



The commander stomped through the halls of the flag ship orbiting Hurston. A scowl was shrouding his face due to the news he had been summoned to deliver. The information had already been relayed to him from his own forces on scene; a small strike team had smashed up their shiny new experimental deep core mining facility, leaving their investments and efforts in shambles. The moon was generally of little use, but deep below the mild tectonics of the globe, there were minerals of incredible value and utility. All of the effort, all of the planning and patience, had been delayed or destroyed because the corner cutting nature of bureaucracy and business had left the facility all but undefended. As one of the few military advisors to the company, Maulla had already dealt with about as much bullshit as he could take from their irresponsible habits. So, he stamped authoritatively into the meeting he had been summoned to. He didn't bother introducing himself or even announcing that he was starting his tirade. He simply strode to the front of the room, and began. "For those of you who may not already be aware, we've suffered a perhaps irreversible setback today due to our own lack of diligence." He began, pausing a moment to let the room focus on him, "The experimental mining facility at Woodruff has been destroyed, and the man who designed and oversaw the construction of this one of a kind facility is currently MIA. Deep core moon mining has been set back by decades, investments have been turned into losses. Lives have been wasted, and our company has been embarrassed in a way that we haven't been subject to in decades. All of this, we owe to a small team, Perhaps five men, who are currently retreating over the mountains to the south of what was once the site of our new facility."

He folded his hands behind his back and straightened his spine. He had already decided on exactly what needed to happen, and he planned to tell them what was going to happen next, not ask permission to do so.

"With that being said, we will be deploying a hammerhead class ship to secure the skies above the facility to prevent the attackers from being extracted, and we will be deploying an infantry force to kill or capture them. It is possible that they have our engineer, and are attempting to escape with him. Because of this, we will attempt to capture them, as it's also the only option we have to find out who exactly has assaulted our facility."

He allowed himself the most gentle of smiles as he finished, "The aforementioned force should be arriving on site in less than a minute." ▬

The team had scrambled up the side of the mountains to the south of the target where their ship was hidden away. The small cluster of rocky outcroppings provided them with ample cover against the fire being sent their way, but there was a bigger problem than the small force that they had already basically defeated. It seemed that Hurston was extremely displeased with their new building getting a few rockets put into it, their security people being shot up, and their engineer being captured. Apparently, this job was bigger than the pay implied; a theory that seemed to be supported by the fact that a Hammerhead had just struck their stealth kitted cutlass with a small torpedo, destroying it. The team scrambled into cover as shrapnel violently peppered the hillside. One of them gasped and gripped their leg, a smaller man carrying a sniper. Rook landed on his butt, and shouted at his team while watching the cutlass burn, "Was slicer still on that fucking ship?!" He knew the answer, but he hoped he was wrong. Yukon answered his shouting as she wrapped up France's leg, resealing the suit and trying to stop the bleeding. "I'm pretty sure he was! Are they going to bomb us next?"

Rook checked his P4 rifle, and poked the nose out over the top of the rocks they were behind as he watched an infantry force be deployed in the damaged facility below them, "No, I don't think so. They know we have their guy. They won't risk trying to use ship weapons on us...they're just going to run up here and shoot us." He cracks off a couple of shots, hitting one and forcing the rest into cover. He ducked back down, pulling his rifle back with him, as their rock is hammered with plasma bolts.