October 27, 2070
Boston, UCAS
Wild Times Bar and Dance Club

The beat throbs through you as you pass through the door under the Bouncers watchful gaze. Four Podiums linked by runways, support a pair of nubile girls wearing too little for the weather outside, hell it would be too little if it was summer. Sadly your here on business. You've been passed the word of a Johnson named Coldfish looking for people with your skills for some heavy work, with international travel involved. The loose pay offer you got looked damn tasty and would be enough to get you a nice room and a couple of those girls till past Christmas. That and the way the weather's setting in here makes the idea of travel seem mighty attractive.

You're interrupted from any admiration you may be doing by a topless waitress saying, "If your here for Coldfish you'd better come with me." You follow and she leads you to a door marked 'Private:Staff Only' the girl pushes it open and motions you into a plush private lounge decorated in a gothic boudoir style.

Englishman wonders if the bouncer at the door will ever take the plunge and give up the door guard and use his muscle where it pays better. One look at him reminds him of his own beginings If I could do it he sure could.

The back room that the johnson chose is... softer than he is use to. He decides to stand for the time being and look around the room. Unsure of the nature of the job he decided to skip his usual irish tea before heading out and probably won't have anything here either.

Agent smiles at the waitress as she leads him to the backroom, checking her out for any concealed threats with a scrupulous eye. He exchanges a few lines with her as they head back ("So how long you work here?....How are the customers?....What are you doing later?") and after exchangin numbers via AR he slips into the room with the others to wait.

The gothic flair of the room is not quite his taste, but it is not unbearable either. He slides down onto one of the couches and adjusts his chic neo-military styled armored jacket and his beret while waiting for the Johnson. A quick look around spots him the ork called Englishman, some tank bugger from across the channel back home. He seems a little out of place in Boston, but then again so does the french elf.

Doc Bones nods to the waitress and follows her into the meeting room, where he sees the ork known as Englishman and the elf who goes by the street name of Agent. Both have a fairly good reputation, something that makes the doc feeling more comfortable. He nods to the two runners and sits down in a chair and waits for the rest of the team to arrive.

Absynthe enters the club and looks round to get his bearings, seeing no likley candidates to be the other runners. He approaches the bar but gets intercepted by the waitress and lead to the back room.

An unusual room for a meet, but its not like it matters

after nodding a the 3 other runners he take a seat to wait for Coldfish.

Sigurd allows the waitress to escort him to the back room, keeping a close eye on his surroundings. I'm sure those Ragnarok obsessed nuts are turning in their shallow graves, to see this level of wealth so soon after their big power play.

"Good to see the decor travels back to the staff areas. Too many of these themed places go very sterile in the back." Sigurd says, walking over to a seat. "Shows dedication, unless this is just for show."

Wolfgar follows the waitress into the back room. After she leaves he turns to the others in the room, having already removed his shades he gives them a quick look over both in the physical and astral planes as he greets them. "Good evening gents, looks like we might be working together in the near future. I go by Wolfgar, and you are?" he leaves the question open for any of them to answer. New in town but not unheard of, Wolfgar is known simply as someone who gets the job done no matter the cost.

"The name is Agent," replied the elf to the other elf. Where are we headed that Coldfish would need three elves, a troll, a ork, and a human? I sure as bloody hell hope it ain't the nOg, I doubt they've forgotten me yet... thought Agent as he made a quick estimate of the other runners in the room. These guys are combat guys, no doubt...'cept for the Doc over there...so that means I am here to get them in and out then..

"I'm Doc Bones." the slender elf says as the last of the runners enters the room.

"And you can call me boss." Says a voice from behind the group. The man it belongs to is tall and looks in good shape for an old man. His hair is stark white and his skin weathered. He is dressed in a black leather trenchcoat and a black suit. he slightly favors his right leg but moves with a military precision. His features a harsh and aqualine.

"Feel free to continue to introduce yourselves, my apologies for the surroundings, all I could get in the time available."

