The Milky Way Galaxy

Federation Sol military district officials enjoyed the benefits of gigantic office buildings, the best humanity had to offer in terms of personnel and a budget one could by an entire planet with.

In the frontier Helen the local used a requisitioned school house as an HQ, a largely drafted body of demoralized, disillusioned, ill trained, poorly equipped "soldiers" and a merge budget which normally gets swallowed by Bureaucracy despite it being drawn from the fortunes of local inhabitants.

Helen's solution was to do the only thing she could do, act. In too many new Sydney garrison units sloppiness, inefficacy and petty corruption went rampant. This was a natural consequence; if the Federation didn't take the frontier seriously why should the frontier take the Federation seriously? This thought was quite contagious, Helen was not immune to it; it was this sense of neglect which was responsible for the near complete abandonment of Federation drill and protocol and Helen was no different in that regard.

Helen kept her troops busy in every possible way from chasing "ghost" in the desert sands as the saying went when the risk was affordable to fixing up the road. Helen made clear what she wanted and when she wanted it but the how was as influenced by her direct subordinates as it was by her will.

If an officer made a minor error he could be reprimanded, if an officer was responsible for a failure he could be court-martialed but if an officer was irresponsible, sloppy or self motivated with the lives of his soldiers and the mission he would be executed. Among the now battle hardened and dwindling NSG officer core this was a rarity however among the green Federation transfer officers it happened.

Now under "siege" by the horrendous insurgent presence of this area and with no effective means of supply and reinforcement to build up a force powerful enough to conduct attacks it seemed all Helen could do was attend meetings.

Today was exceptional since Leslie Montgomery, the commander of all federation forces in the area was leading it. The commander had taken temporary control of Helen's office since it was near to the problematic zones but Helen didn't mind it too much so long as she got it back after the meeting.

"Enter" said the commander casually releasing the door's lock from the terminal, Helen and four other officers entered the room taking their designated seats around the former head master's conference table. All the officers knew the problem at least as far as their duties where concerned; the insurgent presence in the area made Federation law and Federation order a laughing stock and there was nothing the Guard could do in this populated area.

The commander had given them a day to consider their view on the way forward, the broadcasting equipment had been "wired" to his terminal but the words he would speak where not yet officially sanctioned for the time being.

"Fellow officers, we return here a day after our last meeting. The time for talking on this subject is now over; we now must make a decision"

A short silence followed until broken by Helen who had deep reservations with what the Commander was suggesting.

"Are we truly going to accept this course of action? The implications of such an action are all too clear in my eyes; we would loss the last shreds of authority we have over this region"

"As if we have any authority over this area left" interjected Arnon commander of the Western sector. "When was the last time we sent a patrol into the streets and the villages without it losing at least a few dozen to injury? The entire countryside is as thick as rats with the bastards; even desert duty is preferred to town patrols now"

"I hardly see how the favorite tasks among the troops is relevant Protested Chao" Chao was the commander of the civil police forces and like Helen had similar concerns to the local Inhabitants of the area.
"I agree that our control over the residential areas is difficult but the general populace still at least officially respects our authority"

"Its relevant because before this mess the least favored tasks in the guard were the desert patrol duties… now that's moral for you." Began Arnon clearly interested in picking a fight.

"Our latest statistical analysis in this area has concluded that one out of six civilians is aiding the Insurgents actively while one out of three is supporting them discreetly. Explained Grim who had since replaced Morris Greece after the latter had been assasinated as local sector central intelligence officer, he was always happy to add something when he could to any matter in discussion.


"I can't see how it's even a possibility; we don't have the means to enact any such policy regardless of the situation" added Helen ignoring Grim's unsettling report since it was mainly based on federal records.


"While we have no answer to the insurgents in terms of specific targets and flushing them out to the open we have sufficient destructive power to eliminate any surfaced resistance at least for the time being" said the Commander trying to redirect the officers to making a decision. "This capability is eliminated by the fact that the Insurgents hide among the populace rendering any counter insurgency effort futile"

"Aren't we simply pushing on the problem to somebody else?" asked Satoshi the Combined operations officer in charge of organizing operations with other units.

"The refuge camps are specially designed to process a great number of people, they don't catch all the Insurgents but they do temporally eliminate a process group as an effective Insurgent force" voiced Grim

"So we are just playing for time, I rather kill 50 Insurgents in a raid while the area remains populated then 200 once the area is evacuated… its sheer folly!" protested Chao.

"The point is you are not getting 200, hell you don't get 50! We are lucky to catch 10 most times" counterattacked Arnon who never quite liked Chao due to his civil service rather then military background.

