Control your own destiny or someone else will
                                                 - Jack Welch

If everything seems under control, you aren't going fast enough
                                                 -Mario Andretti

"So you're some kinda super brain, huh?"

Major Nyda O'Bannon is staring at the projected screen that contains your life story Kaya and frowning.  When she first tried to log onto your file, she frowned and cursed because of all the security protocols she had to leap through.  Now she's frowning...maybe she just always frowns.  Was she frowning when you walked into the room?

You call up the picture of her.  A short, stocky woman in a crisp naval blue uniform, clean except for the coffee stain on the hem of her right sleeve.  And she seemed to be frowning.  At least she wasn't smiling.

So yes.  She is a frowner.

Major O'Bannon turns the screen off.  She sits back and stares at you for a moment.  You've only met four other people since you enrolled in the academy who knew you were an Ace.  They had varying reactions.  O'Bannon is the first to look at you with such overt disapproval.

But she's got the jack sockets in her shoulder and base of her neck showing she's an AI pilot.    So it probably comes as no surprise she would disappove.

"So tell me..." she finally says in a thin, dispassionate voice, the frown still not fading.  "Why fly for the navy?  Someone like you...you could probably make a lotta cash flying for a corp.  Why'd you go through the academy?"

Welcome to it Kaya.

So you just recently graduated.  For the past little while you've been cooling your heels at a naval base on a moon called Iomede Lesser.  This morning, you got orders from General Ogadi that you should report to O'Bannon.  Ogadi sponsored you into the academy.  You've met him twice in person.  Once when you were recruited and once when he handed you your insignia at the graduation ceremony.

Ogadi's orders were sparse, as has been most of his communications.  O'Bannon has full knowledge of who and what you are.  You can speak openly to her, which makes her the fifth such person in the Navy you would be able to.

I decided to just jump right in.  Let me know if there are questions or concerns.  Thanks

Kaya remained at attention and kept her gaze just above the major's right shoulder, not directly looking at her but at the wall just behind her, a skill pretty much everyone in the armed forces developed quite fast to deal with angry - or annoyed - superiors: it gave the appearance of paying attention without being confrontational.

The young woman decided to take the opening remark as a statement and not a question, so simply didn't answer. Since there probably weren't any right answer anyway, it was for the better. The other questions though... There was no way to avoid answering them. She considered answering some platitude about wanting to serve the Empire or something like that, but it wouldn't be particularly convincing: it already wasn't to her - much - so making anyone else believe it would be a stretch.

Instead, she decided to answer with some truth. Not the whole truth, but a truth nonetheless, “Ma'am, assuming a corp would have paid for flight lessons, half the sector would know what I am after a month, ma'am.” Alright, maybe it wasn't the truth but a "simple" concern, but it was a valid one nonetheless. Corps were good at keeping secrets, but only when that suited them.

Hopefully, O'Bannon wouldn't want to dig deeper into her answer and would instead decide to take care of business. Which, Kaya hoped, meant new orders for her. Meaningful orders that wouldn't keep her frozen on the ground.

In reply to Kaya Wilden (msg # 3):

O'Bannon gives you a measured look and then looks at a screen on her desk.

"Fine.  Let's get to it then."

She taps a few times on the screen she was looking at.  A holo screen appears before you.  The Little Giant system displays.  It's a nothing system.  Named for the gas giant which, comparatively speaking, isn't all that giant.  The giant has eight moons.  There's two other rocks in the system, both just big enough to be called planets, and both just stone without atmo.  Most of the populace lives on one of the Little Giant's...or LG as they like to call it...moons.

The screen changes.  A man's face and bio pops up.  Wexler 'Wheezey' Wineburger.  Small time smuggler.  He's done two light sentences on Horfa, the prison planet on this side of the Empire.  Most of his rap sheet is fairly pedestrian.  He seems to have a penchant for smuggling eggs.  Hen eggs.  Ostrich eggs.  Caviar.  Just...eggs.

"Mr. Wineburger is running a small ring selling black market produce.  Specifically he's selling quail eggs.  You ever seen 'em?  Quail eggs?  They're these little, tiny eggs.  'bout this big..."  She makes a small circle with a forefinger and thumb.  "Where the hell he gets 'em from I have no idea.  Quail aren't domesticated in Little Giant.  Or anywhere far as I know.

"That's beside the point.  We don't really care where he's getting his contraband from.  What we care about is..."

