Lemon Lime crawled through Space Unclaimed by the Dominion, breathing hard. He had finally completed his months-long sabbatical to obtain the licenses he required for the Dominion's Engine of War, and was en route home. It was odd; he had spent many months in Sedina without incident, but moments after obtaining his licenses, he felt weakened by the marketeering filth that was the shambles of the once mighty Union around him. It all seemed too much... as if one were asked to stay locked in a room with knee high excrement.

He became delusional, more so than normally. He began spouting of how he was turning orange, for the yellow was infesting his soul. Holding his breath, he began the long journey to Dau and back home (Sadly, he had a ship remaining in the home system of the salesmen). And along the way, he met a Hornet.

A Serco brother of true heritage, he hadn't seen one of these in many weeks. He hastily greeted the traveler, who responded with blessings from the Lady. This did not surprise Lemon Lime, as the main faith of the Dominion was one of supernatural beliefs rather than belief in the strength of the people. This was not a mainstream Serco nor passive believer. What began as a minor annoyance became more embroiled. The two spoke, trading news from home and the Nether-regions to be "terraformed" to the Dominion's use. Mixed in with these were the words of the truly delusional. He had met many noble Serco, even "priests" of the belief, but this one was... blinded.

- Traveler from home, may I be of assistance for the goals you seek?

> The Lady will provide the assistance I need.

- Ah, but the Lady can only work through her minions. Are we all just servants to the Lady?

> Why, yes. We are all her servants, all her children. She has given and protected her chosen children to spread her word, so that all may one day accept the warmth of her embrace.

- But the fact remains, she can only work through us, through her "children".

> Precisely.

- Because some choose not to accept her, but rather rebel. Does this not show free thoughts in the human who has the choice to accept her or deny her? Does that not mean she can only work through those willing to work for her? What power does she have if she does not have us? And is this not the same for our government, our people? If we refuse to work for them and allow them power over us, what power do they have? The Cog, the people of the Dominion, our spirit, we are the true belief. The belief in what we can do, that it is our own work. We are Great, we are Mighty... we do not need to step backwards and believe that all that lies in the shadows beyond our current knowledge is at the mercy of a supernatural force...

He sat back, awaiting a response...

Lexicon sniffed, and regarded this last statement as if someone had rudely interrupted a train of thought.

"Well?" Lemon Lime asked over the sector comms channel as he floated in the Warthog Mk. II in front of Lexicon's Hornet.

"You truly desire an answer to your statement?" Lexicon stalled as he bound all four Neutron Blasters to a single trigger and waited for his heavy battery to recharge to full.

"I think the spirit of the people is the true power in this universe," Lemon Lime waxed poetic, "the real power lies in our individuality, our uniqueness, and our capability to work together!Don't you thin... "

Lexicon answered with a sudden heavy stream of green neutron death, destroying the Warthog in four bursts.

As the debris cloud expanded, Lexicon gave his answer:
"As in all things, true power usually issues from the end of a gun, my idealistic friend."

He plotted on through to Jallik and his prize.

The reports were confused at best. Lexicon was rumored to fire on Serco and foreigner alike. Burwell didn't really care about his true angle anymore. He was giving the Dominion a bad name, more so than usual. Killing children was not the act of a warrior, but rather an afront to the honor of all.

Everyone attempting to communicate with Lexicon had used harsh words, threats, even force. All had failed. Suppose a new approach could make headway...

"Compliments from the Dominion, prophet. I've been seeing a lot of com chatter about you. I hear you have something which can bring our victory, though. Can you use assistance, somehow? I'd like to be a part of our triumph."

The reply message took a minute. Lexicon was busy cutting through bone. "Many will come to Geira, you will be needed then. For the moment I require no assistance."

"Very well. Log my transponder ID. I can't imagine you have many willing to help you, by the sound of it."

"There are some, but The Lady is all I need. Soon I will speak with her always. Now where is that darned Sarken?"

The name struck Burwell in the face like a crate of premium ore. Maybe this was what Sarken had called about.. and maybe not. Regardless, finding a way to solve this Lexicon problem would earn Burwell points with both sides, and points he could use.

"Does she speak to you often?"

"Not for some time.. which baffles me.. surely The Lady has not abandoned me. But soon that will change. This child has the power to speak to the Lady without ceasing. I shall harness that power."

"Wish I could speak to The Lady as you do.. you've been blessed prophet." Burwell disconnected the channel and went off to find something with which to gargle away the bad taste.

