Campaigns of the Cold

[Marcus O'Terra]

Town of Tilkendan
October 6, 2517
10:02 A.M Local Time

He had expected the region to be cold, he didn't expect a slice of Saint Albans. The region was white as far as the viewport on the bridge could see. He likely wouldn't have caught on that there was a town here if it wasn't for a transponder and the coordinates.

Marcus brought the Chainless down onto the landing pad without a hitch. Locking it down, he exhaled. They'd left the fed with next to nothing, but the man would live at least until he gave up living or died some other way.

There were plenty of ways to die in the 'verse.

Marcus shook his head and nodded to Lulah. "Good charting." He didn't know the exact math but they'd done good time, once again, thanks to the new addition to the crew.

He'd brought everyone up to speed about everything discussed with Scott. The villagers, disappearing, slavers, et cetera.

He hadn't been able to gauge a reaction so soon after the Fed. That's how he was going tp remember it now: the incident. Not just a day they stopped on a core world, but genuinely the day of the Fed.

Marcus didn't like it. Not one bit. He didn't mind the call from the 'expert', Joel Winstead.

The man sounded a bit to eager for a man in a blizzard.

He walked through the ship, nodded to the others as he passed them, and went to get his guns. Rifle and pistol. Out on the open terrain, it was better to have them. He always put on his tactical vest, under his clothes.

He wore an extra layer and found a thick pair of boots. Hopefully they'd be enough. He wasn't looking to get frost bite.

He stood in the hanger and unlocked the smaller doors and let them slide open, looking out into the open white, he wondered where their man was.

[Joel Winstead]

Trudging forward in the snow, Joel looked up as he saw a ship coming in. The town didn’t get very many, since there wasn’t much of a need. The people there were more self sufficient, living off of the land itself. Though to most it seemed like a task such as that was impossible, the people at Tilkendan knew how. There was a fair amount of wild life, and many herded larger fury creatures, and sometimes shipped them off world in trade.

His thick coat and clothing was dark black. It made him stand out against the wintery white background. It kept him dry, and as warm as one could be. His face was exposed but that was alright. He had learned to live in that environment long before. A bit of frost clung to a small beard on his face, and his breathe was visible. On his back there was a pack, which he carried always out of necessity.

He looked up at the large ship, which was a strangely advanced site given most of the surroundings. The town itself was small, and though the buildings were made of metal and some had heating units, it still wasn’t the most technologically up to date. They took energy out of heating panels which were on the roofs as they needed it cheap.

The area was fairly well lit in the morning. It was just that time of year for that part of the planet, where the sunlight was bright. The town still had some of the overhang lights on though, but they were always on.

Joel wasn’t familiar with the ship that had landed so he didn’t know where the people inside would exit from. He stood beside it, and waited for some sign of movement. A door began to open at the front and he trudged his way through the snow towards the opening cargo ramp. He looked up at who was there and had a playful smile on his face.

”Can you believe it’s nearly summer here?” He asked, laughing a bit through his teeth.

It was very cold, and when Joel first arrived it surprised him that a place could be like that. He had come from Gonghe in the Core, so a place as wild as that was hard to wrap his head around. But since then he’d come to love it. The wind blew a bit, and the sun was out, but the entire area was just covered in snow.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus could see a black spot moving toward him through the snow, he realized it was a man only after it came close enough for Marcus to see the face. The man had a smile, and it brought one out of Marcus, who wasn't too surprised.

Anyone doing this kind of job had to enjoy it: fanatically so, probably. The organizer had implied as much. When the man approached, and spoke, Marcus's jaw dropped: Summer?

"What the hell, Summer?" He looked up at the sky. "Gorramit." No wonder the planet had such a soft presence, no paper skinned Feds would want to set up shop here.

Marcus held out his hand to the man. "Marcus O'Terra. Mr Winstead, good to meet you. Come on inside." No sense talking out in the cold. He stepped back to signal the man's welcome.

