. Half the guards were ill one day and I managed to slip into one of the control rooms and make the necessary adjustments."

"Now," he continued, took a bulky device out of his pocket, pressed a few buttons on it and put it in the centre of the table, "This, is a map of Silver Rock," the machine projected a 3D picture of the planet a few inches above the table, Candiru One made a few gestures and it zoomed in until it was roughly above the area they were in, "We are here," he pointed at the T-station on the map, and then gestured again, sending the view northwards until it hovered over a large, round crater, "And this, is our destination. One of the fleet's Deep Space Scanning Arrays. The scanning array is in the crater, while the facility that houses the local guards, techs and whatever else, is below it and inside the crater walls. Our employers want to know what's happening in space, so our mission is to either sneak or fight our way in, get to the main control room, and download every shred of data we can find."

"We can pick whatever option appeals to us, but we'll only have three hours to complete our goal once we get there. The modifications I've made to the T-Station will generate a powerful sand storm in the area which will block out communications and slow the arrival of reinforcements, as well as trapping all of the men inside of the base so we won't get any unfortunate surprises. But the station can only hold the storm going for three hours. Any longer and we risk causing immense damage to the weather patterns all over the planet."

"For getting there we'll be using an All Terrain Buggy. We'll leave it a few miles away behind a dune, approach, scope out the place before the storm gets started and then go in. Once we're done, we'll either go back the way we came or get a lift from Zanzara."

"There's no definite number on the amount of hostiles present, but intelligence estimates that there are likely to be forty to fifty people in the base at any one time, civilian personnel like cooks included. Of course since they're all soldiers, I suspect we can expect that any of them is likely to pick up a gun and fight back in a pinch. I can already see a large amount of options that'll make their numerical superiority a non-issue, however."

Candiru cleared his throat and shut down the holographic projector with a couple of gestures, "I expect that it'll take us three days to get there if we aren't forced to elude patrols or bogged down by weather, terrain or unforeseen circumstances. I've got camo hazard suits for you all, so no one's going to have to be very good at holding their breath after we abandon the buggy. We don't have any weapons beyond what we're bringing ourselves, though, but we can probably loot or steal some if it becomes utterly necessary."

"Now, are there any questions?" He sat down on his own chair, which was made out of an ironing board and an industrial-sized jug of bleach, "I expect there are, so ask them, I don't want to have to explain a detail about the plan in the middle of a firefight where it's pertinent. Oh, and Arodom, you weren't here for this bit: I'm Candiru One, Knocko is Candiru Two, Travis is Candiru Three and you're Candiru Four. While we're out there, we only use our callsigns, we never know who might be listening in."

(OOC:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v98/PurpleXVI/craterA.jpg

The crater seen from the side.)

"My biggest question is what everyone here is good at. Battle? Computers? Stealth? I use stealth to get the job done, but what about you three, and what weapons profiencies do you guys have? We're going to need a balanced group to take on 40-50 people. By the way, what are your options of getting past them One? I say we keep the environment suits on and place some gas grenades in the ventilation systems. I'm sure I could modify my grappling hook launcher to shoot a grenade, but i don't have any one me. Are there any other ideas?"

"A balanced group to take on 40 or 50 people? Are you implying we should directly take them on? We'd get slaughtered. I believe we should sneak our way in, take out whoever we find in our way and try and find a computer. I could hack into their security and make some changes that could aid us. I'm a pretty good shot with a pistol."

Travis stood up. He felt that his makeshift seat would collapse if he wasn't careful. He began to stretch his legs. He turned back to Arodom.

"Oh and by the way, do you know what a Candiru is?"

Knocko smiled to himself at Travis' last question.

"I can handle myself in a fight, but I'm not a hero, I got people depending on me back home."

He paused for emphasis before glancing at those seated around him.

"You can all depend on me to watch your backs, I won't let you down...but I'm not going to kill any soldiers for the sake of it. They're good men, just doing their jobs and I'm not going to be able to face my kids knowing I killed someone elses dad."

Travis nodded his head at Knocko. That last comment made him think different about Knocko. He wasn't just some engineer, he was a real family man. Travis liked that.

"And I'll be sure to watch all of your's. Like I said, I believe we need to shut down security and get in and out as stealthily as possible. Going in and making the entire place a graveyard would get us lots of unwanted attention, which, obviously, we don't want. "

Travis took his seat again and folded his hands on the table. He cleared his throat and began speaking again.

"I know we're taking certain precautions to slow them down and the like, but I still vote in rule of a stealthy approach. One, is there any other notable things about the crater we should be told?"

"Nothing particularly interesting about the crater itself," said One, "And I agree with stealth, I don't have anyone waiting for me at home, but I'd like to get to go home at the end of this nonetheless. I have to admit that I hadn't quite planned on a non-violent approach," he added hestitantly, "But I think that I can see a way, yes, I think that I can see a way."

"I'm a military man by training," he told Arodom, "What I'm good at is shooting things, not getting shot and not getting spotted."

He fell silent for a few seconds and seemed to ponder something, then continued, "But here's what I'm thinking: Like most bases here on Silver Rock, it probably has an open ventilation system that sucks in air from outside, purifies it and then feeds it into the base. If we're lucky, we can crawl in that way, temporarily disable the system, which shouldn't arouse any suspicion in a sandstorm, and get into the air ducts. Of course there's always the chance that said ducts are too small, in which case we'll have to reconsider our plan."

"Most likely the scanning array computers and base control computers are in the same place. If we sneak into the control room we can knock out or tie up whoever's in there, drag them outside the room, disable the air feed for that section of the base and then finish the job while wearing our hazard suits. Getting out might be a problem in that case, though, by the time we're done, most of the base personnel will probably have gotten suited up, too...."

"I'd love to just plain sneak, but that's going to be damnably difficult in a small base. Especially because military installations tend to be utilitarian, no more space than absolutely necessary, narrow corridors and so forth. Few hiding places."

"I wasn't implying that should directly take them on. Like I said, I am a man of stealth, but I do think if we coduld incapacitate most of them quickly, like with a gas in the ventalation systems, it would make life much easier. Or, since this is a big compound I'm thinking they are going to have large industrial ventalation ducts, we could just travel through there. I can cover up all the sound we make up there with my belt."

"I'm still not sure if the gas thing would work. It just seems too cliche. It may work in movies, but wouldn't a military project have gas masks or some other way of making themselves immune to the gas? I don't even think any of have any gas grenades."

Travis put his head in his hands and blinked a few times.

"Maybe we could find a way to turn the security around on them. I know that's just a vague statement, but maybe there is some way we could use it our advantage. I'm not quiet sure. One's plan seems pretty plausible."

Travis turned to Knocko, who seemed to pretty quiet during most of this.

"You got any ideas, Knocko? What do you think of some of the plans thrown about?"