"Well to be honest sir, i think the rest of the introductions can wait till after the mission objectives are explained and negotiations are finished." Stepping out of the mans way Wolfgar remains standing until either the "boss" sits or they are indicated to sit. As always its time to get down to business, and it feels good to be once again dealing with profesionals.

"Sit if you want, the job could take a few days and you'll be in close quarters with each other. Best you know each other." He strides across the room and stops in front of the group 'at ease' military style.

The ork remains standing as he doubts he could be comfortable with these surroundings, "I recognize a few of us here, Agent, Doc Bones, for the rest, I'm Englishman and I'll be your techie." You notice a small drone peek out of his collar and look over his shoulder.

"Well Boss, the surroundings are fine, I am sure all of us have seen worse," Agent said the pale man from his seat on one of the gothic couches in the room. They weren't very comfortable but Agent liked to talk from a seated position, it made the opposition feel more comfortable and thus easier to bargain with.

"I think we all know something of each other and any further introduction can be handled later. Now, I think our time would be better used discussing what exactly we were called here for," Agent settled a little more on the couch, trying to find a slightly more comfortable spot and also prepping himself for the coming negotiations.

"For those of you who don't know me i'm Absynth. And since we have very few details to go on some enlightenment would be appreciated boss."
Absynth is sat on one of the recliners but sat very upright and will attempt to start a com call with the other runners in the room. It helps to discuss some things in a more controlled maner.

"Okay then details. Your job is to provide support to a small group of independent salvage specialists who work of the ship Mother's Star. Your are to help them perform an aggressive salvage of a certain crate onboard the smuggler vessel Nostramo. The crate need to be returned to me undamaged. Otherwise you can use whatever method you wish to regain it. The Nostramo left port about two hours ago and is moving rapidly due to spiritual aid. At least one of you can provide that for the Mother's Star. The Mother's Star is a large vessel and given the weather we're expecting over the next two days I think the harbour here may close, so it would be wise to load your own transport onto the ship." Coldfish whips out his words quickly and clearly obviously expecting you to understand and take it all in immediately. "Payment will be in certified credsticks upon return of the crate. the captain has full details of the crate. You will receive 200,000 for you services. That is in total."

He looks towards you. Obviously he expects questions.

"Sounds decent to me" Wolfgar responds after a moments thought. "I want more details though, what kind of resistance are we looking at from the Nostramo? Whats her crew compliment and layout? What kind of material support can we get before we sail in case we want something special?" Wolfgar turns to the next person around the table to his right signifying that these were all of his questions that the next person should ask theirs.

Coldfish looks towards Wolfgar, "You'll have schematics for the ship once your aboard your own vessal. Crew compliment is ten men, smugglers with some experience in combat. The real resistance in the people they are carrying the case for. Three man team. All magically active high grade initiates. All ex employees of Aztechnology now shadows. Call themselves the Hunter's Hands. If you want something ask. Now. Time is short gentlemen."

His gaze follows Wolfgar's across the room.

"How much of the pay is upfront? What's with equipment, can you get some for us and what is onboard the The Mother's Star?"

Frag, this is going to be a tough job.

"Some further details on the 'Hunters Hand's' would be useful. I'm assuming at least one of them is providing the spirits and so is a mage but what of the other 2 members and thier specialities?"

I hate time limited jobs

"No money upfront. Reasonable equipment that I can get in the time, can be considered a bonus." Coldfish turns from Doc Bones to Absynth, "The hunters hand consists of Two full mages following a possession based Aztech Tradition and a Mystic Adept of the same tradition. First mage is pure combat, the second is manipulation and fear, the mystic adept is the face, she also has great skill in disguise. They are all to be considered very dangerous and powerful enough to be considered very bad news. They are all also suspected Blood Mages."