[Joel Winstead]

Starting to laugh a bit more Joel smiled. ”Yeah that’s right.” He remarked regarding the season. ”It doesn’t hit very hard, but it’s a lot better then winter I’ll tell you that.” He adjusted his coat, and started moving forward. ”Gotta wear a full face cover during that time of year.”

That was a really rough time of year for most people, but the summertime wasn’t nearly as bad. For the most part it was like a vacation, or at least as close to one as you could get at a place like that. Joel loved the summertime, but he didn’t mind the winter either. It was all the same to people that weren’t from there, but for him there was a big difference.

When he was told he could come aboard he nodded and moved up. ”Oh thank you, thank you.” He said coming up the ramp.

It was customary to thank those that let them in from the cold in that place, mainly because it was something that could mean life or death in certain situations. He didn’t mind the cold, but it was nice to get out of it once in a while. The fact that he was in town meant that he was going to be out of the cold.

[Jay Fuller]

Jay had been watching out the window at the freezing world below. After being in the warm ship for the long ride, he wasn't looking forward to the code. After the incident with the Fed, Jay was more than eager to get back to regular work and move this little debacle behind them.

Marcus had updated them all on what the job was. The plan was to stop some slavers from slaving people, more or less. Jay was actually excited -- they would be doing something good. Maybe after the Fed, that was why Marcus chose this job. That, or the pay was really good. Either way, Jay was up for it. He made his way to his room and stripped down. He put on some thermals, and then put on some normal pants and a warm, winter coat. Jay was never one for heavy clothes, even during the cold winters on Paquin he would dress lighter than most. He was generally a hot person: he had a higher tolerance to the cold and always preferred higher temperatures.

He made sure to have a pistol on his belt. He also made sure to have some small medical things to put into his belt: bandages, disinfectant, ect. Very basic things, but they help sometimes. Once he felt the ship land, Jay walked out from the infirmary and went to meet Marcus in the hanger. Jay got into the elevator and rode it down to the bottom floor. He stepped out and watched as the doors opened and some snow flurried into the ship. He shivered a bit at the wind.

Soon a man walked up, who Jay assumed was their contact, and said, "Can you believe it's nearly summer here?"

Jay snorted, "Fabulous vacation spot we've found here, cap'n," he said, smiling at Marcus. He walked forward a bit and stood next to his captain. Marcus introduced himself and the medic chimed in, "Jay Fuller."

[Joel Winstead]

As Joel came into the ship, another person came up to him. He’d apparently heard what Joel had to say about it being almost Summer. It almost served as a joke for off-worlders. To tell them what season it was. The funny thing was that particular place on Muir was far from the coldest part of the planet, and wasn’t close to being the coldest place in the Verse’. But the was it was just fine for Joel.

”Joel Winstead.” He said introducing himself. ”With the FCPO… well sort of” Joel corrected blinking and tilting his head. He looked back towards Marcus. ”They just sign the checks more then anything else. Most of the time they forget I’m out here. But it keeps them outa my hair, which is fine with me.” Joel laughed.

In a way you could say that was a sad commentary. If someone forgot where you were in the Verse’, especially somewhere as isolated as that, it was a truly terrible thing. Being lost on any planet was bad, but at least they knew you were on a certain world. The thought of being lost to the entire verse’ was far worse, and it was as good as being declared dead. But Joel was fine with it, since he loved it on Muir.

He then noticed that the people he’d met so far were wearing thick clothes. Not very thick compared to what he and many were used to wearing, but thicker then most offworlders. ”You guys aren’t planning on wearing that out there you?” Joel asked with a tone of disbelief. ”Leave the clothing situation to me, I’ve got that covered. You wear that outside and you’ll start freezing in about six minutes. Hahaha.” Joel laughed, but only because they were so inexperienced. He wasn’t going to let them walk around in what equated to a T-shirt and shorts for them.

[Ilana Logan]

Ilana knew they were landing on a colder planet, from Marcus's update earlier. She sat on the edge of her bed staring into a heap of clothes that amounted to everything she owned, aside from dresses. She looked through her clothes and realized she had absolutely nothing that she wouldn't freeze to death in. She pawed through everything, wondering how many things she could combine and still be able to move fairly easy.