"We've completely lost contact with him, sir." the technician reported.

"So, your expensive upgrades and your hasty theories about him proved to be useless," the General said, purposefully louder than was necessary in the control room. Heads turned and typing stopped among the other techs.

"Yessir, well, he has not died in over a day, and patrols have not seen him anywhere on the front lines in Deneb. It... it might still be possible to salvage the situation," the cowed technician offered.

"No." the General said, "This operation is over. I'm calling it. Shut it down, now."

"But, sir, if he dies..." the Technician started to say...

"Did my orders have any air of ambiguity about them?" The General whirled on the technician, "I said shut it down, and I mean NOW. The fool's welfare is of no concern to me now. Is that understood?"

"Y-Yessir." the technician answered smartly, and nodded to one of his subordinates. The lights went out on "Lady Serco" one by one, and piece by piece, the abomination was shut down and the technicians filed out of their laboratory, both relieved and saddened.

As the Senior Technician moved toward the exit, he glanced at the General. "Sir, are you coming? All we have left to shut down is the respawning chamber, and we'll move all this equipment back to SkyCommand in the morning."

"No." The General said. "He's still homed here. I want to make sure that I'm the last thing he sees. Before I kill him, I'll destroy his respawning device. Now... go."

The Technician shuddered and hit the lights on the way out, leaving the General to his task.

In the dark room, illuminated only by the glow of the respawning chamber, the old Serco General sat down, and waited, cleaning his sidearm.

"Kurtz, tell me you have some good news."

"Sir, your son is in Serco custody."

"Alive?"

"Yes sir, and mostly unharmed."

The old Serco Admiral leaned back in his dark leather chair and let out a sigh of relive.

"How did it happen?"

"Apparently he contacted a Burwell Everson, who quickly reported the incident to his chain of command, and ended up helping capture Borb in Geira. How ever in the confusion of his capture it would seem he suffered a broken neck, though we expect him to recover fully."

"I want that taken care of now, then I want my personal lawyer to handle any form of questioning that arises. Also I would like him sent here to Sol II ASAP. Also I want to talk with this Everson."

"We can track him down for you sir, but Everson has already reported to Geira for more military duty most likely on the border, he's a good man doing his best for our nation."

"Kurtz, that man he helped imprison, my son is a war hero and should be treated as such, the fact that he is even being held is an outrage that I will personally deal with!"

"Sir, reports gained so far indicate your son was heading to Geira in order to make some kind of contact with Lexicon, or maybe attempt to save him in some way."

Warner Kurtz was one of Admiral Sarken's most trusted aids, having served with and for the Admiral over 13 years. He knew this news was not easy for his old friend but he also known it was only a matter of time till some thing like this would happen.

"I though you said that was taken care of."

"It will be we have some one we can trust waiting for for Lexicon to respawn..."

"General Burnwalls?"

"Yes sir, but you shouldn't know who. This needs to be an accident."

"Things should have never gone this far."

"I should go make sure your son is taken care of sir."

"You know, all his so called treason, and other issues aside he's trying to do the right thing."

"Maybe sir, but remember the right thing is not always the best thing."

"Kurtz I want to be clear on this, my son is not a criminal, he is not a traitor. He has a small mental problem that we believe may have been caused by damage he sustained protecting our great nation. I want him treated and I want him released. And as far as I'm concerned his home was illegally attacked on false grounds."

"Sir, there is still evidence suggesting that he was..."

"But no solid proof! Mark my words if he is still in custody by this time tomorrow I know a lot of people that will go into the new year unemployed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir."

As Kurtz left the Admiral's office he could'nt help but wonder if the decisions being made would help or hinder the Serco nation in the end.

He concentrated fiercely on the magnification scope, threading the instrumentation through the most delicate of structures - a human brain. Lexicon slowly, carefully, retrieved the stem cells necessary from the girl, damaging her only slightly in the process.

"Ahhhh," he said as the small cell sample was removed from the girl, "Now no one can stop us, My Lady. Your voice shall be heard throughout the universe."

Unconcerned with Camillia's welfare, he left her to the medibots, who would repair her skull and wake her in a few days for the Lady's new beginning. He had more pressing matters, the insertion of the girl's stem cells into his brain would finally allow him to control the ships in the same way she did, and what was more, he would be able to transcend the barriers which had prevented him from talking to the Lady Serco.