Agent sat back calmly and took in the scenario as the others jumped into asking the Johnson various questions about the job. That was all fine and good, but he was thinking about how to get to where they needed to be getting. The Mother's Star was a big ship, big and slow and they were going to have to ditch it after gettign out of port if they wanted any chance of catching up to their target. That meant something smaller and he doubted any of them had a ship of their own, Agent did though. His small speedboat, the Lady Diamond, could probably do the trick though, especially with any magical aid at its tail. He needed fuel for the trip though, that was something he wasn't going to front for this since he might already be fronting the boat. That and he wanted to know where the Nostramo was headed.

"Boss," said Agent from his seat on the couch against the back wall, "where exactly is the Nostramo headed? And you said something about us moving from the Mother's Star on our own with our own vessel, do you plan to grant us said vessel or do we need to find our own ride? And the fuel, is that going to be covered as well?"

"Mage masks, Gamma scopalamine or neurostun grenades if possible, high tensil bindings. Also 3 shaped charges for scuttling the ship after the fact. If you cant get me the charges already made get me the explosives and the detonators and i can do it myself, if you can get them premade i will slide you the specs of the charges i would need."

Wolfgar looks into his glasses as they sit on the table, and pulls up the specs and diagram of the shaped charge that he wants. It would cleanly blow a hole in the hull of the ship making sufficient room for water to enter.

"What do you have on the smugglers? Their ship, modifications, electronics, that sort of thing. Is a current schematic and wiring diagram too much to expect?" Englishman tries to add some humor to the barrage of questions. He starts searching the matrix for any available info on both ships, the Nostramo and the Mother's Star, without waiting for 'Boss' to respond.

"The Nostromo is headed down the Eastern Seaboard if I knew where I'd be hiring a team to ht that location. The Mother's Star is large enough to carry any land vehicle you may need to quickly transport the crate back here if the weather gets as bad as the reports say. I can do the equipment you want no problem. Send me the schematics for those charges, I'll get you the materials certainly, if you can do the construction it makes things simpler for me. You will have schematics of the ships. Anything else?"

"Four further questions, How large is this crate, how heavy is it, will it be easy to identify and is it likley to have a tracking device installed?"

Nodding Wolfgar slides the diagram and specs into his general transmission que and ponders operational options while the others continue to ask questions. He knew what he had for transport, and if the plan was for the ship to drop them somewhere else he would take it along.

He expects us to catch the other crew with a big old ship. What the drek does he know about smuggling. Sure we can start with the thing, but we are going to need something faster to really get in on them. If they got three spell-slingers aboard we are going to have a mojo stand off before we even get near enough to board them. And I hate fragging spirits. Agent sits back, trying to figure this run out, how it should go down. He knew they should bring along a small fast boat to move in on them in the dead of night, move in fast and catch them unawares. It would be great if they stayed close to the coast, hoping they would drop anchor at night, but he wasn't counting on it. He waits for the rest of the team to get the questions out, listening to it all cooly, hoping for a chance to dig in and raise their price, which is what he really wanted.

"I don't expect that there is sufficent medical equipment on board, so I will give you a list what I need."

"The crate is about four foot along each side and ways about 300 kilos. It has no tacking device and my observers on the dock say the rest of the ships cargo is in much larger steel crates. So yes it's easy to identify. Get me the list of medical gear, I'll check it against the Mother's Star's resume, their facilities are surprisingly good." his eye flicks across as if checking out something AR, "Now gentlemen, can we move this along as time is short."

Depending on their setup I might be able to fool or at least take down their sensors, if the plan gets fragged I could just shut their whole system down.

"So, we have a big slow boat, they have a magicly fast boat. We have a mage, they have two and a half mages. They will likely see us coming miles away with their magic security sensors. Is there anything I'm... Oh and we have less than 2 days to prepare? Because, y'know, I just want to make sure we're all on the same file here."

"Any indication of the power of the spirit boosting them? If it's something serious then you can just rule out the whole job, since our vessel wouldn't catch it in a million years even with the biggest I can sensibly call. And, are we having to provide our own small boat, or is that provided too?"

"We reckon from the tracking we have on them about force four. The Mother's Star is hardly slow, big yes but not slow. If you think something faster is in order what would you like? Oh and you have less than two hours."