The screen shifts.  A woman's face is now visible.  A  young woman.  Maybe just twenty.  Pretty but not gorgeous.  Hazel colored eyes.  Blonde hair tied neatly into a bun.  "...her.  Georgia Millstock.  Daughter of Redley Millstock. You know the name I trust."

The Millstocks are the majority shareholders of FarFlung Technologies.  They made a name in terrforming tech but have since moved on to agricultural management.  They own or manage half the bread basket worlds on this side of the Imperial core.  Your breakfast was probably grown on one of their farms.

"Georgia is the youngest of Redley's children.  By all accounts, she was a well bred, stable little society girl.  Kept a low profile.  Smiled at everyone during the balls.  Typical rich bitch.

"Then a year ago she gets kidnapped."  You vaguely remember the news about it.  She supposedly disappeared at some kind of charity event.  "The Milstocks killed the news stories.  Everyone assumed they had their private security forces on the job.

"But a month ago, this young lady shows up as a crew member on Wineburger's vessel.  In fact, the only crew member.  Wineburger usually flies solo."

O'Bannon gives you an amused look.  "He uses a lotta AI.  So that makes it possible ya see."  She smiles at you as she makes her little dig.

The screen changes.  Security footage from what looks like a spaceport.  Wheezy and a woman who looks like Georgia are walking through a security checkpoint.  The screen freezes and zooms in on Georgia's face.

"This is from the Terminal 2 gate footage at the Vanilla space port...they named all the moons of Little Giant after ice cream flavors for some stupid ass reason.  Analysis of the footage indicates a 64.9% liklihood that this is Georgia Millstock."

O'Bannon taps the screen.  You hear the chirp as your personal comm receives a download of all the information you've just seen.

"So what's all this got to do with you?  Here's what this has to do with you.

"You'll be given an Archer class boat.  I'm giving you a small team to act as crew and back up."

She reaches into a drawer and takes out a small pin.  A crescent moon with a sideways pointing sword.  A captain's insignia.

"You are to follow Mr. Wineburger.  Do not directly engage.  At first.  We need to know first of all if that is really her.  And second, what is she doing with him.  If she's being held hostage, you are to extract her.  But don't get caught doing it.  If she dies during the extraction, we don't want any indication the Navy was involved.

"If she's there of her free will, watch but do not engage.  Just report and keep an eye on her until further orders.

"Questions?"

The info she sent you has bio on your new crew.  We'll get to that.  But let's focus on your mission for now.  Let me know if there are any questions and we will proceed.

Thanks

Kaya was quite relieved that O'Bannon had dropped the personal questions: at least that way she wouldn't have had to decide to tell the truth or lie, both options being unpalatable for various reasons. The young woman listened attentively to the Major's briefing, but she had some troubles understanding what this was all about. Granted, a smuggler might be of interest to the navy. But an egg smuggler? Not only she had trouble imagining that eggs would be something to be smuggled - at least for cooking purposes - but she couldn't imagine why the navy would care about stuff like that.

The next part of the briefing, pertaining to the Millstocks, explained it of course, in between the disparaging remarks. At least she wasn't the only target of those, so she supposed it was an O'Bannon special and didn't have much to do with her specifically, which was something she supposed. Though thinking a bit more about it, she was puzzled.

Not that she wished anything bad to happen to Georgia - even though she had to admit a pang of envy - but... Why would the navy involve itself in this problem? Sure, if the ones doing the kidnapping were pirates or foreign forces, the navy would be called upon. But a small time smuggler? It didn't really make any sense. Unless it was some kind of political move and considering who was involved, that seemed very likely she supposed.

The only question that remained was to know why she was involved. Granted, while not a Marine, she was good with a lot of weapons but that was mostly her genes doing the talking. She was very decent in hand to hand combat, but there were many better at it than she was and she definitely was not special forces. Not that she couldn't be with the proper training, but she didn't have the proper training. Only the basics of it: she was a pilot, nothing else. But... Maybe the point was to tell her that she wasn't going to be "just" a pilot...

Or maybe it was all just an excuse to give her a ship. It was something she was really excited about of course for at least two reasons: not only she would finally be piloting something, but it was an independent command which, assuming she didn't mess up, was going to do wonders for her career. And she supposed that was the whole point. Or at least part of it.

For now though, Kaya decided she didn't care about anything else but the pin in O'Bannon's hands. Yes, her ship would be a small one, pretty much the smallest hyper-capable ship in the whole navy in fact. But small as it was, it was hyper-capable, and being in command of one of those was prestigious, even though she was nothing more than a 'mere' Lieutenant.

