Ignition Broker: Chapter 42 The Welcoming Party

Chapter 42

The Welcoming Party

“A first encounter is as much an interview of yourself as of those whom you are meeting. Realize that regardless of situation or standings, you both start off as equals in any meeting. Then based on perceived statuses, the balance of power can shift. The trick is to seize the advantage from the start and never let go.” Marcon -The Art of the Introduction

As a party leader, Arla had several advantages that most might not be aware of. Take for instance the fac that her suit had the ability to pick up on the words being uttered by the members of her squad. A fact she found quite handy as it allowed her to multi-task even now.

Right now, she could hear the conversations of the people going on back at the base camp. Hearing who was complaining and most importantly what tasks were being completed. This eavesdropping feature was not standard, and was only a welcome change that Arla herself had noticed. Originally, all communications were going to be gathered and apparently sent back to leadership as a day-by-day update. The first thing Arla did when she recognized this feature was change the destination to her suit in a near constantly update stream that she could focus on and increase the volume of, or decrease as needed. Then the second thing she did was make sure none of these communications went off planet at all, again if it came down to anything, Arla would make sure to praise Cadet Goldbridger for finding the anomalous signals and disrupting them, before they could be intercepted and misinterpreted by the natives.

With these auto messages set up to catch even whispers, she could even hear Rayalta talking to herself. Perhaps she forgot that she opened the communications channel in the first place, or she was unaware of just how sensitive the internal microphones could be. Regardless of the reason, Arla got a chance to listen in directly to the very open thoughts of Rayalta who apparently spoke to herself, when she thought no one was listening. Which was nice, as it helped Arla make a few keen observations about her.

Most notably was the fact that she had been exposed to the primary religion of the Empire, which was noted in her quoting “Gods forgive the dreamers for wishing they had wings,” yet she either didn’t know the second part of the verse, or found it to not be important as she never quoted it.

To Arla, the second verse was what gave the first verse credence, “Gods forgive the dreamers for wishing they had wings, so that we might learn to fly on the blessings you have already given us.”

Whenever someone quoted the second verse they were generally grouped into a category that Marcon identified as those who were truly zealous. These were marks who could be convinced of schemes by showing a perceived equal level of devoutness, which was often a hard line to find. Too much zealotry and they will find you to be pompous, too little and you will find yourself in the heathen category, which was why unless it was a particularly big score it was often best to avoid zealots all together, as they were often a mercurial bunch.

The fact that Rayalta only seemed to know the first part of the verse, which she used to calm herself showed a few things about Rayalta. First, she likely received some form of generic education by the Empire, a fact that is usually enforced by the way most true nobles don’t quote scripture. Oh, they know it, and can recite it to you, to show that they are zealots when needing to persuade the masses, but they don’t believe, not truly. Or if they do believe, their beliefs are generally of a different form of the religion, one Marcon spoke of as tiered towards wealth.

The second thing this showed was that despite her seeming bad start, she made everything she could with the chances she was given. Marking Rayalta as someone who Arla would not run a scam against, mainly due to the idea that she would be a person that Arla might be able to use as a resource later on. Which was good for Raylata, as it meant that of all the people who made it back to safety after this exercise, Rayalta would be towards the top of the list.

As for the others, most were safe, as Arla would try to get them all back safely, but her mind was already working overtime based on the variety of parts around here. There was no rhyme nor reason to the way the parts here were scattered about, but over time, Arla was certain that she could make enough usable parts to create a ship. This was of course after she provided enough materials for her team to be able to exceed the noted quotas and return safely. In her mind she was already mentally mapping out the number of resources needed, which would be set aside first and pre-loaded so that the remainder of the time here would just be time to relax and explore, when she first felt and then heard confirmation that something was about to go wrong.

“Shit,” Rayalta’s voice came low and clipped. People cursing randomly was not always a sign that danger was imminent. However, there was clearly a surge of power to the southeast, right where Arla mentally tracked Rayalta as being that also caused concerns to rise within Arla’s mind.

It should be noted that from her travels and experiences, Marcon made it a point to always check each and every new source of energy, and equipment. In his mind, the more exposure you had to different elements, the better prepared you could be to any changes that might occur. This was why, Arla’s mind began dissecting the energy impulses she was feeling.

While she wasn’t adept enough to find the exact energy type, she was able to verify that it was close to Cerusian in nature. Which made sense as almost everything here seemed to be components that could easily be swapped into or out of a Cerusian star fleet.

“Commander, we have . . .” was all Rayalta could get out, before the mic went dead as the faint warbling field of a communications disruptor went live. Feeling the comms blackout to be the preemptive strike before an attack, Arla did what she did best. She did what she was trained to do, drop everything in her hands and instinctively pull out her weapons.

Fft-fft, pop-crackle.

Arla’s reactions were so trained and honed, that she was able to draw, aim, and fire her weapons before the items she had been fixing in her hands a moment ago crashed to the ground.