She picked out a t-shirt, a fairly thick sweater, and heavy cargo pants. She tossed everything else back onto the floor in front of her dresser, deciding to pick it all up later. She pulled on three pairs of socks, and tucked her flannel pajama pants into them. She pulled the cargo pants on over the pajama pants, bouncing around a little to get them up over the pajamas, and tucked in the tank top she wore to sleep in. Then she pulled the t-shirt, then the sweater on.

She felt slightly bulky, but not to the point that it was constricting her movements. She put her holster on, slipped her pistol inside, then slid her shotgun through the special loop she'd added for it on the other side. She pulled her long duster on over the top of it all, buttoned the top five buttons, and picked up her knapsack, which was loaded with bullets, a few coins, and her databook. She knew what the job entailed for the most part, but she didn't know how exactly it was going to go down, so she thought it better to be prepared for it to go either way.

Finally, she felt she had done all she could as far as getting ready, and preparing, so she slung the knapsack on her shoulder and climbed the ladder to the hall. She made her way to the cargo bay thinking about the job ahead and what could possibly go wrong. One way or another, every job she'd ever been on had turned sour. It wasn't really her fault, but she could have prevented it once, simply by not defending herself to a man who had an ego of a scale to rival that of the verse itself.

She sighed as she stepped into the cargo bay. At the end of the ramp, she saw Marcus and Jay talking to a man she didn't recognize. Probably not anything to worry about, they were supposed to meet someone, but she wanted to be cautious anyway. She came up behind the group, and stopped between Marcus and Jay. It seemed she arrived during introductions. The man had just introduced himself as Joel Winstead.

"I'm Ilana," she said, raising her hand to her brow, thumb folded in, in a bit of a mock salute to herself.

[Joel Winstead]

Seeing someone else approach him in the cargo bay Joel looked over. It was women, dressed up fairly thick, but he knew it wasn’t going to be nearly enough. The entire planet wasn’t a freezing waste land where everything froze the moment it poked its head out into the cold. It was just the region they were in. It was the far North, but not quite to the poles. Not every planet was the same, and there were places that were far worse then that. But this was still a very cold sort of climate.

When she saluted him, Joel made a sound. ”Oap”. came his voice. He straightened himself up a bit and brought his own hand to his forehead in a loose solute. He didn’t pick up on the fact that it was just a mock gesture, and having spent so little time on ships, he just thought it was something that crew on those sorts of ships did. He had no idea, but he didn’t think to ask.

”Hi, Joel Winstead.” He repeated again. He lowered his solute but kept his giddy sort of smile.

”I was just telling them, you don’t have to worry about dressing up for the weather, I’ve got you all covered, no pun intended.” Joel added. He’d always been a very friendly sort of person, and being with Dolgans so long had helped that. For the most part what was going on in the world didn’t bother him, and as far as where he lived, he was technically the richest person around. But he didn’t really need money, and that made things a lot easier in terms of knowing people.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus closed the door behind the man once he was inside, holding back a shiver that ran up his whole body. Jay had come down and introduced himself, having heard Joel's comment about it being summer, made his own little remark about vacations spots

"I like to change it up a bit. Shadow, Muir, and next time I'm thinking a moon with no atmo. Just go out with suits and bounce around a little bit." He gave a shrug.

Then Joel, looking them over, totally dismissed their attempts at bundling up. Marcus felt more than a little concerned, then looked over to Jay.

"You packed plenty of kit for frostbite, no?" He knew of a few basic salves that could work, modern medicine and all. Then he looked back at Joel. "I got your message but, How could DOES it get on this world?"

Ilana arrived, dressed like the others, and repeated his warning on clothing, but they were covered, according to him.

"Well that's well and good. Still," He looked the man over. "Are we going somewhere to get the clothes? I don't see a pack on you." He guessed the man was going to see how many were on the 'team' before he brought any clothes.