As O'Bannon asked her if she had any questions, Kaya's gaze went with some difficulty from the pin to its original place on the wall behind O'Bannon. Questions? Well, yes, she had a ton of questions. Starting with how by the stars she was supposed to determine if Georgia Millstock had been kidnapped or somehow coerced. She could only hope someone in her crew would know a lot more than she did about those kind of operations...

Since her questions where about the how, the why or the who and not the what however, she simply answered “Ma'am, no Ma'am.”

In reply to Kaya Wilden (msg # 5):

O'Bannon blinks but finally shrugs.  A few more taps and the screen changes again.

A woman's face pops up on the screen.  Short brown hair.  Green eyes.  A scar across her nose.
A few years older than you.  AI ports obvious on her shoulder.

The screen gives her name and bio.  Perri Von Helmon.  Pilot second class.  Your co-pilot.  Four years flying experience, two in the Kinimin system revolution that ended last year.

The screen flips.

An man this time.  Maybe as old as Perri.  He has a haggard look about him.  His eyes look bloodshot.  Dark skin and darker hair.  Aarav Shashidar Engineer second class.  Looks like he and Perri know each other.  They served on the same command during Kinimin.  But Aarav was transferred out eight months prior to the end of the war.

Another man.  Older.  Thick neck and graying brown hair.  He's the only one thus far smiling.  Rokzi Polovich.  Special Forces Sargent.  Combat experience for the last eighteen years.  He's obviously the muscle on your ship.

One more rolls up.  Another woman.  She looks small.  Delicate.  Yamahato Rei.  Or would that be Rei Yamahato?  Some people of Asian descent still list their family name first.  A nurse.  She doesn't have any combat experience.  In fact she's listed as a contractor.  Medic.

O'Bannon downloads the information to your personal comm.

"Your crew.  Any questions on them?"

Kaya studied attentively the faces of all of those who were to be her crew. Of those, the one she studied the most was the co-pilot. The presence of one was to be expected…and while she really hoped everything would work fine between the two of them she didn't hope Von Helmon would have a lot of respect for her: all Kaya had working for her was her rank. Her co-pilot had the best part of four years on her and combat experience… and they would both know it. Well, no one said being in command was going to be easy: and this would likely just be the first time she'd have to prove herself.

The engineer concerned her, but for another reason entirely: the haggard air, the bloodshot eyes… Had she been given one of the navy's problem children as her engineer? And he was familiar with Von Helmon… Well, she supposed she had to see the upside of it: if she convinced one, she'd probably convince both. Unless they hated each others guts, which would be an entirely different problem.

She was however extremely glad to see the next entry. Not that she was too trusting of the smile, but he was Special Forces. Which meant he would likely know how they would be able to proceed for a lot of things that had her stumped and he had a lot of experience to top it off. Hopefully he wasn't an ass, because if there was someone she was going to have to rely on, no matter what happened, it would be him.

The last one surprised her though. A medic? For as small a crew as they were? That was surprising. Especially a civilian one. Was she there for when - or if… - they got Georgia Millstock back?

This time, asked if she asked questions, she nodded. “Yes Ma'am. Why a civilian nurse? And how were they all chosen?” She wasn't expecting the best of the best, but… Kaya really hoped it wasn't a rehabilitation cruise for any of them.

In reply to Kaya Wilden (msg # 7):

O'Bannon glances at Rei's picture and then shuts off the screen.

"We're short on medical staff.  And the orders about you require you have a medic on your crew roster.  So we found you the best one we could.

"As for the others...Perri and Aarav were assigned from HQ.  I tacked on Rokzi.  I've worked with him before.  Good man.  And you'll need someone with know how when it comes to certain parts of your job.  Also...no offense...but you don't seem the type who'd be able to fight her way out of a paper sack if the sack were made out of cheese and you were a rat.  Just don't back down with him.  Once you get Rockzi on your side, he's on your side."

She gives you a once over and then shrugs.  "You probably need somebody on your side.  Anyway.  Your ship's in dry dock.  Your crew will assemble tomorrow oh-eight-hundred standard time in Deck D briefing room. You can round them up then.  I want your ship outta my hangar by ten hundred tomorrow.

"Questions?"

Wanted to give Kaya a chance to do anything she wanted to do on base.  If there's nothing, I will move us to the briefing room.

And yes, you can go inspect the ship.  Feel free to narrate that yourself if you like.
 Thanks.