The mood seemed to change as she entered the room. Her eyes narrow at the female captain. Just as the woman seemed to be sizing up the amazon, she was doing much the same. Iria merely crossed her arms when ordered to take a seat. Of course this made her arms pressed up against her large breasts making them seem larger as they press against her tight fitting suit.

Her teeth grind in anger as she glared at the woman. They took away her ship?! The ship itself meant nothing to her but it was her only way to leave this base. The one thing that pissed the amazon off more than anything is higher ups attempting to chain her down. She cared nothing for these officers or these other agents around her. The only thing going through her mind was getting her own ship back.

The amazon warrior gazed at the hologram briefly. She did not think much of the skinny aliens or their technology. Pure might could overcome some useless tech toys at least in her mind it did. She thought little of the briefing and even less of the captain trying to keep her on a leash.

"Hmph.." she huffed at the woman who seemed to agree with the captain. Natsuki was nearly a foot shorter than the amazon and much skinnier. Iria had bad tendency to let her pride judge others and she currently saw herself as a superior woman compared to these other agents. "I do not care if some weak agents could not handle these aliens. Just give me my damn ship back and I will take out these pests one ship, one alien at a time. I do not need you or anyone trying to tell me what to do much less try and help me." There was a good reason she usually worked alone. Iria was nothing but trouble and disrespectful to most agents unless they prove themselves something other than weak.

You shouldn't judge an agent by first impressions. Minerva replies as she joined in the conversation. You do not know what strengths the agents bring to the table. Minerva herself didn't look very intimidating compared to Iria, but she was a crack shot and excellent pilot. And Minerva prided in her ability to learn about her opponents.

However even as Minerva mentioned it, Minerva could see the three of them being about to form a pretty good team as long as they cooperated with each other. Iria seemed to be excellent at Close Quarters Combat which meant if Minerva could support her with her rifle, the two would be unstoppable...at least in theory.

Of course that left Natsuki. Minerva knew little about the new blue haired agent except that she apparently had some sort of mecha and that the cruiser they were using was hers. How she was able operate such a cruiser by herself was simply amazing. She would defiantly learn more as she they were on the mission.

They don't look like much, and that is part of the reason they are so dangerous. Every single Midrozi is a psychic, although what they can do with their mind ranges from illusions to physical 'projections' that give them the ability to directly influence the world around them and reading, sometimes manipulating even, minds. Add to that they always use poison, drugs and whatever else they can use to make a fight as unfair as possible. Their warriors are probably better than most ADD marines, in both skill and equipment, and they have a lot more warriors than the ADD has personall, let alone soldiers or agents. Finally a Midrozi fighting us will know how to use their fingers to flood your body with pain via nerve clusters.

They are a lot more likely to simply blow an opponent's ship up in space as they are to let them try and fight. However give them a large enough target and they will try and board. As such we have a full crew aboard a cruiser. It's too juicy a target for them to blow it up. For the most part ... the crew aboard the Desmond are nothing more than bait.

Nallia had a feeling that the other three agents underestimated just what they were going up against. If she couldn't change that in time ... their first deployment would turn out badly. Underestimating the Midrozi was a mistake she knew a lot of beings made, both in a fight and in negotiations. The Midrozi knew that, and they knew how to enflame that and when it blinded someone exploit it.

Each of them is a psychic? That's alot more dangerous than I realized. Psychics could do alot of damage mentally to a person. Minerva began to listen more intently to Nallia's description of them. Slowly she was getting to a better feel of how dangerous the enemy truely was.

The fact that the typical ADD marine was far inferior to the more numerous Midrozi, made Minerva think this mission was more like the Battle of the Little Big horn than a pitched battle. She would have to think of way to counter act the big advantage the Midrozi had. She needed to know more. Please tell me more about them.

Being outnumbered and outgunned was nothing new to anyone in this line of work. On Earth, humans may be the top of the food chain but out in space they were the bottom. It is why the higher ups had to make deals with the aliens and allow young woman to be taken to another planet to be trained as potential slaves or if lucky become ADD agents. Though being drafted into the ADD was not much safer than being made into a sex slave. In some cases, it was more just an extra step before suffering their fate.

Iria was not concerned about such things. A hard war just meant more battles and more opponents for her to fight. She had her share of defeats and captures but those failures had not lessened the amazon's desire to fight strong opponents. Midrozi seem to be strong and numerous, much fun to be had as far as she was concerned. This still did not change the fact she did not want or need these other women telling her what to do.