[Joel Winstead]

The door began closing behind him and Joel and he turned to look at it. He hadn’t seen a machine working as large as that in months, since space fairing vessels were about the largest technical structure that were in the area. The closest thing to that was a radar way station which doubled as a cortex signal receiver. It was about the same size as the ship, but was a long way away.

When asked about how cold it got on the world Joel looked back to Marcus. ”Well if I remember it was a bit below 200 degrees Fahrenheit, but that’s the whole planet.” Joel answered, since that was exactly what the man had asked. ”In the region though, it will only drop to about 70 below at the worst.” Joel brushed off a bit of the snow that was on his arms. ”The biggest problem is once you get out of town, there really isn’t a whole lot in the ways of shelter, so you take what you can get.”

”Most of the planet is actually fairly temperate” Joel thought to add. Landing there gave people the wrong impression about the world most of the time, it really wasn’t a bad place as far as he was concerned.

The question about the clothing came up, and he knew exactly how to answer. ”I was gonna bring them to you after we got over, you know, the basics and such about being here and what’s been happening.” Joel smiled again. ”I wasn’t gonna have a laugh watching you go out into town to get em yourselves, I’m not a bad guy like that.” He laughed a bit after he finished.

[Jay Fuller]

Jay hadn't even noticed Ilana walk up until she introduced herself. He glanced back and nodded at her in greeting. He wondered where everyone else ran off too -- either they were protesting this mission or they're still getting ready.

"Joel Winstead, with the FCPO...well, sort of," the man said. "They just sign the checks more than anything else. Most of the time they forget I'm out here. But it keeps them outa my hair, which is fine with me." Jay raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if he liked this planet at all, and they haven't stepped outside yet. When Joel asked if they were planning on wearing what they had on, Jay decided that if what he was wearing wasn't enough to keep him warm, he really didn't like this planet.

"Oh, good," Jay added sarcastically to Joel's mention about freezing in six minutes. Overall, he liked Joel. He seemed like a guy he could get along with. Marcus asked if Jay packed plenty of stuff for frostbite. Jay gave him a look as if to say, 'You're stupid,' "Cap'y, where's the trust?" he asked. Today, Jay was feeling snarky.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus rolled off his outer jacket as the man spoke, the hanger a not cold enough to warrant it on its own. Marcus had never been on a planet of extremes before. Maybe it was something he'd neglected. It could have made him tougher, physically.

Then again, from Joel's description, it'd be more likely to kill him; that would match it to most of his life experiences in the past year or so.

"Well, I'm glad for that." Marcus said in response to Joel's explanation. "I'm going to need to know the particulars." He'd had an experience busting Burts. One that had burned blood into his hands: innocent blood.

I'm a murderer. But I will not become a monster. When Jay decided to sling some sass back at Marcus, the man decided to throw a little back. "Right now it's sitting comfy between my sidearm and wallet." He gave a quick smirk. "But it was rhetorical." Of course Jay would have it.

I mean he couldn't be expected to fix frostbite with chopsticks, now could he?

[Joel Winstead]

”Of course, of course.” Joel replied to the request to know everything that he would need to. He wasn’t going to send them out without telling them what they needed to know. And they’d be going with him anyway. But he didn’t want to do an “I’ll explain on the way” sort of situation. Because they were here, but Joel really wouldn’t blame them if they wanted to leave.

The weather alone was unbearable enough for most, but having gun play in the icy snow was not something that a majority of people would sign on for, even if they were desperate. Joel didn’t look at these people like they were desperate, their ship seemed in very good repair, and they didn’t look like crazed waywards.

Reaching in to his jacket, Joel found rolled up piece of paper. He held it in his hand and reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheap sort of data pad that was small and beaten up.

”Is there a place we could sit down?” Joel said pumping the fingers in his right hand to get the snow off of them. He still had wet bits of ice all over him and he didn’t want to make too much of a mess of things.

[Ray Hudson]

Ray sat at the table, an empty bowl resting before him while he twirled his chopsticks in his hand. His mouth mad a clicking noise as he sucked what was left of his meal out of his teeth. After sitting in silence while his stomach settled Ray looked around the galley and tested how familiar he had become with it. He guessed what cabinet held the pans or which cupboard clanked the cutlery. After quizzing himself, Ray tossed his sticks into the bowl and walked away from it. He had been sitting there since before they landed and that bowl had been empty for awhile but with so little to do, Ray was left just sitting there with his silly tests.