He inserted the cultures into the growth chamber and input the instructions into the second set of medibots. Soon, soon, he would awaken with the girl's powers if all went well. "Yes, The Great Lady would be proud." he thought as he lowered himself into the surgical chamber. The medibots had their instructions, and two surgical chambers laid side by-side in the dim red light of the room, surgical implements chattering and nanites repairing and rebuilding flesh and bone. One held a small female subject who would be recovering in a few days, and one with the new form of Lexicon, who soon would be leading a new Crusade to bring the wayward nations to heel.

*******************************************

Meanwhile, on another deck in Geira Watch, A tired general pumped more stimulants into his system as he kept watch over a respawning chamber. "He has to die sometime, and when he does... I'll be waiting," he muttered to himself.

*******************************************

Burwell docked into Geira Watch in his red hornet, showed his military pass, and then began to work his way through the stream of men and materials up to a certain deck which was being emptied of medical equipment.

He stopped at a public terminal and discreetly queried the residence of anyone with a name resembling "Lexicon" on this station. The console returned 0 results. Using his military access, he ran a deeper search, and came up with the same result. However, this time he was able to access the deletion data to discover that the records had been erased recently.

He noticed a rather large piece of medical equipment being offloaded from one of the service elevators by two heavy-lift cargo guises. "You there. where is this cargo being transported?" He asked the engineered pack-animal. "Crate G6-AF is being transported from Deck 13 to SkyCommand by order of General Burnwalls." It hissed through the voicebox grafted onto its larynx.

"Thank You." Burwell said, and the 12-foot creature lifted the 6-ton machine onto its back like it was a feather, and lumbered heavily into the docking bay towards a Behemoth. It was obvious that the old lab was on Deck 13, and that Lexicon was NOT on Deck 13, or he'd have no purpose here. Regardless, the answers to his questions relied on that deck. What purpose did Borb Sarken have with this Lexicon? Why is a large medical project being shut down? And more importantly, where *is* Lexicon?

"One thing at a time, Everson" he said to himself, and climbed into the vacated service lift for a discreet trip up to Deck 13.

He watched the petri dish through an unbelieveably detailed nano-scope. The stem cells, now extracted from the girl, grew steadily in the culture, arranging themselves in configurations not dissimilar from the configurations that Camillia's ships would arrange themselves in. Almost crystalline in their beauty, the neural cells self-organized and created incredibly efficient transmission structures, growing now in exponential fashion.

Lexicon was reasonably sure that the neural cells were able to tap into quantum probability effects due to their peculiar microstructure. A useful mutation in the girl, but of course, the mutation would be even MORE useful in his hands. Being able to not only read the probability effects, but also to write them into existence would prove to be powerful, indeed.

He smiled to himself as he completed the final steps in his holy experiment, performed for the uplifting of The Great Lady. Filling the hypo-syringe with the stem cells, he said a small prayer to Her. She had not spoken to him in some time, but certainly with his newfound powers, he would not only be able to communicate directly with her, but lead her armies in glorious conquest of the resisting races. Pleased with himself, he laid back in the medlab's surgical chamber.

Suddenly, he purposefully jammed the 15cm long xithricite-enhanced needle deep into his skull and depressed the old-style plunger, injecting all of the cells deep into his own mind.

Lexicon blacked out.

The hidden medlab in Geira Watch continued to function normally absent his presence. The itani girl, Camillia, breathed regularly and the sedatives began to wear off. Except for a patch of shaved skull, she seemed to be none the worse for wear. The small warning alarm that began to sound, indicating that the sedatives were wearing off, was heard by no one at the moment.

Lexicon used his newfound powers to automatically control the lift. One of the perks of being telekinetic was instant elevator service, he supposed.

He stepped inside and descended from Deck 13 to the docking bay, just as the service elevator door opened down the hall. Soon he would be ready to embark on his mission.

As he strode out onto the flight deck, his mind felt clear, fresh, and new. The stem cells has self-organized inside his mind and had eradicated any traces of the old Neural Spike, in favor of a more efficient configuration. He proudly walked to the center of the docking bay, and called his ship to him.

The dockworkers were stunned. All work stopped on the deck as Lexicon's SVG wobbled, hovered, and then eventually smoothly glided, about three feet off the floor, to Lexicon's position. An incoming Centaur entered the dock, and Lexicon pushed it carefully off to the side as he entered his SVG. The amazed pilots and dockworkers could only watch as his ship left the dock, as the other ships in the hold began to rise up on their own as well. Proms, Vults, whatever was available shuddered and came to life.

