Chronicles of The Omniverse Archived Lochcrest

Tiko

Draconic Administrator/Mentor
Administrator
Mentor
Nexus GM
as written by Tiko

Back aboard the Kobol's Gleaming Kianna was pursuing the pileup of messages that had been arriving. Most of them where simply status reports and news of Avaeon activity within Isiria, and updates on the two Avaeon prisoners that had been taken captive. One was directly from Mollem though, and the newest to arrive was from Dylan Ryder, of the UDW.

It was this one she came to last and her eyes skimmed across the message that was being displayed on the holopad in her hand.

>Sender: "Archfiend" -Encrypted- Councilman Dylan Ryder -Encrypted
>Recipient: Empress Kianna
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-For the Empress' eyes only. Tracer embedded recording recipient terminals and message status.
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-> Read Message? _
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-Displaying Message...
Empress Kianna McGregor
After interrogation of the Avaeon prisoner, I've come to the relative conclusion that no advances are forthcoming in the immediate future as far as intelligence. However, the holding facility is counter-productive towards the fullest extent of interrogation techniques me or my personnel can generate, and I would like to formally request an alternative location lacking inhibitors, with the precaution of guard personnel utilizing anti-psionic personal inhibitors, as well as more basic alarm systems to allow ample response time to any potential attempts at escape. Preferable transfer time should be kept temporary to minimize any windows of temptation.

Additionally, however, with your blessing, I would like to attempt a coordinated psionic chorus, attaching local psionics to the effort. This is motivated by the need for some sort of communication to the Avaeons as a whole. Right now we are responding only. It is time to make ourselves heard. If possible, I would request this attempted chorus to coincide with the prisoners transfer, to attach their mental signatures to the message to give non-corruptible truth of their continued survival and health. Though as to the latter, it appears as though the inhibitor is proving detrimental.

Finally, as an addendum, I would request the allowance of the woman, Whisper, to allow for attachment to myself for the purpose of enhancing her ability through organized training. I had the opportunity to engage in a brief session, but due to an untimely shift of personality, I would appreciate official sanction with the effect of preventing perceived reprisal.

Cordially
Councilman Dylan Ryder
 
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as written by Tiko and Ronin

Kianna sat studying the message for a time, mulling it over.

The man's presence in Isiria made her uneasy, and she was grateful of the distance between them for the time being. She had spoken with him before, on Langara, but she had seen enough bits of herself reflected in him to feel threatened by his involvement in matters. He was calculated, like herself, and he knew how to read people. Even without his psionics, he was dangerous.

He was also an invaluable ally though, and therein lay her conundrum.

She looked down at the pad once more, her eyes skimming the message again. Even she would be hard pressed to meet his requests in regards to the Avaeon prisoners, but perhaps a compromise could be broached.

The matter of Whisper was far more easily addressed.

The young psionic woman, though useful, was rapidly growing obsolete. Kianna viewed her as little more than Mollem's failed science experiment that had since been perfected among her own line of special projects soldiers. Let the councilman have her, if only to appease him for the time being. It would solve other problems as well.

She lay the pad down and opened communications through to the Administration Complex in Illumene.

"This is the Empress. Get me into contact with Councilman Dylan Ryder," she said simply.

____

"Empress."

The voice carried across the room with sinister force, yet didn't seem to break a whisper. It sounded and it felt - a cold, terrible thing that traveled up the toes over the ribs and into the heart. His voice was first winter's wind at autumn's death. His voice was the shiver up the spine of a child when something moves beneath their bed at night. His voice was all things dark and doomed and deadly.

He stood in a corner, head down, vacant eyes peering ominously beneath the brim of his hood. His cloak convulsed around his haggard frame like something dying. A sickly shadow consumed him. Only his mask, barely visible, seemed pure and wholesome.

"Do you know me?"

He watched her silently.

____

A tension filled Kianna, but it was so subtle as to be nearly indiscernible as she turned her head to meet the gaze of Paragon's mask.

There was something unnerving in the eyes that met her own, something familiar...

The thought was a fleeting one, and gone as quickly as it had come. A shadow of a memory long lost to time.

She turned the holopad off and spoke into the comm device once more.

"Belay that instruction," she said into it before turning that off too.

"You're Paragon," she answered finally.

It was a name that had crossed her desk a few months ago, but she had discarded it as idle curiosity and nothing more. It hadn't been of any concern to her, though perhaps instinctively on some subconscious level she had simply put the matter from her mind entirely so as to not seek out the source of the reports.

A few questions crossed her mind, the foremost of which was how he had gotten into here. But after a moment she determined that to be the lesser question.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

____

"Two things," he drew a step forward, "The first is an answer. Three days ago I received information detailing the coordinates and convoys of all Ha'la'tha's major criminal exports in the outer systems. The transports - from narcotics to sex trafficking - are using Imperial ships to ferry their goods." He walked slowly around her room, his tattered cloak dragging behind him. "Cooperation of this magnitude is not possible through petty administrative corruption alone. The Imperial Government, the Emperor himself, is funding and supporting organized crime." He dragged a taloned nail along a nearby dresser.

"I want to know why."

____

"I'm not responsible for where the Emperor does or doesn't stick his dick," Kianna answered. "Maybe you should go talk to him."

Her eyes followed Paragon intently as he moved, never once letting her focus shift from him.

____

"When I see the Shadow, it will not be to talk."

He turned slowly towards her and stopped moving. Darkness swirled behind the lidless eyes of his mask. He regarded her silently for a short while, watching her, perhaps searching her. His visage offered no expression for Kianna to read, but he was quiet long enough to where it was obvious that Paragon couldn't make up his mind about something. Something was troubling him. A questioned lingered on his lips.

"What is your birthname, Empress?"

____

The question was so unexpected it actually gave her pause for a minute and she blinked at him. He could have asked her anything, and she probably wouldn't have been as confused as she was in that moment.

Truth be told, she didn't even know the answer to the question. That part of her life was long ended, and those memories lost to the years. Perhaps it was why she took new names and new faces with such ease. She had no recollection of her own.

Of course, Paragon couldn't know that she rationalized. It was a safe assumption that he meant the birth name of the woman whose body she had last taken. Perhaps he had uncovered her Terran identity prior to her involvement with Mollem.

"My name is Kianna," she told him finally. "And you are overstaying your welcome."

If he was fishing for information that might rile the Quorum up over her place within the central government, she wasn't about to just hand that to him.

____

The moment the words left her mouth, something black flew out of Paragon's cloak and whizzed past Kianna's head. It stuck itself in the wall and quivered. If Kianna did not move or dodge, it would nick her ear and draw blood.

"If you lie to me again, I will hurt you," he took another step closer, "I am not welcome. I do not want your welcome. I would destroy you with my bare hands right now if I knew how." He came closer still. His cloak turned up around his torso briefly, revealing a body of rough, black armor - the symbol of a crescent moon etched between the pectorals.

"What is your name, Kianna?" he repeated, louder this time. Malice rushed into his voice. He seemed to grow larger with every step, clawed hands quivering at his side. Something was possessing him. Curiosity gave way to cold, furious hate - shrewd reason turned to indignant rage. The serpent was becoming a demon.

____

Kianna reached a hand up to lightly touch her ear where a droplet of blood had welled up. She looked down then at her finger tips, stained with crimson.