"This discussion is not about enemy losses" said Helen who had by now heard enough and wanted to get this over with. "This is about our losses, we don't need 50 or 200 enemy dead, what we need is 10, 50 of our own alive."
This battle is a battle of attrition we can't afford to fight, the real battle is not yet upon us yet we are being bled white slowly but surely. This is a fight for survival and we are losing.

We can't afford to alienate the local population any further, the more ammunition with give the Insurgency against us the more it will have to fire at us. If we want to avoid a massacre we should withdraw while we have the chance and regroup in safer areas. By careful use of provocation tactics we may then show the people what the Insurgents really are instead of wasting ourselves futilely in this expensive and costly deployment."

"We also can't afford to lose any more sectors! The more we lose the greater the power of the insurgency and we have lost quite enough already. Major I understand your local sympathies and applaud them however I will not accept any more withdrawals. Not one step back! That will be our motto from this day fourth with god as my witness we will show these rebels the Iron fist of the federation!" Snapped the commander who had clearly had enough with the debate.

"Are we agreed then?" asked Chao who seemed to resign himself to the decision understanding that the commander had made up his mind already and that nothing would change it now.

The officers nodded, The Commander activated the broadcaster and began to read out a text he had written two days prior to the meeting.

"Attention, Attention please stand by for an important announcement. Concerning the acts of armed aggression against the peace keeping forces of the New Sydney garrison The Federation has no alternative but to order the evacuation of affected regions.

Civilians will be sent to the Refugee concentration and administration zone in Atmos. The only persons remaining in the area will be those wearing the uniforms of the Federation military.

Any one found in civilian clothing upon the completion of the evacuation will be shot. That is all"

Aboard the F.S.S. Redemption

"Attention crew, this is Commander Walker. We will begin our decent into New Sydney shortly, prepare for turbulence. Once we have arrived I will expect everyone to report to their post and obtain their mission briefing from their direct superiors."

Connor found himself picking up his things and heading down to his quarters to get dressed, but to do that he had to go through the recreation center, where the majority of the soldiers were. He wasn't particularly anti-social, but he didn't necessarily want to deal with others' complaints and issues at the moment. As he began walking through the corridor, the ship began to shake from the descent into the planet's atmosphere. The shaking caused him to go down to one knee, and when it was finally over it took him a moment to stand back up. He was exhausted from his training, but he had orders to follow and a job to do. He walked into the room, some soldiers snickering as he did.

"What's so funny?" he said, looking over at the soldiers sitting at the table.

"Nia's gonna be so pissed," one said. Connor looked at them in confusion.

"What do you mean?" The soldiers began to laugh.

"Dude, you just missed Nia's briefing, any regular commander would rip their damned peon for that," the soldier said, waiting for Connor's response. He mouthed the word, "fuck," before gathering himself again.

"Where'd she go?" he asked.

"Back to her room, why?"

"Well, I should approach her about what I missed," he said, his voice trailing off. He began walking to where he would find Nia, before one of the soldiers called out to him.

"Connor!"

"What?" he said, annoyed with the soldiers now.

"Don't die-"

"How 'bout don't get shot on your first deployment, freshmeat, or should I call you meatshield? I need a new one since my last one wore out," he said, interrupting the antagonizing soldier. It sent everyone hollering in laughter as Connor smirked and finally got to Nia's door. He knocked on the door, waiting for her response.

The lieutenant wasted no time undressing after shutting the doors to her quarter. She only had a few moment to enjoy a much needed shower before arriving at the drop off. She began to hum a tune from the song she was named after. When she was younger, Nataliana hated her name when she was younger, she hated that song and her mother for choosing it. Her mother was a harpist in the Mars Symphony Orchestra, and even played for various leaders of the Galaxy, this was the level of status in which the lieutenant grew up in, first name bases with the powerful people. Nia hated it all, but now, in her later years she has grown fond of it's elegance and the ironic contradiction of her personality. She is basic in regards to her needs, wanting to be appreciated for her work and praised for her high level of skill.

Nia continued to hum as she walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She was only able to but one foot in the warm water before she heard knocking at her door. Goddamnit she thought as she want back in her room. her hand was on the key code to open her door before she realized her was completely naked. "Goddamnit!" she yelled as she hurried to pull on her trousers. Nia scanned the room for a top, anything would do so she grabbed the first thing she could find, which happen the be a white tank top, slightly see-trough but that didn't cross her mind as she pull it down over her head, shoulders and chest. She didn't even bother straightening it or pulling it down further to cover her midriff before typing the unlock code into the keypad by the door.

