As both Lion and Dwan entered the house, everyhting became a tad brighter. Inside was a small hall area for storing clothes followed by a narrow corridor. The walls were colored in a darker shade of white.
As they walked down the corridor, which had a variety of doors to the side, they finally reached a large living room where one of the walls was infact a window.
Two clean-looking grey couches were positioned next to a vintage armchair, all faced towards a huge TV to the right of the window.
A sleek white table was posiitined between the TV and the other furniture.
Connected to the living room was a spacious kitchen in black and white, alongside the kitchen was a small bar with three spinning chairs.
To the left of the corridor's living room entrance was a flight of stairs which led to an upper level as well as to a catwalk which surrounded the entire room. The part of the catwalk that ran alongside the window had a door which led out to the enormous balcony.
Lion motioned for Dwan to follow him up the stairs. As they reached the top, a small office area appeared. The desk was faced in a way so that its inhabitant could overlook the living room and the window, gaining a view at most of the monument in the valley below.
Another corridor dotted with doors led away from the office area. "Big, huh?" Asked Lion jokingly.
"Much bigger than my pad.", Dwan said. "So, what's next?", Dwan asked Lion.
"We go through the intel I have on my terminal, if we combine it intel that I've "borrowed" from Mr. Saw we should be able to find something." Said Lion as he entered one of the rooms. It would appear to be empty aside from a single console at the center of the room.
With the click of a button the lights turned off and several hundreds of holograms appeared, shwoing classified information files, dossiers of people that the crew had met such as Perra Clarke as well as a series of news articles. The connection between everything was the Crimson Son.
However there were also a few other things related to the Kanad Collective, such as the station recordings and dossiers of various kanad agents.
"Let's search it then.", Dwan told Lion.
"Attention Personnel: We are heading a course for a captured ally, anyone who wishes to speak out. Be my guest, but we have to help." Jeremy spoke through, he closed his eyes once again. He asked for the Engine Department to answer something. "Are we ready to warp?" through the intercomm
"You should have undocked from the station before they tried to defuse the bomb, you half-wit!" Kr shouted through the intercom in response. "Also, yes!"
Jeremy had enough of this, he pressed the intercom once again. "Kr, shut the fuck up. I had enough of your childish insults." He deactivated the intercom and began to warp out.
[Continue on.]
:snip:
After spending a few good hours overviewing the intel with no result Lion suddenly stopped.
"Dwan." He said as he started going through a specific section of information, spread across several small holographic windows.
"Now this is weird..." He brought up one of the windows in focus, showing a picture of what appeared to be Arenax Seventhian - the Helix Corp CEO.
Lion looked at Dwan. "While we were at Duroma someone accessed details around the Screecher contract, namely, us."
Another window popped up, showing the lobby recording where Iska, Varn, Sledge and Lion walked in with the loaded Homkah truck parked outside.
"Someone has been backtracking us."
"Interesting, who do you think could've do this? The Crimson Son?", Dwan asked.
Lion nodded. "I hope it's the Crimson Son, otherwsie we have someone else that's following us."
Suddenly all the data disappeared and the console started shining. Lion walked up to it and turned it off with his hand.
He pointed towards the head. "I got a copy of the intel, let's go." He then suddenly began walking out from the room and into another one in the corridor.
At first the room was completely dark untill the lights suddenly came on.
Inside was a U-shaped table that housed a variety of weapons, workshop machines and tools. The walls were covered in toolracks, some framed medals and a few antique weapons.
Alongside the walls were also several armory lockers which automatically opened up upon detecting Lion, revealing hundreds of standard-issue SDF weapons and armor.
The only thing that didn't come to life was a single black box at the center of one of the walls.
Above it hung a blue banner with some stylized text saying "Sol System Defense Forces - Sparta Squad". Over the text was a ancient spartan helmet in black and red.
Lion walked up to the banner and did a quick salute before opening the box, revealing several spare armor plates for his robotic exterior in a black color rather than his white default ones.
Lion turned to Dwan. "This will only take a moment." He said before switching out his exterior plates.
Dwan watched as Lion switched out his exterior plates. "Black. Very fitting.", Dwan commented.
