• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Character Prologue: Renee Janvier

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January, 2320

Silbern System, Magnuski Station, Rontgen Ring

Magnuski Station, the crown jewel of the Silbern system, the pinnacle of GDW megastructure engineering. Carved into the dwarf planet of the same name, Magnuski station consisted of independently spinning habitation rings, all surrounding a single, tubular core. As technology improved over the centuries since the station's first conception, the dwarf planet was dug out further and further, starting from the south pole and directly northward through the rotational axis of the body. Each ring installed deeper into the dwarf planet was larger, more spacious, comfortable. Improved power generation and kinetic optimization allowed these larger rings to support higher gravity that closer resembled that of Mother Earth. Coriolis effects became negligible in these rings, and the ceiling approached the tubular core itself, giving a far better illusion of a sky than ceiling monitor panels could ever bring.

Naturally, everyone wanted to move into the larger, more technologically advanced sections of the station as they were built. However, as the station's population grew, construction couldn't keep up with demand, and sections of the population remained in the older rings. Decades of neglect made life difficult and dangerous on these rings closer to the surface of the dwarf planet. Combined with the natural mental stress induced by the living conditions, along with previous drop in attention, these surface rings became hubs for terrorist and pirate organization, forcing heavy police action in recent years.

The Rontgen ring was one of the earliest built rings of the station. Unlike the later rings, the Rontgen ring was smaller, filled to the brim with concrete rooms and corridors for storage and industry. As Renee and her team rode their armored shuttle through the maze of corridors, adjusting to the change in gravity as they traveled down and towards the outer edges of the ring, she could see old, colorful patterns on the walls that were flaking off, homeless wandering the environmentally controlled tunnels with pillows under their armpits and bags of fried protein.

"5 minutes out to the suspect location, Copperhead." Her second in command announced. The man was in the Lancaster-class IVAS like everyone else on the shuttle, painted white with cyan accents, he was Asian descent, black eyes, black hair, his helmet under his armpit, with a cartoonish fire painted on. For the purposes of the mission, Renee knew him by his alias, "Blaze". There were four others with her. They received reports of a human trafficking ring located on the Rontgen ring.
 

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Renee Janvier was not one for sentiment, but she couldn’t help but feel a dull ache in her chest as she and her team approached the Station. Although the structure was grand, it was the inequality and crime that concerned her, both in occupation and morals. She was used to the haunting sight of the gaunt vagrants endlessly wandering the tunnels and corridors of the Station, with no aim but to survive until the next day. Those images formed the majority of her nightmares, and so she tried not to look out of the windows as the armoured shuttle weaved around corners. She didn’t need fresh fuel for her night terrors.

The French woman flicked her piercing gaze towards the second in command as he spoke up, affording him a subdued nod as her brain whirred into strategic gear. She knew the mission, and so did the others, but it was important to have a plan, and that was Renee’s role. She shifted forwards in her seat as if to announce that she was about to speak. “Human trafficking rings. You are all experienced enough to know that these sorts of people do not go down without a fight. And neither will we,” Renee began, her silvery eyes flitting between each team member. She rose slowly, armour creaking slightly, mirroring Blaze in placing her helmet under her armpit. The snake’s head faced outwards, fixing the team with its pixelated stare.

“But, that doesn’t mean that we get to be stupid.” At times like this, Renee’s accent was much less strong, but it was still possible to hear the faint inflections of an Alsatian accent. “We need some level of stealth. Any indication of our presence will give the traffickers time to escape with the victims. Justice needs to be served and it is our job to start that process,” Renee concluded with a sharp nod.

Her stiff posture eased slightly as she looked up towards Blaze, taking a step towards him with her back towards the team. “I am legally obliged to give you the ‘in the event of my death’ talk,” she began, much quieter this time. She then paused for a while, before patting Blaze on the back with a sarcastic smile. “I’m sure that counts as the talk. I shall log that as being legally completed,” *Renee afforded her second-in-command a rare wink, before turning back to the others.

“Allons-y, comrades.”
 

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The rest of the squad chuckled while Blaze smiled and gave a nod to Renee, tapping away at his forearm mounted datapad. "Roger that. We'll have drones watch all the connection points to the location and park the shuttle out of line of sight." He then threw a data package to Renee's datapad. "Verify the recommended strategy, ma'am."