It wasn't that she couldn't have evaded the throw, it was that she had chosen not to.

She stood then, slowly, her eyes shifting to the crescent moon upon his chest, and then back to him.

There was a coldness in her as she met his furious gaze with her own, and her hands rested on the edge of the table, slightly leaned forward to face him.

"I have no name," she told him. "I need no name."

For as long as she could remember, she took only the names that others gave her. She had never felt the need to identify herself in any other way.

____

Paragon stood at the other side of her desk, shadows raging. Darkness fumed around him like windswept smoke. He was on the edge of losing control - something inside of him was on the verge of bursting out. It looked as if it took every ounce of his restraint not to tackle Kianna where she stood and rip her to pieces.

"...oathbreaker..." he said at last, his serpentine voice low and dangerous, " ... firemaker ... moonflayer ..." He almost seemed to shiver.

"... murderer ..."

With that, he shrunk back. The demon subsided, and Paragon's haggard, sickly form replaced the brutish monster. His breath was pained and labored. Silence took the room once more as Paragon struggled to master himself. After a time, he turned back to her. He was as before.

"I will find it, Kianna," he swore, "I will find your name, your true name. I shall speak it into the void and drag you screaming out of its shadows, and you will stand before them and answer them." A low, sickly gurgle escaped his lips. It could have been laughter. "Yes. Now I know ... now I know how to destroy you."

____

The flash of steel came without warning as a blade seemed to simply materialize in Kianna's hand and it swept across the desk for Paragon's throat. He was too far back for a smooth decapitation, but she had no qualms with leave him sprawled across her desk, gurgling and drowning on his own blood in the final moments of his life.

There had been no shift in expression, no betrayal of her eyes to warn him of the imminent blow. Something in his words had pushed her to it though. Some buried whisper in her subconscious that told her to finish it now, and to finish it quick.

As the blow was being struck, she pulled open the drawer to her desk and with her off hand reached for the disruptor pistol she knew to be in there.

____

His hand came up instinctually - it was all he could do. The blade connected with Paragon's forearm. It cut through a layer of ceramite, boron nitride, a matrix web and nanomesh foam before burying half an itch of steel into Paragon's bare flesh. Blood, red blood, poured down his arm.

Three pellets hit the floor the next instant. Smoke enveloped them. A black blade cut through the mist, twirling towards Kianna's sword arm. It would pierce straight through her shoulder if it connected.

The smoke cleared a moment later, Paragon nowhere in sight ... though certainly not gone. Five small cracks resonated as the lights in Kianna's room exploded. Darkness flooded the room. The faint smell of ammonia lingered where Paragon had been standing a moment ago.

____

Everything happened at once. Her hand closed around the disruptor pistol as she brought her arm up, and her torso was wide open as he caught her blade on his forearm. She moved instinctively to cover herself as she jerked the blade free of his arm. The hard-light shield generator on the back of her free forearm activated and the blade that cut through the mist for her shoulder was deflected off from it; though, it did serve to keep her arm busy and unable to level her gun on him.

She instead brought her own blade back across, lower this time as she aimed to gut him in a swift and decisive blow. The blade met only air though.

As the lights exploded, the hood and visor on her combat suit came up to encase her head and face while combat readings started scrolling across it. The neural link also provided her with a full readout of her surroundings, and it honed in on his position on the ceiling.

She turned her gaze upwards and the hard-light shield deactivated as she raised her arm to open fire while keeping her blade held at ready to one side.

____

But now he was ready. The moment Kianna looked up and brought her pistol around, Paragon struck, pivoting his body just as she fired and leaping downward. The green gob of superheated particles sped past him, missing him by centimeters. Light blue shields rippled over his torso as it kept back the heat. Fire singed his cloak.

But then he was upon her. Another blade flew out of his hand, aimed directly at the barrel of her pistol. If it struck, it would slice the weapon clean through. If she fired at that moment, it would explode in her hand. As he collided with her from above, he held a second, longer blade backhanded across his forearm, ready to deflect any strike from her sword. His fist would come down afterwards, armored knuckles seeking her temple. A mist of vapor trailed behind him.

____

As Paragon leaped for Kianna, the time dilation device on her combat suit activated and everything slowed to a surreal crawl. At least from Kianna's perspective. From that of Paragon it would likely seem as if Kianna moved with inhuman speed.

Rather than intercepting Paragon, she fluidly stepped to the side, firing shot after shot at his falling form while following his descent towards her desk with all the time in the world to line up each shot and fire for center mass.

Even the disruptor blasts seemed sluggish in their approach, as if moving through molasses.

Unless Paragon had the means of disrupting the momentary time-flux, it would last until his body impacted her desk at which point time would resume at its normal rate.

She wouldn't stop firing though, and if he should strike the desk, she would move in on him emptying shot after shot into where he had fallen.

This was one opponent she didn't seem keen to toy with.
 
as written by Lobos and Ronin

Striding down the corridor, Zaria's head came up with remarkable speed, her arm scything across to snare the first of two kinetic slug pistols. Pivoting and rotating with inhuman contortion, she snared a knife from the sheath at her back. UDW export grade, the bead pistol in her hand were still more familiar than the bloody disruptor weapons she was working with.

Breaking into a sprint, the woman came to Kianna's door in seconds, all thoughts of reports fled from her mind at the sight before her. Not bothering to offer a call, she checked her firing lane, raised the sleek firearm, and pulled the trigger. A burst of almost comically small beads erupted from the bore, traveling with a velocity nearing Mach 3. Packing enough kinetic energy to scythe a man in half, it was a weapon ideal for such battle, the glassteel projectiles shattering with very little overpenetration.

____

As Paragon flew downward at Kianna, blade poised, his target literally disappeared before his eyes. Not even a moment later, he felt a surge of heat across his chest as a disruptor blast caught him in his torso. Shields flared. Ceramite melted. Kevlin suppressors overloaded. 20 million degrees farenheit was not easily absorbed.

Even as the first impacting blast changed his trajectory mid-air and sent him flying towards the nearby wall, a second and a third blast came soaring towards him. In the mere nanoseconds it took the supercharged particles to reach their target, Paragon's hand was raised. Rather than strike Paragon head-on as the first charge had, these next two dissipated into his palm. Thin lines along his thighs and shoulders glowed bright green.

The next moment he was gone. Any blasts fired afterwards would only disintegrate the walls of the room. If Kianna were watching, she would notice a black blur with lines of neon green streaking across through the air. Even in her current reference point in spacetime, he was nearly impossible to track. In realtime, he had simply teleported. A blink.

He landed a few feet away from her open door, fists clenched. He'd seen her position clearly during the blink. He would do another one directly behind her, and then finish this. He'd already been too careless.

Unfortunately, the next sensation Paragon felt was not the hyper-real rush of bent spacetime as he entered another blink, but a shockwave of incredibly powerful kinetic force between his shoulder blades. When Paragon had teleported, he'd done so directly towards Zaria's opening blast. In his preoccupation with Kianna, he hadn't even noticed Malcolm.

The beads struck just below Paragon's neck. A shockwave of blue ruptured across his frame as his shields gave out. Something that sounded like glass exploded on his lower back. Shards of something scattered across the ground. The remaining energy in the shields had been just enough to prevent the projectiles from distributing lethal force, but the force of the attack still sent him barreling forward.

