Third Time's The Charm

[Ana'Sera Beliq]

Another one.

Ana sighed, staring down at the datapad in her fingers as she flicked through her messages and paused on the most recent one.

Another reassignment, another partner.

She assumed there was a new mission, as well, but the message didn't say anything specific. Mack's disappearance was still an open, unsolved case, but with work to be done, she was 'regretfully reassigned immediately'. Ana understood. Any good agent would.

Even if she wasn't over losing him yet. Maybe work would help, even if it meant she needed to break in a brand new agent.

Fingers combed through her long chestnut curls, while bright yellow eyes blinked back at her in the mirror. The woman took stock of her military garb (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=30516236) and decided it would have to do - there wasn't enough time before the briefing to change anyhow. Plus, she mused, they knew she was just back from her solo assignment to the stormtrooper corps. Ferreting out the traitor in Sergeant Khapst's unit had taken less time than anticipated much to the Sergeant's and her own supervisor's pleasure.

Right. Meeting.

It was a short walk to the bank of 'lifts from her tiny quarters, a datapad case in her right hand as she pressed the proper level number for Briefing Room 32-1-7a. Leaning against the back of the 'lift she checked the contents of the case, ensuring her datapad had an extra power cell, there was a stylus, and space for whatever datacards they'd distribute with data.

With any luck, they wouldn't be sent somewhere cold. It had taken weeks to get the chill out after that mission to Hoth. Useless iceball of a planet that it was. The lift chimed at her level and a quick glance at the guide on the wall sent her down the long hallway to the left. Ana paused outside the door and knocked, waiting a beat before stepping inside.

[Tiermes Habrok]

For the third time in as many minutes, Tiermes glanced at his wrist-watch. Twelve minutes had passed since his arrival at briefing room 32-1-7a and the suspicion which had previously been creeping up on him - that he was in the wrong place and someone somewhere, in an identical yet utterly seperate briefing room, was awaiting his arrival with increasing irritation - had ceased its creeping and was now outright ringing alarm bells in his mind. If there was one thing that the Imperial military prided itself on, it was discipline. It simply wouldn't do to be late for the first briefing on a new assignment. In days gone by, men had been strangled to death by Sith Lord's for lesser crimes.

It was therefore a great relief to Tiermes to hear the briefing room door slide open. He slid back his chair, rising to greet what he anticipated would be a senior officer. Instead, he found himself confronted by a woman in military colours wearing dog-tags around her neck and a pair of boots whose heels must have been classified as lethal weapons. His own choice of a button-down shirt and dress pants suddenly didn't seem quite so appropriate.

“Agent.. Beliq?”

[Ana'Sera Beliq]

"Yes...and you must be Agent Habrok."

Ana smiled as she crossed the small space, her hand extended for a handshake. She took in the sight of the tall, dark-haired man and his choice of garments...and realized she looked a bit too casual for the level of meeting they had come together for.

"My apologies at the state of my clothing, but I've only just come back from a brief mission and did not have the time to change. I'm normally far more tactfully dressed, I assure you."

Glancing back towards the small screen as it flickered on, she gestured for him to take a seat once more and took the one beside him. On the screen, a very stern looking man in a uniform that Ana doubted ever saw field duty nodded and shuffled the datacards in front of him.

"Agent Beliq, you are to be commended. Sergeant Khapst filed a most impressive report on your work with his unit. Excellent job."

"Thank you, sir."

"With that said, let us attend to the business at hand..." his image disappeared and in its place appeared two pictures. The top one was an expanse of snow broken only in a few spots by exposed towers and one crumbled wall. The bottom was an abandoned installation that looked to her eyes as if it was Imperial, or at least had been at one time or other. "Several months ago, an Imperial film crew was shooting on Rhen Var at these two locations. The top one is what little remains of an ancient Jedi Temple. The bottom is an abandoned Imperial listening post. While filming at the ruins, the crew encountered what they assumed was a female Jedi. We've only just been informed of this contact. Your mission is to travel to Rhen Var, document both sites, and leave no stone unturned in the search for traces of the woman's possible identity, and if she was the only one there."