As the last plate was in position on Lion's left hand he clenched his fist before observing the entire arm.
"Unless you had something else planned we should go to my ship now." Said Lion as the box sealed up with his white set of plates inside.
As the box was sealed up, Lion grabbed a grey poncho from a nearby locker which covered up most of his robotic parts.
He looked at Dwan. "How do my eyes look?" Asked Lion jokingly.
"Sir, from what our reading seem to tell, the ex machina are preparing their warp core for an much further destination then the coordinates we previously gave them." One of the captain of the Phoenix's observing ships relayed back to the Sigma one as their fleet waited in dark depths of spaces, ever vigilant on their duty.
The scattered fleet watched the faint signal of the Archius XI far,far away and reported it's every move with an complex communication system developed from Quantum Entanglement to both hide themselves and for instant communication.
"Afrimalive Sigma 88." Sigma one told to his fleet within the cold and quiet halls of his vessel, all but some of most basic life support systems were dead to power their Quantum Entanglement communication system and the even more advanced ghost systems, "All ships, just make sure to keep an steadily sight on them as they-"
"Sir!" The captain on the deck of Sigma 29 yelled over the intercom, interrupting his commander. "There jump is heading right into the Prime Opponent's territory!"
The cold and empty air of the bridge within the starship's interior didn't slow Sigma One's body from reacting to the news, pausing for a split second. "Why is our Benefactors putting so much effort into such rash and frankly suicidal crew? One that is employed by one of their greatest adversaries nonetheless." He thought to himself as the Archius XI begin to disappear from their eyes, the jump would leave the Archius far out of their range and into make the entire fleet a sitting duck for the Crimson Son, such a cost would leave the already devastated Phoenix all but destroyed.
"Keep calm." The robotic bipeds said over the intercom, taking over from the momently frozen Sigma one as he catched his breath. "Contacting Gamma unit five..."
==
"The traitor...Officer has been..reformed..." The Sanghvi elder said down to 592 as finished the "negotiations" with the sect, forcing them to repair the injured Viper into the best the massive Sanghvi warfleet has to offer. "Your package...is ready for... " The large and hunched over silicon jellyfish told him though it's own primitive vocal implant before 592 raised up his hand to it and placing the other on his implant, receiving an massage over a thousand light years away.
"Plans have changed." 592 abruptly said to the crowd of gathering elders as they started to surrounded the soft-carbon. "Prime this flagship's core rail gun and set it mark 9, full power." He told the confused elders with demanding tone.
"Soft-carbon....." The elders started to said one by one with a aganvatined tone in their voices. "We..Not..Your slaves.." One said as the rest creeped closer the team of modified humans that served within the Phoenix crops. "You...YOU..do...Not.make instant..demands!"
"Also load the officer into it. You know the one you call a mass murder? And aim it here." He said with a sarcastic tone as he activated on the holoband on his arm, showing the coordinates of the target.
The elders started at the man for a second before looking at one another in a puzzled manner for a few moments, they finish and turn over to the soft-carbon. Still holding up his arm and pointing out the destination on the hologram.
"Well...That's...one way of...testing..Hardened Ceramite." One of the elders in the back said.
==
"You really sure this will work?" Sigma one ask his question to the mechanical Benefactors with a sense of worry in his voice while looking over his shoulders to right Benefactor's avatar.
"41.9 percent chance of the package not evaporating on firing, 36.01 percent chance of the package reaching it's destination, and 20.001 percent chance of the package not shattering on impact." The left one replied to the unsure officer.
"Most surely." The other said after the left finishing it's sentence.
"Hopefully."
==
As the Archius XI prepares it warp core, the DomeEval flashes to life within the bridge, warning the crew as an nearly undetectable projectile is racing at near FTL speeds is in a interception course with the Archius XI.
The crew jumps to life and prepares for impact, only to be surprised as the DomeEval deactivate the Archius XI's shields along with it's electric reactive armor systems on the starboard side of hull to the hanger but initializing the harding composite armor and emergency energy impact distribution systems there. The crew turn their confusion towards the seemly rogue A.I. as it ignored their commands.
Their efforts to redirect the ship's power and reactivated these important systems have been further restricted as the command crew realized that something else has external access the systems but are unable to much more as the object hits the Archius XI's lower starboard hull.