As his head came down on the fall, Paragon blinked again. When he appeared once more, his knee was positioned a half millimeter away from Zaria's face and travelling fast enough to dislocate her jaw and shatter all eight of her central and lateral incisors should it connect. Still moving with the momentum of his leap, Paragon dove over her, fully expecting the mutant's incredible flexibility to allow her entire upperbody to bend back over her pelvis from the blow of his force. If not, he would be facing her exposed back. Either way, Paragon's arms extended, two tiny black needles shooting out of his wrists, aimed towards the exposed flesh in Zaria's face or in the back of her head. If they struck, a powerful neurotoxin would flood her system, rendering her almost immediately unconscious.

If all went as intended, he would roll onto the ground and catch Zaria's head before it hit the ground before blinking away once more.

____

Zaria had tensed the moment that the unknown figure had vanished, a mental curse half formed when suddenly a solid object filled her sight. Instinct fired by many hours of operations collapsed the secondary lower joint of her left leg forward, dropping her backward and left with equal speed to Paragon's own snap kick, the surface of his knee brushing the extreme edge of her jaw rather than connecting with force.

The rapid shift in perspective revealed her foe's secondary follow-through, and a snarl creased her features as she folded her upper knee inward, the limb collapsing in the manner of an accordion, hip pivoting to shift the angle as the woman fell, far more in control of the movement than any normal human had the right to be. As this motion happened, her upper arm elbow popped backwards, gun raising to angle upwards. And then the ex-Midnight, new Special Projects operative loosed a vicious snap kick for the fucker's exposed right leg, the opposing joints snapping back into alignment with double the force of a normal kick, with the added ability to directly extend in a linear strike, as opposed to a standard arc.

And should contact miss, the quick double-tap stroke of the pistol's trigger, pointed at Paragon's belly, should be adequate insurance.

____

As Zaria's leg came up towards his own, Paragon would snatch the underside of her thigh just as she lashed out against his limb. He grunted as the blow connected, but it seemed his physical armor prevented any serious damage. Holding her leg to his side (and still in mid-air from his opening attack), Paragon's other hand blurred across his body, aiming to slam down on Zaria's shoulder. Now leveraging himself on his opponent, Malcom would hear a quiet whirr as a light thruster in Paragon's boots gave him another boost of momentum, once again sending him soaring over Malcom's head, just as she opened fire with her pistol. The beads just barely missed Paragon's torso, skimming along his body, sending a chunk of ceramite flying off his frame. As he moved, blades extended out of his wrists, perhaps piercing into Zaria's flesh from where he held her. They would not go deep - no more than a quarter inch.

Once over her, Paragon released, another blast from his thrusters clearing him of Malcom, their eleborate game of death-twister hopefully over. Airborne and headed for the nearest wall, Paragon turned his head and immediately looked for Kianna.
 
as written by Tiko

Kianna couldn't get a clear shot on Paragon while he was tangling with Zaria, and she cursed under her breath. As he broke free of Zaria she activated the blink pack within her combat suit in anticipation of another blink from Paragon - an effort to keep one step ahead of him.

As his eyes found her, she vanished from view, only to re-appear crouched upon the desk.

He was moving too quickly for her to engage him in melee and she dismissed the sword in hand while firing more shots at Paragon's moving form. As the sword vanished from her grasp she reached into her robes to withdraw a second disruptor pistol, intending to empty both of them into Paragon, even as her suit prepared to blink again.

The rapid blinking would prove disorienting, especially with Paragon's speed to contend with, but reflexes alone wouldn't suffice. She needed to keep him unsure where she would be at any given moment. She was trusting in her suit to be able to swiftly pin his location as she came out of her blinks.
 
as written by Lobos

A sharply indrawn breath as pin-pricks pierced her flesh, a moment of sluggishness as toxins entered her bloodstream, rapidly encountering awakening nanites that saturated her body. Given her previous profession, poison was an ill advised method of attack, the Midnight nanite package particularly efficient at neutralizing foreign substances through rapid metabolic deconstruction into constituent parts while containing those identified as dangerous, or those totally unknown. Shaking the torpor off, Zaria slapped to the deck and rebounded with sickening agility, multiple joints rotating in configurations humans shouldn't perform as she rolled on the struck shoulder, tightly packed at the sight of two disruptor pistols, nearly a ball as she rolled to the side.

"Fuck this." Relinquishing the knife to clatter on the deck, the woman came to a low crouch with her pistol aimed up, the other snaking disturbingly as it drew a match from a second holster.
 
as written by Ronin

The moment Kianna blinked from view, Paragon's attention snapped back to Zaria. The poison in the blades he'd pricked her with should have put her to sleep instantly. Clearly she had some sort counter to his toxins. This simply wouldn't do. He couldn't fight both of them at the same time - not outfitted as he was. He needed to dispatch one of them quickly.

The scene played out in his head. Kianna would blink to another spot and come out guns blazing. Zaria would roll up and take aim with her pistols. He'd be shot out of the air. He weighed his options - the few gadgets he still had left - the scarce amount of energy left in his suit to perform blinks - the respective strengths and weaknesses of his opponents and the tools he might use for each of them. He could not kill any of them.

He made a plan. He executed.

Kianna re-appeared on the table, disruptors levied. A black ball blurred out of Paragon's hand the instant she appeared - aimed not for Kianna, but for the edge of her right outstretched hand - the hand that he'd seen a hardlight generator on during his opening strike. Paragon was not prepared to deal with Kianna's advanced combat suit - he knew nothing about it and could not risk betting that it was similar to earlier models that he'd studied in detail. Neither would he be able to match her energy output; if this relativistic jump contest continued, he would lose. His suit was nearly on empty as it was. All he knew about her that he was perhaps able to contend with was her hardlight shields and her disruptor pistols - two exclusively Aschen weapons that Paragon had come well-equipped for.

The device - a small black orb - would wiz past Kianna's arm and would begin detonating the moment it was close enough to detect the energy from her shield. A flash of blue followed as an intense but contained dome of carefully attuned electromagnetic radiation (Cherenkov radiation, as the Terrans called it) engulfed the space where Kianna hopefully still occupied, epicentered at her generator. Hardlight was frozen photons - weightless light particles packed dense and tight, forced to take on the properties of mass through interactions with other atoms. Paragon's grenade did the opposite, releasing a torrent of supercharged electrons designed to generate EM wavelengths intense but attuned enough to force the solidified light back into its wave properties. It would not succeed completely, of course. Kianna's generator worked on energy magnitudes far greater than Paragon's grenade could manage. The device would not negate or destroy her shields - not even for a moment - but it might disrupt them - and the implications of her shields going haywire and a tidal wave of electromagnetic energy flooding her system may have devestating repercussions as far as her ability to appropriately operate her combat skin. The sheer power and force of the explosion might also overload both of her disruptor pistols.

The device was of Paragon's own design - an experimental weapon that he'd been reluctant to bring. The explosion was contained, but if Kianna was caught in the middle of it and her suit wasn't able to protect her from the blast, she could be killed.

To anyone outside of the blast radius, the grenade would function as a high-intensity flashbang. Unless Zaria was wearing eye and ear protection, she would find herself immediately blinded and deafened. He blinked into a corner of the ceiling immediately following the explosion, deftly avoiding Kianna's disruptor barrage. He looked at Zaria. He was counting on two things - one, that she would expect him to attack her directly following the flashbang. He did not. Paragon waited - waited exactly as long as he needed to - watching to see where Zaria's guard went and where she expected the attack. Only then would he strike.