The images faded, and the uniformed officer reappeared. He stared at them silently for a few moments, before nodding. "Information is being uploaded to datacards as we speak, and will be waiting for you on the shuttle being prepped in Bay Twenty-Seven. I expect your initial report within seventy two hours. Dismissed."

Flickering briefly, the screen then faded to blue before Ana raised the remote laying on the table and used it to turn the device off. Taking a deep breath, she turned to look at her partner, head tilted slightly to one side. "Have you been down to the storage area where we keep all our gear? After you pack your personal stuff - trust me when I tell you that you can't bring too many warm layers - I'll meet you down there and we can set you up. Any questions before then?" She smiled, her fingers toying absently with her 'tags.

[Tiermes Habrok]

Tiermes opened his mouth to speak, then promptly closed it again, deciding he needed more than a moment to process what he'd just seen and heard. He could have written everything he knew about Rhen Var on the back of a nano-chip. It didn't look like the most hospitable world, which of course made it the prime location for an Imperial outpost. Command could never resist a challenge. On the bright side, he wasn't the only one feeling under-dressed. There was a silver lining to every cloud. He gave a nod, “I guess I'll meet you down there in five.”

True to his word, Tiermes pushed his way into the storage locker just under five minutes later, carrying a small holdall at his side. His gaze swung across the length and breadth of the locker, settling after a few moments on Agent Beliq's back. “I'm going to be honest with you, Agent Beliq. I've got about as much experience in extreme cold climates as the Empress has got playing professional wegsphere. I've got my scarf and mittens, but I could use some pointers on what other gear to pack.”

[Ana'Sera Beliq]

"Well, don't worry too much. I've really only been on one cold climate mission myself, and Hoth is a very frigid level of hell, I assure you."

Ana said with a smile as she turned, pleased to see her new partner both on time and admitting he didn't know everything. That in itself was a rare trait, and a pleasure to discover. She nodded to the space beside her, shelves labeled with his name brimming with various sets of weather specific gear. The bulkiest bundles were on the bottom, the cold weather gear done all in white save for the Imperial crest emblazoned on the right shoulder of the outermost layer.

"According to the data, the area of Rhen Var we're headed for is a bit easier to deal with than Hoth. The temperatures average several degrees higher both day and night, and there are no real big predators to worry about. Obviously we take the usual cold weather gear - all of it well insulated...pack both sets. Lots of layers, warm layers...scarves and mittens are an excellent idea." Ana replied, turning to pack her own small holdall with some few things, before packing her bulkier gear in a larger, weatherproof duffel bag in the standard shade of Imperial puce.

"Oh, and if you've got a little portable hobby or books or something else you like to do, bring it. I'm told that the daylight hours are short this time of year, and we won't be doing too much beyond analysis of our findings at night."

[Tiermes Habrok]

“Sounds like we're in for a treat,” Tiermes muttered as he pulled out the bundle of cold weather gear and brushed some dust away from the Imperial crest, wondering silently just how long this equipment had been sitting here waiting for him. He shoved the gear into his holdall along with all the requisite equipment that was standard for field agents. He could spend part of their journey to Rhen Var checking that everything was in working order, from the portable flashlike to the candy-bar sized parcel that would – at the touch of a button – balloon into an inflatable dinghy.

“Makes me wonder what I did to land an assignment like this.”

[Ana'Sera Beliq]

Though it occurred to her that his comment wasn't meant for her directly, she still winced as he said it. Turning away, she busied herself with tucking the tiniest things in the voids between the larger pieces of kit.

"You must have checked off 'will work with aliens' on your application, which is probably why you got stuck with me." Ana said with a smile she didn't feel, though one wouldn't be able to tell from her expression. Yellow eyes brightened and flickered as she met his gaze. "As for why we drew the Rhen Var mission, who knows exactly...but there are few better ways to test if a new partnership will work than this kind of hardship."