Faith shook her head slightly, coming out of her drooling stare.
"Yes, presumably I'll be more or less sort of in charge. I like Hasala's plan overall, but it's a bit smash and grab for my tastes. I'd rather avoid killing cultists if we're able, and I'd
definitely like a chance to get them to rant at us about things before we encounter them. Dashing in, shooting some people, stuffing a glowing heptagon into a bag and dashing out isn't my idea of an ideal mission. Certainly could be worse, but still. If possible, we need information.
Speaking of which, if you're new here you might not know what I am, so pay attention.
This body is what it known as synthflesh. Somewhere between metal and meat; nice and sturdy, but you probably wouldn't call it 'armor' for anything serious. I'd rather not take a bullet if I don't have to, but I can much, much better than an unarmored target, and my brain's in a solid metal case. If one of us has to get shot, I'm a pretty good target for it.
I do have cameyes. They have a variety of vision modes, including X-ray, so we should get a fair bit of information just by seeing the place. Unless of course it's shielded, which is certainly possible but sounds like a complete pain. Depends on how paranoid they are, I suppose.
For general entry strategy, the ground floor is a restaurant, which makes me think some surveillance might be in order. Depends on how closely they watch it; Steve did say they were fanatical and paranoid, so the notion that it's a front or buffer zone certainly has merit. If not, I'm curious if we can just suggest everybody leave because things might get rough. Bad place, they might be too used to that sort of thing to bother calling the cops. Unsure if showing a lot of us would make that more or less likely... maybe we could ask, but I'd rather avoid it.
Whatever the case, once we get past the diners remember that we would
like to talk to these people, so shooting first is probably a poor strategy. Again, paranoid and fanatical, but still worth a shot.
All that said, it'll
probably turn into room-to-room clearing by the time we're done, but let's see how far we can get until then.
Speaking of which, I'm in favor of using the APC. It's a rough neighborhood, so it shouldn't attract
too much attention, and if things do go bad it'll be very nice to have. Just... show restraint with the machine gun, is all."
"Of course not. But anyone with a gun presumably is, especially once we're through the diner. And if there's no artifact, there's something else for us to kill or capture.
And Miyamoto put me in charge, in a way. He wants to see how I do, though I've got no problem with stepping aside if one of you vets want to take the lead. I'm just trying to get us organized from the start."
"Oh hoh hoh. So the general too fat to fit through doors wants to see how you do, eh? Don't worry, I'll keep a good eye on how you do and report it to him then."
Faith laughed a bit, but didn't comment.
Hasala winced as two of his teammates started bickering. Not even at the building yet, and he was already losing 'points'. "If you guys have got a problem with each other, you probably shouldn't be on the same team. And please save your arguing until after the mission; plenty of time to argue then. Safer, too."
"It's best if we get these conditions out of the way prior to the mission. I'll think we'll all feel a bit safer if we know what's going to happen going in, aight'?"
"I'm with... Droo-say, was it? Best to get it out, or at least known about, ahead of time."
"I am the man with the mass manipulator amp, and the skill to use it. I have more experience with alien artifacts, deadly phenomena, and general weirdness than you, so I know what the fuck I'm talking about. I will only say this once. If you touch an artifact, and start acting weird, I will kill you."
"Come on, that's excessive," Faith groused. "I ever tell you about the time someone got infected by an alien intelligence, and I kid you not we saved him?
Not easy, lost all his limbs, think he was burned pretty bad, but no joke he went from being an alien host using space magic at us to a perfectly healthy recovering patient. 'Acting weird' is not some blanket excuse for 'kill him before it's too late.'"
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Topic: Mission 14: Cult investigation: A Storm Is Coming. (Read 185180 times)