It only annoyed her further to be completely ignored by the captain. "Great, just send me a file on them and I will be on my way," Iria replied, "Sitting around is not going to stop these things now are they?" Her hands opened and closed into fists, the busty agent was growing impatient.

Nallia sighed as Iria chose to ignore her warnings. I'm curious Iria ... how would you counter something that can make your mind unable to see, hear, or even smell them? What would you do if they started shooting at you? How would you even force them to offer you a fight in hand to hand? How will you stop them from simply melting your ship with plasma, or blowing it apart with rail guns? The Midrozi clan are not like most slavers. Unless you give them the right incentive they will not risk their hunters or warriors. Asingle human, they would simply kill in space where they have every single advantage. A group ... that becomes too much potential profit to ignore and pass up. This is not something that simply knowing the facts will allow you to face, let alone defeat. You have to be able to come up with the counters to those facts. Hopefully that would serve the dual purpose of answering Minerva's request for more information and make Iria, even slightly, more accepting of her new position as part of a team rather than lone agent.

Nallia paused for a moment as she considered. As much as she hated to admit it Iria was important. She was probably about Nallia's equal in hand to hand combat, and such ability was very rare for a human. So it was time to fan her pride a little and hope that the new tack made her more managable. I can come up with ways to bring you into close combat with the Midrozi. I can force them to fight you, can stop them from simply running away from you and refusing to face you. But I can't actually defeat them. That is why you were assigned here, because if any agent has a chance at doing so it will be you. Nallia really wasn't sure just what sort of response Iria would offer to that. She just knew that unless she managed to somehow get through to Iria things would go bad, much faster than they had any right to.

Minerva thought about it, there had to be someway to defeat them. If they can make it so that our minds would not react to them, then it would hard to defend against them. The red head mind started to grind away at the problem. Unfortunately, she really didn't like the answers she was coming up with. Unfortunately, they will not fight fair and will use their mind games against us. So we have to not fight as fair either. We need some of our own personnel hidden away while some of us make a stand. They will target the defenders with psionics and might overlook the our hidden defenders. Our hidden defenders can then take them down before they can respond. However, if it takes too long, the hidden defenders will have the psionics inflicted on them as well. So we need someone who capable of leading the the hidden team to quickly overwhelm them.

Minerva hoped that such a position would satisfy the larger woman, but it was clear she was a lone wolf...someone who was happier to work alone then in a group. Minerva was quite the opposite, she fought harder when it was someone else's life on the line. However, hopefully Iria would finally accept and work with this team of soldiers.

"Complaining about how they are a more advanced species and have access to better technology is definitely not countering anything," Iria replied coldly, "And your answer for this is instead of death of one agent is to force a group of agents to be defeated and taken into slavery instead? Throwing fodder is not going to help anyone besides feed them with more agents to be interrogated and become their little puppets." She was not impressed with this plan. Majority of the agents in the ADD joined to avoid slavery not to be thrown back in it. With prisoners, the Midrozi could do even cheaper tactics by making the situation a hostage situation while they toy with the other agents' minds.

"You have already made it quite clear that they can read minds so any sort of setup for one on one would be read by anyone involved," she said coldly, "All your plan does is give the Midrozi more slaves, nothing more. I am pretty sure most agents would rather die than have to endure something like that, captain." The situation was pretty hopeless but Iria did not care about such things. They are a more advanced species which was nothing new to an experienced agent. At least if she went alone the most that would be lost is one scout ship and an agent and what could be gain is taking a few of them out should it become a dog fight. Nallia's plan involved letting the psychic aliens on board a larger vessel where they could effectively use their powers on them all. Iria saw it better to do this alone. It was obvious this was just a desperate tactic by the ADD to create doom brigade.

Nallia's expression didn't change at Iria's words, although inwardly she flinched. That realistion had been something she had seen in a moment, and she had access to all sorts of information that Iria didn't. But she couldn't show that she agreed with that assessment, even if Iria believed it Minerva, Galina and Natsuki still seemed to have some hope. None of them knew about the battlemasters, or just what they could do. Nallia knew she probably should tell them, but had no idea how she could maintain any form of morale if she did. She would just have to hope that they survived.

The Elite caste are the only caste that can read minds. The warriors and hunters that we will probably find ourselves up against do not have any ability ro read your mind. And since the Elites don't put themselves at risk the only reason you would face one is if things are either going very well, or very badly. They also require very close proximity to do so, and before they reach that proximity it should be simple enough to shoot them. Jarri are a very fragile species, and for the most part they will be very easy to injure or preferably kill. The Midrozi are arrogent, they refer to all other species as animals. I know how to use that arrogence, how to give us an advantage.

