Ashley was sitting at a table in the middle of a mess hall onboard the Terance. The table was surrounded by her company, who had just finished their basic player training. Across the table was all sorts of food, from a salad bowl all the way up to what looked like Michelin star meals. There was smoke circling up from some of the food, and it all smelled delicious and made Ashley's mouth water. However, in the middle of the table between all the bowls and plates sat a small round disc the width of a fifty cent piece. It was displaying a holographic image over the table at about chest height for everyone that was sitting there. Ashley was moving her finger through it as she pointed things out to the nine other people at the table.

  “Does that make sense?” she asked as she dropped her finger to the table and spotted a slice of meat that was covered in some sort of sauce and quickly snatched a fork and speared the piece of meat before bringing it to her mouth. As she did, a window popped up in front of her.

  Purchase of one Café de Paris sauce covered beef steak slice. Five credits have been deducted from your account. Thank you for dining with us.

  “Uh, no. I’m sorry, Company Commander Ashley, but could you please explain it one more time? I'm not really used to playing in a team setting like this. But I promise I am trying to grasp it.”

  A few others nodded their heads in agreement as Ashley chewed on the piece of meat, giving the man that had spoken a sort of annoyed look before swallowing her food. She thought it was absolutely delicious and savoured the taste of the sauce on her tongue for a few more moments before having to put the fork back down, she then moved her finger back to the image again.

  “This is the third time, I will not explain it a fourth.” she complained, before she jumped back into her briefing.

  “Alright, as you can see the Terance is approaching this planet, I still don't know the name of it, but scuttlebutt is that it belongs to a clan called Twiddles, apparently they upset someone with a lot of influence or something. Anyway, now we are here to liberate it from their grasp and bring the much desired credits for doing so into our accounts. We will, of course, have to give Blossoming Terranova its huge fifty percent cut, before the credits reach our accounts. But that is the price of having to be guild funded, instead of the more reasonable twenty-five percent the self-funded companies enjoy.”

  She glanced around for the third time, hoping anyone of them was willing to announce they were rich enough to shift the company into self-funded so they could all take a bigger cut. But once again, no one said anything and she continued her briefing.

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  “The Terance will not be coming too far into the Solar System, as the planet we are heading for does have orbital defences. However, if our own orbital station's defence is anything to go by, then we are really lucky that there is not an orbital station here. Since the Terance will be sticking to the perimeter of the Solar System, we will be boarding a rented drop-ship. It is the last one in the drop carrier. The other seven belong to a platoon and three companies that could afford to buy their own drop-ships. We will be onboard drop carrier 204. Once the drop carrier reaches orbit, we will be dropped and head for this landing zone displayed here.”

  Not wanting to have to repeat herself, yet again she looked around making sure everyone was still following. Noting a couple were holding their chins as they observed the map, one was eating something and the rest nodded for her to continue. Which she did.

  “Once landed, we need to secure the drop-ship, hiding it from observing eyes. The best we can, according to the officer's training program I just finished I am meant to recommend debris, material, or the plant kind. Once that is completed we are to escort the pilot to here, Conor and Sorcha you two stay here by this building and use it as defence while the rest of us clears the town. Kill anyone you see. You all have tag discs to plant on buildings and at the indicated intersections. Here, here, here and lastly here. This will tag the town as our companies' property. Then we will regroup on the far side of town and continue the escorting mission to here. And we will repeat this for this town here, before moving on.”

  She looked around again, watching the nods and chin scratches. The man was still eating, which caused her to frown at him as she watched him stick a fork into something that looked like it belonged to a Michelin star meal. The second it touched his lips, he nearly spat it back out as his eyes went as wide as saucers. He stared at his fork for a few moments before looking around at the rest of us.

  “Uh, does anyone have three hundred credits they could spot me? My accounts kinda negative two hundred and fifty-three now.”

  She shook her head along with everyone else at the table and watched as he sunk into a sort of funk and proceeded to eat whatever it was like it was his last meal.

  “Okay… well, I’ll get back to the briefing then… we have five towns to clear before we reach the operating base also known as the Foothold Base. Once we reach there and the pilot is safely inside we can report to the command centre, which is this building here and receive our next orders. My fingers are crossed. Hopefully we take this continent fast, and those six towns become our company's property and continue to fund our future operations by allowing us to collect rent from them, do we all understand this time?”

  They slowly nodded, and before the hundred questions started that got the waters confused like the last two times, Ashley stood up quickly. She snatched the Holo Coin from the table, stored it in a pocket on the front of her jacket, and left them sitting there. Ashley made it out of the mess hall and soon found herself alone in a corridor she didn't recognise. She let out a loud sigh as she fell back against the wall, and after a few moments, she swiped down in midair in front of herself to open her player status window. A moment later, she had opened the tab to her load out and was looking over the very few pieces of armour she had, and the one rifle that was the cheapest she could buy. She sighed again when she thought about the load out that the other four companies had, they even had a drop-ship each.

  “Guess that's what you have to put up with when you get a newly founded guild to back you instead of funding your self. Bah whatever, we can just loot what we kill and hope they have shit worth selling at the foothold markets, hopefully we can upgrade as we go.”

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