The dockworkers scattered and other ships began to shudder to life, pilotlessly, and glide out of the dock, controlled by Lexicon in his madness. Serco Prometheus Assault Craft, Vulture Guardian Fighters, and Warthog Interceptors began to follow him out of the dock, sans pilots, in a silent parade.

Lexicon relished his tentative new power. He breathed in deeply and allowed his psyche to expand little by little, feeling the universe around him in much the same way that Camillia must do. The ships were like playthings, surrounding him in a circling steel cage of death, obliterating the station guard and whatever else would stand in his way, which looked like a substantial group of Itani pilots who had assembled here in a vain attempt to stop him.

"Fools." He muttered across the sector chat. "You cannot possibly stop me now. Your salvation is at hand, or your eternal suffering. It is your choice."

He turboed directly at the group of Itani warriors who had hastily assembled to stop him. Without fear, he maneuvered the myriad of ships around him, absorbing blows and dealing out damage, until something unexpected happened. A stray stream of neutron fire tore his SVG in half and he died.

He awoke quickly back in Geira in the specialized private respawning chamber, and he still felt the control he had over the extra Serco vessels. He bounded down the corridors into the Docking bay, and boarded another waiting SVG and returned to the fray, commandeering other vessels as needed from the docking bay, single-handedly taking on a multitude of Itani meddlers. The carnage surrounding the station was incredible: debris was beginning to form a ring system around Geira Watch. Rockets flew, energy spat from both Itani and Serco weaponry, men died, respawned and came back to die again in the fray.

Lexicon relished the raw violence of this day, what would be the first day of his new dominion. For now, he knew he did not need the Lady Serco. He had surpassed her. With his abilities, he would be a god and rule over his galactic dominion as he saw fit. He alone. Just as She had left him. Alone.

Unnoticed in the battle, a lone Serco ship docked and Burwell began to make good on his promise to complete his mission...

Wave after wave of rockets hit the station. In the corridors, normal lighting was no longer in use; instead, red emergency lighting was the only illumination. Handrails were the only way to walk at this point. It took everything in Burwell Everson to keep from flying into the thick of the attackers. He promised himself that he would do some extra combat action to try and counter the fact that... he was their plan.

No one else knew this much, and Burwell didn't lie to himself that he should either. Over the past few weeks he had made contact with members of all sides. Lexicon, Borb Sarken, and uppercase were all on the list. Everson had become an enabler for all sides, his true allegiance known only to himself. Burwell was not dishonest by nature. To keep his actions from eating away his mind, he would need a distraction. For the moment, nothing could be done. There was no time.

*** ooc: post splits at this point, depending upon the thread.

Deck 13. Time to look sharp, Burwell warned himself. The place was abandoned. Of course, the Serco realized, they shut this down, except for one thing.. There he was, General Burnwalls. He sat beside a cloning chamber, and looked to be asleep. Better to be sure... Burwell levelled his weapon and spoke, his tone level and even like the subordinate addressing a General that he was. "General Burnwalls, sir?"
The man stirred. "Speak quickly warrior!" he commanded.
Burwell fired twice. He only needed the first shot. A moment later, Everson smashed a bottle into the respawn chamber. Keying a short range encrypted communicator, he reported to uppercase outside the station: Package delivered.

(OOC: Just now realizing that this had not been wrapped up nicely. Crap.)

Laughing in the face of death, Lexicon welcomed the pain of the ship being shredded out from beneath him again. With each passing minute, he could feel his telekinetic powers growing. Even in the station, he could control the ships to keep the Itani invaders at bay. As the neutron fire from Niki's Valkyrie tore through his mechanically-enhanced spine, he grinned, for he knew that he could die and respawn to fight again, controlling more and more ships as his abilities grew. SolarFlare, upper case, genotype, Iry, Niki, they had all defeated his SVG in combat this day, but the Serco numbers were growing, and they could not last much longer. He would soon be unstoppable.

Welcoming the explosive decompression of space, his lungs burst, flesh tore from his chest and he ceased to be for what seemed like an infinite cycle of deaths and rebirths. Bracing for the shock of respawn, instead he felt surprise and shock. Something was different.

There was someone else here in the respawning chamber... something was not right. The chamber smelled wrong. As the tissue knitters hastily constructed his new body, he noticed that there was another creature being assembled next to him.