Fortunately, The projectile seem to have slowed down to under the speed of light before it impacted the Vessel's hull, only making a sizable dent to it's hull and ruining the painted of the HarkArk logo that stretched across the Archius XI's hull with the object seemly bouncing off and spreading it's energy throughout the outer hull of the ship.
The bridge returns to normal after the object has had barely managed to rumble the interior of the inter hull compartments. However, as Jeremy picks himself up and turns to the holographic avatar of DomeEval A.I, his communicator receives a rather surprising massage from a familiar voice.
"I apologize for the rather rude entrance sir, I didn't have time to warn you beforehand but I'm sure Yanim and Lion can-." Viper said over the Archius XI's private command frequency with an sarcastic tone in the implant's voice before reaching a sudden pause upon discovery of recent disaster along with Lion and Dwan's unfortunate demise after overviewing the Archius XI's newest records.
"I'm terribly sorry sir, I'll be entering through the hanger and I recommend that we should arrange a meeting soon. There is much to discuss and very little time." Viper said though the intercom as it began propelled itself through space back onto Archius XI's hull, crawling along until reaching the hanger.
"Stunning", Dwan replied jokingly. "Well, I don't think I'll need anything else besides my revolver, so I'm good to go.", Dwan responded.
Lion nodded and motioned for Dwan to follow him. As the duo left the room the lights automatically shut down and all the lockers closed themsevlves up.
They walked back towards the office area but stopped at a nearby door. Using a code, Lion opened it up, revealing a staircase.
The two of them began walking untill they reached a large heavy-duty industrial door. Next to the door was a sign depicting a generic human falling backwards as several strokes led towards him.
The text "WARNING! SANDSTORMS!" was visible underneath. The door suddenly opened up, revealing a fenced catwalk which split into two directions.
One part of the catwalk led towards the small watchtower while the other led to the VTOL pad.
"Now this wasn't yesterday." Said Lion as he walked towards the [url=http://www.starcitizen.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/0001.jpg]sleek black ship[/url].
Lion looked at Dwan. "I know, it's big and it screams military but trust me, when your life has been saved by it you won't ever think that again."
As Lion walked up towards the rear ramp it automatically opened up. Revealing it's [url=https://i.imgur.com/QrwWpJU.jpg]in[/url]t[url=https://i.imgur.com/dBYLyJ1.jpg]er[/url]i[url=https://i.imgur.com/o1nr76N.jpg]or[/url].
He then walked towards the cockpit and sat down in the pilot seat, pointing at the co-pilot's seat as to hint that Dwan should sit there.
Even if it screamed military, Dwan liked the look of the ship, especially the inside. Dwan noticed Lion's hint and sat down in the co-pilot's seat, fastening his seatbelt. "You think we should have codenames?", Dwan asked.
Lion flipped some switches, making the ship come to life slowly. He chuckled. "I assume you have some suggestions?"
He then rotated the joystick, making sure that the hydraulics were still working.
"Big Cat for you, Revolver Gnome for me.", Dwan said, chuckling as he did suggested the names.
"Ten-four, Revolver Gnome." Said Lion as he chuckled, flipping some other switches. Slowly the engines began to power up. He pointed towards the joystick over at Dwan.
"Press the green button on the side, the turret camera should turn on. After that just casually rotate the joystick to make sure everything's working."
"Alrighty, Big Cat.", Dwan said as he pressed the green button on the side of the joystick, turning on the turret camera. He then casually rotated the joystick. "Everything seem OK?", Dwan asked.
"You tell me, if the turret moves smoothly then it's all good." Said Lion as he was wrapping up the pre-flight checklist on a touchscreen.
"Here we go." Slowly the ship began hovering as the engines kicked in. As it slowly ascended, the engines rotated slightly before suddenly propelling the ship forward.
The ship flew across the memorial and beyond, passing over some minor settlements and even a isolated military installation at the top of a hill untill it finally went above the clouds and breached the atmosphere.
"Next stop: Rigel."
Jeremy reached to the hangar waiting on Viper, he was incredibly surprised for it to make an entrance like this.
