Chapter 7 & 8 Intermission 3: The New Recruit

[Ray of Meep]

Co-authored by: Ray of Meep (GM), PaladinGreco

23XX A.D, 37 hours after confirmation of weapons facility

Silbern System, Stahl Belt, Fabron Station, aboard Daheim One

Ulrike quietly walked back into the command module of the ship. With the current orientation of the frigate with the rest of the rotating station, the entire vessel was under gravity slightly higher than 1-g. She headed onto the bridge and sat in front of one of the consoles silently, stewing quietly. After a few minutes of thoughts to herself, she gave some hard taps on the console, watching the logs scroll by and muttered introspectively. "Maybe I have been too harsh on him lately..."

"Ulrike?" A voice came through the comms. It was Montgomery.

"Go ahead." She replied.

"I didn't realize you came back. I just want to say that Joan has arrived with Derek." Montgomery responded.

"What?! For how long?!" Ulrike shot up, dropping her data pad on the seat.

"They arrived shortly after you and Eberhard left. They've had enough time to tour the ship. Derek is tidying his room right now."

"I'll be right there." Ulrike rushed down to the habitation modules.

----

Derek, meanwhile, had just packed away the remainder of his clothes, and was now wrangling with the magnetic snap mounts for the small display frame his old medals were kept in. The damned thing was unnecessarily fiddly, but it was a gift from hit little girl, so he was, so help him, going to keep using it. It… just… and why was the release lever positioned RIGHT THERE?! One more failed attempt to fasten it to the wall later, and it was secured properly, proudly displaying bits of ribbon with little studs embedded in many of them, and a single national medal off to one side… all surrounded by a(n evil) frame decorated with cute stickers all the way around.

Derek let out a sigh of relief, and was about to start fastening a couple of smart-photo displays and a ship placard; a trivial task for the whole batch, comparatively. He was halfway through this when someone knocked on his door.

"Come in." Derek said while putting the remaining things in the loose item net temporarily before turning around.

"Good to see you in person." Ulrike stood by the door. "Care to talk while we take a stroll?" She offered.

"Likewise, and yes ma'am." Derek replied as he moved toward the door to join her.

Ulrike started talking. "So I did my homework on you, shit." She reached for her datapad, only to find it nonexistent on her body. "Anyways, your credentials looked solid, which is why you were allowed to roam the ship. I saw you and a wife and a child. Mind if I ask where they are right now?"

Derek managed not to smile as he realized Ulrike had forgotten her datapad. He only knew who she was because he'd, likewise, done a little homework. He'd asked to meet the Graus after coming aboard, and was surprised when his request was quickly granted without fuss or bother. It boded well, in his mind. "Thank you, and it's no problem. They're both at home on Magnuski Station." Derek silently wondered what the strange turn of this conversation was all about, and absently added, "I bet they're probably sleeping right about now." He turned his head and wordlessly looked the question of 'why do you ask' at Ulrike.

"Eberhard and I have a son as well." Ulrike replied. "Recently, we took the oppurtunity to put him into the Maybach Institute on Magnuski Station. We realized that he was old enough to go out on his own now, and he really shouldn't be sticking around on a frigate for too long. To be sure, Joan has kids as well, but she's almost required to keep them close." She paused.

"The reason why I'm telling you all this is we consider ourselves to be more of a family, on top of being a mercenary group."

 

[Ray of Meep]

Derek smiled and nodded. "Joan said the same thing, about the group being more a family than a paramilitary company. And.. I agree. I don't think it's a great idea to keep the family aboard if you don't have to. Especially the kids." Derek's smile turned wry. "Well, and my wife, Francesca, has a career. I can't imagine asking her to leave that, and I don't want to imagine what she'd do to me if I pulled Lucia out of school to board a mercenary frigate so she could go on pirate hunting adventures with daddy." His tone was light, and joking right up until the drop off groan at the end. "Not that I'd do that, but just saying breathing is preferable to the alternative."

"I understand. I suppose we should visit your family once before we eventually leave the system." Ulrike nodded sympathetically. "Do you know why we recruited you, of all people, at a time when we're not recruiting aggressively?"

Derek pondered the information he’d just been given. There were plans to leave the system, soon enough to be mentioned, but far enough out that ‘eventually’ described the timetable. So, something more immediate was happening. “Well, since you picked me up, rather than any one of a hundred younger go-getter space jocks with a rifle and delusions of heroism, I’d say you need something blown up, knocked over, or otherwise brought down around someone’s ears,” He paused, rubbed an itchy patch in his beard, then added “, soon-ish.”

"Correct. When I sent Joan to recruit you, I anticipated it to be a big operation." Ulrike walked Derek up to the command module. "About 36 hours ago, we confirmed that it will be." They arrived in the bridge, where Ulrike picked up her datapad from one of the seats. She took a look at her datapad and put a hand over her face, but said nothing else for a few seconds.

Derek took the hint from Ulrike’s body language after she started looking at her datapad, and he suddenly found the command module to be a whole lot more interesting for a few moments. He digested what she said about an impenting OP while glancing about.

"Anyways," She looked back at Derek as if she saw nothing, "We're looking at busting an illegal weapons manufacturing facility, here on Fabron Station, actually. We'll need your skills to both get in there, and to blow all of it up once we gather all the evidence."

When Ulrike spoke up, Derek shifted his eyes in her direction first, and then turned his head to face her properly again. He nodded as she finished speaking, then looked thoughtful. “I have a few questions… First, do we have any intel on the factory’s structure? If not the factory itself, then general construction in the area or what should have been there instead?”

"Not sure, but we did recover old documents of the initial prospecting attempts on the asteroid." Ulrike took a file from her datapad and threw it into Derek's. "It's likely they're using the old caverns carved out before the opposite pole was deemed a better mounting point for the station. Based on past raided facilities like this it's going to be meandering tubes with the occassional large space. Like an ant colony, actually."

Derek took his datapad out of the belt pouch he kept it in, and opened the file just after it slid onto the screen. He listened to her description while navigating the plans and maps, which he assumed to be both out of date and largely incorrect, but it still told him all kinds of important things about what he could generally expect. And that was far better than nothing. “The factory being on the far side of this rock is a good thing. I hate collateral. That gives me more fudge factor to work with when things inevitably go pear shaped.” Derek said absently while he brought up an old but regularly updated list of tools of the trade, and started tacking numbers on to some items. “Do we have any data on what the local gravity and atmospheric conditions are like?”

"For a rock this big? Don't count on gravity doing anything useful. As for atmosphere, we don't expect much for most of the facility." Ulrike replied. "We've got less than 24 hours before Space Command comes with support. Anything else you need?"

It was then when a man similar age to Derek, in an orange jumpsuit, barged into the bridge and stomped towards Ulrike, and squeezed her tight in his arms. Ulrike was clearly surprised, but patted the man on the back. "You didn't do it?"

"No," He replied, "But holy shit I was a fucking idiot for even entertaining that thought."

"I wasn't completely innocent either." Ulrike looked down. "I'll take care of you for tonight then."

The man nodded, then looked at Derek. He let go of Ulrike and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I'm Eberhard. I assume you're Derek, the demoman Ulrike was talking about."

"Yes sir," Derek replied before nodding at Ulrike. "We were just going over some of the details of the operation."

"Send Ulrike and I a list of what you need and focus on getting some rest. It's going to be a tumultuous 48 hours." Eberhard cautioned. He pulled his wife in close to him. "Sorry you're seeing us trying to work out some kinks, but welcome to the team."