The second thing he counted on was that she would still be slightly sluggish from the poison in her system. The chemicals in her system were an extremely potent concoction of sedatives and nuerotoxins - designed to put an individual down, hard, immediately, for hours on end. Zaria's nanite defenses seemed more than capable of keeping on her feet ... Paragon hoped that, in the few seconds that had passed from when he'd pricked to her, that she was still at least somewhat lethargic from its effects.

He appeared before her, hands already outstretched towards her duel-wielded guns. It was his last blink. Taloned fingers would clasp, push, and, with the strength of a demon, hopefully crush the metal weapons in his palm. In the same instant, his hip threw foward, his knee shooting out towards her abdomen - or, if she were still crouched, put his boot over head and slam her face into the floor.

In the first round, Paragon had made the mistake of trying to end things tactically with Zaria, using poisons and gadgets instead of close-quartered melee combat. He did this in the hope of ending the fight quickly and because he believed that Zaria was a normal human and feared dueling her fist-to-fist for too long. He'd been wrong on both accounts. Time to adjust his strategy.

Before he struck hard, now he struck fast. Any direct strike would just give her momentum to perform another impossible feat of flexibility. He couldn't lash out at her with traditional hits. He attempted to grip the back of her head firmly with one hand and the small of her back with the other. With the strength of gods, he tried to fold her, forcing her head down towards her crotch. Immediately expecting an attack from her free arms, Paragon briefly released the girl in the anticipation of a counter-strike. If it came, he would deflect and use her arms in much the same way as he'd just used her head. If not, he would try and sweep her feet and begin bending her legs.

He was, frankly, trying to turn her into a balloon animal. Paragon couldn't match her blow-for-blow, but he counted on being physically stronger than her and tried to use her incredible flexibility against her. He did not intend to spar with her or toy with her - he intended to put her out of the fight. If he did not succeed here, he would almost certainly lose.
 
as written by Lobos

Blinking against the flash, Zaria mentally swore, grateful that she possessed the full package of implants courtesy of her old employment. Visual assist and projection implants and audio implants muffled what would otherwise be a debilitating flash, and as that faded, Zaria strained with her highly trained other senses for the figure's attack, not wavering her leveled pistols.

As hands clamped on pistols, Zaria relinquished them as though they’d grown fangs, pistoning her arms down as her crouched view afforded her a groin’s appearance. Taking the impact to the head with a grimace, she performed the yet sickest feat of flexibility yet. Joints audibly popped as they rotated, her extremities actually flexing as a bowed piece of wood as she rolled with the momentum, pivoting her body as her shoulders as a rudimentary axle, twisting her talents to a burning limit as she sharply hyperextended multi-jointed legs.

Full circle, she brought those legs and heels down from her inverted posture like hammers, aiming to catch the bastard from above his own position and drive him to the ground in the manner he’d attempted to do to her. With muscles stretched as far as they could go, she released her breath in a vicious gasp. Should she succeed in the reversal, the woman would scythe her arms around and aim for a debilitating pound on both sides of her attacker’s head.
 
as written by Tiko

Kianna vanished from atop the desk as the grenade closed in on her position and it detonated as she re-appeared once more, this time against the wall across from her desk. The detonation cracked the wood finish on the desk, shattered the com device, and sent papers fluttering in all directions.

Meanwhile, Kianna squeezed off several more shots from her disruptor pistols before Paragon closed on Zaria, rendering her side-arms insufficient once more - unless she wanted to risk friendly fire.

Her expression turned to one of a snarl, but her visor concealed it.

It was in that moment that something swept through the ship. The sensors on Kianna's combat suit went haywire, briefly blinding her. The momentary distortion field and gravitational waves kept her from blinking - lest she wanted to do so blindly and wind up inside of a wall - but it passed as quickly as it had come.

Was it something Paragon had done?

Alarms where sounding through-out the ship.

No, this hadn't come from Paragon. She had only split moments to assess the situation, given the speeds at which blows where being exchanged.

"Take care of this," she instructed Zaria before the phase-shift generator on her combat suit activated, allowing her to simply turn and step through the wall heading for the bridge.
 
as written by Ronin

Zaria had used up all her surprises. As her head slammed against the floor beneath his boot, his mask snapped up to the sound of popping joints. He watched her tibia bend off from her femur at an impossible angle, heels poising forward over her own body like scorpion stingers. Had this been Zaria's first party trick, had she not already demonstrated her incredible flexibility, it would have worked. Paragon would not have been looking for it - he would have thought the strike impossible.

As it was, he had already calculated how to best receive the blow. He had no time to dodge it entirely - plan B then. He shifted his head to the right and flexed his legs upwards, meeting the downward heel-stomp in mid-swing and catching it on his trapezius. His arms wrapped quickly around her calves. He pivoted swiftly on his toes, marked Kianna, and would attempt to throw Zaria over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes directly towards Kianna, hopefully before she phased out of the room. He was not just finished with her yet.

He would crouch low if his move worked, waiting to see if Zaria collided with Kianna. His next move would entirely depend on the success of the impact.
 
as written by Lobos

Being flung through the air was irritating, though having caught a glimpse of where she was headed pissed Zaria off even more firmly. Flailing at the air, the woman's twist worked in her favor, planting two boots on the wall to either side of Kianna, shoving off as she tucked into a roll, grimacing at the radical shifts in perspective as she used her odd anatomy to control the somersault. Writhing into a more favorable position, the woman sprung from the ball she'd coiled herself into snaring a knife hilt between two fingers from her boot, flipping it around in hand, and letting it fly in the last direction she'd seen the figure at.

Drawing her last from a thigh sheath, Zaria adopted a crouched posture, knife held reverse in her right hand and angled ahead of her cocked left hand, held open palm. Eyes scanning the room, she relinquished the offensive, halting her momentum to attempt to gain an advantage through controlled engagement.
 
as written by Calcos

The noises of calamity traversed on sound waves through the ship, eventually finding their way to his ears. His attention snapping to the source of the commotion, Dust made his way to Kianna's quarters. He made no attempt to run or sprint, as he was quite certain the situation was being handled; it wasn't a one-sided turmoil that he heard, after all.

The stillness of the air about him made him feel calm. Except for the sounds of brawling, it was quiet in this part of the ship. It put him at ease; the perfect state in which to find himself if he were about to draw blood. However, his own warpath would be blockaded by the arrival of Kianna herself, who Dust caught phasing through the bulkheads of the ship, seeming to be getting as much distance as possible from the conflict erupting within her own chambers.

As usual, her face showed no concern.

"Boss?" Dust called out.
 
as written by Tiko

A good dozen marines spilled down the corridors at Dust's back as they overtook him en-route to Kianna's office. They too drew up short though as the Empress appeared in their path.

"Are you injured?" one of the marines asked.

The look she threw him was a scathing one.

"Take care of the problem. Dust, you with me," she instructed as she swept past the marines and continued on her path to the bridge.

On the bridge the crew was working furiously over the ships consoles, taking readings and status reports on their navigation systems that had been briefly thrown awry.