(( I really don't want to write a serious narrative for Sledge, but I think it's important that he be around for the conclusion. That being the case I think I'm just going to write minimalistic posts for the time being. If I feel like it later I'll write more detailed posts. ))
Sledge was thrown out of the armory and down the hallway by the explosion. When he realized what had happened, he immediately thought of Hercules, and rushed to the hangar bay to see if he was okay. He found Hercules huddled in a corner, injured but not critically so. Herc had all three of Sledge's hammers gripped in his mouth; he'd fetched them. Sledge went to hug his friend but found that Hercules' skin was covered with frost and freezing cold to the touch. Goading Hercules to get up, Sledge took him to the medbay, where their injuries were treated. The medical droid noted Herc's extremely low body temperature, but found no signs of hypothermia or frostbite. When it was determined that Hercules' tissue was generating ice crystals on its own, Sledge realized what had happened.
Dracobins take on the physical properties of whatever they eat. Since Hercules had eaten an entire butcher's freezer full of frozen meat, he was now taking on the properties of ice. Given how much Hercules ate, this could end up lasting for a long time. Sledge thought this was cool.
After that, Sledge found out about Dwan and Lion dying trying to defuse the bomb. He was mortified. Two of his good friends had disappeared in a flash. Sledge excused himself and returned to his quarters to mourn.
Against the advice she had been given, Yanim checked out of the medbay early. Her wounds had mostly healed aside from her cracked ribs, but given time, she would recover just fine. Before returning to work on the engines with Kr, she stopped into the Armory and requested Damya's pistol, which had been checked into storage as a captured enemy weapon. It was a standard-issue black fleet pistol, but with a modification to a few of the plasma circuits to give it better balance and power. VRI-74 was inscribed on the back of the receiver, indicating that this was an enhanced version made specifically for the blackjackets.
She checked herself into the brig with visitor's permissions (which prevented her from opening cells or anything along those lines) and walked down to the end of the room, where a bloody, broken Lieutenant Rask sat tied to a chair, and Damya's body was splayed out on the floor. The other, unconscious blackjacket had begun to stir, groaning about the pain he still felt in his head.
Yanim wasn't sure why she went down there. Part of her believed that she was going to kill the other men with Damya's gun, as it would be a fitting and ironic end for them. Another part believed that she wanted to question them, and understand why they had attacked so viciously, why they had taken the lives of so many people. One part, deep down, argued that she was just as much a prisoner to circumstance as they were, and that she needed to see them face to face to remember all the differences.
"[What are you going to do to me now?]" Rask said, miserably.
"[Tell me about Damya; where did she come from?]"
There was a long silence before Rask began speaking again. "[She was a graduate of the State Naval College, school of combat, class of... 79 I think. Maybe 80. She was good at breaking into homes before she joined the SS, might have killed some people; I don't know. I didn't know her well. She was in Vorokar's unit before me. Are you going to kill me?]"
"[When did you join Vorokar's unit?]" Yanim answered, coldly.
"[Six weeks ago. I transferred from Bureau II for the promotion they offered me. I was being trained as a sabotage expert before they stuck me in my current job. They warned me that I would have to hurt people but I went along with it. Didn't think we'd be killing civilians until we had our first raid three weeks ago. The Perikal caught a ship smuggling in the act. We boarded, killed the crew, took their things. Bureau II sold it all on Duroma. A few of the crew were passengers who were just on their way to Koda on business. Killed them too. Not really my type of work but the pay was good. They'd have probably killed me if I tried to quit anyway. Then we went after you.]"
"[Why State Security?]"
"[Because I wasn't good enough at math,]" Rask answered, blankly. "[I couldn't make it as an engineer, so I tried combat school. Failed that too. I got assigned to mining school instead, took a special interest in high explosives. Bureau I thought I might be dangerous; they interviewed me, searched my apartment, the whole deal. They cleared me, but I was fascinated with law enforcement. Six months later they brought me on into a sabotage program.]"
"[You said you didn't like the work. Were you ever sorry?]"
