It had been a few weeks since the mission where Hex was extracted from within Northern Izya.
One morning Cunningham woke up, and as he started getting ready for the day began to mumble to himself. “I can feel it. Something big is about to happen. Whatever is about to happen, it is going to be more dangerous that anything else I have done since arriving on Earth. Given the information that Hex can provide on where the Heard is operating out of, we will likely be hitting that next time; but more than that, I can feel something in my gut, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind, an itch with the neural plugs, a twitch of the trigger finger. If this is going to happen, I need to make sure I am as prepared as possible. Lets take one last spin within Breakpoint to see if I can figure out some way to get just a little bit more out of it.”
As he walked to where the AVs were located he continued to to whisper to himself; “Given that Meryl was able to recover the launch codes for those tactical atomic weapons that Hex was able to obtain, that could be a deciding factor in changing the current status in Izya. If we can use them we need to make sure that it does not cause the Jovengellian to commit additional forces or activate some other strategic and tactical launchers on Izya. Without better air defense and some way to utilize exo-atmosphereic assets we could be in trouble if the Coalition cannot bluff that we have access to more atomic weapons after using what atomic weapons we were able to hack control of. The Defense Grid I have heard the Tower defenders have been working on could provide the air defense, but from what I have heard they have not fully got control of it and given my former allegiances they would probably not be super interested in my assistance to help them get better control. And if we could figure out a way to make the ship that the Slate Sepulchre was built out from, that could stop limit one of the Sovereigns from bombarding the Verdant Coast from orbit, but that would need a lot more work investigation of the tunnels beneath. But all of this is hypothetical, we need to get access to The Heard’s systems. And to do that we need to get into their base, with hopefully only a small portion on site; though no matter what, likely a large portion will be capable of returning once an alarm is raised. But all of that is all the more reason to be as prepared as possible for whatever we end up doing, as we will need to put all our chip on the table to find some stability for the foreseeable future.”
By this time Cunningham had arrived at the AV hanger. “I wonder if NotNot and some other member of the Rubble Runts would be able to do some Training exercises. I feel like a good game of hide-and-seek/tag could be good. That would allow to get some more experience operating under medium stress, along with hiding and avoiding detection form other AV squads. Let me see if they will pick up a call.”
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“Well that was a good experience. There was something that I just had not gotten used to with this AV; but all this experience with hiding and searching within all the geography within the Verdant Coast allowed me really get familiar with this AV. I also have some some good ideas on some ways to move through Izya without atteacting a great amount of notice, though the experience of using areas of high radiation to disrupt sensors might not be as useful out of the Verdant Coast where there is not as many random spots of high radiation. I also have a good feel now how to keep the AV working for a long period of time without the reactor overheating during the continuous operation. There might be some more I can do for final preparations, but at this time, I think I am as prepared as I am going to be.”