The process completed, and he struggled to rise from the chamber before the other did. The scent of Tequila pervaded his senses, the entire room reeked of it, and he saw his twin rise from the other end of the chamber, staggering.

His new mental abilities wasted no time in putting the pieces together. Adding the tequila had given the respawning chamber enough DNA for the second being, allowing both mental patterns to emerge from his psyche. In essence, the other being was LeberMac, freed from Lexicon's mind by the respawning algorithm. He had always been there, but without the additional matching DNA, he'd been assimilated into Lexicon's mind upon each respawn. Well, until now.

His heightened senses detected another in the room with him as well.

"Don't move." the voice said. It sounded suspiciously like Everson Burwell. "Turn around slowly."

Lexicon did as he was told and hatched a simple plan.

"Burwell? Issat yoush?" Lexicon said, in a rather good imitation of LeberMac's slurred speech. "Help me outta here, quick!" He reached out his hand to Burwell...

Burwell took it and helped Lexicon out of the chamber. Unsure of who was who, he looked into Lexicon's eyes. "LeberMac?"

"No." Lexicon's eyes hardened, and Burwell realized his mistake too late, as Lexicon willed a large piece of equipment to hurtle across the room and connect at the base of Everson's skull, knocking him out almost instantly and landing on him. Only his cybernetically-enhanced skeletal structure prevented him from being crushed by the weight.

His weapon skidded across the floor towarsd the opposite side of the respawning chamber, where a trembling, tequila-soaked hand grasped for it and weakly leveled the blaster at Lexicon...

Lexicon stood, dripping dry, donned a flight uniform, and calmly turned around. He could feel the battle raging outside still, the station shook with the pressure waves of explosions, alarm klaxons had been silenced but the red emergency lighting was still active. He mentally reached out to every available object in the room and prepared to hurl everything he had at LeberMac.

"Surely you won't shoot your twin, would you?" he said, waiting for the right moment to telekinetically crush the weakened Itani...

"You're goddamned right I will." LeberMac said and squeezed off rounds of energy as fast as he could, moving towards Lexicon in the process.

Surprised by LeberMac's fast recovery, Lexicon caught several rounds, one went right through his upper arm, another grazed his temple, and a third hit him squarely in the chest, taking a good chunk of circuitry and organs with it. He reeled, and with a desperate gasp he mentally heaved any object that wasn't nailed down at LeberMac.

"Frak!" was all LeberMac had time to say before he was buried under hundreds of pounds of equipment. The impact knocked him against the rear wall, and the fury of the attack obliterated the respawning chamber and some of the other equipment in the room. Burwell was freed from the equipment pinning him, and began to regain consciousness.

Wounded, Lexicon made his escape towards the docking bay and his destiny.

Allowing Lexicon to leave for now, LeberMac limped towards Burwell, who was coming to, but still partially pinned under the equipment.

"Relax, pilot." LeberMac said. "What's your name?"

"Everson, Burwell Everson," the Serco said, and winced as he attempted to push the heavy machinery off of his damaged body.

LeberMac looked at Burwell and saw something both familiar and distant. "Thank You, Burwell Everson. I won't forget this." He looked at the equipment pinning the serco to the floor and resignedly said, "I can't help you move this equipment, regardless. I have to finish Lexicon. Will you be alright?"

"I'm no paper-skinned Itani," Burwell growled, "I'll be just fine. Go take care of that circus freak preacher and we'll call it even."

LeberMac hesitated briefly, and, wielding the blaster, took off after Lexicon to finish what he was reborn for.

Lexicon half-walked, half-flew down the corridors towards the docking bay. Using his telekinetic powers, he could make rudimentary first-aid repairs to his body as he kept on the path towards whatever ship he could obtain.

The battle raged outside still, and he mentally kept up the pressure on the Itani warriors, controlling multiple pilotless ships and clearing the way for his escape. He had to find his way to another station quickly, as he'd crushed the only respawning chamber with his matrix in it. If he was killed outside the station now...

He tried not to think about it, and commandeered an EC-89, the first ship he could gain access to. He boosted out of the station and aimed for Balam Stroghold and the nearest functioning respawning chamber.

"A temporary setback," he thought, "I shall simply register in Balam and renew the attack once that is accomplished."
He willed his forces to shield him from the Itani invaders when he felt the impact from an ion blaster...

Without taking even the time to grab the standard clothing from the respawning chamber, LeberMac had run, sans flightsuit, to the docking bay and pulled a Serco couple out of their EC-89. The shock of being "ship-jacked" by a naked Itani had given him the opportunity to launch from the docking bay without too much trouble.

