Sorry about the wait. I was going to have a spiel about how life and school and blaa blaa blaa got in the way, but you all have seen that before, so i won't.
Recroding form Director Heinz's Office
Heinz "Miss Davidson, send in Agent Smith."
"Yes sir."
Smith enters
Heinz "Well Smith, it's time for the first progress report on your little pet project. Has he bolted yet?"
Smith "No sir, he hasn't. In fact, he has procured a very unique ship."
Heinz "I see. And what do you mean by unique?"
Smith "The ship is built around the hull of an old American LST."
"So"
Smith "That isn't the unique bit. What's unique is who built it, and now crew it."
"And that would be?"
Smith "Zachariah and Haley Pyke. They are a pair of brilliant, if insane techs from the US. They were discharged from their Seabees unit after a numher of unauthorized modifications, and an accitedt with the officers latrine."
"I see. So this ship is going to have a number of "unauthorized modifications"?"
Smith "Pretty much."
(sigh) "so let me get this straight. We have a ship with unknown and possible dangerous modifications, flying around out there crewed by a pair of nut job mechanics, and captained by a sociopathic Batarian ex special forces assassin."
Smith "not entirely sir"
"what else could there be on that ship that could possibly make this worse.?"
Smith "A paranoid schizophrenic, PTSD Quarian that is a technical savant and can hack computers almost by looking at them. His name's Veetor by the way."
"Never mind, you just made things worse. Fine, when can we get a return on this investment, when will he be ready for a mission."
Smith "He says that he wants to recruit two more crewmembers before he does anything"
(another sigh) "How long?"
Smith "One day"
Balak's Log
Well, I've got a ship. But I got a feeling that the spooks are going to want me to do some serious shit, so I decided to go out and find a couple of old buddies from my spec-ops days. Luckily, they're living here on Stygia, so finding them was easy. The hard part was getting them to come with me. I got to their apartment at about oh, seven o'clock at night. I knocked on the door, the reply I got was groan, followed by a string off cuss words, and then the words "Go Away" yelled in a half drunken gurgle. Old Grayson Hunt was drunk, again. I beat on the door again, and told him who I was. That prompted a bunch of crashes from inside, followed by a big thud from the door, probably made by his face, and then by the door opening. Now there are a lot of things that I don't like about humans, but their doors aren't one of them. Of all the species in the galaxy, why are they the only one to realize that it's faster to just put a door on hinges and open it yourself than to hit a button and wait for the damn thing to spin around three times before sliding into some wall? Anyway, the door opened, and there he was, nose bleeding, it had been his face, and a whisky bottle in his hand. I went in, sat down, had a drink and tried to get him to join by crew. Negotiations however eventually devolved into reminiscing about old battles and getting hammered. It was fun, until his other half came back. Where she had been, I didn't know. All I know was the feeling of a combat knife to my throat and a half whispered string of threats and curses in my ear. Trishka Novak was a very dangerous person, and about the closest thing that Grayson had to a brain in his current, very drunk, state, and she didn't want to go. But eventually, I made her see my point of view, after a lot of cursing, gun pointing, knife pulling, bottle throwing, and the shouting of some of the most creative threats I've ever heard. The deal we came to? I would help them hunt down General Serrano, and they would join my crew. I figured the spooks I'm working for would be happy to get rid of the guy, so I figured they would help. Tomorrow, we get our first job.
