text | un: redlion

[secondnature]

[This message shows up about an hour after their arrival in the Mothership. Keith has had it made clear to him that if he doesn't handle this appropriately, then some of the people who have volunteered will take care of it themselves. If there's any better reason to step up (to be the leader his team back home believes he can be), this is it. It's text because they can't risk being overheard.]

Hey. Some of you don't know what the taraxa are, or what that has to do with our mission. I thought I'd begin there, and then make it clear what we're doing here with that.

A year ago, we had a mission on Perdition's Rest. That's when our team first learned about Zymandis and their goals. They utilize taraxa agents. These agents are slugs that take over someone's mind against their will. The person loses themselves, but ALASTAIR has developed a means to get most of them back. The problem is that they're a part of a hive mind led by the Mother. They can communicate with each other so long as she's active.

That should make our goal here clear.

1. We need to identify the location of the Mother and take her out. This is a necessary casualty to save as many of the hosts' lives as we can.

2. We need to identify taraxa agents. Kal and Rhys both have means to scan for taraxa-affected brains. Work with them if you need someone confirmed. Once they're confirmed and the Mother is down, we put them to sleep until we can rift them back to Oska. We'll need to find a safe place to gather the bodies.

3. Once the Mother is identified, we take her out, and then we head for the rest of the taraxa agents.

We need to work quickly.

And I KNOW some of you will think we're better off killing the hosts than risking Oska, but that's stupid. They never asked for this! Plus, we put down a Zymandis force before. We'll do it again. So don't even try it. I already remember all that from last year. Trust me. I've heard it all before.

So, let's do this the right way this time.

[It wouldn't be Keith without the little bit of abrasiveness at the end.]

Comments

[secondnature]

It's not a bad plan, but I'm not sure I'm willing to risk it. When we fought these guys before, they could work in unison. Think many people working in sync with one another to hit you at the same time. It's the Mother who makes that possible. I'd prefer some kind of ... decoy, so they're not anywhere near her when their connection gets cut off.

[In terms of keeping her alive, Keith hasn't figured out that some people are reluctant to kill her.]

[controlling]

You misunderstand. She would be sedated along with the rest. As a bonus, she could be kept in that state until an extraction can be attempted.
It's much easier to wrangle enough supplies to keep one under for several hours.

[secondnature]

Keep her alive too, and save her.

It's not a bad idea, but I'm worried that they might still be able to connect even if she's out.

We might need to make sure they can't right away. Some ... test.

[controlling]

Exactly.

[ see: "necessary" is extremely debatable, etc. ]

We can figure something out. The hard part will be in the finding her. It'll all be for nothing unless we locate her first.

[secondnature]

Well, these guys are way more organized than ALASTAIR. It reminds me of where I trained about a year before I joined this team.

What if they keep it all on file?

[It can't be that simple, but it's worth a shot.]

[controlling]

It's about the same odds as someone's password being "password."

[ aka it is a distinct possibility and one worth checking. ]

[secondnature]

Uh.

Are those odds high or low?

[Keith doesn't really think about other people's passwords.]

[controlling]

It means I'll look into it.

[secondnature]

[Maybe that's why all Galra Tech magically opens to Galra DNA even if it makes no sense to be that insecure.

Keith is now figuring out passwords. +1 to learning stats. Or whatever.]

Got it.

Let us know what you find.