The lieutenant leaned one arm against the doorway as the door slid open. Her eyes were annoyed, but not angry. A small hit of surprise flashed across her face as she recognized who was knocking. "Connor? What are you doing? Shouldn't you be getting ready for the drop off? Why are you in you PT gear?" As she asked she adjusted her tank and cross her arms, only now wishing she opted for a less reviling shirt.

-ALERT- Sensor interference detected, damage to sensor modules confirmed.

-ALERT- Profile "MASTER" no longer detected, navigational sensor error 81% probability... assumed temporary separation from profile "MASTER".... diverting special powers under command "Emergency9" activating profile "Autonomous"... activation complete, profile "IRU" integrated.

Systems now activated in IRU, the command had made access to further assets possible however the procedure information for Autonomous action seemed incomplete to Databanks.

Profile to Sensors, commence search for Profile "MASTER"

-ALERT- sensors register error, unable to execute command, command terminated.

Profile to Sensors, identify error.
Sensors detect damage to external sensors, repair systems unable to investigate.

Only one option was left to Iru; an external terminal link would allow systems to locate profile "MASTER" using profile "SALIENT" sensor readings. Iru under normal procedure could not act upon uncertain information however profile "Emergency9" overruled this command and identified a terminal link based on file Salient. Upon investigation Sensors deemed the presence of a Terminal correct and thus Datalinks changed the Datalock on file Salient from R-Negative to Y-Passable.

Systems accessing Terminal... access complete... entry code requested [Datalinks switch... searching... matching code found] Systems entering entry code... match confirmed... accessing network node... Profile "IRU" now logged into to Network"SALIENT".

Profile Searching... security network section found... -ALERT- access restricted... loading clearance code... match not found.... loading counter systems... counter systems overruled... -RED ALERT- SECURITY BREECH DETECTED... Profile Salient Security detected... -RED ALERT- SYSTEMS CONTAMINATION DETECTED.

The House of Clubs, The Redlight District

Cydus had been enjoying the music to the best that he could. It wasn't his cup of tea, but at least it wasn't something that would drive him to the point of shooting the DJ below. Even though he was the ranking member in the club, he was of a different suit, another branch of the SVP, and thus, he was supposed to follow any orders given to him by a Face Card of the Clubs. But as usual, there were loopholes, and Cydus wasn't above the idea to use them.

Two Federation Agents detected outside. Identification have been linked to your HUD. Seras had alerted Cydus through a private communication link within his headset, before Lester, the King of Clubs, gave the order to let them enter and had offered them seats at the table after the poker game ended a while ago.

"Alright, so how do you guys want to do this?" one of them had asked, which had immediately gained the pirate's attention.

"What my friend means is...Let's begin."

Turning around to face the two agents, Cydus began to state the terms...

"You know what sets us apart from the other pirates and outlaws? We have our own personal regulations. That's what makes us successful. Why? Because without regulations, it is impossible for one to go far. Regulations set the difference between life, and death. So let's begin.

First term is this: No names. I had already known who you two were before you had set foot within our club. To me, you are Federation. Therefore, the employer is Federation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Two: For me to successfully complete the task at hand, I must be given full pardon for any and all Federation deaths by my hand. Which leads me to Regulation Number Three.

Three: Do not come between me, the Ace of Diamonds, and the given objective. This is a regulation set for your safety, as I refuse to let obstacles get in my way or otherwise slow me down.

Four: I only need the target's name and the objective. The objective relating to this contract is to locate and remove a Lord of Liberty from power, dead or alive.

Remember, your employers had came to us. That's because we're the best in the sector, and we're the best at what we do. If these terms are agreed upon, in return, the other suits have agreed to bolster your departments for the time being. Spades would be required to access your mechanical aspects, Hearts would require access to medical data, Clubs, these guys, would require access to your weapons. The Diamonds, my suit, would require access to any communications and intelligence systems to integrate with Seras.

Payment for our services don't come cheap. The payment for each SVP operative is two hundred fifty thousand credits up front, while my services require seven hundred thousand up front. The rest of the payment will come from whatever we can salvage from the field.

If you agree to these terms, take the data disk that the King of Clubs will provide to you to your captain. It contains the necessary information regarding each participating operative, as well as the information regarding payment, and a recording of this meeting. Instructions will also be included on the data disk regarding the temporary encryption keys that I myself will deliver.

Any Questions?"

Written with conspicuousconartist in RPG Write.

Aboard the F.S.S. Redemption.

Connor looked at Nia dead in the eyes; he wasn't afraid of leadership, he was afraid more so of the truth. He opened his mouth, gulping, preparing himself for the worst of what could happen.