Of course, Arla herself would never do anything as stupid as fire from a stationary position, even now she moved. Her feet moving as she zagged right, then jogged left. Each movement carefully controlled as she walked through the minefield of corroded objects.

Pfft-pfft.

The blasters in her hand fired quick disruptive bursts. Being this close Arla was able to use less than lethal measures, which is what she did.

“AHHCK!”

Cries of utter horror coursed through the air, as the modified bursts hit their targets with ease and precision. It seemed that the attackers were relying too heavily on their act of stealth equipment, and therefor gave up speed for a perceived visual advantage. However, this was not Arla’s first rodeo, Marcon often employed similar tricks to try to advance on her and strike her from behind while she was alone on missions. The idea that if he was using such equipment, his intentions were clearly bad, and that she was to take him down as quickly and effectively as possible. Which is what Arla did now.

In her mind, she made no distinction, these advancing humanoids were already on her threat list, having used what her mind classified as two overtly hostile actions. That is the use of jamming equipment and stealth equipment, if they escalated more, she would have no choice but to make sure she wiped out all hostile forces.

As it was, she opted for less than lethal measures in the hopes that she could get her and her crew out of here without too much bloodshed.

Bright bursts!

Her modified rounds struck with an electrical blast that had both a kinetic punch, and radiating discharge that fried most electrical or even empowered devices, causing secondary bursts that were now erupting on the fallen warriors. Like overcharged Christmas lights that begin bursting in a sequence, so too did these strikes explode, detonate, or otherwise disable any and all devices that could prove useful.

Arla had modified these bursts herself to be non-lethal, though it should be clear that despite being non-lethal they could and would pack a punch, especially for people sporting hidden or concealed weapons.

Pfft.

BOOM!

“AGHHAHA!” Two more bodies drop and cry out, hands twitching as violently as burning weapons are dropped from their hands. The third one had a giant device combust on their back, the moment it burst is the exact moment the odd tingling sensations dissipated. From the lack of static on the line, it was clear that the giant backpack device was the jammer.

There was a pause, as Arla looked over the three bodies. Even now she moved in her slithering type approach, never moving in straight lines and making sure to have the bodies of all three around her. This way she was protected, from the positions noted on the north side of the mountain, she had one body in between her. Then from any other soldiers coming from the south she was also protected. There as also a body that might protect her from any missed weaponry that would from a bunker or other area.

While her eyes scanned high and low in unison, scanning for peripheral threats, and checking on the downed combatants to make sure they didn’t require immediate help. They were all bleeding, mostly due to the eruption of various devices on their bodies, but from a glance nothing looked to be truly life threatening. However, Arla wasn’t done working and adapting to the perceived threats.

Despite the immediate danger being taken care of, she now found herself shifting and adapting to more lethal measures, particularly when it comes to being able to hit a target at a distance. From her perspective there were at least two targets on the cliffs that would require more precise targeting than she was currently capable. Of.

Pausing.

Arla breathed, counting each full breath as one second. This was an important act, as it forced her to slow down, and take inventory. Her localized shielding was also in place, a faint safety measure that hopefully would hold out long enough for her to drop between the three prone bodies around her and use them as meat shields while she found nearby targets.

Just when enough time had passed that Arla felt the immediate threat of danger was over, her comms sparked to life.

“Umm, Commander, we have a problem,” Rayalta’s voice cried out, a note of nervous tension clearly palpable in her words.

“How many?” Was all Arla stated, her eyes already looking down range to see Rayalta and at least four targets, three in front all holding her at gunpoint, and a fourth circling to the back.

“Combatants? Uhh, th-three?” Rayalta stammered out.

Chewing her lower lip for a second a number of scenarios flashed in her mind. She could still get out of this, heck they all could, but they all needed to calm down right now.

Taking a deep breath, Arla calmed herself and spoke, “open your comms so that I can speak through you.”

“WHAT?” Rayalta cried out, clearly confused by the command given.

Shaking her head, Arla found herself almost quoting another line of scripture, before focusing on the issue at hand.

“Nevermind, I’ve got it,” Arla stated, and then used a card she had not wanted others to know she had. She reversed the one way connection that shared speech from Rayalta’s suit to hers, then overrode the internal relays and made it so the speakers projected outwards, making Rayalta’s suit into a modified amplifier.

Crumple.

Once that connection was established, Arla heard that it was still transmitting sounds as well, a fact that was proven by the way her heightened senses picked up on the combatants’ shifting their feet in the dead grass.

Realizing this was her first time meeting these people, she followed Marcon’s advice and made sure to keep the advantage.

Switching to Cerusian, she spoke cordially. Well as cordially as she could muster for the moment, “you all have three seconds to back up, before I start killing off your wounded. . .”

And like that, Aral finally started a dialog with the indigenous persons of this planet.