Carl stretched out on the cramped bed as best as he could.  His mind was whirring with questions as he processed his current situation.  When he got up in St. Petersburg 24-hours earlier, he certainly didn't expect to find himself in a small cube aboard a cold aeroplane a day later.  Looking back, he again wondered what really was going on.  He'd started his day normally enough, but before midday, he'd gotten a call directly from Pori Brigade's commander, which was highly unusual.  Even more unusual was the immediate recall order he was informed of.  Usually he got at least a week or two of warning when he was required for duty.  The urgency meant something truly odd was going down, so he'd placed a call to his office, informed them of his immediate recall order and left his second in charge of the labs until further notice.<br/><br/>After boarding the first Allegro bullet train to Helsinki, he was immediately airlifted via military helicopter from the Capital's garrison to Pori Brigade FRDF (Finnish Rapid Deployment Forces) headquarters.  After receiving an extremely sparse briefing which screamed "COVER-UP" he was immediately reactivated as a Sergeant First Class and shipped of to the rendezvous in Europe.  He'd only brought his old Leatherman multitool he'd been gifted during his tour as a peacekeeper as a good luck charm, so when informed that he should choose his equipment, he went to work during the trip.  After considering what little he knew of the mission parameters, he figured he'd better be prepared for as much as possible so he began putting together as comprehensive signal and data analysis kit as possible.<br/><br/>He ticked the items off in his mind as he listed them:<br/><ul class="bbc_list"><li>Full m05 Combat System equipment, Artic configuration</li><li>Rk-95 FS with VV2000 and UB 40mm</li><li>Model 241 VHF radio with datalink and extra batteries</li><li>Backup HF radio with datalink and extra batteries</li><li>V5 Toughbook with C/C, ECM/ECCM, signal and interference analysis and comm trace software installed.</li><li>Multi-frequency miniCOMROD</li><li>Multipurpose solar charger for all electronic gear.</li></ul><br/>The list went on to be fairly long, but he was fairly certain he'd hit the main points.  With the kit he put together, he should be able to survive just about anything, and even though Arctic conditions were new, he'd operated in conditions below -30 celcius before.  He'd also included every piece of signal and communications analysis equipment he could think of since his function was apparently keeping people connected and also to figure out if there were problems in comms systems present.<br/><br/>After some more musing, he snapped back to the present in the small cube in the cold cargo hold, which was getting colder.  He quickly went to the equipment chest and after some head scratching, managed to get the arctic survival suit put on properly.  After that he munched on a few meal bars, and shoved more into his pockets for later.  He'd learned to always conserve food when possible in his prior military experience.  You could never be sure when the next meal would be coming, after all.  Having completed his preliminary preparations, he sat down on the bed in a Tai Chi meditation posture in the large and warm suit, and took a moment to look at the MOBA and go over the information in the brief once more.  After that he secured the MOBA in a different suit pocket from his leatherman and food and set out to get some lat minute rest.<br/><br/>He was unsure how long had passed until the turbulence and announcements woke him up.  He scrambled to a better position, and made a few quick stretches to get blood flowing again after his nap.  He got more than a little worried as the turbulence got worse, but in general he believe in the safety of air travel.  Of course, he'd never been that fond of military planes.  After the extremely threatening noises from the plane he began to curse mentally, which turned into audible cursing in four different languages as the floor dropped out from underneath them, while still keeping them locked in their cubicles.  He almost froze instantly with an overwhelming fear; how does one defend from freefall?  After a moment of tumbling about and almost hitting his head, he got himself under control and grabbed all the blankets and futons and wrapped around himself before curling into a ball and bracing his head  as safely as possible for impact, biting a blanket to keep from biting his tongue in the impacts.