"What's going on?" Kianna asked.

"We're not sure," the ship commander answered. "It was some sort of gravitational wave. It ap-" He broke off and frowned.

"What is it?" Kianna demanded.

"It appears to have originated from the Uranos system," he explained.

"I'm not a scientist, but correct me if I'm wrong. The amount of power required to put out a pulse that powerful..."

"Would be immensely immeasurable."

"Who do we have closest to the Uranos system," Kianna asked.

"Inviere is in the Gaelian system, with the Hymn of Purgation," he answered.

"Get me through to her."

"The systems are still on the fritz. It could be a few a minutes."

"You've got five."

With that taken care of she turned to Dust. "I don't want anything making it inside here, understand?" she asked.

She was confident in Zaria's abilities, but if Paragon made it to the bridge, she had Dust as a second line to keep Paragon occupied. Whatever anomaly had swept through the Cryos system was a far more pressing concern than Paragon at the moment.
 
as written by Ronin

Paragon watched Zaria twist in mid-air, already calculating where her springboard off the wall would place her and when. Taking advantage of the momentary blindspot as she rolled, Paragon selected three blunt-edge throwing blades. As Zaria sprang up, knife poised, she would be looking into three rapidly-approaching blurs of black.

Not even bothering to see if they connected, Paragon loosed a smoke pellet. Mist enveloped him and quickly obscured him from Zaria's view. His attention remained focused on the girl until he had left the room, ready to intercept any last-minute ranged attack from her throwing knives, the smoke covering his escape and subsequent entrance into the hallway. No sooner had he rounded Kianna's room than did he find himself face-to-face with a squad of Aschen marines.

Taking a few paces back, Paragon drew a long, slender sword from his cloak. It shone like the moon.

"Come and get it."
 
as written by Calcos

Dust acknowledged Kianna with a curt bow; a strange mannerism of his, but his loyalty was seated quite deeply. Turning away from her, he mentally activated the magical properties of his augments, themselves being magitech, becoming intangible, and proceeded to phase through the hatch to the bridge. From there, he would hide within a bulkhead and stay guarding the hatch.

The influx of marines to Kianna's quarters caught his attention, and he found himself amused, though he didn't smile; he never did. He resigned to stay at his post, as he had been instructed. If need be he would act, but until then Zaria had the situation under control for all intents and purposes.
 
as written by Lobos, Tiko, and Ronin

"Fu-" Dropping boneless, the woman cursed anew as one thrown blur winged off the side of her head, spinning her as smoke filled the room. Clawing at keeping conscious from the blunt force trauma, Zaria's recovery was sluggish, flailing with a hand at the desk nearby. Knocking a few items off as she caught an edge, she heaved herself up, pausing to let her head clear of the fugue.

Listening remained, and so she knew from the muffled sound of Paragon's voice he left the room and had run into something else. Taking advantage of the moment, she lurched after the thrown weapons, collecting them with a grimace of disgust. "Blunt? Blunt?! Amateur shit!"

Pocketing the blades, Zaria grabbed her other knife, waving at the smoke as she strode to the door, glancing out for a scant second it took to see enough to duck back inside. Paragon was out of her bounds to go after.

____

The marines where quick to respond to the appearance of Paragon. Orders where barked as several of the marines fell back to stagger their numbers at checkpoints in the event that Paragon made it through their front ranks.

Among those that remained in position where six. The three at the forefront took to one knee as they opened fire on Paragon with a rain of disruptor fire from their rifles while the three behind them remained standing to fire over-top of them in unison.

____

"Empress, we're receiving some of their transmissions now," the ship Commander relayed.

'We unidentified vessel. We are. We are ø¦µßţȣɣ. Consensus. We. We are the Va'nyrian Consensus. We are peace.'

"Va'nyrian Consensus, you are ordered to lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply will be construed as a hostile action." The female voice was firm, but emotionless.

"Empress. We've made contact with an alien species. Fleet Admiral Inviere is requesting instructions on how to proceed."

Kianna cursed silently to herself.

"Relay back that I will be bifrosting aboard personally, and to prepare for my immediate arrival," Kianna instructed. "And get the bifrost hub online."

____

Paragon backhanded his blade as the marines prepared to fire. His eyes flitted between each of them beneath his mask, lining up where they were aiming, watching the pressure on their triggers, calculating who would fire first and where.

He'd never intended to face them, of course - not with the moonblade. The blade was for killing, and Paragon did not kill. Not such as these, anyway. As the first marine loosed a disruptor blast from his rifle, Paragon opened his palm and waited, his hand already exactly where it needed to be. Hardlight shields and disruptors. These two things he'd been prepared for.

As before in Kianna's office, the disruptor blast never reached its target, the ball of green evaporating into Paragon's hand in a cloud of mist. Still, he staggered. Before he'd had his shields. Kevlin supressors. Though Paragon had stopped the bulk of the strike, the cloud of immense heat surrounding the beam still inflicted enormous pain down his hand and through his arm. Two more shots he caught, using energy from the last catch to enhance his speed - each blast bringing him a little lower. The smell of charred flesh filled the air.

He'd wanted to catch two more but decided he would no longer have even minimal functionality in his left arm if he tried that. The tubes running along his suit glowed a familiar fierce green. He had power. He'd just have to hope it was enough.

He blinked, phasing in mid-air behind the back of the rearmost marine. Roll. Another blink, this time aimed through the open hatch that the other marines hopefully hadn't had time to go through yet. As he hopefully blinked in front of it, Paragon would channel energy into his leg and forcefully back-kick the hatch closed, effectively sealing his foes behind him.

If successful up to this point, Paragon would look ahead at the open hallway, scanning for foes. Only the faint trace of ammonia in the air leftover on Kianna's armor told him where to go.

____

"Where the fra-"

The marines in the hall where left to wonder where the hell Paragon had vanished to, but the ones falling back where in a position to see him re-appear within the room ahead.

As the hatch started to slam closed, the foremost of the marines had the thought to send a frag grenade ricocheting into the room where it clattered upon the floor and detonated simultaneously to the hatch slamming shut.

Within the closed confines of the room, the explosion would likely prove difficult to avoid.

"He's moving towards the crew quarters," one of the marines spoke into a comm device. "Lock down deck 13, and get our planck packs back online."

Doors sealed off in the distance as locked engaged to leave Paragon and the marines corralled off on the deck that held the executive officers quarters.

"Get ready to open this thing," the marine told his men.

____

"Empress, Sergeant Ganson is requesting we bring our planck packs back online. It could interfere with the bifrost, we'll need to remotely activate the hub from Inviere's ship," he said.

Kianna pursed her lips in irritation as Paragon's antics further delayed her reaching the Uranos system. If his meddling incited a war that she could have averted, she would personally return to gut the fucker alive.

"Do it," she instructed.

As the planck packs came back online, the crew put their request through to Inviere.

It would delay things only briefly before the request went through and they where able to start bringing Inviere's hub online remotely. A swirling, rainbow colored vortex would begin to form atop a large emblem on the floor of the bridge.

____

Frustrated beyond belief as disruptor bolts screamed down the hall past the open door, Zaria had no choice but to wait it out. A few moments after the barrage had ceased, however, she heard marine voices, boiling out of the room and down the hall like a storm. Eyes flicking across the scene, she desperately wanted to strangle the lot of them for letting him get past. Glaring daggers, she snarled at one of the rear most men.

