Raezyr and Trychon leaned against the back wall of the briefing room while Dianna went over all the main details with her crew. The cafeteria converts nicely into a meeting space. Trychon thought to himself. They may always be looking for the cheaper way to handle most things, but it's still handled very professionally.
The three of them had gone over the plan with her countless times the night before so that she would be able to direct the briefing and answer questions, not to mention be able to execute the command of a large portion of it. She reminded them several times how it was still her crew and half her mission, even if Trychon was the one to bring it to her. She was recruiting more help and buying equipment to make this possible. The split of the profit was going to be even, which was fair enough, they'd all decided.
Dianna was just going over the most surprising part of the mission, and she didn't wait for the buzz in the room to quiet down before she continued. "Yes, it's true. The cargo we are going after is a pure aurodium deposit. While most people think of the galactic economy as a bunch of ones and zeroes, planetary systems do balance and secure their currency with the good stuff to some extent. There's all sorts of myths and stories about how that's done. I'm not sure how many of them are true, probably some of them and maybe all of them. What we do know is that this is happening. On a planetary scale, this deposit is rather small... probably a supplementary deposit or something. It doesn't matter. For us, it's not a small fortune. It's a huge one."
Raezyr toned out the scuffling and talking and felt the emotions pouring out through the room. He didn't need to listen to Dianna's presentation, as she'd rehearsed most of it in her sleep the night before. The emotions in the room were varying from disbelief and excitement to surprise and apprehension. He zeroed in on Mannix, whose thoughts were nearly an open book. The boy was excited, and very much so. There was a bit of fear mingled in, but it seemed to be more out of a desire not to let anyone down than anything else. Looking deeper at the boy, he was able to get some general thoughts from the past month or so. While the child was very shut down when he was left here, when he decided to accept his new life he flung himself forward into it with reckless abandon.
Dianna was taking final questions and Raezyr turned to watch her; he loved watching her from behind. She was handling the questions well and it was all the expected questions. They were being yelled out without any order though before she could answer them.
'Why don't they protect it better? One cruiser and only for part of the trip?'
'Why don't we split the haul into each of our ships to be less conspicuous?'
'So we're going to move it on one shuttle too? Isn't that... a LOT of risk?'
She peppered answers back at them without much pause. "Secrecy and disguise can work better in protecting valuables. This is an unthinkable fortune to us, but they likely get much larger. How big of a convoy would you send to protect the sort of wealth that planets war over?"
"No good. We have to move it in the shuttle. The other reason they use this particular model is that it's autoloaded. Getting to the cargo without being at a properly equipped dock would take forever. That's why Raezyr will hit the cockpit with incendiary plasma ammo after we've got the shields low. The insertion team then just has to patch the hole and rely on secrecy to keep them safe as it would have for their predecessors."
"Yes. It is a lot of pressure and risk to be putting on one shuttle. There's a reason they do it this way though. A larger more equipped cargo ship will grab attention. A small cargo ship with a large escort convoy will grab attention. We're not exactly going to be taking this into a core system. A lot of the places we can take this are crawling with the sorts of ships that wait for an hour or a day at the edge of a system before they jump... just to see if anything catches their eye. It's a huge risk... but we have no choice."
Raezyr nodded. Exactly as they'd gone over it. It turned out thought that she wasn't done. "That's why I'll be leading the insertion team and will be in command of the shuttle."
He shot a glare at his older brother, who didn't blink. The room was immediately in an uproar. Zanz had jumped out of his seat. The argument that followed was rather heated, mainly between first officer and commander, but with most of the room putting in their two creds at some point or another.
It was just then that Tyr and Anya walked in. Trychon could feel their irritation that the meeting wasn't stalled for them, but when they saw the argument in progress, they wisely decided against saying something. The look that they got from Raezyr may have played a part as well.
Zanz was very nearly in her face. Almost as if he wanted it to be a private conversation, but couldn't help the surroundings or the volume of his voice. "This is just like Ketor-3, Dianna! You told me that I made my decision and I had to put my trust in our men to do the job. I wanted to lead that team, and you told me that not only was it not my place... but my value to the organization was as a leader. Does this seem at all familiar?"
"This is not the same as Ketor!" Dianna got closer to him. "Yes, you sent those men in with a risk... but it was not mission critical. Everything rides on this, and the danger is mine to take. Not anybody else's. I accepted this risk for us all, and I deserve to shoulder it!"
Ultimately, it was Dengar's cool head that put in the final argument which sealed Dianna's loss in the debate. "You cannot command a mission from an insertion team. You have to put your best men in place to do their jobs, and we'll need you running the command of the group as a whole. With myself to oversee insertion, Taggart to fly, and Zanz for command decisions, there is nothing you could add beyond self sacrifice."
Dianna sighed. "I can't ask anyone else to take this risk."
Zanz held up his hand as though to signal the discussion was over. "You're not asking anyone to. You have to do what is best for the mission though."
Dianna hung her head admitting defeat, and Zanz signaled the end of the meeting, and everyone filed out towards their respective ships. Time was of the essence now. Normally a mission briefing would happen much sooner before launch, but in this case they were forced to cut it close.
Raezyr clapped his brother on the back. "Have you made all the necessary preparations for what comes next?"
"Let's go."
No comments:
Post a Comment