Rask was silent. Yanim realized that the question was ultimately meaningless to a captive. A yes answer couldn't be trusted, whereas a no answer could result in his death. He knew she knew that, and chose not to answer, aside from a cryptic response-
"[I never killed anyone personally, but I tried really hard to do it. When your job is to kill, remorse doesn't mean shit. My life doesn't mean shit to anyone. Crying over it brings nobody back and might even get you disposed of. Might as well live like a killer and die like one, because there's no way out. I just never thought I'd be captured. When are you going to tell me what this is about?]"
Rask looked up; Yanim was gone.
(( I just talked to doom about the recent misgivings I've had about the direction of the RP.
I'd like to apologize for my dramatic reaction to things. Things have been pretty weird in my personal life over the last few days and I let it spill over into how I've been dealing with the RP. Yes, I am uncomfortable writing about death and loss, but I shouldn't have caused such a big stir that it made people feel uncomfortable about their decisions with the story.
I'm glad that Dwan and Lion can continue to be a part of our story, despite that not being the original intention. I understand now that the concession was primarily made because of how put off I was, so I feel appreciative, humbled, and a bit guilty. I've decided that the least I can offer as recompense is to bring my A-game to the thread and do my best to make sure we finish strong.
I've had a fantastic time with you all, and I'd be remiss to let it end on a sour note. Sledge and Hercules are sticking around until the end, for better or for worse.
Thanks for everything, everyone. ))
:snip:
Viper had entered the hanger though one of it's many maintenance external hatches among the hull of the Archius XI.
The imminent switch between the lack of gravity to fairly hard one such as the artificial one of the Archius XI was rather unpleasant but there are much more important concerns and issues to Viper then this one.
After taking it's moment to adjust to the Archius XI gravity, Viper felt a feeling of warmth after being away from it's comrades for some time. Jeremy was already down to deck ready to talk to Viper and likewise, the Sanghvi walked it's pointed talon like legs across the empty hanger towards him.
The feeling of dread come across as Lion had served a large amount of his time here, always working and improving anything and everything he could think of to protect the crew that he had grew to think of like family, a concept that is completely alien to the Sanghvi as a whole but Viper was soon building to understand it.
As Viper walked closer, Jeremy was heat signature was usually high but was expected after Viper learned the news. His body movements showed along with the implant's overview showed that he was dealing with a great deal of stress and anxiety, the death of a thousand citizens can leave a scar on mind but death of his best friends may leave a even greater one.
Nevertheless, Viper continued to walk up towards the troubled soft-carbon until walking a few feet apart from him as he stared down the Sanghvi with worried and confused look.
"Spacehawk Commander, It is good to see you once again in person." Viper said to him with a bit of relief in the vocal implant's tone. "My Implant has already linked with the Archius XI database so I already know of the current situation but I need to ask sir." Viper said before lowering it's head to look to Jeremy's eye level and said with an worried tone.
"How are you holding up sir?"
--
[Shit, sorry about the double post.]
Varn was waiting for his results in the med bay. After a short while Joseph returned with them.
"Well my friend. I have good news and some bad news. The good news is that your shoulder will be fine and you'll be back to shooting and stabbing or whatever is that you do."
"And what's the bad news?"
"The chip we planted inside of you is busted. Look's like during one of your recent fights it broke. We checked it's frequency during those fights and the results were interesting. Rather than helping keeping your balance, it's feeding you more adrenaline and whatever you have in your body, in high-stress situations. Basically, every time you enter a fight, you enter a type of berzerker rage. In theory, you should be able to fight without experiencing pain, but as soon as you stop, your body will catch up to you. The bright side is that there appears to be a pain threshold before you go berzerk. As long as you don't go over it. You should be fine."
"Can't you remove it?"
"Too risky. We don't know what will happen to you if we tried. Arthur may come up with something,but in the mean time I recommend you find a way to watch yourself for all our sake."
"Right. Well thanks I guess." Varn got up and exited out the med bay, wondering if he could somehow turn this development to his advantage. After a minute he came up with an idea. It was a long shot, but worth it. He send a message to Yanim
[QUOTE]Sorry to bother you so early after everything that happened, but do you still have that AI core?[/QUOTE]
Jeremy raised his eyebrow at Viper, he wasn't intent on saying so he just got with it. "Was there something you needed to discuss?"
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