Four marines are going through the paces in hand-to-hand, one pair unarmed and the other switching off disarm maneuvers in the heavier, plated exoarmor worn during ship defense. The matte gray panels are darker than the walls but otherwise resemble the combat kit worn by planetside infantry. Plexiglass along one wall separates the 'dojo' from the armor, the four heavy exosuits standing out even in their dark alcoves and missing their typical meter-and-a-half railguns usually locked to one arm mount or another. Across the entry door is a heavy, rotating armor-plate door leading to the Matsukaze's armory, while a lightweight door separates the dojo from the simulation firing range, two of the four spaces already occupied by marines bearing eagle emblems of the alliance, their training weapons hissing with compressed air to simulate the recoil of real live fire. Only one takes notice of Reese's entry, and is about to turn back to his virtual lane (or cubicle depending on perspective) before Reese starts talking to his weapon. The grunt chuckles and resets his training sim.
---
Slicer takes one of the open seats in the remote control stations as the technicians finish fueling the fighters. With a brief siren on speakers and AR transmission as well as rotating lights, the hangar proper evacuates. A few minutes pass as the atmosphere is stored before the armor door shuffles up and slides forwards. "CIC to all scouts, you are clear to proceed. Still nothing artificial on infrared scopes, no returns on radar or energy wave. Looks like we're stuck with an old fashioned visual search. No signs of combat, so shunt spare cycles to the visual processors. The Rache should have dropped a navigation records pod if it stopped by and moved on, so keep an eye out for ugly yellow boxes."
The clock ticks by as the fighters deploy, sensors rotating through their vectors before starting over again. After several hours, one of the Peregrines comes to a stop two thousand kilometers from the Matsukaze and sends a broad transmission to the Wild Card group, "Microdebris detected, looks like splatter melted off the hull from a high-energy weapon. Still no sign of the black - er, yellow - box, but somethin' was here and got shot at. Might be from one of ours, collecting a sample now."
"Roger. Return to the 'kaze," the CIC replies. "Courier two, come in for docking. As soon as analysis is done, return to the Alliance with the sample and results. Let's give another hour or two to see if we get lucky with the flight recorder. Fighters, keep your eyes peeled. Message if you find anything before moving in, hopefully the only time limit we'll have on this mission is your air scrubbers. You know when to return."