"I need a gun."

Her eyes were like ice, frozen like the frigid fury running through the woman. Her crimson hair was decidedly messy, bruising bloomed along one temple like an ugly flower. Beads of red stained her emerald shirt at her shoulder, yet her movements were economical as she held one hand out in expectance, the other clutching a one of her knives with relaxed poise.

____

The grenade hit Paragon dead-on, his body completely caught in the blast radius. Battered ceramite and nanomesh armor fought to contain the lethal concussive force from killing him, succeeding only by a narrow margin. He flew back against the wall, his body snapping loudly at the impact before slumping near-motionlessly to the floor. He knew the damage before he even checked the biodiagnostic. Two broken ribs. A fractured ulna and a chipped elbow. Internal bleeding, multiple arteries - hopefully none major. He checked the diagnostic. Yep. Ruptured femoral artery. Far beyond the capacity of his nanite reserves to repair by themselves - they would only delay the bleeding. He would lose feeling in his right leg in fifteen minutes. He would die in twenty. Couple all this with the third degree burns etching up his left arm, the myriad of bruises and cuts littering his body, the photon burns on his lower back from where his shield matrix had exploded-

-what all of this amounted to was pain. Unbearable pain. Pain beyond measure. Pain beyond purpose and courage. Pain that ate through a man's mind and devoured his soul like a rapid dog, that tore sanity and hope to shreds and brought even the proudest man to his knees.

But of course, Paragon was no man.

He was up the next moment, his good hand passing under his armor, rebreaking two of his three ribs and aligning them so that the bone shards would not cut through a vein and worsen the damage. He heard shouting from behind the door - calls to open the hatch. That wouldn't do. If those marines got in - hell, if Zaria got in - his twenty minutes would turn into thirty seconds.

Hefting the moonblade, Paragon stabbed the sword into the hatch, the weapon passing through the re-enforced metal as if it wasn't there at all ... which, it seemed, was true. The blade made no mark on the metal. It cut through nothing - passing through the door as if it were a hologram. Paragon positioned the weapon between the end of the hatch and the hull of the ship, then stepped back.

The sound of wretching metal and twisting steel followed as the moonblade again assume physical form and fused with the hatch and the hull. His opponent's way in hopefully barred, Paragon turned. Thermals went up. He found the fading heat signature of the marine platoon and followed it towards the hatch they'd come through, checking to see if the door was locked.

____

One of the marines withdrew his sidearm and passed it to Zaria while the marines in the front exchanged glances at the sound of screeching metal. One tried the hatch to no avail before throwing his shoulder into it.

"He fused the fraking thing shut," one of the men cursed.

Meanwhile the sergeant continued to communicate into his headset to report Paragon's last known location and to coordinate another team's arrival. He would likely have two minutes before they reached the deck - possibly more before they located him on the deck.

____

Back aboard the bridge, Kianna waited with some measure of impatience as the bifrost continued to take form before she finally spoke up clearly enough for Dust to hear her..

"Time to go, Dust."

She stepped into the multicolored vortex, and once Dust was through as well, the commander powered the hub back down. A moment later the vortex had closed behind the pair.

____

Checking the sidearm as she took the gun, she looked it over again as the marine called out the door's status. Her passing familiarity with Aschen weaponry, however, hadn't prepared her for the lack of a feature utterly familiar to her. No override? Are you fuc-

She quelled the train of thought and killed it. Paragon had riled her, and if she continued on the line of thought, that anger that was being multiplied was going to make her sloppy. The realization sobered her sufficiently, as she recalled the last time her anger got the best of her. Leaning against the bulkhead and allowing the marines to coordinate a response, Malcom breathed slow and deep, cooling her temper, reigning herself in check. Falling back on those practices of her previous occupation. Consulting her implant, she accessed the software generated schematics of the ship, light playing across her eyes as the imagery came from the cybernetics at their edges. Their location was essentially stuck within the lone entrance to Kianna's quarters, though from her implants intelligence gathering functions...

Stepping back down the hall, she glanced towards the upper edge of the bulkhead, hunting for the telltale signs. Smiling as she spied it, Zaria backed against the opposite wall, aimed the disruptor, and fired. Eying the now exposed vent, Zaria tapped the comprimised grate again, nodding in satisfaction. Testing the heat with a palm lower against the wall, she glanced back at the marines, flashing them a brief smile.

"Sorry boys, but I'd rather remain in this chase. If you can fit after me, feel free. Otherwise...."

"There's the cutting crews to chop the hatch."

Levering herself up and into the narrow duct, the ex-Midnight muttered a brief thanks at her anatomical mutation as she wriggled and crawled through the vent.

____

Paragon wretched free the grip of the moonblade and examined the single remaining shard fixed to the hilt. The lost metal was of no consequence, he could reforge the blade tonight ... it was what he saw in the reflection of the silvery steel that bothered him. His torso was a mangled mess of ceramite and bloody flesh, his fluids kept from dripping to the floor only by a thin layer of regenerative nanomesh. His entire right pauldron was gone - his naked shoulder barred and marred with blistering burns. His cloak was in tatters, barely reaching his mid-back. His left hand was ruined. His right leg would be inoperable in fifteen minutes.

His mask. The lower left quarter of his mask had been blown away. Scabbed lips looked back at Paragon in a grim frown. How could he have been so careless?

Growling, he turned and examined the signs posted above the doorways. Escape pods. He eyed the 'med bay' directory longingly, but quickly decided against it. He couldn't heal here. Too risky. He pushed the control panel leading towards the pods, only mildly frustrated when the door was unresponsive. Locked down. He's expected that. Blink charges were unresponsive as well ... Plancks, probably. He'd expected that too. No matter. All he needed to do was get through this door, cross a few hallways and he was home free. He could melt the hinges and push through, though an explosive might be quicker. His good hand fingered through his belt and took stock of what little gadgets he still had at his disposal...

Vibrations behind him. Less than a hundred meters. Paragon turned swiftly, attuning his sensors towards the disturbance. Were they blasting through the door? No. No heat. Was the ship moving? Couldn't be ... the signature was too small ... it was a rustling, a crawling, the pitter-patter of knees and hands on metal-

The vents.

No. No impossible. The marines couldn't...

Zaria could. You have sixty seconds. Move.

A plan was made the very next instant. Kneeling with some difficulty before the hatch, Paragon began setting one of his explosive charges to the door and primed it. Twenty seconds. He stepped back, channeling energy into his right gauntlet - concentrating - tuning the joule-output to a thousandth...

Five.

A smoke grenade hit the ground. Hot gas filled the room, thick and billowing. The moment Zaria's feet hit the floor, Paragon's charge activated - the door leading to the escape pods flying off its hinges and into the hallway. The boom was deafening. Something thudded through the crater and scattered into the hallway as soon as the fire died. Paragon was making his escape.

____

"Sir... the Cryo watchtower, its been destroyed. We're being ordered to jump the Gaelian Watchtower, immediately."

"All hands! Action stations! This is not a drill!" The ship commander was barking orders over a comm device and to his officers on the bridge.

"Sir, we can't jump with the ftl inhibitors online."