"If we can't get a faster boat in that time then I will use my own. I would need close to weeks worth of fuel just to be on the safe side and something extra for putting my own ship in on this. Whatever you were paying Mother's Star to carry us should be good enough," Agent chimes in on the question of the transportation.

"What size boat? The Mother's Star may be able to carry her. In the current weather in the Atlantic, you want something of size. The Target ship is a small freighter."

"She is a medium sized speed boat, could carry our crew and some cargo without too much hassle. She is used to running the coasts," Agent replied to Coldfish. Then he continued on with his negotiation, sliding right into the talk of the price. "You seem really keen on getting this crate back and 200,000 yen is a nice bit, but there quite a few things that random variables in this. The fact that they could be blood mages, which adds just a whole other level of risk on top of their mojo, intitiated blood mages more so. Also the fact that I am using my own boat, something I am really not keen on doing but it needs to be done. Also we don't know the contents of your crate or if it is dangerous in anyway. I don't think 40,000 each is quite enough for this job, I think that maybe 50,000 each would closer to the ballpark."

Coldfish smiles, "Boat that size? I wouldn't want to risk it. The Mother's Star would be capable of crrying her though and you can use her for insertion. If you insist on 50,000 each thats fine. Though i think your maths is a little off I count six of you. 300,000 it is. Can I send you to your ship now?"

"As far as I know we are done here," Agent sat back slightly thinking about the payraise that he had gotten the team and the fact the he was putting his boat in a whole lot of risk. The mixed emotions flowed through him and out of him as he watched the rest of his team around the room.

Wow, the fragger has deep pockets. And he raised the payment too easily.

Doc Bones began writing a detailed list of the medical equipment he needs and sends the list via his commlink to the boss.

I wish I could handle a UAV, seems like that would be useful here, especially that one with the minigun attached to it. A slight grin crosses Englishmans face. Oh well. Is there any new equipment I'll need for this? He goes through a mental checklist but nothing comes to mind.

"Oh ya, where do we deliver it to?"

Coldfish produces a datachip and throws it towards Agent, "My number's on the chip. Call when you have the box."

Agent pocketed the chip and then looked around the room to see if any of the others still had questions to ask Coldfish before they left.

Doc Bones shakes his heads. "No, I'm fine."

Nothing else here, but i do ask that those of us going on this op stay for another 5 minutes since we have a few things to discuss before we head out. 45minutes till we meet at the docks," Turning to Coldfish "Which Pier?" Wolfgar felt like an idiot, in all the talk about the mission no one had bothered to ask where they would meet the Mother's Star to head out on this op.

"On the chip. Forty-five minutes. Thank you for your time gentlemen, goodnight." Coldfish nods to you and leaves via the door he entered by.

Wolfgar nods to the johnson's remark and then turns to the rest. "Alright folks, time to get down to the nitty gritty. Like i said before my name is Wolfgar, i'm a weapons specialist and a physical adept. Basically if it goes boom or can be physically or astrally punched, i can do it. Doc i assume your name says it all, right, as for the rest what are your specialties?" Wolfgar looks around the room his eyes settling on the grinning Englishman

Absynth picks up the task of indroducing his abilities.
"I'm also an adept, I specialize in the heavier weapons, in being 'quite hard' to take down and im fast."
Absynth looks to the next person awaiting thier response.

Agent takes that as a cue to introduce himself, "Oui, my name's Agent and I get things where they need to be. I can get guns, cars, drugs, medicine, whatever. I can also shoot, quite well in fact, in case anyone ever get closer to my boat than they should."

Englishman taking the hint introduces himself, "I'm Englishman. I'm a drone rigger but I've done some hacking on the side. I'm not bad with a handgun or automatic either. I've done some tinkering too, weapons, cars, drones, cyber... oh, and it seems Agent is as protective of his boat as I am my truck."

Sigurd leans forward slightly, "I am Sigurd, I commune with the creatures of the world tree, and I manipulate reality through what you would know as mana. It appears that I will be the mystical support for this endeavour."