Knowing that they were supposed to be meeting someone, Ray made his way into the cargo bay where he saw the rest of the group and their visitor. The man was dressed for the ball ice that they were on and Ray found himself thinking if they had any snow gear on the ship. Ray saw the man pull out a piece of paper and a data pad while he asked if there was somewhere he could sit.

"The lounge has the comfiest seats." Ray stated, not wanting to have to sit on a crate for the whole meeting. Ray didn't properly introduce himself and he just looked around at the group.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus was grateful that some like would be shed on the situation. He saw Ray up along the catwalks, from the galley. He wondered sometimes what the crew did when they had their moments alone. Did they stare blankly into their reflections? Marcus has the previous day, for hours.

He still wasn't happy with the man he saw reflected back.

Their expert asked for a place to sit, and Ray obliged by mentioning the Lounge. Marcus nodded. "If you'll follow me." He said to Joel. "You can leave your jacket here so you don't overheat." He motioned at a crate, but led the expert up to the Lounge module.

Marcus hadn't gotten much use out of the room yet. It served as well a meeting room as the galley, without the distraction of food. Still, it was comfortable enough that it could really be called a lounge, not just a room with a couch and a cortex screen.

[Joel Winstead]

The answer on where to go was given by someone who Joel had not seen when he walked in. He didn’t know if the man who answered the question had been there the whole time, but the answer was plain enough. He looked back down since he didn’t really know where that was.

”Right, right.” Joel answered in regards to taking his jacket off. They were built to let heat out when the temperature was warm, but that didn’t happen very quickly. He undid some buttons and a zipper, and a few other connecting points at the center. As he pulled the jacket open there was a thick black shirt with long blue sleeves. He pulled the jacket all the way off and set the jacket down nicely on the crate. It felt better taking the jacket off, but he’d have it back on soon enough. His pants were made of the same material but it wasn’t as bad having those on.

Following Marcus up through the ship to the lounge, he looked over the craft. It seemed like what one would expect out of a cargo vessel, a large hold, and a catwalk running throughout. But it seemed that in that ship it was set up with much of the ship on either side of the cargo bay, which wasn’t common as far as he knew. He was used to ships that had the cargo in the back, and everything else focused in the front.

Arriving at the lounge, Joel looked and saw a chair placed behind a small table. ”Ah, that’s perfect.” Joel said moving over to it. He set it down on the table, and a large map appeared on it. Joel began to work it with the small data pad, and used his finger to move the image on the smart paper. He worked fairly quickly trying to figure out what he was looking for, then he widened it out so he could see the full thing. ”There we are.” Joel said, when the smart paper had revealed a map of the area that they would be working in. It was detailed to show mountains and small landmarks, and the entirety was blanketed in the color white, which obviously represented the snow.

[Ilana Logan]

When she mocked a salute with just two fingers, the man made a strange sound. He straightened up immediately, and returned the salute. She bit her lip to stop the grin that threatened to confiscate her face from her, and let out a short cough to keep from laughing hysterically.

”Hi, Joel Winstead,” he said for her. He lowered his saluting arm, but a sickeningly happy smile stayed in place. ”I was just telling them, you don’t have to worry about dressing up for the weather, I’ve got you all covered, no pun intended,” he added.

She arched a brow at that, but said nothing. She was wondering exactly how cold it was there, for the ridiculous layers she was wearing to not be enough. She pondered it for a moment as Marcus closed the cargo bay door, shutting the cold out. Wind had blown a bit of snow into the bay and she watched it swirl around the floor as the door closed.

"Well that's well and good. Still,"Marcus said, looking Joel over. "Are we going somewhere to get the clothes? I don't see a pack on you."