"Get us into the air, then bring them offline to make the jump," he answered. "Get me on a channel with the marines down on deck 13, and start prepping the ftl drives." He spoke into the comm device once more, this time to the marines trying to corral Paragon. "You have six minutes, and then the inhibitors are coming back offline. I want him found, now."

____

Wedging herself at the end of the vent, Zaria once again demonstrated the use of her unusual anatomy, exerting enough force to pop the cover off. Following the cover out, her boots hit the floor...

The blast dropped the woman to a low crouch, spinning and leveling the disruptor pistol ahead of her. Calls across the comm piece in her ear sounded, something about a watchtower. More important to her was the call across the the marines. Pausing to answer, she mutely spoke into the unit.

"I'm on the other side of the doors. A charge was used, corridor is smoky. Be advised I'm on this deck, marines." Lowering her hand from the comm, Zaria advanced cautiously, one hand holding the pistol ahead of her. The other wove underneath, holding a knife point forward.

____

It would take some time for the smoke to clear. When Zaria's vision returned, she would find the hallways stretching down towards the escape pods completely empty. The smell of melted metal wafted in from the room behind her.

Something small and wrapped in a tattered black piece of fabric lay in the middle of the hall, unmoving. The wispy tendrils of darkness writhing off of the bit of material made its point of origin clear - this was from Paragon's cloak ... but where was Paragon?
 
as written by barney_fife, Tiko, and Script

The Quartet of Condors circled around above Lochrest, as the Pilots noted the ship nestled within the city below.

"Condor-Alpha to Apocalypse, we have a situation. Package is in an urban area, looks like it's overrun with locals. How shall we proceed." The Pilot hailed, as the four Condors now circled Lochrest at high altitude, in a holding pattern.

"Apocalypse to Condor Alpha, proceed with the mission, we'll send down additional Reinforcements." The Commander responded, and the four Condors began to lower in altitude, the Marines on board checking their weapons, and the Cuirass suits.

At key points around the ships, the Condors touched down, kicking up dust and snow as they landed in the densely populated area. Their ramps deployed, and a dozen Marines per Condor filtered out, moving in formation into open yard around the ship.

A marine sergeant called out. "Clear out the locals, secure the ship." He ordered, while the Fleet Tender, large tug comprised of mostly framework and scaffolding began to descend from orbit, it's Antigravity drives humming loudly and echoing through Lochrest.

At that moment a squad of War Adepts from the Ultras Company were loaded into drop pods, with freshly painted blue and white Adept armor, they readied for drop, grasping their Heavy Magnetrons and checking their systems. They would be needed if the situation turned ugly.

A Marine Lieutenant was the last to step from the Condors, surveying the ship as his men converged on different entrances.

"Whose in charge here!" The Lieutenant bellowed.

____

Clearing out the shipyard and securing the ship was a matter easier said than done, unless they wanted to start shooting the locals. The term civilian was only loosely used in regards to Cryons who were known to pack military grade weaponry, and typically were more capable and well armed than Isirian soldiers.

None of the locals seemed inclined to actually clearing out of the ship yard at the random orders of foreigners, and in fact they took up positions to intercept the approaching marines.

The marines would find themselves facing down armed mercenaries and Cryon mechs. No one had raised a gun yet, but it was clear that most of the locals were armed.

"That would be me," Kane answered as he stepped forward.

Kane was well known around these parts for piracy, smuggling, and worse. His preferred cargo of choice was the illegal trafficking of kidnapped women and children for prostitution and other manners of slave labor to the outer planets beyond of the scrutiny of the law.

A deplorable individual, and one of many to have profited greatly since the arrival of the Aschen Empire.

At his back his men kept in formation, ready for trouble should things go south.

____

"War Adepts on Standby, sir." A Sergeant reported, as the Lieutenant approached Kane, as the Cryons took up intercepting positions, the Marines took up their own offensive positions, painting Cryon positions with laser rangefinders to coordinate orbital strikes if the need arose. However no shots were fired.

The Lieutenant took a step forward, shifting his Cuirass before speaking.

"I'm Lieutenant Jon Aiken of the Iconoclast Battleship Apocalypse, this ship here is property of the Imperial Navy, and I've come to retrieve the Empire's stolen property." The Lieutenant explained.

"You can either profit from this, or be destroyed. But I must remind you the Empire has allowed you and your people to operate with impunity, while they look the other way. For that trend to continue, your cooperation is appreciated." The Lieutenant said.

"Consider your next actions very carefully, Mr. Kane, as they could decide the outcome of your operation."

____

Quietly, a red-haired man perched himself on the edge of a crate close behind Kane. In one hand he held a small coin, that he began to flip with unerring accuracy as he watched the exchange. He was clearly armed, but all his weaponry remained holstered, and his posture was far more relaxed than that of his fellows.

Vaughan raised an eyebrow as the Lieutenant spoke, but stayed quiet.

____

"Stolen?" Kane inquired with an arch of an eyebrow. "Out here, possession is property," he told them. "And we don't respond kindly to threats."

The weight of a warning hung in his words.

"But it would seem you and yours came a long way to acquire this ship," he noted. "A ship I paid 1.25 million Drachmali for. I'm a reasonable man though, and I wouldn't wish to send you packing empty-handed without so much as discussing the matter. Have your men put their toys away, and we can talk how much it's worth to you."

____

"I wasn't making a threat, merely stating the obvious. You seem to do well for yourself out here, and I know that the Empire sticking it's nose in Cryo's direction is bad for business." The Lieutenant said, gesturing for his men to lower their weapons, they did so however cautiously, though the moment things went south, War Adepts could be there within seconds.

"Considering you and your friends have gutted this ship of most of it's crucial systems, it's not worth much more than scrap, I'll pay no more than one-hundred thousand Cubits, and the Empire continues to ignore your little operations here, you can take it or leave it, either way we're leaving with this ship. I would prefer to leave peacefully, but the Imperial Navy's not one to take no for an answer." The Lieutenant warned.

"If you tell me who sold you this ship, where they went, and what kind of ship they left this planet with, I might be able to convince my superiors to offer you more of a fair deal on this trade."

"It's your choice Mr. Kane." The Lieutenant said, tugging at the collar of his Cuirasse suit, revealing an intricate neck tattoo of Tauron design.

"Work with me, and I might be able to talk to some good business your way. Like I said, you can profit from this, but I can't leave Cryo without that ship."

____

Kane eyed the tattoos before looking to the other marines present. He propped one foot up on a crate as he gave it some thought.

"That scrap we salvaged off it won't be nearly enough to recoup my losses," Kane answered. "600,000 cubits, and you can walk away with the ship, and the information you want. Call it a business investment."

____

The Lieutenant keyed his comm device, and there was a brief exchange in Anquietas. An agreement was made and the Lieutenant nodded. "We have a deal, you'll be paid in Banknotes, they'll be shipped from the Empire once we ascertain everything we need is intact." He said, writing out a small claims card and handing it to Kane.

"Hang onto that, you lose it, you won't get paid." The small claims card could be redeemed in the cash amount of 600,000 cubits on any Imperial world from any Imperial Bank, or if Kane decided to wait, the money would be shipped to him.

The fleet Tender was already a several hundred feet above them now, cables descended from the ship's scaffolding, and once the deal was concluded, the Marines could move in and secure the ship.

"Secure the AI core first, that's going to have our data. Everything else is gravy." He ordered, as he took a step forward.

