Skarkon seems to ponder both Troy and Casteau's opposing views for a moment, before raising her hand to her microbead once again.
"Master Drees, if you would be so kind as to have those drones deployed?"
Above Hamara
The gun-cutter is remarkably comfortable, not to mention well-stocked. There are half a dozen lockers, each with a heavy void-suit that fits comfortably over your clothing and -- surprisingly -- armour. You've not put the helmets on just yet, but Skarkon's informed you that each suit is equipped with an audiovisual autosense suite, photo-visor, and communicator system. The rebreather system, she informs you, can keep you alive for up to ten hours -- considerably longer than a standard rebreather might.
"Hopefully, we won't need to rely on all ten hours' worth of air," she adds. As the gun-cutter is currently almost level with Hamara's surface, Skarkon is pacing around the interior of the cabin, glancing over at another locker that -- she's informed you -- is almost full to bursting with las weapon charge packs.
The gun-cutter's sensorium has been linked to the surveillance drones from the Undying Light, and a large vid-screen mounted on the wall has been partitioned into about twenty individual windows, each showing the view from a different drone's optics. Some have gone blank, as anticipated. Many are further forward than the rest, some advancing in the triangular formation suggested by Troy, others still conducting perimeter sweeps of the crater.
As expected, the defences are still very active, but the missile launchers are apparently having a very hard time tracking smaller ground targets like the drones. Even now, a couple of launchers -- reminiscent of Hyperios-pattern air defence turrets, but much larger and with their own inbuilt targeting cogitators -- are firing ineffectively at the drones, their hunter-killer missiles lancing into barren rock.
The remaining launchers -- the ones that haven't been distracted by the drones -- are busying themselves with the Marauder bombers swarming above the fortress. Many have been destroyed, but evidently the launchers' tracking systems are much better at dealing with flyers, and three Marauders have already been shot down. One's landed right in front of a drone, and that portion of the vid-screen is filled with a close-up of the Marauder's broken wing.
Surprisingly, the defence lasers are completely inactive, and the quartet of towers -- each several hundred metres away from the fortress proper -- are sitting idle while the bombers go about their duty.
So far, you've found no sign of the expedition Staff Sergeant Calne mentioned; neither her Storm Troopers nor their gun-cutter have shown up on the drones' sensors. You've not determined whether there's any evidence of a take-off near the hangars, but either they left and disappeared further afield, or they never left at all.
A soft chime meets your ears.
"We're approximately ten minutes out from the fortress," Skarkon explains. "We can conduct a few long-range fly-bys to give the drones more time, but by the time we arrive, the bombers should have dealt with the defences."
"What if there are defences that we don't know about?" asks Troy.
"Then more fool me for not knowing the fortress as well as I thought I did," Skarkon answers, "especially considering that my knowledge of the fortress' layout -- and its schematics -- are correct as of only a few months ago. The nature of deep-space engineering and construction techniques would almost certainly rule out anything particularly notable, unless it were still ongoing."
If any of you remain unconvinced by the Inquisitor's certainty, you are at least polite enough not to say it to her face.
"At any rate, we need to establish our course of action once we're inside," she continues. "I propose that we should... that we should..."
Skarkon suddenly lurches forwards, reaches out to grab something to steady herself, and is then thrown into the wall by an invisible force, collapsing in a heap on the floor.
"That's not good," she mutters, rubbing her forehead.
[OOC]
According to Rogue Trader: Into The Storm, gun-cutters -- which are defined as a rather broad class of small craft -- have enough space for six people to have quarters, and can fit 30 at maximum capacity. The one you're using is about 40 metres long or so, and in terms of aesthetics, is what would happen if you made a Klingon Bird-of-Prey look "Imperial".
[/OOC]