On Renee's datapad, there would display the targeted complex of rooms and all the corridors and tunnels that led to it. Green lines showed the proposed paths of the surveillance drones, and a single blue line showed the squad itself. They would stop behind a block of compartments, then move to the target on foot. There were only a couple of cameras in the area, highlighted as yellow dots, and those would be placed under the squad's control.
 

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Renee nodded at Blaze's information as she tapped away at her own datapad, marking the death talk as complete. She was certain that there would not be casualties on this mission, least of all her own death, but she still knew that it was a possibility. She just didn't want to entertain it. Besides, Blaze was her second-in-command and the entire team had completed the same training that she had. They knew what to do in the event of Renee's incapacitation, and she trusted them not to lose their heads. If they were nervous or easily shaken people, they would not have been selected to join the team. For Renee, it was as simple as that.

She began to look over the strategic map, signalling for the others to do the same. She zoomed in on certain areas to size up possible obstructions, before nodding in satisfaction. This would be a challenge, but one that would surely end in success. "Just make sure we get the cameras under control as soon as possible, and engage stealth protocol once we are out of the cover from the compartments," Renee clarified, before pulling on her helmet and giving it a good pat to make sure that it was on securely. "Check comms before drop," she quickly instructed, her voice a little robotic this time as it came through the helmet's built-in communication system. Without comms, the team would be sitting ducks. It was one of the key pillars of training that had been drilled into Renee since her very first day - always remember to check your comms before a mission, preferably whilst you are still in safety.
 

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"Roger that." Her squad mates sounded off one at a time, following Renee's lead and putting their helmets on. All their faces were covered by the face plates, but Renee could see their personalities clearly through the training they've done together and their face plate art. Blaze with his fire emblem, Lotus with the respective flower, Pogo with the pogo stick.

As the shuttle parked behind the block of compartments, half a dozen drones swarmed out from the back, moving to their respective choke points, followed immediately by the human operatives. With the cameras locked down, the squad moved to the target with near silent footsteps, approaching a rather innocent looking metal door surrounded by concrete. Renee and half of the team formed up on one side of the door, Blaze on the other side with the other half. "Breach, captain?" He asked through the comms, both hands on his shotgun.
 

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The French national nodded, returning to tapping away at the datapad on her forearm and marking the comms check as complete. Satisfied that any and all preparation was complete, Renee motioned her hand in a forwards gesture towards the door, pressing the open button and waiting for the drones to exit before motioning for her team to follow them out too. She left last, securing the shuttle before clutching her weapon in her hands and pressing up against the wall in Blaze's side.

"Safety off. Breach as quickly and as silently as possible. Take out anyone in the immediate vicinity with silencers," Renee instructed. Breach was always quite noisy, but it didn't tend to be much of an issue as long as any guards were eliminated before they could raise the alarm. The problems began would begin when the team wasn't quick enough.

Renee motioned for silence, changing her position to one of assault and flicking the safety off her standard issue rifle. She raised her hand with three fingers raised and began a silent countdown. As her last finger went down, she swiped her fist down so that it was parallel to the ground - the motion to breach. She prepared for the chaos that was bound to follow.
 

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"Affirmative." Blaze nodded, then gestured to Lotus and Pogo at his side. Lotus placed a small charge to blow open the door's lock, while Pogo stood in front of the door with a ballistic shield, ready to push in. With a sizzle and a loud metallic pop, what remained of the lock fell off, and Pogo stepped forward to charge in, before being greeted by a hail of bullets that pierced through the door, flinging it open somewhat, then bounced off his shield.

"They were half expecting us." Blaze stated, throwing a flashbang into the opened corridor, then maneuvered behind Pogo to fire his shotgun. "Someone tipped them off." He remarked with a hint of disdain. The squad followed up by drowning the corridor in bullets until the return fire was silenced. Shuffling into the hallway, Renee would find two dead men in cheap jumpsuits, illegally manufactured machine pistols next to them. To the common eye, the weapons were no different than the properly crafted, but Renee's done this long enough to identify the key characteristics. The textured surface that betrayed low end 3D printing origins, engravings that were ever so slightly off, and most notably, the electronic signatures that were absent as she scanned them with her helmet.

