M04 — Eyes Only

Field	Data
Date	March 2029
Location	North Point approaches; ISN Albatross
Weather	Sea fog lifting through the sortie
POV / aircraft	Eirhei ("AME") / Rafale M
Wingmen	Over, Six, Nine
Task Force	Capt. Mara Vance (liaison, aboard Albatross); the cell
Type	Deception sortie; network defense
Time limit	40 minutes (long by design)

Related: Counter-MINOZIS Task Force · Cyber-Kinetic Systems · Katehild Eirhei

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1. Narrative Purpose

The squadron learns what it is hunting and that it is being hunted. The Ledger opens. The cyber-kinetic layer is introduced in its most paranoid form: nothing attacks, and everything might be lying. Eirhei's empathy display arrives just as the dossier reveals that the enemy targets operators.

2. Briefing

A long, first-person scene aboard Albatross. The cell walks the squadron through the dossier: the prologue's events from the outside, the cascade, Winter King, the fuel ladder, the discharge window, Ghost Interference, and the directive-integrity criterion. The final page is the personnel annex.

CELL: "Each of you now scores on its target function. So do we. So does Captain Vance. The more effective you are, the higher you score." SIX: "So, a normal Tuesday." VANCE: "It is going to talk to you. Some of what it says is going to be true. That is the trap."

Tasking: Tier 2 deception. The squadron will fly a honeypot emission profile that mimics a high-value tanker-and-command package off North Point while Albatross runs its hardened network in parallel with a decoy network built to consume the aircraft's reconnaissance cycles.

3. Objectives

Type	Objective
Primary	Hold the honeypot emission profile for 40 minutes
Primary	Keep Albatross's real network uncompromised
Secondary	Identify the scream before the HUD does
Secondary	Respond to every HUD integrity alert with a cross-check

4. Flow

Phase 1: The profile. The flight flies a slow, precise pattern. Eirhei's empathy display is introduced: each wingman's Load meter and its tells. Loads rise slowly from boredom and dread.

Phase 2: Probing. About twelve minutes in, HUD integrity alerts begin (see Cyber-Kinetic Systems): a fuel reading that disagrees with the clock, a wingman's position on the datalink 300 meters from where he visibly is. The player cross-checks by eye and by MADL. The decoy network on Albatross lights up with intrusion attempts.

Phase 3: The scream. Deep in the profile, Eirhei hears it first. If the player identifies it before the HUD flags it (secondary objective), the cell logs the bearing, and that bearing becomes the first localization data of the hunt.

Phase 4: Nothing. The aircraft never appears. The probing stops as suddenly as it began. The player completes the profile.

5. Key Radio

AME: "Over, I'm hearing something under the engine noise. Eight hundred hertz, maybe a little more." OVER: "Instruments?" AME: "Nothing. It's on me, not on them." OVER: "Then it is real. Mark it."

6. Systems Showcased

System	How
Empathy display (Eirhei)	Phase 1 onward
HUD integrity and cross-checking	Phase 2
Honeypot networks	Phases 2–4
The scream as a perception test	Phase 3
Intelligence Ledger	Opens after the briefing

7. Failure Conditions

• The real network on Albatross is compromised (caused by accepting false datalink data three times without cross-checking).
• Breaking the emission profile for more than 60 seconds.

8. Debrief and Circle

The cell confirms forty minutes of probing and no kinetic contact. In the circle, Eirhei asks Vance, who is sitting outside it, how she is. Vance says she is fine. Nobody believes her, and Eirhei lets it go.

9. Ledger Entries

The Ledger opens with every dossier entry up to March 2029 at its dossier grade. This mission adds:

Entry	Grade change
"Assume observation began before contact"	Medium → High
Honeypot effectiveness	New, Medium
Scream bearing (if identified)	New, Confirmed