I'm on board with the capital for now, but we need a couple things. Let's see.

First, we grab ourselves the address for a backwater planet. I mean, really out there on the Fringe, close-to-zilch Imperial presence. We go there and start looking for the drug dealers. (I'm reasonably sure Arketta has at least an idea of what kinda drugs you could buy...) We offer them a little trade: drugs for undetectable "stealth" weapons. (Read: a couple of these - I'm sure the Russians can help us out with a case.) Along the way, we mention that we're kinda passing through and could use a good shadowport address to lay low.

(As a sidenote, we can keep dealing with the pistols until we find someone who's willing to pay cash for them. In lieu of a hard currency, it seems like they would be worth a lot to underground traders.)

Since we don't have a ship, we'd have to grab a shadowport with an internal gate. I presume they exist.

Once there, we start doing it less stealth. We go looking for people who got beef with the Imperium. Once we got a good candidate, we propose our plan: they get us past the exterior security, we do the job inside and give the Imperium a big "Fuck you!". Extraction plans can be made at this point, too.

It's more of a "Road to Napai" plan, but eh.

Gatac

Given everything discussed thusfar, I'm onboard with Gatac's recon mission.

ADS should have a Matrix Lobby gunfight scene ready for when we do give the Turai the big F-U.

PB 6P9s are not a problem. Each world has its own idiosyncracies for getting high, but the two most common ways are Buzz and Slam. Slam's more dangerous than buzz and comes with more dangerous cartels, so take that as you will. Simple arms deals for cash (the space-buck equivalent) isn't a bad idea either.

Keep in mind that "fringe" planets might not be fringe in terms of distance, not in an Imperium where interstellar travel is faster than intra-system. Freshly terraformed worlds, industrial nightmares, hive-cities, these would all have the element you're looking for. Sometimes they're all on the same planet - a population boom on a new world leads to too much landscape-raping and when the resources are gone, you get drugged-out blue-collar (or worse) ghost towns where sprawls used to be.

Besides, the raggedy edge of the frontier has less use for silenced weapons than the gangs on Hedion.

Arketta's got an address for you then: Botane.

Imagine a planet toiling for so long that it didn't know it was dead. It just kept working, breaking down bit by bit, cannibalizing itself to keep up production. Botane's people are every bit as leathery, soiled, and used up as its resources. Merchant families, known as the Mud Dukes, control vast majorities of the planet's industry, and their combined exports (in bribes and actual product) keep the Imperium from peering too closely at their dealings.

Low Imperial presence? Check.
Flourishing black market? Check.
Relatively high trade/smuggling traffic? Check.

I talked about this with Gatac previously, and I think it bears proposing. I want to get Arketta into basic training. I have a feeling that we'll need her on this next mission, and her entering training will appease the military folks somewhat. Also, I want to take her off her leash when she's not in the Gateway complex proper. She's only dangerous if she's near the gateway, otherwise, she's just some crazy woman claiming she's an alien. The Gateway complex has metal detectors, so if she really wants to kill us all, she'll have to disarm someone first and can't smuggle in weapons from the outside.

All of that under the condition that Arketta actually wants to become a soldier in the US Army.

Gatac

Fair enough.

Arketta's all for going through basic if she can get a slot on the mission. Actually, let's go ahead and make that the stipulation. She doesn't sign on unless she can go on the mission.

Do we make a training montage, then?

Gatac

I'd like if at all possible to skip "training montage" and get to "start the actual mission".

So far, the current plan is to finish the Diego Garcia gate, since it uses Imperial addresses. In 4 months, you'll Gate to Botane and use arms smuggling to build contacts to get to a shadowport, where, with luck, you'll link up with anti-Imperium interests who should outfit you with what you need to hit Napai/Boranai.

Your team will be all of you guys, plus Arketta, Taylor, and Mellish.

If that'll work, then let me know what you want to take with you through the Gate.

If there's a training montage to be had, could Luis get some rolls on the basics of hooking up Earth tech to Imperial and Master tech? If we get to a situation where we need to, I'd like to just be able to say "Luis jacks in" rather than "Luis looks to make sure he knows what he's doing." Sort of how he's now fluent in Imperial, but just the hardware end. Getting what he wants will depend on the device, but he can't be looking for an ethernet port in the middle of a firefight. Would that be okay?

Oh. I mentioned a while back IC that Max had worked up a translation program so your Earth laptops running the program could talk to Imperium computers.

Alright, so that leaves us with...nine people. I'd like to assign a three x three formation, omitting the grenadier + automatic rifleman positions in favor of a general "support" position. That said:

Team Alpha:

Hugh (Team Leader/Designated Marksman)
Arketta (Rifleman)
Semo (Support)

Team Bravo:

Taylor (Team Leader/Rifleman)
Angel (Designated Marksman)
Luis (Support)

Team Charlie:

Max (Team Leader/Rifleman)
Garrett (Rifleman)
Mellish (Support)

Max is a bit of a problem since his weapon skills are not so hot, but I figure we give him a rifle, call him team leader and he'll be okay. I figure if he's bossing people around anyway, that should be official.

I figure our weapons loadout from the Whirr mission is still good, though obviously we'll be carrying less supplies and general boondoggle. I'm wondering about vehicles, but we should probably not take any with us now - draws too much attention. We can still requisition as needed once we have allies.

Gatac

From a discussion with Punkey, it seems Garrett doesn't trust Max. Or anyone, really.

So it looks like we're back to two four-man fireteams plus one mission specialist. Suggestions?

Gatac

I think Max and Taylor got along pretty well. Put them in a fireteam with Luis, so both tech guys can give each other helping dice. Mellish'll be their Support position. Angel'll move to the first fireteam.

Make sure Semo has one of those great alien swords along with his usual weaponry.

Gatac wrote:

From a discussion with Punkey, it seems Garrett doesn't trust Max. Or anyone, really.

So it looks like we're back to two four-man fireteams plus one mission specialist. Suggestions?

Gatac

And Max would rather not have Garrett watching his back. The fireteam configuration of Max, Taylor, Luis, and Mellish sounds good.

You two will have to work out your trust issues at some point, but hey, so long as we can keep it under wraps beforehand rather than blowing up a fireteam in mid-mission, it's all good.

Gatac

I'm back, I hope to have an update at some point today. Punkey's got an addendum to the plan that involves "burning" Varos by putting him in US uniform and getting him to load equipment, etc. in the Gate room. It's so in case the bad guys are watching, they'll write him off as a turncoat and he won't have that hope of going home to drive his insolence.

We should have backup firearms for everyone with beam rifles, since I believe those will be going the way of the dodo once we have to pass through Imperial security scanners.

Gatac