Clear Skies - Now Open!

[warlockseer]

John walked through crowds of people, trying to find the squad that CoO had put him in.He saw a someone going to the security that looked familiar. He proceeded to see if he was part of his squad.

[Iron_Fang]

Blackmane Jumps out of the transport shuttle and casually salutes "mornin' sarge", his power sword, tools, dagger and pistol locked into the small backpack for the mission "Name's Blackmane future famous pilot and engineer * smiles*, head of CoO sent me I got my mission hi-tech watch and am ready to go", he gets out his dagger from his grandfather and starts throwing it around with the occasional trick while he waits

[Blank_Kold]

Being a freelancer allowed Vestis to ignore the uniform regulations of the CoO, so he stood inconspicuously in his gear, watching the CoO fools celebrate the eventual resent that came with acquaintance. "Garbage," he thought. "And I have to work with them." The clients had been rather vague as to the nature of this job, all Vestis knew was that there was squad work for the CoO involved. He hated squad work, he abhorred the CoO.

"Are you the Sargent?" Vestis asked of the happiest and least nervous looking of the hapless meeting.

[Onecanofsprite]

Jake steps out into the crowd. Just a few moments ago, he'd been casually sleeping. Now, everybody had seemingly decided to wake him up. He mumbles slightly, and observes what is going on.

[Sir_Luke]

Name: Specialist Luke Win
Gender: Male
Age: 24

Appearance: Blue eyes, brown hair, wearing standard issue camouflage jumpsuit with a tactical vest.
Personality: At first glance he seems shy, and that's because he is very shy. He withdraws from speaking as much as he can and tries to blend in with the crowd.

Background: Joined the CoO last year and was assigned the squad specialist. He was just recently assigned to a new squad in the CoO and isn't really looking forward to meeting all these new people.

Ocupation: CoO specialist

[Sir_Luke]

"Hello sir!"
"The name's Luke, is there still room on this thing?"
Boards transport aircraft and slaps down his backpack and laser rifle under his chair.

[Skunk_Giant]

Nathan sighed as the kid he recognised as Blackmane walked up.
"mornin' sarge"
Nathan swore silently as the kid continued to leap around. A cocky one...
He watched as another of the kids - Luke, made his way to the transport craft and entered. So they had started boarding...
"Are you the Seargent?"
"Yes, Sir, I am," Nathan replied, looking at the kid's clothing. It wasn't uniform, but it was far from civillian. "You must be the guy the OoC hired?" he asked, as they walked towards the craft.

[Iron_Fang]

Blackmane see's Nathan's look on his face and says "Where is this beautiful craft we've been assigned?"

[Skunk_Giant]

"Where is this beautiful craft we've been assigned?"
Just follow me up, it's a few minutes away.

[Iron_Fang]

Blackmane follows Nathan to a hot-rod red troop shuttle, his jaw drops ".........SHOTGUN FRONT!"

[warlockseer]

John lost the man he was looking for in the crowd. He continued to walk aimlessly about into another area and saw a group of people about to board a hot-rod red troop shuttle.
"You must be the squad."

[Blank_Kold]

"You must be the guy the OoC hired?"

"Yea. I assume you'll brief us once we're on the ship?" Vestis replied, hiding his disgust.

[TheAquapunk]

Finally, the other squad members appear.
Pendrite resists the urge to roll zer eyes at a few of them; for the most part they seem like your typical squaddies.
IE loud, cocky, and convinced they're charming.
Ze follows the group up to the shuttle and it's nice, nicer than Pendrite was assigned when ze was a Sarge, but tech improved vastly during the war.
I should probably introduce myself when we board, Pendrite thinks, and just suss out the troops before that.

