"Cooking?" Corval says, rubbing his neck "Report said you were the best flametank expert we had. Prior experience and everything, didn't say anything about ..... cooking."<br/><br/>Having twigged at the Administratum's mistake, he can't help crack a smile. "Well it's too late to change that."<br/><br/>The smile's quickly wiped off when Ellie helps Leonora dodge an errant pair of socks.<br/><br/>"All right! All right, maybe a bad idea to get you all to show off with a witch girl. I'll cut to the chase." and he undoes a few buttons of his coat to pull out a map laying it out on a crate and pinning the ends down with a compass that was spinning wildly and a few shiny purple stones.<br/><br/>The map shows a topographical section of the planet, though it being desert there isn't exactly a lot of mountain to be seen. It's one giant flat plain with three chasms cutting across it in a striped pattern, by the markings they each have to be at least several miles wide even at the thinnest parts. A straight road runs across the map and winds between the thinnest parts of the chasms with a single bridge spanning each one. Corval taps the one on the left edge of the map.<br/><br/>"This one's ours. Hutera got smashed by something massive once and the whole planet looks like a cracking egg, but an egg full of fancy minerals or some shit. I don't know, they ain't sending us down there to dig. It's valuable is the important part and far enough into Imperial space that nobody thought it'd ever cause much trouble. Then everyone started getting sick, real sick and the Local Garrison weren't able to keep a handle on it. They put the yell out for other planets forces to come assist putting down riots, which they did and by then they all got sick and went crazy. Local forces fighting their rescuers, regiments breaking off and someone finally used their head and realized the waters tainted. Arch-enemy stuff snuck in under everyone's noses, heads will roll. All that."<br/><br/>He points at the bridge again, "So the Mettalon 14th Mechanized and the Verani 1st Artillery are still on our side and they want to get about and start winning the war down there. Which means bridges. You think about the cracked eggshell again? Every piece of it is like its own little island. You control all the bridges you can lock pieces down and siege them out, but taking them by land is hellish. There's no cover, you're just marching straight into entrenched positions with enough anti tank guns to turn a baneblade into a colander."<br/><br/>Cooking reference! He was pandering to the crowd.<br/><br/>"We're going in from the air. Sweeping up a lot of bridges in one go. For our bridge Devil Dog has got the East End and Chimeral the West and we have to take the bridge intact. We take our end, sweep up the bridge to make sure it's clear and then hold it until the Verani and Mettalon break through to us. We've got to take it too, there's nowhere to retreat to and the Valks won't be picking us up as long as the fortifications are live. We fail at this then we all die on our very first mission and that'd just be depressing."<br/><br/>He takes a quill from his coat pocket and marks out some lines on the map by the end of the bridge. "Once we've got it, we'll dig in. Fight off any counter attacks and await rescue. If all went well, they'll have a clear shot to us and we'll have opened a land bridge right across the planet. If we lose bridges, then we'll be doing air bridges over the chasm so it isn't the end of the world but everything will take longer and believe me, you don't want to be down there any longer than you want to be."<br/><br/>He looks up from the map, letting quiet settle in before adopting a more serious tone. "Don't eat anything down there. Don't drink anything. The food and water we bring with us is all we got, so if you've been sneaking rations already own up to it and get a resupply. You'll be issued masks and if you're told to put them on just do it because you will be shot if you're slow. The Commissar's also said she's shooting anyone who doesn't look healthy and yes, that does include us so don't get sick. Inessa, you're to team to meet up with other flame teams as soon as we're done and burn any bodies and heretical looking materials. As soon as the firefight stops, don't wait for us."<br/><br/>He lets out a breath and tries to regain his sly smile.<br/><br/>"Commissar threatened to shoot us three times just briefing us about that, so I wanted to get it right. So. Any questions or requests, now's the time."