"We're ready, Commander." Maine said as she stood at the end of the table.
"Go ahead with the report then." Wolf nodded after sitting with a soft, pain filled grown.
After all of their tasks were completed, the group had gathered in the conference room on the first level. After clearing the last of the hidden Thralls, they decided to start their planning while Caretaker cleansed the first two levels of the corpses.
"As the Creators wished, our current military will be separated into 4 departments. Command, Medical, Technological, and Combative." Maine spoke as she brought up a holographic screen along the wall at the end of the room.
"With the Commander and I as current Command, the rest will fall as designated. Black, Polar, Crow, Dragon and Rhino. You five are the current heads of the Combative Department."
"Understood." Those mentioned called up.
"The Technological Department will be headed by Shepherd, Deer and Raven."
"Roger."
"Understood."
"And lastly, Tan will be the current head of the Medical Department."
"Roger." Tan nodded.
"From the data that Caretaker had, it seems PERCH was hidden in some kind of magnetic cloud, hidden away by the Creators in preparation for Project Pheonix. Where it is at is currently unknown. However, given Caretaker's calculations, it should arrive in 3 months before hovering over our current location in deep space."
Maine then changed the screen to show a rather large vessel. Along the sides were where the specific departments would be, how many cryo pods were aboard and fuel levels.
"In order to get to it, we will need to clear the entire facility while awakening our brothers and sisters in the process. The goal is to let them wake up without interruption so that they can be combat ready with no risks."
"Thank you, Maine. Does anyone have any questions?" Wolf asked as she leaned back in her chair.
"Yes, what happens to us?" Crow asked as he held his hand up. "Like the Commander, we were all forced to wake up due to the current emergency."
"Tan?" Wolf turned to the rabbit, curious as well.
"It seems that us waking up early has caused some, if not most, of our implants to be locked. Unlike the others, we will struggle to fight at our full strength until all prerequisite memories have unlocked. For example." Tan stopped as she held up her hand.
Within her palm, a faint, green light began to glow. To everyone else, the light was very soothing, but it seemed to put a strain on the poor rabbit.
"We all have unique powers given by the Creators. However, we will find them harder to use until we either unlock them manually, or have Caretaker do it for us."
"How long would this take?" Wolf asked as she rubbed her eyes.
"Approximately 2 hours for Caretaker to do so. Manually, I am not sure. Though the side effects of doing it manually will lead to the headache you felt Commander. Or perhaps worse."
"Okay, we will worry about that once we have claimed the facility. Shepherd?"
Maine nodded to Shepherd as she went to stand next to Wolf. Standing up, Shepherd swept his pad to bring up his information on the screen.
"As you know, we all have our own unique Aether Weapons, Shields and Armor that the Creators have made for us. The problem we currently face is that we all only have one set at our disposal. Once it breaks, my team and I won't be able to do anything about them until we either reach PERCH, or find a proper lab."
Shepherd gestured to the armor that everyone wore before holding up his own sword.
"As for ranged weapons, we have 13 Rifles, 17 Chargers, 1 Piercer and Blaster. The Piercer belongs to Tan and the Blaster belongs to Polar."
On the screen, the weapons were displayed along with the amount mentioned. The Piercer was similar to a sniper rifle, while the Blaster looked closer to the Minigun of the past.
"Our ammo is as follows. 200 mags and 2,980 bullets for our rifles. 150 mags and 1490 bullets for the pistols. 5 mags and 50 rounds for the Piercer and 40 canisters for the Blaster."
"Given our situation, we cannot risk running dry, even if more can be found on the upper levels." Wolf started as she gestured to Shepherd. "Everyone is to keep 6 rifle and 3 pistol mags on their person from here on. The rest will be handles by Shepherd's team going forward. Under no circumstances should your rifles be full auto, we don't want to waste what we have."
"Yes Ma'am." The rest nodded.
"Now, let's talk strategy going forward." Wolf spoke as she gestured to Maine.
Just as Shepherd sat down, the screen filled with squares, triangles, circles and a star formed in a marching order.
"Taking the front will be Rhino, Black, Crow and Shepherd. In the middle will be Tan, Deer, Polar, Maine and Brown. Tan and Polar will use their specialized weapons to bring down any Class 9 we come across. I apologize, but you will have to carry all of your ammo." Wolf nodded to Tan and Polar as she spoke.
"That will be fine." Polar nodded.
"I can manage." Tan said with a warm smile.
"Dragon, Raven and I will bring up the rear to cover an escape route if need be. Should there be an enemy we cannot face, we will fall fall back and regroup on the second level."
"Understood." The rest spoke up.
"Under no circumstance should any of you try and play the hero. However, that doesn't mean we can just fall back when things get tough. Small injuries can be ignored for now, but if your armor is pierced, fall back to Tan to get checked up. Try not to hit your fellow brothers and sisters, and always watch each other's backs. We only have each other for now, so I want to see all of your faces once the third level is clear." Wolf spoke, standing from her chair.
"Yes Ma'am."
"Alright, go get equipped. We leave in 5."
With that, the rest stood from their chairs and began to shuffle out of the room. Before she could join them, Tan stopped Wolf by holding up her hand.
"Should we not wait until you are fully recovered, Commander?" The rabbit looked up to her with a worried expression.
"The sooner we Awaken our brothers and sisters, the sooner I can feel at ease." Wolf sighed as she shook her head. "Besides, what kind of Commader would I be if I just let you all just go off alone. As long as I am here, I'm fighting."
"Y-yes, Commander." Tan sighed as she dropped her head.
"Don't worry. I've already taken my condition into consideration." Wolf chuckled as she gently pat the top of Tan's head.
As she left the room, Tan looked up at Wolf's back and let out another soft sigh.
"I can see why the Creators made her our leader."