"Now, who sold you the ship, and where did they go?"

____

As the marines moved off to see to the ship, Kane and the Lieutenant were left alone to finish out their deal without risk of prying eyes from the non-Taurons among the squad.

"We don't deal in paper promises out here," Kane answered.

He took the offered claims card, but had something far more valuable in mind before the deal could be concluded.

"I want a meeting, with your boss," he explained. "To compensate the hazards of flying through Imperial space."

____

"I can't make any promises, Guatrau is a busy man." Aiken answered, looking to the ship. "Come see him when things have cooled down a little bit, I'll put in a good word. Tell him a mutual friend sent you when you go to see him. Fortunately for you Hadante isn't in the Imperial Core." The Lieutenant explained.

"For now now you have to make my other bosses happy.. You see I'm atoning for my sins." He said, showing the Barcode on the back of his neck, a brand for Penal Battalion soldiers.

"Once I'm out I'll make the arrangements." He said, shifting his Cuirass suit. "Now, about who sold you that ship, what do you know?"

____

"Don't have a name, only a face," Kane answered. "She was about 5'2", 5'3", with long red hair, and balls enough to rival half my crew. Might have taken her for a Cryon, if it wasn't for the accent. Offered her a job, but she just wanted the money."

While they conversed, orders were making their way through the workers aboard the ship to clear out and let the Aschen take it.

____

"Was there a blonde with her?" The Lieutenant asked. "Anywhere I can go to find out where she may have gone, what kind of ship she may have taken? Did she say anything noteworthy to you?" The Lieutenant asked, while Kat was simultaneously listening in on the Datalink.

"So Zaria is partly behind this, the question is, is Kianna a victim or an accomplice?" Kathryn asked herself from her crow's nest in Illumene City.

The Lieutenant's men were already clearing out, reporting that there was no new data, that all internal sensors were taken offline when the Datalink was taken offline, They were going to send the ship back to the Empire and have it examined piece by piece.

By this point the Fleet Tender was lifting the derelict vessel off the ground, the Lieutenant's men were disembarking, some of them returning to their Condors. With a deal established, and the ship secure, the War Adepts were taken off of high alert. The Tender was now pulling the ship up into it's chassis, before it started up into the sky.

____

"Never saw a blonde," Kane answered. "The rest I'll need time to get. Give me a few hours to hit up my contacts and find out if she did any dealings with anyone else in Lochcrest, or if she signed on with anyone's crews. If not she's probably still here somewhere. There's only so many ways off this rock."

____

The Lieutenant nodded, before he looked about, he had now received explicit instructions from Kat, and a promise to mitigate the sentence if he fulfilled them.

"Is there somewhere i can stay where you can contact me in the Meantime?" The man asked. "My bosses want me to assist you in any way, and to be available if you have any more information. These men are going to pull back and return to the ship, so you'll just be dealing with me." Aiken explained.

"Theres a blonde woman we're looking for especially. If you can secure information about her, My superiors would be willing to pay for it, in addition to what you're already owed."

____

"There's a bar up the street that way," Kane said. "If anyone asks, you're waiting for me. What can you tell me about this other woman you're looking for?" he asked.

____

"There's not much that I can tell you, only that finding her is a matter of the utmost important to the Empire. Her name is Kianna. She's the former Empress, but we suspect something happened between her and that redhead who was supposed to be her bodyguard. We need to find them both." Aiken explained, nodding to the bar, as his forces finally began to clear the planet.

"I'll be awaiting your return, pull this off and I'll see about having Guatrau toss something extra in for you, I shared a cell with one of his top Lieutenants, Netan, if you're familiar with that name."

____

Kane raised an eyebrow at Kianna's name.

"People lose a lot of things on Cryo," he remarked with amusement. "But an Empress is probably a first. I'll see what there is to find. She's well known around here. Comes by every few months to hit the slave markets."

____

Once the Aschen marine had move on Kane gave his head a shake and tucked the note into one of his pockets. He turned then to Vaughan.

"Follow him," he instructed. "Don't let him out of your sight."

He didn't particularly trust the Aschen officer, but in his line of work you didn't make a point of trusting most anyone. Especially on Cryo.

____

Vaughan nodded his head and rolled onto his feet, "Send him to a bar and tell me to follow? You're a man after my own heart, Kane," he remarked with a grin. "He won't go anywhere without my knowing, don't you worry."

With a hum, he made off in the direction of the bar, making no effort to stay unseen. Plenty of the crew from the shipyard had dispersed towards the local bars now that their salvaging efforts were no longer required. Vaughan was just one more face amongst them.

____

As Instructed, the marine went to the bar and found a table. Ordering a stiff drink and settling in for the long haul, he waited. It wasn't long before he was joined by a young blonde, green eyed woman. She was dressed much like the locals, sporting the appropriate attire to blend in and not attract much attention.

On close observation the pair were talking, but it wouldn't be in any language Vaughan could understand. The Aschen language of Anquietas was still not widely taught in Isiria, afterall, and likely even less so on Cryo.

The Pair exchanged brief conversation, and exchanged notes before the woman finished her own drink, got up, and left.

The Marine now waited quietly for Kane to return with much needed information.

____

It would be a few hours before Kane turned up, and though he quickly spotted out the Marine sitting in the bar, it was to Vaughan that his footsteps took him. He paused briefly enough to speak lowly.

"Anything?" he inquired.

He flagged the tender down to bring him a drink.

____

"Hasn't moved from there since he got here, boring son of a bitch. He spoke to a blonde woman. She looked local by her outfit, but I didn't recognise her and they were talking Aschen. Nobody else." Vaughan shrugged, "Not much to go on, but I reckon she was some sort of intel operative. Would explain why she was blending in, she's probably been here a while reporting on... well, fuck all of use, I'd imagine."

____

Kane took the drink as the tender slid it over to him.

"Alright," he said. "Keep an eye out, I'm going to go talk business with our foreign friend."

With that he made his way to join Aiken at his table where he seated himself across from the marine.

"You're in luck," he said. "Seems your red-head got around while she was here."

____

"Got around?" The Marine asked, as he took a sip of ale from his glass. "That much is obvious I would imagine, given that she's abandoned a perfectly good battle cruiser that would probably do more in a fight than anything she would have left this world with." The man said, while thumbing a note in his left hand.

"So, what do you have for me?" The man asked, twirling the yellow piece of paper between his index and thumb.

____

"She hit three different ship yards after mine," Kane answered. "Wanted a stealth ship with some serious ftl capabilities. More than what you'll typically find around here. Leeroy sold her a cross-wing peregin-class ship with an ftl drive scavenged off an old abandoned Reverence S. Says she paid nearly twice what the ship was worth and didn't bother trying to haggle him down on it. No one knows where she was headed after that, and if anyone saw your missing Empress, they're not talking."

____

"I have a fair idea..." The Marine replied, listening to the chatter into his earpiece.

He pondered a moment before he slid a yellow note towards Kane. "This is the location of a dead drop that has your payment, in cash."

Standing up, he finished his drink before he turned to leave, his job here was done for now.

---

It was at that moment that Kat had settled in back at the Arastel field office with a cup of coffee, a map of the Andromeda Galaxy played out before her.

"If she's a Dominion Spy... there's only one place she could have gone..." Kat said, pulling up a map of the Umbral sector.
 
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