M1T3 - The brief

[Morse]

Morse had been listening to the mission description, and the comments there of. He was well aware that likely none of their input would be noted. This wasn't something he liked the idea of, in fact the entire idea of it just seemed to be looking for a way to get them all killed.

"I'm with the outback kid on this one." Morse said in obvious reference to Obi. "If them damn things done managed to find a way to the bottom of the ocean then there sure as shit better at movin down 'er then we are. What about that colony drop, lost what 4 of our own, and that aint includin the last 'EL TEE' and them company reps. I'm figurin on a higher casualty dump then we had up there." Morse spoke with a more sarcastically aggressive tone. He had essentially accepted the idea that the powers that be were aiming to have them killed, he just hoped that the platoon was seeing it as plain as he was.

< Tag Platoon.

[Nick]

"Sir, if we find that the station is over run what are the standing orders? I don't want to risk any lives trying to salvage corporate property." he asked, knowing the answer even as he asked the question

"Me neither, but thats not my call to make. There might be more at stake here than just corporate property - But thats way over my head...and Yours"

patch raised his hand then said " sir do we know if the station is water/air tight or are we gonna be stuck in zero-g suits for the whole mission?"

"We will use Zero-G suits to recce the site and station. The station itself is not particularly big, roughly one hundred meters long and perhaps one hundred fifty across - I see no reason to climb out of the suits, especially since you can't get them on without help"

"Sir, according to the initial mission brief, once the umbilical cord was severed they have power to the reserver life support systems for at least another 48 hours. Now that we are on a countdown, how much time do we have left?"

"Not much. Power has already run out by now and the crews only chance to stay alive is to sleep or keep still to keep carbon dioxide levels in the station as low as possible for as long as possible unless they freeze to death first."

"I recommend pinging the habitat with VLF side-scan sonar. It will allow us to assess whether or not there is pressurized gas within the hull of the facility, or if it's been breached and flooded."

The Lieutenant looked into his computer notepad for a few seconds, scrolling down some sort of document. " According to my data the scanning shows that the station is partially flooded"

Jean looked to the Lieutenant, "Ask ship maintenance if there is an LRAT aboard. The station should have one. It's possible that their radio's are out and they're attempting to transmit between twenty kilohertz to twenty hertz, the range of acoustic transmitters."

"Yeah we have been listening for all frequencies the last few hours. The only thing we have managed to hear is a periodical knocking sound that most likely is from mechanical origin according to sonar specialists - but that disappeared four hours ago."

"Surely this mission isn't a priority, we should be concerntrating our efforts on finding our what happened to the potentially infected scientist who is still possibly at large in New York. Or has there been an update on this situation we havn't been notified about?"

The Lt looked annoyed and his face flushed red: "I don't know much more than what I have been fed from HQ - According to them the escapee is still at large." The Lieutenant looked really uncomfortable and quickly sought a new raised hand a question. Avoiding Simovics gaze.

"Sir, these things like to engage at melee range for combat. Thirty meters is cutting it close." Sixtus pointed out.

"Yes it is close. Very close." The Lt didn't elaborate.

Upon hearing Sergeant Dugan's outburst, Sixtus added to it. "Sir, this sounds more like the Navy's area of expertise, not the Corps'."

"What remains of the United Americas Navy can be counted on the fingers in this room - We are the only fighting force with at leat theoretical knowledge about aquatic fighting as it is somewhat similar to zero-g combat - In which all Colonial Marines are trained."

"Not being too fond of swimming, much less swimming in reduced visibility with sharks and bad things around me" He coughed "How many meters below the 3k we're being dropped, is the substation?"

"The station is at 2800 meters roughly" the Lt then looked amused. "The shark species are extinct since twenty years..."

The Lt then saw the marines starting to talk amongst themselves. "Ok that concludes the briefing." The Lt then hurried away, still not looking at Simovic.

[Quinn]

Sixtus looked after the Lieutenant as he hurried out, his icy eyes following him.

"Anyone else catch that whiff of bullshit?" he said, breaking the silence. They wouldn't be able to take their flamers down with them, which was what normally was called for at short range. And they were going into an environment in which there was very little familiarity for them.

Well, time to make the best of it. Quinn thought to himself.

<tag marines>

[Ranger2011]

New Lance Corporal Michael Johnson sat in the back of briefing, sitting quietly through everything. It was unlike him but he had seen some crazy things since joining the Corps. "Oorah." He muttered to himself, getting up with everyone to do their thing.

[Raider65]

Cpl Stormhurst just stayed by his buddy, Morse and kept quiet. He figured he'd stay by him throught the mission too. He thought about the info on the mission but didn't believe it was the whole truth. If the power had already stopped then why send them down? Sure there could be some Civies maybe still alive, how come none used any escape pods?. And how come Civies lives were always counted as worth more than the fighting man's? Some stuff was just weird. He liked Obi's plan. With the power gone and no comm, just destroy the site and the Aliens too. When it has to be positively destroyed over night, send in the Marines. But here all they would need is one nuke tipped smart torpedo.