Chapter 2 Ghosts and ...Ghosts?
"You wanted to speak with me sir?"
Yes, good that you could come so soon. We have received some rumors from one of our sources about some hidden Dominion research on Ghorith IV. We are heading there as soon as we get the Hyperion repaired." Raynor took a swipe of his drink and continued. "Our friends here at the Zero Deep Space Station are doing their best to keep her in good shape, but just like us, they are running out of supplies. Being freelance sounds great on paper but it's a lot of work if you want to stay on top." Raynor took another swipe and sat down in the captains chair. "Matt, how much Vespene we've got left?"
"Enough for two weeks, but then we have to make port and restock. With the Dominion after us that will be tricky."
"Anyway, Lieutenant. I want you and your partner ready for what is to come. If it's as bad as we think it is, then you will have to go in alone with minimal backup."
"I understand commander."
Raynor left the Bridge. Probably heading for the cantina to speak with Tykus. Minea turned to Matthew Horner, who was busy reading the star map. "Dismissed, Lieutenant."
It was lunch when the Hyperion made it's jump to the Epsilon system. The entire trip would take about four hours, give or take, and place them right next to the Hourst system where the Dominion had decided to park it's fleet of Battlecruisers recently. Not the best of places to be but anything that put a stick into the Dominion clockwork was worth considering.
After lunch Minea headed over to the crew compartment to see if she could track down her partner, Sana. The woman was three years her senior and possessed a wast psionic reserve, although one which she never could learn to master. It caused some unfortunate accidents when complex maneuvers or uses was needed but in return, she never got tired, mostly.
Minea, on the other hand, had a much smaller reserve of power but was so good at using this that even the Protoss said she was a natural. It had been one of the reasons why they had trained her. They had trained Sana too but for the opposite reason, her enormous amount of power. And while Sana was many times more powerful at the things she could do, Minea could do so much more. Brains and Brawns.
Sana's room was empty so she headed for the gym instead. It was filled with Raiders doing exercises. And one half-naked woman currently lifting every single dumbbell in the room.
At the same time.
"Minea, hi. I'm just about to break my old record of lifting 4000 Kilos of scrap metal." She reached out her right hand and another dumbbell floated into the air. "There, thats 28 dumbbells with 150 kilos on each. thats like, what, 4200?" Minea did some quick head counting. "Yeah, it is. Congratulations. Now get over here, we've got a mission from the commander." Sana didn't seem to hear her as she was to busy with fainting from the enormous strain the weight was putting on her mind.
With a loud crash, all the equipment came under the control of gravity again and made short work of the distance between the gear and the floor. Sana was panting like mad, trying to get as much oxygen into her lungs as she could in as short a time as possible. She had avoided the embarrassment of fainting but that didn't mean she was any better of. "Remind me never to do that again, Min."
"Righhht..." was all Minea could answer. Last week when she had cleared 4000 she had said the exact same thing just before fainting. She walked up to the tired woman and picked her up. "come on Sana. Lets get you some sleep. I'll need you rested and ready to go by tonight." Carrying her partner out of the gym would no doubt lead to stories told of things they had never done, so she resolved to drag the mostly unconscious woman to her room.
"All right, listen up ladies. As you'll be dropped off a long way from the target, damn those air defenses, you'll need some sort of ride. This here is a remodeled bike, that somehow made it's way aboard this ship after our stunt on Korhal..." Engineer Swann looked at Milo Kachinsky suspiciously when he said that. "Anyway, now I've got a use for them. Changed the tires, threw out the engine and scrapped the built in GPS. Made it more resistant and tough, slapped on a few Vanadium plates and put in a new engine that doesn't run on Vespene and here ya go. I call it the Cruiser. It'll get you there in next to no time. And because there's no Vespene in it they can't track you. Engine's silent. You can't even tell that this one here's running can you?"
Both ghosts listened but only the general sound of the armory were heard. "Can you paint it in something less reflective then clean steel?" Sana's question was not a joke as the Cruisers didn't have a scrap of paint on them. They looked like a pair of armored motorcycles. Probably because they were.
"You'll be doing a drop in these two bikes so get to know them, OK. As for your equipment, here." He tossed a list of ammunition to Minea. "New ammo for you. Check it out and tell me what you want to bring with you. Oh, and I've got a gift for you. Here." Swann picked up a crate from the floor. "The new C-20A SpecOps. You'll love this one. Unlike the previous generation it's got a bullpup configuration. Increases the barrel lenght without changing the size. The new scope is fantastic and it's even got a built in grenade launcher for dealing with heavy armor without melting your rifle." This time he looked at Minea, who had the decency to blush. "Here, this is for you Lieutenant." Another box was picked up and handed to Minea. "I know that that old rifle belonged to your mother, so I fixed it for you." At hearing this, Minea hugged the big man.
"Calm down, lass. Don't break this old man now."
"Thank you Swann, this means a lot to me."
Sana picked up the discarded ammo list from where it had landed on the floor next to the spider mines. This was a major dejavu for her. Back when they had studied to beckome ghosts the exact same thing had happened when the instructor had presented Minea with her mothers C-10.
"Come on Minea, let's go get familiar with our new toys."
