Alimbic Cluster, In orbit around Arcterra
The sight of the orange gunship plunging through the upper ice clouds of Arcterra's atmosphere was unmistakable as to who was its owner. Silent as the void, six ships slowly slipped into pursuit of it keeping their distance and relying on the cloaking field produced by Trace's ship to cover them all. They had no need for conversation as they had already agreed on the basic plan. Sylux mulled it over in his head as they began their approach. Land, locate portal artefacts, set an ambush using artefacts as bait, ambush Samus and then his favourite part of the plan, kill Samus. That was how the plan was laid out in theory but, Sylux was an experienced bounty hunter and well aware from years of experience that plans had a habit of going awry. As they continued their descent, Trace's ship broke off to track Samus to wherever she chose as a landing zone while the other five went to land a significant distance away to avoid detection. Trace's chittering voice soon told them that Samus had set down in a place called the Arcterra Gateway. His ship soon materialised into view behind them and the six plunged out of the clouds to a location they had agreed on earlier referred to in Alimbic texts as the Lake of Solace. The lake was vast and in some places was frozen over but occasionally to Sylux's anxiety, enormous fins evidently belonging to some colossal beast burst through the surface of the water and Sylux could just make out a long serpentine shadow beneath the ice. Falling in would probably not be a good idea.
With this in mind the gunships touched down a good distance away from the water on a patch of snow that had no footprints to suggest anything had been there recently. Each of the hunters disembarked from their gunships and they did a quick but thorough check of their surroundings. Satisfied there was no immediate threat and the thing in the lake had not surfaced for some time. They gathered round Weavel's state of the art holographic projector mounted in his chest armour that projected a detailed 3D image, based on the scans his gunship had made, of the entire region. Trace had marked where Samus had landed and a red blip was showing where they would find her gunship.
Weavel began to take them through the plan and several more blips appeared representing other things of significant note. "We have a long trek to reach the Alimbic ruins where we know Samus and the portal to the Octolith will be." Two arrows emerged and zigzagged across the projection leading from their landing zone to the ruins. "These two paths are the best ways we should take. One group will go alongside the lake dealing with predominately flat terrain so trekking should be easy but the distance is greater than the other route that involves a difficult climb navigating icy mountain paths. Both routes converge on the ruins but in different areas so between us we should be able to block Samus' route to her gunship and slowly force her deeper into the ruins." Weavel pressed a button on his armour and the projection disappeared. "The group that goes over the pass should be natural climbers and used to such terrain so, it would be best if Noxus and Spire take that route, and if Sylux, Kanden, Trace and I take the other route. Any objections hunters?" There were none and so without further ado the group spilt and headed to their respective destinations. The hunt was on.