Something else however, did pop up on her HUD. A couple of grunts that were making a run for it through a back door, into the waiting arms of a surveillance drone. She could have either the drone to fire on sight itself, or send one or two of her own men down to take them out.

The hallway itself was short, dark, and cramped. Sensors picked up alcohol vapor and other gaseous byproducts of drugs in the air. There was a storage room at the end of the hallway, and two smaller rooms, one on each side.
 

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Renee instinctively stiffened at the storm of bullets, waiting for the flashbang to work before taking a crouched position by the door and peppering the hall with rounds from her gun. Assured that the team had dealt with the traffickers, she entered the room, sweeping it briefly before swearing under her breath in French as the weight of Blaze's words caught up with her. Deliberate tipping off crossed her mind, but she pushed it down for now. Renee bent down, poking at the men in jumpsuits and looking them over for any sign of information.

"Lotus, make a scan of one of the pistols for evidence," she began, before her eyes flicked down to her datapad, staring at the little dots that symbolised people that were definitely not her team mates. She tapped on the HUD, moving one of the drones around to support the closest drone - and then she hit the command to open fire. "We need to sweep for traps. It is fair to assume that if they knew we were coming, that they would have trapped the place. And watch what you say. There may be bugs," Renee trailed off, shaking her head.

"None of you told anyone about this mission, did you? Not even the slightest bit of information? I will not be angry, but we need to know what caused this," she inquired, using her firm-but-kind tone that the team would recognise. If this was corruption, then she would deal with it differently. And of course there would be an investigation, but all Renee wanted was initial honesty.

After a moment of silence, Renee squared her jaw in her helmet and indicated to the two small rooms. "Blaze and Pogo, take the left room. Lotus with me on the right. Then we can look at the storage together."
 

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"Negative. No ma'am. Nope." Replied her squad mates without missing a beat. No change in the biometrics, no unusual shift in tone. If they were lying, they had days of practice that somehow went under her nose. No, it must've been someone up the chain.

As Renee and Lotus kicked the door on the right, her HUD beeped, notifying two confirmed kills by the drones with minor damages to their systems. Not that she knew right away, as she was busy gunning down the man and woman in the room who were in the process of turning away from a monitor and drawing their weapons.

Lotus immediately went for the monitor. Before she could fully approach though, the actual computer behind the monitor turned into a fireball, pushing her back. Renee saw Lotus' heart rate and brain activity spike up, before the operative stumbled up, picking up her rifle. "I-I'm fine, ma'am." She remarked through the comms, examining what remained of the computer. "Shit."

"Copperhead, we cleared out our room, seems to just be living quarters. Everything alright over there?" Blaze asked with some concern over the comms.
 

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Renee instantly reached for her weapons immediately, almost as if it was a reflex action, with her and Lotus both opening fire on the two enemies in synchrony. As Lotus approached the computer, Renee went to speak, before being silenced by the fireball. Instinctively, she crouched with her arm over her faceplate - it was only a few seconds later that she heard Lotus crash to the ground, moving her arm to see the officer stumbling back to a standing position. Renee approached, gently pulling her away from the still smouldering network of cables. "I'm referring you to the medical station as soon as we get back. Do not over exert yourself. Any harm to you is potential harm to us," Renee stated bluntly, before flicking on her comms to talk to Blaze.

"Lotus has taken a hit. Possibility of burns and bruising from the fall. Still breathing, talking and walking," Renee informed her second-in-command, eyes flicking up and down Lotus' form in a hidden display of concern. She hadn't meant to be so blunt earlier, and a feeling of regret spread through her. Logging off from the comms, she approached Lotus and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You alright, mon ami? Up here, I mean," Renee clarified by tapping her own head, clearly trying to ask if Lotus was mentally shaken from the attack.

Janvier then carefully approached the smouldering wreck of the computer, trying to check to see if anything was salvageable, before searching the two bodies. She stood back up. "We need a techie to see if they can salvage the computer. I doubt they can but... it could contain vital evidence as to who the leak is," Renee instructed, before placing a gloved hand on Lotus' back for support as the two headed towards the living area to meet up with Blaze.

