She clears her throat and starts the briefing presentation. "Alright. Thank you all for being here. I'll try and make this brief." 

Her first slide shows a map of the damage to Toronto from the sky. It's - pretty bad. "Infested Wasteland" (she's read the Eventualities post and liked it, but it's DRT policy to use official dungeon names, and Novak follows policy) "now uses secondary portals to deploy its worms directly. As such, it cannot reliably be contained, and it cannot be allowed to leave. We've had hundreds of civilian casualties here. If Wasteland survived and struck one of the denser cities next time, we could easily be looking at ten times that many casualties in the first few hours alone."

Next slide - two worms, one substantially larger than the other and a dungeon core mounted on the tail end, with a human, a car, and the building they're in for scale. "Before Wasteland left Casablanca, they were able to determine that the core was attached to a larger worm that keeps its distance from the the portal and stays underground. That's still true, but now there's four of them - three decoys, presumably - and they're scattered around the edges of Wasteland."

Next slide - the interior of the dungeon, as mapped out by Menhir and lovingly rendered done by a local graphic design studio that reached out the DRT on Monday evening with an open offer to help during the crisis. Four regions near the edge are highlighted, with red dots in the center. "These are the last-known locations of the core-worms. They move, but not particularly quickly. We'll have the sensor team confirm it once entering the dungeon, but they should be within the highlighted regions."

"Strike team one will be Skybreaker, Ms. Yamanaka, and Rhombus. Ms. Yamanaka will lure the target worms aboveground where Rhombus can shred them, and Skybreaker will handle transit and safety." 

She points to the regions along the south and western edges of the dungeon. "You'll be responsible for these two." They're further away from each other and the portal, but Skybreaker can move a group of three very quickly.

Skybreaker nods. (She's already gotten the rundown of June's backlash - Rhombus has worked with her lots and will be in charge of coordinating there.)

Her job is moving the two of them around and keeping them safe, and so she will get them where they need to go and they will be unharmed.

I am not even so much going to think 'should be easy'.  But my job is to just be a backlash battery for Sara, and that at least shouldn't be difficult.  The rest of it will just be sandy Hell.

Novak highlights the other two regions, both in the northeast corner of the map. "Strike team two - Flay, Starfist, and Pendragon - you'll be going after these two. Pendragon will bring the worms to the surface, Flay will immobilize it, and Starfist will rush in to destroy the core. Flay will be responsible for movement." They've already confirmed with her that the dimensions of the rock platform they've excavated is of a suitable size for the mission.

She nods in polite acknowledgement in Starfist and Pendragon's direction.  "If a sandstorm hits us, I can put up a bubble to keep it off our skin, but visibility will still be bad."

Novak nods. "Good. We have good sand gear for you all too, of course, though if you pass through one of the black storms unprotected you do need to see a medical esper after."

Next slide - a map indicating where the sensors will be (at the center of the dungeon, by the portal) and a graphic detailing how they'll be using their powers. "When we send you all in, Menhir will locate the four cores and we'll update all of your HUDs with the locations." (The helmet tech was covered in the pre-briefing and will be explained to anyone who hasn't used one by the tech crew, so she's not stopping to cover it in detail.) "From that point on, Flywheel will keep track of the currently-targeted worms once we have a bead on them, and we'll have Menhir use her power again if Flywheel loses one or as the targets update. Aumento will keep the sensor group protected with his power if a sandstorm hits the central area."

She nods. (She can keep her sensory power active on ten cubic meters of volume for almost an hour before hitting backlash level 8 and that's enough to track two worms when she knows where to look, though Traceless will also be there for guiding if needed and to help her if it gets too high.)

It would be smart for her to fistbump every other esper present, though, since he is currently the only guide for her and June short of tying up Min Woo-young.

Checks out.  He'd love to be the one hunting down the core, but frankly being one of the espers to take down Arrakis is fucking epic and Sara is going to need him, especially given the constraints of her backlash.

Sara is fully zeroed and expects she can handle keeping a bead on their locations for the duration of the mission without needing a break, with Tim providing guiding for her. She even has an air tank and mask to placate her backlash if it gets difficult. 

She gives Novak a firm nod. 

Good. "We're going to try and hit the first two worms near-simultaneously - we expect that if we don't find the core then, we'll be on a timer. We expect team 1 to arrive first and wait to hear from team 2. Hopefully it'll end there, but if not, we'll be racing against time to get to the third and fourth cores before the dungeon starts to leave."

"If any worms get past the harrier teams and and kidnap vics into the dungeon, we'll be pulling in a squad to go after them. But other than that and the DRT squad who'll be managing base camp equipment and comms, it'll just be the ten of you in there."

She claps her hands together. "Be fast, be safe, be decisive, and you'll get this thing killed and you all out with time to spare. Any questions?"

Flywheel turns out to be weakly compatible with Flay and moderately compatible with Starfist - she has neutral or negative compatibility with everyone else she tests with. (She doesn't let herself fangirl at Skybreaker or Flay. Nobody else is doing that.)

They all ride the portable lift up into the portal together - she stays close to Traceless.

Inside the dungeon, it's oppressively hot and dry and there's a sandstorm converging menacingly -

No there isn't.

Fine. Arrakis is oppressively hot and dry, but there are no sandstorms within Skybreaker's considerable range. 

Good. 

Skybreaker waits for the go-ahead from the DRT staff, and then gathers up the rest of team one and wraps them up in a ball of air that she begins accelerating southwest.

Meanwhile, Sara kneels down and establishes contact with the ground. She expands her range to its very maximum and narrows her granularity until she can identify the worms with the core and decoys attached to them. Are they still in the same areas as yesterday? 

(They've moved some since the last scan, of course, but the four giant worms are still within their predicted areas.)

The sensor team operators can get the updated location data from Menhir and feed it into everyone's HUDs.

Hello again, asshole dungeon, this time you've overstepped and you're going to die.

Flay, Starfist, Pendragon, and the large chunk of rock supporting them rise into the air and speed northeast.  She's no Skybreaker, but she's not slow.  Gravel and slivers of stone rain down on the desert beneath them.  Her backlash starts slow; she allows herself to murmur the word "slough" under her breath, quiet enough to be lost in the sound of her power chewing slowly away at the rock, and then is quiet.

Tim's entire role is to guide his partner, and he'll accomplish that.  He's trying to be a little net-positive on his own backlash, to maximize efficiency, but it he doesn't want to burn himself out at the starting line.

So, all the staring he does at the screen and the staring he does as his partner updates the maps?  That's purely recreational.  And for once, his fidget toy of the day is only rated for regular strength, since he's not fighting a worm today.

Flywheel studies the map very carefully, and then closes her eyes, dipping into her power. (She's at the center of the world...)

Her eyes open. "Contact with both. Target 1 is heading north by northwest; Target 2 is heading due south, both at their undisturbed speeds. Will keep track."

She's linked hands with Traceless, the portal area sheltered from sand enough to allow them to detach the arm sections of their suit for guiding. Her backlash still climbs, as she dips into and out of her trance, but it's staying near zero. She's good at this, now. She wishes Tia had gotten a chance to see that.