Nallia had known Iria would be trouble, and short of dueling the busty amazon Nallia had little real idea how to deal with her. She knew what was about to happen was bad, but she couldn't stop herself from snapping and releasing at least some of the tension she felt at this.

Besides, you all have just as much choice about your position in this as I do. Your stuff has already been transfered across and the only options available to all of us are go along with it or face a trail for subordination. And my guess is if you face such a trail you will soon find yourself on a slave market somewhere. To be honest I would rather see if we can actually do some damage to the Midrozi or at least make them hesitate before dealing in humans again. But if you want to find yourself collared and leashed to some shuros chair than don't let me stop you.

Minerva was watching the verbal sparring between Iria and Nallia. The two seemed to be entrenched on their side of the camp. Still there was alot of information to about the Midrozi and Minerva made mental notes. Right now there was little reason to provide opinions on how to fight the Midrozi as a team when the very concept of a team was being challenged.

So how do we best use their arrogance against them?

"Hmph... Whatever..." There was little else the agent could say now. Nallia had pulled rank and an agent had no place to talk back to a captain. But the fact it came down to that was a small victory though Iria gained nothing from it. She was stuck with this little squad and there was nothing she could do about it now. Oh well, at least she might find some strong foes to use her hammer on.

With the matter closed, Iria simpled went back and leaned against the wall beside the door. She crossed her arms infront of her large chest and merely waited for the briefing to be done with. Eventually she would have to go to this new ship and see the Midrozi first hand. What happens in a briefing room behind a desk meant little to her.

Nallia's predatory eyes noticed Iria's brief flash of what she thought was a victory, albeit a minor one. However that victory soon changed to irritation when she realised that she was still stuck on the squad. She didn't have a choice in the matter, and neither did Nallia. If she had any option she would have gone on her own, and simply tried to hunt them down that way. But she had her orders, she had no choice but to operate in this way.

They will assume they are going to win. If you ever injure or kill a Midrozi it can leave the other Midrozi stunned in disbelief for a few seconds. Of course when they recover they are going to be determined to do whatever it takes to get revenge, and they are going to make that revenge as torturous as they can. I'll come up with a more concrete deployment when we have specific intelligence, but the general gist will be set some bait to lure them in, have a team waiting in concealment, and when they move in to take the bait hit them hard and fast enough that none of them survive and get out before they swarm us.

Ah I see. So we have to strike and strike completely when the trap goes off. It's an all or nothing proposal. Minerva wasn't really happy with that, an all or nothing attack plan had to go off perfectly to have complete success, anything else could severely disrupt it. But she really couldn't think of any other way right now to deal with some group such as the Midrozi. Their elite's ability to read mind was a devastating ability if the aliens choose to use it. And they had to do something to neutralize it.

"Hmph.." The gist of it was to try and collect data by sacrificing a number of agents to this superior force. Not even the more compliant agents in the room were happy with such a plan. But, what else could they do? Really Iria saw it better to just send fewer agents to get similar results. But she was just an agent and was not the one making the decisions here. The amazon would remain where she was until this briefing was over with. She could think of a few better things she could be doing right now. This was always the most boring part of a mission, all the talking.

The problem is for most situations we will be either defending, or trying to intercept them while they are already committed to something. They can choose when and where to strike, and we are forced to react. The Midrozi FTL technology allows them to strike practically anywhere with very little warning or notice. We can't pick the odds, we can't even wait for concrete intelligence on what they have before moving to intercept. The moment a Midrozi ship is reported to be committed to something we have to move. Anything we deploy will have to be quick, and the Midrozi will be able to redeploy faster than we can. Going up against them head on will just get those who try cut down, but just because I am using bait means I expect to lose the bait. If everything goes to plan not only will whatever we use as bait survive unscathed the Midrozi will be wiped out.

Nallia could see the uncertainty at the plan in Minerva, and in Galina. Iria seemed bored, but Nallia had been expecting that. She had avoided going into much detail, knowing that she could potentially spend hours discussing and explaining the Midrozi and their tactics. They had everything down to a science, and their tactics were often quite specific. Nallia didn't know the specifics, but could hazard a guess as to how they would do things simply by setting herself the same objective and seeing how she best reached it.

All of you are free to go, report to the Desmond in some point during the next six hours. Anything you want to do before we leave for the first patrol I would advise you do so, we may be out in the field for a while. If there is anything extra you want to ask feel free to do so. Nallia expected Iria to wander off at that, although she hoped Minerva would stay. Just before this briefing had started Nallia had seen something that she decided she should share with Minerva, and something that she technically wasn't supposed to.