[ojamamask]

Micheal was eagerly sitting down waiting for the space shuttle to take off. "Why haven't they started yet? I've been here for an hour." Michael said to himself. A lot of things were going through his head now, but mostly of his mother. He was pretty sure that his mum would be dead now, but what else is there to live for? Get a job. Yea, but what is the point if your just going to keep going round and round. He might as well get out of Earth to see the galaxy and it's wonders. He tried to keep away from people at the moment. Only when the time is right he would think about talking to the rest of the squad. Right now he just wanted to learn the ropes as fast as he could.

[Iron_Fang]

blackmane walks over to another of the squad "hey names blackmane, you?"

[ojamamask]

"Hey names blackmane, you?"

"Was he talking to me?" Michael thought to himself with is hand trying to cover his face and looking down at the floor "I sure hope he wasn't, but maybe if I pretend not to hear he might just walk away"

[Iron_Fang]

"c'mon i ain't the enemy" laughed Blackmane to a suprised man

[ojamamask]

"Oh crap he's not going," He thought again "Well there's no escaping it now" He slowly turned his head to see a man with black hair who seemed in his twenties. He was looking down a Michael with his sunglasses and was what he thought was a jumpsuit.
"Hey!" He said "My name's Michael, I'm one of the new squad members. Nice to meet to"

[Iron_Fang]

"cmon lets get on the shuttle" blackmane says and walks up the docking bay into the shuttle with a smile on his face

[Skunk_Giant]

"Yea. I assume you'll brief us once we're on the ship?"
Nathan chuckled, "Nope, I've got about as much clue as you about what we'll be doing. Can't be anything too exciting, I haven't heard about any conflict for months."
Nathan got on board the ship, the mercenary behind him.
The ship was a nice, large area. The inside was like first class on a nice plane. As the group sat, a few other men and women in the military made their way in and sat.

Finally, the ship took off, blasthing past Earth, through space.
Nathan put another strip of SpaceTaste in his mouth, and lay back, a song from the 1990's blaring through his ears.

[TheAquapunk]

Pendrite boarded the shuttle, taking a seat close to the door. Ze sat, slightly uncomfortable with the polish of the interior. Not to mention that ze still had no idea what they were doing. And hearing that the Sergeant didn't know either just made zir that much more uneasy.
Ze leaned back and tried to relax, despite the awkward silence surrounding zir. Ze absentmindedly scratched zir mid-thigh, where the bionics of zir leg met flesh.
It itches near-constantly, due to the connections between the natural and artificial nerves there.

[ojamamask]

Micheal followed blackmane into the shuttle. The first thing he noticed was the decor. It was nicely set out, quite professional and not what he expected.

As the ship took of, he sat down and took something out of his pocket. It was a photo of his mother and a key of some sort on a key chain. The key chain had something inscribed on it;
For my dear son, don't go too far.

[Blank_Kold]

"Nope, I've got about as much clue as you about what we'll be doing."

This was bad. Vestis knew that if the CO was being kept in the dark, the mission was serious. A squad that had him, one veteran, some rookies, and a god damn photographer was almost certain to fail if the mission was at all serious.

[TheAquapunk]

Pendrite's mouth was a line as ze looked at the troops that made up zir squad. They didn't seem very cohesive, and the fact nobody knew where they where going or why was more than unsettling.
Still, something could be done about the 'nonbody knows each other' thing.
"Shouldn't we introduce ourselves?" Pendrice's voice was loud without being grating and with a gentle edge that seemed strange, considering zir large frame.

[Blank_Kold]

"Shouldn't we introduce ourselves?"

Vestis looked up with a biting look of resent, signaling the sociable androgyne to be quiet. It was already too loud with the steady groan of the ship's engines.

Introduction was an unnecessary risk.

[Sir_Luke]

"Shouldn't we introduce ourselves?"

"Well, I guess I'll introduce myself to you guys. I'm Specialist Luke, and I handle all the long range support and demolition for my, um, squad. I guess that's us now."

[Onecanofsprite]

Name's Jay. I used to run a café before signing up here. Hell, all I really do is support work.