"Found anything here?" she asked as the two entered, eyes scanning around the room.
 

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"I'm fine, Captain," Lotus nodded, smirking weakly under her helmet. "Higher ups might be a bunch of sellouts, but our training's still good." That statement was an exaggeration, but there was a kernel of truth to it. The piracy, at least, wouldn't have been near as successful were it not for corporate incentives to continue it, and therefore ask government officials to look the other way. Unfortunately, the purposeful neglect caused innocent casualties that too were overlooked.

Blaze stepped aside as Renee entered the room, revealing two men bound by metal zip ties kneeling on the floor. "Yes. These two surrendered as soon as they came in. Got the fright I guess. Can't blame them." The room was simple. A common kitchen area, a couch, monitor on a wall, and bunk beds covered by privacy curtains.

Renee didn't even have to ask before one of the two spoke up in Commonwealth Common, a mix of European languages that became a dialect on its own, especially for void borne, which this man certainly was one; taller, paler, slimmer than planet borne GDW civilians.

"If you can help reduce our sentences, maybe even grant amnesty, we'll tell you everything we know." The man offered.
 

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"Lotus, Pogo, search the room me and Lotus cleared and the one we first entered," Renee barked the orders, before turning and facing Blaze. Making sure that Lotus and Pogo had left, Renee raised her gun once more, pointing the barrel to the speaking man's head. She then turned to Blaze, as was customary in her ad hoc interrogations. She knew that it didn't quite sit well with some of her team members, but it did seem to work. "How about you give us a little snippet of that information? Because we know an awful lot about you lot, and it would be such a shame to set you free with nothing to gain," Renee said, voice dripping with fake sympathy.

"I guess that my most pressing question," As Renee reached the word 'pressing', she pushed her gun gently against the trafficker's head - "is why you two are here. Why didn't you escape with the other two? Not that they made it too far," she finished, a smirk present underneath her facemask. "Oh, and I would be incredibly interested to know who tipped you off." With that, she shoved the two of them over in one kick before standing over them.

"Answer me, and you have my word I won't hurt you. And I don't break my word, do I, Blaze?" she tilted her head towards her comrade as she spoke. "Your sentences are none of my business, thankfully, but I promise that I will put in a word about you complying with the law. Depending on how good your information is, I might even say you went as far as to help us." Renee knelt down, patting the man who spoke on the shoulder. "Of course, this all depends on you now."
 

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Blaze nodded, but admonished quietly through the comms. "Careful about time, ma'am. We don't have much of it interrogation."

The other man replied with a stutter. "W-We thought we could hold you off, but that clearly wasn't the case. As for the tip, we have no idea. Boss takes care of that communication, but he's in the storage room with the children and Chongwu."

"Motherfucker!" Blaze kicked the man with his metal tipped boot, immediately sending the man unconscious while the other watched in horror. "Sorry, ma'am." He growled, looking back at the door with his shotgun steady. "I have a daughter."
 

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With that information, Renee nodded, raising her eyebrows under her mask at Blaze's reaction. She didn't know that the man had a child, but if it riled him up, then that was a bonus. She quickly turned back to the conscious prisoner and brandished the gun towards him. "Don't move, or I'll stick a bullet in your leg so that you can't." With that, she motioned for her and Blaze to make their way towards the storage room. If there were children inside, they needed to act quickly.

"Pogo, Lotus, finish up what you're doing and rendezvous at the storage room," she instructed quietly, before glancing at the door. She then turned to Blaze. "You have a daughter. I don't want you to associate her with whatever is on the other side of the door. Allow it to motivate you to do good, but don't let it affect you when you return home," Renee murmured to Blaze in the time that it took Pogo and Lotus to arrive. With the other two now present, Renee delivered the command to breach the door to the storage room after having a word about the fact that children were inside. Scaring them would be inevitable, but they could hopefully limit that... right?
 

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The door to the storage room blew open. Renee's eyes landed on a leery eyed, scrawny man with an unkempt beard, his datapad in one hand, two others besides him wielding machine pistols. Lined along the walls were five cages. Three of them held sniffling children in normal but dirty clothes, while two others each held adult canine Chongwu, quiet and resigned, curled up. A couple of crates held water bottles and cheap protein packets. Everything had explosive charges installed.