In response to Marcus's question, Joel said, ”I was gonna bring them to you after we got over, you know, the basics and such about being here and what’s been happening.” Joel smiled, and went on, ”I wasn’t gonna have a laugh watching you go out into town to get em yourselves, I’m not a bad guy like that.”

Ilana smiled at that, thinking that it sounded like something she would do, or at least enjoy thinking about doing, just for the fun of it.

"Cap'y, where's the trust?" Jay asked, and she wasn't sure which part of the conversation he was referring to. Maybe something said before she came up, though she couldn't be sure why he would wait this long to say it. She looked to Jay, wondering what he was talking about, but his face gave her no indication, and he said nothing else, so she looked to Marcus, wondering if he would say anything to give her an idea.

"Well, I'm glad for that." Marcus said, seemingly responding to Joel. "I'm going to need to know the particulars." To Jay, he said, "Right now it's sitting comfy between my sidearm and wallet." He smirked at his own little joke, and it made her smile. "But it was rhetorical," he added.

Ilana didn't know exactly what was rhetorical, because Marcus didn't say enough for her to figure it out, but she gave up on it then, because it didn't seem to matter a whole lot. Besides, she didn't want to ask the questions it would take to figure it out.

"Of course, of course," Joel said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a rolled up piece of paper. He reached back into his pocket and pulled out a databook of some kind. At least, it looked like an older version of the databook she had.

"Is there a place we could sit down?" Joel asked, clenching and unclenching his fist. He looked as though he were trying to get the blood flowing in it again.

Before she could respond, Ray's voice came to her, "The lounge has the comfiest seats."

She looked over her shoulder and saw he had come in while she wasn't paying attention. He didn't look particularly happy, but he didn't look angry either, so there was that. She didn't know what to make of him most of the time.

While she was looking at Ray, Marcus said to Joel, "If you'll follow me. You can leave your jacket here so you don't overheat."

He waved his hand at a crate, and she assumed he meant that Joel could put his jacket there. Then he started off toward the lounge, leading the way.

”Right, right," Joel said, in response to Marcus. He took the jacket off, though it seemed to take a while. He put the jacket on the crate and started following Marcus through the ship.

Ilana turned to follow them, but she didn't walk on immediately. She looked from Ray to Jay, wondering if things on this ship would ever be normal, or at least the closest thing to it that a group such as them could ever achieve. She shook the thought off, and wondered where Lulah was hiding. She'd been there when Marcus had told them all about the meeting.

She decided not to worry about it anymore, and followed the two to the Lounge, wondering what they had gotten themselves into. She walked into the Lounge somewhat behind the two men, and saw Joel putting the paper on the table and used his databook to change what appeared on it. She'd seen such things before, a couple of times, but she didn't have one herself.

She sat down across the table from Joel, and looked over the map that had appeared on the paper. ”There we are,” Joel said, after a moment. It was a very detailed map.


"So, what are we getting ourselves into exactly?" she asked with a smile. She wasn't being insolent, she was just curious, and she let the curiosity show in her voice.

[Joel Winstead]

As he finished setting everything he'd need up Joel heard the woman that was in the cargo bay ask him a question. He looked up and tried to think of the best way to reply to that. "Ice and bad guys." was what he came up with. He wasn't needing to give a full report like he had when he first arrived on the planet, or every quarter or so. It would be more of a brief explanation of what was going on, and what the problem was.

Since he was situated and so were the others as far as he could tell he decided to start explaining.

"Ok, so it started about a month ago. The Dolgans were moving the herds along their usual trails trying to find new grass patches to graze on. And in the middle of the night a vehicle showed up, and there were a group of armed men there. They killed a few of the people, and took captive four." Joel explained. "We were about here." He said pointing at a spot on the map. "Its about seventy miles away from town." Joel added.

"This started happening every few days, and so the Dolgans started to move far away from the trails, and deep into the middle of no where, out here." Joel moved his finger to a place that was far away from where they had been previously. "Now to figure out what they should do, the tribe sent a few men out to see what they could find, and they tracked the attackers through the snow here." Joel pointed at a spot on the map that was close to where the Dolgans had fled from. "They found a small structure there that I'd never heard of, and I checked over all my earlier grids and nothing was there. And so my guess is that it's a ship."

