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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5118102" data-attributes="member: 143">Yeah, the Russian base mission turned out to be a real test for the group, as you'll see shortly. * * * * * Session 17 (August 18, 2008)Chapter 62The briefing hadn’t ended well, to Hadrian’s thinking.  Wagner had briefed them on what they knew of the base, but it was thin, real thin.  The engineer said something about a dampener on their aircraft they would use for their insertion, which should allow them to approach the base undetected.  When it came to mission parameters, “should” was not a word that the Marine liked to hear.  Of more concern was the Russian.  Hadrian really didn’t like working with unknown quantities on a mission, and here he was saddled with a whole team of them.  But he knew how to follow orders.Those orders were simple enough.  They were to recon the Russian base, penetrate its security, determine whether there was an alien connection, and if so, take action to neutralize it.  It wasn’t the most suicidal mission Hadrian had ever been given, but at the moment, it seemed to be right up there near the top of the list. After the briefing, they were ordered to report to Workshop Three for mission prep.  Hadrian arrived to find Cecilia Sharp fastened spread-eagled into what looked like some sort of torture contraption.  Grace was supervising three technicians who were grafting pieces of body armor onto her.  They’d already covered her legs, hips, and back, and as he watched, two men almost as big as he was hefted a breastplate that looked like it weighed a few hundred pounds.  He could see the other components, the bulky arm units and a helmet with a glossy silver visor, waiting on a table adjacent to the rig. “How’s she going to be able to move in that?”“The armor is powered,” a voice said behind him.  He turned to see Jane Swift standing there, looking past him at the work being done on the agent.  “It’s fully articulated with electroactive polymer units in the legs and arms.  I worked on those some, amazing tech, really.  There’s an Elerium-115 reactor in the back unit, of all things.  The outer layer is made up of alien alloys and a lot lighter than it looks.”Hadrian looked at it dubiously.  Grace caught his eye, and made a gesture to one of the other engineers.  “Right over here, sergeant.  We’ve got your suit of Personal Armor ready for fitting.”He was leery of something along the lines of the powered armor, but the suit they fitted him with was not that dissimilar to the Interceptor armor he was familiar with.  It was slightly bulkier, with full-body protection, but Jane had been right about the weight of the material; even with the full rig he felt lighter than even the basic Interceptor vest with its ceramic inserts.  The engineer helped him, making adjustments so that the suit fit him better, and explained the basic functioning of the Visual Display Unit in his helmet.  By the time he was ready, Cecilia was fully rigged up, and Grace was helping with adjustments to the suit, working with an xPhone connected to the armor by a thin cable.  The others were gathered around a table were weapons were being taken out of protective cases by another pair of techs.  Hadrian moved to join them, conscious of the bulky tread of his boots—also armored—on the plate steel floor. The weapons looked like something out a science fiction movie.  Vasily gauged his look and said, “I think we figure out alien weapon technology recently.  Is kind of step forward.  They did tell you about aliens, right?”“Not exactly,” the Marine replied.  “Well, we shoot the bastards,” Vasily said to Hadrian.  Catalina had picked up one of the weapons, a pistol that had several small bulges in the haft and along the action.  “Hopefully these plasma weapons will dent the snakemen a little more.”Jane held up her xPhone, which showed an image from the security camera in the alien containment lab.  “So that’s them?” he asked. Vasily glanced at Jane’s phone.  “That the smallest kind.  But yah, that them.”“More than one kind, I take it then?” Hadrian asked.“Three we know of,” Catalina said.  Jane handed out their medikits, which fit into snap pouches that had been attached to their armor at the left hip.  She briefly explained to Hadrian how they worked.  “We have a medic, Doctor Allen, who usually goes with us,” she said.  “but he’s not trained for infiltration missions like the rest of us.”“Don’t know how stealthy we’re going to be,” he commented, glancing back at Cecilia, who was plugging the lead from her laser pistol into a socket in the waist of her armor.  “Here,” Vasily said, handing one of the plasma pistols to Hadrian.  “Just like regular pistol.  Aim and shoot.  You get used to weight.”“This our primary weapon, then?” he asked, hefting the gun and looking down its length.  The build of it make holding it a bit awkward, and the simple sights had apparently been glued on to the top. “Depends,” Catalina said.  “Snakies don’t mind the lasers much.”  She smiled as she lifted one of the improved laser pistols.  “Light,” she said, duplicating Hadrian’s action as she sighted down its length.  The new software in her VDU activated, showing a bright point on her image screen that matched what the pistol was pointing at.  “Very nice,” she said to herself.  She took one of the plasma pistols as well, affixing its holster—another jury-rig—on her belt opposite the laser.“We use more standard weapons, too,” Vasily said.  “Musa, he can get you just about any kind of gun you want.  These… these pack a good punch, though.”A voice hissed over their communicators.  “Hey kids, I got the bus all ready to go, when you’re ready,” Ken told them. “That’s our cue,” Catalina said. “Come on, I show you where armory is,” Vasily said to Hadrian.</blockquote>

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