"Sto--" Before the boss could speak, his upper body was turned into red mist by a full blast of Blaze's shotgun. The children began to scream while the Chongwu perked up and gripped their cages to watch. His guards were subsequently mowed down by the group's collective fire. There was no hesitation. Holding people hostage was the oldest trick in the book, and the best way to deal with it was always to shoot first and hope the bullet was faster than the trigger finger.

"Room clear." Blaze examined the storage room then sighed. He walked up to one of the crying children, taking his helmet off. "You're going to be okay. We're going to get you back to your parents." He assured calmly, and a fatherly tone.
 

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That was... one way of dealing with it, Renee supposed. A way of dealing with things that involved a lifetime of therapy for the children. Once it was safe, Renee mirrored Blaze's action in removing her helmet, realising that a huge snake mask was probably not going to be the most reassuring thing to see. Wisps of her hear fell into her face as she bent down, imitating Blaze's tone and posture as she spoke to the children. "I bet that was really scary, but like my friend said, you're safe now," she spoke, tone gentle as she worked at undoing the locks, sparing a glance towards the Chongwu. She motioned for Pogo to help them from their cages.

"Have you three got names? My name is-" Renee stopped for a moment, debating whether to give her real name or not. The children were harmless. The only issue would come with her teammates - not only would them knowing her real name endanger her, but it would present them as targets for information. No, she was thinking too much about this. "My name is Renee, and I'm with a special group of soldiers that helps people just like you. And one of our most important tactics is making sure that you get your favourite meal once your back home," she completed the sentence, affording the children a smile.

"This is my best friend Blaze, and he's really good at hugs. So if you want a hug, go to him," she nodded, before standing up and turning to the Chongwu, offering a hand to help them out of their cages. "You're safe with us too," was all that she managed to muster. She knew that they would be mistreated wherever they went, and she couldn't even offer safety for them within the GDW.

"Most important thing is to get everyone out and safe, and then arrange extra support from the techies and investigators. There will be an internal investigation, I am sure, but I trust you all. We will get to the root of what happened here." Renee finished by scooping up the datapad and brushing a substantial amount of brain matter away from the screen. She checked to see if it still worked by giving it a thump, trying to scroll through to see what she could find before it was removed for evidence.
 

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The squad went over to aid the captives. The children were naturally traumatized, shaking as they left the cages. Blaze continued talking to the children. He introduced his name as well: Marco. Pogo was handling the Chongwu, his helmet kept on. They were faring only slightly better, the imprisonment and the maltreatment reverting them to more animalistic instincts as the snarled at Pogo first, only then slowly stepping out the cages with trepidation. Lotus was making multiple calls: the station's standard police force, a bomb squad, medical and trauma care.

The datapad itself was on a communications dial screen with a seemingly random number dialed and ready to be entered. Looking around at the charges, Renee could guess that it was meant to active the explosives, at least killing all the captives. Otherwise everything else on the datapad was deleted, but there was a chance that it could all be recovered by more extensive technical work.

Soon enough, all the extra support arrived. Blankets and proper food were provided to the children and the Chongwu before they were herded onto ambulances. Blaze managed to get the contacts of the children's parents, but it would be a day or two before they could be reunited. It was more nebulous what the Chongwus' fate will be, but various stations in Silbern could take them in for work. As bad as they were treated everywhere else in the human community, the void borne in this system at least treated them alright. Maybe it was because of innate compassion, cynical pragmatism, or that the humans were already a bit insane here in these low gravity void cities. Most likely all three.

After the bomb squad diffused all the explosives and the techies stowed away what hardware they could find into their shuttle, Renee's team was given the go ahead to return to their HQ. At the moment at least, everything seemed to be over, and the squad could breathe.

Then nothing happened for an entire week. There was the bare minimum of inquiry of Renee's team and everyone involved who informed her of the mission, but otherwise there was silence, as if there really wasn't a tipper. It's as if the whole trafficking ring was an isolated incident.

