Thread: Stars Fallen - An IID Casefile [Mr. M & Jaijin]

Between the preliminary scouting, the telemetry of the drop pod, the telemetry of Cadmus's gear, and his various reports, her drop zone was pretty well-defined. When the crew strapped her into the coffin-like pod, they made sure she had on her datagoggles. Not only were they good eye protection and vision aid low-light, thermographic, telescopic, and microscopic vision assistance came standard, they were also data feeds they could display information from the pod computer or her own gear straight into her personal field of vision, including allowing her to view the sensor data from the outside of the pod, like a VR of the descent. They'd discovered long ago that this eliminated much of the claustrophobic reactions some operatives would have. Securely strapped inside, with just enough pseudogravity to keep her feeling safe and stable, Dr. Lee was released into orbit when the target zone was just entering night-side. Every operative was well-trained on drop procedure, but only very rarely was such an insertion required, and this was Dr. Lee's first actual field drop, which gave it a headier sense of risk. The pod's automatic maneuvering dropped lower into the atmosphere, special heat-sinks absorbing the friction of entry to minimize the thermal glow. State of the art sensor countermeasures flexed, unnecessarily but out of habit, as the pod flashed lower, streaking lower in what was technically a spiral, circling the planet in a descending course aimed at the deserted patch of wood about two kilometers worth of farmland away from the MacFannish clan stronghold, according to the Cadmus data. The pod's chromatic skin changed color to match the sky, or the clouds, or whatever was above it, as it raced over seas and land. The colony wasn't huge, but there were a few outlying settlements, and who knows what explorers might happen to be passing underneath. Finally, the draw of actual gravity superseded the false gravity generated by the pod, and the gentle rattling of the internals quieted down as the small vessel shed its speed and kicked its gravitic propulsion into high, changing its downward spiral into a lateral zipping dash as the computer sought out an ideal landing place. It finally settled in the shadows between several trees, and the clamshell doors unsealed themselves as the straps all released at once, freeing Dr. Lee into the night air of Helios 67. It was a rural planet, like any other, with minor variations such as pronounced rocky terrain and a strong whipping wind, but air and gravity were within norms, and her datagoggles threw up directionals and identifiers, showing that there was a road over the next rise, that the border of the main city of Helios was approximately ten or so kilometers to the east, and that the MacFannish stronghold was a little over two kilometers to the south-southwest. She'd been updated on the local accent and language variations, she had knowledge of the lay of the land, and access to all the gathered I.I. data of the culture, and she had on a reasonable facsimile of a local conservative-style female outfit which wasn't altogether comfortable, but that was a minor detail compared to the necessity of fitting in. She was, in a word, ready. Time to go.