It was snowing, it never stopped snowing. Whiskey ran her finger across the metal bars that lined her cell. What was left of her ARC team sat scattered around the room with her. It had been seventeen days since she had arrived on Anteevy to look into the Blanchard Corporation. What they found was a far more organized group than she had expected.

She lost three good troopers, and even she didn’t know the whole story as to why. Being in ARC she was used to ambiguous mission protocols. Information was on a need to know basis, but that was true to life and it gave hers purpose.

The objectives, this time, were to infiltrate a base on Anteevy, determine who rebuilt the place and why, then get the frak out. The base had given the Vast Empire Army trouble in the past, some organization headed by a man that created a computer virus. The virus was so good it required a platoon to bring it down. They destroyed everything, possibly the organization itself with a self destruct. But those were details, and she preferred to steer clear of superfluous information.  Instead of a base in the midst of construction, she walked her team into a fully operational intelligence base with a surprisingly well armed security squad.

“If you tell us what we want to know, we might let you live, at the very least we will get you a hot meal.” The guards played cards sitting just out of reach spouting obnoxious asides all day long. That was far more torturous than any of the questioning sessions she had endured.

Her eyes turned to glare at the man, then she smirked and returned to her task of removing the ice that had formed on the metal bars with her index finger.

“You know what.” He got up slamming the cards back on the table, which got an annoyed response from his cohorts. “You are by far the most irritating woman I’ve ever met.”

Whiskey laughed out loud despite herself. “Don’t get out much, do ya?”

He punched the bars then quickly yelped in pain, groaning and holding his hand while the other guards burst out laughing.

One of the guards walked over and helped his partner back to the table, then turned his attention back to the woman. “He does have a point though, all they’ve asked is your name. What’s so bad about telling them that?”

Her cool blue eyes peered at him through the bars. “Names are the gateways to knowledge, and if knowledge is power, I’d rather the power stay with me.”

“What does that crap even mean?” The guard with the injured hand spat the words between groans.

Whiskey shrugged. “I’m going to walk out of here, because you are stupid.”

He jumped up to attack the bars again but was held down by the other guards. That ended the conversation. One of the men helped the guard to the infirmary and the others resumed their card game, probably with some cheating just for good measure.

“How are we getting out of here boss?”

Whiskey turned to look at the young man directly behind her. They were ARC, trained to infiltrate, go ahead of the army and walk into the unknown. This circumstance was part of their training, they all knew that being captured probably meant this was their last rodeo. If standard protocol was followed, there was already an ARC Iota being formed to take Theta’s place.

“They need us for something, or they would have killed us when they found us.” Whiskey turned to rest her back against the cold wall. Her eyes scanned the tired faces of the remainder of her team. “Our objective is to maintain protocol. Find their weakness and exploit it. I can’t promise that we will find any friends beyond those doors, but I know we have none in here.”

She looked at the sky and couldn’t shake the strange feeling that there was one Army officer who would probably plan something stupid and suicidal to find her.

OOC:

ZOMG ITS ARC! Yes, now untwist your panties and listen up. This is what remains of ARC theta (no player characters except Whiskey). Any member of AHC that would like to create and play an ARC character and post in this thread just let me know.

For everyone else, this thread will serve to give you some perspective on our enemy and the ARC team you are supposed to be trying to rescue.

ARC is not currently open, again, this is basically an NPC squad, but if you like ARC and what we do perhaps we can open one up in the near future

Cartias leaned back in her chair, her feet propped up on her desk. The wall in front of her was filled with terminal screens, displaying every function of the Blanchard base and current company operating stats. She flinched as several indicators on the screens changed from white to red.

"Great."

The door burst open, her employees knew better than to come in unannounced, so this one must have had a death wish. Her eyes glared up into the face of the sweaty man. "Ma'am, we have intruders. I've counted four separate entry points. I've dispatched teams to the locations..."

"Don't bother." She pulled the datapad off the desk and started checking status reports of the security feeds. Cartias smirked as the feeds suddenly went offline, hello Jana.

"But Ma'am?!?"

They both looked up at the terminals as the indicators now changed from green to red.

"Don't alter your orders to the teams you sent out. I want the rest of them guarding the mainframe room and every possible entry point to that area. That is all."

The man staggered, stumbling over words that never materialized before he found his way back out of the room.

Cartias had worked hard to maintain an image of mystery around her. She found that she didn't have to be particularly evil to spread the rumor that she was. Just make sure only one merc had access to her office, know everything that was going on, and have staffers disappear mysteriously from time to time. It was almost too easy to accomplish.

"Forgive me Cartias if I'm not seeing the logic in your current plan."

The blonde haired woman tossed the datapad back to the desk and smiled a sweet sarcastic smile. "Hi Fikk. Been hanging around long?"

The image of an overweight man with thin receding red hair projected to her desk comm. He stood only about a meter tall but with the additional height of the desk that gave him a perch to glower down at her.

"Cartias I went along with your plan this long. I've trusted you with this situation, my company, my life. Now there are no less than fifty intruders in my base and I'm not seeing the grand scheme here."

"You know they are the same bastards that destroyed the base before, blasted Vast Empire can't even find another company to send and do their dirty work." Her eyes gazed at the static that was her security feeds and spat the words. "Phoenix Company."

"Carti, I didn't leave you in charge so you could go on a personal revenge escapade. We can rebuild this company but now we have the risk of losing the base....again."

She regarded him in silence for several moments. They had accomplished many things in the past three years since the first time she heard of Phoenix company. She went from being a nobody assistant to being entrusted with the management of the company. Of course Fikk was never far away, he still had his fingers in all operations so that wasn't really much more than putting a body to his will.

"Fikk you know the plan. We have the chance to sucker punch our old enemy today. We opened the doors to them, now we crush them. Like a rat in a trap. Once they are out of the way we prove to Thrawn or whoever bids highest that we are a group that can handle their own business and we can supply them with the very best in tech."

Fikk crossed his oversized arms and looked at her, his expression giving no indication to his thoughts. "You do realize, if they do destroy the base, like before..."

"Yes, dammit Fikk, yes. If J'ak hadn't finished that program before he...before...we wouldn't even be able to have this conversation. I know I'm the only one that knows the truth of our situation and I realize that if the base goes the program goes, along with..."

"Me."

"Right."

They remained quiet in the midst of the destruction going on around them.

----------------------------------~~~------------------------------------

An explosion rocked the holding cells. Whiskey watched as the guards suddenly moved in a frenzy. Her eyes met one of the other ARC troopers in the cell adjacent to hers. She wasn't sure how moving her to a cell by herself would make her more inclined to talk to them. Her training would never allow that.

"You did this!" Bradley grunted, a stream of blood from flying shrapnel was slowly dripping from his hairline. He threw himself at the bars and let out a primal growl in frustration.

"Sir, Sir!" A younger guard appeared behind Bradley, they all looked so confused by the situation. Whiskey stepped forward until she could smell the remnants of the last meal the guard captain had. "Sir, we have intruders, they will be here in less than five minutes. Auxiliary measures have been engaged."

He snarled and pushed off the bars. "Go set up a perimeter, they are here for the prisoners and I won't let them have what they want."

With that he was gone, the room was emptied as the guards defended the room. Something had shifted in a cell down the hall, it almost looked like a handful of rifle butts, a weapons cashe that had been locked up for some reason.

"Gee Boss you really have a way with people." The young ARC trooper smirked from his cell. All of them were now leaning against the bars looking expectantly at her.

She smiled in return and spun a set of keycards she had removed from Bradley's belt around her finger. "Yea, I really do. Ready to go boys?"