"Who has this much clout to shut this case down?" Blaze, Marco, asked with frustration in the barracks' common room. Him and Renee were sitting at a table, eating together. Marco brought a pack of beer and a glass box of stir fried beans and root vegetables, his wife's cooking. "Fucking corpos." He shook his head.
 

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Marco. Renee would remember that, if she could. Her gaze was focused on the datapad, keeping her hands well away from the call button as she searched the tablet. Absolutely nothing. She bit the inside of her cheek in anger, trying not to let her frustration become apparent. This entire operation had gone wrong, and Renee couldn't help but feel as if it was her own fault. As the squads arrived to complete a comprehensive search, Renee handed over the trafficker's interface with reluctance before returning to the shuttle in silence. She remained like that for the entire journey back, unmoving except for one hand (still-gloved) that fiddled with the side of her helmet.

In the week that followed, Renee became increasingly more frustrated. Nothing was happening. There was a leak in the system, most likely someone higher up, and it was being ignored. She had become much more subdued and it was obvious that she hadn't slept for a number of days. She'd been obsessively trawling through all of her actions in the lead-up to the operation as well as those of the team as a collective, and couldn't find anything that she had missed. In a way, that frustrated her more. There was no neat little ribbon to put on this - not that there ever was.

On one of her -self-scheduled breaks, she found herself discussing the mission with Mar- Blaze. "If the leak is from higher up, then I think that answers your question," Renee said cynically, pushing the grains of rice and quinoa around her plate before finally eating a mouthful. "We did everything we could at every stage of this operation." She shook her head, leaning back in her chair and murmuring something disparaging under her breath in her native language. "How have you been? I know that was hard for you, the children..." Renee tailed off. It had added to her nightmares, but she didn't have a child. She imagined that it would be considerably worse for someone like Marco, someone with family.
 

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(GM post missing. TLDR Marco's going on leave and Renee received a message.)

Renee squared her jaw at Marco's confession of nightmares, especially those to do with his daughter. She had been correct, it had affected him quite a lot. Of course it had affected them all, but Renee could not relate as a parent could. In a way, she was glad at that - this was not one of those things that she wanted to think about constantly, like Marco had been. As Marco spoke up again, leading with an apology, Renee felt a pang of... betrayal? No, that wasn't it. It was self-blame. She blamed herself for Marco's mental state. She should have challenged his selection for the team, have researched his familial links to check. As he addressed her by her birth name, Renee's hand tightened around her fork, but soon released its grip as she took a long exhale.

"You're a good man, Marco. A rarity. Guard that goodness," she said in her familiar 'Captain Copperhead' tone. She then slouches a little, and spoke again, this time in an unfamiliar, soft tone. "I will miss you, mon ami," she murmured, before standing and saluting. As Marco left, she slumped back down in her seat, leg twitching in apprehension. What the hell was she going to do now?

An alert on her datapad caused Renee to slam her fist on the table in irritation, murmuring some choice words under her breath in French as she snatched up the interface. Had she not immediately noticed the short delay, she would have left it until later. It piqued her interest, and with a curious gleam in her eyes, Renee swiped to open the package. Two tickets, a file, and a message. She scanned over the contents as quickly as she could, reading the message at least five times.

Renee did remember something about Fabron Station, though it escaped her mind just quite what it was. All she remembered was that it had been very hush-hush, and any talk amongst the officers of the counter-terrorism units had been shut down. The fact that whoever this was knew about the recent mission, coupled with the validity of the confirmation file satiated any worries that Renee had about this being a possible scam or system virus. She sat for a few moments in thought. She was happy with her current job... right? Renee's mind was instantly drawn to the recent mission, and a frown grew on her face. No, she really wasn't happy. And for the exact reasons that this Ulrike Grau had highlighted. The work atmosphere was becoming stale and corporate, the two things that Renee hated the most. Her ambition was itching for something new, something just like this.

In a brief wave of impulsiveness, Renee activated the ticket and began to type before clicking send. She then set down the datapad on the table, pushing her chair back slightly as she thought about the repercussions of it. The message that Ulrike Grau would receive in six hours time was a simple one. Two words. "I'm in."

And with that, Renee Janvier opened up one of Marco's gift beers. "Au futur," she murmured in a toast, taking a sip of the alcohol as a proud smirk spread on her face.
 
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