The battle was being screened off to one side of the sector by a picket line of Serco ships, most likely controlled by Lexicon. He located the most recent launch trail, and followed it to his prey, squeezing off a few shots. The controls felt unfamiliar and the ship was sluggish. Was it him or the ship?

Some of the shots connected, and Lexicon whirled around, spraying Ion fire. Neither one of them could warp away without being warpkilled, and there was no place for either to respawn. This duel would be to the death, and they traded Ion blaster hits as they circled each other, flames spitting from both ships in a desperate final dance.

A last ion blaster shot from Lexicon shattered LeberMac's Ion blaster housing, and his hull was down to 8% integrity. He scrabbled with the controls and prepared to self-destruct. At least if he was going to die, he could take Lexicon with him...

Suddenly, Lexicon's ship was smashed by a Warthog, flashing across his viewscreen. Other ships were converging on his position, and he gave them a wide berth as he attempted to steady his heavily damaged craft.

He was landing shots on his hapless Itani twin easily. It was apparent that LeberMac hadn't been behind the controls for a while. This would be a fine way to introduce LeberMac to the Great Lady, he thought, when the impact from another ship rocked his tiny craft and sent him reeling.

A voice inside his head... "That was for my mother."

"What? Who is this? Get... Out of my HEAD!" Lexicon psychically screamed as another ship, a vulture, collided with his EC. His chest wound reopened at the impact and sprayed blood across his visiplate.

Lexicon willed the picket line of ships to come to his defense, but found a resistance he'd not felt before. An opposing force was in control of them now, wielding the ships with a telekinetic strength he'd never anticipated. He could feel her fury as if it was a living thing, lashing his battered craft with hyper-accelerated ships, knocking him about the interior like a ragdoll. The violence of the latest impact actually tore him from the flight chair, ripping the tendons in his right leg and separating it from his body with a sickening, wet tearing sound.

Camillia had awakened, and she thirsted for revenge.

"You... monster. I will end this now..." she spoke mentally, wordlessly, directly to him across the distance between his burning ship and the station.

"Damn," he thought, "I knew I should have just killed her." Lexicon then unrepentantly replied, "Do your worst, little girl. I will live on in your secret fears, I will exist eternally in the irrational horrors that will accompany you throughout your life. For although I may die, my legend and my story will endure as the embodied nightmares of your pathetic race..."

"One thing is true, you abomination..." Camillia spat

"Oh?" Lexicon weakly sneered as he continued to bleed out, his ship drifting, multiple proximity alerts sounding, damage indicators all red, systems failing within his damaged body as well as in his damaged ship.

"You WILL die." And with that, Camillia willed her ships which she now controlled to impact. Obediently they hurled themselves against Lexicon's hull, exploding in a massive fireball that vaporized all of the ships and ended the physical existence of Lexicon.

"That one..." she said, "That one was for ME."

Camillia Velaio collapsed as the Itani known as upper case entered the room where she'd been held for months as an experiment test subject under Lexicon. As the battle wound down outside, she was whisked away, the Itani force now retreating back across the wormhole to Deneb. The strike forces queued up to dock and repair inside Geira Watch, and the battle was over.

A lone EC-89 looked on at the cooling debris cloud, as if mourning.

LeberMac sighed deeply and let the ship drift for a bit.

Camillia was rescued, Lexicon dead and defeated, his stolen mental capacities no longer a threat. He wondered if Lexicon had found his salvation before his end.

All in all, not a bad end result; one that deserved a celebration. Instinctively, he opened the cockpit's storage bin. There, unsurprisingly, was a bottle of Serco Ale.

"Well, it'll have to do," he said to himself, and raised a toast to the emptiness of space before he drained the ale.

"Guh..." he grimaced, "No wonder those Serco are always so angry. This stuff's not fit for their guise-hounds..."

The tequila-laced gel from the respawning chamber was hardening in his hair and forming large congealing chunks. He needed a shower badly, and aimed his smoking wreck of a ship towards the Deneb wormhole.

Working past an Ion storm, he finally smashed the stolen Serco transport into the dock in Ellias Stand, welcomed by several old friends in [ITAN] and other Itani who had been of assistance throughout his "absence." They gathered around his ship and he suddenly realized...

... how he was going to get out of the ship without flashing the welcoming committee?

-FIN-