Welcome to Illium (Day T-2, Morning, Briefing Room)

[Lucretzia Winters]

Yuri smiled, but was prevented from responding by the hatch opening again, and Lucretzia Winters striding into the room, her high-heeled leather boots ringing on the wood-paneled floor, and echoing faintly on the metal beneath. Dressed in a long black greatcoat, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, she gazed about the room haughtily, and then strode over to the holotank.

"I see Major Creed has already introduced you to the situation."

Tapping a few buttons, she pulled up additional holographic images, this time displaying some garbled wave-lengths, a mixture of what appeared to be geographical readings, and what looked like a city map. Of those gathered, perhaps only Dr. Reinhardt would recognize the import of any of them, in that the geographical readings indicated unusally high densities of rare metals in an otherwise barren region - an anomaly by any stretch.

Point to them, she said, simply, "These are the main reasons for this expedition. Of course, we may find other leads worth pursuing, but these are the launching point."

Glancing around the room, it seemed to dawn on her that not everyone present could read and understand what she was showing them.

"I will not bore you with technical details, but the basic premise is this - we detected some sort of signal being broadcast from this planet through a damaged HPG - the signal is too distorted to make out, but we're going to try and track it down." She pointed at the garbled wave-lenghts.

"We also found historical records tied to the capitol city of this world, back when it belonged to the Rim Worlds Republic, so we intend to investigate the region and see if anything has survived the devastation." She mentioned the reality of the planet's past with a casual tone that seemed unfitting for a city that had participated in the bloodiest coup in human history, and been bombed into a nuclear winter as punishment.

"Finally, we detected unusual metallurgic readings in the polar continent - it may be unimportant, but if there are abnormally rich veins of ore there, it may be possible to sell that data to prospectors to help cover the costs of the expedition."

A cold smile.

"Are there questions?"

[Dr. Reinhardt]

"Do we have any indication that the current inhabitants are near any of our three targets? Are they already mining the deposits?"

[Lucretzia Winters]

"No."

She tapped the map, highlighting the frozen southern pole, and then the temperate northern continent.

"They don't seem to have noticed... or perhaps don't have the means. Maybe they just don't like the cold. Either way, they only seem to be operating in the mountain range connecting Tartarus and Asphodel."

[Andrea DeTroyes]

Andrea winced, "Yes Ma'am...you said damaged HPG. Does that mean ComStar has some involvement in this? I mean with the expedition or should we be expecting a recovery effort on their part?"

[Lucretzia Winters]

"No. It was broadcasting at a bad angle - nobody would have detected it normally. We got lucky and were responding to an SOS in an asteroid belt when we picked up the trailing edge of the signal."

With a faint sigh, she added, "I can't pretend to know how the damn things work, but the fact that we got the message was a stroke of pure fortune. I dislike relying on chance, but sometimes, it places opportunities before us. In this case, whoever sent the message hadn't adjusted for the planet's new axis after the bombing that destroyed Tartarus."

[Dr. Reinhardt]

"So you believe the HPG to be in the remains of an abandoned pre-28th century facility. Possibly even a pre Comstar or Star League facility?"

[Freja Fogel]

Freja had *sort* of been listening to the briefing. Honest, she knew the gist of it. Probably. It wasn't very interesting, in any case. Science stuff. Nothing she was likely to be of any assistance with. Something something comstar blah blah facility blurb blurb axis something bombing. She passed the time twirling a lock of hair around her finger; an activity that seemingly was drawing the majority of her attention.

[Lucretzia Winters]

If Lucretzia realized that Freja was ignoring her, she gave no sign.

Instead she gazed at Dr. Reinhardt for a moment, and then nodded. "Yes. That's why we've been so careful. Either someone on that planet found and activated it, and tried to send a message with an outdated chart... or something else entirely that was can't predict. Either way, it seems likely that whatever is sending that message pre-dates the destruction of this world. Which means that if we can find it, this will be a very profitable venture."

Glancing around the room, she added, bluntly, "That is also why your contracts include a fairly comprehensive nondisclosure agreement and a share of the take. If you keep your mouths shut, you could make quite a bit of money. If you don't... you won't get a single house bill, much less a CBill. The last thing we want is some house military or big name company swooping in and stealing our good fortune. Understood?"

[Andrea DeTroyes]

"Does anyone know how to work an HPG? Outside of ComStar. The finest scientists on New Avalon don't even know precisely how to work an HPG, surely no one on that world could operate one deliberately." Andrea was a bit taken a back.

[Lucretzia Winters]

"Maybe someone there taught their children, generation to generation... or maybe it's an automated beacon."

Lucretzia shrugged.

"We won't know until we find it."