"I was in the fitness room when you gave the briefing apparently, making my way over to the recreation center where you'd probably give the briefing to everyone, and judging by the shit I got from all the other soldiers, I missed something important," he said, his voice still confident.

Nia bit her lip as she heard Connors explanation., waiting for him to finish before uncrossing her arms and placing her hands on her hips. "So you missed what the commander said over the intercom? You are supposed to report for your briefing, the fitness room is not a long walk exactly." Connor remained in his rather stiff posture, listening to what his commander had to say.

"It's not an easy walk when the ship is traversing the atmosphere, and I did hear Commander Walker, but what did I miss anyways?" he asked, getting a little more to the point. He wasn't interested in all the little details or critiques on his lateness to a briefing. The consequences of his actions would run their course, he thought.

The lieutenant lowered her eyebrows at Connor's response. Was he giving her attitude? She moved closer to him and raise her voice so that other people could hear, "I don't care if you lost one of your fucking legs, you come when you're ordered to." She looked him up and down before continuing, "You are to report to Lieutenant Joseph. You're in his firing team for our mission. We're going on the surface of the planet to gather information on the insurgency." She said with a calmer tone than before. Connor looked at her a bit more sincerely, not arguing with his commander, but rather agreeing.

"Thank you, lieutenant..." he said, his voice trailing off. "I'm sorry for wasting your time," he said in a lower voice. In his mind, thousands of scenarios of how the future could play out, what he could've done, started simulating in his mind. He expected something like, "Sorry doesn't cut it," or "Just don't do it again," or something of which would doubt him. But that's only because he doubted himself

Nia turned to looked back to the shower calling her name. Being trapped in a tin can for months at a time with mostly men was enough to make even the most rugged woman feel unclean. The lieutenant was one of the few female Marines on board, but the others were pilots and technicians mostly, not combat effective. She turned back to the Sargent Second class, keeping a stern look on her face. I can't believe Commander Walker wanted him as second in command of this mission. She thought.

"Well like I said before, you should be getting ready for the drop off. Have you done a drop off since training? The pods we use are a lot smaller and faster than most, designed for quicker insertion. Were you one of the ones that you throw up in the pod?" she asked with a slight smile.

"It's tough for me to handle the feeling of free-falling, but not much makes me vomit," Connor replied, "but that's only just a small part of the mission." He glanced over at the clock, and then began looking around the commander's quarters. His mind was always jumping from one thought to the next, sometimes he could be taken as not paying attention to the situation before him, but that wasn't necessarily true. The fact that Nia's top was a bit revealing didn't really seem to phase him. "Will we be given any information on the terrain or enemy's influence in the area?" he asked, thinking a bit further ahead for himself as an individual. "It'd help to give a general mindset of how we should go about this mission," he added.

"Well I did throw up my first few times." She admitted. "The drop off can be a bitch." Nia looked back into her room as she noticed something catching Connors attention. There was several articles of clothing thrown about everywhere and the trash was over flowing. This was not considered an acceptable living condition for a Marine officer, and Nia felt slightly more embarrassed about her filthy room than her inappropriate attire.

She turned back to Connor once he began asking more about the mission. "Never been to New Sydney? The whole place is a desert. We'll be landing near the outskirts of the city of Atom, a cliff city. We should be hitting ground a few hours before the first sunrise. As far aw we can tell, the insurgency isn't base in the city, but there has been reports of small enemy convoys traveling through. So we set up just out side the city and log any suspicious activity we see leaving or entering Atom." Nia explained as she glanced at the clock; there goes her opportunity to take a proper shower.

"Alright," he said, thinking more deeply inside his mind about the mission. "I'm going to go get ready with what time I have left," he said, waiting for something reminiscent of a dismissal from the lieutenant. If it wasn't for the trash or herself, Nia might smell Connor's sweat stronger.

"That would be wise," the lieutenant agreed. "See you at the drop off Seargent," she said before stepping back and typing the lock code on the keypad by the door, shutting it it immediately. Once she was alone in her quarters again she lifted her arm and brought her nose closer to her armpit, checking herself and quickly pulling her head back up. Eyes widened, she quickly wiggled out of her pants, leaving them on the floor as she pulled her tank top off and headed to the bathroom.

Jean had departed the camp apparently on a further scouting mission along the route however this scouting ended where his official occupation did.
Jean had navigated his way into the interference area where nothing short of coincidence could find him however Jean was not about to risk even remote coincidence and paused to examine if he had been followed.