Joel looked up at Marcus. "The problem is that where the Dolgans are currently is running out of grass for the herds to eat. They need to move, and soon. But that will take them right into the path of these guys." Joel pointed back at the place where the 'ship' was.

"So what I wanna do is point you guys out that way, while I go and tell the Dolgans they can move, rather then have them start aimlessly walking into places where there's no frozen grass for them to eat. You all just... uh... Do what you do I guess, and the Dolgans won't see half the heard starve... well that's the plan at least." Joel didn't know how that sounded to them. He'd never been involved with people shooting at other people before. His main concern was that the Dolgans were running out of time, and this was really the only thing he knew could be done.

[Marcus O'Terra]

Marcus followed the rest of the group up to the lounge, and sat comfortably across from Joel. The man started to set up and Ilana asked the question that must have been hanging in the whole crew's mind.

What had Marcus gotten them into this time?

Joel's response: 'Ice and bad guys' was so deliciously simple; Marcus had to smile. It was a grim smile, though: steely.

Joel began his exposition and the initial attack didn't sound to off the beat for slavers. Hit a small group, at night, see what kind of fight they put up and see if the people are worth the effort. Repeating the sort of small grab tactic seemed a bit iffy to him. It depended entirely on how the people here were armed. If they didn't carry modern guns, or guns of any kind for that matter, slavers could have marched all over them. The Fed would have been an after thought, if they ever realized who he was. Plus, the men were slavers: they wouldn't really care.

"How many people have been taken, in all?" He asked, and as an after thought. "Have you seen any of the dead?"

Joel pointed out a spot on the map, and the idea of trekking 70 miles through the ice and snow did not appeal to him, certainly not with half his group being civilian in nature. Ray might bitch, but Marcus was sure the man could handle it. He'd probably seen worse than Marcus had: during the war at least.

"Do you have any current images of that location?" He hadn't noticed much in the way of satellites on their way down. "It might give us a hint at what size crew we're dealing with."


When the object of a time table came up Marcus, he was hardly surprised. Ranchers on warmer worlds had droughts and sandstorms to deal with; certainly these people had their own problems.

He looked to Joel for the answers to his questions, hopefully it could bring a clearer picture. If the rest of the crew had questions, Marcus sure wasn't going to stop them.

[Joel Winstead]

With the question that was presented to him, Joel looked over at Marcus waiting to hear the whole of it. ”They took fifteen of various age and they killed seven.” Joel explained. ”After it was clear they weren’t leaving, the Dolgans had no choice but to flee.” Joel explained. He wasn’t even sure what to do when the attacks had started happening, since he wasn’t armed and had never deal with such things before. ”The dead were taken and cremated, which is normal.”

Joel had a sad sort of look appear on his face. ”It was a bit hard trying to explain to a group of people who have nearly forsaken all modern technology what being shot meant.” Joel had managed to explain it, and said that he would do what he could to get help from other people. They all knew Joel wasn’t necessarily a complete part of the tribe since he still carried with him portions of technology.

The additional questions about the area made Joel nod. He knew that more questions would be coming, and he liked that. He took it as yet another sign that he’d done the right thing since they were being thorough about the whole thing. ”I don’t have any real pictures from the ground or anything, but.” Joel stopped. ”I did manage to requisition a satellite to give us a heat reading in the area.”

Joel put down the datapad and put a small connector into the smart paper map. He tapped a few things in, and the image zoomed over the area where the ‘ship’ supposedly was sitting. It gave a heat reading which showed the outline of ‘structure’. It was tube like, but while it may have been a ship, it was hard to tell because it didn’t have big engines that stood out. The heat reading wasn’t going very strong, but one thing was for certain. There were two people standing outside.

Joel pointed at it. ”The structure itself is about one hundred fifty feet long, so its not very big… well I guess, not compared to most ships, certainly not this one.” Joel said since from where he’d stood outside, it seemed that the ship he was currently on was about three hundred feet long or longer.