"Bloody hell, it's still in one piece..." He muttered to himself. He headed to his room, tosse his flight helmet into a corner and turned on his laptop. He rubbed his hands on his jeans in a vain attempt to warm them before deciding it might be warmer in the mess hall.
He picked up his laptop and walked down the hall focusing on typing with one hand and holding the laptop with the other. He strolled along to the mess not really paying attention to where he was going. A bad decision as it would soon turn out.
Still typing away he crashed into Meghann who was standing in the doorway. He dropped his computer but thanks to his lightning reflexes managed to dive to the ground in time to save it from the crashing onto the floor. He sighed as he stood up.
"Sorry, wasn't watching..." He took a moment to look at the girl. "You new? Haven't seen you before..."
Alex raised an eyebrow when she didn't reply but continued into the mess hall. He sighed and sat down to continue tracking Rufus's attacker. It took him a few hours before he had a name and a ship. Getting a location proved to be harder, but not much harder. It was all about knowing where to look.
Two hours later and Alex had a name, ship, and location. Time to gather the troops. He stood up and walked over to Zack, Clyde, and Bonnie.
"Briefing room. I've found who shot down Rufus." He headed off assuming no further words would be necessary.
"Briefing room. I've found who shot down Rufus." [color=#000000]Bonnie raised an eyebrow and glanced across at Clyde before following Alex off to the briefing room, thinking about the last time they were all in here, finding out about Rufus. She hoped today there would be better news, or at least a definite answer as to who shot him.
Ten minutes later, they were all in the briefing room, talking amongst themselves waiting for Alex to start the meeting.
Alex cleared his throat and tapped some keys bringing up the display.
"This," He began bringing up a picture. "Is the last uncorrupted image from Rufus's black box." He highlighted a Liberator in the picture. "And that is the ship that shot him down. Now I've done the work, and I got a name."
He tapped some more keys and the picture changed to that of a young woman.
"This is Narelle Devin, 26, Liberty Police Incorporated. She flies that vessel. Now we need to get our hands on her. Again I've taken the liberty of... aquiring the appropriate information."
More keys and the picture changed to a map of New York.
"If my sources are to be trusted all her patrols begin and end at Fort Bush." He began highlighting and zooming in on the base.
"Now here's the entrance plan, I have a friend... a man I trust with my life... who can get us onto the base but not off. We'll board the station and the two of us will grab Devin, then we use her Liberator to get off the station easy as pie. Hopefully it won't lead into a shoot out but its a possibility so be ready for that."
Zack looked around, noticing he was not the only one looking slightly uncomfortable. He asked Alex tersely "Alex, the barge job was different, you are talking about boarding a heavily guarded Police installation. We aren't exactly strangers to the bounty board. If one of them gets a good look at us, we are done, cover blown. And, you know, being discovered on their turf isn't going to make escaping easy."
Zack shifted uncomfortably.
"Exactly. This plan can be tweaked but there's an easier way." Alex began. "I don't like it though and you'll see why."
He tapped some more keys while talking.
"The plan is relatively the same except we land on Manhattan. Now if you've ever been to Manhattan then you are well aware of how lax security is once you get on the ground." Alex sighed.
"Which brings me to why we'd be there." He brought up a picture af a young girl, probably only five or six. "This is Narelle's daughter June. She'd be far easier to abduct and Manhattan would be much easier to leave. Once we have her we can get Narelle to come to us on our own terms." Alex shut off the projector and sat down.
"Of course it involves abducting a child and I don't know about the rest of you but I'm not sure I'd be up to that. But it would be a sure fire way to get Narelle, almost guaranteed success." Alex sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"So those are our options right now. Take your pick."
"Fort Bush, huh?" [color=#000000]Bonnie shook her head "How about I park my fighter out front and ask the officers to look the other way, yeah? I'm sure we would have more luck doin' that then we would just waltzing on in and taking some damn Liberty Police chick with us, Doubt she will just leave with out any problems aye. "She started rolling a cigarette, obviously frustrated with the situation.
"As for the kid... Well, that could work. Though, takin' a young one away from the parents is a little past me. I'll do it if I have to, but dun' expect me to be happy about it. I don't usually sink that low. "Bonnie muttered something while lighting the cigarette, not caring about the others and their complaints about this.
She stopped and frowned slightly. "Actually... On second thoughts, parking my fighter out front might actually work. Get a few people there, make it a big deal, most of the cops will leave to sort me and whoever out, leaving you guys an almost clear path. Take a CSV in, and her fighter out. I mean, I'd expect to get shot up pretty bad, but I think I could give you guys a bit of time, if I had support out there. It'd be a suicide mission, but it might just work..." Bonnie shook her head again, and took a puff on her cigarette.
"What kind of support are we talking about?" Alex asked. "Because to be perfectly honest I think we only need two people actually on the station in the CSV. We could grab Narelle in the chaos of everyone trying to launch and fly out in a Liberator with all the other ones. No one would even give us a second glance. We could be in and out in ten minutes tops..."
Alex scratched his chin.
"What would you need to last that long and then escape?" He asked.
[font=Times New Roman]Bonnie sat back down and looked up at Alex, for the first time in a long time she was deadly serious. [color=#FF99FF]"Well, I'm pretty good at not getting shot, had a fair bit of practice with that. If me and Clyde were to distract them... How long do you think you would need.... No." She frowned again and took a puff on her cigarette."Keep Clyde on stand by. I don't want him getting shot up, and if my ship goes down, he can fly in, get the pod and fly out real quick.... It will be easier to get one ship in and out of the battle. Just make sure I have some damn good countermeasures.
"It will be risky, but if you send out a transmission to me, say 5 minutes before you un-dock, I could hold them off long enough, give you time to get out and escape without being noticed." She looked over at Clyde."They won't notice the transmission, not if I do something drastic, like nuke the base."She grinned as she thought about what damage she could do."No guarantees I'll get out in one piece.. I'm pretty sure I will, but I'm willing to do it regardless, if you guys are alright to risk it on the station. Its the only way we will be able to even get close to the it without any issues, and if you ran into trouble, we could always abort, just let me at it earlier.
Bonnie shrugged, she knew what this would involve, her head was telling her it was a bad idea. She took the last puff on her cigarette before putting it in the ash tray on the table ignoring her thoughts, and made a mental note to put better armour on her ship before it was needed.
"The whole thing works for me. Clyde will be on standby to assist you if necessary and Zack and I will go in and get Narelle. Zack and I should be in and out in ten minutes tops. We'll ditch the Liberator in Magellan and catch a ride back to the Intruder with you and Clyde so that they can't track us." Alex cracked his knuckles.
"If there are no objections we can be ready to do this in an hour. So, are we all okay with the plan?"