The Confederation picket destroyer Rodger Young is sitting in cover behind
the first moon of Terravia.  You and your team just got here by fast
courier, burning at high-G all the way.  Right now, you're sitting in the
Rodger Young's briefing room with the rest of your team, listening to
final instructions from Lieutenant-Colonel Halloran, the senior officer in
the Terravia system, before you 'port down to the Terravia planetary
defence missile base.  The missile base has apparently been overrun by
something, but no-one's quite sure what; the frantic message requesting
urgent reinforcements was badly garbled, and cut off part-way through. 
Your special unit gets to find out what's down there and clean it out.... 
happy happy, joy joy. 

   "...We're dropping you in at night," the Colonel tells you, "because
there seems to be less activity down there at night.  Our on-site team,
Team Alpha, dropped in by daylight, and none of them even made it inside
the complex.  We're hoping that by sending you down at night, you'll have
a batter chance.  You have one advantage they didn't have, too; one of the
two men who managed to get into the armory was able to bring the
transporter pads in there back on line, so we're 'porting you directly
into the armory.  You won't have to take fire dropping in on agrav."

   "Unfortunately, there's some bad news for you too.  We have audio from
Team Alpha's helmet cams, but no video - something seemed to be jamming
the signal.  The last man left from Team Alpha said that something had him
cornered in the heavy-weapons ammunition locker, and said something about
fire.  Shortly after that, the transmission stopped abruptly; scanners
showed a sharp spike in the infra-red, apparently confined to that side of
the armory.  We deduce that there was a fire and explosion in the
heavy-weapons locker, but the blast door was able to contain it.  So,
you'll have no BFG's, very little chaingun ammo, and no rockets besides
what's in the launchers in the ready-use rack.  The bulk plasma will be
gone, too.  We'd stock you up here, but we gave Team Alpha everything we
could spare when they dropped, and the resupply ship isn't due for two
months.  Make the most of what's in that armory, because it'll probably be
all you get; it may have to last you through the entire base.  There
should at least be a reasonable amount of plasma cells - don't go hog-wild,
though.  We were able to fill Alpha out pretty well from our plasma stocks,
so they shouldn't have taken too much from the armory."

   "There's another thing, too:  Whoever - or whatever - is down there,
they've apparently got the plasma cannon emplacements in the compound into
action.  That's what took out most of Team Alpha.  We're picking up energy
readings that suggest they may have been damaged by Team Alpha, though;
indications are that the plasma couplings may have become unstable.  It's
not much, but it may give you a chance.  We're picking up a lot of other
intermittent energy readings that we don't understand; we wish we could
tell you what they mean, but we don't know."

   "Judging by our infra-red scans, you can expect to encounter large 
numbers of troops in the compound.  Take them down fast, but don't waste 
your ammo - god alone knows what you'll find inside.  You may need every 
round later."

   "Oh, and once you're in, it's up to you to get back out again.  If
things go bad, we daren't risk attempting an extraction.  If they've got
the defence missiles operational as well, we wouldn't stand a chance. 
We're taking a big enough chance just taking one more fast pass into
transporter range.  We've spotted a shuttle on the field that appears to
be still operational - if you can get to it.  If you don't make it out... 
there won't be a third team after you.  General Samuels is due in two days
on the battlecruiser Bellerophon; if Terravia Base is still in hostile
hands when the Bellerophon arrives, I expect he'll order a saturation
thermonuclear strike from orbit."

The Colonel closes his folder, and gives you a grim look.

   "Just one other thing:  Good luck.  You're going to need it."

With a feeling of foreboding, you report to the transmat staging pads....


