Asteroid Blues

OOC:

We had three players this night, and I wanted to try to include everyone, so I suggested we play a "team" game with 2 vs 1 running two lists, so this is a little bit different. Since we were doing something crazy anyway, I suggested that we try out TACOS as well.

Lieutenant Zahia Soltani returned to her quarters wearily, already long past when her sleep cycle was scheduled to start. When she entered the room she found herself facing... herself.

"Good evening, Lieutenant Soltani. Please, have a seat."

She even sounded like Soltani.

Soltani ran to the NBIS concourse, still adjusting her uniform. The data cube the Fiday had handed her felt unnaturally heavy in her pocket.

"The secrecy of this mission is of the utmost importance" she remembered "herself" saying.

She arrived to a group of Ghilman in the process of assembling for review.

"Your team has been hand picked for you, with thorough background and biometric review to ensure they are who we believe they are." Soltani remembered the Fiday saying as she watched the team assemble.

A woman with an Ops badge and a quantronic clipboard approached Soltani, from seemingly nowhere. "Thank you for joining us, Ma'am."

Soltani was surprised, and still recovering from the earlier meeting, but maintained her composure. "You people just enjoy being creepy, don't you?" she asked.

"Ma'am?" The Ops staff tilted her head quizzically.

"She has to be a Fiday, doesn't she?" Soltani thought to herself. She narrowed her eyes. "Nothing." Soltani said. "This is my team?"

"Yes, ma'am, there's still one more coming." The Ops staffer had to raise her voice over the increasing volume of thumping and whirring as a massive Maghariba Guard thundered into view. "As I said when we were in your room earlier, this mission is very important."

Soltani was still watching the enormous TAG maneouvre into position as the other woman at her side spoke. When Soltani realized what the Ops staff had said, she spun back to the side and discovered she was alone again.

Soltani's team had just encountered the USAriadnan team to whom she was to transfer the data when they started receiving fire.

The teams had spread out to watch the perimeter while the exchange happened, and Ariadnans started dropping. Soltani took cover and shouted to her Ariadnan counterpart "You were supposed to secure this area!"

"Me?! This is clearly your treachery!"

More shots were fired, this time barely missing the Ariadnan commander to disable the Maghariba Guard.

"Seeing as we're both getting shot at, why don't we pretend to work together for the moment?!" Soltani shouted back.

She chinned her comms on "I need this TAG back up, now!"

The Maghariba Guard and the Taagma sniper exchanged fire ferociously, all while the Najjarun engineer tried to keep the TAG operating, but it finally succumbed to the barrage of viral ammunition.

With the TAG destroyed the Spiral Corps snipers could no longer see any Haqqislamite forces, and the Ghulam sniper was able to neutralize some light threats.

The ambush was brutal, completely overwhelming the combined forces of Haqqislam and Ariadna in only a short time. Forced to retreat together, Soltani and the remains of her team, as well as the remaining USAriadnans were eventually able to find safety deeper in the Open-Pit Site. After establishing a new perimeter, and doing a field check for any surveillance gear, Soltani finally learned what she was transporting when she handed the data cube to the Ariadnan commander, who played it back.

Video: Intercepted phonecall describing suspicious activity, followed by the sound of the caller being killed, followed by strange chittering.