Elina du Pont stood silent in front of the gathered operatives, studying their faces and trying to get a feel for the person that belonged to each one. After they had picked up another soldier on a refueling station near the Mass Relay, the final count numbered a total of eight operatives.
There were four humans: The always angry-looking Paul Johnson, the young Peter Freeway with his fiery red hair, a combat-engineer called Tobias Emmerding, as well as their newest human arrival, the Biotic Dvorak Helfer.
Since the need for able bodies opened the ranks of these special ops, they were accompanied by the Turian Kajira Iryn, the Krogan Nakmor Gash, the Asari Alisa Dagir and the Drell Kel Ostan.
All of them had gathered in the CIC, waiting for the briefing for the upcoming mission. Concluding her thoughts, du Pont swiped over the display in front of her. In response, the holographic image of an inconspicuous sphere of brown and red flashed into life, spinning slowly for a moment before zooming into a part of the ball that was spotted with metallic, grey dots.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to your first mission." She pointed to the form in front of here, where structures were fading into visibility. "This is your target: The planet Visoya. The Asari have some of the biggest fuel refineries in the system here, powering almost anything in a relay-wide radius."
The operatives listened closely, eager to learn more about their first target. Du Pont noticed that, although they seemed to get along well when they were back on the Citadel, now Kajira and Helfer stood separately. Whether that meant something or not was unimportant now, so she swiped over the display again, creating an image of a refinery on the planet. The structure was medium in size, a coiling mass of tubes, pipelines and metal.
"Four days ago, the refinery located on the northern hemisphere went silent. No alarm was triggered, no distress signal, nothing." She opened a collection of images of the employees, blueprints of the station and other useful data.
"A dispatch team was sent in to check the status. They went silent, too. That was two days ago."
She closed the holographic projector. As the lights turned on again, du Pont continued: "We can't afford to have the refinery idle for any longer. Your task will be to secure the refinery, retrieve any personnel, be it worker or dispatch team, and get that station running again. We will split into two teams, Alpha and Bravo. Alpha will gain entrance to the station via the main entrance, while Bravo will work on the main power generators." She fumbled on her Omni-Tool.
"All mission-relevant data is being sent on your Omni-Tools." In response, the hands of the operatives lit up as their Tools received the data.
"The teams are as followed. Alpha: Iryn, Freeway, Gash and Helfer. Bravo: Johnson, Dagir, Emmerding and Ostan. Iryn and Johnson, you are Team-leaders, respectively. Shuttles depart in 30, be ready in 20. Good luck down there. Dismissed."
With that, du Pont went ahead to the shuttle bay. She wanted to make sure everything went according to plan.
A murmur filled the CIC as Commander du Pont left. Gash bellowed in anticipation of the upcoming mission, while the rest showed their excitement more refrained. Bravo Team gathered and went straight to the armory, while Alpha Team took a little longer to get sorted.
"Man, this is gonna be great!" Gash announced while slapping his chest. "I can't wait to try my new shotgun!
"Relax, Big Guy. You heard what the Boss said. 'Went silent', not 'Being attacked'. It's probably just a power shortage - and the dispatch team was too stupid to fix the problem." Peter said unimpressed.
While Gash tried to convince Peter of the certainty of an attack, Dvorak glance to the Turian Woman that still stood in the corner of the room. Being paired with her as well as her being the team leader would not help to smooth the tension between them. Since the incident in the lounge, she hadn't talked to him at all. Nonetheless, he was grateful that he wasn't in Paul's Team.
She pushed herself off the wall and strolled past him and the two arguing idiots, stopping at the door and turning around.
"Come on, team. Time to gear up."
Her voice was cold, methodical. Without waiting for a response, she headed through the door. Although there was nothing left from the warmth of their first encounter, Dvorak was grateful that Kaj was handling the situation professionally. He followed her to the armory the gear up, leaving behind Gash and Peter who took a moment to realize that they were alone in the CIC. Still arguing, they headed to the armory as well.