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YGGDRASIL Facility 419: Berlin Command
[Air Marshal Lerghen to Hangar 7. Repeat. Air Marshal Lerghen to Hangar 7...]
The procedurally generated voice of HERTHA echoes through the halls as you make your way to Hangar 7. She - as much as any general intelligence system can have a gender - has a voice that speaks volumes of the Colonel Riker's preferences. Light and soft, a mature lady who hasn't forgotten her maiden's heart even though she's been around the block a few times. Or at least that's how the dirty old man describes it.
The base halls are Spartan and metallic, coated with a special paint that lends the metal resistance to high concentrations of salt. This close to Containment Zone 194, the walls need the protection. People outside have a nasty habit of turning to pillars of salt, you see. Even with them readily available to the general populace, Baldr Inhibitors can only do so much to protect you from WCS. That's why they pay you the big bucks to fly into the hottest of hot zones and pick up the lads and lasses who have the good fortune of being immune to that shit.
Hangar 7's not far from where you were hanging with the lads. Five minutes and you're in, another ten and you're suited up for delivery.
"Lerghen!" A voice you didn't expect to hear pipes up. Your face goes a little pale, because that's the big boss, the dirty old man himself: Colonel Riker. Where you're tall, a bit lanky, square faced, and youthful, Riker's as squat as they come, weathered with experience, and broad as the barn he grew up in. You can hear the countryside in his voice, it never gets old. "There you are! We don't have much time, so I'll be brief. Unit 9 needs pick up one mile into the Exclusion Zone. I need you running silent and low. Tech boys will be running EM interference to keep you off radar, but we can't take any chances."
You give the admiral a strange look. You pilot a Valkyrie-232, a bird that can run close to silent with sonic dampening, but... "Colonel, shouldn't we be sending a Sparrowhawk in? Valks aren't built for stealth exfils."
The old colonel cracks a smile, "When you get as old as I am, you'll learn that however quiet a Sparrowhawk might be, it's also quite loud in other ways. You're the best Valk pilot we got, so I'm sending you in. The coords are already in your ship. HERTHA will help with navigation. Get in, keep the engines on, and bring our lads back, got it?"
You nod slowly and salute, "Yes, sir."
Technicians help you get into an extra layer of protection for the Exclusion Zone. Once you're in, HERTHA appears in the form of a little chibi avatar on the holodash.
[Hello Air Marshall Lerghen. I have plotted multiple viable routes to our target coordinates.]
>Follow the Spree as far as you can
>Follow the old thoroughfare
>Follow the back roads
>Take to the radar shadows of old skyscrapers
>Follow the path of the old wall that divided east and west
>"No, I have a better route" (Write In)
