Tir
"You got it."

Turning the engine over, Kincaid pulls back into traffic. On the way back to the studio they had converted for their uses, he places a call to Vathiel.

"We're inbound, should be there in twenty minutes."

Alan smiles at Boomer's attempts at conversation with the drones. He'd had many similar conversations. Though with less expectation of getting any answers. After some looking they find a suitable alley and manage to get some drones aloft with spoofed flight-plans and borrowed credentials in case of emergency. He settles back into the passenger seat and lets his mind leap from drone to drone, he's keeping the flux down on his RC deck, so that he can cut and run - get lost in the RF noise of the sprawl - if they are detected. The drones have a failsafe plan to land at a storage facility that Alan has rented for the duration of their stay in Seattle.

Hopefully their location hadn't been spotted. The deployment had gone smoothly and soon they could make a few passes near the target zone to get some further intelligence on the job. He speaks over the tactical comms to the teammates in the van.

<< Ready for pass Alpha. Red Bird One and Red Bird Two beginning their run. Patching you two in to my display.>>

Images from the drones pop up in PiP displays on screens in the van or imagelinks for any of the mercs plugged into the van.

Tir
On the drive back, Kincaid feels out Sunshine's mood and weaves more stories together about training and growing up. They both understood that there was no going home.

The incident in San Francisco had seen to that. Lt Madigan and her desire to light up half of Cal Free in the glow of nuclear fallout was still a painful memory. Their entire team had been ambushed, only the three of them making it out to the bay. If Sunshine's spirits didn't love him, there was no way the three of them would have cleared the bay alive.

To avoid another international incident, the Ghosts became just that. Forgotten memories and closed caskets for family members. Now, the three of them were the family they had left. Society didn't have a good place for SINless demolition experts, too many questions to ask and not enough documentation that wouldn't raise even more painful questions.

He still wondered why the other two had stayed with him, both Sunshine and Vathiel had skills that corporations would pay dearly for. Though he never asked, for fear that they just might leave and take up a better life than criminal acts of thievery and terrorism.

Iblis - You can almost hear the maniacal grin that Steel always gets just before she does something...questionable, from a more normal perspective. It usually involves swords or guns...or motorcycles.

"Lemme know exactly what you're looking for, omae, and I'll see what I can swing. I still have contacts inside the family, I don't mind tweaking someone's nose a little to help you guys out. I mean, we've had bagel fights! That's a serious bond."

Styx - Your phone chirps a notice to you just before you begin the rituals to call and bind the elementals to your will. It's that voice.

"Styx," The voice is neutral but brisk, all business, just like always.

"Drake, Brithan, Foxfire, and Indiana are on recall. I want them on the first plane back to Berlin. No questions asked, do whatever is necessary to smooth things over with the client, including refuding up to half of the contract fees. Are we crystal?"

He couldn't believe his ears. Four team members being pulled in mid assignment?!? Holy fragging drek! He could feel hints of panic beginning to nibble at the very edges of his composure and clamped down on his emotions. Now was no time to get weak.

"Understood sir, will comply." Styx didn't even bother to listen for a sign-off. Once the message was delievered the connection would be severed. Explanations and questions would have to wait for the formal de-briefing and after action reports.

Immediately he put aside his summoning materials and moved to the communications equipment. He sent all team members a brief coded message indicating that all team members would need to report back into HQ ASAP. He then immediately booked two pairs of tickets on the next sub-orbitals out of Sea-Tac for Berlin.

Leaving off his summoning rituals for now he moved back to the map, getting out his p-sec and retreiving an inventory list of items available to the team that would remain here in Seattle. They were going to have to restructure the entire assault plan and command chain before he notified the runners that had hired them. He wanted to be able to reassure the runners that they could still do this job.

First he had to re-assure himself.

Alan's eyes snap open as he rebounds into his own senses again. He rubs his eyes and says over local team comms, <<Reconnaissance sweep complete. Redbird One and Redbird Two inbound. We'll bug out and sort through the data feed later.>>

Alan's voice is flat and colorless - as usual - but he sounds pleased. <<Let's pick up the birds somewhere not here.>>

Boomer had been fairly non-chalent while Alan Sat around like it was nap time. But when he finally snapped back to conscienciousness, Boomer slid back out of the van and turned to him, "Bist du..." Again, his german slips into conversation, he shakes his head knocking himself back to this side of the pond.. "are we done here now?, i'm bored, and wanna blow something up, or atleast head to the redlight district and..." he lets the thought trail off, leaving it to Alan's imagination.

Iblis smiles as she finishes up the call. "We're looking for anything you can give us on the layout of the joint and his security. Nasty surprises and the like. Just send the info the usual way and we'll take it from there and for the record I owe you one."

Iblis - She chuckles, "I'll have everything I can scrounge together for you in a day, two at the most. And you better believe I'm going to use that favor."

Howling Wolf twiddles his thumbs.

Alan peruses the feed as the recon team makes its way back to HQ. He seems oblivious to Boomer's growing impatience. Whether because he's absorbed, because he knows Boomer, or because he doesn't care, isn't apparent.

He breathes a mask-muffled sigh of relief as the van pulls into the garage and Handyman meets the tired rigger with a cup of coffee. << The birds have returned. >> he transmits over the HQ comms. << Give me 5 and I'll have the images up in the warroom. >>

He disappears into his office and in less than the promised 5 minutes Alan has the warroom screen lit with image of the compound. He begins constructing a 3d image, overlaying it with the information that their employers had given them and highlighting the interesting bits.

Something strange nibbles at the edges of his thoughts. He runs a diagnostic on HQ security and pauses, puzzled. He checks the security cameras in the bunkroom.

<< Hey. Where the hell is everyone? >>

Loft

Throwing the phone back into the pile of shed clothing Iblis turns to the group assembled in her place. "Now we wait for the info to come in and throw this the way of the gun toting set." She heads toward the kitchen and begins preparing some sort of microwaved snack. "All we need to do then is sync up the two teams and we're golden."

Tir Team

Sunshine sits with his remaining team members, he can't believe that they were the only ones that made it out alive but the past should stay just that. He begins to explain all he saw. "No apparent astral security on the station itself. Moving inwards, it does appear that several of the actual power transformers are warded with moderately powerful wards. Living physical security on site seems nil. There is at least one room full of mechanical objects that you can't really distinguish, however, could be maintenance or security drones. We may need to check the tech side to see what other measures they may have in place." He looks to the others confident that they will make a plan.

Tir
Kincaid nods.

"Vath were you able to find anything?"

Loft
"Boys, is there going to be anything you need before we get started? Last minute gear anything like that, or are we good?"

Styx let the door to the latrine close behind him and marched purposefully into the warroom, remembering all the tips from his leadership courses. Confidence, purpose, control, all had to be projected. When he got to the warroom he saw Alan playing with the electronics of in the main viewer.

"Control has recalled four of the team members, we are going to carry on with the mission with the remaining team. This means we'll need to re-evaluate our options. Once we've reviewed the data you collected I'll contact the employers and update them on the situation."

"I'm going to need to go grab my armor and assault rifle, but other than that, no."

The lights dim as Alan mutters over the HQ comms << Terrific. >> He puts the sensor feed up on the monitors for the team to browse, running the video in a loop until all have arrived.