[Skunk_Giant]

As the kids introduced themselves, Nathan smiled. This squad reminded him just of his first squad, though he hadn't yet spotted who reminded him of who.
Allowing himself a brief twenty minutes of sleep, Nathan put his seat back and slipped an eye cover on.
Fifteen minutes later, he awoke with a bump from turbulence.

The ship slowly came in to dock at the space station of Atlantis, an artificial planet near Jupiter. The space station floated just above the planet, like most other stations on other planets. The ship doors flew open with a hiss, and Nathan picked up his bags and left, the squad following behind. When they'd finished security checks and reached the public area of the station, Nathan counted heads and spoke.
"Alright, I don't wanna lose any of you, so I'm hoping this isn't as bad an idea as I think it is," Nathan began. He checked his watch. "We've got just over an hour of waiting. We're not heading down to Atlantis by a public shuttle. We're scheduled to be briefed by a few of the higher up fellas, where we'll receive our mission," he informed the group, thinking to himself, with the lack of activity, our mission is probably to pick up some litter...
"So, take a look around, there are shops, fast food restaurants, toilets, though I wouldn't use them. Feel free to partner up or head off on your own. If you need me, I've uploaded my EPA contact details to all of your phones. Which reminds me, the CoO will be issuing you military EPA's, so don't go spending your money on one. I would wait around for any questions, but I've got some work to tend to, so I might be a while."

Nathan left the squad and rushed through the station, meeting the man exactly where they'd planned.
"Sergeant Brown, good to meet you," the man grinned, his fake white teeth contrasting with his black suit.
"Can we just get this over with? What's the issue?"
"Some of the newer officials, and some older officials, such as myself, want you to see nothing but barred windows for the rest of your life. We believe you don't deserve a free life," the man said, keeping his grin.
"Look, I don't care how much money your family paid to get you a job like this, but you have no damn clue what I went through."
"And I don't care. You and your stupid squad members caused people to die. People that had helped us, that we cared about."
"You didn't even have this job when that happened. That was years ago, and I'll have you know, none of the officials cared about Mel. He did his job for you, and then because of a failure on your behalf the organ thieves discovered his identity, and you just left him. You kicked him out, and he spent the rest of his life as a driver, always living in fear. He wanted to help us. He wanted those organ thieves dead, and then... then... he..."
"He died, Nathan. It's your damn fault that he died."
"That's a lie! He took his own life to destroy the entire factory. He killed the head of that factory, the man who he hated more than anyone else. He saved thousands of people from having their organs stolen. Mel was a good man, and he was happy when he died."
"Nathan, you don't get it. It's more than just bloody Mel. You compromised your mission, you nearly revealed Spectre to the thieves. Your mission had nothing to do with the thieves, you were to focus on the Reds, nothing more."
Nathan sighed. "Well, if I find a girl being attacked by men with knives in an alley, I'll be sure to turn a blind eye... You and your damn officials can talk about arresting me, but you're not pulling the same crap you did with the Reds. I want a bloody trial. When you've decided what you want to do, contact me. But do me a favor, and take a walk in Atlantis before you judge. It's a dangerous place..."

Nathan sighed and left the man, Richard Hans. He thought about telling the rest of the squad about what had happened on Mars, but decided against it. If it came up, maybe he would.

[Iron_Fang]

Blackmane instantly goes to the Nuricom shuttles expo and looks around the awesomeness, he then bumps into a young women "sorry, didn't see you there."
"Ow, hi! would you like a ticket for the chance to win one of these shuttles"she says
"Great! my number on my EPA is 1151337161025001" Blackmane replies with a wink and then he walks off hoping to win that shuttle.

[Sir_Luke]

"Great! my number on my EPA is 1151337161025001"
"Hey now, I do not think it's a great idea to give out any information on us. This is obviously a classified mission and giving out your EPA number isn't something I would go around doing."
Luke walks over to the shops and searches for something that catches his eye.