Episode 3 - The Marik Contract

Earlier, Kasumi puts her gear in the ladies' room and lets Jennifer pick a bunk. Kasumi straps on her swords, pistol, and slings her SMG. She left her tools, neurohelmet, and cooling vest in her Valkyrie.

Kasumi listens to the briefing given by the Security Manager. She looks to Thor when the guy asks if there are any questions.

Bleh, convoy! The old man irked as his face wrinkled in displeasure. He was old enough to dislike the idea of being the prey in an ambush.

"Which particular convoy are we gonna escort?" asked Sergey hesitantly. He had to pull off his poker face knowing he had no choice but to scrape off the bottom of the bucket. "Those package ya got there seemed... important. Don't think anybody would assign Mechs just to escort an ordinary convoy. I'd like some further details so we could, uhm, plan ahead. If ya know what I mean." Anybody would have sworn from the old fox' devilish wink.

Briefing

He replies impassively, repeating himself, "The convoy is carrying military-grade weapons and equipment for the troops. If the rebels capture it, they're suddenly much more heavily armed. Since Lord Ferrance has you under contract, and your costs to walk along with are included in the contract, your services are requested."

Hard to tell if he's being snarky or not, but he probably is.

You get the impression that he's not hiding anything, either. He probably believes it military stuff. The exact inventory of stuff doesn't matter (at this point, unless you want to go pirate later).

Briefing More

Looking at a briefing book, he adds, "The convoy departed yesterday, and will arrive at the rendevous point tomorrow morning. From there, you'll be able to escort them the rest of the way. You'll have to leave either this evening, or early tomorrow morning, to make the meeting."

"The convoy consists of 12 heavy-haul vehicles." He looks up, wondering if that answered the question.

Thor

OK, so we expect this to be a milk run. Let's plan for the unexpected. If the rebels attack with everything they've got, what do we anticipate their effective strength to be?

Briefing

His binder provides no help this time, as he replies, "We don't know. Usually they use small weapons and explosives, insurgent type of attacks. However, we do believe that they may have some sort of heavy weapons at their disposal. It depends on who you ask, and what week you ask. We've heard rumors from nothing but small arms, all the way up to 2 Atlases and a Stalker. The rebels themselves feed the rumor mill with their propaganda."

"Personally, I think they might have some hover armor for mobility, as well as some wheeled-vehicle franken-tanks, heavily modified jury-rigged affairs. They're probably funded off-world, so some of their equipment is probably military-grade. They're just saving it for when they might need it. If they're saving it to hit a valuable convoy, this would be a good one to hit."

Kasumi's eyes open wider.

"Possible Stalker and 2 Atlases. That is some major weaponry for rebels to possibly own."

Turning to Commander Thor.

"When shall we depart, Commander?"

Thor

How fast can you mount up? The sooner we get there the more time we have to recon the route and the less time these rebels have to set up something nasty.

FYI- The route will take 3 days travelling at road speed of 50kmph for 10 hours per day.

"My gear is already in the Valkyrie. Ready to depart on your orders."

Thor

Taking a closer look at the route, Thor facepalms. This was an ambush waiting to happen.

Mount up and move out. We've got a lot of ground to cover.

He looks at the security manager.

Do you have any air assets that can be used to recon the route or are we going to be bumping into the rebels blind?

Thor is already assuming the answer is no air support, and turning tactical possibilities over in his skull. From his expression, he doesn't like what he sees.