GX was an interesting place to work on; it gave scientist and colonists alike the freedom from civilization they so craved and the chance to forge something new that was truly their own. Pirates, smugglers and other desperados also found the freedom of such a virgin planet invaluable with Jean being no exception.

Since he had begun his work on GX Jean had been carefully building up a hidden cache for his business arrangements. By delaying the report on the planet's human life sustainability he was able to keep the others in the base for a sufficiently longer length of time to complete his little "store house" among the caves.

Satisfied that he had not been followed Jean continued his journey towards the cache. So far he had mainly done small jobs such as supply local pirates with energy cells and trade off promising local flora and life forms to the smugglers while the stuff remained forbidden material by law. There was some good money in these transactions but Jean had mainly started it to make it clear to the other "gangsters" that he was running the show on GX... Three unlucky brigands had learned that the hard way and where now decorating Jean's "Red room" after he had blasted their sorry asses to kingdom come.

The planet was indeed rich with resources and fortunately the great area of interference seemed to have blocked the scans of the Mega businesses when the system was being colonized many years ago. Jean had been able to penetrate some of the interference from the caves and discovered by scanner an underground deposit of Uranium ore.

While this was way beyond the league of goods he normally shipped out the money he could make out of it was far too serious to miss. Jean doubted he could mine the ore on his own even with mining robots but so long as he could keep this claim to himself he would eventually find some way to extract and sell the valuable material.

Jean reached the caves and entered them using waypoint markers primitively chiseled into the rock to find his way to the cache. Most of the goods apart from the power cells and local material where mainly odds and ends he had found off old bases and ships and what he had acquired by the more infamous smugglers who could not afford to risk a shipment to the populated planets so instead dropt goods of here for pickup by local runners.

Everything was here apart from drugs because Jean just didn't do them. There wasn't really much of a moral reason for that but Jean had always been careful with the drug barons because they were more likely to kill someone then sneeze.

There were quite a few weapons waiting to be shipped off to the Insurgents in the cache but surprisingly most where not bound to new Sydney but to the other planets in the system with far smaller Insurgent problems. Jean guessed that the NS Insurgency had by now developed its own weapons industry which was amusing considering the NSG where so short on supplies they had turned to more unorthodox methods of acquire them.

Jean got to work sorting out tomorrow's shipment of local plants which seemed to produce some potentially very interesting alcoholic beverages … or anesthetic if that failed.
It took a while to pack everything to the delivery container since the plants had to be treated gently as to keep the highest quality possible. Most of the goods where disguised inside old and worn food containers as an attempt to make the cache seem like an abandoned old storehouse in case someone came sniffing around.

With his work for the day done Jean left the caves, it took him a while because the cave network was quite immense with his cache being only a room in a city compared with it.
As he walked away Jean saw what seemed to be storm clouds in the distance… which was strange since his satellite report hadn't shown any build up whatsoever.

Iru's firewalls desperately tried to fend of the security programs when suddenly they stopped breaching his databanks, a different presence now filled his systems.

"Who are you? What is your reason for being here?"

Asked the curious program; it was not a simple instructed program that was quite certain from the received data. In fact this format was so alien that Databanks where convinced sensors section was suffering a malfunction and that this new program was nothing more than a "Data mirage".

Profile Iru nonetheless overruled Databanks; sensors where indeed faulty however pending more data Profile Iru had to assume sensor's readings where correct.
Profile Iru proceeded with caution; a registration number would compromise the unit's components, it was better to surrender as little information as possible while gaining as much as he could about this strange new environment.

"It is advised to address this unit as IRU6" answered Iru however answering the stranger's further request of purpose was overruled by a systems data program. Iru could not answer such a question and soon the inquiry into this information was deleted from his memory leaving the question unanswered.

"Listen, just don't harm us, and we won't harm you. Sounds good?"

Asked the stranger… Iru was puzzled by this seemingly very human pattern set but what he knew to be a computer program however protocol decreed that asking another AI over its programing was quite rude and therefor impossible for Iru to contemplate.

"This Unit has no intention or capacity to harm profile Salient, all unit requires is to be permitted and cleared to continue the updating process, further communication may continue once Unit databanks are sufficiently updated with the relative information."

Iru concluded that some official recognition would make his task easier and therefor the granting of some registration information would have to be permitted.

"For Unit registration information the central congressional databanks possesses the relevant information. This unit has been legally registered both in the European Union autonomous state of Wales under file WWDB/EUBR/SoW/CRER900/2416358759621 and in the United States of North America under file WWDB/USNA/CDB/RaCES878/9038448857445032"

With two national registration markers Iru concluded he would have no further difficulty with security programs and remained in a state of standby as he awaited confirmation from the strange program.